Help With Avoiding Cliches...

[TheRealVector]

I'm in the early stages of creating a new game, with gritty street level vigilante heroes. I asked my players for background ideas that would help facilitate cooperative role-playing. To this end I required that...

 

1) The characters would know each other and be on friendly terms at the beginning of the game.

2) No "lone wolfs" of any type.

3) Have some reasonably "realistic" motivations to risk their lives, freedom and reputations by becoming vigilantes.

 

The players then decided that they would all be elite ex-military men who were exposed to unknown chemicals during the early operations of the Iraq invasion. This exposure, while causing no adverse effects at the time, triggers the growth of their strange powers once back in the States many months later. Over time they contact one another and discover they all have similar problems and eventually come together in Chicago. They decide to keep their new powers a secret and, in motivations ranging from a simple strong sense of justice to a "Death Wish" like scenario, they decide to use their military knowledge and new powers to fight crime in Chicago.

 

OK, too late to avoid all those clichés, but in 2007 what are ya going to do?

 

Where I want to avoid further clichés is in the overall story arc.

 

- Why were the chemicals there?

- Who created them?

- Was it coincidence that the characters were there to be exposed?

- Does anyone else have similar powers? Who and why?

- Are they being watched? Manipulated?

- What does the military and the governments really know?

 

Government conspiracies, black ops, evil corporations, etc. Who hasn't heard it all?

 

Let me know what you think are the lamest, most overused clichés in this area. Tell me what tired ideas you wouldn't use.

 

 

 

Since one of my players frequents these boards I can't really use any good plot ideas, I just want to get advice on the overused one so I can reverse engineer something almost original.

 

Thanks in advance.

["V"]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

The chemicals are modern developments of a Nazi supersoldier program that had only partial success during the second world war. The Nazi scientist behind the program was offered immunity from prosecution for his dreadful crimes against humanity by corrupt elements within the US government (OSS?) and brought to the states to continue his research. Secret funding and even more secret trials of the formula continued for the next few decades before being closed down upon the death of the originating mad genius.

 

The player characters were all deliberately exposed - without their knowledge or consent - to the latest batch of the formula following the reopening of the project by (sinister cabal within US secret community). The plan was to field test the formula & monitor the results covertly. Ideally the subjects will prove tractable to future overtures to their patriotism.

 

Oh and the other prototypes created by the same cabal may well be out there too. Perhaps the control-implants are working to make them obedient soldiers of the sinister cabal... those same implants that may await the player characters should they prove reluctant to do their patriotic duty.

 

Additional complication: The original experimental notes fell into Soviet hands at the end of World War II and while the program was never continued in the Soviet Union (no funds, no guiding genius) those original notes were recently sold off by the Russian Mafia to a notable terrorist group who may well have a suitable brilliant scientist who can have continued the work.

[Tigereye]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

Splendid, V! Now all we need are some grey-skinned aliens with an unusual interest in human physiology and their orbital mind control beams, and we're all set with the superfecta of the "Tinfoil Hat Brigade".

 

Vector, if you want to avoid cliches, avoid the "single man" theory of history. No one person, however powerful or influential, is capable of a single action. Adolf Hitler or Stalin could not have become what they were without followers who for whatever reason carried out their orders- and sometimes not to their orders.

 

Also remember that no movement is ever free of factions. Even a cult of personality has groups of people arranged and acting to improve their standing- if only so they and their group can be closest to the leader. It's usually when the most ambitious rise to the top, in fact, that the group is about to topple- because the most social-climbing generally are also the least competent bunch.

 

Want to really dodge cliches? Have the US government organization who shot them full of super-juice a well-meaning but underfunded lot (of more than 50 scientists, doctors and assistants, each with their own specialty, and scrabbling for every grant they can- pretty typical of US organizations, unless they have public funding) who were trying to understand the effects of steroids on pro athletes and super-soldiers, so to make testing and experimentation for real medical benefits easier later on. The only problem is, they inadvertently created a whole new realm of "Wonder 'Roids" instead. Rather than get their buns sued off - or worse, subpoenaed- by the heroes, their families, or Congressional committees (always the real fear of government groups), they let the PCs organize their group- if they just keep quiet about their origins, lest some Barry Bonds wannabes begin to ask them how they can hit a baseball a half a mile. They also do not want Dept. of Defense involvement- even if they were working for the Department of the Army, getting the Pentagon involved is not what anyone actually wants in a test program. (As someone who worked in a Navy weapons test program in a minor role, I can personally vouch for this! Attention from higher-ups means something went wrong- trouble!). The scientists involved count the program as a failure and leave the monitoring of our heroes to a law enforcement agency with more important things on their mind than watching our heroes help them out with some scumbags. If anything, the heroes are a mild annoyance, some bunch that overstep their boundaries and bollix up their months-long investigations. (A real twist- the FBI watcher saying "we would have gotten away with our sting operation, if it weren't for you meddling kids!")

 

The only problem is, like all experimenters, the scientists left a paper trail the size of a small Midwestern city. Pretty soon, someone is going to read those research monographs- much of it peer-reviewed and printed in open sources! Particularly ambitious but unscrupulous and unimaginative sorts then use it for their own purposes - and you get ex-US mercenary groups with real attitudes, who won't take "what part of Abu Gharaib don't you get?" for an answer...

[Comic]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

Uh.. mummies.

 

That's right. Ancient Babylonian mummy science experiments.

 

From the Babylonian gods.

 

From space.

 

The chemicals came from blown up mummies. And the mummy spirit now resides in each of the servicemen.

 

And the mummy was a Babylonian cop. From outer space.

 

Sorry, I'm tapped. I got nothing.

[TheRealVector]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

Uh.. mummies.

 

That's right. Ancient Babylonian mummy science experiments.

