Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

[fbdaury]

Not just hero books either- how about other games systems as well? See, I had this idea for the conversion that I'm doing of Perforator from MIxed Doubles and my tought was : What if the woman that he thinks is his sister isn't? Wahtif she is coincedently also named Susanne(sp?) but is not related? HOw will this affect his decision to become a hero instead of villain as he was before? And what happens to Dryad when she finds out this abrasive, crude, and violent man that she has come to see as her brother, is not her brother, how does she react then?

 

1)How would you have the character react?

2)What sorts of similar things have you done to the characters to alter them from what is presented in the books?

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

Not just hero books either- how about other games systems as well? See, I had this idea for the conversion that I'm doing of Perforator from MIxed Doubles and my tought was : What if the woman that he thinks is his sister isn't? Wahtif she is coincedently also named Susanne(sp?) but is not related? HOw will this affect his decision to become a hero instead of villain as he was before? And what happens to Dryad when she finds out this abrasive, crude, and violent man that she has come to see as her brother, is not her brother, how does she react then?

 

1)How would you have the character react?

2)What sorts of similar things have you done to the characters to alter them from what is presented in the books?

 

1) Well, I'm not terribly gloomy, so I'd have them get over it, maybe even become friends. After all, they did 'work' as a 'family', so they could well get along after. Perhaps Perforator would realize that even if Dryad _isn't_ his sister... she's still out there, and would disapprove just as much.

2) Never used a character from a book in a game (well... barring VIPER agents a way back, but that don't count).

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I usually take characters from books pretty literally; I'm always afraid that if I change something in their background, I'll forget it later when re-reading the character. I'm terrible at taking notes.

 

One thing I do, though, is give my villains XP, usually 10 (it sounds like a lot, but since it's 10 XP per appearance, it doesn't add up as quick as a PC's); just enough to ensure a surprise or two for the PCs who think they know exactly what he does.

 

Best example: Power Crusher from 4th Edition was a positive monster up close, but if he couldn't reach you, he was pretty easy pickings. After my PCs picked up on this, the hand-to-hand crowd backed off and let the blasters do their thing. Next game, he'd added an Energy Blast to his powered gauntlets ... which made for a great reaction.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

Heck, I do this sort of thing all the time. Even though my current campaign is set within a (modified) version of the default Champions Universe, there's very little that I don't tweak to a lesser or greater degree.

 

One example of this came up in conversation recently: Captain Australia was a character for 4E Champs that appeared in the HERO System Almanac I. There were actually two CA's, twin brother and sister from a human mother and a father who was a cosmic entity. They grew up to be Superman/Supergirl style protectors of Australia. The brother was actually the first Captain, but after he was paralyzed by a villain's attack his sister took over the role from him.

 

In the campaign in which I used this concept, the twins' origin was pretty much as written, but as a child the girl was kidnapped by Malachite (4E predecessor to Teleios as the CU's master geneticist), who was looking for a bride as "perfect" as himself. Detecting the girl's tremendous latent power he artificially aged her to adulthood and attempted to bring out her abilities, but the cosmic source of her power was beyond his comprehension. So he placed her in suspended animation until he decided what to do with her.

 

Meanwhile her brother grew up to be Captain Australia. In the original writeup Cap started as part of an Australian government superteam, but after his ill-prepared teammates were slaughtered on their first mission he vowed not to serve the government again. In my campaign this also led him to take on more international responsibility. During one early mission to Japan to thwart an earthquake-creating villain, Cap held up a major skyscraper from falling until it could be evacuated. After that feat the world press dubbed him "Captain Atlas," and the name stuck.

 

In his original writeup Captain Australia had a subconscious Mind Link with his sister; in my campaign the link fed images of his exploits to her, prompting her powers to develop along the same lines as his. Eventually she grew too powerful for Malachite's machines to contain, and escaped. Wandering without purpose she was found and recruited by VIPER, and became their mightiest supervillain, Viperia. (This is loosely based on Viperia's origin from the 4E VIPER sourcebook.)

 

Both Captain Atlas and Viperia were NPCs in that campaign, and on a couple of occasions our PC heroes were caught in the middle of their "family disputes," the first of which levelled considerable real estate. The heroes thought they were helping CA (who wasn't fighting back against Viperia), and were startled when he moved to protect her from their attacks. Ultimately the PCs learned the truth and joined the twins against the cosmically powered monster Entropi (another character from Almanac I), who was trying to destroy the world. In the process of stopping Entropi they accidentally resurrected the twins' deceased father, the cosmic Guardsman, and Viperia left the Earth with him to seek her destiny.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I borrow characters from other books all the time. Afterall, that's what they're there for. If one of my older Hero products or a product from another company has something I want to use....I use it. Most of the time, I'll alter the character somewhat(as well as updating to 5th), but if the character is cool to me as is....then I'll leave him/her that way.

 

Rob

[Sketchpad]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

1) I think that it depends on the character. If she finds out that this person is a villain, then she may be likely to become a hero ... or even a villain out of spite for the situation. It really can play either way.

2) I also borrow a lot from other books. For example, in the game that I run I use characters like Foxbat (from Champions), The Atomic Brain (from Mutants and Masterminds), The Crushers (from V&V) and Behemoth (from C:NM). I usually alter their histories to fit into my world and often change their appearances slightly to fit the style of my world. My goal eventually is to get the Algeron Files and see if I can transfer some characters over

[zornwil]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I make plenty of changes. Most often in terms of personality, sometimes caricature-like (when I did the F4 in my prior campaign, Reed was a severe manic-depressive, Sue was a frustrated slut, Torch was a glory-hound movie guy and of course easy to anger, and Thing, well, at this point Thing had been cured and quickly killed by an old enemy).

 

Mainly, I try to make it clear to players these are MY versions and there's no message.

[lemming]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I make plenty of changes. Most often in terms of personality, sometimes caricature-like (when I did the F4 in my prior campaign, Reed was a severe manic-depressive, Sue was a frustrated slut, Torch was a glory-hound movie guy and of course easy to anger, and Thing, well, at this point Thing had been cured and quickly killed by an old enemy).

 

Mainly, I try to make it clear to players these are MY versions and there's no message.

And we still over analyze the comics trying to get clues!

 

Actually, we were just digging for Rogue's name.

[Mike W]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I borrow characters all the time. The main thing is to make sure the character makes sense, balances with the campaign, and hopefully, can provide some good story elements. If this means modifying things a bit so be it. Personally, I found that most 4th edition characters needed to be tweaked to be effective. There wre simply too many that didn't balance against each other very well.

[TheEmerged]

Re: Taking Characters from books and making them your own...

 

I borrow liberally and regularly. For example, 3 of the major "official teams" in my campaign are one-offs of the Avengers (Capital Gang), Justice League (Justice Battalion), and X-Men (the Moderators).

 

The various members are a variety of one-offs (example: Mega is Supergirl powered down slightly and lacking heat vision), parodies (example: Victory is a parody of Wonder Woman), remixes (example: Baethan Electrum is a remix of Booster Gold, with his original powerset and similar attitude but a different motivation and competence level) -- and the occassional direct conversion (Warbird).

 

Sometimes changes have to be made to fit the world -- Rope Trick of the Moderators is a conversion of Jean Grey, who has to disguise her telekinesis from a world with a strong anti-psionic backlash.