QUOTE (Raiden @ Jun 21 2013, 12:26 AM)
So, I was thinking about have a psychotic delusional vampire genius as a recurring "villain" for the PCs, would be a mystic adept and be much stronger (at least karma wise) than a single PC due to well, living long enough as a vampire to go insane (and still think your quite sane).
Also thought about him having MPD, with one being the insane Doctor/scientist and the other being a more civil, polite, and charming man. I plan to have him "catch" the PCs at one point not sure how to do this without railroading or seem as if I am going on a DM power trip, any tips on that as well would be nice.
Anyway after catching them the insane doctor would perform experiments and the like, some actually ending up slightly beneficial, some detrimental to PC health but most just puttering out in the end with no real effect. After a time the PCs would somehow manage to escape (not sure how to do this either) and yadadada so on and so forth.
Now this was a one the spot, lightbulb that I started to run with, any thoughts? Ideas? (it's a horroresque game so, terrify me)
Oh, also the guy is hell bent on causing a new pandemic of the ghoul strain and then using a spell he (and his mentor spirit made specifically for ghouls) to control all or most life left on earth. :3 (of course we all know the best he could do was take over say, the UCAS or some around that hehe.)
I think I would have the PCs start working for him a run or two getting him things he needs without knowing it. sorry I am rambling as I think. anyways thoughts, ideas, the works :3 thanks guys.
I've got some advice for you.
Firstly: The Shift key. Assuming you're using a full-sized QWERTY keyboard, there's one on the left, between your Capslock button and your left Ctrl button. There's also one on the right, between your Enter/Return key and your right Ctrl button. The two most appropriate times to make use of these buttons is when you are starting a new sentence (IE, after the use of a period,) and when you are starting most proper nouns, as most names begin with capitalized letters.
Secondly: the Enter/Return key. While there are differing schools of thought on when exactly it should be used, how frequently it should be used and how many times it should be used when its use is called for, virtually everyone on the planet agrees that its use is called for, and that same subset of people who agree it should be used also agree that its use makes a given selection of text vastly more readable and comprehensible, and hence, more likely to draw constructive answers.
As you can see, I've taken the liberty of formatting your original post, employing both my Shift key and my Enter/Return key, as well as correcting a minor spelling error that's easily forgivable as you mistakenly spelled another word and hence, your spellchecker wouldn't have picked it up. ("Preform" instead of "Perform.")
Now, on to the topic at hand:The Madness: Skip the B-movie Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde shit. A guy doesn't have to be pants-on-head insane to be a monster, especially in the Sixth World where there are very brutal monsters out there who are terrifyingly sane. Just give this guy a
massive superiority complex hidden by a veneer of polite civility. He's civil and courteous not because he feels the inferior metahumans upon whom he bestows his civility and courtesy are worth it, but because he believes it reflects well on him to offer it; he is, after all, a
Gentleman, and such is the way Gentlemen behave. When he's been crossed, though, when he's angry (or hungry,) his facade fails and he lets it be known that he thinks your lives have exactly as much intrinsic value as that of an insect: none whatsoever. You are not ageless, you are not mighty, and if you cross him he won't think twice about grabbing you by the throat and squeezing the life out of your disgusting mortal body, just as you would think little to nothing of stepping on a cockroach.
The Capturing of the PCs, and the Experimenting thereupon: Don't go out of your way to force this. Just flat-out don't. The mad scientist performing hellish experiments in a basement or mansion laboratory has little place in the Sixth World. Rather, make him a participating partner in some megacorporation's hellish experiments in some kind of black-zone lab in the Barrens. The corp wants to experiment on vampires, he provides them with vampires, and in turn they run the experiments he wants run in addition to the experiments they want run.
Don't have him try to capture the PCs specifically for the purpose of running these tests upon them, either. It doesn't pay to drek where you eat, and if he's using them as deniable assets, betraying them is stupid, especially given that no matter how much Karma you have, a bunch of pissed-off player characters being clever and going all-out can ruin your whole fucking day, no matter how magic you are and how many Karma you have. (Go and ask President Dunkelzahn how well being a Great Dragon worked out for him when someone shot an anti-tank missile at him.)
However, if the PCs do attack the facility for whatever reason... Well, they're attacking a hardened target which is set up to contain angry, enhanced metahumans. The guards and/or researchers may have been turned into vampires as well, depending on how "close" his relationship with the research staff is. If they get themselves captured doing something stupid, though, don't hesitate too much to turn them all into vampires (Banshees/etcetera) - as HMHVV strains go, these are some of the nicest ones you can get.
As for getting them out of there once they get captured, if they do, then just say that a Matrix attack results in a security disruption that lets them out of their cages and gives them the opportunity to jump some guards, hijack their guns and fight their way out while everybody's distracted. The Matrix attack might have been a rally by some of their allies to spring them, it might have been random (a metasapient emerged in the facility's systems and ran amok,) or some third party may have sprung them with the intent of calling the favor in later.
On the pandemic and the spell: That's not going to work, and this guy should be intelligent enough to know that. Even if he somehow managed to spread an HMHVV pandemic that infected people
en masse and then cast some spell to take control over them, and being generous to his Plot Power in saying that the spell would only when cast by him, so an even older Vampire (Banshee/Etcetera) or some Immortal Elf/Great Dragon couldn't cast it and usurp control from him, then the Megacorps and the Great Dragons will come down on him
with the wrath of a thousand angry gods looking to get their smite on. Thor shots, Great Dragons personally taking the field of battle, air support, hit squads, etcetera. He wouldn't
survive, all he'd do is rally the entire world against him.
So he wants power?
Power can be arranged: he could probably easily usurp some of the most nasty places on Earth (like a few Carribbean islands or some hell-holes in third-world countries.) He could establish a nice Barrens fiefdom in cooperation with his megacorporate sponsors, or he could have a master plan that involves getting enough blackmail material and enough money to buy his way onto the board of the megacorp he's working with and wield power that way. He might even have a plan to start his own megacorp, and, for what it's worth, a spell/ritual/whatever plot device you like to allow him to exert control over "his" lineage of vampires wouldn't be amiss. Hell, maybe the Vampire who infected JetBlack was one of his, and so he can bring JB and JB's crew onboard, too, which would be a nice tidy way to tie this adventure to On the Run. Of course, the PCs should be immune to this, even if they got infected by him or his lineage, because seriously, fuck that guy. (And mind-controlled players aren't likely to be having much fun.)
On having the PCs work for him: Feel your players out. A vampire's
spends as well as anybody else's. Are they the kind of players/characters who would deliver children to Aztechnology to go right up on the heart-ripping altars? Then they shouldn't have any problem taking this guy's money to do horrible things. They might be perfectly fine with that, and they may feel that if this guy is going powerful places, hitching their wagon to his train is a good idea. They may even volunteer for infection if that's the case.
Alternatively, if they're more principled runners who are fine with doing bad things to bad people but draw the line at being obviously villainous, have him pay them to bounty-hunt obviously bad people for him. He and his corporate pals get some exceptional research subjects - such as if he wants them to start poaching Rusty Stiletto gangbangers to see what happens when you mix HMHVV I with radioactivity or whatever - and gradually reveal to them what he's been using these guys for. Have them decide if they want nothing to do with him, if they're going to oppose him, or if they're absolutely fine delivering horrible people to a horrible person for money.