One trait for your villains is how they influence the world. Is your villain the King of Latveria, issuing public decrees and whipping up his people into a genocidal froth? Does no one know who turned the nobility to the worship of Asmodeus? Some villains are subtle, barely detected in the shifting of alliances and minor tweaks to the laws of the land, while others are brutally direct.
Providing your foes with a mix of power manifestations can help to differentiate them. Struggling against unknown foes can be tremendously wearying–you don’t know who to trust, how to identify the enemy–unending paranoia can result. For some games, this is exactly the atmosphere you’re aiming for… but even for mysterious games, mixing in directly solvable problems can give the players a sense of direction and progress that keeps them from giving up.
Changing a villain’s manifestation of power can reveal quite a bit. If the foe used to strike directly, but now leads a coalition against the PCs, perhaps that’s a sign that the villain can’t keep up with the growing power of the PCs. Maybe that the villain finds it difficult to recruit replacement soldiers–the short lifespan isn’t a great recruiting pitch. If a formerly mysterious foe suddenly sends creatures of nightmare wrapped in his shields bursting through your window, you know that something has changed.
Brass Knuckles
Let’s look at one type of foe and see what the approach tells us about the villain. We’ll start with foes who manifest their power openly and act directly, “brass knuckles”.
Manifestations:
- The baron’s men, wearing the baron’s livery, come to arrest you.
- Thugs known to work for the leader of the thieves’ guild show up to break your legs.
- Tie fighters stream from the nearby imperial star destroyer.
- Your father calls you, sobbing uncontrollably. “Los Gatos beat me for an hour with pipes. If you continue, they’ll finish the job.”
- The occupation forces report directly to the villain, operating independent of the police.
MO: What are Brass Knuckles up to? You never have to guess; they don’t bother to hide what they’re doing.
Traits: “Brass Knuckles” tend to be the authority in the region, or have some kind of close relationship with the authorities that allows them to flout the law, allowing their agents to assault you in broad daylight.
Advantage: The PCs know who their foe is. If they’re feeling their oats, they can storm the castle. Usually, though, the power differential blocks that as an option. Still, the PCs know when to duck for cover, and the alcalde’s men had better watch their backs.
As a player, it’s good to know the blackguard who is causing your characters such hell. “Brass Knuckle” foes are great for releasing the tension that can build up in a layers of intrigue game. It can be cathartic to know that the men you’re killing are the baron’s men. Each clash, each time the villain’s power is thwarted, it ratchets up the conflict.
Relative Power: Brass Knuckle villains and their organizations tend to be overwhelmingly powerful for the PCs–that’s why they don’t bother to take precautions or hide their attacks. Sometimes the villain miscalculates and the players aren’t as outmatched as she thought, but often a foe like this is best attacked piecemeal. They tend to have lieutenants and lots of soldiers whose deaths can further infuriate the villain…
Other Brass Knuckle villains aren’t personally powerful, but their position gives them access to troops, the king backs them, or the law will never convict them. These direct but less overwhelming foes can be a source of temptation; if the PCs do manage to overcome him, dare they leave him alive? If the foe can’t be beat under the rules of the game, it might be time to change the game–but can you keep your honor in doing so?
Turned Tables: Because a brass knuckle’s power is often tied to their legitimacy, destroying that legitimacy can be a satisfying way to defeat them. If the problem is that the King backs the Baron unconditionally, providing proof of treasonous activities might win them a king’s writ and a detachment of men for a midnight assault on the baron’s estate. Similarly, if the thieves’ guildmistress mistreats everyone, her lieutenant might betray her to advance to guildmaster. He’ll even owe the PCs a favor.
Your Brass Knuckled Foes
Who was the last “brass knuckled” foe you used in your game? Are most of your foes similarly direct, or was this villain a relief from the complex world you’d built?
So far in my game, the players have a pretty good idea who one of the bad guys is, but have no idea who is pulling his strings. Last time they had anything to do with him, one of them was taped to a chair and tortured for several hours. Luckily, the players are more subtle than this bad guy, and he only knew about half of them, allowing a couple of unknowns to pull of a very inspired rescue attempt.
The next ‘chapter’ of the plot will see the players finding out who the ‘real’ bad guy truly is…
That sounds like a good session! It sounds like your villain, here, is more a catspaw, which brass knuckled villains are prone to being. It’ll be interesting to see if anyone uses the reverse (the sledgehammer who hires someone sneaky to make his problems go away).
The last “brass knuckles” I used were a bunch of orcs. While intelligent, their leader mostly just relied on brute force to get his way, so I had fun throwing waves of orcs at the party. Had the group not gone through the trouble of organizing an army of their own, I’m not sure how that would have turned out. 5 vs 100+, even with a level advantage is not good odds.
That is the joy; a good brass knuckled foe can really drive the PCs to the wall, and can encourage solutions tailored to their antagonist. (That’s much easier, because they know their foe.)
During my last Star Wars Old Republic campaign, the PCs faced a Sith Triad – three Sith Lords who had allied together in an attempt to find and control the power of the Ithorian Life Tree for their own purposes.
One of these Sith Lords was Darth Vakklis, a double bladed lightsaber combat expert and brute force brawler. He was clearly the brass knuckler of the bunch and not the brains of the outfit.
Manipulating him from afar were Darth Agonon and Darth Traya. Agonon was a Chiss with the plan and the forger of the alliance between rival Sith Lords. Darth Traya (aka Lianne), was probably the most subtle of the three, even posing as a common scoundrel in order to work her way into the good graces of a criminal mastermind.
Darth Vakklis was the blunt instrument that the players could deal with while the other two plotted and schemed behind the scenes.
And fighting him was appropriately glorious; a problem that could be solved with trained blasters and a cool lightsaber duel. Plus ample cover for Doumar, of course…
I must confess to being a bit amused when Jaris lit his lightsaber and charged in to engage Darth Vakklis while proclaiming that he (Jaris) could “take care of him,” before a sudden flurry of blows drove Jaris backward and onto a steel table yelling for some urgently needed assistance. 😀