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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zhure" data-source="post: 165020" data-attributes="member: 308">I think the best Rat Bastard (tm) thing I ever did as a game master was during a Champions campaign.Rat Bastards work in any setting.The players had been told it wasn't an off-the-shelf game; every NPC was hand-crafted and I wasn't using the default universe. One particular player insisted on using Foxbat* (an infamous NPC from the default setting) as his Hunted. He also took it as a Psychological Limitation (he pursued Foxbat). All told it was something like half his Disadvantage points after a few other Foxbat related things.I reminded the player that Foxbat wasn't really in this campaign, so the player said, "well, just do something similar."Rat Bastards are firm but fair.A few weeks later, play started and the player apparently forgot our conversation. He role-played it well, always asking about Foxbat this, and Foxbat that, always putting forth theories about the current investigations that Foxbat was the perpetrator and so forth. Every time he mentioned Foxbat the other PCs would look baffled, as would the NPCs. They would even ask him in incredulous terms who he was talking about but the player never made the connection.Time passes, a month or so of regular play and the player has accumulated about a dozen points but tells me he doesn't know what to spend it on.Rat Bastards plan for the long term.I tell him I have a plan. I'll let him buy a "Mystery Power" worth 20 points. The power will work occasionally for plot-driven reasons, and he won't be aware of it's action. Once he's saved up the entire 20 points, I'll tell him what the power is and if he doesn't like it he can refund all the points to spend on something else of his choice.Rat Bastards are willing to be gracious in victory.As the next month or so of games went on, the campaign focus began to change. This "new" supervillain Foxbat started making appearances, stealing things, harassing the PC, never getting caught. The PC once flew around the building everyone else was hiding in as part of a security sweep. First pass-- nothing, second pass, there was pro-Foxbat graffiti all over the walls.Foxbat made a giant dirigible to flood the city with shaving creme. The PC threw it into the ocean where it reacted with the saltwater, leaving virtually no clue as to its origin.In just a few short weeks Foxbat went from being nonexistent to being practically omnipresent. Rat Bastards love to grind a point home.Finally, the player saved up the 20 points and I revealed his entire Mystery Power. I'd bought for him a Multiform into Foxbat (No Conscious Control). Essentially, the PC *was* Foxbat. When certain conditions arose, he'd change shape and change costume, gaining an entire new persona and new powers to reflect his multiple personality problem.Ah. Priceless. The player was stunned upon the revelation as it made many of the campaign's mysteries make sense. As in how everything the PC did seemed to only make finding Foxbat or confronting Foxbat even more difficult.Rat Bastards are patient and cunning.I hope that's helpful,Greg*Hiya Bruce!</blockquote>

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