Lessons from TV: No-one here is exactly what he appears

"Let me pass on to you the one thing I've learned about this place. No one here is exactly what he appears. Not Mollari, not Delenn, not Sinclair... and not me." - G'Kar, "Babylon 5"

There are a great many lessons a DM can learn from "Babylon 5". It also has quite a few lessons not to learn - while it may seem like a really cool idea to seed something in session 2 of your campaign, only for it to pay off five years later... and while it in fact is extremely cool when you pull that off... what you don't realise until you've done it is that doing so requires a huge amount of work, no small amount of railroading, and quite possibly leaves you with a campaign that's limping badly towards the end. By the end of "Rivers of Time", I don't think anyone was really enjoying it, but we had a story to tell, so...

(For "The Eberron Code", I adopted a far more Buffy-esque structure, where each year had was something of a mini-campaign in itself, with a beginning, middle, and end. The three together fit together to form a single whole, but it very definitely was "Volume One", "Volume Two", and "Volume Three". That seemed to be a much better structure, and a much more satisfying campaign as a result.)

Anyway, I digress.

For all that they claim to be a storytelling medium, and for all that they are role-playing games, RPGs tend not to do terribly well with nuanced characters. NPCs in published adventures tend to be awfully one-dimensional. The knight in shining armour turns out, almost without exception, to be a goody two-shoes knight in shining armour. The black-hearted villain is, sure enough, a black-hearted villain. (And as for the PCs, well...)

Now, to a large extent this is entirely understandable. Over the course of "Babylon 5", G'Kar has a large amount of screen-time, measured somewhere in hours. In "Game of Thrones", Tyrion Lannister, probably the most complex character, has more screen time than just about anyone else. In D&D, the typical villain lasts four rounds, which is about 24 seconds of game-time. It's not exactly easy to put forward a nuanced portrayal in that time, nor is it really worthwhile to do so.

The solution to this is obvious, of course - give the villain more screen-time. Sure, if he's only around for four rounds, then there's little point in detailing a personality. But if the villain is around for months of game time, then suddenly matters change.

Now, of course, not every campaign will warrant this, and not every villain within a campaign will deserve it. Sometimes, they should just be the bad guys, and make a very satisfying thump when they hit the deck. But sometimes...

That said, if the PCs are the good guys, and they're keen to resolve the plot, just how do you give your villains screentime without them promptly dying? Well...

• Introduce your villains in situations when violence isn't an option. The Bond films do this all the time - he's forever meeting the villain in public locations, or where there are sufficient bystanders around that he can't resort to violence, or where his actions would be misinterpreted. If the PCs are invited to a third party's well, party, they should feel beholden to not make a scene... and that allows the DM to make a scene where the villain shows up.
• Have the villain appear in disguise. If the villain can shapeshift, or possess others as hosts, or whatever, this allows him to interact with the PCs without things necessarily becoming violent. Of course, they need to know, or find out, that they've been dealing with the villain.
• Make the villain ambiguous. Sure, that Inquisitor's methods are questionable, but is he really Evil? Even if he is, does that necessitate his removal, or is he a bulwark against a greater evil? This is especially effective if the PCs first hear about minor actions first, perhaps even things they can agree with, and gradually escalating to horror.
• Make the villain useful. As noted, that Inquisitor might be a bulwark against a worse evil, so the PCs may feel they need to keep him around until they can deal with the other threat first. Or, perhaps early on in the campaign they really need help, and the only person who can offer it is the BBEG - and then they owe him. Or similar.
• If all else fails, always have an escape plan or two. But be prepared to lose your villain if those plans fail - few things annoy players more than the DM using fiat to let his bad guy escape a rightfully-earned death.

Having established means to give the villains screen-time without them dying, that's half the job done. But, of course, there's no point in giving your villain screen-time if you don't do anything with it. If your villain is Profion in full Jeremy Irons scenery-chewing mode, there's not much point in giving him screen-time - there's no real nuance to show.

The big danger, though, is that the DM decides to build a character who is too complex. After all, Tyrion Lannister is a wonderfully detailed and complex character - let's have one just as involved! The problem is that it's really hard to bring out such detail when the PCs get to interact with the villain just a handful of times, and when most of their efforts will necessarily be dedicated to bringing him down.

So, my recommendations here:

• Don't make the character too complex. Most NPCs should have only a single trait. Even major NPCs should only have three or four traits - enough to establish who they are, without swamping the DM with too much work, or confusing the players with too much information. Paint in big, bold strokes!
• Give the villain at least two 'negative' characteristics, and at least one 'positive' one. That gives good reason to oppose the character... and also reason to admire him. (Equally, most 'good' characters should likewise have several noble characteristics and at least one negative trait. Nobody is perfect after all!)
• Make sure the players get to know about these traits! Remember, anything the players don't learn about is just wasted effort - pics, or it didn't happen.
• Members of organisations should always be more than just a member of that organisation. After all, how many of us are just our jobs, and nothing more? If nothing else, there should be an indication of how fully the character believes in the ideals of the organisation - are they a true believer, are they just in it for the money, or do they secretly want out?

And that, I think, is that. There's obviously a whole lot more that could be said about NPC design, but this post is more than long enough as it is.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten...

