Monologue Immunity

[Vaxalon]

Situation:

The PC's arrive at the villain's inner sanctum. You launch into a monologue, where you intend to give the PC's a few useful bits of information and background, and illustrate his arrogance.

Before he's even started, the PC's are attacking him. He never gets the speech done, and you have yet another cardboard cutout villain lying in shreds.

To help with this, I'm considering the following house rule:

At the beginning of an encounter, before initiative is rolled and before any hostile actions are taken, any party may begin a monologue. This monologue may consist of no more than ten words per level. If this monologue is interrupted, that character gains +10 AC, +10 to all saves, until his monologue is complete, or he aborts it and takes an action. Maintaining the monologue after being interrupted is a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and allows him to complete up to 20 words of the monologue per round.

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Surprise your characters by having your Villian skip the monologue, and clobber the PCs. Once he has them neatly trussed up, then he can monologue at his leasure.

Remember, take care of business first, then gloat.

 

[Crothian]

I just tell the players to be patient, or I allow them to interupt the monlogue knowing there is some clue they will not get and thus be lost the rest of the adventure.

The Big Bad Guy has kidnapped the love of one of the players. They finally figure out where he resides and storm the castle. They face him and he starts a speech, but they attack. I let the fight go forward. They kill him and search the castle, she's not there. Oops. So, they frantically try some things and after a few more sessions find that she was taken to another place and has since died. IMC raise dead and such spells are practically legendary, so death actually means something. The Big Bad Guy was going to trade the woman for something the PCs were to get for him, but since they didn't give him a chance to tell them they faced the consequences.

 

[Drawmack]

I prefer to play games with paper characters in an iron world. There is never a big bad NPC in his keep alone waiting for the PCs to show up. By the time they get to the room where the NPC is located they are in no shape to fight him or his personal guard. Secondly, I make sure to run an advanture in the first session that teaches PCs a couple of things about my game one of them is the need for an attempt at diplomacy first.

 

[Anubis]

I simply Rule 0 and say "You can't do that. Just wait and chill." I can't stand when players interrupt the monologues.

 

[the Jester]

Well, the monologue can always occur during the fight or as the npc dies. Instead of "Bwahahaha... you'll never stop me now that I've aligned the Crystal of Kalthos" you have "Gasp... ugh... I can't believe... ugh... you stopped me even though I aligned the Crystal of... gurgle... Kalthos..."

 

[Jeph]

I think there was a thread like this in General about a week ago. IIRC they decided on this solution: It is a free action for any sentiant being to say something cool, macho, arrogant, or disdainful, as well as a free action to give a monolog, no matter the length. Ever watched a movie? Know how everyone just, ya'know, *stops* when the monolog begins and starts up again when it ends?

Maybe you could make Monologue Intteruption a feat or something, with prerequisites Dexterity 31+, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, and Combat Reflexes. That'd get em good.

Unless, like Crothian said, it would be nice to watch the PCs writhe as they kill the evil guy before he divulges a juicy bit of key info.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. In Torg, they had these dramacards, one of them was the Monologue Card - Allowing you to speak for a certain time, and everybody else would be unable to act. There is no reason why you don`t introduce this in your D&D Campaign. (There were many other funny cards, some "Plot" Cards that allowed you to integrate a Love Interest and similar things )