Author Topic: PCs as the "villains"?  (Read 13510 times)

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veekie

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #40 on: September 03, 2011, 04:33:32 AM »
^^
Yes, that is the whole point.
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If you try and resurrect some kinds of undead without destroying them first, well you're trying to put a person into a body currently occupied by an entirely different person. (See: wights, most ghouls, anything that turns into an entirely different creature rather than being a template and has an intelligence score.) It would be very weird if this worked.
It was in response to this, since the spell obviously doesn't really mind if you have a physical body.
The mind transcends the body.
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weenog

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #41 on: September 03, 2011, 08:50:03 AM »
It's interesting how people can toggle back and forth between "the rules just say so" and elaborate imaginative fictions of why something happens, depending on whether the current fanfic trend supports or shatters their position on the morality and ethics of necromancy.
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Kajhera

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #42 on: September 03, 2011, 10:16:18 AM »
It's interesting how people can toggle back and forth between "the rules just say so" and elaborate imaginative fictions of why something happens, depending on whether the current fanfic trend supports or shatters their position on the morality and ethics of necromancy.

I do the first because of moments of cynicism, and the second in an attempt to figure out valid morality / ethics of necromancy under varying interpretations.

oslecamo

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #43 on: September 03, 2011, 05:30:39 PM »
It's interesting how people can toggle back and forth between "the rules just say so" and elaborate imaginative fictions of why something happens, depending on whether the current fanfic trend supports or shatters their position on the morality and ethics of necromancy.

I'm not toggling back and forth. I'm following the rules and then filling in the holes.

In particular the description of the MM ghoul states that it is isn't a new mind. Is a twisting of the previous person. Just like polymorph can overwrite your stats while keeping your mind, undeath twists both the victim's body and soul. It's the only explaination that explains all the ressurection spell limitations.

weenog

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #44 on: September 03, 2011, 06:07:45 PM »
You don't get to fill in blanks with whatever you want and then pass authoritative judgment based on something you made up.  You can behave that way, and certainly plenty of zealots do, but whatever judgment you pass is nothing more than an excuse for whatever evil you intend to visit on the people you're judging.

Regarding your ghoul remark, I wonder whether you're aware that regardless of what's the case or what you believe IRL, within the context of the game mind does not equal soul.  The distinction is implied pretty strongly in some sources and outright stated in others.  The transformation from living beings into fell things of the night may have warped the ghouls' minds, but that's irrelevant to the question of soul.
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Bloody Initiate

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #45 on: September 06, 2011, 01:35:51 AM »
You don't get to fill in blanks with whatever you want and then pass authoritative judgment based on something you made up.  You can behave that way, and certainly plenty of zealots do, but whatever judgment you pass is nothing more than an excuse for whatever evil you intend to visit on the people you're judging.

Regarding your ghoul remark, I wonder whether you're aware that regardless of what's the case or what you believe IRL, within the context of the game mind does not equal soul.  The distinction is implied pretty strongly in some sources and outright stated in others.  The transformation from living beings into fell things of the night may have warped the ghouls' minds, but that's irrelevant to the question of soul.

A bit weird and defensive? How does IRL EVER enter into discussions of necromancy?
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weenog

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #46 on: September 06, 2011, 05:37:57 AM »
You don't get to fill in blanks with whatever you want and then pass authoritative judgment based on something you made up.  You can behave that way, and certainly plenty of zealots do, but whatever judgment you pass is nothing more than an excuse for whatever evil you intend to visit on the people you're judging.

Regarding your ghoul remark, I wonder whether you're aware that regardless of what's the case or what you believe IRL, within the context of the game mind does not equal soul.  The distinction is implied pretty strongly in some sources and outright stated in others.  The transformation from living beings into fell things of the night may have warped the ghouls' minds, but that's irrelevant to the question of soul.

A bit weird and defensive? How does IRL EVER enter into discussions of necromancy?

Mainly when people want to blend RAW with (their own personal take on) "common sense" to arrive at the answer they want, and then call it the rules.

Rules are the mind and the soul are two different things.  Whether or not that's true outside the game, I don't know or care.
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Garryl

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #47 on: September 08, 2011, 02:22:42 AM »
Could you lop off a dead person's finger, Resurrect them (making a new body form the finger) and then animate the older corpse? What happens if the new body dies again while the undead from the older corpse still remains?
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Kajhera

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #48 on: September 08, 2011, 11:04:46 AM »
Could you lop off a dead person's finger, Resurrect them (making a new body form the finger) and then animate the older corpse? What happens if the new body dies again while the undead from the older corpse still remains?

