So, this is going to be more how to deal with teen heroes in general, but the question came up.
How do we make sure the story and action stays on the teens? I mean, obviously, the story has to-they’re our heroes and protagonists, they need to be the center of their stories and being awesome-but Halcyon City is explicitly filled to the brim with heroes. One or two silver age teams, bronze age teams, a bunch of solo agents. The Legacy existing means you have a small suite of older heroes with a collective interest in our young persons activities.
How do you explain it when no one else shows up to deal with a zombie invasion? Or making the giant robotic gorilla a thing only they deal with? The bigger the threat the more impossible it seems that it’d fall into the heroes lap, but stuff like the Outsider summoning in an army shows that we’re clearly not trying to be small potatoes here.
Any thoughts or suggestions? I’d love just ideas so that way they don’t deal with the ‘conspicuous absence’
I’m interested in this too. Most young hero stories I’ve read deal with the lack of older heroes, or go where they can’t. Each playset seems to address this in its own way. I’m sure the main book will have its own angle.
Just watch Young Justice and X-Men: Evolution. The former can be found on Netflix, the latter on Hulu.
The adult supers will have their own stuff to deal with too, often more important and larger in scale. There is only so much time in the day and the teen supers need to be left to their own devices for the most part.
Turn the problem into an opportunity. The adult heroes are in the way, handling things bureaucratically and letting criminals off on technicalities. How do YOU get there first, and make it so the Bulgaryan doesn’t get another deportation that won’t stick?
Grown-up heroes don’t have time to sweat the small stuff. Oh, those super kids have to learn how to be responsible members of society some day.
In some fiction [CITATION NEEDED] initial issues that young heroes stumble upon often seem minor or below the notice of adult authorities, but are ultimately the roots of bigger threats. When the big bad finally unleashes their plan or rears their head, the young superhero PCs are on top of it – It’s their moment to shine. Everyone else is still reeling, wondering where this big problem came from, and having to go through their own processes to gather info, figure out what it is and how to stop it.
My initial instinct — which is admittedly probably only fun the first time it happens in an arc — is to go the opposite way and have it be like The Tick or something, with heaps of heroes showing up to fight the same giant robo gorilla. Have everyone vying for credit and public opinion. And make it less about actually stopping the threat and more about maximizing personal media coverage and navigating through the Influence all the adult heroes have over the team when they say “buzz off, kids, this is a job for the Douchebag Dozen!”, etc.
Have people who influence the heroes move, and have their lives elsewhere be much better or worse. That allows you to keep campaign fronts humming even when they don’t interact with PCs!
The more I think about this, the more I think this is an ever present fact of almost all superhero stories. Captain America deals with all kinds of threats without stopping to ask why didn’t the Avengers solve them for him. I don’t see how teenage supers are any different unless you want to make it a story point, like the babysitter JLAer in Young Justice. Its a conceit of this genre in that there are multitudes of threats even in a single city and every hero has to chip in their share.
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In tried and tested comic book style, send the A-list adult heroes to space.
I think it’s good that we’re considering it. I mainly worry about accidentally creating a fiction where it doesn’t make sense that the PCs would actually be doing any heroing. Solutions should come pretty easily as long as we keep the problem in mind during character/setting creation.
Have them both there, and have the adults reprimand the teens for not doing things “the right way”
I think the solution is to not overdo the same answer. Sometimes they may fight people the grown ups don’t care about (“Oh shit, The Hipster is trying the redecorate The Starbucks. Good thing the kids are going that way, or I would be late to Project Runway”.), sometimes the heroes are doing something more important, and sometimes one (or more) heroes shows up and tell the kids to go home and leave things with him.