When, if ever, would your character kill?

[dmjalund]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I'd imagine a Futurian worrying whether the person he killed was supposed to die - or had he changed history.

[Vulcan]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

My GM apparently thought rusty Iron Age was the best, a character with a Code vs. Killing wouldn't be living up to the tone of the campaign. Or living at all, for very long.

[megaplayboy]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

My GM apparently thought rusty Iron Age was the best' date=' a character with a Code vs. Killing wouldn't be living up to the tone of the campaign. Or living at all, for very long.[/quote']

 

As a GM, I just love spending hours writing up NPCs who will only be used once, because they're going to die at the hands of the PCs.

/sarcasm

[Orion]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

As a GM' date=' I just love spending hours writing up NPCs who will only be used once, because they're going to die at the hands of the PCs./sarcasm[/quote']

 

I understand this viewpoint, because creating good characters is work. As a GM, I would tend to want to reuse some of the villains. Not all, but some, and the ones I plan to reuse will have a lot more work put into them, and be used differently. They won't be in the front line of the battle, they won't be wearing a red shirt, and they won't be the one holding a gun to a hostage and daring the SWAT team to shoot them. As a player, I have the opposite viewpoint. Maybe it is because I have played much more fantasy games than anything else, and in fantasy you generally expect to kill the villain.

 

As a player, if I cannot have an effect on the world, I will be unhappy. If every villain I fight comes back from the dead/escapes prison/disappears at the end of the fight, I will feel like I am having no effect, and the character would seriously consider finding a new line of work. If fighting criminals makes no difference, then the mentalist will open up a psychiatric clinic, the brick will go into construction, and the telekinetic will go in disaster rescue. Many (most?) superhero scenarios seem to be of the stop the villain's plot variety, but not stop the villain. This is a critical difference in campaign style. I've played a lot of the former, but much prefer the latter.

 

We all know or have heard of people that love to fight. It's not personal to them - it's recreation. Martial arts and formal boxing are too restrictive, so bar fights are they way they go. They like to know who is the toughest, and to test themselves against the new guy. This is most comic heroes in my opinion. They aren't interested in stopping crime - they just like to dress up in spandex and beat people up, nothing more. A murderous nut has escaped prison yet again, killed multiple people, and is holding a weapon on someone. Police are willing to shoot the bastard, but not the hero, because then the villain can't escape, kill more people, and give the hero an excuse to beat on him again. In The Dark Knight, the Joker went away when Batman stopped operations. I think an equally valid story could be that Batman hangs up the costume when the Joker finally gets put into a real prison without a revolving door, because without colorful villains to beat up on, he's bored.

[Vulcan]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

My GM apparently thought rusty Iron Age was the best' date=' a character with a Code vs. Killing wouldn't be living up to the tone of the campaign. Or living at all, for very long.[/quote']

 

As a GM, I just love spending hours writing up NPCs who will only be used once, because they're going to die at the hands of the PCs.

/sarcasm

 

Well, that's you. My GM had exactly no qualms about killing PCs left and right - the ones who tried to be moral even moreso than most. We just lived down to his example.

[Christopher]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

Martial arts and formal boxing are too restrictive' date=' so bar fights are they way they go. They like to know who is the toughest, and to test themselves against the new guy. This is most comic heroes in my opinion. They aren't interested in stopping crime - they just like to dress up in spandex and beat people up, nothing more. A murderous nut has escaped prison yet again, killed multiple people, and is holding a weapon on someone. Police are willing to shoot the bastard, but not the hero, because then the villain can't escape, kill more people, and give the hero an excuse to beat on him again. In The Dark Knight, the Joker went away when Batman stopped operations. I think an equally valid story could be that Batman hangs up the costume when the Joker finally gets put into a real prison without a revolving door, because without colorful villains to beat up on, he's bored.[/quote']

I can't agree with that. Perhaps they are often played that way (and refraining from violence-complications are rare), but this could be just as easily be that the player want their character to fight.

Perhaps it is the high amount of dice rolling, uncertinity about sucess of your actions (and that the uncertinity is based on rules, rather than GM-fiat) and the absoluteness of the result (one side wins, one looses) that makes players tend to go into combat? If that would be true, I have great hopes about the Social Conflict rules from APG 2. It's a different way to "Kick ass" and could certainly make your Supers less fighty.

