Pulling a Punch & Code vs. Killing

[massey]

 

:57 second mark.

 

"From this height, the fall wouldn't kill me."

 

"I'm counting on it."

[Greywind]

But it did kill him. The broken leg kept him from being able to run away from Two-Face.

 

Trying to refer to the cinematic Batman's as having a CvK, imho is asinine. That went out the window with Batman using machine guns, bombs, and tossing big, burly guys down bell towers.

 

The only thing that Nolan's Batman wouldn't do is use guns or directly kill someone. That doesn't mean that he wasn't indirectly responsible for them dying. Nolan's Bats has maybe a 10 point CvK.

[massey]

Hugh Neilsen asked about "overconfident" or "never tells a lie".  Well, those are easy to get around.

 

Overconfident is normally going to act like most heroes do anyway.  They'll leap into the fray.  It's heroic.  Dr. Destroyer shows up?  You fight him.  What else are you supposed to do?  It's a superhero game, not Call of Cthulhu.  The worst thing that happens is you lose.  That will happen on occasion.

 

Never tells a lie?  Big deal.  You have a high PRE, Acting, and Persuasion.  "You're really Superman, aren't you Clark?"  "Why Lois, whatever would give you a crazy idea like that?  Honestly, me being Superman."

[massey]

But it did kill him. The broken leg kept him from being able to run away from Two-Face.

 

 

 

If THAT is the standard you use, no wonder you're all twisted up about this.  If that's the case, Batman should never send someone to prison.  People get knifed in prison.  "Sorry Commissioner, if I'd turned in the Joker he'd have gotten the chair for sure.  So I've got him locked up in the Batcave where no one can ever get to him."

 

Edit:  By the way, the Nolan Batman never kills a single person through the entire 3 movie series.

[massey]

No. Don't tell the players unless their characters see something to indicate. The characters need to figure it out. There is a reason a lot of hero teams keep databases on known villains, how they operate, and battle reports involving them.

 

"Bitz Blastum cut loose with what he described as his full power. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get a statement from the target without a ouija board."

 

Hugh Neilsen wondered how you know that a character doesn't have a vulnerability to your attack.  I am asking the same question.  How do you know?

 

How do you know he doesn't have an activation roll on his defenses?  50 Defense, 14- activation.  x4 BODY from attacks when armor activation fails.  How do you as a player know that a villain doesn't have that, if the GM doesn't give you any indication of it?  If he doesn't tell you?

 

When you shoot Chernobog with your 9D6 light blast, how do you know he's not going to shatter into a million pieces?  Answer: you don't play with a GM who is a douche.

[Hugh Neilson]

So, Massey., what do you believe is appropriate to support a "common" complication for Code vs Killing. You've told us what you consider inappropriate - what is appropriate?

[Greywind]

If THAT is the standard you use, no wonder you're all twisted up about this.  If that's the case, Batman should never send someone to prison.  People get knifed in prison.  "Sorry Commissioner, if I'd turned in the Joker he'd have gotten the chair for sure.  So I've got him locked up in the Batcave where no one can ever get to him."

 

Edit:  By the way, the Nolan Batman never kills a single person through the entire 3 movie series.

 

He was directly responsible for the death of Ra's al Ghul. He burned the house down. Probably also killing the guy he refused to execute.

 

He was responsible for the death of Ducard/Ra's by choosing to make no effort to save him.

 

He was indirectly responsible for the death of Rachel Dawes. A fact that he was beating himself up over, which led Alfred to burning her last letter.

[massey]

First, I see I've been misspelling your name.  My bad.

 

In answer to your question, psychological limitations are roleplaying guidelines.  They give the character a defined personality, and they give the GM story hooks to involve the characters in the adventure.  If a psych lim is roleplayed properly by the player, it will never need to be applied by the GM.  It affects the direction of the plot in a fundamental way.

 

For instance:

 

Spider-Man has the psych lim "smartass" (as well as "with great power...", and "guilt over Uncle Ben" and "protective of innocents", etc).  As long as Spidey's player makes fun of villains, says inappropriate things in combat, taunts J Jonah Jameson, and generally behaves, well, like Spider-Man, then the GM doesn't have to worry about it.  People react how they would normally react.  If Spidey's player is having fun (or, in the case of many of our players, can't resist doing it anyway), then he's roleplaying the character appropriately.  It's not something the GM has to club the character with, simply because he's enjoying himself.

