Supervillain RPG: Part 2

Well then, after some of the basics, let's try going into some of the details.

The Companions

You will not be alone in your journey. There will be characters that will ally with you for their own reasons. They will have opinions on certain actions and may or may not necessarily get along with one another. As characters, they should help flesh out elements of the setting and will be somewhat varied. They should also have unique abilities in combat so that redundancy would be avoided. Aside from that they would also have a unique sidequest/subplot that can even result in not only a change in their character, both physically and otherwise.

Agent Crowley

A would-be villain that becomes an advisor to you early on in your journey. A savvy young man and the son of a renowned supervillain who serves as a combination of business consultant, secretary and strategist to The Society. Early on he ends up attached to you for the thinly veiled reason of the Inner Council wishing to keep an eye on you as well as him wishing to use this as a chance to prove himself as more than just a glorified pencil-pusher.

Intelligent and witty, he generally attempts to be as helpful as possible while occasionally making notes of your actions. While he won't directly insult you, he can however passive-aggressively make comments on decisions he finds questionable. A believer in getting the job done with as little mess as possible, he has personal scruples that prove as both a blessing and a burden for him as while in his mind they set him apart from simple thugs they also show that he lacks a certain backbone.

Combat-wise, he is a Tech character who relies on gadgets and minions to do his work, either for offense or support. He also carries with him some combat drugs that can keep you alive in a fight. His drones can serve as either mobile turrets, buffers or have defensive abilities (decoys and shielding). As far as weapons go, he uses one-handed firearms, specifically pistols. He's also more fragile compared to others, though he does have abilities that involve force fields.

He approves of making reasonable decisions weathered by pragmatism, professionalism and having standards, demonstrating cunning and a sense of humor, keeping a calm head and preserving knowledge. He disapproves of making rash decisions, outright psychopathy, pointless violence and overtly acting against The Society.

Dynamette

A former sidekick to a particularly arrogant superhero. A young woman with great potential but a horrible temperament, she feels as if her talents aren't being used to their full potential, especially under the tutelage of (in her mind) a jerk who treats her as simply a child. Eventually being fed up with her tutor as well as witnessing the hypocrisy of her superiors, she defects to you, deciding that she can do much more with someone who doesn't patronize her/holds her back and thinking that you can't possibly be worse than her former mentors.

Arrogant, boastful and eager to prove herself, Dynamette takes to being a villain surprisingly well as it opens up all sorts of possibilities. Nonetheless as a former sidekick she still possesses a sense of morality, or at least honor. She possesses a poor attitude when it comes to authority figures and has a tendency to mouth off against them.

Combat-wise, she is a Meta character possessing super strength and durability. Her fighting style is a general straightforward brawling style that relies very little on finesse and more on simply punching folks incredibly hard as well as creating shockwaves through stomping. She favors fist weapons, ranging from gloves to mechanical Power Fists. She's also capable of taking a lot of damage as one of her powers and has skills focused around having a tough-to-crack defense.

She approves of more reckless decisions and getting into fights, showing defiance towards authority (especially villains), fighting fair, and usually likes it when you show honor or mercy. She dislikes appeasing others (especially villains), dishonesty and overt cruelty such as adding insult to injury as well as harming innocent bystanders.

Santiago
A cyborg commando that was once an antihero in the vein of Rob Liefeld characters, as a "hero", his career generally consisted of massive collateral damage and shooting a lot of people. It came to a head where instead of negotiating in a hostage situation he resolved to blow up the building the villains were in along with the hostages. After which his reputation was completely tarnished and he became a gun-for-hire. Encountered as a hireling by one of your antagonists, upon defeat you're given the option to hire him on or just kill him.

Trigger-happy and impulsive, Santiago is a man who loves blowing stuff up. Nonetheless he is not a dumb brute and can display a certain level of cunning. As a mercenary, he believes in fulfilling contracts to the letter and dislikes treachery and dishonesty, both out of a professional sense and out of personal experience. Also as a mercenary however, he believes in getting the job done, no matter the means.

Combat-wise, he is a Tech character who relies on heavy firepower for combat. As well as using big guns to shoot stuff, as a cyborg he has several tricks such as enhanced strength that lets him use big guns, a built-in flamethrower within his arm, hidden explosives and various other abilities. Aside from that, he has various skills focused on utilizing guns. As a firepower-focused character he's focused on doing damage to groups. Capable of using two-handed firearms (as well as dual-wielding one-handed guns) with so.

Like Dynamette, Santiago likes violence and recklessness but prefers more a "Shoot First" style coupled with a "Do anything to win" attitude. He also cares a bit less of who they're fighting, such as cops or other heroes. He has a fairly mercenary attitude and prefers options that focus on profit. However, this also means that he's pretty big when it comes to honoring deals and dislikes going against the letter of the deal (though he has less of a problem with abusing loopholes when it's advantageous).

Melanarch
A self-proclaimed "Supreme Sorceress", the young woman who calls herself Melanarch was a former student of the prestigious "Winthorpe Institute of Magic". She was known as something of an outcast from her fellow students of magic due to her tendency of dabbling in controversial magic and her heavy Appalachian accent. One day, she came across a mysterious tome that granted her great power in exchange for her sanity. Soon after, she was kicked out of the school after she cast a curse that turned a student inside-out. With that, she took her book and her chair Carlos to seek her fortune in the world as a mage for hire. Encountering you when you track down a magically-empowered character, she can be taken on as an expert of the supernatural.

