Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

[Altheus]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

What do you think the authorities in the UK would think of a superhuman that killed other superhumans. I don't think that even The Sun would give him good headlines....

 

 

Doc

 

The reaction of the authorities would be public outrage and private relief, they would probably have to go through the motions of an investigation but not with any great enthusiasm.

 

My character wouldn't be doing it for the headlines, of for the fame but because he'd think it needs to be done to protect future victims. If that involves being locked up in a not very secure prison and then breaking out to continue his own war on superpowered criminals then so be it. A necessary sacrifice in a good cause.

 

The game would probably come to resemble the A team with the group doing good deeds and occasionally taking out the nightmare level bad guys while avoiding the law.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I'm curious what happens when the Judge Jury Executioner character makes a bad call and kills someone it is later determined is innocent. Does he also judge and punish himself?

[megaplayboy]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I'm curious what happens when the Judge Jury Executioner character makes a bad call and kills someone it is later determined is innocent. Does he also judge and punish himself?

 

You mean, like a framed superhero? I'd expect that the PCs would reconsider the merits of due process, under the right circumstances.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

You mean' date=' like a framed superhero? I'd expect that the PCs would reconsider the merits of due process, under the right circumstances.[/quote']

 

Why framed? People are quite capable of making accusing the wrong person on their own. Those with a judge, jury, executioner mentality can make mistakes, and are likely to, if acting on their own. One show I watch* actually used this as a season end cliff hanger. The character figured out they'd killed the wrong person after the fact. Oops. BIG oops.

 

 

*Don't want to name the show to avoid spoilers. If you've seen it, you know which one I mean.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

My experience (especially in high investment character creation games like HERO) is that unplanned and unnegotiated character death is rarely enjoyable...

 

Doc

 

Experiences obviously vary but mine is the same as yours. fatalities are rare and if they occur have meaning and the player has the final power. In my campaigns defeat does not equal death but there is plenty of room for risk and failure which goves plenty of solid role playing material.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Experiences obviously vary but mine is the same as yours. fatalities are rare and if they occur have meaning and the player has the final power. In my campaigns defeat does not equal death but there is plenty of room for risk and failure which goves plenty of solid role playing material.

 

Defeat doesn't equal death in our games either. Death is not the only outcome of failure but tt is one of the possible consequences and will happen if the circumstances warrant it. Actually, few characters have died. Champions/Hero PCs are pretty durable and as was said earlier, not all villains are cold blooded murderers. We've found that death tend to have meaning due to the situations where they occur. It's not like we have PCs make Dex roll so to see if they slip in the shower or fall down the stairs on their way down to breakfast.

[Christopher]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I think it's a matter of different strokes for different folks. Take Binder for instance' date=' has a glue gun, has issues (He has a giant gun that spits out globs of sticky white stuff, do I have to draw a picture?) and steals things - there is no reason to kill him, even if he does regularly break out of prison to commit more crimes.[/quote']

The question here is:

When your world is that realistic, why hasn't the government...

a) built a prision that can hold him (somehoe the heroes manage to capture him, so that should work to detain him).

found a way to execute him without long prision stay

 

You mean' date=' like a framed superhero? I'd expect that the PCs would reconsider the merits of due process, under the right circumstances.[/quote']

Orm idn controlled.

Or brainwashed.

Or framed via shape shift/illusion powers.

 

And many more.

 

Defeat doesn't equal death in our games either.

Perhaps we should remember that dying doesn't means you stay dead in super-settings.

[Ice9]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Welll...Mechanon could show up and make like Darth Vader with Luke Skywalker ("Come, join me, my cybernetic son --

it is your destiny.") ().

That happened to a character of mine - a robot chef from the future. There was an impasse over food being unnecessary when all humans are dead.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

 

Perhaps we should remember that dying doesn't means you stay dead in super-settings.

 

Admittedly that is a convention of comics from practically any "Age" but it isn't one we emulate. Characters (PC or NPC) that die usually stay dead unless there is a very compelling reason (and method) for them to return from the grave.

[Ice9]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Back on topic, think you can have two of these three, and everything works - but not all three.

1) Supervillains are seriously bad. They kill and/or maim people regularly.

2) Jails are a revolving door.

3) Superheroes never kill people.

 

If supervillains aren't really all that bad, or jails actually work (most of the time), then no killing works fine. Otherwise ... you get what is a rather ugly situation, if you think about it.

Now sure, I know that some comics do all three anyway. However, that's not an argument in favor, IMO, because:

1) It's a fact that comics sometimes have really damn stupid plot elements. Just because it's in a comic, doesn't make it a good idea.

2) Comics have many reasons to maintain the status quo. A Champions campaign has almost none of those reasons.

3) Players are not paid actors, and will not do something just because the "director" wants it. Forcing them to is a good way to crash a campaign.

