On the subject of depraved practices

[shadow_archmagi]

So, in the Worst Rules Interpretations thread, the subject of virgin sacrifices came up.

Now, this leads to an interesting debate in my mind.

1. Do I have villains do particularly horrible things, like burning children or virgin sacrifices? Leading to my friends questioning my sanity?

2. Or do I bowdlerize my adventure? Leading to myself feeling like a disney writer?

3. Or do I find some level of "appropriate" evil, where villains order villages burned "ESPECIALLY THE BABIES!" but it all happens offscreen?

[Piedmon_Sama]

Remember you're writing a game, not a novel. You don't have to include savage, serious looks at the cost of war or dark introspectives into the black souls of men unless you want them. If that's not the kind of story your players want to take part in, I've had to learn you can't make them. I tried for ages to get across my adventures as horror-themed, but my players always react like pulp heroes, gritting their teeth and tossing off a one-liner.

Anyway, George Orwell once said the reaction of most people to obscenity is to refuse to be impressed. If you really overplay it and have STACKS OF MOULDERING INFANT CORPSES IMPALED ON BLACK SPIKES SURROUNDING A BASALT ALTAR WHERE THE GUTTED BODIES OF SHAMEFULLY NAKED VIRGINS SURROUND A GRINNING EFFIGY OF NARL-SOGYA OF THE THOUSAND PUCKERING MOUTHS, your players' reaction will be to rebel against such an obvious ploy and they'll probably throw jokes at you. Be moderate, hint rather than overstate, don't waste your breath with long descriptions of viscera and entrails but let their imaginations play a large part.

[Xefas]

1. Do I have villains do particularly horrible things, like burning children or virgin sacrifices? Leading to my friends questioning my sanity?

2. Or do I bowdlerize my adventure? Leading to myself feeling like a disney writer?

3. Or do I find some level of "appropriate" evil, where villains order villages burned "ESPECIALLY THE BABIES!" but it all happens offscreen?

All are valid ways of doing things. Not all villains are the same. Not all games are the same. Not all people who play D&D are the same. There's no sweeping 'correct' answer.

Generally, I have my demons and devils do 1. My humanoids do 2. And my humanoid demon/devil worshipers do 3. And that sums up the majority of my main villains.

[Anxe]

Burn the babies!!! I do #3. Do the depraved stuff, but keep it off camera.

[Jergmo]

So, in the Worst Rules Interpretations thread, the subject of virgin sacrifices came up.

Now, this leads to an interesting debate in my mind.

1. Do I have villains do particularly horrible things, like burning children or virgin sacrifices? Leading to my friends questioning my sanity?

2. Or do I bowdlerize my adventure? Leading to myself feeling like a disney writer?

3. Or do I find some level of "appropriate" evil, where villains order villages burned "ESPECIALLY THE BABIES!" but it all happens offscreen?

Have your villain create a race of atomic monsters! Atomic supermen with octagonal bodies that suck blood... *Wanders off cackling and muttering mad things*

[jmbrown]

It depends entirely on your audience. History is filled with many unforgivable and deplorable acts that we consider taboo but were once forgivable practices. For example, in some Indian traditions a widow would burn herself at her husband's pyre.

Personally, I feel you're dishonoring yourself as a writer by ignoring history in your writing (assuming the writing is based in realism and not comic book fantasy) as literature has assimilated mythology since the rennaissance era. It was Shakespeare who practically popularized the idea of ritualistic murder and single handedly made it a literary cliche! One recent trend I hate is when really old stories like Tintin and MGM cartoons are censored or changed because they depict what we now consider to be rascist and bigoted material.

Simply put, if you're trying to write a realistic story with color coded morality then you're doing yourself a huge disservice. On the flipside, there's a blurred line between what's realistic and what's fetishism. Most of us are adults here so I won't go down that path.

However, and this is important, I respect the audience's right to know "What the heck is going down before it goes down." Some people don't like it which is fine. Everyone's entitled to their choice and you should respect that. If you're running a game that's particularly deplorable in subject matter, you owe it as DM to warn the players before hand. It's only the right and respectful thing to do.

[Haven]

Compromise.

Have babies order dungeons burned "ESPECIALLY THE VILLAINS!"

[awa]

in my experience less is often more for several reasons. If you spend to much time describing things the pcs are going to get both bored and or desensitized. Its often better to imply rather then outright say it and save the worst for the meanest boss. That said i find that if you make a villain particularly horrible the pcs will get more out of final killing him.

[jmbrown]

Forgot to mention, anyone who wants to know the line between realism and "gross, perverted stuff" should do a google search for F.A.T.A.L.

You may be disgusted, you may laugh your butt off, you may just do both.

