I think I dated this girl once.A great many stories revolve around defeating and killing the Big Bad Foe, which isn’t exactly a revelation. I’ve been thinking about ways to revisit this hoary old plot point, and one of the avenues I’m exploring is not new and clever ways to kill Big Bad, but to make sure Big Bad stays dead. In fact, I don’t even know that the killing is necessary in and of itself. I can probably keep that story element as a piece of history, given certain assumptions, so I’m obviously after a different sort of challenge.
Historically, separating an individual’s head from his body served to accomplish this at least part way. Superstitions aside, most of these were cases of wanting to keep an individual’s followers from rallying to a martyred leader, as with William Wallace or Vlad Tepes, but some occult aspects are sometimes associated with the act, as with John the Baptist. (And I suppose Vlad Tepes can probably fit here, too.)
What I’m really look for is a quest-type storyline that’s more preventative than overtly empowering. The protagonists don’t necessarily receive the grail at the end of the quest, they manage to stave off the occurance of some horrible thing. This is, of course, the bailiwick of many Cthulhu tales, the culmination of which is buying the world a little extra time before “the stars are right” again, but also has precedent in other fantasy fiction, as in “The Hour of the Dragon,” in which Conan’s ultimate foe is a long-dead sorcerer of Acheron raised from the dead by a faction of jealous conspirators. The reward for success is continued wellbeing, at least for the time, and makes a refreshing break from the standard model of task resolution equals item upgrade.
What about you? Have you used “And stay dead!” in any of your games or writing endeavors?
Great example, Ethan. I particularly like that your Big Bad Foe had a contemporary who was part of the impetus for keeping the threat dead. I think this sort of “implied history” is great for flashback sessions as well as the subject matter that makes Vampire work. Maxwell wants Dracula to stay dead because he remembers when Dracula was Prince and it was terrible. Obviously this applies to Changeling and the fae, too, and doesn’t have to be tied strictly to medieval-inflected quest game plotlines.
Long-running D&D game, maybe about ten years now, the one with Aaron and Jeff and Kathy. One of the major plot points turned out to be a bunch of skeevy villains attempting to resurrect a historical conqueror for a variety of reasons, each personal to the villain: “it will create a glorious war,” “he is my ancestor and I feel some filial loyalty,” “I knew the guy way back then and I bet he’d kick over some of these irritating anthills that have grown up.” (The last was the vexing fae lord type, which I think you’d appreciate.)The would-be resurrected Big Bad was a peripheral character in it all; mostly his personality was made known by an adventure in his old digs, or reading the memoir of one of his former lieutenants. The real personalities were the would-be resurrection crew, and the players took great pleasure in picking each one off one by one, and discovering a little more about just why that particular one was interested in the resurrection and what they were contributing. By the time the immortal fae lord was the only one left (the one who was a contemporary of the Big Bad), the fae was willing to give up and try again in another century, so the threat was certainly averted. But they hunted him down for closure.It worked well. I have some success with “defend the status quo” adventures, mind, because my players really get into the various NPCs they meet, and the locales they visit. Uncovering examples of how bad things were in the days of the dead Big Bad fires them up further to make them not happen again. So it’s kind of shiny-happy “keep the good people safe” gaming, but if it works, it works great.