My players have become villians

[John515]

Tonight was a night that turns a whole campaign upside down . My players have decided to change sides and become supervillains. They have blasted the city mayor with a 14d6 EB and kidnapped a local businessman with ties to the Russian mob, asking that he bring them on board. The mob boss accepts their offer and put them on the payroll.

 

Why did they do this? The reason has to to do mostly with the frustration with the local and federal govt. One of the players stated that he is simply tired of being a hero for no pay and decided to become a killer for hire. If my players are reading this, perhaps a more detailed explanation, in your own words, would be better.....

 

So, fellow HEROphilles, what now? How would you run a supervillian campaign. Ideas are welcome here, but I would prefer that you email them to me, since my players read these boards. Thanks in advance!

 

p.s. Villians have a lot more enemies than heroes......

[Enforcer84]

well for starters, no one will trust them. I guess you could go comic cliche and say that the paranoid criminal element simply will greet them with open arms, but they are marked men by ANY other heroes, and most of the villains they fought against don't trust them. They are on their own and should expect very little down time.

[Chuckg]

Do they have any DNPCs? As of right now, those DNPCs are living in Hell.

 

a) If the authorities know their IDs, then their DNPCs are now under continual surveillance

 

If the authorities *don't* know their IDs, and the DNPC in question has any Psych Lim like 'Honest' or 'Law-Abiding' or whatever, then that DNPC gets to live with the internal agony and turmoil of 'Do I turn him in or not?'

 

c) If any villain out there knows your secret ID, he can now feel absolutely free to work out his grudge against your friends and family without having to worry about the standard amount of Unholy Wrath that descends upon the heads of people who screw with the families of cops... 'cause you ain't White Hats no more.

 

For that matter, any supervillain who's been holding back on trying to kill the PCs because of the complications involved with being a 'cop-killer' or 'hero-killer'... don't have to worry about that no more either.

 

d) When a team of heroes goes bad, other superheroes respond quickly. They have to. Something like this could make all superheroes in general look bad.

 

Granted, any superhero team will first check things out to make sure that your team isn't mind-controlled, replaced by doppelgangers, or other such usual explanations for when a hero suddenly 'snaps', but once they find out that you're really you, prepare for the hammer of Thor to land upon your head.

 

Speaking of Thor, whatever equivalent your campaign world has of the Avengers or the JLA, the players had better be prepared to meet it.

 

e) Make your players curse the name of John Walsh, and rue the day they ever heard of 'America's Most Wanted'. Post their pictures on the TV news. Have TV info-specials run micro-analyzing their lives. Have everybody who ever didn't like them breaking the sound barrier to reach the nearest journalist and get in their cheap shots.

 

f) Oh yeah, and did they remember to cash out all their bank accounts *BEFORE* going whacko? Won't they be surprised when they stick in their ATM card and it comes back 'Account disabled'.

 

g) *cue Bat-signal* If there's a superhero detective out there in your world who's really really good at finding people who don't wanna be found, then he's really really going to be interested in what the party's up to.

 

 

The players have turned traitor on everything they ever believed in and fought for. This means that it is entirely karmically appropriate to have everybody and his brother in your game universe treat them like lepers.

[Hermit]

I've got to say, maybe I'm too Silver Age, but this is really sad- drifting onward contemptable. The characters don't like the government and they're not making enough money? That's the reason for ceasing to uphold the good, and instead becoming a killer for hire?

 

Well, as long as the players have fun I guess. Still, give their characters that karmic smackdown ChuckG was speaking of, they've earned it and then some.

[MoonHunter]

Did they get smart and change their costumes and names? If they did, they could become heroes again and nobody would be the wiser. If they are smart, they will claim they were mind controlled, clear themselves and then adopt a new villanous identity.

 

If they didn't I suggest they do it quite soon.

 

You see, dozens of superheroic groups will feel inclined to take them out (hard) because these people besmirtch the reputation of "super heros". A few of them will check them out, just to "save them" from the obvious mindcontrol. See the previous couple of posts, they did a good job.

 

And besides, the Feds probably know who they are, if they have been interacting with them for any length of time. The Feds might not be able to take them in a straight fight, but they can freeze bank accounts, have other nations on the hunt for you, destroy your civilian identity and ANY credibility you might have and so on. The grey side of the governments are what they have to worry about. The intelligence community will even be able to "recruit" you for black ops. All they need to do is lean on your characters hard enough, because they have no recourse or support. (Given your player's probable attitudes, this kind of campaign- super espionage- might be to their liking).

