L.Craig Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 i am trying to figure out why metahumans would be attracted to my campaign city, particuarily villians. I just can't think of any good reasons, why they would hatch their schemes in the city. Could there be some unseen force that draws paranormals to the area? Any ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Put stuff worth stealing in your city. Put active crime families and gangs in your city, and have superhumans working for or running them. Locate organizations that employ supervillains in your city. You can always play the Hellmouth card, but you don't need it to keep a few Supers hapily running around in your campaign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greywind Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians What's a "villian"? It would depend on the motivation of each, individually. Revenge, money, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Johnston Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians I assume you mean disproportionately to the size of the city in question. Here are some things that would draw villains; 1. Being a major centre for beyond the cutting edge research. This not only creates metahumans it also gives them something they want to steal that they can't just find anywhere. 2. Being home base to a globe-trotting team of heroes who can make enemies all over the world and then have them go to there home base city to try to get revenge. 3. Being a port of entry into the country and major transportation nexus. That means that even if villains are on their way elsewhere they'll be passing through. 4. Having chemical or mystical contaminants in the environment that increase the odds of mutating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transmetahuman Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians 5. Some citizen of said city has uncontrolled probability alteration powers - a "weirdness magnet". 6. Local laws are more forgiving for metahumans. As an aside, yeah, it always bugged me that these super-powered criminals all pick NYC/Metropolis to strut their stuff in, when every other city in the world is less well defended by heroes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Craig Posted July 3, 2006 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Yeah if I was a bad guy theres no way i would go to NY, you 6think you would go to smaller places with less heroes and less rival villians Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pentoth Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Some of the heroes and villains could be from the city you are using for the game. Why move if you have everything you need here already. Also with having supers in your city of course some villains are going to come just to fight them. You might not be able to take on Superman in Metropolis but perhaps the villains feel they will have a better shot against Hero X in your city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garou Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Yeah if I was a bad guy theres no way i would go to NY' date=' you 6think you would go to smaller places with less heroes and less rival villians[/quote'] There are fewer heroes and fewer villains in the smaller areas, but there are also less valuable things to steal, less access to cutting-edge technology, fewer places to hide, fewer cronies to recruit for your nefarious schemes, etc. If you are fine with ripping off the feed store and hiding in a grain silo, then rural areas are fine. If you are okay with stealing the cash box from the local gas station, and hiding in an abandoned house, then small towns are okay. If you want to steal a supercomputer and a sample of Compound W (the mutagen that gave the infamous Wom-BOT his powers), and have multiple hiding places for when the heroes foolishly try to stop you, you need to be in a big city. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians There are fewer heroes and fewer villains in the smaller areas, but there are also less valuable things to steal, less access to cutting-edge technology, fewer places to hide, fewer cronies to recruit for your nefarious schemes, etc. If you are fine with ripping off the feed store and hiding in a grain silo, then rural areas are fine. If you are okay with stealing the cash box from the local gas station, and hiding in an abandoned house, then small towns are okay. If you want to steal a supercomputer and a sample of Compound W (the mutagen that gave the infamous Wom-BOT his powers), and have multiple hiding places for when the heroes foolishly try to stop you, you need to be in a big city. Yup. I'd add that there's no reason that your heroes and villains have to be the Big Leagues no matter where you base your game, nor do all the heroes and bad guys need to be in one city or country. Split things up and spread them out. If your Real World City is large enough to support a drug trade, a few gangs, a crime family or two, and other assorted crooks and creeps, it's big enough to support a few Super Criminals who are in this for the money. If it's not, you can still have Mad Scientists, Mystic Maniacs, the occasional locally grown Mutant, etc. Take any Stephen King or Lovecraft story about monsters in a small community and go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patriot Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Mystics and magics based individuals: a powerful new ley line or nexus point has appeared inthe city Techies and alien types: near by meteor strike, or a ship crash Meh...to tired , cant think of anything else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Serpent Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians The infrastructure, support network and familiarity are as mentioned big factors I'd think. Be a pain leaving the city you grew up in (and spent valuable points getting an AK of!), all your local contacts in the underworld, etc. to start fresh somewhere unfamiliar. Besides, deep down criminals