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goto124
2015-03-03, 08:50 AM
I've spent some time in these forums, and it seems that the theme of 'mismatched expectations' between the players and the DM is a recurring one. An often cited solution is 'tell the players beforehand', whether it's 'bad rolls and decisions will kill your PC and I won't save you', or 'your items, weapons and equipment can and will break or be stolen so you have to live with it'.

Which makes me wonder: How many things can you really say before a game starts? Some of these 'mismatched expectations' is due to the players, the DM, or both assuming that their expectations are universal and thus the other party must've assumed it as well. For example, a DM thinks signs saying 'Don't go here' means the players will obviously get the message not to go there, while the players think those signs merely point the way to the difficult but reasonably defeatable BBEG. And sometimes, a player just misses the memo.

Which brings us to... what things, exactly, should be stated in the description of a campaign? Well, you will say the system and setting, but what else? Should you say 'don't go into detail about romance and sex', 'sex can happen but STDs and pregnancy are a thing', 'no dealing with slavery, racism and sexism', 'diseases are real', or other things (I may be missing good examples here)? Can you really be comprehensive when the game has yet to start?

Knaight
2015-03-03, 08:56 AM
It depends on a lot of factors. If the game is between a bunch of complete strangers (which is probably pretty rare, but does happen) then it's probably good to get a fair amount out of the way. If everyone involved already knows each other fairly well, that matters a great deal less. There's also the matter of getting things before the entirety of the game, versus getting to them prior to them actually being highly likely to come up.

Generally, I favor a brief conceptual overview, which covers setting highlights, genre conventions, themes, and similar things. If the idea is to include anything which has a high probability of bothering someone, it in particular should be brought up. If you're going for a game which aims for a realistic depiction of brutal, systemic violence and its aftermath, say so - preferably before it comes up in the context of describing the results of a massacre including several dead children. If the game is going to have highly sexual content, same thing.

Satinavian
2015-03-03, 08:58 AM
Things i tend to discuss before the fisrst game session

- System used (including houserules)
- Who is the DM and how long will he be it. Is there an expectation of rotatin g GM post or not
- How often do we meet and how long are the sessions
- Theme of the camaign
- Character creation options

- Can the GM fudge rolls
- How is death treated
- How are player conflicts resolved
- How are new houserules introduced

- If one uses a default setting, how binding are publications for it. How canon have events to be.

That is usually all of it. But i reserve usually a whole session to discuss this stuff and other upcoming problems, before starting at all.


Sometimes, people disagree and there is no game at all. But better to see that before the game.



I usually don't discuss handling of sexual themes because they rarely come up as a problem. I just expect common decency. But if anyone wants to handle it in some unusual way, he should bring it into discussion.

Once i had a player who wanted to play a rapist and fully expected to rape people ingame. She asked in the "before"-session, if everyone else was OK with such a character concept. And it was good to ask. We OKed it after setting some boundaries, but we would have had a problem, if it suddenly had happened in game if she hadn't asked first.

Beta Centauri
2015-03-03, 10:42 AM
I don't always follow this advice, but a "Session 0" at which the game is not played, but expectations are set is a good idea.

At the root of it all is the question of what everyone is planning to do to make everyone's time (including their own) worth spending in the game. As both a GM and a player, I emphasize my willingness to say "Yes, and..." to others' ideas and interpretations, in order to keep the game moving and to build trust by making people feel their ideas are supported. Others might say that their plan is to play their character with as little regard as possible for out-of-game concerns; if the other players enjoy that kind of thing (which, ironically, would be an out-of-game concern) then they are likely to be entertained, but if they want more regard for the social situation, they might not.

Whatever you discuss, leave the door open. Make it clear that feelings of having one's time wasted can and should be brought up and will be addressed as quickly as possible. What people say they're okay with in theory might turn out to be something they're not okay with. Character death and a high degree of randomness are two common things that sound exciting, but can turn out to be poor uses of player time.

Red Fel
2015-03-03, 10:52 AM
Which brings us to... what things, exactly, should be stated in the description of a campaign? Well, you will say the system and setting, but what else? Should you say 'don't go into detail about romance and sex', 'sex can happen but STDs and pregnancy are a thing', 'no dealing with slavery, racism and sexism', 'diseases are real', or other things (I may be missing good examples here)? Can you really be comprehensive when the game has yet to start?

