Forums of the Megaverse®

Has anyone worked up one of these in your own games?

In HU Fabricators Inc caters to bad guys, giving them super weapons and gizmos, suits and what have you for supervillians. They also launder money, fence items, provide plastic surgery, delivery and repair of items and even construct super bases.

These are all for criminals but good guys would be in need of these services as much as the bad guys. After all very few people are taking Tailoring or sewing on their character sheets. So someone has to be making their supersuits/costumes. More over it'd be nice if they could be armored, as the bad guys sure have them (Via Fabricators Inc if nothing else) Super heroes would greatly benefit from flexi-steel super suits (And most of the rest too).

So just the gear alone would be invaluable to Heroes. Then you look at the other services.

Heroes might not need to 'launder' dirty money, like the villains, but what they WOULD need is a place to keep their money to keep villains and others from getting at it... and to protect it from theft and getting sued by people for super-fights.

Heroes might not really need to 'fence' stolen goods but some would need a way to clean and gain payment for items taken from bad guys. ((Sure good guys arn't knocking off liquer stores for the most part, but when you take down a bad guy and he's got $50,000,000 in stolen art in his lair, you can't just leaver it there to rot, you selli t to finance your battle against evil" Etc)).

Plastic surgery is clearly something that many heroes could benefit from. Changing their faces so they can take on new idenities and not put their loved ones at risk, or incase their secret identities get outed. (Or in case they're scarred up fighting villains)

The construction of super bases would be just as beneficial for good guys as bad.


So.... has anyone made a 'good version' of Fabricators Inc, and how'd you go about it? Any things stand out about it? Or is it just a mirrior image of the bad one.

To be honest...
...I have never done this, and I never would.
The reason is, of course, that the governments of the world would shut it down in a heartbeat.
Since this would be an organized criminal enterprise after all. Aiding mercenaries and vigilantes is illegal after all. And if your not an illegal vigilante then you don't need this, you just use your government contacts.

If my players want to 'avoid entanglements' and play vigilante's that's fine. But I am not going to out of my way to make it easy for them. Especially by providing a ready accomplice that they can look up in the phone book! If they want to find a fence, or buy super gear or something... then they can figure out how to do that...
...it sounds like an adventure or three.

Thing is that's saying 'If you want a super suit or to have access to gear as a hero, you have to be a criminal."

The business could easily be 'located' in a small neutral country or something to avoid legal entanglements. I mean how many "made up' countries do the comic universes have?

Not all heroes are vigilantes either.

I would think that the mercs could use the normal Fabricators Inc. This would be for the good guys. Could even be run by a 'good guy' inventor. (Hardware guy) Same as the evil one is.

In Marvel Stark Industries creates alot of stuff. Reed Richard provides super suits of unstable molicules to other heroes, etc.

Greg Diaczyk's Hardware Unlimited manuscript included a "good guy" version of Fabricators Inc.
Well not necessary "good guys" more like a mercenary organization. Seen the manuscript very
excellent piece of work.

Or obe could tinker with the fluff and instead of Fabricators being a dedicated villain organization, they are more ammoral and mercenary, providing support to any who will pay. Good aligned characters may face some ethical challenges in dealing with them, but they are discrete, high quality and willing to work with everybody for the right price.

Many years ago, there was an excellent short story in a published collection of superhero-themed stories about a tailor shop in Gotham that served BOTH the villain and superhero communities..shop did basic repairs and replenishment, and followed rules of neutrality; you delivered your specs to the tailor, didn't talk to the tailor about what you were planning, and didn't ask about what anybody else was planning/ordering ...and BOTH communities pulled strings to make sure the guy stayed in business because he was THAT good...The villains realized good work was hard to come by, and the superheroes...well, Alfred didn't a night off every now and then.

taalismn wrote:Many years ago, there was an excellent short story in a published collection of superhero-themed stories about a tailor shop in Gotham that served BOTH the villain and superhero communities..shop did basic repairs and replenishment, and followed rules of neutrality; you delivered your specs to the tailor, didn't talk to the tailor about what you were planning, and didn't ask about what anybody else was planning/ordering ...and BOTH communities pulled strings to make sure the guy stayed in business because he was THAT good...The villains realized good work was hard to come by, and the superheroes...well, Alfred didn't a night off every now and then.

I think I, hazily, remember something to that effect.

I think I remember the compilation as well, was Batman themed overall. Unfortunately I lost my copy when the family car was broken into.

Could it be Leo Zelinsky? He's marvel but his wiki entry seems to fit the above, more or less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Zelinsky

Pretty sure it was Mike Resnick's story Neutral Ground.

I'm going to have to toss this out here then
http://www.atomiclaundromat.com/comic/strike-out/
Its a laundromat...
...that cleans super hero/super villain costumes.
The comic is lighthearted and funny... but can be mined for ideas on the whole "super service industry"

Regularguy wrote:Pretty sure it was Mike Resnick's story Neutral Ground.

Good catch

Mr. Kittlemeier From the Neutral ground, 5 pages in one anthology 30 years ago. Sadly I don't have that one in my collection. Seems to be more or less the same as Leo Zelinsky from the other side.

