Superhumans and their families

[Guest steamteck]

About 1/3 of my group's PCs are married and the rest have serious romantic relationships and/or large extended families. These relationships comprise a fair amount of our roleplaying time. How's it go for your groups?

 

 

I'll save my examples till a little later if anyone seems interested in specifics.

[Pizza Man]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Most groups I've played in are all single because they HATE the DNPC complication. One guy had a "Girlfriend of the week" DNPC. Every time she was taken hostage or threatened, the girlfriend would dump the PC, so he had a new one the very next week.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

MY group thrives on the interaction with the NPCs and loves the DNPC thing, but then I treat them like people not rescue objects. Most beloved NPCs are fully reelized and not incompetant.

[Christopher]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Landslide isn't in play yet (very soon now), but for her:

She still has mother and father, but they are back at home in germany. They aren't DNCP's, since most enemys would consider it to much hassle to go there just to kidnapp them.

Lovelife: She had a boyfriend pre-rad accident, but since she has now a much higher density and way more strenght than she can controll, she had to break up. Man do find her post-rad accident look interesting, but she can only start a serious relationship with someone who has near invulnerability to being crushed...

 

But aside from putting a some thought into that matter, I can't really say much about roleplaying that part (since I didn't had a opportunity by now)

[sinanju]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Rose Hancock (aka Lady London) was a refugee from Britain living in the USA (the powers that be there wanted to seize her when she manifested her powers, so she fled); she had family but they cut her off when she ran away. No romantic relationships.

 

Iron Maiden (I've played her in a couple of campaigns, but mostly she lives in my fiction these days) is seriously involved with a couple, and has playmates on the side. Plus, a best friend, a therapist, and a number of other supporting NPCs.

 

Black Knight is 90 years old. He spent most of those 90 years married (and faithful) to one woman, and gave up a lot of his dreams of adventure to keep his promises to her. Now that he's been rejuvenated and is Nigh Invulnerable , he's making no promises to ANYONE. Drinking, dancing, carousing, brawling. So lots of acquaintances, no serious relationships.

[Tom]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

My FtF game tends to have minimal 'family/DNPC' action, but it's fairly extensive in my online game.

[Tasha]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

It really depends on my Character. Some of them have families that are part of the game. One character had 4 children, Most of them have some sort of Domestic Partner (Most of my characters match my sexuality). So usually yes on the Family thingie.

[Mathew]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

My last pc had a dnpc teenage daughter. We had many team adventures start by her running off.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

It depends on the player. Some like DNPCs, some don't.

 

For the GM, a DNPC is a double-edged sword. On the one hand it is one of the more difficult Complications to run, because you have to make a convincing, engaging character for the PC to interact with. On the other hand, it allows a lot more character development than almost any other Complication, so it is a rich mine to tap.

 

The other issue is that DNPCs tend to focus the spotlight on a single player, which might leave others feeling shut out (depending on how the game is run). Of course if the DNPC is interesting enough, the other players can enjoy those scenes almost as much as the player with the DNPC.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Depends on the GM's I've had as well as other players...Some reward such things and others kind of punish you for having them. I blame Joe Quesada. (even though this has been going on longer than I've known about him and certainly longer than his career at Marvel)

 

That said, a few of my characters of the top of my head:

 

Enforcer: an artificial creation he has a adoptive sister, from his former employer. She lives in Europe. He has several friends with benefits among the superhero scene but nothing concrete. Haven't really gotten to play him in over a decade.

 

Purple Haze/Powerman: Taking care of his stepmother, a relationship with Solitaire that never developed, antagonistic relationship with his step-sister.

 

Mantis: married, 2 kids, large family background.

 

Psi-Queen/Empiria: Single, aggressive, picky. She's got her eye on a few potential lovers but they don't know, don't care for her, or are scared out of their minds.

 

Journeyman: (Campaign set in Alternate Future Marvel Universe) Son of Bulldozer of the Wrecking Crew. Has LOTS of complications, his mom for one. His unresolved issues with his "girlfriend" (the new Wrecker it turned out) *sigh* I miss that campaign.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Rep to Ockham's Spoon for some great points.

 

In my prior Champions campaign, the PCs for the two female players became engaged and got married during the campaign (no, not to each other; to NPCs). One of them had her character start the campaign with a boyfriend, and the other PC's relationship started during play.

