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vp21ct
2010-04-14, 10:00 PM
No really, How the hell would I do it without enraging the players. I'm certain that at least 90% of it is the villain pulling it off with style, and I have a few ideas for that, but there's still that 10% That I'm not quite sure about.

Private-Prinny
2010-04-14, 10:07 PM
If the final gambit is the crux of the BBEG's plan, then you need to include a third option, otherwise it just gets boring. Other than that, style is very important, and it also needs to be believable. Satan from Spawn is a perfect example of a good level of Xanatos, but don't pull something as outrageous as Light Yagami.

JaronK
2010-04-14, 10:07 PM
A good example of such a gambit is for him to pretend to have taken a somewhat valuable artifact and left clues that he has hidden it in a specific dungeon. In fact, the dungeon itself was created to house a different (more valuable) artifact, the one he actually wants. However, he cannot penetrate the defenses. He wants the players to chase after him to the dungeon and then fight their way through it, thus opening the way to the powerful artifact.

Just a random thought there.

JaronK

Ranos
2010-04-14, 10:15 PM
It's a lesson I had to learn the hard way but players don't really care about what's been going on behind the scenes. They don't see all the careful work and planning that went into making that perfect plan. So when your villain is monologuing triumphantly, explaining how the PCs played into his hand every step of the way, most of the time... they just won't care.

With the right group however, having the BBEG and the PCs one-upping each other with more and more complicated plans can make for a pretty fun game. Forces them to think "What IS that damn villain planning this time ? How do we outdo him ?". Implicate them constantly, and maybe it'll take.


Oh, and remember that Xanatos gambits have a tendancy to fail. Players are impredictable like that, and no contingency plan can encompass every situation. But I guess that's half of the fun.

Ormur
2010-04-14, 10:24 PM
Metagaming :smallwink:

There's nothing that says the DM can't do it too.

vp21ct
2010-04-14, 10:30 PM
A good example of such a gambit is for him to pretend to have taken a somewhat valuable artifact and left clues that he has hidden it in a specific dungeon. In fact, the dungeon itself was created to house a different (more valuable) artifact, the one he actually wants. However, he cannot penetrate the defenses. He wants the players to chase after him to the dungeon and then fight their way through it, thus opening the way to the powerful artifact.

Just a random thought there.

JaronK

That... that's brilliant -begins taking notes-

go on...

Yukitsu
2010-04-14, 10:31 PM
In a real game where you are the DM? Take little details of little consequince that the players did earlier. Weave those bits into being all part of their master plan. Have them explain how everything they did was for your ultimate goal retroactive to them doing it.

For example, players steal mcguffin, hand it to old man. Old man turns out to be evil. Players suspicious of old man and kill him? Turns out that man was a guardian who knew the only secret way to kill the mastermind. Add extra bits between getting and end and make it seem like they were all part of the plan.

In short, the best way to make someone seem omnicient is to do it in hindsight.

As a player? I usually drew lots of attention to myself, and when my enemies revealed themselves, I either picked off their leadership, or led them against one another, or tricked them into becoming my allies, or tricked them into tricking other people into becoming my allies. But then again, I'm better at xanatos speed chess, and at getting out of a pileup.

Trekkin
2010-04-14, 10:46 PM
Depending on how violent your PCs are (usually very), you can always rely on pure collateral damage. Throw a string of corrupt magistrates and the like at them, watch as they spatter the cielings with the blood of the guilty, then have the BBEG point out:

A. He was behind every tearful peasant tipping the PCs off to said corruption
B. The PCs have laid waste to the existing political structure, and in the anarchy they've left in their wake there have arisen a healthy population of avengers looking for the people who reduced their society to chaos.

"Yes, you purified the land in your...drastic way. And in the process, you've handed me the perfect army. All I need do is point, say whatever do-gooder I like has been crusading, and the land kills its own paragons of justice and virtue one by one until there's no one left to oppose me. Of more immediate practicality, right now we've got a small army out there incensed at a group of meddlesome anarchists storming castles and killing their owners, and here you are..."

vp21ct
2010-04-14, 11:19 PM
OOooo... just had a thought.

Since I'm going with Eberron Setting, That horrible Parody of a warforged titan that They tore apart after it stepped out of the unfinished Creation forge that they just distroyed.

It was merely a prototype and he now knows all the bugs that need to be worked out. The Creation forge, Obviously it was far too easy to destroy, and now that he knows why, he can build a COMPLETE one that will be far tougher.

And that doesn't even count posibilities for him to somehow escape/not-even-be-there and have the players be at the complete opposite position of his real plans. Polymorphed Warforged, Changelings, Illusion Spells. Deathtraps that the players were meant to get through so that they would then be disarmed, Ancient Guadrians to Terrible Treasures that inexplicably were also guarding some gate he needed to access. Ah man, the possibilities are begining to open to me.

I really would rather have his Gambit's and Roulettes planned BEFORE the players destroy everything, that way it seems alot more plausable, and they can't bitch at me that he's becoming a Villain Sue.

Trekkin
2010-04-14, 11:38 PM
Just remember: PCs destroy everything. So what would a villain need destroyed?

Grifthin
2010-04-14, 11:41 PM
Watch Code Geass, not so much a Xanatos Gambit as a Xanatos pile-up. Take notes, Provoke agony from players brains.

