#1: Ten Ways to Torment Meddling Heroes without Ending Their Pathetic Lives

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/thebad,theworse,andthevile:theartofbeingevil/thebad,theworse,andthevile:theartofbeingevil1.phtml

Summary:

How villains may cause problems without killing the player characters.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/thebad,theworse,andthevile:theartofbeingevil/thebad,theworse,andthevile:theartofbeingevil1.phtml) for more information.

[Old Geezer]

Crom and Mitra. What a collection of good and really terrible advice.


"Just keep in mind that you demand back stories for a reason and any sign of affection a character has towards a non player character can be a point of weakness for a villain to exploit."

And when you do this, don't be surprised when next game, all your characters are homeless orphan wanderers with no ties to anything.

I mean, shit on toast. That has been a recurring theme since I started reading RPGnet several years ago -- "if you use player's character backgrounds to fuck them over, don't be surprised when they create characters without backgrounds." Some discussion on how to avoid this might have been useful, rather than "Make your character create backgrounds and then make them regret it".

"Betrayal is an old theme for the vilest of things to do to another person. "

Right. And if 100 orcs in a 10 x 10 foot room is "Fantasy Role Playing Cliche #1", then "NPC Betrays PC" is "Fantasy Role Playing Cliche #2".

This idea was stale as early as 1976 or 1977. When PCs, in character, are openly making bets on when and how this NPC will betray them, you know you've taken a wrong turn.

Some of the other ideas in the article would be worth expanding on, but any GM who uses "Hurt the PCs with their background" or "betrayal" should be forced to clean Jabba the Hutt's toilet.

[Strange Visitor]

I have to agree with OG on these; using PCs connections to other people (whether allies or people from backstrory) simply trains players not to let those occur more than they absolutely must. Both can be used occasionally (and some systems recognize the price of having connections to others in leverage by rewarding points from disadvantages for them in one way or another) but unless you have players who are very tolerant of this (or masochistic) any sort of regular use of that outside of that context is liable to produce unintended and undesirable consequences.

[C.W.Richeson]

I think there are ways to implement all of those suggestions that are fun and not fun. A lot of it comes from what interests the player. With family, for example, if the player makes his family out to be of particular interest then the player may very well want some villainous drama to take place. On the other hand, constantly endangering a character's parents when the player has no interest in it probably won't result in a lot of fun.

As long as the GM asks a few questions about this sort of stuff at the campaign generation step then I think it would be hard to go wrong.

[Old Geezer]

I think there are ways to implement all of those suggestions that are fun and not fun. A lot of it comes from what interests the player. With family, for example, if the player makes his family out to be of particular interest then the player may very well want some villainous drama to take place. On the other hand, constantly endangering a character's parents when the player has no interest in it probably won't result in a lot of fun.

As long as the GM asks a few questions about this sort of stuff at the campaign generation step then I think it would be hard to go wrong.


I agree -- that's why I mentioned "discussion on how to avoid this". If you read the column exactly as written, it says fairly explicitly "Require back stories and exploit them".

[Ace]

This article is a grip of advice on how to disempower the players and rapidly ruin a campaign.

Unless someone explicitly want you to (FREX they take a dependent disadvantage or the like) trying these cheap tricks will just give you detached sociopathic PC's or worse no players.

Tread very lightly while using these ideas.

[Craig Oxbrow]

I'd point out the suggestions on robbing and disabling PCs as well - there are plenty of players who'd rather have their character die than lose a major facet but survive.

"How to use these things without pissing of your players" could be a very useful follow-up article.

[Tark]

Keep in mind these are merely ideas. You can expand on each in a number of different ways and you should carefully consider each one before using it. These ideas are meant to be used to torment player characters and give them motivation to act against the villain. Never should they be used just to give players a hard time and never should they be used to punish players for acting their character. And remember a good villain always saves his best assassins for last.


