Welcome to Millennium City*, a Silver Age/Modern Age supers game set at the dawn of super-powered humans. To add a bit of verisimilitude to a fantastic subject, each hero's powers are randomly generated! Below you will find the step-by-step process I've outlined to generate characters for the game.

I'm looking for 5-6 players, and while it's possible I may contact other submittors in the future for special guest appearances, it may wind up that you take the time and effort to go through this process only to wind up without a slot in the game. It's up to you to decide if it'll be worth your time.

If this game gets off the ground and stays that way, I may expand it to include another team.

*Not the Champions game setting. This is a homebrew setting I've used off and on since the early 1990's. Often abbreviated as "M. City."

Before we get to that, some general rules:

• Standard forum rules apply.
• This is a PG game. Occasional mild cursing is allowed. Sexual situations beyond occasional hugging/kissing are "fade to black" territory. Truly nasty acts or situations are to be discussed only in general or euphemistic terms. You get the idea.
• This game will not use a game system beyond that used to determine powers. We'll determine, in non-specific terms, the extent or power level of your character's abilities, and from there, I will be the arbiter of whether that character is capable of doing what you want him to do.
• No player may play more than one character.
• The powers you roll are the ones you're stuck with.
• The tone is Marvelesque Silver Age, but updated in some respects to reflect a more modern worldview. Classic Marvel comics, Astro City, Supreme Power, and Invincible are primary influences.
• There is a default assumption that each player-character is of the appropriate temperament to hide her identity with a mask and costume and use her powers to help people.
• Please PM me with all questions about the process. I want to keep the clutter on the OOC page to a minimum.

The game will begin in the summer of 2017. The world of M. City is similar in most respects to our own: the general course of human history is the same. One major difference is that in 1986, a massive explosion leveled the city of Gary, and severely damaged the nearby communities of Lake Station, New Chicago, Hobart, and Merrillville. Nearly 85,000 people were killed, and tens of thousands more were injured. After several investigations, no cause has been officially determined, but the blast seemed to originate from somewhere in the sprawl of the Standard Oil complex on the shores of Lake Michigan. In the years since, the many theories of what caused the explosion have spawned a conspiracy theory industry rivaling that of JFK and Jack The Ripper.

Gary’s economy had been in ruins prior to the disaster, and even the help of the state of Indiana and FEMA, the city had difficulty supplying sufficient aid for the survivors to thrive and rebuild. Enter Alexander Thorson, CEO of Tri-Tech Enterprises. He formed a cabal of multi-national corporations willing to donate enormous amounts of money, expertise, equipment and labor. He proposed sweeping the memory of Gary, Indiana off the map, and replacing it with a thoroughly-redesigned, state-of-the-art metropolis featuring cutting-edge urban planning -- and a distinct corporate flavor. A 21st century city of the future, today! A city to usher America into the next century and beyond the year 2000 – Millennium City.

Cash-strapped state and local officials agreed. Laws were quickly passed giving the multinationals the right to form Millenicorp, a quasi-municipal body, to oversee the construction of the new city. As the city known as “Gary” had acquired an unsavory reputation, the decision was made to re-incorporate Gary as “Millennium City” (sometimes called "M. City" for short). The largest use of eminent domain in the history of the United States began on July 1,1986. With Millenicorp footing the bill, the landowners of Gary, Indiana and its surrounds were required to sell their holdings to the new municipality for “improvement.” Most were willing to do so, as most structures on the properties were a total loss. Some resisted, and sued. In February of 1987, the appellants lost in District Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case. Tri-Tech had been given the contract for removing the limitless rubble from the area, and the grisly task of removing bodies, from the ruins of Gary. It now began in earnest to rebuild the city. Cutting-edge urban planner Nikolai Krikorian was hired to design the new metropolis. Millenicorp set up temporary housing for thousands of laborers brought in from across America, willing to work tortuous hours under dreadful conditions, with the promise at the end of a new house and a small plot of land to start a new life. By 1988, the community was a swarming bee-hive, more like a giant corporate camp than a city. Street development had begun even as rubble was still being removed from the area. Distribution centers and more permanent dwellings were erected, followed by more conventional retail services. On June 1, 1990, Millennium City was declared “open for business.” (This phrase is also the city’s motto, to be seen on the official seal.)

