Running a superhero game, need more ideas for loser superheroes/supervillains.

[Angry Bob]

I'm running a superhero game and I need colorful characters to be mentioned in passing or randomly encountered.

El Pollo Loco - Can give superpowers to birds. Prefers chickens.

Tempest - A large, neckbearded mad scientist that makes items and creatures from video games and campaigns for "the recognition of video games as the only legitimate art form."

Romeo - When he looks someone in the eye, they fall madly in love with each other.

Badonkadonk - Rejected from a number of super outfits for refusing to go by any other name. Powers are up to you.

Shyster - Causes people to always believe he's lying.

Arms and Legs - A pair of cybernetic mercenaries. One has robotic arms, the other has robotic legs. They can never agree on who is who.

Captain Purplebeard - An incredibly fat man that dresses in purple spandex and robs convenience stores. No powers except for a tolerance for Sklub(TM), the worst food product ever devised.

EDIT: also Road Rage: A little old lady mad scientist that specializes in reinforcing vehicles and covering them in huge spikes and guns.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Skeleton man - during an accident as a child he was exposed to x-rays which revealed he was part man part skeleton.

*everyone has a skeleton that's like saying ooh skin man*

Skinman - villain in disguise.

*Referencing an Axis of Awesome song FYI.

Other guys:
Carpe Diame - Also known as Diana Carp. A fish scientist who mysteriously disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Only to be rescued by a school of carp. You might be saying aren't carp freshwater and not in the carribean? Well yes... Essentially Evil Aquaman.

Doctor Devistation - long ago created the first peace ray gun. But when his plans were stolen by a rival he created a Devistation cannon that destroyed his rival and the plans. Now he is looking for a way to travel back in time and save the plans. By any means necessary, because it doesn't matter when he changes the timeline.

Evil Lincoln - yes...

Zombie Hitler - most dangerous nazi zombie in existence.

[Kid Jake]

I've been planning a superpowered neighborhood watch game for a while now and it's full to burst with horrible ideas.

The tragically, if aptly, named Exploding Boy: You could reuse the gag of him always winding up in the hospital for obvious reasons, or you could kill him off as a one-off joke like I intend to do.

Androgynous ManOrWoman: With the amazing gift of changing gender at will. No other physical changes accompany the gender swap.

The Human Shadow: Basically just an extremely black man. He tries to make himself sound awesome and says stuff like "Just like the shadow, it is impossible to find me in the dark." however he has no other special darkness based powers so he stumbles around just as badly as the villains. Seems oddly proud of that..."Just like the shadow, I too am blind in the dark."

The Once and Future Man: Able to summon himself from an unspecified point in the future, however future him is always an extremely horrible person and he has no idea why. Example: A Klansman, a pedophile, a robot spider with a human head mounted on it that kidnaps pets.... In the game I'm about to run he's responsible for the dreaded 'Rent-A-Center' crisis where the future version of The Once and Future Man kidnapped his past self, stole his present day team members' credit card numbers and financed a lavish lifestyle that ruined all of their credit ratings.

Mr. Misfit: A chimera like hybrid of dozens of animals that might actually be pretty cool.

Mrs. Misfit: Mr Misfit's wife Sharon. She has no superpowers or training of any kind but tries really hard to be helpful and he refuses to be part of any team that won't allow her to be a member too.

The Librarian: Can read a book just by touching it, however has no superhuman memorization skills so it quickly escapes him just what he read.

Flower Child: Ability to turn into any plant, however she turns into a completely typical specimen of that plant with no extraordinary abilities. Some forms can actually be handy in extremely specific situations, but overall she's just another sad, sad member of The Watch.

[Arbane]

TURKEY VOLUME GUESSING MAN!!! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1FwyR0LWVg)

The Human Filing Cabinet
The Electric Bum: a derelict who got superpowers after peeing on a subway's third rail.
Mediocre Man! He has Mediocre Strength, Mediocre Speed, Mediocre-Vision, Mediocre Flight (has to flap his arms)....
The Social Engineer: There's plenty of Mad Scientists, but more of them are in some field like Mad Robotics, Mad Bioengineering, etc. There aren't many Mad Social Scientists, and they don't get a lot of respect - not until they try to stage an armed coup in Wisconsin, anyway.
(On that note, I seem to recall Villains and Vigilantes had a Mad Geologist.)
Hamsterman! Bitten by a radioactive hamster....

