The Gamemaster Is Satan
- Thread starter Archon
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Thanks man. I'm really trying to get into DnD and I think seeing it from the DM's mindset is a great way to prepare yourself for playing even if you're not going to be DMing.
Also, hats off to all the DMs for pulling so many duties at once and making it fun for the rest of us.
Also, hats off to all the DMs for pulling so many duties at once and making it fun for the rest of us.
I find it so ironic, using biblical parable to explain how to DM. Suck on that, Crazy Christian Right!*
*(I am a christian and am therefore allowed to mock the Crazy Chrisitian Right. Suck it bleeding heart liberals!**)
**(I am also a bleeding heart liberal most of the time, and therefore allowed to mock bleeding heart liberals. Suck it jerks on the internet!***)
***(I am a jerk on the internet and therefore allowed to mock other jerks on the internet. Suck it trolls!****)
****(No one gives a shit about trolls. I can say whatever the hell I want)
*(I am a christian and am therefore allowed to mock the Crazy Chrisitian Right. Suck it bleeding heart liberals!**)
**(I am also a bleeding heart liberal most of the time, and therefore allowed to mock bleeding heart liberals. Suck it jerks on the internet!***)
***(I am a jerk on the internet and therefore allowed to mock other jerks on the internet. Suck it trolls!****)
****(No one gives a shit about trolls. I can say whatever the hell I want)
Well at the moment my players are hunting the current big bad and the reason she hasn't come after them is three-fold.
1. She doesn't actually know if she would win or not and so decides that attacking outright is a mistake.
2. She has no idea where they are exactly and so unless she wants to go charging around looking for some people who she only has a vuage idea of what they look like she hasn't much of a choice.
3. She is currently in the middle of preparing a ritual to summon a bunch of powerful Daemons and failing to prepare properly will have the Chaos gods tear the soul from her body and feast on it for eternety which is an idea she is not to fond of.
Should the players foil her plans she will be coming after the players in order to enact revenge. In Dark Heresy the situation is slightly different though, as far as she is concerned the main enemy is the groups Inquisitor and they are simply his minions sent to stop her. She has plans to deal with the Inquisitor (that have worked rather well) who is an individual that she respects but she couldn't anticipate the players because she had not encountered them before.
Her plan after she learnt of their envolvement has been to carry on and hope she can finish before they arrive and if they do get there to foil her then she is there waiting for them to defend her plan instead of out searching for the faceless protagonests. She set up some counterplans that she hoped would eliminate or slow the group down but she did not underestimate them.
I do think that saying that the Villian is otherwise engaged is a bad reason for them not quashing the players is wrong. If someone is busy completeing their evil scheme it may be impratical for them to run out just to fight the players.
It actually presents them as rather idiotic that they would drop everything they are doing to go and fight the people who are trying to kill them. Should they fail they lose everything whereas if they continue on their plan, as far as they are aware they might suceed and never encounter these pesky PC's who are trying to thwart them.
The assumption is that the advesery is someone who could deal with the players at any time but chooses not to rather than someone who may be able to beat the players but either doesn't know if they could win or doesn't know where the players are. Ok in D&D that may the case but in most other games the antagonast will not be able to automatically locate, teleport to and destroy the player.
In more realistic settings locating the players could be a massive challenge in itself and getting to them even more difficult. Sometimes these articals can be annoyingly D&D centric, assuming that things that are true in D&D are true for all RPG's.
Other than that I actually agree with most of this article, the GM should nominally seek to challenge the players but hope they suceed, I say nominally because sometimes you just need to kill a character off for the good of the group and not make it obvious.
Kaihlik
1. She doesn't actually know if she would win or not and so decides that attacking outright is a mistake.
2. She has no idea where they are exactly and so unless she wants to go charging around looking for some people who she only has a vuage idea of what they look like she hasn't much of a choice.
