The Hero Support Group

by Chris Avellone
Art by Brad McDevitt

How superhero characters can get by with a little help from their friends

In most superhero games, the campaign world is already laid out for the characters; simply look outside the window, and the gaming environment is stretched out, ready to use. Still, the world outside the window is lacking something every superhero campaign needs: a hero support group.

A hero support group is a series of "campaign world support services," a framework that can help the PCs (and especially the GM) through difficult times in adventures ahead. By anticipating and designing the bare essentials of these support services beforehand, the players and the GM can ensure that the heroes have a number of ways of obtaining help when complications arise. While it will rest with the GM to design most of the services below, players should make sure that their characters are designed so that they can easily access the services listed below, either by purchasing contacts or dependent NPCs who work in the organizations, or by actually having their heroic or civilian ID employed within one of the support structures listed below (as a mechanic, doctor, research scientist, police officer, news reporter, and so on).

With this in mind, here is a presentation of a few of the services every superhero campaign should have.

Maintenance

Damage happens. The GM will need to provide the PCs with options if the characters' base or vehicle is destroyed during play. With simpler vehicles, such as motorcycles and cars, this is rarely a problem; superheroes with these vehicles can either fix them or replace them inexpensively during the course of the adventure. Bases, however, and exotic vehicles can be a problem if they are destroyed, and the GM may be hard pressed to come up with quick alternatives in situations such as these. Usually, providing contingencies for these situations can be as simple as making sure that the characters have a safehouse set up somewhere in the city to act as a temporary command post, or making sure some of the character's discarded vehicle prototypes are tucked away in storage. When possible, these alternatives should be introduced in gameplay before they are needed in the campaign.

The GM should consider the following questions carefully: If the PCs completely demolish all their auxiliary bases and vehicles, where could they get replacements? Would the government finance their construction in return for a favor? Could a local Research Center help them out in exchange for a chance to study the heroes? Would rival heroes be able to help them out somehow?

Still, the damage may not be so bad that the characters need to abandon their base or vehicle entirely, although the PCs may need to get to a "fixer" to repair their vehicles, bases or powered armor when the adventure draws to a close. As a result, the following member of the hero support group is recommended:

The Fixer: This character can be anything from an auto mechanic to an architect. If one of the PC's devices, vehicles or weapons is malfunctioning, the PC can contact the Fixer and ask him for help. The Fixer understands the care and maintenance of the damaged object and should be reliable, especially if secrecy is an issue.

The following support service is recommended and sometimes goes hand in hand with the Fixer character:

Garage: This is any place where the character's vehicle can be "operated" on; the secrecy of the Garage and the nature of the vehicle (standard car? spacecraft? exotic vehicle?) should be taken into consideration to make sure the "garage" has the necessary equipment to fix it. This Garage may be part of the Research Center, below.

Science And Research

The Medical Center: Every superhero has a chance to be wounded, poisoned, maimed, infected or altered during the course of a campaign. Not all superhero teams have healing powers or medical skills, and PCs may be lost trying to handle strange cases of mutation or infection. A Medical Center is any place where injured characters can go for treatment and diagnosis. It can be the local hospital, a super corporation that deals with biotechnology, or perhaps a computerized "Auto-Doc" in the character's headquarters that can perform diagnoses and proscribe treatments to the wounded character. The Medical Center can be combined with The Research Center (see below). The Medical Center usually holds the following member of the hero support group:

The Doctor: The doctor or physician usually specializes in paranormal cases, and it is preferable that one be designed before a campaign begins. Doctors should be sympathetic toward the characters in some fashion; they may not agree with the PCs on every issue, but are willing to help them when they are in danger. The Doctor should be able to provide a reasonable diagnosis of a character's condition. and may be able to proscribe treatments. Occasionally, they may serve as a contact and be able to tell characters about events transpiring within the hospital or in the medical community that might concern the characters.

The Information Center: Information is a valuable commodity in any campaign, and there should be some place the characters to research the latest information on a topic. The Information Center is similar to the Research Center, below, but the focus is more on information gathering rather than technology (although characters may be likely to proceed to a Research Center after they are finished learning what they need to know from the Information Center). An Information Center can be a well-stocked library, a computer that can search the Internet for specific topics, or even a network of contacts.