Alvrick
2010-04-14, 11:48 PM
Just remember: PCs destroy everything. So what would a villain need destroyed?

a country or two, I suppose. Let's say a BBEG wants that elven country destroyed, and maybe even the human one next to it. he sparks tensions between the humans and the elves, causing them to go to war. the human nation needs help to assault the elven forests, and the BBEG somehow plants the idea in the player's heads to get the help of the giants, or orcs,or some such being. after having razed the elven forest, the BBEG reveals to the players that he forced all this, and has been subtly manipulating the other rulers in the surrounding kingdoms, and now they believe that this human and savage humanoid alliance will proceed to wipe them out, so they gather together and start assaulting this one small country who allied itself with savage humanoids. bam. instant campaign, and jerkass villain to fight

Lord Raziere
2010-04-14, 11:50 PM
Just remember: PCs destroy everything. So what would a villain need destroyed?

something very good aligned and very powerful....

so a xanatos gambit to somehow get PCs to kill some very good being? maybe using illusions?

quiet1mi
2010-04-15, 12:36 AM
Think like the blood war...

A Clever Demon disguised as a Devil disguised priest recruiting the party to kill another Devil...

By the way, he plans on botching his disguise self and leave clues to his identity as a devil when giving the reward of one precious stone to the party... All the party will see is another devil to follow to kill. In addition, the "clues" allowed the party to use the Scry and Die tactic on the Devil...

Little do they know, that is all of the Demon's plan...

Xantos Gambits should rely on people doing X, thinking X... everyone knows that quest givers can sometimes be the true monster, but when taken into account... lets just say, you kill two devils with one precious stone...

vp21ct
2010-04-15, 12:40 AM
Think about the blood war...

A Clever Demon disguised as a disguised priest recruiting paladins to kill a Devil...

who incidentally is actually disguised as the Demon and working with drow who are disguised as elves who are setting up to incite a war between Orcs and Hobgoblins while both parties are fully aware of it and plan to use it as justification to attack the drow -deep breath- The matron of whom is fully aware of the Priest's real identity and intends to guide the players into killing them.

How's that for a Thirty Xanatos Pileup (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThirtyXanatosPileup)

quiet1mi
2010-04-15, 01:00 AM
Do not forget that despite what their character sheets say... most players are not LAWFUL GOOD... or even good....

have there be situations where the big bad plays on their vices like greed, wrath, or even lust...

The group does not have to kill or destroy anything good... they could try to momentarily remove it from the big bad's path...

The Key is to have the initial quest be something that they cannot resist, like slaying a devil or an orc.

Having the PCs kill all the orcs in a mine could lead to escalation, the orcs retaliate... The arms merchant profits...


"Yes, you purified the land in your...drastic way. And in the process, you've handed me the perfect army. All I need do is point, say whatever do-gooder I like has been crusading, and the land kills its own paragons of justice and virtue one by one until there's no one left to oppose me. Of more immediate practicality, right now we've got a small army out there incensed at a group of meddlesome anarchists storming castles and killing their owners, and here you are..."

By the way do you mind if I sig that?

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 01:03 AM
I would be honored, quiet1mi.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-15, 01:10 AM
The key is using the player's actions against them. Perhaps the PC's foil an attack by one of the BBEG's hired mercenary squads. The BBEG, needing to send a message to his/her minions about reliability and providing services that they were paid for, enacts a 3 part plan.

Part 1) Contact the mercenaries again (through an agent). Blather about "one more chance, failure will not be tolerated again. Half the payment is upfront this time. The other half is on success." They get to repeat their plan, an assault. They're instructed that those that foiled them will be taken out of the picture (they will be).

Part 2) BBEG sends an agent to the PC's. Evidently a large amount of gold has been stolen from the agent's employer, and it's been linked to the group that attempted to make the attack earlier. The agent has uncovered the location, via hired divinations, and wishes the party enter the enemy's fortress and retrieve it.

Part 3) BBEG uses a 2nd mercenary service, hired to annihilate the original's raiding party, AFTER it carries out its mission.

The playout: While the bulk of the mercenary squad is out, the PC's assault the hideout, recovering the PAYMENTS that the BBEG made, as well as other treasure. Per the agreement, the BBEG gets his money back, the party gets the remainder of the loot, making it a profitable adventure killing "Team Bad", and the villain accomplishes his original goal in the attack.

In addition: The BBEG recovers his payment for the primary mission, the half payment for the followup mission, annihilates the mercenaries who failed him, and obtains a positive working relationship with a more successful group (the PC's) for FREE. He also earns brownie points for ridding the countryside of "evil". Total end cost? The cost of hiring the second mercenary squad (with the money that the original mercs got for the botched mission).

It turns 1 failed mission into a recruiting exercise, positive PR, accomplishing the goals of the original failed mission, and a very solid message... For no additional cost. (in other words, when the PC's foiled the attack, they set in motion something that made the BBEG stronger.)

I love this particular gambit. I've used it on 2 different PC groups. Both fell for it, though one got clues (captured someone at the merc base).

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 01:16 AM
I would go further and say that to suspend disbelief, use the PC's likely actions against them. Xanatos Gambits frequently leave the players depressed at their inescapability, and they start poking holes in them; "there was no way he could have known that". Batman Gambits turn the players' instincts against them, and their cry becomes "there's no way we could have known not to do that"...at which point you point out that yes, they could have and did, if they'd stemmed the bloodlust just a bit.