 

Of the three male players, one PC started dating in play but hadn't gotten too serious before the campaign ended; another PC was engaged prior to getting powers but that fell apart, and he dated on and off but nothing too serious; and the third player had two PCs, and neither got into any serious relationship. The first of those PCs did say he had a fairly large family, which came into play when he was tapped to be in a cousin's wedding in secret ID, but had to duck out during the rehearsal dinner to deal with hero-related stuff. The PC's brothers teasing him about stealing his girlfriend while he was gone was fun to play.

 

I found long ago that PC / NPC interaction makes for a much better game, so I work hard at creating well-rounded, interesting NPCs to play. In this prior campaign, I asked each player to come up with 5 NPCs -- note, not DNPCs -- that would be a part of his/her character's life. I promised them that they would not be used as DNPCs / hostages / villains in disguise, and pretty much kept to that promise. And almost all of them put in fairly regular appearances throughout the campaign. I found it makes the player characters seem more real, not just 2-dimensional cutouts from a comic book.

 

And as to OS's second point above, one character's DNPC or NPC often got semi-adopted by the other PCs as well. For instance, Sentinel had a DNPC: adopted daughter Sarah. (And as DNPC, she was fair game for hostage duty or lots of other stuff.) After Sarah was grabbed (as a squirrel -- long story) by the supervillain Black Oak and taken to Antarctica, after the rescue another PC (Subliminal) bought Sarah a stuffed squirrel with a mini-parka, and telepathically told her that if she needed anybody else to talk to about her powers but was afraid Mom would freak, she could give him a call.

 

As Steamtek said, those PC / NPC interactions do take up a large amount of game time, but I think it's time well spent.

 

I do have to say that, if all a DNPC is used for is as hostage or plot hook, I might get tired of that myself. But using that DNPC to introduce minor complications or even just amusing plot elements (e.g. Sarah had a crush on a college student that her mom was tutoring and would invite him over for dinner, drag mom to his soccer games, etc.) means that the occasional hostage situation or plot hook doesn't dominate the PC / DNPC interaction.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Landslide isn't in play yet (very soon now), but for her:

Lovelife: She had a boyfriend pre-rad accident, but since she has now a much higher density and way more strenght than she can controll, she had to break up. Man do find her post-rad accident look interesting, but she can only start a serious relationship with someone who has near invulnerability to being crushed...

 

In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the solution was to get a suit of armor... and she still put them through the wall.

[Christopher]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

In My Super Ex-Girlfriend' date=' the solution was to get a suit of armor... and she still put them through the wall.[/quote']

I am all for "safer-sex" and she will be definitely too, but that is hardly what I call romantic.

 

Looks like supers need a special partnership agency, that keeps such "special requirements" in mind. Some poeples snore, some insta-frost the bed and some need someone to hug.

[Vulcan]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

My last GM was infamous for using family, friends, and coworkers as clubs to beat the PCs on the head with. Even if you didn't have them as DNPCs, if they were alive and your character knew them, there was a big ole' target on their backs.

 

Then he got all upset when the new characters coming in started being neurotic orphans with no personal connections to anybody. Whatever.

[Greywind]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

The largest group I usually deal with consider themselves a large dysfunctional family regardless of blood ties.

[Orion]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

About 1/3 of my group's PCs are married and the rest have serious romantic relationships and/or large extended families. These relationships comprise a fair amount of our roleplaying time. How's it go for your groups?

 

When I had time to roleplay, relationships was about 5% of the roleplaying time. I think the GM and one other player had a side campaign at times that did more, but as a group we had very little interest. In fact, I have a hard time understanding why relationships would be of interest at all. I have plotted out more than one erotica story with romance, sex, relationship problems, etc., so I am interested in the subject, but just see little to no place for it in the superhero genre. I don't play out housework, shopping, attending college classes, or other parts of mundane life either. When doing supers, it's about fighting crime and being a little more than human - doing something I can't do now. If I want relationships and romance, I'll put up the books and hang out with the wife. To me, writing a story and roleplaying are very different activities. When writing, relationships are important. When roleplaying, the mundane part of life is ignored. That said, I always note the family and relationship status of any character in the background writeup. They aren't DNPCs, but they exist, and so are noted. None of the important characters are married, although most have some sort of dating status.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

I found long ago that PC / NPC interaction makes for a much better game, so I work hard at creating well-rounded, interesting NPCs to play. In this prior campaign, I asked each player to come up with 5 NPCs -- note, not DNPCs -- that would be a part of his/her character's life. I promised them that they would not be used as DNPCs / hostages / villains in disguise, and pretty much kept to that promise. And almost all of them put in fairly regular appearances throughout the campaign. I found it makes the player characters seem more real, not just 2-dimensional cutouts from a comic book.