The GM should have some information source the PCs can refer to on almost any subject or area of the work force (the business world, the occult world, the international arena, the campaign city underworld, the medical world) and so on. The Information Center does not have to have the answer to everything; just enough to point the characters in the right direction or to give them a clue to what they should do next.

The Research Center: Technology plays a large role in many superhero campaigns, and the PCs may need to use some cutting edge technology to help them in their adventures. They can find this technology at the Research Center. The "center" can be a chain of laboratories, a technological institute, a local university, or the research division of a major corporation. The Research Center can serve several functions in a campaign:

(1) It can act as an adventure seed, providing an influx of new technology that can either help or threaten the heroes. This new technology can also be stolen by villains for use in their dastardly schemes.

(2) The Research Center can examine strange technology the characters come across during their adventures. The staff of the Research Center should act much like "technological doctors" in this respect (see The Doctor, above).

(3) The Research Center can provide the characters with technology to heal them, stop an alien menace, travel through time and space, or improve their abilities. The Research Center can double as a Garage, a Medical Center, Information Center, and Technology Supplier, all in one.

The Research Center also holds the following member of the hero support group:

The Scientist: The Research center should have scientists that specialize in fields that none of the characters have skills in. If the characters run across a problem that requires knowing a particular science, they can go to the Scientist and ask for help rather than floundering in the dark for an answer. If the campaign world has mutants or mutates (those who were not born with their abilities), it is recommended that some of the scientists specialize in mutations and paranormal science.

Note that the Research Center can be occult oriented as well; the proprietor of the local oddities bookstore down the street may be where the superheroes routinely go to get mystical items analyzed or when they need an interdimensional gate to travel somewhere fast.

The Law

What happens to the criminals when you haul them in? Crime plays a big role in any superhero campaign setting; deciding how these criminals are processed can save the GM a lot of headache in the long run.

The Justice System: The GM should detail some of the characters in the state court system, as the PCs are likely to encounter them repeatedly during the campaign. Popular characters include the district attorney, a defense attorney, and at least one judge and a criminal lawyer who represents the crooks the characters haul in. Someone in the Justice System should be able to act as a source of information for PCs when they need it.

The Prison: The heroes need a place where they can put the villains when they are done foiling their plans. By its nature, the local prison should be the best place to put the villains… but not necessarily reliable. Breakouts should be able to be performed by inside and outside parties so the villains have an opportunity to return to battle the heroes in a later adventure. As a result, the following points should be taken into account when designing a Prison:

1. The Prison should be a place to imprison villains with relative security.

2. Breakouts should be able to occur, but not frequently. If they happen too often, then characters will no longer have faith in the Prison and find other ways of dealing with their defeated foes.

3. The Prison can serve as a setting for an adventure if the villains break out, if they seize control of the Prison, or if villains attack the Prison to rescue some of their comrades. The Prison may include a mental health institution for occasional insane criminals the hero may run across in their adventures. It should be treated with the same guidelines as above. The GM may also wish to create a separate supervillain prison, but a local prison for the campaign city should also be designed for handling the non-powered criminals the heroes encounter during their adventures.

The Law: Heroes are likely to deal with the law as often as they tangle with criminals. The PCs may even wish to know if they can be placed on a deputy program or be sanctioned by the local government to act as crime-fighters (this would present a lot of problems should the supervillains decide to press charges against characters for trespassing, breaking and entering, destroying property and so on). Two questions for the GM to consider includes:

1. How does the law deal with superheroics in their jurisdiction? Do they accept it, cooperate with it, of fight it?

2. What weapons or technology do the police have for dealing with supervillains? (And for superheroes, if they are accused of a crime and need to be brought in?) Do they have a specific antiparanormal task force or SWAT team?

The GM should consider detailing at least three members of the police department that the PCs are likely to encounter during the campaign: these characters can be police detectives, police captains, lieutenants, beat cops, or vice cops.

