Power Question: Purple Man

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Yeah, Purple Man was definitely one of the more dark villains of Marvel, probably owing to his origin in Dare Devil.

 

He was underused, but probably because he is a villain due to his vileness, and much of it would be inappropriate for the target audience of comics (particularly back when the Comics Code was still in effect).

 

Oddly Frank Miller, who seems to have a penchant for degenerate characters and storylines, didnt appear to care for PM and put him out to pasture during his run on DD.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

They can make EGO Rolls, but they use their current negative EGO. I'd have to check the book to make sure, but I've always adjudicated that as subtracting from the 9- Roll. EGO -10/5 = 9+-2 = 7-. At -30 EGO you would need a 3.

 

-21 EGO takes the average 8 EGO person to -13 which would give them an EGO Roll of 6-. Thats a 10% chance of making a particular EGO Roll. The chance of making 2 consecutively is pretty slim, so its possible for someone to balk at a command, but if it is repeated they will almost certainly fail.

 

A 10 EGO person is better off at -11 with a 7-, which is a 16% chance of success, but still likely to fail repeated commands.

 

The thing to keep in mind here is that this isnt a MENTAL Power, and the EGO Roll isnt a BREAKOUT Roll. Success does not end the effect, it merely resists one command.

 

I understand and agree with all your mechanics. My concern is that the 10% fail rate isn't just a balk, by the rules, but a phase. Given Purple Man is otherwise a normal, more or less, one phase in which I can fire my 12d6 EB should end the "battle". In the comics, those who do briefly resist him seem to spend their full phase resisting him.

 

As far as Drain vs Suppress, an AoE Suppress works like you want -- when people leave the area they are no longer affected, and when other people enter the area they are automatically affected. Suppress is a Constant Power; applying AoE to it does fun things. Conversely, if the PM is knocked out or staggered the Power shuts off until he can reactivate it.

 

Using Drain would not accomplish what you wan't because even if the Purple Man died, the targets would continue to be affected until the Drain's FADE rate accrued back. Also, to get the AoE working correctly you'd also need to make the Drain Continuous. The benefit of Drain is that it is fire and forget, but the downsides make it ill suited to a Power of this sort.

 

This depends on which PM you're using (and the mechanics). The lead character in Alias was able to fly several miles looking for her target while remaining under Purple Man's control. I don't think his phermones have that kind of reach, but she clearly remained under his influence for a while outside the pheremones' range. It should probably have a "one fade removes the influence entirely" limitation, though. I don't recall seeing characters flip flop from following his instructions, to free, to enslaved again once they leave the area.

 

With older versions of the character, recovery seemed pretty quick once he was out of range, and there I would agree with Suppress.

 

I like Gary's idea as well - apply a -6 penalty to the Ego rolls, and anyone at 0 EGO or less needs a 3 to get their normal action.

[Snake Gandhi]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

This depends on which PM you're using (and the mechanics). The lead character in Alias was able to fly several miles looking for her target while remaining under Purple Man's control. I don't think his phermones have that kind of reach' date=' but she clearly remained under his influence for a while outside the pheremones' range.[/quote']IIR, Jessica had spent the previous 6 months as PM's slave. I believe she said she felt his influence fade as she got farther away, but was so far under she didn't really want to stop till she attacked Wanda and snapped out of it.

 

But lots of good stuff here, I'd have never thought of some of these ideas.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Im not familiar with "Alias" -- I thought that was a TV show, which I am also not familiar with. I stopped reading comics, aside from the odd Ross or Astro City graphic novel, about 14 years ago.

 

I suppose its possible for him to keep a person under his thrall long enough that it takes time for the pheremones to get out of their system. Even in the classic continuity he kept Persuasion's mother under his power for a while, so there seems to be a precedent for it.

 

Ill think on it.

[Snake Gandhi]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Im not familiar with "Alias"

Short lived comic about one Jessica Jones, former super-hero and now a private detective. Pretty good IMO, more of a street-level take on things. The incident with PM is why Jessica quit being a superhero.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Isnt that the one that had Luke Cage's love child? I remember a friend of mine mentioning it. She was some kind of a stand in for Spider-Woman, but with Carol Danvers basic powerset (the one that Rogue stole). Flying light brick right?

[Snake Gandhi]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Isnt that the one that had Luke Cage's love child? I remember a friend of mine mentioning it. She was some kind of a stand in for Spider-Woman' date=' but with Carol Danvers basic powerset (the one that Rogue stole). Flying light brick right?[/quote']Yep. She ends up sleeping with Luke (a one night stand kinda thing) and gets pregnant.

[Trained Chicken]

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

Yeah' date=' Purple Man was definitely one of the more dark villains of Marvel, probably owing to his origin in Dare Devil.[/quote']

 

Personality-wise, Daredevil debuted as a near-clone of Spider-Man, Marvel's most recent success. His book was filled with more straightforward superhero fare, and the police and public were protrayed as enamored with him. The tone was definitely very optimistic, at least through his first 8-10 issues.

 

In fact,in that first appearance, Purple Man wasn't very evil at all! More like selfish. He never laid a finger on anyone- in fact, he abhorred physical contact. Matt Murdock said at one point that he couldn't even put him in jail, since it's not against the law to ask people to do things (clearly, this was before RICO)!

 

Later though, as DD and comic book character got darker, Purple Man was clearly a prime subject for such personality re-writing.

 

 

 

BTW, I like the EGO suppress power- it seems right to me. Ought to be something about LOS in there, too, though.

[Sketchpad]

Arise! Arise thread of old! I have a question in which this thread it could be told! Ia!

