The Overclassed Villain

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:22 pm

Most of the time in RPGs, the boss-level opposition is at least equal to and often superior to the average player character, so that at the bottom of the dungeon or whatever it takes All Your Powers Combined! to defeat the Big Bad.

I've been thinking about this lately, and while it is a valid approach, I've begun to appreciate the villain that is simply overclassed. Most of Batman's rogues gallery, for example, are completely fucking owned in any straight punch-up with the Caped Crusader; Superman is so far and above your average street punk or small-time supervillain he gives them an opportunity to at least surrender, if not mend their ways.

This is an immensely powerful a tool for the MC, at least for a couple of reasons. For one, it's more realistic - if a bunch of high-level adventurers full of magical-glowing-bling pop into a kobold camp, have the little yapping lizard-dog men surrender is both appropriate and appealing to the PCs egos than wholesale low-XP slaughter - and more importantly it allows the MC to use them again. A minor villain that tries to use the Dark Widget to unleash the Eldritch Abomination can be a properly cowardly figuring hiding behind his toughs, and probably crazy enough to be more damage to himself than the PCs (unless he succeeds)...and what's more, could become obsessed with defeating the PCs without levelling at the same rate as them, forcing him to be actually clever.

And the great thing about NPCs that are completely overclassed, their goals can be either cosmic or petty and it still makes for a good story. Whether they're trying to summon a god or steal the lost treasure or just eat the character's horse/animal companion to gain its rich, tasty courage...they can be the main villain, the road bump, or the comic relief until they turn out to be dangerous when cornered, or when the PCs are wounded/sick. The horse-thief that everyone laughed at and humiliated is waiting for the bloodied PCs as they exit the dungeon, with a crossbow and a hankering for revenge.

Granted, this works best in a level-less system like Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu, because the mechanical disparity between "competent at X task" and "fights well" can be huge, while in level-based systems like D&D being really good at something typically goes hand-in-hand with asskicking potential. That's not to say your 20th-level aristocrat can't get his ass handed to him and by the overclassed villain, but it loses some of its efficacy.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:42 pm

I always thought big bads (as in stronger than you) were more of a videogame thing and quite rare in ttrpgs, they have at least in campaigns I've played.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:57 pm

I think there needs to be an incentive to not kill villains if you want that to happen. See the way I always read the comic book universe was that Super-people just didn't kill each other because they're a ruling caste. So the same reason that the Noblemen of medieval Europe would ransom each other back to their respective countries (instead of murdering each other) is the same reason Superman puts Lex in jail, and Lex puts Superman in kryptonite restraints. It's just polite war. It's better for their entire caste if they all agree to just play Capture the Flag with each other for big prizes instead of being in an all out war.

To make a system like this true you have to make there be lots of those villains and you have to have them win once in a while. If Joker knocks out Batman and puts him in a bizarre booby trapped carnival instead of just stomping his brains out then Batman OWES HIM ONE, which Bats pays back by putting him in Arkham the next time he captures him.

So it's totally reasonable to have villains give up when you beat up all their plebeian "toughs" but there has to be a reason for it. No one gives up unless that will let them live and no one keeps their enemies alive unless their is an incentive to do so.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:05 pm

+1 to dean

I see this in practice with most of my groups. More often than not, when the combat music starts, they don't stop until the enemy's dead. Escape, proxy survival (ex. Doombot-gambit), or even strong incentives ("let me live and I'll make sure the ship doesn't sink from the oncoming super hurricane") is enough to earn their eternal enmity. The results of surrender are either death on the knees or a fate worse than at their hands (possibly followed with death when they're finished).

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:39 pm

"The Boys" is the only comic I've seen where this is even reasonably explained. Turns out that pretty much every super powered individual on the planet got their powers from one company, who licenses out their image in comic books based on their adventures. This includes the good guys and the bad, so it actually pays to not murder your nemesis, especially if his book happens to be selling well.
The only thing that keeps them from ruling the world is that they're given such a fantastic life style (think Super Powered Jersey Shore) and there's no reason to do so. Things seriously can't get any better for them so why rock the boat?

