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A Fistful of Plot Devices, #1Bruce Baugh

A Fistful of Plot Devices, #12

IntroductionSuperheroes spend a lot of their active time responding

to crises: something goes very wrong, and they must

save the day. This is a collection of ways to create a cri-

sis, including people, places, and things that can go

wrong in interesting ways. They include some (real or

impending) catastrophes, and also some basically positive

developments that have nightmarish potential in the

wrong hands. They’re each intended to provide reasons

for lots of different kinds of heroes to feel like

responding, suitable for use in many different campaigns.

They aren’t complete adventures, but open-ended start-

ing points.

OPEN CONTENTThe entirety of this document is declared as open content.

A Fistful of Plot Devices, #1Written by Bruce Baugh

Production by Philip Reed

Superline Gamemaster’s Series: A Fistful of Plot Devices, #1 copyright © 2004 Bruce Baugh, All Rights Reserved. Artwork copyright Louis Porter, Jr.Design, used with permission. Requires the Mutants & Masterminds RPG by Green Ronin Publishing For Use. Mutants & Masterminds, M&M Superlink,the M&M Superlink logo, and Green Ronin are trademarks of Green Ronin Publishing and are used with permission.

Designation of Product Identity: All creator names, Superline Gamemaster’s Series, and Ronin Arts. Crooks! and Hero Points are Product Identity of GreenRonin Publishing and are used with permission.

All text, unless stated otherwise in the PDF, is designated as open game content.

Also available from Bruce Baugh and Ronin Arts:

Modern: Monstrous Advanced Classes – A series of PDFs that introduce new advanced classes designed foryour D20 Modern campaign. From the vampire to the werewolf, this series provides GMs with a unique,and exciting way to create villains.

Available today at www.rpgnow.com.


Each entry is organized like this:

The Situation: A concise description of thehook with which the GM can reel in the charac-ters.

Developments: Ways things can go once theheroes rise to the challenge.

Alternatives: Some possible complications andvariations, to keep jaded players on their toes.

Considerations: Things to keep in mind whenpreparing the plot device for use in your partic-ular campaign.

Game Mechanics: Specific rules, where appli-cable.

The Plot Devices

Developments: The power crisis evolves infour distinct steps.

� Step 1: Malfunction. With minutes or sec-onds of advance warning (or none at all),the power source runs amok.

� Step 2: First Wave. At this point, the powersource emits unexpected energies thatwreak some havoc and make it impossiblefor normal disaster-relief crews to approach.A force-field effect is the most common bar-rier, in addition to intense heat or radiation.

� Step 3: Expanding Destruction. The powersource continues to spiral out of control,sucking up the resources it needs to con-sume ever more matter and energy in itsvicinity.

� Step 4: Catastrophe. If nothing’s done intime, the power source explodes in a finaldevastating blast. The unfortunate survivorspick up as best they can.

Alternatives: Besides relatively straightfor-ward energy blasts, out-of-control powersources may emit exotic fields of other sorts.

Condition CriticalTThhee SSiittuuaattiioonn:: One of the many brilliant inventors with

more genius than attention to quality control details

has made an experimental power source that runs amok. In

keeping with the comic-book ethos that building small

prototypes in remote locales is for wimps, the new power

source has gone online in the heart of a major city,

either one the characters inhabit or one they can get to

readily. Now it has to be contained and shut down before

vast crowds and tracts of city are obliterated. The clock

is ticking!


Some classic possibilities:

� Dimensional Gateway. The power sourcesucks energy to or from some alien locale: aparallel universe, a remote part of the char-acters’ universe, even the past or future oftheir own world.

� Making Elementals. People damaged by theunique energy around the power source maybe transformed into creatures composed ofthat energy themselves. This can provide aconvenient origin story for new heroes andvillains, and also allow for dramatic changein the life of an existing hero. The man orwoman locked into an existence as sentientplasma, or radioactive gas or radio waves,or something else other than flesh and bloodis an archetypal figure of superhero storiesinclined toward melodrama (or situationcomedy, depending on how it’s played out).

Considerations: So what is this thing, anyway?“Power source” covers a lot of possibilities. Itcould be a big nuclear power station or some-thing comparable, as seen in countless docu-mentaries about power blackouts, Three MileIsland, and the like. It might be a very smalldevice, suitable for displaying on a lab benchsurrounded by monitoring devices. If the PCshave ways of getting themselves into exoticenvironments and functioning there, it could bea satellite in a decaying orbit or a mining rigdeep in the ocean. The GM should make sure tohave a clear idea of its overall situation andnature in mind, but allow room for players tosuggest details and ask questions. Sometimes aplayer will bring in a bit of inspiration you did-n’t think of, and if it fits, go right ahead and useit, since part of the point of the plot device is tobe familiar.

Game Mechanics: In step 1, there are severalthings that PCs and others on the scene might doto help the situation. Disable Device is the skillof choice for people somewhere inside thepower source, or standing nearby a small one.

Characters watching the situation in a controlroom might try Computers or a relevantProfession skill. Make the DC for this highenough that the player would have to roll very,very well—maybe even requiring a natural20—to actually stop the crisis right here. Butonce they’ve made the effort, allow a follow-upcheck with the same skill or straight Intelligenceat half the DC to gain knowledge that can helpout later. Be generous in allowing the characterscircumstance bonuses for their understandingand experience so far, and players will feel thateven not-immediately-successful action is wellworth taking.

