villain vs villain

[Brutal]

Heya, I've just started up a villain campaign (short warmup tonight). Was wondering if anyone had one before and have any advice? So far they've chosen the political way of getting power (getting control over the mayor so far ).

Anyways, the real questions I have is: Allow their goals, or try to stop them? That is, when we play heroes, their goal is usually to stop the villains (well doh). But when they play villains, they are currently trying to get more power, money etc, you get the idea. Is this something I should allow alot? Or should I go the "stop them alot" approach? Would really be fun to get this campaign rolling, as an alterative to casual hero playing.

Advice would be thankful

[Hermit]

Re: villain vs villain

 

Evil almost always turns in on itself eventually.

 

Maybe they're intruding with some VIPER plans and will be told to buy in, or get out.

[casualplayer]

Re: villain vs villain

 

When I ran my villains campaign the team mentalist Black Dragon killed Aquarian from Champions of the North, and Polar Bear (also from CotN) has been actively hunting him ever since, with the intent to kill. Villains get disturbed when heroes get vicious in response.

 

I also had Harbinger of Justice infiltrate the group and almost put all of them into an early grave. He posed as their pilot for well over a year before striking.

 

Eventually, after we went back to the mainstream hero game, I rolled some of the villains into Eurostar and they got to fight their former characters.

 

Strangely I have found that the best way to get players to learn teamwork and coordination is to have them run villains. Maybe it's because the leader will kill you if you don't do what you are told?

[KA.]

Re: villain vs villain

 

To run an interesting Heroic campaign, there need to be Villains that are pursuing goals that put them in direct conflict with the Heroes.

Intelligent Villains that can put up a tough fight, and who always have one last trick up their sleeve.

Often, when someone is running a "Villain" campaign, it quickly turns into something similar to the D&D "Monty Haul" campaigns, where the players get everything handed to them on a silver platter.

 

There is no reason for this to be the case.

 

If anyone with an Energy Blast and a bad attitude could rule the world, they would already be ruling it before your group even showed up.

 

Which means that there must, by implication, be Heroes around that are well-trained, intelligent, and powerful enough to triumph against any villainous group.

 

The Mayor has been controlled?

How many times has this happened in the comics?

Lots of times.

The heroes always figure it out, then the find a way to expose the plan and kick the villain's rear end.

 

And villains who manage to escape, do so because they have backup plan after backup plan after backup plan.

 

Do your players?

 

I am not saying that since they are villains they must always lose, but you sure as heck don't have to let them run over the world, either.

 

Design some NPC heroes that are as good as what you read in the comics, and then have them do the things they do in the comics.

They might look like they fell for the latest trick, but did they?

They might seem to have been wiped out by that massive attack, but were they?

They might appear to have given up heroics when their Secret ID was exposed, but did they?

Comic Book Superheroes never stay down for long.

It doesn't matter what you do to them, they are going to find a way to win.

Play it that way!

Make your villains struggle for every thing they get.

 

And if the Heroes in your world aren't very effective, and you don't want them to be, who is really in charge?

 

Perhaps a powerful group has already taken over.

 

VIPER, DEMON, or a group of your choice (Aliens of some sort would be great), may already be in control of things.

 

And the Players could be drawing unwanted attention to things that the group in charge wants ignored.

 

Eventually the Players could cause enough trouble that the "Powers that Be" had to do something to deal with them.

 

At that point, the "Villains" could find themselves turned into "Freedom Fighters".

 

Even the nastiest villain would not want to see the world controlled by flesh eating aliens, or demons that wanted to literally destroy all living things.

 

But with the "intruders" in control of the media, and most of the government, how could the Players ever convince the Heroes that weren't already under control to help them?

 

KA.

[shaunclinton]

Re: villain vs villain

 

A problem that I've always encountered in 'villain' games is that the PC's become quite quick to take advantage of situations and genre conventions they know exist from their time as heroes. Things which villains use well as part of a planned adventure or in the hands of the GM tend to be used by PC's in horrendous ways.

 

Not a Hero example, but in Warhammer there was a level 4 necromany spell called Wind of Death that caused enough damage to pretty much kill most normal people within 2400 yards, and could be cast several times a day. An NPC villain isn't going to walk into a busy city and cast it three times in quick succession... but a PC might well employ such a tactic. If you have responsilbe PC's then you might not have any problems, but I've seen this sort of approach creep into even sensible players when allowed to 'cut loose' by playing a villain.

 

The other problem is foiling their plots and the negative feelings this can cause. In comics, most times the Mayor is taken control of it would go completely undetected if not for the villain making a mistake or the hero (or someone who contacts the hero) noticing something or stumbling upon it. One thing players hate is GM fiat, and a lot of the time that's what it will feel like to them when you rumble their best laid plans. In comics/heroic adventures the villain will usually make a mistake, if we assume your players have made no mistakes then the heroes have to somehow 'stumble' (I use loosely as there are a lot of ways they can find out, all lumped as effectively stumbling into it) upon the plot in order to have a chance of foiling it. This works fine when your players are the heroes, but as the villains they may feel that as GM you're just trying to ruin their fun.

