I was watching the third season finale of Burn Notice last February and I thought: "This is cool. You know what would make it even cooler? Superpowers." But then I think lots of things are improved by the presence of superhuman abilities.

Anyway, the concept intrigued me and I started thinking how I would run a Burn Notice-inspired super-hero campaign. The result is this installment of Superseeds.

Just a heads-up: if you haven't watched the third season of the show, there might be some spoilery concepts below.

Pitch

Framed for terrorist acts they didn't commit, the PCs must go undercover to clear their names while still helping the innocent and the not-so-innocent.

Premise

In a super-hero world, some people will see metahumans and their abilities as tools to further their own causes. But instead of relying on the costumed variety of supervillains, they will have their own assets - covert posthumans employed in all sorts of clandestine missions. However, just because these operatives don't wear spandex or want to rule the world, it doesn't mean they are not crazy - as Management found out. When the Beast went on a spree of wanton destruction and mindless murders, it knew it had to not only contain him, but also find scapegoats who would prevent any investigations from reaching it. As a bonus, it might be able to eventually convince the "fall masks" to pick up the Beast's job, becoming what they were already accused of being.

Who are the PCs?

They are the fall masks: the ones framed by Management for terrorist acts. They should probably be of Teen Titans/X-Men level. Anything more powerful might derail the campaign's theme. However, there should be at least a slight chance that, acting in concert and with logistic support, they could perpetrate the acts they are being accused of.

The Beast is a Black Adam-level metahuman (I like to use BA as an example of power level, did you notice that?), but most of his (or her) missions had specific, focused goals; he only went nuts in his last mission. So it shouldn't be too difficult to pin most of the stuff on the PCs. And Management can always spread rumors that the PCs are more powerful than they let on and release "evidence" of that.

Although you can use characters from an ongoing campaign, the change in direction might be too drastic. Creating brand new PCs is probably a better approach. Just make sure to guide character creation, making it clear to your players that their PCs will start the campaign cut off from everything they would take for granted in a four-color super-hero campaign: friends, family, colleagues and even a codename and an uniform.

The importance of being connected

That last sentence is a bit misleading. Although building new relationships is one of the main themes of this campaign, the PCs shouldn't start the game without any contacts whatsoever. They should buy (if you are using a point-buy system) connections or get some for free to establish a base network.

These are the people who will help/have helped them create their new identities. They will be the hooks of their new adventures and the initial sources of information on who framed the heroes. They can be former supervillains who cleaned up their acts and now lead a respectable civilian life, petty criminals, grateful people who were saved by the PCs etc.

It's not that the characters don't have friends and family, they do. But these people are not available to them due to the circumstances. In order to escape capture, the PCs must sever (almost) all ties.

Things fell apart

At the start of the campaign, the PCs have been framed for horrendous acts of terrorism. The evidence is so compelling that, following good four-color logic, they have to flee, abandoning their costumed identities and assuming new civilian ones, to try and prove their innocence.

They have settled in a new city, probably in a rough or at least low-income neighborhood, where keeping their activities below the radar would be easier. It's a place where the local super-hero community never knew them closely or one with a less crowded metahuman scene.

The plan is to lay low and investigate their framing, but, obviously, things won't work that way. While tapping the contacts I mentioned above, the PCs will open a channel of communication that will go both ways. Their connections, knowing they are not regular people, will ask them to help with "irregular" problems.

These problems won't be stopping Dr. Devastation blowing up North America or preventing the Regulans from invading the planet, it will be lending a hand to a friend of the mother of one of the connections (and her neighborhood) whose is acting weird, or stopping a war between the local Latino gang and the ninja-trooped Yakuza that is moving in on their territory.

So, more street-level stuff, even though the characters were originally designed for a higher-powered level.

This seems very forced

Yes, I know, but there are reasons for this. Let me explain.

Why do the PCs need to let go of the original costumed identities, you might ask. Can't they just change uniforms and codenames and keep on super-heroing? Well, no. As I said, the evidence that they did Bad Things is pretty convincing. They will be hunted by super-heroes, and governmental and law enforcement agencies.

To evade this kind of attention, they need more than a wardrobe makeover - they need to let go of everything. If the PCs disappear, but then a new superteam, whose members have the same power suite of the characters, shows up, their pursuers will make the connection.

And what's up with this street-level talk? Why can't you have the PCs doing more high-powered stuff? The simple answer is: because we are trying to emulate the Burn Notice show. You don't see Michael Westen handling giant robots bent on leveling Miami, so these should not be things the PCs will have to deal with.

However, there's a setting-specific - and more interesting - answer.

The ecology of the super-hero city

Imagine a city in a super-hero world as a jungle or forest. If you look at it in terms of ecosystems, you'll see there are tiers - different species exist and interact in distinct areas, like the canopy or the ground. This is the same in the city.

Cosmic characters are concerned with galactic-level threats. They rarely deal with intraplanetary problems. World-class super-heroes deal with large-scale schemes and global situations. They leave city-level dangers to "regular" heroes, those that usually battle the more run-of-the-mill supervillains.

