Let me Monologue, dagnabit!

[clothaire]

How many movies are there where the evil genius gives away their entire plan and rationale in a moment of over-confidence? Hundreds. How many comic books are there where the villain stops fighting for a second to say "we're not so different, you and I..."? Countless.
How many times have my PCs allowed a villain to get in a single word before they starting raining arrows and fireballs on him? Zero

Please, just once, let my villain, the star NPC of the show, have a moment in the spotlight. Let him give a crazed rant about power. I'll keep it short, just a few lines! I've tried everything, from having the vampire lord start talking the moment you open the door to his lair, to having the cultist begin speaking from behind an innocent human shield: none of it works!

And yes, I'll weave the same world-building points into a conversation with a mayor later, and I'll have the now-rescued human shield explain the villain's plan. That's not the point! If the only thing a villain does is get ambushed, they're not very interesting.

I swear to God that all my BGs from now on will know hold person. Or maybe I'll just stop writing monologues

[Koo Rehtorb]

Magical intercoms.

[NecroDancer]

Use illusions to deliver the speeches and to provide a distraction so the villian can sneak up on the heroes

[shadow_archmagi]

Give the PCs a powerful item that takes 30 seconds to charge. Then they'll not only let you monologue, they'll high five at how smart they are for letting him monologue while they power up.

[Solaris]

Use illusions to deliver the speeches and to provide a distraction so the villian can sneak up on the heroes

^ Do this at least once.

Players metagame all the time and play innocent. The least they could do is metagame in your favor every once in a while.

[Mechalich]

I've tried everything, from having the vampire lord start talking the moment you open the door to his lair

How, exactly, are the PCs pre-empting this? Talking is a free action, and you are the GM, combat starts when you say it starts. You can easily squeeze in a few lines before anyone is allowed to roll initiative.

If you're monologueing and a PC rolls to attack and cuts in with something like 'I roll a seventeen to hit' you are absolutely within your rights to say 'it's not your turn, no, you don't.' Games are collaborative, and the GM gets to participate too. Obviously it's not cool to go on and on like you're accepting an Oscar, and sometimes the PCs should get the drop on the villain and gank him in the back, but players who aren't being reasonable about this aren't being very fair. They wouldn't appreciate being instantly cut off in pre-combat dialogue either.

[hymer]

I'll add handouts, talking to the players, and a good opener:

Handouts of the villain's power-mad scribblings can work. They can serve as exposition and give clues to treasure. Let them do both to train your players to pay attention to mere words (maybe have an NPC point out that they're missing a clue to treasure if they don't read stuff - perhaps by getting the treasure for themselves). It can be the villain's notes to self, but also dispatches to underlings.

Talking to the players would help you find out why they avoid the monologues. If it's because they find them trite and cliché, then you should probably drop them altogether. If they're just worried they're wasting an opportunity in combat, explain to them how they're not. If they feel it's the best way to play their characters, maybe you need the vaillian's rants to be more personally important to one or more PCs.

A good opener grabs the PCs' attention and makes them want to hear this guy out. I'm your father, only I know the code to the safe, did you know I sent my henchmen to pick up your family, etc.

[Lorsa]

I think you have two options.

Either you tell your players straight out that you want to hold evil monologues with your villain NPCs, and ask them to hold off killing until it is done, or you skip them entirely.

Personally, I go with the second option.

[Martin Greywolf]

If your villain waits until the PCs are in his hidey-hole before he starts talking their ear off, you've waited far, far too long. Best villains appear a lot sooner to do the necessary exposition, when PCs have no way of attacking them for one reason or another. One staple of this is overheard conversation, when your characters are sneaking around and don't want to be discovered, another is "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to dine" - PCs and villain run into each other in public where overt violence would be a no-no. Annual balls and other social functions work well for this.

Another option, though tricky to pull off, is a villain so powerful that fighting him would be foolish at best. Cardinal Richelieu from Three musketeers is a great example of such a villain, not the least because all his power lies in his influence - hell, he's even a friendly antagonist, because revenge is bad business, and he'd rather have the musketeers working for him.

The most rewarding, and most difficult, is a villain who isn't really a villain as much as an antagonist - PCs kinda like the guy, but their goals are opposed. If you manage to pull this off, PCs will grasp at straws to figure a way out of a situation without it coming to blows - which has a nice caveat of starting every confrontation with this guy with a lengthy talk.

Now, most of these are not monologues, but monologues are considered terribly cliche for a good reason.