In step 2, the power source goes off. Thisinvolves two (or more) power effects in combi-nation.

First, there’s a straightforward Energy Blast. Ifthe power source is big enough to have internalrooms and chambers, it fills most or all of them,and extends beyond as suits the drama of the sit-uation. Explosions reaching across the citystreet to trap bystanders in a burning building,for instance, provide opportunities for heroes tomake dramatic choices about their rescue prior-ities. (Don’t use this as license to make the play-ers feel doomed to watch many innocents dieunless it’s a dark and gritty campaign by mutu-al agreement. Bring in brave firefighters andothers to help out with the situations the PCscan’t cover alone.) Electricity, fire, and radia-tion are all standard types of energy for theblast, but almost anything can be justified by thenature of the invention. The first blast soundhave a power level somewhat lower than theheroes’ PL, so that they’re likely to be no morethan damaged by it. There will be less-poweredpeople in the vicinity to demonstrate the perilsas they get knocked out, shaken up, and other-wise injured.

Second, there’s usually some generally unex-pected complication. A very strong Force Fieldaround the area is a classic one, the wave of


energy rippling and glowing with unnatural col-ors, and possibly expanding or contractingslightly so that bystanders may be caught insideor released without warning. Giving itextras like Deflection can makethe challenge meaner;Immunity and Impenetrablemake it work more like apure plot device. Itshould be tough enoughnot to come downreadily, and have thepotential to reform ifheroes do manage tocreate a temporarybreach. An Energy Fieldembedded in the wiring ofa building, the outer shell ofa ship or vehicle, or otherperimeter-defining structure pro-duces much the same results.

Step 3 is just a matter of expanding the scope ofthe barrier described above, either by slowlymoving across the terrain outside its currentarea of effect or leaping to the next suitablepoint of attachment. If crackling bolts of B-waves are running through the laboratory com-plex’s wires and pipes, for instance, they mightbeak loose into overhead power lines and thestorm drains beneath the street to include every-thing within a block of the original experiment,all in a flash.

Step 4 doesn’t require detailed statistics. It’s amatter of narrative, and at that an optional one:just as with doomed bystanders, it’s not appro-priate in many superhero games. Perhaps thedevice finally fizzles out, and what matters ishow much good the heroes did during the dura-tion of the crisis. Perhaps its knocked-out inven-tor regains consciousness and can shut it down.Lots of things can resolve a crisis while leavingroom for the characters’ choices and action toreally matter in deciding how it all turned out.

The power source itself can either be shut downor destroyed. Destroying it is a matter of over-coming its hardness, as described in “Attacking

an Object” in M&M. Anything worthy of anot-quite-careful-enough inventor’s

labor is likely as hard as steel orharder, so its hardness rating

will be 15 or more. If any ofthe heroes is particularlygood at smashing things,this is a chance for thatcharacter to show off:make the hardness highenough to be a real but

attainable challenge that nolesser breaker of things could

manage. Electronic systems aresusceptible to Computers skill

checks, including the Datalinkpower. (This is another opportunity to

showcase a power in action.) The DC for suchchecks should be high, because the device isboth complex and unfamiliar, likely laden withpoorly written and of course completely undoc-umented commands. Disable Device alsoapplies in most cases.

A GM wanting to create a good “race againsttime” feel may want to require accumulatedsuccesses from various sources while the outerboundaries of the energy field expand, freshenergy blasts sweep through the area, and so on.Each hero must contribute a couple or more suc-cess, from skills, directed attacks at the deviceitself, or assaults on the barriers keeping themaway, while every few rounds some fresh com-plication arises. Remember that even cata-strophic failure on a single roll shouldn’t meaninstant doom: it should just mean more compli-cations, requiring additional successes and plan-ning to compensate.


Developments: The prehistoric peril unfolds inthree distinct steps:

� Step 1: Remarkable Discovery. Someone,quite possibly the PCs or established con-tacts and allies of theirs, finds the astonish-ingly preserved creature frozen in a glacier,or immobilized by unusual cases in a cave,or otherwise kept safe through the eons.With appropriate personnel and equipmentproviding support, they transport it to some-place it can be properly studied. Inevitablythat place is in the midst of fragile thingsand vast crowds of people, ready to be men-aced in the next step.

� Step 2: Revival and Rampage. The creatureemerges from its dormant condition andbecomes aware of its surroundings. These itfinds unsuitable. By sheer force of will, oran untimely accident like a power outage, orwith the help of someone who thinks thatdinosaurs don’t belong in cages (or that thiswill show the boss what a fool he is, orsome other less kindly motive), the creaturegets loose. Now there’s a monster on theloose! Much property damage ensues; car-nage may also ensue, depending on thelethality of the campaign. The heroes mustfind a way to stop the creature before it cando any more harm.

� Step 3: The Aftermath. Now the heroes havea captured creature to deal with. If it’s dead,that’s probably the end of the story...apartfrom super-science reviving it, supernaturalpower reanimating it, and other ways of get-ting dead tissue active again. If it’s stillalive, though, something has to be donewith it. Better confinement? Sending it tosome remote spot? Sending it off the planet,or out of the present? The nature of the deci-sion and how it’s made are likely to provideplot hooks of their own.