 

So really, if you want to encourage a no-killing rule, just have villains who don't deserve to die, and non-joke prisons that manage to (usually) keep the really bad ones locked up.

[assault]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

On the other hand there is Black Paladin a thoroughly evil individual who regularly kills people and consistently breaks out of prison to do it some more' date=' why should heroes not take him down hard? The heroes have the power to end his reign of terror permanently (Unless he is some sort of undead,[/quote']

 

Black Paladin is a bad example. Even if he's not technically undead, he's an Unholy Abomination That Should Not Be, and thus not necessarily covered by CvK.

 

His susceptibility to Holy Water demonstrates that.

 

The social consequences of "killing" him may be identical to killing any normal person (supervillain), of course. Unless he turns into a heap of dust and old bones when "killed".

 

"My client pleads not guilty, on the basis that the alleged victim had already been dead for a thousand years".

 

Now, Black Harlequin is another story. But then, he's just a nutcase with some gizmos, and should be able to be locked up like any other psychotic mass murderer. Personally, he's an example of a character I wouldn't use more than once. Partly, of course, that's because he's neither the Toyman nor the Joker, but a mushy blend of the two that I don't really care for.

[Christopher]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Admittedly that is a convention of comics from practically any "Age" but it isn't one we emulate. Characters (PC or NPC) that die usually stay dead unless there is a very compelling reason (and method) for them to return from the grave.

And there is the trick:

They don't need to be able to do it themself.

They just need someone with an interest and the ability to bring him back. Or make a clone of him. Or make a robot double of him.

 

Instead of saying "if you kill villains, they kill you" you can simply let the villains come back anyway. They won't kill them if it is the more heroic action. Or if actually sending them to prision is keeping them away longer than killing them.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

And there is the trick:

They don't need to be able to do it themself.

They just need someone with an interest and the ability to bring him back. Or make a clone of him. Or make a robot double of him.

 

Instead of saying "if you kill villains, they kill you" you can simply let the villains come back anyway. They won't kill them if it is the more heroic action. Or if actually sending them to prision is keeping them away longer than killing them.

 

I wasn't clear. We don't emulate that particular trope because it doesn't add anything to our games not because we can't think of ways to implement it. Frequent/consistent returns from death cheapen it, IMO. It's something I don't care for in comics and other rpg genres either.

[Tasha]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Black Paladin is a bad example. Even if he's not technically undead, he's an Unholy Abomination That Should Not Be, and thus not necessarily covered by CvK.

 

His susceptibility to Holy Water demonstrates that.

 

The social consequences of "killing" him may be identical to killing any normal person (supervillain), of course. Unless he turns into a heap of dust and old bones when "killed".

 

"My client pleads not guilty, on the basis that the alleged victim had already been dead for a thousand years".

 

Now, Black Harlequin is another story. But then, he's just a nutcase with some gizmos, and should be able to be locked up like any other psychotic mass murderer. Personally, he's an example of a character I wouldn't use more than once. Partly, of course, that's because he's neither the Toyman nor the Joker, but a mushy blend of the two that I don't really care for.

 

Going off the last version of BP. Black Paladin is a Spirit that inhabits a Host Human. Usually somewhat willing, but there is the possibility that he can inhabit a body against their will. So if you use deadly force vs Black Paladin you are actually harming/Killing his possibly innocent host. If you somehow exorcise the spirit of Black Paladin and somehow destroy/ imprison that. Then you are probably outside of CvK's jurisdiction. Of course that can vary depending on how the person with CvK feels about non-corporeal beings.

[Tasha]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Back on topic, think you can have two of these three, and everything works - but not all three.

1) Supervillains are seriously bad. They kill and/or maim people regularly.

2) Jails are a revolving door.

3) Superheroes never kill people.

 

If supervillains aren't really all that bad, or jails actually work (most of the time), then no killing works fine. Otherwise ... you get what is a rather ugly situation, if you think about it.

Now sure, I know that some comics do all three anyway. However, that's not an argument in favor, IMO, because:

1) It's a fact that comics sometimes have really damn stupid plot elements. Just because it's in a comic, doesn't make it a good idea.

2) Comics have many reasons to maintain the status quo. A Champions campaign has almost none of those reasons.

3) Players are not paid actors, and will not do something just because the "director" wants it. Forcing them to is a good way to crash a campaign.

 

So really, if you want to encourage a no-killing rule, just have villains who don't deserve to die, and non-joke prisons that manage to (usually) keep the really bad ones locked up.

 

The problem with #1 is that most superhero campaigns have a mixture of Villain types and the truly nasty ones (That kill and maim regularly) are probably not a majority. I can say that with a lot of confidence because one type of bad guy gets boring and the casual killer of the week gets really old really fast.