[Bloodstone]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I don't take CvK (I'm morally opposed to it ), even though I tend to play many of my characters as if they had one:

 

Chimera - Dr Vinicius Moraes has never willingly taken a human life and I'm not sure what circumstances would ever make him do so. His compassion and sense of duty have caused him to give medical aid to opponents in the middle of battle before (and I should mention, some of those enemies were Nazi scum). But his super powered alter-ego has the instincts of a predator, sharp claws, pointy teeth and an Enraged that's triggered by being wounded... bound to happen eventually...

 

Robin Fletcher - Has never actually taken a human life. He's not totally opposed to the idea, but he has lots of non-lethal/less-than-lethal trick arrows and his incredible aim means being able to take people out without having to do serious damage even when using deadly weapons. They might walk funny for the rest of their lives, but serves 'em right! He's never had to kill in self defense because he's pretty much always been better then the opposition. Killings easy, but taking someone alive takes a bit more finesse, you know? Ultimately, he's a fairly idealistic young hotshot who's constantly being put in violent situations against the scum of the earth. Again, it's almost bound to happen eventually, I'm just not quite sure what will actually push him over the edge... he'd probably put an arrow between the eyes of a serial killer like the Joker and sleep well that night...

[megaplayboy]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I understand this viewpoint, because creating good characters is work. As a GM, I would tend to want to reuse some of the villains. Not all, but some, and the ones I plan to reuse will have a lot more work put into them, and be used differently. They won't be in the front line of the battle, they won't be wearing a red shirt, and they won't be the one holding a gun to a hostage and daring the SWAT team to shoot them. As a player, I have the opposite viewpoint. Maybe it is because I have played much more fantasy games than anything else, and in fantasy you generally expect to kill the villain.

 

As a player, if I cannot have an effect on the world, I will be unhappy. If every villain I fight comes back from the dead/escapes prison/disappears at the end of the fight, I will feel like I am having no effect, and the character would seriously consider finding a new line of work. If fighting criminals makes no difference, then the mentalist will open up a psychiatric clinic, the brick will go into construction, and the telekinetic will go in disaster rescue. Many (most?) superhero scenarios seem to be of the stop the villain's plot variety, but not stop the villain. This is a critical difference in campaign style. I've played a lot of the former, but much prefer the latter.

 

We all know or have heard of people that love to fight. It's not personal to them - it's recreation. Martial arts and formal boxing are too restrictive, so bar fights are they way they go. They like to know who is the toughest, and to test themselves against the new guy. This is most comic heroes in my opinion. They aren't interested in stopping crime - they just like to dress up in spandex and beat people up, nothing more. A murderous nut has escaped prison yet again, killed multiple people, and is holding a weapon on someone. Police are willing to shoot the bastard, but not the hero, because then the villain can't escape, kill more people, and give the hero an excuse to beat on him again. In The Dark Knight, the Joker went away when Batman stopped operations. I think an equally valid story could be that Batman hangs up the costume when the Joker finally gets put into a real prison without a revolving door, because without colorful villains to beat up on, he's bored.

 

I think most heroes (and players) want to feel they're accomplishing something. But I don't think this is wholly incompatible with non-permanent solutions to problems(i.e., non-lethal solutions). First, Stronghold or its equivalent doesn't have to be a revolving door(or at least, the villains shouldn't be showing up again weeks or months later--at least a year should pass, and a murderous villain either shouldn't get out at all or it should be years before they do). Second, not all supervillains are murderers, and rough justice isn't necessarily appropriate(or productive--if heroes start maiming or killing every bad guy, then a few things happen--the bad guys get sneakier, the bad guys get more ruthless and lethal themselves, and the bad guys overcome mutual animosity and team up until they have achieved "mutual assured destruction" level deterrence against the heroes(i.e., if the heroes continue killing, all the heroes who can be killed without too much difficulty will be ambushed and killed at some point, and the remainder will find themselves attending the funerals of their DNPCs, friends, and contacts). Third, superheroing is supposed to be harder than hack and slash gaming--it's an ongoing effort to make the world a better place, and some of the bad guys aren't going to hang out until the bitter end, waiting to be put at GM's discretion(or killed).

