Read Through: Foxbat for President

June 15, 2010 12 comments

For those who don’t know, Foxbat is a supervillain in the CHAMPIONS universe and something of a running joke. He’s not a great character in terms of his stats, but over the years has been used as a go-to for adventure designers needing an easily-defeated foe. He’s worked with just about every major villain organization in the setting at some point or another, and always manages to survive. In Foxbat for President, BlackWyrm Games takes all those years of the character’s canonical continuity, inflicts some re-imagining and retconning upon him, and creates an adventure that’s at once serious and hilarious.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

The plot goes like this: the evil organization DEMON has learned that Foxbat is the avatar of the arch-enemy of Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of darkness. They’ve been summoning, and enslaving, the souls of dead Presidents and sticking them into the bodies of bureacrats and low-level polticians, allowing them to manipulate the government. They manipulate Foxbat into running for President (and screw with the law to make it possible), as part of an even larger more nefarious scheme. If it sounds like a cross between the Amazing Screw-On Head, Nextwave, and [screwball superhero comic of your choice], you’re right. Most of the action involves the player characters battling DEMON, with Foxbat merely an idiot bystander thinking he’s the real villain. The player characters actually have to work to keep him alive, for plot reasons.

Most of the adventure is fluff and maps, with information on various checks that need to be made in HERO System format. This can easily be adapted to the system of your choice with a little bit of work. Foxbat and DEMON can even be changed to a character and organization more appropriate to the supers setting you’re using. In fact, statistics for Foxbat and some other major characters aren’t even included in the adventure, and you’re referred to other Champions/HERO System supplements for those. That’s probably the biggest weakness of the adventure, because while most of the jokes are still funny without having an extensive library of products in this line and the adventure doesn’t need them, missing characters could be huge. Stats for original characters are included, along with enough fluff and background on each that they can easily be written up (or shemped) in other systems.

The adventure also includes a number of plot hooks that allow you to draw out the Presidential campaign even longer with side adventures. These are similar to Savage Worlds Plot Points. The hooks for Foxbat himself are presented alphabetically, 26 in all. There are plot hooks for the original villains presented here as well. There are plot hooks for the Undead Presidents. There are even plot hooks for the Secret Service agent NPCs detailed in the book. There’s a foundation for good solid campaign in here. All of which makes this a good resource for non-Champions games, including Mutants & Masterminds or Necessary Evil.

In summary, there’s a lot of good stuff in this $9.95 PDF. Good touch!

Want to learn more about Foxbat for President? Read on…