 

From the Babylonian gods.

 

From space.

 

The chemicals came from blown up mummies. And the mummy spirit now resides in each of the servicemen.

 

And the mummy was a Babylonian cop. From outer space.

 

Sorry, I'm tapped. I got nothing.

 

While these ideas aren't really standard cliches, I do now plan to avoid them.

 

Thanks!

["V"]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

The chemicals found in the possession of a rambling nutcase who was found wandering naked and steaming in the middle of a thunderstorm. He's still a babbling loon in a research facility somewhere. He was clutching a gristly organic pod in which several pustulent cysts gleamed and throbbed and was of unquestioningly alien origin. The liquid in the cysts was analysed and found to be an incredibly powerful genetic mutagen and early tests showed that the substance was likely to have an enhancing effect on human subjects. Given that the substance was in such short supply and impossible to replicate these dodgy boffins decided to covertly administer it to live subjects rather than 'waste' it on endless safety trials on petri dishes and guinea pigs (there are already too many superpowered guinea pigs rampaging around blasting each other with radioactive dung).

 

No doubt through the course of the campaign the PCs can find out about this and maybe even get to meet the babbling loon incarcerated in the research facility.

 

The complications then start to stack when they meet/are assigned/randomly encounter a new NPC aide of some kind. Who, it transpires, resembles the babbling loon (though this is not immediately evident as the loon is considerably older and more babbling). Genetically identical.

 

Is he a plant from the aliens come to find out what's happened to the stolen mutagen?

 

Nope, he's the babbling loon's earlier self who is completely ignorant of the reasons for his future self's actions and motivations.

 

The mutagen was stolen at great personal risk, in the practically post-apocalyptic future, from the future PCs who have continued mutating and evolving, and also been slowly degenerating morally into self centred, power hungry demigods who rule over the world with an iron fist etc etc. The babbling loon, having been close to them in the early days of their humanity, managed to steal some of their secretions and flee into the past to warn the earlier world what was in store for them, using the goop to (he hoped) formulate some sort of weapon against the superhuman tyrants. Sadly the time travel mechanism fried his brain as he came through...

 

How's that for cliched!

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

Saddam had no chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons programs, but he did have a super-soldier program. His scientists kept telling him they were close to a breakthrough (because failure meant death), but in fact, their successes as of spring 2003 were limited. In the opening phase of the invasion, Army Special Forces operatives located what appeared to be a WMD R&D site, painted it with a laser, and called for a precision strike. When it went up, a thick billowing smoke came pouring out, and as it happens, the wind carried it to our intrepid SpecOps fellows. It is assumed that there were no survivors in the building. No one could have survived that.

[TheRealVector]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

The chemicals found in the possession of a rambling nutcase who was found wandering naked and steaming in the middle of a thunderstorm. He's still a babbling loon in a research facility somewhere. He was clutching a gristly organic pod in which several pustulent cysts gleamed and throbbed and was of unquestioningly alien origin. The liquid in the cysts was analysed and found to be an incredibly powerful genetic mutagen and early tests showed that the substance was likely to have an enhancing effect on human subjects. Given that the substance was in such short supply and impossible to replicate these dodgy boffins decided to covertly administer it to live subjects rather than 'waste' it on endless safety trials on petri dishes and guinea pigs (there are already too many superpowered guinea pigs rampaging around blasting each other with radioactive dung).

 

No doubt through the course of the campaign the PCs can find out about this and maybe even get to meet the babbling loon incarcerated in the research facility.

 

The complications then start to stack when they meet/are assigned/randomly encounter a new NPC aide of some kind. Who, it transpires, resembles the babbling loon (though this is not immediately evident as the loon is considerably older and more babbling). Genetically identical.

 

Is he a plant from the aliens come to find out what's happened to the stolen mutagen?

 

Nope, he's the babbling loon's earlier self who is completely ignorant of the reasons for his future self's actions and motivations.

 

The mutagen was stolen at great personal risk, in the practically post-apocalyptic future, from the future PCs who have continued mutating and evolving, and also been slowly degenerating morally into self centred, power hungry demigods who rule over the world with an iron fist etc etc. The babbling loon, having been close to them in the early days of their humanity, managed to steal some of their secretions and flee into the past to warn the earlier world what was in store for them, using the goop to (he hoped) formulate some sort of weapon against the superhuman tyrants. Sadly the time travel mechanism fried his brain as he came through...

 

How's that for cliched!

 

That's damn good!

 

I like to keep aliens and time travel down to a bare minimum even in my full blown super hero games so I will in no way be using aliens or time travel.

 

In this game I'm going to shoot for a mix of "Real Life" (the one outside your office window), Heroes (the NBC TV show), Sin City (the movie and comics), and Max Payne (the video games). I'm planning on them dealing with only normal crime for quite a while before they meet anyone else with exceptional powers/abilities.

[OctoberRaven]

Re: Help With Avoiding Cliches...

 

Here's the most hackneyed thing I could think of, in "answering your questions in parenthesiseses" format.

 

- Why were the chemicals there? (Evil Corporation dumped them there to avoid the EPA)

- Who created them? (Evil Coporation)

- Was it coincidence that the characters were there to be exposed? (Actually, that was part of their evil master plan!)

- Does anyone else have similar powers? Who and why? (The first subjects... when they were alive...)

- Are they being watched? Manipulated? (Yes and yes. 60% of the criminals they fight aren't even really criminals!)

- What does the military and the governments really know? (Everything. What the evil corporation doesn't know is that the NSA were behind the chemicals being dumped there in the first place. The entire thing is the government working behind the facade of Evil Corporation to develop super-soldiers that will "Liberate" the entire world. But what the government DOESN'T know is that the Evil Corporation knew about this all along and is using it so THEY can take over the world.)