The Dysfunctional Super Team!

[Mostlyjoe]

You've been called in by the goverment (or mysterious patrons depending on your 'theme') to join a new Supergroup that just got put together. (this is a temp arrangement.) It's mostly made up of rookies with a few B-listers all without any real training on how to work as a team. They're making the classic rookie mistakes, but with a few added twists...

 

There seems to be a love quadrangle going on, some of the B-listers are down on their luck ex supercriminals taking the 'be on the team or go to jail' offer. The rest are so new to their powers they can barely control them.

 

You don't have the option of disbanding the team. (Your patron invested too much effort into making it.) The bad guys have caught wind the team has issues and are nosing around looking for some easy 'kills'.

 

What Would Your Character Do?

[Cygnia]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

This is actually Prospero's MO: mentor and work with newbie superheroes, so this is right up his alley.

 

If this is govt. sponsored, get (competent) psych evaluations on the members ASAP (second & third opinions will be encouraged just in case). We need to know who is willing to play well with others or if there are any emotional bombshells that could cripple anyone in the field. That love quadrangle? Get it out in the open - NOW! Who's [MEEP]ing who doesn't have to be finalized, but everyone better respect the choices made (caveat: legal & consentual choices).

 

Likewise, what (if any) is the danger of any of the ex-criminals re-offending? Burglary or other non-violent crimes is one thing, but any sociopaths/murderers/rapists/molesters/terrorists can STAY in jail as far as Prospero's concerned.

 

For those who are new to their powers, it's training regime time. Some self-defense without powers will be taught as well. Find out who pairs well with who and partner them up. Communication, communication, communication!

 

Stock up on aspirin. A LOT of aspirin.

[Clonus]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Riptide: Reveal a different secret weakness of his to every member of the team. Wait to see which one gets exploited.

[teh bunneh]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Sounds like most superteams I've been in!

 

My character Myrmidon is a teacher by nature. He has forged more than one successful team out of a pile of dysfunctional individuals. He would see this as a challenge -- the type of challenge that he thrives on. Much like Cygnia's character, he'd start with pysch evals and a heavy training rotation (both individual and team). He'd send the team on "public relations" missions -- like helping the Forestry Service fight forest fires, or rescue people from floods. Anyone who can't hack it in the field gets put on probationary status and given more training. He's only ever had to throw one person off his team (which he regards as a huge failure on his part).

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Shadow Hawk found himself in exactly this situation.

 

He found himself playing 'drill sargent', forcing the team to act proffessionally (at least in the field). He became the guy everyone hated while at the same time they were grateful to him for the training.

 

The love quadrilateral:

Am likes Bf

Bf likes Cm

Cm likes Df

Df likes Cm

 

Disolved into

Bf with Cm

Df plots revenge on Bf for breaking up marraige.

Am gets NPC girlfriend.

Team Leader tries to ignore problem.

Shadow Hawk tries to prevent Df from murdering Bf or Cm or both.

 

Soap Opera with superpowers.

[hfergus]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Bits of this sound like the Misfit league (the group I'm Gming.) No ex-criminals. No love quadrangle. Two (soon to be 5) new to the game. One suspicious and responds poorly to most authority (you have to prove yourself). One a medieval with all that implies. Teamwork? What teamwork? Oh, they help each other, but the planning stinks. (The leader is a bit too easy going.)

 

As too what they would do, only two qualify as leaders. Volt is the leader of the above group, so it would not be too different, but he'd watch the ex-villains and talk to the quadrangle and expose it if needed. If Olorin, the medieval mage were in charge... Teamwork would be better. Some villians would not survive. Olorin would kill them. Can we say iron age/vigilante? He'd almost never make a mistake though. Olorin would have fun with this. The quadrangle? Exposed. Deal with it guys. Lack of control? Practice, practice, practice. Ex villians watched carefully and turned in (killed if bad enough) if they go back to being villains. He'd find out quickly too.

[sinanju]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

You've been called in by the goverment (or mysterious patrons depending on your 'theme') to join a new Supergroup that just got put together. (this is a temp arrangement.) It's mostly made up of rookies with a few B-listers all without any real training on how to work as a team. They're making the classic rookie mistakes' date=' but with a few added twists...[/quote']

 

Iron Maiden jumps for joy at being talked into this job....not.

