There's been an interesting discussion in connection with an old (1999) John Wick article in the archives here, http://gamingoutpost.com/article/hit_em_where_it_hurts/ Hit 'em Where It Hurts: There's More Than One Way to Kill a Champions Character. I thought I'd call attention to it, as I'm interested in the thoughts of some of you. You're welcome to post there or here, as you like.
(If for some reason you are not logged in over there, the same user ID and password you use here works there, too.)
--M. J. Young
I hate GMs who run games this way.
This is an example of someone who is not running a game for the players to have fun in. This is someone running a game entirely for himself. It is not the players and the GM working together to tell a story, it is the GM and the players competing against each other in a game of oneupsmanship that can only end in everyone losing.
Now, some of this as a kneejerk reaction I can understand: some players want to make combat-monsters or perfect characters and steal the show from everyone else. But there are limits to that. Not all the players are doing that. And if they are, so what, if they're not bothering each other? The only case in that article that I can see that sort of thing being justified is the one case in which the other players actually complained.
There's no excuse to do this sort of thing on purpose. This is a mean, nasty way to play that if the players catch you doing they are fully justified in never playing with you again. The only mitigating factor here is that he used an NPC. Theoretically, his players should be able to rest assured that once Jefferson Carter is rotting in prison, that style of play will go away with him. Somehow I don't see the 'screw you' getting any better.
Gee, tell us how you really feel. I'm guessing you played with a guy like this somewhere.
I've admitted in the thread that I do sometimes target a player or character weakness, particularly in running Multiverser. Of course, I can't kill your characters--only verse them out to another world, and sometimes I've got people begging me to do that one way or another, so I really do need to have a few tricks up my sleeve for such situations.
I also think that the Jefferson Carter NPC strikes me a lot like the Lex Luthor of later incarnations--the corporate exec of the Lois and Clark series, for example. The idea that there is someone out there who is that smart and that devious pulling strings behind the scenes strikes me as a really good comic book style villain. But then, I've not run a supers game, and I don't really know too much of how they play. I have been in games where there was a scheming devious villain working behind the scenes pretending he was on the side of the heroes and taking advantage of his insider status, but not on that scale.
Of course, one of the things that made Lex Luthor such a formiddable adversary is that he could discover and exploit the weaknesses of his enemies. He figured out how to defeat Swamp Thing (but the town never implemented his plan), and he has come inches from defeating Superman more than once. A character like that could be a very challenging foe, particularly since he's likely to be teflon to criminal charges and have excellent lawyers defending him.
--M. J. Young