Alternatives: The creature might not be a relicof the past in any (relatively) simple way.

� Weird Science. The creature could be some-one’s present-day recreation, synthesizedout of preserved DNA, brought forth bysemi-controlled mutation-inducing chemi-cals applied to “throwback” animals, or oth-erwise made deliberately. Such a creaturecan be more purely fanciful, combining his-torical elements with someone’s ideas forimprovement and customization. It couldalso be more directly from the past thanks toa “time scoop” connecting different times.

� The Living Fossil. The creature might havebeen alive and well all this time someplaceobscure: deep in a jungle, far beneath thesurface of the sea, high in a barren mountainrange.

The Peril From the PastTThhee SSiittuuaattiioonn:: An ancient beast (or plant!) has emerged

in the present moment. It doesn’t belong here, and in its

confusion, it’s wreaking considerable havoc on its sur-

roundings. It must be stopped, because no matter how

cool it is, people deserve not to be stepped on, eaten, or

forcibly decomposed.


� The Alien Legacy. Humanity is seldomalone in superheroes’ universes. Aliens on asurvey mission millions of years ago mighthave collected many specimens and putthem in super-science storage, then hadtheir spacecraft crash. The contents of thestorage areas wait patiently for archeolo-gists and other explorers to discover them.Perhaps the spacecraft got off Earth andthen ran into troubles, and has been circlingthe outer reaches of the solar system as anapparent comet or asteroid until a chancecollision sends it hurtling toward Earth. Inthis case, its true nature may not becomeapparent until after it’s struck the planet.

� The Extraterrestrial Peril. Finally, the crea-ture itself might be native to some otherworld. That alien survey mission could be apresent-day matter and have just arrivedwith a cargo from one or more planets inother solar systems. If it failed long ago, itcould have drifted between the stars formany millions of years until the Sun pulledit in. In comic-book terms, the differencebetween a dinosaur and the giant grazingcephalothing of Epsilon Eridani II is notgreat.

Considerations: There are some campaigns inwhich it’d be appropriate to confront the char-acters with an entirely nebulous thing of no dis-tinct properties at all, whose nature emerges ina metaphysical reflection of their concerns andquestions...but not all that many. In most cases,the GM needs to work out the nature of the crea-ture in advance.

Simple is often very good for superheroics. Theclassic Big Angry Lizard is a fun challenge: it’sa real menace, and fighting it effectively willtake some teamwork for almost all PCs, but it’sa straightforward sort of thing. Nor need it nec-essarily be a lizard; it could be a Big AngryShark, or a Big Angry Cephalopod, or almostany other sort of creature, because the basic

principle of making something very large anddamage-resistant and giving it an exotic attackor two to supplement its natural weaponry iseasy to apply.

The creature might be a dangerous plant. Thebiggest problem here is that players are likely tostart wondering just how threatening a fern canreally be and slide into farce or satire rather thanthe sort of suspended-disbelief epic action thatis good superheroics. So the about-to-rampageplant needs to be capable of some initial demon-stration that gets characters’ and players’ atten-tion, like jets of poisonous spores, stinging nee-dles, or big gaping maws like those of Venusflytraps and pitcher plants. The plant must earnits credibility as a menace, in some quick dis-play of lethal potential. It must also be capableof getting from where it is at the moment tofresh victims, either by growing very rapidly orby actually pulling itself around (or both).

In the real world, kudzu can grow a foot per day,and other plants do nearly as well. So the sort ofwhile-you-watch bursts of speed required of akiller vine aren’t entirely unprecedented,they’re just intensified like everything elsearound superheroes. Nor are mobile plantsimpossible, since slime molds go from station-ary to mobile and back again at different stagesof life. A diffuse and simply structured killerplant might adopt an ooze-like nature for awhile in search of prey. It could also do some-thing more exotic like casting out tendrils toanchor itself against new targets and then haulits bulk to the new location, drawing in the ten-drils as it goes. It could even launch itself intothe sky, a giant version of the spiders that sail onsails made of spider silk or with the help of amembrane filled with lighter-than-air gas.

The real world provides all sorts of exotic crea-tures ready for rampaging. The giant mammalsof the epochs between us and the dinosaurs gosadly neglected in comic book and movie story-telling, even though they were smarter and


capable of much more sophisticated behaviorthan almost any dinosaur. Apart from the saber-tooth tiger and occasional mastodon, the wholefield is wide open for exploitation, and a GMchoosing this source has the advantage of refer-ence books in every library full of neat picturesto show players. Then there are the downrightweird creatures of the Precambrian, built onbody plans unlike any that now survive. A suit-ably enlarged Anomalocaris or Hallucigeniawould provide a prehistoric thrill that isn’t justwhat players have seen before.

Even though giant size is traditional for ram-paging creatures, it’s not obligatory.Velociraptors are now well established as ahuman-scale peril, and even one medium crea-ture capable of swift, agile flight and possessinglong-range attacks could keep a team of heroesbusy for quite a while. A smaller creature islikely to combine speed with camouflage ofsome sort, whether it’s just the ability to hideitself well or actual powers of invisibility, mim-icry, and the like. The hunt for such a creaturewill almost always take longer than findingsomething big stomping buildings, and thealternating pursuit and being pursued by thething on the hunt can be a guaranteed ticket tofrustration for characters who aren’t equippedfor it. On the other hand, characters with goodsensory apparatus (or gear) and powers thatwon’t themselves do a lot more collateral dam-age might find the hunt just the right sort ofchallenge.