 

There seems to be a love quadrangle going on...

 

Iron Maiden would take the four aside and tell them to "embrace the power of 'AND'" so as to avoid "another tragic monogamy accident." Given that Iron Maiden is involved in a long-term threesome, she'd know what she's talking about. If the involved parties are unwilling or unable to make that leap, her fallback position would be that she doesn't care who sleeps with whom--but they'd damn well better keep their emotional soap opera confined to their private lives and down time.

 

some of the B-listers are down on their luck ex supercriminals taking the 'be on the team or go to jail' offer.

 

IM would want to know what, exactly, they're supposed to be in prison for. Given that they're "B-list" criminals, that implies low rent criminals, so probably no killers. That's good. If they seem truly interested in being heroes, she'll do everything she can for them; if they're just interested in not being confined to a concrete and steel cage, she'll keep a eagle eye on them and be ready to bounce them (straight into stir) at the first sign of a problem.

 

The rest are so new to their powers they can barely control them.

"How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!" There will be lots and lots and lots of time spent in the "Danger Room" or its equivalent.

 

You don't have the option of disbanding the team. (Your patron invested too much effort into making it.) The bad guys have caught wind the team has issues and are nosing around looking for some easy 'kills'.

1. Iron Maiden can't disband the group--but she can quit. And she will if it turns out to be a waste of her time.

2. She'll use the threat of being stomped by the bad guys to motivate everyone to learn their powers and learn to work as a team.

[Narratio]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Can't do much about the quadrangle, but as for the rest? As Cygna says, communicate! Shout or talk, use semaphore or Aldis lamps, send smoke signals if required! And let's go down to the danger room (or equal) and let off some steam.

 

I used to have my group take gaming breaks and spend gaming nights paired up fighting pre set problems or other pairs of gamers. Soon they start making up thier own preset tactics, figuring out what works best.

[Nothere]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Scaredy Cat would first recover from the shock of now being officially a Superhero. He would take a couple of days to debate seeing a psychiatrist or lawyer depending on if he agreed willingly or got drafted. Then he'd retreat to his speciality research. He wouldn't be interested in the cons criminal backgrounds. Hey if the government cleared them or their trying to be better people who is he to interfere? But likes dislikes and patterns of behaviour. then he'd use that information to try and become the go to guy. Not about powers who cares, but about personal problems. He'd want to know who among the cons were waivering, and who among the newbies the pressure was getting too. He'd also try and help smooth out personality conflicts. As to the love quadrangle, since he's to afraid to admit to the woman he loves he even likes her, he'd ignore it mostly. Though if anyone seems to leaning towards hurting their rival, a little recounting of a tale were that goes wrong with his invoke fear power behind it might be forthcoming.

[Mendou]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Given that Pyrie's in the "so new to her powers she can barely control them" group, she fits right in. She didn't get picked for her leadership abilities; probably she's there to be monitored like everyone else in the group (why else would the government assemble a superteam like that?). Her volatile personality isn't going to help matters much, nor is her habit of charging in to situations blindly......

[Chuckg]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Starguard: Could possibly be on this team as one of the members, as she possesses vast mystic power... and is utterly new to her abilities.

 

On the other hand, she's also cute as a button, mentally stable, and her 'vast power + vast inexperience = needs mentor' factor is already being taken care of by her world's resident Superman analogue, Horus-Re, so she might be able to duck this. It depends on who wins what argument in Washington DC.

 

If she did end up here, it could only be as a member: as mentioned above, she's too inexperienced for anyone remotely sane to consider as a sponsor. On the other hand, she practically incarnates niceness and peace as embodied concepts, so she'd do a lot to keep the atmosphere calm around just by being her normal self. (Starguard possesses anime-style cuteness at full-on Yamato Nadeshiko levels. Granted, this only dooms her to probably be the focus of the love quadrangle, but, at least she won't be encouraging it like some other girls might.)

 

Dr. Pain and Baron von Darien would not reasonably be drafted for this scenario, in either capacity.

 

Striker-One, aka Kaian, aka etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. is the resident Captain America equivalent of his home setting, on the other hand, so he'd be one of the first people drafted. That he is a soul-weary, cynical mystic immortal with dark secrets in his past and an epic amount of sins he feels necessary to atone for is not in anyone's dossier... just the part where he's really really outrageously good at what he does, and was one of the foremost stalwarts of World War II.

