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Author Topic: Heroes gone bad
DSumner
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 1532
Post Heroes gone bad
on: September 22, 2011, 03:10

As a counterpart to my Reformed Villains thread, any of you ever dealt with a hero who's gone over to the dark side? Any of your PCs contemplated it?

Majestic
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 2370
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: September 22, 2011, 13:21

My son has done this a couple of times in our campaign. One "hero" went more and more to the Dark Side over time, until he was finally treated (for a few years) as an NPC. Only recently (with a new look and new powers) has he been redeemed, though the good supers are not quick to forget...

V&V GM and player since 1982 (my current campaign is 22 years old); also run West End Games d6 Star Wars monthly, as well as the occasional The One Ring and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game
DSumner
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 1532
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 20, 2012, 06:41

Anyone else have any experience with a similar situation?

dan2448
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 905
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 20, 2012, 09:55

I did. When we were playing in high school one of our group got a girlfriend (shock, horror!) and, as a result, started appearing at our game sessions less reliably and acting more-and-more disinterestedly when he did show up. Exasperated with him after a while, on the occasions when he didn't show we began playing his character as an NPC, as part of whatever villain team we were battling. We all took a perverse joy in pummeling his character, time-after-time. When he completely abandoned our game, his character became an arch villain (seduced, we decided with a thundering lack of subtlety, by an evil alien sorceress).

As an epilogue to this anecdote, a couple years after this all happened in 1986, I had to bail him out of the local jail in Santa Barbara, where he attended college, after we (he especially) had a particularly wild night during UCSB's legendary annual Halloween celebration. And now, 25 years later, that guy is a family physician in Washington State.

IndieComic-
sFan
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 415
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 20, 2012, 10:56

Quote from dan2448 on March 20, 2012, 09:55
I did. When we were playing in high school one of our group got a girlfriend (shock, horror!) and, as a result, started appearing at our game sessions less reliably and acting more-and-more disinterestedly when he did show up. Exasperated with him after a while, on the occasions when he didn't show we began playing his character as an NPC, as part of whatever villain team we were battling. We all took a perverse joy in pummeling his character, time-after-time. When he completely abandoned our game, his character became an arch villain (seduced, we decided with a thundering lack of subtlety, by an evil alien sorceress).

As an epilogue to this anecdote, a couple years after this all happened in 1986, I had to bail him out of the local jail in Santa Barbara, where he attended college, after we (he especially) had a particularly wild night during UCSB's legendary annual Halloween celebration. And now, 25 years later, that guy is a family physician in Washington State.

*Chuckle*

Now THAT is an amusing anecdote!

Wouldn't happen to be Tacoma, WA. would it?

J/K
Captain-
Micro
High-Powered Superhero
Posts: 61
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 20, 2012, 12:59

Matter of fact, I've adapted the Doctor Apocalypse storyline for my game, in which he empowered my version of the Destroyers as well as one of the PCs and her terminally ill brother (in addition, her boyfriend was in line to become Behemoth). The player ended up leaving the game so I had her follow her heart (and save her brother) by joining the Doctor...a fact that's really peeved the remaining PCs.

I've had some PCs dabble over the years with turning in one shape or another for a short period of time but it's usually been in bluebooking or one on one sessions away from the others. Whether that was from a desire to keep others from finding out or trying not to "waste" other players time varied from person to person.
Majestic
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 2370
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 20, 2012, 14:13

We've just had it happen again in our long-running Guardians campaign, and this one took me completely by surprise. One player conspired with another GM (I coordinate things, but we all take turns running), and I have to admit I totally bought into the GM's red herring. You see, as "Editor-in-Chief" of our campaign, I ususally have the GMs run things by me (with the broad strokes, to make sure no campaign-altering events will happen). But he kept even the title from me (it gave too much away) and ran a couple of sessions which he had been foreshadowing and leading up to for many months (aided by the fact that his computer crashed with all of his notes).

So after a long time of clues of savage animal-like attacks all over the Washington, D.C. area, many of us believed it was this colony of giant ants below the city. We ended up attacking them without trying to use diplomacy first (very unlike the team, normally), and only later found out that it was our own degenerating teammate that was slowly turning evil. The clues had been there for years (this player does an excellent job of not only role-playing, but dropping clues for his characters with long story arcs), but everybody missed them, including the team leader, who had even been given a letter, warning him of what was happening (from a teammate leaving the team).

When the group had to fight their former teammate (who of course was more powerful when evil, just like in the comics), it was devastating and really impactful, and the former hero fought off the evil enough to chase it away before dying. It ended up being a very poignant and powerful story.

V&V GM and player since 1982 (my current campaign is 22 years old); also run West End Games d6 Star Wars monthly, as well as the occasional The One Ring and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game
dan2448
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 905
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: March 21, 2012, 18:59

Quote from IndieComicsFan on March 20, 2012, 10:56
Wouldn't happen to be Tacoma, WA. would it?

Hah! No. He's in eastern Washington state. (On a note entirely unrelated to V&V, he was the first person I ever heard talk about the scourge of meth in rural communities. That was over ten years ago, when he was visiting here in San Diego one weekend. I thought he was exaggerating, having had a few beers. But not long after that, suddenly this was all over 60 Minutes , and then drug store chains began selling Sudafed behind the counter.)
DSumner
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 1532
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: August 2, 2012, 15:48

Just out of curiosity, how was it handled in your games when the hero finally went to "the dark side"? Did the GMs take over playing the character?

Majestic
Cosmic Superhero
Posts: 2370
Post Re: Heroes gone bad
on: August 3, 2012, 11:42

None of ours have been (technically) "taken over by the GM", but they effectively become NPCs, often never to be heard from again. Sometimes one pops up again, but only when the player who played them is taking a turn behind the GM screen.

V&V GM and player since 1982 (my current campaign is 22 years old); also run West End Games d6 Star Wars monthly, as well as the occasional The One Ring and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying game
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