As far as applying this to D&D? I have no clue. Without a powerful incentive to not murder the big bad, there's no reason why he should be left alive, to learn from his mistakes, and to come back stronger than ever. Just slit his throat and be done with it.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:51 pm

Well, for certain values of "reasonable".

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:02 pm

Wrathzog wrote:As far as applying this to D&D? I have no clue. Without a powerful incentive to not murder the big bad, there's no reason why he should be left alive, to learn from his mistakes, and to come back stronger than ever. Just slit his throat and be done with it.

There really is. He's one of you. The two of you are more alike than any of the peasantry he's planning on doing whatever he's doing to. If he can agree to play the same game as you, where you don't murder him and he doesn't murder you then ROCK ON. Your objectives aren't really that different. He wants to turn everyone into werewolves and your Monk wants to make everyone Hindu cause that's a thing you think is cool.

You guys are Ubermensch. There's no reason to kill each other unless one of you is totally stepping out of line. If his objective is "Raise the All-Darkness to consume all the lands and all it's peoples" then fuck that guy. He's being a dick and not playing right.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:17 pm

Spike wrote:We like to talk big, vampires do. "I'm going to destroy the world." It's just tough guy talk. Struttin' around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You've got... dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people. Billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision. With a real... passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye, Piccadilly. Farewell, Leicester bloody Square. You know what I'm saying?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:42 pm

daenruel87 wrote:So the same reason that the Noblemen of medieval Europe would ransom each other back to their respective countries (instead of murdering each other) is the same reason Superman puts Lex in jail, and Lex puts Superman in kryptonite restraints. It's just polite war. It's better for their entire caste if they all agree to just play Capture the Flag with each other for big prizes instead of being in an all out war.

The problem I have with 'Good and Evil are just really Team Blue and Team Red' or 'For some reason, Good and Evil have some kind of externally enforced detente' is that it makes settings really grimdark if the villains commit or attempt to commit any crime more serious than 'Lex Luthor steals 40 pies from a bake sale'.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 9:48 pm

The setting lacks the sense of individual helplessness needed to be truly grimdark. If the players want to create Team Good that is actually dedicated to putting a permanent end to Team Red's atrocities even if that means fighting Team Blue too, they can do that and they can even win. In my experience, few parties will actually do so, but I don't personally find it very satisfying to see a bunch of selfish bastards take the high road because it was actually the path of least resistance, so that's not really a flaw any system can fix. YMMV.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 10:36 pm

I think a setting where the only "good" out there is actually Team Blue and you have to fight them if you want to actually oppose evil counts as pretty grimdark. Even more so if the reason Team Red & Blue cooperate is because they all see themselves as ubermensch. And if anything, leaving your foes alive is something normally associated with less gritty/dark genres. So I'm not sure how well it fits.

I mean, semi-treaties like that can work fine when the BBEGs plan is to take over some kingdom (and not kill/enslave the population), or steal some artifact, or seize a monopoly on sea trading, or whatever. Not so much when he's going around chucking people into his cuisinart golem to make raw materials for a flesh colossus.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:07 pm

Chamomile wrote:The setting lacks the sense of individual helplessness needed to be truly grimdark.

I happened to scroll my mouse wheel at the exact moment I was skimming your post and somehow the resulting scramblage of my text-parsing made me think I had seen the words "lesbianness" and "grimdark." It's not your fault, but after that the actual post was a terrible letdown.

koz · Post by **koz** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:25 pm

DSMatticus wrote:
Chamomile wrote:The setting lacks the sense of individual helplessness needed to be truly grimdark.
I happened to scroll my mouse wheel at the exact moment I was skimming your post and somehow the resulting scramblage of my text-parsing made me think I had seen the words "lesbianness" and "grimdark." It's not your fault, but after that the actual post was a terrible letdown.

