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Role Playing (Games)

Journal Short Circuit's Journal: RPG: Remote PC as the Villain 8

Journal by Short Circuit

This is just an idea I had, and I wanted to get your opinions of it. What if the villain was a PC?

Essentially, the guest player wouldn't be required to attend gaming sessions. He depends on his NPC goons (hirelings, whatever) to spy on and interact with the hero PCs, while he gets an email report back after the session.

The remote PC would interview his lieutenants and/or hirelings (via the GM) to learn the status, actions, movements of the hero PCs. He then issues orders for his lieutenants and/or hirelings (again, via the GM) to carry out.

This could have several benefits.

First, it takes a load of work off of the GM. The GM no longer has to figure out what the villain knows, and what the villain will do. He's relieved of roleplaying a major element in the story.

Second, it adds to the sense of realism. Since the villain is actually interrogating his subordinates for information, the GM will have a much easier time enforcing the limit of what the villain can reasonably be expected to know.

Third, it adds to the challenge. When there's a human dedicating his entire mind to eradicating the heros, with resources and a budget, well, the heros are going to have to get their act together and work as a team. The GM may feel inclined to have mercy on the hero players, but a villain player need have no such inclinations. If he kills the PCs, he's made a victory. The players with the dead characters reroll, get rerecruited, and carry on the fight.

Experimental Campaign
This also leads to the possibility of another sort of game entirely, one where the RPG system becomes a turn-based strategy game. More than one player could be remote, acting on a turn-by-turn basis. And there may or may not be live players at all. Whaddya say, anyone want to try it?

Update: (200408171430) (Regarding the remote D&D session I'm going to host)

I've got a FAQ about it. The game's name is going to be eGame. (Yeah, yeah, not very original.)

Have your own questions and subjects to talk about? Email me and I'll probably post them.
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RPG: Remote PC as the Villain More

RPG: Remote PC as the Villain

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  • I was a good friend of my GM, and we went to classes together (back in college), so he'd run by ideas for gaming. One was to come up with a campaign where I'd be a party member, but secretly was behind the whole thing. I knew everything the players knew, and when the time came, I ended up almost killing them all, cause I completely had the element of surprise (and they thought I was charmed, so weren't trying to kill me).

    It was a FANTASTIC twist ending for the entire group.

    I'd definitely like to help
    • I've got one affirmative from someone IRL, already.

      Also, you can probably come in later in the game, if you want. Remember, there's not really character stat development, just accumulation of power, if you're interested in that.

      I'm having a blast thinking of all the different roles players can have in this kind of campaign. Mayor. General. Guild master. Senator. King. Diety. The only roles not available are those without followers. :)
      • What happens when the heroes have infiltrated your secret lair, dispatched your all your strong-arms and trusted lieutenants, and are knocking on the door of your inner sanctum? Seems like it would be fairly akward if the GM had to transcribe everything the players said because the villain was communicating via IRC from Western Sasquatchistan.

        Strict adherence to the Evil Overlord List [eviloverlord.com] might make such situations avoidable, but it's hard to keep your plans for world domination in order when you have to evac

        • I've been thinking about that. I don't know if I'll control the PC, or assume that death is instantaneous.

          Players don't know who each other are, so I don't expect the risk to be all that great.
        • In that case, either:

          1) Install voice recognition software so that rather than typing you can simply speak to the remote villain.

          2) Call the remote villain. This works well if you have speakerphone.

          3) Wait until the remote villain is coming over for a visit, then surprise the rest of the party by having a "guest DM" handle the enemy. One of the D&D campaigns in which I'm participating would have had that happen last weekend, but the "guest DM" who was going to help running the dragon and the orc

          • 1) Install voice recognition software so that rather than typing you can simply speak to the remote villain.

            Hero: You will regret your evil ways!
            Software: Fool weary get nor easel bay!
            Villain: Huh?

            2) Call the remote villain. This works well if you have speakerphone.

            Depends on location. If the villain is very far away, there may be long distance or international charges involved (plus, some phone companies in Europe charge per minute for local calls).

            3) Wait until the remote villain is coming over

          • I've been thinking for a while of having two D&D campaigns running at the same time, with two separate parties of PCs, and at the very end have the two parties face off against one another.

            I'm in two games right now, one is an old game that has been running with my 'new' group where my characters name is Alexander, and the other is a new game that I'm doing with my 'old' group who are all around this summer for the first time in ~6years, where my characters name is Jinn. Anyway, the DM is the same b

  • who was going away... "You can be Special Guest Villian!" (like on Batman)

    The only problem might be people getting angry with the villian's player. We had a 'good party vs. evil party' session one time. Most people were OK with it, but a few got really annoyed.

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