3. She is currently in the middle of preparing a ritual to summon a bunch of powerful Daemons and failing to prepare properly will have the Chaos gods tear the soul from her body and feast on it for eternety which is an idea she is not to fond of.
Should the players foil her plans she will be coming after the players in order to enact revenge. In Dark Heresy the situation is slightly different though, as far as she is concerned the main enemy is the groups Inquisitor and they are simply his minions sent to stop her. She has plans to deal with the Inquisitor (that have worked rather well) who is an individual that she respects but she couldn't anticipate the players because she had not encountered them before.
Her plan after she learnt of their envolvement has been to carry on and hope she can finish before they arrive and if they do get there to foil her then she is there waiting for them to defend her plan instead of out searching for the faceless protagonests. She set up some counterplans that she hoped would eliminate or slow the group down but she did not underestimate them.
I do think that saying that the Villian is otherwise engaged is a bad reason for them not quashing the players is wrong. If someone is busy completeing their evil scheme it may be impratical for them to run out just to fight the players.
It actually presents them as rather idiotic that they would drop everything they are doing to go and fight the people who are trying to kill them. Should they fail they lose everything whereas if they continue on their plan, as far as they are aware they might suceed and never encounter these pesky PC's who are trying to thwart them.
The assumption is that the advesery is someone who could deal with the players at any time but chooses not to rather than someone who may be able to beat the players but either doesn't know if they could win or doesn't know where the players are. Ok in D&D that may the case but in most other games the antagonast will not be able to automatically locate, teleport to and destroy the player.
In more realistic settings locating the players could be a massive challenge in itself and getting to them even more difficult. Sometimes these articals can be annoyingly D&D centric, assuming that things that are true in D&D are true for all RPG's.
Other than that I actually agree with most of this article, the GM should nominally seek to challenge the players but hope they suceed, I say nominally because sometimes you just need to kill a character off for the good of the group and not make it obvious.
Kaihlik
The example I used was specific to Sauron, as his very existence depended on finding the Ring. Nothing was more important. So in that case, an 18th level Wizard would be stupid to not find and destroy the ring-bearer... But in general, there is a tipping point where the villain is aware of the party and should be seeking their destruction.Kaihlik said:
Consider Empire Strikes Back: Luke Skywalker is much lower level than Darth Vader, but Vader is still actively hunting him. An 18th level Magic-User would have found, captured, and turned Luke with considerably less effort than Vader had to use. Vader is clearly less powerful than an 18th level magic-user.
My point is not that Darth Vader and Sauron were wimps or should have behaved differently, only to take a serious look at the powers you give your villains.
Fair enough! It's just the most mainstream RPG. I did try to be clear that it was a problem specific to D&D and games like D&D, such as Mutants & Mastermind. In general, I think RPGs do encourage us to create characters who are more powerful than their fictional counterparts.
My Girlfriend's villain Kogan was an excellent example of this. His stats were roughly third or fourth level but he could not be permanently killed. His deity "Fate" would invariably being him back to life mere hours after his death, and sometimes after only minutes.
He stayed roughly where he was, level-wise, but gained in political power and equipment with each encounter. And defeating him was never a permanent solution. It worked great.
He stayed roughly where he was, level-wise, but gained in political power and equipment with each encounter. And defeating him was never a permanent solution. It worked great.
Actually, I find there is another possibility to make the adversarry "God" while keeping him from killing everyone right off the bat. I recently watched the animated movie Summer Wars, and in it, the Villain, long story short, has the capacity to bring the world to its knees, destroying civilisation. But he doesn't. He uses his capacity to really screw with society to play games; to him, it is a game, played with lives. Keeps him powerful, but with a semi-solid motivation for not just killing everyone.
I find that authority and political power are not always mounted on the head of a villain with the most capabilities, and really 3rd edition as a whole had issues with making the entire universe a meritocracy giving those individuals in charge the most mechanical power rules wise.
I have run games where in the monster in charge is incredibly inept and not powerful, he has skills and is of use to the group he heads, but really he is "in charge" because he is the best public speaker, not because he can teleport.
