David Blue

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? People had to die, and many alien creatures had to die. But how can you know how many, if the characters weren't trying to keep casualties down? Was the destruction Alternate Sicily unavoidable? First, I would want to see some characters averse to wild carnage trying to avoid that option, and then we could gauge the difficulties and costs of restraint. Then again, they could have done much worse things than they have. It doesn't seem to occur to them. They make much less of their powers than they could, particularly the Engineer, who has a cosmic power pool but just likes blazing away with guns. Is that a sign of moral restraint, or of mere lack of activity above the (metallic) eyebrows? In general, they have enough power to do what they like, and they like to kill. (Jack Hawksmoor particularly likes punching people's heads off.) And they enjoy drugs and orgies and so on of course - all the normal things. The Authority get far more obvious writer ego-identification and favouritism than is normal in a superhero comic-book, so deus ex machina scenes to showcase doing what suits them best are no problem. What suits them best is the backbone of every scenario, the leitmotif: "they kill".

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? I would express some of this in a less friendly way, but basically yes, you proved your case. I would not say that the Authority never protected anybody. Clearly they did. I think superheroes should be virtuous figures of power and protection. The power is not in doubt with the Authority. And here is the protection. It is very substantial, and it must weigh heavily in the Authority's favour. You were right to call attention to that. Well done. Of course I also weigh protection of Latveria heavily in Doctor Doom's favour. Yes they do, on occasion. Dr. Krigstein. No, a carnival of vileness for their own amusement is by far their foemost concern. Seth was potentially such a threat that I would have quite understood if they had simply killed him stone cold dead the instant they had a chance to do so. That would have been prudent. Instead, they delayed to kill him in an especially degrading manner. (Which also showed hateful contempt for the normals involved.) It was a classic villainous "bit" - the death-trap, because "shooting's too good for him". It belonged in something like Hannibal - and Mason Verger is not a hero just because Hannibal Lecter is a villain. In this world, the villains win. But this was still an asinine stunt for their own sick pleasure, it would still have served them right if Seth had unexpectedly recovered his powers, and it was still a moment that defined them clearly, unmistakably as villains. When Miracleman killed Johnny Bates, that was a ruthless action taken to prevent further harm. If you contrast that scene, and Miracleman's feelings about it, with how the Authority kill, and their feelings about that, you've pretty much got a capsule picture of why I regard Miracleman as forgivable and still a superhero (though not an unstained one), while the Authority makes it onto my list of comic-book scum. Dr. Krigstein was and is an unrepentant killer. (Seemingly representing Jack Kirby, which I didn't like.) Here is the whole of his "repentance," such as it is: "You can't kill a man for trying to save the human race from nutrasweet, pokemon and Governor George W. Bush." And they didn't spare this utterly unrepentant mass killer - they made him their ideas man, guiding their top-down world reconstruction. Because they lack ideas of their own. Mindless violence is their field, uninating on foes (and worse), their wit. That done, they are out of clues, and must hire some villain with more going for him in the top story to come up with master plans. Again, this puts the Authority on a much, much lower level than Doctor Doom. They're not just villains, they're punks, thugs, sickening nobodies.

Re: Essential Bad Champions With Superman and Batman I would argue it, and with Captain America probably also. But with Professor X you have an example that's too good for me to want to argue with. OK, so this is a comic "bit" after all. I'm standing by chronic action-holding stalling contests in what should be hot combat as "Essential Bad Champions." It's part of the way gamemasters teach the players to abuse the rules and argue every interpretation. This happens especially with agents, because it's so inspiring for mere men, trained, couragous etc.. to do well against supers. You have to show the agents being smart. And the way they show that they are smart, often, is to work the rules. The players go to school on that. Agents gain great advantages by stalling. Pretty soon the heroes are stalling too, all God's chillun gotta stall, seemingly endlessly, in combat. Agents have equipment that exploits every loophole in the rules, and the gamemaster's perhaps surprising interpretations of the rules (which they somehow always knew about in advance and the player characters didn't of course), to achieve superior bang-for-a-buck! All right, the heroes learn that munchkinisms are the way to be cool and smart, and that the path to victory and fame often passes through a non-intuitive rules call in your favour. Munchkin-fu advances mightily, and players argue all day and all night for "good" (profitable) calls. Total domination by rules rorting, by playing the Speed Chart, by exploiting the overwhelming points and power to be gained from the Focus "limitations" and power frameworks and +1/4s and unlikely calls and House Rules - all this is Essential Bad Champions. Certain comic characters do become defined perennial victims. But it doesn't seem to be because they lack rule-exploiting efficiency. For exploiting the focus and vehicles rules, Blue Beetle would be (nearly) as good as the Batman. I think the systematic and inexorable invalidation or downgrading of characters that are less cost-efficient point builds is also Essential Bad Champions.