Now that that's out of the way please keep in mind these things are meant to be cruel and painful. As a means to drive the characters into a frenzy over the villain if the palyer associates all the bad things happening to his character with the GM then he's playing the "Players VS. GM" game. Which, admittedly, can be equally the fault of the GM as the player.

But, the reason their wasn't a lot going into "how not to piss off your players" because that would be a lot like a "How To GM" article. It's simply not wholly relevant to the subject matter and would take up a lot more space then a single article could cover. Not to mention my attempt at being universal. What's accepted in DnD won't be accepted in Dark Heresy, or Vampire, or Exalted, or some implementations of HERO one way to implement them doesn't work for all it's entirely up to the GM to make these work. Finally, I assume, and thankfully I'm correct judging by the response, that most people who read this are mature enough how to moderate thigns so they don't have angry players walking out the door. In the end these ideas are meant to generate challenges and conflicts adn more importantly conviction towards the villain while avoiding the waves and waves of attack drones that can be inevitably be more boring and more destructive then any rage.


But anyway for my own part this article was merely stretching my legs. The next two might be far more useful and little better edited.

[Old Geezer]

But anyway for my own part this article was merely stretching my legs. The next two might be far more useful and little better edited.

Totally serious question -- have you been reading RPGnet long? The reason I ask is because certain themes come up as likely to not work well. The "if you use players' backgrounds against them don't be surprised if their next characters are loner orphans" is a very common theme.

I like your basic idea, mind you; I think, however, you really need to include a discussion of how not to misuse these tools up-front.

I particularly like the one about depriving the PCs of basic necessities such as food and water.

[Dosoga]

I think there are ways to implement all of those suggestions that are fun and not fun. A lot of it comes from what interests the player. With family, for example, if the player makes his family out to be of particular interest then the player may very well want some villainous drama to take place. On the other hand, constantly endangering a character's parents when the player has no interest in it probably won't result in a lot of fun.

As long as the GM asks a few questions about this sort of stuff at the campaign generation step then I think it would be hard to go wrong.

I fully agree. Overall, I think these were all good suggestions as possible ways to make a villain appear, well, more villainous, without employing lethal force directly against the PC. Some of the other commenters have pointed out that some of the tips are hazardous, but as C.W. points out, as long as there is some degree of understanding of what players consider worthy challenges VS GM abuse, then many of these ideas are worth considering. The idea is not to be repetitive, predictable or too heavy ended, again depending on the genre, system and players' idea of a good game & story.

As others have mentioned, a discussion of potential backlash for each suggestion could have been useful. As well, a brief discussion on justifying why a villain isn't sending his best assassins would have been a great intro to the article (although it has been discussed before). To me, villains have to be credible. And these non-lethal attacks on the party (while some are indeed cliches) are a very good summary of ways to go beyond the endless series of minions used by many new GMs.

Good luck with your future articles!

[Dosoga]

Right. And if 100 orcs in a 10 x 10 foot room is "Fantasy Role Playing Cliche #1", then "NPC Betrays PC" is "Fantasy Role Playing Cliche #2".

This idea was stale as early as 1976 or 1977.

Wow! Come on, OG... I would bet that half the players reading RPG.Net weren't born in 1976 (no slight on you or them, just the facts). An old plot doesn't mean it's not a good plot - as long as it's not overused. I am more concerned about PC betrayal myself, as it tends to affect long-term players and PCs dynamics.

I always like seeing advice for junior (or even not so junior) GMs which might make them reconsider how to play villains.

...any GM who uses "Hurt the PCs with their background" or "betrayal" should be forced to clean Jabba the Hutt's toilet.

See, that's all based on the system. Being a GURPS adept, I feel that any PC who selects the "Dependent" disadvantage deserves to see them threatened, whereas one who decribes his dependents in his background but is not inclined to pick the disadvantage clearly states that he doesn't want his PC's relatives to be part of the story. And some PCs like the cliches...

