Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs

lordbelh

I like PvP. I enjoy the competition and I enjoy the IC drama and excitement that comes from it. All games with politics, hierarchy, that have limited resources available, etc, are inherently going to be having some kind of PVP competition. I greatly prefer the games that are honest about it, and think about how to make the pvp enjoyable and meaningful.

Because the drama and resentment comes anyway.

All of that said, Villains vs Superheroes sounds like Camarilla Vs Sabbat. And I vehemently believe you should never pit the two together on the same game. The PvP within the Camarilla, or the PvP within the Sabbat opens up a million different story options because you're still ultimately on the same side even as you struggle and scheme for resources and authority and power and whatever. You can still stop and thump the common enemy. You still have to compromise, and those compromises are necessary rather than some odd staff fiat of 'well you can't mess with your arch enemy' or even worse 'go ahead and go nuclear' and watch the game flame out.

bored

@fatefan Much as I would like to lay claim to awesomeness, nope.

... my Deathstroke was cool, though ('No charge!'). Or maybe it's just hard to be a badass old man and not be cool.

@lordbelh I think the issue is that, to be anywhere true to the comics, it should be absolutely nothing like Camarilla vs. Sabbat. It shouldn't even really be PvP. Villains shouldn't be winning in the long term, outside of particular story arcs that necessitate it, and they definitely shouldn't be winning because 'lol man I took <leet power #9> and rolled a 6, you ded superbro.'

I'm all for PvP in some games or settings but it just seems bizarre in the comic context, especially with the perpetual fluidity of power levels as writing demanded. I feel like the only way it would work was with a very narrative-minded system, where maybe people were bidding story tokens of some sort or another and the actual powers/abilities of characters mattered almost not at all.

Lithium

Every time I've seen villain's played as PC's it's like they have a pathological need to 'win'. They have preset paths they want their RP to go down, to tell their villain story, and there's no room for any sort of surprise or any of the PC's idea's of what they want to do.

It takes a special breed to play a villain right imho, and most of the time opening them up to PC's makes people get invested in them /as/ regular PC's and let's face it, most people don't like to lose.

That is what the villains are for when it comes down to it, they are there to eventually be brought down but not necessarily in every fight.

I've ran into General Zod's who literally refuse to lose, will cheat and play powers not on their sheet, and refuse to let people write anything other than Zod destroying or killing people.

This kind of thing can really make it pointless to try and go up against the villains and ruin the mood of the game.

Note: I am not saying Villains should never 'win' any battles, but between scheduling issues, continuity issues, and what I mentioned above... villains as PC's can really be a dampener on things.

At least in my opinion.

That's one reason why I've always felt that villains work best as NPC's but, I also think that putting them only in the hands of staff isn't a good idea either. There needs to be a stable of villains for people to use as plot npc's to write stories for people too as staff, on most games, do not have the presence to run stuff for everyone's timetable.

mietze

I think also that there is a tendency for non-villain PCs to hammer the villain/antagonist PCs oocly, or to treat them as if they exist solely to provide non-challenging scenes for the heroes/protagonists. (This can also be a problem in PvP, but on games where PvP is expected/encouraged there is often kind of at least a token effort to see all PCs as having vital goals of their own, not just a bit part in someone else's story).

I have seen more obnoxious protagonists than antagonists, long term. Probably because the people who survive for awhile as protagonists tend to be some of the better RPers out there (so people worth their salt will want them around for a bit because they are fun), and many have to OOCly learn how to communicate well. When people think they're entitled to a win or that they are more important, they tend to just steamroller and behave as if there's not another player involved except to serve their own interests.

Of course there are people who play antagonists very badly, who also have that communication issue. Or they just enjoy being dicks. Just in my personal experience it's the heroes or people who see their characters as heroes that tend to behave the most entitled.

bored

@Lithium I don't think that's really something that can be said of 'villain players' (if there's even such a thing) so much as about MUers in general. There's as much resistance from the heroes to ever losing (which is essential to any kind of worthwhile villain arc) as there is from the villains toward ultimately being foiled/caught (which is also necessary).

I think its evidence of people being selfish douches more often than not.

faraday

@bored said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

I think its evidence of people being selfish douches more often than not.

I think it's evidence of people viewing MUSHes as games rather than stories. Very few folks sit down to play a game thinking, "Yeah I think I'm gonna lose today. That sounds like fun." But in contrast, very few authors sit down to write a story thinking, "Oh yeah, my hero is just going to win, win win. ALL THE WINNING." I think MU*s are much more interesting when they're treated as stories and there's a blend of winning and losing, like @Seraphim73 said. But that takes a particular type of players, staff and environment to make work.