In short, a possibility for failure, especially an obvious one, makes your players kick themselves a lot harder for making the plan work. The best plot rails are, after all, the ones the PCs lay down for themselves.

vp21ct
2010-04-15, 02:40 AM
So, basically, the Villain does what the DM is supposed to do, but twists it into their favor, and aren't as omnipotent nor omnicient as the DM is (theoretically).

OOOOooooo this could be fun.

Now there only remains one piece to the Xanatos puzzle left. How does he just keep getting away, without the heroes feeling like they didn't really beat him (wich they didn't, but they don't know that -evil laugh-)

Cybren
2010-04-15, 03:26 AM
don't set anything in stone, and let previous events build up to larger ones

Kurald Galain
2010-04-15, 03:27 AM
Recommended reading material: Amber Diceless Roleplaying (and also, the series of novels by Roger Zelazny on which it was based). The entire setting is a Thirty Xanatos Pileup, and the RPG offers good suggestions in how to have your NPCs pull one off.

aberratio ictus
2010-04-15, 07:43 AM
As a player? I usually drew lots of attention to myself, and when my enemies revealed themselves, I either picked off their leadership, or led them against one another, or tricked them into becoming my allies, or tricked them into tricking other people into becoming my allies. But then again, I'm better at xanatos speed chess, and at getting out of a pileup.

Could you please tell me how exactly you pull that off without massive DM support? I'd be very interested.

druid91
2010-04-15, 08:01 AM
I also would like to hear tips on how to extricate yourself from a pileup, though being able to do xanatos speed chess as a player would be a good thing to know.

Zeta Kai
2010-04-15, 08:09 AM
A Xanatos Gambit is relatively easy to set up; here's what you need:

A villain with ambition, arrogance, wits, & a flair for the dramatic.
A plan to do Wicked Thing X.
A campaign plot that makes Wicked Thing X look like Good Thing Y to the players.
The willingness to turn every event in the campaign into "just another part of the plan."

The more that Good Thing Y differs from Wicked Thing X, the better. The more that Wicked Thing X looks like Good Thing Y up until the Big Reveal, the better still. And the more elements of the campaign that you can integrate into the villain's plan, the best.

Also, save that Big Reveal for the very end of the campaign. Hold it for as long as possible, with no hint of what's actually going on. Even if the villain is already dead, the plan can be immortal.

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 08:21 AM
One thing of note I'd like to add is, unless you have extremely cooperative players, the Big Reveal probably is done best through the PCs research or interrogation of an evil minion, NOT through the villain's monologue. Monologuing works great in film and fiction because you can control the heroes' actions and really allow the audience to feel their shame and frustration... but in the game, your players will hate to be condescended to by the villain, and probably just ignore/attack him.

BRC
2010-04-15, 08:35 AM
My advice: Cheat.

Don't detail the BBEG's main plan, merely account for the PC's to succeed. Then, after the PC's succeed, look at how they did so, and work that into the BBEG's plan all along!

Then describe this with a straight face.

KillianHawkeye
2010-04-15, 08:39 AM
Now there only remains one piece to the Xanatos puzzle left. How does he just keep getting away, without the heroes feeling like they didn't really beat him (wich they didn't, but they don't know that -evil laugh-)

Xanatos always gets away because the original Xanatos was a recurring Disney villain from a Saturday morning cartoon show. Really, what else was he going to do? He has to show up in the next episode, after all. :smallwink:

SolkaTruesilver
2010-04-15, 08:43 AM
A good Xanatos gambit is a situation where the villain wins regardless of the outcome.

Remember this: watever the choice the PCs will take, the villain is da winner. That's a good planner.

If you simply anticipate the player's reaction and behavior, that's a Batman Gambit, not a Xanato Gambit.

Person_Man
2010-04-15, 09:38 AM
I'm with Trekkin on this - I try to avoid placing my PCs in no-win situations, because it makes them feel cheated. In most cases, the plot tree should have certain choices that they can make that lead to success, and certain choices that lead to failure, and once they get to point X they should learn the importance of the choices (Gee, we really should have investigated that shapeshifter before accepting a quest from him).

I would also say that complex plot lines almost never come to fruition in my group. The PCs are just too good at coming up with unpredictable choices and wrecking things (or forgetting they ever existed). Any Gambit that requires more then 2 game sessions to come to fruition just doesn't happen.

Yakk
2010-04-15, 09:46 AM
In a game where the DM is running the protagonist Xanatos (or Batman) as well as being DM, being unpredictable is about the only way to not be chumps.

Indon
2010-04-15, 09:55 AM
It's actually fairly easy to run a Xanatos Gambit as a DM.

Just don't actually do the gambit part - whatever happens as a result of the situation, make up, on the spot, some benefit the gambitter obtains as a result of the PCs actions. Possibly have him throw in a, "It's not as good as if they did <X>, but..." to give the players a measure of satisfaction at a partial thwarting.

If you actually do the gambit, it can possibly backfire. If you don't, it almost certainly can't, unless you want to reward your players for being extra creative.

Mind also Person_man's point about no-win situations. Xanatos was an awesome Magnificent Bastard, but he was a poor villain. He was more a stock antivillain, and oftentimes even actively and genuinely helped the Good Guys (and basically went outright antihero as the series went on).

The Xanatos character type makes for a poor BBEG - he's more the type to team up with your party against the BBEG. This allows you to show his 'gambits' in a less serious light, something more like a game played between two clever players than a contest with something vital on the line. Have the Xanatos benefit not by being able to slaughter orphans, perhaps, but by gaining political or economic power for himself - which he may even later use to help out the PCs.

