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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 25811" data-attributes="member: 812">Well, sure, call it whatever you like. Well, don't call it allegory. I HATE allegory. Other than that, I don't really care what word is used. I think you get the idea, though it seems you're over-stating the condition of my campaign. And once again I beg leave to point out that I didn't set out to make "symbolic" bad guys, I just tried to make scary bad guys and then looked at them and realised they had symbolic significance. Looking at my campaign as though it were a novel or some such lit'ry thing, and analysing the MEANING of the characters. As opposed to the other way around, you see?My PCs are NEVER fighting an allegory, a symbol or a myth. They are fighting people, first and foremost. The fact that the people they're fighting happen to demonstrate certain symbolic archetypes doesn't reduce those people to some sort of allegorical pawns.The whole point was that I noticed that my NPCs were really scaring my players, and being that both myself and my wife are of literary bents, we took a look at them with a critical eye, and found that they had archetypal characteristics. And I wondered if other DMs, when they looked at their scariest bad guys, found the same. I may not have put this question forward with sufficient clarity, and I'm probably not right now.I guess what I'm asking for is a critical analysis of your campaign's bad guys. Not the math, not the inspiration, but their symbolic meaning (given that all art possesses symbolic meaning and that an rpg campaign is on some level a form of artisitc expression). I understand that not everyone's equipped to provide that, but I'll eat this monitor if I possess the only English degree (or and Lit degree) on this board.</blockquote>

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