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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9045402" data-attributes="member: 85555">This one is pretty important I think. It looks like Rob has picked up on this one so I would take a look at what he wrote. For me as a big fan of villains (RPGs aside I adore villains in movies and I think they are the most fascinating aspect of settings for me), I think you have to be really careful here if your goal is a living world. There is a kind of "Villains has to earn their place" value that I cleave to. I am fine making a great villain, but I don't give them plot armor because I want PC victories that are earned to be respected.One early example of this I have given, that also helped really shape my views as a GM, was running a Ravenloft campaign with a bishop or cardinal who was the big villain of the campaign. I don't recall all the details but the players ended up devastating him by, if I recall, ambushing him in a cathedral during mass. He tried to flee but they killed him as he climbed out a stained glass window and ended up slumped over it, a pretty ignoble demise for the great villain of the campaign. I remember being disappointed that it turned out that way but one of my players kept bringing this up as one of the reasons he liked my GMing (because I didn't do anything to protect the villain, and I didn't fudge or bring in more minions to up the drama). So I would rather have a dead villain than a miraculously returned on in most cases. I don't think I could ever defend the plot line of the last star wars movie in terms of bringing back the emperor in a campaign.What I have done is had villains who survived, who were just as devious and scheming, who have somehow managed to get by their skin of their teeth and continue to earn the players trust even if they betray them once again. I have a character who is like that called Bronze Master in my wuxia campaigns. I recently had a player go to bronze master to seek his help, and I even said to him out of character "You realize bronze master betrays everyone all the time and is not at all trustworthy?", he said he understood but wanted to try to work with him and mitigate his lack of trustworthiness. I had said that because I value trust in my campaigns and I felt if I didn't the player might misunderstand how I would run Bronze Master. In the end Bronze Master did exactly what I said he always does, but he is just one of these characters who can somehow make himself seem trustworthy 'this one time'. In the end the player was entirely okay with him betraying them and setting up an ambush because I played the scheming fairly, I was straightforward about the likelihood of him betraying them, etc. I liken this a little to Carlito's Way. Where de Palma shows you everything upfront at the beginning, and during the movie the outcome is clearly stated (down to who is going to do what) but it still manages to be a surprise. That is clever but it also makes you feel like the director was playing very fair to set up the surprise. I should say in this instance I communicated regularly with the players about it, and I even explained after the fact how I had managed the set up for the ambush (and I made a point to have things written down in advance in terms of planning so they could see everything was fair). That way I could show them how Bronze Master got the information he obtained, how he set the ambush up, etc. I think a lot of GMs in the simulationist approach would avoid this so it probably isn't the norm. I find it helpfulAll that said, sure if you have a good explanation for why Palpatine has returned and it is a real explanation that the players could have legitimately thwarted had then done X, Y, or Z, I think it is fair. I do think those moments are where you really risk losing trust though if you aren't being fair in the return. I think a big problem with be any kind of post hoc reasoning. For example if you clearly establish before the emperor dies, the conditions that would warrant his return (i.e. he can't be killed by X, he has a clone hidden on a lame planet somewhere,, etc), then it is okay (and this is at least something you could explain to the players if you wanted to, even if you don't. On the other hand if the emperor is just coming back because you want him back and nothing the players ever did would have changed that, I think it is a lot less workable in this kind of campaign.</blockquote>

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