Should Villains Be More Powerful Than Heroes?

[massey]

If it were important for the Champions universe to make sense (sort of an ecology of superheroes and villains), I think they'd have to structure their books differently.  Now I'm not really sure that it is important.  I've always seen the game world as more a mix-and-match setting where you take what you want and leave the rest.  Just because Dr Destroyer is in the game book doesn't mean that he has to be in your game.  The villains in the book don't have to be out there until you need them there.  What if half the villains in the book are in prison already, or haven't had their origins yet?  Heroes stick around for a while, villains show up and get defeated.  This is the sort of thing the Champions genre book should address.

 

If I were writing it, and I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, I might try something like this (5th edition costs here).

 

--Have two versions of the example superhero group.  You've got the Champions as example starting characters at 350 points.  Then you've got the "real" Champions who are at 450 or 500 or something.  4th edition Champions had these, and they were far tougher.  It's presumed that the higher level versions of the heroes are the ones that are really out there saving the day.

--Rein in the Dr Destroyer/Takofanes types so that they can be successfully opposed by the high tier Champions (plus friends maybe).

--Publish some higher point, but not necessarily higher damage class, solo heroes who are on their own.  Spidey might be a 700 point character, but he still might not hit for more than 12D6.  The rest of his points make him viable as a solo character.

--Publish some Rogue's Galleries of villains who are designed to lose to the solo heroes.  They can be tough and have cool powers, but you'll see why, on average, they lose to the solo hero.  They could be threatening to a group though (but don't have to be).

--Have some really high powered solo characters who are pretty much tied down by their villains.  Dr Enigma the World Wizard doesn't have time to mess with you, because he's keeping Tyrannon at bay.  Plus he might not hold up so well if Grond wanders into his house.

--I'd have general tiers of how powerful certain things are, and I'd stick to them.  A good agent may have a 5 OCV, an average super has an 8, an average martial artist hero gets a 10, and a best in the world guy has a 13.  And I'd stick to it.

--Most of all, I'd think about the role that these characters play within the game, and the game world.  They need to live and function well within their niche, but they sort of balance each other out.

 

So let's say you decide that Gothic City is patrolled by Night Man.  He's a 632 point detective/gadgeteer/martial artist.  Occasionally he joins up with a team, but most of the time he just keeps his city safe from the strange and weird villains who call it home.  So Night Man is a best in the world martial artist type, so let's give him a 13 OCV.  27 Dex, with 4 levels in hand to hand, and like 8 different martial art maneuvers.  We'll also give him a 7 Speed because he's on his own (might have a sidekick, might not) and so he'll have to abort to dodge a lot.  But most of the time he's not fighting against characters with lots of defense, so his actual HTH damage doesn't need to be that high.  Maybe he can do an 11D6 Offensive Strike, so he hits a little below the average hero.

 

In addition, Night Man has vehicles, a base, contacts within the city, plenty of skills, etc.  He's geared to fight his own villains.  Now you look at publishing the Gothic City Sourcebook, which will have like 40 villains in there, most of whom hate Night Man.  They are built so that it makes sense that Night Man can keep them under control.  Madame Catburglar isn't much of a combatant, she's on the lower end of the scale for damage and defenses (nobody is shooting at her with 5D6 RKAs, so she doesn't need to defend against it, and she only needs to be damaging enough to fight martial artist types).  But she's got great burglar skills.  If it wasn't for Night Man's skill set of Criminology 17-, and Deduction 17-, she'd be really hard to catch.  This gives you a great villain without making people wonder why she isn't out taking over the world.  Set it up so that of the 40 villains listed in the book, maybe only 5 or 6 of them are out there active at any one time.  Some are in prison, some are licking their wounds or planning their next job, some are presumed dead ("no one could survive that fall..."), and some haven't had their origins yet.

 

Night Man himself isn't going to overwhelm any of the PCs.  He's specialized.  His points are spent efficiently... for his own campaign.  He doesn't need more than 11D6 to be effective in Gothic City.  He doesn't need more than 23 Defense -- his villains are on the lower end of the damage scale.  He does need a 40 Presence though, and his 7 Speed.  His 15- Contact with Commissioner Grayson is very useful.  In a generic Champions game he might seem a bit unbalanced, but he's perfect for his Night Man solo game.  A lot of his villains are only 350 points, but they're kind of unbalanced themselves.  Alligator Man is just an okay brick, not that durable.  60 Str, 30 Con, 5 Spd, 28 PD and 20 ED.  But he's got a 10 OCV and a decent stealth roll.  You can see why he's dangerous for Night Man, a real threat even though he's only about half the points.  Night Man will still win a close fight (especially with some attacks vs ED in his gadget belt), but it's dangerous for him.  But against a superhero team?  Alligator Man is dead meat.  A couple of 12D6 blasts from Fire Lad and he's toast.

