Devil's Advocate: DM advice on roleplaying the bad guys

[haakon1]

I have a slow-moving (glacial, really) email campaign, so sometimes I like to ponder the actions of the bad guys. My goal is realism -- what would the bad guys actually do.

The current question I'm pondering is whether the Bad Guys should cut their losses, or continue a plot that's gone rather than badly off-track. So I'm wondering what other DM's think. Apologies for the long set up, but I think it's fun.

The setting is my personal version of Greyhawk, and the rules are 3.5e, though I don't think either is critical to the question.

The Bad Guys are devil and Hextor (LE god of war) worshipping members of the Horned Society, an evil country run by humans (and some monsters) with goblinoid and human troops. The Horned Society was betrayed and conquered by the arch-baddie of the Greyhawk setting, Iuz ("The Old One"), a CE demigod of human(-ish) origins with mostly orcish troops.

IMC, the Horned Society wasn't destroyed -- it's become an underground force of fanatics fighting Iuz and trying to find a homeland for themselves. The survivors often work clandestinely as mercenaries to make ends meet.

The campaign revolves around the country of Bissel, which has been invaded by a neighboring country called Ket. Iuz is not so secretly supporting Ket, as a distraction because Bissel is friendly with some of Iuz's major enemies.

Some Horned Society refugees have been working as mercenaries and their leaders decided to seize a town in Bissel as their homeland. (I'm using the old module "The Speaker in Dreams" as a baseline for this scenario, with significant campaign-specific modifications.)

The leader of this particular plot is a Mind Flayer and hierarch (secret committee leader of the Horned Society). His plan was:
-- Corrupt the major domo of the town's castle. Done.
-- Be invited as a visitor to the castle, and dominate the baron. Done.
-- Have Horned Society thugs infiltrate the town as a new thieves' guild. Done.
-- Have a sorcerer train some followers as a secret society in the town. Done.
-- Have wererat associates take over the Bell Tower in the town, a lookout point and the "alarm system" for summoning the town militia, by infecting the bell keeper. Done.
-- Have a lot of Horned Society foot soldiers (mostly Warrior 2's) infiltrate the town as mercenary guards for merchants traveling to the major fair to be held there. Done.
-- Start trouble in the market district the day before the fair, so the Captain of the Guard investigates. Kidnap him and kill him. Done.
-- Start chaos in the town during the fair. Release Owlbears and send Wererats with Dire Rats into the crowd to kill a bunch of Commoners at random. Then while the Guards are dealing with that, start a fire in a different part of the city to really overtax them. Draw the Guards out of the castle as much as possible. Done.
-- Seize the castle, by flying invisible forces -- 2 Erinyes Devils and several Ogre Mages -- shooting the remaining Guards and opening the gates. Coordinated by the Bell Tower, the infiltrating mercenaries make their way to the castle, don Guards uniforms, and clean up the blood. Done. PC's didn't notice a thing, what with the monsters killing civilians and the arson conflagration.
-- Have the fake Guards go pick up the clerics and druids in town. Tell them their help is needed for an emergency at the castle.

This is where things went wrong. The PC's cleric had separated from the party and was talking to the leader of his church in town, when the fake Guards came to get her. The two of them went to the castle. The bad guys tried to capture them, but failed, the PC cleric alerted the rest of the party with a Sending spell while trapped (he got away by teleport to the other end of the continent and can't get back until tomorrow, long story).

The rest of the PC's have since:
1) Tracked down the wererats to the Bell Tower and decisively defeated them and some gargoyles there.
2) Gone to the most powerful cleric in town and kept him from being abducted. With his help and the Bell Tower, summoned the town militia.
3) Led an assault on the castle, PC's in front, with militia and patriots from the merchant guard mercenaries. The bad guy thieves and sorcerers, more gargoyles, and summoned monsters tried to rout the militia, but the PC's just destroyed them, and the militia casualties were fairly light.
4) The PC's monk snuck into the main tower of the castle to search for the Baron, and saw the Mind Flayer. The Mind Flayer killed the baron to prevent his rescue, and tried to capture the monk, but failed.
5) The PC's assaulted the tower, bashing in the door, and the Mind Flayer and his main followers (evil clerics) fled with those invisible flyer monsters from the top, while the foot soldiers battled it out to the last man (nearly) in a holding action.