To animate a corpse the creature has to be dead; I don't think it would function were they resurrected.

(You might be able to lop off the fingerbones, resurrect the corpse, and make undead out of the fingerbones, but I'm not familiar enough with that spell.)

If the new body dies again then you have two dead bodies and can presumably animate them both.

JaronK

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #49 on: September 30, 2011, 05:12:13 PM »
I find villain games are best when the party has a goal... not "muhahaha evil" but "the forces of good simply don't understand my genius" sort of goal.  And it must be either one goal or a set of closely related goals.  For example, I had a character that was a necrocommunist... he wanted to kill the powerful undeserving lords of society and use their undead remains to farm fields and do other grunt work, so that the more deserving folks (laborers, farmers, etc) could relax.  And anyone not like him?  They made good corpses too.  Also he wanted to be adored by his people, so those spreading discontent must be enemy spies.  They should be killed too, and raised as more undead to handle more labor...

And another guy in this party was a Paladin of Tyranny who just wanted everyone to recognize one leader, because that's how society functions best.  So he picked my Necromancer as that one leader, and slaughtered anyone who opposed him, while being fanatically loyal.  These two characters made a great team.  Characters like that could be great for a villain party.  Might also throw in a mad scientist who just wants recognition of his genius (Artificer perhaps?) and an assassin bent on purifying the world of chaos and you'd have an awesome team of crazed zealots who were sure they were the good guys.

Run a campaign like that, let the players loose on the world and let them remake it in their insane, twisted image.  Then start a new campaign, a few hundred years in the future, where the old PCs are still in power (with various life expanding techniques, of course), and this new team of level 1 upstarts are the real heroes who must overthrow the villains... now the last campaign was just building the campaign world for the next one!

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #50 on: September 30, 2011, 10:12:06 PM »
Run a campaign like that, let the players loose on the world and let them remake it in their insane, twisted image.  Then start a new campaign, a few hundred years in the future, where the old PCs are still in power (with various life expanding techniques, of course), and this new team of level 1 upstarts are the real heroes who must overthrow the villains... now the last campaign was just building the campaign world for the next one!

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JaronK

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #51 on: September 30, 2011, 11:30:01 PM »
I've been called a mad genius many times before (probably the child powered hamsterwheel cart in my driveway has something to do with it...) but the basic idea of "let the PCs go nuts, then those characters are the villains in the next game" is one I got off someone else a long time ago, so I can't take credit for that one.  Can't remember who came up with it though.

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #52 on: October 01, 2011, 02:05:08 AM »
I think a lot of DMs do it, good characters are good characters no matter which game they're in.

I love using old PCs as villains or for little cameos that remind the players that they had a badass character but they're in charge of a new badass now. It's also a good way to click on their restraint. Slaughtering everything GTA-style is cool and all but when they realize they might hit their old friend on accident they tend to dial it back, which is easier on the GM usually. If the old-PC-now-NPC is a villain, they still dial it back because they know what it can do. There's a respect they have for their old characters that you likely can't create in your own NPCs.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2011, 02:12:14 AM by Bloody Initiate »
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RobbyPants

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #53 on: October 05, 2011, 10:55:55 AM »
I joined a game once where the PCs from the previous campaign were the deities of the current one. The DM would occasionally consult the player for how the deity would respond (socially) in a certain situation.
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weenog

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Re: PCs as the "villains"?
« Reply #54 on: October 05, 2011, 06:14:39 PM »
I joined a game once where the PCs from the previous campaign were the deities of the current one. The DM would occasionally consult the player for how the deity would respond (socially) in a certain situation.

Reminds me of a game I played long ago where a couple of PCs became very high ranking, alignment-unrestricted angels (heralds, I guess is the term I'm looking for) for a particular god.  Their former players were also consulted about how they would conduct interaction with mortals and handle the god's business they were sent out on.  Then they really got a treat when a high power game came up in that setting with heavy involvement in that god's portfolio, and the heralds became PCs again.
"We managed to make an NPC puke an undead monster."
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