 

In short, heroes that go bad will eventually pay for it. It is in the genre and they should be expecting it.

 

To address the reason why this happened....

1) How were the Feds acting? In comics they tend to be rather distant from freelancing heroes. Most gamers like legal processes that match the movies (to say.. simplified) and can't stand real world levels of rules and proceedures. That same level is found in most comics.

 

If you were doing more, or running a real world level, did the players know you were going to do that?

 

2) If these guys were an official team, with police powers, then they are obviously running the wrong kind of characters (and somebody screwed up big time giving them legal status).

 

Looking back upon the characters' conceptions and backgrounds, can you now see this comming?

 

3) Are they players just anti-establishment? If they are, perhaps a different subgenre of champions or another game genre.

 

4) Some people just don't get the hero concept (hero as in heroic, not game system). They just want to beat up things, take the treasure, and move on. If your players don't get it, or are not serious comic fans, running Champions can be a serious problem.

[Emerald Mask]

I would tell my players to turn in your characters and make new ones we are playing Hero not Villians .then I would take there former chaacters and force them to fight them .I dislike a hijack of a campaign to turn it into something else . If everybody agrees to a game format no one should change it halfway thru. I once had a clown try to make a Champions game into a Star Wars game .

[Stone]

Chuckg pretty much nailed it. Time for the tables to be turned. The Feds/Police should immediately eliminate any access the PC's had to any information (if they had any)...or try at the very least to use the access to track down the PC's location.

 

If the PC's are high powered or High profile, then I agree any Govt sponsered team/hero, Primus/UNTIL, or notible non-Govt team/hero will begin to hunt them.

 

Villians (especially Viper) could use the promise of big payday to lure the PC's into a trap and take revenge for all those times the PC's spoiled their plans. Then the villians could arrange for the unconcious or incapacitated PC's to be located by the authorities and end up in Stronghold.

 

If the PC's decide they want to come back to the light, their journey should be made very difficult to say the least. All the bad press here (TV pics of kids crying "Why'd you do it?") would keep the public from trusting them.

[Tasha]

Re: My players have become villians

 

Originally posted by John515

Tonight was a night that turns a whole campaign upside down . My players have decided to change sides and become supervillains. They have blasted the city mayor with a 14d6 EB and kidnapped a local businessman with ties to the Russian mob, asking that he bring them on board. The mob boss accepts their offer and put them on the payroll.

 

Why did they do this? The reason has to to do mostly with the frustration with the local and federal govt. One of the players stated that he is simply tired of being a hero for no pay and decided to become a killer for hire. If my players are reading this, perhaps a more detailed explanation, in your own words, would be better.....

 

So, fellow HEROphilles, what now? How would you run a supervillian campaign. Ideas are welcome here, but I would prefer that you email them to me, since my players read these boards. Thanks in advance!

 

p.s. Villians have a lot more enemies than heroes......

 

Personally, I think that your gaming group has issues with the campaign. Perhaps it is time to find out what they like and don't like about the campaign, so that you can fix the issues. If the players aren't having fun and you aren't having fun then you have things to work out. Perhaps some endorsement contracts for the PCs for that money and some licencing as well.

 

Does your Stronghold have a "Revolving Door" policy for "cool" villians? It is quite frustrating to defeat a villian to have them walk on a technicality or from some other off screen excuse. It is OK to sometimes spring a villian, but leave defeated villians defeated for a few story arcs. Then when they strike from inside of Stronghold you won't have players/characters wondering why they bother not killing the villians.

 

I wouldn't ever run a SuperVillians game. I would restart the game with new characters and use the old characters as NPCs that the players have to hunt down.

 

Tasha

[bloomann]

maybe they're just bored

 

Don't take this the wrong way...

Please

 

But I remember doing some fantasy campaigns where things are building up quite nicely than one guy decides, because he's bored to start hacking at anybody that moves, he won't listen and won't let me finish a dialougue...

"I pull out my sword and ..." (already rolling the dice to hit)

He really put a curb into my campaign.

Perhaps your characters are feeling the same way. The players might feel frustrated, bored and just wanna break things. If that's the case than if you're willing let them break things. Maybe it will allow them to vent any personal anger.

Kind of like group scream therepy I suppose.

[Blue]

This may sound funny, but if one of my players turned his hero villain, I'd find that amusing. I'd play along. If however the entire team turned, they'd know hell like they've never known before.

 

Contacts: GONE. Favors: GONE. Followers: Would drop one level on the reaction table. If the heroes want them back to their previous level of trust they'll have to spend experience on them.