Oh, and if you just want to get some character injected into your villain, allow no-actions-needed mid-battle banter, and say something rather cutting every round, see if your PCs will just ignore the guy then. This may be the best way to do exposition about plans, honestly, and it makes fights be more than "I roll for 5 damage". More along the lines of "I'm shocked that you never gazed at your wife."

[Delusion]

If your villain waits until the PCs are in his hidey-hole before he starts talking their ear off, you've waited far, far too long. Best villains appear a lot sooner to do the necessary exposition, when PCs have no way of attacking them for one reason or another. One staple of this is overheard conversation, when your characters are sneaking around and don't want to be discovered, another is "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to dine" - PCs and villain run into each other in public where overt violence would be a no-no. Annual balls and other social functions work well for this.

Another option, though tricky to pull off, is a villain so powerful that fighting him would be foolish at best. Cardinal Richelieu from Three musketeers is a great example of such a villain, not the least because all his power lies in his influence - hell, he's even a friendly antagonist, because revenge is bad business, and he'd rather have the musketeers working for him.

The most rewarding, and most difficult, is a villain who isn't really a villain as much as an antagonist - PCs kinda like the guy, but their goals are opposed. If you manage to pull this off, PCs will grasp at straws to figure a way out of a situation without it coming to blows - which has a nice caveat of starting every confrontation with this guy with a lengthy talk.

Now, most of these are not monologues, but monologues are considered terribly cliche for a good reason.

Oh, and if you just want to get some character injected into your villain, allow no-actions-needed mid-battle banter, and say something rather cutting every round, see if your PCs will just ignore the guy then. This may be the best way to do exposition about plans, honestly, and it makes fights be more than "I roll for 5 damage". More along the lines of "I'm shocked that you never gazed at your wife."

Seconding all of this.

How, exactly, are the PCs pre-empting this? Talking is a free action, and you are the GM, combat starts when you say it starts. You can easily squeeze in a few lines before anyone is allowed to roll initiative.

If you're monologueing and a PC rolls to attack and cuts in with something like 'I roll a seventeen to hit' you are absolutely within your rights to say 'it's not your turn, no, you don't.' Games are collaborative, and the GM gets to participate too. Obviously it's not cool to go on and on like you're accepting an Oscar, and sometimes the PCs should get the drop on the villain and gank him in the back, but players who aren't being reasonable about this aren't being very fair. They wouldn't appreciate being instantly cut off in pre-combat dialogue either.

This I wouldn't do. It sounds ridiculously immersion breaking to me.

"I shoot him while he is standing there monologueing."
"No, you can't. You don't roll initiative until he is finished."

Combat rounds are abstractions. Characters are acting mostly simultaneously, they don't wait doing nothing until people with higher initiative are finished with their turns. Stopping player from acting until the monologue is finished because you haven't allowed them to roll initiative yet would just break the fourth wall too much for me to take the rest of the scene seriously as a player.

[Satinavian]

Basically there are two options :

- You don't care if it is realistic or not, the adventure follows the rules of drama and those demand appropriate speaches at certain times. You need players who want to play that way.

- You make sure there are realistic, compelling reasons to hear the monologue. Entrenched positions/fortifications/awaited reinforments... situation where there is nothing to be gained from acting now and nothing lost by talking are important. And when there exit reasons to back down or a chance (well and incentive) to avoid bloodshed by diplomacy, you will regularly get your speech.

[Stealth Marmot]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...gIsAFreeAction

Anyway, I played in a group that actually allowed both players and DM to say "aside" or "Monologue" and doing so would pause everything for dramatic purposes to allow someone to make a speech, either to a specific person or a group respectively. This usually wasn't done mid-battle but occasionally was. The idea was simply to not abuse it. I suggest you bring up that idea with the group.

It was worth noting however that if someone didn't specify the monologue that time would be passing normally. There was one incident where we scryed and teleported into a villains area and he started negotiating. My character hid, trying too act as if I wasn't there, and I figured out what was going on but yelling out "HE'S DELAYING YOU UNTIL THE BUFFS WE CAST WEAR OFF!" would have given away my position.

I was tempted to have my character just ditch right there.

[hifidelity2]

Give the PCs a powerful item that takes 30 seconds to charge. Then they'll not only let you monologue, they'll high five at how smart they are for letting him monologue while they power up.

I like this one

[Blackhawk748]

Have a monologue button. Like an actual button that sits on the table (i used one of those wall lights you press and lights up) and when its on the person who hit it gets to monologue. The fun part is the players can hit the button too. We came up with this idea for an Oriental style game and we felt that overly dramatic monologuing was important. It was also hilarious as me and another player used it all the time and we hammed it the hell up.

