Story
The Millennium Projekt is the byproduct of countless hours spent on phone calls between Hodag RPG and Brainless Creations. An extrapolation of HYPER!HEROES OF THE NÜ-MILLENIUM!, a one page game by Hodag RPG, The Millennium Projekt takes shape from the co-creators' shared love of garbage media and TTRPGs. The game sets out to emulate the leather clad, melodramatic, and Nu-Metal blaring silver screen heroics of the early 2000's, before there was any assembling, gauntlets, or oversaturation. Players must navigate life, super hero-ing, and unfathomable power in three acts while being sure to still thwart the bad guy.
The game itself utilizes a point buy system for character creation and a unique dice pooling system for power use. The game is robust but refined in its character creation ability, letting players freely put to paper any idea that strikes them but creates a tapering up to unlocking their full potential. Further, the addition and leveling of powers creates not just larger dice to pool for confronting evil but also allows for synergistic abilities to unlock between players, allowing for even more extreme heroic displays at the table!
These super powers are then counter balanced by the need to maintain and attempt to improve their personal lives. Much like the heroes we adore on the pages and on the screens, your hero's life will be filled with chaos and personal challenges that a power simply cannot fix. Attending to these elements is essential to prevent personal ruin, but how can anybody find personal time when the world in constant peril?!
While The Millennium Projekt offers a robust approach to the powers that make you a hero, the true heart of the game is the way in which personal conflict enters into the hero's life. At the beginning of each session players at the table make two rolls to determine their current crisis, whether it is Familial, Obligational, or Personal, and it's level of impact on their ability to perform super heroics. The level of severity of these issues go from: Simmering, to Stewing, and when left unresolved, Boiling Over. In this process, issues left unattended continue to get worse and force the player to handle the situation more directly or begin to dissipate or resolve when met early and staved off.
Another difficult aspect of super hero life The Millennium Projekt captures is how a hero is perceived by the public. Using a four quadrant compass, players will begin some where between being Loved or Hated and Feared or Revered. The initial location of a player is born from the way in which their powers developed, but through good deeds they can see themselves progress and garner adoration from the public. Conversely, failure to act or letting super villains go unbeaten will negatively impact the views of the populous they wish to protect.
Games can be played in two different ways, either in traditional sequential play as is common for most RPGs or players can utilize the Cinematic style of play. Contained in the game are rules and tips to help Game Masters to model single session games after the very movies which gave inspiration to the The Millennium Projekt. These cinematic sessions make for great introductions to the game and all the twists and turns which it contains. In sequential style play, players can watch their hero's powers grow to Earth shattering levels and become cosmic-level titans.
The world around you is very much alive in The Millennium Projekt. it is your great responsibility to make sure you manage your life, your tremendous powers, and public opinion in order to reach your pinnacle and become the protector the city desperately deserves.
