Dungeon Design Tips: Antagonist Action Economy (Never Fight Just One BBEG)

Every Game Master has been in this situation. The party has been working their way closer and closer to a final confrontation with a powerful enemy. They've bested their traps, they've slain their minions, and now it is time for an epic clash! But when the dice hit the table, the antagonist you spent so much time building up and preparing is roundly stomped into the pavement, left beaten, broken, and defeated in a matter of a few rounds (or sometimes less).

While there are a lot of factors that can go into this kind of defeat, one of the common threads between most of the stories you hear GMs tell is that they were running a 4-on-1 combat... and that's a losing scenario for most monsters!

No matter how powerful you think they are.

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The Problem

The idea of the party facing down a single creature in battle, their combined strengths necessary to overpower it, is an iconic image. Whether it's a lich lord, a full-sized red dragon, or some other adversary, so many of us have been raised on this setup (both in games as well as in films, comic books, etc.) that we just assume that's the way things are supposed to be.

The problem is the numbers of your action economy just don't add up.

Now, for folks who aren't familiar with the term action economy, it's just a fancy way of saying the amount of stuff you can do on a single turn. For example, let's say you're facing down a necromancer lich. They are a potent foe with a nasty template, a slew of immunities, and a bunch of dire powers to draw on... but generally speaking, they can only use one of those abilities on their turn. So if the lich wants to cast a spell, they'd better make sure it counts... because the party wizard and cleric also get to cast a spell, and that's on top of having to deal with the angry barbarian charging straight at the lich, and the paladin who isn't far behind him!

Oh balls...

Typically the big bosses of the dungeon have fat sacks of hit points, a bunch of pre-cast buffs, monstrous templates, and enough magic items to help them become a threat to an entire party worth of adventurers... the problem is that they need to dodge every bullet the party fires, metaphorically speaking. If the party manages to land a status effect, to slow the enemy, to instantly counter their spells or abilities, etc., then no matter how powerful they're supposed to be it's going to be Good Night Gracie in a big damn hurry.

And while this can make the party feel like big time badasses, it can also make what should be a climactic battle feel... well, anticlimactic. And while I've talked about cover and firing lines, combining traps with combat, and even getting rid of doors in this series, I'd say this week's solution is one that will solve more than half of all the problems that Game Masters deal with.

In short, stop giving your players a single target to gang up on.

The Solution

Give your antagonists backup. That's it... that's the solution.

Whether your lich lord has a cadre of bodyguards to defend their person, or your fallen paladin is backed up by a conjurer and a sniper, the idea is that you are breaking up the laser focus of your party, and giving everyone a dance partner.

If the lich has an undead champion to guard their person, now the party members have to weigh the pros and cons of dividing their attention. Does the barbarian engage the undead black knight, hoping to keep him busy while the paladin closes with the necromancer? Or do the melee bruisers both double team the bodyguard, hoping to take him out quickly while the spellcasters attempt to contain the lich?

Forcing your players to make these decisions means they have a wider array of options, and they have to sometimes get creative with their strategies and tactics. For example, with multiple targets on different ends of the battlefield, would the wizard get more use out of spells that put a wall of iron between the party and the black knight instead of directly attacking the lich? With multiple enemies, does the cleric choose to buff the brawler going toe-to-toe with the bodyguard, keeping him in the fight longer so the paladin doesn't end up having to fight a two-front battle?

And the more antagonists you put on the board, the more choices your players are going to have to make. Not only that, but you are going to have more strategic options, and you won't have to focus so much on making any single antagonist powerful enough to face down the entire party on their own.

This is actually where we get into The Anti-Party, which can best be summarized as the Legion of Doom to your party's Justice League. If you have an evenly-matched party of antagonists with similar abilities, now your players have to get really creative in order to make sure they are able to best their foes.

The important thing to remember here is that when you add multiple enemies, you should be diluting the power of the Big Bad and spreading it around. It also allows you to have boss antagonists who aren't either extremely powerful monsters (dragons, demiliches, etc.), powerful spell casters, or some combination of the two. For example, if you want to challenge your party with a bandit lord, you could have them as a decently high-level ranger, in an area that's full of traps they've set to give themselves an advantage. However, you could also give them half a dozen henchmen, or some kind of tamed monster threat to sic on the players. So rather than the entire party versus a single ranger, they have to deal with his arrows, his traps, but also the two dozen ghouls he's released from their cages, and his two bodyguards who are also taking pot shots at the party.

