IN THE BEGINNING - SOME THOUGHTS ON PLAYING OUT ORIGINS

While I have never had an opportunity to play out the origins of a superhero character, the idea of doing so intrigues me. There are, of course , some things to consider before approaching this sort of campaign. You may have even heard of this or seen it in other games systems. White Wolf called it a “prelude” in their Vampire the Masquerade game and the concept is very much the same in superhero games.

1) HOW MANY CHARACTERS IN THE CAMPAIGN?

Playing out the origin of a character requires a certain amount of commitment to action and story that takes place before the main campaign begins and the number of players in the campaign should really be the first thing you consider as it will inform all other decisions when it comes to approaching the idea of playing out character origins. If you are playing a campaign with a single character, this shouldn't be too great a concern as you have only the one player's time to worry about. If, however, you have a few players, then you really should consider how much time to spend on playing out the characters' origins stories. Ideally, the amount of time spent on each character's origin role-play should be reduced for every character in the campaign. Obviously, if you have a particularly large group of players it may not be practical to play out their origins except in a few instances as I will discuss further along in this article.

2) DO THE PLAYERS PICK THEIR POWERS?

This step, while completely optional, is very important and has huge ramifications on the tone and action of your campaign. The decision as to whether or not the players begin play with fully created characters and simply go back to play out their origins or if they begin as blank slates is absolutely something they should agree to before you attempt to try this. If you go this route, your players are putting a lot of faith in you as their GM to create interesting and playable power sets for them to play with

3) HOW FAR BACK?

After you have figured out how many players you are going to have in your campaign and whether or not they begin playing knowing what powers they will have, you can now think about how far back you are going to go in their origins. If the players have created characters with full determined powers, then you are free to play out their origin stories with this information and use it to guide the play.

If, however, the players have agreed to start as blank slates, you will have to construct stories that position the characters to receive their powers or play out the manifestation of spontaneous powers. Such “retellings” may be more involved as you have to play through the getting/appearing of the powers and is best done only for smaller or solo games.

4) SHARED OR INDIVIDUAL ORIGINS

This last step is one that can very much simplify most of the above steps if not all of them. Not a complicated question, it is still no less important. A shared origin will mean that you are only really telling a single origin story to which each individual player will bring their character’s experience. Because of the efficiency of time created by a shared origin, the GM can add more detail and take the time to tell a more robust story, should they want to. Shred origins are particularly useful if you are playing a campaign where the players do not know what powers they will have because the GM can at least give some sort of general idea - all gods, alien heroes, space cops with power rings, etc./

Separate origins are where the GM really needs to ride a fine line in managing time. No origin story is identical and some may require more time and effort than others. A lab accident or granted powers might be a very simple story while a character who grew up with their powers might have a lot to unpack and much more story to tell. These examples are not universally true but the key is to recognize what each player needs for their character’s origin. Make sure that you talk to the players about who will need more time and should a player require a lot of time for their origin, consider setting aside a separate time to play that out.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It is important to remember that playing out a character's origins is neither normal, nor required for a good campaign. It is a completely optional step and can be done without. Just understand that playing out origins means that both the player and GM are both accepting the responsibility for the character.

How do you feel about playing out origins?

Have you had any experiences with doing so that you would like to share?