The Law usually holds the following member of the hero support group:

Law Contact: This is any contact within the police department is useful for information gathering. The police commissioner, a coroner, beat cops, and police who work in the records division can all be important sources of information. The contact should somehow be able to provide information to the characters on cases and autopsies for use in the heroes' own investigations.

Federal and International Law Enforcement: Characters may need to have some contacts in the FBI or even in the international scene, depending on the scope of the campaign. This includes contacts in foreign intelligence agencies, Interpol, officers in foreign countries, and so on. These contacts can usually provide information on terrorist activity, threats in the diplomatic arena, and are a valuable source of information about the espionage world.

The Media

The media culture should include TV station owners, reporters, Hollywood producers, disk jockeys, musicians, publications (based solely on superheroes or not), and so on. How the public perceives the heroes varies from campaign to campaign, but the structure of the media rarely does. News programs and newspapers in the campaign city should be detailed early on in the campaign; sometimes the media will be the character's only warning about an imminent threat.

In other cases, the media can be used to foreshadow upcoming adventures, perhaps with reports of activities and breakthroughs at the local Research Center, underworld activity in the city, and so on. Crusading news reporters, slanderous talk show hosts, popular music stars should be fleshed out to give the campaign a realistic feel.

Note that a character who has a newspaper reporter as a information source could effectively learn just about anything from any of the categories listed above and the Underworld below; some reporters can act as an Information Center all their own.

The Underworld

Superheroes rarely live in quiet towns, and the local black market and organized crime rackets are likely to figure prominently into the PCs' adventures. The GM often needs to make sure that the following areas are covered in the underworld, as they can provide rationales for how supervillains operate in the campaign city. Some members of the villain support group include:

Crime Doctor: This doctor is the same as the "Doctor" listed in Medicine and Research, above, except the Crime Doctor serves villains in the same capacity. Patching up bullet wounds, reconstructive surgery, and organlegging may all be a part of this doctor's daily routine. A doctor who specializes in paranormal powers or physiology may secretly aid supervillains in order to examine their physiology for an interested corporation or for the doctor's own studies.

Forger: This character can give villains new identities and get them out of town when things look rough. While the Crime Doctor can give a character a new face, the Forger gets the villains the documentation necessary to make the new face stick long enough for the villain to get out of town.

Weapons Supplier: This person makes sure that weapons are available on the market for anyone who needs them. If the local thugs aren't giving the local bullet-proof hero enough trouble, they can get "connected" with the right firearm or laser cannon through the Weapons Supplier. This character sells indiscriminately. For maximum range of possibilities, the Weapons Supplier's "shop" manufactures gadgets and gimmicks for villains on the street as well, making recyclable villains and ego signature gadgets for costumed criminals. A Weapons Supplier can secretly double as the Fixer or Research Center, above.

The Informant: This character doesn't like to talk, but he will if leaned on. He should be the GM's way of leaking information from the underworld to the PCs if they have no investigation oriented skills. The Informant should be well-detailed.

The Fence: Villains go to the Fence when they want to sell their ill-gotten gains. If the PCs uncover who the Fence is, they may be able to ambush villains or trace the villain's whereabouts through the Fence.

Villain Temporary Service Agencies: If the local normal human crime boss is being hassled by the player characters where can he turn to? What organization, assassin or hitman can he hire? A Villain Temporary Service Agency can hire villains for missions against the player characters, especially if the villains would never cross paths in their normal careers.

Other Heroes

The Reserve Corps: Is there anyone around who can help the characters out if they get into serious trouble This may include lone heroes from the area (perhaps vigilantes), rival superhero teams, or old teachers and friends of the characters. They should be roughly detailed for any adventure where the characters might out of their league against villain opposition.

The Reserve Corps should be designed for maximum role-playing… the superhero PCs and the Reserve Corps may chafe each other's style, but they need to unite against a common foe.

The Reserve Corps can also serve as contacts for PCs as well. They may have access to some government and research areas the PCs don't.

With these support services in place, GMs and PCs will find that gameplay proceeds more smoothly, with no bogging down during the adventures as the characters attempt to find a source of information or someone who can help them. Heroes will know when and where to turn to when things become difficult, and while this will not solve all their problems, it will give the campaign itself some added security.