How flawed is your Super?

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

Either way' date=' the 20pt CvK is absolutely mandatory for any character I play in the supers genre.[/quote']

 

That's mandatory for any supers game I GM.

 

Well... I'll let a 15 in there. Sometimes.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

My characters all have flaws, but they are not debilitating types. I can't play a character I wouldn't like in real life, so they tend to be nice... at least mostly.

 

Of my current characters:

 

Blackcat - She tends to see things in black and white, and she is something of an ascetic, so she can look down on those that are not so focused. But not much. A character that has been played for 17 or so years, and whose personality is all about self improvement, has a tendency to (in character) try and remove character flaws.

 

Terminal Velocity - He is wishywashy. He tends to let others take the lead. He started superheroing thinking it was something of a game, and then there was a nasty run-in with Genocide that really changed his perception. He almost quit the whole superbiz over that (a bit petulant there), but toughed it out.

 

Meeb - he can be passive. He also tends to take jokes and run them into the ground. He is possibly my nicest character. He never gets angry or upset about stuff - he just takes things as they happen.

 

Sift is much the same. A very nice person. Her major character flaw is that she is too aggressive about her own abilities. If she knows she can do something, she can push someone else out of the way to do it.

 

I don't play jerks, I don't play idiots.

 

I try and play characters that would be someone I could respect, or want to be. So I guess to answer the thread - not very flawed.

[nexus]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

I think my most non heroic character is Tao. She's cold, machine like and finds most humans and the race as a whole, illogical, wasteful, confusing and frustrating. She's with the Guardians primarily because they discovered her in some organization's research facility and she more or less imprinted on them so assumed a place in their "unit". It also gives her a function and a place which her psyche needs and it's very close to what she was built to be: a super soldier but the morality of it and "heroic" motivations behind it currently elude her though she understand enforcing order.

 

"Risking my existence for people I don't like for reasons I don't fully understand" sums up her existence pretty well at the moment. I hope to play her growth into a more fully fledged individual and heroic persona over time and exposure. It's been pretty fun playing her development so far.

 

I guess Shidoku would be considered non heroic by some. She's crass, foul mouthed, rather free with her "affections" violent, can and does kill. But also has a strong sense of right and wrong, justice (if not nesseararily Law) and is self less in pursuing them in the hopes of at least helping a few people avoid the kind of life she had growing up.

[nexus]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

To pose the same question in a slightly different way. In your personal opinion what disqualifies a character from being a superhero in your opinion? Some have voiced that the use or even willingness to use lethal force does so, for example. What other personal limits do you have? Being a womanizer or catting around? Drinking? Racism?

[Vulcan]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

Attacking the helpless (not to be confused with ambushing someone of a similar power level).

 

Rape/child molesting is a big one for me. Being promiscuous is a flaw for a hero, but isn't a disqualifying one.

 

Burglary or Fraud for personal gain (Batman repeatedly uses both in pursuit of Justice, which I am okay with for a fictional hero).

 

Severe addictions which control the character.

 

Being willing to kill - or even killing - does not prevent one from being a hero. Ask any cop or soldier. Murder (unprovoked and/or for personal gain), on the other hand is a no-no.

 

In general, motive is the big difference. A hero can be less than perfect - even a lot less than perfect - so long as his heart is in the right place and he is always striving to do better. And the general actions are heroic, whether he sees it that way or not. After all, the greatest heros rarely do things for recognition, but because it is the right thing to do.

 

YMMV, of course.

[Drhoz]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

Hmm. In the case of Vitus you also have to consider that he's been translated over from a fantasy RPG where "Killing Ugly People And Taking Their Stuff" is an acceptable motivation. Plus, it was a Bronze-age slave-keeping culture, and nobody in their right mind ( or at least nobody that counted ) had a problem with that.

 

So, on the strength of that, is Vitus a suitable hero of Champions?

 

Hell no! He was a cranky bastard even before he got stuck on Earth.

 

On the other hand, Samuria had a number of cultural rules that complicate matters - hospitality for example. Indeed, those rules are the only thing keeping teammates and landlord Felicity alive given the amount of times she's killingly insulted Vitus's magic.

 

And Samuria was never very typical as far as killing other races for cash goes - for example, the dead are buried with valuables to ensure a head start in the afterlife, and *not* burying a merchant NPC with a handful of jewels would be unthinkable.

 

And Vitus despite appearences is not selfish - he just has higher concerns that consume him. Indeed, in the past he has been very generous with any cash he doesn't need for accomodation and spell research. He's not greedy. Or even interested in power, except as a means to an end.

 

And he'll readily risk his life to to protect kids, or to achieve his eventual aim. This is the gnoll who bit open his own wrists because he needed a quick supply of sacrificial blood, in the middle of the ritual to delay the destruction of a world he doesn't even like!

[Vulcan]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

Just thought of another hero disqualifier.

 

While being willing to kill (or even having actually killed someone) does not make one 'not a hero', being eager to kill - enjoying killing - does.

[bubba smith]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

good point

[DusterBoy]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

How flawed are we talking here, exactly? "Watchmen" flawed, or just "ordinary guy" flawed?

 

And even in Watchmen, there was a spectrum - with say, Rorschach and the Comedian on one end and Night Owl and Silk Spectre at the other.

[nexus]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

Just thought of another hero disqualifier.

 

While being willing to kill (or even having actually killed someone) does not make one 'not a hero', being eager to kill - enjoying killing - does.

 

That, in a nutshell is what turned me off about the Authority after Ellis left.

[Vulcan]

Re: How flawed is your Super?

 

How flawed are we talking here, exactly? "Watchmen" flawed, or just "ordinary guy" flawed?

 

And even in Watchmen, there was a spectrum - with say, Rorschach and the Comedian on one end and Night Owl and Silk Spectre at the other.

 

That's the question being asked. "Just how flawed a character are your usual characters?"