It depends on how realistic and pointlessly violent you are trying to be.

Realistically, if the courts did not give people like the Joker the death penalty then the citizens would form lynch mobs. Gotham is not particularly realistic since it generally portrays all criminals as violent psychopaths rather than human beings with reason to commit crime.

On the other hand, even if you are the kind of superhero merely trying to help the cops apprehend criminals you can still make mistakes. I remember reading a particularly disturbing example where a ten year old with superpowers trying to capture a criminal for prosecution accidentally rips his quarry in half and suffers PTSD afterward.

The Joker originally was the head of the Red Mask Gang, who were just plain thieves.  He turned into the Joker from chemical exposure by swimming away through the chemical sewer.

He didn't become a psychopathic murderer until much later.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1028024The Joker originally was the head of the Red Mask Gang, who were just plain thieves.  He turned into the Joker from chemical exposure by swimming away through the chemical sewer.

He didn't become a psychopathic murderer until much later.

The criticism could be applied to any mass murdering psychopath supervillain. Just look at any real world example of mass murderers.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1028044The criticism could be applied to any mass murdering psychopath supervillain. Just look at any real world example of mass murderers.

So would that justify the heroes of your Supers game killing that supervillain?

Would it be justified for Captain America to kill Magneto - both born as a reaction to their individual circumstances stemming from WWII? That's the critical question I'm asking. The moment you identify the very thing you've illustrated, it then asks the necessary question about your game: do those things in fact happen? There is a *ginormous* difference bettween Caeser Romero's 'Joker' in the Batman TV show and Heath Ledger's 'Joker' in The Dark Knight (and the various portrayals inbetween). The issue is what form of Joker appears in your RPG - and the corollary of what is acceptable to you in reaction from your PC heroes?

Personally I've always been a big Captain America fan... but the late 70's early 80's era really made him pretty milksop to me. Pre-Ed Bruker, when Cap was "reimagined" in Ultimates, now *that* was a modern Cap that took the totality of what Cap was - a good man, with good intentions, trained to the gills to be the ultimate Soldier, and set him loose. Brubaker did a superb job translating that to the standard iteration of Captain America which I think Chris Evans portrays damn well in the movies.

Does he kill? Sure. But only when absolutely necessary, but he's definitely maiming people and causing potentially permanent damage. But I dunno anyone that would question whether or not Cap is a hero or being out of character.

Lemurian Star
[video=youtube_share;tnneckDUG28]https://youtu.be/tnneckDUG28[/youtube]

Probably one of the best establishing action sequences in the MCU. But if some of these things were done on the streets... yeah this would be pretty brutal. (Brutally awesome!)

I like Winter Soldier because of the dichotomy of being a hero and being a soldier.  The first scene of the bridge, before the Winter Soldier shows up, was what hammered it home that shit was real.  People died, people tried to help each other and the heroes had to deal with a threat in as permanent fashion as they could.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1028206I like Winter Soldier because of the dichotomy of being a hero and being a soldier.  The first scene of the bridge, before the Winter Soldier shows up, was what hammered it home that shit was real.  People died, people tried to help each other and the heroes had to deal with a threat in as permanent fashion as they could.

Which is why I find it more heroic.

And I find the counterpoint to that true too - the bad guys aren't making juvenile gestures about simple revenge. They out for world domination because they have the power to make it happen and are willing to roll those dice. That point/counterpoint with regular people being the ultimate price-payers is where the real dynamic of Supers exists, right?

Otherwise it's just a cartoon. I extend this to fantasy hero-play too.

Quote from: tenbones;1028209Which is why I find it more heroic.

And I find the counterpoint to that true too - the bad guys aren't making juvenile gestures about simple revenge. They out for world domination because they have the power to make it happen and are willing to roll those dice. That point/counterpoint with regular people being the ultimate price-payers is where the real dynamic of Supers exists, right?

Otherwise it's just a cartoon. I extend this to fantasy hero-play too.

Same boat here.  It's why I like the good Iron Age comics/stories (and I freely admit that in the cesspit that was mostly ultra-violent revenge porn, it's a rare thing) because there are REAL stakes, people will get hurt, and as nice as it is, you can't save every one.  You can just try, and frankly, if you save JUST one, you've done good.  Superheroes allow us to be in those situations and do more and be more.

The issue I have with Silver Age is that it turns superheroics into a theme park where no one gets hurt, no one is threatened.  And slightly off topic:  It's an issue I have with the FASERIP Karma system.  It punishes the players for things that they often can't control.

Quote from: tenbones;1027992Alas I'm super busy with my weekly and I'm working on a grueling writing project in my very little spare time (and this is aside from my day job, family shit, my online gaming stuff I'm deep in - blah blah). Not sure I could do a PbP game too.

Well, I didn't really expect you to agree outright:). People do have obligations, I've found.

QuoteBut it's worth mulling over for the future!

Fine! Let me know if you have the ability and willingness to run something like it:).