The more targets there are on the field, the wider the array of tactics the party will have to make use of in order to be successful. For example, does the evoker create a wall of fire to hold back the ghouls, buying their companions a precious round or two before the undead monsters close? Or do they sling spells back at the archers, trusting the front line fighters to hold the line? Does the barbarian's great spear come in handy due to its reach, and does the fighter stick close with them, using their shield to grant their companion additional protection from the rain of arrows above?

With so many additional moving parts, a battle becomes an actual battle, instead of a grudge match against one enemy. Not only that, but you have more things you can do as the Game Master than options that feel like dirty tricks, or which could permanently cripple player characters (rendering them permanently blind, giving them debilitating curses or diseases, destroying their enchanted gear, etc.). While you shouldn't make every fight with a boss (or mini boss) into the Battle of Helm's Deep, ask yourself why the head of an entire assassins guild, a feared bandit lord, or the head of a dark cult is standing alone against an entire hit squad coming for them... then ask who they would keep around just to make sure it's a fair fight.

Also, if you haven't watched any of my series Discussions of Darkness, check out episode 25 below, Don't Overuse The Game's Big Bads. Because if you're no longer trying to have just 1 antagonist taking on the whole party, it throws the party's plans into chaos because they now have to deal with a wider array of challenges coming at their faces.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Crunch post! To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

"Book of The Wyrm Companion" Is Gross, Horrific, and Awful... Go Get It Now!

Of all the corners of the World of Darkness, the one inhabited by the Wyrm and its servants is certainly one of the darkest. Corruption, mutation, depravity, and awful, cosmic horrors lie at the bubbling, blistered heart of the Wyrm, and it warps everything that looks upon it. A tide of protoplasmic, inhuman, alien awfulness that stains the soul, and taints your very being just by knowing it's out there, it is a horror the likes of which mortals can scarcely contemplate.

It takes an enemy that inhumane, which is anathema to anything good or relatable, to make the garou seem like heroes, after all.

Bringing that kind of enemy across to your players, however, can be difficult. Not only that, but it's very easy to fall into the cracks and either become too unrelatable, too grim, or too uncomfortable for those around the table who came here to have fun. Which is why I would recommend that anyone who wanted to strike a better balance should immediately get themselves a copy of Book of The Wyrm Companion for their shelf.

Seriously... go check it out!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly 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!

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What Is This Book All About?

As the introduction section says, this book is a collection of things that could have been their own, separate splats, but which the creators chose to put into a single volume. There's additional, specific fomori that are inhuman, advice for creating First Response teams from Pentex, an entire section about running PCs as fomori (described as a kind of dark X-Men game, which definitely caught my interest), and a lot of other stuff that walks a fine line between gross and satirical.

I am what they made me.

The book it put me most in mind of (and which I picked up a copy of from my Friends of The Library resale room a few years back) is Freak Legion. However, while there's still a lot of content in there that I think people who want that kind of body horror/cosmic horror in their games would find useful, Book of The Wyrm Companion just slathers on extra stuff. There's a dozen different flavors of horrific in this thing, and there's a double scoop of terrible in store for anyone who grabs it.

Now, with all of that explanation and praise out of the way, I would point out that this is also a book with a BIG content warning right up front. While the creators attempted to give it a darkly humorous polish in some places, and to make it feel more like satire in others, there's no mistaking this for anything other than what it is. This is a grimoire of the inhuman, the monstrous, and the disturbing. For folks like me, who want WoD games to feel like horror games, that's going to be exactly what you want in your tool box. For those who may want games with cleaner morality and less disturbing content, though, this may be a bridge too far.

Let the buyer beware, this is one of those WoD tomes that comes with a warning label. The creators put it on there, and I'm reminding folks that they know their business.

Consider Some Supplemental Stuff To Go With It

This volume has a lot of contributors who all put their sweat and effort into different parts of the project, but Clinton Boomer and Josh Heath are both on the list. Talented folks who work extraordinarily hard, I have worked with both of them on previous WoD projects. And since we're talking about the Wyrm and all the awful, nasty things it makes, I figured I'd mention some of them here.

Where my Glass Walkers at?

Company Picnic is a tale Clinton penned a while ago, and it came out as part of all the efforts in and around the Tales From The Moot collection. I know that he and I enjoy writing fiction set in the World of Darkness, and if we can boost the numbers on these tales we'd be happy to lay down some fresh text... perhaps even touching on other spheres of the setting while we're at it!

