Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

).

 

 

In the end, yes, you may think heroes murdering the villains should be forbidden. I get that totally. But, I'm willing to be a bit more flexible and see how this plays out. As long as the players are having fun, it's working out in my opinion.

 

 

As long as everyone's having fun and it works for you run with it. In our group, however that's when they cross the line and stop being heroes ( Even in my SF and fantasy worlds that's the line). lethal damage sometimes just happens in battle sometimes although my group messures their attacks and is very careful even if it puts them at a disadvantage and the NPCs do the same to support that.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Could the superhero have defeated the villain without using lethal force/killing the villain? If so' date=' would other superheroes be likely to be aware of this? That could influence how other superheroes(and possibly law enforcement) view such an act.[/quote']

 

I agree Superman heat visioning a mugger's face off is unacceptable whereas Batman might have to use lethal force on Killer Croc or die and not be viewed as bad. In my campaign a respond with appropiate force doctorine in used. if he's little threat to you don't go popping heads. If you can take him alive do. Part of the reason superheroes are allowed because they don't consider themselves above the law. There's also the crossing of theline for some villains. They just do something so heinous their time has come. Fortunately I have a very long term campaign where some players are playing their own character's kids so even long jailed villains can eventually return.

[dmjalund]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

The big reason Superman doesn't kill is because he is so powerful that it is so easy for people to be scared of him, that if he killed, he would become a symbol of fear rathr than hope.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

actually her real nameis dr.harleen quinzel you must be thinking of dr qinn medicine woman

 

You are half right. Completely right about Harley Quinn's real name being Harleen Quinzel, wrong about me thinking of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. That's all you, dude, though I applaud your taste. Jane Seymour. Rowr!

[Guest dan2448]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

The big reason Superman doesn't kill is because he is so powerful that it is so easy for people to be scared of him' date=' that if he killed, he would become a symbol of fear rathr than hope.[/quote']

 

... maybe that along with the fact that he's a fictional character who for decades has been marketed primarily to children......

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

... maybe that along with the fact that he's a fictional character who for decades has been marketed primarily to children......

We all know that and that common knowledge is assumed in any statement made about the character. Did you have a point?

[Cassandra]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I think this debate comes down to do you want to play a game where the heroes kill. Some people do, and some people don't.

 

For those of us who like the classic silver age heroes, then heroes don't kill, and the villains would kill the heroes if they could but generally are so cruel they like to make the heroes suffer long enough for them to figure a way out of the death trap. That would be the responsibility of the GM to give the players the opportunity to do so in the game.

 

For those who want to give the heroes the ability to kill in some circumstances then you can look back at the war time Golden Age Timely (Now Marvel) characters like Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and the Human Torch who killed Axis soldiers often without a second thought. Of course that was war, and reflected the realities faced by some of the readers, names soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

 

For those who want killing to be a part of the game all the time it's up to the GM and the players to agree to that kind of a campaign before it begins. There are plenty of action movies were larger then life characters take lives of evil doers. Technically even Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman (Happy Birthday to her today) killed sixty people in the pilot movie (remember the U-Boat?). George Reeves' Superman left a couple on a mountain after they discovered his secret identity and they fell to the deaths.

 

The only questions is do you want to be Batman, or the Punisher.

[Orion]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I'll play the Punisher any day over Batman, given the choice. Batman is just too wishy-washy on the subject of crime and punishment. At this time, I think I would turn down the opportunity to play in a bog standard silver age campaign. Between the goofy plotlines and villains, nobody ever gets hurt rules, and morals best suited for kids' educational programs, I just couldn't take it seriously.

 

I find I just don't give a flip what the genre conventions are, and refuse to follow the rules as established by someone else's favorite comic book. I find I also don't care whether or not the characters are described as heroic or not. Some are. Some are not. If they want to shoot the Viper agents, they can. If they want to defeat them in a game of tiddlywinks and them haul them to jail, they can do that as well.

 

Just because they have a cape and a power does not mean the play style has to be a certain way, and those who insist it does really bugs me. Play with whatever you enjoy, and encourage others to try it your way, of course. But if someone doesn't play your way, don't say that they must, as has been done numerous times earlier in the thread.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I don't think anyone has said you have to play a silver age "nobody gets hurt" game. What has been said is that IF playing a silver age game the genre tropes should be understood and probably enforced.

EDIT: To be clear I should have stated "or if not using the genre tropes expected for a certain style of game, that should be made clear and game expectations discussed".