So I'm quite sure what will happen with the captured Horned Society men (via Monk action and a Sleep spell). They will not talk. Their bushido like code will not allow it. Intimidate rules be damned, they answer to the actual Devil and know they will be before him soon. Plus, fighting Iuz and living as mercenaries, they are just tough as nails.

But what does the Mind Flayer do?

The rest of this plan was to attack the main temple (Temple of Pelor) in the town at midnight, do a human sacrifice of all the captured clerics and druids, and open a vortex to Hell, to bring in summoned devils and other hellish creatures, then his fake guards (with monster backing if needed) open the town gates and let in the bad guys who are camped in the wilderness a few miles away and marching into the night -- a mercenary goblinoid force of:
-- a Barghest leader + 4 other Barghests as officers
-- at tribe of hobgoblin warriors (250 Warrior 1, 20 Fighter 1, Subchief Fighter 3)
-- 20 bugbears (CR2)
-- 150 goblins, 50 wargs (CR2), and 5 krenshars (CR1)
-- 20 ogres (CR3)
-- 10 ettins (CR6)
-- 8 trolls (CR5)
-- 2 stone giants (CR8)

With that force in control of the town, the Mind Flayer would raise the Horned Society flag and declare a new homeland for their scattered bands to flock to.

So, if you are playing the Mind Flayer, do you that send that goblin mercenary army that's expecting an open gate to fight the militia at the gates, while you fly in with those invisible friends to attack the temple and try to open the vortex (if he sacrifices his own cleric followers, he has enough to do it!)? Advantage: Sounds pretty metal to kamikaze his goblin army against the defended walls as a distraction and sacrifice his own followers! Might even work, except the PC's have been kicking him around all day already, and seem to be one step ahead of him now.

Or do you decide "curses, foiled again" and retreat to the mountains to cause trouble another day? Advantage: Give up when you're behind. If you don't know when to cut your losses, you wouldn't have survived Iuz's onslaught and life on the run. The "A-Team" would get out of dodge when the brass showed up, so shouldn't he also know when he's beaten, so he can also stay on the lam?

I think a WISE and devious evil mastermind (which is what I'm trying to portray) would live to fight another day.

FYI, I don't really care about what's more "fun" or balanced, I'm just going to realistic/tough intellectual challenge for the characters. That's what they like about how I run the game -- NPC's that seem real and complex plots they weave. Also, at this point after a long, long day of fighting the players (OK, getting a little metagamey) are tired of this scenario.

Thanks if you read this far!

What would you do?

 

[Janx]

I think you've answered your own question.

Just like when a guy goes on listing all the reasons why he thinks his girl is cheating on him.

You got that many clues, you've articulated them. Act on it.

 

[haakon1]

Thanks Janx.

 

[Jesauce]

One thing I always do when setting up a BBEG is decide on obvious thing like motivations, goals and command structure (or lack thereof) but also long-term plans. A great question I like to ask myself is "Okay, so when he pulls off these grand schemes what is he going to do?" Because they aren't planning on failing, they are doing these things because they want or need to. If my BBEG's plan is to take over a country, then what are his plans once he does? Is he going to wage war on neighboring countries? Then he's going to be working towards that end. He'll have plans and contingencies in place if things go wrong along the way. There are always ways of salvaging an operation, or abandoning it and playing another card from his hand to continue his plans. So even when the party thwarts one thing, he just drops it and moves onto the next thing.