[Old Geezer]

See, that's all based on the system. Being a GURPS adept, I feel that any PC who selects the "Dependent" disadvantage deserves to see them threatened, whereas one who decribes his dependents in his background but is not inclined to pick the disadvantage clearly states that he doesn't want his PC's relatives to be part of the story.

Okay, I grant you this point completely; you are 100% correct.

Any PC who gets points for a dependent has absolutely no call to complain if those dependents are used against that PC.

[Old Geezer]

Wow! Come on, OG... I would bet that half the players reading RPG.Net weren't born in 1976 (no slight on you or them, just the facts). An old plot doesn't mean it's not a good plot - as long as it's not overused. I am more concerned about PC betrayal myself, as it tends to affect long-term players and PCs dynamics.

I always like seeing advice for junior (or even not so junior) GMs which might make them reconsider how to play villains.



Well, okay, how about "Don't make EVERY DAMN NPC a traitor".

Even Knights of the Dinner Table parodies this -- if a NPC has a name, they're going to betray you.

Betrayal should be a SURPRISE, not "oh, it's about time".

I'm serious; I've seen a LOT of GMs who literally have EVERY NPC with any influence at all out to betray the PCs.

It really does build that situation where the PCs simply kill every NPC who isn't a shopkeeper.

I wish this were an exaggeration.

[Owesome]

But, what about their grandmother, their father, or their girlfriend? What about any of their loved ones?

There's a trope in Superhero comics known as "Women in Refridgerators," named after an occasion where the hero in a book had a girlfriend introduced a whole three issues before she was dismembered and left in a fridge for the hero to find. The trope kind of points out the idea that female supporting characters often get used just for adding The Drama to the male heroes' lives- and while we *are* talking about NPCs, who are by definition *not* PCs, I would like to urge the DM going down this road to add some depth to the portrayl of the kidnapped NPC- best case scenario, you'll get a better adventure out of it and motivate the player to actually care about the NPC more.

Sure, we all know this already, but thought I'd say it anyways...

[Strange Visitor]

Now that that's out of the way please keep in mind these things are meant to be cruel and painful. As a means to drive the characters into a frenzy over the villain if the palyer associates all the bad things happening to his character with the GM then he's playing the "Players VS. GM" game. Which, admittedly, can be equally the fault of the GM as the player.



The problem is that the GM intrinsically has an enormous information advantage over the players in this sort of situation, so the legitimacy of these sort of tactics and the proper response to them is always in question; I've rarely found players who _don't_ have problems with this sort of thing unless they've already given specific license to do so (in the form of things like Hero Dependents for example).

The fact is, many if not most PCs have the tools to deal with straightforward attacks on their person, and as such the players feel like they can handle that; many have little way to deal with indirect assaults on their interests, and it can easily feel that rather than making them more want to take down the villain, that it was worse for them to deal with them in the first place than to leave them alone.

Or put another way, some of these are incredibly perilous tools to use at best.

[Ratoslov]

Man, I don't think a single one of these wouldn't be a complete drag to play through.

[Parfait]

In my experience, when players put the effort into making background stories, they love it when they are used (and sometimes abused). But as the general consensus seems to go, too much abuse will lead to lame stories and no one wants that.

However, if you wish to abuse the PC through their backstory, I find that if you do it tactfully, you can get an even more positive response than you would have gotten a negative response if you had done it poorly.

As an example, I had a PC in a game I GMed who was a duke's son who had had a falling out with his father over the circumstances of his mother's illness and ultimate death. In play, the PCs eventually ended up back in the duchy where the son was forced to confront his father about their relationship. Weeeellll... that didn't work out quite as planned. Before the PC could garner any closure on this rift between himself and his father, the father was brutally murdered.

