"“He’s mine, I tell you! MINE!”" Topic

Okay. Arch villain vs square jawed Hero!
They finally meet, with their gangs. Err… friends.
The animosity is strong. It's been building for chapters.

How do you rationalize them not allowing their followers to attack the enemy?
How would you write rules for this?

Or do you just fall back on the Evil Overlord's List?
Here is the very first one, from back in the previous century.
link
There are more.

Check out #117 on the list.

It's fine to say "Leave him, he's mine!" if the purpose of the command is to let you defile the corpse. Or feed on it.

Yes. "If you're going to shoot, SHOOT! Don't talk."

Well, the easy one is that in whatever society this is, whoever kills the husband inherits the princess. (I've also seen this played in reverse: the widow CANNOT marry her husband's killer. Either can be useful.) And you could do the same thing with kingdoms.

And depends on how explicit XP or prestige points are. Suppose you send in your second in command to kill off the hero--and he levels up? To your level?

You can also play it as just good tactical sense: both sides have minions, but none of them are up there tactically with the AV and the SJH. Sending someone else is a waste of flunkies: if you want a job done right…

But I think at heart this is an RPG thing keying on character, not a wargame thing depending on rules. In an RPG, neither the hero nor the villain would do it any other way.

As to minions not attacking the opposing Big Guy, isn't fear the best and most simple explanation? Might be prophecy, might be invulnerability, might be mind-mastery of some sort?

robert, yes, we want a PROPER showdown.

I'm so glad this isn't gay. We don't have a board for that.

Yet. 😄
Not that I'm asking for one…

That was a joy. I haven't run into the list in a long time.

As an evil overlord, I've made several of those mistakes. Thanks for a valuable list of don'ts.

Those are hard earned lessons, for sure.