Koumei's take on the Adepta Sororitas fits that perfectly.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 11:26 pm

deanruel87 wrote:There really is. He's one of you. The two of you are more alike than any of the peasantry he's planning on doing whatever he's doing to. If he can agree to play the same game as you, where you don't murder him and he doesn't murder you then ROCK ON. Your objectives aren't really that different. He wants to turn everyone into werewolves and your Monk wants to make everyone Hindu cause that's a thing you think is cool.

You guys are Ubermensch. There's no reason to kill each other unless one of you is totally stepping out of line. If his objective is "Raise the All-Darkness to consume all the lands and all it's peoples" then fuck that guy. He's being a dick and not playing right.

Firstly, there is no Game inside the Game. And even if you could set something like that up, there's no reason for one player or the other to renege on the deal the first time they achieve victory over the other. Alternatively, you set up a MAD scenario where murdering someone ensures your own destruction (via other players)... but that's only going to lead to one of two situations: the party murdering everyone involved or a TPK.

Secondly, being able to empathize with each other over how awesome we are when compared to level 1 commoners only makes it more likely that I slit the guy's throat. It only acknowledges the fact that he's a serious threat to my well-being. This is basic risk management.

Look, the question that we need answered isn't "Why should I kill this guy?" It's "Why shouldn't I kill this guy?"

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:11 am

Wrathzog wrote:Look, the question that we need answered isn't "Why should I kill this guy?" It's "Why shouldn't I kill this guy?"

Because then you're waging Total War. You're the guy breaking the rules and that makes you fair game. Total War is an option but it's not an -ideal- one. If you kill Joker it means Toy Man is allowed to kill you. And if you kill Toy Man too you've just set up that all bets are off and if anyone is in a brawl with you they should try to murder you because you take no prisoners.
That's what I was saying, if you want someone to give up there has to be an incentive and a good incentive is "not death". So you have an unwritten contract with your opponents that as long as they are in your tier you will let them surrender when all they have left is a knife and they agree to not come at you with that knife, cause fuck it he'll kill me anyway.

Polite War is always better to be a part of.

Now of course there are circumstances where you can break the rules and have people let you off for it. When someone kills the Cthulhu summoner that's fine, because that dick was gonna ruin it for everyone (see Chamomile's post). You can even kill somebody once in a while and that's seen as a black mark, you're considered unbalanced or irresponsible or perhaps even a traitor. But people are sometimes willing to shrug that off grudgingly because the other option is everything getting messy fast.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 12:34 am

I don't think that the Joker is a good example, honestly. I mean, the only reason he's still alive is that:
1) He's a popular character.
2) Barely anyone gets killed off in comics anyway.

Because otherwise, he's really not someone that Batman should "live and let live" (or for that matter, that the cops would when he's in Arkham). He kills people - lots of people. You stick PCs in there, and he's getting "accidentally" shot after the first or second time - and I wouldn't blame them a bit.

Now a number of other villains - sure. When somebody just wants to steal diamonds with their giant robot boxing glove, then why escalate things to lethal? But when somebody starts out by melting people's faces with acid, the escalation has already happened.
The only way that you can call it "Polite War" at that point is if you say that the people whose faces got melted don't count because they aren't ubermensch. Which is fine for a grimdark setting, but not outside one.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:40 am

Dean wrote:So you have an unwritten contract with your opponents that as long as they are in your tier you will let them surrender when all they have left is a knife and they agree to not come at you with that knife, cause fuck it he'll kill me anyway.

The problem is establishing that contract. It's pure risk without any sort of reward. I don't know Mr. Bad. I obviously disagree with the guy (seeing as how I just kicked his ass) so it's not likely that I can trust him to hold up his side of The Contract. He already hates me for stopping his diabolical plan. If I let him go, he's just going to hatch another diabolical plan and now it's solely MY RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that he's stopped.

Again, what is my motivation here? Why would I keep this guy (and people like him) alive?