Loosely or strongly connected swarms of small-er creatures add up to a single challenge of thissort, too. They may share an inhuman hivemind, or just have very strong coordinatinginstincts. In either case, they can work togetheragainst humans and other targets, and being sosmall individually, they’re hard to keep out. Theswarm of killer insects of a bygone age looseinside a hospital or skyscraper provides scopefor both hunting and straight-up fighting.

Remember that your campaign’s rampaging crea-ture doesn’t have to have the same explanation inthe game that any of its real-life inspirations do.There are past and present creatures so strange theymake perfectly plausible aliens. There are booksand videos speculating on the possibilities of futurelife, and you could move one of those species to apoorly-documented part of the past—maybe evenback to the Earth’s early history, before bacteriamade oxygen common, so that the thing’s verybreath is poisonous gas. A good image or bit ofinformation is its own justification, and sinceyou’re not presenting a claim of fact, you can putit into whatever context suits you. Tell the playersthe real story later, if you want to.

Game Mechanics: The classic rampaging perilfrom the past, as seen in countless comic books,movies, and other sources, starts off with severallevels of Growth and some extra levels ofProtection and Super-Strength. Protection lets itfend off nuisance attacks (“Bullets can’t stop it!Rockets can’t stop it! What can save us now?”),and Super-Strength lets it smash through obstaclesand inflict a lot of environmental damage. ExtraArmor helps if you want the peril to survive someserious counter-attacks, and don’t neglect the valueof a well-placed Immunity or two so that heroeshave to think about indirect strategies after discov-ering that the obvious doesn’t work.

Keep in mind that some selective defenses go wellwith overall damage resistance by allowing roomfor player ingenuity. If the King of the Dinosaurs issimply so tough that he can swat away any attackfrom any of the characters, the players may findthe situation discouraging. If there are weaknessesfor them to discover and exploit, on the other hand,they get to feel both clever and competent in theirresponses. Remember too that rampaging mon-sters provide inadvertent clues to their vulnerabili-ties, brushing up against an instance and shyingaway just where perceptive characters can see itand draw a useful conclusion.


Many rampaging perils have a particular weak-ness: they depend on some highly non-standardfood source. This can be raw electricity, leadingthe creature to focus its rampages on high-power lines, generators, powered armor, and thelike. It could be some form of radiation, leadingit to nuclear reactors and the like (and thereforepossibly triggering the plot device above). It canbe almost anything that’s exotic and inconven-ient if ripped out of its usual place and sentdown a monster’s gullet. For decades, superheroteam comic books had a standard plot formula,splitting up the heroes to deal with separatechallenges and then reuniting for the last bigshowdown. Efforts to secure potential food tar-gets and/or deal with the aftermath of earlierfeeding can split up a team of characters justthis way, giving each of them some spotlighttime and perhaps letting those who don’t do sowell in straight-up fights nonetheless shine asheroes of the day in their own way.

Flaws allow you to customize the peril’s pow-ers, and you should include a few, as they givecharacters and players the scene of a dynamicsituation that could change again at anymoment. The Degrades flaw combines wellwith the feeding-requirement weakness, forinstance; the power returns to its normal rankafter the peril is exposed to enough of the nor-mally dangerous food source that it would suf-fer significant damage. Instead, it charges outwith fresh vitality, only to wear down again.The Slow and Tiring flaws also fit a lot of ani-mal and plant abilities.

Rampaging perils don’t always play preciselyby the rules. You may wish to design your perilwith a few Hero Points to use for inspiration, asdiscussed in the Characteristics chapter. This isthe mechanical foundation for improbableescapes and other situations that are cool but notthoroughly sensible. “How did it get throughsuch a small passage?” “If it was locked insidethe hold and the door was barred from the out-

side, who killed the crew?” These and otherquestions are best answered with a knowingsmile and a reference to the great mysteries ofancient life.

If the peril is still alive at the end of its initialrampage, the question of its long-term fate caninvolve as much or as little detail as you want.A quick scientific or engineering skill check cansuffice to tell you that one of the charactersworked out a good design that NPCs will imple-ment, and then it’s on to other challenges. Onthe other hand, characters with relevant skillsand powers may well want to try to help thecreature adjust to its new circumstances, or eventry to send it back, if its method of deliveryallows for that. Transporting a beast that isprobably but not certainly now contained tosome lasting haven is the stuff of further adven-tures, with potential for sequels throughout theheroes’ careers.


Developments: The cult’s presence in the livesof the characters and their community has threedistinct stages, with an optional but commonfourth stage:

� Stage 1: Benign Efforts, Minor Mysteries.The group (which may not seem very cult-like at all, at first) shows up as a new forcefor doing good. Its leaders have successfultechniques for dealing with convicted crim-inals, juvenile delinquents, and others whoneed moral guidance, setting them on thepath of better behavior. Recruits spend someof their time out of sight “in training” or “onassignment”, and sometimes the do-goodersend up getting in the characters’ waybecause of different ideas about how to dealwith a crisis they’re both present for. Butthese aren’t big obvious problems.