Finally, you have the street-level problems: organized crime, low-level superhuman criminals and so on. These are the province of super-heroes like Daredevil and Batman (although the Dark Knight skirts, in his own book, the line between street and regular; that is, when he's not written as a demigod). Other players in this tier are the metahuman crime units of the local police.

What this means

The PCs know about these differences in focus, because they were part of that dynamic. They are certain that if they engage in flashy displays of power, over what would be expected of street-level operatives, they will attract the attention of the regular supers and their cover will be blown.

This doesn't mean the characters shouldn't use their abilities - this is after all a super-hero campaign. What they have to do is be careful and creative. The PCs can even use their full powers in all their glory, but they better do it in controlled situations.

It's a similar situation to the one found in the old World of Darkness game Mage: The Ascension. The characters could perform vulgar (flashy) magic, but doing so had the potential of attracting Paradox by challenging the reality consensus of the sleepers. The way to avoid that was to use coincidental magic.

Bringing it back to Fall Masks, discretion, misdirection and subterfuge are the characters' friends. Of course, even if they keep a low profile, they might show up in the radar of the local street hero and/or the police metahuman crime squad.

Management

The organization known as Management can be as amorphous as you like. In fact, the name can be just a placeholder during the campaign's early phase, if you haven't made up your mind yet. However, eventually, you need to decide on how you want to present it.

Management can be the brainchild of a retired mastermind, who commands everything from his beautiful penthouse, or the front for a coalition of powerful people: businessmen, politicians, religious leaders and such.

The default assumption is that Management is interested in making money and obtaining political power. To that end, it employs covert metahumans (the Beast is not its only agent, only the most powerful) in clandestine operations all over the world.

Missions can involve assassinations, property damage, mass murder etc. - whatever accomplishes Management's goal, be it displaying a show of force, affecting stock or commodity prices, fomenting conflict between nations, destroying technology that would affect its businesses.

Like the characters in their new identities, Management abhors drawing attention to its operations. Clandestine is its mantra. It designs its missions so that no evidence of superhuman activity can be found - the "real" culprits are normal terrorists, natural disasters etc.

Given all this, it's no wonder that when the Beast snapped, damage control was Management's top priority. It didn't really think much about the PCs once its spin on the event had been released, but the characters' resiliency and resourcefulness has made Management consider recruiting them.

That's why it won't blow the whistle on the group's new identities, if it discovers it.

Climbing the corporate ladder

Since uncovering the conspiracy to frame the PCs and finding out all about Management is one of the goals of the campaign, here are a few pointers on how you could pace it. Note that conducting this investigation is not a background or downtime activity (but it can be if you want). The idea is that you will have scenes for these as well as for the more regular super-hero cases.

At the start of the campaign, the PCs will have nothing on Management, not even its name. They can start their investigation by the evidence that incriminated them. Using their new contacts, they can get their hands on videos, documents etc. and analyze them or have "friendly" specialists take a look at them.

These can reveal names of other specialists - the people Management employed to fabricate the evidence against the PCs. These professionals then will lead the characters to a front company commanded by a low-level bureaucratic agent - a manager.

Depending on how they approach the manager, he (or she) might not realize who the PCs truly are. In this case, he will follow protocol and harass them through the police, lawyers or criminals. If the characters have proven to be powerful, he may import some metahuman muscle to take care of them. Discreetly, of course.

On the other hand, if the manager recognizes the PCs, he will send the information up and a supervisor will come to the city to address the situation. That's when Management starts considering recruiting the characters.

The supervisor will make sure the PCs can't get to her (or him), but you decide how foolproof are her preparations. Her mission is to make the characters' lives miserable, test their resistance to see if they have what it takes to work for Management. When they have reached the end of the line, she will offer them a job.

The PCs can outright refuse and try to force the supervisor to spill the beans on Management, but remember she has the support of the organization, which includes several guards, plenty of firepower, superhuman agents and - most important of all - the knowledge of who the characters really are. Management isn't above threatening the PCs' loved ones either.

If they accept, thinking it will be easier to reach the Management's top dogs this way, put them in the difficult spot of having to complete a couple of nasty missions without blowing their cover and abandoning their principles as heroes.

Eventually, the PCs may get a shot at the directors of the organization. They can just exact revenge or bring everything to light, but remind them that if they can't prove the evidence against them was false, they will still be seen as criminals.

Boiling down

So, the PCs in this campaign will always be divided between helping people without drawing attention to themselves and investigating Management. The dynamics change a bit after they contact the supervisor, but they still have to divide their attention - the difference now is that instead of looking for clues, they have to complete missions.

During the campaign, the characters might be more or less successful in keeping a low profile and that may lead them to cross paths with super-heroes, criminals, police officers and normal people, garnering them new allies and enemies.

The end of the campaign might see the PCs taking down Management and regaining their lives. Or realizing there is a bigger bad that they will now have to fight. Maybe Management was actually a force for good, preventing greater evil from being committed.

