Personally the things I found to be the most important are: - understandable motive (not necessarily sympathetic or righteous just understandable) - building them up as a threat - the players should have a understanding of their personality - some sort of personal relationship with the players
Great episode guys. Really good. What I liked is that you explained not just what makes a great villain, but HOW to make one and insert it into or build a campaign around it. A great villain for you guys to study is Scorpius from Farscape. Which, if you haven't watched, you really, REALLY should. It's d&d in space. Almost everything you said in this episode is used in that series. It's a masterwork.
This episode came at the perfect time! I'm building my first campaign as a first time DM and this episode gave me lots of great ideas. Keep up the great work.
I had a main villain for a campaign that I never got around to implementing, as well as three mini-boss/side villains. The main story would have had the main villain, the Cursed Witch Queen Dolone, be an active presence in the world over 500 years previously. She waged an 10-year reign of terror across the country alongside her three Apprentice-Generals, the Fell Witch Melinoe, the Mad Witch Sesha, and the Dead Witch Arrdak. The party would have traveled the country, seeing signs of the Witch War everywhere - the ruins of forts, towns, even entire cities. Great swaths of forest, field and swamp, dead and crystallized, the water, soil and the very air mildly poisonous to those who can't withstand it. The Apprentice-Generals lingering, waiting for their chance to start the Witch War anew... You see, 500 years ago, Dolone Crestwood is a human Archmage in service to emperor, a researcher, scientist and premier Wizard. She began studying Soul Magics, taking on various apprentices and colleges in search of the answer to the age's most puzzling question - what is the nature of the bond between magic, the body, and the soul? Her first apprentice is a young human sorceress by the name of Marcaia Jastosa, the only survivor of a poor farming family hit by a wasting sickness. Dolone took the girl in out of pity and later found out that Marcaia's innate magic, instinctively directed by her soul, somehow boosted her body's immune system to resist the virus. This kick-started the idea of the research project that would eventually bring the country, and then the surrounding lands, into ruin. Arrdak joined next, a Dwarven necromancer, joined next, knowing of Dolone as the world's foremost expert of magical sentience and wishing to learn, above all else, if magic was its own form of life, or if a soul could exist independently of it. The half-orc hexblade Sesha and an old friend of hers, an Elven wizard named Wynrel, joined last, Sesha joining as a bodyguard and Wynrel joining as the last true apprentice Dolone would ever take. Her team completed, Dolone began her experiments, using criminals, the poor, the dead and the living as she saw fit. With her renown, few saw fit to try and stop her. A new strain of magic was born of the experiments, dubbed Corruption Syndrome by it's creators. The magic infected its host's body, very similar to a parasite or a virus, afflicting it's host with permanent changes to their mind, body and soul. Wynrel volunteered herself as the first test subject, and became the world's first Witch. Wynrel later caused an accident that infected the entire laboratory with Corruption Syndrome, killing off over 3/4ths of the staff. Those that survived emerged as Witches, with Dolone, the most powerful, experienced and practiced with magic among their number, as their Queen. Arrdak went forth, Desecrating great swaths of land; graveyards, sacred landmarks, towns and villages and all the inhabitants (living and dead) within for his Queen, raising legions of the undead in her name. Marcaia, discarding her old name to become Melinoe, infiltrated villages and cities and poisoned the inhabitants with illness and disease. There are ruins throughout the kingdoms in the current times, filled with nothing but skeletons and rotting stone and wood due to her work. And, Sesha... Wynrel had been one of her lieutenants, but she had been killed in the early days of the War. Her death snapped whatever tenuous grasp Sesha still had on her sanity, driving her mad and transforming her talent for misfortune into a lust for chaos and destruction. The half-orc laid waste to villages, towns and entire armies, driving those who stood against her as insane as she was. Other Witches joined their numbers, some dragged in unwillingly by the Corruption the Witches spread like wildfire, others drawn to the Corruption's tantalizing power, but none stood higher than the Apprentice-Generals. Dolone was eventually slain, but not before all the nearby kingdoms pooled their strength and sent out a party of their 8 greatest warriors, aided by legions of men ready to stand against Dolone and her growing army of Witches. The Apprentice-Generals slipped away into the shadows, and now bide their time, waiting for the day when their Queen would return to them... The lands recovered as best they could. Forces, groups and organizations dedicated to the destruction of the Corruption have risen and fallen in the last 500 years. But it will not be enough. The Cursed Witch Queen would rise again. And this time, there would be no stopping her. Not without some luck, some help, and some timely intervention.
