Mask Time

Reggie twiddled his thumbs, looking around Georgine’s office. She kept things tidy, so there wasn’t much to look at other than the dark computer, a calendar with nothing written on it, and the small notepad she was usually holding.

Uncertain how long he’d be waiting, Reggie leaned forward to see what Georgine had been looking at before a lab tech had asked her to come look at something downstairs.

Upside down and refusing to do more than lean forward, it took him a while to work it out. It was just a to-do list full of notes about phone calls, meeting times, reminders, and a section of rote daily tasks. Just as he was finishing his scan, Georgine’s office door slid open and Reggie glanced up at his manager as she stepped into her office.

“Glad you find my to-do list so engaging.” Georgine arched an immaculate eyebrow at him.

Reggie’s face heated as Georgine walked around to her chair. “Sorry. I was bored.”

“Thank you for waiting.” Georgine flashed him a small, polite smile. “Any questions before we begin?”

“Yeah, what does ‘mask time’ mean?”

Georgine looked down at her to-do list. “It’s a reminder. A mask you heat up and place over your eyes to keep the ducts clean. I use it every night so my eyes don’t get irritated by the dry air in the lab.”

Reggie nodded and launched into the presentation he was supposed to be making. Georgine, attention fixed on him, picked up her notebook, flipped to a new page to take notes, and used the motion to press on the drawer that held her disguise to make sure it hadn’t been disturbed. It would be disastrous if anyone realized that she’d used the company’s prototypes to take down that annoying hero last month.

Playing an Interesting Villain at the Table

I don’t know if this is a feature of everyone’s twitter experience or just mine because of the particular intersections of my interests, but I feel like someone starts a discussion at least once a month about how to play, write, or depict interesting villains. Or how a specific type of villainy can make for a more interesting story than heroics. Or how a different specific type of villainy could actually be the most ruthless and most difficult to fight against. It is always interesting to read through these discussions and then the counter arguments people frequently make that villains don’t always need a sympathetic reason to be acting villainously, but there’s one specific argument that always catches my attention and interest.

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A Verbose Guide to Vexatious Villain Introductions

It is always dangerous (and frequently difficult) when introducing a villain in dungeons and dragons, especially a big villain meant to last a while. If they’re near the players in power initially, there’s a good chance the players might just take them out immediately, bringing their villany to a premature end. If they’re too powerful, the players might take a shot at them and be wiped out by the response. Additionally, there’s the stretch in credibility that comes when a super-powered entity doesn’t just lay waste to the plucky young heroes at their first meetting. You can make a good story out of the villain taunting the weaker protagonists, egging them on for some dramatic final confrontation, but that requires a certain style of story and it is difficult to smoothly employ in a shared storytelling medium like a tabletop RPG.

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