drunkonduty

IMO Nebula does not work as a recurring villain. Her attitudes are too extreme and inflexible, explicitly hardwired into her brain; she's incapable of character growth. Her Duress Gauntlets are a plot device that doesn't bear repeating, lest your players turn on you. She's best used for a single story line culminating in escaping/rescuing someone from Duress. Nebula should probably end her role in a campaign either captured and imprisoned, or somehow sent back to her home galaxy.
 
Hero Games has traditionally done better than the comics at creating villainesses who are "master" level or can readily become so, and the current Champions Universe continues that tradition. Besides Istvatha V'han and Gravitar, we have the Shadow Queen, the Duchess, the Engineer, Demoiselle Nocturne, Chantal, Hecate... that's not counting the unsubtle raw powerhouses like Viperia, Galaxia and Eclipsar.
 
But the official Champions master villain I dislike the most is Dr. Destroyer, mainly for one reason: he's boring. You can sum up his character in three words: Power, Intellect, Arrogance. There's nothing more to him, no depth, no shadings. Nothing to make role playing him interesting. I was hoping Book Of The Destroyer would put some role playing meat on those megalomaniacal bones, show us what led to him becoming the man he is. Instead his megalomania seemed full-blown from childhood, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. BOTD mentions or cites many details from Albert Zerstoiten's past with great potential if they'd been followed up, but Steve Long almost never did.
 
A secondary element of my dislike for DD is that he has no redeeming qualities. Destroyer was originally inspired by Dr. Doom, but has none of Doom's nobility or grandeur. Destroyer pretends to be honorable, but will betray and backstab anyone the moment it's to his advantage. The Doctor is monumentally petty and spiteful, devising horrible torments in retribution for the smallest slights. He's like the worst Internet troll imaginable, but with the power and intellect to back up his ravings.

Honestly, I would say that about every Batman villain, that series went a long way to making the villains have depth of character and influenced much of what came after.

First off.  If any of my players are reading this thread.  STOP.
 
I am afraid that I have done very little conversion work.  Our D&D 5E group became disillusioned with all the shenanigans going on with the publishers and community.  We then reverted back to AD&D 2E with an all new campaign, but that only lasted a few sessions before some of the younger members in our group made it know that they really didn't like the system that much.  So now we transitioned over to Hero System.  At first people attempted to replicate their 1st level D&D characters in Hero which is possible but you end up with some really wonky builds.  After that first attempt I encouraged the players to just keep their background and history and rebuild the characters using the published Hero System sources.  This has worked much better.  The elves used the elf template from Fantasy Hero, the Gnome and Halfling did the same (6-players, 2 elves, 1 gnome, 1 halfling, 2 humans).
 
Since it is new to most of the group, I started them off in the Village of Hommlet.  In AD&D they made one foray to the moathouse (where one got eaten by a big lizard) and then retreated to regroup.  We transitioned the campaign to Hero system.  Four of the characters kept the same character idea that they had.  One player changed.  And the deceased character was a new build as well.  I have pretty much just gotten the equivlent critters from the Hero System Bestiary where possible and just made a quick build for the few I did not have (Bugbear and Gnoll).  I have even used the Hero System Ghouls even though they lack the paralytic power of the AD&D versions.
 
So basically I convert as little as I can get away with.  And since most of the group was not familiar with Greyhawk, they do not necessiarly come across as typical Greyhawk characters.  One guy is running a character based on Bell from a certain popular anime.  And then the Complications that players have put on their characters have given me all sorts of material I can use as, well Complications.  I am trying to bring those complications to life using Greyhawk background where possible.  And at least one character is familar with the background and so is essentially running a former Scarlet Brotherhood monk who is being hunted by them as a traitor.  

Many fine games mentioned. Also, Gamma World.

Many fine games mentioned. Also, Gamma World.

Many fine games mentioned. Also, Gamma World.

If this doesn't spark an idea for an amazing superhero campaign then nothing will:
 

 
(Seen on Mastodon, original source not known)

I would not build an invisible attack with an obvious focus as that would be foolish but if someone else did I'd just treat it as any other invisible attack with the advantages that implies and, more to the point, they have paid points for.

D&D is indeed bound to Vancian magic but I dont think Greyhawk needs to be.  I think there is a role for circles of magic and hierarchies and how I make that work is something I am working on.
 
I am looking forward to working through the Monster Manual and comparing to what has been done elsewhere.

