What would your character do? #44 (May be disturbing to some)

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

While on patrol, going home, or otherwise being ‘out and about’ one evening your character happens to glance into an open window in a downtown condo and see a horrific scene. An older man is having sex with a young child … and worse yet one that your character recognizes. However just as your character are about to burst in he finishes and the child literally vanishes into thin air.

 

Deciding quickly your character mentally marks the man’s home so that he or she can come back and then heads off to visit the child at their home. Strangely though when confronted the child has no memory of the ‘encounter’ your character just witnessed and the child’s parents confirm that they have all been at home for the last few hours and that the child has been there the whole time.

 

Disturbed your character heads back out to observe the man. The next day he heads over to a popular park where he helps a few children up when they fall or have the inventible bumps and scrapes but otherwise does not behave in an odd manner.

 

That night though, your character watches as he stretches out his hand and one of the children that he helped earlier appears and the man prepares to repeat the previous night’s performance. When your character bursts in, again, this new child vanishes.

 

Provided that your character simply does not kill him out of hand the man confesses to being able to ‘copy’ children and then recreate them later at will. The two your character saw were not ‘originals’ but copies instead. The man laughs if your character mentions the police. “What would they charge me with? There is no victim.â€

 

What would your character do?

[caris]

Adonis – “Well, sir, at the very least there would be a strong case for child pornography. Assuming that your “copies†are in some way actually just a sophisticated kind of energy construct as opposed to actually a sentient being in their own right. If they are found to actually be sentient beings, than you could be found guilty or murder and sexual assault. No matter what the case may be, you will still need to face trial for the manner in which you were attempting to exploit those children by proxy.â€

[Blue]

I would hope any game I play does not delve into pedophilia. That's a little beyond the superheroic genre.

[McCoy]

Any of my characters would contact a mentalist to check this out. If his constructs have no EGO, and 100% the originals are not being harmed, they would appologize, suggest window treatments, and carefully watch this man in the future.

[farik]

First night Husky would bust in and DEMAND! to know what is going on. Since the person's explanation would fall outside Husky's black and white worldview of good and evil he would leave simply stating "This ISN"T over." After changing back into Kenneth, Kenneth would start collecting evidence using security systems and observation robots. He then would compose a detailed letter referencing any relevant criminal codes and court rulings informing the person he can do what he likes in private but if he tries to profit from his "ability" he will find himself listed on every sexual offender database in the world whether he "deserves" it or not. The letter will be anonymous and Kenneth will take great pains to make sure the letter is clean of tracking potential ranging from forensic science, to psychic probing methods (magic might work).

[Avatar]

Pack my dice up, put my character back in the folder, and thank everyone for a early night off.

 

I'm ok with moral greyness and death and such, but this stuff is why I don't bother watching any news but The Daily Show!

[Argus]

Get rid of him

 

Avian would fly him out to sea and Drop him in.

 

Sir John has a flaming sword. Enough said.

 

Capt. Death would crush his head like an eggshell.

 

And Argus would find weakness on him about 7 times and smack the crap out of him.

 

And these are the characters with a CvK.

 

A.

[Kristopher]

War Angel - Kill the bastard.

T'Shenk Kennet - Kill the bastard.

Crimson - Make the bastard wish she'd killed him.

[lemming]

May be distrubing to SOME!? How about most?

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

You are correct. I do need to re-word that....

 

And I apologize if anyone finds this topic offensive.

[Cybernaut]

Cybernaut: Grab the bastard and fly into space with him (Cybernaut's battlesuit is equiped with Life Support). After the little creep dies of hard vacuum exposure and the cold, leave his lifeless frozen carcass to orbit the earth with all the other debris.

[Solomon]

Tempest: I've played this character only in 4-color campaigns. Tempest would wrap the guy up with his Constrictor Bands and give him a free ride to the authorities, on charge of child pornography (to say the least).

 

Ombra:

: pops knuckles :

"No victim you say?"

: takes out his knuckle-duster :

"What about you?"

Half an hour later, anonymous phone calls direct the police, an ambulance and a K.N.I.G.H.T.labs metahuman team to the creep.

[Lord Mhoram]

Ballistic would use his magic to do a little psychic surgery, and fix his problem and add in something else - if they guy ever looked a child (real or copy) with that kind of emotion again he would go suicidal and kill himself within a day.

