Help with a super hero sandbox

[Xeviat]

Hey folks. It's been a while, again. Getting promoted at work really eats up your free time.

I'm finally able to sit down and run a tabletop game again. We're going to be playing Mutants and Masterminds. I've played it numerous times, but I've only GMed it once (and we were using it for a fantasy game). This time, we're going to be doing something different. The game is going to be a low powered sandbox, basically playing "what if you got super powers". Now, I've never run a sandbox before. The way I see it, I need to have some background things going on just in case the players don't have an idea of where they want to go.

Do you have any suggestions on running a sandbox? I'm going to have a bunch of preprepped npcs and foes, like cops, thugs, soldiers, and other challenges they could come across.

Also, what would you do if you got a super power. What would be a power you'd like, and what would you do with it? What would be a power you wouldn't want, but what would you do with it?

[LoA]

If the heroes were already established I would go with the Batman TAS structure and begin it with a villainous heist, BUT hide the identity of the crooks so the players would have to find them. If I were playing a game like this I would just want the game to jump straight into the action. Start it off with a robot fight or something and introduce the characters that way.

A power I would want is Super Intelligence (Iron Man, Disneys Big Hero 6, Batman) If I were a scientist capable of inventing anything I wanted I could have any superpower I want. Flight? Jetpacks. Super-strength? Robotic Exoskeleton. X-Ray vision? Infrared goggles.

I would also be curious what era it was set in. golden age 40's, Silver Age 70's, Gritty 80's, Modern times?

[Polycarp]

I'm not familiar with the "background" of M&M, but it seems to me that the question of "what if you got super powers" depends a lot on the related question "what would the world do if you got superpowers."

In comic-book universes superpowers are often highly integrated.  They've got their own schools, paramilitary units, regulatory legislation, and other things meant to "normalize the abnormal" and integrate these people into society.  They might be "open" about their superpowers or they might be shunted into shadowy black ops outfits, but either way there's something we do with these people.

If I got super strength in such a world, what I would do would depend largely on what's available to me.  If it's an integrated world, maybe I'd get SHIELD on the line or something and asked if they had any temp positions.  Maybe I'd join the fire department and become Jaws-of-Life-Man, and make sure they added my superpower bonus on my monthly paycheck.  But if I got super strength right now, in this world, my chief concern would probably be "how am I going to avoid dissection," because I would be a unique and thoroughly remarkable human being, the kind of human being previously thought impossible.  I have no illusion that I could sign up for the next World's Strongest Man competition and nobody would think it odd that a 160-ish pound dude was making Magnus ver Magnusson look like Stephen Hawking.  My life would be forever changed, and I'm honestly not sure if it would be changed in a good way.

So if I were running a sandbox in this world, it would be full of tense action - keeping your powers hidden, getting pursued by government thugs who want your "services" and mercs from big pharma who want your blood serum.  If I'm running a sandbox in an integrated universe, in DC or Marvel land, then my worries are going to be more along the lines of costumed nemeses, rogue death rays, and the Superhuman Registration Act.

[Steerpike]

I think the big questions are:

(1) How common are superpowers?

(2) How long have superpowers been around?

(3) How powerful are most powers?

If superpowers are uncommon and/or recent, it seems like likely they're integrated into general society. If they're very powerful and dangerous, there might be more govnerment/corporate/scientific interest in them, but very powerful heroes (Dr. Manhattan etc) might be difficult or impossible to control.

Your premise makes me think immediately of Misfits. Is this conscious inspiration? If you haven't seen it, go out an watch it immediately (I think it's on Netflix, at leats in some countries) - it's good salty British television with a lot of fun powers.

[Xathan]

Hey folks. It's been a while, again. Getting promoted at work really eats up your free time.

Congrats, and I hear you on that! Why do we keep coming back at the same time for similar reasons? Are you nega me?

Another important question that needs to be asked (to add to the general voices here): Where do powers come from? There are two big approaches to this: Unified power source, and multiple power sources.

Unified power source (Everyone is a mutant, or half alien, or magic, or strange laboratory accident) provides a common ground for the players, any friendly NPCs, and opens the ground for particular types of NPCs (Magneto types, for example, make much more sense in such a universe than they do in multiple power source worlds.)

Open power source produces a world much more like DC or Marvel's worlds and opens the ground for tons of different options, but makes for something that is less cohesive. It also lets players imaginations run wild, which while often a good thing, its problematic when you're going for a low powered game. I could build, at PL 6, a character almost no military on earth is going to be able to stop.

That actually begs a related question - what exactly are you going for when you say low powered? Is this a universe where Spider Man would be overpowered? Or would Golden Age superman be more in line? (I actually suggest, in addition to PL limits, picking a well known super-hero and saying "Someone who would be on par with with this person would be the absolute limit to how powerful you should be," since it offers a better benchmark than just a PL limit.)

In addition to that, how well known are superheroes? If someone flies overhead, are common people gonna freak out or assume it's a trick? Are they going to shrug and go "Oh, it's a flyer. Wonder if I've heard of them before?" Or are they going to react somewhere in the middle? If they're not well known, how do the PCs hook up?

Another question: Tone. Are you going for Golden Age optimism? Silver Age camp? Bronze age "Realistic but not super hardcore"? Iron Age "Blood death stab OH SHIT NINJAS!"? Modern Age "Try to be realistic and take a little bit of all?" Post-modern Deconstruction? Something I haven't listed?

I'm sure I'll have more questions to ask and help to offer - super heroes are kinda my thing. :P

[Lmns Crn]

I don't know much about superheroes, but I've had trouble with sandbox-style games. I really want to run one and make it work, but my one big attempt to do so flopped.