Also, expensive high level spells are not always the best way to spend money when it comes to killing the group of PC's. I am not a micromanaging super villain, I delegate to my most trustworthy lieutenant and he delegates to his minions.
Rarely would the main man even be aware of the heroes, only in the "One Ring" instance does this come up, and the "One Ring" instance can be solved in its own way:
The object is intelligent but doesn't want to announce itself it wants to subtly guide things, hence it can't be divined for but can be searched for by mundane means.
Anything of that sort of MacGuffin level importance would have special rules to keep such a story event from happening.
I like this perspective on game function, but for some reason I never seem to come across these problems myself, maybe I lack a level of creativity.
I have run games where in the monster in charge is incredibly inept and not powerful, he has skills and is of use to the group he heads, but really he is "in charge" because he is the best public speaker, not because he can teleport.
Also, expensive high level spells are not always the best way to spend money when it comes to killing the group of PC's. I am not a micromanaging super villain, I delegate to my most trustworthy lieutenant and he delegates to his minions.
Rarely would the main man even be aware of the heroes, only in the "One Ring" instance does this come up, and the "One Ring" instance can be solved in its own way:
The object is intelligent but doesn't want to announce itself it wants to subtly guide things, hence it can't be divined for but can be searched for by mundane means.
Anything of that sort of MacGuffin level importance would have special rules to keep such a story event from happening.
I like this perspective on game function, but for some reason I never seem to come across these problems myself, maybe I lack a level of creativity.
Excellent article. I fully agree with ways of having a powerful villain unable to deal with the player characters. My favorite example why many evil overlord tropes can valid come from the game Evil Genius. As the game ramps up you simply have too many things going on worry about a few pathetic agents snooping around. After all, I have minions and traps to deal with them most of the time and 99% they work.
I also fully agree with the need to reduce divination and teleport's effectiveness. I never really played 3.5 (although everything it seemed to change were things I had abused myself) but it always shocked the DM (they were used to 2ed version) when my transmuter cast regular teleport to places my character had a rough description(the risk of injury of death in 3rd was incredibly low). I've found anyone that knows divination well can unravel just about any carefully laid plan. The counter divination spells often times aren't strong enough to hide much. Challenged by the DM, I led my 5th level party straight though a dungeon with little wandering and minimum encounters through the use of divination and a bit of luck. Of course, it did us no good since we weren't nearly the level handle the end, but my character could use the same spells to get the party out.
I also fully agree with the need to reduce divination and teleport's effectiveness. I never really played 3.5 (although everything it seemed to change were things I had abused myself) but it always shocked the DM (they were used to 2ed version) when my transmuter cast regular teleport to places my character had a rough description(the risk of injury of death in 3rd was incredibly low). I've found anyone that knows divination well can unravel just about any carefully laid plan. The counter divination spells often times aren't strong enough to hide much. Challenged by the DM, I led my 5th level party straight though a dungeon with little wandering and minimum encounters through the use of divination and a bit of luck. Of course, it did us no good since we weren't nearly the level handle the end, but my character could use the same spells to get the party out.
Now I have set up several villains in my campaign as to be villains in the future. I don't actually introduce them as villains for a ways into the campaign though. Here's the reason, the players trust these characters. These are characters who use the players themselves to accomplish their evil. In a similar way to Dormin, I am fooling my players into fighting on the side of evil.
I think I only have one major disagreement, if you think The Wheel of Time did anything beautifully... well I'll leave it at that.
I think I only have one major disagreement, if you think The Wheel of Time did anything beautifully... well I'll leave it at that.
Other ideas why an adversary can't deal with the PC in person (all taken from Exalted's setting)
- Cursed by Hubris. The Sidereals in Exalted are the most wise of the Exalted, but their part of the Great Curse is Hubris. Also, the High Templars in starcraft are pretty wise and powerful, but they still underestimate the Zergs. The more you are powerful, the more you have a chance to let something slip and say "ha, i'll just deal with it later, i'm busy with conquering the world. You, you and you, deal with it."