And Threat of Retaliation isn't going to do it because it just means that I'm going to have to murder Toy Man too (and then Killer Croc, and then Scarecrow, and then Zsasz, and then Poison Ivy, etc, etc, etc...) and at that point we're just playing a normal D&D campaign.

I just had a thought about what would happen if I dropped the Batman/Joker scenario on my current group of players. The only thing I can think of is that they'd stop Joker and then slit his throat. When Batman objects and tries to take them into custody for murder, they probably end up killing him too. If they don't, I'll have him come back at a later session and they'll probably kill him that second time.
I'm going to have to test this...

Ice9 wrote:I don't think that the Joker is a good example, honestly.

Comics in general aren't a good example because most of them can't hold up to any level of scrutiny.
The Joker just happens to be The Worst example.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 1:49 am

D&D + Superheroes = The Authority

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:35 am

Wrathzog wrote:
Dean wrote:So you have an unwritten contract with your opponents that as long as they are in your tier you will let them surrender when all they have left is a knife and they agree to not come at you with that knife, cause fuck it he'll kill me anyway.
The problem is establishing that contract. It's pure risk without any sort of reward. I don't know Mr. Bad. I obviously disagree with the guy (seeing as how I just kicked his ass) so it's not likely that I can trust him to hold up his side of The Contract. He already hates me for stopping his diabolical plan. If I let him go, he's just going to hatch another diabolical plan and now it's solely MY RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that he's stopped.

The contract already exists, but whether or not Mr. Bad is automatically a party to it depends strongly on his social status.

Again, what is my motivation here? Why would I keep this guy (and people like him) alive?

Money, dear boy.

And Threat of Retaliation isn't going to do it because it just means that I'm going to have to murder Toy Man too (and then Killer Croc, and then Scarecrow, and then Zsasz, and then Poison Ivy, etc, etc, etc...) and at that point we're just playing a normal D&D campaign.

In the case of the Joker, it's less having to murder Toy Man and more that you're going to be murdered by Harley Quinn and you might not be good enough to stop her. We're assuming that even big bads have families, and families will want revenge.

Forget comics for a minute and look at it this way.

You're fighting the Rothbart of Dorn, who has for some reason gotten involved with a necromancer cult. Mostly he just wanted to bang dead chicks. Yeah, I know. So the Rothbart of Dorn has been slumming it in the City disguised as a half-asses actor at the Globe theater. In his spare time he's been murdering prostitutes and reanimating their corpses to make his harem of zombie fuckslaves.

Now, Rothbart's father is the Landgrave of Dorne, and is quite rich due to his position. Once you've discovered his son's nefarious deeds you can fight the boy to the death, or offer him a chance to surrender. Allowing him to means that you can random him back to the Landgrave for 500,000 GP. Killing him means that the Landgrave will instead give that 500,000 GP to the assassin's guild and you better not fail your sense motive check the next time you accept a drink from a stranger.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:51 am

hyzmarca wrote:In the case of the Joker, it's less having to murder Toy Man and more that you're going to be murdered by Harley Quinn and you might not be good enough to stop her. We're assuming that even big bads have families, and families will want revenge.

Yes, and that's incredibly grimdark. It means that if you actually capture someone with blood on their hands or tried to get blood on their hands like The Penguin or The Joker, you can't actually do anything meaningful about it because it would just mean the deaths of you and your family. I mean, yes, there will still be crooks that everyone can agree has to go, but most recurring villain heroes have someone who will mourn and avenge any reasonable attempts to completely stop them from hurting others again. Even Red Skull and Dr. Light have people willing to stick up for them.

I mean, if you're going for a setting where the smallest amount of meaningful heroism or decency means that the best life you can hope for from them on is hiding from the relentless onslaught of criminals for the rest of your life and/or worrying about your loved ones being killed in retaliation, great. Sin City works precisely that way, in fact.