Based on what failed for me, I'd say the most important thing is to be on the same page with your players about what drives the action in the game. Many players are used to a style of game where the GM designs adventures and the players basically just react. Sandboxes can ask a lot of players in this mindset, because a sandbox only works if players are proactive and making their own action in the world. This is a significant shift.

There are secondary goals, of course-- like making your world feel like a populated place with things to do, fostering a group of recurring NPCs that are interesting to interact with, etc.-- and having good communication habits is going to help with all of that, also. I think I'd strongly recommend spending a lot of time in the first sessions of "play" to have a dialogue about the setting and jointly create it with players. If your game is set in a city (or with a little work, even if it isn't), try something like the Dresden Files RPG city creation system. If you're not familiar with it, it's pretty easy to do it in just about any game system, and it's allowing players to have buy-in during the start of the process, populating a city with places, themes, problems and threats, recurring NPCs that exemplify any of the above, etc. All stuff you'll need for a sandbox anyway.

[sparkletwist]

I fully agree with the idea of getting players involved in the setting creation process. I'm pretty into giving players a pretty substantial amount of narrative control anyway, but especially in a sandbox, it seems like a good idea-- it helps ensure the proactive mentality and player buy-in that is pretty much essential to running a good sandbox. It also ensures that the GM has a pretty good idea what is going on in the world, because keeping events moving whether or not the players are involved is one of the ways that helps keep a sandbox feeling like it's a living world that the players can do stuff in and influence, rather than a static world that is sitting there waiting for them to solve the next quest the GM presents them.

[Xeviat]

Lots of good questions. I'll address them in no particular order.

First off, the setting is this world. 2015. As it is right now. Los Angeles, because we know the area.

Powers have only been around for a few years, and no one is widely known. When I say superheroes, I don't mean capes and costumes. Of the 4 player characters, one has had their powers for a few years (conman with the ability to implant suggestions and temporary adrenaline boosts in others), two have gotten their powers rather recently (the first is a career student who can now turn ethereal, the other is a domestic terrorist who can turn sound into light and light into sound), and the last actually hasn't developed her powers yet (the player wants to discover it in game, so I'm going with uncontrolled super strength, because it will be simple to adjudicate and ripe for complications).

The source of powers is going to be part of the plot. I'm not married to anything yet; that will depend on where things head. I'm open for mutations, a reaction to a thinning of the barrier between our reality and the outside (which could heavily involve the ethereal character), or experimentation.

What low-powered means is that the players are only a slight bit more powerful (objectively) than regular people. In M&M, 0 level is a random civilian, 3 is a street thug, 4 is a police officer or green soldier, and 5 is a SWAT officer or marine. The players are PL 6, but only really in the areas related to their powers. At PL 6, characters are supposed to start with 90 points, but we started with 80 so they have some room to grow.

--

Our first session actually went pretty well. It started with character creation, which went rather quickly since the players are familiar with the system (the more green player brought their character premade, a normal woman, to be modified by me as we create her power).

The domestic terrorist character (semi-inspired by Vin Diesel's character at the beginning of XxX) started things off. He hijacked and then stole a large number of shipping trucks from a company he thinks is ruining the environment (it's not clear whether that's his drive, or if it is simply an easy target). He then used helicopter's to arrange them in a giant middle finger, then burned them. Revealing himself (and showing off his smarts, but lack of experience), he filmed it while using his power to change the light from the fire (which all but makes the containers simply look like they're melting and rusting on their own) into a music and light show. Then he posts it on the darknet along with directions to an after party.

The career student sees this online and realizes that there's someone else out there in the world who has a super power; he's been looking for others. The conman sees an opportunity and poses as the terrorist's lawyer. The normal person simply ends up at the party since her friends were going (and she's young and impressionable and wants to stick it to "The Man").

Needless to say, the party is raided by police. First, undercover officers try to sneak in and locate the terrorist character without putting the bystanders at risk. Two of the PCs (the conman and the normal woman) spot out the police; both go for the terrorist character to warn him. The conman is caught by an officer, who assumes he's an accomplice at first, but manages to talk his way out of any trouble (without using his powers). The normal woman also gets caught by a police officer while trying to warn the terrorist, but she screams and acts like the officer is attacking her and gets the crowd to pull him off (I hadn't decided on her power at this point, or else I would have put it into effect then, which would have been awesome, but next time ...). All the while, the ethereal character has sneaked in and is trying to get the terrorist's attention simply to reveal himself as not alone.

Realizing he's about to be caught, and using the party as the trap it was meant to be, he blows out the speakers and converts the boom of sound into a flash of light and a laser. The surge blows out the building's power, and the partiers run outside into the arms of the police. Some of them are apprehended (including the normal woman). The conman goes to the police to claim to be the terrorist's lawyer. The ethereal character hides. The terrorist gets caught and gets apprehended.

All four are then transported to the police station. But before they can get there, the ethereal character reveals himself to the terrorist in the back of the police car. Upon startling the terrorist character (by turning off his power), they cause the police to crash the squad car. The police are scared out of their minds and run for it, while officers from the adjacent car come out to investigate. Before they notice exactly what happened, the ethereal character grabs the terrorist and figures out how to make him insubstantial too; they then flee the scene.

The session ends with the police grilling the conman character, trying to find out if he knows where they can find his client. Since super powers aren't known, the police can't even begin to figure out how someone got out of the back of a police car, but they assume the terrorist character had an explosive device hidden on him.