I don't know how many versions of the game I may be mixing here, but aren't there sweep and multiple move bys and grab one guy, slam another, and martial throws?
 
There's a lot of ways for a sufficiently superior hero to hold many lesser foes at bay!
 
And once you've done a dramatic one, Roll that PRE Attack!

STR: 12
Animal follower (a squirrel) 
Language: Squirrel
38O pts Luck
Dump the rest into END. 
 
(suggested by my daughter, a fan of the character) 
 
 

ROCK-M
and 
SOCK-M

Politics could also make this even more interesting. Evil organizations could keep the PCs quite busy without them ever leaving the Fortress of Doom.

Does the Dark Lord have children? Are any of the PCs his children? Are there other lieutenants or henchmen? Do they plot and scheme against each other? Will they try to involve the PCs? Do they want to get rid of the PCs and usurp their place at the Dark Lord’s right hand?

The Dark Lord’s beautiful but treacherous daughter may try to use her femme fatale wiles to ensnare a PC in between her time spent pining for the unattainable Hero. Does the PC get jealous and sally forth to stomp on their Hero rival? Perhaps the Dark Lord has more than one daughter from his various mistresses, and they are struggling with each other in the pecking order. Perhaps the Dark Lord’s eldest son is a powerful brute but dim of wit, but the younger son is clever but physically weak.
 
Are there rival factions in the Legions of Doom trying to pawn off their failures on the PCs or get them to do the hard work? Do the PCs have someone lower in social status trying to suck up to them?
 
You could get quite the soap opera going with only a little bit of effort. The PCs may end up having so much going on in the Fortress of Doom that they don’t seem to have much time to get out and enjoy some looting and pillaging.
 
And then there’s the paperwork. It’s all fun and villainous to march around and tyrannize the peasants, but you haven’t seen real evil until you’ve had to deal with the Dark Lord’s bureaucrats. They have ways to make you suffer without ever lifting a sword or wand.

And the last one for today...  The Man with No Fear... Daredevil
 
Daredevil
Val         Char     Cost      Roll       Notes
15           STR         5              12-          Lift 200kg; 3d6 [3]
26           DEX       48           14-          OCV: 9/DCV: 9
18           CON      16           13-
18           BODY    16           13-
18           INT         8              13-          PER Roll 15-
17           EGO       14           12-          ECV: 6
18           PRE        8              13-          PRE Attack: 3½d6
10           COM      0              11-
6/21       PD          3              Total: 6/21 PD (0/3 rPD)
7/18       ED          3              Total: 7/18 ED (0/3 rED)
5              SPD        14           Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12
8              REC       2
36           END       0
35           STUN     0
 
Movement
Running:               6"/12"
Leaping:               3"/6"
Swimming:          2"/4"
Swinging:            10"/20"
 
 
                SKILL LEVELS
5              Trained by Stick: +1 with Martial Arts
3              Billy Club Master: +1 OCV with Billy Club
1              Spacial Awareness: +1 OCV with thrown Billy Club
                 
                AGILITY SKILLS


3              Enhanced Equilibrium: Acrobatics 14-
3              Enhanced Equilibrium: Breakfall 14-
3              Acute Hearing: Lockpicking 14-
3              Defender: Teamwork 14-
                 
                BACKGROUND SKILLS


2              This is My City: CK: Hell's Kitchen 11-
1              I Know the Streets: KS: Criminal Underworld 8-
2              Licensed Attorney: KS: Law 11-
2              Licensed Attorney: KS: Legal System 11-
2              Trained by Stick: KS: Martial Arts 11-
0              Multilingual: Language: English (idiomatic; Native, literate)
2              Multilingual: Language:  Braille (completely fluent; Literate only)
2              Multilingual: Language: Spanish (fluent conversation)
2              Licensed Attorney: PS: Attorney 11-
                 
                COMBAT SKILLS


10           Spacial Awareness: Defense Maneuver I-IV
10           Wields Two Billy Clubs: Two-Weapon Fighting (HTH)
5              Good in a Crowd: Rapid Attack (HTH)
1              Two-Weapon Fighter: WF: Off Hand (+1 DCV with Weapon in Off Hand)
                 
                INTELLECT SKILLS


3              Sharp Mind: Deduction 13-
3              Cut Man: Paramedics 13-
3              Trained by Stick: Security Systems 13-
3              Trained by Stick: Shadowing 13-
 
