How to GM An Enemy

[tjbuege]

Hi,

I've finally started up a GURPS Fantasy campaign after thinking about it for 4-5 years. One of my players took an Enemy as a disadvantage, but I am at a loss on how to work an Enemy into the campaign. The characters are based on 150-point templates. The disadvantage is Enemy (Unknown; Equal in power; 9 or less). Here is a brief background of the character:

Merral, a battle wizard, comes from a city which employs both soldiers and wizards in the militia. He chose the latter profession. He is very curious and impulsive, often living on the edge, while at the same time selfless and charitable. But Merral has an enemy. Someone is after him, but he does not know who it is. This unknown enemy somehow managed to get Merral fired from his position in the city militia, so Merral ran. He is now far from home, seeking answers and trying to understand who is after him

So, any of you experienced GMs, do you have any ideas for me?

Thanks!
Tim

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by tjbuege

Hi,

Hey.

Originally Posted by tjbuege

I've finally started up a GURPS Fantasy campaign after thinking about it for 4-5 years.

Congratulations!

Originally Posted by tjbuege

So, any of you experienced GMs, do you have any ideas for me?

1) Feel free to veto Enemies if it doesn't fit your story or makes you feel weird or whatever.

2) Assuming that you are allowing the above-described Enemy, we don't really have much to go on here, other than that he got the guy fired from the militia. This suggests someone highly-placed in the militia, or closely connected to someone who is (perhaps the volatile son of some militia bigshot who Merral's moral compass forced him to humiliate at the magical academy, who has lots of Movement or other "slippery bastard" magic to make it easy for him to meddle undetected and live to fight another day), or a sinister magical mind-controller. Whatever form it takes, the enemy is going to be striking often (about 1/3 of the game sessions), so get ready for it to take over or at least heavily color the campaign.

[Ulzgoroth]

This would be a Hunter? Or a Rival?

It sounds like a somewhat difficult case. A 150 point enemy who had social leverage in your home city but continues to aggressively pursue after they got you fired and you've cut and run? Can you invent an enemy who works for that set of constraints? And who would at no point have revealed themselves?

If you can't, you can't let the player take that Disadvantage.

My only thought for what might work is a rich scion (possessed of very limited other abilities, all the points in money and social power) with a completely bizarre obsession for reasons you'd have to make up.

Also not sure whether Unknown fits that story but I'm away from my basic set.

[Whyte]

Not sure I qualify, especially since my comment is: I wouldn't allow enemies in my campaigns anymore. The problem with enemies is that they tend top become quite central. An enemy with 9 or less frequency should show up 1/3rd of the time. That means 1/3rd of the time we are playing this other player's story with his enemy. This becomes even worse if multiple players have different enemies.

So the way we handle things nowadays is:

1) Party enemy. Yep, it is the same enemy for all y'all, and he is ****** and powerful and central to the campaign. Sure, you get some points for it, but remember, you have then signed up for some big bad to cause you trouble. Hope you like being paranoid, since instead of a disadvantage, it is a survival mechanism.

or

2) Only allow up to frequency of 6 and even that grudgingly. In our fantasy campaign, a mage + bodyguard team have a shared enemy, a ******-off sorceress who is sending hired thugs after them. That makes it somewhat easier for me as the GM, as the sorceress is able to use magic to find the travelling duo and set up some attacks on them from afar, hence explaining why new thugs keep popping up.

[gilbertocarlos]

Well, you could create anything, just make the character and find a reason why he is wants the wizard dead:

Spoiler:  

Jack, The guard:
Jack was in the militia with the wizard, they were planning an ambush to some bandits, but because of the impulsiveness of the wizard, that threw a magic at one of the enemies before the signal, his brother was killed, he promised to kill the one responsible for this, the same way his brother was killed, a thrust to the eyes, and made a pact with a demon for Magic Resistance. Since he was responsible for the death of a guard, he was dismissed.
ST14 DX14 IQ10, HT12(140)
-0.5 Basic Speed(-10)

Combat Reflexes(15)
High Pain Threshold(10)
Magic Resistance 5(10)
Comfortable(10)
(45)
Disads:
Bloodlust(9 or less)(-15)
Bad Temper(12 or less)(-10)
Code of Honor(Soldier)(-10)
Lecherousness(12 or less)(-15)

Skills:
Broadsword DX+2(8)
Shield DX+2(4)
Thrown Weapon(Knife) DX+1(2)
Knife DX+1(2)
Fast Draw(Knife) DX(1)
Fast Draw(Sword) DX(1)
Soldier IQ-1(0)
Targeted attack(thrust to the chink between the eyes with broadsword)(6)(-5 to hit the eyes, with helmet or not)
(25)

Equipment:
Cheap Thrusting Broadsword
Medium Shield
5 Large Knives
DR 4 cheap plate helmet
DR 4 Mail Shirt
DR2 cloth legs, arms, feet and hands

[Varyon]

An Enemy doesn't necessarily have to become something central to the story. You could easily have a recurring foe who tends to join the real villains wherever you are in the campaign as an advisor, equal, or even lackey (depending on relative power level). Alternatively, he might show up during a fight to take advantage of your distraction. On a mission to wipe out a band of bandits? Enemy shows up, lets them in on some of your weaknesses, then leads a small group of their elite during the battle. Need to take out the commander of the Evil Army? Guess who shows up as a bodyguard. Taking on a dragon? Better watch your back...


