Nastiest Villain Of Them All

[Hugh Neilson]

11 hours ago, starblaze said:

The original.  Not very complex but man that killing attack is brutal.  I used him several times when I just want a near unstoppable villain.

 

The first victim of edition changes not resulting in character rewrites.  In 1e, for which he was written, STR added to HKAs without limits.  Monster had, IIRC, 60 STR and a 1d6 HKA, for a 5d6 HKA with STR.  In 2e, when republished, no changes were made, so he had a 1d6 HKA + 1d6 STR = 2d6 HKA. 

 

To Menton, that aspect of his character is no different than the first season of Alias on the Netflix Marvel shows, the same as the Killgrave/Purple Man character evolved in the comics.

 

He can control minds. He abuses that ability. Do you think it would be different if those abilities existed in reality?

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

The sexual assault element of his character is going to cross so many lines it'll never show up at all in most modern games, the ones where people respect hard boundaries and X cards are in use.  Using that kind of thing without discussion in advance and a full-table buy-in doesn't fly the way it did even ten years ago.  Good thing, too.  I don't roleplay so I can experience the worst parts of everyday news, and damn few stories in any medium are improved in any way by the inclusion of rape - especially when it's done solely to coerce a male character into doing something, as in the example.  Tone deaf in the extreme, that.

 

If rape was not a subject that modern society could deal with in a medium meant to entertain, that would eliminate the equivalent of twenty-four of the twenty-five seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, Rich McGee said:

That's rape, period.  Mind control eliminates consent.  As for why he'd do it, read AlagaeNymph's quote from the Superpowers Database above.

I know that. I have always pictured Menton as asexual.

[Rich McGee]

1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

If rape was not a subject that modern society could deal with in a medium meant to entertain, that would eliminate the equivalent of twenty-four of the twenty-five seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

You do you.  That's a TV crime drama anyway, not an RPG.  None of the groups I roleplay with has crossed the sexual assault red line since an early Vampire game in the 90s, and that didn't end well at all.  I especially don't want to tackle that kind of weighty subject in a four-color superhero game (my preferred mode for supers gaming), although I could see a mature group addressing it in something grittier - which might be best served with a lighter rules set like Masks or some other Fate/PBtA spinoff.

[Rich McGee]

2 minutes ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

I know that. I have always pictured Menton as asexual.

Any particular reason why?  I'd never considered his sexuality, although I suspect having easy access to almost everyone else's minds (and bodies, if desired) probably gives him a unusual viewpoint, especially when it comes to non-mentalists and their personhood. 

[Stanley Teriaca]

32 minutes ago, Rich McGee said:

Any particular reason why?  I'd never considered his sexuality, although I suspect having easy access to almost everyone else's minds (and bodies, if desired) probably gives him a unusual viewpoint, especially when it comes to non-mentalists and their personhood. 

Probably falls under "too easy". He probably doesn't view others as important at all, except for his family.

 

As for "asexual", it is just a hunch, nothing more. He could have anyone,male, female, or other, using his powers alone, and I see him emotionally detached from most other people (except for his sister Mentalla), and this wouldn't find anyone attractive.

 

Special note: just because he won't physically rape a person doesn't mean he can't force a false memory of such in a person's mind.

[Stanley Teriaca]

I just remembered a scene in a nearby of the X-Men movies where the White Queen creates a erotic illusion of herself while she does something else in the room.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Rich McGee said:

You do you.  That's a TV crime drama anyway, not an RPG.  None of the groups I roleplay with has crossed the sexual assault red line since an early Vampire game in the 90s, and that didn't end well at all.  I especially don't want to tackle that kind of weighty subject in a four-color superhero game (my preferred mode for supers gaming), although I could see a mature group addressing it in something grittier - which might be best served with a lighter rules set like Masks or some other Fate/PBtA spinoff.

 

To be clear, I don't want these darker subjects in my own games. Like you, I get enough about that in real life. And I certainly don't object to any game group excluding a topic that will make them so uncomfortable they're not having fun any more. That defeats the whole purpose of this hobby. But precedent says it's not possible to characterize the subject of rape as being inappropriate to the hobby or to the genre as a whole. Some of the most popular characters in comics embody some of the vilest impulses in the human psyche. We are after all talking about a battle between Good and Evil.

 

As for Menton, when you imagine what the average person would do with the ability to make anyone do anything they want, it would be hard to imagine them not going there, unless your game is following Silver Age conventions. That said, I would never recommend inflicting that sort of trauma on a PC, or an NPC that PCs are close to, unless the player involved was interested in role-playing that situation (and even then I'd caution them as to what they might be getting into). But for the psychic rape story about Menton, dealing with NPCs that players have no stake in, I would have no problem with relating the incident to the players as an example of the depths of Menton's corruption.

[Gauntlet]

3 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

I know that. I have always pictured Menton as asexual.

 

Not from what I have seen in his writeup. I have him as he wants to use people any way he can, either by using his power or by money or by both, doesn't really matter to him. He is a straight up control freak and wants everyone to know he is in control.

[Stanley Teriaca]

Not exactly saying he wouldn't...

 

Reminds me of my pet sleazeball Mister Wicked, the white slaver. The guy is so sleazy that I can't keep heros from putting him twelve feet under (as six feet is too shallow for the likes of him).

[carmachu]

On 11/11/2023 at 3:46 PM, Lord Liaden said:

Now you make me think of Black Harlequin gathering a team of other psychopathic villains to enhance the destruction and suffering from his "escapades." Say, Blowtorch, Freakshow, Plague, and if you want to be really nasty, Fleshtone. Black Harlequin sometimes regrets that he has no "playmates" with him, and all of these villains are socially isolated and might respond positively to the company of others who would accept them and share in their madness. Also, none of them are really stand-up fighters, more effective striking at a distance or by surprise; so they would work best for horror scenarios, something that's normally difficult to pull of in a supers game.