Re: Why Kill At All? There's a strong scene in Insomnia (2002) where an intelligent killer (Walter Finch, very well played by Robin Williams) talks about the special, irrevocable line that's crossed in killing and the whys and wherefores, and Detective Will Dormer (well played by Al Pacino) answers him: "You don't get it do you Finch? You're my job. You're what I'm paid to do. You're about as mysterious to me as a blocked toilet is to a f******g plumber. Reasons for doing what you did? Who gives a f**k?" I prefer my superheroes to be like the magical, special, genuinely superior people who don't kill, and not like a blocked toilet. It's just that, for reasons of necessity, for reasons of duty, for many valid and even in some cases highly heroic reasons (as in the famous cowboy movie Shane), remaining a non-killer isn't an acceptable option.

Re: Why Kill At All? "HERO GAMES Discussion Boards > Genres > Champions" We are in a discussion area for Champions, which is supposed to be based on comic-book superheroes. This thread, "Why Kill At All?" is within this genre. Within this genre, codes versus killing require no defence. Supereroes who don't kill are commonly portrayed as superior to killers (in power and in all sorts of ways). Superheroes that kill are often bad superheroes or not superheroes at all. (Villains, more likely.) Writing or editing that forces superheroes to kill or something worse will happen is likely (not certain) to be bad writing or editing. (In much the same way that it would be abominable writing for action movies if the action heroes were regularly placed in positions where they really did have to kill innocents including their loved ones or else the villains would nuke whole cities. There is nothing inherently good about writing where heroes are confronted with hard choices in bad situations and are forced to "do their best and soldier on". The decision that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" may be the right, the inescapable one, and still leave the hero or former hero irreparably soiled.) All this emphasis on the merits of restraint and even on sometimes turning the other cheek is not the only approach to comic book superheroes, but it is second to none in popularity and artistic success. You don't like this genre, you have negative/hostile feelings towards it, you don't buy or enjoy the source material. OK, fine, that's your preference. I and others do like this genre, we have positive feelings for it when it's done well, and we do buy and enjoy the source material. I don't find "perfect people" boring. I find them inspiring. It's the morally compromised thugs I find boring.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? (standing applause) CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP!! BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? You need a proper hunted: "My nem is T-X, I am big experimental Russian cyber-tank. You killed my predecessors. Prepare to die!" Hunter is less powerful (everything is less powerful than Super-M1a), hunter has extensive non-combat influence (through international Russian mafya contacts), hunter appears 11- (not 14- - T-X sometimes has to go and blow people up in the Caucuses, and after Super-M1a blows each one up, the next takes a certain amount if time to build), harshly punish (Boom! - it never works, but that's the idea): +15pts You also need at least a Watched by insurance companies concerned about property damage.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? Remember to take the USS Iowa as a Rival: Professional and Romantic (Army-Navy jealousy, shore-leave conflicts over native sweeties); Rival is Less Powerful (only 10 Defense); Seeks to Outdo, Humiliate or Embarrass Rival (fielding more sailors for Army-Navy games etc.); Rival Aware of Rivalry (or course): 5pts. 5 more if you can get a fellow player to play the USS Iowa.

