[Channel Teaser] How A Street Thug Beat A God Hi everyone. All Things DnD is back with another story. This is a cautionary tale of what happens
when good guys go bad and bad players hit rock bottom. Can you play as a superhero and not become
an intolerable jerk? Listen to how these âheroesâ become worse
than who they are supposed to be fighting. It was the first superhero game I ever played. One guy built a hero that was essentially
âsuperman v2â named Olympian. Our power-gamer took abilities that made him
adapt to almost anything if he made a couple of save throws named Adept who was kinda like
Martian Manhunter. There was also another âvigilanteâ dude
that was like Rorschach met TRON, who was a wiz with computers named Protocol. Our DM had also decided to run two villains
in tandem to the heroes. I played a bombastic mad scientist named Doktor
who was prone to mad cackling, was bald, and spoke with a super heavy German accent. My friend, who was extremely patient and loved
roleplaying, played a simple street thug named Solomon. No real powers, but instead dumped all his
points into arbitrary skills like assembling explosives and picking locks, things minions
resorted to. He did, however, apparently enjoy my character
out of character whenever we met, but in character, Solomon was quiet, thoughtful, and had almost
no backstory. He didnât even really have a costume, just
wearing the simple white tank top, a medium length trench coat with a hood, and a hat
with the local baseball team logo on it. As the game progressed and we gained levels,
the Adept became infamous for his flawless streak of crime solving and defeating the
villains of the week, Protocol became the Batman of his city and foiled thug after thug,
the Olympian slowly became the Superman of the world, becoming adored and famous to almost
everyone. The problem came when we realized that Olympianâs
player was becoming âThat Guyâ with no turning back. With every level, he became more and more
enamored with himself, and started mixing up his out of character speak with his in
character taunts. On more than one occasion when he and Doktor
fought, Olympian would actually let a few racial slurs out. Doktor shrugged, thought âmeh, heâll get
over itâ. But he didnât. He got worse. Much, much worse. And then as if it was the icebreaker, both
Protocol and Adept began to follow suit. Slowly, the three âheroesâ became even
more dickish than the villains they were fighting, often using their oh-so-subtle influence to
get themselves free stuff from the city they were protecting, the one that they weâre
supposed to because it was the right thing to do. Doktor and Solomon continued their operations,
which converged quite a lot and we found ourselves becoming steadfast allies, honor among thieves
and all that. I, being the one with the most connections,
supplied us with various NEFARIOUS TOOLS OF EVIL, while he sunk points into stealth to
the point that most people couldnât pick him out of a lineup, he was so âuninterestingâ. He acted as my hands, and we became brothers
in blood. Until we failed the heist. I do not blame Solomon. If youâre listening to this, I know it was
a bad roll man, and Iâm sorry this happened to you and for the series of unfortunate events
that unfolded. But what eventually happened was we were discovered
by Protocol, who called in Olympian and Adept to help him pummel the two criminals and their
henchmen into the ground. Both Solomon and I were not designed for combat,
so after they inevitably cleared out our goons, they attacked us. Doktor went down after his exoskeleton failed,
and was promptly thrown against a wall, dealing a massive amount of damage. Solomon tried to help, but Adept becomes as
strong as Olympian and begins to toss the broken body of the Doktor back to Olympian
in a sick game of catch, laughing when they purposely miss the rolls and let my soon-to-be-corpse
splat against the ground. This went on for an hour in game, and I broke
character to ask them to stop. That only made them take it farther. Olympian picks up the Doktor, who is a bleeding
mess of pulp, shattered teeth, and more than a few crushed organs. The Olympian looks over at Solomon, smiles
heroically, and just flicks his finger under my chin. With superhuman strength. DM rules Iâm as dead as they come, at least
for the moment. He threw my corpse in front of poor Solomon,
who at this point, was upset that his partner-in-crime had taken such a beating from the so called
âheroesâ. Out of character, Solomon asks for a time
out and turns on Olympian and the heroes, asking them what possessed them into thinking
that was how heroes acted, and why they thought it would be okay to be such monsters fighting
a villain like that. Olympian shrugged and said thatâs how heroes
work. As long as the bad guy is defeated, heâs
the hero, and therefore, heâs right. I asked the DM if I could have my brain saved,
and he allowed it, lest we had to roll a new villain for the setting. Solomon decides to sneak away, and slips from
his bonds before sneaking away into the night, carrying the body of Doktor into the secret
lab and allowing the machines to place his brain in a jar and sticking him into a new
version of the exoskeleton. Overall, I was upset they took me so easily
and so cruelly, but Doktor got back to work and quickly got used to the lack of a body. Not Solomon. He just got very, very quiet. He started working separately from me, popping
in to purchase explosives and equipment, often trading it for simple tools, a few tips about