IMO it's extremely important to think through the implications of BOTH superheroes and supervillains using lethal force in a campaign--given a sufficiently large and powerful pool of metahumans, that way lies armageddon.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

As a GM, I just love spending hours writing up NPCs who will only be used once, because they're going to die at the hands of the PCs.

/sarcasm

 

If I were running a game where I reasonably expected PCs to kill the villains on a regular basis ... I wouldn't spend more than 5 minutes on 'em. Don't bother doing math on the powers and stats and stuff, just scribble down some numbers and roll with it.

[Bloodstone]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

The biggest problem I have with killing villains is... in a world full of mind control, mental illusions, teleportation, invisibility, robot doubles, clones, shapeshifters, parallel worlds, Nazi plots, alien invasions and, worst of all, lawyers... well, you better be damn certain that the target is guilty before beating them into -BODY

[Orion]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I think most heroes (and players) want to feel they're accomplishing something. But I don't think this is wholly incompatible with non-permanent solutions to problems(i.e., non-lethal solutions). First, Stronghold or its equivalent doesn't have to be a revolving door(or at least, the villains shouldn't be showing up again weeks or months later--at least a year should pass, and a murderous villain either shouldn't get out at all or it should be years before they do). Second, not all supervillains are murderers, and rough justice isn't necessarily appropriate(or productive--if heroes start maiming or killing every bad guy, then a few things happen--the bad guys get sneakier, the bad guys get more ruthless and lethal themselves, and the bad guys overcome mutual animosity and team up until they have achieved "mutual assured destruction" level deterrence against the heroes(i.e., if the heroes continue killing, all the heroes who can be killed without too much difficulty will be ambushed and killed at some point, and the remainder will find themselves attending the funerals of their DNPCs, friends, and contacts). Third, superheroing is supposed to be harder than hack and slash gaming--it's an ongoing effort to make the world a better place, and some of the bad guys aren't going to hang out until the bitter end, waiting to be put at GM's discretion(or killed).

IMO it's extremely important to think through the implications of BOTH superheroes and supervillains using lethal force in a campaign--given a sufficiently large and powerful pool of metahumans, that way lies armageddon.

 

I agree with most of what you have said. A properly run Stronghold can give a sense of permanence, but goes against the genre convention of easy escapes. How many genre conventions are upheld varies with every campaign, and this has always been one I can't decide whether I like or dislike. My world doesn't have a Stronghold (yet), so there really isn't anything that can hold many of the metahumans. Psionic alteration has been suggested, but the psionics don't want any part of that, and no one really trusts them anyway.

 

In my experience, using lethal force on villains only happens after the villains start it. There may be some escalation of lethality after that, but the villains are already doing enough that it doesn't really matter. My Genocide, for example, is at least as violent as the Mexican drug cartels. Going lethal against them doesn't change how they operate, it just shifts their focus to a new target. But if the villains had not been lethal before, I agree that they would change quickly, and the heroes would get a wake-up call. This force and lethality escalation can make for a good combat-heavy campaign, but I'd want to be sure every player was on board before trying it out.

[Orion]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

The biggest problem I have with killing villains is... in a world full of mind control' date=' mental illusions, teleportation, invisibility, robot doubles, clones, shapeshifters, parallel worlds, Nazi plots, alien invasions and, worst of all, lawyers... well, you better be damn certain that the target is guilty before beating them into -BODY [/quote']

 

Genre convention has it that the Executioner and Punisher never target the innocent, and it's never a worry. Personally, I find that about as believable as domino masks hiding identity. I think that has to be one of those campaign style decisions made before play starts, just like whether family members are constantly kidnapped or powers are regularly lost. The possibility of killing the wrong person is a great storyline, but some players just don't want to bother with it.

[Ice9]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I agree with most of what you have said. A properly run Stronghold can give a sense of permanence, but goes against the genre convention of easy escapes. How many genre conventions are upheld varies with every campaign, and this has always been one I can't decide whether I like or dislike.

