So you really, really hate this other hero team...

[assault]

The question is: whether you support the Justice Warriors or the Power Brotherhood, the other team are awful.

 

How do you represent this? Are they Rivals, or Hunteds?

Either way, the (S)JWs and the Power Bros have an ideological difference that could well result in violence.

Keep the politics nice, obviously.

[Ninja-Bear]

I thought Rivalry was the way to represent that. And by trying to outdo one another, it could result in physical conflict.

[assault]

Oh, and obviously neither like the Scarecrow and his Strawmen. However, they have different ideas of how to deal with them.

[Hermit]

I agree with Ninja Bear, sounds like Rivalry would do it.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Possibly watched as well: either team constantly on the lookout for reasons to "cancel" the other

[Asperion]

I would wonder how strong the problems are and how we feel about them.  I have always seen Rivalry as being when two individuals or groups attempt to outdo each other in social situations but it never gets to the point of actual violence.  Hunted though  is when two individuals or groups are attempting to find and destroy the other. This will usually result in violence in some form. 

[Opal]

8 hours ago, assault said:

How do you represent this? Are they Rivals, or Hunteds?

If they both want to continue claiming to be heroes, Rivals, surely.  

 

If one can get the other labeled villains, upgrade to Hunteds.

 

 

(BTW, I can't help but picture the Justice Warriors as a majority-female(-bodied) band of very young, idealistic, rainbow-and-unicorn utopian environmentalist democratic-socialist queer millennial snowflake types, and the Power Brotherhood as a collection of less young, hyper-masculine (but maybe a couple on the DL) Luke Cage clones engaging in more pragmatic Black Panthers style direct action.  I'm sure that's not what you had in mind, I just saw 'Power Brotherhood' and went straight to Power Man, since I actually read Power Man & Iron Fist titles when I was 11 - I think that was before the Hero for Hire thing, so "Power Man" actually stuck with me.)

[Tjack]

   I think the prime question is “Why do you hate them?”.  
   When I read the name Power Brotherhood I flashed on a group of MAGA hat wearing “white lives matter” types who formed into a heroic team.  Stopping bank robberies, putting out fires at orphanages, getting cats out of trees and then grabbing the news team microphones and spouting the kind of borderline racist crap that got the previous guy elected. 
   You and your team investigate them up one side and down the other, absolutely certain that they must be behind all these incidents....but they’re not.  They are the most infuriating thing of all.  People you hate doing things you like.

   Here’s a question to toss at your players. “Do you turn down useful help, because you don’t like who’s giving it” 

[Greywind]

Buy officially sanctioned t-shirts, caps, and other paraphernalia of the team you support naturally.

4 minutes ago, Tjack said:

   Here’s a question to toss at your players. “Do you turn down useful help, because you don’t like who’s giving it” 

 

According to Wolverine, if you're drowning, it does matter who is throwing you the rope.

[Tjack]

1 hour ago, Greywind said:

Buy officially sanctioned t-shirts, caps, and other paraphernalia of the team you support naturally.

 

According to Wolverine, if you're drowning, it does matter who is throwing you the rope.

   
     Granted, but there’s also “cutting off your nose to spite your face”. 
It’s one of those “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover”, “Clothes make the man” kind of deals.  Or “Haste makes waste” but “Strike while the iron is hot”.

[Opal]

10 hours ago, Tjack said:

...Stopping bank robberies, putting out fires at orphanages, getting cats out of trees ...
   You and your team investigate them up one side and down the other, absolutely certain that they must be behind all these incidents....but they’re not.  They are the most infuriating thing of all.  People you hate doing things you like.

It's actually been done in comics more than a few times, hasn't it?  The villain fake-reforming and doing good for a while just to set up his next scheme?  

[Tjack]

52 minutes ago, Opal said:

It's actually been done in comics more than a few times, hasn't it?  The villain fake-reforming and doing good for a while just to set up his next scheme?  

That’s why it’ll be the first thing the PC’s will think of.  Mwah-Ha-Ha! (Low evil chuckle)  After a while, when they don’t find anything, you’ll see how their paranoia will run rampant.  

[Opal]

19 minutes ago, Tjack said:

That’s why it’ll be the first thing the PC’s will think of.  Mwah-Ha-Ha! (Low evil chuckle)  After a while, when they don’t find anything, you’ll see how their paranoia will run rampant.  

I suppose you could offer them increasingly questionable, unethical, and finally illegal, ways to spy on their rivals, until they finally uncover that their rivals  have done something unethical or illegal:  spying on them in the same way...

 

Also, at some point, you have to put them in some situation where they have to work together or fail.  Some mega-villain or evil organization or something taking advantage of the division between them.

[Tjack]

23 minutes ago, Opal said:

I suppose you could offer them increasingly questionable, unethical, and finally illegal, ways to spy on their rivals, until they finally uncover that their rivals  have done something unethical or illegal:  spying on them in the same way...

 

Also, at some point, you have to put them in some situation where they have to work together or fail.  Some mega-villain or evil organization or something taking advantage of the division between them.

    That is a way to go, but the frustration factor will be doubled if the Brotherhood is actually innocent of the charges that the PC’s are convinced of.  At some point the “Heroes” have to come face to face with the idea that they are the ones behaving illegally/immorally while the ones who espouse ideas that are hateful are innocent. 
   The whole point I was trying to make with this is. Which one is worse?  A good man who does something evil, or an evil man who does something good.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The villain fake-reforming and doing good for a while just to set up his next scheme?  