don't believe they'll get caught. They think they're too good, too smart, etc. Add in the confidence of superpowers and the various psychoses many have...to paraphrase Michael Bolton in Office Space, "Why should I move? They're the ones that suck!" The plan would have worked, if only that henchman hadn't been stupid and got caught early on. Or if the plans for the security system had been accurate. Or if Megadude hadn't been close enough to hear the alarm. Or if the getaway van had been just a little bit faster. Etc. Always ways to rationalize and lay blame and come back for another round. Besides, starting somewhere else is hard enough without having the reputation of "the guy who couldn't hack it in X / couldn't deal with Y, so he ran away". And for some villains, the enemies are part of the reason they stay. It's a lot harder to be a Hunted from three states away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelcyron Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians One or more large museums, housing valuable antiques and/or ancient magical artifacts. Kelcyron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians i am trying to figure out why metahumans would be attracted to my campaign city' date=' particuarily villians. I just can't think of any good reasons, why they would hatch their schemes in the city. Could there be some unseen force that draws paranormals to the area? Any ideas.[/quote'] Remote Location with little Superhero or Super Agency presence. Secret Researc Facilities Lay/Dragon Lines - Mystical or Cosmic Dimensional Ancient World Ruins (Atlantean/Valdorianéetc...) Way Point for Smugglers/Black Marketeers Retirement Home for supervillians Super Teen Privite School/Academy etc... More Later QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KA. Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Some idiot on the local news does a report on "The Town with No Supervillains!" That would be enough to draw some of the upstart villains with large egos. Which are what you usually want at the start of a campaign. KA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenn Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Want to attract supervillains? Make sure a powerful local heroine has (as they say in Monty Pythom-land) "huge tracts of land" and a nice keyhole opening (as the clothing designers call it) on her uniform (a la DC's Power Girl.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
transmetahuman Posted July 3, 2006 Report Share Posted July 3, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Retirement Home for supervillians I so have to use this somehow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBikle Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Re: Attracting villians My campaign city had mystical ley-lines, which occasionally would throw off electro-magnetic anomalies that would result in the occasional alien spacecraft crash or an otherdimensional portal opening. Mystical villains came to the city to investigate the ley-lines while other villains might be curious about the non-mystical side effects of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Monster Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Re: Attracting villians The city could become a focal point for alien invasion, say, by putting a long-lost hibernation base nearby underground (don't tell anyone, but this is a developing subplot in my Champions campaign) Youcould do this with either space-based invaders or underground denizens, such as mole people or people living in the Hollow Earth. Depending on tone, you could even make it a sanctuary area, like in the MIB movies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Re: Attracting villians The city is home to a particularly powerful and well-known team of supers, and monsters constantly come there to test themselves, because if they can fight this team and survive to tell their stories, they'll be considered heroes back in wherever it is that all these monsters come from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkwleisemann Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Re: Attracting villians Some idiot on the local news does a report on "The Town with No Supervillains!" That would be enough to draw some of the upstart villains with large egos. Which are what you usually want at the start of a campaign. KA. *cough*Bulldozer*cough*Foxbat*cough* Seriously though, any number of reasons, including those that have already been suggested. Why do folks attack Metropolis, knowing that Superman's just gonna kick their tails half-way to Gotham? Well duh, they can't very well build a reputation as "the guy who beat Superman" if they don't go to Metropolis, can they?!? Why do folks attack Gotham, knowing that ol' Bats will wipe the floor with 'em? He can't be everywhere at once, and if you get away with one good big heist from Wayne Enterprises, you're set! If you're not setting it in a big city, why show up in Small Town USA? Hey, the schools are great and there's no serious crime issues, it's a good standard of living there. Remember, you're talking about people who feel it is their duty and/or perogative to dress in spandex and be professional punching bags for folks who can hurl tanks several miles. Sanity is not their strong suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marketeer Posted July 4, 2006 Report Share Posted July 4, 2006 Re: Attracting villians If you're not setting it in a big city, why show up in Small Town USA? Hey, the schools are great and there's no serious crime issues, it's a good standard of living there. Actually, that can work: "Yes, we made more per heist in Gotham, but little Timmy starts school in the fall, and the violent crime rate is just so high there... and the drug problems! As a lifestyle choice, my hubby and I just had to pick Campaign Town as our base of operations..." --Thunder, supervillain and mother, testimonial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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