Personally, I say throw it out and good riddance. There are a number of things comics books do because "the status quo is king", which while (arguably) suitable for that medium, are actively toxic to an RPG campaign. There are no movie tie-ins to your weekly game, no hordes of fans' opinions to take into consideration, no lapsed members joining that will expect the campaign to be the same as when they left it. So smash the status quo to pieces when necessary - there's nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

[Alverant]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I take it generally the same way for all my superheroic characters. First, they would kill anyone actively trying to kill innocent people. Not planning to, actually about to as in the weapon is pointed at the target. Second, avoid killing agents, mooks, and "normal" people. Super can kill super, norm can kill super, but super shouldn't kill norm. Third, has the villain killed innocent people before and is likely to again? If so, then killing the villain now, in combat, is acceptable. Fourth, do not execute the defeated villain. Finally for those villains who are mass murders and irredeemably evil, well to quote Arnold J Rimmer, "I would gladly shoot him if he were sitting on the loo. It's just a pity he's awake." (episode Justice)

 

OTOH, when my team defeated Monster (we got some lucky dice rolls) and shrunk him down to action-figure size, my character put him in a microwave and set it to 5 minutes while waiting for the authorities. He thought he was a robot. Besides, given the Monster's abilities, he seriously thought the Monster would spring back up and force feed him his own intestines. The microwave was just "making sure".

 

Of course, this is in a fantasy game. Executions in the real world are too complex to give a blanket statement.

[input.jack]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

Super-prisons having a "revolving door" is, in my opinion, a matter of comics having 70+ year runs, and the characters being licensed properties, rather than characters being written to be in the best stories possible. When I GM a supers game, there may be one or two villains that might be able to weasel their way out of custody in the entire campaign; everyone else stays in. Unless there is a MASSIVE jail-break event, which I limit myself to doing ONCE per campaign.

 

Likewise, I am playing Batman in a 1960's DC Justice League campaign (run to be taken seriously, and characters act intelligently, not like the TV series). I couldnt disagree more with Orion's idea that Batman would hang up the tights if Joker were permanently incarcerated because he was "bored"; Batman's whole reason for being is to protect innocent citizens against the predation of criminals. He fights for a world where he is no longer needed. And it will never happen.

 

In this campaign, I have already gone through the Ace Chemicals Plant encounter where the Joker was "made". And several in-game months later, Joker finally unleashed his first plan, which did include killing several people. (Not Super-bowl attendance numbers of people, but he was planning on doing in several select individuals). I stopped him from carrying out most of his plan, but he managed to murder a couple of people. Then I delivered him to Arkham. In game, that was about six months ago. And he is still there.

 

I have no illusions as a Player that I will not have to face him again. In fact, I anticipate him escaping at least twice. But because of the GM, and because of how the game is being run, I doubt he will become a "revolving door mass jmurderer" as he became in comics after Killing Joke and Dark Knight Returns.

 

The reason is that, unlike a comics line, which has to have characters appear to maintain copyright, and where editors and publishers have characters re-appear based on audience popularity and target demographics data, this is a campaign world. And as such, after the second time Joker escapes (if he does), I will have to decide what to do about that. Because as I see him, Batman is a VERY ethical person. He has a rigid code of conduct that he expects himself to abide by, and killing yuour enemies because it would be easier than finding another way to stop them is off the table, for him. Batman holds himself to a stricter code of conduct than he holds ANY of the other League members to. If Superman were to accidentally kill someone, Bruce would likely forgive him, if the circumstances were such that Clark was genuinely trying to do the right thing, and it was an accident. I*n the same circumstances, Bruce would not forgive himself.

 

But thats just how I see him. The best characterization of Batman I have ever seen, for explaining how I think the character works, is in the Bruce Timm / Paul Dini DC Animated Universe. THATS the Batman I try to emulate.

[input.jack]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

Super-prisons having a "revolving door" is, in my opinion, a matter of comics having 70+ year runs, and the characters being licensed properties, rather than characters being written to be in the best stories possible. When I GM a supers game, there may be one or two villains that might be able to weasel their way out of custody in the entire campaign; everyone else stays in. Unless there is a MASSIVE jail-break event, which I limit myself to doing ONCE per campaign.

 

Likewise, I am playing Batman in a 1960's DC Justice League campaign (run to be taken seriously, and characters act intelligently, not like the TV series). I couldnt disagree more with Orion's idea that Batman would hang up the tights if Joker were permanently incarcerated because he was "bored"; Batman's whole reason for being is to protect innocent citizens against the predation of criminals. He fights for a world where he is no longer needed. And it will never happen.

