The Truly Evil GM

[Super Squirrel]

Has anyone here ever done something really evil in their game to the players? I don't mean walk into a death trap and they all die evil. I mean, evil plans or players helping the villains without knowing it.

 

I have a couple of evil things under my belt that will be appearing very soon.

 

First, is my VIPER background story. I have been subtlely having VIPER doing things preparing themselves for a completion of one of their major goals. And at this point, I can't see VIPER failing. So pretty soon, they will enact on that plan and the game world will be dynamically different.

 

Then their is Troy. The players know it is bad news. One of them keeps commenting "Hasn't that guy ever heard of Mechanon?" What they don't know could very well hurt them.

 

Sean "Chessmaster" Hill is still at large. The players know he did something and it is causing problems across the world when he defeated chess legend Kasparov. They know that armies of living chess pieces seem to keep coming through to Earth. They know that Sean Hill got his power by collecting souls of people through defeating them in chess. But they have no idea, just how powerful this guy really is. Sure defeating him in a game of chess will stop the armies from coming through... but that doesn't stop Sean Hill himself.

 

And then their is the VIPER hunted that two of my players have. One of the players has temporarily resigned his character. The thing was, the last game he played in, he fell into a VIPER trap. He didn't know it at the time though. So I have asked him that in the game after next, he needs to be prepared to play that particular character. Saturday's game will focus on setting up the other half. The players will be literally forced into raiding a VIPER base.

[Aryanun]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Well, let's see. I set up one player's character set up to fall for his sister. He had a disad about going for any female he ran across, so I used it to full advantage.

 

I set up one ongoing adventure where I told each player they were a particular villian called "Doppleganger" who was switched out for their character by a villian group and to roleplay being a sleeper agent after one team member was murdered (GM Agent NPC). Basically made it so every player thought they were playing a bad guy and trying to find out the weaknesses of all the other players.

 

I also did a classic "Major Mentalist Villian switches everyone's psyche" so people woke up with their conciousness in one of the other PC's bodies. It made for some awesome roleplaying and really brought the team together (after them having a particularly bad time finding things that could bring them together as a unity).

[Super Squirrel]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Well, let's see. I set up one player's character set up to fall for his sister. He had a disad about going for any female he ran across, so I used it to full advantage.

 

I set up one ongoing adventure where I told each player they were a particular villian called "Doppleganger" who was switched out for their character by a villian group and to roleplay being a sleeper agent after one team member was murdered (GM Agent NPC). Basically made it so every player thought they were playing a bad guy and trying to find out the weaknesses of all the other players.

 

I also did a classic "Major Mentalist Villian switches everyone's psyche" so people woke up with their conciousness in one of the other PC's bodies. It made for some awesome roleplaying and really brought the team together (after them having a particularly bad time finding things that could bring them together as a unity).

I'll probably try doing the Mind Swap story on a game when my player with 50 points of Mental Defense is not present. Otherwise, the switch wouldn't happen.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

I'll probably try doing the Mind Swap story on a game when my player with 50 points of Mental Defense is not present. Otherwise' date=' the switch wouldn't happen.[/quote']

 

Sure it could. The villain isn't altering or influencing his mind, he's just moving where it lives. Stat-wise, call it a transform attack - how much power defense does MentalMan have?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

I didn't consider it particularly evil, but some of my players might disagree:

 

Player A has a Superman-type character - tough, lots of powers, has a Kryptonite-like weakness and magic vuln.

 

Player B has mystic Japanese wargod, able to summon and use any "normal" weapon (EB and RKA with limited variable SFX)

 

Both characters get defeated and captured by villain, who happens to be convinced that he's a god, instead of just a super-powered person.

 

Villain decides to test character B and see if he's "truly" a god - sets up scheme any "real" divine being would easily see through. Drugs up character A and puts him in one of villain's costumes. Character A proceeds to groggily stagger around a bit. Meanwhile, character B "escapes" and happens upon "the villain", sneaking up on him from behind. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good cheap surprise shot, opens up with a 4D6RKA from behind on character A, with no defenses. He survives, barely, and is rushed to the hospital once character B realizes who he is.

 

In the villain's eyes, he didn't pass the test.

[Lightray]

I had monkeys beat my characters up. Well, apes, actually. But everyone called them monkeys.