QuoteI love Supers precisely for the reasons that a it can be a flexible genre that really lets players go hog-wild doing things they could never do in other genres. My experiences with comics as both a fan and collector (the only thing i've done longer than RPGs) allow me to be super flexible in how I approach my games. I've turned all my players into fans where before they were ambivalent at best.

...well, I am ambivalent at best;).

QuoteI don't think that's a tangent - I think it's directly pertinent to the question of the thread. Killing in comics *is* a choice for both the Players and the conceits of the campaign as laid down (hopefully) by the GM for the exact reasons you specified. I treat my supers games with the same "world in motion" mentality that I do my other games - with a few different nobs and whistles.

Which is how I think it should be.
But comics fans keep telling me that would be wrong. Hence, I do read some supers (which a colleague who knows my tastes recommends me - he reads a lot more comics). But I run no supers RPGs.

QuoteFor instance if I'm doing a DC-"style" game - metahumans are generally looked upon favorably by the authorities until proven otherwise. This is not to say that they don't have concerns, but methods matter, as do outcomes. There are dispensations depending on how things happen. My Marvel-style games are a little closer to reality. The government fears and mistrusts metas until situations occur, usually as a reaction to circumstances the government simply can't contend with *without* metas.

The Marvel approach makes more sense;).

QuoteAnd I'm not speaking simply from a power-angle. I'm speaking metaphorically that the goal should be for Supers to be transcendent despite what authorities want. It has nothing to do with super-powers. Nowhere is this concept better exemplified than in The Dark Knight Returns when the incoming police commissioner Ellen Yindel confronts Jim Gordon about Batman. They put that scene in the animated movie.

https://youtu.be/3L4qYkzcsPE

Quote from: tenbones;1028196Personally I've always been a big Captain America fan... but the late 70's early 80's era really made him pretty milksop to me. Pre-Ed Bruker, when Cap was "reimagined" in Ultimates, now *that* was a modern Cap that took the totality of what Cap was - a good man, with good intentions, trained to the gills to be the ultimate Soldier, and set him loose. Brubaker did a superb job translating that to the standard iteration of Captain America which I think Chris Evans portrays damn well in the movies.

Does he kill? Sure. But only when absolutely necessary, but he's definitely maiming people and causing potentially permanent damage. But I dunno anyone that would question whether or not Cap is a hero or being out of character.

Lemurian Star
[video=youtube_share;tnneckDUG28]https://youtu.be/tnneckDUG28[/youtube]

Probably one of the best establishing action sequences in the MCU. But if some of these things were done on the streets... yeah this would be pretty brutal. (Brutally awesome!)

Yes.
Which is why doing it or not doing it on the street is a matter of choice and consequences. Which is what playing is all about, right:p?

Quote from: tenbones;1028196So would that justify the heroes of your Supers game killing that supervillain?

I do not believe so. Superheroes are just vigilantes making up for the fact that the police are ill-equipped to deal with supervillains. If they are legal persons, then it is still illegal for them to take the law into their own hands. It is up the justice system to determine whether to administer the death penalty. If they get a Bond-style license to kill from the government, then I had no problem at all.

Supervillains are living weapons. If they make a nuisance of themselves by casually massacring everyone in their path whenever they get the chance, then there is no doubt in my mind that the justice system would put them down like rabid animals or, more likely, shut them in a government laboratory so we can study them and build armies of superheroes.

Let's be realistic here. The Joker, at least in the comics where he is portrayed as a boring killing machine, makes Al Qaeda look like Mother Teresa. If he gets run over by the batmobile, Batman will be lauded as a national hero and get a presidential pardon. Heck, he might even get voted President! That's why I like the versions of the Joker where he is known for his absurd attempts to literally blow up the world, not being a serial mass murderer who gets free room and board at the Arkham Hotel for Serial Killers and Mass Murderers. The comics really, really did their best to make him utterly contemptible and no longer entertaining.

Good depictions of destructive villains may be seen in the works of Jhonen Vasquez. Invader Zim is an alien who is repeatedly trying to conquer and/or destroy the Earth, and is responsible for numerous deaths; his antics are entertaining and his victims are unsympathetic morons. Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is a serial killer and mass murderer, who the reader lets off the hook because his public killing sprees are ridiculously gruesome and his victims are unsympathetic (at one point he visits Hell and his victims' souls are revealed to go there).

I'll be honest and admit I've only skimmed the thread but I found it odd that no one has mentioned WILD CARDS.

Quote from: Redforce;1027750Pundit- I recall a rant you did several years ago about superhero RPGs, and combined with this statement, tells me you 'get' superhero RPGs.  Golden Age comics had a whole lot of killing and dead bodies, despite what people think of it as the 'innocent' age of superheroes.  They are probably thinking of the Silver Age post-Wertham Comics Code Authority era.

Yes. Batman originally used a gun.

But the thing is comics eventually developed (even before the comics code, when it came to superheroes) a mentality that superheroes, being the good guys, mostly do not kill.