 

In this campaign, I have already gone through the Ace Chemicals Plant encounter where the Joker was "made". And several in-game months later, Joker finally unleashed his first plan, which did include killing several people. (Not Super-bowl attendance numbers of people, but he was planning on doing in several select individuals). I stopped him from carrying out most of his plan, but he managed to murder a couple of people. Then I delivered him to Arkham. In game, that was about six months ago. And he is still there.

 

I have no illusions as a Player that I will not have to face him again. In fact, I anticipate him escaping at least twice. But because of the GM, and because of how the game is being run, I doubt he will become a "revolving door mass jmurderer" as he became in comics after Killing Joke and Dark Knight Returns.

 

The reason is that, unlike a comics line, which has to have characters appear to maintain copyright, and where editors and publishers have characters re-appear based on audience popularity and target demographics data, this is a campaign world. And as such, after the second time Joker escapes (if he does), I will have to decide what to do about that. Because as I see him, Batman is a VERY ethical person. He has a rigid code of conduct that he expects himself to abide by, and killing yuour enemies because it would be easier than finding another way to stop them is off the table, for him. Batman holds himself to a stricter code of conduct than he holds ANY of the other League members to. If Superman were to accidentally kill someone, Bruce would likely forgive him, if the circumstances were such that Clark was genuinely trying to do the right thing, and it was an accident. I*n the same circumstances, Bruce would not forgive himself.

 

But thats just how I see him. The best characterization of Batman I have ever seen, for explaining how I think the character works, is in the Bruce Timm / Paul Dini DC Animated Universe. THATS the Batman I try to emulate.

 

....Which is kind of off-topic. (Sorry).

 

The point is that I think that the "revolving door prison" is like the "superheroes get killed all the time and always come back to life" trope that we see in modern comics; the result of a weak managing editor and bad writing.

[Christopher]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

Because as I see him' date=' Batman is a VERY ethical person. He has a rigid code of conduct that he expects himself to abide by, and killing yuour enemies because it would be easier than finding another way to stop them is off the table, for him. Batman holds himself to a stricter code of conduct than he holds ANY of the other League members to. If Superman were to accidentally kill someone, Bruce would likely forgive him, if the circumstances were such that Clark was genuinely trying to do the right thing, and it was an accident. I*n the same circumstances, Bruce would not forgive himself.[/quote']

I agree with that being the "best" batman I could think of.

[Drhoz]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

ROVER would shoot to kill, but mostly because he doesn't really understand you can't just repair humans with spare parts. On the other hand, he does ask them to surrender first.

 

Rumbaba certainly fights ferociously if forced to do so, but would prefer to hamstring or blind opponents instead, so they can be handed over to the state executioners alive. But then he lives in a fantasy setting and has no illusions about the cheapness of life, despite being a romantic at heart.

 

Zero wouldn't kill a recognizable human, or fellow sentient. But then his power set is mostly mental attacks anyway.

 

Brother Polonius would be reluctant to kill a fellow human, and could only imagine doing so if the person was the grossest kind of heretic. He has no worries if somebody else does the dirty work for him, however, nor has any moral qualms whatsoever about strapping large bombs to mutants, and telling them the Emperor will redeem them if they run off towards that group of Orks over there and pull the detonation cord.

 

And Vitus... Vitus. Is anybody even remotely surprised that Vitus would use deadly force against any assailant, defeated assailant, person that insulted him grievously, person who he considers would be more useful dead, person that would make a good example to others, person that would serve as a useful human sacrifice, or any member of any species that he has decided in the past can never be trusted? On the other hand, he's reluctant to kill other gnolls. He has something of a blind spot there.

[Lucius]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

ROVER would shoot to kill, but mostly because he doesn't really understand you can't just repair humans with spare parts. On the other hand, he does ask them to surrender first.

 

Rumbaba certainly fights ferociously if forced to do so, but would prefer to hamstring or blind opponents instead, so they can be handed over to the state executioners alive. But then he lives in a fantasy setting and has no illusions about the cheapness of life, despite being a romantic at heart.

 

Zero wouldn't kill a recognizable human, or fellow sentient. But then his power set is mostly mental attacks anyway.

 

Brother Polonius would be reluctant to kill a fellow human, and could only imagine doing so if the person was the grossest kind of heretic. He has no worries if somebody else does the dirty work for him, however, nor has any moral qualms whatsoever about strapping large bombs to mutants, and telling them the Emperor will redeem them if they run off towards that group of Orks over there and pull the detonation cord.