 

I've been trying to get them to think about their tactics, and maybe use some of the combat maneuvers that are available. No dice. They all charge in and pummel away, paying no attention to what's happining with their teammates.

 

So, I let the monkeys have a Plan. They ambushed the team. They divided the team. They teleported or telekinesed foci away. They teleported or knocked individuals prone. They entangled a few others with "takes no damage" entangles. Then they gang-attacked the prone or entangled individuals who were cut off. It was brutal.

 

As my dismayed players said it: "the damned monkeys kicked our ass!"

 

 

Unexpected side-effect was that one of the players was running a semi-NPC hero, and she played him as unreasonably paranoid (the monkeys were part of a gov't super-soldier research program...).

 

The other players figured out what was going on, and kept asking her character to verify that the monkeys weren't hostile, they were only trying to escape. She'd read the monkeys' minds, verify that the other players were right, but refuse to allow her character to tell them because "the government are idiots".

 

So I've decided that character has been rendered essentially unplayable because the players are so annoyed with how she had him act. So, because of that, I'll be doing something else evil with him...

[RDU Neil]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

"You rang?"

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Give away my secrets? Are you totally de-ranged?!?!

[teh bunneh]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

I don't know if this is evil the way you mean evil, but...

 

A big liche lord has plans to raise an army of the dead to conquer a nation. Opposing him is a powerful necromancer -- not a nice guy, but one who doesn't want this liche running the show. The liche, through an intermediary, hires the PCs to kill the necromancer. They have no problems doing so -- after all, he's a necromancer so he's evil, right?

 

If the heroes had stopped to listen to what the necromancer had to say, they may have staved off some terrible things that have happened since. Nope, they didn't want to hear it -- they killed him and chopped off his head (to make sure he stayed dead).

 

When they learned later what they had done, they were (to say the least) dismayed.

 

Bill.

[Aryanun]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Sure it could. The villain isn't altering or influencing his mind' date=' he's just moving where it lives. Stat-wise, call it a transform attack - how much power defense does MentalMan have? [/quote']

 

 

Which is exactly how I defined this power. I couldn't find any mental power that would work as a "Mind Swap" thing.

 

Of course, it was also kind of a GM caveat. They woke up one morning in their base with their psyche's switched. Didn't really matter HOW the villian did it, they just needed to find him, defeat him, and get switched back. Since the villian was physically a weakling (a 10 STR character could punch him and knock him unconscious) and terrified of physical violence, convincing him to do the switch would be easy. It was finding him that was hard.

 

As for the 50 pts of Mental Defense, an Absorb can lower that quite readily. Of course, something as ridiculous as that would have never made it past my Red Pen of Character Acceptance. I like to start characters at lower point totals (200-250) so they have a way to grow.

[incrdbil]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

well, there was the time the base gadgeteer used parts from a washer dryer to fix the base teleporter. (long story, limited resources) Every trip through was like spin cycle for personalities/bodies/powers. Need I say more?

[Frenchman]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

I had a player who's character was 'the last of his kind.' He didn't know what he was, but when he found an isolated city of people who looked like him and told him some stories about 'his people' he was, to say the least, thrilled. He then went on his merry adventures with the rest of his party, careful to keep his people a secret (they didn't want their ancient foes to find them ) and worshipping their god, in not-so-secret. IT didn't take him long to find out that his new god had influence over mental powers, and he found a few other secretive followers in cities. Many, many adventures followed, and he kept this secret and the thought of his people lead him on towards his gods goals when he would have otherwise given up. Then he found out that his god was an evil slimey son-of-a-bitch. His 'people' were a group of mind-reading shapeshifters who took advantage of his character and were useing him to further their evil goals, which the party as a whole were combating from the other end.

That guy has been very careful about the sort of 'potential' his characters have ever since.

[Aryanun]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

I had a player who's character was 'the last of his kind.' He didn't know what he was' date=' but when he found an isolated city of people who looked like him and told him some stories about 'his people' ...[/quote']

 

I like they way you think. I've had players like that in the past and this is just the thing I can utilize to make them rethink their "I'm always a unique kind of race" character.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Which is exactly how I defined this power. I couldn't find any mental power that would work as a "Mind Swap" thing.

