The unseen enemy

I like to talk about my games, to anyone, and that will even go to players. See I have no problem leaking a thought out just so that the player might take that nugget of information and run with it. Some might see that as me spoiling events in the game, I see it as an opportunity to direct the game in a direction I want it to go by giving the illusion they have some say in the matter. It is just how I roll as a DM/GM.

Who the heck is he?

I will always kind of let slip a piece of info, one because sometimes my stories are so good I need to share and other times there is so much going on that while it might be spoiling it helps me throw that fishing line out there for the players to bit into while I might be occupied with other plans. It might be a ticking time bomb that gets used later but it does help.

There are other times where I won't reveal my plans no matter what, the Man in the Red Armor? I am not going to reveal him, heck they might not see him until level 10 as a jumping point into the Paragon Tier.

Where I will reveal is that the group made an enemy the other week and it was shored up this week. See they had these plans to storm the library and beat down the goblin named Rort the Tombripper. They got in and ignored all of the other goblins save for him and tried to beat him down. He was bloodied within the first round and I knew the mage would finish him off.

This NPC was so cool, I mean he can cause minions to explode! He had all these cool powers and I did not get to use them but I did manage to have him run away last week. This week he showed up again in the stables as an added bonus to the room, he had opened the wolf pens and then attacked the party. The group had a tactic, bottleneck at the door and they managed to kill the wolves quickly with spells and the druids combo attack. I had Rort shout "Curses! My plans are ruined" and he ran off, again!

I announced to the group they now have their first true enemy, even though they keep thinking this guy in Red is their enemy. Those of you reading in my game, he is or he is not the bad guy and while I was writing this I just thought of the cool intro he will get.

With the theme of this topic, the unseen enemy, my players will be able to tie most of the adventures they will go on to this mysterious force meddling with the local world, is it the Man in Red or is he just working for someone else, want the kicker? I do not know. There are a bunch of world shakers I have thrown out there already, here they are in short order.

1. Siblings or parent of the white dragon they killed
2. Rort
3. Humjat, the hobgoblin in charge of Gorbizibad
4. The Severed Eye's
5. Man in Red
6. Talons of Tiamat
7. a Wizard (what?)
8. oh and The Raven Queen. She wants a soul of an adventurer

 I am not afraid to throw those out there, it is a reminder to the group that they have ticked a lot of people off in the span of two adventures, plus it keeps them on their toes. I so love it when they discuss at the table how many people they have ticked off in such a short amount of time. There are times though during the course of the day that they will say something that I really do not want them wasting their time on, mostly because I want progress in my story and they really and truly come up with some wacky ideas. I need to take notes just in case.

Just who is that guy in the red armor? Did I say Paragon Tier? I meant 3rd level LOL