Ive actually been thinking about a villain whos motive is to actually destroy all the gods. Believing the gods to be the main cause of turmoil and suffering so the villain and his followers are called godslayers. I think it's really great because in the d&d world it's kinda true that gods are as much a cause of good as they are bad (regardless of if the god in question is good or bad) and also as a threat to EVERYTHING the villain is a good reason for all kinds of adventurers to set out together. Also one of my favorite villains ever is from Last Remnant, he's introduced pretty early on and its very clear that hes the villain but also is never really out to get you, like hes on a mission that is like lawful good on a cosmic scale
A player of mine killed a god (trickery and scrying), but not their last devotee. That NPC they lead around ended up possessed by the god (she was their orical and channeled the god, idk why they didnt kill her, they knew this fact). By the end of the campaign, when the moment was right, she ended up beating in the skull of the player who killed him/her. All my players just had a surprise pikachu face on.
Another great one guys! I wanted to weigh in with an example of an indirect villain, but TOMB OF ANNIHILATION SPOILERS, ALBEIT JUST SMALL ONES THAT ARENT REALLY SPOILERS. I'm playing ToA, where the Archlich Acererak is the BBEG. At first, I debated on making him appear to the players every so often to taunt them like Strahd tends to do, but decided not to even mention him until the very end. All my players know is something is causing a curse and they have to stop it. I've given them small tastes that there's more to it than that. I made a mistake in A recent session, and forgot to include their NPC companion in the initiative order against some Wights. I brushed it under the rug by having a Wight hit the NPC with an arrow and all the sudden he was paralyzed. Well, I decided to play on this, because the Wizard performed an arcana check on the NPC. He sensed great necromantic power behind what he identified to be a curse, but no more than that. So now the NPC wasn't just paralyzed, but cursed as well. Last session they joined with Artus and Dragonbait, so now my action economy is muddled up. So I prepped next session to address it and go into more on the curse. Well, the Wight comes back as a Champion Wight (combined Wight stats and Champion stats from Volo's Guide) with some buddies. He instigates Level 2 of the curse and the NPC will go down again (thanks Book of Vile Darkness...) and Dragonbait will pull him to safety (action economy issue solved). After the new Wight encounter, Artus will suggest Dragonbait take the NPC back to Port Nyanzaru to have the curse looked at. So I made a mistake, a big plot came out of it off the cuff as they do, the players get a feeling something bigger than a curse is looming over them, and Acererak becomes a very indirect bad guy. If they don't allow the NPC to go back, they face him as Cursed Taban (gladiator + Bodak stats) and now have to deal with their friend attacking them, giving them a moral dilemma. I just figured this story fit well with today's topic, as it employs many of the points you guys touched on, by coincidence. I'd love to hear what you guys think!
Hey! I saw you guys talking shit about EKs in the multiclass episode. eldritch knights are amazing, if you choose the right spells. Shield, absorb elements, blur, mirror image, haste, and greater invisibility make you almost impossible to kill. you won't do as much damage, but a 26 ac and disadvantage to hit you at level 7, is unbelievably hard to hit. It isn't until you get to creatures with +15 to hit, that you are really threatened.
Hmm.... A BBEG finds a prophecy that says that someone that is born on the eclipse (just throwing some physical phenomenon) will inherit the world. And he/she was born on an eclipse so they think that they will inherit the world. The players will then find the prophecy and learn that the BBEG was in fact born in the middle of an eclipse. However, the person the prophecy was actually talking about was someone who was just born, or have yet to be born.
@@an8strengthkobold360 you can play chaotic evil. The sticking point is always the player, if they are prone to being a murder hobo then NO it will NOT work. The only thing that truly defines evil in the DnD setting is one's propensity for malicious acts. LE might have a number of reasons for following the law but they are still prone to acting selfishly or with a Paladin's self righteous "I know better" mentality with all the trappings of the "best of intentions". NE is probably the most dangerous of the lot by far, loyal -until they arent. They do whats best for number one, ya? Only thing is they have no moral objections where as others might, the perfect mercenaries. CE is the hardest to play because most people are stupid, thus are murder hobos by default, add in these same idiots thinking of HOW they can be "evil" makes for even worse consequences. CE makes for the best villains though when done right. Agent Smith who just wants to tear the whole Matrix down. Brianiac who only cares about acquiring knowledge. The Dark Knight Joker, who just wants to burn it all down for laughs. You want to play a CE character right? Just look at ANY hero and flip their morals and motivations on their head. It doesn't have to be sane but there IS consistency in their actions. If not much ryme or reason.
good episode. though tbh I don't think you need a greatly written villain to have a good villain. don't get me wrong, a villain with great writing makes for a fantastic story. just look at grand admiral thrawn from star wars. every time he showed up in rebels he legitimately had me frightened with his damn near omniscient knowledge of military strategy and stuff. however at the same time I feel a more simplistic bad guy can be just as good, even if their motivation is just world domination for the sake of it. it may not be as complex but it can create a good charming and enjoyable story. one example is bowser from super Mario bros. yeah his plan is pretty much always kidnap the princess which is just a huge cliche, but hey cliches become cliches because they're worth repeating. the only thing I feel makes them good or bad is personal opinion. for instance I love the old classic cliche of the princess being kidnapped and needing to be saved. rarely if ever gets old for me.