 

--

 

If I were designing a Champions universe, I'd fill it out with characters like that.  A lot of villains would have a defined role, something they were really good at.  As it is, we've got a ton of villains who have a 60 point Multipower, 25-30 Def, 5-6 Spd, 8-9 OCV, and 35-45 Stun.  They're basically interchangeable, they're reasonably combat effective, and they make nice little brute squads together.  Villains go up in power from there, with some high earners throwing 15 or 20D6, and then there's Dr Darkseid and Professor Thanos chucking 30D6 or more.  Those last guys are built to take on those handful of top tier PC teams where everybody is in the 20D6+ range, and they're pretty good at that.  But if those teams don't exist in your game, you don't need those villains at all.

 

There's a temptation to put in Superion, or Major Marvelous, somebody with 150 Str and an 11 Spd, 50 Defense with 50% Reduction, 120 Stun and 80" of Flight with a 15 OCV.  But he'd just be a counter to the very very high end villains, and then you've got to explain why he doesn't just fix every problem.  I think more thought needs to be put into the highest end villains, and not just about what else can be fit on their character sheet.  Otherwise you've got to either include a Superman, or a Justice Society with 25 different heroes to stop those guys.  The JSA might be better, because they'd only come together in full to stop the biggest threats.

[PamelaIsley]

23 minutes ago, massey said:

If it were important for the Champions universe to make sense (sort of an ecology of superheroes and villains), I think they'd have to structure their books differently.  Now I'm not really sure that it is important. 

 

If the books aren't providing the viable context for a setting, then I'm not sure why they include as many micro-details about the world as they do.  But, at any rate, I don't really want to derail the thread by debating the books.

 

I wouldn't set my power levels anywhere near at what you propose, but you have some great thoughts on a viable setting.

[assault]

Part of the problem lies in the very idea of building a Universe to begin with.

 

For an actual game, rather than a book, I'd consider building an example super team (rivals and/or allies as required) and maybe a handful of solo heroes who specialize in particular fields (magic is a good example), or who can be met when the PCs go to particular places (Gothic City).

 

That would be about it. 10 or a dozen or so NPC heroes. Effectively, in the entire world.

 

I'd then build villains to oppose the PCs, more or less as required, or with an eye to using them in the future. The key characters would those specified in the PC's write ups, whether as Hunteds or in some other role. I would add some related to the backgrounds of the NPC heroes, because, naturally, when you meet Night Man, you will also meet Mad Clown.

 

All other villains would be stock characters for use in future scenarios.

 

So, if there are, say, four PCs, with two villains specified in each of their write ups, and a dozen NPC heroes with a villain specified for each, you would need about 20 villains, plus maybe another ten or so in the stock/reserve pile, making roughly 30 all up.

 

In practical terms, that would be pretty much all the villains in the world, at least to begin with. Implicitly, the NPC heroes would have other opponents, but they wouldn't be relevant to the game.

 

Not counting the implicit villains, that's roughly two villains for every hero, not the comparatively restrained one and a half the CU suggests. A problem? Not really, since they are integrated into an ecology of play. If you really want, you could add some other heroes who theoretically exist, but will only appear if the PCs go looking for them. (I wouldn't).

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think its a mistake to over think the reality and world of superheroes.  You're better off just winging it and having fun than trying to come up with the ultimate "this makes the most sense" because in the end it won't make sense and will give you ulcers trying to jam that star shaped piece through the round hole.

 

I mean you can make things make sense in the short run or in the immediate context, but don't sweat the overall picture.  The comics don't, or at least the best ones didn't.  Just have fun and make it work for everyone except mister "akshually" in the corner who keeps saying that this doesn't make sense scientifically.  He's not there to have fun anyway.

[Greywind]

I've got my world more or less set. Much like Marvel once was the "world outside our window, but with supers."

 

I decide which antagonist I'm going to use and what they are after. Then decide where that objective is and what obstacles might be in the way. I start dropping hints that may come to light about the behind the scenes stuff that antagonist is up to. Then it is all flying by the seat of my pants and letting the players run wild.

 

Kind of fun when they miss one or two things and they have to deal with the bad guy after when they could have derailed him early on.

