If Malibu as an imprint is owned by Marvel, it should technically be allowed under the basis that Vertigo and Wildstorm characters would likely be allowed. I say you can throw up a Shuriken app and we'll if it meshes with the universe.
No Character Sheet prepared but I am curious about RPing as a bad guy. Specifically something involving the likes of the Weapon program. It came up awhile ago in that 1968 RP and it's been stuck in my head for a bit.
How would that work? You mentioned playing as a villain as a possibility but I'd like to pick your brain about that a bit.
No Character Sheet prepared but I am curious about RPing as a bad guy. Specifically something involving the likes of the Weapon program. It came up awhile ago in that 1968 RP and it's been stuck in my head for a bit.
How would that work? You mentioned playing as a villain as a possibility but I'd like to pick your brain about that a bit.
Again not a GM, but playing as a villain is basically the same as writing as a hero in these sorts of games. You basically are responsible for pushing your own stories forward and driving it but you also have the opportunity to play off a hero character. That just requires communication and coordination.
My general idea is basically a seemingly, but not actually, rogue group in the government doing a lot of the bad not very nice things that such groups usually do in comics. Think like S.H.I.E.L.D. when they're being shady, or the Weapon Program, or the Friends of Humanity/Purifiers from X-Men.
Was thinking of getting into some of that when I was RPing 60s Capt. A and it's still an interesting idea to me. A group that absolutely believes they are doing the right thing for the country and are basically willing to stretch the concept of By Any Means Necessary.
Hiya! I'm new to these sort of things, but I wanted to throw in a Captain America compete. I've got backup plans if mine's not picked, so no worries.
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L
C A P T A I N A M E R I C A : C E N T E N N I A L
S T E V E N R O G E R S ♦ W R I T E R ♦ C A P E C O D ♦ U S M I L I T A R Y
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:
"I’m loyal to nothing… Except the dream."
Steven Grant Rogers was born on the 4th of July, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, the once Sarah Grant, was an Irish Catholic immigrant who had come to the United States with naught but the clothes on her back, while his father, Joseph W. Rogers, came from an old colonial family – ol’ Joe used to say, with evidence he was willing to show to anyone who’d listen, that a Rogers had served in every American war since the Revolution. He also used to say, with just as much pride, that his son was the American Dream personified, the union of the tradition and status of old America with the work ethic and pride of these new upwardly mobile immigrants. Such a person, he’d say, was bound to be someone, although such talk seemed to fade as his son got older and was beset by illness after illness, one after another, leaving him asthmatic and frail, barely able to climb up the stairs, let alone fulfill some grand destiny…
…but fate is a funny thing.
America was going to enter WWII. Despite President Roosevelt’s protestations, everyone who was anyone knew it for certain, and Joe Rogers prided himself on at least trying to be someone – and so his son knew too. And so, on his 18th birthday, Steve went, with his best friend Bucky Barnes, to enlist in the army…but, where the athletic, six-foot-while-slouching Bucky was accepted sight-unseen, Steve’s myriad health problems relegated him to desk duty, if anything. Not content to serve on the sidelines while his fellow countrymen gave their lives, Steve did everything he could – memorized the eye chart, stuffed pennies into his shoes, even forged doctor’s notes – but the mere fact of his stature and weight kept him out of active duty, no matter how hard he tried. Enter Dr. Abraham Erskine. A Jewish refugee, the good doctor had been working on a serum designed to unlock the potential of the human body…whatever that meant. Supposedly, though, it could cure Steve’s conditions, and so he was willing to try it – whatever the consequences. And so, on July 4th, 1942, Steve’s 20th birthday, a new breed of soldier was born – the super-soldier, Captain America.
Everything was different for the young Steve Rogers now. Where once he could barely climb a flight of stairs without wheezing, now he could fight for days on end without resting. Where once he struggled to take his trash down from his third-story apartment, now he could bring whole buildings down with ease. The limitations of even the finest human athlete were well behind him – much less those of his old, frail body. He was well and truly a superhero – one of the first, and the first to have been purposefully made by the US government.