Re: Essential Bad Champions Ah, yup. These can be combined for extra obnoxiousness. "Being upstaged by the vastly superior forces of "normal guy with M-16 and tank" is a good start. Then you may get to meet the gamemaster's favourite action movie heroes (eg. Eraser) as you-get-no-say-about-it government liaisons: he is the one with the personality (that interests and impresses the gamemaster), you're the one with the powers; but yet with just some government-issued firepower and resourcefulness, he certainly can hold his own, can't he? The power of the human spirit is a marvellous thing. Then you get Genocide Agents with potent weaponry (DEX 20, levels, and double autofire killing attacks, at that time +8 to hit and twice as many shots as normal) displaying always on area effect team telepathy and always holding actions. Action-holding battles are "essential bad Champions" in my view. Endless holding (and minute exploitation of the rules) simulates absolutely nothing in comics, but it can and often does drag out and dominate Hero System combats. Then you get "Major Tim". "Major Tim" takes your heroic personae firmly in hand. He has government issued foci that surpass any player character by a wide margin in every department (a rocket backpack 50% better than any winged flight, government-issued wrist-blasters handsomely superior to any mutant energy blast, a government-issued force-field belt better than - and so on) and he's a rough, tough, take no back-talk, hard-charging natural leader, quite a lot like the gamemaster on way too much steroids. If the government has a mission for you and you don't feel up to answering your country's call, "Major Tim" can set you straight, any time, anywhere. In general, I find campaign morality-enforcer NPCs, especially but not only with the government telling them to do whatever they/the gamemaster want to do ... superfluous to my personal requirements for complete bliss. (I was delighted when a later gamemaster had our official we-get-no-say-about-this Government Liaison (spy/plant) be a Mister Lackey, who was in fact just a bureaucratic lackey and left the heroics to us. Yayy!) Admittedly, you also had the Avengers suffering a problem like this - but their government contacts didn't have GI (Government Issue) gear that made them far superior to any Avenger. The unbeatable NPC "campaign boss" morality enforcer is a classic bad Champions bit, not a classic comic bit. Relatively harmless minor variations: (a) Players quoting rules at the gamemaster. He made a call, OK? Drop it. ( Players not letting go of (a) all through the afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning. I don't want to know, he's the gamemaster, it's his call! © Someone spitting out the answer while you're trying to count and total your dice - and generally moving brusquely on to their phase of complicated action-holding if-then statements. Variation: three more players than there are chairs, or room for chairs. This combines "nicely" with play that is alway going to end at midnight no matter what, this time, and reliably extends to 3am of a Sunday, or worse a Monday morning because of a really big, exceptional, one-off (fight) adventure. Which can make getting knocked out at Sunday 8:30pm or so a blessing, even if it didn't seem that way when it happened. I suspect a lot of horror stories about what violent and evil things player characters did in Champions should add: "This happened at 1:30 am before a working day, and the player, who was red-eyed, hungry and had not sat down properly for hours, prefaced his homicidal actions with a bloodshot stare and the words: "Right. Let's just finish this. ..."

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to?

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to?

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill?

Re: Why does the USS Iowa only have a 10 Defense? "Strength" includes many things. One very strong man will not have all the gifts of strength in equal measure. Hand-speed, essential to a boxer, is less crucial to a high-jumper, though both have to be fast and explosive to produce power and excel at their sports. So I will agree with you, provided "direct" does not necessarily mean "linear and uniform". Of course, for game purposes we assume that the relationship between lifting capacity, fast, explosive movement (base leaping) and damage-dealing is uniform and linear. And that's fine. It's a necessary, useful simplification. So, if someone has a lifting capacity of 25 million tons, or four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza (estimated), they have a strength of 150, they do 30d6 damage punching, and if they stand in place in front of an Abrams tank and simply punch it they will do it no BODY, except on a high roll. And, if someone has a lifting capacity of 25 tons, or about the weight of a frigate or a small standing stone, they have a strength of 50, they do 10d6 damage punching, and if they stand in place in front of the USS Iowa and simply punch it they will do it no BODY, except on a high roll. OK, does that sound about right? Should someone with a lifting capacity of 25 tons, punching steadily and endlessly, do the USS Iowa no damage on average, but gradually wreck it in the long term due to an accumulation of high rolls? That doesn't sound obviously and hopelessly wrong to me. Well not straight away, on the little I know. It's hard to tell: we don't have a lot of 50 strength guys around to test the matter. But I think in this case, you want to build the USS Iowa as something like a floating base. Twenty-five Ton Tony is going to have to hammer away for a long, long time at hex after hex of the USS Iowa to demolish it (unless of course he buys mega-scale for his strength or something like that). His friend who's a million times as strong will have a harder time getting above average rolls (because more dice mean more predicability), but only has to demolish a hex or so to effectively demolish the tank.

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? I should add something on "superior Silver Age morality", since I know this is controversial. (And again, I'm not trying to tick anyone off here, just making my own call clear.) I think a superhero who doesn't kill is much better than one that does. Much better. But the opportunity to legitimately remain a non-killer hero can pass from a character. Must superheroes seem to acquire their powers, which they (as individuals) need, to be superheroes, by luck. They can lose part of their superheroic standing in the same way. A time comes, when your powers fade or are lost, but perhaps you can still be hero if you make the right choices. Just not as good as you used to be. Or, a time comes when it would only be possible to refrain from killing by putting your own spotless record ahead of the innocents who will be killed if you don't kill the bad guy first. If you make the only right choice in that case, I think you can still be a superhero. Just not as good as you used to be. On the other hand, if you need a writer to get you out of that situation, because choosing between saving the lives of innocents and remaining a spotless, perfect-record "superhero" is a tough call - colour me unimpressed. If I couldn't shunt aside Reed Richards sparing Galactus, as though that didn't happen, I couldn't see Mister Fantastic as a hero. That's my take on killing, the topic of this thread. I'd rather ideas related to superheroes as upholders of authority, as rebels or whatever were dealt with in some other thread. I think those ideas are separable.