[megaplayboy]

6 hours ago, assault said:

Part of the problem lies in the very idea of building a Universe to begin with.

 

For an actual game, rather than a book, I'd consider building an example super team (rivals and/or allies as required) and maybe a handful of solo heroes who specialize in particular fields (magic is a good example), or who can be met when the PCs go to particular places (Gothic City).

 

That would be about it. 10 or a dozen or so NPC heroes. Effectively, in the entire world.

 

I'd then build villains to oppose the PCs, more or less as required, or with an eye to using them in the future. The key characters would those specified in the PC's write ups, whether as Hunteds or in some other role. I would add some related to the backgrounds of the NPC heroes, because, naturally, when you meet Night Man, you will also meet Mad Clown.

 

All other villains would be stock characters for use in future scenarios.

 

So, if there are, say, four PCs, with two villains specified in each of their write ups, and a dozen NPC heroes with a villain specified for each, you would need about 20 villains, plus maybe another ten or so in the stock/reserve pile, making roughly 30 all up.

 

In practical terms, that would be pretty much all the villains in the world, at least to begin with. Implicitly, the NPC heroes would have other opponents, but they wouldn't be relevant to the game.

 

Not counting the implicit villains, that's roughly two villains for every hero, not the comparatively restrained one and a half the CU suggests. A problem? Not really, since they are integrated into an ecology of play. If you really want, you could add some other heroes who theoretically exist, but will only appear if the PCs go looking for them. (I wouldn't).

To build a universe, first build a neighborhood, then a city, then a country, a world, and so forth.  Start small, as you describe, then flesh things out and expand the stakes over time.  A campaign setting that lasts long enough will become an entire campaign universe.

[Lawnmower Boy]

17 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think its a mistake to over think the reality and world of superheroes.  You're better off just winging it and having fun than trying to come up with the ultimate "this makes the most sense" because in the end it won't make sense and will give you ulcers trying to jam that star shaped piece through the round hole.

 

I mean you can make things make sense in the short run or in the immediate context, but don't sweat the overall picture.  The comics don't, or at least the best ones didn't.  Just have fun and make it work for everyone except mister "akshually" in the corner who keeps saying that this doesn't make sense scientifically.  He's not there to have fun anyway.

Maybe, maybe not. 

 

Say you're doing a Teen heroes "super school" thing. There are things that, to my mind, it just has to have: A mall, for example. Super parents, too. Those might not be part of the original concept, but they just seem like an irresistable retcon, so why not start with them? Underground passages, secret doors, secret identities. This is all a bit weird in the frequent superhero-private-school setting, and their absence is a problem in the Ravenswood setting for CU, but with the sheer number of supers and retired supers in the Boston-Washington area in the CU, it's hard to believe that there isn't a commuter option.

 

So Midtown High in Brooklyn --or, not to toot my own horn, Tatammy High in Philadelphia-- has a teen super magnet programme. It's just secret, because secrets are cool, and because Diadem (now-retired Sentinel leader) would throw a fit if her secret identity were compromised. She's not built with a lot of rPD versus "sniper with a grudge"!

 

Okay, we've got the basics: a secret superhero programme within a large American high school. Secret underground Danger Room, whatever else you want to put down there. Records Hall, locker room, broken time machine that only needs a refibulator to work again, sentient spaceship named Martha . . . It's a comic book.

 

What else do we need? Class dynamics, of course. Rich kids, poor kids; uptown girl, downtown boy. Rivals. You may not be into this kind of thing, but you can run it with NPCs and let the players be observers. Some kind of teen super-sport. (J. K. Rowling says you have to have Quidditch. Even if you're not a jock, other people are.) Rivals.  Star-crossed relationships. Rivals. See where I'm going with this? You don't have to have an eco-system of super-schools to interact with, but the CU has already got one, and as Fleur De Pew, or whatever her name is from Harry Potter demonstrates, it is absolutely the case that you need foreign schools so that you can do your terrible foreign accent at the table. Except maybe when you introduce Tiger Squad's junior varsity. Probably don't want to go there. 

 

So when the Indian teen superheroine is hanging out with her boyfriend in the mall near his house in Philadelphia, trying to keep it on the down low because her guardian is a Hindu nationalist built on a thousand points who would turn her crush into a newt in a second if he knew about it, clearly the word comes down that the Superhero Division's training compound in Kerala State is under attack. I mean, that's just the way you do things in a superhero campaign.

