After reading some OPM today, I ran into a tought:
>How would you deal with infinitely powerful villain?
Of course, in novels, comics, games, etc. it would be easier to touch (standard shonen, focus on protagonists and them dealing with despair, for example )
But how would you try concept in a traditional gaming?
And what I mean by infinitely powerful: no statblock, you lose.
Well you certainly can't fight him, so don't even try, anons.
You could try to appease him, seal him away, ask for the help of the Gods, convince him to stop or to go somewhere else. I dunno.I keep up with what's currently the most popular vidya/TV show/other media through what threads keep being made on /tg/
I dunno, punch him in the dick and work from there.
>one punch man
why has this faggot taken off lately
>>43704285
Hello dear BBEG
I heard, you are in search of qualified underlings.
Yours truly,
>>43704399
It's got an anime now. That's making it popular, and therefore trash.
>>43704399
Popular Japanese webcomic gets redrawn by a talented professional artist, catches wind in the west.
Adapted into an anime by a popular studio with good animators.
Gist of it, although I am worried anime misinterprets it as shonen instead of parody of it.
You can get an ultimate stand.
>>43704285
Worship him?
That's what ~3.8 billion people are doing in our world at least.
>>43704489
Seems like a good adaptation from what I've watched so far. It could become more shonen later, imo, but I'll enjoy it until then
>>43704285
As a player, I'd stop trying to beat him in a fight and focus on finding a way to win.
As a DM, I'd give hints to the party that they can win without having to beat up the villain.
>How do I deal with an infinitely powerful villain
So Cthulhu or something like him?
You absolutely cannot hurt this being, trying to do so will result in you dying or being driven insane, no other outcome will happen.
You have to find a way to get them to leave by altering the world in such a way that they no longer can stay here.
>What if it is just a regular dude with unlimited power?
Sick another unlimited power source on him that has a condition you can exploit to get the new evil thing to leave or the new thing is something you can deal with.
For example, we ran into a demon who was trying to kick off a new Armageddon. The holy powers that be said that they cannot interfere with the actions of free choice being used by man to summon the demon and all they can do is respond.
So we went to Satan and snitched out the demon for trying to steal his thunder. Had to go to hell to do it, we bartered a free trip back home to give him the information. He still kept one of us (my character) but let the others go back freely and stopped the threat. His Armageddon plan is still a long way off from happening so now it is someone else's problem.
>>43704483
>opm
>trash
Just look at that shit taste.
>>43704285
Fight indirectly, I guess.
Make sure he never shows up.
But I figure he's gotta be in someone's best interest to summon, or else he would have
A) Already won, in which case the point is moot and if things are decent he's not really that much of a villain as the top dog everyone inevitably hates because muh resistance to authority.
B) Had all trace of him destroyed except for the rituals and knowledge required to unfuck everything when he inevitably shows up.
>>43704632
That was sarcasm. Some people will consider anything popular as trash, even if they liked it before it was popular.
>>43704707
See also: /mu/, /tv/.
>>43704538
*tips fedora*
>>43704499
Giorno is objectively the shittiest Jojo.
>>43704738
Not him, but see A here >>43704700.
>>43704285
Kill ancestor
>>43704285
Blast him into space on a rock while posing
>Omnipotent
Lose
>Infinitely powerful (physically)
Hurt him psychologically or physically.
>Infinitely powerful (magically)
You're fucked.
>>43704626
>There is no being more powerful than Cthulhu, and Cthulhu cannot be harmed by anything.
Cthulhu is not infinitely powerful, he's a goddamn priest. It's possible (if difficult) for the humans in Lovecraft's works to stop Cthulhu, they just don't because they're too busy being horrified that humanity isn't the center of the universe.
Heck, at one point scientists capture one of the spawn of Cthulhu and experiment on it; the scientists never go mad because they're convinced it's just a weird squid, but the spawn ends up traumatised.
