Tasha Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 In the words of the Author [h=1]A Roleplaying Game of Ultimate Villainy![/h]BETTER ANGELS is a supervillain roleplaying game by Greg Stolze, designer of A Dirty World and Reign and co-designer of Godlike and Wild Talents, all of which have earned ridiculously enthusiastic reviews from enlightened tabletop gamers everywhere. In Better Angels, each player takes the role of a once-ordinary man or woman who's been possessed by a demon that granted superhuman powers. If you're one of the possessed, the demon demands that you perform horrific acts of evil. But it's tough. You don't want to do the really evil sort of evil, right? But if you refuse it altogether, the demon might leave and haunt someone else. Someone who wouldn't mind atrocities so much. So you find a way to compromise. You act like -- well, you act like a supervillain. You come up with these huge, grandiose, ridiculous plots to rule the world and steal all the money and corrupt all the minds, exactly the stuff that your demon wants to do. What you hope the demon doesn't figure out is that it's all so ridiculous that the superheroes are almost sure to stop you. When they do, the demon's evil will be thwarted. With any luck, nobody has to suffer any atrocities at all. Did I mention the superheroes? There are superheroes. They're haunted by superpower-granting angels. They're out to stop you. This game is not about them. ---- So you are a Normal person. A Demon Possesses your body and gives you superpowers. It wants you to Evil things. So you get the idea of Doing the Grand Evil Plan that is so complicated that the Good Guys will surely thwart your plans. You could try to do good but then the Demon might posess someelse with less scruples than you. I don't know if this would be good for anything but a miniseries. It could also be a very depressing game to play and run. Though it may be fun for a short run. I thought that this was kind of interesting and might be something that would be great to mine for ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG It's very clever and you're right, a gm could borrow heavily from the general premise. Heck, it would make a very sympathetic supervillain in a regular champions universe. Imagine a supervillain 'mastermind' who does all the old tropes: Overly complicated plots, deathtraps that give way too much time for the hero to think his way out of, and other major violations of the Evil Overlord's rules. Then the PCs finally find out it's all on purpose to keep the evil inside of him from being effective. I am intrigued Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG If the game also had the option of playing the angel-possessed superheroes, I would definitely be on board. As Dean Shomshak points out in our game system's own The Ultimate Mystic, few Biblical angels are the kindly pacifists of modern popular fiction. Angels of battle or punishment are aggressive, lethal, have no grey in their morality, and little tolerance for human frailties. Having one of them "ride" you would be almost as big a pain as hosting a demon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tasha Posted July 27, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG If the game also had the option of playing the angel-possessed superheroes' date=' I would definitely be on board. As Dean Shomshak points out in our game system's own [i']The Ultimate Mystic[/i], few Biblical angels are the kindly pacifists of modern popular fiction. Angels of battle or punishment are aggressive, lethal, have no grey in their morality, and little tolerance for human frailties. Having one of them "ride" you would be almost as big a pain as hosting a demon. That might be a valuable observation to the Author. He might not have thought of it. It would be fun if the Good Guys were just as cursed with their "riders" as the Demon Possessed were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG They had me at "corn chips don't scream." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 27, 2012 Report Share Posted July 27, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG If the game also had the option of playing the angel-possessed superheroes' date=' I would definitely be on board. As Dean Shomshak points out in our game system's own [i']The Ultimate Mystic[/i], few Biblical angels are the kindly pacifists of modern popular fiction. Angels of battle or punishment are aggressive, lethal, have no grey in their morality, and little tolerance for human frailties. Having one of them "ride" you would be almost as big a pain as hosting a demon. That might be a valuable observation to the Author. He might not have thought of it. It would be fun if the Good Guys were just as cursed with their "riders" as the Demon Possessed were. And just as the Demons might possess good people (either unwittingly, or because they enjoy forcing the righteous to perform evil), so also the Angels might possess evil people (either choosing to use the already-tainted as their "weapons" in this war of good vs. evil so as not to endanger good people, or to try and redeem them by influencing them to perform valiant deeds)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew_A Posted July 28, 2012 Report Share Posted July 28, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG And just as the Demons might possess good people (either unwittingly' date=' or because they enjoy forcing the righteous to perform evil), so also the Angels might possess evil people (either choosing to use the already-tainted as their "weapons" in this war of good vs. evil so as not to endanger good people, or to try and redeem them by influencing them to perform valiant deeds)...[/quote'] Here's what I was thinking (This would use Hero of course): The players did something in their lives where they screwed up and fell from grace. Maybe they slept with their spouse's sister or they embezzled from their company or they were on the wrong side of a crime that suddenly turned deadly. Whatever. Now an angel (they won't say if it's an angel of God, Allah, Amaterasu, or whomever) show's up and offers them a chance for redemption. In exchange for angelic possession and superpowers they have a chance at redemption. They can be the people they were meant to be. However temptation is a constant struggle and if they stray too far from the path of the angels they could lose everything they've worked to achieve; the powers, the respect, the second chance. And on the other side of the equation are the supervillains, good people empowered by demons, struggling to keep the evil in check. Can they fight people who used to be good (who are still good in some ways) and find themselves on the wrong side? What happens when one of these formerly good people gives in to their inner demon and does something truly evil? What I had in my mind was that the players would be standard superheroes with the usual allotment of disadvantages, but they'd have to take at least one "Tragic Flaw" Psychological Complication. If they overcome their Complication, they earn an Action Point. If they use their ingenuity to make their Tragic Flaw work for the greater good, they earn 3-5 Action Points. (Is that too much?) The