But yes, to a smaller extent that's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Indeed a 'good' version of Fabricators Inc could be very useful in games. It could operate openly depending on what's in the catalog. After all. Guns are legal to sell. So is body armor ( In most places) Etc. You can buy an up armored and weapon out fitted car now if you have the cash. It wouldn't have to be illegal in nature.

The Main issue would be 'Trust'. Where in, much like the above mentioned people from Marvel and DC, the 'trust' is enforced by "All other other people that use the service". I.E. Noone messes with the guy that takes care of ALL of the super heroes, or villains. (Or the company) because to do so would be to invite the wrath of all the customers coming to protect their secrets and what have you. Body guard services and private security are also legal. To some extent the company could even hire out heroes and what not as service providers.

If a citizen can hire a body guard, or a company Private security (Rent a cops) You could theoretically do the same with heroes. (Just like you could hire out mercs)

```

We have private armies based out of the US now. A darker aspect could be a private superhero army. Think Blackwater (Now Xe) But with 100s of superheroes.... that'd be pretty frightening. That would likely be more 'neutral/bad' in the grand scheme of things, but above someone said a 'good version' couldn't work because of laws, but if you set it up right, the concept COULD be done.

As... it's 'done' now but with 100s or 1000s of guys with machine guns. Instead of super powers.

Pepsi Jedi wrote:Has anyone worked up one of these in your own games?

In HU Fabricators Inc caters to bad guys, giving them super weapons and gizmos, suits and what have you for supervillians. They also launder money, fence items, provide plastic surgery, delivery and repair of items and even construct super bases.

These are all for criminals but good guys would be in need of these services as much as the bad guys. After all very few people are taking Tailoring or sewing on their character sheets. So someone has to be making their supersuits/costumes. More over it'd be nice if they could be armored, as the bad guys sure have them (Via Fabricators Inc if nothing else) Super heroes would greatly benefit from flexi-steel super suits (And most of the rest too).

So just the gear alone would be invaluable to Heroes. Then you look at the other services.

Heroes might not need to 'launder' dirty money, like the villains, but what they WOULD need is a place to keep their money to keep villains and others from getting at it... and to protect it from theft and getting sued by people for super-fights.

Heroes might not really need to 'fence' stolen goods but some would need a way to clean and gain payment for items taken from bad guys. ((Sure good guys arn't knocking off liquer stores for the most part, but when you take down a bad guy and he's got $50,000,000 in stolen art in his lair, you can't just leaver it there to rot, you selli t to finance your battle against evil" Etc)).

Plastic surgery is clearly something that many heroes could benefit from. Changing their faces so they can take on new idenities and not put their loved ones at risk, or incase their secret identities get outed. (Or in case they're scarred up fighting villains)

The construction of super bases would be just as beneficial for good guys as bad.


So.... has anyone made a 'good version' of Fabricators Inc, and how'd you go about it? Any things stand out about it? Or is it just a mirrior image of the bad one.

eliakon wrote:To be honest...
...I have never done this, and I never would.
The reason is, of course, that the governments of the world would shut it down in a heartbeat.
Since this would be an organized criminal enterprise after all. Aiding mercenaries and vigilantes is illegal after all. And if your not an illegal vigilante then you don't need this, you just use your government contacts.

If my players want to 'avoid entanglements' and play vigilante's that's fine. But I am not going to out of my way to make it easy for them. Especially by providing a ready accomplice that they can look up in the phone book! If they want to find a fence, or buy super gear or something... then they can figure out how to do that...
...it sounds like an adventure or three.

The Rifter #37 (The Expanded Mega-Hero (mainly, the Wealth/Gadget/Engineering Types) and Secret Base Creation Rules (an example showing that it is a thing)) is a good place to start if you are looking to build something like that.


Cr'Imson

It's not the actual building that's the problem. I have Villains unlimited to make the organization. And yeah I've got the rifter for actually building the super bases and what have you.

Was just curious if anyone had already put together one.

The Daredevil tv show had something of a lower level of this with Gladiator building body armor and toys for both sides.

You already have some of this sort of thing going on in HU. Look at CS. Elite from the Valks has Fabricators equipment purchased through a dummy corp, the Iron Brigade has homebuilt bots/PA, but also military grade weapons.

There are "ways" to get around laws for mercs, or the underground etc. You need to decide how you do it.

The games I've been involved in have more of a comic book viewpoint instead of a RL one. A few examples: several X-Men have energy blasters because Prof X can remove any problems with his powers. Batman can get whatever gadget/weapon he wants or needs through 50 shell companies and so on.

Pepsi Jedi wrote:It's not the actual building that's the problem. I have Villains unlimited to make the organization. And yeah I've got the rifter for actually building the super bases and what have you.

Was just curious if anyone had already put together one.

Then you may also want to take a look at Rifts Adventure Guide (rules for Creating Towns & Cities, Creating Organizations and Mercenary Companies), and maybe even look at Three Galaxies (Space Station Creation Rules). You would have far more options than just using copy/paste villains.



Cr'Imson