what was going on in the NEFARIOUS UNDERWORLD the Doktor was a part of. I thought he was playing it safe, not trying
to draw attention to his actions or anything so he could just continue on forever, but
he had different plans apparently. In the middle of the halftime show for the
city, the lights went dead before rebooting up in the middle of an inning. Suddenly, all the screens boot up to show
a video of Protocol fighting crime. It was a clip from the local news that was
used in the latest âWho is Protocol?â segment to talk about his vigilantism. It wasnât anything new, not to the crowd,
until it started playing longer than most clips, and showed Protocol taking the beating
a little too far. After leaving the thugs for dead, Protocol
begins to sadistically torture them and then takes cash out of their wallet. What stung most for the Protocol player was
that this wasnât edited; He actually did this on numerous occasions. The player demanded the feed stop, but the
DM says that the video is being streamed from a private server with a direct cable connection,
and thereâs no way for Protocol to stop the hundreds of clips and images of his once
heroic visage being shown to be just as cruel as the thugs he fought. The final image? Protocol without his mask. And the words: âHYPOCRITE. HE IS JUST AS DANGEROUS AS THE CRIMINALS.â Solomon, it turns out, had dumped EVERYTHING
into sneak points, effectively becoming an un-person with such little presence that he
was free to go where-ever the hell he wanted without a hero noticing him. He used this to trace Protocol and film him
without his knowledge, gathering evidence, and hereâs the kicker, he streamed the video
from Protocolâs own home computer. Protocol was killed by cops when they attempted
to arrest him and he responded with a threatening motion that would have activated some kind
of electric weapon had the cops not shot first. Now the heroes are mad, and the city is in
uproar with the idea of non-cops having a say in the justice system. Olympian, however, still has enough sway to
calm them down and keep them happy with Adept and Olympian serving the public good. They devote a considerable amount of gametime
to trying to locate Solomon for JUSTICE, but no dice. Doktor is approached by him, and gives him
a device called the âphase-netâ that I had made to create a containment field for
Olympian. He promises me heâll put it to use and I
give it to him on credit. Adept goes about his job, foiling a few crimes
by himself. He chases after a few droids made by DOKTOR
INKORPORATED, which lead him into a small brick room before stopping and promptly being
smashed by his temporary strength. As he turns to leave, the door locks and the
phase-net activates, stunning him momentarily before the DM informs him his head is starting
to hurt. See, in the game, there are two kinds of attacks:
Physical and Other. Physical is fists, kicks, physical force,
etc. Other is energy, magic, or spiritual. The phase-net operates using psychic energy
as a weapon to stun characters, but because Olympian is so bullshit, he powers through
it because reasons. Adept was trying to, until Solomon pointed
out a flaw in Adeptâs power description: He adapts PHYSICAL defenses, not Other. Adept screams and grabs his head as the psychic
power overtakes him, Solomon describing the setup as âGerry-rigging the power source
into the cityâs power-gridâ, meaning the pain would only go up until the city ran out
of power, and this is a metropolis size city weâre talking about here. Adept tells the DM he needs to adapt out of
the psychic hold, and the DM asks him if heâs sure he wants to adapt, and Adept says heâs
absolutely sure. Because Adept canât adapt an Other defense,
and because his power is described as ânature making the straightest line between a problem
and solutionâ, Adept automatically adapts the best trait for the current âpsychic
damageâ predicament: His body breaks down his brain and leaves him without any cerebral
tissue more advanced than the functions needed to keep breathing. Since his ability to adapt and change MUST
be a conscious choice to do so, he is stuck in his current adaptation with no method of
revival. Solomon drags the drooling, brain-dead hero
to the front of a hospital and leaves him in the care of the nurses who discover him
in the morning. By this point, Olympian was PISSED. The players for Adept and Protocol demanded
that they get rescued or revived, and that Olympian bring both Solomon and I to justice. Olympian sweeps the city and urges a martial
law into effect, turning the entire city into a nightmare. Police gun down Vigilantes left and right,
superheroes save for Olympian have all but gone into hiding, and Solomon is still one
stealthy bastard hiding amongst the dark alleys and secret tunnels. With no hope of rolling high enough to locate
him by this point, Olympian flies through the streets at nearly subsonic speeds, and
I narrowly avoid his rampage through my lab (After last time, I had learned that as long
as my WUNDERFUL MIND survives, Iâm okay, so I built a heli-bot into my suit that took
my brain away faster than he could fly), and still no sign of the thug named Solomon. And then he gets the call. Olympian bursts through the roof of a hotel
room filled with electronics and finds Solomon standing in front of him, not a hint of emotion
on his face. The chat box is tense as the DM describes
the room as dark and unremarkable save for the random web cameras strewn around the room. Olympian tells the DM to shut up, and the
chat goes silent for a moment. Olympian launches into this description about
