Heroes Who Mess-Up

[Armitage]

This was just posted on-line.

 

Hancock Trailer.

 

In keeping with the topic...

I'm reminded of a game in which a cyborg mentalist practically handed Timemaster an all-powerful alien artifact. The player thought he could use it to single-handedly beat TM and get all the glory, so he teleported to intercept TM and abandoned the rest of the team.

He lost.

 

Or one I almost did. My battle-armor brick did a high-power Move-By on a Minuteman robot a team-mate had trapped in a time-stop field. Then I realized that when time began flowing normally, it would become a giant walking Claymore and spray the area behind it with shrapnel. It was standing in front of an elementary school. So I grabbed the Minuteman and braced myself against its back, directly opposite the point of impact, and took the blast myself.

Man, that hurt. But it was far better than the alternative.

[JmOz]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

"soft Targets" all I will say, three times, always walk away feeling like CRAP

[Comic]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

Now even Smith mocks me.

 

But I'm not bitter.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

OK - unless that movie gets horrid ratings, I'm going to go see it.

[OddHat]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

Looks like a fun film.

[Gideon]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

I had a character named Freefall. He had gravity powers, but had some problems with controlling some of them (mainly his flight).

 

The characters were fighting a villain in an apartment building. Freefall decided to do a move-by on him while his gravity-based density increase was at full power, and (after missing) he tried to stop before hitting the outside wall of the building. Well.... he did stop moving forward, as his flight shut off completely, and his 220,000 pound butt slammed straight down into the floor.

 

Needless to say he didn't stop till he hit ground in the basement, and after that and a shot at the building's wall by the villain the entire building started collapsing. The team had to let the villain get away so they could save the people in the tenement, but when all was said and done the building collapsed and 30 families were out of homes do to him.

[Diamond_J]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

Okay, that was hysterical however...

 

I'm suddenly reminded of my own role-playing group and a certain player in particular. This players screw ups are the stuff of legend. I swear to GOD anyone from my group would agree; they've never seen nor heard anything like his escapades before they met him.

 

A small example of his Jackassery;

 

(Keep in mind this is a supposedly a good aligned character/Super Hero).

We were playing Hero's Unlimited (of Palladium fame). He had built a hero who resembled Iron Man the name of which was Quinton. Quinton was not just a “powered armour"; in my infinite wisdom I'd allowed him membership with a vast crime fighting organization named S.E.C.R.E.T. He was ordered to investigate the importance of an ancient artifact, of which an international villain Shadow Man was seeking to recover.

 

Now, Quinton had tracked the Shadow Man to a private detectives office, which just so happened to be a fellow PC's operation. Having spied the two together he'd interpreted they were in "cahoots". Quinton decided to interrogate Celeste (fellow player/detective) who would not go into detail with her involvement. She'd sworn a vow of secrecy to her client. Enraged that Celeste had not disclosed what she had known Quinton made threats, only to return minutes later clad in his powered armour. There was a big struggle. Celeste withheld the bulk of her true power fleeing, but only after busting her arm in the stairwell.

 

It gets better...Much better!

 

Quinton now had a deranged vendetta against Celeste, insistent that she was a criminal. He discovered Celeste lived downtown just a few blocks from her detective agency. Armed with this knowledge his character (Quinton) decides to bug Celeste’s phone through the power lines outside the apartment. It should be stated this player had no relevant skills for this, and argued at length he should be able to accomplish the task without them. After pounding my own head on the table in frustration, he began extolling why Quinton (his character) should have the bugging and electronics skills. I calmly told him to shut his gob and explained that if he wanted those abilities he should've chosen them at character creation, instead of blowing all his selections on physical skills that boosted his S.D.C. Grumbling he diverged with an alternative plan to infiltrate the apartment.

 

Keep in mind, Quinton had a vast organization at disposal with near limitless resources. If he wanted the place bugged there were many capable (and willing) operatives to use there skills in his stead. They would've done so with a merry skip and a "How'dja do sir. Would'ja like some oral satisfaction with that", uhmmm yeah back to the story...

 

After the idea bulb burnt out he couldn't figure how to get through the front dour. One of the other players just blurted out a suggestion, just to get the game roll'n. "Why don't you just wait for someone to pass through? Someone who lives there will open the dour for you, unless they're a d*ck...you jackass".

 

Fast forward on some minour frustration and Quinton resorts to climbing through a window. Needless to say he had failed at not sounding suspicious to the local residents, and had to fall back on this (he had climbing, it was a physical skill). He found jack, and certainly not the artifact he was looking for. Dismayed with his failed attempt at thievery Quinton exited through the front after messing the place up and stealing to onyx jewels worth no more then 80 bucks. This player felt if it looked like a robbery none would be the wiser to his master plan, sight.

 

This is when the shit really starts to hit the fan; this whole story has been building towards this moment. Please bear with me it will be over soon...

 

He was jimmying the lock on the apartment too as I said previously "make it appears as a break in". Suddenly he hears a tiny wisp of a voice at his back.