 

And Vitus... Vitus. Is anybody even remotely surprised that Vitus would use deadly force against any assailant, defeated assailant, person that insulted him grievously, person who he considers would be more useful dead, person that would make a good example to others, person that would serve as a useful human sacrifice, or any member of any species that he has decided in the past can never be trusted? On the other hand, he's reluctant to kill other gnolls. He has something of a blind spot there.

 

I don't think he's SEEN a Gnoll in decades.

 

If he became re-acquainted with them, he'd eventually remember all the negative traits about gnolls that people who deal with Vitus are constantly being reminded of.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Ranged Killing Palindromedary

[Drhoz]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

I don't think he's SEEN a Gnoll in decades.

 

If he became re-acquainted with them, he'd eventually remember all the negative traits about gnolls that people who deal with Vitus are constantly being reminded of.

 

Debatable - he was repeatedly embarrassed by his inabiliy to think ill of fellow gnolls, even back on Aura.

[megaplayboy]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

One other thing to consider about the Stronghold "revolving door" thing--not every villain the heroes capture will necessarily even be charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. Prosecutors still have to build a case against them, just like any other alleged criminal, and a superhero team's focus is properly on crime prevention, not criminal prosecution. They're not necessarily painstakingly following rules of police and forensic procedure, Mirandizing lesser crooks in order to obtain properly vetted information, etc. So they may hand over a few villains to the cops, the cops will say thanks, and try to obtain whatever evidence is missing or needed, and then the prosecutors will hopefully have a solid case. Now, some villains may plead down to a lesser charge and even have a prospect of early release, in a date range that's still in the time frame of a long campaign. Some may get really good lawyers and find ways to tamper with evidence or witnesses. A few may escape custody before getting to Stronghold.

Sound frustrating? Of course--but consider this: most of this stuff happens to police and prosecutors in the real world all the time--not everyone arrested winds up in jail, not everyone charged winds up getting prosecuted, not everyone prosecuted winds up getting convicted, and once in a blue moon a suspect actually gets away. And this is leaving aside the Whitey Bulgers of the world. The difference is that frustrated cops and prosecutors don't go vigilante and start snuffing out "the one that got away". Now, if most of the people they arrested started eluding justice, maybe they would. Or perhaps the public would get tired of it and endorse more draconian measures.

The typical villain: hero ratio in most campaigns I've seen is somewhere between 2 and 10 villains for every hero. Now, let's say a villain gets captured, charged, convicted and sent to Stronghold after 3 encounters, on average. That would mean, after 6-30 encounters, you've "run out" of villains, and either have to bring in new ones or "recycle" some of the ones in custody.

Other things to consider:

1. Villains are generally crooks with superpowers or special training, and act accordingly. They're disinclined to fight to the last, and if it's clear they're losing, they will at least attempt to run away. Depending on their movement abilities, they may have a decent prospect of doing so.

2. A Villain who escapes custody doesn't necessarily have to immediately confront the superheroes again. They may be off in another city, fighting another superteam. They may be laying low, trying to avoid capture by the authorities. Or they may be putting together a new crew to try to pull off a new caper. Again, villains are basically crooks with superpowers. If they had a hard time the last time they tangled with the PCs, they may just opt to avoid them at all costs in the future, even if they managed to get away.

3. Master villains invest a great deal of time and energy into ways to avoid capture or permanent defeat. Beating one should be a really big deal, and capturing one a bigger deal still. It might be okay for such a villain to escape before trial once. But they should eventually face justice, and when they are put in Stronghold a long time, at least as long as it takes for the players to get wistful about what a great nemesis Darklord was. Then, if you break him out, it's not out of spite, it's to indulge the whims of the group.

[Orion]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

Super-prisons having a "revolving door" is' date=' in my opinion, a matter of comics having 70+ year runs, and the characters being licensed properties, rather than characters being written to be in the best stories possible. When I GM a supers game, there may be one or two villains that might be able to weasel their way out of custody in the entire campaign; everyone else stays in. Unless there is a MASSIVE jail-break event, which I limit myself to doing ONCE per campaign.[/quote']

 

I pretty much do the same. Jailbreak stories can be fun, so they happen, but not often. If the prison can't hold the villains, new prisons are built and better wardens are acquired. But, what is the difference in-game of killing a villain and having him locked away permanently? There are lots of moral differences, of course, but good jails means that once captured, he's gone for good. If a GM does not allow villain death because he feels that means he wasted time creating the villain, then he should not allow permanent inprisonment either.