There is one more important point about the Xanatos gambit, from the master himself - when they backfire - and they occasionally do backfire - the PCs end up having to bail him out of it, at which point the Xanatos must generally come clean, humble himself, and handsomely reward the PCs.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 10:59 AM
Retroactive omniscience is one of the easiest ways to get your players to cry foul; either you have some kind of super-seer to resolve the plot hole (unfair!) or you rely on the players' capacity to believe their seemingly random actions were playing into some grand plan (improbable!).

Both Gambits require a fairly jarring event in the villain actually winning. It's best to have the fault of that sit squarely on the shoulders of the heroes, rather than hammering the PCs with an even greater sense that they were just helpless pawns who couldn't win no matter what they did, because their omnipotent DM handed them a villain armed with The Power of Plot that they will feel was designed specifically to falsely outsmart them. And when the PCs feel helpless and inconsequential, you have character suicide and/or players leaving the table in frustration.

Elements of the Xanatos Gambit are fine; trapping the players in a box with no choice but how they want to lose, even if you construct that box after the fact, will raise cries of railroading.

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 11:10 AM
It's actually fairly easy to run a Xanatos Gambit as a DM. Just don't actually do the gambit part - whatever happens as a result of the situation, make up, on the spot, some benefit the gambitter obtains as a result of the PCs actions. Possibly have him throw in a, "It's not as good as if they did <X>, but..." to give the players a measure of satisfaction at a partial thwarting.

Also known as: railroading. The players fell for the gambit because the Universe realigned such that the villain's objectives were fulfilled by their actions. I believe this is why the OP wants help creating the gambit in the first place, because if he takes this course, his players are guaranteed to cry foul.

On the other hand, if you mean to have the villain find some way he still wins out no matter what the PCs do, in-game, that's totally cool- Xanatos Speed Chess makes for interesting and clever villains, the kinds who constantly scheme to turn the PCs against themselves. The kind that PCs love to hate.

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 11:15 AM
I really would rather have his Gambit's and Roulettes planned BEFORE the players destroy everything, that way it seems alot more plausable, and they can't bitch at me that he's becoming a Villain Sue.

That is going to be very hard. Players are rather unpredictable unless you are yourself smart enough to pull one of these on them without them knowing.

aberratio ictus
2010-04-15, 11:19 AM
As you seem to have overlooked my question, I'm going to ask it again:


As a player? I usually drew lots of attention to myself, and when my enemies revealed themselves, I either picked off their leadership, or led them against one another, or tricked them into becoming my allies, or tricked them into tricking other people into becoming my allies. But then again, I'm better at xanatos speed chess, and at getting out of a pileup.


Could you please tell me how exactly you pull that off without massive DM support? I'd be very interested.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 11:24 AM
I've never found the players that unpredictable. They like to kill people, break things, steal, and get more powerful; they are a force of destruction, chaos, and all that other fun stuff. It's the problem of randomness; any individual act falls to the flip of a coin, but over time it averages out. The trick is to make sure the players' overall actions lead to the Xanatos winning, rather than any specific action.

If you do need a specific action to go a specific way, put on your best poker face and don't draw any attention to it beyond what you normally would.

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 12:04 PM
Could you please tell me how exactly you pull that off without massive DM support? I'd be very interested.

Goal: To unite the disparate tribes into a singular powerful nation which was internally peaceful to stop all of the random violence across the small tribes. My own leadership of the new nation would not have been desireable. Basically, I was playing Lelouch, but before code geas came out.

The first thing I did, was traveling, learning about all of the techniques and differences across the various nations that made life better or worse focusing on agriculture. We were traveling adventurers anyway, so that made a good and convenient pretext for my studies. When I got back, I started piling on the agricultural reforms to some of the nations, creating a rift in the geopolitics of the region. This increased the tension between groups who had more food, and the regions that gained more and more by raiding. It broke the status quo, starting walled communities with professional patrols against people who increasingly turned to raides. I also got paid annually in grain.

During my down time, I founded an academy of magic, which I used mostly to teach enlightenment theories to the young people who would oppose the status quo. My intentions now relatively transparent, individuals who prefered the status quo sent various agents to oppose me, but had not yet appeared. They tainted the coastline with necromantic energies polluting the shellfish that the villages relied upon for survival. Being the iconic psycho wizard in an ivory tower teaching necromancers among other things, the villagers came to my doorstep with pitchforks and torches. Instead of denying anything, I just said "Well, if you can't sell any of it, I would be glad to buy all of it at the cost of untainted local shellfish." The villagers were wary, but I paid them in gold up front with my adventuring loots for the entire years harvest, plus some of my grain stores. Using the magic of the academy, I dispelled the corruption on the shellfish and sold it to the inland desert communities along with blocks of conjured ice for a profit.

Oh, and the mysterious agents whom were opposed to my goals also tried to assassinate me a couple of times. Which indicated to me that they weren't exactly subtle.

More importantly, this seemed to be the reveal of my main opposition to my cause. I started divining the agent whom had tainted the water, and could not find the answer, and given my level of divinations, this indicated a fairly powerful entity. We also went down the shore, and found various abominations from the far realms, so I suspected my goal of unity and order was opposed by something from the far realms.