 

The fact that your players don't tend to kill villains is not a reason to make CvK even more restrictive.  It sounds like they're already playing CvK anyway.  Think of how your players would respond in a given situation, and then compare to how a group made up of Wolverine, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Deadpool would react.  Can you tell a significant difference between the two groups?  If you can, then your players are doing it right.  You don't need to worry about punishing them because they made characters who are naturally nice.

 

Rogue has the psych lim "misses the touch of other people".  If her player is content to have her sit around and mope, or uses proper Claremontian dialogue in her conversation, then she's playing it well.  You don't have to give her minuses to OCV because she's sad.

[phoenix240]

How does the character know "Their opponent is a weakling and can't take the hit" if they haven't fought them before, never seen them in take a hit, etc? They have no meta game knowledge of the opponent's character sheet and how many characters in the source material look tougher or weaker than they are? Is there anything about Supergirl, for example that screams "I can bounce artillery off my chest" aside from the S on her shirt? Player characters don't get to read character sheets in setting. That's what holding back, doing lower dice, etc, is meant to simulate. Testing your target to see if they can take it before you shoot them in the face with a full power 14d6 Quantum Blast on the assumption that because its a game, they can take it.

 

Even their damage output isn't a definitive indicator. "Glass Cannons" are pretty common in comics (Cyclops and Storm being good examples).

 

Skills and other abilities that represent experience and research can help too. KS: Metahumans, Analyze abilities, Detects, etc. Stun Only attacks are possible or Grabs, Entangles, etc.

 

Or don't get a full on Total Commitment CvK, get a lesser value or a different code that depicts their feeling on lethal force. I described a couple earlier.

 

Honestly, I don't think the Total level of CvK is as common as thought outside of very silver age four color comics and stories meant for younger audiences. Almost every published superhero has killed or been willing too at some point in their history. but of course, how much is personality and how much is different writers is open to debate.

[massey]

 

1:13

 

"Whammo!"

 

"Wait, you ran over a human being?  What about your rule?"

 

"Didn't kill him."

 

"You wanna know how I got these scars?"

 

"From Batman?"

 

"From Batman."

[IndianaJoe3]

No. Don't tell the players unless their characters see something to indicate. The characters need to figure it out. There is a reason a lot of hero teams keep databases on known villains, how they operate, and battle reports involving them.

 

"Bitz Blastum cut loose with what he described as his full power. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get a statement from the target without a ouija board."

 

Still, designing a villain to get killed is definitely dirty pool. I consider it to be more fair (or at least less unfair) to design a villain that could be killed by a PC's standard attack, but probably won't be. (You may need to cheat to keep the villain alive, but that's OK.) Then place the villain in a setting where it's completely reasonable for him to be weaker than the heroes (super-powered street gang, as opposed to world-conquerors). Have the villain's attack be a threat to normals but too weak to significantly harm the PCs.

 

The other way to emphasize a CvK is to introduce a character that doesn't have it. They don't need to be a casual killer, but a vigilante mindset and a willingness to go looking for trouble should cause plenty of opportunity for conflict (if not combat) with PCs.

[Greywind]

It isn't designing someone to get killed. If you look through all the books available from 1st Ed on, you will find that there are characters that fit into every niche and that the powers range from minor, like the one cop who happened to find out the hard way that he was "bulletproof", to world-shaking, such as Dr. Destroyer.

 

Some builds are not optimized for combat. That isn't to say at some point they won't find themselves IN combat, just that they aren't prepared for it.

 

There are some who have mental issues and are drawn to the flash of the super-set, much as there are mental cases that are drawn to celebrity. To be part of that world, they will don the flashy costume and not really think through all of the possible consequences.

[Greywind]

Hugh Neilsen asked about "overconfident" or "never tells a lie".  Well, those are easy to get around.

 

Overconfident is normally going to act like most heroes do anyway.  They'll leap into the fray.  It's heroic.  Dr. Destroyer shows up?  You fight him.  What else are you supposed to do?  It's a superhero game, not Call of Cthulhu.  The worst thing that happens is you lose.  That will happen on occasion.