- In another world. In Exalted, the Yozis and the Neverborn are pretty powerful. More than gods. These things are as huge as worlds, but they're in prison or dead (Think Tartarus for the Titans). They can only slip their fingers (send demons/undead) to wreak havok in reality in order to get free.
- More important things to do. The Empress of the Realm disapeared and now the throne is free. Do you really want to send a sizable force against the solars who are raising an army in the Threshold when you can use them to participate in the cold war for the Throne? The last one who tried that is now off the bat because of the shame of losing his entire army. Just send a couple of spies that feed him with information to run around instead of attacking the Realm while you secure the Throne.
- You don't know how difficult they can be to deal with. This may work better with Exalted. The PC are solars. Solars could kill Primordials (think Titan) in 1 vs 1. They ruled Creation for centuries. They were killed when the whole world turned agaisnt them in a surprise attack. Now, they're back. They may not be as powerful as before, but do you really want to take that chance?
Edit: One thing to note is that the PC are the center of the story, but they may not be the center of the world. They may not be the only ones harrassing the villain.
- Cursed by Hubris. The Sidereals in Exalted are the most wise of the Exalted, but their part of the Great Curse is Hubris. Also, the High Templars in starcraft are pretty wise and powerful, but they still underestimate the Zergs. The more you are powerful, the more you have a chance to let something slip and say "ha, i'll just deal with it later, i'm busy with conquering the world. You, you and you, deal with it."
- In another world. In Exalted, the Yozis and the Neverborn are pretty powerful. More than gods. These things are as huge as worlds, but they're in prison or dead (Think Tartarus for the Titans). They can only slip their fingers (send demons/undead) to wreak havok in reality in order to get free.
- More important things to do. The Empress of the Realm disapeared and now the throne is free. Do you really want to send a sizable force against the solars who are raising an army in the Threshold when you can use them to participate in the cold war for the Throne? The last one who tried that is now off the bat because of the shame of losing his entire army. Just send a couple of spies that feed him with information to run around instead of attacking the Realm while you secure the Throne.
- You don't know how difficult they can be to deal with. This may work better with Exalted. The PC are solars. Solars could kill Primordials (think Titan) in 1 vs 1. They ruled Creation for centuries. They were killed when the whole world turned agaisnt them in a surprise attack. Now, they're back. They may not be as powerful as before, but do you really want to take that chance?
Edit: One thing to note is that the PC are the center of the story, but they may not be the center of the world. They may not be the only ones harrassing the villain.
Interesting article.
I've also often found it necessary to change rules in order to keep suspence or logic alive. I've also changed the way spells work so that it's very, very difficult to cast those story-breaking spells. Someone might be able to do it only once in a lifetime.
But my favorite way--at least in dealing with divination--is the Lost method. Yes, introduce more questions and mysteries everytime they try that short-cut. Eventually, they stop trying because the more they "learn," the more confused they get because they know too much--or at least they know too many questions.
I've also often found it necessary to change rules in order to keep suspence or logic alive. I've also changed the way spells work so that it's very, very difficult to cast those story-breaking spells. Someone might be able to do it only once in a lifetime.
But my favorite way--at least in dealing with divination--is the Lost method. Yes, introduce more questions and mysteries everytime they try that short-cut. Eventually, they stop trying because the more they "learn," the more confused they get because they know too much--or at least they know too many questions.
This is one of the reasons I prefer investigation- and exploration-based games more than combat-based ones. If the mission ultimately boils down to "go out and kill the BBEG", you need all kinds of checks and balances to keep the plot plausible over a longer campaign. This works differently if the enemy isn't some high-level "level boss" character the players have to defeat in order to "win the game".
