The Killing Joke

The GM: Jon

The Characters:

Game System: Champions

Game Type: Campaign

Synopsis:

A new league of state sponsored (and funded) super heroes is formed. After a few small operations the team is baffled by a theft of the VIPER daily, a small underground press published by the criminal organization VIPER. The paper has monthly updates on weapons, hero weakness and even personal adds. One month, the entire shipment is stolen, every single paper (about 1000) and the heros struggle to find out why.

Notes:

(Brian): Jon couldn't tell us the name of this game when we were playing it, becuase the title completely gave away the answer to the mystery we were trying to solve (that there was a joke in the newspaper that was killing people).

I think overall Jon was a bit disappointed with our group's attempt at making super heroes. I can only defend myself by saying that I've never read comics, and didn't have a great grasp on the genre.

(Jon): "Disappointed in the group's attempt at making super heroes" is an understatment. Knowing how this group of players loved to bicker and have their characters notoriously not get along I begged them to make "Good, super heroes. You know, the good guys! The type of character that would be working for a state sponsored heroe agency to do good stuff for good people!". Well, their group consisted of an alien traveller who didn't understand human culture and loved the taste of human flesh (The Traveller) (Brian: note that he ate animal flesh, not human, and then only because that was required for his regeneration powers. It did have to be basically alive though), a violent maniac that was being blackmailed into working with the group but if the money was right would turn on them all in a second (Aneese), another homicidal maniac that was so incomprehensably insane I had to remove him from the group and turn him into a villain (Cherry Salad), an international agitator wanted by several foreign governments AND the FBI (for questioning in several thefts and for the work he had done with Castro during the 70's)-(The Red Meneace) and a couple other players that actually made super heroes. Now that's a super hero group! :)

Of all the props I've ever created, this game had my favorite. I wrote and formated the 8 page VIPER daily with all the fun super hero / enemy content I could think of (including manufactured photos of some of the heros). When the heros finally tracked down someone who had a copy of the daily the guy tried to burn it to keep it out of their hands. I pulled out a copy of the VIPER daily that I had printed out and set it on fire in the kitchen sink. I made the players wait 5 seconds before they could try and put it out. When I said, "Okay, you reach the burning paper" Brian and Ryan leaped across the kitchen, yanked the paper out of the sink and stomped the burning paper out on my Mom's kitchen floor (thankfully there was no damage to her tiles). They had spent three or four weeks (real life time) searching for this paper and when they find it, I set it on fire! I really loved that moment. Anyway, about 40% of the paper was burned off. They only had the burned off portion for a few weeks then they found a full version. They followed every lead they could think of to no avail. They caught some nasty people on the run but the reason for the theft elluded them until they figured out they now had the only two copies, the other 998 copies had been accounted for (destroyed) and the print house that published them had been razed and burned to the ground. The heroes published the paper online and within hours their sites had been savaged by viruses.

Dozens of other clone sights claiming to be the "real paper" appread on the web in an attempt to discredit the VIPER paper the heroes had published. Eventually the heroes made it known on the street that they had the last two copies and waited for the thief to come take them away. Merryandrew, A local prankster villain crept into their offices and tried to destroy the last few copies. When the heroes captured him they found out that all the killing and crime that surrounded the VIPER daily had nothing to do with him, intentionally. You see, he always wrote the humor section of the VIPER daily (because even bad guys like to laugh). Well, this month he wrote a joke that, upon reading it, one of the publishers laughed so hard he died of a heart attack. Merryandrew had an extreem Code vs. Killing and refused to believe the very old male publisher could have died because it was his time. Merryandrew just knew in his heart that he had killed the poor old man because his joke was just that powerful! He couldn't let any other unsuspecting soul get ahold of that paper and read the joke because they would die! So he stole the entire shipment (most of it). But very important crime bosses used that paper for sending coded messages to some of their top hit men. With out this information getting to the right people, a gang war errupted causes all the havoc. Merryandrew was sobbing and obviously heart broken over the death of this one old man that the heroes couldn't break it to him that because he stole the shipment, a gang war errupted killing dozens of people all over New York. In the end, Merryandrew turned himself in for "murder". It never went to trial. The Killing Joke:

First guy: Why do elephants paint their tonenails in rainbow colors?

Second guy: I don't know.

First guy: To hide in Jelly-bean jars. Have you ever seen an elephant in a Jelly-bean jar?

Second guy: No.

First guy: Hide pretty good don't they!