Good Natured Brawling

[nexus]

There's been allot of focus lately on the world beater, 600+ point mega characters recently. I was curious which characters gms use for less dire threats. The common "thugs" that fill out the roster for less tense, but still flashy superheroic battles were the stakes aren't the existence of life as we know it. Not every scenario is saving the world after all. And another question, what about funny enemies that provoke amusement and perhaps annoyance rather that fear. Just for a break in the tension.

 

I like to use GRAB (and had a similar idea before fifth) as "common" super criminals. There not bad powers and mostly not hardened killers, just greedy. Used as a team they can be challenging as well.

 

CLOWN was/is allot of fun in my Metachampions game as well.

[jackalope]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Come with me for a little trip in the Way Way Back Machine, and I'll introduce you to my FAVORITE group of Super-Power Chumps, the GEODESICS. Wow, it's been so long, I might even have the name wrong. There's four of them, one of them is a blind albino black woman with frisbees, the others are somehow even lamer. Orb was one, I can't remember the other two. Lamer and Lamest? Something like that. Free rep to anyone who can recll their full names (or post their stats).

 

They're found in Enemies. The first one. For First Edition.

 

But hey, if you can dig up their stats (and someone really ought to revive them for 5th), they are exactly superpowered enough to convince your players that they are for real, and exactly pansy enough that only the feeblest of teams won't wipe the floor with them. The feeblest of teams will still beat them, it just will seem like a real fight.

 

But hey, if you're group has been feelings kicked around and thinks they never win, these guys are exactly the ego boost everyone needs.

[Hypnotoad, the]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Hm...let's see.

 

Most of the GM's I've played under have usually designed their own groups to tangle with us--but there have been exceptions.

 

Usually for the generic line of "faceless minions", VIPER tends to be the gang of thugs by choice, providing a bit of a challenge, yet at the same time allowing for heroes to really get flashy in the methods in which they dispose of the agents.

 

Funny villains/gangs? Oi...that list, it do go on! One of my faves was a gang created by the PUNisher--a villain who attacked using puns. He created (wait for it)...

 

THE MAJOR LEAGUE!

 

Their members include...

 

MAJOR VICTORY: I have no idea what this guy did, but he gave pretty speeches, and was the general leader.

 

MAJOR FORCE: A brick/energy projector with a short temper.

 

MAJOR OFFENSIVE: He smelled REALLY bad.

 

MAJOR DISASTER: He had a transformation attack which inflicted 5D6 unluck on the poor schmuck.

 

MAJOR BUMMER: He was the team teleporter--handy when things turned against them.

 

Oh...they all dressed in the dress uniforms of army majors.

[Acroyear]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Actually, Firsbee wasn't in the Geodesics. The Geodesics were Dart, Orb, Ultraviolet and Diamond.

[jackalope]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Actually' date=' Firsbee wasn't in the Geodesics. The Geodesics were Dart, Orb, Ultraviolet and Diamond. [/quote']

 

She must have been on the next page then. She was certainly as lame as they were.

 

Dart, Orb, Ultaviolet, and Diamond. Excellent. Thank you very much.

 

They need to be updated. Maybe one of them even went on to become, gasp, reasonably cool, like Oculon did.

[Acroyear]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

They were updated in Distopia (Atlas Games?) a licensed product for Hero back in the old days - the idea was that the process Dr. Koo used to empower them became unstable and their powers went a little wild (UV turned into an energy being, Diamond became crystalline, etc). IIRC.

[Blue]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Ogre.

[JmOz]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

Bulldozer

[Agent X]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

A really fun game we had was made up of the Felons Four, a group of supercriminals hired to do a "job." The players picked Ogre, Cheshire Cat, Pulsar, and Blowtorch. We had a blast. I doubt it would have been so much fun if we had picked really evil villains. Granted, Blowtorch is homicidal in the extreme, but he's so cartoonishly nutty it didn't really matter.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

I love Bulldozer and Foxbat for such roles. Beyond that, I tend to usually use Firewing as more a brawler/random force of nature sort of villain than an actual, intentional criminal.

[OddHat]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

The Danger Men, led by Bulldozer. First lineup was Bulldozer, Space Cowboy, and the Gangster of Love, but many other minor thugs have come and gone since.

 

Thugs R Us - My wife's villain team for hire, led by Ex-Stacy and The Club Girl.

 

Big Bad and the Wolves - An all werwolf biker gang.

 

Woofsy Mallone - An evil dog who specialized in organizing gangs of homeless men and training them as crack commando squads. Had vast powers of Telepathy and PK which he used to create "Supers." Took several adventures for the players to realize who they were fighting.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Good Natured Brawling

 

They were updated in Distopia (Atlas Games?) a licensed product for Hero back in the old days - the idea was that the process Dr. Koo used to empower them became unstable and their powers went a little wild (UV turned into an energy being' date=' Diamond became crystalline, etc). IIRC.[/quote']

 

An upgraded version of Piledriver, from one of the old Enemies books, also became a member of the revised team. Dystopia was actually quite a good adventure - no surprise with Chris Avellone writing it. It also happens to be available for sale in the Hero Games Online Store.