                INTERACTION SKILLS


3              Defense Attorney: Oratory 13-
3              Trained by Stick: Stealth 14-
3              Trained by Stick: Streetwise 13-
 
                PERKS
3              Daredevil: Reputation: Protects Hell's Kitchen (Residents of Hell's Kitchen) 11-, +3/+3d6
3              Attorney: Money: (over $300K Annual Salary)
1              Passed the Bar: Fringe Benefit: License to practice Law
 
                TALENTS
6              Sense Attacks Coming: Combat Luck (3 PD/3 ED)
 
 
Martial Arts - Trained by Stick
 
                Maneuver                                          OCV      DCV      Notes
4              Atemi Strike                                       -1            +1           2½d6 NND
5              Block                                                     +1           +3           Block, Abort
4              Choke                                                   -2            +0           Grab One Limb; 2½d6 NND
5              Cross * / Flying Kick                      +1           -2            8d6 Strike
4              Dodge                                                   --             +5           Dodge, Affects All Attacks, Abort
4              Disarm                                                  -1            +1           Disarm; 30 STR to Disarm roll
4              Elbow Strike * / Snap Kick           +0           +2           6d6 Strike
4              Escape                                                  +0           +0           35 STR vs. Grabs
4              Foot Push                                             +0           +0           35 STR to Shove
3              Hold                                                       -1            -1            Grab Two Limbs, 30 STR for holding on
5              Hook * / Side Kick                           -2            +1           8d6 Strike
4              Jab * / Front Kick                             +2           +0           6d6 Strike
3              Legsweep                                            +2           -1            5d6 Strike, Target Falls
3              Sacrifice Throw                                 +2           +1           4d6 Strike; You Fall, Target Falls
3              Takedown                                            +1           +1           4d6 Strike; Target Falls
3              Throw                                                    +0           +1           4d6 +v/5, Target Falls
 
1              Weapon Element: Jo Sticks *
4              +1 HTH Damage Class(es)
 
POWERS           
 
15           Billy Club: Multipower, 30-point reserve, OAF (Billy Club; -1)
1u           1) Jo Stick: Hand Attack +3d6, Reduced END (0 END; +½); H-To-H Attack (-½)
1u           2) Swingline: Swinging 10"; Lockout (-1/2)           1
1u           3) Thrown Club: 6d6 P EB; Charges (1 recoverable; -1¼), Lockout (-½), Range Based on Strength (-¼)
5              Second Billy Club
 
5              Black Daredevil Costume: +6 PD; OIF (-½), Real Armor (-¼) plus +4 ED; OIF (-½), Real Armor (-¼)
                - OR - Red Daredevil Costume: Armor (5 PD/3 ED); OIF (Advanced nano-carbon polymer; -½), Half Mass (-3 DEX while wearing; -½), Real Armor (-¼)
                 
7              The Man with No Fear: +10 PRE; Only Against PRE Attacks (-½)
 
                ENHANCED SENSES


25           RADAR Sense: Spatial Awareness (Unusual), 360 Degrees, Discriminatory, Range; Not Through Solids (-½)
20           Parabolic Hearing: Targeting with Hearing Group
8              Human Lie Detector: Detect Lies 15- (Unusual), Range
6              Heightened Senses: +2 PER with all Sense Groups
3              Acute Hearing: Penalty Skill Levels: +2 vs. Range Modifier with Hearing
               
137         Characteristics
260         Powers & Skills
397         Total Points
 
200+      Disadvantages
15           Hunted: Kingpin and his Crime Syndicate 11- (Less Pow; NCI; Harshly Punish)
10           Hunted: The Hand 8- (As Pow; Harshly Punish)
10           Hunted: Daredevil's Rogues Gallery 8- (As Pow; Harshly Punish)
15           Physical Limitation: Blind (Frequently; Greatly Impairing)
20           Psychological Limitation: Driven to see Justice Prevail (Common; Total)
15           Psychological Limitation: Code Versus Killing (Common; Strong)
15           Psychological Limitation: Protective of the people of Hell's Kitchen (Common; Strong)
10           Reputation: Brutal Vigilante, 14-; +3/+3d6 (Only to Hell's Kitchen Criminals)
15           Social Limitation: Secret ID (Matthew Michael 'Matt' Murdock; Frequently (11-), Major)
25           Susceptibility: Loud Noises Lose all Enhanced Senses (120dB+ Noise, Sonic Attacks)
 
                Experience       
47           Experience Points
 
200         Base (Standard)
150         Disadvantages
47           Experience
397         Total Cost

Last weekend, we had a battlemap game where various heroes (not in any supergroup) got together at a park to protect a park statue from being stolen from villains. Among these villains is one of the campaign's most powerful bricks: Armageddon. This brick is from an old book "Trouble for HAVOC" (although he no longer has an 8 Spd!). Anyways, my detective character minifig is closest to him; I decided to have him go up against him and I say aloud, "This is nuts, but my character's going for Armageddon."  Really, one hit from this brick and my character will go down.