[Kid Jake]

Hamsterman! Bitten by a radioactive hamster....

His cheeks are now stuffed...with CRIME!

[Knaight]

Sleeper Agents - A D-List villain team specializing in capture. Including:


Tranquil Liza - A very calm martial artist specializing in knockout strikes. Her actual name is Elizabeth.
Night Knight - A silent person who dresses entirely in riot gear, has a mask, and knocks people out with a baton.
Sleep Tight - A big man who wears a wrestlers outfit and knocks people out with grappling moves.
Sweet Dreams - A psychic who habitually carries a crystal ball, while wearing classic "psychic" clothing. As a last ditch, he'll throw the ball to the ground and shatter it. Turns out it contains knockout gas. Sweet smelling knockout gas.


Sadly, I don't remember the fifth one of these. I never actually got to use any of them.

[Taet]

The Muffler Man. He can cover up any noise. But only with the sound of mufflers. He used his powers on a cheerleader squad and the cheer turned into the sound of a pack of motorcycles. :smalltongue:


Road Rage: A little old lady mad scientist that specializes in reinforcing vehicles and covering them in huge spikes and guns.
Her cars always have PASADENA OR BUST written on the back.

Unless Grandpa Bumper walked by them with his powers on and now there is some dumb insulting bumper sticker on there instead. When he was young he was Graffiti-ti-timmy. Now his joints are old and he cannot climb over fences to tag. His powers got old too.

[Red Fel]

The Muffler Man.

Do you know the Muffler Man?

[Diachronos]

Must... resist... urge... to...
I AM THE BOX GHOST! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBE4t2B7ZA)

Then again, if you decide to have one of these villains become a badass for one reason or another... He's pretty deadly if he's got Pandora's Box, and let's just say Future Box Ghost is terrifying.

[BeerMug Paladin]

The Cackler. Minor precognition powers. Knows when there's fail about to happen somewhere. Shows up to chortle at whoever's about to be humiliated. Usually has no part in whatever it took for the event to transpire.

Knifey Joe. Look out! He's got a knife! Nothing else needs to be known about this mysterious figure. Everyone is wary of him, even the most powerful figures in the setting, but nobody is really certain why. Rarely seen. And he has a knife!

Mr. Extreme. Has no personal volume control. Must try to make everything more epic and awesome. Bizarre compulsion to force his allies and enemies into bigger stakes and confrontations. Is very fast and can jump high. Capable of enduring the falls off buildings, train crashes, and so on that he is known to deliberately set up.

Don Coyote. Able to communicate and command coyotes, wolves, and similar beasts. Comes nowhere close to picking sensible heists. Last raided a Dairy Queen in an attempt to steal their crown jewels. Now suspects they've been hidden away by a mysterious king, or perhaps their royal jester across the street.

Proto Organist. The original inventor of the pipe organ played it so well that the music sank into his cells and made him timeless and impervious to harm. Unfortunately, this didn't happen until he was well into his 90s. Very weak, but wise, despite his sometimes insufferable insistence that he's the first superhero. Can generate various musical tones from his skin.

Now I'm just thinking of more puns, so I think I'll stop here.

[Kid Jake]

What superhero team would be complete without the enigmatic Dr. Bees (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYtXuBN1Hvc)?

[Mr Beer]

Have you read The Boys? I think the cape team SuperDuper has a few examples of this type.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

)
Hamsterman! Bitten by a radioactive hamster....
I can point you to some prior art on that - Harris Shoerats in Thrud was a were-hamster.

How about Walk-man - his power is that everyone in the area is distracted by a barely audible tinny beat and the almost intelligible lyrics of a song they're sure they know, if only they could hear it clearly.

[Grey Watcher]

Will your players cry foul if you just rip off Mystery Men (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132347/)? I know if I were looking for weird and/or inept superheroes to flesh out a setting, my first thought would be to put them in as a sort of Easter Egg.

