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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 250478" data-attributes="member: 5328">Thank you! I believe I have my moments.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> Though I am distressed by the realisation that the most recent was fourteen years ago.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />There is an apparent paradox, which is that my friends agree that I am very bad at portraying or describing evil. When I designed a LARP for CanCon I had to get a helper to do the evil characters. And this is because I think that conscious evil is stupid. A villain motivated by the desire to kill and destroy is stupid, unconvincing, and (worst of all) unfathomable. IME villains who pursue understandable goals by unconscionable means are far more effective.One of the best villains in adventure literature is Cardinal Richelieu in 'The Three Musketeers'. The heroes appreciate, even share, his goals. They are just unable to condone his methods. So the whole story is about the heroes struggling against someone who is trying to further their goals, to protect their country and their religion, to destroy their deadly enemies, but who is pursuing those goals by unacceptable means. (This character and conflict were portrayed very well by Charlton Heston and in the 1973-74 Fox/Rank movie production, and absolutely ruined by Tim Curry in the recent re-make.)The secret is to think of conflict between people rather than between Good and Evil. Design antagonists rather than villains.Regikhord was a good villain not because of his power but because of his limitations, not because the PCs found him hard to kill but because until the crisis they were not prepared to do so.In RP and cheap fantasy it is more common to write a villain who combines Jasper's resolution and military strength with Regikhord's lack of principle, who is immune from the restraints of his opposition in the Council and Assembly, and not subject to the law. This villain then dispossess and imprisons the beautiful Princess Lysandra, and the heroes engage in open and unrestrained conflict to free her and overthrow the tyrant. This rebellion model may be more heroic, in that the heroes face greater odds. But it turns out to be much less engaging in play. Why? Because it makes all strategic decisions trivial, leaving the heroes to face only tactical decision and threats. Heroes are actually put into a tenser situation when they have to choose what to do as well as having to figure out how to do it.That's my take, anyway.You comment on the way Regikhord's and the PCs' fates were entangled, so that each triumph for the PCs was a disaster for Regikhord, even before they recognised him as an enemy. I claim partial credit for planning it that way. But I got lucky too. At just the right moment a player decided that his character had fallen in love with Lysandra. This stepped up the level of engagement and made the conflict much more personal. I abandoned my plans for Lysandra's NPC boyfriend, and for the PCs to be attached to her interest like the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan to the Queen. And I improvised a campaign around the character-player's story offer. There is nothing that can replace a talent player who takes the story initiative from time to time. And no GMing technique as powerful as letting the players take the story initiative.(IMHO. YMMV. YDWYDWP.)Regards,Agback</blockquote>

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