Misadventure

Make "losing" interesting.

Make it rewarding.

Make it an expected part of all stories.

Miss Demeanor

Give villains setups. And this will sound strange but... anyone that's seen the old 60's Adam West Batman movie? THAT is how you villain. Four big bads got together, concocted a plan, and that plan had multiple levels to it. Sure, lure Batman out to sea, try to get your trained sharks to eat him... but even as he escapes, you're pulling off the part of the plan that he doesn't even know about yet! Sit around a table bickering about who did what wrong.

"Well if YOU didn't have to leave your cursed riddles everywhere, he wouldn't have figured out where to go!"
"Well if your sharks had done their job, he wouldn't be a problem anymore!"

Etc. That sort of thing made me LOVE the villains. Not because they won, but because they made losing hilarious and fun! So yeah, 'Miss Kitka' turns out to be Catwoman and the plan falls to pieces and you're all thrown in jail... time to start plotting that awesome 'break out of jail' prp that will be sure to cause tons of lulz and have the heroes scratching their heads about how you managed to escape for the fiftieth time!

Not everything in superhero land needs, or even should, be super serious and gritty. Its based on comicbook world, you know, the place where primary colors and 'BIFF' and 'POW' ruled the day!

Arkandel

@faraday said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

I think it's evidence of people viewing MUSHes as games rather than stories. Very few folks sit down to play a game thinking, "Yeah I think I'm gonna lose today. That sounds like fun." But in contrast, very few authors sit down to write a story thinking, "Oh yeah, my hero is just going to win, win win. ALL THE WINNING." I think MU*s are much more interesting when they're treated as stories and there's a blend of winning and losing, like @Seraphim73 said. But that takes a particular type of players, staff and environment to make work.

Yeah, agreed. People treat MU* objectives as quests in a video game - you don't really ever fail them, do you? No, you succeed. You win in the end - and the game is all about you, your perspective, even in an MMORPG; sure, you might actually be Hunter #2768525 but the way this is happening you are the center of the universe.

MU* need to adjust to this reality sometimes though because yes, sometimes players are horribad but it's also the case they are often given very little actual agency in how stories turn out.

For superhero MU* in particular I am simply puzzled because we have a template for them and it's all over every superhero comic ever made; the villains make brilliant plans and the heroes beat them... for a while. This part is strange, you'd think it'd be easy for games to simply run with what's worked for the last 70 some years for the exact kinds of characters they're portraying.

faraday

@Arkandel That template works great for NPCs, but PCs? "Ok, your char can't really hang out and participate in most of the social scenes because you're a wanted criminal mastermind. People are likely to take your IC actions personally and think you're a jerk. We just need you to pop in every now and again with a brilliant plan for the heroes to foil, then disappear again. Sound cool?"

It's not really surprising to me that almost nobody goes for it.

Arkandel

@faraday said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

@Arkandel That template works great for NPCs, but PCs? "Ok, your char can't really hang out and participate in most of the social scenes because you're a wanted criminal mastermind. People are likely to take your IC actions personally and think you're a jerk. We just need you to pop in every now and again with a brilliant plan for the heroes to foil, then disappear again. Sound cool?"

It's not really surprising to me that almost nobody goes for it.

I'm not either. Villains probably won't work as fully playable every day PCs; they would as alts used sporadically to serve a plot purpose or as NPCs.

Lithium

I'd like to see a base of villain npc's where you could 'rent' them for your plots. That might be interesting, I know on Horizons (My Dresden/Big Trouble in Little China game) I have a board that is precisely engineered for plot threads and story arcs that people might want to RP or run scenes about to make fun for themselves that is still connected to the game.

I work a lot, 50 hours a week, so I won't have time to hand hold all the players on the game. I will need staff to help, I know this, but I will also need the players to be willing to make fun for themselves as well and I want to facilitate that.

I am coding up a sort of reverse events thing where I am going to put up story threads and scenes I would like ran for the players, people can only take one at a time, must be open to the game, etc.

Back on point though, I think it would be kinda neat if villains could be puppeted and then put back on the shelf until they break out of prison again.