[BeerMug Paladin]

How about Walk-man - his power is that everyone in the area is distracted by a barely audible tinny beat and the almost intelligible lyrics of a song they're sure they know, if only they could hear it clearly.
Bonus points to this if he has no super speed, teleportation, flight, superhero vehicle, and no money to ride the bus.

[Ettina]

I don't have a goofy name for him, but if vampires exist in your setting, you could have a half-vampire who got all the drawbacks of both humans and vampires without any of the advantages. Needs to drink blood, hurt by sunlight and whatever else hurts vampires, normal human strength, no awesome vampire superpowers, etc. Make him a wimpy guy who whines a lot.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

I don't have a goofy name for him, but if vampires exist in your setting, you could have a half-vampire who got all the drawbacks of both humans and vampires without any of the advantages. Needs to drink blood, hurt by sunlight and whatever else hurts vampires, normal human strength, no awesome vampire superpowers, etc. Make him a wimpy guy who whines a lot.
So, someone who's more of a Club than a Blade? :smallbiggrin:

[cesius]

Wilhelm Screamer - Sonic scream but can only speak in Wilhelm Screams.

The Finch - Can take the form of any Finch... up to and including Atticus Finch which makes him a prime go to for supers in need of a lawyer.

Typist - Super typing powers! Great for filling out forms in triplicate!

Shake n' Bake - Any baking mix always turns out perfect and goes around with a customized cement mixer full of the stuff to stop rioters and make street fairs awesome.

Teddy - A walking, talking bear cub whose convinced he's Theodore Roosevelt... and seems to have T.R. pop-culture interpretation themed super powers such as wrestling moose and resisting incapacitation from bullet wounds.

[mig el pig]

Zenaer Milan - Always remains calm and peaceful. He almost radiates peace. Nobody ever managed to even throw a punch at him. Drivers push gently on the brake when he crosses a street. Old ladies give him their seat on the bus, he always refuses it though. He can't sit in a park for 3 minutes or some squirrel or cat is nesting on his shoulder. He is famous since he walked through a severe riot and the police on national TV.

His power only works when people are looking directly at him. It doesn't work against psychopaths though. He has no goals or plans except 'living in the Now'. Since he's famous he has followers from time to time. Although he answers every question they ask he would prefer to be left alone. If someone has followed him for too long he reasons with them until they feel ready to leave. Since he never becomes aggressive or too assertive this can take some time but his followers always leave him in good spirit with a sense of purpose and not of rejection/refusal.

The Last Link - Throughout history he/she/it has had many names. Although it looks human now it has long lost track of how many times he has changed species. He doesn't remember most of it but he's sure he had some happy times when he was still a trilobite. He always changes shape to the most dominant species on the planet. In his entire existence he has never met a being like himself but he does believe that every planet with life on it must have one being like him. He can die, and has died many times, but he always reawakens in a body somewhere else.

Although he looks like a human he can channel the instinct and strength of the last, and only the last, (sub)species that went extinct. Making him very prone to erratic behavior. Most people are not at ease when interacting with him. He's weary of learned men ever since the era of Enlightenment, he was burned at the stake at-least 3 times as a Witch or Sorcerer and several of his incarnations were locked up in a asylum for their entire live. In addition he also suffers from a severe migraine from time to time, he has had it for the last 65 million years when whatever wiped out the dinosaurs hit the earth. Channeling the instinct of over a hundred thousand species in a couple of months can do that to a eternal being.

[THEChanger]

Doctor Dark! He has built a supersuit which can completely absorb all light which touches it, rendering his form a black, vaguely human shape! Unfortunately, as the suit absorbs all light, none of it reaches his eyes, so he mostly stumbles about ineffectually. Give the suit abilities powered by the energy of the absorbed light to taste.

[Orderic]

The Graverobber, with the power to relocate graves. He uses it to steal graves and rob them of whatever is in them when they are somewehere where no one is looking. Then he puts them back and no one even noticed. A more powerful version might have power over anything that is buried.

[Red Fel]

Alright, joking aside, I'll take a shot.