� Stage 2: Emerging Trouble. The charactersdiscover that all is not well in this neworganization. They may do so by their ownefforts at surveillance and analysis if they’re

suspicious; if not, an established NPC allymay seek them out, or the relative of an ally.In comics this is often the not-previously-mentioned sibling of a character’s friend,the black sheep of the family who thoughthe’d go straight now but is tangled up insomething even worse. At least one villainthe characters have fought before is work-ing with the organization, and it’s quiteclear that any change of heart the villainclaims is purely superficial. Unfortunately,the organization’s public face is winning itallies in the area’s government and media,and nobody wants to hear sour grapes fromjealous heroes. The organization’s minionsturn up committing acts that may or may notbe strictly illegal, but certainly give theirleaders information and assets that belongin better hands.

� Stage 3: The Secret. Some major offense,like the abuse of confidential governmentrecords passed along by brainwashed secre-taries or the refusal to let now-reluctant

The Death CultTThhee SSiittuuaattiioonn:: A new organization is attracting atten-

tion in the heroes’ vicinity. Apparently benign or at least

neutral, it’s got some prominent social group thorough-

ly hooked: teenagers, aristocrats, artists, or some other

readily identifiable subculture. Quite possibly one or more

people close to the heroes becomes involved, spending

more and more time and effort on the organization’s caus-

es. Unfortunately, all is not as innocent as its seems.

Behind the scenes, recruits are gradually dragged into

illegal and immoral activities, and at the top is some sin-

ister mastermind up to something thoroughly nasty. Can

the heroes expose the evil before it’s too late? And will

they be believed by the people they’re trying to save?


recruits leave, gets the heroes’ attention.There’s real trouble here, even though onlya few crusading reporters, dedicated socialworkers, loyal friends or loved ones, andother wise individuals see it besides theheroes. Finally the heroes get the crucialinformation they need to get behind the vis-ible organization and expose the master-mind working behind the scenes. This couldwell be a villain they’ve fought before, orwho at least has been established as a pres-ence in the campaign before; it can also bea newcomer to the scene. Evildoers are pun-ished, their minions are brought to justice,and people of good will deal with the after-math.

� Stage 4: The Real Secret. Stage 3 can be theend of things, and a very satisfying one. Butthere’s often an additional layer of hiddenevil. The mastermind the heroes took downturns out to be one more pawn, working foran even more sinister controller. This is agood opportunity to introduce a change tothe boundaries of the campaign. If therehaven’t been active supernatural powersbefore, the real controller may be a demon(or an angel with real attitude problems) ora worshipper of the elder gods. If therehaven’t been extraterrestrials on the scene,the controller could be an alien, or a robotbuilt by the aliens. This second showdownoften begins with the heroes tired andrecovering, so that they have to draw ontheir innate knowledge and talents ratherthan being able to assemble all the propsthey might like, and is as much a test ofcharacter as a physical fight.

Alternatives: The cult may go after the heroesearly on if the heroes get in its way, and it mayhave a more specific agenda than “every scrapof power we can get is ours”:

� Heroes in Disgrace. Some cults are verygood at manipulating the mass media and

the opinions of authorities. If there’s anypreexisting spark of resentment toward orfear of the heroes, the cult can inflame it;it’s also possible to manufacture scandalsout of whole cloth...or, worse yet, out of theheroes’ real words and deeds, put in theworst possible light. Heroes who’ve

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enjoyed privileged status may find them-selves stripped of it in stages 2 and 3.Rebuilding a shattered reputation can be avery quick task, with proof of the master-mind’s machinations in hand after theheroes triumph, or an extended challengeagainst lingering doubts and suspicions,depending on the overall tone of the cam-paign.

� The Cult’s Obsession. Power is a fine andworthy motive for any super-villain, butsometimes the secret controller wants a spe-cific sort of power: revenge on individualsor groups, ownership of a particular book oflore or magical artifact, or owning a piece ofproperty which (visions or statistics say)will be crucial in some future crisis. Incomic books, these focused drives are usu-ally justified by knowledge denied to most,though it’s always possible for the con-troller to be a very powerful victim of delu-

sions. Like the general nature of the con-troller’s power, the nature of the obsessioncan be a hook for further adventures.

Considerations: Handling people manipulatedthrough their hopes and beliefs requires sometact. Comic-book cult plots often provide thewriter opportunity for a little soap-box moraliz-ing abut freedom of conscience and self-deter-mination, and there’s nothing wrong with that,but it’s very easy for the whole thing to comeout as simply insulting caricature. As GM, youknow (or have the chance to know) your play-ers’ outlooks better than a writer trying to gen-eralize, so make decisions based on the realpeople you play with.

Comics creators and fans have some long-run-ning arguments about controversial subjects incomics. Some argue that the basically simplestructure of superheroes’ universes make themwell-suited for conveying strong clear messages

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about social problems that don’t normally comeup in their stories. Some argue that controver-sial subjects are worth using only when they’rehandled with nuance and complexity, and thatwhile this can be well worth doing, it may verywell change the whole moral foundation of aseries and its setting. Still others argue thatproblems calling for subtlety just aren’t goodsubjects for superheroics at all. Good storieshave been written and drawn to prove all thesepoints, too.