But just as soon as it started, it was over. The Allies won WWII, Hitler was dead, and the world had no need for superheroes anymore – not in the messy, espionage-laden world of the Cold War. The military was more than happy to promote Cap to full officer, but Steve wasn’t sure he could stomach being involved in post-war activities of a country in which he had once believed so strongly.. With a generous army pension and a reputation to rival the greatest military heroes, Captain America retired to a quiet estate on Cape Cod. He’d occasionally publish some article or memoir, or appear on color television talk shows to discuss his opinion on some issue or other, but he was content to live out the rest of his days in peace…
…but fate is a funny thing.
As it turned out, Erskine’s enhancements weren’t just external, but internal – the same biological processes that let him fight for days on end without tiring kept his cells dividing near-perfectly, keeping him not just fit, but young – for every decade that passed, Steve’s body aged a year, if that. The government’s best scientists estimated he’d live to be a thousand – assuming something didn’t get to him first, and that seemed less and less likely every day.
And so the world’s first super-soldier languished, unwilling to fight but unable to die, barely aging as the world changed around him…but change, of course, isn’t always bad, and eventually, the age of heroes came again. It took Steve a few years to get back into the game, but now, a hundred years after his birth, Captain America rides again.
C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S:
Captain America’s always been an interesting character to me. The first Avenger, struggling with a world that’s advanced past him and yet able to overcome those struggles and carve out a niche for himself with nothing but his indomitable will and a shield. That said, at risk of sounding cynical, it’s always felt like a story that… pulls its punches, at least in terms of its effects on ol’ Cap. It may be in part due to his connection to the Avengers and how he needs to get himself together quickly in order to lead them, but I’ve always felt like even a super soldier should struggle with the fact that the world he’s in is, quite fundamentally, a different one from the one he was made to serve. To that end, I think a Captain America who was never frozen, but instead rendered inactive as a superhero – such as, for instance, through widespread anti-superhuman prejudice – could be an interesting way to really dive into the themes common to many Captain America stories while still providing a fresh new take on the character. One distinction I particularly want to explore is that between his two periods of activity as Captain America. Though he’s often called the first Avenger and referred to as an early superhero, during his WWII days, he really was more akin to a soldier – a super-soldier, sure, but still very much a part of military command, taking and giving orders, performing reconnaissance, planning tactics, the works. This meant, of course, that just about everyone he fought against or alongside was there because they wanted to be – as opposed to the world of superheroes, where he might end up fighting alongside a teenager who was bitten by a radioactive animal against their will, or against a desperate thief who sold their soul for magical powers. As a result, the idea of donning the stars and stripes – fundamentally a symbol of government and power – takes on a very different meaning; rather than representing his country against people who signed up to fight it, he’s now representing his country against people who are its own citizens, albeit ones engaged in various kinds of illegal activity. To a Steve familiar with the post-WWII political landscape, seeing the effects of Vietnam and the forever wars in the Middle East and their effects on both government and populace, this distinction would be all the more apparent, and lead to him becoming more skeptical of the idea of the Captain America identity over time. Depending on where things go, he may even drop the shield and become Nomad for a time, or he may come to the conclusion that the country is not its government and he can represent his own ideal of America, whatever that may be – it all depends on the tone of the story. At the end of the day, though, this is a more conflicted, world-weary Cap, although one who still has much of what makes him Steve Rogers hidden just beneath that hardened surface.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
As much as I love Captain America, his powerset can be a tad inconsistent at times. Depending on who’s writing him, he can go from more or less a badass normal on par with Hawkeye and Black Widow to a true-blue superhuman. For the purposes of this RPG, I want Captain America to be firmly on the far-superhuman end of that spectrum, more like the MCU version that can go toe-to-toe with Iron Man or Spider-Man than any peak human interpretation of the character. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it’s never made sense to me personally that the government would spend billions and recruit a mysterious German scientist to create someone who’s effectively a talented athlete, much less that the formula used to create this athlete would be some great mystery few if any were able to perfectly recreate. Secondly, it makes the idea that the serum could have significantly slowed his aging feel less outside the realm of possibility to me – it’s more one enhancement in a suite encompassing just about every biological function than a one-off superpower in an otherwise fairly mundane arsenal used to justify his presence in the modern day. Lastly, it’s just kind of more fun to write if he’s both this famous, well-respected old superhero who can also throw cars around than to have him be a glorified martial artist, at least in my opinion.