The real challenge, I suspect, with an Enemy is making so it inconveniences the character rather than the whole party (or at least inconveniences the character more than the rest of the party). For the above examples, the surprisingly-well-informed bandits (and the elite group) should focus their attention on the character. With the army example, the Enemy, despite functioning as a bodyguard, may well abandon his charge and simply go after the character. When he shows up to take advantage of the party engaging a dragon, his first (and most of his subsequent) attack should be on the character.

[Anaraxes]

The enemy presumably knows his target, and so would play into those disadvantages. The enemy might well bait traps so as to use the character's Charitable or curious/impulsive against him. The latter might be especially useful for separating the character from the party for some personal, as opposed to party, humiliation.

[whswhs]

What you've described doesn't sound to me like it's best represented as an Enemy disadvantage. It sounds more like backstory: "My character is here because, back in this other city, he had an Enemy who successfully took action against him, getting him exiled." That Enemy might be content with that exile, and if so, he's no longer an Enemy; or, at most, he's a Watcher, someone who has agents in place to keep an eye on the character and warn if he pursues revenge.

What you have to focus on is what the "Enemy" is doing now. Is he keeping an eye on the character, just in case (Watcher)? Is he not content with the character's ruin and exile, but striving to destroy him completely (Hunter)? What are his current motives, and how much power does he have to act on them, here in a different city with the character no longer in the particular elite body he used to belong to?

Bill Stoddard

[Kromm]

In action-adventure campaigns, one thing I've done with socially slippery Enemies who get people fired and shamed rather than imprisoned or killed is read the appearance roll as the chance that this foe has contacted and tipped off a bad guy who will appear in a given game session. Going with 9 or less: I'd roll 3d at the start of the session, and on a 9 or less, some opponent – in fantasy, this might be anyone from a lone thief through an orc chieftain all the way up to an evil archmage – has heard from the Enemy. If that happens, then the PC with the Enemy will find things going badly for him. Depending on the opposition, this might mean a pickpocket going after some valuable item that he's known to possess, extra mooks gunning for him in an otherwise minor battle, a BBEG who knows and is prepared for his best tricks and abilities, or even a clearly overwhelming force that points weapons and offers to leave without a fight if the party turns over the chap with the disadvantage (leading to a fun jailbreak side-quest). I've never read Enemies as requiring direct action . . . nothing in the disadvantage says that Enemies can't engage in sinister social engineering, hiring thugs, telling lies, etc.

Also, note that while an Enemy is a disadvantage for one PC, all bets are off if the other PCs elect to interfere. If PCs without the Enemy chase down the pickpocket who stole from their ally, intervene in the beating that their buddy is receiving, refuse to turn over their pal to an overwhelming force, etc., then presumably they're getting some points for Sense of Duty (Adventuring companions) or even Charitable, which they now have to earn. Absent such mental problems, the only thing demanding that they get involved is the old meta-game "We PCs stick up for one another!" code. While that's nice and all, it's also on the players' heads . . . they have no right to complain that the GM is turning the Enemy into a group disadvantage if they're diluting the Enemy's threat value by giving their chum free backup.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by tjbuege

So, any of you experienced GMs, do you have any ideas for me?

I'd call that backstory, not an enemy, which means it's not worth any points but also doesn't come up in play unless the PC instigates it; it's only an actual Enemy if he continues to (directly) make trouble for the PC (if the only connection is rumors causing social problems, treat it as a bad reputation; reputations don't have to be true).

That's probably the easiest way to handle all sorts of social enemies, actually: it's a reaction penalty among people who have been influenced by your enemy. I am not a big fan of Enemies in general, but that's a version I might actually allow in a game. As a simple version that's cost-balanced against other disads, assume that the reaction modifier is -2 per 5 points of base cost for the Enemy (i.e. -4 for an equal power enemy), x1/2 for a rival, x1/4 for a watcher, and the frequency of appearance is the odds that the reaction modifier actually applies. This assumes an enemy that doesn't do anything but slander the PC; if the enemy also provides useful information to your enemies, halve the penalty, but it applies to any roll where the person given information could reasonably take counter-measures specific to whatever the PC is good at (e.g. for a battle wizard, people probably come equipped with things like Amulets specific to his favored spells).