How Adversaries Get Made

[Setherick]

Ross and I posted one of these before Ross changed the forums. This is a gmail chat session Ross and I had on February 21 that details the initial outlines of the Kurtz/Cortez adversary in the New World game. The character won't actually appear for several more sessions, but there has already been chatter on the board about him.

Ross has changed the background of the character since we have talked, but I still wanted to post this as a way of talking about how games are created and run. (And to let everyone know they can always come to me if they need me to help them come up with some kind of adversary...  )

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Patrick: so I thought about rolling up a DnD character and giving him a back story today just for fun

Ross: awesome
  make him someone I can use for the new world campaign
  don't worry about stats
  I can do that party

Patrick: nice
what level are the characters currently?

Ross: 7
 but they've met liches and other high level NPCs
 well A lich

Patrick: you know we could play up a Cortez meets Kurtz from Heart of Darkness and create a paladin-turned-blackguard who was the leader of a previous expedition

Ross: oooo
  nice
  an expedition that no one knows about

 Patrick: right

 Ross: like the vikings who landed in the new world
  that is fucking great
  I love it
  the way 4E works now
  there are 3 tiers of play
  heroic (low level)
  paragon (mid level )
  and epic
  players are at heroic
  right now
  As soon as they complete the current quest
  I will bump them to paragon
  and use that idea for the first paragon quest

Patrick: I would say this guy is a real prick too and has traded all his paladin levels that he can for blackguard levels

Ross: I already got a hook too
  several sessions ago they rescued a dwarf cartographer
  who then went out to the mountains to map them
  the dwarf sends a message back to the players
Patrick: he became a blackguard because a local sorcerer of a native tribe summoned a devil to demonstrate the natives power
  but the devil befriended the paladin
  turning against the natives
  because the devil saw the paladin could be seduced
  and was already quite powerful
  how does that work for a brief backstory?

Ross: I think I will probably modify it a bit
  the paladin wants to introduce law to the natives
  the devil helps with that
  bam
 
Patrick: ha so instead of LG, you get LE

Ross: right
  so the paladin becomes obsessed with order
  becomes a despot

Patrick: yeah, I like that
  because good/evil become subjective

Ross: yeah
  and he uses brutality to enforce the law

[Boyos]

haha I cant waite to here this. Sounding pretty damn good!

[codered]

I know you busted out episode 5 but when is episode 6 im aleady jonesing for another......

[Dawnsteel]

I thought adversaries got made when you promise to release them and then cut out their tongues.

[Setherick]

I thought adversaries got made when you promise to release them and then cut out their tongues.

Here's how adversaries really get made: "I will be playing a female character. And like all women, she is a chaotic, evil, thief..."

[klaatu]

It can happen by accident, too.  In a GURPS Black Ops game, there was a demon the players didn't outsmart, and he got away.  Several adventures later, he sent them an invitation (in the form of a severed body part), and I never saw the group so excited to take a hook.


They got him that time, incidentally, and enjoyed it immensely.

[Setherick]

It can happen by accident, too.  In a GURPS Black Ops game, there was a demon the players didn't outsmart, and he got away.  Several adventures later, he sent them an invitation (in the form of a severed body part), and I never saw the group so excited to take a hook.


They got him that time, incidentally, and enjoyed it immensely.

That's always fun. When the low NPC adversary comes back to challenge the players after getting bigger, faster, stronger, more deadly.