S A M P L E P O S T:
Midnight. Miami, Florida.
No matter how many years passed, Steve Rogers could never get used to the sight of men in tights. He’d spent seven-eighths of his life on-and-off following the exploits of so-called superheroes, but every time he saw some guy trying to fight in spandex pulled tighter than a drum-skin, something in his mind couldn’t get past the idea that they might rip mid-punch and expose everyone to something they certainly didn’t need to see. That’s why, when the army wanted to dress him up in a special costume, to show the world that they could make superheroes, not just recruit them, he was adamant that they start with a soldier’s uniform. Sure, they could change it, dye it red, white, and blue, move the buttons over to make room for the stars and stripes, even add some special bracers to make his super-strength a bit easier to use, but ultimately, it had to be the sort of thing a fighting man could wear – because, before he’d ever even considered being a hero, Steve Rogers was a soldier.
And so Steve winced when the flying Frenchman slammed into his shield once again. It wasn’t because it hurt, since the shield had taken tank fire and Steve had barely felt it – no, it was because Steve couldn’t help but wonder how much that purple spandex could take, not least because the last time he’d fought the eccentric Batroc the Leaper, the mercenary’d been wearing gold…
Another clang echoed through the air as Batroc, well, leapt, both steel-toed soles landing on the outer stripe of the shield this time, just barely missing the sharpened edge…Damn, that was a close one! Steve thought, He could’ve lost a foot there, if I wasn’t careful. Pushing forward, he felt Batroc’s weight leave his shield, the Frenchman contorting himself into a far-too-flagrant flip as he flew through the air, landing with a flourish worthy of the greatest showman. “A chanté, mon capitaine, a chanté,” Batroc cried, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, a smile staining his mustachioed mug, “It’s so rare I get to fight anyone as good as you!”
We fought two weeks ago, Steve thought, though he didn’t choose to say it. Instead, letting the sounds of the gathered crowd’s hushed whispers and smartphones clicking, he quickly thought up a retort worthy of tomorrow’s newspaper, or at least some kid’s Snapstagram – “I don’t get to fight people as good as me, either.”
A snarl spread across Batroc’s face as the implications of the statement seemed to hit him almost all at once. “Pute!” he swore, leaping into the air once more, but even as he added a unique half-twist to cause his full-body kick to come in far left this time, all it met was the metal of the shield. A few more camera shudders flashed, and instead of pushing him off, Captain America himself turned to one side, shifting his shield out from Batroc and letting the mercenary’s kick find the concrete. It shattered beneath his blow, and no sooner was his weight on the ground than did he send out a roundhouse kick, one that Cap almost struggled to get himself out of the way for. The leg came down, and that’s when Cap realized it was a feint; his whole body followed his newly-planted leg, causing his two far limbs to swing to Cap’s right side – the side that didn’t hold his shield. It almost caught the seasoned super soldier off guard – but almost wasn’t good enough.
Reaching out, Captain America caught the mercenary’s boot out of the air with the same grace and ease he might catch his shield – that is to say, effortlessly, despite it being a far more complicated task than it seemed. He hated to use his powers like this to win fights, especially when there was a crowd watching, but Batroc was good – better than he was expecting, after their last fight. Besides, he had places to be.