Satina lists a few, some with which I agree and some with which I disagree. In my mind, the important bullets fall within a few narrow categories. Metagame: These are the rules not for the game, but for the table. Such rules include: Scheduled games and missed game policy, if any Ban list: classes, abilities, books, any features that will not be permitted Houserules, variants, and other deviations from the norm Table policies, if any, such as chat policy, portable device policy, break-every-hour policy, etc. Thematic: These are the general ideas of the theme and tone of the game, without giving away the plot. Such notes include: World: Whether the game takes place in a known world or a homebrewed or variant one. This should also include any boundaries, such as if the game is limited to a particular continent or plane. Tone: Certain systems have a particular tone assumed. For example, D&D/PF tends to assume the PCs grow to epic status (if not epic levels), while WoD tends to have a more tragic bent. You should confirm whether the default tone will be the one to expect, or whether your game will go in a different direction (e.g. mystery D&D, comedy WoD). Character Conduct: If you won't allow certain conduct, or expect to bring the setting's full in-character consequences against it, say so. If you insist on having certain scenes acted out or to have the curtain dropped on them, say it upfront. This is also the part where you define your policy, if any, on PvP, and emphasize any particular alignment bans (e.g. "no CE axe-murderers"), if any. Other nudges: Sometimes, the PCs have a concept that won't fit well in the game, but you can't tell them without spoiling a plot point. For example, if the players know that the game will be grimdark apocalyptic generally, but not zombie apocalypse specifically, and one player builds a character ineffective against the walking dead (e.g. a bog-standard D&D Rogue), this is where you nudge them in a different direction, again without spoiling the plot point.
This should cover almost all concerns, without exposing any spoileriffic plot points.

kaoskonfety
2015-03-04, 08:44 AM
Hilariously I've been playing at a table for some years and I like to think we have some good communication on expectations...

For our most recent game of Exalted I rolled out all the little rule mods, the specific errata we were using and a modified history of the world to everyone in some detail. Dozens of pages of the stuff up on the google docs.

I then gave every PC pieces of lore they alone held - bits of prophecy, politics in their home region, reports of great demons and fairfolk maurarders etc as their background and specialities dictated.

This is actually fairly standard for our planned 'longer running' games.

The game was pitched as a tragedy of fallen wonder and corruption set a couple decades later than the default setting where everything has gone a bit more to hell - more war, more instability.

Oh and only 50 solar exaltations escaped the Never born clutches (this has recently been revealed in game)... so thats pretty crappy - the rest of the 250 solar exaltations are death knights or green sun princes - they have an open 'contest' - a gentlemans agreement between Titans who forged the world who were either killed but cannot die or were defeated and imprisoned within their own flesh, to see who wins first and either gets free from hell or unmakes all things. The forces of death and corruption are not concerned with the possibility of losing to the "good guys". The idea is laughable. Each faction has 3 schemes to shatter the world in action right now (the party has thwarted one of them, so thats cool).

Its been 9 months real world time, about a year and a half in game - no one has looked into the dire portents I put before them, addressed the civil war in the Realm, The Bull of the Norths obvious madness and his advisor manipulations of it, the assassination of several of the highest ranking active gods in heaven. They are touring the world as the wind and their whims take them. Everyone is blithely confident they can win on their own and all but 1 of the players are quite optimistic about the parties chances.

The one that is quite sure everyone is boned (as is outlined in my initial outline/game pitch) and I are quite bewildered.

I know they read it - everyone read it, made comments asked for details...

Sometimes you CAN'T set player expectations, its Exalted and everyone is sure I'll make them all kick ass and win in the end - cause, they're Exalted - in the next couple months I will begin shattering the world with the remaining 4-5 plots and nearly everyone will be surprised and shocked - perhaps they will feel betrayed... they will try to rise to it, and will likely fail somewhere along the line.

Oh well. Can't win them all.

dream
2015-03-04, 01:29 PM
The Same-Page Tool. (https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/the-same-page-tool/)

Dealing with expectations up front is crucial.

