Wizards are Weird: That Jerk In Traffic Jams

Wizards have terrible fashion sense, and are in general weirdoes, but they keep appearing all over. One notable trait that the wizard has is that he breaks the rules.

I don’t mean that the wizard is James Dean on his motorcycle. I mean that he’s a cheat. A lot of people look at wizards and try to envision them as glorious visionaries unlimited by our provincial understanding. Most modern occultists spew this line as well, about how they are in touch with the Akashic records or gnosis, or some other word that requires a degree in theology or five dollars in the supermarket check-out line to understand.

The wizard is a cheat. They find tricks around things that normal people have to deal with, weather by trafficking with spirits, or using powers best-left-untouched. Their usual defining characteristic in older tales is that they’re sort of like that jerk in a traffic jam who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else because he ‘figured out’ to ride the shoulder.

This is what’s really meant when people disdain wizards in some of the older stories, especially when they’re perceived as being dishonest. See, with the arrival of D&D and its very legalistic magic system, in fact with the arrival of ‘magic systems’ in general, the concept of the wizard as a rule breaking jerkass has faded (although most wizard players still want to play James Dean), because now they’re using entirely valid and supported methods to accomplish their goals. Thus the guys who disagree with their methods are portrayed as bumpkins who don’t understand cellphones as opposed to guys who don’t think you’re especially clever for wanting to open your locked basement door with dynamite.

Most wizard players are akin to the ‘weekend rider’ playing at being a biker. They want to be the rebellious genius who is feared by an ignorant public for his great power and daring wit, but the average wizard’s magic is no more dangerous than the stuff the black smith trains in.

Oh, I might die during my apprentice ship! Well yeah, but the black smith apprentice might too, what with the intense heat and molten steel.

Oh, I bear heavy burdens that leave their mark on me. So does the black smith apprentice with inhaling the forge.

The modern wizard player tends to desire to be the rebellious genius, but it’s rarely the case.  

That’s the appeal of the weird wizard though. He is trafficking with crap he shouldn’t. He is being a wild crazy jerk too smart for his own good who knocks down fences that should’ve been left up. This is a mindset that doesn’t particularly mesh well with the idea of magic as technology.

Imagine a difference for your players if the local hedge wizard manages his magical cures by the expedient of ‘sending the illness somewhere else,’ or if the sorceress improves her beauty by burning up her youth like a candle.

It’s not hard to notice, that these wizards also make for much better adventure hooks.

Musical Inspiration Challenge 2! Part 14: The Development

The Development is basically how we set the stage for future stuff. Adventures lead into other adventures, and closing a door on one problem usually results in others cropping up. It’s the nature of the world, and of dramatic structure, that things lead into other things. Until the day when the world rolls up like a scroll, we probably won’t see the end of this sort of thing.

Now, this song itself is a character song. This is a common thing in Japanese animation, and less common elsewhere. Basically, it’s a song designed as if the characters themselves were singing it, almost as if the series were a musical. It’s meant to give us some insight into the character’s minds, and also, to be either tragic or awesome.

I know this isn’t really the place, but here’s an example from a modern movie (and a fantasy one) 

In the case of I’m The One, its about a pair of villains in the web animation series RWBY: Emerald, an illusionist thief, and Mercury an assassin with robot legs.

I grabbed the lyrics below from Metrolyrics, but unfortunately, they didn’t specify when our male singer (representing Mercury) or our female singer (representing Emerald) are singing.