"Whatcha do’n mister" He turns around to see the sweat innocent face of a five year old, petit girl. Immediately Quinton’s mind fills with questions. "What do I do? She's seen me trying to cover my tracks." So he reaches into his pocket and pulls out an industrial strength tazer, you know the kind that police officers use to take down huge 300 pound raging PCP users.

 

He blasts a good 20, 000 volts into the innocent little girl and the player begins laughing hysterically! He's miming the tazering as he chortles like a Machiavellian demon. Next Quinton scoops the breathless child into his arms and hurls her like a javelin at a concerned tenants who opens her dour. Quinton misses the woman and the little girl’s neck snaps as hit collides with the dour frame (if by some miracle the girl hadn't been killed by the tazering she was dead now). The girl’s father rushes down the hallway covering his daughter from further harm. The tears are streaming down his face. Quinton not wanting to leave witnesses begins tazering the father rapidly. The player is laughing hysterically, as before.

 

I turn to this player and tell him he's a sick f**k. Not only was this unnecessary but the hall has cameras and there are witnesses.

 

It doesn't end there but I'm going to stop for now because this post is getting far to long.

 

 

[Basil]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

"I don' know ma own strenth!" -- Bullwinkle J. Moose

[jkwleisemann]

Diamond... you're right about that player being a sick one. Did he have any sort of *justification* for his sudden break into Chaotic Evil...?

 

As a player, mind, not a character....

[Sweeper]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could be so free..."

 

How about a TK Brick who pulls out basement support beams of the heroes' base to take out a big mechanical baddie? The office was still occupied, (but no one was injured). All he ended up doing is bringing the building down upon himself and getting trapped while releasing the mechanical baddie which happened to be stuck half in the sewers below the building.

 

*sigh* That was a long fight.

[WilyQuixote]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

Oh man oh man oh maaaan!

 

Hancock could've been an honorary member of our group! Sad to say but true none the less. He woulda fit right in.

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

ohhhhh there are lots....

 

There was the time when three PC's had just joined the team on a recruitment drive; come across bad guys who took most of them down, and the one who was left ran rather than put up a fight because she "didn't want to get hurt". The same character later on was fighting alongside her team against a group of villains in a crowded auditorium....took out all the lighting because she had sonar which compensates in the dark, but she failed to take into account the bad guys firing blind and the crowd of innocents who would trample each other panicking...

 

Another one was when the government-sponsored team had run afoul of the government and were being considered fugitives....they managed to secure the help of ex-teammates, but got arrested as they were leaving their home. So rather than go quietly and let their friends go un-noticed, one of the PCs hollers "thanks for the help Patsy!" at full volume as he's being carted away. Cue their only friends being arrested along with them....

 

The final one I'll mention is where one of the PCs agreed to let her son destroy all of reality in every conceivable timeline because she knew it would kill one enemy of hers. That one required some quick thinking...... :\

[Dust Raven]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

Speaking of crowded auditoriums...

 

During a graduation ceremony, in which the valedictorian happened to be a mutant, a group of Genocide agents decide to make a public demonstration of him. Seeing how the heroes of the city were also present as a cousin to one of the PCs was also graduating, things didn't go as planned...

 

So the heroes notice Genocide and attempt to stop them. One "hero" decides to take the fight to them, flies outside and decides she can one-shot each agent by shooting them to cause KB directly into the building. Apparently not having any idea of the strength of her own blasts, she starts blasting agents through the roof to fall in the still crowded and now panicked auditorium.

 

Now realizing how easy it was to blast through the roof, she figures she can take out the agents even faster by collapsing the roof underneath them. When EVERYBODY at the table attempts to explain there are still people inside and her character should know this, she says they should have gotten out already and it's their fault for being so slow... (this was on something like Segment 8 of the first Turn... and the crowd didn't even realize there was a thread until holes started appearing in the roof, 5 seconds ago).

[Gideon]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

This is a second hand story from a very old Marvel Super Heroes game:

 

One of the characters was named Ninja. Aside from being flashy and completely non-ninja-like in attitude and attire, he was a mystic martial artist and minor gadgeteer type.

 

Well, one day Ninja decided to make a nock-out gas grenade device. The player rolled somewhere in the Shift Y category (I believe. It could have been as high as Shift Z though.). Basically the power was huge enough to put someone in coma for years.

 

A couple of weeks later, the group was being honored at a retirement home for saving the residents. During the assembly some agents attacked (I believe it was either Hive or AIM).

 

Wanting to be as non-lethal as possible (and get as many agents as he could) Ninja proceeded to toss his sleep gas into the middle of the room (did I mention that he was immune to it and never made an antidote?). Needless to say, not a single person had evacuated yet.

 

The combat ended right there. All the agents fell, as well as every last person in attendance that wasn't a super-hero. The luckiest of them being put in a coma for 5 years.

[JmOz]

Re: Heroes Who Mess-Up

 

I had a PC in marvel who (and I am not kidding) got defeated by Aunt May, but she was armed, she had a broom...

 

After that rolling random characters just seemed like a Bad idea, especialy for a supers game (I had rolled like crap and the GM was a "Play what you roll" type)