The result was very positive because, first of all, the son didn't hate the father, they simply couldn't see eye-to-eye on a very important topic (as established in the backstory), and secondly, the son was now robbed of his absolution as well as his parent. The PC's typical dandy demeanor was dropped and the fire burned in him to hunt down his father's killer (which is, of course, what I wanted). And of course, at the end of the day, the son had to grow to be a man and deal with the loss of his other parent and take control of the duchy.

This was not an isolated incident either. I find that I get the best out of my group when I lead a charge directly into their characters' pasts.

[Paul DuPont]

Wow, lots of controversy over this article. If nothing else, that would indicate that it was a good article that really made people think. As for the article, I liked it a lot. Many of the tools mentioned are things that I would rarely want to use unless the setting was directly in theme with it (which was the point of the article: getting away from boring same-old).
In essence, I think the controversy really surrounds the aspect of theme. Many games (and their players) take for granted that good things will happen to the characters most of the time. Chalenges, sure, but with rewards. Inumerable RPG's give constant rewards to their players for difficulties. This is therefor a basic premise for inumerable players. Perhaps it is assumed even by those of us who also play 'untraditional' games.

As for me, I really like the artsy aspects of role playing though, and in this light, I don't care as much about those metagame rewards, I care about having a fun story when there is room for it to happen. So, as long as the plot, characters and plot elements fit the genre of story I am expecting, then truer is better. Vilains should be vilainous, in every way, that way they are trully hated, trully chalenging and trully satisfying to defeat should the story lead to that end. It might be nice to see more players play true heroes... no not the smug, self important, false-humility paladins I see everywhere, but actually noble characters. With faults? Sure! Faults that they overcome to demonstrate their deep nobility of character. (ahh, keep dreaming...)

As a final note: I noticed all the disclaimers in the article, they were blatant and I think the author composed it well. I would actually have enjoyed more examples of how to create those vilainous plot twists rather than have the article bogged down with repeated warnings. Good job and thanks for the article!

[Dosoga]

I'm serious; I've seen a LOT of GMs who literally have EVERY NPC with any influence at all out to betray the PCs.

It really does build that situation where the PCs simply kill every NPC who isn't a shopkeeper.

I wish this were an exaggeration.

Too true. Some GMs become very predictable. In one campaign, I had a powerful villain use polymorph to fool the PCs in thinking one of their old allies had returned to assist them. He then used possession to control one of the PCs and have him murder someone they had just captured. (Convoluted? Yes, but the PCs were powerful enough by then to take him head on, so he tried a certain degree of subtility).

They first thought they had been betrayed by one of their own (the PC), then picked up something was odd and thought they had been betrayed by the NPC, and finally figured out that maybe this was not their old ally.

So in the end, I guess I unwittingly played on players' assumptions about betrayal as the logical motive, which delayed them from doing some more serious invetigation work.

[Wolfgar]

Betrayal should be a SURPRISE, not "oh, it's about time".

I'm serious; I've seen a LOT of GMs who literally have EVERY NPC with any influence at all out to betray the PCs.

It really does build that situation where the PCs simply kill every NPC who isn't a shopkeeper.

I wish this were an exaggeration.

Yeah, it's just bad GMing if the shopkeepers aren't screwing them over too.

[Ding]

A nice article with decent caveats and elaborations thrown in.

My personal favorite out of that list is the temptation option, largely because it can give you very unexpected results. I once ran an ad hoc sci-fi campaign that was fairly mediocre until the current villain with very large resources and a galactic empire at their disposal captured and offered the PCs a job if they would kill their current NPC revolution leader-type friend, who had been captured at the same time as the PCs, in a display of loyalty.

Pretty much without skipping a beat, they agreed that they'd always wanted a job in a galactic empire and shot their friend in the head.

These weren't psychotic combat-monster style gamers either. It was a genuinely surprising result which resulted in a very different campaign following that which they still talk about after a couple of pints...

I suppose the only thing I would warn against is that a GM shouldn't assume an outright rejection of the tempting offer as I did.