Lord Torath
2015-03-04, 02:13 PM
A Manifesto (http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp/dnd/manifesto.htm) of some kind is always a good idea.

sktarq
2015-03-04, 07:28 PM
Other things (in addition to many good ones above) that I think are good to get out of the way in session 0:

Expected power levels of the character as a goal. How much do the players expect the change the world and how hard should that be? (is cleaning up a city the point of the whole campaign or a two adventure arc on the way to taking over the nation?)

PvP issues.

One player secrets and/or privileged knowledge

Issues of sexual comfort

Issues of religion blasphemy etc

Descriptive misunderstanding - how to resolve
(when player and DM are not seeing the same thing in their heads and problems from that)

How to deal with things that the rules are not explicit about

Splitting the party

And while not necessary I find "What is the party and why are you together?" is a great one. It helps the GM/DM to build adventures that engage the characters (and thus hopefully the players) lowers party conflict and can open up lots of good brainstorming

Duke of URRL
2015-03-04, 11:38 PM
Which makes me wonder: How many things can you really say before a game starts?


All most nothing. It's really pointless. This is an endless problem with RPGs. And there is simply no solution. I've run into this problem for ever...years and years. It's bad enough that people just think wild random things, but it only gets worse when the GM adds in with their list.

I find that unless the GM can take the time to describe every single word in legalize, they might as well just be blowing smoke.

Sure the simple stuff is fine, like the GM says ''this is banned'' or ''here is this house rule''. Anything else.....eh

Just take the classic: The GM says ''this is a high magic game''. Well what does that mean? I'll bet I can get dozens of different views on what a high magic game is. Same with low magic. Same with anything.

And you always get the dreaded ''once in a while'' trap. To some people ''once in a while'' is every five minutes or so. For some, it's an hour. For some, it's once a game. And for some it's once every five games. So if the GM bothers to say ''I don't mind X once in a while, but just don't do it all the time'', they might as well not waste their breath.

Really, the only thing to do is just play the game and learn as you go.

Jay R
2015-03-05, 12:18 PM
I give everybody a 4-6 page introduction before character creation. These are things everybody knows that might affect character creation. You don't want to be Roger Wyvern-slayer in a world with no wyverns.

I then sometimes give specific players another page of things they that they know based on their character's initial skills.

I suspect that the best way to answer the question is with real examples. These are pretty wordy, so they are spoilered for length.

Here are a few examples of specific things I felt the need to say for one game or another:

This paragraph let them know that they couldn't trust the Monstrous Manual.
DO NOT assume that you know anything about any fantasy creatures. I will re-write many monsters and races, introduce some not in D&D, and eliminate some. The purpose is to make the world strange and mysterious. It will allow (require) PCs to learn, by trial and error, what works. Most of these changes I will not tell you in advance. Here are a couple, just to give you some idea what I mean.
1. Dragons are not color-coded for the benefits of the PCs.
2. Of elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, kobolds, goblins, and orcs, at least one does not exist, at least one is slightly different from the books, and at least one is wildly different.
3. Several monsters have different alignments from the books.
4. The name of an Undead will not tell you what will or won’t hurt it.
5. The first time you see a member of a humanoid race, I will describe it as a “vaguely man-shaped creature.” This could be a kobold, an elf, or an Umber Hulk until you learn what they are.


This was for a game of original D&D, in which the universe is how Ptolemy described it. The earth is the center of the universe, the stars are points on a fixed celestial sphere, and the seven planets are the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The first major plot concerned seven staffs - artifacts called the Staves of the Wanderers. Each has powers from one of the seven planets (wandering stars), based on their properties. This paragraph existed in part to shake them out of modern scientific notions.
A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally.

Here's the character background for a 2E game
You will begin as first level characters with very little knowledge of the outside world. Your character is just barely adult – 14 years old. You all know each other well, having grown up in the same tiny village. Everyone in this village grows their own food, and it’s rare to see anybody from outside the village, or anything not made in the village. There is a smith, a village priest, but very few other specialists.

You are friends, even if you choose to have very different outlooks, because almost everybody else in the village, and absolutely everyone else anywhere near your age, are dull villagers, with little imagination.

