Is it a bad idea to create "Villain Sue" type stories?

lonnehart

You know... a foundry quest where you have to go up against a villain who seems to be one step ahead of you. When you reach your objective it's already too late as the villain has done what he's come to do, and the failures keep going on throughout the quest until you get to the final part of the quest... where again you're too late. You're still rewarded, but whatever plan the villain has in mind has already been put into motion. And worse... the player fails again and again throughout the campaign as if the villain already knew what the player was going to do... and having the player fail hugely at the very end of the campaign?

And how realistic is a 100% successful "Villain Sue" anyway?

gornonthecob

In actual games of D&D (Mine anyway) if the players chose to do too many side quests, or wasted time, there were usually dire consequences. A hero who's ALWAYS there in the nick of time can get a little cliche.

In my foundry campaign, you don't even discover what the villains are after until Act II, and you don't even discover who the actual villains are until Act III! (although specific classes might be able to figure it out in Act I) I think it's a great idea to keep the players on the clock, and keep them guessing. It's all in the mystery, and how you present the clues.

jedite2012

You can do whatever you want

melinden

I think this might be part of the mindset of people who think that Roleplaying games are the DM versus the players. They like killing players off, think Total Party Kill nights are the "best" and are not really fun to have as your DM.

Better DMs realize that is should be DM with the players. Everyone is there is tell a story and there is a give and take relationship. For example, when I run table top, if my players come up with a solution to a problem that I didn't think they would try -but it would very possibly work- I let it work!

The odd part about perfect villains or so many mobs you would never survive in NWO? The DM isn't even there to get the "thrill" out of frustrating the players. So I don't really get it on two layers, to be honest.

vrtesseract

Its a style you really cant please them all. but its going to be more HOW you do it then who wins. you 1 want to make sure the quest is finish-able, or else noone can rate you. and 2 you might want to include one or two minor victories as a dangling carrot so to speak.

and be sure not to god-mode the player to much unless you really have to for the sake of the narrative. ie dream sequences and stuff are generally ok. and what I mean by god-mode is don't tell the player how they are feeling or what they are thinking if you can avoid it.

also I find its good to to avoid referencing the players gender or race. unless you have specific checks or dialog options for the race/gender/class. As a female character I get anerved when im referred to as ..sir. and when I played my drow through a drow game I had a npc drow that said I could not understand how it felt to be a drow on the surface.

You probably wont get down-rated for this or anything. but ill tip higher for foundries who give illusion of free will.

lonnehart

So if we want to write a story for a quest like that, having the player defeated too many times... or having their victories become meaningless because it only furthers the Villian Sue's cause will only drive players away? If I remember reading correctly, we Humans are apparently programmed to desire winning in a game...

artgod

Lex Luthor hasn't been killed by Superman yet, even though there's been plenty of chances for it to happen... Dr. Klaw still is always hindering Inspector Gadget's plans all the time.... but Darth Vader finally died when he had a change of heart... Villians can sometimes become the good guys. Arch Nemesis are needed in some genres since it will get very old if they die off in the first act and don't live to see the sequel.

darkjeff

If the antagonist is always a step ahead of the player until the final step, it's a normal story structure that increases the impact of the final victory.

If the antagonist is always a step ahead and the player never wins, expect to be downvoted to oblivion.

artgod wrote: »

Lex Luthor hasn't been killed by Superman yet, even though there's been plenty of chances for it to happen... Dr. Klaw still is always hindering Inspector Gadget's plans all the time.... but Darth Vader finally died when he had a change of heart... Villians can sometimes become the good guys. Arch Nemesis are needed in some genres since it will get very old if they die off in the first act and don't live to see the sequel.

Defeat and kill are two different things. In each of those 3 series, the protagonist foils their antagonist's schemes.

gornonthecob

In the case of god-modding people (ie, telling them what they feel.) It's almost impossible to NOT do it to some extent in this game. You generally have to assume that everyone is playing a Good Aligned character. My first campaign tried to give players freedom of alignment, but in the end it just didn't matter, you still 'did the right thing' so to speak. You'll always god-mod in that respect.
in this last act I did, I just said 'screw it" and told the player that they felt they should help. It takes WAY too many resources to placate all angles. There just comes a point when players have to realize that they're playing an RPG with restrictions.

If you believe your character is a Chaotic Evil murderer, you're wrong. Period. You have to play within the game's rules. It's like sitting down and handing your character sheet to the DM. It needs to be approved. In this case our DM (Cryptic) has asked that we all play neutral/good characters. Which means there's no room for you to run around slaying innocent folks.

(How did we get on this topic?)

melinden

gornonthecob wrote: »

You generally have to assume that everyone is playing a Good Aligned character. .

In defense of authors having to assume that, players haven't been allowed yet to choose evil gods as their deity. Maybe Cryptic thought this would encourage people to behave badly by saying it was "in character?"

beckylunatic

You mean like the plot of Diablo 2? Yet people still enjoyed playing that.

Bear in mind that tropes are the bones of a story. It's how well you use them that makes the difference between telling a good tale and just mashing together a series of cliches.

zoiks100

There's nothing wrong with the Protagonist having to play catch-up with the Antagonist. But it's a balancing act, you trade on the reader/player's patience for the sake of building up the drama. Don't go far enough and it feels trivial, go too far and you lose your audience.

There is a problem with the Antagonist "reading" the Protagonist's mind so that they stay ahead. While it's reasonable that the Antagonist could be capable of predicting what actions the Protagonist might take, having this happen more than at most once or twice will quickly make the audience feel like that Protagonist has no hope of winning.

lonnehart

zoiks100 wrote: »

There is a problem with the Antagonist "reading" the Protagonist's mind so that they stay ahead. While it's reasonable that the Antagonist could be capable of predicting what actions the Protagonist might take, having this happen more than at most once or twice will quickly make the audience feel like that Protagonist has no hope of winning.

What if I offer a "valid" explanation as to how the Antagonist knows what the player is doing? Such as "Hahaha!!! Vecna gave me the power of Sight beyond Sight! No matter what you do I'll always know what you're doing! Like how you tried to get that Half Elf Harper Jaheira in bed with you!!!"

...


okay... that was creepy... O_O

mokah

Dealing with failure is what makes for an interesting story. Some of the best stories that I've ever read are about failure and how it was handled.