[Segev]

Hit them with dispelling effects before they run into the villain. Have the villain buffed with an unfair array of short-duration buffs. While the PCs are re-buffing, monologue. Have him mock them for attacking while he's so well-protected as part of this monologue if they try. By the time he is done monologing, they can be buffed again and his are near wearing off.

[D+1]

That's what Project Image is for.

[Xuc Xac]

Some initiative systems sort actions by type. For example, "move magic missile mêlée" where all movement happens first, then spells go off, then missile attacks, then mêlée attacks last. This is usually done to give spellcasters and archers a chance to do something before getting charged and locked into mêlée by a quick swordsman with a high initiative.

You could just retrain your players by using a "dramatic initiative" system: talkers go first, then movers, then non-combat actions, then attacks go last. That way, everybody has a chance to say something (and maybe flip some switches, activate items, drink healing potions, etc.) before the attacks. The vampire lord gets to chew some scenery and call the PCs "lowly cattle" or something, the party paladin gets to mouth off about how "the power of (insert deity here) compels you" without missing an action for the sake of hamming it up, potion junkies can juice up, and then fighting. Next round, everybody gets another chance to exchange verbal barbs and quips. This also helps the pure fighter types simulate sword fights with pauses to circle each other and do more interesting things than "I take a five foot step and take a swing at him... Again." Eventually, players will just get used to talking being one more thing that happens in a fight and not something to try to skip for tactical advantage.

[Stealth Marmot]

Some initiative systems sort actions by type. For example, "move magic missile mêlée" where all movement happens first, then spells go off, then missile attacks, then mêlée attacks last. This is usually done to give spellcasters and archers a chance to do something before getting charged and locked into mêlée by a quick swordsman with a high initiative.

You could just retrain your players by using a "dramatic initiative" system: talkers go first, then movers, then non-combat actions, then attacks go last. That way, everybody has a chance to say something (and maybe flip some switches, activate items, drink healing potions, etc.) before the attacks. The vampire lord gets to chew some scenery and call the PCs "lowly cattle" or something, the party paladin gets to mouth off about how "the power of (insert deity here) compels you" without missing an action for the sake of hamming it up, potion junkies can juice up, and then fighting. Next round, everybody gets another chance to exchange verbal barbs and quips. This also helps the pure fighter types simulate sword fights with pauses to circle each other and do more interesting things than "I take a five foot step and take a swing at him... Again." Eventually, players will just get used to talking being one more thing that happens in a fight and not something to try to skip for tactical advantage.

While a perfectly valid form of initiative, this is a lot like having your whole house dug up and rotated 90 degrees because the sun got in your eyes in the morning instead of buying a window shade.

This initiative process changes the way initiative and combat works DRAMATICALLY. Sure it's not a bad basis for an initiative style, but it would affect so much about how combat works that just about everything else about combat would be affected, including the game's balance.

Personally, I vote for the Monologue button. If there is a situation or setting that is not made better with giant buttons, I have yet to see it.

[Darth Ultron]

If your at the start of a combat type encounter and the characters are ready or a fight and you have a bunch of ''kill, loot, repeat'' roll players, then sure they will just attack and you can't monologue. So the most obvious thing to do is not have a combat encounter.

Have a role playing encounter, with no combat. Of course, you need a group that agrees role playing is something they want to do. After all, if you bother to ask, most players will say they want ''50% role play and 50% action''. Assuming the players are not just lying, you will then be able to do a pure, no combat, role play encounter.

Having the NPC do a monologue during dinner is a classic. Even if the players don't go to McEvil's castle, he can still show up as a dinner guest. Or any other such activity.

The rules are full of ways to defeat the characters, without killing them. So you can have them all forced to listen to a monologue. A lot of PC are optimized, so you will need to ''force'' the defeat to happen or out optimize the Pcs.

[VoxRationis]

The classic "I will destroy the world in X way" monologue is unlikely to fly. Even in situations where the PCs would be punished for attacking him (such as social events), the PCs are likely to consider it worth the consequences to knock out a world-ending villain before he can prepare for combat. So you might want to keep the monologuing to subjects less attack-worthy, or otherwise make it clear that they can't just knock him out with a quick volley from ambush. Have the PCs meet the villain while they're too low-level to fight him—possibly showcasing him defeating an opponent they couldn't handle, even as a team. Or have the villain monologue through intermediaries. His heralds come, demanding land and water as signs of submission—heck, they might just read the whole monologue from a scroll. His enemies meet with the PCs and explain what a threat the villain is and how important it is to bring him down.