 

Never tells a lie?  Big deal.  You have a high PRE, Acting, and Persuasion.  "You're really Superman, aren't you Clark?"  "Why Lois, whatever would give you a crazy idea like that?  Honestly, me being Superman."

 

Except that the overconfident will take on the odds anyways, fully knowing that they will lose, but not expecting it. "Hey, I can take 'em." or the more popular, "Watch this. Hold my beer."

 

Telling the truth in such a way as it will not be believed. Happens in a lot of stories. "You lied to me." "No, I didn't. I told you the truth." "But the way you told me, it led me to believe that it wasn't the truth." "That is not my problem."

 

Hugh Neilsen wondered how you know that a character doesn't have a vulnerability to your attack.  I am asking the same question.  How do you know?

 

How do you know he doesn't have an activation roll on his defenses?  50 Defense, 14- activation.  x4 BODY from attacks when armor activation fails.  How do you as a player know that a villain doesn't have that, if the GM doesn't give you any indication of it?  If he doesn't tell you?

 

When you shoot Chernobog with your 9D6 light blast, how do you know he's not going to shatter into a million pieces?  Answer: you don't play with a GM who is a douche.

 

I don't know. Using my own characters as reference here, with a 12d6 2xAP as his main attack, Pulsar will not use that at full against anyone. He will dial it back, spread it, etc. UNLESS he is at a point where he fully intends on killing someone. He will not do that without some justification in his own mind, and being fully aware that he will have to deal with the consequences if he screws up.

 

And there is what I believe is the sticking point. You don't seem to feel that there should be consequences. "Hey, he was a bad guy. He deserved it if he couldn't take it."

[Hugh Neilson]

In answer to your question, psychological limitations are roleplaying guidelines.  They give the character a defined personality, and they give the GM story hooks to involve the characters in the adventure.  If a psych lim is roleplayed properly by the player, it will never need to be applied by the GM.  It affects the direction of the plot in a fundamental way.

 

For instance:

 

Spider-Man has the psych lim "smartass" (as well as "with great power...", and "guilt over Uncle Ben" and "protective of innocents", etc).  As long as Spidey's player makes fun of villains, says inappropriate things in combat, taunts J Jonah Jameson, and generally behaves, well, like Spider-Man, then the GM doesn't have to worry about it.  People react how they would normally react.  If Spidey's player is having fun (or, in the case of many of our players, can't resist doing it anyway), then he's roleplaying the character appropriately.  It's not something the GM has to club the character with, simply because he's enjoying himself.

 

The fact that your players don't tend to kill villains is not a reason to make CvK even more restrictive.  It sounds like they're already playing CvK anyway.  Think of how your players would respond in a given situation, and then compare to how a group made up of Wolverine, the Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Deadpool would react.  Can you tell a significant difference between the two groups?  If you can, then your players are doing it right.  You don't need to worry about punishing them because they made characters who are naturally nice.

 

Rogue has the psych lim "misses the touch of other people".  If her player is content to have her sit around and mope, or uses proper Claremontian dialogue in her conversation, then she's playing it well.  You don't have to give her minuses to OCV because she's sad.

 

Actually, Rogue's "misses touch" is a lot like Flare's "Ages twice as fast as normal people". It draws her into plots. Anything that could mitigate her mutant touch gets her attention pretty quick, and she doesn't think "I should be careful - this leaked Mutant Suppression Therapy could be a trap", or bring the teammates along.

 

Sure, the player can role play their limitations. One way of role playing CvK is to not hit an unknown opponent with full lethal force.  When the Overconfident character challenges Firewing to single combat "Unless you're FireChicken", then in :Ph 12 rolls an unsolicited Ego roll at -5 to see if the character can acknowledge he's getting pounded and Dodge (the only time he Dodged in the campaign, IIRC), there's no need to remind him of the disad.  But then, he's the guy who started the exchange:

 

GM:  DCV

Player 1:  4

Player 2: FOUR??  What's your DEX?

Player 1: 23 - but this chump can't hurt me, so I'm not bothering to avoid the attack.

 

Another interesting response to an unknown opponent.

 

I'm still waiting for what CvK would cause that merits its Disad value.  Refraining from slashing the throats of downed opponents doesn't seem that big a drawback.

