Mining Tropes for RPG Goodness: You, Bastard!

As promised, after having covered the Overlord trope in all (well at least some of) its RPG glory, I now want to tackle another of my favorite character tropes:

The Magnificent Bastard (I’m making no reference whatever to any good friend of mine, honest!)

Love him or hate him, there’s a certain type of character that defies being hero or villain, good or evil, friend or enemy. He doesn’t play that game, because he’s too busy making us play his. And at the end of the day when, more often than not, his character succeeds, there’s only one thing we can call him… a Magnificent Bastard.

Sometimes the Magnificent Bastard is consciously and actively pursuing The Game; he is to Machiavelli what the Nietzsche Wannabe is to Nietzsche. At other times, it is merely an expression of his gloriously labyrinthine nature. Either way, he doesn’t just dance to the beat of a different drummer, he bribes our drummer to play all his favourites. Then he has more fun sitting down and watching us stumble over the unfamiliar steps. And deep down in a dark little corner of our hearts, we can’t help but admire that he not only pulled it off, he did it with style.

The ultimate embodiment of selfishness and egocentricity this character type exists in all genres of fiction.

Here’s a few examples from TV and Movies.

• Gaius Baltar & Darth Sidious (Sci-Fi)
• Nathan Petrelli & Mr. (Noah) Bennet (Modern/Super Heroes)
• Jareth (From Labyrinth) & Captain Jack Sparrow (Fantasy/Historical)

We love to hate them while at the same time we are awed at how he/she always manages to get away with such style.

But herein lies the challenges of mining this juicy trope to create cool NPCs. Players don’t usually care enough about a given NPC to appreciate his deviousness and showmanship. Plus they don’t want to share the spotlight, which is quite understandable.

So let’s explore how to tackle this, RPG style!

The Magnificent Ally

While Genre Savvy players expect almost all allied NPCs to turn traitor, this type of NPC was made to do it….and survive! As an effective NPC, it needs to embody the trope without threatening or irritating the players to the point of sparking a spontaneous homicide.

The Magnificent Bastard revolves around being a larger than life jerk that manages to get the girl, the money and the praise, while the true hero does the job and takes consolation that at least the world is a bit safer, if a bit more unfair.

(Hmmm, seen like that, most if not all PCs of kill and loot RPGs would qualify as Magnificent Bastards…)

Here are an example for an allied NPC:

A bard wants to write an epic poem about the PCs that will make her a lyrical legend. While her work greatly increases the PCs’ reputation, whenever they go, she’s already there, be it:

• at the city’s swankiest inn, sleeping in a luxury suite with the innkeepers son (for free and with the innkeeper’s blessing)
• in the barbarian village where she shares the thatch palace of the Chief, being real friendly.
• in the dungeon, discussing the finer points of Troll-Finger race strategies with the troll guards .

The trick here is to give the NPC one key weakness that will prevent it from becoming a Marty Stu. Maybe she is a horrible combatant (as all bards, amiright?) and the PCs need to save her bacon countless times. Maybe she’s the daughter of a truly scary Overlord and she openly opposes him and provides critical tidbits of info to help the PCs spoil his plans.

(Of course in that last case, she’s actually using the PCs in a Xanatos Gambit to depose her father and take his place).

To make this character really over the top, make her mention from the start that a true Epic needs a grand Villain and have her say, many times, she’d be perfect for the job if she wasn’t so busy writing the damn story.

If you can fit in these comments right after she looks the most incompetent, chances are they won’t take her seriously… you’ll leave your players in the dust when she actually pulls it off.

The Magnificent enemy.

As an openly declared antagonist a Magnificent Bastard can be more fun to play than an Overlord.

Always civil, always polite. He’ll make a point of capturing the PCs and then entertain them to a classy evening where he’ll try to make them see that he’s not such a bad guy after all. Of course all this is done in order to work the PCs in a frenzy of hate for him so that they find a way to destroy that Orb he jealously guards at the bottom of his dungeon of Death. Said orb that only Heroes with pure intentions can open.

Then when the trapped Demon gets out and nearly slaughters the PCs, the Bastard arrives shortly after the Demon fled and announces an Heel Face turn. He confesses to his evil manipulative schemes and gives the PCs all the tools needed to destroy the escaped Evil. While they are on the hunt, he gathers up all terrorized kingdoms and creates a ruthless Empire that starts marching on the rest of the world.

When the players return, powerful enough to topple him in 6 seconds, he crumples to the ground, crying for mercy. He explains that he forged this empire to face the arrival of the Mad World-destroying God through the gate that the demon they released, and killed, was guarding.

While the PCs deal with your latest Lovcraftian creation, the Bastard signs a deal with all the Lords of Hell, becomes immortal in exchange for all the souls of the empire and moves to a Condo next to Asmodeus…

And so on…

The trick here is that whenever the players go “that’s it, let’s kill that f….er!”, you need to offer something that the players need more than what killing the NPC is worth. This can be the whereabouts of a lost sibling (kidnapped by the Magnificent Bastard of course), the possible location of a legendary weapon, etc.

This is the perfect occasion to abuse player backstories to the limit. If they start feeling manipulated by that guy from all angles, you’re doing good.

And if you painted him in a corner and he needs to die… have him fall off a cliff. Never let the players have the satisfaction of seeing such a villain die, unless this becomes a defining moment in your campaign (or the players threaten to blow your four tires on the way out).

An effective Magnificent Bastard NPCs is the stuff of legendary evil DMs.

The Bastard Within

Now I’ve tackled the Trope for NPCs. There are also challenges to having a Magnificent Bastard as a PC. Played lazily, it becomes a case of Chaotic Jerk. Played brilliantly by a good story-teller/Psychodramatist, it could be priceless.

Instead of going on for another few pages, I challenge you to come up with tips to play a good, entertaining Magnificent Bastard as a PC… in the comments or your blog.

Yax? Care to take a stab?

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