Campaign created Sunday, April 4, 2010 07:20:15 PM by winterhawk

The Bush Leagues is a Dark Champions/Low Powered Champs campaign set in the nether world between the normal Underworld and the four color world of Superheroics.
PLEASE READ THE CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION!!!! I AM NOT LOOKING FOR VIGILANTES!!!

"Sit down, that's what chairs are for. You new to Chicago? Yeah? You had a hot dog yet? You gotta have a hot dog. Best in the world. Screw New York."

"Me? Yeah, I'm Eddie. And yeah, my friends call me Nice-Guy-Eddie. You can stick with Eddie. So you've come to see me, so that means you must be lookin' for work. Let me guess, you got some power, but your allergic to spandex jammies. No? I know, you got juice, but not juice to hang with the big boys. Yeah, that's what I thought. Not everyone's a world beater, kid. You'd be surprised how many guys there are like you, somewhere between Joe Six-Pack and Dr. Destroyer. And that's why there's guys like me. Turns out guys like you can find work if you don't mind who your working for. And I can get you work, for a small finders fee of course. I ain't runnin' a charity here. Any questions?"

"Illegal? Let's just say there are a lot of gray areas...everything from off-white to charcoal. And if you got the stomach, I do white and black too. Anything else? No? Okay, then I got to give you the standard word of warning, otherwise, people stop calling me Nice-Guy-Eddie."

"Listen, kid, this is a whole other world you're steppin' into. And not everyone is as nice as me. Let's start with the old school Mafia. They got a real problem with guys like you. Meaning, if you brush up against them and they find out you got juice, they'll kill you on the spot. And I'm guessing since you're here, you ain't bulletproof, otherwise you'd be hanging with the Big Boys."

"On the opposite end of the pool, there's the Feds, and I ain't talking FBI. I'm talking off-the-books-Blacker-than-Black-Ops-Majestic 12-type s**t. Sometimes you know you're working for them, sometimes you don't. And since they like their secrets, sometimes they gotta tie up loose ends, if you get my drift."

"In between you got thieves, con men, hitters, drug dealers, psycho killers, street mechanics, political and religious nutjobs, cops (honest and bent), mercs, hookers, pimps, gangstas and just plain weirdos. All of 'em juiced up like you, all of them with their own agenda."

"An what's worse, every once and awhile, one of the Big Big boys gets a whiff of something going on and sticks his big superpowered nose into our business...then it's every man for themselves."

"What I'm getting at? I'm tryin' to tell you there's a whole shadow world out there, one you don't see on SNN. It don't have the flash of the Big Boys, but it's just as dangerous, if not more. If you think this is going to be easy money, you're wrong. You could be dead wrong."

"So that's it...the cliff notes version of what you're about to step in. I scare you off? No, huh? Didn't think so, you don't look like the type that scares easy...

"Well then, welcome to the Bush Leagues, kid, what kind of work you looking for?"

My goal is to mix the great crime genre of authors like Elmore Leonard, James Elroy, Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie with a dose of superpowers. Characters will be operators in this setting, either low powered supers or highly skilled normals. Characters can work either side of the law, or somewhere in between, but I'm really trying to avoid any kind of masked heroics. Campaign tone will be like an R-rated movie. I'm not saying characters have to use f-bombs like commas, I just don't want anyone to be surprised if someone does.

First and foremost, the idea for this came from a now defunct campaign that I regrettably ended prematurely. The three players in that campaign would have first dibs on spots in the campaign. I would be looking for 2-3 players in addition to the 3 previous players, plus one opening for any veteran player who opted out.

To play in the Bush Leagues, characters have powers, making them more than 'normal' crooks, but not as powerful as 'Big League' superheroes or villains. In game terms:

Campaign will utilize 5th Edition rules with a few House Rules. Characters are Low-Powered Superheroic as per p. 28 of Fred. Active points for powers are capped at 50 Active pts., with any power over 40 Active requiring at least -1 worth of Limitations. All Stop Sign/Exclamation/Mental and Adjustment Powers are not allowed except with GM permission and a really good explanation. Characters do not have to be superpowered. Any of the Super Skills listed in Dark Champions are perfectly viable. The previous campaign was heavy in skilled normals, so anyone submitting a superpowered character will stand a greater chance of getting in.

One major exception I am making is adapting the Matching Complications rule from 6th Edition. For the unfamiliar, the amount of Disads have been pretty much halved. In 5th Edition jargon, Characters are built with 200 base points and 50 pts. Disads. I think this makes players choose Disads that add to the overall story, and keep them from straining for those last few Disads to even things out, thus avoiding 3d6 Susceptibilities to Cheeze Whiz and the like. In addition, all players must take one 20 pt. major Disad.

As stated in the above intro, no character can be bulletproof. A handgun should make them think twice, a machine gun should make them nervous. Resistant Defenses are capped at 6/6. Characters should be able to beat a VIPER General Combat Specialist from p. 183 in the VIPER sourcebook in a fight, but also run the risk of losing to one. Please contact me if this is not clear.

My house critical rule is on a roll of a 'natural' 3 or 4, maximum potential damage is applied. For example, if a player rolls a 3 on a To Hit roll with an 8d6 attack, the attack does 48 STUN and 16 BODY. This works both for the players and the NPCs.

All characters must be submitted with a written background. As I am still developing the campaign world, please feel free to contact me with questions regarding campaign elements such as organizations, affiliations, etc. I think player created campaign elements really enhance a campaign and make my job easier, so please feel free to get creative. I WILL NOT CONSIDER CHARACTERS WITHOUT A WRITTEN BACKGROUND!

As always, please feel free to contact me with questions via PM or my email lanceskijr@yahoo.com