The central paradox of being the 'tyrant' in a defense setup is that your power is fundamentally reactive. You're an entrenched authority, but your victory condition is passive survival. It creates a weird narrative dissonance where you feel powerful issuing decrees, but you're ultimately just waiting for the next wave to hit your walls. The challenge becomes manufacturing stakes beyond mere defense. Are you building a glorious empire, or just a very fancy bunker?
In the games I've read about, like 'Dungeon Core' or 'Overlord' style stories, the best ones make the dungeon or fortress an extension of the protagonist's psyche. The challenge isn't just upgrading turrets; it's dealing with the existential loneliness of being a stationary entity. Adventurers come and go, but you're stuck in your mountain. You start seeing heroes not as threats, but as entertainment, as the only window into a world you can no longer walk. That psychological slide from person to place is the real tyrannical challenge nobody talks about.
Then there's the resource management nightmare. A roaming tyrant can pillage. A stationary one has to make the resources come to them, through trade, trickery, or terrifying taxation. Your economic model is a siege economy in perpetuity. It warps your morality faster than any dark ritual. Suddenly, poisoning the local river to weaken attackers seems logical, even if it starves the villages downstream. You stop ruling people and start managing assets, which is maybe the truest form of tyranny.