By contrast, you and your friends sometimes stare down the road, or into the forest, wondering what the world is like.

The world is basically early medieval. You all speak a single language for which you (reasonably) have no name. If you learn another language, you’ll know more about what that means.

It’s a really small village. There are fewer than 100 people living there, which is smaller than it used to be. There are chickens, goats, sheep, a couple of oxen, but no horses or cows.

The village has a single road going out of town to the north and south, and you’ve never been on it. The only travel on it occurs when a few wagons go off to take food to market – and even that hasn’t happened in the last few seasons. Very rarely, a traveler may come through, and spend the night with the priest. You have all greedily listened to any stories these travelers tell. Your parents say this isn’t good for you – what’s here in the village is good enough for you, and all travelers are always liars, anyway.

A stream runs through the village. (This is primarily so you can learn fishing if you desire.) There are also a few wells.

The village is surrounded by a haunted forest nearby. You have occasionally gone a few hundred feet into it on a dare, but no further, and never at night. I will modify this (slightly) for any character who wishes to start as a Druid or Ranger. Nobody gets to know the modification unless they choose one of those classes.

Three times in your lifetime the village has been raided at night from the forest. You were children, and were kept safe in a cellar. Some villagers have died, but by the time you were let out, whatever the attackers were had fled or been buried.

There is very little overlap between the D&D adventurer class “Cleric” and the average priest. Most priests will have about as much magical ability as seen in medieval stories, i.e. no more than anyone else. (If you want to play a cleric, let me know. There’s a way we will handle it, but no player except one with a cleric PC will know about it.)

Similarly, not all thieves are in the Thief class, not all bards are in the Bard class, etc. Most fighters are “0th level”. There might be a fair number of 1st level Fighters; anybody else with levels will be uncommon. If you meet a bard on your travels, he will probably be a singer/harpist with no adventurer skills or class.

There is an old witch at the edge of the village. Your parents disapprove of her, call her a fraud, and are afraid of her. Everybody knows that the crop blight three years ago was because she was mad at the village.

The old folks in the village sometimes talk about how much better it was long ago. There was real travel, and real trade. Nobody knows what happened since.

You have heard many mutually conflicting tales of all kinds of marvelous heroes. You may assume that you have heard of any story of any hero you like – Gilgamesh, Oddysseus, Sigurd, Taliesin, Charlemagne, Lancelot, Robin Hood, Aragorn, Prester John, Baba Yaga, Prince Ōkuninushi, Br’er Rabbit, anyone. The old stories seem to imply that there have been several Ages of Heroes. Your parents don’t think these tales are good for you. Takes your mind off farming.

Here are the basic character creation rules for the same 2E game.
Specific rules. Reasonable exceptions to these rules are allowed, within certain bounds. I won’t necessarily explain the bounds to you. (If I plan to have you carried off by Vikings, I won’t tell you why your character can’t speak Old Norse, for instance.) Ask for exceptions. Your character should be an exception to the general rules in some way, and I’m prepared to modify PC rules to let you play something unique. I want you to have a character you will enjoy, but who won’t mess up my plans or overshadow the other characters.

