Who else plays in their own setting, and what is that setting?
My game is set in an alternate universe version of Saint Louis (my home) where a hero named Steel Crania (African-American woman, kind-hearted Iron Man expy) took an undeveloped part of north StL and turned it into a vibrant technological and cultural center.
We play in Millennium City – the first mostly earth initiated settlement on Mars. In the newest age of a generational heroic landscape that is the direct action and effort of the legacy’s family (and was the eventual outcome of a previous superhero game we had played that used a different system where the legacy’s adults were PCs).
We play in Capstone City, a setting I first created for a student film I wrote in college called “Captain Invincible is Dead!” It’s been fun having characters from “Captain Invincible” show up as adult heroes, mentors, and villains in our campaign. Otherwise Capstone is very similar to Halcyon, in that it is a cosmopolitan city with a large superhero population and multiple generations of heroes.
Mo Jave that is awesome that you’ve used this universe for two different story engines. Makes me wonder about doing a Dread game in our universe. Could make a good engine for a “Restless” a la Buffy adventure.
Leah Libresco it’s been fun, and fascinating to see how they have manifested so differently. The first was a Truth & Justice game that was more four-colour modern pulp comics, while this one feels shiny, young, teen oriented and futuristic.
Masks echos some of the original’s relationship melodrama, but makes it on the angstier cusp of growing up.
Moscow in an alternate history where the Soviets won the Cold War. The heroes were a state-sponsored supers team dealing with fighting small crime (and propaganda) who stumbled into a plot to break up the Soviet Union.
Silver Sands, Nevada. Very route 66 vibe.
I’ve been using the name Halcyon but basically nothing else from the rulebook. Instead of the “usual” kitchen sink of all kinds of magic and scifi weirdness, I have one common pattern for all supers in this setting, which are called Gifted: They all wished for something so desperately that they’d do anything for it, then heard a voice in their head urging them on and suddenly had whatever power they needed to make their wish come true, though not always interpreted the way they meant it. For example, a teacher who wished to be a “shining beacon” for his students was Gifted with literal light-based powers. (Our Bull also gets powers from cybernetic implants, but those only work because of his Gift of healing and a certain mad scientist’s Gift of fusing animals with machines).
I considered using Green Ronin’s Freedom City for its ready-to-go sachel of legacy heroes and villains. I ended up using Halcyon and slowly accumulating my own cast of characters from one-shots. However, I am still considering using Green Ronin’s Terminus and Omega’s throneworld of Nihilor because it a convenient and fun secret answer to a backstory question of where the current campaign’s nova’s mother went to, and long term it will make great fodder for invasion plots and doomed playbook pcs. And I love the Kirby-esque flavor of the Annihilists, dueling lackies of the villain Omega.
In the game I gm I still have us set within Halcyon City but I’ve replaced the hero roster/history with custom ones that still hit some similar beats to create gold/silver/bronze era divides.
I ran the game in the setting of Sentinels of the Multiverse. Players could play one of the teenage heroes from the card game, with or without customization, or make up their own heroes. Regardless, the plethora of NPCs, and our familiarity with them from the card game, made it really easy to jump start a campaign.