Villains: More Than The Sum Of Their Abilities

One of the "GM traps" I strive to avoid in the SCRPG is to play villains in combat as a collection of abilities that they'll use round after round.  I've probably made this worse for myself by writing 230+ sets of tactical notes on this blog, which were really intended more for other folks borrowing an unfamiliar baddie than for myself.  They're still in my head to some degree, and the temptation to just follow the script I've written is considerable.  That's really a mistake in my opinion.

Villains should be using their abilities regularly, but you shouldn't ignore their other options either.  At the very least, move around.  If you have mobility powers, use them to go interesting places in the scene.  Slugging it out in the bank lobby is fine, I guess, but what about ducking into the vault so you're harder to gang up on and outflank?  If you're intangible or can teleport without needing line of sight or otherwise get in and out of closed vault you can slam the door shut and use it for hit-and-run strikes.  You could bull your way out to the street and complicate things with passing traffic and crowds of pedestrians if the police haven't set up a perimeter yet - or menace the cops and spectators at that perimeter if they have.  That ought to distract the heroes.

The other big thing to consider is starting challenges mid-scene with Overcome actions.  Keep an eye out for narrative opportunities to do this.  Perhaps an innocent civilian can be suddenly endangered, a building damaged and threatening total collapse, a fire started that might lead to an explosion, etc.  Unlike challenges bought as separate scene elements or brought into play through the environment these need to be fairly simple to solve to maintain some level of balance when it comes to action economy.  A villain action is a pretty precious resource but it shouldn't be reliably tying up multiple hero turns on Overcomes.  To ensure this, I suggest using the following outcome table for such on-the-fly challenge creation.

• 0 or less: The action fails spectacularly, and might even trigger a beneficial minor twist for the heroes
• 1-3: The action fails, since supervillains don't take major twists.
• 4-7: The action fails, or the villain can take a minor twist to succeed instead.  Suggestions for villain twists are on page 154, and function somewhat differently than hero twists.  If the villain succeeds, create a simple challenge with a single Overcome success required to solve the problem.
• 8-11: The action succeeds.  Create a challenge that either requires two Overcome successes or has a timer starting with two check boxes. 
• 12+: The action succeeds dramatically.  Create a challenge that either requires three Overcome successes or has a timer starting with a single check box.     

Remember to make note of consequences if the challenge triggers, either at the end of the scene or when its timer runs out.

If a villain has an applicable mastery they may use it when creating a challenge.  Construct a die pool as normal but instead of rolling, treat each die as its highest possible result and reading the appropriate die - usually Mid, but if the villain is using an ability that lets them take a basic action using their max die then the Max die counts.  Apply penalties as normal.  If this winds up generating a 4-7 result they succeed without a twist but create only a simple one-success challenge.  Results of 3 or less (only possible with penalties) are treated as normal.

I wouldn't go overboard with making new challenges like this, reserving it for narratively interesting moments or to show a villain is going out of control from panic, rage, or frustration.  Once or twice a scene total is probably plenty to turn your villains into something less predictable than their abilities alone indicate.

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