Champs "Star Chamber"

[austenandrews]

The problem: Some supervillains play the system too well. Be it evading conviction, getting off with light sentences, escaping too easily, transferring their powered equipment to successors - many are essentially unstoppable by legal means.

 

The response: A superhero team where "justice not law" is the order of the day. To make this work, the team is supported by a secret, private coalition of police officials, judges, politicians, billionaires and other patrons who (a) give them inside information and resources to do the job and ( make sure they are unhampered by legal ramifications. With this freedom, the superhero team readily destroys a villain's property (to make sure he can't rebuild his weapons, for instance); ruins him financially; breaks privacy laws to keep tabs on possible re-offenders; puts a hard smackdown on bad guys who surrender peacefully, if it's deemed beneficial; "applies duress" if it will yield crucial information; even drugs and/or illegally imprisons villains that are simply too much to otherwise control.

 

The caveat: The group is run by a hero who's the moral equivalent of Captain America. In other words no killing, no harm or threats to innocents, no political or economic agendas, etc. Basically the operation is run such that, if the public were to learn how the group handled a villain, the response would be "he had it coming" rather than "they went too far."

 

Given this premise:

 

- Under what rules might such a superteam operate? How inherently covert would such a team have to be?

- What kind of "patrons" would be essential? How about very useful?

- What team resources would be needed?

- What might a GM do to make such a campaign more four-color/Bronze Age and less Dark Champions?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

What might a GM do to make such a campaign more four-color/Bronze Age and less Dark Champions?

 

To my thinking, if this sort of thing happened time and again (supervillains getting off easy and returning to threaten the world) and there's sufficient backing (politicians, billionaires, etc) to set up this Star Chamber, and public response would be "they had it coming", they'd just change the system instead.

 

Jacking up mandatory sentences for certain types of crimes. Relaxing of evidence rules to the point where "Dr. X is on the loose" is virtual carte blanche to search anywhere he is suspected to be, old hideouts, round up past associates, etc. in pursuit of him. Very loose guidelines on "reasonable force" when dealing with a guy who can flash-freeze Hoboken if given half a chance. Three strikes, even two-strikes laws. Supervillain groups and agent orgs are treated as "terrorist organizations". Relaxed guidelines allowing established superheroes to search, arrest, and testify without revealing identities or becoming official officers of the law.

 

If supervillains are a bad enough threat, and persistent enough, I really think that the overall system would adapt in the open, rather than having to turn to a Star Chamber type of system.

 

YMMV

[Blue]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

I actually ran a group of "true vigilantes" based on the Star Chamber in a campaign (heck, probably a few years after the movie came out). But they were intended to be a secret cabal of heroes who'd crossed that line; They wanted to induct the PC (I was running a solo campaign at the time), who rebelled and tried to bring them down. Now I wonder what would have happened if the PC had joined. That sure would have changed the campaign!

[austenandrews]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

To my thinking' date=' if this sort of thing happened time and again (supervillains getting off easy and returning to threaten the world) and there's sufficient backing (politicians, billionaires, etc) to set up this Star Chamber, and public response would be "they had it coming", they'd just [i']change the system instead[/i].

Granted, but I'm thinking that the rules don't work for a small subset of supervillains. Overall the system works fine (or as well as it ever does in a superhero world ). Basically take the standard superhero setting where supervillains often manage to return after a capture, or master villains never get caught; then create this special superteam to handle the most egregious of them.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

If the "Star Chamber" team is too effective, the most logical response of the major villains is to set them up for an object lesson(one or more of the following):

1. sussing out the secret ID of one or more members and going after them in a variety of ways, culminating in an attack on them

2. infiltrating a hitherto unknown villain on the Star Chamber(and consequently using it to go after enemies of the major villains first)

3. setting up a lethal ambush for the team, possibly via #1 or #2.

[Blue]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

- Under what rules might such a superteam operate? How inherently covert would such a team have to be?

- What kind of "patrons" would be essential? How about very useful?

- What team resources would be needed?

- What might a GM do to make such a campaign more four-color/Bronze Age and less Dark Champions?

1. They'd need rules of punishment. And is it a sliding scale (This murder is worse than that one) or is it absolute (as the law was intended to be; One punishment for murder)

2.

3. They'd need a place to carry out sentence. What good is enforcing your own law if you don't have a secret prison somewhere. Contacts who can cover up the disappearance of a villain would help.

4. Don't know. I'd run it Iron Age. I'm sure there are other folks who can lighten the mood.

[ThothAmon]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Steal from the TV series 'Mission Impossible'. Known heroes are contacted in exotic fashion by secret government agency. Missions are to take down villains who have evaded standard law-enforcement efforts. Sometimes that includes the death penalty...

[austenandrews]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

1. They'd need rules of punishment. And is it a sliding scale (This murder is worse than that one) or is it absolute (as the law was intended to be; One punishment for murder)

Team action would definitely be tailored to the criminal.

 

3. They'd need a place to carry out sentence. What good is enforcing your own law if you don't have a secret prison somewhere. Contacts who can cover up the disappearance of a villain would help.

This part of the operation will seem awfully sinister, even if it isn't. I don't see much way around that.

 

4. Don't know. I'd run it Iron Age. I'm sure there are other folks who can lighten the mood.

I stopped reading comics at the start of the Iron Age, because I didn't like the motifs. In some ways this campaign would explore some darker aspects of vigilantism, but in the light of a four-color milieu. It would be designed to walk the edge.

