Example: PCs in the BBEG’s underground headquarters made out of a cave. BBEG finally reveals his true plans and intents which is already in process. Players ready to deliver the smackdown and psyched up even more now that they know how far reaching and eeeeevil the plan really is. BBEG finishes up speech and dares the PCs to try and stop him. I’m about to call for initiative rolls when little brother (who is actually an inch taller and 30 lbs bigger than me now) pipes up with “You know, for a guy with such ambition I would think that you’d be able to move out of a cave by now. I mean, who did you hire to decorate this place? The Flintstones? Seriously, I think someone needs to adjust his priorities a little here.”

Needless to say, all that tension – GONE! Scary cave HQ? Now a joke. Players cracking up and BBEG humiliated in his own crib.

What could I do? I gave my brother some extra XP for the roleplaying and made him the focus of BBEG’s rage which was a bad tactic for the villain to use. The battle was still fun and we still laugh about not just the line, but how my brother used it to taunt the villain throughout the battle (power blast misses and hits cave wall, brother “Uh-oh! Your wall, I mean rock, is going to need some touch up work! You wife won’t like that! Who am I kidding? You can’t be married! YOU LIVE IN A CAVE!”).

PCs taking the villain down a notch on the social ladder is a wonderful thing.

Sure, dragging out the flirtation between Billy and Penny would make sense, build dramatic tension, and keep the audience guessing about the outcome, but it’s more often a bad idea in a game. If the drawn-out mystery behind an element isn’t interesting for the players to engage with and is just a matter of setting mood, what work is it doing? Either hit the reveal and keep going, or make sure there’s lots of other meaty things that justify the delay while it does the mood-setting work in the background.

Earlier this week I used this insight from Dr Horrible to good effect in a game. A one-on-one game of 1st ed AD&D with a 2 hp druid was dragging along a plot about a blighted town and an embezzling cleric of Isis. The investigation and mystery had run out of useful steam, and I needed to kick the session into a climax somehow. Bam! Dragon attack! Though I had to assure my player that, yes, I was serious, it brought everything to a head and the player Stepped Up and faced down the dragon. One ransom, a capricious death, an morally-grey NPC’s pathos-drenched redemption, and an “I’ll be back next year!” from the dragon later, and we were swimming in delicious closure. There weren’t even any dice rolled.

My gencon plans might have blown themselves up, but I’ll email you whenI get a chance and let you know.

@rekkener: “That you should kill off any love interest a PC has, preferably by launching metal through them in some fashion? Especially as part of a long running series of love interest killing?” Now there is a sure fire way to make the players hate a villian

@tman: BBEG’s get laughed at before they get their first volley of life destroying plot fired off. Oooh, the big wizard in robes is evil. Oooh. That’s my home village burning behind me, isn’t it? Yup.

@micah: The thing that amazed me about DHSAB was how good it was as a story. The silliness of the plot aside, I really felt for the characters.

@geeksdreamgirl: “The Hammer’s not my fists . . . ” That was a great line. My other favorites include:
“Billy: Oh, look at my wrist, time to go!
Penny: What about your clothes?
Billy: (Opening up the washing machine) I don’t love these!”

and

“That’s not a goo~d sound . . .”

and

well hell, there are a whole lot of good one liners.

Nice post!

But here’s the kick – both Neal Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion sing better than any of the male leads in that movie. It didn’t hurt that they got better songs to work with, custom made for the project.

I don’t mind if my BBEG gets laughed at – he will get respect by his actions more than anything else. So, once he’s destroyed some things the PCs hold dear or maybe kidnapped a loved one or two, I can always hit them with the Joker’s new catch-phrase, “Why so serious?”

But ignoring my hate of Whedon using character death like punctuation, this was a good article. I recently had what was meant to be menacing one liners picked up by the player as pick-up lines… Which did inspire the player/character to fight harder, so it worked, at least?

While I would not go as far as signing at the table, I agree that the tropes in this project are astoundingly weaved. I would definitively steal the ‘Bumbling, unsure’ alter Ego that gets literally push to develop it’s full potential for Evil” (while still not reaping in it’s promised joy).

Good post dear friend, looking forward to meet you in 3 weeks.