Why I Keep Geeking Out About A Villain's Life

Man, I already thought A Villain's Life was cool, and sort of sweet, but now I care. Doctor Cataclysm, please be okay!

Yeah, I'm still geeking out about it. It'll pass. In the mean time, a small insight:

Most media has a fairly clear division between real/non-real. Movies have a screen, books have their pages. Even if there's a framing device, in most cases it's still pretty easy to tell, just from the format, that it's fiction. Yes, that book may claim to be a journal, but its still professionally printed with the publishers name in the front.

This kind of fiction, this fictional blogging, has a little less of that. It's still obviously fictional--there are no superheroes, no superpowers, no weather machines. But that's only discernable from the content.

In form, this is just another blog. It's framing device is built into the media itself. I tend to dislike frames in books, just because they're not. You can tell, very easily, that the frame is also false, so it tends to interfere with my suspension of disbelief. Your mileage may vary.

But this is cool. I get information about Doctor Cataclysm in exactly the way I would if he was real. 'tis a trick, rather like a well done game story, that allows for stronger audience/character attachement.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Doctor Cataclysm

I mentioned Doctor Cataclysm, and his blog A Villain's Life, in sort of an offhand way, but it really deserves a full, proper post. If you haven't read it, go read it now, so far it's very short. (I further recommend that you add it to your feed, and if you don't have a feed, to get one, but now we're shading into irrelevancy.)

I'm really quite taken with it. I have a mild obsession with non-standard storytelling, and I've been interested in the idea of fictional blogging for a while. And, of course, superheroes are cool. Supervillains even more so--especially mad scientists.

That's all certainly part of it. But Doctor Cataclysm himself is really quite charming. He's a super villain, but he's not psychotic. When he's not engaging in (excellent) supervillainy, he occasionally stops muggers, and worries about being "too much of a moocher." The villainy is entertaining, but it seems like a cross between a job and a hobby, (love your work, I guess) and less like destroy-the-world craziness.

Which is good. It's relatable. And, at times, very sweet. (Though I recommend running through the previous posts before hitting that last.)

My favorite thing about this is that it's not fiction in blog form. It is, in fact, a fictional blog. In addition to recounting his villainy, he blogs about movies, politics, and YouTube videos. The politics and the videos are fictional, which is probably necessary, (though the videos might make an interesting project) but the movies are real, which is excellent.

The only trouble is that there's not very much of it, yet. Which is great for me, and you, and everyone getting into it right now, because there's not much to get into before we're up to speed. But I sure hope it keeps up, at the same level of quality, because it sure is a lot of fun.

(I can think of one other nitpick--the most generic of the generic blog templates. But in some ways, that adds to its charm, and I can't fault a brand new blog for not having figured out it's look yet. I still haven't really figured out mine.)

Oh, and a thank you to Neitherworld Stories, for linking to A Villain's Life in the first place. From there I have also learned of Velvet Marauder, but haven't yet had quite the chunk of time I'd like to get through it.

Just a Little Bit

The best villain is just a little bit tougher than the players. Tough enough to win that first fight, but by a small enough margin that the players think that next time, they just have to be on their absolute A-game. So that when they finally do win, they know they have been on their absolute A-game. They know they've accomplished something.

The theoretical exception to this would be extremely long-term villains. I've not yet made use of the technique myself, but if I were to introduce a villain who was intended to be a problem for the PCs for a long time--an entire campaign, say--I might consider making that villain significantly more powerful than the PCs. Make the accomplishment come not from knowing that they did their absolute best, taking out someone who they didn't have a chance against in their first meeting.

If I was to do that, I'd probably also include villains of the just-a-little-bit-stronger variety, perhaps as lieutenants. And even if the PCs wouldn't be able to completely stop the master villain's plans for a long time, I'd be careful to make sure they made progress.

Stupid Villain Tricks

Continuing on my last post: Sometimes, the players aren't going to fail. Sometimes, you're going to go into a session with a plan for them to get within an inch of taking out the villain, and they go two feet past you and totally smoke the dude.

Because that happens. I want to make clear that my take-it-as-it-stands "advice" isn't meant as an endorsement of railroading. Sometimes what you, as the GM, are trying to do just isn't going to work.

However, there are a couple of strategies I've used in the past, to ensure maximal survival for my villains at crucial moments.

1. Have an exit strategy
Secret passage. Smoke bomb. Invisibility potion. Giant monster that comes crashing into the room. Something explodes. Whether it's something the villain plans, or something that I plan as an in-game coincidence, I'll sometimes put together a general purpose escape plan for when things turn south.

2. Lie
Of course there's a secret passageway there--the villain, being a genius, had one installed months ago. This is my favorite strategy. Very similar to the first strategy, but usually I can come up with better plans once I already know what my players are doing.

3. That was just my ramen!
Who says the villain the players just offed was really the major bad guy? This is actually something I've planned for ahead of time, but I can see it working just as well in a "Gee, now all my notes are totally useless" situation. It also provides a nice combination of success and failure, because while they did get to pound on someone, the real threat is still out there.

On Villainy: Some Random Advice

Robin D. Laws is (as always) saying some interesting things today, and I thought I'd chime in, because it links up with something I've been thinking about for a while.

Some of the best single sessions I've ever run revolved around PC failure. There is, I think, a technique to it, that I stumbled across by accident, but I've found it to be very powerful when used properly. Those of you who have played games I've run before will probably recognize it; I wasn't using it intentionally then, but it's been handy enough that I put thought into how to repeat it.

First, set the PCs up as fairly competent. This is important--it's no fun to just start losing and never stop. The players need to feel that they and their characters are equal to most challenges you're going to throw at them.

Then, have a villain just barely get away. Success mixed with failure is key here. Have the villain escape just as the players have foiled the evil plot. Or let the players learn the identity of the villain, or that there is a villain, even as the villain's plans go into action.

Another handy trick is to have the villain take something important to the PCs--they haven't been killed, and they've technically got the villain on the run, but damn do they want to get the bastard.

This is the absolute best way I know of to get a party interested in taking out your villain. Ideally, there should be some kind of action they can take against said villain. Even if you'd rather they not totally foil the evil master-plan, giving them something to attack or some direction to start moving in will help keep them from throwing things at you.

Because the goal of this trick isn't to have the players despair, with cries of "Blast! Foiled again!" It's a way to get them very, very motivated, in a way that you have control of--and as a benefit, it's a way to get them invested in the world, and making plans. Because they will want to make plans. Plans as only wronged players can make.