[austenandrews]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Steal from the TV series 'Mission Impossible'. Known heroes are contacted in exotic fashion by secret government agency. Missions are to take down villains who have evaded standard law-enforcement efforts. Sometimes that includes the death penalty...

Good source for ideas! I hadn't thought of that. Though it's important to me that the secret organization is private, not government. They're deliberately breaking the law and getting away with it (not coincidentally, just like the villains they hunt) but with just intentions. No killing, though. That's a can of worm I don't have any interest in opening.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

3. They'd need a place to carry out sentence. What good is enforcing your own law if you don't have a secret prison somewhere. Contacts who can cover up the disappearance of a villain would help.

 

I don't think prison terms of anything less than life would be workable if you're going to keep the program a secret. Eventually, someone's sentence would run out, they'd be let loose, and talk.

 

You'd have to resort to permanent incarceration (and if they keep getting out of Stronghold or equivalent, interesting to see how you could do this anyways), killing them, or sending them somewhere...else (Phantom Zone, other dimension, etc.). Given supervillain's tendencies to eventually find ways out of strange places, I think that killing/atomizing them is the only real option. As permanent as *that* is in a supers world...

 

If in the CU, perhaps a possibility would be a deal with Issthvawhatsername. She's looking for talent, right? Agree to hand over Earth's worst troublemakers to her for whatever kind of brainwashing and indoctrination she wants to give them for her to use them in her conquest of other worlds. In exchange, she keeps leaving Earth alone.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

I don't think prison terms of anything less than life would be workable if you're going to keep the program a secret. Eventually, someone's sentence would run out, they'd be let loose, and talk.

 

You'd have to resort to permanent incarceration (and if they keep getting out of Stronghold or equivalent, interesting to see how you could do this anyways), killing them, or sending them somewhere...else (Phantom Zone, other dimension, etc.). Given supervillain's tendencies to eventually find ways out of strange places, I think that killing/atomizing them is the only real option. As permanent as *that* is in a supers world...

 

If in the CU, perhaps a possibility would be a deal with Issthvawhatsername. She's looking for talent, right? Agree to hand over Earth's worst troublemakers to her for whatever kind of brainwashing and indoctrination she wants to give them for her to use them in her conquest of other worlds. In exchange, she keeps leaving Earth alone.

 

Okay, that last is really nasty... and probably short sighted, given they may well be coming right back through, only as an army.

[The Watcher]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

I don't think prison terms of anything less than life would be workable if you're going to keep the program a secret. Eventually, someone's sentence would run out, they'd be let loose, and talk.

 

You'd have to resort to permanent incarceration (and if they keep getting out of Stronghold or equivalent, interesting to see how you could do this anyways), killing them, or sending them somewhere...else (Phantom Zone, other dimension, etc.). Given supervillain's tendencies to eventually find ways out of strange places, I think that killing/atomizing them is the only real option. As permanent as *that* is in a supers world...

 

If in the CU, perhaps a possibility would be a deal with Issthvawhatsername. She's looking for talent, right? Agree to hand over Earth's worst troublemakers to her for whatever kind of brainwashing and indoctrination she wants to give them for her to use them in her conquest of other worlds. In exchange, she keeps leaving Earth alone.

Well, if you want extradimensional exile to be the sentence, there's no need to go to the trouble and potential risk of dealing with V'han. Not when Nebula is already bopping around doing it for free. Just offer her some material support and back-up and she'll take care of the rest.

[Blue]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Might I propose some sort of [Dr. Evil quotation fingers]"Phantom Zone"[/Dr. Evil quotation fingers].

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Might I propose some sort of [Dr. Evil quotation fingers]"Phantom Zone"[/Dr. Evil quotation fingers].

 

[scott]*cough*lame*cough*[/scott]

[megaplayboy]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Seems like any reasonably intelligent master villain type(or mentalist villain, or villain with govt. contacts) would be able to suss out what was happening, then convene their own "Secret Revenge Society" to counter it.

 

You might get some sort of "Secret Crisis" or "Infinite War" going on:eg:

[austenandrews]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Oh, absolutely.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

Well' date=' if you want extradimensional exile to be the sentence, there's no need to go to the trouble and potential risk of dealing with V'han. Not when Nebula is already bopping around doing it for free. Just offer her some material support and back-up and she'll take care of the rest.[/quote']

 

Material support, hell, she's a prime recruit for the Chamber. This is almost exactly her kind of thing.

 

If anything, though, she might serve as one of the limiting factors on the team; as while she is draconian in punishment, she's also as rigidly lawful as you could possibly imagine. IOW, precisely zero tolerance for corruption or abuse.

[Marketeer]

Re: Champs "Star Chamber"

 

- Under what rules might such a superteam operate? How inherently covert would such a team have to be?

- What kind of "patrons" would be essential? How about very useful?

- What team resources would be needed?

- What might a GM do to make such a campaign more four-color/Bronze Age and less Dark Champions?

 

To make it more four-color, I think you have to give the PCs a real choice as to whether or not to tolerate this kind of behavior.

 

Fundamentally, I don't think traditional four-color heroes (Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, for example) would be able to stomach this kind of cloak-and-dagger, no trial system: it's anathema to who they are.

 

Iron Age/Dark Champions: the Star Chamber is the best solution.

 

Four Color: the Star Chamber is a bunch of whackjobs who are every bit as bad as the villains they fight

 

Bronze: it's not that simple--give the heroes a chance to examine, think about, and repeatedly encounter the Chamber. Have successes--and failures--of the Chamber. Make it a contrast.

 

I would, however, hasten to point out that this kind of organization is ideal for someone like Menton to take over...