 

On the plus side, he has the experience, the reputation, and the chops to herd this bunch of cats, and Lord knows he knows far more about dysfunctional human behavior and how it can attempt to mask itself than his students do (his own past is an epic education in that, let alone all the experience he's had dealing with it from other people), so, while their teacher will be very carefully keeping his poker face, reminding himself that he actually has lived through worse, and marking this down as one of the worst decades he's had in the past few centuries (and that's counting World War I, which he's still getting drunk occasionally to deal with the memories of).

 

Granted, this only goes so far if the students are actually, however dysfunctional, still well-intentioned. He gets any outright supervillains or traitors in the bunch, at that instant every repressed desire he might have built up to bust their skulls wide open ain't gonna be repressed no more. Barring that, though, they will be brought around eventually into being relatively competent, professional, and mature superheroes, or else they'll have quit the program screaming and run far far away. Kaian lived in the original Sparta, he entirely acknowledges the efficiency of certain training methods.

 

Its important to note, however, that he will sincerely be hoping his students make it and go on to lead better lives, however frustrated he might get with them from time to time. Kaian knows what its like to entirely destroy your own life and everything you loved by being stupid, powerhungry, greedy, arrogant, outright villainous, or all of the above: he can empathize with people who have ruined themselves. It won't stop him from ruthlessly and unhesitatingly kicking their asses when the need arises (after all, he also empathizes with their victims), but given a chance to pre-empt the need from ever arising in the first place, he would not turn it down.

 

Even if he is mentally repressing the urge to repeatedly bang his head on a concrete wall.

[Hermit]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Aquatic - Aquatic would wince and wonder why he agreed to this? he'd attempt to motivate them, but given his psych lims include pessimism, he might get the speeches wrong "You don't suck as much as you think you do, honest!"

 

That aside, he's a decently nice guy, and can be patient. Eventually he might drag the love quadrangle out of hiding one by one. The powers out control bit? Well, he's worked with meta teens so might be able to help them. The problem would be the villains coming after the unprepared team. He'd probably call in his regular team for help on that one.

 

Gaze- Actually, very well suited in some ways to getting their troubles fixed. He once helped a teammate with a gambling addiction. He has both SS Psychology and mind control (even a transformation slot) that he could us IF they were willing. He would not force it on them. He's also got social skills galore, and a few conversation rolls would help find out who of the quadrangle is feeling for whom etc. The ex criminals would NOT get away with much.

 

As for the villains? He'd hunt them down one by one, catch each alone and take them out before they could hurt the rookies.

[Drhoz]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

You've been called in by the goverment (or mysterious patrons depending on your 'theme') to join a new Supergroup that just got put together. (this is a temp arrangement.) It's mostly made up of rookies with a few B-listers all without any real training on how to work as a team. They're making the classic rookie mistakes' date=' but with a few added twists...[/quote']

 

Vitus of Clan Scorpion

: Oh come on - just because I'm

part

of a dysfunctional team doesn't mean I know how to make one work! And most of our successes were the result of blind luck rather than teamwork anyway! .... The ones I wasn't involved in, anyway. I

meant

to do all that.

 

But since it doesn't appear Vitus has a choice in the matter, he would begin with a review of Full Metal Jacket, and proceed to put the rookies through fourteen kinds of hell until they were enraged and competent to try and take him on as a team.

 

There seems to be a love quadrangle going on, some of the B-listers are down on their luck ex supercriminals taking the 'be on the team or go to jail' offer. The rest are so new to their powers they can barely control them.

 

Tie a damn knot in it. If you can't do your job without running around like spinifex hopping mice on heat then I've got no use for you. And I don't care that you like that one and that one likes the other one, and I have no interest in whatever perverse four-way you use to resolve it.

OK?

Setting up the supercrims as assistant mentors over the rookies might seem counter-productive, but it would provide a few oppurtunities - being a mentor would the crim a sense of responsibility. And if the whole super-team thing doesn't work out they'll have earned a new side-kick when they return to a life of crime. Vitus won't lose any sleep over it.

 

You don't have the option of disbanding the team. (Your patron invested too much effort into making it.) The bad guys have caught wind the team has issues and are nosing around looking for some easy 'kills'.

