Really terrible villains.

[GCMorris]

I know I've asked a lot of questions about making really deadly foes but now I'm thinking about making some lighter, fun villains to make things slightly comical every now and then.

 

I'm working on an alien/extradimensional race out to conquer the

[TheDarkness]

I will sometimes, when trying to work on something comedic, keep in mind the old adage on the link between comedy and tragedy. I look at what I would do if this were tragic, and then find what's funny in that as well.

 

Looking at your aliens. I might ask why they need to conquer. Why do they suck at passing? Why the 1930s spy as the go to display, is there something about that type character that they admire, or is it something so baffling to them that they are trying to hide behind what they don't understand about us?

 

As for causing trouble for the characters, the idea that comes to my mind is that the trouble does not have to be so much a fight for them against flat alien mooks.

 

Perhaps the trouble is that they are so bad at it that, first of all, their plans are no threat whatsoever, and actually put the aliens themselves in danger.

 

And the heroes are more just trying to prevent a chain of events that will cause these aliens' destruction.

 

Another thought is that, to a brilliant detective, the incidents the aliens might cause might be so nonsensical as to appear to be a potentially brilliant plan by some unknown mastermind.

 

Just thoughts.

[steriaca]

Gweenies?

 

Anyways, there powers should not be a joke. The joke should be them misunderstanding human culture.

 

For example, they might think that this planet, much like there planet, is runned as a one world dictatorship. And they don't understand fiction and advertising, as such things almost don't exist on there world. So a scouting party lands and leaves. Then they come back to attack all the McDonald's on the planet, thinking that Ronald McDonald is this planet's dictator.

[BoloOfEarth]

The 1930s secret agent look and dialogue could be due to early radio and TV broadcasts that only just reached their planet recently, so that's what the aliens used to "adapt" to our society.  Or the first scouting party landed back in the 1930s / 1940s, they mistook movies as documentaries, and the invasion force has just now reached us.

 

Given that premise, I'd have one quirk being background music being played at dramatic moments.  ("Dun, dun, DUNNNN!")  They could also be an entire race of idiots (see Mom and Dad Save the World for the humor of this - the Light Grenade alone is worth the price of admission).

 

Also, if they intercepted late 1930s / early 1940s radio and early TV broadcasts, they might have modeled themselves after the Nazis (figuring they'd be the dominant government by the time the aliens arrived on Earth).  Alternately, they could go the Yellow Peril route.

 

Being a problem for the hero team is easy enough, if the aliens themselves are physically tough.  Imagine, for example, if they were Kryptonians.

[massey]

I'd say do something that you and your group actually find funny.  Don't do something that people think is supposed to be funny.  If you can't do a Humphrey Bogart impression, don't have aliens who sound like him.  And actually I think that that joke would be pretty old anyway.

 

Perhaps you should drag out the joke.  Make them appear mysterious and dangerous at first, but it turns out they've completely misunderstood something about Earth culture.  You could go the Galaxy Quest route.  The aliens are trying to kill off the cast of Star Trek.  Since most of the cast from the original Star Trek series are already dead (and people might figure out a Galaxy Quest reference that obvious), have them go after LeVar Burton or somebody like that.  Their ship shows up in LA and hovers over his house before blowing it up, Independence Day style.  I'm not sure where he lives, but it's probably funnier if its in a fairly normal neighborhood.  The media doesn't realize whose house was at the center of the blast (maybe have it take out a small block), and they're not sure why these guys are blowing up random groups of houses in LA.  The ships are too fast and too tough for the players to stop physically.  They appear to be following no clear pattern (I mean who really knows where Michael Dorn lives now?).  Eventually, the players figure it out.  Maybe you drop a hint, have them sift through the rubble of Brent Spiner's house and they find a thousand copies of "Old Yellow Eyes Is Back" in his basement.  And they're like "who could possibly have lived here?"  Once the players have realized what the aliens are doing, they have to find a way to drive them off.  The aliens have already blasted through the casts of TNG, Voyager, and DS9.  The players' last hope is to go find Shatner, and convince him to don the uniform again.  Then you broadcast from an old TV station that never upgraded to a digital signal, and have him threaten their world with annihilation, Corbomite Maneuver style.  The aliens will flee in terror.  But with something like that you really have to drag out the joke.

 

Again, only do it if people are going to really find it funny.  Games where you're informed that the situation is funny usually don't work right.

[TheQuestionMan]

Take your favorite Comedic SciFi Aliens

Ship wrecked - Trying to go home.

 

Alien artifacts - That grant Alien powers until their rightful owners come reclaim them.

 

Alien abductions - Illegal experimention, creation of Alien spies/scouts, etc...

 

More tropes later.

 

 

QM.

[Greywind]

Ship wrecked - Trying to go home.

 

 

Gelligun's Planet

[whitekeys]

Gweenies?

 

Anyways, there powers should not be a joke. The joke should be them misunderstanding human culture.

 

For example, they might think that this planet, much like there planet, is runned as a one world dictatorship. And they don't understand fiction and advertising, as such things almost don't exist on there world. So a scouting party lands and leaves. Then they come back to attack all the McDonald's on the planet, thinking that Ronald McDonald is this planet's dictator.

What the joke "should" be, is whatever the OP wants it to be. We're here to give helpful advice, not convert people to our own way of thinking.

 

That being said, don't forget zoot suits! The 1930's MUST have zoot suits.

 

They could be led by someone who is smart, but the execution of plans goes horribly wrong based on a few, seemingly-minor misunderstandings. I think that's a pretty common trope. Incompetent cronies.

