etherio Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 Just curious... I've never run a campaign where the PCs are supervillains, and I don't imagine I will. However, for those of you that do, how do you run things? When the PCs are heroes, typically they prevail, at least in some way. They apprehend the villains, or foil their fiendish plots, or at least minimize the damage done. Even when a group of comic supers fails, genre convention calls for it being a battle lost in the course of winning the war against evil. How do you handle villain PCs and their goals and plots? I'm not talking about rebel anti-heroes or the like, but real villains. Do they actually succeed in robbing Fort Knox, mesmerizing world leaders from orbit with their "Hypno-Ray," or slaying their nemeses with elaborate death-traps? ...Or do they just have to endure being foiled again and again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawksmoor Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Just curious... I've never run a campaign where the PCs are supervillains, and I don't imagine I will. However, for those of you that do, how do you run things? When the PCs are heroes, typically they prevail, at least in some way. They apprehend the villains, or foil their fiendish plots, or at least minimize the damage done. Even when a group of comic supers fails, genre convention calls for it being a battle lost in the course of winning the war against evil. How do you handle villain PCs and their goals and plots? I'm not talking about rebel anti-heroes or the like, but real villains. Do they actually succeed in robbing Fort Knox, mesmerizing world leaders from orbit with their "Hypno-Ray," or slaying their nemeses with elaborate death-traps? ...Or do they just have to endure being foiled again and again? My situation is a little different. The PCs are going to be villains, but it is a "Suicide Squad" situation. I am not looking for redemption in the PCs, but I am looking for interaction and exploration of the character. I am *not* interested in bloodworks, so characters like that are automatically going to be dismissed from consideration. But back to the question at hand, I intend on letting the PCs win as villains. However un-Golden or Silver age it may seem the villains win sometimes, they HAVE to, or it [the lifestyle] would not attract so many converts. As to world shaking ideas and plots, I say let the game's metaplot progess, and if the PCs do not stop it you end up with Lord Doom being the ruler or Bermuda, Dr. Destroyer owning Argentina, and Sturmfuher running the Rhine valley. My thoughts, Hawksmoor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamePhil Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... How do you handle villain PCs and their goals and plots? Generally, not too differently from Hero PC's. HPC's never truly achieve complete victory: the villain escapes though his plan is foiled, or gets out of jail later, or another villain rises to take his place. VPC's might be thwarted, but they escape and often gain some piece contributing to an even greater Master Plan, even in defeat. He might even grow in power even though the main plot to Take Over The World didn't work in one fell swoop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wormhole Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Haven't tried this yet, but the following would be my rules for running such a campaign: #1: No murderous psychopaths as PCs. This is a roleplaying game not GTA: Vice City. #2: Keep the first few capers relatively simple and easy to run. Start with the classic bank hiest and move on to bigger challenges from there. Nobody is going to be ready for the world domination game right out of the box. #3: Remember that crime does pay (sort of). Find that happy medium between making the heros and the authorities incompetent push-overs and turning this into a neverending hose-the-PCs-fest. If the PCs should logically be able to pull most of the capers off successfully, let them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawksmoor Posted May 9, 2004 Report Share Posted May 9, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Haven't tried this yet, but the following would be my rules for running such a campaign: #1: No murderous psychopaths as PCs. This is a roleplaying game not GTA: Vice City. #2: Keep the first few capers relatively simple and easy to run. Start with the classic bank hiest and move on to bigger challenges from there. Nobody is going to be ready for the world domination game right out of the box. #3: Remember that crime does pay (sort of). Find that happy medium between making the heros and the authorities incompetent push-overs and turning this into a neverending hose-the-PCs-fest. If the PCs should logically be able to pull most of the capers off successfully, let them. I wonder if the murderous Psychopath archetype has undergone a serious downturn in popularity in recent years? I can tell from my own style of play that it has. As i have matured I *like* them less and less. For instance I can't even play a Star Wars game because I can't help but imagine the Rebels as TERRORISTs. I mean even the best most well intentioned cause has problems when you are crashing speeders into CnC towers that people happen to live in. Any one else have similar revelations? Hawksmoor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xavier Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Hmm...? This strangely is an idea that never occured to me. It is however compelling in that as was stated by Hawksmoor, it should