From: earl@cco.caltech.edu (Earl A. Hubbell)
Subject: Re: Funhouse traps for superheroes
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 05:58:55 GMT

jsanders@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (John Eric Sanders) writes:

>Was wondering if anybody had any interesting traps for superheroes.

>My guys are being trapped in a funhouse to die, and I am looking
>for interesting ways of killing them (or at least making them think
>I am going to kill them :-)

	Funhouses naturally suggest mirrors, which suggests the
most easily memorable 'deathtrap' (fairly harmless, actually) I
had a character placed in.  The two characters who were trapped
in it were Aurora, light projector, and Fay, variable energy
projector.  They were both floating in darkness (unaware of each
other at first) - some slight misadventure later, it became
clear that 1) Whenever they fired, they'd hit the other person.
2) They could aim carefully and get themselves instead.
3) The knockback from their own energy blast wasn't sufficient
to get them knocked out of the suspension field.
4) The only way out was to coordinate and add knockback (and
take large quantities of damage.

	We had lots of fun role-playing two people whose knowledge
of geometry stopped somewhere around 'draw a straight line' trying
to figure out just what was going on.  Then there was the problem
of actually >implementing< the plan...

Try #1: Both spread, so as both to be hit by the energy blasts.
Coordination fails utterly...>Zap<>Zap< "Fay, it didn't work.  Fay?"
Some time later, when Fay recovers consciousness, it was agreed
that they'd just aim at Aurora...

After infinite pains, they finally manage to coordinate and knock 
Aurora out of the suspension (not out - Aurora was tough).  Then
they had to get Fay down...

Other deathtraps...

	Drug the egoist so they start broadcasting hallucinations
('I mind control myself to have no ego powers' - it held for nearly
a minute)...
	Knock the vampires out ('killed' as normal people) and
drop them in a sewer (running water...)...
	'Inverse' deathtraps - trap some normals as well, since
paranormals tend to be tough to kill (but all-too-angst ridden),
or have them break in to the deathtrap in progress - after all,
throwing superpowers around wildly will only get the normals
hurt...
	Invoke their power limitations, while allowing them a 
clever but risky way out (light projector, awakens with END
battery dead in the dark, in a concrete room, thick door, 
shelves, paint-cans - dumped in a warehouse.  The risky way
out...start a fire and hope they absorb enough energy that
they can blast the lock...then they find the shapeshifting
energy mimic whose taken their place...)
	Invoke their psych limits (a large campaign subplot at
one point (it didn't work as well as I hoped) was a villian
testing the most powerful of the heroes commitment to justice - 
it ended with the villian, having cut a swath of serial killings
through LA, formed several villian teams, threatened small kids,
pushed drugs, sold atomic weapons, failed to pick up checks at
restaurants... >and< framed the Raven for manslaughter, standing
in front of the Raven, defenseless, and taunting him, trying to
make him crack.  The Raven and the villian would have died,
if the Raven had tried to kill him, having ultimately failed.
The Raven came through, and the villian surrendered.)
	
>Thanx

> The Jester (John E. Sanders)       jsanders@symcom.math.uiuc.edu       
-- 
Earl Hubbell - earl@tybalt.caltech.edu - Opinions solely mine.
"Talet a:r ta:nkandets bo:rjan och slut.  Med tanken fo:ddes talet.
Uto:fver talet na:r tanken icke." - Go:sta Mittag-Leffler.
"Number is the beginning and the end of Thought.  Number was born with Thought.