Guest bblackmoor Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 I want to rewrite/restart one of my oldest characters, so I am going to run a game where he dies. Being a generous soul, I am inviting the other guys in my game group to play characters they'd like to kill off and rewrite as well. Nothing like a good bloodbath to get the creative juices flowing. Naturally, the sequel game will introduce the successors to the slain heroes, who will then track down the killers and wreak some righteous vengeance on their asses... I mean (ahem) find the killers and bring them to justice. So how would you kill off a superhero? Actually killing him is hard enough: he's a Damage Reduction brick. But I have that handled. What I am looking for is the story. What's your best idea for something that ends up with one or more superheroes dead and a fresh team all geared up to look for justice? I have done this once before, actually. That time, it was a group of the heroes' worst (and most powerful) enemies who all joined forces just long enough to be an effective team... after which they fell to squabbling and attacking each other. So I'm looking for something a little different this time. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Serpent Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Big Alien Invasion. Evil Doubles. Who are all twins or triplets. M'karan Crystal-like thingie. Will destroy the world/universe, but heroes manage to give their life-forces to allow it to be shut down. NPC hero they worked with goes evil, or DNPC gets powers & turns evil, betraying & destroying the team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Viperia and Gravitar were having a girls night out in Paris when Mentalla caught up with them. Now, thanks to a power boost granted by Menton, both of them are her pawns. She decides to kill multiple birds with one stone: 1) She takes them to America and uses them to kill heroes that have been a threat to both Eurostar and Viper in the past. 2) She drops hints that this is a Viper operation to her underworld contacts. 3) She makes sure that the heroes' deaths are widely publicized, possibly with the help of her big brother. 4) She and Menton provide just enough quiet tactical help to the two powerhouses to make sure that they are able to wipe out a few heroes from several powerful teams (including yours). 5) Now Viper is likely to be locked into a new and even more dealy war with America's Super Teams, Gravitar (a rival) is being targetted by both sides, and Viperia may finally be captured. Eurostar and Menton sit back and laugh, having seen many possible threats to their plans destroyed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BNakagawa Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Some sort of ghastly nanite/viral incubator that the hero literally has to eat to prevent from being released. Villain who created it has a spare that the heroes have to battle to prevent from duplicating the thing. Infected hero is slowly being converted into an uber incubator and must grab the villain and dive into oblivion causing plot device to eliminate the threat 'forever'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aylwin13 Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Have Dr. Destroyer return, after supposedly being gone for good, bent on destroying a whole city. He fights your heroes, and fires an energy beam from his orbiting satellite weapons platform. This destroys the city, as well as killing his heroic opponents. What? That's been done already? [Emily Latella voice] Never mind... [/Emily Latella voice] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schir1964 Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Super Virus Scenario: Supervillian creates a super virus/chemical that affects even the toughest brick. The virus/chemical works slowly and allows the afflicted to try to track down the villian and capture/kill him. Only to find out that they are too late to prevent their own demise. This also gives them the chance to address people and/or donate thier bodies to science to further the good. - Christopher Mullins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Shadow Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? I like the idea of a sad story like a family treason for example the character "sold" to the metahuman hunters by a brother or a cousin. Maybe the bad guys joined with the only objective to kill the good guys one by one, tortured and humilliated Or a global catastrophe, where many people died by radiation. Or even better, a powerful alien conqueror race took away some metahumans for study them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? The heroes were dipping some Double Stuff Oreo Cookies into Skim Milk, and the stuff blew up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argus Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Nukes. Laser Satellites. Rocket them into the Sun. Dimensional Rifts. Anti Mater. The best way I found to kill a PC or even to Kill one of my characters is “Self Sacrifice.†Give them something to die for. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acroyear Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? I always like the "high note." Here's some ideas off the top of my head: The heroes have to get into a villain's lair. The villain is crazy tough, easily able to drop the team and make them fail. One hero manages to hold him off long enough for the others to get their job done but is smoked in the proccess (just as fun is letting that hero win, and then drop from the wounds - not unlike Optimus Prime). The hero takes the full brunt of a mega/doomsday weapon and saves someone else. This can be a bunch of schoolkids (the attacker was a time traveler trying to wipe out a future hero before he gets his powers), an important political or social figure, etc. Or, he manages to divert an incredible disaster at the cost of his life (stopping an asteroid, sealing off a gateway to hell, whatever). This one can be interesting if it's done with lots of witnesses or camera crews or something, turning him or her into a major icon that the successor will struggle to live up. Tower of Babel style thing (from the JLA arc). A series of pre-planned, single targeted attacks that are designed specifically to take down the heroes one by one. The bad guy can be all sorts of things from one of the heroes from an alternate timeline, evil versions of themselves from another dimension, a master plan coming to fruition from a long time nemesis, a kid who grew up and is exacting his vengeance against these "heroes" who failed to save his parents or something years ago during a super fight/disaster/whatever, a future villain taking them out before they grow in power and defeat him in the future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckB Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Falls asleep while smoking in bed and burns to death ? Anticlimactic sure, but original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? While on a book signing tour, sleeps with Captain Liberty. Rest of the adventure involves getting the body secretly back to the hotel without causing a scandal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? So how would you kill off a superhero? Actually killing him is hard enough: he's a Damage Reduction brick. But I have that handled. What I am looking for is the story. What's your best idea for something that ends up with one or more superheroes dead and a fresh team all geared up to look for justice? I have done this once before, actually. That time, it was a group of the heroes' worst (and most powerful) enemies who all joined forces just long enough to be an effective team... after which they fell to squabbling and attacking each other. So I'm looking for something a little different this time. Any ideas? Hmmmm.... 