[Twilight Time] Revenge!

[Heather Grove]

October 2003 -- Revenge!

Volume 4, Issue 8

This is the Twilight Time zine, produced by the Burning Void: 
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Good morning!

I know, I know, it's been three or four months since the last zine 
issue came out, and the website hasn't seen much change in that time 
either. Chalk it up to our repainting several rooms in the house, 
switching computers (woohoo!), moving my home office from one room to 
another, reorganizing and cleaning a lot of the house, and dealing with 
various other things. It's been a hectic time, but a good one, and I'm 
slowly getting back to writing.

On the one hand, I'm putting a greater priority on some non-RPG writing 
now--some personal projects. This means that I won't put out articles 
and issues at the insane rate that I used to. But it also means that 
I'm happier with my writing, and putting less pressure on myself, so 
I'm more likely to be able to keep doing this in the long run! And the 
articles will probably be better quality, too. ;)

If anything comes out weird with this zine, chalk it up to MS Word. 
This is the first time I've used it for word processing in a long time, 
and figuring out how to turn off all the little smart quotes and 
related features so everyone's email programs will happily process the 
text is... exciting.

Have a great day!

Heather



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Revenge!

I was working on a story the other day, and I thought: revenge is such 
a great plot. It's a classic. There's a reason why it shows up in so 
many forms and contexts. Revenge can be as great as wars between 
nations, or as small as one kid beating another up on the playground. 
Revenge can be simple or elaborate, involving a push down the stairs or 
an intricate plot in which one misstep would spell doom for all 
involved. Revenge can last for moments or centuries. Almost no one is 
immune to the desire for payback, whether it's a matter of something 
small and petty or a great lightning bolt from the sky.

Revenge causes people to behave irrationally, casting aside their 
better sense for just one taste of retribution. And that word itself, 
"retribution," conjures up the other word often used with it: "divine." 
The implication is that the gods themselves are not immune to the 
desire for vengeance. Revenge has acted as the genesis for great myths 
and legends, divine punishment meted out and lasting for millennia. 
Eternal torment gone wrong later unleashes the tormented as a terrible 
evil upon the world.

People can want revenge for almost anything, from some small (even 
imagined) slight to a great hurt or evil that was done to them or a 
loved one. It could be something understandable, such that everyone 
wants to help them, or something they've blown so totally out of 
proportion that, in wanting revenge, they become the bad guys. Revenge 
can be hot, rage-filled, or cold and calculating. It can be a matter of 
emotion, or a matter of politics--no one wants to be seen as weak and 
able to be taken advantage of, particularly in the dangerous worlds of 
most roleplaying games (RPGs).


Like anything else, the revenge plot can easily become trite when 
overused. However, I daresay that there's an element of revenge 
somewhere in most novels, whether large or small. Sometimes it's a 
major plot element; sometimes it's a little thing that simply acts to 
move the larger plot forward or complicate it. As with most plots, it 
isn't so much the plot itself that is trite as how it's used. If you 
dress it up with original details and dialogue and don't resort to 
overused movie villain lines you can get a lot of mileage out of 
revenge in your game. Here are just some of the ways that you can make 
use of vengeance in your RPG:


1. Revenge as Plot Hook

Having trouble figuring out how to get your party of characters 
involved in an adventure? Use revenge as a plot hook. For example, you 
want the party to defeat the evil baron of a neighboring kingdom. Have 
that baron do something that causes the party to want revenge. His men 
burn their village, terrorize or kill one of their families (or a 
friend), waylay the party and steal their gold, humiliate the party, 
get to an item the party wants or needs before they do, or something 
similar. He could also visit this harm on someone who has authority 
over the party and can order them to go after the bad guy.

As always, don't overdue this--particularly that bit about killing off 
player characters' (PCs') friends and family. That's a quick way to 
discourage players from fleshing out their characters with such allies 
and contacts (particularly when you have the kind of player who sees 
NPC family members as resources and little more).

Once in a while, however, particularly when you have players who create 
involved, three-dimensional characters, a PC revenge-plot can be truly 
fantastic to sit back and watch. Just keep in mind that such plots 
sometimes take on a life of their own, and can end up eclipsing the 
plots they were meant to hook into...


2. Revenge as Motivator

Revenge makes a great motivator for bad guys. Why is the villain doing 
such awful things? A drunk driver killed his wife and didn't go to jail 
for it; now the villain wants revenge against the "corrupt" justice 
system. Or a "good guy" accidentally shot one of the villain's 
children, who were innocent bystanders during a firefight; now he works 
to destroy all such people. This can be used as background on someone 
who seems to be acting irrationally, or to make a villain a little 
sympathetic. Revenge as a motivator can give a little depth to someone, 
so that when the PCs someday ask the bad guy, "why did you kill all 
these people?" he doesn't answer, "uh, just because."

This time the warning is that revenge as a motivator has become 
overused to the point where, without some additional details, it really 
isn't enough to add depth to villains in most genres. You'll still need 
to think a little further about why the character took things so 
personally and took his actions so far in response.


3. Revenge as Connector

Sometimes you know you want to involve one or more of your long-time 
non-player characters (NPCs) in a plot, but you aren't sure how or 
where. This particularly tends to come up when you improvise a lot, and 
you aren't always sure where that improvisation is going. So, you toss 
one of your favorite NPCs into a scene because you sense that it would 
shake things up a bit and make things interesting. But later that night 
you try to figure out why the character is getting involved, and you 
can't see an obvious hook.

Why not try revenge? Maybe someone involved in the plot ticked him off 
in the past. Or maybe by influencing this plot he can achieve vengeance 
against someone else entirely. Perhaps someone else involved him as a 
means to *their* vengeance --either against him, or using him against 
another NPC or one of the PCs.


4. Revenge as Back-Story

Vengeance can make a great back-story for various characters, both NPCs 
and PCs. It's a great all-purpose plot hook for the game master (GM), 
as mentioned earlier. If a PC has written into his background that he's 
trying to seek vengeance on his parents' killers, then the GM can 
involve those killers (or hint at their involvement) when he wants to 
drag the PC into something (as always, don't overuse...). If the PC's 
background states that his father was an evil monster who made many 
enemies, then the GM has plenty of interesting adventure fodder to 
throw at the party. Who wants to hurt the father by hurting the child? 
Who wants to use or recruit the child in some scheme against the father?

Even if the GM doesn't use the back-story as plot fodder, it can still 
make for great character material. A character who has gone on a quest 
for vengeance, successful or unsuccessful, to his satisfaction or not, 
has been changed by the experience. This can lend valuable depth should 
the player choose to take advantage of it.



I know it's easy for revenge plots to end up being trite, given how 
often they get used. But then, that's why our next article will be 
"Giving Depth and Dimension to Overused Plots." Next time, in the 
Twilight Time!


What's Your Opinion?:

Suggestions? Special topic requests? Drop me a line at 
(heather at burningvoid.com). If I pass any of your suggestions on (either 
through the newsletter or the RPG resources page), I'll attribute them 
to you. Be sure to tell me if you don't want me to use your name and/or 
comments!

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