Here's where I pull off a few brilliant moves: my detective character has Cinematic Brawling. So, I delay until Armageddon is ready to attack, then use the Eye Gouge attack and blind him for 5 phases. He's blinded and misses. Next attack phase, I use Hoise & Heave and throw him away from me. This allows another character to use a blinding light (Darkness ) on Armageddon when he can see.
 
In the meanwhile, my detective turns on another supervillain who throws things to entangle heros. My 6's move is to make a half-phase up to him from behind and clear his throat. When the villain turns around, my detective slaps him in the face saying, "That's for attacking a woman."  Next phase, my character delays until the villain reaches for his chemical ball to entangle my detective so I use Disarm on him and he drops the ball, entangling himself.  (Every villain we fought, we found out later, had Unluck!)

Quite frankly, I thought my detective character was going to be *splat* quickly but somehow, quick thinking made him shine in the other character's eyes.

A solo character sheet for Complications should probably not be a duplicate of a team character sheet of the same hero. In a team environment flush out the supporting cast but DNPCs and Hunters get an 8- and then I’m not under such pressure to explain why your attorney shows up in the Shattered Dimension. I just use them when they make good sense and don’t make things too convoluted. 

You're right there, NPCs (with rare exceptions) shouldn't outshine the PCs in special knowledge / skills the PCs have, unless they're being set up as a distinct rival.  However, having NPCs who cover skills the PCs don't have, can be quite useful.  For example, none of the PCs in my current campaign have any chemistry skills, so a quirky chemist could be useful if a particular plotline calls for it.  But that sort of thing should just be a "guest shot" and not a constant presence, unless one or more of the players feel differently.*
 
* I've introduced NPCs before with the intent of them just being background help or one-shots, but a player sought the NPC out afterward.  For instance, a superheroine was dating the team's rich financier, and one time I had her work with his personal assistant, who was a bureucratics whiz who also acted a bit like the financier's surrogate mother.  The superheroine ended up taking the assistant on a spa day (along with the team's other superheorine), got involved a bit in the assistant's personal life, and so on.  She became a semi-regular in the game, but that was driven by the players so I figured it was fine.

I like when a player adds to the campaign world. If that's in the form of NPCs I'm cool with that. 
 
But yes, it's possible for someone to oversaturate the campaign with their NPCs. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule as to how many is too many. But I'll know it when I see it.
 
I do think there's a difference between Hunteds and DNPCs on the one hand, and general supporting cast on the other. All characters should have supporting cast. These are the NPCs who ground them in the game world. They are the depth and richness that comes from having known and (somewhat) developed characters in the game world. 
 
I wouldn't want to see more than 1 DNPC per character. I mean, I could be talked into allowing it, but generally 1 is enough. That one may be a group, say the orphans of St. Mary's, but they always come as a single group.
 
Hunteds can come in larger numbers. But if a player chooses to have a bunch of hunteds they have to accept that sometimes this will lead to a Sinister 6 scenario - all the hunteds showing up at once.
 
Other times I'll skip a hunted showing up if a single character's background has been coming up more than others. All the players should get equal chance to have their time in the limelight.
 

I like when a player adds to the campaign world. If that's in the form of NPCs I'm cool with that. 
 
But yes, it's possible for someone to oversaturate the campaign with their NPCs. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule as to how many is too many. But I'll know it when I see it.
 
I do think there's a difference between Hunteds and DNPCs on the one hand, and general supporting cast on the other. All characters should have supporting cast. These are the NPCs who ground them in the game world. They are the depth and richness that comes from having known and (somewhat) developed characters in the game world. 
 
I wouldn't want to see more than 1 DNPC per character. I mean, I could be talked into allowing it, but generally 1 is enough. That one may be a group, say the orphans of St. Mary's, but they always come as a single group.
 
