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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CandyLaser" data-source="post: 9395595" data-attributes="member: 7029413">I think the way Fellowship plays it makes sense. In Fellowship this is sort of hard-coded into the rules. One player takes on the role of the Overlord and is the BBEG for the campaign, but all Overlords have three foibles.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The Overlord is arrogant. Every setback is minor and can be dealt with. Everything is fine and you know you cannot lose.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The Overlord is busy. The destruction of the PCs is not your actual goal. You have something you want, and your focus is on getting that. When you personally engage the fellowship, your goal is not to kill them all, but to get them out of the way so you can do your thing</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The Overlord is honor bound. When you make a promise, you will always keep it, even against your better interests. This may seem silly, but it makes for a better game when you can negotiate or gamble with the heroes and they can trust you to keep your end of the deal.</li> </ol>I've found that playing to these principles both makes sense and makes for a better game, for the most part. In the game I'm currently running (and getting close to wrapping up), the Overlord is so much more powerful than the PCs that she doesn't see them as a proper threat; they're just one of the many forces arrayed against her. That explains her arrogance; she really is overwhelmingly powerful compared to her opponents, for the most part.As for being busy, her actual goal is to murder the gods and steal their power, so most of her direct attention and energy goes to that. Her armies, meanwhile, are tearing across the world and putting people at risk, so the PCs are driven to protect the people that are thus threatened, which puts them on a collision course with her forces without putting them in her direct path most of the time. And when she does show up, it's time for the PCs to get wrecked - though each time there's been a direct confrontation they've managed to do better than the last, so it's clear that they're evening the scales somewhat, giving them a feeling of advancement.Her being honor bound doesn't really need explanation, but in this particular game my Overlord is a fallen hero, and she still thinks of herself as a good guy, just one driven to monstrous acts by intolerable circumstances. So she clings to opportunities to behave honorably as a remnant of her past.</blockquote>

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