Hello all,
I'm currently looking into running this campaign, but one of the most common complaints I've seen has been that many people do not want to side with Baba yaga and only do so because of the Geas/the thin excuse that they're saving the world. The major reason for this being that AP only presents her as a horrible villain with very little moral nuance. So I was wondering if anyone had any concrete advice on how to change things up and present Babs differently? Very interested In knowing if anyone had to rewrite this part of the AP and would be willing to share.
Thanks!
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.
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.
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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.
"The Oath" from Final Fantasy VIII plays.
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Demonstrate that she will definitely keep her end of the bargain if her (usually ridiculously high) conditions are met.
Most of the times her prices are much too high, but if the price is paid, she'll uphold her end well, if begrudgingly.
Alternatively, express the futility of trying to stop Elvanna themselves, given that her ritual is already in motion and can only be stopped by the queen of witches.
They NEED Baba Yaga, they certainly don't have to like her.
Also also, one of the end rewards the party can ask of her is that she fully abandons Golarion, thus largely saving Irrisen. You can maybe introduce that bargain very early.
Perhaps you can introduce a system wherein Baba Yaga has a wrap form of weak communication with her riders, so she can bargain very early either through the original rider and/or when the PCs acquire their mantle.
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Harumph!
Make me more likable!?
How about those pesky players open their teensy minds a little, huh?
Pffft!
I 'spose you could always bribe them. Seems like basic mortals will do anything for a little gold and power.
For my group, I didn't use the geas at all.
1 player was vehemently against witches to the point that he refused the spilled blood and +2 to a stat that went along with it, even knowing what the bonus was.
2 players ended up becoming riders for Baba Yaga.
The 4th was fairly neutral throughout the campaign.
Saving the world, and stopping the greater evil, was more than enough reason for all of them to play through the AP and go along with everything that needed to be done.
I also highlighted that Baba Yaga was amoral rather than villainously evil by sharing basic information about real-life folk tales of her, with a Golarion twist, that the characters would know about from their youths, or I had them find stories of her in the Dancing Hut's library.
OH! I also made it so that the people in the chicken hut weren't terrible people to everyone!
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I'm going to start running this is the next few months and I plan on making her not a child eating monster but instead a person that started netural but has gone a bit more chaotic evil in the last few thousand years. I like how in her stories she is annoyed at people bugging her especially if they want some of her magic.
My Black rider will paint her as saving Irrisen from a second world wound by creating the permanent winter (our table is a little loose with the world building). Irrisen is somehow connected to her homeland is why she cares. She replaces her daughters every 100 years because the first few kept getting so evil and currupt by that time that she was afraid they might loose control.
I don't think I need the geas and the rider has to give the PCs his blood in order for them to enter the hut and make the reconizable as allies to a few NPCs. It also gives his last bit of power to help them get to the hut. I do want to make sure they know that she beguilingly owes them a favor if they release her. In book 6 when they can start talking to her more and more as they remove layers of the doll, I want her to be very smart (but a bit forgetful), bitter, angry, and a little funny and charming.
I'm looking for more fairy tale flavor and may add the harrowing to book 4. I've already run 'murders mark' as a prequel and had the fortune teller give a few clues going all the way to book 5.
Book 6 details her origins. Baba Yaga definitely did not start out her mortal or immortal lives as evil. She was quite decent for a while, even.