Using the new revenue from the sales made, I began a proxy war by slowly funding a violent raider chief to conquer and gain a large army. That aspect of my plan never came to fruition due to some odd events.

Approached by high level good aligned outsiders, they asked if they could have my character's first born child, which I agreed to if they taught me the rudiments of time magic, which I wanted to learn simply so I could send messages to myself from the future to the present. (because it would be a more accurate form of divination). After some muddling about, my character whent for a belt of gender swapping and became functionally non-playable. My DM and I had an OOC agreement that my future self could be sent back via a wish from the outsiders since they were getting more out of this than I was.

However, this lead to a hickup when someone had placed an epic artifact in my path, which gave me massive uber powers and made me chaotic evil. Oops.

So anyway, NPC future me, and go to bed ridden normal me who can no longer physically fight, but I have got the means by which I can outwit future me. So while evil future me is gathering together an evil army and taking over the world, normal me got a bunch of people together under one really likeable, charismatic and morally sound leader to oppose me. So while both present me and future me are diviners, I had discerned that future me and present me both counted as me for the purpose of divinations (what am I going to do today would get two sets of results) so my diary, in which I'd written all events up to a week in advance was the same for me as it was for err me. Except the other me had about 9 months of extra notes.

So at this point in time, I started falsifying my own notes for future events culminating in my own non-lethal defeat, the capture and destruction of the evil artifact, and the re-goodifying of future me via a helmet of opposite alignment. To make sure future me didn't remember present me beating him when present me became future me, I then erased my memories of the events of those weeks with a thought bottle.

So anyway, we've got this charismatic leader now who has enough support to pull together a large chunk of the tribes under a much more benevolent rule trying to keep out the raiders who are increasingly defecting to the new leaders rule, which is when of course, my enemy who keeps putting hurdles in my path appears which is apparantly a really weak pantheon of gods of chaos. Damn. They appeared exactly as planned, but still, not what you want to appear.

So anyway, these strange outsider Gods start threatening us, and I, being of an aberant mind, sort of know their weaknesses but not in any really useful way. We managed to seal one away with a massively buffed sepia snake sigil before tossing it into the far realms. The next one we managed to blast to pieces with the concerted efforts of all of us with much difficulty, and the last one I blew away by myself because it was a pushover.

So que at least 12 years of solidarity and political stability in the region so far.

How do I know my DM wasn't helping me along too much? I didn't ever tell him what I was going for, and his response to half of my actions was "Why on earth are you doing that?"

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 12:13 PM
I've never found the players that unpredictable. They like to kill people, break things, steal, and get more powerful; they are a force of destruction, chaos, and all that other fun stuff. It's the problem of randomness; any individual act falls to the flip of a coin, but over time it averages out. The trick is to make sure the players' overall actions lead to the Xanatos winning, rather than any specific action.

Oh, man, this is the worst. Yes, PCs tend to be exceedingly predictable. Among other things mentioned so far, I believe you can safely assume the following:

* The PCs will always win if things come to physical violence
* The PCs will always find a way for things to come to physical violence
* The PCs will believe themselves unassailable by anyone who is not a named BBEG about which the campaign revolves
* The PCs will take no personal initiative to find adventure (despite their stated profession as adventurers), they will rather wait idly for you to give them a direction

How to take advantage of this? The easiest way is for your villain to be secretly in charge of whatever quest-giver you're using to spoon-feed the PCs the plot. But that's so cliche. Better: the villain maintains a secret monopoly on all the local magic item shops. He plays an evil mastermind against which the world can send adventurers, just so he can sell those adventurers his merchandise at a huge profit.

What? All the best Xanatos-villains are Dangerously Genre Savvy.

aberratio ictus
2010-04-15, 12:26 PM
story

Thanks fo sharing, this sounds like it has been a fun campaign. :smallsmile:
Sadly, my DM has a cruel streak to he (of course, she's fun otherwise) and wouldn't have let me get away with things like this.

Indon
2010-04-15, 12:27 PM
Also known as: railroading. The players fell for the gambit because the Universe realigned such that the villain's objectives were fulfilled by their actions. I believe this is why the OP wants help creating the gambit in the first place, because if he takes this course, his players are guaranteed to cry foul.

On the other hand, if you mean to have the villain find some way he still wins out no matter what the PCs do, in-game, that's totally cool- Xanatos Speed Chess makes for interesting and clever villains, the kinds who constantly scheme to turn the PCs against themselves. The kind that PCs love to hate.

However do you think characters like Xanatos are written? The problem with doing supergenius gambits before-the-fact is that you actually have to be the supergenius you're trying to depict in order to pull it off.

And it's not railroading. Railroading is about restricting choice from the PCs. The Xanatos gambit allows the players to choose precisely how the Xanatos gets to benefit vs. how he is thwarted. Say the return of a stolen McGuffin would allow the Xanatos to achieve public renown as the one public figure who put trust in the heroes. But if it's not returned, the Xanatos just goes out to the black market and buys the McGuffin for himself.

And yeah, Abd makes some good points there, particularly about genre savviness.

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 12:29 PM
Thanks fo sharing, this sounds like it has been a fun campaign. :smallsmile:
Sadly, my DM has a cruel streak to he (of course, she's fun otherwise) and wouldn't have let me get away with things like this.

Easiest way around that is, don't explain what you're doing until you've already done it. Then ask what the implications of that are. In terms of really, really loaded questions. "Hey DM, these guys all have tons of food and money, while all these guys don't. What are they going to do to react to that?" etc.