Or you could have him take over C.L.O.W.N. and turn them into sadistic villains group and have "pranks" from the old group turn twisted and deadly

[Gauntlet]

Isn't there already an evil version of C.L.O.W.N. that came from another dimension?

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Isn't there already an evil version of C.L.O.W.N. that came from another dimension?

 

On official Champions Earth right now? I'm afraid that's not ringing any bells.

 

There is a Champions equivalent to DC Comics Mr. Myxyzptlk, called the Incubus, who uses his reality-warping powers to pull malicious "pranks" on heroes. He claims to be "the devil" from his own dimension, where everyone is very serious and humorless. Incubus committed practical jokes to challenge their conformity, but since he's evil by definition his jokes are always mean and hurtful, and often dangerous. He asserts that he came to Champions Earth because he found his own world too boring.

 

Within the category of nasty villains, Incubus can be as nasty, or as harmlessly annoying, as a GM wants him to be. He's in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains.

Edited January 30 by Lord Liaden

[Duke Bushido]

On 1/23/2024 at 10:32 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

He can control minds. He abuses that ability. Do you think it would be different if those abilities existed in reality?

 

I can only speak for me, if we are doing "what would this be like in real life," and I must honestly say "oh, yes; I would definitely abuse it."  Caveat:  not to any sort of criminal or person-invading degree, because I am not _that_ horrible a person.

 

In fact the full list of things that I absolutely should never be trusted with:

 

Mind control

Mind reading

Invisibility

Desolidification

Four wheel drive

 

 

For the good of everyone else, I should never have any of those things, ever.

 

 

On 1/23/2024 at 11:08 AM, Lord Liaden said:

 

If rape was not a subject that modern society could deal with in a medium meant to entertain, that would eliminate the equivalent of twenty-four of the twenty-five seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

 

Agreed.  And probably why, having seen two episodes of those seasons, I have gone out of my way to _never_ see another one.  I can't lie: I am just a little bit disturbed by the number of people who can tune into that and watch it over and over as entertainment.  All it ever did for me was make my blood boil that the crimes they depict _are things that happen every day_, and remind me how disgusting some human beings can be given an opportunity.

 

I think only one of you knows this, but a quarter century ago, I became the legal guardian of a twelve year old girl who was being-   sorry.  Just say "victimized."  Every time I see a show about that- presented for 'entertainment'--  all I want to do is dig up the guy that was doing it and desecrate his corpse.  Two still live, and I think things I shouldn't about them, too.  I have no interest in such entertainment.  I find _zero_ amusement in such topics.  I do not-  no pontification here! I _genuinely_ do not understand how anyone could enjoy such stories, even if the focus is on catching the bad guy.

 

But I don't wamt to being the thread down, so I am going to stop there. 

 

 

On 1/23/2024 at 11:28 AM, Rich McGee said:

 I suspect having easy access to almost everyone else's minds (and bodies, if desired) probably gives him a unusual viewpoint, especially when it comes to non-mentalists and their personhood. 

 

Now _that is_ an interesting angle!  Thank you, Sir!  I am probably going to play with that for a while.  What is it like to be the only mind reader or mind controller amongst thousands of people?  What kind of "people / not people" or "me / them" concepts become imprinted on the mind of a person who can hear your thoughts or alter your desires?

 

Very interesting.  Well-thought! 

 

 

 

 

On 1/23/2024 at 12:43 PM, Lord Liaden said:

 

To be clear, I don't want these darker subjects in my own games.

 

 

Ditto.  We can do horror, macabre, angsty, light-hearted, heat-breaking-

 

But there is a line that I am just not going to cross in my games, ever.

 

 

To steer to the subject, the "most awful" villain we ever faced was a homebrew concoction by my first Champions GM when we were going through our street vigilante phase: 

 

Jojo, the Human Clown.  Man did we learn to hate her....

 

 

 

[Stanley Teriaca]

I'm reminded of one supplement which presented each character as if it was a published comic book. My favorite villain in that supplement was The Skeleton, a professional assassin. He was once hired to assassinate a young girl, and actually once he learned that the target was a preteen girl decided after thinking about it to change the target to the man who hired him.

 

Normally he would be classified as pure slime, but deciding that kids are off the menu says something.

[Duke Bushido]

You dont remember the title, do you?

 

That comic book presentation sounds extremely cool!

 

 

[Stanley Teriaca]

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You dont remember the title, do you?

 

That comic book presentation sounds extremely cool!

 

 

Not really. All I remember is that it was an independent work.

[Lord Liaden]

I did think of someone else who definitely falls into the "very nasty" category: Mr. Rapentap, from the 4E Champions supplement, Normals Unbound. Despite that book title, this monster is anything but normal. He was once human, a ruthless dealer in slaves, including children. He died when his child captives turned on him, but received a reprieve from damnation in Hell for his actions by agreeing to become an agent for an even greater evil. Mr. Rapentap is an immortal spirit who tricks or seduces children into surrendering their innocence to him and his master. In exchange they become ageless children forever, but they also lose everything that might have spoiled their innocence: conscience, empathy, compassion. They're the embodiment of all the worst examples you can imagine of children who don't understand the consequences of hurting people. Playing heartless, sometimes deadly games and pranks at the urging of a master who wants everyone to suffer for his own punishment.

 

Even though Mr. Rapentap has powers beyond human, he's no fighter, and will flee to his master's dimension if threatened. His kind of menace can't be beaten by force.