 

Who is behind it? A published master villain is fine. Dr. Destroyer is active in India, for example, although for this setting one of his underbosses is a lot more appropriate. And when you wing into action to stop the attack and hopefully make sure that the girl makes bed check, you're immersed in the Indian superhero scene, which, as laid out in Champions Worldwide, is pretty extensive. 

 

This is where I think the published CU is a powerful tool, in that you have  context for all of this. The drawback is that you're drawn right into the global context. Yes, you have a listing of superheroes in India, and a few Indian supervillains, but now you're worried about what we're calling the "ecology" of the setting. It looks like India is pretty underpopulated with villains compared with the rest of the world. On the other hand, it is hard to see how the Superhero Division fends off Dr. Destroyer's little offensive by itself. That guy's got resources! Presumably, the world mobilises to beat him, but this raises the thought I was getting at when I suggested that it's hard to team up against Dr. Destroyer in one corner of the world when there are so many menaces elsewhere.

 

We see Massey's "Night Man" approach in the Vibora Bay setting. Black Mask X is more-or-less what he's talking about; the problem is that it is hard to see what she does when Dark Seraph and the Crowns of Krim take advantage of the crisis in India to wreak a little havoc. Having a hero in reserve in Vibora Bay who is a match for Dr. Destroyer . . . does not work. Having a lot more teams around the world, so that India is self-sufficient, does. On the other hand, now you need even more master villains --an approach that has been alluded to in Champions Worldwide, where China apparently has its own Dr. Destroyer just to keep the Tiger Squad busy. 

 

And now you have a situation where, on any given day, there's probably one or two climactic battles against world-threatening menaces going on somewhere in the world, and your average citizen is lined up at Starbucks getting their mocha frappa-macha-mocha-cappacino and checking their text alerts to see if the world is going to end before they can get into work because the Fair Advancers* can't defend Melbourne from an army of cloned Taipans. (Which they can't. Whoa boy is that guy scary.) 

 

___

*Matilda Waltzers? Mad Mates?

[drunkonduty]

On 3/30/2019 at 5:24 AM, Lawnmower Boy said:

*snip*

 

Great post, alas I'm outta rep to give.

 

Also, now I want to run a  Teen Champions game. I've never wanted to run Teen Champions before.

[Greywind]

[Ninja-Bear]

One point I haven’t seen brought up is the old enemy of my enemy stichk. I don’t see Dr. Destroyer letting Mechannon kill off the world.

[Greywind]

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

True enough and I don’t see every villain doing it. I do see though some (depending on the other villain though) still enemy of my enemy.

[PamelaIsley]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

True enough and I don’t see every villain doing it. I do see though some (depending on the other villain though) still enemy of my enemy.

 

The destruction and collateral damage of a villain on villain fight wouldn't be worth the idea that villains partially cancel themselves out.  Heroes would still have to respond to contain the threat.  This is actually referenced several times in the published villain books (VIPER fighting EUROSTAR, Gravitar fighting EUROSTAR, etc.).

[Ninja-Bear]

Pamelaisley I wasn’t referring to villain on villain fight per se-though that could happen with the right villains. Irl during WWII the Feds worked with the Mob because the Mob could control hence watch the docks better than the Feds for Nazi activity. I can see some villains helping the Heroes to get rid of other villains.

[PamelaIsley]

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Pamelaisley I wasn’t referring to villain on villain fight per se-though that could happen with the right villains. Irl during WWII the Feds worked with the Mob because the Mob could control hence watch the docks better than the Feds for Nazi activity. I can see some villains helping the Heroes to get rid of other villains.

 

I think villains do sometimes work against each other.  But I don't think it happens often enough or would be effective enough to truly affect the demographic balance.

[Greywind]

If you look to Gotham, several of Batman's rogues gallery are crime lords and/or gang leaders. Those inherently tend to work to cross purposes as they all want to be the big fish in charge.

[PamelaIsley]

5 minutes ago, Greywind said:

If you look to Gotham, several of Batman's rogues gallery are crime lords and/or gang leaders. Those inherently tend to work to cross purposes as they all want to be the big fish in charge.

 

But that doesn't mean that Gotham needs fewer police officers.

[Greywind]

Could use a few more heroes, too, but there's that guy in black that thinks, "MY city."

[massey]

I just happen to have the old DC Heroes 2nd edition Batman sourcebook.  This would be from about 1989, so just Post-Crisis.  A lot of the character designs are still very Silver Age.