 

Of course, it was also kind of a GM caveat. They woke up one morning in their base with their psyche's switched. Didn't really matter HOW the villian did it, they just needed to find him, defeat him, and get switched back. Since the villian was physically a weakling (a 10 STR character could punch him and knock him unconscious) and terrified of physical violence, convincing him to do the switch would be easy. It was finding him that was hard.

 

As for the 50 pts of Mental Defense, an Absorb can lower that quite readily. Of course, something as ridiculous as that would have never made it past my Red Pen of Character Acceptance. I like to start characters at lower point totals (200-250) so they have a way to grow.

Give a guy a break. This was my first HERO game.

[Dust Raven]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

In my last Champs game, one of the ninja's goals was to collect a number of ancient artifacts and keep them from his evil father (who would use them to summon a power dragon to conquer the Earth with). To this end, he decided to use his ninja magic to create duplicates of one of the artifacts and scatter his base with them, keeping the original locked away in his room out of sight. What he didn't know was that his father had more powerful magic than he did, and could easily see through the illusions. Durring an assult on the base, the ninja's father not only stole the real artifact, but placed one of the fake ones in the place where he found the real one. It completely fooled the ninja into thinking he folled his father. The truth was discovered during an emergency when the ninja needed to use the magic of the artifact and discovered to his horror that is was just one of his really convincing fakes.

[Aryanun]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Give a guy a break. This was my first HERO game.

 

Actually, I wasn't picking on you, but on myself for being such a hard-assed GM.

 

I remember one group I had played with but never GM'd for thought they could push some rules raping by me. I had them turn their characters in a week before the game was about to start.

 

We didn't start the next week. They were busily reworking their characters because I had covered them in red ink basically telling them "No, you're not going to get an IIF - A Chip Imbedded in My Brain Boosts My Powers past me." Once I had it settled that I wasn't a pushover and knew the rules, we settled down for gaming.

 

Of course, this was the same group I pulled the Mind Switch with.

 

Yeah, the Red Pen of Doom (as they called it) is my truly evil GM tactic.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

"No' date=' you're not going to get an IIF - A Chip Imbedded in My Brain Boosts My Powers past me."[/quote']

I would permit this because of two words.

 

"EMP Explosion"

[Richard Logue]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Currently in my Champions campaign, I've stripped the PC's of their powers and relocated them to an alternate dimension they are lovingly calling "Nazi World." There, they will have to "make friends" with the alternate version of the very villain that sent them there to begin with.

 

In my 7th Sea campaign, its standard fare for the PC's to unknowingly assist the hidden bad guys.

 

In a past Deadlands campaign, I've played the PC's into joining opposing sides of a range war.

 

Richard

[Samuraiko]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Our L5R GM proved to be a sadistic bastard when it came to one of the PCs (a half-Lion/half-Scorpion-turned-ronin-now-Dragon, long story). The PC had the disadvantage Lost Love, and his lady love was marrying his rival, a samurai in the Phoenix Clan. He told her about an ally of his, Shiba Ryudai, saying, "Should you ever need help, Shiba Ryudai is a good and honorable governor, he will help you."

 

Because of a favor owed to him by the Phoenix Clan, he finagled a visit with the Master of Void on the Phoenix Council of Five (who told him that his future and his companions' were shadowed by the Living Darkness). The Living Darkness also paid him a visit, saying, "One by one, your companions will fall to me, and then you will fall as well."

 

After learning this, he told us and his lady love about the revelation of our futures to protect us from the clutches of the Living Darkness (aka the Lying Darkness, or the Shadow), since he wouldn't be around to protect his lover himself.

 

Unfortunately, the PC (and the player) had no idea that Ryudai had already been himself corrupted by the Shadow, and the PC essentially sent her to her doom.

 

To make matters worse, while riding through the night, frantically trying to escape the Living Darkness which was rolling up on us like a horrific black tidal wave of nothingness, one of the samurai with us fell from her saddle, so my PC went back to try and save her. Both of us were swallowed up by the Darkness.

 

And as Craig's PC rode on, horrified at the loss of Nasami (my PC), he saw a manifestation of the Living Darkness before him (it took the form of his older brother, who had also already been consumed by the Shadow), and as he drew level, his brother said a single word.

 

"One."