In that instance, it was pretty much a given how they'd react. The people without food would want it, and the people with it would want to keep it. Cue the various strategies used by both sides in an escalating conflict.

Oh, and be prepared for everything you do to screw over subsequint adventuring parties if your DM is at all manevolent.

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 12:43 PM
However do you think characters like Xanatos are written? The problem with doing supergenius gambits before-the-fact is that you actually have to be the supergenius you're trying to depict in order to pull it off.

Sorry, didn't mean that to come out as mean-spirited as I think it looks now. But I do believe there's a difference between being an actual supergenius, and outsmarting four-six relatively predictable people one time when you control the entire world and have infinite resources at your disposal.

I'd say that someone else already offered the best advice (sorry not to give you personal credit, but I'm writing in a hurry), that the best way to construct your gambit is to have two obvious outcomes, one where the villain wins, one where the villain loses, and in both cases the villain comes out net ahead. This also means that when the PCs eventually find a third option, they have actually outsmarted the villain as players, which is awesome because they're now not just thinking like PCs: CRUSH! KILL! IGNORE!

aberratio ictus
2010-04-15, 12:46 PM
That would be a good idea theoetically, but my DM sometimes lets her NPCs react in weird ways. In the given example, she either would decide that the fist group of people suddenly discovers its heat of gold (without any indication to this sort of thing beforehand) and share their goods with the others, that the second group simply doesnt want to fight (even if they had been described as some kind of warrior tribe, for example), or that suddenly some wealthy noble takes over the second group and brings food with him. My plan dies.

Once I had a lawful neutral fighter charakter, who also was a noble fighting a losing fight against a neighboring nation. To gain support from the quite strong order of paladins of the world, my charakter and the rest of the group helped them get out of a extremely dire situation involving an army of demons.
Of course, she anticipated what I was planning for, so the paladins... never even thanked my charakter for helping them. They didn't even let me in when I knocked on their main fortresses' door. My DM said they had better things to do than to talk to me, even though the demon army had been banished from our world due to our actions for the time being.
Oh, the neighboring country my charakter fought against? Lawful evil.

Trust me, it's not as bad as it sounds, it is just making it impossible for me to carry out plans that involve manipulating people. My DM seems to just hate being maniplulated or her NPCs being manipulated.

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 12:52 PM
You should be able to make your plan based entirely off of the DMs contrariness then. Make it clear that you intend to gain something from one direction (which you must actually want) but then get something different and better if you're shot down.

aberratio ictus
2010-04-15, 01:00 PM
How do I prevent her from shooting me down without me gaining anything?
Maybe I'm too tired to understand you right now, sorry.

Closak
2010-04-15, 01:10 PM
I have a situation here that i would like you people to find a solution too.

You see, there's this Elder Evil that wants to destroy the Multiverse, problem is it cannot manifest withing reality directly and can only influence Evil beings within the Multiverse or squeeze tiny aspects of itself in.

So the plan is to use one of the PC's as a conduit to channel itself through.

First it uses a significant amount of it's power to squeeze a small part of itself into reality in a well-hidden spot.

Then it rests to recover from the effort.

When it wakes it begins to influence the minds of Evil beings across the Multiverse, setting up a Sorting Alghoritm of Evil and arranges so that the moment the PC's beats one villain the next one on the ladder appears.

This is all to force the PC's to become stronger so they can actually be used as a conduit instead of insta-gibbing the moment it tries to manifest in them.

After the PC's reach a certain level of power it ensures that they come upon this small portion of itself it squeezed in earlier, to them it is merely a powerful artifact neccesary to give them the power boost they need to beat the next villain in the chain.

After reaching the second last villain (The one before the Elder Evil) they find out what's going on.

They end up with the choice of.

A: Continue fighting, stop the current villain, but in the process reach the level neccesary for the Elder Evil to channel through the artifact, into one of them, resulting in the end of the multiverse.

B: Do nothing, let the current BBEG win, the multiverse is destroyed anyway.

And there is no way to get rid of the damn artiface, it's gone and bound itself to their very essences so it's impossible to get rid of.

They could try fighting against it when it possesses one of the PC's but with the level of power it has they would be slaughtered in the first round.
Then the multiverse goes boom!


Wonderful, the goddamn Elder Evil has them in a no-win situation, it ends with the utter obliberation of all things no matter what they do.


Solution?
Anyone?
Is there any way for the PC's to come out on top there?

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 01:13 PM
The mean way is to do the logical ignoring plot from then on. If the NPCs are deliberately not rewarding you for your obvious hard work, why would your group work for them? You can usually convince the rest of the party to basically turn mercenary, which is generally much more lucrative. It has the risk of ruining the DM's game though, if your DM can't cope with on the fly changes.

The other way is to not accomplish things for people until certain agreements are made, and then to make sure it looks like you're holding all the chips when the DM tries to go back on it. For instance, with the paladins and what have you, don't try to manipulate them into helping you after you've won, tell them you'll only win if they help.

Lastly, in your situation, I would have used binding magics or techniques to defeat the demons that are reversable, and placed them between the paladins and the evil nation. During the fight with the demons, I would have said "I'm hear on behalf of the paladins" etc so they know who to be vengeful against partially. Advertise to both sides where the demons are. If the paladins don't clash in the center to stop the evil people from releasing the demons, well, that's their problem, not yours.

