GenreFiend Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Originally posted by Lucian I guess it depends on your definition of "villian". What I meant by that is that she doesnt have an adgenda to take over the world or steal money which is what the classical villian does. Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Posted September 3, 2003 Report Share Posted September 3, 2003 Originally posted by GenreFiend Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank. Umm, I've gotta go with GenreFiend on this one. Sounds pretty darned villainous to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Democracy Posted September 4, 2003 Report Share Posted September 4, 2003 Originally posted by GenreFiend Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank. My favourite villainous act in a comic was a short five pager at the end of a Superman comic. Lex Luthor is in a diner in the middle of nowhere. He offers the waitress a ridiculous amount of money if she'll come to Metropolis and essentially be his mistress. He says he'll wait in the car park for ten minutes for her to make up her mind. He knows she's married due to her wedding ring. She's actually married to the man who was the high school quarter-back - now gone to fat and drink. As she agonises over it Lex drives off before the ten minutes are up. Now she will never know if she'd have betrayed her husband. Pure evil. True villain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucian Posted September 5, 2003 Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 Originally posted by GenreFiend Well, to me, performing "grotesque experiments" on people "just to see what happens," is far more villainous than robbing a bank. Thats probably true, but my players are certainly not treating her like a villian. More like a culturally displaced refugee who needs to be educated into the moral structure of society. They see her as being redeemable and misguided. Maybe theyre just scared to fight her Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted September 5, 2003 Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 hmmm...let's see: There was the Viper Revenge Squad, which was a volatile collection of the most dangerous foes the team had ever faced before. Don't think they'll ever let me deploy that team again:D the one villain I've always wanted to spring on a high powered team is High Lord Ghi Zha Tan(Gigaton), whose name loosely translates to "He who eats Cheerios out of your skull":D giant energy absorbing density and gravity controlling cosmic super brick.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Posted September 5, 2003 Report Share Posted September 5, 2003 Originally posted by megaplayboy hmmm...let's see: There was the Viper Revenge Squad, which was a volatile collection of the most dangerous foes the team had ever faced before. Don't think they'll ever let me deploy that team again:D the one villain I've always wanted to spring on a high powered team is High Lord Ghi Zha Tan(Gigaton), whose name loosely translates to "He who eats Cheerios out of your skull":D giant energy absorbing density and gravity controlling cosmic super brick.... Megaplayboy, is it OK if I swipe that VIPER Revenge Squad idea for my own game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted September 6, 2003 Report Share Posted September 6, 2003 Originally posted by Twilight Megaplayboy, is it OK if I swipe that VIPER Revenge Squad idea for my own game? yeah, if you want your players to curse your unholy name;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Posted September 6, 2003 Report Share Posted September 6, 2003 Originally posted by megaplayboy yeah, if you want your players to curse your unholy name;) Well every GM needs to have thier players curse his name once or twice. All in good fun of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magmarock Posted September 6, 2003 Report Share Posted September 6, 2003 ... Our group usually groans whenever my younger brother brings out one of his custom built villains, or worse, an entire team. Here is a memorable one: Foxhole. You only ever see the head and shoulders of this teleporting, mercenary villain, because his always inside his foxhole (filled with his entire arsenal) that can spring up out of any flat surface. Truly insidious. I once had a brick, M.O.D. (that's Method Of Destruction) jump into the foxhole with him to attack him, and Foxhole just teleported away, without M.O.D. of course! She popped up into the air after taking a load of damage. Was a bummer, really. The guy is a sniper and a damn dangerous one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevHooligan Posted September 7, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 7, 2003 Originally posted by zornwil Therefore, I'm going to invade your houses. One-by-one. Please send me your addresses and I will occupy until you've learned to play the right way. Trust me, you'll be happier. Can you invade next Sunday and feed the cat until I get back from my honeymoon? Good lookin' out, Invader Z. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted September 7, 2003 Report Share Posted September 7, 2003 Originally posted by RevHooligan Can you invade next Sunday and feed the cat until I get back from my honeymoon? Good lookin' out, Invader Z. Congratulations. But no, I will inavde your honeymoon and explain the right way of playing during your many honeymoon RPG sessions. (That is what you're doing on your honeymoon, right? ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevHooligan Posted September 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Well, unfortunatly, no. The future Mrs Hooligan is not a gamer and has even banned my regular group from bringing dice to the wedding, even though it IS on a Sunday and Sunday is our reqular night. Eh, maybe her Maid of Honor will smugle in the dice for a few extra XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Originally posted by RevHooligan Well, unfortunatly, no. The future Mrs Hooligan is not a gamer and has even banned my regular group from bringing dice to the wedding, even though it IS on a Sunday and Sunday is our reqular night. Eh, maybe her Maid of Honor will smugle in the dice for a few extra XP. The solution is to just have a game Saturday night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenreFiend Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Originally posted by Lucian Thats probably true, but my players are certainly not treating her like a villian. More like a culturally displaced refugee who needs to be educated into the moral structure of society. They see her as being redeemable and misguided. Maybe theyre just scared to fight her Scared to fight her sounds about right to me. If I was GM for that group, not only would that be my assessment, but I would come right out and ask the players, "What? Are you just too scared to take her on? Sissies:) ." