Wwycd: Doom!!!!

[Crackerjacker]

Blockbuster the Boy Behemoth: "Um...Mr.Destroyer, how did you get into my house?"

[Powerhouse]

The Silver Knights are the JLA/Avengers of the current generation of their world and would be the team to come to. They also have had several nasty encounters with the not-so good Doctor, including one that a team member dead and a few others in the hospital. Oh yeah, Lady Silver used a black magic spell to lobotomize Dr. D as well during that fight: needless to say, the team is not on good terms.

Lady Silver would immediately call the entire team to stand down but be ready. She'd savvy to realize that if Dr. Destroyer wants to talk, they should listen. If he just wanted to attack, he would have done so already. In addition (although not stated in the original post), she knows that DD is going to have a ton of Destroids ready to swoop in for a fight. This would be a very bloody battle and she'd rather avoid that for the moment.

After hearing Destroyer out, she'd be very skeptical since she trusts him as far as she can martial throw him. While she thinks the basics are truthful (if only because Destroyer thinks too highly of himself to feign weakness), there's no doubt something else he's not saying even if it's only that he intends to use the Knights as cannon fodder (although that's a given).

In the end, her call would be for a deal: surrender to us with the information and we'll deal with it. YOU'RE going to jail. It would probably lead to a huge slugfest although he might have the information ready and then escape through a method already planned out: he has what he wants at this point.

The rest of the team would be similar and few would want to work willingly with him given the personal history, the attack on Detroit, and his complete treachery. Tyr, Nova, Sentinel, and Star Knight would all want to arrest him on the spot certainly.

After everything works itself out, next would be a call to the UN to let them know the story and prepare for a possible military/nuclear strike after the Knights hit the base for a recon. Although the team would want to rescue survivors, no one working at a DD base is probably going to be innocent. Reserves would also be called in for added firepower: anything powerful enough to compel Destroyer to ask for help is going to take a lot of firepower although the team would be careful to keep themselves safe in case this is DD trying to gather the team in a known place to nuke them himself.

Edit: if this is a breach from hell, it's possible that Lady Silver (a powerful mystic) already knows or at least something feels really wrong. It would be easy for her to confirm that SOMETHING is screwed up.

[incrdbil]

"That robot had all of my powers. And he beat it like a red handed stepchild.

What would you do??????

Revel in the chance to correct Destroyer. "You mean 'a red-headed' stepchild, don't you good Doctor?"

Then something along Iuz's plan of action.

[Citizen Keen]

Never speak to the GM again.

Amen to that.

[dbsousa]

Golden Eagle: "'Red headed Step-child?' 'Am I in?' You are not Doctor Destroyer. I don't even believe you are Bachelor's Degree Destroyer. You've had your fun, Yo-Yo, but I am not falling for another of your Pop Culture inspired Robot-filled capers. Now take off that Destroyer costume before the real Destroyer kills you for your insolence..."

Bouncer "Um, I bounce into things. Really hard. That's about it. I think maybe you are confusing me with Buster.."

Toreador teleports away before Dr. Destroyer can finish his speech, and calls The Arcanes, Good Guys Incorporated, UNTIL, and The East Coast Adventurer's Society, telling them that Dr. D is in his "headquarters", a dingy dorm room at NYU...

[gewing]

"Yeah, ok, um, I need a clean suit of power armor now. Uh, have you tried sending in the marines? One just might make it..."

I owe you rep. feel free to remind me.

[Haven Walkur]

Gamma Girl: She hears the would-be world-conqueror out without comment. Her only response is to narrow her eyes a little and shake her head as she watches the video footage. Then she turns and looks Dr. Destroyer directly in the eye, and says, very seriously, "We're in. Can't speak for all of the Legion, but some of the team'll be available." She grins quickly. "The Subs, too; they're fast-thinking and versatile. Let me hit Mission Monitor; I'll put the buzz out." And over her shoulder as she turns away, Gamma Girl says, "You're coming with us, right? We'll need you too."

Yes, she unhesitatingly turns her back on the villain. This nightmare situation is bigger than the enmity between Dr. Destroyer and the Legion of Superheroes, and they both know it. Attacking her would be stupid, something Destroyer is not. And besides, Gamma Girl can see what it's costing Destroyer to ask for help...he's not doing this lightly.

Assuming Destroyer answers in the affirmative -- yes, he's coming with them -- Gamma Girl uses the comm circuit in her Legion flight ring to raise whoever's on Mission Monitor duty back at Legion HQ. "This is Gamma Girl. Yeah, hi, Gim. Hit the recall, we've got major nasties popping up on Earth and we're gonna need the whole gang, whoever's reachable. Grab the Subs too. Yeah, I'll book back to HQ and brief everyone -- and I'm bringing an ally. Gamma Girl out." She turns to Destroyer and hold out a hand.

"Come on, ally, and hold on tight." She suppresses a grin. "We're gonna do a little rebound off Earth's polymer shield."

[Jeff T.]

Off-topic: I'm curious as to why so many folks seem to want to run screaming from this adventure?

Arch-enemy opens a gate that releases an evil more terrible than himself...and it is so terrible that he has to swallow his pride and ask YOU for help.

Unless you just despise DOOM the videogame for some reason, why is this so terrible a concept?

[Powerhouse]

Off-topic: I'm curious as to why so many folks seem to want to run screaming from this adventure?

Arch-enemy opens a gate that releases an evil more terrible than himself...and it is so terrible that he has to swallow his pride and ask YOU for help.