Today Millennium City, after undergoing considerable growing pains, boasts an amazing population of approximately 1,100,000, making it the 10th largest city in the country. It remains the fastest-growing city in North America. Millennium City is home to numerous high-tech industrial corporations and health service providers. The city boasts one of the most successful waste management and recycling programs in the country, and is known as one of the cleanest cities in the U.S. Municipal services are adequate, although the city can be painfully slow when it comes to responding to unusual situations. Millennium City is sometimes nicknamed “Billboard City,” because advertisements for the corporations (and their subsidiaries) that founded the city are everywhere, from the fire department’s raincoats to the manhole covers. The water bill comes with a Tri-Tech logo on it, and parking tickets have a United General Paper Company watermark. Of course, with the growing pains accompanying a huge influx of population, unemployment and alienation can result: the city sports a large depressed area and an active crime syndicate, as well as a sometimes heavy-handed corporate influence.

Millennium City’s proximity to Chicago has led to considerable competition between the two cities. In the months following the Green Event, thousands of unemployed Chicagoans flocked to the rubble of Gary, lured by the promise of steady work and a new start. Chicago’s population dropped by nearly 4%. While the Windy City’s unemployment fell accordingly, city officials found it difficult to lure new businesses. Millennium City quickly became the trendy place for distribution, new manufacturing, and corporate headquarters. The rivalry between the two cities has grown over the years.

I foresee the bulk of game stories taking place in and around M. City. Characters can either be residents of the city, will move there as the game begins to unfold, or have movement abilities powerful enough that the location of their homes is irrelevant.

I had originally envisioned doing this round robin style, but that would take forever. :D Instead, I will ask each prospective player to post a set of percentile dice rolls.

Each player generates six percentile dice rolls. Rolls 1-5 are applied to one of the following tables: Powers Table, Device Table, or Stats & Extras. Roll 6 is on the Weakness Table. Please specify which table each dice roll is for, so

Roll 1: Powers
Roll 2: Powers
Roll 3: Stats & Extras
Etc.

You'll be making some choices about keeping and discarding rolls in a future step.
The tables are somewhat modified versions of those used in Villains and Vigilantes. I won't be posting them. You're just going to have to trust me.

Powers Table: This is all about powers. If you want heightened physical or mental abilities, you probably don't want this table. Super-strength is the only direct physical enhancement on the table, and I kept it there because it's such a common power in the comics.

Devices Table: This is similar to the Powers table, but includes things like Bionics, Robotics, Special Weapon, etc. It does include "stat" increases.

Devices have one of two origins: either you invented them, or another human did. You do not get to select an additional power after making final power selections. Instead, you have the Heightened Intelligence power, and can invent things. You can also say that someone else invented them, meaning that you can still choose an additional power after making your choices, but you can't repair your devices if they get damaged. If you go this route, give some thought as to, why, and what relationship you have with that person today.

Stats & Extras Table: The place to go if you want "stat" increases: heightened strength, endurance, agility, etc. Two-thirds of the table is taken up with these. The other one-third is various interesting advantages. Heightened "stats" are considered significantly increased.

Easy. Just wait. It will be my aim to respond within 24 hours. I may not always make it, but I will do my sovereign best. I will provide a brief description of each power/ability. To give you a general idea of how it can be used. The description is not intended to be the be-all, end-all of that power. Some results require input from the player to finalize. If you have some interesting ideas about how your character might use a power, PM me and we'll talk.

After I post the results of your dice rolls, please PM me right away if you have questions or need clarification about any of the results.

Once you have the info you need, you choose one result to drop. If you really dislike your Weakness, you can drop that too, as long as you also drop a second result. Obviously, the goal of this is to tighten up your character's powerset for purposes of cohesion.

Once you have chosen what to keep and what to dump, you may add one self-created power to your list. It cannot duplicate any of the powers you chose to discard earlier. The purpose of this is to fill any obvious holes in the character concept (for instance, if your character wound up not having any attack-type powers, you can pick one). Please PM me about the power you'd like to add. Don't be afraid to go for something bizarre or powerful, but also don't be discouraged if I say "No."

A note about magic: There is no "true" history of magic or supernatural/divine beings: there is no Sorcerer Supreme, no Greek gods still hanging around in modern times, no covens of witches that cast actual, working spells, etc. However, if you choose to represent your powers as being magical, who can readily contradict you? Perhaps you are the progenitor of magic on Earth; perhaps every super is a part of that. As no one knows for sure, you can package your abilities as you see fit.

Once I've approved your character's powers and etc., you need to come up with some details about the person. This does not have to be a novel-length backstory. In keeping with Silver Age simplicity, it can be as simple as "Peter Parker is a hapless teen-aged nerd who gets bitten by a radioactive spider. He carries a massive guilt complex because he failed to use his powers to catch a criminal who later murdered his uncle."