[phoenix240]

It isn't designing someone to get killed. If you look through all the books available from 1st Ed on, you will find that there are characters that fit into every niche and that the powers range from minor, like the one cop who happened to find out the hard way that he was "bulletproof", to world-shaking, such as Dr. Destroyer.

 

Some builds are not optimized for combat. That isn't to say at some point they won't find themselves IN combat, just that they aren't prepared for it.

 

There are some who have mental issues and are drawn to the flash of the super-set, much as there are mental cases that are drawn to celebrity. To be part of that world, they will don the flashy costume and not really think through all of the possible consequences.

I agree. There's a difference between making a character that isn't player character optimized and designing someone to be killed. The line is going to be somewhat subjective and depending on the game in question but ever encountered character isn't going to fit neatly the campaign PC creation guideline sheet.

 

As far as role playing CvK I consider being cautious with potentially lethal powers against unknown opponents part of the role playing the psych limitation, a larger part than not finishing off helpless opponents.

[Ninja-Bear]

I think some are not understanding the point of the gilt complex. If you ran a character will cvk as should be then you shouldn't run this scenerio. However if you play a game and you take cvk and still run a bloodthirsty character and the GM talks to you a few times and you still don't change then the GM should use this scenerio. Games due have consequences.

[massey]

Games due have consequences.

 

Umm, really?  I'm sorry, this just sounds kind of silly.

[massey]

He was directly responsible for the death of Ra's al Ghul. He burned the house down. Probably also killing the guy he refused to execute.

 

He was responsible for the death of Ducard/Ra's by choosing to make no effort to save him.

 

He was indirectly responsible for the death of Rachel Dawes. A fact that he was beating himself up over, which led Alfred to burning her last letter.

 

Just saw I forgot to respond to this.

 

1) It's been a while since I've seen it, but I believe the fire started accidentally during the fight.  He also saves as many people as he can (Liam Neeson).  So no, he's not directly responsible for Ra's death.

 

2) Liam Neeson is responsible for his own death.  As Batman says, "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you."  This is the classic bad guy dies by his own plot, so the hero can keep his hands clean.

 

3) This is just flat out wrong.  He went to save Rachel.  Joker told him the wrong address.  The fact that some psycho sets up a scenario where you can only save one person doesn't make you responsible for the other's death.  He beats himself up over it because he is in love with Rachel.

 

Man, it's no wonder we disagree on CvK.  It seems like we see absolutely everything 100% differently.  I remember ages ago when the first Spider-Man movie came out, there was a guy on here who was talking about how Toby McGuire was responsible for the Green Goblin murdering a bunch of people.  I almost disagree with you that much.

[massey]

Except that the overconfident will take on the odds anyways, fully knowing that they will lose, but not expecting it. "Hey, I can take 'em." or the more popular, "Watch this. Hold my beer."

 

Telling the truth in such a way as it will not be believed. Happens in a lot of stories. "You lied to me." "No, I didn't. I told you the truth." "But the way you told me, it led me to believe that it wasn't the truth." "That is not my problem."

 

 

I don't know. Using my own characters as reference here, with a 12d6 2xAP as his main attack, Pulsar will not use that at full against anyone. He will dial it back, spread it, etc. UNLESS he is at a point where he fully intends on killing someone. He will not do that without some justification in his own mind, and being fully aware that he will have to deal with the consequences if he screws up.

 

And there is what I believe is the sticking point. You don't seem to feel that there should be consequences. "Hey, he was a bad guy. He deserved it if he couldn't take it."

 

No, a character with CvK shouldn't do something that he expects will kill an opponent.

 

As I said, the only time I've ever killed a villain was when I fluked out on a damage roll, he failed his armor activation, then I fluked out on knockback, then on knockback damage, and then he failed his armor activation again.  So with a 15D6 attack, I hit a guy wearing armor, I rolled like 18 Body (failed activation, only had like 5 PD without it), then did something like 15" of KB, knocking him into a concrete wall, where I rolled another 17 Body or so, and he failed activation again.  He was instantly dead in one punch.  That kind of thing can happen during a game.  It changed the character's whole outlook on things.

 

But that character is a great example.  Before that incident, I had rolled terribly with him.  He was a fairly powerful character, but every superhuman combat I'd been in, I'd missed a lot, I'd rolled low on damage, etc.  As far as everything he had ever seen, lower powered characters were perfectly capable of standing up to his attacks.  He was a 75 Str brick, and he fought as if he was a 10D6 character, because I couldn't roll well at all.