The Statue: The true origins of the Statute are unknown. In appearance, it looks exactly like an Easter Island statue. In fact, it is an Easter Island statue, located on Easter Island alongside innumerable masses of identical statues.

It is also possessed of the most sophisticated intellect in quite possibly all of creation. It is capable of faster-than-light thought, meaning that it knows the answer to a question before it asks itself the question. It contains in its mind the sum total of all knowledge. It is possessed of perfect recall, past and future. It can process over seventeen trillion eventualities per microsecond.

It is also a statue. This needs to be said, because this is its sole flaw. It is a statue. It is immobile and lacks any means of gesticulation or communication. It radiates no more energy or electromagnetic field or other form of radiation than any other perfectly normal Easter Island statue. It is completely immune to any form of magical, technological, or psychic scan or other means of communication that would reveal its brilliance. It is utterly impossible for it to communicate in any way, and it is similarly impossible for any entity, past or future, to become aware of it as anything more than a statue.

It is, in short, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly ordinary statue with nothing to recommend it, surrounded by countless perfectly ordinary statues with nothing to recommend them.

And it knows everything.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Alright, joking aside, I'll take a shot.

The Statue: The true origins of the Statute are unknown. In appearance, it looks exactly like an Easter Island statue. In fact, it is an Easter Island statue, located on Easter Island alongside innumerable masses of identical statues.

It is also possessed of the most sophisticated intellect in quite possibly all of creation. It is capable of faster-than-light thought, meaning that it knows the answer to a question before it asks itself the question. It contains in its mind the sum total of all knowledge. It is possessed of perfect recall, past and future. It can process over seventeen trillion eventualities per microsecond.

It is also a statue. This needs to be said, because this is its sole flaw. It is a statue. It is immobile and lacks any means of gesticulation or communication. It radiates no more energy or electromagnetic field or other form of radiation than any other perfectly normal Easter Island statue. It is completely immune to any form of magical, technological, or psychic scan or other means of communication that would reveal its brilliance. It is utterly impossible for it to communicate in any way, and it is similarly impossible for any entity, past or future, to become aware of it as anything more than a statue.

It is, in short, for all intents and purposes, a perfectly ordinary statue with nothing to recommend it, surrounded by countless perfectly ordinary statues with nothing to recommend them.

And it knows everything.
The monument of granite cannot send a beam into my eye?

Pity.

[Taet]

More old superheroes.

The Wheelwright. The powers of his mind bend and straighten wheels. At the spokes. When he was young he was famous for fixing the wheels of aircraft that almost crash landed and stopping getaway cars with giving them four bent and broken wheels. But now car wheels are all solid and he is over retirement age. He works part time at a bicycle shop. The other guys in the shop do not know his old hero name and call him the Randonneur.

Violet the Villain. She brews perfumes with powers. Rose perfume makes people unable to talk about the crime they witnessed. She sold a lot of it to villains. Her personal perfume stinks like violets and keeps her looking young. It did not stop her aging underneath the looks though. Now when that nice looking girl in a mod dress and sensible shoes shuffles past people they smell violets and adult incontinence pads.

[Beleriphon]

Hamsterman! Bitten by a radioactive hamster....

On that note the Haberdasher! His sole ability is to always have a array of small items in his pockets, combs, hair gel, lint brushes and the like.


The Finch - Can take the form of any Finch... up to and including Atticus Finch which makes him a prime go to for supers in need of a lawyer.

Any finch? Like Harold Finch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series))?


Teddy - A walking, talking bear cub whose convinced he's Theodore Roosevelt... and seems to have T.R. pop-culture interpretation themed super powers such as wrestling moose and resisting incapacitation from bullet wounds.

That's pretty awesome. I have to admit its pretty damn awesome.

On that note, you can't go wrong with time displaced FDR in a 1940s dieselpunk looking mechachair.

[Grim Portent]

Mister Mascot - Imbued by marketing radiation with the powers of product placement. He can channel the spirit of such powerful beings as Captain Crunch, the Go Compare Man, Churchill the dog, Coca Cola Santa and the entire cast of the Transformers cartoons. He does not gain any powers you would expect from such beings, he merely speaks in their voice and will endeavor to advertise their product whenever possible.