Hunteds can come in larger numbers. But if a player chooses to have a bunch of hunteds they have to accept that sometimes this will lead to a Sinister 6 scenario - all the hunteds showing up at once.
 
Other times I'll skip a hunted showing up if a single character's background has been coming up more than others. All the players should get equal chance to have their time in the limelight.
 

At the start of each of my Champions campaigns, I offer my players 5 free XP if they provide me with 5 NPCs (note:  *not* DNPCs) to flesh out their personal world.  They can be family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, what have you.  I promise them that they won't be used as DNPCs, nor can they really be used as Contacts (unless the PC want to pay for them), though I've been known to use them to move the story along or help the PC in small ways.  That doesn't mean that nothing bad ever happens to them - hey, life can get messy sometimes - it's just that it's stuff that doesn't involve the PC.  (I don't kill any of them off, though they might have been witness to a bank robbery or get in a car accident or something similar.)  But mostly, they're just there for day-to-day stuff.  
 
 
Without fail, one or two players go overboard - for example, the player of Eddy / Escudar (the PC martial artist in my current game) gave me a list of 20 people - most are family members, though some are neighbors and friends.  In those cases, I generally concentrate on a handful of them, and maybe bring in other individuals at odd points along the way, or just mention them in passing.  Last time I ran, Eddy's great-grandmother had her 93rd birthday, and Eddy's mom decided to throw a big party for her.  A few individuals got mentioned in passing (one of Eddy's cousins was flirting with a friend / bandmate of Eddy's, and Eddy's sister was crushing on Escudar's teammate Jack Frost, who was at the party in secret ID playing in Eddy's band.
 
I've found such NPCs can really add depth to the game world and be a lot of fun for the players.
 
I do have a few players who take the 5 free XP bu fail to provide me with NPCs, or only give me one or two - out of laziness, rather than malice.  In those cases, I create NPCs for them... and mine aren't always as easygoing as those the players come up with.  These might be the nosy neighbor, or the obnoxious coworker, or the cop with an attitude who keeps pulling the PC over for piddly stuff.  You'd think they'd learn...
 

I like when a player adds to the campaign world. If that's in the form of NPCs I'm cool with that. 
 
But yes, it's possible for someone to oversaturate the campaign with their NPCs. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule as to how many is too many. But I'll know it when I see it.
 
I do think there's a difference between Hunteds and DNPCs on the one hand, and general supporting cast on the other. All characters should have supporting cast. These are the NPCs who ground them in the game world. They are the depth and richness that comes from having known and (somewhat) developed characters in the game world. 
 
I wouldn't want to see more than 1 DNPC per character. I mean, I could be talked into allowing it, but generally 1 is enough. That one may be a group, say the orphans of St. Mary's, but they always come as a single group.
 
Hunteds can come in larger numbers. But if a player chooses to have a bunch of hunteds they have to accept that sometimes this will lead to a Sinister 6 scenario - all the hunteds showing up at once.
 
Other times I'll skip a hunted showing up if a single character's background has been coming up more than others. All the players should get equal chance to have their time in the limelight.
 

I like when a player adds to the campaign world. If that's in the form of NPCs I'm cool with that. 
 
But yes, it's possible for someone to oversaturate the campaign with their NPCs. I don't think there's a hard and fast rule as to how many is too many. But I'll know it when I see it.
 
I do think there's a difference between Hunteds and DNPCs on the one hand, and general supporting cast on the other. All characters should have supporting cast. These are the NPCs who ground them in the game world. They are the depth and richness that comes from having known and (somewhat) developed characters in the game world. 
 
I wouldn't want to see more than 1 DNPC per character. I mean, I could be talked into allowing it, but generally 1 is enough. That one may be a group, say the orphans of St. Mary's, but they always come as a single group.
 
Hunteds can come in larger numbers. But if a player chooses to have a bunch of hunteds they have to accept that sometimes this will lead to a Sinister 6 scenario - all the hunteds showing up at once.
 
Other times I'll skip a hunted showing up if a single character's background has been coming up more than others. All the players should get equal chance to have their time in the limelight.
 

WOTC: I am your father
Paizo: That's Impossible!

Right now, the hubby's Friday game is discussing dumping 5e and switching to a new game system entirely (sadly, HERO will not be an option, mostly WoD or SWADE choices).  They've already cancelled their DND Beyond subscriptions/accounts.

