Badass/Tabletop Games

About every sentient being from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. We got ridiculously ballsy Imperial Guard, the Power Armoured Space Marines, the Sisters of Battle, the demonically-enhanced forces of Chaos, the war-loving Orks, the ninja space elf Eldar, the battlesuited gunslinging Tau, the unkillable beyond-ancient robot Necron and the various other factions. One can say that just about every combat personnel, as well as some non-combat personnel from the universe is pretty badass.
- But not least Inquisitor Eisenhorn Who while being "questioned" not only bites off his interrogators lip off WITH HIS TEETH he also manages to make sexual innuendos about his female siblings. He then proceeds to kill him, his employers, three uber beasts, and a chaos space marine. in just the first of three books too!
  - The Cadian Kasrkin deserve a special mention. Basically, these are lightly augmented humans, not wearing power armour or equipped with very powerful weapons, but they, unlike most Imperial citizens, aren't intimated by an Inquisitor, aren't afraid of full on body tackling a ticked off Daemon and fight it even if they know it's going to kill them.
- Although 40K certainly has a roster-list of badasses so long it could take up an entire page of it's own, one man stands out as the greatest of them all. Ollanius Pius, who died trying to defend the Emperor from Complete Monster Horus.
  - To elaborate, Pius was basically your standard Imperial Guard Red Shirt and Horus is a Super Soldier/Demigod with a Claw as big as Pius himself! And what does he say? "You gotta get through me first!".. OK it didn't end well for him but by the Emperor if that didn't say he had big balls.
The original, fantasy Warhammer Fantasy Battle has its fair share, as well. The Army Book for each faction featured a supposedly, but not always, Badass quote on the back cover. The Skaven, of all armies, actually gained the most Badass of them all with just two words. Kill, kill!
- Every lord or hero in Warhammer is pretty badass, but special mention has to go to those non-Special Character heroes tooled up to take down a Bloodthirster. And Elven commanders on dragons.
Radha, Heir to Keld from Magic: The Gathering. "Run home, cur. I've already taken your master's head. Don't make me thrash you with it."
- Sadly somewhat undercut by her actual card representation, though. That said, badasses of all persuasions aren't hard to come by in the Magic multiverse.
- What about the unglued card Bad Ass?
In Exalted, there is actually a badassery stat - Conviction. The example given in the 2nd edition core book states that someone with Conviction 5 (maximum possible for most people) would be capable of enduring a century of horrible torment, and unflinchingly inflict the same upon others.
- Not exactly. It's more accurate to say that Conviction measures how much of a Knight Templar you are. The true measure of badassery is binary: Do you have a Motivation? If yes, you are a badass. If no, you're an extra.
  - Even this is somewhat misleading, as extras do have Motivations. Such motivations are typically "Live a long and happy life", or "Raise my children in peace". Sufficiently badass Motivations, however, are the mark of those with great Destiny ratings, and therefor can only be held by genuine badasses.
- There's a simpler rule of thumb. Are you Exalted, or likely to Exalt some day? If yes, congratulations! You are a badass!
In 7th Sea there is Roary Finnegan, founder of the drunken bare-knuckled boxing school that bears his name. The GM secrets on him in the Avalon sourcebook say it best: "Roary has no secrets. He really can kick anyone's butt."
Scion, which is Exalted's spiritual cousin, also seems to be of the mind that the players should be laughably Badass. By the end of Hero (low level), player characters can hit enemies with cars. By the end of Demigod (Mid leve), they can hit them with houses. By the end of God, it is permitted in system for a character to hit an enemy with a mountain.
While most PCs in Dungeons & Dragons qualify (especially Martial characters in 4th edition), the cake has to go to the Valenar elves of Eberron, who are better. As in, "sociopathic Klingon rider of Rohan Vietcong vikings with scimitars" better. When a massive war broke out, not only did they seize themselves a small nation, but one group accepted mercenary service to Cyre by killing a Karrnathi general, then sending his skull to the Cyran queen with "We accept" engraved on it in Elven.
- The most badass PC I've ever been graced to be the DM of, managed to kill the ruler of The Empire with a single arrow. To make that even more badass, he did it from a mile away. Through A foot of steel. On a natural 12.
  - The most badass PC I've ever played with created a move called "the Falcon Punch", which does 30d6+65 damage. And he's level 12. Admittedly, it required playing Bard, and multiclassing to Rogue, Ranger, and Warlock. However, another PC by the same guy has his at-will as his most powerful attack.
  - I ran a Were-tiger Monk a wile back. At one point she was the tank for the group. Why was she the tank? She was pregnant.
  - This troper played a Dread Necromancer once that was captured by a group of malcontent demigods and defeated them with a never ending stream of self-destructing zombie chickens, in less than a minute.
In the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, there's Neo the Magic Swordsman. His description says that he "not only practices sorcery, but is a sword and martial arts master." Can you say "badass"?
Quite a few Shadowrun NPCs own the copyright to this trope, prominent examples being Argent, Kid Stealth, and Striper.
- It is ridiculously easy to create one by doing a bit of min/maxing with an Adept. As in 'guy who convinces four Triad mobsters in a locked-down building to take him to their boss then snaps all four of their necks in the elevator on their way up without them being able to react' sort of badass. And that was the toned-down version of that character, too.
A great many Pokémon, notably Charizard and Tyranitar.
If you are a PC in Feng Shui or Hong Kong Action Theatre, chances are you are a badass.