Just, I don't think that's what you're going for.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:59 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:In the case of the Joker, it's less having to murder Toy Man and more that you're going to be murdered by Harley Quinn and you might not be good enough to stop her. We're assuming that even big bads have families, and families will want revenge.
Yes, and that's incredibly grimdark. It means that if you actually capture someone with blood on their hands or tried to get blood on their hands like The Penguin or The Joker, you can't actually do anything meaningful about it because it would just mean the deaths of you and your family.

I mean, if you're going for a setting where the smallest amount of meaningful heroism or decency means that the best life you can hope for from them on is hiding from the relentless onslaught criminals for the rest of your life and/or worrying about your loved ones being killed in retaliation, great. Sin City works precisely that way, in fact.

Just, I don't think that's what you're going for.

No, I'm going more for Game of Thrones, where you capture Jamie Lannister and keep him alive, despite the fact that the fucker pushed your brother out the window, because he's more useful to you as a barganing chip than as a corpse. Meanwhile, the petulant child king who decided to have the his greatest enemy executed instead of ransoming him is well on his way to being murdered by his own allies because he's just that incompetent.

And also every other character is committing incest for some reason.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:08 am

hyzmarca wrote:No, I'm going more for Game of Thrones, where you capture Jamie Lannister and keep him alive, despite the fact that the fucker pushed your brother out the window, because he's more useful to you as a barganing chip than as a corpse. Meanwhile, the petulant child king who decided to have the his greatest enemy executed instead of ransoming him is well on his way to being murdered by his own allies because he's just that incompetent.

I haven't read Game of Thrones, but, wasn't the grit and grimdark and 'there are no real heroes, at least effective ones that live' a big selling point?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:20 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:No, I'm going more for Game of Thrones, where you capture Jamie Lannister and keep him alive, despite the fact that the fucker pushed your brother out the window, because he's more useful to you as a barganing chip than as a corpse. Meanwhile, the petulant child king who decided to have the his greatest enemy executed instead of ransoming him is well on his way to being murdered by his own allies because he's just that incompetent.
I haven't read Game of Thrones, but, wasn't the grit and grimdark and 'there are no real heroes, at least effective ones that live' a big selling point?

It's less girmdark and more 'inspired by actual events'. It's basically the War of the Roses with magic (To the point that Westeros is really just England scaled up to continent size with a giant magic wall up top to keep out the ice zombies). There are no real heroes, but there are no real villains, either. There's just people. Even Joffrey is less an absolute monster and more an example of what happens when you give absolute power to a 12-year-old who has never been told "no" in his life.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:22 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
hyzmarca wrote:In the case of the Joker, it's less having to murder Toy Man and more that you're going to be murdered by Harley Quinn and you might not be good enough to stop her. We're assuming that even big bads have families, and families will want revenge.
Yes, and that's incredibly grimdark. It means that if you actually capture someone with blood on their hands or tried to get blood on their hands like The Penguin or The Joker, you can't actually do anything meaningful about it because it would just mean the deaths of you and your family. I mean, yes, there will still be crooks that everyone can agree has to go, but most recurring villain heroes have someone who will mourn and avenge any reasonable attempts to completely stop them from hurting others again. Even Red Skull and Dr. Light have people willing to stick up for them.

I mean, if you're going for a setting where the smallest amount of meaningful heroism or decency means that the best life you can hope for from them on is hiding from the relentless onslaught of criminals for the rest of your life and/or worrying about your loved ones being killed in retaliation, great. Sin City works precisely that way, in fact.

Just, I don't think that's what you're going for.

Wait, suffering consequences for being a murderous fuckstick is grimdark now? Mindless slaughter should have consequences so people don't go around mindlessly slaughtering everyone. If you don't want to suffer those consequences, don't murder everything.

What the hell are you even talking about, why are you even using grimdark as if it means something, why do you have such shitty opinions about storytelling, system design, and fucking everything else?

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:31 am

More or less. It's a balancing act, really. I dislike some of Martin's excesses but at the same time I appreciate that he acknowledges that it's genuinely difficult to always stand by your values. I don't need my fiction to be a parade of executions but I don't need every hero's selflessness to be rewarded with a daring rescue either.