Getting into "personally uncomfortable" territory here, Sir.   
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
If you had asked me as recently as an hour ago, I would have told you that I could not imagine myself defending Steve's ideas about HERO and Champions.
 
Now before any Muskrat-esque condemnation of me starts again:
 
I am _not_ denigrating_ what Steve has done.  I am not blasting it, insulting it, or anything else.  I realize that in this general ambivalence about what Steve has done with the properties has not stopped me,from being dumped on for not being a rabid fanboy of it, which leads me,to wonder why I bothered with the disclaimer once again.
 
 
Okay, so for total disclosure:  
 
I have never kept secret that I don't like the bulk of what Steve has done to the game and to the setting, even goinf back to his earliest stuff back in 4e.  I am _ambivalent_ about it, though, because I know I don't have to use or even to accept it.  I make my purchases because I want to do what I can to support the company as best I am able.  I will continue to do so as I can even if Steve is the only guy who ever writes for it again.
 
Not liking something is not the same as hating it.  I understand that there is an increasingly-large percentage of western culture that has lost the ability to understand that there are more than two positions- worship or destroy- on any given thing.  It's a shame, but I am not here to address that.
 
I also want to point out that while I do _not_ like what Steve has done, I still very much _appreciate_ what he has done: if only for a few more years, he kept the game alive; he injected fresh life and fresh ideas and even got the game back in front of the gaming audience for a while.  No one else had done it in a couple of decades.  He slowed the death spiral, at least for a moment.
 
All that being said, I have to defend this "lazy writing" technique of someone having their brain altered and becoming evil.
 
First:  a small number of people here today are still here from the time i opened up about this:
 
Ir happened to me. I had a traumatic head injury that resulted in a complete personality overhaul (and considerable difficulty in judging the passing of time.  Can't have a total win, I guess).  If the mods will forgive this:
 
Once upon a time, I was a straight up "unforrunately our content filters will not allow you to honestly describe yourself."  There were probably all kinds of influencing factors from my life that combined to result in that, but let's not play Freud right now: I was a self-centered, spiteful, hateful, violent bastard who may or may not have had a deathwish. (For the record, in spite od being acused of it, I never saw it that way.  I just wanted to keep pushing- pushing every thing, all the time, until the universe submitted, and I did not care how big the challenge was.  I only tell you that as someone may be wondering what goes through the head of someone accused of having a 'deathwish;'  it was, for me, nothing more or less that deciding that God Himself was going to have learn his place in the pecking order.)
 
In defense of Steve:
 
Right off the bat, we know that this is quite possible.  I am not the only case of getting new life through brain damage.  Typically, it _does_ go the other way: subjects lose emotional empathy; some lose the ability to experience sociable emotion at all.  Sociopathy has been reported to develop, and the tendency for recurring violent and tantrums are know to be life-long results of brain trauma.  Certainly, there are many other outcomes- I went the exact opposite direction, for example, and the fast majority lose some degree od higher brain function- maybe just a don't bit (say the inability to remember if something was last week or last month or last year, like yours truly here.  (Dont fret:  I have learned a lot of tricks that make this much less problematic than it once was. ))
 
The General trend, though, is results that are to varying degrees detrimental to the individual.  
 
The second most common outcome is detrimental to society: loss of empathy, loss of an ability to maintain or even formulate attachments, all the way to becoming routinely violent, combative, and solipsistic.  Sociopathy, as stated above, is a known (if less-likely) outcome.
 
Now these are from,"real world" causes of physical change to the brain, the staggering majority of which can be lumped into the category of "skull pinata"-  massive or repeated blows to the head resulting in blunt force trauma to the brain.
 
There is also piercing of the brain (bullets, knives, bits of pipe, railroad tamping rods, and what-have-you.  Anyrhing that manages get physically into the brain that probably shouldn't be there- tumors are in this category as well).
 
Then we have changes inbthe brain brought about  by prolonged psychological factors such as routine abuse, long-term job stress, and myriad other things.  These we are more familiar with resulting in psychotic episodes or "breaks" such as the infamous post-officw massacre from which we derived "going postal" and still mock the term "disgruntled" somethinf on the order of three decades later.  
 