 

Take this as a good opportunity to show the team how to lull your enemy into a false sense of confidence, and then detonate their kneecaps. I want to leave this team with a reputation, and a trail of smoking patellas is better than most.

[OddHat]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Flesh Gordon:

 

"Hey there, team, we all need to sharpen up or the baddies will have us for breakfast! Remember, there is an I in this team, and that I is Me, Flesh, and you'd better listen up! Yes, I do realize that means it's spelled Teim, but that's what makes us special!"

 

"No need to fight, ladies. There's plenty of Flesh for everyone."

 

"Of course I let her sleep with me; I'm not cruel. Yes, and her. Her too, but I was drunk. Yes, them as well, but be fair, that was a mind control laser."

 

"Why are you all looking at me like that?"

 

[Teim opens fire]

 

[Flesh runs away]

 

[Teim learns teamwork and loyalty by hunting Flesh across three states]

[Lucius]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

What Would Your Character Do?

 

Amphibian might be better at this, but I'm using Quetzlcoatl first.

 

They're making the classic rookie mistakes, but with a few added twists...

 

Quetzlcoatl will twist right back. They're getting a combination of personal coach and trainer, mystifying ninja, sadistic drill instructor, enigmatic zen master, and dragon. They might wish they were with Vitus.

 

One of the first assignments will be for Quetzlcoatl to lead them to a location such as the ever popular warehouse or construction site, order them to "wait here" as he goes in, and when he comes out, leads them in and shows them an elderly gentlemen tied up. "I'm going to get back-up with the power to take him in custody, you just make sure he doesn't get away. I can get people here to contain him in a couple of hours."

 

The bound man smiles benignly and says "Had you not surprised me, Pearl-in-the-Mist, the outcome would be different. I will not underestimate you again."

 

Quetzelcoatl will warn them not to listen to anything the captive says, and depart.

 

Of course, the person departing in Quetzlcoatal's armor is actually one of his most trusted associates, and the bound villain is Quetzelcoatl himself, who will cheerfully claim to be a dangerous criminal, explain "Pearl in the Mist" as "Oh, that's what we called him where I came from" (A total lie of course, he's never been called any such thing) and will proceed to spend a few hours observing how the team handles the situation. Even after admitting to being a criminal (but declining to give a name or confess to any specific crimes - "Have I killed people? I'm not at liberty to say, it's a rule. Two things a gentlemen never speaks of are the women he has loved and the men he has killed." ) he will be friendly and cheerful and will of course attempt to talk them into letting him go or at least unbinding him ("Yes I'm a dangerous criminal, but not THAT dangerous, surely with so many guards I don't have to be trussed up like this") - not that he needs any help, he has Contortionist and the way his friend bound him he gets +5 - unless the team is smart enough to check and then re-bind him. Nor will he escape immediately even if unbound. He'll take advantage of their boredom to chat them up and/or just watch and see what they are like when they think they are unobserved. This is probably when he learns about the romantic subplots. This is also where he'll test the ex-criminals, suggesting bribes, hinting that they could work for him, etc.

 

As soon as anyone leaves, he makes his escape - probably by stealth unless he is quite sure he can take on everyone else. If the latter, his last words will be "That was fun, but I wonder how many times I'll be able to do it. When the Dragon gets through with you, you'll be more than a match for me, I fear." (For once, he's actually telling the truth....)

 

If possible (which it might not be - his mobility in Secret ID is limited) he'll catch the one or two who left the site, take them down quickly, tell them they would have been safer in the group (which would be especially true if he left by stealth) and deliver some colorful threat for their mentor, something like "Tell that snake I know his heart is human, and I know where he got it, and it's going back - if I have to leave the rest of him in ashes to get it."

 

Nothing like gaining a colorful, mysterious, dangerous, and totally fictional nemesis. Quetzlcoatl will of course deny having a human heart. "And don't call me Pearl. He has me confused with someone else."

 

Eventually, Quetzelcoatl will reveal his "secret" - that he is a limited shapeshifter, able to take on human form with certain rituals and under certain conditions and with little control on WHAT form he takes (another lie; but he does have tons of skills like Acting and Disguise, and some training objectives will be easier to meet if he's not in that bulky dracoform armor.) His first appearance will be as a Hispanic female, probably old. Then he'll take other faces, eventually even that of an elderly Asian male (because it would be even more suspicious if he didn't. He still won't, of course, look like himself) matching his speech patterns and even personality to the identity he's assuming. He'll choose his identities from the obituaries, and if one of the team is smart enough to eventually say "You can only take the form of the recently dead, isn't that so!?" he'll congratulate that person's cleverness and think he may have at least one budding investigator on the team.

