PossibleCabbage wrote:
Why is saving the world a thin excuse? I think Baba Yaga should be pretty hard to like, since she's one of fiction's great villains mostly because she's mean. Probably the best way to get the players to like her more, is to make her prickly in an amusing way.
Like a thing about Baba Yaga is that she literally could become a God anytime she wants, she just avoids apotheosis because she hates the idea of anyone asking her for something (the price she would consider fair would be seen as much too high by most). Probably play up how much she hates asking anybody else for anything since it creates an obligation on her part, and she also hates owing anybody anything.
But basically since she's the Ur-Witch there are all sorts of examples in pop-culture of witches who are ill-tempered but still the audience is supposed to like them at least a little. Borrow extensively from those.
I do understand where you're coming from in asking those questions at the start, but I have a feeling that at a table most players are still going to balk at the moral quandary of helping Baba yaga when presented with the facts that come up in the AP, which makes her look pretty terrible and Elvanna herself looking more sympathetic.
You are right, many players tend to overlook out and out awful characters if they are charismatically nice enough or funny about what's going on. I've had many players say that they don't even want to kill a bad guy because they like them too much.