Parallel Timeline Badass Adaptations

With my group's Mutants And Masterminds hero universe, back in the early 90s, there was a mega-crossover that was basically a demonic invasion attempt (in other words, a rip-off of Marvel's Inferno crossover). Thanks to the efforts of a large number of heroes (and several villains), the invasion was foiled.

Except in this timeline. For various reasons, the "gates" were never closed, allowing a flood of demons and supernatural creatures to escape and go on a full-blown attack. 20 years later, the world basically looks a battlefield from The Terminator, except the surviving superheroes (and members of the Resistance) are fighting demons and supernatural creatures.

I'm just having trouble adapting our team for this alternate timeline. Some of the changes can be purely cosmetic (different attire, eyepatches/scars/cybernetics/etc.). With nonpowered heroes, it's simply a matter of shuffling Skills, Equipment and so on. But other heroes, it's hard to figure out. Suggestions/ideas?

(BTW, our team, in terms of power/influence, would be roughly on scale with the early 80s version of the Teen Titans in the regular hero timeline).

A lot of the fundamental differences are going to come from how your players roleplay their characters. Sit down with each of them and tell them, both individually and as a group, "okay, in this world, Captain Whatever lost his/her love interest/mentor and has been forced to work closely with this rival/villain. Let's figure out how that would make this character different from the way he/she developed in the other game."

Also, to drive home how deadly the consequences of this failure really were, see if one or two of your players would be willing to make new heroes of a comparable level to the rest of the party so you can have some of the existing protagonists killed off beforehand/in the course of this game.

Also, if your group is mature enough to handle a little betrayal, see if any of your players are willing to do a Face–Heel Turn. Once again, this can happen beforehand and you can use that character as an NPC, or you can set it up to happen during play and let the player him/herself enjoy roleplaying the fall.

edited 25th May '13 10:35:09 AM by darnpenguin

Well, with half the team, they'd been doing the hero thing for a few years before the timeline skewed (both versions). One of 'em is a "longtimer", who's been a hero since the mid-60s (the character's an Expy of the Midnighter).

With the others, one first started the hero biz about a year before the invasion (both timelines); the other characters' powers "sparked" in the mid-2000s (i.e., after the world's already changed quite a bit), so their personas would probably be different. Not drastically, mind you, but enough to be different (especially my character has a cybernetic arm and leg in this parallel world).