 

I don't want to do any spoilers, but that was the entire concept of the Thunderbolts: an entire team of villains pretending to be a new hero team.  But... in the doing of heroic deeds and being a hero some of them changed their ways for real.

[Opal]

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

Which one is worse?  A good man who does something evil, or an evil man who does something good.

In the fake-reformed villain trope the answer is obvious, since the good being done is just to set up greater evil, and the evil being done by the heroes the minimum possible to try to expose them.

 

But in the rival hero teams posited by the OP, there's just good people, doing good, but unwilling to accept that because of their prejudices against eachother.

 

Oh, and on the topic of conflicting old saws:

 

All that is required for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.

 

More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way.

 

 

[Tjack]

   In the version I gave the team of jerks are NOT doing anything illegal or even necessarily wrong. They just have personal views the PC’s find abhorrent.  (As do I personally.)
   What makes this an interesting role playing opportunity is to what ends will the PC’s go to try and prove something that does not exist.  Will they justify actions they themselves would call evil in others to chase a mirage?

  Think of this as a dark mirror of the events that happened at the Capitol.  People who thought themselves good doing reprehensible acts.

[Opal]

Here's another old saw:

 

Choose your enemies wisely, for it is they you will come most to resemble.

 

[Greywind]

Nothing is so good that it can't do some evil.

Nothing is so evil that it can't do some good.

[Ninja-Bear]

12 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Possibly watched as well: either team constantly on the lookout for reasons to "cancel" the other

That’s good too.

8 hours ago, Tjack said:

   I think the prime question is “Why do you hate them?”.  
   When I read the name Power Brotherhood I flashed on a group of MAGA hat wearing “white lives matter” types who formed into a heroic team.  Stopping bank robberies, putting out fires at orphanages, getting cats out of trees and then grabbing the news team microphones and spouting the kind of borderline racist crap that got the previous guy elected. 
   You and your team investigate them up one side and down the other, absolutely certain that they must be behind all these incidents....but they’re not.  They are the most infuriating thing of all.  People you hate doing things you like.

   Here’s a question to toss at your players. “Do you turn down useful help, because you don’t like who’s giving it” 

Only the media telling you (by misquoting the former president) it was almost racist. Barbie Binkers did her job well! 

[Tjack]

9 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

That’s good too.

Only the media telling you (by misquoting the former president) it was almost racist. Barbie Binkers did her job well! 

    In the interest of keeping peace on the board, let me say that I will withdraw my comment about the previous President and simply state that the idea of a group of Paranormals who espouse beliefs the PC’s completely disagree with is still a valid role play opportunity for a rivalry.

[BoloOfEarth]

Yes, please keep real-world politics out of this.  

 

In my new Champions campaign, the heroes are based in San Francisco.  And one of the first news items concerned a hero team (Angel Force) forming in Los Angeles.  The PC team (Golden Gate Guardians) disliked Angel Force immediately simply because the NPC team formed before them.  I had planned to make Angel Force holier-than-thou, dismissive of the Guardians, too tough on criminals (taking the law into their own hands), probably start infringing on the PC team's turf, but haven't really needed to yet.  There's no Rivarly on any character sheets, or Watched, just plain old roleplaying.

 

Now, if the PC team wanted to build, say, a base or team vehicle, and wanted to add Rivalry: Angel Force or Watched by Angel Force as a team-wide Complication, I think I'd be okay with that.  

[Ockham's Spoon]

I see this as the perfect opportunity for good role-playing and character growth.  You get the Rainbow Warriors fighting along side the Christian Crusaders to take on Dr. Mega-Villain.  Some of the interactions is going to be snarky of course (which are fun in their own right), but some of the PCs and NPCs might learn something from each other.  How does that affect the individual and group dynamics?   How will they treat each other when it comes down to the wire?  Some characters are going to become more hard-line in their views, some will come to appreciate their comrades-in-arms even if they don't see eye-to-eye on everything.  And if some of the characters change their viewpoints, make new friends possibly at the cost of old ones, it is a good way to keep the campaign from getting stale.

[assault]

On 6/23/2021 at 3:59 AM, Opal said:

Power Brotherhood as a collection of less young, hyper-masculine (but maybe a couple on the DL) Luke Cage clones engaging in more pragmatic Black Panthers style direct action.  

 

Not at all what I had in mind, of course, but interesting.

 

I would have folded characters like that into the (less rainbow unicorn) Justice Warriors, but it raises an interesting point about differences of opinion within the teams.

 

Since different members of the teams will usually have different disads/complications, it's possible that both Rivalry and Hunted/Watched could appear.

[Opal]

On 6/23/2021 at 3:58 PM, assault said:

 

Not at all what I had in mind, of course, but interesting.

 

I would have folded characters like that into the (less rainbow unicorn) Justice Warriors, but it raises an interesting point about differences of opinion within the teams.

Oh of course, your intent was clear.  It's just what the name immediately suggested to me, because of my first impression being of Power Man (and yes, I even liked the costume they made fun of in the Luke Cage TV show - at the time, I plead the 70s) ....

 

...and I suspect it's hard to come up with an unironically heroic-sounding name for what you had in mind, anyway...

 

...though, it just occurred to me: Justice Warriors could be exemplars of "Warrior-style Policing" given super soldier serum or something.

 

On 6/23/2021 at 3:58 PM, assault said:

Since different members of the teams will usually have different disads/complications, it's possible that both Rivalry and Hunted/Watched could appear.

As usual, while it's varied with editions that I haven't been able to keep them straight  for the last 30 years, Hunteds are pretty serious 'harshly punish'/imprison, kill, that sort of thing. 

 

Watched is good one fort the situation that I had I forgotten about, though.