 

Did the "heroes" visit their DNPCs recently? Arrest them for harboring a fugitive! And they are still DNPCs... even if they don't trust the hero. So if they refuse to help their DNPC, there'd be an experience embargo until the disadvantage was paid off.

 

REPUTATION: Untrustworth, Traitorous Bastards. I wouldn't say that just heroes didn't trust them... NOBODY would trust them. Let's say you're a supervillain... a bunch of heroes show up and want in on the action. WHO would trust these guys. Don't they seem undercover to you?

 

Villains don't sit around and wait for something to happen. If they've decided to turn villain then they need to come up with their plan of attack and let you know before the next game. ("This week we're going to knock over Millenium City Savings" or "We're going to kidnap HeroGuy's DNPC and ransom her until he pays up"). That way you have time to prepare. Now the onus is on them, not on you, who had a campaign planned one way when they decided to screw it up.

 

But then I'm an evil vindictive GM who would resent the concept of a team or heroes going bad (that wasn't a plot device created by me )

[Speedball]

Well, others have made many of the important points I would make about the wrath your players have called down upon their heads by switching sides, so I'll just say that I agree with them. Use all those disads to their fullest extent. You don't need to forbid your group from following this course of action. You can just *show* them how dangerous it is to be a traitor.

 

Now, this is all assuming you've done a careful review of al their psych lims and made sure that they're playing the game in character and not--as others have suggested--taking out their campaign issues out on your storyline.

 

Granted, I'm a player rather than a GM, but I would hope that psych lim objections notwithstanding, you allow this. As the GM you help create the world in which the players make decisions. You're not going to agree with those decisions, but as often as possible (maybe after a veiled, or not so veiled warning) GMs should let players control the destiny of their characters. That way the game is more like a partnership rather than one person's view about 'how a story is supposed to go.' I've been lucky enough to play with some *great* GMs over the years who would do just this and, over the long term, it's greatly appreciated and leads to an interesting story.

 

Of course, If I were you, I'd bring on the JLA...the Avengers...and maybe Uatu just for good measure...blow 'em away--but do it with an innocent smile on your face..

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm with Chuck on this one. I suppose that's one reason he and I get along well as player and GM.

 

If these guys are going rogue, then slam it to them, hard. If you feel at all inclined to be lenient, at very most run a "what if" or "days of future past" style of adventure to show them where they're headed, and if that doesn't get them to pull their crap together, they've earned the upcoming thrash-down.

 

Some have mentioned the possibility that they may be reacting to some frustration within the campaign, and I would certainly give that some thought, and ask. If they're feeling jerked around unfairly, address that, but if they just decided it would be easier and cooler to be the bad guys, then let them see what it's like to be hunted by the police, PRIMUS, UNTIL and every hero on earth, have the snot pounded out of them, then be assigned to be Grond's cellmate.

[lemming]

I would check to see if Tasha's correct on this one.

 

That being said:

Viper-X in the Viper book might be a good inspiration for them... (Ex-Silver Avenger)

 

If they don't divorce their villianous IDs from their former heroic IDs, then many a hero should try to hunt them down.

 

Few villians are going to trust them. It's not like the heroes went through some tragic event to turn them from being good. Nope, just wanted to make some money.

[Vanguard00]

Emerald Mask voiced my opinion. Scrap the campaign and turn those villains into NPCs. The tone of your post implies that you're not happy with the idea of a villain campaign, and "hijacking" is about as crappy a thing as players can do to a GM. Don't stand for it if you don't want to.

 

On the other hand, if you're really going to try and run a villain campaign, read all the other suggestions. Then remember that villains earn XP, too. Everything you'd award points for in a hero campaign, turn it around. If the characters commit a successful crime, give 'em an XP or two. If they defeat the good guys in battle, give 'em an XP.

 

If they have broken any Psych Lims, penalize them that amount of XP until they buy it off or you provide an alternate disad. There definitely needs to be some serious backlash, and I'm of the opinion that a serious "heroes come out of the woodwork to police their own" whoopass is in order. Look what happened when everyone thought Iron Man went rogue--the Avengers were on hand to shut him down. Same with Thor. They were prepared to go to town on their friend because he was wrong.

 

First, though, make sure you really want to run a villain campaign. If not, start over. And honestly, if the players are dissatisfied with the game world (as opposed to the characters), then sit down and talk with them about what they'd like changed.

 

Had they not killed the mayor then maybe they could have affected change in-game. There's not much recourse now.

[Vondy]

Lets see...

 

Frustrated with the authorities -- check.