[Arbane]

Here's two I heard about on rpg.net:


Okay, this comes up once or twice a year on the pen-and-paper roleplaying websites I frequent. The topic of "What's the worst character concept you've ever seen?" is a well-loved one, ripe with humor potential. And I always submit the same contribution. The Invincible Hammer Wheel.

...

My "Worst Character Concept Ever", submitted to me by a prospective player in a Champions game was going to run (but never got off the ground):

The Superlative (Invincible, Indestructible, etc.) Hammer-Wheel.

The Invincible Hammer-Wheel's power is that he has hammers for hands and wheels for feet. Or it could have been wheels for hands and hammers for feet. The player himself wasn't sure, but my mental picture of the character is a man with monster-truck wheels plugged into where is arms should be, who drives up to villains and kicks them with his sledgehammer feet.

Here's basically how the conversation went:

Player: I hear you're running a superhero game. Can I play?
Me: Sure. Do you have a character concept in mind?
Player: The Invincible Hammer-Wheel!
Me: Uh... (keep in mind this was to be a "serious" supers game)
Player: He has hammers for hands and wheels for feet! Or, wheels for hands and hammers for feet. I haven't decided.
Me: And how did he come by these "powers?"
Player: He was born that way.
Me: Must have been rough on his folks...
Player: He was raised by farm implements.
Me: ...and his motivation for doing good?
Player: He lives in the woods.

So whenever people bring up their "worst concept" horror-stories, all I have to say is;

"The Invincible Hammer-Wheel.
He has wheels for hands and hammers for feet.
He was born that way.
He was raised by farm implements.
He lives in the woods."



Bjorn the zombie viking!

Red Smith was an ordinary boy until he says (in a booming voice) "NORSE MAGIC!" and a bolt of lightning hits him (doing a crappy sound effect like "SKRAKKA-THOOM!") and turning him into Bjorn!

Bjorn! the last true viking!
Bjorn! carries the spirits of the Norse gods in his ribcage!

Fear Bjorn's mighty powers!

- Breath of Odin! -> Lightning bolt from his mouth
- Fleet of Thor! -> Doubles his speed, to that of a normal human
- Loki's Fury! -> Boosts his strength
- Fear of Freya! -> Causes hands to shoot up from the ground and grab people's ankles a la bad zombie movies causing them great fear and holding them in place.

and his personal favorite: Sef's Horde!

Where a VIKING LONGBOAT crashes down from the sky, onto the battle field, and a horde of angry zombie vikings proceed to indiscriminately attack every single animal, vegetable or mineral within a 30 meter radius.

[BWR]

The monument of granite cannot send a beam into my eye?

Pity.

QFT.

In the vein of stealing characters, Bueno Excellente. (http://www.comicvine.com/bueno-excellente/4005-12153/)

[spineyrequiem]

Ooh, I like this game!

Miss Fortune: Wherever she goes, bad things happen. People trip over, lights burn out, computers overheat and so on. She cannot turn this off. Worked as a saboteur during WW2 (or whatever wars you have in your setting), swam over to occupied France (because she'd break the plane if she flew over) and then just wandered around German bases, watching as everything broke down for no apparent reason.

Runaway: Has a nearly-invisible forcefield, completely impervious to all damage. Behind him. Impervious from both sides, so can't even fire at people over his shoulder (unless he does some serious contortion)

Alt-Dolf: Has utterly perfect shape-shifting abilities, including DNA, fingerprints... essentially, he could pass any test. Unfortunately, he can only shape-shift into Hitler, circa August 1943. Ideally, should be a hero.

Millipede Man: Blew all his superpower points on extra limbs. No other powers (stolen from Mr Welch)

Love Bomb: Attracts explosives irresistibly. No other superpowers. Fights mostly consist of him running away from amorous rockets.

Mirrorball: People looking at this person see themselves. Probably illusions rather than shapeshifting, since even a whole crowd will see themself. Cannot copy superpowers. Also speaks like the people observing, including saying things they might say. Due to looking and sounding different to everyone, no-one's worked out Mirrorball's motivations, if s/he even has any. Doesn't seem to eat, drink or sleep, which could be a superpower.