probably be approached as an exploration of character interaction. By my way of thinking the equation that has always existed: "Good vs Evil; Good triumphs over evil(one way or another), Evil slinks away to come back another day..." Doesn't seem to work quite the same way in the opposite direction where evil wins over good. I'll see if I can say this without confusing myself. One of the underlying general precepts of "Good" is that it is alturistic, and thus heroes are willing to persistently peruse that which is "Good", because it is beneficial to everyone, including the villains. I'm having some difficulty trying to envision a playable game that isn't a one shot type campaign where the PC villains are irredeemably evil. This might just be my failure of imagination, but is seems to me that in such an environment there is only so far such a situation can progress. For example: If the evil PC's decide to carry out their fiendish plot to destroy X landmark and all the people within the vicinity of X landmark, unless such and such condition is met and they manage to overcome the heroes sent to bring them to justice they would be forced to carry out their plan. They would either (A) get what they want or ( destroy X landmark and adjacent vicinity thus proving they are not a force to be trifled with. Now if they are truly evil would they stop there? No...they would keep going ad infinitum until they have through the use of one plot or another dominated what...the world? The galaxy? The universe? On second thought this might work... maybe if they were sort of altruistically evil... Dang it...I confused myself...forget it man...what the hell do I know? Your plan sound sorta cool to me now. Okay so the only thing I can definitely caution against is "freewheeling evilness". Too much backstabbing and the game can disintergrate...swiftly. It's hard enough for bad guys to work as a team. There has to be some overall structure to allow for team interaction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamePhil Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... For instance I can't even play a Star Wars game because I can't help but imagine the Rebels as TERRORISTs. Terrorists commit their attacks in order to cause terror, hence the name. While they will certainly attack military targets given the opportunity, they will also attack any other target to create discord and chaos in their chosen enemy. The Empire blew up Alderaan in order to make a statement, to create discord and chaos in their chosen enemy. An entire world of sentient beings, and a non-military target to boot. They are the terrorists, they just happen to be terrorists that are in charge. Any one else have similar revelations? I fear not. I have never cared for the psychopathic heroes unless they were in some form of redemption storyline. Otherwise, I never got the furvor about them, beyond it being the logical backlash for years of being stuck under the Comics Code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug McCrae Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... I can't even play a Star Wars game because I can't help but imagine the Rebels as TERRORISTs. I mean even the best most well intentioned cause has problems when you are crashing speeders into CnC towers that people happen to live in.All those construction workers on the second Death Star... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocMan Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... All those construction workers on the second Death Star... Are regretable casualties. And were probably all military personnel. And definately KNEW that their workplace was a military target. Doc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wanderer Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... All those construction workers on the second Death Star... The innocent wife and children of the dutiful, law-abiding Joe Torturer, Executioner, and Slave-Market Clerk will starve when torture, slavery, and the death penalty are summarily outlawed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... I've only done a little villainous PC running. First, a very long time ago, was essentially a running road trip with escapes from the good guys and random violence and amusement. The second is just recent and we only did 1 session, I do intend to do more . The concept is episodic in nature, with specific assignments given to whatever villain PCs show up. As such, I am slightly heavy-handed towards their loss (just as, to be genre-correct, one tends to be slightly heavy-handed in creating a plot that favors the PCs) but just as the heroic PCs can fail to some degree if not entirely time-to-time, the converse is true for the villains. But I haven't done enough of it obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... I've only done a little villainous PC running. First, a very long time ago, was essentially a running road trip with escapes from the good guys and random violence and amusement. The second is just recent and we only did 1 session, I do intend to do more . The concept is episodic in nature, with specific assignments given to whatever villain PCs show up. As such, I am slightly heavy-handed towards their loss (just as, to be genre-correct, one tends to be slightly heavy-handed in creating a plot that favors the PCs) but just as the heroic PCs can fail to some degree if not entirely time-to-time, the converse is true for the villains. But I haven't done enough of it obviously. I'm looking forward to playing Mr. Putty again. Though that Precision guy is a bit of a psycho. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zornwil Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... I'm looking forward to playing Mr. Putty again. Though that Precision guy is a bit of a psycho. Whereas Billy Hill is so stable! But yes, Billy is much nicer, actually, though I wouldn't want to run into EITHER! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParagonAlpha Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Long ago I played in a Supervillian campaign that was able to give the players the oppurtunity to plan and succeed at crime AND still have the flair of the comic books. The villian group was called the Mutant Supremacy League (MSL) and required all members to be mutants and bad guys. The group was the sort that Magneto would have gathered to work for him, but without a Magneto. We planned bank heists, kidnappings, assassinations and other villianous acts in an attempt to make the world Mutant Friendly. Our adversaries were X=men like supers, mutant hating heroes and villians and sentiels. It went fairly well. Years later I decided to run a villians game. One player was chosen as the "Master" villian and the rest were badguys working for him. The game went fairly easy from a GM point of view. They planned crimes, worked out details and I played the heroes involved in trying to defeat them. Things were great until the villains started using traps and teamwork to take out supers. The killed Seeker during one of these fights, then showed up at his funeral and killed two more heroes. Things got ugly. Then years later (wiser and more experienced...okay I'll admit that nearly a decade had passed between these two groups.) I decided to give it another try. Villians. I mean I was gaming with a much more mature, post college crowd of incredible gamers and roleplayers. I'd be able to challege them mentally, get some intense development from evil villians, explore the pysche of crime. You know all the good things. What I got was The Brotherhood of the Divine. A group of muntant brothers who prety much pushed the limit of villain/hero and were filled with righteous belief that they could save the world. Hmmm some possiblity. In the first session they took over the world. (All i can say is 4th Edition had sopme rather LAX Sticky Rules. And I hate Drains.) I take blame. I wanted "Villains motivated by greed and anger". What I got was a bunch of smart people saying "If I was a supervillain how would I rule the world?" So if you are going to try a villian game. I suggest more discussion on the style of game you plan to run, the type of villians you intend to allow, and some for of organization or structure. AND god forbid, never, ever, ever let the players buy Sticky, AOE, Drains, with slow returns.. and be a tyrant make your players fear you. Peace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S7Michelle Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Our group is currently playing a villains campaign that I see probably lasting for a few years at least, and having lots of fun doing so. Admittedly, our villains do tend to be closer to anti-villains than truly evil types. Most of us prefer not to kill innocents, several of us have various codes of honor, we are loyal to our team mates, etc. Additionally, our leader’s overall goal is one that will end up saving the Earth. Though, we aren’t doing it to save the humans but rather to save ourselves and those we care about. Saving everyone else is just a positive side effect. So far we have been mostly successful in our first three adventures (rescuing a fellow mutant from jail, rescuing a team mate from an evil company that experiments on mutants, and rescuing our employer’s butler from a spa owner that was transferring people’s youth to herself). And yes, I know, none of our adventures sounds particularly villainous. Our current task is to try to influence an election to insure that the right candidate wins by getting as much illegal, underworld support for the wrong candidate as possible. Then when the newspapers find out about “his†bribing gangs to extort campaign funds and votes for him, hiring thieves to gather information on his opponent, and so on, we believe that the average citizens will rise up in mass to vote for his opponent. Since we are doing this very subtly, I don’t think that we are going to have to worry about superhero interference unless we just get very unlucky. Nevertheless, I am sure that the City’s Champions (not the same as the Champions in the book) will act to thwart at least some of our plans. Though others will succeed or partially succeed. Having competent heroes around makes life more challenging and leads to fun revenge plot hooks, rivalries, and possibly even attempted conversions. The GM has already said that she is fairly certain that the hero team will defeat us badly in our first fight against them. However, I’m pretty sure that we will manage to escape, or will be rescued if captured. Even though our GM is a firm believer in cause and effect, PCs tend to have a certain degree of script immunity. (In our group, it is very rare for someone to be put into a position where they have to make a new character, unless they have done something incredibly stupid.) We are playing a group of mutants who is working for a rich and charismatic Magneto type NPC. The NPC came from a post-apocalyptic future world where due to humanity destroying most of the mutants on the planet, Earth was easy prey for an alien attack. He intends to do whatever it takes to see to it that things happen differently this time. And we, of