 

 

Now that is an excellent idea. Few characters are such hermits that they don't interact with anybody at all, and this definitely would help flesh things out with minimal work on the GMs part. Repped.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

Varies considerably from game to game. I have characters that are orphans because I didn't want to deal with it and others where I have a family tree the size of Yggdrasil. Most of my DNPC's are friends or biological.

 

I very rarely write up DNP's that are significant others. Overall, I tend to shy away from "true love" style DNPC's about as much as I do from Code Against Killing. I prefer for that kind of stuff to develop over time and be decided in game via roleplaying.

 

A couple of examples:

 

Chimera: Technically an only child, but in reality probably has hundreds of evil half-siblings and clones... it's what happens when your father is a mad scientist with a gift for genetics. His mother lives in Brazil and is largely safe so long as his secret ID remains intact. Several variations of his write up have included a "partner other of the week" type DNPC. He's a really good looking doctor with a hot accent, an undeniable animal magnetism and feline DNA...

 

Jack Ellis/Oliver Kale: Jack is an orphan and social outcast that's skittish around everyone, women in particular. Oliver, the repressed other half of his personality, is the life of the party and something of a womanizer. While he might dump a chick after getting what he wants, during that period of time when he's with a girl she's his. He will cripple anyone that threatens his territory or property. Oliver isn't really a nice guy... (it was a fairly gritty game)

 

Robin Fletcher: is the black sheep of his biological family and is only close to his youngest sister. Most of his closest friends are his team mates. All of his teachers/mentors are dead. He's lost contact with the first girl he ever loved - an unexplored plot hook that I thought was on the cusp of being developed right before the campaign was rebooted He has several key NPC's that he would take a bullet for. His "stage persona" is a dashing ladies man that flirts constantly. He tones it down in his real life, being the consummate southern gentleman. There was a running gag that one of the cute secretaries at HQ had a massive crush on him and he could just never put two and two together.

 

Speedemon: As a PC, he not only comes from a large family but also has to protect his band mates from the forces of darkness. So lots of potential plot hooks with his DNPC's, most of whom do not know his secret ID. His girlfriend does know his secret ID, since she's the one that accidentally awakened his power... or cursed him, depending on how you look at it. Regardless, she started as a Hunted She's a witch and can mostly take care of herself against many supernatural threats, but she would still need to call him in for any heavy hitters like fighting a demon prince or a demigod. As an NPC, one of my players reaches out to him for advice all the time and he fills something of a mentor/older brother type role for her.

 

Frankie McAdrian: Psychic detective and the team Face, he's got a ton of character points spent in social skills. He's also got a big family and knows lots of important people on both sides of the law back home. But the campaign doesn't take place back home, so none of that is particularly relevant at the moment and I haven't even bothered to flesh it all out. He's on a team where the resident horn dog teenager PC hits on everything that moves, resulting in massive c-blockage via slapstick levels of comedy. Plus the GM loves to torment me by introduce beautiful female NPC's, all of whom seem to be in deeply committed relationships with other NPC's or (for the younger ones) are only interested in the horn dog PC with the bulging muscles. I think there's some chemistry between him and the team's resident NPC magic user... we'll see where it goes.

 

All that said, my face to face groups tends to handle a lot of the romance and such via e-mail these days, so that other players don't have to sit through it if they don't want to.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

When I had time to roleplay' date=' relationships was about 5% of the roleplaying time. I think the GM and one other player had a side campaign at times that did more, but as a group we had very little interest. In fact, I have a hard time understanding why relationships would be of interest at all. I have plotted out more than one erotica story with romance, sex, relationship problems, etc., so I am interested in the subject, but just see little to no place for it in the superhero genre. I don't play out housework, shopping, attending college classes, or other parts of mundane life either. When doing supers, it's about fighting crime and being a little more than human - doing something I can't do now. If I want relationships and romance, I'll put up the books and hang out with the wife. To me, writing a story and roleplaying are very different activities. When writing, relationships are important. When roleplaying, the mundane part of life is ignored. That said, I always note the family and relationship status of any character in the background writeup. They aren't DNPCs, but they exist, and so are noted. None of the important characters are married, although most have some sort of dating status.[/quote']

 

First off, I can respect that this is how you like it in your games, Orion, so please don't take any of what I say here as criticism of your way of game play. I'm just quoting you as a lead-in / counterpoint.