Or maybe just break up his monologue into little snippets you can give round-by-round, if the fight with the villain is appropriately long (padding with minions helps in this regard).

[Tiktakkat]

Start having villains gasp out partial clues as they die, then leave enough other partial clues that the players suspect that they killed him before he could reveal the location of the +20 MacGuffin of Kewl, or the key to stopping the Apocalypse of Doom that is about to strike their kingdom/home/favorite tavern, or just a chance not to walk into the Gratuitous Trap or Inappropriate Damage.
After a few, they may reconsider giving the villains a chance to blather on a bit at dramatic moments.

[Jay R]

It wasn't my fault! The DM sent an epic-level vampire after us. This was a villain far beyond our abilities, and he wasn't going to kill us. He was there to prove his powers, monologue, and inspire fear.

We were slowly going down. Most of us were trapped where we couldn’t hurt him at all, but my Ranger got behind him. I probably was only getting one shot before he took me down.

I rolled a 20. That’s a critical hit if I confirm it, which I did.

So I roll a percentile die for the critical hit. We're using an old Critical hit table from an early issue of The Dragon. I rolled 00.

00. Decapitated. Immediate death.

The DM moaned, “He didn’t even get to do his monologue.”

But I didn't attack him before his monologue. He attacked us before his monologue.

[I generally prefer to win with good tactics and intelligence, but occasionally pure dumb luck can be satisfying, too.]

[BarbieTheRPG]

You could take a tip from the Darkknight trilogy: introduce the villains as allies.

In " Batman Begins" Ras Al Ghul tells Bruce Wayne what he means to do while training him as a mentor. In "Darkknight" Joker explains his plan while imprisoned even saying he likes Batman. Dent explains his mindset to Wayne over dinner. In "Darkknight Rises" Wayne learns about Selina Kyle while dancing with her and he gets Talia's mindset while talking with her. She's a survivor.

Villains should be more than the one-dimensional foe. They should have ties to the setting that allow the PCs to interact with them BEFORE the big fight. This makes for phenomenal twists.

It's an old screenwriting formula: a foe, a nemesis, and an anti-hero. Goyer uses this perfectly. With multiple oppobents, the GM can hide the main villain even disguising them as an ally who shares their motive with the characters.

Mastering writing tips makes you a better GM. I promise ;)

[flond]

Also...see if they've been...trained for lack of a better word to do this. If a villian's ever used a monologue as time spent to set something up, or otherwise run out the clock with talking...well that's a pretty strong incentive to never ever let it happen again.

[Cluedrew]

What? The STRB (Story Telling Regulatory Board), who's standards are followed both by the Adventure's Union and Villains Inc. recommends at least 35 seconds of villain monolog before a notable battle and up to 2 minutes for a final show down. There is a story behind this, but I forget what it is.

[Yuki Akuma]

Can't you just ask your players to let you read the cool monologue you wrote?

You're meant to get to have fun, too.

[Solaris]

Seconding all of this.



This I wouldn't do. It sounds ridiculously immersion breaking to me.

"I shoot him while he is standing there monologueing."
"No, you can't. You don't roll initiative until he is finished."

Combat rounds are abstractions. Characters are acting mostly simultaneously, they don't wait doing nothing until people with higher initiative are finished with their turns. Stopping player from acting until the monologue is finished because you haven't allowed them to roll initiative yet would just break the fourth wall too much for me to take the rest of the scene seriously as a player.

By this logic, you can interrupt someone else's attack with your own action without using a readied action.
Combat rounds are abstractions. That means the NPCs get to finish their rounds, too.

[Koo Rehtorb]

That means the NPCs get to finish their rounds, too.

The NPC has every right to take six seconds of his monologue when it's his turn.

[clothaire]

What? The STRB (Story Telling Regulatory Board), who's standards are followed both by the Adventure's Union and Villains Inc. recommends at least 35 seconds of villain monolog before a notable battle and up to 2 minutes for a final show down. There is a story behind this, but I forget what it is.

Don't worry, I sent a formal complaint to the STRB. I expect a response in 6 to 8 business days.

Lots of great tips in this thread, most of them come down to "git gud at writing, son" Definitely going to try out the "inappropriate monologue at a dinner party" idea real soon.

[Cluedrew]

To clothaire: Thank you for running with that.