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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 5953537" data-attributes="member: 20323">Lots of good advice and theory so far. Here's an example of how I introduced and ran a mastermind villain over the course of 10 months of gaming (about 10 levels):The premise of the adventure/campaign was a wicked prince was about to inherit the throne from his ailing father, and the PCs were looking for a way to prevent this.1. PCs fought off the prince's redcoat lackeys and learned the prince was going after his bastard son. This set the mood, gave the PCs insight into the ruthlessness of the prince when interrogating a captured redcoat captain, and showed the prince really wanted his bastard heir under his control.2. PCs faced a crony of the prince, a corrupt magistrate collecting exorbitant taxes. They learned the prince engaged in nepotism and wasn't above dealing with slavers and monsters to acheige his ends. Clearly the prince is raising money for some nefarious scheme.3. PCs face another crony of the prince, this one a noble warlord who shares the prince's fear of invasion by foreign leaders during a time of interregnum. However, this warlord goes too far and attempts to spark outright war with a false assassination attempt. The PCs stop him, and realize that while the warlord was operating with the prince's sanction, the warlord overstepped his bounds and committed treason.4. The PCs meet the prince for the first time when they escort the bastard heir to the kingsom's capital, and are invited to dine with the royal family. It's a very tense meeting as the prince attempts to trick the PCs into revealing their plans, and the PC bard and the Prince trade barbed witticisms (without alerting the rest of the royal family). A tenuous truce is established between the PCs and the prince as the PCs are hired by the king to stop a monster haunting the capital. Of course, it turns out the prince is manipulating the monster to kill his political enemies, but the PCs can't gather proof.5. When the king falls into a coma, the prince attempts to convince the council of nobles to name him king, but he is tasked with recovering the lost holy crown to prove his worth. This is sort of a cutscene, as only one PC was able to attend and didn't get any input as he was disguised as a servant.Anyhow, long story short, I introduced the main villain in a manner appropriate to his nature (cunning aristocrat), in a seting where combat wasnt a real option. I repeated this again at a tournament where the prince and the PCs traded barbs but didn't come to blows - the prince worked thru his lackeys and couldn't be caught conspiring against the heroic PCs, while the PCs needed to gather sufficient compelling evidence to expose the prince's evil scheme.</blockquote>

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