Of course, the best course of action is to do all three.

Indon
2010-04-15, 01:39 PM
Solution?
Anyone?
Is there any way for the PC's to come out on top there?

Subvert the artifact's function in some way (perhaps by subbing in a good god and becoming angelic avatars).

Become too spicy for Yog-Sothoth (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooSpicyForYogSothoth) by becoming too pure to be usable as a demon vessel - break out the BoED!

Team up with the Big Bad to help beat the Bigger Bad.

Transform themselves in some way that make the artifact incapable of working.

Help a larger, lower-level group defeat the BBEG instead.

Just_Ice
2010-04-15, 02:10 PM
Just have your PCs destroying stuff be to the villain's benefit every time.

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 02:17 PM
You should be able to make your plan based entirely off of the DMs contrariness then. Make it clear that you intend to gain something from one direction (which you must actually want) but then get something different and better if you're shot down.

So instead of manipulating the NPCs, you advise manipulating the DM directly? Interesting. You should also hack his friends'/family's e-mails so you can send him misleading e-mails, supposedly from those he cares about, and thus control his mood/attentiveness. And steal his campaign notes, of course.


Help a larger, lower-level group defeat the BBEG instead.

I actually really like this plan.

Closak
2010-04-15, 02:20 PM
Subvert the artifact's function in some way (perhaps by subbing in a good god and becoming angelic avatars).

Become too spicy for Yog-Sothoth (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooSpicyForYogSothoth) by becoming too pure to be usable as a demon vessel - break out the BoED!

Team up with the Big Bad to help beat the Bigger Bad.

Transform themselves in some way that make the artifact incapable of working.

Help a larger, lower-level group defeat the BBEG instead.


Out of those the second and last ones are the only ones that have any chance of working.

The other ideas are doomed from the start due to the nature of the being responsible for the whole mess.

Still, two long shots are better than no hope at all.
Worth a try at least, even if the odds are not exactly in our favor.
Then again...there is that rule about how the million to one chance always works...

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-15, 02:34 PM
The PC's need to feel like they're succeeding.

The PC's need to not know the real BBEG, ideally.

The PC's need to advance the bad guy cause through good guy missions.

The PC's need to piece together coincidences, and realize they're being played for a patsy.

The PC's when they do try to move against the BBEG, that needs to be accounted for. The BBEG should know that the PC's will figure out that every time they leave somewhere, something bad happens while they're gone. They will come investigating. That's when they get framed for doing what the BBEG has been plotting.

Now, they know part of the truth, but they're in a bad position.

vp21ct
2010-04-15, 02:37 PM
This occurs to me. Perhaps the primary villain 'shouldn't' be a Xanatos.

In all likely hood, a person who works through Xanatos gambits will be of a neutral allignment, rather than evil. Infact, just now, something occurs to me.

What's the one thing more dangerous than a man who manages to turn every single action anyone makes to profit.

A man who manages to turn every single action into destruction.

I doubt the Xanatos will stand for the Joker.

Yukitsu
2010-04-15, 02:42 PM
So instead of manipulating the NPCs, you advise manipulating the DM directly? Interesting. You should also hack his friends'/family's e-mails so you can send him misleading e-mails, supposedly from those he cares about, and thus control his mood/attentiveness. And steal his campaign notes, of course.

No, because that would be metagaming.

If your DM always does the opposite of what you want, you can be pretty certain the NPCs will always do the opposite of what you want too.

Besides, that was PVP not DMVP.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 02:50 PM
vp21ct, you've hit on it. The PCs are the Joker. Now make a Xanatos who plans on the PCs acting as a far-reaching explosion of ultradestructive chaos, some combination of Alex Delarge and the Comedian.

And uses them to destroy things he can't be seen destroying.

And then has them destroy something that will in turn destroy them.

Vangor
2010-04-15, 07:50 PM
A simple way is the ole Wizard Tower. Inevitably, everyone occupying this tower fights with one another in some way or another, but the pursuit is singular in amassing power for the tower. Apprentices may plot and scheme against other apprentices or the master, but ultimately tasks require all to band together and the experience and efforts of the master to progress the affluence of a specific school of magic or focus within the tower. Masters plot against one another, but each is concerned with the affluence of the tower itself; they may seek alliances in short term, may create alliances which are built by mutually assured destruction, may possess alliances which are made when realizing both are wasting their resources on the other, and far more. Further, the depths of the Wizard Tower undoubtedly hold a lich or two.

An artifact awakens.

Imagine how many apprentices want a chance to claim the item for themselves, but need the power of a masterful wizard to be able to, or hope to control this by proxy until taking for themselves? And what wizard does not desire powerful artifacts but considers how difficult truly finding the object is and how dangerous the protections might be necessitating banding together? Besides, artifacts can be used for various ends which might again allow certain masters to use the artifact by proxy to reach personal goals while not drawing attention in order to take the object after the person wielding this is felled. Others can simply wait for this knowing full well a person is being manipulated.

Wizard Towers and organizations are the obvious choices as within they can offer necessary assistance, direction, antagonism, and more to the party.

In the end, a Xanatos or a Thirty Pile-Up is inevitable because the Wizard Tower is practically a zero-sum game where if a master falls, this is a vacuum to be filled or one less barrier to further power. Ultimately, a master may desire the artifact removed and given to the players by creating a beacon for the others to focus on outside of the tower.

