Disadvantage: Hunted, Rogues' Gallery?

[FenrisUlf]

How should I construct a 'Rogue's Gallery' Hunted? I'm thinking of As Powerful (though some individual members might be More or Less Powerful), Harshly Punish, 11-?

And how many villains should a good RG use? I'm thinking 6-8 at most, and they should cover the various archetypes, and range from direct threats to villains the hero has to outsmart or defeat by means other than a punch to the face.

Any help will be vastly appreciated.

[Lord Fyre]

How should I construct a 'Rogue's Gallery' Hunted? I'm thinking of As Powerful (though some individual members might be More or Less Powerful), Harshly Punish, 11-?

And how many villains should a good RG use? I'm thinking 6-8 at most, and they should cover the various archetypes, and range from direct threats to villains the hero has to outsmart or defeat by means other than a punch to the face.

Any help will be vastly appreciated.

I might still recommend an 8- roll. It is really a matter of how much spotlight time the disadvantage will have. And 8- is about ¼ of the time, but 11- is about ½ of the time.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

Unless all the pc's have the same rogues gallery it'll be pretty hard to fit all their Hunteds in if they're 11-. I dislike non-limiting Disads and I know that there's no way I'm including any single pc's Hunted in 55% of my scenarios so I usually disallow any Hunted over 8- unless it's a major plot point and it's hunting the whole group.

[assault]

There is always the Legion of Doom approach, which more or less combines the rogues' galleries of several heroes.

Essentially, any particular plot would be fronted up by whatever villains are rolled up, with the rest of the Legion off-camera.

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Obviously rogues' galleries work a bit differently for members of a superhero team than for a solo character. In the former case it is necessary to work out how they interact. The following mainly applies to solo characters:

When assessing how many villains should be in a rogues' gallery, I look at how often I want a particular villain to appear. Some should probably appear more often than others. For example, using twelve adventures as roughly equivalent to a years' worth of comics, you could work out roughly how frequently you would expect Lex Luthor, the Joker or Doctor Doom to show up. Then do the same for Brainiac, Catwoman or Namor. Keep going until you have a pattern of appearances that works for you.

Don't forget to allow for one-shot opponents. These are the opponents you use when the regulars don't appear, that is, when you don't make the Hunting roll.

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Obviously, of course, Hunted frequencies are guidelines rather than strict rules, but I personally prefer to stay close to the guidelines.

[joegottman]

When judging whether or not they're "more powerful" you should consider how much they cooperate with each other as well as the point total. If they occasionally team up, or even just share information about their common enemy (namely you), you might want to move them up one level in power.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

........... that is, when you don't make the Hunting roll.


It's a subset of 'Survival', unless you bought it as a PS or KS.


Hey, I'm just trying to get my post count up and Blue didn't reply to this one.

[assault]

It's a subset of 'Survival', unless you bought it as a PS or KS.

:nya:

[wylodmayer]

Should they be counted as "As Powerful," or "More Powerful," even if they are all individually on his level and don't cooperate?

I ask because there's a difference between one guy who is built on about the hero's level, and six to eight guys that "cover all the archetypes" built on the hero's level. The latter represent a much wider range of challenges, even if they don't gang up, and demand more, collectively, from the hero in terms of resourcefulness and ability.

Plus, there's the fact that beating the Hunter only helps a little - there's five to seven more of them out there!

I'd say "More Powerful," even if they don't work together.

[jkwleisemann]

Depends - what's the power level of the portion of his Gallery that typically confronts him?

If it's one guy, who's as powerful... as powerful. Sure, beating him doesn't help as much, but any decent hunted can stage a jailbreak with GM Fiat.

If, on the other hand, your Rogue's Gallery forms up into the Fiendish Five and comes after you as a group with some regularity... well, then More Powerful, because your proverbial goose (or would that be Duck?) is cooked unless you're *real* good.

[wylodmayer]

Well, I certainly agree with that, jk, but my point was that I think perhaps a "more pow" label is warranted even if they don't team up, simply because an array of villains can present, even individually, a wider range of threats and challenges to a PC, calling for more resourcefulness on his part.

I'm not sure that argument carries forward, though. Hm. Thoughts?

[Shaft]

I tend to make it "As Powerful. appears on 8-" in my games, with the Understanding that on average, a single member is about equal, but from time to time they may team up. I also make it clear that on average it will be a lone villain appearing, but that the villains may cooperate as my story requires it. But when they cooperate, that's a storyline in itself, not a random act.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

If you have a Rogues Gallery of Villains as a Hunted, they will inevitably team up sometimes. After all, the player is often hanging around with a group of guys, and even dumb villains don't want to fight Thor on their own when they're just Hunting Hawkeye.

[Kevin Schultz]

I'd say that a group of individuals who are As Powerful, but cover a wide array of abilities, would still be considered only As Powerful if they come at you solo.

The reason for this is that villains are pro-active: they're the ones doing the crimes, and the heroes go out and stop them. Thus, they're already optimizing their environements for their own powers and agendas. Flexability and breadth of power is an advantage only when you don't know what's going to happen in a situation, so you bring as much of a toolkit along as possible. But the villian already knows what's going to happen: they're going to rob a bank, or kidnap the mayor, or whatever. Further, in any given case, the villian isn't bringing the toolkit of multiple allies along - they're just brining their own powers.

Thus, while the stories for different villians will be different, they'll still be at the same challenge level for the player: the fact that there are multiple villains doesn't let them stack their powers, as they don't cooperate.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

The reason for this is that villains are pro-active: they're the ones doing the crimes, and the heroes go out and stop them.

from Wikipedia, about 'proactive'

the word has come to mean "to act before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis" vs. after the fact. It is frequently misused to mean simply "active" the opposite of passive.

I think you mean that the villains are active i.e. they go out and do things. Now it is sort of right to say that supers running a preemptive strike to stop the villains from doing stuff are being proactive, but in reality even that is just being active. Proactive = active the same way that inflammable = flammable. Take a proactive step to a better life, stop using the long version of the word.

Oh, uh, Rogues Gallery. She never really seemed interested in art in the Xmen so I doubt she has enough savvy to put a whole gallery together.