 

Also, full disclosure: I'm married (21 years, but my wife has no interest in gaming), and in the Champions campaigns I've GM'ed over the past 25 years, four of my five regular players are also married, all for 20+ years -- two of them to each other. The fifth player is not married or dating currently.

 

I think spouses / relationships can have a solid place in the superhero genre -- witness Lois Lane and Clark Kent / Superman, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy / Mary Jane / Black Cat for comic-book examples. In an RPG, they can provide a great source for dramatic tension, humor, or any number of other roleplay opportunities. Some of my best quotes (in the Quotes from My Gaming Group thread) have come out of the interplay from those relationships, and they've led either directly or indirectly to some great plotlines through the years.

 

With the two players of mine that are married to each other, their characters (in 5 or 6 multi-year Champions campaigns) have yet to get into relationships with each other, and each has had characters who've had "serious" in-game relationships with NPCs. Nobody there takes what happens in-game very seriously, so flirting with NPCs or even other PCs is no big deal.

 

Extensive example under the spoiler.

 

One example I've used before is Rocker, an NPC whom the heroes met when he was a PRIMUS Iron Guard agent. (Rocker was his code name, I don't recall his actual name.) During a combat, Rocker and Tempest (female PC) flirted a bit, and shortly afterward they started dating and eventually became engaged. Over time, Rocker also became friends with the other PCs (going bar-hopping with some of them, etc.)

 

During this time, the heroes were frequent foes of a nasty-evil group known as the Ravagers. In the heroes' last climactic battle with the Ravagers, Tempest was apparently killed (though of course, in typical comic-book fashion she really wasn't). A mind-controlling supervillain (who was using the PC heroes to help him work his way up to US President, though at that point I think he was just VP) was rather upset at Tempest's apparent death, and he knew of Rocker's relationship with Tempest. So he mind-controlled Rocker to go into the PRIMUS holding cell block, use knockout gas on the guards, and then kill the captured members of the Ravagers. Given the way Rocker felt (in addition to losing his fiance, most of Rocker's Iron Guard team had been killed in action a few months before), it didn't take much to push him to do that.

 

This put Rocker in hot water with PRIMUS, even after the PCs proved he was mind controlled at the time, and he was discharged from service. So the heroes decided to set him up as a superhero. They broke into the PRIMUS base and stole the flying battlesuit taken off one of the captured (and now-dead) Ravagers, had the team gadgeteer modify it and make improvements so it was no longer recognizable, and presented it to Rocker. He became Hotshot, one of the founding members of the Albany Knights.

 

Note that none of this would have come into play if Tempest hadn't started flirting with Rocker in the first place and taken his invitation to watch his garage band play at a local bar.

 

[Orion]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

First off, I can respect that this is how you like it in your games, Orion, so please don't take any of what I say here as criticism of your way of game play. I'm just quoting you as a lead-in / counterpoint.

 

Also, full disclosure: I'm married (21 years, but my wife has no interest in gaming), and in the Champions campaigns I've GM'ed over the past 25 years, four of my five regular players are also married, all for 20+ years -- two of them to each other. The fifth player is not married or dating currently.

 

I think spouses / relationships can have a solid place in the superhero genre -- witness Lois Lane and Clark Kent / Superman, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy / Mary Jane / Black Cat for comic-book examples. In an RPG, they can provide a great source for dramatic tension, humor, or any number of other roleplay opportunities. Some of my best quotes (in the Quotes from My Gaming Group thread) have come out of the interplay from those relationships, and they've led either directly or indirectly to some great plotlines through the years.

 

There are many different types of campaigns, which is part of the fun of roleplaying. The campaigns I played in during college were modeled more after the Avengers and Elementals in style. We even did our version of Marvel's Secret Wars I for a semester. We all loved Peter Parker, but no one wanted to play a life that messed up. I vaguely recall the GM telling us once that we had a two-week downtime in-game, and ask what were we doing. At least one person said something about dating/getting laid/romance. That was it for the entire romance roleplay for that week. A couple months later, someone announces they are now madly in love with their DNPC. Two sentences, and we're done for another week. Romance happened, but it was all back story, and no one felt the need to play it out.