1. All characters are human. If you want an exception, talk to me. We have to find a way for the non-human to fit into my plans for the start of the campaign, which I will not tell you. (For instance, you don’t know what races exist.) To reduce the negative impact of this rule, if your real goal is to multi-class, your human character may do so.
2. It will be possible for your character to get started within the village, so if you wish to be, for instance, a druid, there will be an older druid of some sort nearby. Tell me your plans, and I will arrange any necessary mentor or other resource.
3. You may choose any 2E class. If you want a class from another version, let me know, and we’ll try to work it out. (You can’t be a barbarian, because you grew up in a village. But if you wish to be a sorcerer, I will create a 2E-compliant sorcerer class.) If you want something that’s consistent with medieval fantasy but isn’t a standard D&D class, let’s talk. I want you to play the unusual (human) character that you’ve never been able to play before.
4. Whatever the character class you choose, your teachers or mentors weren’t high level, and can only get you started.
5. Spellcasters will start with only four spells, of which you will choose two and I will choose two. The two I choose for wizards will be Read Magic and Detect Magic. The two for Clerics will be Cure Light Wounds and Detect Evil. Initial spells must come from the Players Handbook. Unusual spells from other sources may be available later, but you didn’t learn them in your village. Necromantic spells are also not allowed at the start of the game.
6. Wizards will learn three new spells at each level, and will have other ways to develop them. Clerics will learn a new spell each adventure, and will have other ways to learn them. (Yes, they come from your god. But you have to know what to ask for, and how to use it. It’s a much easier process than for wizards, who must learn them from scratch.)
7. A cleric must choose a deity. This will be the deity who grants you spells. It will have a minor effect on the spells you get, but not much. The deity can be chosen from any pantheon. (Except Lovecraft!) Any other player may opt to choose a deity as well. A druid must choose a nature god. I’ll be loose in the definition of a nature god.
8. A Priest or Druid can choose to be a standard Priest or Druid, or you can ask for specific differences based on your god. I will be quite lenient here, as long as it makes sense. If you do this, however, I reserve the right to make some other specific strictures which you might or might not know about at the start.
9. None of you know anything about what happens to high-level characters. For instance, Druids may ignore everything in the PHB about the Druid Organization. There just aren’t that many high-level people in the world. We will use most of what the rulebooks say about followers and strongholds, but some of it will be modified. For one thing, not all creatures on the Ranger follower chart even exist. The thief follower table is also inconsistent with the world. Player desires will be encouraged. When we get to that point, be prepared to negotiate for something you would prefer.
10. All starting equipment will be things that can be produced in a small isolated village. You may have a spear, axe, sword or bow, but not an atl-atl, fancy crossbow, etc., unless it’s your unusual item. There may be exceptions. Ask for something you want.
11. Your character has (at least) one specific food-producing Non-Weapon Proficiency – farmer, swineherd, shepherd, etc.
12. Men and women are different in this period. All women will have at least one Non-Weapon Proficiency of sewing, cooking or embroidery, or some such, and all men will have leatherwork, woodwork, smith, or some equivalent. You don’t have to care about it, but that’s life in a small village. I urge the party as a whole to have sewing, leatherwork, and blacksmithing, just to repair clothes and armor. Otherwise, I’ll have to track any damage done. Similarly, if you don’t have a fletcher, I will count arrows.
13. All non-weapon proficiencies must be learnable in an isolated village, or from travelers’ tales. If you want an exception, come up with a justification. I respect good rationalizations. (Obvious examples include learning Latin from the village priest, astrology from a traveler, or herbalism from the witch.)
14. If you want a non-weapon proficiency that cannot be learned in the village, you may allocate the slot for it, and you will have a very rudimentary version of it, that will grow to the standard level with experience. That slot indicates that it’s a skill your character cares about, and pursues whenever possible. For instance, if you take Etiquette, then you will know how to behave in a village. If you get to an army garrison, you will quickly observe and learn military etiquette. Spend much time in a market, and you will learn how to behave in trade. If a noblewoman goes by, you will learn a little about how she acts, and about how people treat her. Skills for which this would be necessary include Spellcraft, Riding, Survival, Etiquette, etc. Feel free to take the skills you want. I’ll see that you learn them soon. This is to allow your characters to learn and grow quickly, and to have the full range of NWPs available. I urge each player to have one or two of these.
15. You grew up in a small village surrounded by an unexplored forest. There are wild animals and worse in the forest, and you have trained with at least one simple weapon. For this reason, your character can use your choice of a spear, short bow or short sword, regardless of character class. (You must choose one. Your character cannot use more than one of them unless both are allowed to his or her class.)
16. I intend to give each character a single 3E Feat. It will be chosen to be one that will make a first level character more usable and unique. If you aren’t interested in learning the 3E Feats – don’t worry. I’ll assign one that will be useful, and explain how it works. If you are interested in the rules, feel free to make a request. If it’s reasonable and doesn’t interfere with plans that you don’t know about, I’ll allow it. Toughness is not available. The goal of the Feat is not to make your character more generally competent, but to make him or her more competent in one specific area, to improve specific skills, or to have a unique option most people don’t have.