If they players are pressing him hard enough, perhaps he scraps the temple and does something hurried like attempt to use his troops to rush the town, and while they're distracted he uses another avenue to gain the sacrifices he needs? Or perhaps he has something in reserve, waiting to be played 'in case of emergency.' Maybe he abandons the town altogether, moving his army somewhere else to another town. This is a Mind-Flayer, they're some of the most intelligent creatures in the multiverse. He very easily might have several redundancies in place. He might have several other towns in the process of being infiltrated, perhaps even one of them is almost at the point where he can attempt to overtake that one instead. Maybe none of them are quite ready, but he decides to risk it and push up his timetable, thus doing things a bit too openly and leaving himself vulnerable. Perhaps the party might claim victory for the town and the mastermind withdraws, leaving them as heroes. They can go off and do other things and eventually you can reintroduce him later in the campaign after he's had time to rebuild. I had a similar situation in one of my games where the bad guy simply decided to cut his losses and walk away from his operations. A year or so later I started a new game with the players as new characters set a ways in the future where he was attempting to take over the world again, and it was quite awesome to see my player's reaction when they found out who the BBEG was.

Who knows? It's all up to you, of course. Sounds like a fun game!

 

[LostSoul]

I see a few options.

It could head over to Geoff and enslave the giants who are on the warpath.

He could head over to the Paynims and enslave them.

Or - he could slip into the Valley of the Mage and try to discover its secrets and use them against the PCs. That might be the most easily adventurable one.

 

[Ryujin]

I would have the Mind Flayer withdraw to a safe location, with as many of his remaining troops as possible. He's got limited resources and would not squander them. On the other hand his 'fake guards' could stay behind and provide both support and additional information, in the future.

An intelligent enemy does not throw away his resources.

 

[haakon1]

Thanks, Jesauce. Given the really long running nature of the email campaign, and the fact as Janx pointed out that I'm pretty clear what makes sense to me (BBEG gives up), I think I'll have him do that. It will actually scare the PC's to have this BBEG still out there, and not quite understood in his origins or motivations.

As for another iron in the fire, yes, this was not the first time they encountered machinations the Mind Flayer was behind, and they did find evidence of a plot in the Free City of Hochoch, which could fit nicely into the campaign.

 

[haakon1]

I see a few options.
It could head over to Geoff and enslave the giants who are on the warpath.
He could head over to the Paynims and enslave them.
Or - he could slip into the Valley of the Mage and try to discover its secrets and use them against the PCs. That might be the most easily adventurable one.

I hadn't thought of the Valley of the Mage . . . that's actually a good target for the Horned Society. Geoff and Hochoch also makes sense for them.

 

[fba827]

Being a smart mindflayer, I'd .......

1) cut losses and get SELF out of danger

2) throw the pcs off track by having minions stay behind with some mood 'in charge' to do 'something' ( possibly lying to the minions telling them it's a change of plans). Thus allowing the pcs to defeat /stop the moon and minions thinking they've resolved and foiled whatever plot was going on. But it was just for the mind flayed to give a distraction and false sense of completion for the pcs at the cost of some disposable cannon fodder

3) regroup, plan, and wait. Maybe to continue the original plan after the pcs have moved on, or change the target, or change plan entirely. Though I've always portrayed mind flyers as having a large ego, so changing plan entirely would be admiring flaw in plan therefore I'd say he waits or just changes target but not changing the core plan.


Anyway just my thoughts though I'm noticing the age in this thread so, this may have already been resolved long ago. Ha

 

[Hand of Evil]

Build a motivation questionnaire for the villain. This is just a few questions stating what the bad guy does that you can reference during game.

Example:

• What kind of villain? Mastermind, Thug, Creep, Anti-hero, etc?
• What is power to the villain? Wealth, Magic, Influence, Favors, Territory, Business?
• When does the villain kill? When needed, When someone fails, To remove a threat, To remove a obstacle, To protect self, to protect power base, To protect identity?
• How does the villain treat henchmen? Rewards loyalty, Draconian, Outsources (pay & forget), As Loose Ends?
• Does the villain torture? All the time, When needed, Never?
• How does the villain wish to appear to the general public? As a good guy, Respectable, Tyrant, Secret Identity, Stupid, A Fool?

another trick is to model the villain after a character from books, movies or comics.