 

If word of his "shapeshifting powers" gets out on the street, he'll know at least one person on the team can't be trusted and will become even more paranoid (scary thought) until the leak is found and plugged.

 

There seems to be a love quadrangle going on

 

By now they'll be used to sometimes bizarre behavior, so it will be just one more eccentricity when he calls them into the Danger Room on a Friday (in his costume) for a poetry reading.

 

"Love poetry should be read TO someone, but if I do that to any of you it could be called harassment or sexual abuse....ah, here is someone whose job it is to take our abuse." Then he addresses the supertough dummy the team brick uses to practice punches and kicks. "This is from the Indian poet Bhartrihari, from the Sanskrit."

 

She who is always in my thoughts prefers

Another man, and does not think of me.

Yet he seeks for another's love, not hers;

And some poor girl is grieving for my sake.

Why then, the devil take

Both her and him; and love; and her; and me.

 

Pause.

 

Looking around, he says "In case you were wondering-"

Suddenly he drops the poem and smashes the top half of the dummy with his arm, destroying it "I'M THE DEVIL!"

Swinging his tail he demolishes the bottom half "That he's talking about."

(Massive PRE attack should go without saying)

"You have a long weekend to resolve your romantic subplots. Work it out by the time the cock crows on Monday. Dismissed!"

 

(Naturally, the team doesn't have to know that he had replaced the dummy with a look-alike he could easily smash.)

 

some of the B-listers are down on their luck ex supercriminals taking the 'be on the team or go to jail' offer.

 

Unless it violates their parole, Quetzlcoatl will help them design an alternate costume, name, and heroic identity. When he tells them how lucky they are to have this chance, he's not glowering and implying they don't deserve it, but seems genuinely congratulatory, taking the tone "Wow, you caught a lucky break, let's make sure you make the most of it!" He's not going to openly give a clue that he's even considering the possibility they would deliberately screw this up by giving it less than their best shot at being real heroes.

 

Secretly, he investigates them thoroughly, hoping to find for each at least one crime he can implicate them in but that they haven't been tried for - so as to have pretext to place them under arrest preemptively if he needs to. He'll also ask seriously "what made this person go bad?" If someone's motive was poverty or greed, for example, he'll be sure to occasionally take the whole team out to good restaurants or other expensive outings, and emphasize the pay and perks one can get as a legitimate (if somewhat mercenary) superhero. He'll tailor his approach to reform to his perception of each one's motivations. But above all, he'll treat tham as if they are already reformed (other than keeping a close but inconspicuous watch on them) because that's the best way to make it so. And if he didn't think they deserved a chance at redemption, he wouldn't be doing this job (no matter what they're paying him.)

 

The rest are so new to their powers they can barely control them.

 

Meditation. Biofeedback. Introduce them to other beings with similar powers and get their help and advice. Practice, practice, practice!

 

The bad guys have caught wind the team has issues and are nosing around looking for some easy 'kills'.

 

Excellent! The kind of bad guy who comes nosing around for "an easy kill" is exactly what they need to practice on. In between real villains, he'll put in appearances as his own mysterious nemesis from time to time - very carefully, of course.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary isn't sure Quetzlcoatl would be any good at this, but he would probably have fun

[Chuckg]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

I like the part about disguising yourself as the villain and tying yourself to the chair so you can spend a couple of hours trying to mess with their heads. I should entirely steal it for one of Kaian's lesson plans. *g*

[Lucius]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

I like the part about disguising yourself as the villain and tying yourself to the chair so you can spend a couple of hours trying to mess with their heads. I should entirely steal it for one of Kaian's lesson plans. *g*

 

Thanks.

 

I'm afraid sometimes I get carried away with these things.

 

But then, maybe that's not always a bad thing.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Getting carried away on a palindromedary

[Drhoz]

Re: The Dysfunctional Super Team!

 

Thanks.

 

I'm afraid sometimes I get carried away with these things.

 

But then, maybe that's not always a bad thing.

 

I'd have repped you for your response, but... next time