More common than breaks, however, is nothing.  That is, no massive release.  The brain changes slowly; the peorsonality is subsumed,and altered quietly, and the subject lives forever in misery.  We tend to say "quiet misery," but this isbonly to make ourselves feel,better about looking agter our fellow man, because few of these subjects do not find relief in creating patterns of abuse and ill-will to those around them.  Perhaps it would be better-termed "quiet violence."  As horrible as it is to accept, those who have a single,violent break are much healthier inbthe mind, and more likely to be treatable: their survival mechanism- though admittedly poorly- has made an effort to effect a change to make their encironment more positive.  Those who don't will continue to get worse, and never come up on the radar as needing help.
 
We as a society _really_ dont want to admit that the guy who "went postal" was likely the most sane person ("most sane" is not the same as "sane;" let's notbput words in my mouth) in such a situation because that would require us to admit that not only has society failed that person, but that it failed far, far more far, far worse, and somethinf should be done.  We are busy, and don't really want to take on anything else right now.  As long as the suffering is silent, there is no problem, right?
 
Again, these are the real-world causes of physical changes to the brain that result in alterations to personality.  There are lesser-studied sources: pollutants, chemicals (outside of recreational drugs and some anti-psychotic, of course), heavy metals, and so on.
 
Steve is writing about a stylized comic book universe where brainwashing works perfectly and the Manchurian Candidate is real.  He is writing about  magic that recreates anything on a whim, hypnosis makes a soft VOOO-vooo-VOOO-vooo-VOOO sound when the enslaved character walks past the camera, and a small vial of serum turns cowardly Albert Snapankles into the hulking stone-jawed Captain Courageous, defender of the downtrodden and hero of the people.
 
Accidents result in super powers.  Doctor Pilsby stands before a rack of OSHA-violatingly-stored and uncataloged chemicals, which explode and bathe him in an unknown mixture of.. Well, all of rhem, yet he does not lose his face and massive chunks of flesh to acidic dissolution; no!  He gains the abilty to read minds, peer through walls, and implant his will directly into the minds of others.
 
Terry Hawthorne goes for a dirtbike ride through the desert and takes a shortcut across that old "abandoned" 1952 airforce base only to find himself at the center of a nuclear explosion!  Yet he isn't  vaporized!  Instead, he rides out from the other side of the explosion astride a mechanical tyranosaurus, built from the wreckage of his bike and the bomb through sheer force of will and his new cyberkineric superpower!  How is he foinf to explain to his mom that the green probably isn't going to wash off?
 
 Lance Valiant is bitten by a snake during a drug binge while on a camping trip, yet he doesn't die a horrible, painful,death.  Instead the venom interacts with the various drugs and mushroom toxins and he gains super-powers!  He can spray a sleep-inducinf neurotoxin from his eyes, spit the most powerful acid known to man, and melt his legs into a twenty-foot serpent's tail  that lets him race across the ground at over one hundred miles per hour!
 
A baby alien crash lands on earth, and rather than dying because our atmosphere is phlogiston-poor, he discovers that the phlogiston of his native world works to supress his native superpowers!  Against all odds, he looks exactly like us, too!  Of only there was some way for him to learn how to-  holy crap!  An older couple- in mid-lament of their childless marriage, no less!- just happens to be passing right at this moment!  They instantly adopt this godlike infant, and,somehow they manage to raise him without accidentallycgetting killed by a temper tantrum.  Not only that, but he understands that he must willingly let his tormentors torture him (and he must also really,want to save these horriblenpeople when they are in danger-you know: because he is the only,one who can keep his personal,demons alive, even though no one would fault a 'mere,huma' for being unable to save them) -- somehow they instill morals so powerful that space Jesus doesn't take over the world in a fit of teenage angst.
 
And so on, and so forth. 
 
What I am getting at here is that it is impossible to overstate just how stylized and 'perfect' the comic book world is---
 
But there are criminals and plots and misdeeds at every turn---!
 
Yes.  And there are _always_ super heroes on the case, just in the nick of time,  to thwart them over and over and over again, because it is a stylized and perfect universe.  Even those "big looming plota that threaten us all" like the anti-mutant thing and...  Crap!  Who was that oil company that Iron Man used to fight all the time?   They made that goon squad of snake people....
 
Anyway, even those threats are completely static.  They never get better; they never get worse.  They just _are_.  Galactus never eats the earth, and he never stops trying.  The fiant robots-with-watchcaps never kill all the mutants, and the powers that be never stop funding them.  Tony Stark loses his company, and,he gets it back.  Superman dies, but only for little while.
 
(For what it is worth, the constant mandate to return everything to this idyllic status quo is one of the larger turn-offs for me with regard to  the supers genre.  There are others, but that status quo thing is maddening.)
 