Just an example from a recent Dark Heresy game: The players are investigating a wealthy noble who is suspected of dealing with an excommunicated cult. This situation balances itself: Both sides have a good reason not to engage each other directly. The players can't go and start killing people that influential without evidence (at least not in my Dark Heresy), and the noble can't act against the players without risking to expose himself to the wrath of the Inquisition. The villain has to be careful that none of the moves he makes against the players can be traced back to him -- it's a lot like the M&M campaign you mentioned, except without the god-powered villain.
In this case the villain doesn't have to be a direct threat to the players in the way a combat villain pretty much has to be. In 1-on-1 combat even the group's Scum character, who focuses more on social skills than on combat, would be a match for the guy. The group's Psyker would shred the villain in a single turn. I don't have to come up with a reason why the villain doesn't engage the party, since everyone realizes that the villain would do anything to avoid that situation.
Just an example from a recent Dark Heresy game: The players are investigating a wealthy noble who is suspected of dealing with an excommunicated cult. This situation balances itself: Both sides have a good reason not to engage each other directly. The players can't go and start killing people that influential without evidence (at least not in my Dark Heresy), and the noble can't act against the players without risking to expose himself to the wrath of the Inquisition. The villain has to be careful that none of the moves he makes against the players can be traced back to him -- it's a lot like the M&M campaign you mentioned, except without the god-powered villain.
In this case the villain doesn't have to be a direct threat to the players in the way a combat villain pretty much has to be. In 1-on-1 combat even the group's Scum character, who focuses more on social skills than on combat, would be a match for the guy. The group's Psyker would shred the villain in a single turn. I don't have to come up with a reason why the villain doesn't engage the party, since everyone realizes that the villain would do anything to avoid that situation.
Well, when I was still a DM on a Neverwinter Nights server (before it was closed), I was one of the most popular, but meanest and most lethal DMs out there.
We were playing in Warhammer settings, and I created a mage worshiping Tzeentch fanatically. My team destroyed him after a short battle, but turns out that Tzeentch had some bigger plans - however, he overestimated the mage and when he tried to give him more power (Mage was a level 10 Wizard, level 6 Pale Master), he lost his mind and started randomly releasing magic left and right. Any magic, you know, like what happened in Forgotten Realms when Gods were cast down from their seats. He would in one round summon a giant demon lord, while in the next he would vaporize him and turn into a pile of sludge.
What did my heroes do? They knew they couldn't come near anything like that. Simple solution - use Dominate Person on him and told him to cast all spells within 5 feet radius around him. Few rounds later, he was dead due to numerous fireballs, lightning spells and even some nastier spells cast too close to him.
Of course, I tried that trick few weeks later, with a bit stronger mage and stronger team. When the mage went berserk... my team did so, too. They rushed blindly and forced the mage to cast spells too close to him. All of the melee characters died, mage died too, but they didn't really like the death penalty...
Oh, and the time I rushed a village with an army of skeletons, who were invincible, except for one thing - water and ice attacks. So instead of wasting magic, my team just made some "buckets" out of capes and shields, lured the skeletons near a lake and defeated them by splashing with water.
This is probably one of the worst things to happen as you are DMing - over or underestimating your players. You either create a challenge that is supposedly easy, but your players die due to sheer stupidity, or they kill your Lich by simply throwing it into a fire and holding it down, so he dies within seconds...
We were playing in Warhammer settings, and I created a mage worshiping Tzeentch fanatically. My team destroyed him after a short battle, but turns out that Tzeentch had some bigger plans - however, he overestimated the mage and when he tried to give him more power (Mage was a level 10 Wizard, level 6 Pale Master), he lost his mind and started randomly releasing magic left and right. Any magic, you know, like what happened in Forgotten Realms when Gods were cast down from their seats. He would in one round summon a giant demon lord, while in the next he would vaporize him and turn into a pile of sludge.
What did my heroes do? They knew they couldn't come near anything like that. Simple solution - use Dominate Person on him and told him to cast all spells within 5 feet radius around him. Few rounds later, he was dead due to numerous fireballs, lightning spells and even some nastier spells cast too close to him.