Another project Clinton and I shared was the 200 Black Spiral Dancer Kinfolk list. This supplement was the capstone to the 100 kinfolk project, which is currently available as a bundle if you like a good deal!

Lastly, if you need extra bad guys to go along with this book, consider grabbing a copy of Evil Inc.: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries. There's all kinds of corporate wickedness in there, and it pairs beautifully with the more obviously corrupt aspects of the Wyrm! There's even a sample audio drama from it below, if you want to take a moment to listen...

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Fighting Systems is Harder (And More Satisfying) Than Fighting Individuals

Most of the time when you're in a campaign you typically have a Big Bad that your efforts are bent toward destroying. Whether it's the lich king at the head of their armies, the mad mage at the center of the dungeon, or the dragon that has declared themselves the tyrant of the region, it feels like there's always a singular threat that needs to be dealt with. If you depose the leader, slay the head of the cult, etc., then all will be well again, mission accomplished.

And sure, there's a certain amount of fun and escapism in that framework. However, it does start to feel contrived after a while. Which is why I wanted to take this week to talk about something several GMs of mine have done, and which I'd highly recommend others consider in their games.

Instead of fighting individuals, have your party oppose a system. Because fighting a system is a lot harder to do.

Ahem.

For those who are curious, yes, my group did recently start playing Hell's Rebels, and that's at least partially why this particular topic is on my mind.

As always, if you want to stay on top of all my releases, make sure you sign up for my weekly newsletter. And if you want to help me keep the wheels turning so I can keep putting out content just like this, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

It Is Astonishingly Hard to Kill an Idea

When it comes to battles in our campaigns, the physical ones are always the easiest ones to win. If there is a local bandit gang preying on the highways, or a cult stealing people in the night, what's the solution? You send in a group of adventurers, and they will break up the problem. Once heads have been knocked, and potential prisoners taken, the threat is over...

Or is it?

Who can say for certain?

While an individual bandit gang might be disrupted or broken up, if those bandits existed because there weren't enough legitimate ways for individuals to earn a living to care for their families, there will be fresh bandits sooner rather than later. If the cult is slain, then they might become martyrs to other believers who didn't put on the robes and lead rites, but who might now feel they must follow in the footsteps of those who went before them.

The root causes that led to the situation in the first place were not fixed. It was not created by any singular individual, and so it cannot be solved by dealing with that singular individual. Which gives our protagonists a very different kind of challenge to face.

And it has been refreshing as hell every time it's come up.

This Isn't System Specific, Either

For those who've read my group's journey through the Mummy's Mask adventure path (and if you haven't, start at the beginning), my GM embraced this idea whole heartedly. Because the Cult of the Forgotten Pharaoh was centered around an individual, that's true, but it was not the Forgotten Pharaoh themselves that gave it power. It was what the cult could do, what it could offer, how it wormed itself into the society of Osirion, and how it got into the minds of the populace through fear, nationalism, greed, and more.

While the party was instrumental in fighting against the cult's ground forces, and while it did remove several of its major players from the board, they did not slay this idea all on their own. They had to recruit allies, reform enemies who realized they'd been duped by the cult, and they had to fight a war of propaganda over the hearts and minds of the public in order to instill bravery and tell the truth about many of the cult's lies.

It was one of the more engaging experiences my table got, especially when one considers how linear adventure paths can often be.

Don't worry, I have negative examples, too.

On the other end of things, though, there are a lot of games that are designed with systems and ideas as the enemy, but where the individuals running the game focus too much on the "Great Man" that's responsible for everything. A majority of my experience with World/Chonicles of Darkness games suffer from this tunnel vision. The corrupt CEO who's responsible for all the pollution in a region in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, for instance, or a vampire who acts as the nexus of all evil in a given territory that can simply be slain to purify everything, and so on, and so forth. When it's far more likely that taking out one vampire means another will take their place, or removing one company means another two will compete for the market (possible even a few entries from Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries for those looking for inspiration).

Perhaps the best example I can think of is a Changeling: The Lost game where the storyteller's entire focus was treating a single True Fae (the demigod alien creatures that steal people away to Arcadia) as the BBEG of a particular conflict. Not just in the sense that their attention and malice had fallen on the freehold, but that they were actively involved in an arms race, and they were going to march on the gathered changelings to fight them... for reasons?

