Channelling Your Inner Supervillain
Nov. 16th, 2014 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqMy 1960's Supers game hit a milestone - they worked together as a full team to mostly defeat the bad guy. I say mostly because he did get away with a handful of his toys.
Along the way, I ended up monologuing to one of the players. Now I dislike monologuing as a tactic, because I like to play the NPCs smart, and monologuing is dumb. Why would a competent bad guy ever do it? Well now I know - it's to show off how smart you are. That goes for the villain, and it goes for the game master.
I wasn't going to do it, until the PCs pointed out that I'd already started. And a part of me really liked it because I got to (using the villain as a mouthpiece) brag about all the background I'd spent lots of time developing.
Still, I didn't blow my whole wad on the PCs - there was just enough to piece together what was going on from the monologue when combined with existing evidence. But man, I wanted to go through a step by step accounting of the bad guy's plan, just because I'm so proud of it.
And that folks, is why villains monologue.
Oh, and we settled on Maximus as the villain name, making him one in a long line of characters who got into super villainy due to their name. Really, if you didn't want the kid growing up to be an evil mastermind, why would you name him Maximus.
Along the way, I ended up monologuing to one of the players. Now I dislike monologuing as a tactic, because I like to play the NPCs smart, and monologuing is dumb. Why would a competent bad guy ever do it? Well now I know - it's to show off how smart you are. That goes for the villain, and it goes for the game master.
I wasn't going to do it, until the PCs pointed out that I'd already started. And a part of me really liked it because I got to (using the villain as a mouthpiece) brag about all the background I'd spent lots of time developing.
Still, I didn't blow my whole wad on the PCs - there was just enough to piece together what was going on from the monologue when combined with existing evidence. But man, I wanted to go through a step by step accounting of the bad guy's plan, just because I'm so proud of it.
And that folks, is why villains monologue.
Oh, and we settled on Maximus as the villain name, making him one in a long line of characters who got into super villainy due to their name. Really, if you didn't want the kid growing up to be an evil mastermind, why would you name him Maximus.
