Henchmen Killing Time

[BoloOfEarth]

No, this thread isn't calling for the extermination of henchmen. I'm trying to compile a list of things that henchmen do to while away the boring hours of guard duty, stakeout duty, off-duty hours stuck in the base, etc.

 

To give a little background, I just finished reading The Henchmen's Book Club by Danny King (great book, by the way, I'd give it a score of 4 of 5). In it, the agents (called Affiliates) read, rate, and discuss various books to kill time while serving their various megalomaniacal overlords. This got me thinking of how in past games I've tried to give my agents and other goons some three-dimensionality.

 

In past Champions games, I've had the PC heroes overhear agents discussing things that had little or nothing to do with the plot, but added a little color and sometimes piqued the players interest. In one case, a PRIMUS agent revealed that in his off-hours he and some friends played in a garage band, and had even gotten a gig at a local bar, earning him the radio call sign of "Rocker." In another case, a hero in a bar overheard two agents discussing a new villain group forming -- but the player was enjoying the interplay between the two as much as finding out about the villain group.

 

So what I'd like are some suggestions for ways to add some color to the goons the player characters might run into along the way. What could PRIMUS agents do to pass the time while they wait for the "go" command before a strike? What might two VIPER agents talk about while they're standing guard in front of a door? I'm not looking for anything that would provide tactical or even plot utility, just something to make the agents seem a bit more human and less like a bunch of numbers.

[Greywind]

Going by Taskmaster's first appearance in the Avengers, minions and henchmen are preferred to be of below average intellect.

[Hyper-Man]

Henchman 21

[Lord Liaden]

A personal favorite of mine is from HISHE.com ("How It Should Have Ended"), with an original satiric scene based on Marvel's The Avengers, with a couple of Chitauri troopers chatting during the invasion of New York:

[BoloOfEarth]

Going by Taskmaster's first appearance in the Avengers, minions and henchmen are preferred to be of below average intellect.

I like to take such expectations and turn them on their head occasionally with my NPCs.

 

For instance, I've had the players encounter a VIPER agent who is quite educated but was simply unable to find a job in his field, so he took the VIPER work to pay off his student loans.

 

One of my favorites was a junkyard owner who rebuilt a villain's scrapped robot to help do the heavy lifting around the junkyard. When the heroes saw that robot, they assumed Artificer (the villain whom the robot formerly belonged to) had something to do with that junkyard or the owner. But that wasn't the case at all.

[Lord Liaden]

Perhaps PC superheroines could overhear henchmen ranking the, um, assets of various superheroines, including them?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Or, hey, superheroes. Hey, you can't wear an outfit like that an play it straight, man.

[BoloOfEarth]

Perhaps PC superheroines could overhear henchmen ranking the, um, assets of various superheroines, including them?

I like that one. I really, really, like that one. Not sure my female players will like it, though...

 

In one of my campaigns, the heroes had to deal with Viperia several times. Once, they managed to knock her out -- and then took pictures of her with them in... suggestive poses. They even had one picture of her (the male heroes convinced one of their female teammates to change Viperia into a lace teddy) blown up into a life-sized poster. IIRC, the heroes replaced some top-secret PRIMUS vehicular blueprints (about to be stolen by VIPER) with that poster.

 

Viperia was NOT amused.

[Pariah]

Henchmen as family men (or women) talking about setting up play dates for their preschoolers. Henchmen talking about who owes how much to whom based on the outcome of last night's big game/match/bout. Henchmen debating the respective pros and cons of Thunderbird, Mogen David, and/or Jagermeister. Henchmen discussing the fact that one of the French horn players was flat at last night's performance of Les Miserables. Henchmen taking the over/under on how many of their coworkers will be captured in tonight's heist.

[Nothere]

One of my favorite things along these lines comes from the Freedom Force game. As you approach two random thugs, you overhear them discussing the nature of particales and physics. Then they spot you, and say "Quick get into charecter. Heros I'll smash you good." Just replace the conversation with them doing a movie review, or a fancy resturant that just opened.

 

"Yeah I'd like to check out their peking duck, but I still haven't quite recovered from Nighthawk punchin me in the jaw. Though I should be back on solids in a couple of days."

 

[BoloOfEarth]

Some great ideas. Thanks, guys!

[bigbywolfe]

I think it was 5E Millenium City that had a reference to a bar that was a henchman hangout. Might be worth looking up the details.

[Ranxerox]

The video game No One Lives Forever had some truly great henchman dialogues. Sometimes while playing it I would postpone taking the henchman out or sneaking on past just so I could hear their whole speals.

 

Here is one of the more memorable exchanges.