Thoughts on a Superhero Campaign

Issue #0 of the new Kirby: Genesis series to be
done by the team of Busiek and Ross.

Been thinking about how to structure a series of 5 posts on creating a superhero campaign. I know that I normally go through a series of steps, but would they break down into five?

Before we get into that, there are certain assumptions that I'd make: (1) I'd have to tell my players the type of superhero campaign I'm thinking about, and probably give examples, so that I can manage their expectations and help them by giving them an idea about the types of adventures their characters are getting into; (2) I'd have some measure of character approval -- concept and execution -- so that I can keep track of things like NPCs, Nemeses, and other genre elements; (3) I'd have to have some sort of limits to the campaign: power levels, the setting, and possibly types of themes and storylines that I won't tackle (like women in refrigerators).

At the same time, I'd also probably make a list of things I'd like to see in the campaign: favorite bits from comics, riffs off my favorite heroes and villians (maybe even straight transplanting into the game universe), and things that would make my GMing experience enjoyable as well.

Finally, I'd try to wrangle things so that I wouldn't have to build characters (PCs and NPCs) that much. Tweaking is much easier that starting each character from scratch, so a quick look at existing resources for the campaign would be ideal.