My Villain Cries When He's Out of Fate Points

[admiralducksauce]

Actually more like replace the C in "cries" with a D.

I've been adhering very strongly to the conceit that "monsters have nature" for my villains, and thus so far my Red Court villainness and my Denarian nemesis were given no Fate Points when they went up against my PCs.  Granted, they might get a few in combat from compels and whatnot, but without Fate to spend, there doesn't seem much a point to villains even having Aspects for the most part.  Maybe I'm doing it wrong.  What do you guys do when you have negative refresh monsters?  Do you treat them as being on a higher refresh total to begin with?  Do you just toss 'em some FP at the start of the session and that's what they get as a baseline?  Maybe I'm not giving them enough supernatural powers to begin with either.

[MacShidhe]

I've noticed the same thing 

[bitterpill]

Well you could compel your villans to follow there aspects and when they do give them fate points.

[devonapple]

One option in the book is for the GM to just keep a pile of Fate Points for general use and dish them out as often as plot suggests.

[Ophidimancer]

Whenever the PC's Compel against an NPC, even if it is a mook or a thug, have those points go into a pool that can be used for the main bad guy.  Also have the bad guys self Compel.

[arete]

I give my major villain 5 fate chips.  Characters from the novels can activate aspects as needed, but I do not do it often.  My major example is when a character got into a magic fight with Tessa, and I made the character over come all of Tessa's aspects she could activate to win out.

[admiralducksauce]

Thanks guys!  I had seen the advice about the NPC "pool" in the book, but I did want to try to keep a distinction between NPCs with powers and mortal NPCs.  I'll see how next session goes.

[TheMouse]

In addition to the above, ganging up on people in Fate is brutal. You really need to have lackeys to prevent a group of PCs from just stomping your big bad's face if the big bad isn't stupidly powerful.

So, your options are split between:

* Pile of lackeys.
* Group of villains.
* Really powerful villain (which is potentially really risky).
* Pile o' fate points.
* Curb stomped villain.

The concern with the stupidly powerful villain is that in order to be powerful enough to take on the group, he's powerful enough to just splat any particular member of the group. If he backs someone into a corner or gets them alone, they're basically done.

[bitterpill]

Your forgetting Full defenceing and running which works with pretty well against most mellee combatants though not so well with Casters, so make the stupidly powerful boss a fighter and the party should be ok. Amusingly though fate point hoarding could break the game a bit I always find the PC with the most fate points are the one least equipped to gain the best adavantage from them.   

[arete]

I took a page out of another game.  My main villain has an aspect "reoccuring villian", and instead of conceeding I invoc for effect so he can escape.  I also give everyone in th party 1 fate chip when I do that to make it fair.       

[bitterpill]

I took a page out of another game.  My main villain has an aspect "reoccuring villian", and instead of conceeding I invoc for effect so he can escape.  I also give everyone in th party 1 fate chip when I do that to make it fair.       

What if one of your party really wanted to kill him would you let him pay a fate point to chase down the villan?

[arete]

Yes.   I plan on a few ways the players can end his life.  First is that they over come him in refresh, and hit him so hard he dies without the ability to invoc an aspect.  I also would allow them to pay off the fate chip like a compel or spend a fate chip however you look at it to continue the fight.  I also figure someday they will compel his villain aspect to have him monologe his entire plan, and with that knowledge be able to out smart him.  Assuming they escape the over the top death trap.


P.S.  yes I like cheesy Bond villian.

[bitterpill]

nice

[arete]

Ty

[MacShidhe]

I took a page out of another game.  My main villain has an aspect "reoccuring villian", and instead of conceeding I invoc for effect so he can escape.  I also give everyone in th party 1 fate chip when I do that to make it fair.

Thanks, I am going to use this :-)