The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

[Tasha]

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.

 

Well I was actually thinking of that. How about a Government run team of "heroes" who do black ops for the government. Kind of like the team in the Wolverine movie that had Deadpool, Wolverine, Sabertooth, Blob and some other guy who's name escapes me. That way you can still have them do distasteful things and have their leader be out of control, eventually going rogue. That gives the PCs a chance of trying to go hero if you want to run the game for a bit.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

wraith?

[Squall]

Re: The PCs are Villians - Which Villians?

 

I don't think villain games are any more likely to be "short lived" than any other RPG game, myself. Even without getting into the sometimes silly and over-the-top Iron Age violence, the simple truth is that in many comics, as well as in the Champions Universe, not everyone is wholly on the "good" or "evil" sides of the line; there's a tendency to label anyone that's not a true-blue selfless good guy a, well, bad guy, but that's not necessarily the whole story. There's a world of difference between a cat burglar and a genocidal maniac, when it comes to making a player character, isn't there? They're both in CKC, sure, but wouldn't a "villain" game with Foxbat go a whole lot different than one with Holocaust?

 

With comic inspirations like Deadpool (who, let's face it, for the last several years has been more of a hero than a villain), early Thunderbolts (villains who, at least some of them, genuinely wanted to reform), Secret Six/Villains United (a team mostly made up of second-rate thieves and mercenary types, not exactly DC's worst of the worst), there's plenty of room for not-terribly-heroic protagonists in comic canon.

 

In the Champions universe, there are less-than-evil sorts like the member sof grab GRAB or the War Machine, Riptide, and Lady Blue that all sit comfortably at the 350 point level and aren't exactly what I'd call hardcore baddies. There are other "villains" in the book -- most of the Ultimates, Cateran, Howler, Lodestone, Photon, Tesseract, Zephyr, even Firewing -- that have strong codes of honor or a CVK just like a hero might, that just happen to operate, and often, on the wrong side of the law. Any assortment of these sort of characters (point values notwithstanding) could make for a pretty workable team, that wouldn't necessarily be as self destructive as one composed of more hardcore "evil" types (Eurostar, Crowns of Krim, anyone with casual killer or amoral psych lims, that sort of thing).

 

With the right group of characters (and players who are willing to skirt the line), I don't think a villain game needs to be any more short lived than any other campaign.