 
 
 
Thus far, we have established brain trauma creating villains is, at least in theory, quite plausible on the outside fringes of the results-of-brain-damage diagram.
 
We have established that rhe comic book universe is heavily idealized.
 
I think we can take it as given that thw Champions Universe we know and some,of you love today is in its entirety the creation of Steve Long. 
 
Something that we don't discuss a lot here is the shift in our social attitudes about bad guys.  We have discussed  it with regard to Fantasy more than anything- we all seem,to be happy with the shift away from the concept of "evil by nature" as applied to "evil races" and,"good races."  Once upon a time, we were perfectly with "all orcs are evil."
 
The thing is, culturally, we know that evil exists, but we also grew up, and we finally understood that the filundamental - well, not even a flaw, not even a mistake, but the evil inherent in the assumption that evil is tied to ethnicity.
 
We grew up, and we are still growing.  As there are daily fewer people our age and even fewer older, we dont really appreciate (or notice) that we are still growing.
 
 
Now all this beinf taken into a single conversation on a single topic: 
 
Steve is a modern person with all that entails.  He is a comic book fan, an,RPG fan, and by all accounts I have ever heard, a genuinely likeable person.
 
He has created a comic book universe- stylized universe with clear cut good and evil and an overall status quo of "things are okay; people are generally decent."
 
It is _hard_ to breathe life into something and not, on a level, come to love it.  You create a character, and you like him.  His sesrint is to,be a villain.  As you develop him, you realize that you don't like that he is desrined to be a villain.,,you feel that. You are doing him wrong; you don't want this to be his fault.
 
Make it not his fault.
 
You can go the "life of trauma" route, but it is overdone, and in truth, it has become as tedious as evil races.  Sure, we know thatvlife of trauma is a real thing, but at this point we have been aware of it real-world long enough that we know we don't get world conquerors; we get school shooters.  We don't get criminal kingpins, we get serial killers. 
 
Worst of all, we know that the majority of people in these circumstances dont react this way, and that they are not beyond help.  
 
In short, we have matured enough that it only works in a stylized idylic world when used _very_ sparingly.  Even then, we as an audience are more inclined to expect that character to be a goon of some sort, even if he has powers.  We _want_ that villain to be a goon of some,sort: not clever enough to get help; not motivated enough to be his own person.
 
Why?  For whatever reason, that _satisfies_ us.  Is it the fate we wish on our own tormentors?  Does it reflect what we, as we have grown, have done with the worst of ourselves within ourselves?  Locked the bits of ourselves we have abandoned into,the dead-end of,non-existence in the backs of our minds?
 
Or does it just makenit easier to ignore that the problems,that creatwd rhis villain are _real_ problems ans that we are _still_ more comfortable not axknowledfinf that?
 
Better for the audience to avoid it; better to give him,someone who ultimately is the victim   od something _totally_ out of his control, something he could not be expected to have had diagnosed and to have worked out in therapy.
 
Also, there is fascination-of-the-moment.  Not the best term,  but it works well enough.  
 
It is a term for "getting wrapped up in the exploration of an idea."   Let's look at my earliest super characters.  After my first character (a brick), I went for a couple of years where all my supers- all of them- where powered armor users.  Why?  I was not a comic book kid, and I was really uncomfortable with the "I was bitten by a radioacrive chemistry set and now I can fly and breathe fire."  Technological sources were much more palatable to me then.  Even after powered armor they tended to be gadget users of some sort 
 
From there I went to "magic amulets" (fantasy gadgets)  rhen to aliens.  It seemed,more reasonable to me that aliens should have unusual abilities than it did that they would look like humans: i had a harder time making them humanoid than I did giving them telekinesis.
 
_eventually_ I got comfy with xomic tropes, but it took aomethinf on the order of decade.
 
I am not saying that this is what what ia going on with a guy who has been doing superheroes for decades, but at them moment, all other factors _outside_ of supercillainy considered, it might just be that this is an idea he is currently,stuck on exploring until he is comforrable with other reasons for an idylicly-stylized character to become "evil."
 
 
Now:
 
As I have said, I dont like the vast majority Steve's contributions to the game, rules, included. 
 
I have done all of this to defend his choices.
 
I hope his few Muskrats here will leave me alone about not liking his stuff.
 
I still appreciate that he did do _something_ when no one else did.