I repeat – ask for exceptions to these rules. I want you to play what you want, and to have an unusual character. For instance, if you have a character idea that can’t work if you grew up in a small village, talk to me, and we’ll try to make it fit in – but it might mean that you miss the first half of the first adventure. If you have some cool idea for something your character wants to start off with, let’s discuss it. I might say no, or have it replace the Feat or the unusual item, or just grant the exception.

Background for a Silver Age Champions setting (comic books in the early sixties).
The world has always had heroes. Gilgamesh, Achilles, Robin Hood, Scaramouche, Zorro, Phantom Eagle, Tomahawk, the Blackhawks, the Lone Ranger, the Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, Cheyenne Bodie and Kwai-Chang Caine are all historical figures, well-documented in any history book. The super-powerful ones don’t exist (yet). You may assume the existence of any well-known Golden Age comic hero (except the ultra-powerful -- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Captain Marvel, Spectre, etc.) if you have a specific need for him or her. (Your character was saved as a child by the Red Bee, which is why he wants to be a hero, for instance.) You may not have an established relationship with any such earlier hero without special permission. Special permission is not hard to get if I like the character design and persona story.

The term “super-hero” exists, but is not as common yet as “mystery man”. (This is 1959, ten years before the self-conscious approach to gender terms in our language. Yes, the term is “mystery man”, and yes, that includes women, and no, nobody gets upset over that. It’s common English, like “peace on earth, good will to men” or “to boldly go where no man has gone before”.)

Most of the mystery men are not known to have any actual powers. In fact, most of them don’t have any powers, but it is also true that they are not really public figures. They’ve learned that it’s important that the crooks not know too much about them. Many simple people in masks are assumed to have powers even if they don’t. When designing your characters, remember that a power describes an effect, not a cause. A skills-based stealth hero could have Invisibility (only can be turned on when nobody’s watching). That doesn’t mean he has super-powers, but that his stealth and movement are so good that it’s easier to simulate that way. Similarly, heroes might be believed to have powers that they don’t really have. There are rumors of a half-man, half-flying-predator creature seen flying around the streets of Gotham at night. Don’t assume that that means the creature can fly, or even that it really exists.

Heroes are vigilantes, at least at first. This does not carry any inherent illegality – it’s perfectly legal for somebody to try to prevent a crime in progress. You will all be based in the same town, one in which there are no other current heroes. (I’m thinking of putting you in Metropolis.) There is a certain amount of public fascination with the heroes, especially now that there are so many fewer than there used to be.

1938-1950 is called the “Golden Age of Heroes”. It seems like every city had a masked protector, and some had several. It was a grand and glorious time, in which many gangs, mobs, spy rings and crime bosses were put out in jail. Unsurprisingly, business got much better, and the United States has pulled far ahead of other countries in wealth and prestige. By the late 1940s, crime was at an all-time low, and the mystery men slowly slipped into obscurity and retirement. No point patrolling all night if you can’t find any crimes. For the last ten years, there have been very few heroes, and very little need. But there’s a new breed of young adult with less respect for the establishment, older criminals are slowly getting out of jail, and the super-deterrent is no longer there. The crime rate is slowly creeping back up, and rumors of Communist spy rings are flourishing.

Rumors about heroes are also extremely common. In fact, there’s a supermarket tabloid that specializes in them. “The Brave and the Bold” is a source for any rumor about any hero you could ever want to read about, from Forbush-Man to the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. They are responsible for the rumor that Captain America didn’t really die at the end of World War II. They are currently writing an “expose” about a putative hero team called Sugar and Spike, (who nobody else thinks exists), and are trying to convince everyone that these are merely new costumes and identities for the Golden-Age Fox and the Crow. Nobody takes them seriously, but everybody seems to know what they’re saying, and they outsell the National Enquirer by millions of issues each week.

This carries the first very vague hints of who the ultimate villains will be. The Crime Syndicate (evil versions of the JLA) are just getting started. Owl-Man has been sighted in Gotham City. Over the next few episodes, there were several references to the "half-man, half-flying-predator" often seen at night in Gotham City, and I never used the word "bat".