Unless you just despise DOOM the videogame for some reason, why is this so terrible a concept?

I think it's partly because it's Dr. Destroyer who is asking for help.

1. It's pretty out of character for him to ask for help. His pride would be such that he would probably come up with something rather than ask for help although it's not outside of the realm of possibility.

2. This is the guy who leveled Detroit, killed a ton of supers, lacks any redeeming qualities, and is known to have no sense of honor whatsoever. It becomes rather impossible to work with him since there can be no common ground or trust.

3. Anything powerful enough to defeat a Dr. Destroyer duplicate with all of his powers is probably outside of the PC's power levels. It's like... why are you asking US? Of course that depends on power levels of the PC's and how Dr. D is portrayed.

If the character had been someone like Dr. Doom, things might be a little different since he is known to be honorable (as it suits him and it depends on who he gives his word to although he would be unlikely to violate the letter of his word. The spirit...) and has some sense of benevolence given how he rules his people with an iron yet fair gauntlet.

As a side note, DD would NEVER say "red handed/headed stepchild." It could have been presented slightly different.

[McCoy]

Off-topic: I'm curious as to why so many folks seem to want to run screaming from this adventure?

Probably the same reason we, no our characters, the us in Real Life, don't attempt to track down and capture Osama bin Laden. We've calculated the probably of sucess, and it is not encouraging.

My character Dolphin is ridiculously unbalanced toward defense, He's the only character I've ever seen with a hardened power defense and a double hardened mental drefense. That plus regeneration from the dead is why he is confident that he will not be transformed. The rest believe they are going to their death and worse, and only Millennium is confident that it will all turn out all right (no matter how may lifetimes he has to spend making it turn out all right).

[Trebuchet]

Off-topic: I'm curious as to why so many folks seem to want to run screaming from this adventure?

Arch-enemy opens a gate that releases an evil more terrible than himself...and it is so terrible that he has to swallow his pride and ask YOU for help.

Unless you just despise DOOM the videogame for some reason, why is this so terrible a concept?

What's the point of waxing lyrical about something you can't possibly win? Who wants to fantasize about their character's pointless (and totally inevitable) death? "How will your street-level Dark Champions character defeat Galactus?" Um, he won't.

These kinds of impossible-to-win scenarios are pointless as WWYCD, and would be (in this particular instance) evidence of a bad GM.

[McCoy]

I've never played the video game. Just saw the movie. Feel better about my character's chances of survival now.

First, I was expecting something like The Thing (John Carpenter version) where blunt force trama, poking holes in them, or choping pieces off were inconviences to the opponents, but they had to be damaged below the celluar level to kill them. These seem to operate more like Night of the Living Dead, kill them once, they rise transformed, kill them twice, they stay down.

Second, Dolphin and Snow Leopard, and possibly Millennium, have a natural analog to the C-24 factor, and possibly would be immune from the transformation.

Third, Millennium and Dolphin would not be selected for transformation (Snow Leopard and Cheeta defintiely would, Iron Will's a tossup).

So I think this has gone from certain death to better than a one-in-a-million chance of survival.

To quote Shrub, "Bring it on!"

[Duke Bushido]

Iron Max: I've got nothing to offer you in terms of a direct assault, and you know it. Why come to me? What makes you think that there's anything I can do to help with this?

Armorine: How did this come about? Will you submit to a mind-scan to verify the truth of your claims?

Mark 2: I'm in; dead or victorious, it can't get worse. What's the plan?

[dbsousa]

Off-topic: I'm curious as to why so many folks seem to want to run screaming from this adventure?

Arch-enemy opens a gate that releases an evil more terrible than himself...and it is so terrible that he has to swallow his pride and ask YOU for help.

Unless you just despise DOOM the videogame for some reason, why is this so terrible a concept?

I think that this scenario is "out of character" for Dr. Destroyer, which would have any character I played looking for the double-cross or the deception. An outright declaration by Dr. D that we are his superior in any respect, or could accomplish anything that he could not, can't be trusted...

[Publius]

I didn't read this as an out-of-character situation (we use whatever take we want for the NPCs anyway, or at least I do, the stuff in the books is a guideline not a straightjacket) nor did I see it as a no-win situation. This is probably because I do not use the Champs Universe and have maybe looked at Destroyers stats once. I understand what many are saying about his internal motivations, but I more or less saw the situation as:

Big Bad Dude in your campaign attempts to get you to help him defeat an evil larger than even he can handle. Do you help him despite the baggage that you have against him and the fact that he will also benefit from the saving of the world along with everyone else?

Sounds like standard superhero fare to me. In the end, the resistance is about the fact that it is Doc Destroyer (some of you have said this explicitly) and I don't have that gut negative reaction. Maybe this is because I do not use the established CHampions setting but develop my own. I guess I also prefer lower powered capaigns as a rule, my Big Bad isn't a 1000+ point Munchkin (nevertheless a very in genre Munchkin) that is largely a plot mover. If I ever decide to write a WWYCD I guess I'll have to keep this sensitivity to some stock characters in mind.

oh, and Jack Malleus would help (Big Bad Dude - BBD) such as he can (he is from a lower powered campaign), looking for ways to betray BBD to the greater evil if it is (a) something he can do wihtout the others finding out and (b) will not inhibit the destruction of said greater evil. "Making promises to people that don't keep theirs is like whizzin' in a windtunnel boy. There's bound to be a mess you already knew was gonna happen, so the best option is 'don't'." In his mind, BBD will be doing the same anyway, and the shark with the biggest fin wins.