 

Desire to profit from justice and right-thinking -- check.

 

So they're anti-authoritarians with mercenary tendencies?

 

Have you considered running an old school dungeons and dragons game?

 

Or hackmaster?

 

It sounds like they're more interested in gold than good.

 

They'd probably have more fun extorting peasants for their last coppers in exchange for killing the local dragon (and keeping its horde for themselves) than fighting crime.

 

Villian games seldom work on an extended basis.

 

I recommend against "punishing" them for it - its petty, and doesn't address the real issue (that they clearly don't want to play superheroes (or supers at all)).

 

I'd just sit down and pop the big question:

 

"What do you guys really want to play?"

[Blue Jogger]

We had one campaign where all the heroes had Secret Villian Identities and that was actually fun.

 

All of us had reasons to pretend to be good, but unknown to the GM, we all had reasons that we were not actually good but more towards "enlightened self-interest" let's say. It was a good but short campaign. The multi-billionare kept the party in wads of cash and had the Monster Truck-sized power armor. The scientist turned superpowered could explore his questionable experments into genetics including seducing several women to carrying his gene-altered children. The bloodthirsty werewolf could hide in a wolf-themed power armor. We never found out what the aliens really wanted, but we could guess.

 

Eventually the campaign fell apart, and we started another campaign, but we had a great time for several games pretending to be mostly good.

 

"I 'Enron' my corperation and fund the adventure."

"Enron should not be a verb."

[JeffreyWKramer]

Villain Campaign

 

I thought it might be interesting to note that I once played in a campaign in which all the PCs were supervillains, and overt ones at that. The campaign lasted about 4 months, during which time we found ourselves fighting other villains, and among ourselves, more often than we fought cops and superheroes. The other villains we encountered were generally even worse sorts than us - we were mostly into it for thrill of fighting, to make a buck, or in the case of my character, Marauder, to fund his plans to take over the world for mutantkind. We found ourselves fighting the Champions - the 4E version - which was fun largely because Marauder kept Missile Reflecting everything tossed at him right at Seeker , going up against Genocide and various hitmen they'd hired (Mechassassin and Laser, among others) and just causing a lot of mayhem. It was sort of fun, but eventually got old, in part because we couldn't find any trustworthy allies.

[Mayday]

My players once decided they wanted to play supervillains this time around so I let them. They came up with truly fiendish plots I must say and put alot of work into planning, more than they ever did as heroes.

 

As villains if they are just sitting around waiting for the evil world to come hire them, well ok, lots of villains out there will be happy to use and discard them. Some test missions to see if they are serious or not, some real ones that make no sense perhaps. There are also villains of a mystical nature who delight in corrupting the 'Good'.

 

I do agree that other heroes will make a point of looking for them as well as the law enforcement of the area.

 

If any of the team change their mind that too could be interesting.

 

Check out the thread regarding SSM, Supervillain Monthly, for more ideas.

[Magmarock]

It is one thing to start out...

 

... with a villains campaign from the get go, but it is rude for players to change the tone/premise of the game without checking with the GM first. Personally, I wouldn't appreciate this type of treatment from my players.

 

However, at least your players were running their PCs up-front and honest in your game, as opposed to playing villains-in-denial like the players in this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9707

 

So it is all up to you, John. You can either run with it or retire the game. I suggest that you only continue this game if YOU are having fun, because if you aren't enjoying the game, eventually no one will.

 

 

Mags

[Vorsch]

The gold in champions is...Respect

 

from the public from the authorities

 

from the vilains

 

look at superman he has respect so does batman

 

maybe you can use that, give them a new stat or a reputation, have it work, most heroes are heroes cos they like being appreciated, only a few truly do it because they feel called .

 

vorsch

[John515]

The campaign is now officially scrapped. Many thanks for your input. I will be sure to keep it in mind not only as I assemble players, but as I run my next campaign.

[gewing]

How do you make characters that have histories the GM does not know???

 

Originally posted by Blue Jogger

We had one campaign where all the heroes had Secret Villian Identities and that was actually fun.

 

All of us had reasons to pretend to be good, but unknown to the GM, we all had reasons that we were not actually good but more towards "enlightened self-interest" let's say. It was a good but short campaign. The multi-billionare kept the party in wads of cash and had the Monster Truck-sized power armor. The scientist turned superpowered could explore his questionable experments into genetics including seducing several women to carrying his gene-altered children. The bloodthirsty werewolf could hide in a wolf-themed power armor. We never found out what the aliens really wanted, but we could guess.