Miss Demeanor

@Arkandel Oh my God, no! I want to see all the small time shit that flies under superhero radar that villains MUST be doing in order to set up their more elaborate evil plans! Three tons of TNT isn't going to just appear... where did Joker get it? Was that robbery at the hardware store last week small time crooks or was Penguin stocking up on supplies for his next dastardly deed? I would LOVE to see 'day in the life' of a supervillain. The planning stages ALONE have to be hilarious, not to mention the henchmen meetings, the supplies gathering, the putting people into place and maneuvering that would need to be done before you can tip over that first domino and set off the chain reaction... that would be AMAZING.

Misadventure

Only if there was good writing going on.

Also, it may become a check list, and an invitation to have even the preparation identified and stopped by the heroes.

Thenomain

The purpose of the villain in any story is to be foiled by the hero. That is, I think before you can have villain players, you must first have good hero players who are willing to allow villains, and villain players who are willing to be foiled. I don't see it being possible without this kind of agreement.

Goyim

i want to play as a insecure villian who unintentionally does nice things while desperately trying to get bad guy cred so his friends will stop bullying him

TwoGunBob

@Thenomain This, a million time this. The first cry asking why must they always lose needs to be headed off at the pass. You lose because you're the villain and liking to win just once just isn't in the cards. It takes a little bit of a roleplaying masochist to accept this and that they are providing a great story of losing. That pesky ego and desire to win usually gets in the way, though.

Miss Demeanor

@TwoGunBob Actually, if you think of a villainous plan as a long-term plot? Villains can absolutely win.. in the short-term. Joker breaks out of Arkham, Batman pursues but Joker's pre-planning leads Batman into a trap that allows Joker to slip away. Joker manages to steal from chemical companies, arsenals, and various other odd places... and Batman is always a step behind. Until that final confrontation when the 'plan' is coming together... only for Batman to pull some crazy superhero 'I am the Night' bullshit out of his cape and foil the whole deal. Joker wins on the small, immediate level all the time, but when it comes to the BIG FINALE? Batman always manages to sleuth out exactly what he needs to do to stop the Joker.

THAT is what makes a great dynamic between hero and villain. The suspense. The thought that the bad guy has been ahead of the good guy this whole time only to lose it all in one fell swoop. Even Superman has it. Zod initially kicked Superman's ass all up and down the street until Supes had to go 'commune' in his icy mancave and figure out where he was going wrong. Zod was winning... until Superman got the revelation he needed to fuck his world up.

Ghost

One thing that I LOATHE about the faction/Hero-vs-Villain format in MU form is the amount of planning that seems to take place on an OOC level. Over the years I've seen a lot of sudden, incredulous coordination that always gives me a raised eyebrow.

All of the sudden, mid-combat, without any vocal or IC communication, six players unleash a devastating combo attack and they're all ready for it.
On Lords/Ladies games I've seen elaborate teamwork responses to other PC political actions without any logs or evidence that any of it was planned ICly.

Even when I run tabletop games, I don't allow the players to huddle and discuss OOCly what to do. As a GM, I don't really care what the players know. I don't care if I've got a cop, a pharmacist, a politician, and a computer expert playing the game. This information being used when it isn't on the character sheets(and the ability to network OOCly to coordinate some kind of awesome IC plan) is, in my opinion, metagaming.

So, naturally in the holistic PVP sense, my gamer-brain goes on this sort-of alert status. I think, with this format and all of the paging, skyping, emailing, or other communiques that can be passed under the table, it's simply way too likely that people will coordinate OOCly to win ICly.

WoD games tend to be fucking horrible about this, right on down to PLAYERS browsing the books to put together nigh-indestructible merit/power combinations that the CHARACTER may not have even had the baseline knowledge as to how to achieve. A dropped batch of hot XP in a skill the character has never presented any inclination towards should not turn "pacifist flower girl" into "armored human tank" overnight.

This happens because of OOC planning/knowledge driving the IC.

EDIT: Think "PC HIVE MIND", where what one character knows, all of them know, and although Player A only succeeded in the perception roll, somehow Player B moves their character to be in a good position for when the fight starts. The PLAYER knows a fight is starting, and wants their character to be in a sweet spot.

Thenomain

@TwoGunBob

I mostly agree with you, except for this:

(@Miss-Demeanor said:)

Actually, if you think of a villainous plan as a long-term plot? Villains can absolutely win.

I mean, c'mon, President Tr--errrrr, Luthor. But where I agree with you: It starts with all players and all staff being willing to allow this. It also means that the villains don't just start killing off the heroes. It means the heroes must be imperfect, and villains must be imperfect, and as @faraday says keeping it more about the story.