Bucky
2010-04-15, 11:45 PM
Solution?
Anyone?
Is there any way for the PC's to come out on top there?

A properly timed level drain effect should work temporarily. The most obvious follow-up is suicide, perhaps even followed by a raise dead.

Alternatively, the PCs can arrange things so that they are outside of the multiverse when the Elder Evil tries to go off. I don't know exactly what happens if it tries to channel its doomsday spell inside a sealed extradimensional space, but I don't think it's what the Elder Evil wants.

There is always the option to find something even more powerful, if such a thing exists. Barring that option, and tampering somehow with the ultimate spell, any solution will involve a heroic sacrifice of some sort.

Set
2010-04-16, 12:32 AM
A version of a Xanatos gambit allows the players to win, and doesn't actually rob them of their victory, while simultaneously giving the bad-guy what he wants.

If one bad-guy is horribly outraged that another bad-guy stole his girlfriend or whatever, he can manipulate good adventurers to march their way through his arch-nemesis' forces and defenses, just so that he can take pleasure in the destruction of his hated foe. The good guys have still beaten the heck out of a bad-guy, and that they were armed and guided like evil-seeking missiles by yet another bad-guy doesn't really lessen their victory.

A bad-guy might have been cursed with immortality, and decide to overcome this curse by making himself an enormous threat to the local countryside. Cue adventurers showing up to destroy him. If they succeed, his goal, to die, is acheived. His death may touch off a certain prophecy (much like the end of last season's Supernatural), or he may 'become stronger than ever if you cut me down, Darth', or he may just finally find the sweet oblivion he's been denied so long. By killing the bad-guy, the heroes are giving him what he wants, and in the 'nicer' versions, there was no secret agenda, he just wanted to end his cursed existence. In the shaftier versions, his death touches off something. Perhaps the god(s) who cursed him to be unkillable are weakened by this failure of their 'unbeatable curse,' and some other force strikes against them, their aura of infallibility having been cast aside. Perhaps the gods were truly arrogant and said, 'So long as we live, you cannot die!' and if the PCs find a way to even temporarily kill him, the gods suddenly feel a brush with mortality, as the curse strikes back against them, and what was unkillable (such as them) becomes subject to death. That's more of an Epic thing, 'though. :)

Maybe he just wants the forces of good to go beat up the orcs of sheboygan while he pillages the royal treasury, while it's strongest defenders are all out there inspiring the army of Right and Good.

Maybe he just wants to mine the Caverns of Chaos, and all those pesky humanoids are in the way. Let the adventurers come in and slaughter them, and then he can move in after they've gotten their heroes reward and the parade in their honor, and set up his mining concern, using the animated corpses of the dead humanoids as workers.

Maybe the Slave Lords of the Undercity are unwelcome competition, and he helps them defeat his rivals, even leaving them a little 'care package' of weapons and gear hidden in the slave pens, after they get captured, so that they can fight there way free and destabilize his biggest competitors.

Maybe he's a CE Halfling Ranger, and that Paladin chick has been pissing him off so much that he's manipulated her into killing him while he's unarmed, knowing that he'll be ressurected within the hour, but she'll have fallen *forever.* That's a Xanatos Gambit right there!

FatR
2010-04-16, 01:44 AM
No really, How the hell would I do it without enraging the players. I'm certain that at least 90% of it is the villain pulling it off with style, and I have a few ideas for that, but there's still that 10% That I'm not quite sure about.
Don't. Ever. Xanatos Bull$#@%, as prevalent in modern media is 50% auithor's total control over the events, and 50% a charismatic villain's ability to convince viewers/readers that he's smart, while in truth he's your usual megalomaniac, who just has plot bending over backwards for him (which often seems to be intentional, but completely missed by the villain's fans, portrayal). Well-portrayed schemer characters should try to make their plans very simple, and, if we talk about DnD, never include "pissing off a group of superhuman, constantly powering-up, career killers" (as already mentioned, original Xanatos was Saturday morning cartoon villain - in DnD, unlike Saturday morning cartoons, immediately trying to gank the villain will be most likely reaction) in any of them, unless they believe they can dispatch this group right on the spot.

vp21ct
2010-04-16, 02:27 AM
Perhaps, and I'm only theorizing here, but just maybe, a Xanatos would be far better in a Scoundrel type campaign, than in your normal setting. (Not least wise because a scoundrel type campaign has a crap load more RPing than in most)

Pyron
2010-04-17, 09:59 AM
Don't. Ever. Xanatos Bull$#@%, as prevalent in modern media is 50% auithor's total control over the events, and 50% a charismatic villain's ability to convince viewers/readers that he's smart, while in truth he's your usual megalomaniac, who just has plot bending over backwards for him (which often seems to be intentional, but completely missed by the villain's fans, portrayal). Well-portrayed schemer characters should try to make their plans very simple, and, if we talk about DnD, never include "pissing off a group of superhuman, constantly powering-up, career killers" (as already mentioned, original Xanatos was Saturday morning cartoon villain - in DnD, unlike Saturday morning cartoons, immediately trying to gank the villain will be most likely reaction) in any of them, unless they believe they can dispatch this group right on the spot.

I agree with this. I've been in a game where the DM pulled a Xanatos on the party. It came across as another Richard Maneuver. The game fell apart shortly after.

Needless to say, to say, there is also the risk that any Xanatos Gambit will come across as a Roulette, which will happen when you try retroactive twist any of PC's victories against them.