Some Fall Masks seeds

These seeds are about the case side of the campaign, since the investigation angle should be tailored by you and inserted in the adventures as you wish.

Night of the Possessed Nerd: One of the contacts asks the PCs to help a friend of his mother's. She is worried her son, David, may be mixed in something sinister, like drugs! His behavior changed radically two weeks ago - usually a timid, introverted boy, David is now outgoing, talks about strange things she can't understand, and has an ever-increasing group of friends. David collects super-hero memorabilia and visited the site of an old battle on the outskirts of the city. There he found the Crown of Izoquah The Many-Limbered, an extradimensional monstrosity that was worshipped during your Hyborian-equivalent age. The boy was possessed by Sumaquotach, Izoquah's high priest, who is trying to rebuild his god's cult. The Sumaquotach-possessed David has controlled the boy's friends and is now expanding his power base by hitting the nightclubs. When the high priest has collected enough people, he will sacrifice them to open a portal and bring Izoquah to Earth. So far, Sumaquotach has managed to stay under the mystical community's radar. How can the PCs stop the high priest and save David and the others? Also, how can they do that without alerting the local mystical super-heroes?

Lobo against the Ninjas: Jorge "Lobo" Ruiz is the leader of a local gang, the Rojos, that operates in the Latino neighborhood. As gangs go, the Rojos are pretty mild, dealing mostly in smuggling, car jacking and some gun running. The problem is the Yakuza moved in and tried to get Lobo and his crew out of the way. They fought back and now the Japanese have brought out the big guns in the form of ninjas -- lots and lots of them (mooks and bosses). Having heard about the characters, Lobo asks for their help, highlighting that the Yakuza, besides changing the power balance of the criminal scene, will crack down hard on his neighborhood, i.e., his gang is the lesser of two evils. Do the PCs help? Is it better to do nothing and let them kill each other? Can they interfere and take both the Rojos and the Yakuza out?

New Supers on the Block: A new superteam has appeared in the city, the Protecteens. These heroes are young, brash and out to make a name for themselves. In order to do so, they look down from their ecological niche and tackle regular crime. In the week following their appearance, the city's underworld is put through the wringer. It is possible that some of the PCs' contacts come to them to solve this situation. Whatever they do, a few days later the Protecteens end up hearing about the characters and confront them. Despite their gung-ho attitude, the Protecteens work within the standard super-hero operational protocol. They won't arrest the PCs unless they catch them doing something illegal, but they are very suspicious of the characters and from them on will keep an eye on them. Can the PCs keep on helping people with the Protecteens breathing down their neck? What about conducting their investigation on Management? How do they convince the young heroes they are normal people minding their own business?

The Beast Unleashed: The Beast has escaped from confinement and is hell-bent on revenge against Management. But first, he will have a little chat with the posers who have taken credit for his work. Depending on when in the campaign you run this seed, Management itself might be the one who warns the PCs about this. Containing the Beast might be the first (or later) mission the characters have to perform for their new employer. If the PCs haven't contacted the supervisor yet, they will be surprised by the Beast's arrival. How did he found the PCs? Well, whoever helped him escape gave the information, which adds yet another mystery for the characters to investigate. The Beast's sojourn in supersolitaire taught him that he's not all-powerful. That's why he didn't fly to campaign city leaving collapsed buildings and dismembered bodies in his wake. He's being discreet. To the PCs' surprise, he doesn't want to beat them into a pulp, he wants their help in getting back at Management. Will the PCs help him? Can they afford to say no to someone so powerful? And even if they can take him, a battle of this proportion will blow their cover. Should they agree and then deliver the Beast into Management's hands? Can they pump him for information before that?

Inspiration

Here are some sources of inspiration for this campaign.

Burn Notice: Obviously, the TV show I based this installment on is a safe bet as a source of inspiration. Besides ideas for the case and investigation sides of the campaign, you'll find lots of characters to serve as contacts and to people the adventures, like Sam and Fiona, Michael's friends, and Barry, the money launderer.

Heroes: The premise of this now-cancelled TV show is not the same, but some of the themes are. You have superpowered people trying to keep their abilities a secret while helping people. Plus: the Company can help you model your version of Management.

Misfits: A British TV show about teenagers who gain superpowers after being hit by lightning. This series is great and you should watch it just because of that. As a bonus, it's a good source of street-level metahuman-related shenanigans.

Sleeper: After Burn Notice, this is the main source of inspiration for this campaign. A 24-issue comic book series (plus one special) by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips set in the Wildstorm universe, it describes the travails of Holden Carver, an International Operations covert agent that infiltrates an organization much like Management led by the superintelligent villain TAO. Not only is TAO an interesting option for leading Management, he is also a good choice for the bigger bad suggested at the end of the Management section. But even if you doesn't use him, Sleeper is very valuable for modeling the part of the campaign where the PCs work for Management

I hope you liked it. Feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum. If you ever run this, let me know too.