 

Okay, now that the necrothreadancy has been properly cast, I was wondering something about Purple Man's powers. How would you emulate the purple-ness of his pheromone power? Is it just a result of Perceivable? In the comics, when someone is taken over by PM, they turn purple. Thoughts?

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Sketchpad said:

Arise! Arise thread of old! I have a question in which this thread it could be told! Ia!

 

Okay, now that the necrothreadancy has been properly cast, I was wondering something about Purple Man's powers. How would you emulate the purple-ness of his pheromone power? Is it just a result of Perceivable? In the comics, when someone is taken over by PM, they turn purple. Thoughts?

 

If so, that is a recent change. There used to be no visible effects.

 

Perceivable defined as the Effect on the target being visible seems to cover it. You still don't see the attack unless you have Mental Awareness or are the target. 

[Tjack]

  Something I don’t think anyone else has mentioned is how much easier it is to build a real monster of a one trick pony.  When your not spending points on anything else but Mental Domination, you get REALLY good at it.  Especially when as a villain the GM can spend as many points as needed to do it up right. 
   This is not a slam, it’s just an acknowledgment of the fact that some villains are just going to be Hella good at their job.  It’s for the PC’s/Heroes to think and roleplay their way around the problem instead of relying on lots of points in Smash Stuff and metagaming their way around the write-ups.

  A character like Purple Man makes my flesh crawl, especially when portrayed as well and as creepily as David Tennant did on the Netflicks series Jessica Jones. But he would be a great recurring character type in a campaign.

[Lord Liaden]

11 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

Arise! Arise thread of old! I have a question in which this thread it could be told! Ia!

 

Okay, now that the necrothreadancy has been properly cast, I was wondering something about Purple Man's powers. How would you emulate the purple-ness of his pheromone power? Is it just a result of Perceivable? In the comics, when someone is taken over by PM, they turn purple. Thoughts?

 

If you ran Purple Man's control as a Mental Transform rather than Mind Control, conditionally Linking a little Cosmetic Transform with it should suffice.

[Sketchpad]

 

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

If you ran Purple Man's control as a Mental Transform rather than Mind Control, conditionally Linking a little Cosmetic Transform with it should suffice.

 

I'm not seeing the color shift as a power... there's no advantage to it. Rather it's a drawback of the Mind Control and really should be a Limitation.

[Echo3Niner]

19 hours ago, Tjack said:

A character like Purple Man makes my flesh crawl, especially when portrayed as well and as creepily as David Tennant did on the Netflicks series Jessica Jones. But he would be a great recurring character type in a campaign.

 

I never wanted a bad guy dead, more than that character in that show...  You are right; David Tennant did an awesome job...  So much more so than any other mentalist type villain from any other fiction I've seen or read - super dark, and (SPOILER ALERT) I actually whooped and hollered when she snapped his neck!

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Echo3Niner
Added SPOILER ALERT

[pinecone]

I'd likely start with Transform, cumlative (heals normally) AE Into obediant to Purple man...? add some bells and wistles, lim: Target must breath air/ not vs Life suppot...and you are pretty close...?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I consider the color shift the special effect of a transform.  Mind Control as a power in Hero doesn't cover how mind control is used in source fiction at all, so you have to use other powers.

[Jhamin]

A semi-related comment, Reading through the old thread there are several comments around how Naked Ego must be able to resist him because Doctor Doom is able to ignore his powers.

I would argue that Doctor Doom has some kind of "stealth" power & mental defense that prevents him from being subservient to anyone.

 

So Purple Man's powers didn't fail against Doom because they don't work on High Egos, he ran into some kind of "Doom is a slave to noone!" type defense.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, I think Dr Doom has so much Ego he has Mental Defense.  Besides, he's trained in magic as well as science, I'm guessing Dr Strange would shrug him off as well.

[Tech]

Assuming you decided exactly how the power would be created, would you actually use it in a game? From much experience, players hate having their character mind-controlled, or at least made useless with a single attack.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Indeed.

 

One of the best X-Men issues I ever read was the one where Magneto captured them and regressed their abilities to the level of a small child, making them basically helpless.  How they got out of it and saved themselves made for a great story.  But nobody wants to play a game like that.

[Tjack]

On 1/17/2006 at 3:02 PM, Snake Gandhi said:

Re: Power Question: Purple Man

 

 

Short lived comic about one Jessica Jones, former super-hero and now a private detective. Pretty good IMO, more of a street-level take on things. The incident with PM is why Jessica quit being a superhero.

  First came the very well done espionage TV show starring Jennifer Garner with J.J. Abrams as the creator & show runner.  Then came the comic book with Jessica Jones that had the same name but no other connection.  When the comic book was to be made a show on Netflicks it had to change names due to copyright laws.

[Sketchpad]

7 hours ago, Tech said:

Assuming you decided exactly how the power would be created, would you actually use it in a game? From much experience, players hate having their character mind-controlled, or at least made useless with a single attack.

 

How anyone uses the power is kind of irrelevant, isn't it? The trend of "how to build" becoming "how you should use in you game" is becoming a bit tedious on the boards as of late. 

 

But to answer the question, the character in question is designed as a foil for the group in my campaign. Not really about controlling the heroes so much as others around them. But there's a certain emulation that I'm looking for that's not Transform, for example. 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Namor's willpower was such that Doom create an amplifying device to make sure Namor would be affected by the Purple Man's power.

Just now, Dr. MID-Nite said:

Namor's willpower was such that Doom create an amplifying device to make sure Namor would be affected by the Purple Man's power.

 

From the really good Emperor Doom graphic novel by the way.