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill?

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to?

Re: Why Kill At All? What OddHat said. Since I should add something, I'll use Last Hero as an example. Threaten the egg he guards and you trigger a Total psychological limitation. Congratulations, you have now convinced the equivalent of a 12ft tall Pak Protector that you are a prime menace to his bloodline. The rest has a tragic inevitability - unless you fall down, out cold (no longer a threat to the egg) but alive. In which case you trigger a Moderate psychological limitation: love of life, all life, even the lives of enemies. In no case does punishment have anything to do with it. PS: almost the same example in a more familiar form: suppose Surtur's demon minions catch up with the fleet of the sleeping alien race guarded by Beta Ray Bill and Skuttlebutt. Combat ensues. Stormbreaker and Skuttlebutt's cannons slay many. What has this to do with whether the demon minions get 72 virgins apiece in a possible after-life? Nothing.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? Not all agents. Just some. But yes, the deck is stacked. It's a natural thing, though: V.O.I.C.E. Agents pretty much as described, VIPER Agents traditionally with activation roll Force Fields - this is Hero System genre. (nods) Sure. Different experiences, different reactions. Thus what looks like a grab for free points to one reasonable person can look like a harsh restriction to another. Some things are absolutely ridiculous, like your opening example, but others are much more contestable, and this I think is one. I suspect different experiences and having different examples in mind may have a lot to do with the different approaches to the "heroes who kill" thread.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to?

Re: Character Design Theory Anytime. That's one of my frustrated ambitions too.

Re: What's the most ridiculous PC you've ever been subjected to? nexus: "You think that's bad, I had a player that wanted to play an M! Abrhams. How in the world was I going to challenge that thing?!" Take the USS Iowa as a Rival: Professional and Romantic (Army-Navy jealousy, shore-leave conflicts over native sweeties); Rival is Less Powerful (only 10 Defense); Seeks to Outdo, Humiliate or Embarrass Rival (fielding more sailors for Army-Navy games etc.); Rival Aware of Rivalry (or course): 5pts. 5 more if you can get a fellow player to play the USS Iowa.

Re: Character Design Theory There are problems with an overly long character background. One of them is that some characters should have little or no background. "I'm an android. My background is: my pod opened one second ago, activating my self-awareness system and my "Fight crime!" program." Half the fun with a character like that is that everything is a first. But there are also problems with a character background that's too short. Anything that is vital to the character that belongs to their original culture will be filled in with cliches if it is left blank. That can easily overwrite the character. It seemed from the movie "Alexander" that to Oliver Stone, Alexander the Great was "a gay guy," (or if you prefer, bisexual) and the rest got filled in from there with modern cliches, much to the detriment of a portrait of Alexander. If you want to describe Greek customs on sexuality at the time, it will run to more than a paragraph. That doesn't mean that if you were playing a dimension-hopping analogue of Alexander you'd need pages of information on Greek sexuality because it should be coming up all the time. (The issues that would come up all the time might relate to being a violent glory-hound.) But you would need something to say what he really thinks, because otherwise you'll likely get to a point like this: The gamemaster has a plot hook that he's devised that assumes Al the Alien is going to be repulsed by an offer of mature female companionship, and will chase a pretty boy. The player naturally says, no way: Al will concentrate on his plans for war, pretty boy will be rejected with contempt, and a princess if she's politically useful or just good-looking may well get a yes and a good time. The gamemaster sees his plot derailing, and demands the player play in character (a "character" that is mostly blanks filled in by assumptions and cliches about gays). Not good, but it can easily happen. If the campaign description includes player characters having no psychological issues that don't conform to knee-jerk current assumptions, then fine. But if you want player characters to be ably to have genuinely different approaches to sex, or religion, or politics or anything else, you need room for the player to define what this is about, not have it filled in by lowest common denominator assumptions.

Re: Creation philosophy Yes, close it please.

Re: Creation philosophy I recommend you reconsider your assumptions. It would be a pity if you hurt your hands, and twice the pity if people then said you had laboured in vain because your assumptions were invalid.

Re: Creation philosophy