 

Blackcat would take him to another dimension and leave him there and then get in contact with her friend the ruler of the dimension byzantium to do something to this guy. Her first impulse would be to kill him, but she would overcome that.

[Mayday]

MAYDAY would inform the police, advise the man to seek psychiatric counselling and consult a lawyer. Theres probably a law of some kind being broken here and if not, if he continues, he'd make a good test case on the rights of constructs. Knowing the publicity from the trial will screw up whatever it is he does for a job, this would simply be disturbing to her, and must be stopped.

 

SHADOWCROSS would observe the man's car, then set it to explode the next time he switches on the ignition. "Its not the police you needed to worry about, enjoy you BLEEEEP." and go home to sleep soundly.

[zakueins]

Ghost Sniper would hang him from the nearest tree. With wire.

[grump]

Tempest (dimension-hopping supermage and father of two, with a CvK and an honor code at the Total level) would probably do something along these lines.

 

First, he'd stop by radio shack and pick up a camcorder. Then, since he's a bit of a luddite, he'd have the team's gadgeteer show him how to work it. Then, he'd wait outside our friendly neighborhood sex offender's house with said camcorder for him to get started again. He'd start recording right after the small child appears, and stop recording right before the small child is dismissed.

 

Then, armed with this evidence, he'd march to various experts in digital video recording, electronics, and magic (preferably parents themselves) and have them sign affidavits that the tape wasn't tampered with in any way. Then, after a brief lecture along the lines of "whatever you do, don't go to this guy's house (which happens to be at X address) and beat him up; let the police handle it," I'd call my contact in the L.A.P.D. and arrange to drop off my evidence. I'd make sure to give him the suspected felon's address, as well as inform him that the perpetrator seemed to have some non-combat-effective superpowers and that I'd spoken with the child in question and he didn't seem to remember anything.

 

Then, in compliance with local laws, I'd go to each of his neighbors' houses and inform whoever was there that their neighbor is a suspected child molester, and that while he did seem to have some superpowers, they weren't combat effective, so they didn't have to worry about, for example, fire blasts or anything. I'd stress to them that nothing has been proven yet, and that it may take a while for formal charges to be brought, since his alleged victims didn't seem to remember a thing.

 

Then, after a few days, if he was still alive, I'd leak the story to the press. Tempest has been around a long time, and he knows very well that human nature can be a sword and shield if need be.

 

Of course, all this would be moot if Tempest didn't see him first. Our team consists of a highly moral yet strangely pragmatic bowman with +10 telescopic vision, find weakness 15-(or thereabouts), and a 3d6+1 penetrating RKA, a streetwise ex-con who's made no bones about using deadly force when he feels it's necessary (he's packing a chainsaw right now in anticipation of a rematch with one particularly nasty villain), a hot-tempered brick and the high-kicking, overprotective mother of his two children, an ex-counterterrorist espionage operative with lots of unsavory connections and an 8 year old son, another ex-spy who hates men anyway, and a few others who'd come along and bring popcorn. Come to think of it, in my team, I'm probably in the minority in not kicking this guy's butt myself.

 

Oh, and for what it's worth, your GM has issues for springing this on you. Seriously.

 

Hope this helps,

-grump

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

While "Leave the Game" seems like a good idea, assuming it happened to the *character*... (this is hypothetical after all)

 

Okay, first things first:

 

Be disgusted, and horrified.

 

Then hopefully realize it's better that this sicko apparently isn't harming "real" people. After all, it appears to be a deeply disturbed man finding a non-harmful way to indulge his desires... might be a sensible idea to get him to do this for like minded individuals too.

 

Wraith would check with ghosts about everything the man has ever done, and if he ever molested a real child would get him put away. Once he gets out of hospital.

 

Oh, and then he might get diagnosed as insane on other grounds; like his newfound insistence that he was being haunted.

 

 

Flippant... doesn't like moral dilemmas. The man probably was in hospital before he came close to explaining his sickness. He'd probably stop before killing.

 

Probably.

[Mephron]

Hmmm.

 

My GM would never run this. Too much darkness in it. Not that he's against darkness, but this is the kind of stuff you find on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and not what you'd find in his campaign.

