Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

[CTaylor]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

Essentially force can only accomplish so much, and that's why you can't fix some problems with power, only with winning hearts and minds. There are a lot of examples of this fact in history.

 

Superheroes do what they have the capacity to do - but in the real world I think supers would be more likely to help fight fires and deal with emergencies and catastrophes rather than fight pitched battles with giant robots.

[Spence]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

Essentially force can only accomplish so much, and that's why you can't fix some problems with power, only with winning hearts and minds. There are a lot of examples of this fact in history.

 

Superheroes do what they have the capacity to do - but in the real world I think supers would be more likely to help fight fires and deal with emergencies and catastrophes rather than fight pitched battles with giant robots.

 

Pretty much.

 

But I am sure supers would be like regular people in that they would have their share of 'broken' ones. So your supers would also be drawn into dealing with supervillains.

[Vulcan]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

And the "classic" response to that sort of thing is to just start rounding up random Tibetians and killing them every time one of your top military officers dies. Who knows' date=' they might even get a show trial first.[/quote']

 

I've always been a big fan of the "Ryan Doctrine" from the later Tom Clancy novels. In short, in times of war if it is legal for us to bomb the soldiers of a nation, it is just as legal to bomb the leaders of said nation.

 

Of course, that can be harder to do than than it is to discuss. Bush tried it with Saddam, and missed every time...

[CTaylor]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

It's easier to do than people think, its just hard to do and have the assassin get away and not directly implicate the nation who did it. A huge bounty on someone's head from the government is an easier way; probably cheaper too.

 

Personally I think Letters of Marque should be issued by congress against terrorists. Let individuals deal with them, and get paid for it.

[bubba smith]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

letters of le mark?whats that

[Korvar]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

Letters of Marque were issued to sea captains, essentially deputising them to attack their enemies in the name of the Crown. In practice, they became legalised pirates, so long as they only stole the ships and cargoes of their country's enemies.

[bubba smith]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

thanks

[CTaylor]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

A campaign of superheroes (have to be fairly low powered, to make it challenging, unless you want the world to in little way resemble the one we are in) who did this sort of work would be interesting, I think. It would be less about heroism and more about vengeance, but it would make a globetrotting dark champions game work.

[Vulcan]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

I may have to steal that one...

[Katherine]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

A campaign of superheroes (have to be fairly low powered' date=' to make it challenging, unless you want the world to in little way resemble the one we are in) who did this sort of work would be interesting, I think.[/quote']

 

That would be awesome! I'm going to propose this set up to my group next meeting.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

Come to think of it' date=' in a JLA fight with a team of supervillains, Batman assured a victory by bribing the most powerful supervillain. The bribe was a blank check signed by one of Batman's 'civilian agents' (Bruce Wayne), made out to the orphanage where the supervillain grew up. Ironic, since Bruce being orphaned was his superhero catalyst.[/quote']

 

I've never thought of Bribery as a combat skill before...

 

That's good. I'll have to try and use that in game sometime. I can't wait to see the look on my GM's face...

 

Thinking back, this is something my character Freedom did in a round-about way. So many supervillians were in it for two reasons -- get rich, and beat people up. In her Secret ID, she was developing an international mercenary team, composed significantly of (ex)supervillians, always with very specific tasks in mind, and very high pay. "You can work for me -- you know, 'Wreck that military base, then go to Kuala Lumpur and party.' Or else you can go into prison for three-to-six. Your choice." I don't think my GM knew how to handle it; I know my fellow players got a little annoyed at it. But hell, I paid 15 points for it, right??

[Fabricati]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

In the words of a couple of my characters:

 

Envy: Look, I can't be green-eyed and hacked off all the time, and if I can have a little fun while helping people out, why not? I mean, it's not like it's much different than breaking the bank at Monte Carlo and sure as hell will probably do someone else a lot more good than me winning at roulette. Now are you going to take the signed picture or not?

 

Corvin: What humanitarian work? *hides a phone number that, if followed up on, would reveal a long line of anonymous donations to charity*

 

Polaris: You think I do the psychic friend thing for S and G value? I've been slowly guiding this crap city out of the slump it has found itself in, and that'll stop more street-level crime than burning things with my mind ever will. Job well done, really- and I never have to touch a supervillain.

 

Dragon-Boy: Listen, there's a lot more to it than you'd think. Sure, beating up supervillains is fun- it's almost charming to see what Foxbat has done this time- but to me, well, control is worth a lot, and you don't have much chance to get control against the big boys. Better I figure out how to rein in my latest forms doing something that might help than watching them go bad on the battlefield and ruining innocent lives. So, no, it's not all sunshine and beating the crap out of the latest brick stealing a bank, okay? Back up a little so I can break ground...

[The Weapon]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

"My, aren't you the spandex-clad optimist." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

 

OK, so assume a team of superheros with the information resources and accounting chops to audit foreign nations and the firepower to defeat their military and whatever El Presidente can buy in the way of super-mercenaries and personal empowerment. You've done what superheroes do. You've beaten up a villain.

 

Have you solved the fundamental problem?

 

If the problem is "Bad guys think that they can get money and power by running a country like an ATM machine" then yes, that solves the problem. When people realise that no, you can't fatten your wallet by ripping off the people like that (at least not to the extent El Presidente was). More subtle problems like determining whether the Federal Reserve system is the equivalent of El Presidente's looting might be more difficult.

[McCoy]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

I've always been a big fan of the "Ryan Doctrine" from the later Tom Clancy novels. In short, in times of war if it is legal for us to bomb the soldiers of a nation, it is just as legal to bomb the leaders of said nation.

 

Of course, that can be harder to do than than it is to discuss. Bush tried it with Saddam, and missed every time...

And Saddam tried with Bush.

[McCoy]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

It's easier to do than people think, its just hard to do and have the assassin get away and not directly implicate the nation who did it. A huge bounty on someone's head from the government is an easier way; probably cheaper too.

 

Personally I think Letters of Marque should be issued by congress against terrorists. Let individuals deal with them, and get paid for it.

After all, look at how quickly we got bin Laden after we offered a $25 million reward for him.

 

Oh, wait --

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Why do the Champions waste so much time being "good citizens?"

 

How about "Because, if we though our examples, turned one individual from Criminal to Hero, super or not, we have saved the government literally millions of Dollars in legal fees and jail alone." put that on the bottom line for me willya.