 

When I run supers games, the Prisons are actually very secure. The weak spots tend to be in prisoner transportation and actually getting all of the villains into custody in the first place. It only takes one Teleporter to allow a bunch of the baddies to get away. Kind of like the thief that you subdue but manages to escape while you were fighting their teammates.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Have it your way then. There were infants on the Death Star.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

They probably had a herd of palindromedaries too.

 

It was fueled by the souls of the innocent - conveniently packaged in a baby's body!

[Altheus]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Going off the last version of BP. Black Paladin is a Spirit that inhabits a Host Human. Usually somewhat willing' date=' but there is the possibility that he can inhabit a body against their will. So if you use deadly force vs Black Paladin you are actually harming/Killing his possibly innocent host. If you somehow exorcise the spirit of Black Paladin and somehow destroy/ imprison that. Then you are probably outside of CvK's jurisdiction. Of course that can vary depending on how the person with CvK feels about non-corporeal beings.[/quote']

 

Oh bugger, I didn't actually know all that about Black Paladin. And we had such a good plan for permanant disposal too. Burn the body to ash, have our speedster spread it around the world (some in to a volcano, some in to a building site etc.etc.) While the armour and weapons would get ground in to powder and spead about too.

 

Recorporate that!

[Martin2]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Oh bugger, I didn't actually know all that about Black Paladin. And we had such a good plan for permanant disposal too. Burn the body to ash, have our speedster spread it around the world (some in to a volcano, some in to a building site etc.etc.) While the armour and weapons would get ground in to powder and spead about too.

 

Recorporate that!

 

It all depends on which version on the Black Paladin I am using and what modifications I have in effect. All this information you may be getting may be from good or bad knowledge super villains rolls so do not believe all you read on the internet about him (it is a well known fact that super villains Wiki entries get filled full of useless information).

 

Also in my game the Black Paladin has not been put in prison so all this about we have to kill him because he always escapes is not a very good excuse to kill him.

 

Infact there has been no escapes from Stronghold.

 

Black Paladin sprung Talisman from a police van 30 seconds after being decked by the Champions and they were not expecting a Teleporter.

 

In previous scenarios Black Diamond was sprung before she got to Stronghold by the rest of Grab (they were not encountered and they have teleport and shrinking etc).

 

And the group dropped Cybermind in a normal prison and told no one you had dropped him off and just forgot about him. So he manged to talk his way out of prison as no one knew who he was (since all information is kept in electronic format and he is the master of altering that).

 

Every other villain is still in prison. So this he will escape so we must kill him sounds more like an excuse to kill everyone.

 

Maybe we should start a poll of which super villain is not covered versus a code versus killing and the local government would not lock up a hero for killing them in cold blood?

[Cassandra]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Just because a villain is a killer doesn't mean that they are going to kill people immediately in any situation. Most truly evil people are also sadistic, and enjoy having their victims tremble in fear, knowing at any moment they will be brutally murdered.

 

Furthermore Role Playing Games are cooperative story telling. The heroes are Player Characters in an interactive live action comic book, and the GM is part Storyteller, part Judge. The heroes are suppose to get there in time to prevent the villain from killing the innocent, or have a chance to escape if they are the intended victim. There is no good reason for a Hero to be knocked unconscious in the game and then killed while helpless just for the purpose of showing how evil the Bad Guy is.

 

If you want to run a campaign where people are being murdered right and left, and where heroes kill the villains, then run it. It seems to me that there are those who insist that everyone has to agree with them for they don't have to face their own choices, and the consequences of those choices.

 

Like Sergeant Zim said in Starship Trooper "Any time you feel that I'm being unfair, any time you feel that too hard on you, any time you miss your Mommies, Quit!"

[Great Beyond]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Ah, coming in late to the party! (:

 

Okay, let me run this past you for a reason you should let your player(s) kill: character development. My recently retired character was - she had a complicated backstory. Chill Out Woman was a Celtic winter goddess who had been split into two: Negative grumpy Chill and happy, hippie-ish Chill (I was playing Hippy Chill). The game opened with her arriving in The City naked and no memory whatsoever, basically a blank slate who didn't know how modern society worked.

 

So the first real knock-down, drag out Big Fight comes along - the mastermind (a psychic, super intelligent dog) had unleashed his psychicly controled Killbot on The City - and after the team beat the bad dog into submission and unconcisiousness, Chill figured that it was esier to kill the mastermind and save a bunch of lives instead of having a long, dragged out battle with the Killbot. It was simple logic to her (the needs of the many and all that). Everyone was pretty damn shocked when I casually walked over and popped his head off.

 

She wasnt a bad person - she was always working at the soup kitchens, helping old ladies who needed handyman work around their houses, and that sort of thing. She was cheerful about cleaning toilets at her janitor's job as she was saving the world - it was just that death was a natural part of life, everyone lives, everyone dies and death was no big deal to her.