Matchstick: Has the ability to spontaneously burst into flames. No other superpowers, meaning fights with him consist of him grappling you, igniting then rolling on the ground screaming and trying to beat out the flames.

I used to have more, but can't find them...

[The Glyphstone]

General Mayhem, and his sidekick Major Disaster. Military-themed supervillains with an excellent offensive power set (heat vision, super-strength, shockwaves, explosions, whatever you can think up)..but absolutely no control over any of their abilities, just a binary wreak havoc/don't wreak havoc switch that sets itself off from time to time. And their defensive abilities are human-normal.

[Ravens_cry]

Her cars always have PASADENA OR BUST written on the back.

Go Granny go, Granny go!:smalltongue:
The Distractor!
His power makes everyone focus on him. They don't like him or react any more favorably to him in any way more or less they would not ordinarily, but his presence distracts. Unfortunately, he loses control over his powers when he gets nervous or distracted himself.

[RO-Red]

The tragically, if aptly, named Exploding Boy: You could reuse the gag of him always winding up in the hospital for obvious reasons, or you could kill him off as a one-off joke like I intend.

This reminds me of a Call of Cthulhu game I played in. The GM made recurring use of a cat that would suddenly explode. After the second or third time a grey and white tabby with one missing ear exploded in front of us, we made the connection that **** was about to go down. We started calling him Explod-a-Kitty, and when I asked our GM after the campaign if there was a reason for it, he just said that it was his favorite cat back home and he wanted to work it in somehow.

[Jay R]

You don't need amateur suggestions. The professional comics writers have you covered:

Arm-Fall-Off-Boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm-Fall-Off-Boy)

The Inferior Five (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferior_Five)

Captain Klutz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Klutz)

Captain Sprocket (http://www.comicvine.com/captain-sprocket/4005-92793/)

Red Tornado (http://www.comicvine.com/ma-hunkel/4005-41181/)

Forbush-Man (http://www.comicvine.com/search/?q=Forbush-Man)

Politically Correct Person (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatch_%28comic_strip%29)

Cuckoo Man ("http://www.cartoonscrapbook.com/M/mighty-heroes-1966.htm)

Super Bwoing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_6#The_Super_Six_Membership)

[Arbane]

General Mayhem, and his sidekick Major Disaster. Military-themed supervillains with an excellent offensive power set (heat vision, super-strength, shockwaves, explosions, whatever you can think up)..but absolutely no control over any of their abilities, just a binary wreak havoc/don't wreak havoc switch that sets itself off from time to time. And their defensive abilities are human-normal.

And the ex-partner they don't like to talk about since he became a Grim, Gritty Vigilante, Corporal Punishment.

[Ravens_cry]

And the ex-partner they don't like to talk about since he became a Grim, Gritty Vigilante, Corporal Punishment.
They lost a member who could break down his body, with each piece acting independently with a mind of their own. Unfortunately, it became more and more difficult to convince them to get back together again the more he did it.
Who else but . . . Private Parts!

[Malfunctioned]

MONOCULUS THE LIVING EYE

Essentially a giant eyeball, great for bouncing and rolling, not so great at being punched in the eye.

[mikeejimbo]

The Visible Man. His power is being visible.

I really wish I had this power in real life. :(

[DigoDragon]

The 'Fro: This cool cat can pull almost anything from his afro. Stores a pair of combat combs for battle.

Transparency Lad: Can turn any object invisible, but not himself. Doesn't sound like much until you run into a wall you never knew was there...

Captain Smack: Jaded and ill-manner 7-11 employee Whack Smackly worked a double night shift one day. In a stroke of fatigue he got his hand caught in a waffle press, transforming it into a powerful paddle of devastation. Now he goes around as the evil villain Captain Smack, taking vengeance on his employers, The Man, and his roommate Dave for crashing his car last Saturday.

[Kid Jake]

The Visible Man. His power is being visible.

I really wish I had this power in real life. :(


Behold, The Visible Man!
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y207/UnLegend/visible_zpsd8d75ac4.jpg

You can't ignore him, no matter how hard you try. :smalltongue: