Guide to Fleshing Out Enemy Bases in MA

Fleshing Out Enemy Bases in MA

The hero enters a warehouse to fight some Hellions. Without reading the intro text, can the player tell if the hero is stopping a Hellion robbery at a warehouse or if he found their headquarters? As a tip, the Hellions probably have not set their own headquarters on fire.

This guide offers advice on what you can add on any map to make a mission feel like an enemy headquarters. It assumes you will not use every detail suggested, but will choose a few and tailor them to your arc and to your villain group.

What Are the Villains Doing?
Villains in their headquarters probably are not all standing around waiting for trouble, although some should be. We are not talking realism – when enemies stand around 20 feet from where their friends are being attacked, this is about flavor and what can be done.

In functional terms, villains are doing their animation. That means to have the villains doing non-standard things you need to set up spawns where you control their animation. The easiest is to do a Defeat a Boss, select an lt or a minion as the boss, and you can choose the animation for the boss and the rest of the spawn (for custom critters the animation for the boss does not work). Defendable and destructible objects also work well for this.

- Mass Animations
These animations you can set many spawns to be doing as just general flavor.

Training – are the enemies physically or mentally skilled?
- Book Research – reading a book
- Floating Books – reading books magically floating in the air
- Training Hand to Hand – practicing punches and kicks
- Training Jumping Jacks – doing jumping jacks
- If you can set the boss to their own animation try setting the boss to Drill Instructor if the rest of the spawn is training

Resting – they need so sleep or just hang out sometime
- Bum Slump – sitting or lying down, a mix of the two
- Unconcious – lying down
- Crate (Sit) – sitting on a crate
- Being Repaird – standing bent over at waist, robot resting
- Vampire (Standing) – standing stiffly with arms crossed, robot or mystic resting

Eating – Almost everyone needs to eat
- Eat (Donut) – holding donut, occasionally taking a bite
- Eat (Hamburger) – holding a hamburger, occasionally taking a bite
- Drinker (Clay Mug) – holding a cup and occasionally taking a sip
- Drinker (Coffee) - holding a cup and occasionally taking a sip
- Teabag – holding a tea cup and dipping a teabag into it (very proper)

Working – Doing chores around the base
- Carrying Crate – holding a crate
- Carrying Pipe – holding a pipe
- Bodybag – holding a bodybag
- Bookie – writing on a notepad and looking around
- Clipboard – just writing in notepad
- Reading blueprint – reading a blueprint
- Welding (low or medium) – welding, but there is nothing in front of you
- Tech Scanner – scanning with a device

Killing Time – Just hanging out
- Warm Hands – blowing on hands
- Waiting – tapping foot
- Walkie Talkie – holding a walkie talkie
- Reading (newspaper) – holding and reading newspaper, choose Paragon or Rogue Isles
- Dancing - dancing
- Zombie drumming – drumming (nothing zombie about it)

What Are the Villains Saying?
People generally talk at least some, and what they say tells us about them and what they are doing. As a basic rule you can’t have too many spots with dialog – if they only say it when you interact with them. Too many spawns broadcasting dialog when you enter the mission looks bad. And too much dialog within a spawn is a problem – if 4 dialog balloons go up at once the player can’t read them all (unless they check back in their chat window). It is better to have more spawns with short dialog, then fewer spawns with longer dialog.

- Arc Flavor Dialog
This dialog references the plot of the arc and reinforces the overall story. A few references to the arc in a mission add to the flavor, too many make it seem contrived. And the references cannot be detailed explanations (the big boss can do this of course), just bits of the plot.
“Once we rob that bank we won’t need to live in this dump”
“Everyone is afraid of us now that Big Bad joined us”
“I can’t believe we are going to the moon”

- Villain Group Flavor Dialog
This dialog adds flavor to the villain group. Tech groups talk about tech, magic groups talk about magic, etc. This is a good chance to add flavor and be funny. You can add flavor with them talking about almost anything.
TV Shows – Warriors watch Survivor, Skulls watch Bones, Vahzilok watch House, etc
Movies – Freaks like Terminator, Hellions like Reign of Fire, Nemesis like Metropolis
Songs – the villains can sing a bit of a song’s lyrics, 5th Column “Du hast me’
Food – trolls like steak, Malta like French food, Crey are vegetarian (or eat protein bars)

- Base Flavor Group
This dialog reinforces that this is the villains’ base. Again, don’t do too much of this, but a few references add flavor.
“I can’t believe we have to stay in this dump”
“At least our new base has a T1 connection”
“Living in an office is dumb, but they ley lines converged here”

How Do the Villains Decorate
Everybody wants stuff and villains are no different. Tech groups need tech stuff, robbers need crates of stolen goods, magic groups need scroll racks, religious groups need altars. Items are added through clickies, destructible objects, and defendable objects. Clickies have no enemies and thus no dialog, the other two can have dialog.

- Tech
Barrels, Crates, Refrigerator, Forklift, Machines

- Magic
Bookcase, cauldrons

- Important Notes
A whiteboard or tablet clickie can have important clues or flavor if the hero takes the time to read them. This can be an oblique clue – the formula for napalm, or as explicit as “step 1: steal underwear”. Treat this as an easter egg – a reward for the player if the hero clicks on it.

- Computer discussion
A defendable computer. The enemies stand around talking about some data on the computer. When the hero finds it, more enemies rush to secure the data.

- Altar worship
A destructible altar. The enemies are bowing before it and praying. The hero can defeat them and destroy the altar.

Guards
The villains will have some guards. Having them stand in place until the hero comes to them is a bit unrealistic. Making the villains react or be proactive adds a touch of realism and variety.

- Patrols
Simple patrol objective. The villains aren’t intelligent but at least they are mobile. Patrols should have only one line of dialog unless the two interact (question and answer). Best dialog is a simple “Keep an eye out” or “Don’t let anyone sneak past” – makes it clear they are guards, and isn’t odd if there are 4 patrols saying the same thing.

- Lookouts
Lookouts are defeat boss objectives with attached ambushes. When the boss is at ¾ health they call out and the ambush is triggered.

- Alarms
Alarms are when the villains respond to something being touched. This can be a click object objective with a triggered ambush, or a defendable object with a built in ambush. In addition to adding variety to the mission, they emphasize the importance of the item. Defendable items are best for very important items – if it is really that important the villains will have guards around it and more on call.



Gambling
Have only one of these in a mission. A defeat boss objective. The boss is animated as Three Card Monty – moving cups on table – have spawn do greedy (hunched forward rubbing hands in greedy fashion)

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QR - 'Step 1 - Steal Underwear'

I might have to add this to future arcs as a matter of course.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)