how his fist is about to explode from anger and how he readies himself to kill Solomon
with one punch. And then Solomon turns the cameras on. All around the city, televisions turn on and
stream the confrontation, Solomon revealing in his hand that heâs carrying a small button,
a detonator. TO what? He explains, very calmly: âIn my hand is
a detonator. Somewhere, in this city, a random room with
a citizen will explode. And then, 30 seconds later, another one will. And then another. And so on, until this city is reduced into
the largest graveyard the world will ever see. That happens if I press this button.â Olympian tries to move for it but Solomon
continues: âIf you so much as touch me on this pressure plate, the detonator activates
anyways, and the scenario plays out, so you stand there and look pretty while I talk a
bit more.â Solomon doesnât rant, he just calmly watches
Olympian cross his arms, obviously annoyed at the standstill. âTo your left, there is a container full
of toxin. You are going to drink that or else I wonât
turn off the mechanism. Donât drink it, and I press the button,
the mechanism activates. Stop me from pressing the button, the mechanism
activates. You leave, I press the button, and the mechanism
activates.â âIâm not going to kill myself.â âItâs for the city, hero.â The DM informs the group that another server
activates, and starts streaming the terrible cruelty that Olympian had done to every television
and news outlet, revealing every gruesome detail, every racial slur, every death they
blamed on âaccidentsâ. Olympian's super-hearing informs him that
people are seeing him doing these terrible things, and now theyâre starting to think
heâs not so much a hero as he thought. âYou have one minute to choose. The City, or yourself.â Olympian smashes the toxins, and punches Solomon,
impaling him with his fist and gutting him. Solomon smiles as his blood and organs spill
out onto the floor. Olympian listens for the first explosion. But it never comes. There are no explosives. Olympian picks up Solomon, who only has moments
left to live, and demands to know what trickery this is. Solomon then tells him that he canât kill
Olympian, and he canât drop enough weight to crush him, so he did the next best thing. âI killed the cityâs faith in you. And now Iâm dropping the world on you.â âYou canât kill heroes, youâre a villain.â âThen itâs a good thing youâre not a
hero, you bastard.â Solomon spat with his final breath. The settingâs equivalent of the Justice
League shows up to investigate what happened. Olympian tries to charm his way around them,
saying he had no choice, and that he would have had to kill himself to save the city
and that Solomon would have blown it up anyways, but the League, and the DM by extension, is
done with his routine. The league points out that there were no explosives,
and that killing a man like that on live television was barbaric. When he argues the toxins again, the leader
of the League asks him if he was vulnerable to toxins in such a small dosage, if vulnerable
at all. And then they realize that his hand he used
to smash it is covered not in some scientific experimental super-toxin, but a simple mixture
of lemonade. He didnât try to roll perception on it. Olympian then tries to argue that he has the
right to protect people how he sees fit, but the League leader raises his hand to silence
him, and then points to the screen behind him, showing him tossing the broken corpse
of Doktor with a smile on his face. The fight was brief, but in the end, no matter
how powerful Olympian is, he simply canât fight an army of superheroes by himself. The player left the game and the DM informed
us Olympian is serving his life-long sentence on a super-dense giant that renders him as
weak as a toddler, watched over by machines with lasers trained on him at all times. He has no chance for parole. Doktor recovered Solomonâs body, but he
was already gone, and instead made him a memorial in his lair. The anti-vigilante force of police in the
city continue their crusade to this day, and doctors try to find any way to prompt Adept
back to normal from inside his padded cell (serving 40 to life for accessory, low security)
and the town rips down the statue of Olympian that stood in the center of town after many
agreed that he had risked the entire safety of the city for his own revenge. When the game ended, Protocol was the only
one who apologized for his behavior, Adept ignoring the chat and eventually leaving. When he asked Solomon why he didnât kill
Olympian, Solomon responded with a very calm, calculated response:
âWhen someone sees a Hero, they donât care about the man. They care about the faith they have in him,
his records. Killing Olympian still left him a hero. SO I did the next best. I killed the cityâs faith in him. Maybe this time, they can have a real hero,
and not some monster with the right look about him.â And thatâs how a single thug defeated a
worldâs Superman, Batman, and Martian Manhunter. I refuse to play against him in any form to
this day. When the villains become the heroes. Sad. It sounds like the âHeroesâ really let
this game get in their heads. So good job bad guys. Please let us know what you think and comment
below! Donât forget to subscribe to our channel,
All Things DnD. Our next video will be posted in 3 days, so
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You drew him how I invisioned him, balled, duster and a snow cap. A man who looks like a nobody and yet is the most Conniving anti hero ever