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Leliel
2009-08-06, 06:03 PM
Well, a while back, you may remember me talking about a villainess idea of mine, a powerful sorceress who wants to destroy the world in order to save it-namely, by changing history, effectively causing everything from that point on to have never existed.

Of course Beatus (her first name-her full one is actually a self-made moniker) needed a hell of a lot of trauma in her past to justify her frankly insane plan, as well as a very effing good reason for others to help her (I already decided to have the fact that they'll still exist, but "outside of time", immortal and omniscient, but that still doesn't change the fact that they're trying to send the rest of the world into total oblivion). However, I then read The Handmaid's Tale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_handmaids_tale), and given my liking for other dystopian novels (namely, The Giver), I decided to have her be an immigrant from a future, where frankly, everything has gone wrong. Besides justifying the existence of accomplices (they're refugees too), it also creates a moral dilemma-if the PCs stop her, will they ultimately be causing infinitely more suffering then she could over a thousand years?

Of course, this inevitably lends to the story hook of the PCs actually going there (Beatus: "You say you know me? You dare say you know exactly who I am? Oh, you don't realize how wrong you are...WHY DON'T I SHOW YOU!?" *Big Shiny Portal*), and seeing exactly what it is that sent the woman off the deep end. I also am toying around with the idea of showing Beatus as a teen as she is subjected to the endless trauma conga line as she slowly loses her marbles and changes from an idealistic, in-denial slave of the elite into the bitter, lonely and sad witch she is today (tomorrow?).

So, what do you think?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-08-06, 06:13 PM
"But Beatus, there are only two ways this can go: Either history is already determined for us, and we cannot change it, which makes your struggle futile, or we can change the future, in which case why not work to build a better world out of what we have now than destroy everything and hope for the best?"

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-08-06, 06:29 PM
I assume this is a very high level, story telling heavy game. The moral dilemna of stopping the bbeg or saving the world from an evil future is good. But then the players may want/come up with some way to get around this bad choice. That is they may want to stop the bbeg and save the future. So you should consider ways that that can happen. Also I would stay away from the bbeg's teenage angst and instead show the players the stark choice of the future. A novel works well in flashing back to show back the bbeg's inner turmoil. In an rpg, not so much because each players focus is on their own character.

Leliel
2009-08-06, 06:33 PM
"But Beatus, there are only two ways this can go: Either history is already determined for us, and we cannot change it, which makes your struggle futile, or we can change the future, in which case why not work to build a better world out of what we have now than destroy everything and hope for the best?"

That's true. I plan on the PCs using that line of reasoning.

She, like many madmen, however, has developed what I like to call the Kid Radd problem: "Accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution". In her mind, the formation of the ideology that led to the dystopia in the first place is what predetermined it's existence, and as long as that ideology exists, so shall her time. It's not the most reasonable plan, to be sure-then again, most villains who ascribe to the Omnicidal Maniac line of reasoning aren't the most emotionally stable people to begin with, let alone ones who have a litany of justifications for why they think that way.

As for changing the past-getting around the "Anti-Grandfather Paradox" rule of the setting is her entire plot-once she creates her "True Portal", she has a pretty good idea of how to go from there, and after that event, she can't actually lose, since she knows how to summon it.