Welcome to the bloodbath jump into the tub
Fist-fight, death-match come and join the club
Kick-start your face with a metal-clad boot
You should give up now your retaliation's moot

I'll run circles round ya I can touch the sky
I' m gonna make ya hurt and I'm gonna make you cry
You want to mess around? Well come on let's go
I got no time to waste let's start the show

I'm the one that your mama said
'Don't mess with them or you'll end up dead
That type they don't follow any rules'

You're looking tall you're looking tough
I'm sorry dude, it's not enough
Your girlfriend's purse won't help you win this duel

The bigger they are then the more that they bleed
The deeper the scars that won't heal
Buckets of pain as they lie there in shame
Knowing how true defeat feels

I'm the one
That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son
got no gun
But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

I'm the one
Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one
Delusion
I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

You're still standing up? Well let's go another round
Singin' king of pain and you're gonna get crowned
You like the way I dress? Yeah i know I'm fine
The blood's gonna stain but it won't be mine

Just chill here while I drop into the brush
See you when I land and you're gonna feel the crush
Lay right down and grab a little rest
I guess you didn't know that you were dealing with the best

You shoulda stayed at home today
This fisticuff won't go your way
This confrontation isn't just for school

It might be hard to hear me say
Kicking your ass is child's play
I hope you're not crushed by this ridicule

A slap on the wrist and a kick to the chin
A hint of the flavor of steel
No one to blame it's the end of the game
The humiliation is real

I'm the one
That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun
Overrun
By the hate and the beatings defiled by a father

I'm the one
I'll race with your eyes and you'll never outrun
Illusions
Will conquer your mind and will make you fulfill my design

Now, how do we use this as a development? How do we use it, indeed? Well, the beauty of it is that it adds complexity, and since we build an adventure like building a house (with a plan) we can retroactively seed the stuff back throughout the rest of the adventure.

Now, we decided our bad guy relies on fear and grinds the hope out of his charges. This by its nature requires muscle and the ability to deceive. Now, as a guy who specializes in fear, illusion and misdirection isn’t far off, but what if he had say, apprentices or servants? What if he had a daughter? Someone who desperately wanted her father to achieve his dream of reaching their final after life?

An illusionist in her own right perhaps? We can seed her existence throughout the adventure, have her be mentioned, perhaps have her and one of the bad guys greatest warriors (sent as an escort, or a lover) are conveniently not there. Maybe she set up several of the illusions however that vexed their charge, or the heroes themselves. 

You don’t need to be there physically to have a presence, and the idea that Daddy’s little girl might be out there to resurrect him, or carry on his terrible work, is definitely something that might get the players dreading, or seeking her out. Or at least, they might not be surprised if she shows up.

Underwear Gnome Villains

A villains plan needs to make sense given his character.

It doesn’t need to make good sense, but it needs to make sense based on what he wants to accomplish, what he’s willing to sacrifice for it, and what he wants.

I’m not saying a villain can’t have a plan that might be insane (if you want to portray him that way) or demonstrate poor judgment. Those are both ok. But, as an example, which of these below seems more reasonable?

Bob wants to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, so he arranges for a Princess to be assassinated, hoping that this will result in heroes coming along to flout the assassination and then discover that his assassins were dispatched from the Temple of Goobers where he will hide himself as a beggar providing advice and magic items, so that he can sneak into the temple with the heroes. However, he also arranges for a tribe of orcs to try to kill them on route to the Temple of Goobers so that he can delay them long enough for him to make suitable preparations. After the Demon Lord is resurrected, he plans on ruling the kingdom (which will now be flooded with demons and fire ants).

Charlie wants to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, so he sets up shop in an old burned out temple complex. He needs manpower, so he makes forays out and decides that messing with the local lizardfolk tribes is the best bet because nobody cares about them, and they’re dumb and superstitious enough that he can keep them overawed. However, there is also a nearby human settlement and he sics his lizardfolk on the settlement, wanting to drive off the humans who live there, so that nobody who might know what is going on, will realize what he’s up to.

Dan wants to rule the kingdom, and so he has contracted with a collection of evil wizards to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants. He imagines that with the power of the Demon Lord at his disposal he will be able to not only control the kingdom, but spread his power elsewhere, and that as the one instrumental in the resurrection of the demon lord, he will ‘hold the strings’ so to speak. He’s done it to noblemen and even thugs in the streets (the local guildsmasters answer to him). He’s a political mover and shaker, and one of the major power brokers in the kingdom, but he wants that crown on his own head. He uses those guildmasters to cover for him, and to get him money to pay for expensive reagents for his wizards.