For my new "Star Wars: Saga Edition" campaign, I made a quick note in my document of house rules that "encumbrance will be used normally". Indeed, I'd made this almost trivially easy to handle, via the use of a very clever PDF form that automatically calculates most of the required values. Huzzah!

Unfortunately, what I had neglected to consider is that, in SWSE, the encumbrance rules are generous to the point of being pointless. Of my three characters, the one with the lowest carrying capacity still has a capacity of 63kg, while the character with the heaviest load is carrying 16.5kg. And neither of these is particularly untypical values - characters just don't tend to carry a lot of gear in Star Wars.

In fact, it might be worth noting that the character with the lowest carrying capacity that you can reasonably create in the system is a Small character with a Strength score of 6. Such a character would be able to carry 13.5kg without penalty. The equivalent Medium character could carry 18kg, while a Small character with Strength 8 could carry 24kg - both would thus be able to handle the biggest load amongst my three PCs.

So... um, yeah. I think it's still worth keeping track of things like the number of grenades they're carrying, and of course any special gear they make or acquire during the campaign. But when it comes to mundane gear, I think I'll just not bother!

Raw Material

One thing I try to do when putting together is to have a dedicated "character creation" session, where all the players are brought together and where they create their characters (as the name implies). This serves two purposes:

1. By creating the characters together, the players hopefully create a group, not just a bunch of characters.
2. Having a dedicated session before the first 'real' session gives me time to adjust the campaign to suit.

It is that second point that is of most interest here. See, RPGs are inevitably rather broad and sprawling, with a huge range of directions in which they can go. And while players will generally sign up for something because the premise sounds interesting, they haven't signed up to be read a story - they inevitably, and rightly, want to have significant input into how the game goes.

What the character creation session allows, then, is for the players to give some indication of where their interests lie. After all, if they create a bunch of scheming nobles, that's probably an indication that they want a campaign filled with intrigue and backstabbing, while if they create a bunch of straightforward paladins then they probably want something different!

With that in mind, then, what has the "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" character creation session given me?

Well, firstly, and unfortunately, we had one player drop out shortly before the session and (more annoyingly) we had one no-show. That meant that we've dropped from the 'ideal' five characters to three. That's still a quorum... but only just. Hopefully, we'll be able to pick up one or two more players for the next session.

Brindy has created a Jawa Scout character, skilled in mechanics and perception, and very skilled in stealth. That suggests to me an interest in messing around with technology (especially junked tech), and in sneaking around and learning things best left undiscovered. That shouldn't be a problem - there's plenty of Separatist tech left over from the Clone Wars, after all, and the Empire does love its secrets...

Smug has created a Rodian Scoundrel, with a view towards the Gunslinger prestige class. This is almost an iconic "Imperial Fist" character, and should be near-trivial to drop into the campaign. That said, there's possibly some scope for shaking things up there... what if these two characters only start as part of the "Imperial Fist" project? Hmm...

(Actually, that bears a bit more thought. If he was drafted in to "Imperial Fist" having been captured running contraband, that suggests a disgruntled former employer out there somewhere. And that means... something. But not a Hutt; that's just too cliché.)

Finally, Polgare has created a Human Soldier who she describes as "just a grunt". On the face of it, that suggests that she's perhaps just interested in following on and seeing where the campaign goes, happily being blown where the wind takes her.

And yet... the character has a surprisingly detailed background for all that. The daughter of a doctor and a biochemist, who drifted into the Imperial Navy when it became apparent that she couldn't follow in her parents' footsteps, was overlooked for promotion due to her sex, and then was recruited by Daala for the same reason.

I think with that one, I'm inclined to run with the "doctor and biochemist" angle there. If nothing else, that dovetails nicely with the abandoned research station on Varn from the one-shot - they never did investigate what was being researched. And it's very "Star Wars" to have children somehow unexpectedly come face to face with their parents' work...

But where does that leave my original concept?

Well, actually, it should still work - the "Imperial Fist" teams are intended to hunt down and eliminate Jedi malefactors and other rogue elements, and incidentally to deal with any Imperial corruption or other rogue elements they uncover. That can still fit. And I'm starting to see the outlines of a big "rogue element"... It does appear, however, that I may need either a different Big Bad or perhaps a second(ary) Big Bad. Not that that's particularly a problem.

And in the meantime... there are problems on Fere. Agents of Seinar systems, keen to open a new shipyard on the old world, and so trade on its former reputation, have requested assistance from Governor Tarkin and his agents. Someone has been sabotaging their efforts. And so, the Chimera's Escape is dispatched...

Start of a New Campaign

Tonight marks the start of a new adventure: I'm starting up a "Star Wars: Saga Edition" campaign. Titled "Imperial Fist", this one follows the exploits of a team of Imperial special agents - a mix of special forces troops, Force adepts, bounty hunters, and the like. The PCs are charged with tracking down and eliminating the remaining Jedi and their sympathisers.

My initial intention is to play this one straight - the PCs are Imperial agents, they believe (mostly) in the Imperial cause, and they're not particularly evil. Of course, whether that intention actually survives contact with the players is quite another matter!