 

With the two players of mine that are married to each other' date=' their characters (in 5 or 6 multi-year Champions campaigns) have yet to get into relationships with each other, and each has had characters who've had "serious" in-game relationships with NPCs. Nobody there takes what happens in-game very seriously, so flirting with NPCs or even other PCs is no big deal.[/quote']

 

In college, none of us had steady relationships, which is why we probably had so much time for gaming. After college, I sometimes did D&D dungeon crawls with friends, two of whom were married to each other. But, it was all hack n slash, so no chance or any type of roleplaying. My wife has no interest at all in comics, sci fi, or fantasy, and even less in roleplaying. But, as she doesn't understand it, I think I can guarantee she would not be happy with me roleplaying an interest in another female - she would not be able to separate the character's actions from mine. So, for many years I didn't meet anyone interested in romance or relationships when roleplaying. And now, even if I did meet another player with this interest and decide to try it, it wouldn't be wise.

 

Note that none of this would have come into play if Tempest hadn't started flirting with Rocker in the first place and taken his invitation to watch his garage band play at a local bar.

 

Agreed - it was a good story addition. But, did it need to be played out? For your group, probably so. For the people I have played with, it would have been enough to state there are feelings, the feelings have gotten stronger, we are a couple now, etc. Rocker would still have been in love, devastated, and joined the team. We would have just summarized the results as needed, and gone on playing detective investigations or whatever we were doing. You play the life of a superhero...I play the superhero at work.

[Lucius]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

I was thinking about my characters, and going to list Quetzlcoatl as being on the extreme end towards having no close relationships. He's cynical and jaded, and maybe even a bitter old man. Not even really a nice guy, but one who does the right thing when the chips are down, or tries to.

 

But then I remembered. His mother is still alive (although obviously very elderly) and he called her once during a game session. He also called his old sensei in Japan one time. And he had one close friend, a high end normal sparring partner. So even this guy with no DNPC who was close to being a loner, had friends and family who came up in game.

 

Amphibion is at the other extreme. He has friends, a DNPC love interest, cares deeply about a lot of people, sort of "adopted" a certain petty criminal that Amphibion thinks is a great prospect for rehabilitation, and had a story arc about the daughter of his mentor, who was like a little sister to him, showing up.

 

For me, it just depends. It depends on the group, on the guy running the game, and on the specific character, how important those kith and kin relationships are.

 

Oh wait, Captain Boing is another example of the extreme "loner" end. NOT a loner by temperament, team oriented in outlook, but his family and close friends were all on another planet, and human romance is of strictly academic interest.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary also finds human romance of academic interest.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

My last GM was infamous for using family, friends, and coworkers as clubs to beat the PCs on the head with. Even if you didn't have them as DNPCs, if they were alive and your character knew them, there was a big ole' target on their backs.

 

Then he got all upset when the new characters coming in started being neurotic orphans with no personal connections to anybody. Whatever.

 

Sounds as if he never, ever understood the concept of the 8-, 11-, 14- frequency rolls... "Yeah, Joe's co-worker -- well, he's the guard at the front gate where Joe works, Joe's never really spoken to him -- let's have Menton abduct him. Heh. Cool."

[phoenix240]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

MY group thrives on the interaction with the NPCs and loves the DNPC thing' date=' but then I treat them like people not rescue objects. Most beloved NPCs are fully reelized and not incompetant.[/quote']

 

Our group loves "slice of life" role playing and soap opera. To be honest it probably consumes more of our gaming than busting bad guys. Most of the characters have families, love interests, rivals and other NPCs either via Disads, as Contacts or just written into their backgrounds and even some "strays" picked up during play. Part of the key, I think, is to make them interesting people that the players can come to care about to some degree and not just a source of extra points or kidnap bait.

[Badger]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

About 1/3 of my group's PCs are married and the rest have serious romantic relationships and/or large extended families. These relationships comprise a fair amount of our roleplaying time. How's it go for your groups?

 

 

I'll save my examples till a little later if anyone seems interested in specifics.

 

Well for my WWYCDs.

 

Badger- mother and sister murdered when he was young. Father disappeared when he was 5. He's gotten to where he keeps people at a distance emotionally. So, I couldnt see him dating. Unless he found a woman who was into below average COM half-aliens (alien race human-like but nature wasnt kind in the looks dept.) with severe emotional hangups.

 

Frosty Bob-well......lots of one night stands. He's ageless and immortal (fought in every American war since WWII, maybe even earlier). So, his parents are long dead. And any siblings who may have had families if any, he has long since lost contact with.

 

Maybe, I should have a DNPC for a change.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Superhumans and their families

 

As a Player: It was very rare almost unique to one GM.

 

As a GM: I loved including family and friends.

 

Cheers

 

QM