Of course, I tried that trick few weeks later, with a bit stronger mage and stronger team. When the mage went berserk... my team did so, too. They rushed blindly and forced the mage to cast spells too close to him. All of the melee characters died, mage died too, but they didn't really like the death penalty...
Oh, and the time I rushed a village with an army of skeletons, who were invincible, except for one thing - water and ice attacks. So instead of wasting magic, my team just made some "buckets" out of capes and shields, lured the skeletons near a lake and defeated them by splashing with water.
This is probably one of the worst things to happen as you are DMing - over or underestimating your players. You either create a challenge that is supposedly easy, but your players die due to sheer stupidity, or they kill your Lich by simply throwing it into a fire and holding it down, so he dies within seconds...
First as always an interesting read.
Discern Location is a powerful spell, and can wreck any story-based game (unless you plan to provide the player information using the spell). But it has two major flaws as stated in its description: "Nothing short of a mind blank spell OR the direct intervention of a deity keeps you from learning the ....". In Saurons example, one can easily assume that the deities of Middleearth will prevent him from gaining this information. In a DnD game, it would be fair to assume that all high-level characters will take precautions against scrying spells and have a mind blank spell cast on them at all time. High level clerics would probably just be protected by their deity in this case.
That being said, its interesting to see how the rules themselves get in the way of telling a story in many RPGs, but especially DnD. It would seem that DnD would be better suited for the type of campaign advocated for in the "Its Not Your Story" article, and less suited for the directed story campaigns.
This was the main reason I stopped DMing. The rules kept getting in my way. I found myself spending more time trying to balance rules and power than I was willing to.
But back on topic. Do you need your adversary to be godlike/powerful? Wouldnt it be possible to challenge your party with a less powerful adversary. It seems to me if you combine powerful with genius in an adversary the party doesnt stand a chance.
Discern Location is a powerful spell, and can wreck any story-based game (unless you plan to provide the player information using the spell). But it has two major flaws as stated in its description: "Nothing short of a mind blank spell OR the direct intervention of a deity keeps you from learning the ....". In Saurons example, one can easily assume that the deities of Middleearth will prevent him from gaining this information. In a DnD game, it would be fair to assume that all high-level characters will take precautions against scrying spells and have a mind blank spell cast on them at all time. High level clerics would probably just be protected by their deity in this case.
That being said, its interesting to see how the rules themselves get in the way of telling a story in many RPGs, but especially DnD. It would seem that DnD would be better suited for the type of campaign advocated for in the "Its Not Your Story" article, and less suited for the directed story campaigns.
This was the main reason I stopped DMing. The rules kept getting in my way. I found myself spending more time trying to balance rules and power than I was willing to.
But back on topic. Do you need your adversary to be godlike/powerful? Wouldnt it be possible to challenge your party with a less powerful adversary. It seems to me if you combine powerful with genius in an adversary the party doesnt stand a chance.
As a variant of the tiered Enemy who gains power gradually, you can also have the tiered Enemy Organization. Basically, the greatest fear of all mid-level managers is that a problem they can't handle will be referred up the executive chain of command and they will lose their job. The same thing would be true of an Evil mid-level manager (although that's kind of a redundant title). No one who knows about the party of adventurers and their early successes would want to tell the Evil CEO about them - hence, he/she doesn't find out about them until they're a somewhat credible threat - at which point a whole bunch of (surviving) Evil mid-level managers will find themselves summarily terminated. Of course, once the Evil CEO learns this information it only makes sense if he comes down like a hammer on the party of adventurers - but this is fine since it creates a natural third act to the adventure plot (e.g., 1. humble but promising beginning [Tatooine]; 2. First major triumph [Death Star I]; 3. Horrible setback [Cloud City]; 4. Ultimate triumph [Teddy Bear Jamboree]).