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenreFiend Posted September 8, 2003 Report Share Posted September 8, 2003 Originally posted by Twilight Well every GM needs to have thier players curse his name once or twice. All in good fun of course. The graetest compliment I ever paid to one particular GM was when I called him an "evil f***ing ba**ard." A rare statement from me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentor Posted September 9, 2003 Report Share Posted September 9, 2003 Originally posted by GenreFiend Etc., etc. If anything, this is the one problem I've always had with Champions. GMs give their villains a really cool ability, and then feel the need to figure out exactly how, in game mechanics, it works. He's an NPC! He absorbs energy blasts from the surrounding area BECAUSE THE GM SAYS SO! Sorry, I just get bogged down in the mathematics of the Hero system sometimes, and long for the simpler days of the original Marvel Superheroes RPG. While I am in agreement that the GM has infinite points and doesn't have to justify design parameters to the players or fill in all the boring details and trivia, having the design mechanics too loose or nonexistant seems to run the risk of having the outcome of the encounter predetermined by the GM I have run Supervillains that I feared might be overpowering, but through great gameplay and teamwork, our team, Midguard rose to the challenge and beat them at the last minute. Likewise, villains I threw in as fodder had just the right combinations of abilities to completely frustrate the team. How do you deal with the question of spontanaity and real accomplishment by the players if the abilities aren't specified? Or am I reading too much into your description? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEmerged Posted September 9, 2003 Report Share Posted September 9, 2003 First and foremost, the NPC the players most fear is... Annoying Man! Officially he doesn't exist in the current campaign -- at least in part because I get death threats for even mentioning him in relation to a session. In terms of the true "Big Bads" of my campaign... as you may have heard me mention before I assign a "level" to NPC's and PC"s -- and a specific number to those levels. So I know there are 3 "Level 5" novas in the campaign world... Dr. Destroyer, rewritten anally. That means he pays for his perks. I seem to recall he clocks in around 4300 points or so. The Trickster -- yeah, the guy responsible for the creation of CLOWN. Haven't actually rewritten him but it's in the same ballpark as Dr. Destroyer. Young Billy Cranston, AKA "The Nerd". Just erupted, doesn't quite know how powerful he is yet -- or what he's going to do about it. Let me put it like this: his first power reads "Boy With The Power: Cosmic VPP, 250-pt pool". The second one reads "Armor: 75/75, Twice Hardened". 5000 points to the letter. After this comes 20 "Level 4" novas, generally in the 1000-2000 range. This includes my campaigns version of the Golden Avenger, the Velociraptor (homebrew), Caestus Pax (from Aberrant), Hyperion (from Sanctuary/Neutral Ground), the Meteorologist (long-time homebrew) -- and some names that might surprise people, like Mastodon (from European Enemies). After this comes the "high end" of the Level 3 novas. Technically these go from 500 to 1000 points, with anybody above 800 considered a "high end Level 3". This include Mega, Victory (not the same character as the Victory in Champions Universe), the Electric Angel, and ArachnaMan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farkling Posted September 10, 2003 Report Share Posted September 10, 2003 GENOCIDE (homebrew) is moving to the forefront as most feared by half the group. They have surplus helicopters with wide area mutant power suppressors...and some long range mutant detectors. They successfully field tested a genetic retrovirus on one of the mutants two sessions back, and they keep showing up whenever the heroes get involved in something... (some of the mutants have "splashy" powers) The victimized player spent half a session powerless...until the team leader managed to force a cure attempt. There are side effects waiting in the wings from that... Shortly they will be fielding some of the ever-popular Senitnel ripoffs, and a string of custom made cyborgs from the chop shop they bought out a few weeks ago. Some of the cyborgs will be volunteers, some will undergo augmentation under orders and the promise of reversibility. Foolish minions. However, the supervillain to beat is the one that damaed the economics of the company GENOCIDE purchased as a cybernetics resource...a mutant of sufficient power to be attempting to gain control of GENOCIDE, and the soon to be arch-nemesis of the gaming group. At some point, an actual physical threat of villains WILL show up...as soon as the mastermind can arrange a subtle calling of attention to the players. I'm considering along the lines of a Magneto personality and either Electrical or Magnetic powers. Hmmm. Probably Electrical... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenreFiend Posted September 10, 2003 Report Share Posted September 10, 2003 Originally posted by Mentor How do you deal with the question of spontanaity and real accomplishment by the players if the abilities aren't specified? Or am I reading too much into your description? I'm not saying I don't write up my villains, I'm just saying I don't spend hours trying to figure out exactly how a weird power works, point-by-point. And no villain I've ever created has been unbeatable (in fact, most of them turn out to be a great deal more beatable than I had intended). I do make sure I know exactly what they are capable of, especially attacks and defenses, but just beacause I understand how the powers work doesn't mean I have to be able to show it on paper usingthe rules system. Make sense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted September 10, 2003 Report Share Posted September 10, 2003 Originally posted by GenreFiend (snippage) (in fact, most of them turn out to be a great deal more beatable than I had intended) (snippage) Sigh, yup, that seems to be the case with some frequency for me as well. I've had a few hard-to-beat ones but I never really did do Kingpin justice (I think his org was good, the adventures were good, and he was hard to get to, but once combat ensued he really wasn't THAT difficult to fight, at least not to the degree I'd hoped for). But then there's those cases where a villain is much tougher than you think. Sometimes that's great and adds new dimensions (Fox Force Five in my campaign have turned out to cause some players fits whereas originally I conceived of them as lower tier), other times it's frustrating (in an older campaign, the Riddler ended up being almost impossible to beat when it was meant to be a simple fun brief-evening diversion). Overall I'm doing okay though, I'm mostly satisfied with villains these days. However, my first MnM shot at building a villain failed absolutely miserably - fortunately the game had to end for external reasons before that combat went too far! So I get a chance to redo it and see if I learned the right lessons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lupus Posted September 11, 2003 Report Share Posted September 11, 2003 Originally posted by zornwil But then there's those cases where a villain is much tougher than you think. Sometimes that's great and adds new dimensions (Fox Force Five in my campaign have turned out to cause some players fits whereas originally I conceived of them as lower tier *cackles* It's rare that I laugh out loud at a forum post. But that's just sweet. Had to wrack my brains before I remembered where I'd heard that name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted September 11, 2003 Report Share Posted September 11, 2003 Originally posted by Lupus *cackles* It's rare that I laugh out loud at a forum post. But that's just sweet. Had to wrack my brains before I remembered where I'd heard that name. Heh, thanks, I didn't explain because I have done so a few other times throughout different locations on the board so feared risking boredom. But glad you got it. I guess I should post write-ups sometime. EDIT - whaddami saying?? Lemming is in my game and so, no, i am NOT going to post the writeups for FF5! Not for a while anyway. I guess I sort of gave away that I'm not actively bringing back Game Show Host or Bud Girl as serious enemies to be reckoned with - well, unless of course they have an..."accident"...as in "radiation accident". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted September 11, 2003 Report Share Posted September 11, 2003 Originally posted by zornwil EDIT - whaddami saying?? Lemming is in my game and so, no, i am NOT going to post the writeups for FF5! Not for a while anyway. Almost! I will have to say as a group FF5 seems to be quite the thorn, but I would say Laughton & the Troll would get more information. I think Spectrum isn't fond of them, but at least there's a glimmer of hope in turning them to the good side. Or at least our side. I guess I could post the writeups of Burn-out, Blow-out, Break-out, and Chill-out as a trade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted September 12, 2003 Report Share Posted September 12, 2003 Originally posted by lemming Almost! I will have to say as a group FF5 seems to be quite the thorn, but I would say Laughton & the Troll would get more information. I think Spectrum isn't fond of them, but at least there's a glimmer of hope in turning them to the good side. Or at least our side. I guess I could post the writeups of Burn-out, Blow-out, Break-out, and Chill-out as a trade? Perhaps a deal is possible. Of course I'd love to see the rationalization from the metagame activity into the game worlds - "a sudden time-and-space-shift between the parallel universes suddenly exposes vital information on enemies in each world" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shikarr Posted December 29, 2003 Report Share Posted December 29, 2003 Dr D of course deserves honorable mention as does Lung Hung from Voice, but the two that actually get the most oh craps are my premier honorable assassin group The Three Ninja and a high tech group known as Genesis. Black, Gray, and White are all Ninjas of a very high level in general, but it is their extras that make the characters groan. Black is a shadow Demon possessing a man with appropriate powers reflected. Gray is a ghost capable of possessing almost any normal person and then manifesting through that person(kinda hard to take out a powerful opponent when you are afraid of killing the innocent host), and White is a Japanese vampire. And the worst part is the group has actually had upon occassion had to thank the Ninja for information. I did say they were honorable of course they are still assassins. Genesis is out to remake the world or at least they look to be trying to do so at times. They only target 3 things mainly. All extreme technological advances in any field but especially energy generation, propulsion, and life sciences. They target mutants with powers relating to energy generation or propulsion. Also any mutant with regenerative capabilities. And lastbut not least any country or government which threatens the ecosphere in any major way. (Afterall how can you rule a world if everyone is dead) They use a mixture of robots and powered armor agents with exotic programing to combat any form of telepathy or cypherkenesis. Thier robotic troops while usually not tough individually are usually opperating in a hive mind mind link which makes them very dangerous. Very Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.