It’s very easy for GMs to overboard with theirpreparation for this sort of thing. Some playerscan follow a lot of exposition and respond withcomments like “That’s so cool! So they com-bine Catharist praxis with a Sethian cosmology?Rock!” Others are more likely to say “Um, so,it’s kind of Christian except not, and there aresnakes or something?” Provide as much detailas helps your players get a sense of the group’sstyle and motives, but not a whole lot more. Ifyou do want to get into historical or historical-ly-based beliefs and structures, consider justcopying a good encyclopedia article (or provid-ing a couple well-chosen URLs) and making itavailable as a handout before or between ses-sions.

The boundary between entirely suitable andfun melodrama and unpleasant, inappropriateemotional abuse varies a lot between players,too. NPCs are there to, among other things,inspire the heroes to action when the NPCs getin trouble, so a certain level of misfortune isvery much in order. People the characters careabout can be deceived, manipulated, and got-ten into all sorts of peril without pushing theboundaries of superhero convention at all. Butheroes who just can’t get a break becomedepressing to play, for most players, and it’seasy to make irreparable changes that you asGM may regret later. Even if you don’t usethem later, it’s often a good exercise to prepareat least one escape route for each major trau-

matic change you plan to inflict on the charac-ters and their surroundings.

None of the above is intended to say “don’t doit”, though. As long as you take your playersand your campaign into account and make theplot suitable for them, this kind of story can bea whole lot of fun, and it makes an engagingchange of pace from other challenges. It canunfold all at once, or with the early stageswoven through other stories for a good longbuild-up. “Be careful!” isn’t the same thing as“Stop!”

Game Mechanics: Designing the villainsbehind the death cult is much like designingother villains. Make sure they have good socialaptitude, whether through high skills and pow-ers of their own or particularly useful minionswhose loyalty they can count on. (A villain whorelies too much on such a minion will of coursebe in trouble with the heroes manage to disableor otherwise neutralize the minion. Suddenlythe mob realizes it’s been mind-controlled, andits anger shifts...exit one villain as fast as possi-ble.…)

The heroes’ investigation provides an opportu-nity to pit skill versus skill in an extended con-test, if players are interested in it. Keep track ofthe points by which they and the cult memberstrying to block their search succeed at succes-sive rolls. A player who gets a 30 on a DC 20Computers check has a 10-point margin, forinstance, while the GM rolls an 18 on the culttechnician’s DC 20 Computers check to main-tain the internal firewalls in the face of the prob-ing. The heroes have a 12-point lead. For every5 points by which one side is ahead, reduce arelevant skill on the other side by 1 for the dura-tion of the contest. or restore a damaged skillbelonging to a member of that side one of itslost points. Eventually, one side or the otherends up unable to act effectively, its defensesand reserves whittled down. You can combinethis with modifiers for roleplaying to taste.

13


Developments: The crisis of duplicationunfolds in three general steps. Events may notfit tidily in this particular scheme, but a pro-gression something like this takes place:

� Step 1: The Duplicate in the Shadows. TheGM introduces the evil duplicate into theheroes’ environment but doesn’t immediate-ly tell the players about it. The duplicategets up to its various bits of evil-doing, butonly characters who make a point of active-ly checking up with their contacts and asso-ciates hear of anything unusual going on.The early effects of the evil duplicate’sinterference are small, and may well looklike bad luck or someone else’s fault.

� Step 2: The Plot Unfolds. Having insinuateditself into the hero’s life, the evil duplicategoes to work trashing the hero’s reputation,finances, social bonds, and general qualityof life. Even the hero slowest on the uptakenow realizes that something is really amiss,but is likely to spend time trying to chase

down nasty computer hackers, super-vil-lains using disguises, and other leads thatdon’t pan out. NPCS, and perhaps some ofthe other PCs as well, wonder just what’sgone wrong with the hero, and speculationincludes mind-control rays, consciouslychosen villainy, possession, and the like.

� Step 3: Beside Myself, Against Myself. Thehero and at least some close associates nowhave a good general sense of what’s goingon. The evil duplicate makes its movestraight at the original now, in a clashexploiting its innate knowledge of thehero’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Thehero may be able to call for help, but thenthe duplicate has had time to arrange sup-port of its own, from hired goons to cus-tomized weapons and gadgets. If the herotriumphs, eventually the damage can all beundone. If the duplicate wins, particularly ifthe hero wasn’t able to alert others in time,there’s a new villain out there with a verysecure cover story....

The Evil DuplicateTThhee SSiittuuaattiioonn:: The heroes begin receiving disturbing

reports of one of their number (or several of them)

engaged in clearly un-heroic activity, from letting crimi-

nals escape to pursuing wealth and power by abuse of

heroic power and position to outright crime and villainy.

It’s not a hoax (nor a dream nor an imaginary story)

involving someone pretending to be the hero, investiga-

tion reveals: it’s someone whose vital signs and biomet-

rics are identical to the real thing. It is in fact an evil

version of the hero. So the heroic hero must, alone or

with help, confront the rival, put a stop to the villainy,

and repair the damage done. And there is no foe tougher

than your own self!


