GM question. How does your villain get to talk?

[grandmaster z0b]

Well for starters the GM should be running the game which means that just because a player says something doesn't mean it automatically happens. As a GM I'll often just say "Can you please wait until I've finished talking before we roll for initiative." It's not 100% realistic but usually all the players are happy with it for dramatic purposes.

The other thing is to run combat slightly comic book style, where the characters have long conversations whilst in combat, punctuated by the occasional "ooff", "hrng" or "hai-ya!". This is convention that has been readily adopted by Hollywood as well.

This is how I would have handled it; after the GlitterBoy announces he's going to fire I would explain that he will need to aim his gun first (I'm presuming he hasn't already announced he is aiming for the head) which gives the villain a chance for a defensive action or even to quickly say "If you kill me you won't know ...." I think the players will hesitate when they realise there is something for them to hear.

The GM really needs to know the players personalities (or their characters depending on how well they roleplay), if this guy is a trigger happy, shoot first kinda guy (and everybody I know that's played a GlitterBoy is) then the villain needs a backup plot protecting device.

He could have the remote control to a massive bomb (or TW rift generator or whatever) in his hands so when the GB says "I shoot" the villain replies "If you kill me you kill us all!"

He could have a suprise hostage "If you kill me you'll never know where your daughter/mother/brother/wife/best friend/small child is!"

Or finally the very simple invisible force field ;
GM: Your gun lets out an almighty BOOM but the fletchettes seem to stop mid air and hit the ground, the villain laughs ..."I picked up this little trinket from a alien d-bee" he says tapping the Naruni force field strapped under his cloak.

[Mech-Viper Prime]

hmmm i would used a clone or a lackey in armor just like his, let the players think they killed him as his plans get closer to becaming unstoppable

[Subjugator]

Recently as a GM a ran into a situation which might repeat in the future. My NPC villain (who was showing no hostility, but the players knew was a villain) was about to speak, revealing important plot information in a stereotypical villain rant, when the glitter boy in the party says "I'm going to shoot him in the head".

This brings to mind a question I have. What ways have you devised to let your villains talk without getting shot mid-sentance?

My response would have been...

*click*

"Oh! You notice that I replaced all of your ammunition with dummy rounds? *laughter* Surely you don't think I'd stand before you and speak knowing that you had functional weapons to use against me, do you?"

Sub

[Steve Dubya]

Of course, the easy way around this is to just let the GB kill the guy - and then the party has to figure out how they are going to go about getting the info that they might have required.

After once or twice of having to go to a whole lot of extra effort (and perhaps minimal XP) to get info that they might have obtained without being so bloodthirsty, most parties get the idea.

[Subjugator]

For that matter, the NPC would instantly become a were of some sort, a vampire, a Mega-Juicer, an alien intelligence with 2,000MDC, or something else entirely.

[Killer Cyborg]

Recently as a GM a ran into a situation which might repeat in the future. My NPC villain (who was showing no hostility, but the players knew was a villain) was about to speak, revealing important plot information in a stereotypical villain rant, when the glitter boy in the party says "I'm going to shoot him in the head".

This brings to mind a question I have. What ways have you devised to let your villains talk without getting shot mid-sentance?

My villians don't generally talk, especially not to reveal important plot points. There are usually only 5 situations in which the villian will talk to the heroes:
1. The Villian is already defeated
2. The Heroes are already defeated.
3. The Heroes don't know that he is the Villian.
4. The Heroes are not face-to-face with the Villian. (A Villian might taunt them over the phone, through notes, etc.)
5. The Heroes initiate conversation before engaging in combat. Then he might answer a question or two. Or he might just shoot the Hero in the head while the Hero is talking.

[Dead Boy]

This brings to mind a question I have. What ways have you devised to let your villains talk without getting shot mid-sentance?

I know you won't like this answer, but shooting the bad guy in the head in mid rant is a player's prerogative.

But if you as the GM really, really want the baddie to finish his dialogue, have him make amazing feats of Spiderman-esque dodging ability till he can get it out ... and then play nice by the rules.

[Wise_Owl]

Well my players and me have whats called a GM-Player Concord. Sort of like the Social Contract. It grants each side unrealistic cliche's fo genre for the sake of game-play and everybodies fun. The aforementioend 'We don't shoot right away' doctrine works both ways. It also pulls into my "I don't hound you so you have no place to rest, regenerate or repair" doctrine.

As for your particular conundrum. Well of course there is the classic utilizing a Hologram/Illusion. The other avenue is GM Fiat. They don't know what your guy is capable of, so hey, Let him take the GB Shot and laugh it off. Without knowing the specifics of the villain in question?

I think the problem you have is a lack of a certain level of maturity in your players, or that your players are 'gamists' in that they see things as a conflict, while your a narativist (you see things as selling a great story).

Or, maybee just modify your style. Your players might not want plot, they want to win, so give them tougher, but less speachy villains(plus I gotta ask why any GB would be firing a Boom-gun in a situation where a party is in face to face talkign with a guy... I mean isn't the rest of the party deaf...)

[Nekira Sudacne]

Recently as a GM a ran into a situation which might repeat in the future. My NPC villain (who was showing no hostility, but the players knew was a villain) was about to speak, revealing important plot information in a stereotypical villain rant, when the glitter boy in the party says "I'm going to shoot him in the head".

This brings to mind a question I have. What ways have you devised to let your villains talk without getting shot mid-sentance?

My response would have been...