Eamon is a fanatical cult worshipper of the Demon Lord of Fire Ants. All is proceeding as he intended. The heroes will assault his facility and provide him with either their own deaths, or the deaths of his minions. They will be unstoppable. There is no flaw in his plan, no mindset he has not left available to exploit and he is able to react to decisions of heroes opposing him with a constant nigh clairsentient capability to predict their actions and twist them to his own benefit. He will see the Demon Lord resurrected, oh yes! And then he will cast himself into his gaping maw, so that he will be spared the glorious desolations to follow.

Which is the best set up for a villain? If you mentioned Dan, I’d agree. If you mentioned Bob, Charlie or Eamon, well, I’ll tell you why I think that’s wrong. Putting aside that they’re strawmen I created in about two minutes.

Bob’s plan makes no damned sense. He’s a collection of disconnected plots lazily slammed together under one bad guy. He also represents the design problem of a bad guy who the DM wants to be responsible for everything. So he’s required to oppose actions beneficial to his own plan quite frequently. Also, he has no real end goal plan, no real motivation besides being an ass. What does he want? What does he gain from the Demon Lord rampaging around and ruining everyone’s lawn? He doesn’t. He just exists so the heroes have a name to point to as a big bad. And his end game plan requires the players to pick up a beggar who I can promise you will so obviously shout ‘trap NPC’ to them that they will need ear plugs.

Eamon’s plan seems more thought out. He actually has a motivation. He’s a cultist, driven by insane dedication to his god, and his eschatological aims are to become his god’s lunch first to avoid what he sees as inevitable horrors visited upon the world. However, he doesn’t actually have a plan. He has a plot. A plot his DM doesn’t want to deviate from. Eamon benefits from his plan being developed retroactively to the PC’s actions. Anything they do to try to stop him, he’d already planned for. He didn’t actually plan for it, the DM invented it after the fact. He’s going to summon his boss, the PCs are going to probably fight him in a throne room, and they won’t get too engaged because they’ll have little train whistles going.

Charlie might seem like the guy I’m putting up as the ‘good example,’ but he’s not. His plan is sensible. It’s downright well thought out, and the ‘flaws’ of his plan are what bring the PCs in. The problem with Charlie isn’t his plan. It’s Charlie.  There is no Charlie. Charlie is just his plan and methods. He’s got no personality. He’s a collection of the most pragmatic actions, coupled with a good amount of verisimilitude. Now, you could make him the kind of guy who is super pragmatic, but you need to explain why the super pragmatic guy wants to summon up the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, not just how.

Now..Dan’s plan, is stupid. He’s an arrogant dolt.

He obviously has bitten off more than he can chew, but his personal arrogance keeps him at it. He’s the ‘big fish, little pond’ bad guy, and as a result people can understand that. Whereas Bob is a nonsensical name attached to a pile of bad tropes and Eamon is a railroad conductor, and Charlie is a ghost with good operating principles, Dan is a self-important asshole with a dream. He’s the kind of guy players have probably dealt with in their real lives. The guy who thinks he knows better, even outside his own field.

He knows how to push around thugs and bureaucrats, so he thinks he can handle a duke of hell. And that’s a thing, he has to be ruthlessly competent in his little pond. What’s the difference? While his plan might be idiocy, its sensible, understandable, idiocy based on his character and morals. The PCs can deal with it, they can interact with it and him, and get a sense of his personality from what he does. They can use his personality against him, so they benefit from learning it. So when they fight him, they might actually give a damn. Also, because he has a real reason (dumb as it is) for doing what he does, the players and not just the characters can feel a sense of accomplishment for defeating him.

Take the Underwear Gnomes clip as a koan. Is Spook saying that they represent well written villains (for having a stupid plan because they themselves are greedy morons) or that they represent poorly written ones (for just being about their plan, and their plan making no sense)?

Not even he knows.