Alternatives: The general theme of the unex-pected duplicate can express itself in severalother ways, including:

� The Evil Within. Rather than an externalduplicate, an alternative personality dedi-cated to evil lurks inside the hero. It couldbe a demonic spirit, or a new personalitycreated through hypnosis or mind control,or an evil ancestor or past life emergingthrough the mists of time. In any case, theevil within acts when the hero is asleep ordistracted, and one of the signs of trouble isthat the hero doesn’t seem to recuperate aswell as expected from regular rest. Solvingthe crisis means identifying and defeatingthe power behind the hero’s internal divi-sion.

� The Good Duplicate. An established super-villain is seen doing unexpectedly goodthings. Change of heart? Sinister schememasked as philanthropy? The villain contin-ues doing the customary bad things, butwith more virtue and charity mixed in allthe time. In this case, the duplicationprocess, whatever you choose to make it,got applied to one of the bad guys, and thevillain is likely to be just as angry and help-less about it as many heroes. The ensuingstruggle might well end with a new hero onthe scene, albeit one with the villain’s repu-tation to deal with.

� Outright Replacement. The evil duplicatemay strike directly at the hero first, arrang-ing to get the original out of the way. Thekidnapping happens before the duplicategoes to work, so there’s no question of thehero being seen in two places at once or anyother such complications. SeeConsiderations, below, for more about thisand related matters.

Considerations: Perhaps the most importantquestion to ask yourself when setting up thisplot device is whether you want to let the hero’s

player in on the secret. If the player can keep it,your life as GM will be greatly simplified insome crucial ways. The player can add in justthe right sort of befuddled response that feedsthe suspicions of other players, for instance, andmay well have thoughts about vulnerable spotsin the hero’s life that haven’t yet come into play.Furthermore, it’s just plain fun to play the vil-lain, and the player’s likely to have a good timebeing the unsuspected ringer, particularly if youuse the option for outright replacement. Thehardest part may well be getting the player tostifle cackles at moments that would alert theothers in the game.

As always when personal, romantic, familial,and other matters come up, you’ll want to makesure to keep the villainy in bounds. Some super-hero campaigns thrive on sudden tragedy fromtime to time; others collapse unpleasantly. Ifyou want to push campaign boundaries a bit,consider just asking players outright about it.You don’t have to give away the plot you’ve gotin mind, just ask them how they’d feel about atrauma in the style of a well-done comic book,preferably one you can show to the players whoaren’t familiar with it thanks to handy tradepaperback reprints. Pick one that has the gener-al sort of trouble you’ve got in mind and use itas a basis for discussion. If the players don’t gofor it, try something else instead.

You also need to figure out just where the evilduplicate comes from. It might be the magicalor technological creation of some already-estab-lished villain, or an up-and-coming challengerwho sees this as the way to make a splash in vil-lain circles. It could be a training robot built fortraining exercises by some covert agency, nowrun amok. (That happened with some regularityin some comics of the 1970s-80s.) It could bethe counterpart to the hero from an alternateuniverse, perhaps one where good and evil rolesare flip-flopped all around. It could be thehero’s future self, having lapsed into villainy


thanks to future crises (or, if you want to getreally twisted with the time paradoxes, becauseof this very crisis now).

Whatever you settle on, keep in mind one of thecrucial rules for mysteries in roleplaying games:if you make everything hinge on a single clue,that’s what the players will never think of andthe characters will never succeed at finding.Rotten luck and differing judgment alwaysseem to combine at times like this. Make surethat you allow at least one alternate route toevery essential piece of information, and ifplayers come up with neat lines of investigationyou didn’t think of, accommodate them. Whenyou’ve got the destination in mind, you don’thave to worry so much about each turn alongthe way.

Game Mechanics: In step 1, if you’re using theoptional campaign crisis level rules fromCrooks!, you can introduce a mysterious drop inthe public attitude toward the hero or heroeswith evil duplicates on the loose. The evil dupli-cate’s actions create sporadic -2 circumstancepenalties to the good original’s skill and power

checks. Further steps may bring additionaldrops, and perhaps drops in other levels of well-being to keep the hero and allies busy solvingthose problems rather than getting to the root ofit all.

The evil duplicate may not be the hero’s dupli-cate in every detail of statistics. You should cer-tainly feel free to shuffle skill points around andeven to modify powers, depending on its ori-gins. If you’re planning to have the duplicaterumble with the hero’s allies along with thehero, then definitely add some powers andresources to use in the big struggle. It looks justlike the hero, but—gasp—it’s using theseunsuspected abilities! (This can be a neat way tointroduce new technology and props, by theway; if the heroes win, they can study theremains and have the basis for acquiring newpowers of their own.) Remember that all otherthings being equal, the player-controlled char-acter tends to do better simply because the play-er only has the one character to keep track of,while you’ve got the surrounding world, anddon’t feel guilty about giving yourself somecompensatory advantages.

16


Developments: This plot device brings a wholeseries of visitors into the characters’ environ-ment, in about this order:

� The First Wave: The Heir. Things begin withthe heir and perhaps a few trusted compan-ions and aides seeking out the heroes for pro-tection. In a well-established campaign, theheir may have turned up in play before, if theheroes dealt with the deposing organization.But it’s entirely in the spirit of comics to havea refugee turn up without any preamble at all.Furthermore, assassins may well be in hotpursuit, so that the first the heroes know of it,they have to deal with a tangled violent messright on their doorstep. Once that’s dealtwith, there’s an opportunity for expositionand the characters to consider just how theypropose to help.

