Mind Controlled PC--Threat or Menace?

[sinanju]

I was playing in a weekly face-to-face Champions game a couple of years ago. First one in years. The campaign ended with a double (two night) wrap up, since the GM is traveling to China for an indeterminate period for work. He wanted to wrap up the adventure we were having before he left.

So we confronted the Big Bad Boss Monster, a vampire who was stronger than any of us, faster than any of us, and had vast mental powers.

I was playing the Black Knight. He was based on the Kurgan from the original Highlander film. He regenerates like an SOB (I have 20 points of rPD and rED armor to represent the fact that any wound smaller than that heals so fast that it effectively doesn't even slow him down. Plus some Damage Reduction (even larger wounds heal really, really fast), and Regeneration. STR 50 and a huge sword for lots of HTH KA damage.

(For the non- Champions players among you, let me translate: Wolverine only wishes he healed as fast as this guy.)

In short, he's a combat monster who's very, very hard to stop.

Did I mention that he's got 2x Effect from Mind Control attacks as a disadvantage? And that the vampire had Mind Control? Yeah.

First thing the bad guy did was an area effect Mind Control command "Kill yourselves!" I was the only one who succumbed and I impaled myself on my own sword, to little effect.

So the vampire's second command--to me--was "Kill your friends."

The Black Knight ripped the sword out of his own torso and immediately attacked the nearest player character. For all the years I've played RPGs, I have a strict policy regarding my characters being mind controlled. And that policy is: do your damnedest to carry out your orders.

If my PC is under someone else's mental influence, I don't dither, or try to be deliberately ineffective. I fight just as hard and just as enthusiastically as I do when I'm in my right mind.

Alas for fellow player Ben, his character was closest. And he had virtually no resistant defenses. I sliced him nearly in half in one shot, and on my next action kicked his bleeding (but not quite dead yet) body into the next nearest PC. Which killed Ben's character and knocked the other character out.

Another player managed to disarm me and knock me down with martial arts at that point. (He was savvy enough to know he couldn't rally hurt me, but he could keep me out of action.) And before I could do anything else, the rest of the group managed to take out the vampire. But Ben's character was dead as disco.

I posted about this on another forum at the time and I was surprised by how many people came up with rationalizations for why they wouldn't have done the same. I understand trying your best to AVOID being mind-controlled by the bad guy. I do the same. But once it has been established that, yes, my will has been subverted and I'm under orders from the bad guy, I think it is a) only fair and b) a hell of a lot of fun to do my absolute munchkin best to fulfill them. If nothing else, it forces the other players to bring their A game, because I'm sure not going to hold back while I'm trying to kill them.

I have to say, though, that that was the most fun I've had gaming in a long, long time. Most of my gaming for the last three years has been online. Which is fun, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same. Sitting around the table, rolling dice, and making wisecracks and riffing on one another's jokes--it was loads of fun. I laughed more (and frequently harder) than I have in a long time.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I tend to GM and I play a lot of Vampire. Mind Controlling PCs has become something of a hobby.

When I run, I try not to put PCs in a position of having to be conflicted while under mind control. I often have them black out instead of acting things out, forcing them to try and discover what they did rather than experience it first hand. It's a great tool for a horror game to be able to justify the PCs having done horrible things and not remember.

As a player, when I'm controlled and given a direction I make like Hawk-Eye in Avengers and full on cross over to the evil side until the effect ends.

[Flawless P]

I generally make a really concentrated attempt to kill whomever I regard as an enemy on that turn. However, if I have single use or special case use abilities(for instance in a DnD game I have a club that if I hit someone with it, it will explode into icy death dealing 12d6 to everyone within 10 ft.) I will not usually use them.

Or for instance if I have an ability that says once per day I can automatically critically strike I won't pull it out on an ally.

Other than that I will use flanking or knowledge of allies weaknesses to my advantage.

If I know a guy who needs to cast spells to be effective I will grapple him and beat him to death just as soon as I would do so to an enemy spell-caster.