>>43704626
>Cthulhu
>infinitely powerful
pfffbahahaha
>>43704626
>cthulhu
>can't be hurt
Also, most non-human being, and arguably particularly nihilistic or resilient humans can look cthulhu and have just a slight case of "ewhh"
>>43704626
>>43704951
>>43704982
>>43705008
Cthulhu is literally just a giant squid-dragon-man with regenerative abilities and an alien mind. He drives people mad because this was a time when everyone believed Earth was the center of the universe and it could contain no form of life greater than man (specifically white man). Seeing something like Cthulhu show up, who is not only superior to man but views man as insignificant, is enough to shatter the average 1920s WASP mind.
>>43704285
Have you read Worm?
>>43704626
In the original story they stop Cthulhu by smashing his head in with a boat from the 20s. Add to that a jaded populace that has seen plenty of monsters in movies for decades and the ability to fire missiles from a continent away? Some drone operator too far from Cthulhu to be effected by his psychic damage will just think "Huh, this reminds me of Cloverfield" before putting the green guy down.
>>43705301
Original Cthulhu doesn't have psychic damage, that's a thing RPGs brought in in an attempt to make him scary to modern audiences. Cthulhu actively setting out to mindrape humanity makes it sound like humans are important in the grand scheme of things, which is the opposite of what Lovecraft was trying to establish.
Another thing that's often forgotten is that most Lovecraftian entities don't understand humans any more than we understand them, meaning it's possible to surprise them with something humans have and they don't.
Like, for instance, all the hopes and dreams of mankind crystallised into a sword. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zDt40QiY_4
>>43705301
>>43705131
There's the complications of him being not entirely made out of natural matter, but he's super low tier in even the original story. He's just a priest.
>>43705185
Worm isn't really related to the OP's question.
>>43705527
He drove people around the world nuts when he woke up, at least temporarily. If that's not psychic damage I don't know what is. Of course, he isn't doing it intentionally.
>>43705557
Wasn't it implied that those people were detecting Cthulhu through latent psychic abilities?
>>43705583
Sort of. It's part of the romantic idea of artists and certain people being sort of sensitive, almost in a psychic way.
>>43704285
I make an un-killable PC.
Cthulhu is absolute shit tier compared to the outer gods
>>43707038
That explains where Alucard went for all those years after eating Shro. He temporarily ascended into higher plane of existance, curbstomped some squid priests, and came back when the fun ran out.
>>43704285
Yikes.
New to roleplaying games I see.
>>43704718
/a/ is the fucking worst about this.
Back when The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia was originally airing (season 1) they couldn't say bad things about it...not until the show got popular during reruns and DVD release with the chronological ordered episodes anyway. After that it was suddenly over-hyped garbage.
>>43704285
Hey, I saw Hades Project Zeorymer too.
Anyways, struggle and come to grips with the inevitability of your failing, then lose/die/become a sex slave or whatever. It would be a game for very masochistic people.
I've got something like this going for a campaign I want to run. Basics is that the BBEG has been tied to mana and magic as a concept. Like, he IS magic and mana. The only thing eternal in the universe. And the universe keeps ending and recreating itself so he wants to see the next universe. Problem is, this one is still here.
The way I've dealt with it is having him not be a violent character. The universe is meaningless to him, but it's not to the people who live in it. He never kills, and if some group of adventures stop his world ending schemes, he just sighs and starts over because it's not like he doesn't have a few centuries to spare. He WILL win. Eventually.
>>43704626
Nigga read a book. Its like 30 pages.
Undermine the villain's objectives rather than the villain himself. This requires giving the villain enough reason/depth/sanity/humanity that he can be attacked indirectly, without going crazy and just shitting on everyone out of revenge.
For example, if the BBEG is some sort of horrible space monster that ultimately wants to devour a world, but the PCs find a way to attach a 'poison pill' such that eating the world becomes pointless, then the heroes win. If the BBEG has political objectives (say a dragon in shadowrun), it might be very difficult to derail, but it can be done, possibly without ever encountering him. If the BBEG desires something (like an artifact) then simply getting to it first and destroying it might be good enough. If the BBEG is a warlord, it might be enough to bleed his army dry via logistics. If a demi-god, bleed it dry via undermining his church/cult. If the BBEG is more environmental it might be possible to hold its effects off long enough to accomplish something, even if it can't be addressed directly.
