Running the Forgotten Realms as a Superhero Campaign

It has often been remarked that high-level D&D campaigns often approach superhero campaigns in power level and scope - the PCs can mow down lesser mooks in large numbers, and the threats they face are often world-shattering, and essentially unstoppable by less experienced characters.

So... why not run such campaigns as superhero campaigns in the first place? The Forgotten Realms, in particular, seem well suited for such a campaign, as it is positively awash with high-level characters and threats.

There would have to be some changes in gameplay, of course. First of all, the usual profit motive - "kill monsters and take their stuff" - would have to be deemphasized. The PCs aren't roving murderhobos, they are heroes and protectors! If you use some iteration of D&D, it makes sense to just give the PCs some "level-appropriate" funds to get magic items and gear, while assuming that any stuff they find during actual play (apart from unique artifacts) is spent on research/home base/lifestyle/parties and so on. That will hopefully help the players to get into the proper frame of mind. If you are using a different system, assume the PCs can get "mundane" gear and pay for especially fancy stuff or prominent magic items with character points (or whatever the system uses).

Then you have to give some thought to the character's "home base". While there are "roving superheroes" who travel the world, most of them tend to stay close to a particular region. What would Batman be without Gotham City? For the Forgotten Realms, you can either pick a particular region (the Silver Marches, the Moonsea, and so forth), or a particular city - and there is no shortage of cities in the Realms with detailed city plans (although few can approach Waterdeep, which holds the same spot as New York City in the Marvel universe). And just like superheroes, heroic adventurers will often have rather ambivalent relationships with the local authorities. They may well be feted when they thwart the latest threat to the region, but the authorities are also too aware that the heroes aren't really under their control, and that they would have difficulties stopping them, should the need arise...

Secret identities probably won't translate very well, since adventurers are generally assumed to be famous - though the odd "mysterious masked wizard" is certainly appropriate. Do encourage the players to come up with interesting nicknames, as well as a good name for their group as a whole (which also is tradition in the Forgotten Realms).

Then it's only a matter of having Bad Guys show up in their territory and be up to no good - and here is where the richness of the Forgotten Realms setting really shines. The Red Wizards of Thay! The Zhentarim! The Dragon Cult and the Kraken Society! The Empire of Shade! Add to that various powerful monsters, both organized and unorganized, and you will be able to copy most comics plots with ease. Even tales of Science Gone Wrong can simply be converted into Magic Gone Wrong.

And it is easy to increase the power level further, leading to continent- or even world-spanning team ups, with the heroes standing side by side with NPCs like Elminster and the Simbul, creating their own equivalent of the Justice League and the Avengers to deal with world-shaking threats...

Your thoughts?

Setting Idea - Strange Supers

I've been meaning to develop a supers setting for GURPS for a while since I wanted to see how well the system works with the high-powered supers genre. The goal was to allow pretty much every common power source / origin defined by GURPS Powers, GURPS Supers, and superhero comics in general, yet have a strong, interesting "theme" that ties the world together.

And, after recently re-reading the comic series Planetary, I think I have come up with an idea.

This world exists somewhere within the Infinite Worlds cosmology of GURPS, and is, in fact, a close parallel of Homeline - even sharing the exact same "now", which means that parachronic travel (moving between different timelines) from this world is possible. All that was needed was the inventor... and the man who invented parachronic travel in Homeline, Paul Van Zandt, also did it on this world, right on schedule in 1995.

Also like in Homeline, he concealed his experiments from the public. However, while his Homeline equivalent published his findings in 1998, on this world he refused to do so - instead, he stole technologies from other worlds and released them as "inventions" via his company, White Star Enterprises, and quickly became the richest man on the planet.

However, he only released a fraction of what he and his fellow conspirators have acquired, and gradually faded from public view. The wealth was only a means to an end - what he was really after was human enhancement technologies. He, and his Inner Circle of trusted associates, wanted to become like gods. Quite a few parallel worlds had experimented with different forms of human enhancement, and combining them held enormous promise - but all these approaches needed thorough testing, and so the Inner Circle turned their own Earth into a gigantic lab. Mutagens, nanotech, even alien artifacts were all raided from other worlds and turned loose via shell organizations or staged "accidents" that exposed normal people to them and turned them into super-powered beings. Meanwhile, they raided top scientists from other worlds and forced them to work in their secret labs on the latest scientific and technological breakthroughs.

It was only a matter of time until one of Van Zandt's raiding parties came across one of the other crosstime traveling factions, and luckily he came across the Cabal first - who were very understanding about this whole "experimenting on humans in order to become gods" thing. While the Cabal believes that eventually all this will blow up in Van Zandt's face (which is why they haven't formally invited him into their club), they have become eager trading partners for knowledge and information. They warned Van Zandt about the other factions in the multiverse (causing the raiders to become a bit more circumspect), and helped him with magical advances - even finding out a way of raising his world's mana level.

As a result, around the turn millennium super-powered beings have started to appear. Their origin stories differ widely, and often seem mutually contradictory (since the artifacts triggering them come from different timelines). The Inner Circle generally allows them to operate freely so that their powers and their interactions can be observed, only intervening in particularly interesting situations. And the supers - villains and heroes alike - go about their daily business without realizing the hidden puppet strings that control their world...

Your thoughts?