1. A new (and very powerful) superhero shows up--and he thinks all the other superheroes are either a) slackers or corrupt, and that they have to be eradicated. And he's just the guy for the job. Call him...Nomad ("You are imperfect. You must be sterilized!") 2. Orbital battlestations start popping into existence over earth. The genetically-engineered supersoldiers of a parallel universe have marked the campaign world for colonization. Individually, they may be no match for any single superhero, but they're all superhuman and they have fantastically advanced tech (weapons, armor, etc.). Think of the Draka. They kill off a lot of heroes in the initial invasion, and the new characters have to both a) avenge the fallen and fight off the invaders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Your heroes are getting too close to the secret of CURE, a government agency that doesn't exist. Smith orders your elimination. Several fall quickly, but somehow you manage to kill Remo. "Who Is This Dogmeat That Stands Before Me?" Now you must deal with a fully incarnate Shiva. More die. Any survivors help talk Shiva into letting Remo return. He thanks the remaining heroes, then kills them when they're not expecting it. "That's the biz, sweetheart." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bblackmoor Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Here's some ideas off the top of my head: Everyone has had great ideas, but these really resonate with what I am looking for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Shadow Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Falls asleep while smoking in bed and burns to death ? Anticlimactic sure, but original. LOL I agree! They may be cought in the night by the weakest villain ever. Then after telling for 2 hours about his plains to conquer the world (remember always appears a good guy while the bad are telling their plains, BUT NOT THIS TIME! mwahaha) they may be killed slowly in an acid pool like a human fondieu (or like an oreo on milk, your choice ) Sometimes pathetic deaths makes more interesting revenges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Serpent Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? A set of deathtraps actually work for once? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Neilson Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Extradimensional Horrific Thing finds a gateway into our world. The Heroes can force him back through the gate, but only if they follow and keep battling the Otherworldly Horrors into their timeless domain can they prevent them fronre-opening the gate. Self-sacrifice, plus they are technucally still out there somewhere if you ever want to run a scenario to bring them back. [JSA/Valhalla] "We're going to prove you aren't really heroes right here on live TV. We've planted a nuclear device on the atoll you now stand on, and another in a small town. We will detonate whichever one you tell us to. If you don't answer in 10 seconds, we'll detonate both." [Doom Patrol] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Shadow Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Hmmm, it would be a heroic end. Where is the sadism, the horror, the violations, the treasons, the murder, the torture, the hummiliation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkham Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? How about a brand new supervillian, an escapee from a galactic insane asylum randomly wanders by the planet and starts killing all the PCs, finally knocking himself out while killing the last and toughest one. Wait, that's been done. Damn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackalope Posted September 8, 2004 Report Share Posted September 8, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? My best character death was in a D&D game, where I played a paladin. After this long, hard campaign I finally had this big mano e mano showdown with an antipaladin who was, of course, my match in power. We duked it out for several rounds, and I almost had him down when he scored a critical hit. I looked at the GM and said "Can i get in one last dying shot? Please? I can take him out with one more hit." Dm said okay, one more. I rolled a critical hit. DM looks at my critical hit, and says "Both of your gods have been watching this fight with great interest, and seeing that a victor will son emerge, each has decided to tip his hand." and then went on to describe how my god "gave fire to the righteousness of my cause" and my character literally burst into white hot flame that didn't harm me at all, while his evil god turned his blood into "the blackest boiling poison", and between his poisonous blood pouring into my open wounds, and my righteous flames burning him away, and both of our two handed swords driven entirely through each other, we both collapse on each other, fell to our knees, and died. Just locked in this death struggle. It was freaking awesome. Course, I thought I was going to walk away from that one. But my point being, if you have a hunted, try to arrange for the mutual takeout. That's a cool way to go down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freakboy6117 Posted September 9, 2004 Report Share Posted September 9, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? nuke em from orbit its the only way to be sure oh wait that's already been done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKJAM! Posted September 9, 2004 Report Share Posted September 9, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? "There's no way to defuse the Revelations Bomb?" "No. But between us, we have just the right combination of powers to prevent its effects from spreading beyond this room. There's a high likelyhood of us dying in the attempt, of course." "If it's my life, or the entire Earth, you know which one I've gotta pick. I'm saving my own skin." "Just kidding. Of course I'll save the world." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 9, 2004 Report Share Posted September 9, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? "I have an idea. Why don't we just shoot them?" "What!?" "Look, I have a gun in my room. We can shoot them together! It'll be fun!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Powerhouse Posted September 9, 2004 Report Share Posted September 9, 2004 Re: How to kill a PC? Personal idea: an old hunted shows up, one who's been left behind in power and considered a joke. All he thinks he has left is defeating the hero to show everyone that he's someone. Well the hero hands the villain his butt ... however in the battle a building starts to collapse. The hero holds the building up while telling the villain to remove an innocent. Hero: "Hurry! I can't hold this *grunt* for long." Villain: "Why should I? Give me a reason to help someone out who doesn't give a damn for me." Hero: "You've been telling me how you're nothing, how your life is meaningless and you want to matter. If you really want to be someone, if you REALLY want to matter, then matter now and save her!" Yeah... hackneyed. Anyway, Villain saves the innocent but the hero can't hold the building up. Shocked, the villain pulls rubbles away frantically trying the hero who he'd been trying to kill. It's too late though. But, in that moment, he has an epihany and vows to take up the never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way! A continuation of the legacy and new character to play to boot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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