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I'Just because they have a cape and a power does not mean the play style has to be a certain way' date=' and those who insist it does really bugs me. Play with whatever you enjoy, and encourage others to try it your way, of course. But if someone doesn't play your way, don't say that they must, as has been done numerous times earlier in the thread.[/quote']

 

I think the point of following a genre is that everyone knows where they stand. The meta-rules are all up-front. If you decide to go off-piste then you need to do a lot more work communicating the rules to the players. If you are allowed to kill as a player character, is it assumed nothing much happens in consequence, or does the law make an effort to follow that up? Do the villains similarly do their best to kill heroes that kill? Genres make things easy on everyone.

 

 

doc

[Martin2]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I'll play the Punisher any day over Batman, given the choice. Batman is just too wishy-washy on the subject of crime and punishment. At this time, I think I would turn down the opportunity to play in a bog standard silver age campaign. Between the goofy plotlines and villains, nobody ever gets hurt rules, and morals best suited for kids' educational programs, I just couldn't take it seriously.

 

I find I just don't give a flip what the genre conventions are, and refuse to follow the rules as established by someone else's favorite comic book. I find I also don't care whether or not the characters are described as heroic or not. Some are. Some are not. If they want to shoot the Viper agents, they can. If they want to defeat them in a game of tiddlywinks and them haul them to jail, they can do that as well.

 

Just because they have a cape and a power does not mean the play style has to be a certain way, and those who insist it does really bugs me. Play with whatever you enjoy, and encourage others to try it your way, of course. But if someone doesn't play your way, don't say that they must, as has been done numerous times earlier in the thread.

 

Well it does matter if the GM wants a Batman game and you want to play a Punisher game.

 

If you just play your game it sorts of makes it difficult for the GM.

 

Thats why the GM has to explain the game he wants to play in the first place.

 

Also there are some gradients between the two game examples. Infact I would consider Batman not the extream as he does have a thing with not pulling his punches and does break a few bones to make a point.

 

You can have a more dangerous game and not it have it like the 70's TV program Batman but closer to the new film Batman.

 

For my game I consider killing a villain just because he pissed you off and gave you a hard time and the player thinks that he will escape justice and be out in a few weeks because it is a super hero game story line not a good thing and really do not want it to happen.

 

I want to run a Super Hero game and not a Super Villain / vigilante game.

 

Others obviously have different ideas and this is why we have problems when players disagree with GM's and want to kill in cold blood and do not think it is a problem for them so should not be a problem for the GM.

 

As long as players and GM's know the game style there is no problem.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

orion sound like a DARK CHAMPIONS player

[assault]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

A question for the GMs here: how often do villains in your games actually escape from prison?

 

It seems to me that there are enough published villains, and enough GMs capable of creating their own villains, that reusing villains should be entirely optional. Hunteds would modify that, of course, which suggests that single villain hunteds may not be ideal in some cases.

 

There are, of course, cases when escapes are legitimate - if the villain is initially underestimated, if they are broken out by allies, in "Escape from Stronghold" type scenarios (where everyone potentially breaks out, resetting the setting, as it were), or, of course, as part of a serious plotline, but these aren't cases that happen every week.

 

Is there any good reason not to use villains for a single plot arc, and, if they are captured, lock them up and throw away the key? After all, there are plenty of other villains out there to present new challenges to the PCs...

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

In my 20 year plus campaign had very few prison escapes. One was a huge major breakout and some villains slipped through. The 2nd one was when avillain poisoned Gravitar and made her steal basically Rykers island. The third was when the warden was a mastermind mind contoling the villains and left for a 3rd world country with his super villain army.

 

I've also had two times where a suicide squad type thing was set up and the bad guys slipped the leash

 

Years or even decades pass in my campaign so often the bad guys just serve their time. That being said the bad guy often gets away because my group loves recurring villains.

[Greywind]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

There was a Batman TV show in the 70's?

[Zen Archer]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

A question for the GMs here: how often do villains in your games actually escape from prison?

 

Is there any good reason not to use villains for a single plot arc, and, if they are captured, lock them up and throw away the key? After all, there are plenty of other villains out there to present new challenges to the PCs...

 

For me, and I think a few of the GMs I played with, it came to how the players reacted to the villains. If in the course of roleplaying a villain really got under one or more players' skins, I made sure to bring that villain back. If a villain made a strong impression in general on the players, whether the powers or how he or she was played, that villain generally made a return. That kind of thing.

[Zen Archer]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

There was a Batman TV show in the 70's?

 

I'm only aware of the late '70s animated series.