While I am all for deadly punch ups with magical wooge and fae nonsense, this entire plot arc was a classic case of making the plot all about an individual rather than a system, an idea, or something more difficult to combat. Because this True Fae didn't have any sort of persuasive rhetoric on their side that turned people against the freehold. They weren't riding some populist wave of anti-changeling sentiment among the hobgoblin community, and the army they had seemed to be made up mostly of nameless, faceless NPCs who had no personality, no driving goals, and no real purpose other than to act as cannon fodder. They couldn't be reasoned with, persuaded to change sides, or even spoken to aside from shouting across a battlefield.

This plot spiraled out of control, eventually getting so messy and frustrating that it culminated in a single, massive, completely unsatisfying battle. A battle that, once it was resolved, left no mark on the game's landscape, achieved nothing, satisfied no one, and was more or less forgotten about within a month. In fact, even trying to recall the details of it right now is a difficult exercise as it just faded into so many other fantastic battles that were waged more because the person running the game felt there should be a Protagonist V. Antagonist throw down rather than because it was a genuine, organic development of the plot and its themes, or that it would achieve anything tense or meaningful.

Also, speaking of Lost, if you haven't checked out my supplements for that game yet, give them a look!

- 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments to Find in The Hedge

- 100 Mourning Cant Dialects, Phrases, and Meanings

Win Hearts and Minds to Forge Your Legend

Memorable villains and satisfying victories are tough things to achieve. But this is a topic I've been thinking about long and hard even since I got to work on Archbliss: The City of The Sorcerers (available for Pathfinder and DND 5E) for my Sundara: Dawn of a New Age setting. Because in a setting where there is no alignment, and everyone is left to decide right and wrong for themselves, you won't find evil waiting in black robes and wielding blood-dripping daggers making sacrifices to demon lords. You find it in the indifference of the common people to oppression. You find it in the greed of the powerful. You find it in unfariness, and brutality, and myths that treating other people with violence makes you tough, or strong, or righteous.

And fighting ideas like that takes more than steel and spells.

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? Or do you have your own story you'd like to share with folks?

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archives, as well as the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio where I help out from time to time. Or, to check out books like my hard-boiled cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my recent short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.

A Spooky DIY Initiative Tracker (Just in Time For Halloween)

Before we get started with this Monday's entry, I'd like to let readers know that I've finally taken a suggestion on something I've ignored for a long time... I'm starting a newsletter for all of my content! If you don't want algorithms to let my updates slip through the cracks, subscribe to my newsletter and you'll get updates every Monday on what's going down. Newsletters will keep you abreast of what's going on here at Improved Initiative, but you'll also get updates from The Literary Mercenary, my latest Vocal articles, book releases, new gaming supplements, news on what events I'll be attending (when that's a thing again), and more!

Additionally, if the subscribe link here gives you a hard time, scroll down to the bottom of the page and sign up there instead. The first newsletter should be going out this coming Monday, so make sure you're on the list!

Now then, for something fun, crafty, and just a little spooky. And to give credit where it's due, I stumbled across this idea from Geek and Sundry.

Death Comes For Us All (In Order of Initiative)

Well would you look at that? Bad guys go first.

Initiative is one of the tensest moments of combat. Everyone is readying themselves and hoping they can get into the fray and strike the first blow, while also hoping to evade the worst their enemies have to offer. While a lot of DMs out there simply make due with some scrap notebook paper (or with a cheap LCD tablet, if you're a futuristic kind of dungeon master), that's one more thing to juggle behind your screen. Even magnetic initiative trackers like the official Pathfinder Combat Pad from Paizo don't solve this problem.

But what if you could make a simple, vertical initiative tracker that made the combat order obvious for everyone at the table, while also adding a hint of spook to your games? Well, here's how you can do just that with a couple of bucks, and less than an hour of actual crafting time. All you're going to need for this is:

- Container (coffee mug, skull of your enemy, etc.)

- Floral foam (pool foam will work in a pinch)

- Craft knife

- Terrain piece (extra dice or stones work fine, too)

- Thin wooden dowel rod

- Clothespins

- Marker

And that's it!

So What Do You Do?

Trust me, this is a piece of cake.

First things first, you want to identify your ideal container to use as the base. Right now we're in the middle of Halloween decor season, which means there are all kinds of skull cups and mugs out there. You want something that's got a bit of heft to it so it won't topple over unexpectedly, but you also want to make sure it isn't going to take up too much space on the table. Something like this skull pen holder, for example.