 

Joker, R'as Al Ghul, Catwoman, Two-Face, Hugo Strange,

Penguin, Scarecrow, Riddler, Black Spider (?), Bonecrusher (?),

Cat Man, The Cavalier (?), Clayface 2, Clayface 3, Crazy Quilt,

Deacon Blackfire, Deadshot, Fay "Ma" Gunn (?), KGBeast, Killer Moth,

Mad Hatter, Man Bat, Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy, The Reaper (?),

and Talia Al Ghul

 

26 villains total.  Well, 24 villains and 2 semi-girlfriends.  The 1st edition book included Killer Croc and somebody named Night Slayer, but was missing a lot of these other characters.  So we'll say 26 villains and 2 girlfriends.  Clearly some of these characters did not stand the test of time.  Here's probably how I'd handle it.

 

Batman's first tier opponents (Joker, R'as, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler) will each come back several times over the course of a campaign.  Each would be played to give Batman a serious threat.  They don't have to be able to physically match him if they've got goons and traps and schemes.  But basically these guys are too resourceful to be captured by regular cops, and they'll escape some months after Batman captures them.  He works to keep them in check, so their appearances will be staggered.

 

His second tier opponents (Mister Freeze, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, Man Bat, Scarecrow, Croc, maybe a Clayface (except I know the comic version is different from the animated series version)) will show up maybe twice.  You get a first appearance where they catch him off guard, and then maybe they get a return visit several months later when Batman finally gets to catch them.  Prison/Arkham won't be a revolving door for them, they stay put for a while until somebody breaks them out (i.e., you want them to come back).

 

His love interests are probably never actually captured.  They show up mainly as Batman's complications/disadvantages.  They are roleplaying elements as opposed to actual villains.

 

Then you've got the third tier opponents (probably everybody else).  They range from a single short combat (you can't think of anything else and so you throw together a random character, give him a stupid name, and have him rob a bank) to maybe a long story arc that the player just doesn't respond to.  These guys are never coming back.

 

So a little over half the villains in the list are one-shot characters who will probably never repeat over the course of the campaign.  They are nobodies who will go away forever after they are defeated.  Of the remaining characters, 60% of them will maybe appear twice or so over the course of the story.  Then you've got about 40% of them who will be recurring villains that are heavily identified with that character.  They show up a lot.  They might qualify as a Hunted.

 

I could buy a setup like that.  Over the course of what should be Batman's career, there are only a handful that he really needs to face over and over again.  Expanding that to the Champions Universe, I don't see any reason why Eurostar, the Ultimates, VIPER, etc, all need to be active at once.  It can be fun to play around in a static universe where COBRA always has a new plot, every week, and they never run out of money or vehicles or robot troops.  Or where the Legion of Doom comes back each week to challenge the heroes.  But if you want a more "realistic" setting, I don't think it's that hard to do.  Just remember these guys aren't all running around at the same time.

[Wakshaani]

"It depends."

That's a terrible, but true, retort.

For instance, if you want a Silver Age-styled game, where heroic morality is important, then the heroes need to be more powerful, and better-looking, than the villains, who all need to be failures, generally be ugly, and who are weaker than the hero, showcasing good soul = STRONG while weak will = weak.

This is why you got SUPERMAN vs Lex Luthor, or BATMAN vs the Ten-Fingered Man. Good was stronger because it was good and evil was, by definition, weak, tricky, and cowardly.

A Bronze Age game, meanwhile, likes heroes with feet of clay, struggling uphill against powerful forces... in these stories, bad guys are rich, powerful, and surrounded by beauty as they showcase how crime PAYS. Heroes are roughed up, tossed out windows, always broke, mocked for being suckers, etc. Badguys often skate (unless the hero gives in to being just as bad as the badguy and killing them), while the hero's never appreciated for what they do.

I tend to go more of a blend personally, with some villains being more powerful in many areas (Master villains) while others are stronger in a narrow field but weak in general (For instance, Ogre, amazingly strong but dumb, or Pulsar, powerful blaster with small-time aim.) … but there's also room for some weak, "cameo" villains like Bulldozer or King Bee who can be swatted aside easily, moving the story along.

It all comes down to what you intend for your villains to *do*, honestly.

[PamelaIsley]

9 hours ago, massey said:

I could buy a setup like that.  Over the course of what should be Batman's career, there are only a handful that he really needs to face over and over again.  Expanding that to the Champions Universe, I don't see any reason why Eurostar, the Ultimates, VIPER, etc, all need to be active at once.  It can be fun to play around in a static universe where COBRA always has a new plot, every week, and they never run out of money or vehicles or robot troops.  Or where the Legion of Doom comes back each week to challenge the heroes.  But if you want a more "realistic" setting, I don't think it's that hard to do.  Just remember these guys aren't all running around at the same time.