*click*

"Oh! You notice that I replaced all of your ammunition with dummy rounds? *laughter* Surely you don't think I'd stand before you and speak knowing that you had functional weapons to use against me, do you?"

Sub

my response to that would first be to ask myself "what realsitic opporties has there been to do this to my power armor sinse the last time I fired a shot that worked.

if, for exsmple, the entire time between the last fight i used it and the villian showed up was spent intirerly inside my armor, my next responce would have been to take my copy of rifts and hit you upside the head with it.

nothing pisses me off more than GM's who arbitraily take stuff with no regard to precautious or realisem. if you can't stand me using something, don't give it to me in the first place.

[Subjugator]

my response to that would first be to ask myself "what realsitic opporties has there been to do this to my power armor sinse the last time I fired a shot that worked.

if, for exsmple, the entire time between the last fight i used it and the villian showed up was spent intirerly inside my armor, my next responce would have been to take my copy of rifts and hit you upside the head with it.

nothing pisses me off more than GM's who arbitraily take stuff with no regard to precautious or realisem. if you can't stand me using something, don't give it to me in the first place.

I totally agree with you. I'd only do it if it was plausible.

Sub

[Subjugator]

my response to that would first be to ask myself "what realsitic opporties has there been to do this to my power armor sinse the last time I fired a shot that worked.

if, for exsmple, the entire time between the last fight i used it and the villian showed up was spent intirerly inside my armor, my next responce would have been to take my copy of rifts and hit you upside the head with it.

nothing pisses me off more than GM's who arbitraily take stuff with no regard to precautious or realisem. if you can't stand me using something, don't give it to me in the first place.

Let me be further clear - to me the story is all. I won't hose my game by being stupid in the story...I'll make the story work and that's the beginning and the end.

Sub

[grandmaster z0b]

You can always go for the "Aha! I had a naruni force-shield! And now I cast my spell of legend shield so I can finish speaking!"

*sniff* did anyone evenn read my post?

[Nekira Sudacne]

my response to that would first be to ask myself "what realsitic opporties has there been to do this to my power armor sinse the last time I fired a shot that worked.

if, for exsmple, the entire time between the last fight i used it and the villian showed up was spent intirerly inside my armor, my next responce would have been to take my copy of rifts and hit you upside the head with it.

nothing pisses me off more than GM's who arbitraily take stuff with no regard to precautious or realisem. if you can't stand me using something, don't give it to me in the first place.

Let me be further clear - to me the story is all. I won't hose my game by being stupid in the story...I'll make the story work and that's the beginning and the end.

Sub

the story is all, but the story need to adapt to the characters.

after all, what's the point of me playing in a game who's outcome has already been decided? I want some say in the damn story!

for in the exsample above, if he was about to reveal some major plot point, when they just haul out and shoot him, what I do is have it so when they go though his belongings looking for valubles (which players like that always seem to do...) they find a clue as to what the plot points were. story continues from there.

[Traska]

the story is all, but the story need to adapt to the characters.

after all, what's the point of me playing in a game who's outcome has already been decided? I want some say in the damn story!

for in the exsample above, if he was about to reveal some major plot point, when they just haul out and shoot him, what I do is have it so when they go though his belongings looking for valubles (which players like that always seem to do...) they find a clue as to what the plot points were. story continues from there.

Actually, what I'd do is have them find a clue leading them to, say, a villiage about 400 miles away. In that villiage (at the specified address), they find a computer that's password protected. 20,000 credits buys them access, in the form of a city-rat who actually already knows the password. The files within lead them to another, minor villain... but they have to actually find him first. After a lot of sidetracking (during which time they've been expending supplies with little to no gain), they catch up with the minor villain, and interrogate him... only to have him tell them "Wait, didn't you already take down [major villain] a month ago? You should already know all this by now... that guy n ever could stop himself from bragging about his plans! What, you don't got ears?"

They waste time, money,and effort only to find out that they could have known all this earlier if they hadn't been trigger happy.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm curious why anydbody would resort to the cliche of the old "Before I kill you, I'm going to brag and reveal key information to my secret plan" in the first place.
Do your villians also put captured PCs in slow moving, easily escapable death traps, then leave and just assume that the hero is dead?

[grandmaster z0b]

You can always go for the "Aha! I had a naruni force-shield! And now I cast my spell of legend shield so I can finish speaking!"

*sniff* did anyone evenn read my post?

yup

Thanks! Now I feel better

[Killer Cyborg]

Hmmm, I think the original intent of the thread was lost. I wasn't asking for advice. The Glitterboy shot him but it wasn't enough to waste him, so he managed to get in a few other sentances before teleporting away. As for the deafening thing, the glitterboy knew the party was standing right next to him so he used a laser rifle.

I was more asking about how individual GMs handled that kind of situation, it mostly seems the "force field" option is the way most would handle a character that needs to talk to a trigger-happy glitterboy face to face.

I've played in those situations, and have never been happy with the force field option (although there's never been a really good in-game reason for it when I've seen it; it alway is pretty blatantly the GM saying "No, you can't do this!")

To answer your question Killer Cyborg. Yes, he IS that kind of villain. He's powerful, but just not all that good at being a villain. His antics are deadly but hilarious at the same time.

That sounds fine. I was worried that this was something that people saw all villians as doing.

And to adress the issue you put into place Nekira Sudacne (And Dead Boy), I allowed them to shoot him without any GM fudging. They wanted to shoot him, and they did. The plot I had lined out for the next adventure will have to be altered slightly to take into account the player's actions, and their shoot first ask questions later mentality.