Come on... look at this damn thing!

Once you have your base, take your craft knife and your floral foam, and use the former to shape the latter to fit. You want a steady base that doesn't wiggle, if at all possible. Ideally the floral foam should sit a little way below the rim of your cup, as well.

After the foam is situated, take your small wooden dowel and push it down through the middle of the foam. You should now have a small pole sticking up from the foam. All you have to do at this point is open up your clothespins, and write the names of the PCs (or the names of the players, if your group is always the same), and then label one as Bad Guys. Perhaps a second for BBEG, when there's going to be a powerful bad guy and then all the lesser bad guys after them. Write the names along the legs of the clips, and ensure the can be read from both sides.

When you first set the initiative order you clip the clothespins near the top of the dowel, going in descending order from first to last. Then, once someone has taken their turn, you rotate their clothespin to the other side. This shows the initiative changing, and since the names are on both sides, you can just flip then back to their initial position as you go through the next round!

Add The Final Details

Once you've checked to make sure your clothespins hold and spin properly, all you have left to add are the fine details. Stuff to take your new initiative tracker from functional, to finished!

If you want your dowel to be extra secure, consider using some glue to hold it in place. Don't soak it to the point that the foam is glued into the cup, but be generous. Once you have the dowel where you want it, add in some terrain along the top of the foam (moss and soil, fake grass, small rocks to form a bier, a pile of small skulls, or even just a handful of spare dice) to camouflage the top of the foam.

Also, if you want to go the extra mile, you can stain the dowel so it's nice and dark. You could give your clothespins the same treatment, but keep in mind the names on them need to be legible.

Once you've done all of that, you've got a handy, vertical initiative tracker that's attractive, economical, and which adds a little spook to your table!

Also, if you're looking for some more handy things to try for your game, make sure you also take a moment to read through:

- Organize Your Spell Cards With a Portable Spellbook!

- Need Cheap Minis? SCS Direct Has You Covered!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

3 Questions For Fleshing Out Criminal Characters

Every party has one. Well, at least one. You know, like the burly former captain who always pulls up his hood when guard patrols walk by. The light-fingered mountebank with that tattoo she's always trying to keep hidden. The halfling who seems to know just a little too much about how locks work, and how to sweet talk them open. Even the woodsman, whose knowledge of branding techniques is pretty extensive, and whose running iron appears to have been used in more than one fire.

He sure does know a lot about tying up struggling women... just saying.

While stalwart heroes often heed the call to adventure, there are an even greater number of unscrupulous rogues, black-handed villains, vicious bandits, and cold-blooded assassins who make their way into our adventuring parties. If you don't want your criminal PC to feel like just another random thief, though, then you should ask what made them into a criminal in the first place? And what made them stop... if, indeed, they have stopped?

And if you're looking for old friends, unique gangs, or even legendary bandit captains to tie your character to, you might want to check out 100 Random Bandits to Meet, written by yours truly for Azukail Games.

Part One: What Do You Get Out Of It?

There are a lot of reasons to play PCs who are criminals. Maybe you just don't like classic heroes, so you want to play someone who's got some dark spots on their record. Perhaps you're using it as a way to justify the particular set of skills your character has. Or you might just feel that the law is an inconvenience, and you're more concerned with getting results than in what methods you used to get them. There are plenty of reasons to play characters who are, or who were, criminals.

However, it's important to ask what got your character started down that road, why they did or didn't turn off that path, and how that jives with what they're doing at this point in their lives.

You call it theft. I call it freeing slaves.

There are a lot of factors that can lead someone to becoming a career criminal (since that's typically what we see at our tables when discussing criminal PCs). The first, and most important, is asking what they get out of it?

The most obvious answer tends to be profit. You were a sailor, and when you were discharged you had no viable skills for civilian life. So you assembled a crew, and you all turned pirate, bringing down merchant vessels and trading ships, emptying their holds to fill your pockets. However, there are reasons to become a professional lawbreaker other than gold. Perhaps you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but the thrill of thievery turned you into a gentleman thief. Maybe you kept what you took as a trophy, or gave it away to the needy, but what you stole isn't what mattered. It was the rush you got from the theft. Maybe you committed your crimes because if you wanted to stay safe in your neighborhood, then you had to run with one of the gangs that controlled the area. So you might not have realized anything in the way of profit, but you got protection, approval of your friends, and built a kind of family among your crew. Maybe it was just tradition. Something you were born into as surely as you had dark hair and blue eyes.