 

First off, I got a copy of the Batman Roleplay Game (heavily used) when I was in middle school and that was my introduction to roleplaying (I am sure it was published years before and out of print when I got it; I never even knew there was a broader DC game until much later since I never saw it).  The book has had a profound influence on my hobbies.

 

Second off, I just don't think I agree with you.  The idea that villains pop up in onesies and twosies and are dealt with by the already extant heroes doesn't make a lot of demographic sense either.  I think a GM needs to understand what the world population of superhumans is (6,000 according to CU, if using that as a guide), divide them up between heroes and villains (3:2, according to CU again), and then figure out what makes the most sense in terms of relative power levels.  The last is where I think CU breaks down and requires GM modifications.

 

Third off, I am going to replace VIPER with COBRA in My Champions Universe. 

[Greywind]

Hopefully, you'll make them more of a threat than they ever were to GI Joe.

[PamelaIsley]

3 hours ago, Greywind said:

Hopefully, you'll make them more of a threat than they ever were to GI Joe.

 

Well, they can't do much worse than VIPER . . . .

[massey]

3 hours ago, PamelaIsley said:

 

First off, I got a copy of the Batman Roleplay Game (heavily used) when I was in middle school and that was my introduction to roleplaying (I am sure it was published years before and out of print when I got it; I never even knew there was a broader DC game until much later since I never saw it).  The book has had a profound influence on my hobbies.

 

Second off, I just don't think I agree with you.  The idea that villains pop up in onesies and twosies and are dealt with by the already extant heroes doesn't make a lot of demographic sense either.  I think a GM needs to understand what the world population of superhumans is (6,000 according to CU, if using that as a guide), divide them up between heroes and villains (3:2, according to CU again), and then figure out what makes the most sense in terms of relative power levels.  The last is where I think CU breaks down and requires GM modifications.

 

Third off, I am going to replace VIPER with COBRA in My Champions Universe. 

 

My introduction to RPGs was in the DC Heroes Legion of Superheroes "Pawns of Time" module.  I got it for my birthday when I was like 10 or 11 from a cousin who got it at the dollar store.  She didn't know what it was, just saw it had superheroes on it and it was cheap (I wasn't into superheroes at the time, and had never heard of the Legion).  I didn't know what it was, and it didn't have the rules for the game.  I must have read through that book 50 times trying to figure out their AP math system.  Never had any clue how it was supposed to work until years later.

 

As far as villains appearing, it's up to you how you want your world to work.  In the Batman/Superman Animated Series universe, the heroes start out relatively new and when villains first appear, it's the first time anyone's ever seen them (maybe with the exception of the Joker and a couple other characters).  The first appearance of the Riddler is his origin story.  The first appearance of Two-Face is his origin story.  That's the case with most of the characters in that show, at least for the first few seasons.  As they went on to Justice League and then Justice League Unlimited, villains could show up who you'd never seen before, and it was assumed they'd had some sort of costumed adventure life beyond what was shown in the show.  Where you want to put your characters within that spectrum is entirely up to you.

[PamelaIsley]

5 minutes ago, massey said:

 

As far as villains appearing, it's up to you how you want your world to work.  In the Batman/Superman Animated Series universe, the heroes start out relatively new and when villains first appear, it's the first time anyone's ever seen them (maybe with the exception of the Joker and a couple other characters).  The first appearance of the Riddler is his origin story.  The first appearance of Two-Face is his origin story.  That's the case with most of the characters in that show, at least for the first few seasons.  As they went on to Justice League and then Justice League Unlimited, villains could show up who you'd never seen before, and it was assumed they'd had some sort of costumed adventure life beyond what was shown in the show.  Where you want to put your characters within that spectrum is entirely up to you.

 

The Batman and Superman animated universe (and the broader Diniverse I guess) are my favorite comic setting nowadays, but the difference between them and Champions is that it is heavily implied that there basically are no superheroes before Batman and Superman (in fact, doesn't Mrs. Kent make this very point to Clark when discussing his Superman identity in the pilot for S:TAS?).  So they work great if you want your PCs to be among the first (or the first) heroes in the world.  That kind of a setting certainly simplifies the universe building.  To me, though, if I'm going to use Hero System rules, I'm going to use the CU (or at least a modified CU).  I would probably use M&M 2E if I were going to use another setting (including a TAS setting).