 

Eventually the campaign fell apart, and we started another campaign, but we had a great time for several games pretending to be mostly good.

 

"I 'Enron' my corperation and fund the adventure."

"Enron should not be a verb."

[ZootSoot]

Four things come to mind.

 

One. Are the players acting out against you? Have you made them unhappy with the way the world treats them? If so cracking down on them for this will only make things worse. Give them an out, an opportunity to turn this into a sophisticated ruse or to make them victims of a villainous plot. Tailor your game a bit more to their expectations from here on in.

 

Two. Your players, from what I can see, are playing a fairly classic form of comic book villainy; that is they are engaging in pointless acts which are illegal and violent, so if nothing else, you can take advantage of their stupidity. In particular I think the Russian mob boss would be better served using them as a distraction from his real businesses raher than relying upon them and in particular taking full advantage of their aid while giving them nothing in exchange.

 

Three. You want to run a villain campaign? Then you are going to have to find a way to motivate the players. Too much success and there is no point to villainy. After all, it's not reactive like heroism and new challenges do not need to be met. The best way I have found is to make the players very low powered and serving a real master villain who gives them assignements they don't know the significance of, which they can't accomplish on brute power and where losing doesn't end their careers every time. Done right, they could actually become fed up enough with being villains to turn on him and try to be heoes again; which brings me to . . .

 

Four. There is no point in comics where a character can't be rehabilitated and become a hero. Magneto has jumped the fence, Namor has jumped the fence, Thunderbolts, Punisher, Venom et c. In genre it doesn't take that much to turn things around so don't asume you are stuck with either a villain campaign or a dead one. Roll with it and go.

[ZootSoot]

Originally posted by Speedball

Well, others have made many of the important points I would make about the wrath your players have called down upon their heads by switching sides, so I'll just say that I agree with them. Use all those disads to their fullest extent. You don't need to forbid your group from following this course of action. You can just *show* them how dangerous it is to be a traitor.

 

Now, this is all assuming you've done a careful review of al their psych lims and made sure that they're playing the game in character and not--as others have suggested--taking out their campaign issues out on your storyline.

 

Granted, I'm a player rather than a GM, but I would hope that psych lim objections notwithstanding, you allow this. As the GM you help create the world in which the players make decisions. You're not going to agree with those decisions, but as often as possible (maybe after a veiled, or not so veiled warning) GMs should let players control the destiny of their characters. That way the game is more like a partnership rather than one person's view about 'how a story is supposed to go.' I've been lucky enough to play with some *great* GMs over the years who would do just this and, over the long term, it's greatly appreciated and leads to an interesting story.

 

Of course, If I were you, I'd bring on the JLA...the Avengers...and maybe Uatu just for good measure...blow 'em away--but do it with an innocent smile on your face..

 

A little background on me. I am approaching thirty-years of gaming experience, I have played in every genre and in a vast array of systems and I believe conflict is necessary to keep a game going and the more conflict the better. But, I also don't believe that the GM is god nor that the GM is solely responsible for the world or the tone of the game. So, yes give your players hell as villains. But don't do this to be vindictive, do this to keep your game alive. Walking away from a campaign is always the very last resort, because almost any campaign has untapped potential.

[drrushing]

villians or GM's opportunity?

 

Well, well, well............so I am not the only one this has happened to.......

 

Remember, YOU are the GM, YOU are "GOD", for all intensive purposes.(No, I don't mean to offend anyone of religous vigor). I once had a player use a character straight out of the pages of Vigilante(down to the same outfit). He broke into a police captain's house(his contact) and in the process shot and killed two uniform patrolman. The player just couldn't grasp the concept that he wasn't allowed to do that. The player was truly offended when he involuntarily picked up a 20pt. Hunted from the local police. He correspondingly lost points in certain other psych lims...............

 

Your scenario could provide you with some very interesting gaming for the next few sessions. Your players think differently than you, and will create new and interesting ways to cause havoc and mayhem. This will only provide you with more creative ways to even the Karmic scale.

 

In general, these scenarios have a limited life span, there's just too many people willing to "happily" take them out. But, on the other hand, let them have fun, and possibly comprehend the consequences of their actions. Hopefully, these adventures will teach them to be better heroes, now that they've had a chance to play the other side.

 

Unless the players can come up with incredible cover stories for their felonious behavior, they may want to consider creating new characters for the new adventure..........wouldn't it be interesting to have them hunt down their former PC's(with you now controlling them, with the knowledge of how they used them, their habits, quirks, etc.)

 

Good luck, and if they just don't get it, maybe they should be playing D & D..................................