 

That being said:

 

Ultra Gadget Queen G: Medicine 16-. Neurosurgery 16-. Bioenergetics (the study of superpowers and how they work) 16-. Gadgeteering 20-. 72 point gadget pool. I'm sure you can do the math.

 

Steel Thunder: Ponder whether the use of powers is an immoral act in and of itself, compared to the use of real children. Contact Gauntlet (team leader) and Psiclotron, team smartass and media hound... and media owner. Work out best way to give this information to the police anonymously, in order to insure that he is watched to make sure that he does not graduate from these energy-clones to real children.

 

Bestiary: ...someone with self-control issues is not someone who bothers to do things like 'hold back' in situations like this. He'd have to deal with a creature that's as fast as a cheetah, with the claws of a tree sloth and the armor of an armadillo. She'd feel terrible afterwards

[Blue]

Originally posted by Vanderbilt_Grad

You are correct. I do need to re-word that....

 

And I apologize if anyone finds this topic offensive.

Don't worry about it. We'll get over it.

 

I think the only problem is that most of us are in games that are less grounded in reality, because it's all about the escapism. Somehow a villain animating the sphinx and having it shred half of Egypt seems less objectionable. Go figure.

[McCoy]

The disturbing part is that only WhammeWhamme and I seem to feel that no crime was committed if no real person was hurt.

 

This guys, um, hobby is certainly disgusting, and needs to be practiced only in a windowless room, but by all indications no one is being harmed.

 

In fact, the only way his, um, models would be harmed is if they found out about this, which they certainly would if they had to be interviewed for trial.

[Fireg0lem]

I agree with you and WhammeWhamme, McCoy, although I'd be very suspicious about the nonsentience of the clones.

 

Visage would be less horrified, being a robot, and would probably be confused, and talk to someone else about it.

[farik]

Originally posted by McCoy

The disturbing part is that only WhammeWhamme and I seem to feel that no crime was committed if no real person was hurt.

 

This guys, um, hobby is certainly disgusting, and needs to be practiced only in a windowless room, but by all indications no one is being harmed.

 

In fact, the only way his, um, models would be harmed is if they found out about this, which they certainly would if they had to be interviewed for trial.

 

First of all we need to keep in mind that people are posting their character's reactions. How close or dissimilar they are from their own reactions could be a threadunto itself.

 

Second, the real question is if this really is a victimless crime. Would people's reactions be different if he was making constructs of children who didn't exist or making talking sides of beef? The man is a deviant we all agree but is he harmful?"

[Blue]

I just didn't feel a need to folowup on the plot at all as it was not "world appropriate" for my game. Kind of like asking how my champions character fights orcs

 

But Uncle Slam would become a "Watched" in this guy's disadvantages. You see it's entirely possible that this guy's crimes would escalate if this no longer became enough of a high for him. Then he'd wind up with real kids.

 

Anthem would try to convince him to seek therapy. "This can't be healthy for you... or those around you." But honestly it's almost akin to sexual "fan-fiction". She's fairly naive in that regard so she would definitely haul him in if he didn't seek help, then she'd be disappointed when she found out there's no real law against it.

[Argus]

Originally posted by McCoy

The disturbing part is that only WhammeWhamme and I seem to feel that no crime was committed if no real person was hurt.

 

This guys, um, hobby is certainly disgusting, and needs to be practiced only in a windowless room, but by all indications no one is being harmed.

 

In fact, the only way his, um, models would be harmed is if they found out about this, which they certainly would if they had to be interviewed for trial.

 

The man is a predator who went out of his was to steal these children of their identities. It’s no different then if he stood by and took photos of them in the park. He would need to be gotten rid of.

 

A.

[Mayday]

With only his word for it that the constructs are non-sentient and that noone is being harmed, most of mine would sooner believe that Dr D was planning to retire to Aculpoco and take up ballroom dancing.

 

He's portrayed as arrogant and not at all repentent although he knows his 'hobby' is not acceptable in most cultures. His power may have other applications and victims of sexual crimes often repress the whole thing. He may be drawing on the child's soul or mystical energy, affecting their dreams, who knows. It is a potentially complex power.

 

I would never run this, nor would any of my GMs run it. We play in Fantastic Worlds that are slightly gray or moderately dark but some things we dont touch.

 

Somehow a villain animating the sphinx and having it shred half of Egypt seems less objectionable. Go figure.

 

Very true Blue.