RPG Tips With Crimson #2: Make the PC's into Villains. · 8:07pm Jun 28th, 2018
In the beginning there was a Game Master, and over the course of seven days he created a perfect world full of intrigue, villains, heroes, and magic. Then on the seventh day he invited Players to come and create Player Characters to act as their avatars in the Game Master's perfect world. Within three hours the once perfect world was destroyed by these supposed heroes going on a murder hobo rampage. To the NPC's of this world, this was the first sign that the end was to come. To the Game Master, it was his first clue that something was very wrong.
We've all been there as a GM. You set up your campaign, have your players start playing in the world and suddenly you realize you made a horrible error as these supposed heroes start doing really destructive, sometimes straight up evil things. Robbing the local duke because their a rogue with no self control. Manipulating someone into being their slave. Killing criminals without hesitation instead of arresting them. These can all be a major theme and problem in a role playing game. Yet they also seem to be all too common, especially for new players who have played maybe a little too many video games.
So how do you fix this? You could railroad your players and force them to behave. This is a tactic that I experienced in my very first game of Dungeons and Dragons ever, and I hated it! Another tactic is to let the players have their actions come with consequence. Have the cops come to arrest the murderous 'heroes', but then the players will probably just kill the cops and if your unprepared for that being a turning point in your game, it may just ruin everything.
I have heard so many different options for how to handle these players, almost all of them trying to tackle the problem of how do you make the players into heroes. Yet I have rarely ever heard anyone suggest that you just let the players play the game they really seem to crave. Why not just let them become the villains?
Gonna be honest here. I have heard so many people bad talk games where the players play as evil characters. Yet it wasn't until I started a game last year where my more villanous players were gang members working for the crime syndicite, Candy's Empire that I realized those warnings were inaccurate. This game had the players working for the crime lords as a group of thugs and working their way up this empire to the top. Their were a few simple rules in their gang, 1. don't get caught red handed. 2. do not kill a hero (for a defeated hero is a joke, a dead hero is a martyr). 3. do not kill cops.
With those three rules the players came up with amazing plots and devious schemes to rob banks while framing enemy gangs. How to sabotage the political landscape, and even ended with a mission to break into the heroes base and rob them.
It was the first time I saw these players come together and really think about their actions, the consequences of said actions, and role play rather than roll play. Of course I also threw in my 'give them property' rule as they had their own base of operations which could be under threat by enemy gangs or cop raids. I ran a second group under the same story line and saw something I never thought possible after years of playing. The group actually became heroes once they decided that they were going to topple Candy's Empire by working their way up to the top and killing the leader.
Now a question that I did have was originally; "if the players are villains then what happens if they kill all the important NPC's and Heroes? What happens if they just become bigger jerks to the world?" Good news is that the world has consequences for such actions. If they want to destroy the world a group of heroes will rise to the occasion and try to defeat them. Or maybe an army would show up. Other villains might even see them as a threat to their plans and orchestrate the players downfall. Point is, the world actually became more dangerous for them as now they could not rely upon the forces of good, cops, armies, or heroes to help them out of their own messes. If they were careless they'd create twice the amount of enemies then before and that would be their downfall. Point in fact the players learned this one in the second session where because they were not careful and pissed off another bad guy, the dude came in and trashed their base with a group of thugs.
So if you have a group of players who cause problems by being jerks in your world, maybe create a campaign where they are actually the bad guys? Heck even if you have a super self controlled group you could throw them into the villain role and see where that takes them?
absolutely brilliant, more GMs should try that
4891212
yeah I was completely shocked how well this worked myself. Thankfully some of my players are also GMs so they've learned from this experience too. (Also lets me hope to get to play a villain myself someday XD)