 

In our games, having super powers means that you're going to be a certain minimum level of tough.  Just getting an energy blast means you're going to have at least a 20 Dex and a 4 Spd.  Do you have a combat superpower?  Then you've got at least 15 defense.  You just do, those are the rules.  Your defenses might not be resistant, so watch out for the RKAs, but you will have the PD and ED.  And the characters in the game universe know and understand that. They shouldn't have to pretend that the bad guy in a costume is going to be critically injured by their campaign-standard attack.

 

Actually, Rogue's "misses touch" is a lot like Flare's "Ages twice as fast as normal people". It draws her into plots. Anything that could mitigate her mutant touch gets her attention pretty quick, and she doesn't think "I should be careful - this leaked Mutant Suppression Therapy could be a trap", or bring the teammates along.

 

Sure, the player can role play their limitations. One way of role playing CvK is to not hit an unknown opponent with full lethal force.  When the Overconfident character challenges Firewing to single combat "Unless you're FireChicken", then in :Ph 12 rolls an unsolicited Ego roll at -5 to see if the character can acknowledge he's getting pounded and Dodge (the only time he Dodged in the campaign, IIRC), there's no need to remind him of the disad.  But then, he's the guy who started the exchange:

 

GM:  DCV

Player 1:  4

Player 2: FOUR??  What's your DEX?

Player 1: 23 - but this chump can't hurt me, so I'm not bothering to avoid the attack.

 

Another interesting response to an unknown opponent.

 

I'm still waiting for what CvK would cause that merits its Disad value.  Refraining from slashing the throats of downed opponents doesn't seem that big a drawback.

 

And I'm still waiting for you to come up with something that's not simply a disadvantage in combat versus a character that everyone knows can really take it.  We are now on page 6.  I have been saying from the beginning that people seem to want to use CvK (and the only justification for it's points value that they've been willing to accept) to penalize a player character every time they fight a new villain.

 

You see, I'm not talking about when Flying Brick crashes into Bald Scientist's lab.  He sees Bald Scientist (dressed in his labcoat) standing in front of a machine.  Flying Brick has 20 pt CvK.  Flying Brick should not throw nearby forklift into Bald Scientist.  That would probably kill him.  Flying Brick should definitely pull his punch.  Or he should use his brick tricks multipower to carefully wrap the forklift around Bald Scientist (Entangle, no range).  But I'm not talking about that.  That's an obvious case where CvK applies.  And you're not talking about that.  You're not talking about known quantities here.

 

What everyone keeps saying is necessary to make CvK worth its points is "Here's a new villain.  You don't know how tough he is.  You have to hold back for the first few phases.  You and I both know he has enough defenses that he'll be fine.  But your character doesn't.  Now, hand me my second bag of dice, it's his turn to shoot."

 

CvK has many occasions where it applies.  Superman won't kill Luthor, even though Luthor screws with him all the time.  Even though Supes can't get enough dirt on Luthor to put him in prison.  Even though he knows Luthor is guilty of so many crimes and has hurt so many people.  Same with Batman and the Joker.  These characters set off almost every one of the hero's psych lims (stands for truth and justice, protective of innocents, etc), and they could fix it all if they just killed the guy.  But they have CvK, so they won't do it.

 

Superman is the poster child for holding back.  There's the "world of cardboard" speech that everybody loves.  He always has thought bubbles about how he's afraid to hit somebody with his full strength.  And yet Superman has killed people before.  He killed those three Kryptonian criminals in the pocket dimension.  He didn't like it, but he did it.  Batman is the guy who never kills.  But Batman breaks legs, dislocates arms, uses all sorts of incredibly vicious moves on people.  A lot of his villains end up in the hospital.  "Rubber bullets.  Honest."  So CvK and pulling your punch don't necessarily go hand in hand.

 

--

 

Oh, and overconfident doesn't necessarily mean fighting below your full capabilities.   If you've got superdefenses, perhaps.  Superman's version of overconfident means that he will stand there and take the hit.  Batman's version of overconfident means he doesn't tell the rest of the JLA what he's doing.  He takes it on by himself.  He jumps into a room full of thugs and attacks.  He still dodges, because he may be overconfident but he knows he's not bulletproof.