course, intend to help him. Though, as with any game, there will be plenty of sub-plots along the way. I do agree with my GM that if you are going to run an evil game, you want to have all of your characters to have an in game reason to work together. In our case it is loyalty to our leader and friendships with each other. It is a good idea for everyone going in to at least have a feel for the style and level of evil that will be in the game. A team that is similar to GRAB is going to require a much different style of game than one that is similar to DEMON. One thing to watch for is a shift in the groups desired style of play. Our group started out darker and more evil than we are now. One player switched to a nicer character. My character ended up being played much less ruthlessly than I’d initially planned. My own personality and ethics have bleed through to the point where Cannis became rather nice. I like her better that way though. There is one small problem that has come into play with our group. Because we are working for a wealthy NPC who is paying us quite well, we have less motivation to go out and do random crimes just to make money. Why rob a bank when you are already living in a mansion (team base)? Why go mug people on a train unless you have a good reason to do so? That meant that especially at first, we weren’t taking as proactive of a role as our GM expected. Unfortunately, that still comes into play somewhat. I do have a few plans and schemes of my own. But I think that more often than not, we are going to be carrying out our NPC leaders plans, rescuing team mates in trouble, etc. Which is fine and fun, it just maybe wasn’t quite what the GM initially intended. It’s just that due to circumstances and our characters personalities, our crimes need to be a bit deeper than go rob a bank or go cause havoc somewhere. Which can make coming up with ideas a bit more challenging. I do feel just a little bit guilty about not being proactive enough and plan to buy the Villains book to see if it can give me some other nice proactive schemes that I can see Cannis coming up with. (I still think that a Super-Villainess Calendar would probably sell well. Nothing like a team with four female members all of whom are around 18-20 COM. Probably would increase our reputations a bit too.) All in all, I think that provided you have a good group, villain games aren’t that much harder to run than any other type of game. Its good for the PCs to have some long range type goals. And the GM can always toss in interesting targets if things get slow. For example, a news paper headline of, “Rare Multimillion Dollar Egyptian artifact on loan to the Museum of Art for one week only†could lead to at least one if not more sessions worth of play. Villains attempt to steal the artifact. Are stopped by the heroes but manage to escape. One of the heroes gloats and manages to irritate the villains. Now the villains both want to steal something else to show up the heroes in general and want to get payback on the gloater. And so on. Have fun, Michelle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... Our few villain games have always taken a campy tone. We succeed in various villainous plots but in the end the authorities always catch up to us and chase us off. Personally I wouldn't have it any other way. When playing a villain my primary goals are to (a) perpetrate stylish evil and ( be defeated in some entertaining fashion. -AA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZootSoot Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... There are three ways in which I have run villain campaigns. A: The heroes are outlaws pursued by governments and the shadow powers that control the governments. This is a world filled with conspiracy and secret powers and the characters have, in gaining powers, been illuminated. Now they struggle to survive in hostile world where their powers put them at the bottom of the secret hierarchy of hidden powers. B: The heroes are devotees of a particular issue which they place above the law. they pursue this regardless of the cimes it forces them to commit. C: Reservoir Dogs. The heroes have minor powers and are dealing with the consequences of a particular crime gone wrong or they are minions of a much greater power and are maneuvering amongst that world in a quest for personal survival and glory. My good guy games are never much encumbered by the genre conventions you mention. I think they detract from the fun of the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheEmerged Posted May 11, 2004 Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... I'm running a supervillain campaign now, as a matter of fact -- and it's far from the first. A little advice. #1> More than any other campaign type, the GM and players need good communication about what is acceptible. I wouldn't even CONSIDER running a villain campaign with a certain player in the local D&D group, for example. The villain campaign calls for a higher quality, higher maturity player and a GM that isn't afraid to set his/her foot down as hard as necessary. Also, you need to be sure the GM and players are communicating about how it is running. That might sound obvious but it's often so obvious people forget to do it. #2> The greatest strength of the villain campaign is the opportunity for the players to be proactive. This is also the greatest hurdle as the GM. One method I have found useful is the "opportunity sheet" -- a list of good adventure opportunities I give to the players. They then decide which ones to pursue, which allows me to prepare