 

Of course... this then leads to them getting away with said plans time and time again which leads to complacency and... well, you get the gist of it.

 

Say there's a huge gathering of world leaders, like the G8 summit or some UN thing. In comics/heroic adventures a villain shows up to kill them all... but he doesn't usually manage to kill anyone before the heroes show up to stop him. If the PC's are the villains though this isn't going to wash. Nucleon Man surprises the heroes present when he leaps out of the catering staff and before anyone can do anything he uses his AOE attack to kill Bush, Blair, Chirac, Schroeder and whoever else happens to be about. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues.

 

Morality comes into a lot of things and the fact that being evil is so easy in a roleplaying game. A real guy picks up a gun, goes into a crowded shopping centre and starts firing. A handful of people dead and probably a few injured. A character in a roleplaying game does the same and barring any heavy duty security measures or instant police response times they could kill a lot. In real life things don't work like that for inexplicable (well, not inexplicable, but long-winded) reasons. My villain isn't a video store clerk who jerks off too much, he's a DEX 18 SPD 4 machine who gets a hold of an AK, has 2 skill levels with it plus some penalty skill levels and uses it 20 times a minute for 5 minutes, he hits his DCV 3 targets as they flee 98.15% of the time, if they have the sense to dodge he still hits 83.8% of them. 90.74% of them take the two bullets that virtually assure death and the other 7.41% I hit get a second bullet to make sure. As long as there are enough people around I'll probably kill 85+ of them (taking into account 2d6+1 damage, bleeding, etc.)

 

You need to think of ways around these things. Another thing you have to consider is the total lack of morality. Most people behave a certain way and would never do certain things, and in game most people behave in a similar manner because they're playing heroes. When you suddenly switch to controlling the villains a lot of players take it into their head to do heinous things that they would never even dreams of (and neither would most villains!) because it's 'only a game'.

 

In short, I've found that villain 'events' are fun for one-offs or short storylines where the PC's get to be nasty (or my fave, one nasty group and one heroic group of PC's facing off) but in general a long running villains campaign is beset by problems which while possible to overcome, can be troublesome. Hope that helps.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: villain vs villain

 

Best thing is to make sure you and the players are on the same page as far as expectations of villainous success and nastiness level. Search around, there have been several similar threads in the past.

 

Personally, I think it works best with the villains having varying degrees of success in the initial stages of the plan, and then getting beaten in the climax. Gather $ and components for the super-weapon over the course of 5 adventures, recruit their agents, have brief inconclusive encounter with a hero/heroes along the way, at critical moment hero team busts in, big fight, villains lose. And if everyone *expects* that, it can be fun. If they expect to win at the big plots, either they will be disappointed, or it will be a short campaign. "Ok, the world is under the control of your hypno-satellite. What's your next villainous scheme? Yawn."

 

As for nastiness level, I prefer "means to an end" level. If it's needed to achieve the goal, then killing, etc. should be done, but the violence should not be the goal itself - a guard might get killed while robbing the bank, but the villains shouldn't just be serial killers in costumes. Plus, the more brutal the villains are, the stronger reaction they'll get from the universe - higher priority from heroes/authorities, less likely to be able to make a deal, get more likely to attract Punisher and Wolverine instead of Captain America. YMMV.

[Kirby]

Re: villain vs villain

 

I'm not sure how you're running yours, so I'll give you my approach and if anything works for you, take and adapt it as you see fit.

 

If I were doing a "PCs are villains" game, I would make this game primarily PC driven, as opposed to GM plot-driven. However, I would tell the players, they needed to update me ahead of time on what their characters are going to want to do, which gives you time to prepare on game day. (For example, they want to rob a bank and tell you days ahead of time, on game day, the characters discuss robbing the bank and do so, with you having the bank setup ready. If they have multiple ideas, you have the basics prepared as they choose one. If they wanted to create an uberweapon, on game day you might tell them they have to make three to five separate trips to gather the components.)

 

As for success, that depends on how well they do. The first time *should* be an overwhelming success, barring any PC/player snafus. But since costumed villains are committing crimes, costumed heroes will want to get involved. As GM, you should decide what clues may have been left behind that will help the NPC heroes out.

 

For conflict, there is always the "other" villains in the campaign city. There could be a turf war, so-to-speak. Also, there may be the occassional hero "on patrol" that flies over when the PCs are about to attack something.

 

Finally, if an NPC villain has hired the PCs, then that puts game control and plot control back into your hands as the GM to do what you want. The PCs may have to think of ways to break/sneak in to a place without setting off alarms, or they could be hired muscle since the NPC boss knows that the heroes will be coming.

 

I don't know if this really answered your questions, but I hope something here helps.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: villain vs villain

 

My first answer is to read The Authority. That is a villian book.

 

My second answer is to reiterate the point about expectations. For me it would be to stress to the players to stay in genre. Which means you are inefficient and generally don't kill. Why? Because villians get foiled, and killing is messy and complicates things. Armed Robbery compounded by Murder One makes a short career if the superprison system is anything like Jack's Icehouse and Stronghold concepts.

 

Hawksmoor