Juniper & Willow
In roleplaying games, particularly story games, I find people are reluctant to play their characters in a way that is either truly heroic or truly villainous. Most people will play to that gray area in-between. Their character might be a jerk, but they’re fundamentally a good person. Or, their character might be selfish and destructive, but they’re not truly evil. 9 times out of 10, I think this is the right move. It would get really boring, really fast, if every session had a mustache-twirling villain and a holier-than-thou hero. Unless you’re playing something that is inherently campy like, say, Lasers & Feelings, it’s probably going to be really off-putting to have players elevate themselves in one of those ways.
But sometimes it’s fun to watch players give themselves permission to be truly villainous or truly heroic. In the last two sessions of The Warren, we had a rabbit, Juniper, who was repulsively villainous. His opposite was Willow, a genuine heroine, and his match in every way. My instincts are to resist this sort of play, but the fiction developed in a way that made it feel right to me. This was a true heroine and a true villain, but they weren’t caricatures; they were characters whose circumstances pushed them to be exceptional opposites, and I loved watching it unfold.
Juniper started as a broken rabbit, marked by Death. In a critical scene, he was left to a terrible fate by the rest of the warren; an apparent end that was marked by high levels of terror and violence. And yet he survived. In fact, he believed he was spared by Death for the purpose of saving the warren from future destruction. As such, he had an almost theological belief in his rightness; whatever decision he made was correct, so long as it was for the good of the warren. This lead to plenty of deception and violence, and, ultimately, a scheme that saw him sacrificing an immature buck to an owl he hoped would fight alongside the warren in an upcoming turf battle with some other rabbits.
His opposite number was Willow, a mother who was unable to save her immature buck from Juniper’s twisted scheme. Now, it would be very easy to write this character off as the tropiest of tropes; the mama bear defending her cubs, right? But to do so ignores a couple of really critical components of the story. For a start, the warren had been having difficulty birthing new kits. The last doe to get pregnant lost all her kits during childbirth, and the warren was starting to dwindle. And it was through this frame we were able to understand Willow’s righteous fury. Certainly she had affection for the kit Juniper sacrificed, but in her big confrontation with him, when she bravely called him on the carpet in front of the rest of the warren, it was the twisted logic of sacrificing kits that she clubbed him with.
In the end, Juniper dropped his moral complexity for low, transparent villainy: an attempt to coerce Willow into mating with him as a way of keeping the peace within the warren. Willow rightly told Juniper to fuck off, leaving him to the tender mercies of the neighboring rabbits who had him under siege, and establishing a new home for her followers in another part of the forest.
There were a lot of terrific characters in our three sessions of The Warren, but Yoshi Creelman and David LaFreniere gave us a pair I’m not going to forget anytime soon; a hero worth rooting for and a villain worth despising. Their story was powerful and, frankly, uncomfortable. It wasn’t the sort of perfect role-playing we’re all supposed to engage in nowadays; the pristine, the safe, the unoffensive. But it was very, very fascinating.
Never have I played a character of my own invention that I have despised more. I am relieved he has finally met his end of terror, thrilling as it was to be a part of his story
Never have I played a character of my own invention that I have despised more. I am relieved he has finally met his end of terror, thrilling as it was to be a part of his story
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I was a big fan of Heath, the rabbit who believed Willow from the beginning. No need for evidence of the transgressions, just faith in the rabbit who was wronged.
I was a big fan of Heath, the rabbit who believed Willow from the beginning. No need for evidence of the transgressions, just faith in the rabbit who was wronged.
Yoshi Creelman I thought it was interesting that Willow’s mate, Moon Hunter, was so equivocating in the face of Juniper’s obvious threat. All day I’ve been trying to figure out if it was an attempt to make a sober assessment of what was for the overall good of the warren, or if it was simple cowardice.
In the end, I’m glad Willow chose to mate with Heath, who was steadfast during the whole ordeal.
Yoshi Creelman I thought it was interesting that Willow’s mate, Moon Hunter, was so equivocating in the face of Juniper’s obvious threat. All day I’ve been trying to figure out if it was an attempt to make a sober assessment of what was for the overall good of the warren, or if it was simple cowardice.
In the end, I’m glad Willow chose to mate with Heath, who was steadfast during the whole ordeal.
Sometimes the pretty ones aren’t worth your love.
Sometimes the pretty ones aren’t worth your love.
Heath found Willow pretty in her own way.
(obvs Heath was adorable, I mean… look at him! Total hunk of bunny there)
Heath found Willow pretty in her own way.
(obvs Heath was adorable, I mean… look at him! Total hunk of bunny there)
That sounds great.
In our Apocalypse World game we had a player who is normally nervous about playing more than a beat stick. He took the Hoarder playbook and after two sessions of play he’d abandoned his guard post for an intact vending machine and let a child walk into a trap for a portable heater, then trading a captive to a cannibal to get the kid and heater. I asked him after the session if he was aware he was fast becoming the villain of the game. He said he thought it was looking like that and we kept pushing those buttons. His death at the hands of another player was the most ‘earned’ a death as I’d seen between my players and even from the grave his betrayals led to an attack on their town, making him the villain of the entire series. It was amazing and sometimes when a player is on the game’s side and the character really isn’t, it can totally make the game.
That sounds great.
In our Apocalypse World game we had a player who is normally nervous about playing more than a beat stick. He took the Hoarder playbook and after two sessions of play he’d abandoned his guard post for an intact vending machine and let a child walk into a trap for a portable heater, then trading a captive to a cannibal to get the kid and heater. I asked him after the session if he was aware he was fast becoming the villain of the game. He said he thought it was looking like that and we kept pushing those buttons. His death at the hands of another player was the most ‘earned’ a death as I’d seen between my players and even from the grave his betrayals led to an attack on their town, making him the villain of the entire series. It was amazing and sometimes when a player is on the game’s side and the character really isn’t, it can totally make the game.
This makes me want to play the Warren – fantastic
This makes me want to play the Warren – fantastic
I like to play a jerk, and it sometimes comes surprisingly easy. Still I never think of my character as “the bad guy”. He has reasons for the things he does whether they are past experience, cultural prejudice, or simple self interest. He thinks he is a good guy. It’s always funny to see what habits the other players find intolerable while they leave a child to be eaten by a monster.
I like to play a jerk, and it sometimes comes surprisingly easy. Still I never think of my character as “the bad guy”. He has reasons for the things he does whether they are past experience, cultural prejudice, or simple self interest. He thinks he is a good guy. It’s always funny to see what habits the other players find intolerable while they leave a child to be eaten by a monster.
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