Part of my problem with “magical girls are empowered as part of a selfish scheme by other-dimensional beings” is how gendered it is. Nobody’s doing “superheroes are empowered as part of a selfish scheme by other-dimensional beings” . . .
“OK, but what about billionaire Bruce Wayne, from the upcoming film The Dark Knight Rises, releasing in theaters 2012? Or billionaire Tony Stark, from the upcoming film The Avengers, also coming out in theaters that same year?”
– a powerful counter to the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011
Now, I want to make it absolutely clear, I really like Batman and Iron Man! And while I don’t actually believe that Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy or the propelling of former B-list superhero Iron Man to household name status were psy-op campaigns for building public trust and sympathy towards the growing billionaire tech-oligarch class, they certainly didn’t hurt that class’ image, at least.
I feel like ever since Bill Gates became the world’s richest man off of being “good at computers,” the conflation of wealth with intelligence has only grown stronger. Tech was now the quickest path to riches and all those tech guys were the biggest nerds around, ergo, “nerd=smart=rich!” And our fiction follows suit – it’s not enough that Batman is very smart and very wealthy, he must be the smartest, and therefore, the wealthiest! Cue the same for the likes of Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, etc.
And I know the nerds like to espouse, “we can tell the difference between fiction and reality!” but I just feel like if that was the case, Elon Musk would not have so easily convinced every nerd that he was the “REAL Tony Stark!” And maybe, if our pop culture wasn’t inundated with tales of heroic billionaires using their overwhelming wealth, power, and futurist ideals to save the world, we wouldn’t have been so primed to look towards these oligarchs to be our salvation.
I recently wrote a post over on my sister blog The Literary Mercenary titled Undercutting Death Can Undercut Your Story. And while I wrote this from the mindset of an author, there were quite a few references to RPGs and comic books about how introducing mechanics that render death mutable or reversible can have a major effect on your story's stakes, and with how seriously we take death as a consequence.
And this week I wanted to elaborate on this a bit for the Game Masters out there... because while it's true that what's available to the player characters is available to their enemies, if you're going to bring back a villain after they were killed then you need to do so in a way that doesn't feel cheap, or undermine your players' success, and which adds to the ongoing story.
But before I get into the meat of today's post, remember, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.
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Should You Bring This Villain Back?
Its happens to all of us. Your players get lucky, and they sink a critical hit at a bad time. Or maybe you forgot about an ability on their sheet that stripped away your villain's exit strategy. Or for the first time in recorded history one of those one-hit-kill powers actually worked, and it dropped your big bad instantly. Well, you had plans for this villain in the narrative going forward, but the numbers made it clear that your players won this round, and your villain is dead.
First and foremost, ask yourself why they shouldn't stay that way. Aside from the fact that it would make your life easier as the GM, who in your ongoing campaign has a vested interest in that villain remaining on the mortal plane? And, perhaps even more importantly, what role are they supposed to actually serve in the ongoing narrative?
You had one job, Crassus... now go do it!
Take a moment, and ask who this villain is. Are they a hired mercenary who was just working for the real villain? Are they a servant of a cult, who might have access to relics or rituals that can bring back their servants? Or does this villain serve a dark god, or powerful necromancer, who might decide their minion has skills and abilities that would be too hard to replace at this stage of their plans? Did they make a deal with someone, or something that isn't going to let them out of it so easily?
All of that context matters. Because if your villain was just some guy who had a certain set of skills, but not a particularly rare one, then they shouldn't be resurrected unless the circumstances of their death were genuinely up in the air. If they fell off of a cliff and into a rushing river, then maybe they could survive, for instance. But if the PCs stabbed them to death, dismembered them, and burned their body, that villain is dead for sure. In that situation it's better to bring in a new villain who will take their place, and who might be looking for vengeance on those who killed that original bad guy. Maybe it's an old war buddy, an enraged father, a vengeful mother, an even more evil twin... someone who fills the role nicely, and who shows the party their actions have consequences, and what they do affects the story as it unfolds.
However, if this villain was truly difficult to replace either because of their unique power level, or you really wanted to build up more of the personal antagonism between them and the PCs, then consider using any of the absurd methods you have on-hand for resurrecting them. For example, could their parts and pieces be reassembled with dark technology, or terrible magic into some kind of angry cyborg a la Darth Vader, or an evil Robocop? Could they be truly resurrected by a patron, or a deity, who marks them in some way to remind them they have failed (perhaps removing a finger, like a Yakuza soldier, or marking them with terrible brands, taking an eye, etc.)? Or are they resurrected with a template added onto them, perhaps as a powerful undead, or some kind of horrible demon hybrid creature?
Or are they operating under a curse, like those who wield the Widowmaker, a terrible, corrupt weapon found in The Blade Itself for Hunter: The Vigil?
Now, the key here is that for this villain to come back it can't feel like you just hit the undo button behind the GM screen, and invalidated your players' victory because it was inconvenient to the narrative. This resurrection should clearly have come at some kind of cost to the villain, and it should be uncertain as to whether it will happen again. Even if you want to use resurrection or reincarnation as a kind of power for this particular enemy, the challenge will then become finding the thing that truly kills them for good so they stop coming back. But it should never feel like a victory (hard won or otherwise) is just being handwaved away because you couldn't be bothered to draw up a fresh villain, or to modify a story because you were operating under the assumption that this particular bad guy would be present and un-murdered for what comes next.
Remember that you can get creative with this! Just be sure that your resurrection feels well thought-out, appropriate to the story, and that the cost of it undercuts exactly how far the villain is willing to go to thwart the party... especially because their new lease on life may very well depend on them succeeding where previously they failed!
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