 

Craig got so creeped out and pissed off at John (the GM) that he started cursing him out and throwing empty Gatorade bottles at him.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[Kirby]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Hmm... not really what I would call evil, but it seems to fit with some of the posts here:

 

In one campaign, a PC had a female character that he gave me a write up with four different possible histories for his character and asked me to choose one and reveal it during the coarse of the campaign. I modified two of them. The PC was a mentalist. I had her be the daughter of Mentalla and she was transported from the future to the present (or in her case, she was transported to the past).

 

In another, two players happened to make characters with the same last name. One specifically made her character related to the Huntsman from To Serve and Protect. It worked out that both of the PCs were cousins and related to the Huntsman. At the beginning of the game, neither knew that the other was a super, though this came out after a few meetings. Also, one of the players had a brother in his write up who did archaeological digs, so I turned this brother into a Juggernaught clone, but the players didn't realize this for a while. Even when they did, the PCs' didn't have a clue.

[Kirby]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Oh, I'm surprised I forgot about this while making my initial post.

 

In my current campaign, the players have joined an existing supers team. I have already laid down the ground work for this team to be assassinated by a group of villains in later "issues." The VOICE of Doom.

[Dust Raven]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Our L5R GM proved to be a sadistic bastard when it came to one of the PCs (a half-Lion/half-Scorpion-turned-ronin-now-Dragon, long story). The PC had the disadvantage Lost Love, and his lady love was marrying his rival, a samurai in the Phoenix Clan. He told her about an ally of his, Shiba Ryudai, saying, "Should you ever need help, Shiba Ryudai is a good and honorable governor, he will help you."

 

Because of a favor owed to him by the Phoenix Clan, he finagled a visit with the Master of Void on the Phoenix Council of Five (who told him that his future and his companions' were shadowed by the Living Darkness). The Living Darkness also paid him a visit, saying, "One by one, your companions will fall to me, and then you will fall as well."

 

After learning this, he told us and his lady love about the revelation of our futures to protect us from the clutches of the Living Darkness (aka the Lying Darkness, or the Shadow), since he wouldn't be around to protect his lover himself.

 

Unfortunately, the PC (and the player) had no idea that Ryudai had already been himself corrupted by the Shadow, and the PC essentially sent her to her doom.

 

To make matters worse, while riding through the night, frantically trying to escape the Living Darkness which was rolling up on us like a horrific black tidal wave of nothingness, one of the samurai with us fell from her saddle, so my PC went back to try and save her. Both of us were swallowed up by the Darkness.

 

And as Craig's PC rode on, horrified at the loss of Nasami (my PC), he saw a manifestation of the Living Darkness before him (it took the form of his older brother, who had also already been consumed by the Shadow), and as he drew level, his brother said a single word.

 

"One."

 

Craig got so creeped out and pissed off at John (the GM) that he started cursing him out and throwing empty Gatorade bottles at him.

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

You're right. I should get together with your group and play sometime.

[Samuraiko]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

Let's see... what have I done to my players?

 

My character (half Sidhe, half human) hates all Sidhe and hunts Unseelie down like dogs (17 credited kills so far), and to make matters more interesting, she's pretty much immune to Glamour. The Sidhe Ally that Slim (our Inish Glamour Mage) has is the "wife" of my character's father (my father was a Sidhe lord who dallied with a human woman, with me being the result), so she hates my guts... and Slim didn't find out about it until we ended up in the Land of the Fae and the Queen of the Sidhe maliciously told him about it...

 

But I honestly think my best example of freaking out the players was the night I hit them with the following 7th Sea scenario. (With the exception of Amused, who is not as experienced a gamer as we are simply because most of us have at least ten to fifteen years on her, and our friend Jeff, a novice gamer, the rest of the players are all campaign-hardened gamers. Nothing scares them. They eat punks... er, monsters like this for breakfast. You get the idea. So I used the best weapons in the GM's arsenal - a vivid description and the players' own overactive imaginations.)

 

The group ended up on La Bucca, the prison island currently held by the Brotherhood of the Coast, a roving pirate nation. Allende, the leader, tells the PCs that the only way OFF the island is to fork over cash (which they have, but not really enough). So he mentions that southeast of here is a swamp (a swamp from which no man has ever returned), and in that swamp, there's a building (a building that no man has ever entered), etc. And rumor has it there's treasure there, so why not just nip over there and grab some, then you can get off the island!