before sessions. Of course we only get to game about once a month anymore so this method may work better for us than others. Be careful when doing this not to give "orders". The mechanic of GRAB (from CKC) where the mysterious leader hands down assignments and the players decide how to work it out doesn't work nearly as well in practice as it sounds in theory. #3> You need to establish a long-range goal for the players, and a sense that the opposition is not trivial. Otherwise it WILL devolve into the "let's hunt the heroes down one by one and kill them" or the "let's take over the world" traps. In my current campaign, for example, the 400-point players all have a hatred of PRIMUS as their primary, long-range goal. Of course in this campaign PRIMUS has 200-pt agents that don't pay points for their equipment, 450-pt "Iron Guards", and the 2000 point Golden Avenger to contend with. The players learned early on that a single "level 3" nova is a challenge for the whole group -- one they can defeat but not one they can take lightly. As a result, the players are motivated -- but aren't stupid. If anything I might have erred on the side of making the opposition too stiff but this makes the players play smarter. #4> You really, really need to keep them from mental powers. It's tempting, it's easy, and it's going to shorten the life span of the campaign. I learned this one the hard way. I wouldn't go so far as to completely eliminate them in the campaign but I'd strongly recommend keeping Mind Control, Telepathy, and Transform BoECV away from PC's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beholder Posted May 13, 2004 Report Share Posted May 13, 2004 Re: Campaigning for Supervillain PCs... (My setting) Wow, Thats a hell of an interesting thread, Might be slightly OT but since no one posted for some time, I decided to introduce my Villain setting just for fun. The PC's team: the Chaos Fiend I have been game mastering a super vilain group for slightly more than a year now. Lets start by saying that we are all a little more than 30 years old and we are quite desillusioned by how the world is evolving so this is not too much of a dificult mind set to put ourselves into. That said, The majority of the group's member would no go as far as go in a super market and kill every one just for fun. All the characters are reacting more or less like very chaotic, but true to their words, super mercenaries. They are offering their services to the highest bidders and, frankly, they charge quite a lot with reasons. The campaign started as our characters were approached by an outer planar entity who offered our characters to be able to merge with DnD like creature and, thus, gain their powers to block earth invasion by multiple competing outer planar warlords. This produced a good assortment of supers but all of them were affected mentally by the personality of the chosen monster. So we had a Troll, a doppleganger and an evil Drow mage. I also started the campaing as a previously non supers setting with supers slowly apearing after my pc's were granted powers. This provoked that my PC's were all-powerfull for some time, with no opposition. They caused mayhem here and there, destruction and repulsed the powerfull warlords into invading our own world. So they were more neutral as would be determined by the DnD allignments. After years of setting time, the PC's were no longer alone, I introduced Primus (renamed Omega Section, yes like in True lies ) which made use of clone soldiers with high combat capacities. The Golden and Silver Avengers are not yet introduced, I also introduced UNTIL pretty much as-is and my PC's had quite some fun in obliterating all the north american deployement execution and their ability to get ready to deal with supers. I also introduced Viper as a startup organization slowly starting to spread on the world (appeared about 5 months ago). I introduced DEMON, contrary to Cannon stuff, as secret leaders of Viper. I finaly introduced the Champions and the super group UNITY as the sole official super heroes ready to tackle the pc's, and after their first fight with the Champions, the heroes were almost all dead, but my PC's didn't want to kill their sole opposition and left them alive for later fun. (I boosted them up a bit since then.) As the only true High profile villain of earth, my PC's fought all their was to fight and usually came over as winners. They have now become overconfident and even started turning around in sessions and not really knowing what to do. I took this as a cue that my game was becoming boring and heading down the drains, I thought I was starting to fail as a game master. But I told myself, hey! what a nice setting, they are now overconfident, so here comes the heavy hitters. I have then built an entity called Coldsteel, an AI working for UNTIL who can control constructs remotely. I made it some powerful robots to send at the PCs. I also introduced Angel Gabriel as a 1300 pts angel of war sent by another benevolent plane to prevent my PC's chaotic and destructive assault on humanity. Boosted the Champions a bit, took some characters from The Wild Hunt's site and .... now looking at 2 ou 3 post higher, decided to put an alien hidden organization, opposed to Viper, Demon and the PC'S in general, and in control of all the world democracies AND the Omega section.... So My PC's are in for some fun in the comming months. Sorry if this is OT, just felt like sharing this with you guys and gals. Beholder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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