While highly knowledgeable of most things magical, Melanarch nonetheless can come off as temperamental, childish and at times cruel. She also has an ambitious and powerhungry nature obsessed with obtaining arcane power. She possesses many unusual traits, such as referring to herself in the third person and treating her folding chair as her best friend. She is obsessed with the concept of dominance and has a somewhat Darwinistic view of the world. Despite all of this however, she can be surprisingly loyal to those that can at least tolerate her.

Melanarch is a mage who specializes in either summoning monstrosities, debuffs and blasting her opponents, often with lots of risks. Her summons range from small headcrab-like creatures that latch onto enemies and distract them to opening portals for tentacled horrors to reach out and grab foes. The catch being that her summons will try to attack allies if no enemies are present. Her damaging spells tend to be more focused on Damage over Time, either summoning flaming geysers or a sac filled with acid. She can also induce several status ailments, such as a spell that drives folks insane, causing them to attack their allies. Her spells, while powerful have a chance to affect other companions. Weapon-wise, she can use one-handed weapons such as swords or pistols, with some bonuses with enchanted/cursed weaponry.

She tends to favor the more violent and cruel options as she sees said options as "shows of strength" in her option. She revels in destruction, especially if she gets a say in them. She is big on discovering magical knowledge, even if this means tampering with things that are obviously bad ideas to tamper with. Somewhat short-sighted, she generally favors short-term solutions that get things done now rather than later.




As usual, feel free to put in some criticisms. These are only some samples that I admittedly put more thought into than I probably needed to.

Supervillain RPG

This was an idea that I first read about in the Spacebattles forums. Specifically this thread. As the title specifies, it is about a hypothetical Supervillain RPG developed by Bioware (presumably Bioware in their prime).

The idea of a Western RPG centered around Supervilliany did seem like an idea that could be quite fascinating. Something like a modern day take on the Overlord series, a series I am actually quite fond of. So in this post I attempt to propose a few ideas.

Character Creation

In the beginning of the game, you first choose a name for your character and customize your appearance. You then choose your class. You first start off by choosing whether or not you wish to play a Tech character, a Metahuman or a Magic-user. This does not necessarily mean Rogue, Fighter and Mage respectively, instead choosing your preferred fighting style. One can play a magic-based fighter who focuses on buffing themselves and getting into the fray or a a Tech character who stays back and lets their gadgets and firepower do their work.

Afterwards, you can select some background information that adds some flavor to your characters as well as giving you some statistical bonuses and some unique dialog options/missions. They would probably be around the lines of Mass Effect in which you select your upbringing (Descended from Heroes, Born from the Slums, Escaped Experiment, etc.) and a Defining Moment of your life. This could be the moment you discovered your talents or something that hardened your character emotionally.

The Set-Up

In any case, the set-up is that your character is nearly killed by Halcyon, the greatest superhero of this world. Perhaps they were caught in the middle of a big dumb fight. Perhaps they caught him doing something unbefitting a Cape and were forced to be silenced. The point is that your character ends up getting the hell beat out of them and left for dead.

However, your character is then saved by The Society, the in-universe guild that most villains are associated with. They've been watching your for quite a while and your abilities have caught their interest. They wish to have you join their organization. If you accept, you will be given resources and the power you need. If not, they note that the room you're currently in that they're observing you from has some power nullification things going on and you're surrounded by armed goons so please reconsider your choice. If they can't sway you, well at least they have some new chow for their mutant baboons.

So there begins your journey of villainy and vengeance, more or less as the supervillains' gofer. You're stuck as a simple pawn of their big stupid game. Still, you might have a chance to bite back. Both at the one who put you in this situation and the ones holding your leash. For now however you're simply a low-level agent of theirs in this war.

The Basics

What kind of villain would you be if you didn't have a base of your own? A major part of the game would be building and upgrading your personal base. In your home-base, you can do stuff like send your henchmen out on missions to acquire resources, research various upgrades and hang out and talk to companion characters and other friendly NPCs that work for you. From the beginning, you get the equivalent of an empty warehouse. Later on however as you move up in the ranks you get a better base, such as a penthouse, a castle or even a small island for yourself.

You generally take missions from the A-List supervillains that run The Society. Your goals may vary depending on which villains you take missions from. Some might have you do such things as securing intel or dealing with a pesky enemy of theirs while some might want you to join on in some random psychotic rampage of theirs. You generally have a choice of choosing who you want to take missions from, though you might miss out on certain special rewards.

While there is no open Morality system, you do however have a reputation meter that measures how various factions think of you. Not only do you have the Society and the Superheroes' Guild to deal with, there are various other factions like the government, independent crimelords or information brokers who wish to play the game from behind the scenes. Similarly, you also have the opinions of your various companion characters, who have their own opinions on your actions.



And this is the basic idea of a Supervillain RPG. I know I'm skimping on plenty of important details, but I mostly wanted to cover the general ideas. For anyone reading this, feel free to put in your opinions and if you want, offer an idea on what such a game should include.

Dusting Things Off

Remembered that I still had this thing.

I wanna try something different with this now. Something that I always wanted to do but never quite had the drive to do so.

Hopefully I will remember this thing tomorrow...