[After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

[GestaltBennie]

Looking back at Villainy Amok, which was published over four years ago now, I'm curious at how useful the book was for GMs and how productive its approach to scenario building was. So here are a few questions. This questionaire is only intended for GMs who purchased the book with the intent of using it in their campaigns. Feel free to expound on your answers.

 

1. Did you use the book? If so, which scenarios?

2. Did you use any of the suggested "Unusual" scenario hooks? If so, which ones?

3. Did you use any of the random scenario generators? If so, which ones?

4. Did you use any of the pre-set scenarios? If so, which ones?

5. Did you use any of the NPCs? If so, which ones?

6. Did the book play in any role in generating a cool scenario for your campaign?

7. Did you use the scenario hooks in the Plot Gallery? Was organizing lists of plot hooks by situation useful?

 

Thanks.

[JohnOSpencer]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

That is actually the last book I purchased (before 6E last week) for my Champions game.

 

I really enjoyed the book, lots and lots of good ideas.

Now, to try to answer your questions:

1) Yes, I stole parts of the alien invasion (just recently) and the Metatron scenarios. I've been trying to fit the Mad Scientist stuff in there, but have not had a chance. BTW: I'm sure my players thank you for the alien invasion ideas. They ended up joining forces with Foxbat to go into space and 'bring the fight to them'. Now they're stuck on the Foxbat shuttle for a month on their way back to Earth.

2) Not yet, but I check them everytime I plan an adventure.

3) No. My players are random enough without them.

4) No.

5) Does the Tripod War Machine count?

6) I refer you to the Foxbat incident above.

7) haven't used them yet.

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Villain Amok is one of my favorites and I plan to use some of the material there in whenever I can. The Random Bank Robbery Generator in particular looks like it might be good for new player training scenarios.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Villainy Amok helped launch my Champions of Vancouver campaign.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[Psybolt]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

I liked Villainy Amok very much, but I have to admit I have not used any of the plots or materials as of yet, but I have read through them several times to see what could work in my campaigns.

[mvoncannon]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

I liked Villainy Amok as well. I have used (and re-used) it in several campaigns for hooks and the like. I have not used any of the scenarios as published, but the maps were perfect and the random generated plots were great for getting creative juices flowing. Extremely useful.

 

Thanks for the hard work.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Since this is effectively a "VA-love thread" I think it would be appropriate to mention that Scott Bennie also generously provided a free PDF of quite a few additional plot scenarios that were cut from Villainy Amok due to space considerations. That PDF was previously hosted on the "Free Stuff" section of this website, but is no longer there. However, since it was long offered for free I can't see any harm in Attaching it to this post. This seems a likely spot for interested parties who missed it the first go-round to find it.

[GestaltBennie]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Thanks for the kind comments.

 

I was hoping for a few more precise details than "I liked it" (as gratifying as it is to hear). I'm considering pitching a non-system specific Villainy Amok-style book for fantasy, and wanted to gauge which areas were most useful to GMs and focus my attention on developing those. But a lot of time has passed since VAmok was first published, and it's probably unreasonable to expect GMs to remember as many details as I was requesting.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Focus on Noob GMs, provide Plots and Ideas on how to run them. I hope you go multi-system rather than system-less.

 

Running scenarios/plot

 

How to deal with player disconnects.

 

How to recover from players going off the tracks.

 

Where else does a Campaign start other than a Tavern. (Our current group was arrested individually by the City Watch for weapons violations. The Judge decided he had a use for us. Zap instant party

 

Highlight/Showcase the difference between MMOs & PnP RPGs. Slay the Orcs take their gear and magic items.

 

 

More later

 

 

QM

[Jhamin]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

I enjoyed the book a great deal and used many of the plot seeds. For what it is worth, I viewed the product as something to use to pad out a game session if the hero's defeated my villains quicker than expected, or if the plot wandered away from what I had intended and I needed something quick to distract them. I rarely made anything from the book the "A" plot of my games, but I went almost a year using it to provide a majority of my "B" plots in a game session.

 

If you are looking for constructive criticism and specific statements....

 

- The strength of the book IMHO was that it not only listed common genre bits, but went into detail on the many variants of those bits. You can only have mars attack so many times before it becomes tired. But when it's the mole-men, the martians, and so on it remains fresh.

- Lots of quick plots that hang off of each of the common hero disadvantages (Complications now) were a godsend as everyone takes these but it puts a lot of work on the GM to make them worth their points. When you already have pre-made scenarios for them that can play out in the background it is much easier on me.

- I found the wedding section overly-long. While I did say above that I loved reading about all the variation on Bank Robberies or Invasions, I don't think that Super Weddings support the same level of repetition in a game. I could probably have one or two before my players would want to know why they keep attending nuptials instead of fighting crime. It wasn't that I didn't like it, I just knew that all those variations were going to go to waste.

- I kind of wanted the natural disaster section to go into more detail on interesting places for fires to break out or unlikely fallout from various disasters.

 

I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, but I'm happy to comment in more detail later on.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

The Questionaire

 

1. Did you use the book? If so' date=' which scenarios?[/quote']

Hell yeah, I used it as the opening for my Champions of Vancouver Campaign. The Disadvantage Plot Seeds where especially useful.

2. Did you use any of the suggested "Unusual" scenario hooks? If so' date=' which ones?[/quote']

Hmmm... Not sure which one that is again?

3. Did you use any of the random scenario generators? If so' date=' which ones?[/quote']

Hell yeah. Great resources for GM's to mine.

4. Did you use any of the pre-set scenarios? If so' date=' which ones?[/quote']

Chapter One, Four, & Plot Generator.

5. Did you use any of the NPCs? If so' date=' which ones?[/quote']

Invictus 5eR

6. Did the book play in any role in generating a cool scenario for your campaign?

Captain Trips (is Metadrone for you!)

7. Did you use the scenario hooks in the Plot Gallery? Was organizing lists of plot hooks by situation useful?

Yes and Yes.

 

Here yah go!

 

 

QM

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Looking back at Villainy Amok, which was published over four years ago now, I'm curious at how useful the book was for GMs and how productive its approach to scenario building was. So here are a few questions. This questionaire is only intended for GMs who purchased the book with the intent of using it in their campaigns. Feel free to expound on your answers.

 

1. Did you use the book? If so, which scenarios?

2. Did you use any of the suggested "Unusual" scenario hooks? If so, which ones?

3. Did you use any of the random scenario generators? If so, which ones?

4. Did you use any of the pre-set scenarios? If so, which ones?

5. Did you use any of the NPCs? If so, which ones?

6. Did the book play in any role in generating a cool scenario for your campaign?

7. Did you use the scenario hooks in the Plot Gallery? Was organizing lists of plot hooks by situation useful?

 

Thanks.

 

1. Yes. I got the most milege out of the alien invasion scenarios and the drug related scenarios, but I used something from every one of the "main areas".

 

2. No, but I thought they were good to have and plan to use some in the future. Just haven't worked any in yet.

 

3. No.

 

4. Answered in question one I think, but I did run the bank robbery scenario almost as written.

 

5. Used the redneck guy in the alien invasion scenario, almost everyone from the drug scenarios...and the two supervillains.

 

6 Yes.

 

7. Yes...and definitely yes.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Rob

[GestaltBennie]

Re: [After-Action Report] Villainy Amok

 

Thanks folks, I appreciate the responses.