Dealing with Killer Characters

[BoloOfEarth]

10 hours ago, Miles2go said:

Or mind control an innocent and stuff them in a costume.

 

This hasn't been used against the PCs (yet), but 3-4 instances of it have appeared in the news over the past 6 months or so, in all cases with the unlucky innocent being killed by either police, PRIMUS, or an NPC superhero someplace other than the campaign city (Boston).  The PCs strongly suspect a mentalist is involved in the incidents, but since they can't exactly use Telepathy on a dead body to verify whether or not he was mind controlled, they have no verification / proof.

 

I'll likely have a similar incident appear in the news again (as a reminder / fair warning to the players) shortly before one or more of them actually faces such a situation him/herself.  I need to find the right supervillain for the innocent to be forced to imitate.  (Can't be powered armor / visibly mutated, has to have powers that can be semi-emulated with a gadget / gun, etc.)  I'm leaning toward Brainchild, for various reasons.  The faux Brainchild can be given a knockoff, less-powerful disintegration pistol and a cosplay-type fake jetpack and force field belt - I'm thinking the private eye PC hero might overhear an ARGENT supplier talking about delivering such a weapon to a new client. 

 

I also have to nail down all the behind-the-scene details -- I'm thinking an independent mentalist, drifting from town to town, controlling some innocent and giving him/her a costume and what-not to commit various thefts / robberies for him, and then moving on with the ill-gotten gains.  Throw in PSI looking to find / recruit that mentalist, with the PCs caught in the middle. 

[BoloOfEarth]

24 minutes ago, bubba smith said:

snowflake?

 

I think the "special snowflake" is a person with an inflated sense of how important he/she is, and feels entitled to special treatment.

[bubba smith]

thanks

[massey]

On 1/15/2019 at 10:39 AM, BoloOfEarth said:

Sure, I created a life-or-death situation (reactor designed to go boom) for the heroes to deal with, as well as some killer supervillains (in the case of the Aquans, Riptide and Biohazard).  So I'll accept some of the blame for setting a potentially lethal tone in that situation.  However, I don't think that necessarily makes me a Killer GM.

 

I believe I mentioned before that the PCs went into retaking the research station already knowing about the reactor - and that Montgomery was almost certainly behind it's design to go boom - so the heroes had shut the reactor down before even starting on the supervillains.   So the potential nuke was already dealt with and to be honest, that's pretty much what I expected was going to happen when I created the situation.  Had any player tried to use the no-longer-dangerous nuke's existence as a reason for going lethal on the supervillains, when they weren't even aware of it, let alone behind it, would have been being willfully ignorant on his/her part. I'll note that the players didn't do that, so that's cool.

 

As to the killer NPCs -- if the hero had unleashed his HKA on one of the killer supervillains, I don't think I would have been irritated.  I kinda expect the players to go harder on the nastier villains.  But to act like, "Killer villain A slashed up my teammate pretty bad, so I'm going to ignore killer villain A and go hard-core lethal on one of his teammates instead" seems counter-intuitive.  Removing villain B from the ranks of the living doesn't do much of anything to stop Killer Villain A from continuing his rampage.

 

I don't mind the game world having shades of gray, including the PCs.  It's when the gray becomes really-really-dark-gray that I worry. 

 

I'm not accusing you of being a Killer GM.  I'm saying some people are giving you Killer GM advice.

 

I don't have a problem with using murderous supervillains in a Champions game.

I don't have a problem with letting the murderous supervillains get a nuclear weapon.

I don't have a problem with expecting superheroes to not kill the murderous supervillains who have nuclear weapons.

 

What I have a problem with is trying to use the legal system to hammer superheroes who use lethal force in those scenarios.  Superman doesn't kill because of his personal moral code.  Other heroes follow his example.  But the law doesn't require it.  If Dr. Genocide is about to unleash his Atomic Zombie Plague Gas on the city, and Captain Overkill flies in and hits the 5 PD mastermind with a 9D6 HKA Scrotum Crusher attack, do you think he's going to be facing charges?  Hell no.  They'll give him a medal.

 

It bothers me (in comics and in games) when government officials who have repeatedly proven themselves completely powerless and incompetent to stop villains suddenly become hyper-competent and are equipped with the latest in super-gadgets when it comes time to screw over a player character.  The same guys who can't catch the Riddler ("my special power is that I leave clues!") are now willing to expend endless resources to prosecute the guy who saved the city 100 times, because he killed the guy who tried to blow it up 100 times.

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, massey said:

I'm not accusing you of being a Killer GM.  I'm saying some people are giving you Killer GM advice.

 

 

Captain Overkill flies in and hits the 5 PD mastermind with a 9D6 HKA Scrotum Crusher attack, do you think he's going to be facing charges?  Hell no.  They'll give him a medal.

 

Thank you for the clarification. 

 

As to the next quoted part... I think they'd cringe a lot first after a Scrotum Crusher attack (especially the guys), and then they'd give him a medal. 

 

I find there's a certain amount of genre convention behind the authorities being unable to stop villains.  After all, if they were able to do so easily and reliably, there'd be no reason for the superheroes to lift a finger.  Makes for a pretty boring game.  "Oh, hey, the news just said UNTIL captured the Ultimates.  Guess we'll binge-watch Chopped tonight..."

 

As to being unable to stop villains but hyper-competent to capture the PC - yeah, I don't buy that either, though there might be in-game reasons for them having a slightly better chance at nailing the PCs (worked with them so they know a lot more about their tactics, vulnerabilities, etc.).  I think the only times I've had the government try to nab the PCs, they lured them into an attempted ambush, and even then they ultimately failed.