 

My point is, most disadvantages / complications aren't necessarily worth anything if you look at them in the right light.  "Oh, well, players shouldn't kill people anyway, so it's not a disad."  But that's the case with everything.  Hunteds shouldn't be worth any points.  After all, you're going to be fighting somebody every adventure anyway.  If it wasn't your Hunted, it would be somebody else.  Might as well get points for it.  If a player is overconfident and enjoys playing his character that way, he's getting points for something he's going to do anyway.  Most of the players in our group would pick a fight with Firewing regardless of what was written on their character sheet.

 

As you said, Rogue's "misses touch" draws her into subplots.  But hopefully she's going to be doing something during the game anyway.  She's going to be involved in the plot.  So it doesn't really make things more complicated for her, because a game where you sit around and the GM says "nothing happens today, you enjoy a quiet night off" isn't very fun to play.

[Grailknight]

I need a MultiLike button.

[Greywind]

Just saw I forgot to respond to this.

 

1) It's been a while since I've seen it, but I believe the fire started accidentally during the fight.  He also saves as many people as he can (Liam Neeson).  So no, he's not directly responsible for Ra's death.

 

2) Liam Neeson is responsible for his own death.  As Batman says, "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you."  This is the classic bad guy dies by his own plot, so the hero can keep his hands clean.

 

3) This is just flat out wrong.  He went to save Rachel.  Joker told him the wrong address.  The fact that some psycho sets up a scenario where you can only save one person doesn't make you responsible for the other's death.  He beats himself up over it because he is in love with Rachel.

 

Man, it's no wonder we disagree on CvK.  It seems like we see absolutely everything 100% differently.  I remember ages ago when the first Spider-Man movie came out, there was a guy on here who was talking about how Toby McGuire was responsible for the Green Goblin murdering a bunch of people.  I almost disagree with you that much.

 

1) Except Bruce deliberately flipped the branding iron into the smoke bomb supply. If it happened in America every death would have been a manslaughter charge. The only reason that he saved Ducard/Ra's was because he thought they were friends.

 

2) Ducard/Ra's did not jam the controls of the train so that it could not be stopped. Nor did he have the support strut blown out from under the track. Both of those actions were instigated by Batman. Who then refused to pull the sole remaining victim off the train.

 

A 20 point CvK in effect is: I will not, through action or inaction, allow the death of another.

 

And I've never seen either Batman or Superman as any degree of "overconfident". Confident in their own abilities, yes. Foolhardy, no.

[massey]

1) Except Bruce deliberately flipped the branding iron into the smoke bomb supply. If it happened in America every death would have been a manslaughter charge. The only reason that he saved Ducard/Ra's was because he thought they were friends.

 

2) Ducard/Ra's did not jam the controls of the train so that it could not be stopped. Nor did he have the support strut blown out from under the track. Both of those actions were instigated by Batman. Who then refused to pull the sole remaining victim off the train.

 

A 20 point CvK in effect is: I will not, through action or inaction, allow the death of another.

 

And I've never seen either Batman or Superman as any degree of "overconfident". Confident in their own abilities, yes. Foolhardy, no.

 

1)  As I said, I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I can tell you with 100% certainty it would not be a manslaughter charge.  Given that Bruce went from "this is a cool place where these guys are teaching me karate" to "oh my god, these guys are terrorists and expect me to murder a man right now, I must escape", he's actually legally entitled to use whatever force is necessary to escape.

 

2)  And as I said, on page 5, in post #90... "But even Batman's CvK is subject to interpretation.  It didn't exist at all in the Tim Burton movies (the Batmobile had machine guns on it).  In Batman Begins he explicitely tells Liam Neeson that he doesn't have to save him.  Sometimes he'll go out of his way to save a villain who is about to get killed by some bomb or something.  So not every CvK is the same."

 

He might not have a 20 pt CvK.  But he still definitely has a "refuses to kill" psychological limitation.  But he's acting in a world where he doesn't have the ability to save every life.  What I can't figure out is why we are arguing over a Batman movie, when we can't see the character's character sheet.

[Greywind]

Because you specifically brought the various cinematic Batman in to voice your argument in post #90.