 

They could be doing something which they themselves believe to be secondary to their attempt to conquer and not particularly harmful to the world, but for humans would be terrible or devastating. For example, capturing humans and making them do a range of awful things. So, all the while they're attempting to conquer the world by buying up all the stuffed animals and attempting to mind control people with them (Charm, 6-), but in the background, they've kidnapped children and are "sucking the fountain of youth" out of them in order to sustain their power source.

 

Maybe it becomes apparent that their techniques are useless on humans, but that they plan to move onto another world where their abilities will be much more devastating. Now the PCs have to try and stop them tactfully because they are essentially an unarmed foe.

[Cassandra]

Third Rock from the Sun comes to mind about Aliens trying to fit in. 

 

Spaced Invaders is another good movie with a group of Martians who hear the 50th anniversary broadcast of Orsen Wells' "War of the Worlds" and think the Martian Fleet is invading Earth, only to be mistaken for Children who are Trick or Treating.

[Nothere]

Cassandra is correct watch Spaced Invaders.

 

As for what your presenting the trouble is to not make it a one note joke. What you've presented breaks down into three catarogies of jokes.

 

The spy cover. Sure they've seen enough old movies to in general do the spy act, but they aren't good at it.

 

The man in a trenchcoat and fedora in a room of people in tshirts and shorts, holding a paper upside down looking through the eye holes cut in it, assuring everyone that they've seen no one suspicious fellow human. 

 

The alien says something very important in spy speak. But its in spy speak so no one understands what he means. And when he tries to explain in spy speak he confuses himself.

 

Their aliens what is this earth culture?

 

Confusing someone goofy as an important person. Attacking the rubber ball bin at the mall because rubber is a vital mineral.  

 

There aliens. Their planet dosent work like ours.

 

The big imposing alien turns out to be small and non threatening, or the cute little alien is a large monster are more visual gags. However the death ray causes humans to spasm like their breakdancing. The mind reading helmet makes they spout off love poetry. And the alien engineer will destroy the city after he recalibrates the ships weapons, once he cleans off the black sudge on his face and pus out the fire on his antenna from the last test firing.

 

 

 

"Agent Spy Agent Double Agent The chicken crows when the blue moon rides high."

 

"Yes Agent Commander."

 

"What does that mean?"

 

"The humans has a large picture of a moon on a nearby building. But do we catch it or kill it?"

 

"Agent Commander I have  found the human leader. See. In this broadcast Milton Swarts is declared world spokesman for miricale mops."

 

"Excellent the horse has built the stall. Agent Mad Scientist, I am about to threaten the humans again, have you found a threat to leave them shaking in their boots?":

 

"Yes  Agent Commander here. This is very important to them."

 

"Attention humans. Surrender your planet or we will capture all the glutens leaving no more glutens free. You have until the shadow falls on the quiet stair."

[pinecone]

Well, I used a version of this...but the aliens were not funny, just their misunderstanding of Earth culture...

 

 

They are a race of Warriors, who decide leadership via regular ritual combats. Intercepting TV broadcasts, they believe the WWE is how the king of Terra is chosen, so the Imperator shows up to challenge for the belt...Heroes must intercede, and become champions.

[freakboy6117]

There is a British TV show from 2000 that features this exact premise The Strangerers. Written by Rob Grant one of the creators of red dwarf and starring Mark Williams(Arthur Weasley in Harry Potter) I only saw the pilot but the incident that stuck with me was them miss understanding the oil based economy and trying to pay for dinner with squirts of motor oil.

 

 

One concept from that show you could borrow is them not actually being villains but their attempts to blend into society actually making them stand out and it's other people trying to capture them for their alien tech (I think in the show they had a "Magic" brief case that was actually a star-trekesque replicator that could produce gold and perfect currency) who actually cause the damage. (think Vash the stampede from Trigun).

[wcw43921]

If you're looking for humorous alien invaders, you need not look much farther than Futurama.  The aliens may have strange reasons for coming to Earth (such as procuring "human horn") but they are not to be underestimated.  If the warriors of Omicron Persei 8 invade, you'll know you were invaded.

 

(A Futurama RPG would make for a pretty good campaign, I think.)

[freakboy6117]

Another thought the reason they dress like spies is they first came to earth during the 40s because passive probes detected atomic detonations and they didn't realize human fashions would change do fast.

[Badger]

If they intercepted recent broadcast.  They abduct Giorgio Tsoukalos of Ancient Aliens.

 

Even if they haven't, have him get abducted anyway.

[L. Marcus]

Please.

[TheDarkness]

If they intercepted recent broadcast.  They abduct Giorgio Tsoukalos of Ancient Aliens.

 

Even if they haven't, have him get abducted anyway.

And, ironically, he has no idea that aliens are behind it.

[freakboy6117]

Personal force fields and flash gordon ray guns would make your aliens a legitimate threat. They don't even need to be bad guys perse maybe they need to retrieve parts for there ship from a previous crash site.

 

Watch roswell new Mexico turn into a war zone as various intelligence and criminal organizations descend to get there hands on alien tech and 40s aliens V army as they try to infiltrate Area 51.

 

You could even just have them arrested for some minor crime like a dine and dash due to a cultural misunderstanding it's all good until the ray guns come out and now a small town is in the middle of war of the world's.

 

[i=https://dhs1n389ze6jv.cloudfront.net/img/product-main/71-05-00530_Grordborts_Pearce_004.jpg]https://dhs1n389ze6jv.cloudfront.net/img/product-main/71-05-00530_Grordborts_Pearce_004.jpg[/i]

[Nothere]

And don't forget the alien's lost spy tech. What do you mean you lost the pen that is really a 15 foot battle robot?