[Jergmo]

In all seriousness, though...eh. My villains vary. At the beginning of my campaign I already have over half a dozen plot-centered encounters and only two of them have evil-aligned enemies. A smattering of different kind of villains create more options to explore and make things interesting. And personally I'd save the rivers of baby and virgin gore for a particularly nasty Evil Outsider like a powerful Demon, where it's reasonable that that's their sole motive, being the physical manifestation of pure Evil and Chaos. The sickest I had a mortal villain be was an Evil Illusionist, who created Illusions that simulated the most disturbing things imaginable to mindrape people for giggles, rather than actually carry them out. But, I use the Sanity system, so that helps make things like that possible.

[Jergmo]

Forgot to mention, anyone who wants to know the line between realism and "gross, perverted stuff" should do a google search for F.A.T.A.L.

You may be disgusted, you may laugh your butt off, you may just do both.

And it's oh so realistic!

[mistformsquirrl]

For me this varies widely and depends on the tone I want to set for the adventure/campaign. So I'm going to answer each question with "When and why I would use each method" - because I think each has merit; but must be used in an appropriate setting in order to function.

1 - If I want a darker campaign, absolutely I'll do that stuff right in front of the players. The goal of course is to make them truly abhor the villain - not just in a generic "because he's the bad guy" way; nor even in the abstract 'he's burned dozens of villages, killed thousands and is on the verge of destroying the world...' way.

It's essentially a way to give them a VERY personal stake in dealing with this foe. I want even the Chaotic Neutral rogue who'd sell his own grandma to have to feel a twist in the guts.

However that's only applicable to a darker campaign - one that's firmly based on a grey morality where even the good guys cross the lines regularly, and the bad guys are so far over the line they've crossed it twice.

For a more upbeat campaign, doing something like that can turn your players off - or make them find *you* disgusting - which is obviously not the goal. (Of course handled deftly it can work even there; but you have far less room for error in such a campaign, and it needs to be kept rather rare in order to work right.)

2. For a comedy campaign or an optimistic-type campaign ("Sure, things can be bad... but they'll get better!") - there's absolutely nothing wrong with this approach. The main key is to make sure that even if they get kind of silly (Snidely Whiplash), they still are worth going after because they do present a threat - even if that threat is somewhat hilarious.

(Ex: Threatening to destroy an entire nation... by summoning a gigantic cream pie that will drown everyone in miles of delicious filling.)

Or for a more serious but still upbeat campaign, looking at actual Disney villains isn't bad. Jaffar, Scar, Ursula... they can be pretty over the top and a bit campy; but they still have that certain bit of menace that definitely makes them worth going after. You get that feeling that while, yeah, they're having good fun being villains... the world isn't going to have so much fun if they actually *win*.

3. I'd consider this your "typical" D&D campaign level of villainy. Plenty of truly horrible stuff happens; but you're generally rather detached from it by a little bit. IE: It's not your family getting murdered; generally speaking your characters aren't likely to see most of the villain's major evil deeds except long after the fact.

There's enough "... what a horrible person..." sentiment to get the players to do something about them; but it's not something their faces are rubbed in overmuch, so you don't get that twist in the guts very often. The players are likely to hate the villain on principle; but it won't be as personal as it could be.

This option can be used in even very dark or very optimistic campaigns. In the former, the key is to bait the character with the villain's left-overs.

A line of bedraggled half-dead peasants slowly making their way into town; the only survivors of a raid.

Charred skeletons of all ages and sizes.

A lone orphan crying in the ruins... etc...

Essentially - the actual villainy happens off camera; but you'll still get the effect.

For the latter - a more optimistic campaign; you'll probably want to avoid the above for the most part and keep the players somewhat happily detached. It's easier to be optimistic when you only have to swear revenge for a place you only know of in the abstract and people you never saw, live or dead.

---

All of the above said; most campaigns will have a little bit of everything with a degree of bias, rather than being all one of the 3; but it's useful to split them apart and see what ticks in each at times.

[Michaelos]

Having a variety of Villians is best. Mix up Really Evil, Standard Evil, and Not as Evil Villians. The reason is, you don't want your players thinking "Yep, another Depraved lunatic with no redeeming factors... again. Just kill him, if we try to capture him or talk him down, he'll just kill us in our sleep... again." I've deailed a few villian samples below.

For the actual description of the Evil, you don't necessarily need to go into a lot of details. When my Evil Fertility Goddess came up against the new Chaotic Time God, she came riding in on a massive orgy of her worshippers, Primarily as a morality based area attack defense) Then when the fighting was over, and all her worshippers started fleeing to avoid being killed, The PC's later found out a fair portion of them got slain by some of the Tough monsters nearby. A massive portion of them just seemed to vanish. This bothered the more moral PC's for quite a while.

