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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 1973328" data-attributes="member: 24970">I much prefer it if the characters can meet/talk to the villains before they actually have to fight them. It can lead to entertaining role-playing, and it's very melodramatic.In my current campaign, the characters met these two mercenaries when they were going into town, who tried to convince the PCs to hire them. One of the mercenaries swiped something from a nearby merchant (using his Rogue skills) and gave it to one of the PCs, just to show he could. The PCs still didn't want to hire them, though, and so the mercenaries left.After leaving the mercenaries, they decided to ask around for information about the two guys. The PCs found out that they had been kicked out of the army for stealing from some civilian gnomes. Then the PCs (a neutral-evilish bunch) decided to go over to the mercenaries' inn and talk to them, and maybe, maybe steal from them.They went to the inn (run by some seedy-looking gnomes who were in fact criminals) and talked to the mercenaries. The mercenaries asked where the PCs were headed, but the conversation didn't really go anywhere and the players decided not to rob the mercenaries because they seemed tougher and tougher the more they talked to them. However, before they left the inn, they surreptitiously told the gnomish thugs that the mercenaries had been robbing from gnomes. And then they left.The next day, they see a bunch of gnomes from the inn walking around in crutches, all bruised. The gnomes attempted to attack the mercenaries but were defeated.Later on, the very same gnomes track the players down and attack them intending to rob them. The players defeat them.Then, a few days after THAT, the players are attacked in their beds by the two mercenaries, who have tracked them down because they're pissed off that they tipped off the gnomes.I just like how they managed to infuriate *both* sets of NPCs by setting them against eachother... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Jason</blockquote>

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