If you want to write a long backstory, I'm all for that too. It's just not a requirement.

Again, PM me your backstory for my approval, just because you may inadvertently include a detail that isn't possible in this setting, or that conflicts with a sinister GM plot. :)

The sheet is below. Once you have it completed, PM it to me.

I'll post the character I've selected, and we'll go from there!

You may be thinking "What if I get a bunch of powers that don't go together?" I can only answer that in my years of playing V&V, I never encountered a situation where a player couldn't find some sort of super-hero framework to hang his powers on. To help with that process, here are some examples of character rolling. I did my rolls using the guild's dice utility.

Example 1

Roll 1: Powers
Roll 2: Powers
Roll 3: Powers
Roll 4: Stats & Extras
Roll 5: Stats & Extras
Roll 6: Weakness

I decided I wanted a guy with some powers, but also possibly some much-better-than-average-human stats as well (or possibly some other goodies). My rolls are:

Roll 1: 88 Teleportation. Cool. I like this power.

Roll 2: 03 Adaptation. Hm. Odd, but interesting. In V&V terms, this is the ability to resist the effects of hostile environments (not attacks). It has a broad application.

Roll 3: 48 Ice Powers. Also cool. Hm… still not seeing much cohesion here. Moving on…

Roll 4: 66 Natural Weaponry. OK

Roll 5: 07 Heightened Agility. A generally useful enhancement.

Roll 6: 79 Vulnerability.

OK, something of a disparate bunch of abilities. Let's see what I can do.

Ice Powers by themselves are super-heroic enough, really. I can create ice things, and blast people. Clearly the centerpiece of my hero. A keeper.

Natural Weaponry. I'm seeing my ice form as more angular and crystalline than smooth and sleek. That means there's lots of sharp edges, and maybe spikes here and there. I like the visual. A keeper.

Heightened Agility. The exact level of ability is left to the individual. In this case, I want it pretty high, like maybe Spider-Man level. A keeper.

Adaptation. To be honest, it doesn't make much sense for this guy to be able to resist high gravity or vacuum. However, he should be OK in very cold or very hot conditions (although he probably drips a lot in the latter :D ), and possibly high pressure environments as well. This kind of ability may take some talking over between you and me to iron out the specifics. I'll keep this one too.

Teleportation. I love playing teleporters, but as I've developed the character idea, this is clearly the odd man out. I drop it.

Vulnerability. My ice guy is vulnerable to certain kinds of attacks. Well, fire/high heat attacks are the obvious choice, but I could also go the Killer Frost route and totally reverse that, stating that my guy has ice powers because he's in a constant fight to stay warm, and that he's actually vulnerable to cold attacks. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like it.

OK, now I get to pick a power. I need a way to move around, and ice slides are the classic way for an ice guy to do that. With his agility, he could do all sorts of nifty ice moves.

So, I have a guy who is a gigantic heat sink, constantly absorbing heat to keep from freezing. He's vulnerable to cold attacks, and probably anyone near him gets chilly pretty quickly. A fortunate Silver Age side effect of this is that he can generate icy effects around him, including ice armor, icy blasts, ice creations, and an icy slide to move around. He's super-agile, and his armor form includes sharp angles and spikiness. Because this is Silver Age, there's only occasional angst from his condition; as often as not he jokes about it rather than brooding constantly over it. He prefers to go hand-to-hand with opponents as opposed to using his powers at a distance: quickly slip-slide up, give the bad guy an ice-spiked smack in the mouth, and come around for another pass.

Now, what's his name? I can't imagine there's a good ice-power name left out there. I'm getting the idea that this guy is somewhat cocky about his prowess, so maybe his name needs to be a bit on the obnoxious side. Chill? Max Chill? Well, I'll have to work on that…

Example 2:

I'm taking a gamble here. I'm only making one roll on the Powers table. The other four will all be on the Stats & Extras Table. I'm hoping to get a guy who is physically impressive, with a go-to power to give him an extra edge. We'll see!

Roll 1: Powers
Roll 2: Stats & Extras
Roll 3: Stats & Extras
Roll 4: Stats & Extras
Roll 5: Stats & Extras
Roll 6: Weakness

My results:

Roll 1: 34
Roll 2: 55
Roll 3: 61
Roll 4: 86
Roll 5: 30
Roll 6: 20

Roll 1: Heightened Defense. Hm, I'd hoped for an actual power. But, as I'm hoping for a physical character, being very hard to hit is a big plus.