Sweeping Batroc’s standing leg out from under him, he swung him like a ragdoll through the air, bringing both of his arms out in a grand clapping motion that slammed the mercenary together with the underside of his shield. A final clang resounded through the air, and Batroc fell to the ground, spitting blood – it looked like he had bit through his lip at the moment of impact. “I underestimated you, capitaine,” he said, flashing a blood-soaked smile.
“A man’s gotta be more than his tools,” Cap replied, returning the grin, “More than his best moves, too. Keep that in mind and you might teach me a thing or two.” The words felt strange in his mouth, like they belonged to someone else, but he tried to remind himself that he wasn’t just saying that to Batroc – an honorable mercenary was still a mercenary, after all – but to everyone else who might see this fight. The stars and stripes still meant something, after all. They had to.
“Anyways,” he said, finally turning to face the crowd, “I’ve got a plane to Washington to catch.”
“Oh, I fully intend to give you an old-school beat-down. I'm just saying, on top of it all, that you're full of crap.”
Donna Troy ♦ Archaeologist* ♦ Themyscira, Greece ♦ Justice League, Covenant of the Amazons
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T
Forced to pick up the mantle after the disappearance of Diana, Donna has hefty shoes to fill in the world at large. Diana’s past enemies such as Circe and Ares have started to move pieces on the board, manipulating the heroine’s absence to their own ends. Donna’s investigation into Diana will inevitably lead her to the heroine’s apartments all around the world including Gateway City, Washington DC, Manhattan, Athens, Istanbul, and other locations. But investigations in her experience tend to get sidetracked quite often. That’s not even accounting the mind games and insecurities Donna has to deal with, or the superhuman criminals that want to test her patience.
It’s the making of a great journey.
C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S
I had a framework for a Wonder Woman story where Donna was missing, so I decided to do the inverse in a fresh timeline. Diana is the more experienced fighter, investigator, and heroine so throwing Wonder Girl into her role seems a little interesting to me. There’s not going to be any incredible revisions to Donna outside of the framework, so I’m hoping of seeing where that interpretation takes me as I try to have her run into as much trouble as possible.
We’re going to have some Giganta tussles, Ares and Circe doing their thing, and probably a lot of mundane techie criminal types. Maybe Intergang if Hillan feels the need to establish them as doing their usual stuff. You’ll also see me lean a little bit into Greek mythology and some of the stuff I was thinking about doing with Aquaman a few games ago, which probably just means making some things a little more obtuse and complicated than they have to be. Whereas with Aquaman my question was “What if Game of Thrones was underwater?” I’m going to draw on bits of National Treasure and other things to make my interpretation feel a little more whole and hopefully by the end of it I will look like I know what I’m doing and I haven’t forgotten most of the Wonder Woman comics I read years upon years ago.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
Persons of Interest ◼ Hippolyta of Themyscira, Queen of the Amazons ◼ Diana of Themyscira, Princess of the Amazons ◼ Ares ◼ Circe ◼ Heracles ◼ Others to Come!
P O S T C A T A L O G
TBD
Diana Prince.
Princess of the Amazons. Progeny of Zeus. Master Tactician of Themyscira. Ambassador Between Worlds. Member of the Justice League. Superhero.
For all of Diana’s reputable titles there was always one that stood above all else for Donna Troy: Sister. It was their connection, their relationship, the mold that truly mattered most. Everytime she fell, Diana was there, ready with an outstretched hand. With that hand absent, Donna had been left to her own devices, but it wasn’t until the weeks turned to months when worry truly settled in the former Wonder Girl’s soul. Diana was independent, but she was never so careless in the time Donna had come to know her. Had Diana gone into incredible danger she would’ve told her. That is what she believed.
But that hadn’t happened. The protector of the amazons, her mentor and sister, had disappeared without a trace.