[Grailknight]

Again, I must ask, which 20 point CVK we're talking about?

 

Is it the Very Common, Strong or the Common, Total?  IMO, they are very different.

[Hugh Neilson]

No, a character with CvK shouldn't do something that he expects will kill an opponent.

 

In our games, having super powers means that you're going to be a certain minimum level of tough.  Just getting an energy blast means you're going to have at least a 20 Dex and a 4 Spd.  Do you have a combat superpower?  Then you've got at least 15 defense.  You just do, those are the rules.  Your defenses might not be resistant, so watch out for the RKAs, but you will have the PD and ED.  And the characters in the game universe know and understand that. They shouldn't have to pretend that the bad guy in a costume is going to be critically injured by their campaign-standard attack. 

 

And I'm still waiting for you to come up with something that's not simply a disadvantage in combat versus a character that everyone knows can really take it.  We are now on page 6.  I have been saying from the beginning that people seem to want to use CvK (and the only justification for it's points value that they've been willing to accept) to penalize a player character every time they fight a new villain.

 

You see, I'm not talking about when Flying Brick crashes into Bald Scientist's lab.  He sees Bald Scientist (dressed in his labcoat) standing in front of a machine.  Flying Brick has 20 pt CvK.  Flying Brick should not throw nearby forklift into Bald Scientist.  That would probably kill him.  Flying Brick should definitely pull his punch.  Or he should use his brick tricks multipower to carefully wrap the forklift around Bald Scientist (Entangle, no range).  But I'm not talking about that.  That's an obvious case where CvK applies.  And you're not talking about that.  You're not talking about known quantities here.

To me, new villains are not automatically "known quantities". How does the character know that cute chick in the skintight spandex can stand up to lethal force, rather than being just as vulnerable as Bald Scientist? For that matter, he doesn't know that Bald Scientist is not wearing a ForceBelt that gives him +30 rDEF. He has to guess. Guessing wrong may mean a combat disadvantage because he wastes an attack or two figuring out this target is actually pretty tough. Guessing wrong the other way means hosing the remains of that high DCV, low defense target (or non-persistent defense target, or vulnerable to those SFX target) off the wall. A CvK makes the choice of risks no choice at all.

 

Seems like your games are a lot more predictable. Well and good. I'd say CvK isn't nearly as disadvantageous in your games.

 

CvK has many occasions where it applies.  Superman won't kill Luthor, even though Luthor screws with him all the time.  Even though Supes can't get enough dirt on Luthor to put him in prison.  Even though he knows Luthor is guilty of so many crimes and has hurt so many people.  Same with Batman and the Joker.  These characters set off almost every one of the hero's psych lims (stands for truth and justice, protective of innocents, etc), and they could fix it all if they just killed the guy.  But they have CvK, so they won't do it.

I find this just as susceptible to your comments elsewhere in this thread. Will there be no one to screw with Supes next month if he kills Luthor off? Would everything be fixed, and the next issue would just feature Bruce Wayne reading the paper with his feet up thinking how safe Gotham is now that the Joker is dead?

 

Oh, and overconfident doesn't necessarily mean fighting below your full capabilities.   If you've got superdefenses, perhaps.  Superman's version of overconfident means that he will stand there and take the hit.  Batman's version of overconfident means he doesn't tell the rest of the JLA what he's doing.  He takes it on by himself.  He jumps into a room full of thugs and attacks.  He still dodges, because he may be overconfident but he knows he's not bulletproof.

Not waiting for the teammates is its own form of overconfidence. Bats is more confident in his DCV, for sure. But he generally jumps into it with those thugs, rather than pulling knockout gas out of the utility belt or backpedalling while tossing Batarangs. And this assumes he is "overconfident" to the point that he makes suboptimal decisions. Bats is the poster child for optimizing his tactics, and not a guy who bites off more than he can chew because he overestimates his capabilities.

 

He might not have a 20 pt CvK.  But he still definitely has a "refuses to kill" psychological limitation.  But he's acting in a world where he doesn't have the ability to save every life.  What I can't figure out is why we are arguing over a Batman movie, when we can't see the character's character sheet.

I thought we were discussing characters with a "common, total commitment" 20 point CvK. I've certainly repeated those terms more than once. So, once again, what drawbacks does that 20 point CvK bring with it?