The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

[phydaux]

I'm gonna run some demo games at various FLAGS in my area. In the game I'm gonna run the players will be playing villans from out of Champions, Champions Universe or Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks.

 

But I'm wondering which villians to let the PCs choose from. I want them to be 350 point villians, able to work together as a team, and fairly straight forward builds so Hero System noobs can understand them.

 

Any recommendations?

[Captain Obvious]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

The Ultimates!

[Cygnia]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

G.r.a.b.?

[clsage]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

I don't have my books at hand, but the first group that came to my mind was Eurostar....Mentalla, Bora, Durak and all the crew. Not absolutely certain that they fall at the 350 point range tho' since, as previously mentioned, my books are in another state and my PDF of CK&C is packed on a CD somewhere....Worth a look IMNSHO.

 

-Carl-

[Escafarc]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

GRAB wasthe first group I thought of (well actually they were third, CLOWN was second and the The Great Super Villain Contest was the first thing I thought of:))

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

GRAB are 350 points each; Eurostar cost more (and are a lot nastier on the whole).

The GSVC is a good 'framework' for explaining why a party of villains would come together.

[phydaux]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

The GSVC is a good 'framework' for explaining why a party of villains would come together.

 

I'm going to run it as the PCs are gathered at the request of a master villian, either a book archvillian or (far more likely) a master villian of my own design.

 

I'll run them ragged, doing dirty job after dirty job. I figure at least one PC will play the part a little too well, get stuck with the Casual Killer Reputation and then PRIMUS & the local Super Hero Team will be all over their ass.

 

I anticipate a few player character deaths.

 

Sooner or later they'll figure out that they are taking all the risks and the master villian is reeping all the reward and the PCs will turn on him.

 

It's inevitable, really. It's what players do.

[Cygnia]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Out of curiosity, why are you demo'ing them as villains instead of heroes?

[phydaux]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Out of curiosity' date=' why are you demo'ing them as villains instead of heroes?[/quote']

 

Just as a change.

 

Plus, there's a quote from the old Traveller RPG that goes "All campaigns become pirate campaigns after six months." I just figured I'd cut out the six months and give the players what they really want in the first place.

 

I guess what I really need to do is run a Dark Champions campaign. Or a Dark Champions demo.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

I'm gonna run some demo games at various FLAGS in my area. In the game I'm gonna run the players will be playing villans from out of Champions, Champions Universe or Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks.

 

But I'm wondering which villians to let the PCs choose from. I want them to be 350 point villians, able to work together as a team, and fairly straight forward builds so Hero System noobs can understand them.

 

Any recommendations?

 

I'm going to run it as the PCs are gathered at the request of a master villian' date=' either a book archvillian or [i'](far more likely)[/i] a master villian of my own design.

 

I'll run them ragged, doing dirty job after dirty job. I figure at least one PC will play the part a little too well, get stuck with the Casual Killer Reputation and then PRIMUS & the local Super Hero Team will be all over their ass.

 

I anticipate a few player character deaths.

 

Sooner or later they'll figure out that they are taking all the risks and the master villian is reeping all the reward and the PCs will turn on him.

 

It's inevitable, really. It's what players do.

 

Given those parameters, I recommend drawing from both GRAB and the War Machine from CKC. Both are made up of 350 pointers, and their builds aren't that complicated. Both were recruited by other villains, and designed to work as part of a team. Between them they offer a wide range of Power/Skill combos and archetypes. By concept and design the GRAB villains are essentially thieves and don't really want to hurt anyone, while the War Machine are more likely to use lethal force; so the mix you choose can be slanted more toward one pole or the other, depending on the kind of game you want to run.

 

(BTW the word is spelled v-i-l-l-a-i-n. Pet peeve, sorry.)

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Intriguing mixture there, Liaden. The power set-ups of both teams would work well (got to love Teamwork skill), and the 'kill' vs. 'won't kill' dynamic provides internal strife.

 

Reminds me a bit of the Masters of Speed from Palladium's Villains Unlimited. They get painted as bloodthirsty maniacs by the media, when they're mostly just out to rob & plunder... but they discovered just a little too late that one of their members is a psychopath - and his 'crash stop' killings of bank security guards have earned the team the bad reputation.

[Rapier]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Clown!!!!!!!

[wick]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

All villian games are pretty short lived. Most players will get pretty sick of playing the badguy (even if you think they are pretty bad when they are playing the good guys.) Most would like to take a dip or two in the pool of villany for kicks but it soon looses it's excitement.

 

I would especially think that to be the case in Champions where there really is not an incentive for greed since weath does not buy you the next new gadget/spell/power unlike, for example, D&D where weath can be transformed into making your character more powerful in quite a few ways. Killing a bunch of innocents would get pretty distateful for even the most blood thirsty player. Unlike the D&D scenario where the DM give you the moral dilemma of whether you should kill all the men, women, and children in the kobold (or insert your favourite evil demi-human race) or leave them be and is appalled when some players have no issue with the massacre. At least in this instance the player can justify themselves with quite a few reasons: This will prevent future generations of evil monsters......or.... They are not really human ....or.... They are inherently evil...etc. Right or wrong this is quite different than say blowing up a mall of innocent humans that are most likely not to cause any harm to you, your people, or thd society in which you live.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

green dragon

[Lord Liaden]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

All villian games are pretty short lived. Most players will get pretty sick of playing the badguy (even if you think they are pretty bad when they are playing the good guys.) Most would like to take a dip or two in the pool of villany for kicks but it soon looses it's excitement.

