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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5617295" data-attributes="member: 42582">I see it not as a game mechanic, but an encounter design and resolution guideline.That is, (i) design encounters that all the players will want their PCs to engage (like the typical combat encounter) and (ii) as the encounter is resolving, maintain that pressure for full party engagement.So if the party diplomancer is negotiating with Orcus, the other PCs don't just get to hang back in his or her shadow. Either they step up to the plate and engage; or Orcus asks them what they're doing there; or if they're hanging back like lackeys or servants, Orcus eats one of their souls to see how serious the diplomancer is about asking for favours; or whatever makes it hard for the diplomancer to get away with "stay close, shut up and follow my lead".The villain has two sorts of resources to contribute. The first is his/her assistance in the immediate conflict, as JC notes. This can be a balance issue in some approaches to play. (I don't have anything more profound than that to say about it.)The second is the villain as an ongoing ally. Acquiring this resource shouldn't, in most games, count as an unbalancing victory. Rather, it's a plot development which the GM should take account of in designing future challenges.Yep.I see this as less of a balance issue and more of a genre issue. Are you playing a nursery-tale style game? Then the Emperor will hand over the keys to the kingdom for the magic dung (think Jack and the Beanstalk, or The Emperor's New Clothes). But winning the kingdom probably won't itself break that sort of game, because the focus of that sort of game probably isn't wealth acquisition.If you're playing a more serious game, where the Emperor is more like Denethor of Gondor, than what Elf Witch says is true.I think the GM has to be clear in the way s/he handles player expectations around these genre issues.It's a bit like the PC who deliberately jumps over a 200' cliff because the player knows that 20d6 can't be fatal for that particular character - a GM who pulls "gritty realist genre" on that player after the action declaration is locked in is probably going to produce some conflict at the table. Better to sort out all these expectations as to what is possible, relative to genre, before the players commit to actions and roll their dice.</blockquote>

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