I can't think of a way to thwart my villain

It's my Big Bads first appearance, and he's using his status as an old friend of one of the heroes to sneak into the hero's base. His true goal is to kill off one of the main characters, but said character is a Juggernaut whos Made of Iron, not to mention he's surrounded by super powerful friends, so the Big Bad can't just pull out a gun and kill him. Instead, what he does is feign interest in the other characters, and covertly places marble sized sleeping gas dispensers all around the base while he's talking to them.

At night, he activates the dispensers, so as to keep the entire team asleep while he goes off to kill his target. The protagonist (not the one being targeted) recognizes the treachery and proceeds to hold his breath as he fights the Big Bad. I wanted a kind of despair spot where the protagonist is shocked into inhaling the fumes, knocking him out

Problem is: now all of the heroes are unconcious, I don't know how to thwart the villain.

...written into a corner, much?

I dunno. It would be comically amusing if the villain also accidentally inhaled the fumes...

Instead of a despair spot you could just have it so that the protagonist simply runs out of air and needs to inhale. That seems more realistic than having him suddenly have a breakdown. Of course, you could make it so that as long as dangerous gases are present giant turbines pump out the toxic air thus giving the villain only a limited amount of time to complete his mission before the others wake up.

When I said despair spot I used completely the wrong term. He doesn't give up, he gets shot at with a surprise bullet, and the shock of the bullet causes him to inhale

edited 5th Sep '11 3:51:36 PM by gingerninja666

Well... who says the villain must be thwarted? Just kill off the character he's after...

Then that destroys approximately 95% of the story arc.

edited 5th Sep '11 3:59:31 PM by gingerninja666

I was going to say that initially, but considering how early in the story this event is implied to be... I have no idea.

Ninja'd!

edited 5th Sep '11 3:59:38 PM by JHM

Well, you've written yourself into a corner then.

I only have two pieces of advice: either rework the villain's plan entirely, or kill the character and see what you get instead...

I swear the plan in and of itelf is not bad, I just need to change something about its implementation.

Go back a bit, and try to see if you've got everybody acting in-character the whole time. Usually if I've written myself into a corner, it's because I've had someone do something stupid; if it's in-character, and unavoidable for them to do so, I leave it in, but if I can change the action while remaining in-character, then I do. If your heroes are all acting in-character, and there's no other way they would be acting, Kill Em All. If not, change the fatal mistake they made to a smarter action, and that will solve your problem. On the flipside, try and see if you've made your villain too competent in this case; if you have, then try to go back and fix his clever action. Of course, this is only if there is absolutely no other way to get them out of the situation; if you can think of one, by all means, go ahead with it.

I can't really think of a way to change the implementation that would be almost parody-like, so...

Problem is, this part is actually supposed to demonstrate how clever the Big Bad is, and set him up as a worthy foe for the heroes, as well as his relationship with them.

I think I might combine the "fan getting rid of the gas" idea with the "villain gets knocked out by the gas as well" idea. Have the protagonist chop the villains gas mask of with the last of his strength before he faints.

edited 5th Sep '11 4:11:27 PM by gingerninja666

Only problem with that is that he won't look very smart as a result. It's better to limit your heroes' mistakes than to add mistakes to your villain if you want him to be a credible threat.

but really it wouldn't be his mistake. He'd think the protagonist is asleep and walk off, only for a sword to fly past his head and cut the straps of his mask.

Hm. Could work. What exactly is the villain's plan, and where does the hero fall into it?

Sky (the Big Bad) wants to kill one of the heroes (Flak) but because Flak's so physically powerful and surrounded by powerful friends, Sky can't win in a straight fight, so he decides to use his status as one of Flak's old friends to sneak inside the base and earn the team's trust. Everyone except Cirdec (the protagonist) trusts him. Sky goes around the base planting miniature sleeping gas dispensers, so when night comes, everyone will stay asleep while he kills Flak. Cirdec senses the treachery and moves to stop him

edited 5th Sep '11 4:21:44 PM by gingerninja666

I see... since he's the Big Bad, have you considered giving him another motivation besides wanting to kill Flak?

I still think you should have the base itself come into play with the vent systems giving the villain a limited amount of time for him to complete his mission. Have him plan out possible routes and exit points. That will make him smart enough to be cunning while still allowing for wiggle room for the protagonist to accomplish he needs to do plotwise. He just wasn't expecting someone to be able to hold their breath long enough to stall him and he must break off his plan at the last moment. Also the surprise bullet thing seems unnecessary when you could simply have the villain punch him in the gut knocking the wind out of him.

I can't think of one. His entire motivation is the single minded desire to destroy Flak, since he blames him for all his pain.

The villain is a mangled, pain-wracked ex-soldier, whose body has been mostly reconstructed poorly. The hero has superhuman speed, and swordfighting skills potent enough to deflect bullets. Going toe to toe in a game of fisticuffs is not really an option for this villain

edited 5th Sep '11 4:37:25 PM by gingerninja666

Then just have the villain play keep away until the hero runs out of breath. If the hero charges him, have the villain step to the side forcing the hero to make an abrupt stop lest he smash through a wall.

That's what I was planning to do. The villain also has spare sleeping capsules. I have him smashing those on the ground to release massive clouds of gas that serve as a smokescreen for him (no to mention the building is already highly murky thanks to the gas already being released) The thing is, a gunshot through the smog is his only reliabe method of attack against Cirdec's skills

You might want to reconsider making him the Big Bad if that's the case. Or, if it's really going to be that personal a motivation, why not make him do a lot more to destroy this character than just killing him? Kind of like Frankenstein's monster, except much more elaborate. A huge revenge plan, slowly breaking this Flak guy down before he kills him would be a much deeper story, and would raise the stakes much higher.

Can't beat the villain eh? Guilty.

The whole idea is that Sky and Flak's relationship was built on top of a massively tragic misunderstanding. Both sides don't know everything that happened the day Sky was mangled, so that gets expanded.

Not only that but Sky is basically hired by his mooks (who have a vendetta against Cirdec for killing their boss, who was like their best friend). They're a street gang who needed the expertise of someone like Sky to combat Cirdec and the others. It's a relationship where the gang and Sky are both mutually using each other. So I think that's more interesting than just Sky being in charge and wanting revenge.

and Sky slowly loses his mind as his pain increases, so he starts wanting to see Flak suffer more and more

edited 5th Sep '11 5:00:09 PM by gingerninja666