The web site for The Guardians of Chicago.

How the game got started

The Planning

After about two months of moving to Chicago from the suburbs, I realized that despite being within a half-mile of several of my friends, unless we made concrete plans to get together, we wouldn't see each other.

Since three of the four people who lived nearby are gamers, I decided that, despite getting rid of most of my gaming stuff before my move, I would run a Champions campaign.

Genesis

The first character created for the new hero group was Mistress Volt.  Heather, the "creator" of Mistress Volt, had never played Champions before.  When it came time to decide MV's disadvantages and secret identity, the game took a bizarre twist:  it was going to be decidedly silly.

I informed the other players that the game was going to be quite campy, but hopefully a lot of fun.

About a week after the creation of Mistress Volt, I encountered Rowport on the Cybergames (HERO) discussion group.  Here was another potential gamer who also lived in the area (5 L-stops from me).  I warned him of the silly nature of the game (and also the fact that half of the gamers were gay men), which didn't seem to bother him.

Matt's character was next.  Matt is one of the few people in the group who's played Champions before.  In fact, he'd had my hardback copy of the BBB for three years (two of those years, he wasn't speaking to me).  He had two concepts:  a drag queen with mental powers and a leather daddy.  The drag queen was a better defined concept, and Helena Handbasket saw the light of day.

Rowport sent me stats for two potential characters:  Straight Edge and Rampage.  He had some very clever ideas for use of powers, didn't build "combat monsters," and thoroughly fleshed out their backgrounds.  In looking at the characters, I found that I liked Straight Edge's background and Rampage's powers.  So, with a bit of tweaking (and math corrections), the new Rampage was born.

Next, we had Brad's character.  Brad is a comic book fan, but had never played Champions.  I think he was a bit overwhelmed by the character creation process.  He decided that he wanted a character with either Invisibility, Desolidification, or Shrinking.  He couldn't really come up with a good concept.  So, I took it upon myself to create his character, and after a couple of hours, Mini-Taur was born.

Our First Session

We decided on the first Saturday of each month for our gaming sessions.  Unfortunately, my computer had crashed during the first week of November, so I had to spend my time rebuilding data rather than working on the campaign.

Also, our 5th player, Troy, would not be able to make it since his wife just had a baby the week prior.

I decided to have people get together anyway so that everyone could at least meet each other.  We spent our time playing Talisman.

The Birth of the Foreman

In late November, I attended Windycon, one of Chicago's largest sci-fi conventions.  Troy, Heather and I were there.  During the con', Troy and I discussed his character concepts.  He wanted someone who's powered centered on creating force fields and force walls.

Considering the tone of the campaign, I came up with the idea that his walls and fields were "built" by construction gnomes.  Failing the activation roll meant the gnomes were on strike or on their lunch break.

Our First Session

After months of planning, we finally had our first game in early December.  Since Brad & Heather had never played Champions before, I felt it was best to try and emphasize combat during the first game and run two separate battles—one for Mini-Taur and Mistress Volt, the other for The Foreman and Rampage!  Details of the game can be found in the Adventures section.

The Demise of Helena Handbasket

Unfortunately, Matt, creator of Helena Handbasket, decided he couldn't make the regular commitment to the game.  He said he might be able to make some of the games and do a guest appearance (which pretty much fits Helena's personality, since she's irresponsible).  *Sigh*