I'm going to talk a bit about one of my partially completed novels which is "Codeworld: Anoniblogger". Hopefully, this will help me, let spring forth some useful comments, and show how to embed structures in stories below the level of awareness of the reader.
I have a LOT of characters in this novel. Its one of those that bounces hither and yon.
Hero: Robert, college student, runs server where dissidents can freely talk without being spied on.
Heroine: Lydia, reporter, runs 'Investigirl' a financial website with advice that she runs anonymously because she gives her unfiltered opinion.
Elder Adviser: Prof. Mayfair, on YouTube 'the Renegade Professor', also uses Robert's server to keep from getting in trouble for his forthright comments.
Villain: Hassim, terrorist, young punk
Victim: A'dab, beautiful Egyptian dissident
Elder Powerbroker: CEO of Huge Computer Company
Now match guy to guy, girl to girl, and elder to elder.
The terrorist is going to run around and exemplify all the sorts of evil things Palestinian terrorists do...and some of it will be funny. He will be the 'corpse' in a fake funeral for CNN.
The hero is going to have all the sorts of evil things that happen to outspoken conservatives on campus...get pies tossed at him, get referred to sensitivity training, get his car keyed, have a bunch of guys dressed in black from the local Anarchists group try to pound him into the pavement...
The Terrorist does Evil; The Hero receives Evil.
Lydia is going to try to track down the source of her problems; A'dab is going to try to run away from them.
Prof. Mayfair is a man of deep insight and devotion to moral principles. The CEO is a man with a vast array of knowledge, but little self-knowledge, and he has only devotion to himself.
There is another major character in the story...Loew Mi, the Chinese dissident who is captured by the secret police, and has information in the form of a steganographic tattoo on a document "Grand Strategy for the Current Age" by the leading strategist of the Chicoms. It describes the plans for weakening the US through terrorism supported by proxies who are in turn supported by the Chicoms until the US is weak enough for China to launch an attack and kick off WW3.
Loew Mi is the Treasure both sides seek. One side has him, but they don't realize what they have. The other side will soon realize what he is, but they don't have him.
The Terrorist in the end is going to try to use the Victim to carry a bomb into the US across the Southern Border.
Also, there is going to be a Mission Impossible type rescue of Loew Mi from inside China with the use of the Powerbroker's credentials (even if he's not aware of this). Probably the escape is aided by cyberwar attacks on China by white hat hackers who take down the whole Chinese internet, and thus prevent China from scrambling fighters to shoot down the escaping cargo plane.
A lot of what is going on here could be called Inverted Mirrors. The characters play off each other.
You can try to do this in a game. Its probably harder. In a novel, you have more time to think about your characters, and design them, and more time for weird ideas to jump up and bite you. In a game, its far quicker.
However, you can look at a PC, and try to deduce a few characteristics about them, and then make a guy who is the exact opposite.
One such that might work for almost any verser....Versers are wanderers. The Gardener is a verser who finds himself a good spot on a world, and makes a garden, and doesn't leave until mischance or war makes him verse out.
I myself seem to be following the Gardener example so far. Which is kind of annoying, actually, considering the first world I've settled on is one of universally stagnant biases where I can't really learn anything that won't be obsolete pretty much anywhere else. I'm learning to get a lot of mileage out of zero-bias magic, though. I suppose there's that.
As for this world...
How do you plan to have the Hero or the Girl stop the Victim from doing the Villain's dirty deed? This seems like the kind of thing where they're all going to be very far removed from each other physically, with a lot of communication but not much in the way of actual contact.
Of course, that said, knowing the Cavalry isn't coming, you could set up the Victim for an "I've had enough" moment, and have her either take down the badguy herself, or go through with it because at least then everyone will learn to suffer like she had.
Actually Osevens, most worlds are flatlined in psionics and magic. Something I learned the EXTREMELY hard way is to get really good with your TK pulse, because most of the time, it's going to be all you have.
I wish there were a way I could overdrive that like I'm doing with my Night Vision now. Spend a minute focusing on it to have it hit like the Hammer of Thor. That would be nice. But we're de-railing. Let's stay on-topic and be nice guests in someone else's thread.
I'm not sure, and yes, they are rather far apart. The Girl is in Arizona, the Hero in Tennessee, the Renegade Professor in Missisippi, the Villain in Arizona, and the Victim starts in Egypt but ends in Arizona....
You see a theme here, right?
I'm thinking the Victim is going to carry a dirty bomb over the Southern Border after the Terrorist, er, rapes her, and then she has a choice in her culture (Go out with honor or get stoned for being impure)...And the Villainous CEO is not really planning this, and he will end up in poetic justice format getting caught in the dirty bomb.
I could have the Victim is writing a daily diary posted on the Web, and she slips into it a plea for help under the eyes of her minder, the terrorist, and the good guys find the diary, realize its real, and see the plea for help which is coded so that the tens of thousands of other terrorists reading it don't realize she's begging for help.
I don't know.
You asked a very good question which I don't really have an answer for.
Right now, I'm thinking the DB goes off, but the Victim is saved by the actions of the Hero and the Girl, but the CEO is not hurt....physically. However, his company campus with billions of dollars of infrastructure is irradiated. His company goes from 70 bucks a share to three bucks a share in one day...