Roll 2: Heightened Strength. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Roll 3: Heightened strength again. In cases where you roll the same power twice, you have the option to re-roll, or take the second instance and run with it – maybe this guy is extra-super-strong, or maybe he can do some amazingly precise things with this super strength. I will reserve the option to re-roll after looking at all my rolls. (As GM, I will grant you the same option.)

Roll 4: Willpower. This is defined broadly in my game, and includes ignoring pain and other distractions, resisting mental powers, resisting intimidation, etc. I think this fits in well with my tough guy idea.

Roll 5: Heightened Endurance. Perfect. He can take beating, and go-go-go for long periods.

Roll 6: Lowered Intelligence. Damn! I really don't want this.

OK, time for some pondering. I really don't want to play The Hulk, so I'll need to drop two power rolls to get rid of the Weakness. I decide to drop the second Heightened Strength roll and the Heightened Defense roll. This leaves me with:

Heightened Strength. I'm going high-end here, around Thing level.

Willpower. As tough mentally as he is physically.

Heightened Endurance: Matches perfectly with great strength.

Now for the final power choice. I can't replicate any of my discarded rolls, so I go another direction: Healing Factor. He's not preternaturally resistant to damage; he just heals up whatever gets done to him. Kind of a cross between Wolverine and The Thing. Wolverthing? Nooo… I'll call him Dreadnought. This guy isn't complicated: he takes your best shot and gives you his. Every team needs one of these guys. Awesome.

Example 3: device

I'm trying to build a guy that's all about cool gadgets and stuff. I don't know yet whether I want him to have invented these things himself, or be using someone else's stuff. The rolls will guide me, I'm sure…

Roll 1: Devices
Roll 2: Devices
Roll 3: Devices
Roll 4: Devices
Roll 5: Devices
Roll 6: Weakness

My results:

Roll 1: 35
Roll 2: 47
Roll 3: 66
Roll 4: 50
Roll 5: 90
Roll 6: 73

Roll 1: Heightened Charisma. Well, that's a weird start, but I kind of like the idea of using a device to increase personal appeal.

Roll 2: Invisibility. Hm. Next!

Roll 3: Non-corporealness. Wow, this is not turning out like I thought!

Roll 4: Invulnerability. I have no idea where this is going. One roll left!

Roll 5: Transformation. Hum. Wow. At this moment, I got nuthin'. Maybe the Weakness will pull it together?

Roll 6: Special Requirement.

This is so utterly different than what I was expecting!

OK, so I'm starting with non-corporealness and invisibility. They kind of go together and it's simple enough to imagine a device that somehow phases me into and out of these states. Cool.

Heightened Charisma. A device that does this intrigues me. I have to have it.

So that leaves either invulnerability or transformation to drop. Transformation in V&V is odd: you can either be a shape-changer, which I don't think fits this proto-idea, or it's kind of an Instant Change thing. I think I'll drop that one.

So Invulnerability? Hm. When I'm non-corporeal, I'm largely invulnerable anyway… maybe I'm also invulnerable to other desolid characters! That won't come up often, so I'll say he's also invulnerable to light-based attacks. Again, this is something we'll discuss as you develop your character ideas.

Coming together now, mostly because I'm basing this concept loosely on something from my files. This guy is using a device his father designed that can play with fractal dimensionality, making him either noncorporeal or invisible (or both!). The fractal dimensionality is so weird he's basically noncorporeal to other desolid people, and invulnerable to light-based attacks. The Charisma thing? I don’t know yet how that works. Maybe the character doesn’t know either! (And maybe this can be a plot point for him down the road: people seem to like him better and respond to him more when he's in hero mode. Does that make him want to blow off his secret identity? Does he resent people who don't like him but love his hero persona?)

Now, that Special Requirement. I think being this fractal warping has to take a toll on the brain, so I'm going to say he has to sleep for at least an hour after using the device for an amorphous amount of time. I’d leave it up to the GM to tell me during roleplay if things were getting "fuzzy around the edges," thus indicating he was reaching his limit.

So, as I chose to have the device belong to someone else, I get one power to choose. (If I was the inventor, I'd get Heightened Intelligence automatically and not have an extra power to choose.) So far he has some nifty powers, but I want some sort of attack ability. I'll say he can send a pulse of "fractality" into another person (Silver Age!), thus throwing off their senses and causing a temporary, shivering paralysis.

So now I have it. This hero's name is Phantasm. He wears a swirly dark cloaky outfit and a helmet that has the device built into it. He uses his desolid and invisibility powers to act like an actual ghost, and uses a "ghost touch" to cause villains to tremble and freeze with fear! Although he looks scary, his presence is also very compelling, like a vampire or something.