 

Eventually she did come around, that life was important and killing people was wrong - but sometimes she would let people have it. Much later in her career, there was this time where a army of gang members with amped up superweapon (and a couple of superpowered hired guns) became fed up with the local superheroes and started shooting up Chill's house. Outgunned, outnumbered and having just blatantly crossed the line of "starting something in my home", she was more than happy to show these punks how to make war Old School style. It was not a pretty battle . . . .

 

So yes - sometimes a character that kills can work out.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

I think heroes who are willing to kill under some circumstances work out just fine unless the intended mood is more Four Color/Light. Most of the PCs in the supers games I've run fall under the umbrella. Willing to kill doesn't mean cold blood or eager murderer and any time you're willing to engage in violence to solve problems generally you have to accept at least the chance someone is going to die/suffer great injury (ignoring meta game ideas like "Balanced Opposition").

[massey]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

First, in regards to the Death Star:

 

 

Second, in regards to heroes killing villains, in a normal superhero campaign it should be a focal point of the story. When it happens, it should be important.

 

I played a son-of-Superman character several years ago who killed a villain accidentally (hilariously, as it happened in the same phase, on the same dex, as other player's trained-by-Batman character accidentally killed another villain). Caught the badguys by surprise, punched him full force, guy's armor failed its activation roll. Rolled awesome damage. Guy rocketed backwards into wall, armor fails activation roll again. Rolled awesome damage. Guy is dead. Look over at other villain (apparently made of crystal, or was that glass...) who is currently in the process of fracturing into a thousand pieces due to trained-by-Batman's sonic grenade. Oops.

 

Repercussions? We were a lot more careful in the future. Nobody was around to see it. Nobody found out. But we learned that despite having been kicked around in the last few adventures by villains a lot more powerful than us, that our guys did wield a lot of power and needed to be careful. The growing pains of teenage heroes.

 

Supervillainy is a dangerous profession, and sometimes results in getting killed. Nobody sheds a tear for Professor Executioner when Avenging Angel swoops down and cuts his ass in half with a fiery sword moments before he detonates the gamma bomb. His sword was the only thing that could penetrate the Professor's force field, and if it just happened to go through that field into his unprotected innards, well, that's what you get for building a gamma bomb. But in traditional settings, killing a villain shouldn't become the default way to get rid of him.

[phoenix240]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

One thing that happens allot in these threads is people use terms like Normal Superhero games and "Comic book stories" like there's only one kind and anything that deviates from their preferred style is an aberration or even "Badwrongfun" to steal a term from rpg.net. Superhero stories come in a wide variety of moods and styles in the source material and various other mediums they've been told in. There really isn't a norm, just styles that are more prevalent at the time.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Just re-reading an old Mexican comic I have ("La Bestia"), protagonist is some kind of government investigator (apparently working for the military, but not in uniform) tracking down druglords. He does kill a downed opponent--by running him over with a car...repeatedly This does get him reprimanded by his boss, and threatened with being taken off the case. It also gives him a bad reputation with the public--later he has to assure a bystander that he won't kill an informer just for being a little slow to cough up the dope.

 

Relatively mild consequences, but still, consequences.

[Cassandra]

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

 

Who would the criminal community want to get rid of more, the Batman or the Punisher?

 

Here are a few disadvantages to being a lethal force using vigilante (i.e., Punisher)

 

1) Criminal won't surrender to you ever. They know you will just kill them. Batman always takes them in alive so giving up might just avoid a beating.

 

2) The Police won't cooperate with you. It's illegal, and any who do would be accessories before and after the face. At least Gordon doesn't have to worry about that.

 

3) The Mob would cooperate to get rid of you. When Batman goes after one Criminal Enterprise, it's in the best interest of their rivals not to help. After all, they might gain new territory and profit opportunities at least until the Dark Knight turns his attention on them. With a vigilante just killing any criminals it's best to get rid of him by whatever means necessary. Not only is he targeting your men, but you as well. No one is safe, and working with the other Mobs ends the threat ASAP.

 

4) A Vigilante will eventually kill an innocent person. That's the cliche, isn't it? In every story were someone decides killing criminals is right someone will use that against them. Someone will be framed and then revealed to be innocent after the vigilante kills them. Then you're "He's cool because he gives the criminals what they deserve" reputation turns into "He's a mad dog killer who murdered an innocent man".

 

5) All the classic "bring them in alive" heroes will focus on you. You're giving them a bad reputation. You're endangering innocent people. Sure, Punisher might be able to give Batman a run for his money in a fair fight, but then again Batman doesn't right fair. Oh, and that doesn't take into account what happens if Punisher empties his clip into a shadowy figure and into to light steps a man in red and blue with a S on his chest.