[Christopher]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

The big reason Superman doesn't kill is because he is so powerful that it is so easy for people to be scared of him' date=' that if he killed, he would become a symbol of fear rathr than hope.[/quote']

The latest JL Animated Series had a mirror-verse double-episode. In the alternate world at some point superman did decide to kill Luthor. And then the entire league went dark, calling themself justice lords, solving villain problems by letting superman give them a frontal lobe lobotomy, effectively taking over the government.

 

In JLU that was revisited. The local interpretation of Cadmus was a government project that was kicked of after they had learned of what happened in that alternate universe - and realised it could happen in thier world as well.

 

A question for the GMs here: how often do villains in your games actually escape from prison?

 

It seems to me that there are enough published villains, and enough GMs capable of creating their own villains, that reusing villains should be entirely optional. Hunteds would modify that, of course, which suggests that single villain hunteds may not be ideal in some cases.

Actually, how about recycling the sheets? Especially when you use villains in teamups, there is little chance to "showcase" them. So just give them a new name, costume and powerset (or use a different one for the initial team-appereance) and you could use the same sheet again and again.

 

There was a Batman TV show in the 70's?

 

I'm only aware of the late '70s animated series.

Yes, there was. It hat a cartoon Intor, but otherwis it was live action:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%28TV_series%29

 

To give you a idea (or perhaps get your memory back), this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bREcn8PFYk

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

The Adam West series was from the 60s not the 70s Christopher.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

It ended in 68, and was rerun a LOT through the 70's, so I think we could cut people a little slack on that one.

 

 

(Or we could knock them out and cut their throats instead!)

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

my llocal station ran it weekdeys for a time in the 70s so i can see the confusion

[Balabanto]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

A question for the GMs here: how often do villains in your games actually escape from prison?

 

It seems to me that there are enough published villains, and enough GMs capable of creating their own villains, that reusing villains should be entirely optional. Hunteds would modify that, of course, which suggests that single villain hunteds may not be ideal in some cases.

 

There are, of course, cases when escapes are legitimate - if the villain is initially underestimated, if they are broken out by allies, in "Escape from Stronghold" type scenarios (where everyone potentially breaks out, resetting the setting, as it were), or, of course, as part of a serious plotline, but these aren't cases that happen every week.

 

Is there any good reason not to use villains for a single plot arc, and, if they are captured, lock them up and throw away the key? After all, there are plenty of other villains out there to present new challenges to the PCs...

 

Just how many hours a week do you work?

 

No offense here, but I work 60-70 hours a week. A four color game with some shades of grey is my best option because then I don't have to devote a million extra hours a week to building these guys.

 

When I design an adventure for Champions, I have 25+ years of cool stuff to draw on. But if you work like I do, you MUST obey this rule.

 

Here it is.

 

Don't build dead people. My game is high defense/slightly lower attack (20-30 defense, 10d6 attack for a basic hero), so villains get away a lot, go to prison a lot, etc. But that's comics. I don't need that much gritty realism in my games. I get that whenever I go to the movies now.

[Martin2]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

It ended in 68, and was rerun a LOT through the 70's, so I think we could cut people a little slack on that one.

 

 

(Or we could knock them out and cut their throats instead!)

 

Sorry my fault I saw it in the 70's when very young so assumed it was from the 70's and did not Wikki it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Just to add to the confusion, the clip above is from the movie based on the TV show, which was released in 1966. The TV show ran Jan/66 to March/68, but was frequently rerun for many years afterwards. The first two seasons ran twice a week, so they ended up with 120 episodes, making it a decent syndication candidate.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Well, I suppose you could run a campaign where superhumans are literally "above the law", and only other superhumans can discipline/punish other superhumans. That may or may not include imprisonment or execution. There might be factions, cliques or even "houses" of superhumans, and an elaborate set of rules regarding what conduct is appropriate and when it's appropriate. Attitudes towards normal humans might vary greatly, from outright contempt("effing flatscans") to regarding them as playthings or pets, to treating them as equals deserving of respect and protection. And a human who becomes a costumed adventurer might have a big chip on their shoulder because of this.

I think you'd have to run really powerful PCs for such a game, or otherwise tweak things so that "normals" have a 2x vulnerability vs. all things super, and supers have the equivalent of 50-75% damage reduction vs. all things "normal"(mundane real world weapons, e.g.). Unless supers were staggeringly more powerful than normals, there's no way human organizations would tolerate a status quo where supers are de facto nobility and humans de facto peasantry.