 

So off they go. Day one in the swamp, there's flies, fumes, mud, and all sorts of gross stuff (if you've seen the Extended version of Fellowship of the Ring, you know exactly what it looks like). The PCs are bright enough to use long poles to test the ground as they go, but after losing two on the first day to sinkholes, they tread with extreme caution. Then that night, they notice these dancing lights off in the distance. And then they see the eyes watching them. Then the voices start.

 

All night, nothing happens, but the PCs lose a good amount of sleep.

 

Day two, slog, slog, slog, the horses are not happy at all, the courtesan who's traveling with us (no way are the PCs leaving her with the pirates) is grousing the whole way. Night two, not only are there the lights and the eyes and the voices, but then one of the more nervous PCs (Jeff, the novice) notices the skeletal hands that have begun sprouting up from the swamp. They reach out slowly, then sink back, reach out slowly, then sink back. One PC (one of the aforementioned hardened gamers) has the bright idea of reaching out with a stick to touch one. And as he (both PC and his experienced player) are saying, "See, there's nothing to be afraid of," the skeletal hand snatches the stick out of the PC's hand (good thing he made the roll to let GO of it) and vanishes in a flash beneath the muck. And they can't tell if the hands are moving closer or not.

 

The PCs don't get ANY sleep that night.

 

Day three, slog, slog slog, our resident bad-tempered Avalon hunter is getting really annoyed with the griping courtesan and is loudly contemplating handing her over to the skeletal things to get her to shut up. On the bright side, the same Avalon that night catches four of the lights in a glass jar (let's hear it for Lore: Supernatural), and now none of the creatures in the swamp will approach the lights. A little more sleep for the PCs.

 

After seven days of this, jumping at every snapping twig, haggard with lack of sleep, and completely freaking out, they finally reach what looks like the outskirts of a ruin. Covered in Sidhe wards. And Slim, playing the aforementioned half-Sidhe PC (also a hardened gamer) all of a sudden blurts out IC that he doesn't want to know what the Sidhe were scared of if they had to put wards up. Now all the PCs (and their players) are nervously looking over their shoulders and flinching at every little sound.

 

(It doesn't help that it's getting dark and late IRL at my apartment, but I notice that the players are coming closer together.)

 

The horses are now one step away from bolting in fear, there's solid ground under the PCs' feet and they're still prodding ahead of them with a large staff, and the runes glow in the Will o' the Wisps' light.

 

Then they find a building, the only one still standing. It's overgrown with moss and stuff, and the slime of the swamp has started creeping up the side.

 

And the group of PCs that normally charges in where FOOLS fear to tread are all standing around outside, daring each other to go into the building, while the GM is chuckling to herself.

 

In the middle of the argument, one of the NPCs yells in fright as he notices that suddenly there are people standing in front of the hut. And they're armed. And there are almost as many as there are PCs. But they're not moving.

 

Then the PCs realize that they're looking at themselves. Not mirrors. Not reflections. Real copies of themselves. And their other selves all look... different.

 

At this point, while the PCs and their players were ready to leap out of their skin, all six players started shouting at me not to stop when I decided that this would make a great stopping point for the night.

 

Great night... and that scenario only got worse as things went along...

 

Michelle

aka

Samuraiko

[hooligan x]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

In the first game of my current campaign, the villian fooled the heros into raiding a base to "rescue" billionare Roy Biv thus allowing said villian to slip in behind them and destroy the old man's life suport system. Biv's grandson Gerhardt was understanding and has even helped the PCs numerous times. Biv the younger was, of course, behind the whole plot and has been using the PC's to help him get elected President ("Who are you gonna vote for? I like Biv's "tough on Hell" policy").

 

Of course, the PCs will soon figure it out and have to kick the crap out of the President of the United States of America, which gets you talked about in superhero circles.

[Hermit]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

In retrospect, when I was on my 'parallel dimensions where every PC and NPC has a double' kick Porn World may have been in poor taste.

 

[hooligan x]

Re: The Truly Evil GM

 

In retrospect' date=' when I was on my 'parallel dimensions where every PC and NPC has a double' kick [i']Porn World[/i] may have been in poor taste.

 

But the miniatures were GREAT!