Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

[Marcus Impudite]

Just about anyone who's ever GMed knows how this story goes:

 

You spent a considerable amount of time building a cool NPC, usually a villain to be the focus of an entire campaign. You lovingly crafted every detail of the character from his/her/its background information to his/her/its stats. The result was a masterpiece; a triumph matched only by the tragic end this character meets shortly after encountering the PCs for the first time.

 

The question, of course, is what's your story and how did you as GM handled being thrown such a curve?

[CoreBrute]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

There are ways around it. It's not uncommon for the villain to just be a robot duplicate, or someone who was impersonating the real master villain.

 

You could also make it that the villain rises from the dead, perhaps due to an alliance with a spiritual (or demonic) being. Or clone him. Or use one of the infinite ways comic book writers use to bring back characters from the dead (why did they bring back Jason Todd? Why? The people voted for him to die! Can't you see what we want!)

 

Ahem. Sorry going on a bit. But yeah it's a super hero game. There are loads of ways to bring back dead characters.

 

The thing you have to wonder...what kind of super heroes do you have that would actually kill a villain, no matter how bad he was? That's a bit too iron Age/Dark in my opinion.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

I had one that wasn't ganked so much as he's made ineffective each time he appears.

 

I spend a lot of time and effort creating a VIPER Nest Leader, Windchill, along with equipping agents specifically to take advantage of Windchill's powers, as well as put opponents at a disadvantage each time they fought. Even the Nest the heroes attacked was designed specially for Windchill (kept perpetually cold, pumped in CO2 fog, etc.). I created special tactics for the agents, the whole nine yards.

 

The last few times I brought Windchill in, the heroes ignored ALL other foes (agents, AirCav, even King Cobra and Viperia!) to blast Windchill unconscious. I guess it's a testament to the character that they hate him that much, but it does make him pretty much useless except as a target.

 

I like the idea CB brought out about duplicates. I should do something along those lines next time Windy is out of jail.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

Deathstalker was a kickass DFV in a post-heropocalypse game -- the guvmints nuked the gathered heroes/villains, much like what COULD have happened in DC's Kingdom Come futuristic storyline. Any case, using Powers and doing the vigilante thing was illegal, and they came down hard on everyone. She was Pittsburgh's ass-kicker, pistoleer with speed/dex/int boosts, could channel power through her signature weapons to convert their bullets into plasma, that sort of thing.

 

So a bunch of the Powers, both heroes and villains, are being held in Mt. Weather, an underground holding tank until they can be sent on to the international court for disposition. They decide to break out in the middle of lunch, and Deathstalker grabs guns and starts shooting the marine guard company like nobody's business. They, of course, shoot back, and she gets hit a few times. Still shooting from on top of one of those big double-sized lunch tables with the built-in benches, she gets blown into the wall when the just-freed TKer concussion-blasts the place. Let me extract and quote the various portions ...

 

Tables twist and warp, flung about as well; plates, trays, silverware, weaponry, even spent brass is caught up in the momentary near-tornado. Almost everyone who wasn't already flat on the ground has been knocked there; only Kickback is still standing, looking mighty irritated.

 

"The next time," roars the woman, kicking her way through stunned and prone Marines to deliver serious smackdowns onto the others that are clearly NOT concussed, "you're gonna do that, f*cking TELL somebody!!"

 

...

 

In a heartbeat, Atalanta's over checking out the two battered figures of Anvil (buried under a flipped table) and the barely-conscious Nightstalker. "Oh my ... somebody get ... f*ckin' ... dammit!!" She looks up at the two cowering brains-of-the-outfit. "You got about eight minutes to get her out of here and into an ICU or something."

 

...

 

 

That's pretty much simultaneous to Atalanta snapping, "I can keep her together until we get somewhere, if we find something to wrap her head with. Meleager, I need you to carry and bodyguard her."

 

Nightstalker rolls her eyes slowly up at Atalanta, looking a little dazed. "My head hurts," she says quietly. "'s different than the other headaches." Her speech is ... a little slurred.

 

Atalanta shushes Nightstalker. "Shh, it'll be okay. You just banged your head. Here, my husband'll be carrying you, 'kay?" She gently turns the tactician over to her husband, who seems quietly relieved to have something to do that isn't beating up on Marines and is protective and all that. A heartbeat later, the woman is back in the kitchen, then out with a bunch of towels, carefully starting to wrap Nightstalker's head. The gunwoman's left hand, dangling as she's being carried, is trembling a little.

 

There's the quiet groaning of injured Marines all around; Kickback is helping Anvil support himself, the young man/thug grimacing as he hops on one leg. "Y'know," she says to him with the sort of comradely acidness that only two smartasses together can have, "you really shouldn't get into major fights outside of your suit." Despite the pain of what's probably a clean break of his upper thigh, he snorts laughter. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

 

Their levity is probably good, because the faces of both Atalanta and Meleager are pale with dread; Meleager looks a little green as his wife discards first one, then a second hand towel that's turned bright crimson. Nightstalker, her hand still twitching slightly and her gaze wandering a drunkard's track across the ceiling. "Little hole," she says, voice still a little slurred. "Little people looking at us. Y'think th' little people care wha' happen to us??"

 

Re: the 'little people', one of the other heroes, coming to break them out, had shrunk to 'pebble' size and bored a hole down through the rock and concrete into the cafeteria; even dazed, damaged, and shocked as she was, she could still spot him.

 

One side effect of her boosts was a sapping of her abilities; after a typical 20 minute boost, she had massive migraine headaches as her biology strained to catch up with her powers. But this time, there's real head trauma...