one restriction is that the player's couldn't play former pedophiles, serial killers, rapists, or other extreme types. Also, they couldn't play Punisher, Wolverine, or Spawn equivalents. Clint Eastwood near-anti-heroes are okay, as long as they have Eastwood's attitude, but do Superman or Spider-Man type things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheQuestionMan Posted July 28, 2012 Report Share Posted July 28, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG Champions Beyond: The PCs awaken one morning to find themselves in a world identical to there own, but with subtle differences. The discover the are on an Alternate Champions Earth where the V'hanian Invasion succeeded. The Superhumans who survived have gone underground and the world is in the process of being Uplifted and it's people brought into the Intergalactic and Interdimensional community. It is 10 years later... The PCs were brought to V'han/Champions Earth by the Resistance who hope the Superhumans of Champions Earth (Prime) in the hopes of sparking a new revolution. Champions Earth (V'han) Alternate Timeline and Uplift to follow. Cheers QM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix240 Posted July 28, 2012 Report Share Posted July 28, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG If the game also had the option of playing the angel-possessed superheroes' date=' I would definitely be on board. As Dean Shomshak points out in our game system's own [i']The Ultimate Mystic[/i], few Biblical angels are the kindly pacifists of modern popular fiction. Angels of battle or punishment are aggressive, lethal, have no grey in their morality, and little tolerance for human frailties. Having one of them "ride" you would be almost as big a pain as hosting a demon. The angels from the show "Supernatural" prove this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG I made a donation for this. It sounded pretty interesting, but I only plan to mine it for ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjcurrie Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG I have to admit I'd be far more likely to support something like this if it was a brief PDF that outlined the premise and gave some suggestions on various ways a GM could run such a setting using the superhero system of their choice. I see no reason for something like to be a full game. But that may just be me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG I have to admit I'd be far more likely to support something like this if it was a brief PDF that outlined and gave some suggestions on various ways a GM could run such a setting using the superhero system of their choice. I see no reason for something like to be a full game. But that may just be me. That's how I'll use it regardless, but I suspect it may be so the author can use custom game mechanics to enforce certain "tone" elements he wants to be part of the "experience." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjcurrie Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillians as PC RPG That's how I'll use it regardless' date=' but I suspect it may be so the author can use custom game mechanics to enforce certain "tone" elements he wants to be part of the "experience."[/quote'] I'm almost positive that's the reason. Plus I think it's harder to just sell a small document that gives a premise rather than a full game. Even though I'd rather have that than have to dig through pages of rules and pointless setting details to try and extract that. I'm also not a big fan of games that try to do the GM's job (for example, setting a tone) for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balabanto Posted July 30, 2012 Report Share Posted July 30, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG Tasha didn't say you had to buy it, Rod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnTaber Posted July 31, 2012 Report Share Posted July 31, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG This is gonna be a sure fire winner. Greg Stolze is really wonderful. His other supers projects like Godlike and Grim War are pretty fantastic...this will be too. Check out his RPG resume on RPGGeek...extensive... http://rpggeek.com/rpgdesigner/1478/greg-stolze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer Posted August 1, 2012 Report Share Posted August 1, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG It's already funded; the question will be how much more it gets in the next few weeks. Godlike is awesome. I've not seen Grim War. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG I've upped my pledge to help push things over the $15k mark and get color books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG The way it's going now, I think it'll hit that goal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted August 5, 2012 Report Share Posted August 5, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG Wow. I finally get my system running properly and look into the HERO Forum (Oh, I've missed Champions!) and what do I see? Me, mentioned in the first thread I look at! Flattering. I wouldn't presume to tell Greg Stolze anything about game design. But yes, there've been so many villains where the premise is that an ordinary person was possessed by an evil force (a demon, Tesseract's 6th dimension invaders, etc.) that for a long time, I've wanted to see a character whose origin is that he was a not-at-all-nice person possessed by a force of Good that forces him to be a hero. (Supernatural sorta did this, though whether Castiel still counts as a hero -- even by the standards of that grimdark world -- is debatable.) If there's ever a new Champions: Allies book, I recommend this concept! Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted August 6, 2012 Report Share Posted August 6, 2012 Re: New Kickstarter has an interesting take on a SuperVillains as PC RPG But yes' date=' there've been so many villains where the premise is that an ordinary person was possessed by an evil force (a demon, Tesseract's 6th dimension invaders, etc.) that for a long time, I've wanted to see a character whose origin is that he was a not-at-all-nice person possessed by a force of Good that forces him to be a hero.[/quote'] The current official Champions Universe villain, the White Rhino (most recently published in Champions Villains Vol. 3: Solo Villains), is rather in this vein. Originally a career petty thief in Uganda, Lucas Kintebe stole a magic amulet which merged with his body and enables him to transform into a superstrong humanoid rhino. White Rhino mostly uses his power for bigger thefts, and is a wanted criminal across central Africa; but the power of the amulet also makes him the mystic protector of the land and people of central Africa. When it senses a threat to the region it compels White Rhino to investigate and stop it. His actions in this capacity have made him a hero to some, and Kintebe has come to actually enjoy the accolades (although not enough to give up crime). BTW as a longtime fan of your writing, it's a pleasure and privilege to welcome you to our little digital quilting club, Mr. Shomshak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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