� The Second Wave: The New Authorities.After whatever initial violence there may be,a better-behaved team comes from theauthorities that overthrew the heir to staketheir claim. They present as much history asthe characters will sit still for to establish thejustice of the overthrow and the prosecutionthey want to mount now. Diplomatic wran-gling may well ensue, along with competingefforts at winning media and popular sup-

port. Desperate antagonists may resort toblackmail and more physical forms of intim-idation; depending on how morally ambigu-ous this conflict is, both sides can behave inmuch less than admirable ways.

� The Third Wave: External Complications.Forces outside the original dispute now try tostake their own claims. Local civil authoritiesmay well object to carnage and mayhem.National and international peacekeepers alsoprefer to discourage independent violence inthe service of far-away problems. Would-bemediators and would-be successors to boththe deposed and deposers show up to pursuetheir own agendas. The heroes should have atleast moments of wishing they’d never got-ten involved with the mess, and it provides agood test of their loyalties and ideals.

The grand parade of claims, counter-claims, andmiscellaneous complications gradually settlesdown, and the heroes can at last head towardsome lasting resolution. Is the overthrow just initself but the deposed heir worthy of protection?Kings in exile are common in real history as wellas comics. Is the overthrow unjust but the newauthority too well-established for anything shortof a major war? The exiled heir can wait and pre-pare for the future, leaving a trail of future cam-

The King Without a ThroneTThhee SSiittuuaattiioonn:: One of the defining qualities of superheroes

is that they protect those who need protection. Here

comes someone who needs a lot of protection: the rightful

heir to some important institution, who’s been deposed and

is being hunted by rivals who want to simplify the succes-

sion by removing the heir. Once powerful, now reduced to a

desperate struggle merely to survive, the heir needs help.

Can the heroes see that justice is done?


paign hooks. Are both sides unjust? It would beentirely in keeping with the superheroic approachto political structure for the heroes to bring ineveryone to some suitable tribunal and work witha protectorate of some sort to establish an entire-ly new regime. The contested throne sits waiting.

Considerations: The nature of the heir’s institu-tion depends on the campaign power level. Fortypical PL10 heroes, the heir can be the heir to akingdom, the next in line for head of state of ademocratic or republican regime, or some othersort of political heir. In a campaign at PL5, theheir might be the designated successor to thedeceased leader of an important corporation,crime family, or private institution like a religiousdenomination. At higher power levels, the insti-tution could be an empire, on or off Earth; fugi-tive heirs to alien thrones are by no meansunknown in comic books. This plot deviceshould present the heroes with interesting chal-lenges, not overwhelming opposition and guar-anteed defeat.

It’s temptingly easy for this kind of story to getdrowned in background exposition. Resist theurge to work out almanac-quality history and cul-ture for the organization and regime involved.Keep it brief, and do rely on conventional expec-tations in at least some points, so that the reallydistinctive flourishes stand out and are easy forplayers to assimilate. Remember that there’snothing wrong in presenting your players with“just like The Godfather” or “just like The Manin the Iron Mask” or “long-lost Anastasia”,except with their heroes able to influence the out-come.

Some campaigns thrive on incorporating real-world issues, and some don’t. Presumably youknow which sort yours is. Do be careful that ifyou base in-game events on real-world analogiesand metaphors, your players won’t respond byvigorously disputing the legitimacy of the com-parisons and take the events as meaning some-thing else altogether, and that they won’t feel that

they could have skipped the game session andread editorials instead. Construct your situationso that it has its own internal consistency regard-less of what players think about comparable situ-ations outside the campaign.

Finally, consider whether your players reallywant to be the judges of a potentially internation-al (or interplanetary, or worse) crisis. If they do,great! Carry on. If not, provide at least one grace-ful way for them to hand the responsibility off toauthorities they can trust. In this case, their job issimply to keep the peace while other people’sprocedures go into effect. That can be a satisfy-ing role as well, particularly if they get to protectgenuinely innocent and needy people in the midstof a chaotic, dangerous scene.

Game Mechanics: If you want to get playersinvolved in the social struggles possible with thisplot in more mechanical depth, there are someexcellent resources available made withmedieval settings in mind but that adapt easily tothe modern day. Supplements covering noblesand nobility, government, law, and the like areout there waiting for you. They’re not appropri-ate for every campaign, but then nothing is, andby providing solid rules and support, they letcharacters with social prowess shine as clearly assluggers and zappers do in fight scenes.

Any battle with the forces guarding and/or pur-suing the deposed heir is likely to involve a lot offlunkies. Because they’re easy to defeat, theyprovide heroes an opportunity to demonstratetheir style. A bit of fun of this sort might be a wel-come break in the midst of head-spinning claimsand counter-claims. The leaders, on the otherhand, may well possess exotic powers associatedwith the organization and its history: mysticalpowers and magical artifacts, super-science thatrelies on rare minerals found only in places theorganization controls, and so on. As with severalof these plot devices, this can be a handy way tointroduce new stuff into your campaign.


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Mutants and Masterminds RPG Copyright 2002, Green RoninPublishing; Author Steve Kenson

Crooks! Copyright 2003, Green Ronin Publshing, Authors: SeanGlenn, Kyle Hunter, and Erik Mona.

A Fistful of Plot Devices Copyright 2004 Bruce Baugh

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