Part Two: What Did It Cost You?

Once you know what someone got out of being a criminal (whether it was money, security, family, or just fun), the next question you should ask is what did they have to overcome to do it? Or, put another way, what did being a criminal cost this PC?

The ability to wear collarless shirts, perhaps?

This one can be a lot to unpack, depending on your character. For example, say you had someone who became a pickpocket for the Red Brand Boys out of a need for protection. As he grew older, and bigger, he became a hatchet man. He fought, and he killed, in the service of his gang. He earned his colors. But how many friends did he see buried because of turf wars? How many times did his boss put his life at risk for stupid reasons, costing him a hand, an eye, or a leg in his service? Did the respect he got from his brethren stop outweighing the fear he saw on other people's faces? Did his reputation make family members turn away from him, or get a lover killed to send him a message?

That's the best-case scenario. Unfortunately, when you're an outlaw, stuff can always go wrong. For example, take the gentleman thief. Did he get caught? Did being caught lose him his title, or land? Has he been disowned, forced to rely on his skills and his wits? Or, worse, was he treated like a common thief and punished publicly for his crimes? Did your bandit get captured, and so he opted to do a stint in the army rather than face the rope? Are there angry nobles looking for your conman who swindled them out of entire fortunes, which has made him give up his name, his life, and even his home nation in order to stay one step of the hunters?

There are all kinds of costs you pay when you gamble on criminal enterprises. How often have your PC's pips come up snake eyes?

Part Three: Are You Still A Criminal?

So, you now know why you became a criminal in the first place. We know what it cost you to live that life. Now you need to ask if your character is still a criminal, and if not, what made them leave that life behind?

I made that last score. I'm done, now.

Characters grow and change all the time. For example, being a neck breaker for an organized crime family might not really gel with accompanying a paladin and his squire into the wild lands in order to raid a dungeon. However, let's say your enforcer met a woman, and her condition for marrying him was that he get released from his bond to the Black Brotherhood. So he left, and never looked back. Now he's got a wife, and a child on the way, and he wants to be able to provide a good life. So he agrees to accompany the knight and his hangers-on for a share of the loot to be found in the necromancer's tomb. After all, dead men had no need for gold, and whatever lurked down there couldn't be any darker than the deeds he'd already done.

Or, perhaps, that enforcer never left the Brotherhood. However, his street commander told him to tag along, and watch the knight's back. Why? Maybe it's as a favor to someone. Maybe it's because the paladin never interferes with this town's running, and the mob doesn't want that to change. Maybe it's because someone in the group inquired, and where there's ruins, there might be loot. Stealing from dead men is often easier than stealing from live ones, and an easy score is never something to turn down.

There's no right or wrong answer to part three, but it does bear thinking about because your character's current criminal status could affect the rest of the party. Of course, it's possible that you're all criminals, which is why you're "adventuring" together in the first place.

This Isn't About Good, or Evil

It's important to note here that we're talking specifically about criminals, not necessarily about evil characters. Because while that can play into some of these questions (such as an assassin who accepted an atonement spell, who then became good-aligned and left their old ways behind them), it's important to remember there are several types of heroes who are technically criminals. Robin Hood is the iconic example, stealing from corrupt tax officials and the rich in order to give the poor enough to live on. Those who free slaves through violence are often seen as freedom fighters, but the nation who allows slavery would see them as little more than thugs and brigands. And, of course, someone who steals, transports stolen goods, or sells illicit material out of a necessity rather than out of maliciousness is often seen as at least sympathetic. Especially if they're just looking for a way out of the life they've been forced to lead.

However, if you've decided your PC is (or was) a criminal, put some thought into it. What kind of criminal were they, what did they get out of it, and why did they stop? Or if they never stopped, then what keeps them going? Is it habit? Need? Or just being unable to live a regular life after being this person for so long?

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday update. Hopefully it greased the wheels, and gave some folks new character ideas. If you'd like more content from yours truly, check out my Vocal archive, or head on over to Dungeon Keeper Radio where I and several other games offer advice, tips, and a few laughs straight from the world of Evora. If you want to stay up-to-date on my most recent posts, then follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Lastly, to help support Improved Initiative, head over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to toss a little love in my cup. All it takes is $1 a month to make a difference, and to get some sweet gaming swag as a thank you!