 

IME that's generally but not universally true. Some gaming groups are more bloodthirsty than others, and while wholesale killing in itself is rarely enough of a motivation to keep such players interested, "heroes" whose first instinct is to kill whoever gets in their way or p!sses them off are not at all uncommon.

 

However, in demo games such as phydaux is proposing in his original post, that "dip in the pool of villainy" temptation may actually work in his favor.

[phydaux]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Well, let's just say as far as comics are concerned the Silver Age ended before most players these days were born. And in D&D people stoped playing Palidins in the 80s.

 

Most of the gaming groups I've been in the players wanted a chance to let loose and run wild without a thought as to what the consiquences of their actions might be. Seems whenever I start a new campaign 1/4 of the players want to be Wolverine (used to be MUCH higher), 1/4 want to be The Punisher and all the rest want to be Deadpool.

 

"Deadpool is a mercenary. A villian."

 

"So?"

 

And that is why I'll have the Primus equivilant of a SWAT team on standby. See, in my home city the local super team members all hive high levels of Code Against Killing. And the local Silver Avenger doesn't.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Silver Avenger Rackham from Allies...

I think his quote was on the lines of "This is for the schoolkids you threatened!" crack "This is for the cops you injured!" thud "And this is because I like hitting people!" crunch

A man who practices stress-relief in the workplace...

[Guest steamteck]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Well, let's just say as far as comics are concerned the Silver Age ended before most players these days were born. And in D&D people stoped playing Palidins in the 80s.

 

Most of the gaming groups I've been in the players wanted a chance to let loose and run wild without a thought as to what the consiquences of their actions might be. Seems whenever I start a new campaign 1/4 of the players want to be Wolverine (used to be MUCH higher), 1/4 want to be The Punisher and all the rest want to be Deadpool.

 

"Deadpool is a mercenary. A villian."

 

"So?"

 

And that is why I'll have the Primus equivilant of a SWAT team on standby. See, in my home city the local super team members all hive high levels of Code Against Killing. And the local Silver Avenger doesn't.

 

Man am I glad i have my apparently archaic gaming group. Chivalry is not dead here and iron age nihilism is not tolerated. We are all old timers though.

 

In my daughters game she runs, she has a nice compromise. They play the heroes most of the time but but have special evil characters they play maybe every 10 or so sessions foiling the heroes plans while avoiding them ( so far). They're actually having fun hating themselves.

[Schiz02]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Because they're not just heartless villains, I like the idea of using GRAB. However, they are a primarily female group and some male players get weirded out with the idea of playing a woman (even for a demo), so I'd add a few more male mercenary types to the team. Armadillo, Brainchild, and Thunderbolt II come to mind.

 

Also, there are a few games I've played that were long term villain games. One was Necessary Evil, but then again it's a villains fighting evil space invaders, so it's a bit different. Also, a Flash's rogues style villains game could work long term (which is also why I chose GRAB).

[bigbywolfe]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

I would also go with GRAB. They don't kill, but they really don't have any trouble hurting people if they need to. You can simply swap some of the genders around if you need more males, easily add a few more villains to the group (possibly even as villains hired to work with them by the master villain, not actually part of the team), and you could even have the reason they turn on the boss be that he's setting them up to take the fall for something or that he's making some horrible death machine and they feel responsible enough to try to stop him, giving those players with a slightly stronger moral compass a happy ending and yet still getting to kick around heroes and cops and running with the loot in the end.

[Escafarc]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Begining to sound like the Secret Six around here.

And a Suicide Squad campaign might be something to think about.

[Schiz02]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

Begining to sound like the Secret Six around here.

And a Suicide Squad campaign might be something about.

 

Which isn't really a bad thing. I normally stick to your typical heroic characters, but something along the vein of Suicide Squad could be a lot of fun with the right group.

[Utech]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

You might want to have one (or more?) of the villains actually be a hero in disguise...

[Schiz02]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

You might want to have one (or more?) of the villains actually be a hero in disguise...

 

Sort of like Martian Manhunter did during Salvation Run.

[phydaux]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

You might want to have one (or more?) of the villains actually be a hero in disguise...

 

For a one off that's a little complicated. If I run this as a campaign then I see this as an inevitability that one (or more) PCs will want to be heros in disguise.

 

But for a demo game at a FLAGS, or a one off at a Con I don't see this as productive in any way.

 

Unless....

 

If I were a really sneeky GM, and I SO am, I would make the team of all "freelance" villians like Green Dragon and Armadillo. And after the players pick the characters I'd pass out sealed envelopes, one for each character, with "secret instructions & motivations."

 

And EVERY ONE would say something like:

 

"Armadillo is actually the Secret Identity of Smash Man, Upholder of Justice! Smash Man's secret contacts in the superpowered criminal underworld have lead him to...."

 

And I'd finish each one with:

 

"It is imperative that Armadillo's secret identity not be exposed until he is ready to take down Master Villian and all his henchmen.

 

I could have one be a PRIMUS agent, one a FBI hero, one be a disguised member of the local hero team, one a Punisher-style vigilante, one an UNTIL agent operating only quazi-legally on US soil.

 

Oh God, I'm grinning like a child just thinking of watching the players squirm.