Hippolyta didn’t give Donna much solace of mind, as was the case for every single interaction Donna had with the Queen of the Amazons since she had come to Themyscira as an infant. But unlike every other time, Donna hadn’t acted impulsive, rude, or disrespectful. The Queen was concerned, she just had a crappy way of showing it. Donna could respect that even if she didn’t like it, besides, she had bigger problems to deal with. She had to leave Themyscira and seek out Diana. Maybe by retracing her steps she could get some sort of idea of where she went? Could she find out what sort of trouble she was in? Should she contact the Justice League and seek aid? Or would this all be up to her in the end? Her burden to bear as Diana’s ward? A smattering amount of questions snaked around in Donna’s brain as she dug through her room on the eastern coast of the island. To answer any of these questions she was going to have to leave the island. She hadn’t ever done the journey alone.
“Hera.” Her voice shook, the nerves still getting to her. “Give me strength.”
There was a quivering laughter as she tightened the bracelets around her forearms. “That’s what Diana always says, right? Does it work?”
She frowned, looking outwards of a window overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. There were no signs from the gods. There hadn’t been those sort of things in centuries, not since Olympus locked itself away from the world. She wasn’t sure why she thought she would’ve seen some sort of sign.
“Right. That makes sense.”
Her hand clutched the lasso on the table by the window as she grabbed the rest of the essential items.
@Lord Wraith is APPROVED! for Deathstroke and @Mao Mao is APPROVED! for Captain America.
@BornOnSaturday I really liked your sheet and hope that you consider still joining with another character. But in accordance to the rules, and because I did genuinely like his sheet quite a bit aswell, Mao Mao had already secured the right to play Cap.
He sits on a round table. Around him are dead men. Their petrified limbs knock mugs together and he watches in horror as their skin flakes like autumn leaves. His hand reaches out to one on his left, only to part their shoulder in twain. His scream rots the flesh off their skulls. He lies mum in horror as they continue to eat, unaware of their fading bodies, until they leave one by one.
He is walking.
He enters a brothel. Around him is temptation. Whispers of power, glory and perfection beyond compare threaten to ensnare his soul like a serpent. He sees the strings carried in the claws of the Crow above, cawing and mocking with its screeching yawp. Past the maze lies a crystal clear lake, glimmering like a diamond and empty of the things that creep, crawl and swim in ponds.
He is walking.
He stands at an executioner’s block. Around him is shame and below him is the damned. They scream and whisper their last wishes to the furious wind around them. They are like fireflies, darting around aimlessly. His ear catches them and treasures them. A quick prayer is uttered, conversation to distract, before the axe is swung.
He is walking.
He stands over the star daemon. Around him is fire. The monstrosity lies, beaten and blacked. It’s heart is laid bare for him to strike at, yet, he holds still out of confusion. How can mountains quiver in fear? It’s heart seems to still as he stands on it mum with indecision before sheathing his sword. There is no glory to be had here.
He is walking.
He lies on a butcher’s block, stripped of his vestments and his mail. Around him is hunger. Peasants and lords alike in shoulders with one another. He closes his head and holds his head high, lifting his arms outward invitingly. They feast on his body until it is nothing but hollow with marrow suckled out from his bones and yet, his jaw is curved in a grin, for his blood has yielded full bellies and his flesh a thousand smiles.
Walking.
Walking for what?
“Justin. Oi, Justin! Wake up!”
Justin awoke to a hand slapping him on the cheek. He groaned as he kicked himself off the ragged little bunk bed. The other residents of the shelter were busy packing their things for another day spent out on the streets, unless they wanted to get kicked out by the staff. He turned his neck, louds cracks erupting from his joints as his spine ached from the stiff mattress. Just as he was dressing on the sleeves of his moth-eaten sweater, Flannegan arrived, dressed in an unmatted bush of grey hair and a brown trenchcoat that smelt of acrid rat piss.