 

Likewise' date=' I am playing Batman in a 1960's DC Justice League campaign (run to be taken seriously, and characters act intelligently, not like the TV series). I couldnt disagree more with Orion's idea that Batman would hang up the tights if Joker were permanently incarcerated because he was "bored"; Batman's whole reason for being is to protect innocent citizens against the predation of criminals. He fights for a world where he is no longer needed. And it will never happen.[/quote']

 

I seriously considered using made-up names rather than existing comic characters just because of arguments like this. No matter the example, someone will like that character, and feel I don't understand it properly. The point is that in the comics, the heroes are rarely allowed to have a permanent affect on the world, for various reasons. Superman can't enforce peace or end wars and Mr Fantastic can't cure all cancer. Prisons and the afterlife have revolving doors because the villains are popular and/or the writers can't think of a new villain. With DC and Marvel, the characters have existed long enough that we have gotten the same basic story many times. Joker may have escaped and killed 50 different times over the years, but maybe in current continuity it's only happened 3 times. Now the Joker story makes a little more sense, but because the definition of current continuity changes regularly, we don't have a good idea of how many times he has escaped.

 

So, we either decide that all the stories happened, or only a few. I, and many others, like a lot of the stories, and so we want them all to have happened. We then have to accept certain genre conventions, no matter how unreasonable they may be. The convention is that the Joker always escapes, and Batman refuses to do anything permanent about it. One can accept that this is just the way it is in comics, and not think hard about it. I can't, though. I know why the writers have things happen, and agree with them. If I was a writer, I'd likely do the same.

 

When I look at many of the heroes from a viewpoint within the storyline, I see people who are not willing to make the effort to make things better. For some reason, people that would be willing to kill a terrorist or a kidnapper holding a gun to a hostage (most cops and soldiers, for example), don't get super powers. If you can do that, then you must have a spandex allergy. Comic heroes like to fight. Most of them like to fight a lot, apparently. They don't want to hurt anyone, they just like a good rumble. Batman says he wants to stop all crime and make himself unnecessary. He says this...but his actions say something else to me. If Batman was created in 2005, I'd believe what he says. But given the amount of backstory, I cannot.

 

Continuity and long publishing runs are great things. I used to love Marvel because of the continuity, and disliked DC because they didn't take it as seriously. Now I've reversed my position and prefer the DC method. I like the idea of the upcoming DC reboot, as I now see a regular reset to be necessary every ten years or so. If it was a little clearer what the new timeline and backhistory contained, it would be even better, but that's probably too much to hope for.

[phoenix240]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

As a GM, I just love spending hours writing up NPCs who will only be used once, because they're going to die at the hands of the PCs.

/sarcasm

 

Well, thats practically the default for many genres. Its hard to insta kill characters in Hero. Have NPCs retreat if they're getting close to dying or set up situations where the players can't just gank them freely. But yeah, in games were death is on the table, NPCs are going to die. So are PCs.

[megaplayboy]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

One could even posit a setting where there are NO effective super-prisons, and the heroes and villains operate according to a sort of unstated "gentlemen's agreement"--if you lose to a superhero, you leave town for a year. If the supervillains beat the heroes, they don't kill them immediately. Villains don't go on murder sprees, and heroes don't go on vigilante killing sprees, either. The reason for the agreement could be that half the supers on the planet got wiped out, and the planet itself nearly destroyed, when there were no rules and it was just a free-for-all. So the most influential/powerful heroes and villains met secretly and worked out a deal. The price of violating the terms of the deal is that your "co-workers" no longer have your back, and you either wind up in prison or dead.

[phoenix240]

Re: When, if ever, would your character kill?

 

The point is that I think that the "revolving door prison" is like the "superheroes get killed all the time and always come back to life" trope that we see in modern comics; the result of a weak managing editor and bad writing.

 

Good points. I think another aspect is that comic fans, IME, might call for "change" but really don't seem to like it much when characters change, retire or die permenantly. Comic companies are businesses and have to cater to what the fans want or will buy to stay in business.