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Old 08-14-2018, 11:07 AM   #11
johndallman
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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Default Re: Narrative/Motivation Advice for Introductory GURPS World-Hopper

What happens if they kill T.Villain part-way through?

If the answer is "they won't get the chance," that sounds a lot like the campaign where we were thrown through time at the whim of an antagonist and various gods sufficiently often that I concluded that humanity counted for nothing, and began planning ways to exploit the time paradoxes of the setting to destroy it. The GM was horrified, because he thought he was writing a brilliant TV series, and didn't understand why we weren't enjoying it. Games are a different form of story.

Last edited by johndallman; 08-14-2018 at 11:11 AM. Reason: Spelling.
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:32 AM   #12
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: Narrative/Motivation Advice for Introductory GURPS World-Hopper

I'm with johndallman on this one - it sounds very much like a setup that's just going to frustrate the players. In my experience, it doesn't take very long at all for a reoccurring villain to provoke players into pretty extreme measures to kill them off. Twice is enough in many cases. This definitely includes using "official" means, like giving the villain advantages like Luck, Serendipity, Extra Life, or Unkillable - they'll still be perceived as "cheating" to get out of being taken out.

My suggestion would be to have the characters actually directly encounter T. Villain only once or twice - the first time on the first adventure, as you've described, and the second time (which will probably be the last, unless the players screw up heavily) when you're ready to bring that arc, at least, to an end. You can still preserve your campaign frame more-or-less as described, I think. Just have the players be usually dealing with the minions of T. Villain most of the time. Even the "killing your duplicates for power" motivation can be preserved, by making so that if a duplicate is killed in a particular ritual way, or while touching some kind of magical object, or something like that, T. Villain still gets the power, without having to be physically present.

This can even be used to set up both T. Villain as a significant, intelligent threat, and to give the players a sense of empowerment, if you establish that T. Villain is aware of the players, and is making a point to duck out of each timeline and leave their underlings to do the work, because he's actively worried about the PCs' abilities and competence, and doesn't want to put himself in a position where they can easily take him out.
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:53 AM   #13
Daigoro
 
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Default Re: Narrative/Motivation Advice for Introductory GURPS World-Hopper

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Just have the players be usually dealing with the minions of T. Villain most of the time.
Typically you go the other way round. T is low down in the chain of command, and the PCs work their way up, minion by minion, to the ultimate leader.
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Old 08-14-2018, 02:09 PM   #14
johndallman
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Default Re: Narrative/Motivation Advice for Introductory GURPS World-Hopper

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
I'm with johndallman on this one - it sounds very much like a setup that's just going to frustrate the players. In my experience, it doesn't take very long at all for a reoccurring villain to provoke players into pretty extreme measures to kill them off.
For the campaign I was describing, the time paradoxes eventually got unwound and the characters returned to the time they'd started in. That meant they had about 15 years lead time to set a trap for the villain, and the resources of an organisation that was set up by the UK government to dead with weirdness. The campaign ended at that point, but the plans for killing the villain were of the order of "Make sure you have his DNA on file, because we intend to make sure that's the only possible way to identify the remains."
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