“ It’s our lucky day. ” Flannegan slapped Justin’s back, grinning madly. “ Guards kicked Ben out yesterday for stealing and we get his locker. We finally get extra space between the both of us. “ Justin felt a twinge of guilt in his heart as he stared at the radio. Ben wasn’t the best person but he’d always remembered the man for giving him a pound for lunch last Halloween. “ Least, we have something to listen to in this crappy weather, eh, mate?”
“ Yeah…..yeah.” Justin scratched his head, his voice absent-minded as he folded up his one blanket which served as a bindle for his belongings. The room around him buzzed with riotous activity as staff ushered people out like a herd of sheep.
“ - You see Justin - “
“ - Where’s your - “
“ - honour and duty - “
“ - Remember - “
“ - Your debts - “
“ - Finish it - “
Justin’s head perked up like a deer in headlights, sweat beading down. Did he just hear that? His heartbeat grew louder in the room and all of the sudden, the thunder flashed in the windowsill, filling his vision with a white explosion that blinded him. Then, the conversation in the room returned to normal volume with a slight ringing in his ears.
“ Flannegan - “ Justin said, breathless. “ Did you hear that?”
“ Hear what? Meh tummy grumbling? C’mon, let’s see ‘ere, I got ten - no, twenty. That’ll give us enough for …..”
As Flannegan continued to ramble on, Justin clenched his fist, sucking his breath in, before putting his toothbrush into the blanket and wrapping everything in a bindle.
There was no Camelot.
There was no King Arthur.
His life was still marooned to the past, and the only way to leave it was to forget it.
@BornOnSaturday I really liked your sheet and hope that you consider still joining with another character. But in accordance to the rules, and because I did genuinely like his sheet quite a bit aswell, Mao Mao had already secured the right to play Cap.
Yeah, no, it's totally cool! I've got a backup idea, like I said. Just gotta hope nobody tries to take Iron Fist or Luke Cage...
@Lord Wraith is now Co-GM. If you have any problems with me, be sure to direct them at him so that he can... uh, forward them. Yeah, that's it.
@Lord Wraith, yeah I don't know what he's doing over there but I just keep hearing the most horrible bleating and then when I walk past in the morning I just see an eerie thousand mile stare in the local livestock's eyes...
Anyway, green eye-bleeding test for Hal Jordan is fine, right?
I had a couple of questions about playing villains.
1) Can I assume villains should be treated as legacy characters? Example - If I was interested in playing as the Green Goblin I would have to converse if the Spider-Man player (Master Bruce) before typing up a CS?
2) Are there restrictions placed on villain PCs? Are certain villains off-limits (Thanos, Adam Warlock, Darkseid)? Can a player turn a villain into a hero? Can a player turn a hero into a villain?
@Lord Wraith, yeah I don't know what he's doing over there but I just keep hearing the most horrible bleating and then when I walk past in the morning I just see an eerie thousand mile stare in the local livestock's eyes...
Anyway, green eye-bleeding test for Hal Jordan is fine, right?
I had a couple of questions about playing villains.
1) Can I assume villains should be treated as legacy characters? Example - If I was interested in playing as the Green Goblin I would have to converse if the Spider-Man player (Master Bruce) before typing up a CS?
2) Are there restrictions placed on villain PCs? Are certain villains off-limits (Thanos, Adam Warlock, Darkseid)? Can a player turn a villain into a hero? Can a player turn a hero into a villain?
1) In the above example the villain would be considered legacy. However I do believe if a villain is applied for before the hero character, the hero becomes the legacy.
2) Game/World altering events would definitely need GM collaboration, likewise probably not best to be wiping out whole cities. I think approaching a villain in terms of plotting is more or less the same as a hero just different goals and struggles.
As for the last two points, those are both an easy yes. I'm currently writing a Deathstroke before his descent into supervillainy. But if you just want to take a villain character and make then into a hero, I think the most recent treatment of Harley, Ivy or Caitlin Snow shows it can be done well.
Likewise going the other way, plenty of heroic characters have been done as villains.