When earlier, a PC had her VoP cohort captured by a more Sadistic Evil and had someone trying to break his VoP by using a magic item to save children from explosive runes spells, The PC's, after having to fight the Suicide Bomber children on the way in, and fighting the Dominated Girlfriend of the Druid on in the same area, Coup de Graced the Enchantress after she stabilized because No, they would not allow such a horrible person to live and have a chance of escape.

On the other hand, when the PC's had a monster that tried to trick their Gish into giving up a spellbook with Illusions, they ended up using Diplomacy to negotiate specifically because they were refreshed that the creature didn't seem to be as malicious as several of their other foes, and ended up going on a diplomatic streak just because it turned out to be very affective.

Foes have had motivations from all ends of the spectrum and to all sorts of depths, and it keeps things interesting.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

None of the above. Make your villians realistic. They have goals, they're trying to accomplish them, and if someone dying will help that goal, well, too bad. Not every villian is Manson or Hitler, some are just greedy or enjoy pain a little much.

[Worira]

Or for a more serious but still upbeat campaign, looking at actual Disney villains isn't bad. Jaffar, Scar, Ursula... they can be pretty over the top and a bit campy; but they still have that certain bit of menace that definitely makes them worth going after. You get that feeling that while, yeah, they're having good fun being villains... the world isn't going to have so much fun if they actually *win*.

I can't believe you didn't mention Frollo.

[lvl 1 fighter]

Bad things happen in a game world because at some level it's a simulation of the real world, where bad things also happen.

Some actions can be described without horrifying people. A theft or killing doesn't have to be gruesome to be an example of the Evilness of the Villain.

Some more terrible actions can be dealt with off-camera or without a serious description. Example: "Ok, we torture the guy until he tells where the money is buried."

Some actions will not be described at all in my dnd games. If it absolutely needs to happen for the story it happens off-camera. But there is almost always a way to adjust the story where it doesn't need to happen. I'm speaking of abuse, rape, serious descriptions of sadistic torture. Those Evils exist in the real world. I don't need examples/reminders of it in my fantasy gaming hobby.

[valadil]

I usually aim for R rated games. There will be scenes where you know sex is happening, but they're off camera.

As far as making your villains heinously despicable goes, your best bet is to prepare for anything, watch your players reactions, and stop as soon as you've disgusted them enough.

"He broke into a house, seemingly at random."
Players nod, but this is nothing special.
"It looks like there was a scuffle between him and the husband."
Players look concerned, but not especially bothered.
"It seemed like a fair fight till he found the old man's cane."
More of the same, I don't need to elaborate.
"And caved the man's head in with it."
And now your players get the picture. Some may be disgusted, some not. I like crossing lines so I'd go another step.
"He chased the wife into the kitchen and knocked her out. Then he found the knives."
Players are horrified. End scene.

You may have some ideas for what could have happened when he found their infant son. But you've already disgusted the PCs and there's no reason to go on. You are using depravity to elicit a reaction from the players. Once they've reacted in that way there's no further reason for depravity and you should stop.

[FlawedParadigm]

My campaigns usually have a lot of focus on redemption rather than murder, where possible. Once in awhile, it IS satisfying to decapitate/explode/turn a bad guy into a newt, but by and large, especially if my villain is humanoid, I very much prefer my players attempt to subdue an enemy and make some attempt to redeem it rather than just nick its neck. I've even been known to give out special awards to characters who make a habit of mercy.

Why do I bring this up? Because depraved acts have their places in establishing who's who. If a particular villain is beyond redemption for whatever reason, having a scene with some squick or a moral horror involved can get the point across that they're dealing with a real scumbag without having to say something as blunt and game-mechanical as "there's no point in trying to negotiate with this guy." If the PCs walk in on the bad guy and his two closest cronies using the (living) body of the prince's eight year old daughter as an archery butt, it becomes clear without having to say a word that this villain is an utter fiend, and not only ensures the PCs know they can't redeem this one, but gives them a great sense of accomplishment to take the sicko out. Even if the villain in question had been a mildly likable guy or even an ally previously, a scene like this will get the players' blood boiling from in milliseconds.

I know I've had some villains do things that make mere virgin sacrifice look downright cuddly if that's what it took to get the players properly motivated - like any other emotional response, terror can have its purposes when making a story. I might recommend George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series for this in action; he does not pull punches when it comes to setting a scene, and writes some of the morally best and worst characters (morally speaking) with great skill. He even makes some disturbingly likable characters out of utter jerkwads. If you haven't read the books, but wish to, they're called A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and a Feast for Crows. We're expecting A Dance with Dragons later this year.