 

It never got played out beyond that point, really; as the GM, I was of two minds whether or not she'd live. She was a fantastic, kickass character -- but callously letting her die would have underscored the fact that the game world was lethal, and punches weren't going to be pulled...

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

Drago Romanova - Russia Mafia, retired. This charismatic NPC was murdered by an old rival and the PCs liked him enough to track down his killer and take down the old rival and all his associates.

 

Funny that

 

QM

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

OP edited for better clearity.

[input.jack]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

I had a campaign where there the "old guard" of superheroes had disappeared over the course of about a year, one by one. There was also an upsurge in teenagers manifesting superpowers. The PCs were based around a family that had developed powers recently, and then recruited some help among their friends and local supers to form a team to fill in the power vacuum left by the missing Old Guard.

 

I created a telepath/telekinetic NPC who was supposed to become a team-villain. Her powers were similar to those of Mai the Psychic Girl (picture near Charles Xavier level telepathy coupled with equally powerful telekinetic abilities, including flight, forcewalls, AE concussion blasts, etc). Her personality and appearance were based off of some of Winona Ryder's more "Goth" characters, and she had had a BAD childhood. So she was kind of....volatile.

 

The PCs become aware of her existence when a house near where they live explodes. (Ophelia has had enough of her foster family, thank you). The PCs zip over and rather than the hard battle I was expecting, the team's resident "Wolverine type".....talks to her. Timberwolf managed IN CHARACTER to talk her down from her rage, and find out what happened.

 

Next thing I know, shes being asked to join the team.

 

[D. Guss Tibus]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

Its not a ganked NCP but its just as good.

 

GM was used to D&D, but its FH. Hes thinking like D&D. MY char has a tunneling spell.

 

We run into the boss's #2 guy, barely get away. We come back, my char does his tunneling spell, we go around #2s room.

 

Right into the treasure room!

 

We grab the loot and scoot. Never faced #2, never saw #1.

 

GM hadn't thot about tunnelling.

[Mancer]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

Funny this came up, I just got done posting this on another thread, but here are the relavent portions;

 

"Citizen Supreme," basically an 'ode-to-superman' ripoff, villain style,

 

"Virtually invulnerable, strong enough to lift (erm..well, lift anything a 75 STR will let you lift ), psychic abilities which mimic a host of super-senses, enough flight to make him the fastest moving object in a 1950s sky, a crap-load of minor "brick-trick" style powers, AND the pyrokenetic ability to pretty much melt anything he can see, makes Supreme enough to make any group of 250 pt heroes wanna crap themselves."

 

What was supposed to be a fight the PCs would probably never be able to win turned into a fluke-fest when one of the PCs (Coldfront) decided it was his lucky night; first rolling 52 pts of DMG on a single 9d6 roll, and then rolling a 3 to hit with his next 9d6 3 shot autofire attack (which in our game, always means max DMG, so 3 hits for 54 pts of stun and one for 52, well you get the point). Needless to say, after being hit by a car (Driven by the "at-the-time" powerless but no less feisty Avatar) and taking a series of (rather crappy) 17d6 move throughs by the teams Brick, the rather surprised Supreme didn't stand a chance, heh.

 

Not sure what the "cross-posting" etiquette is, so I apologize in advance if I'm breaking some kind of rule =)

[Psybolt]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

I had a campaign that had a villain who was basically a normal human who was like a "super" religious cult leader. One of the PCs hit him with a massive attack that killed him easily. From that point on, the PCs were seen as dangerous and the followers of the fallen leader rose up and caused problems for years to come. These PC's reps caused them problems as we moved along, and in fact, the end of the character in question was ending up in a cryogenic frozen prison for the act of murder.

[bubba smith]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

think about gm who had their characters killed by the HARBINGER OF JUSTICE before he was relocated to DARK CHAMPIONS imagine the ganked NPCS from HIM

[Gnaskar]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

There's the daemonhost that got one-shoted by a splinter rifle... Suppose that was my fault for letting dark eldar near a tech-priest. I was looking forward to nice long chase. Or his second in command, who was head-shoted through a key hole.

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

I had a Doctor Doom-style criminal mastermind in my campaign once. The players fought their way through waves of goons and lieutenants until finally they faced the man himself. I'd carefully put this guy together to make him a true opponent for the entire team. He had defenses enough to make sure that the fight was going to last...

 

 

And then the team's ice-wielder used an Entangle against the badguy, encasing him in a block of ice. And I kept failing my breakout rolls... the "fight" was over in a phase.

 

I should have just handwaved him out of it... but I didn't for some reason. When I brought this guy back later on, though, we had some fun roleplaying his "return to power", recovering his reputation after being put away by the heroes so handily. It actually made him meaner...

[DJ Blackrock]

Re: Major NPCs from your campaign...who got ganked before their time.

 

First session of a Champions game I ran long ago. Some players know the system, most don't, so I set up a little introductory scenario, Pulsar and a couple thugs are robbing a bank, I figure it'll be good to showcase the combat system and all that right?

 

Well, Fox, our Teleporting Swordsman ports in, and swings. Crit. Rolls damage. Full damage. On an HKA. Pulsar falls down, goes boom. It wasn't intended as one, but I made it a presence attack against his thugs. Thugs all fail. One soils himself. The fight ended in literally one phase. I fudged and ruled that Pulsar survived, but was in a coma. Last thing fledgling heroes need is a reputation as murderers.

 

Then, when Pulsar returned several story-arcs later, our frenzied Were-Jaguar literally ripped him apart. Guy just can't win.