Basic Action Super Heroes!

Superhero Adventure Path?

Adventure Paths have become a rage with Paizo's D&D works. And it's spreading to other genres.

I'm thinking about constructing an Adventure Path for my home supers game... I'd love your advice on how to do this.
So.... Tell me anything you think about the idea for a Superhero Adventure Path!



What would be the definition of "Adventure Path"? What does "Adventure Path" mean to you? What do you expect to see? What are the hallmarks of an Adventure Path?

What are Paizo's best Adventure Paths? What would you consider the best Adventure Path's to be (any game, from the beginning of RPGs)? And why?

Is there anything like an Adventure Path for the superhero genre? What about other settings/genres?

What would an Adventure Path be called for a superhero genre? How long (how many adventures?) would it be? Any ideas on structure?

What are some good example of an "Adventure Path" style storyline FROM a comic book storyline?

Any unique ideas or props for building or GMing an Adventure Path for a supers setting/campaign?

Has any of the previous superhero RPGs made anything like an Adventure Path? Or connected storylines?

If you were to make and GM an Adventure Path (for supers or any genre) what would you do? What advice would you give to consider?




thanks for the ideas!

I'll try to explain, what I've learned. but that's what my question is all about. hehe
(this is my searching on Wikipedia and other sites for ideas as to what an Adventure Path is or can be)


Adventure Paths are serial adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game.
Paizo Publishing's main Pathfinder product line is its adventure paths. A continuation of the adventure path concept from Dungeon magazine, which ceased publication in September 2007, each year's worth of Pathfinder will publish two complete adventure paths in six-volume arcs, with supplementary articles to fill out each 96-page volume

They will generally contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign.

The adventures are designed to begin with first level characters and to end with characters at or near twentieth level, taking them through twelve distinct adventures that span basic dungeon crawls, urban adventures, political intrigue, and even extra-planar excursions.
Each path is intended to take a party of characters from 1st level to upwards of 15th level over the course of the series, but individual adventures can be run independent of the overall path should a GM wish to do so.

Finally, the Adventure Path is intended to function as a complete D&D campaign. That means they make some assumptions about the history of the world as we move along, just as you would in any campaign you run.

So these "Adventure Paths" are complete published campaign arcs, sort of like PEG's Necessary Evil.

I guess right there is an example of this Adventure Path concept applied to a superhero genre.

Triple Ace Games put out a series of 30's pulp adventures for Savage Worlds (Daring Tales of Adventure) designed to use the same set of characters throughout, with notes on how they develop as they go.

Hope that helps.

I hate to keep beating a dead horse, but Necessary Evil from Pinnacle Entertainment uses Plot Point campaigns (pretty much the same thing sans a lot of the stat blocks)

As for some things to see in a comic book adventure path...

Although anything can be done for pretty much any genre... it is not going to be easy. The simple fact is that since superheros cover such a broad spectrum (street, Ultrapowered, Space, etc...) you probably will have to narrow your audience to the basic "Avengers / JLA " dynamic or find a way to bring new and separate heroes together.

Regards,
Walt

Good point. "Superhero" as a genre has grown to be as broad as "SF" (where you can group concepts as diverse as Star Trek, Star Wars, and Firefly).

I'm not saying that the Adventure Path paradigm could not be applied to all types of superhero stories, but the setting would need to be more narrowly defined for a specific campaign, much as it is in the BASH core book (e.g., street-level, cosmic, etc.)

Superhero Adventure Path from comics? It could be a Metaplot. That also works on another level because "Metahuman" is sometimes used as a euphemism for supers.

As for examples from Fiction, almost every season of Justice League: Unlimited had a metaplot, culminating in some game-changing event.

The season where it was the JL vs. the Gov't was especially intriguing with how it built up and what it revealed.

What I'd do is instead of assuming the Players are the same Heroes every time, mix it up. Have one adventure be World Class (featuring possible World Class pre-made Heroes) and another be Street Level (featuring Different premades). What ties them together isn't the characters directly involved in the plot, but the plot itself is connected. That doesn't mean that PCs who were in Adventure 1 cannot be in Adventure 2- just that they don't HAVE to be. This also lets you tell a more diverse, dynamic story, I think.

Just like on JLU, some episodes focused on Green Arrow & Black Canary; while others focused on Supergirl & Green Lantern. But they both may have revealed something important about the meta-plot, and may be related somehow.

Neat. Good call folks.

I agree that for (some) Adventure Paths like this idea for supers you might need to SET the Campaign Level, but I think it could be done on a tier type system. Have the story set and then say: If your heroes are World Class - this is suggested, etc...

I also really enjoyed Necessary Evil. Need to relook at it for ideas.

JLUnlimited is a great call. I agree that the goverment plot was cool. I'll have to reexamine those for ideas. And I DO really like your idea (BASHMAN) to allow adventures in the path to include different levels of heroes. That's a great idea. I've done something similar in the past I might look to adapt.

thanks again
keep the ideas flowing!
-kev-

Have you weighed the cost/benefits of launching a "Living" BASH? With great writing, it could accelerate the game popularity. In my opinion, this is what happened with Arcanis and Spycraft.

They would be a little different than an Adventure Path, because they could be played in almost any order. The plots are relatively self-contained in an issue. You could have one series set in World-class and another at Street-level.

If you kept the publishing costs down (as in zero art), you could give them away, then make up the revenue on book sales. Then, maybe at a story-arc completion, you could combine them with a little art and sell them as an Adventure Path book.

You would need a core group of volunteers to make it work, which it appears you have from this Forum traffic. The whole point is the drug model... hook players cheaply to keep coming back for more when they're willing to pay.

Just an idea.

cheers

I myself have a strong desire to do one as a 12 part Adventure Path (or Metaplot) for the Zenith Universe.

I think I asked about this before, maybe on the old forums.

Either way I think this is an idea that is due for super hero roleplaying, such as in Necessary Evil (which alas holds no interest for me to play but would make an awesome comic to read) and the Time of Crisis one for M&M had a bit of that IIRC.

Now I just need to find a writer who wants to write 12 adventures

Someone also pointed out that the old FASERIP adventures had a couple that were 3 parters, again IIRC.

AslanC wrote:I myself have a strong desire to do one as a 12 part Adventure Path (or Metaplot) for the Zenith Universe.

I think I asked about this before, maybe on the old forums.

Either way I think this is an idea that is due for super hero roleplaying, such as in Necessary Evil (which alas holds no interest for me to play but would make an awesome comic to read) and the Time of Crisis one for M&M had a bit of that IIRC.

Ah. How could I have forgotten about Time of Crisis? Hero Games and GOO also came out with a "When Worlds Collide" multi-part adventure that set the trademark heroes from both universes against each other.

Now I just need to find a writer who wants to write 12 adventures

And there's the rub, me darling.

AslanC wrote: Now I just need to find a writer who wants to write 12 adventures.

Or get 4 writers to do 3 parts each