Griffith did everything wrong. (As an evil person myself, I can say he could have achieved his goals with a lot less effort, not that I'm gonna say how he could. [maybe if someone asks nicely...])
Sphere of evil constantly shitting out bad guys just sounds like the Abyss and the shard of evil.
"Though not all stories have a villain, every Villain has a Story ..." (is how the intro should have started)
5:50 This is why Magneto is the best Villain. Read his monologue in Uncanny X-Men 150, after he zaps Kitty Pryde.
32:00 Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty.
i have heard that somewhere and i cant remember were.
Personally the things I found to be the most important are:
- understandable motive (not necessarily sympathetic or righteous just understandable)
- building them up as a threat
- the players should have a understanding of their personality
- some sort of personal relationship with the players
I remember watching Episode 1 after seeing you guys on Reddit. You’ve come so far.
We have! Thanks for sticking with us this long!
Not D&D, but Corypheus destroying haven in DA: inquisition after you fought to make it grow is a nice way to introduce a big bad.
Oh sweet he knows about Golden Sun!!! One of the best game series ever made.
You guys are fing awesome. Keep doing what you guys do, because my own game design has benefitted from all of your work! Thank you!
Great episode guys. Really good.
What I liked is that you explained not just what makes a great villain, but HOW to make one and insert it into or build a campaign around it.
A great villain for you guys to study is Scorpius from Farscape. Which, if you haven't watched, you really, REALLY should.
It's d&d in space. Almost everything you said in this episode is used in that series. It's a masterwork.
This episode came at the perfect time! I'm building my first campaign as a first time DM and this episode gave me lots of great ideas. Keep up the great work.
In the last few minutes with you guys talking about best the bbeg quick gave me some serious ff10 fighting sin vibes.
I had a main villain for a campaign that I never got around to implementing, as well as three mini-boss/side villains. The main story would have had the main villain, the Cursed Witch Queen Dolone, be an active presence in the world over 500 years previously. She waged an 10-year reign of terror across the country alongside her three Apprentice-Generals, the Fell Witch Melinoe, the Mad Witch Sesha, and the Dead Witch Arrdak. The party would have traveled the country, seeing signs of the Witch War everywhere - the ruins of forts, towns, even entire cities. Great swaths of forest, field and swamp, dead and crystallized, the water, soil and the very air mildly poisonous to those who can't withstand it. The Apprentice-Generals lingering, waiting for their chance to start the Witch War anew...
You see, 500 years ago, Dolone Crestwood is a human Archmage in service to emperor, a researcher, scientist and premier Wizard. She began studying Soul Magics, taking on various apprentices and colleges in search of the answer to the age's most puzzling question - what is the nature of the bond between magic, the body, and the soul?
Her first apprentice is a young human sorceress by the name of Marcaia Jastosa, the only survivor of a poor farming family hit by a wasting sickness. Dolone took the girl in out of pity and later found out that Marcaia's innate magic, instinctively directed by her soul, somehow boosted her body's immune system to resist the virus. This kick-started the idea of the research project that would eventually bring the country, and then the surrounding lands, into ruin.
Arrdak joined next, a Dwarven necromancer, joined next, knowing of Dolone as the world's foremost expert of magical sentience and wishing to learn, above all else, if magic was its own form of life, or if a soul could exist independently of it. The half-orc hexblade Sesha and an old friend of hers, an Elven wizard named Wynrel, joined last, Sesha joining as a bodyguard and Wynrel joining as the last true apprentice Dolone would ever take. Her team completed, Dolone began her experiments, using criminals, the poor, the dead and the living as she saw fit. With her renown, few saw fit to try and stop her.
A new strain of magic was born of the experiments, dubbed Corruption Syndrome by it's creators. The magic infected its host's body, very similar to a parasite or a virus, afflicting it's host with permanent changes to their mind, body and soul. Wynrel volunteered herself as the first test subject, and became the world's first Witch. Wynrel later caused an accident that infected the entire laboratory with Corruption Syndrome, killing off over 3/4ths of the staff. Those that survived emerged as Witches, with Dolone, the most powerful, experienced and practiced with magic among their number, as their Queen.
Arrdak went forth, Desecrating great swaths of land; graveyards, sacred landmarks, towns and villages and all the inhabitants (living and dead) within for his Queen, raising legions of the undead in her name. Marcaia, discarding her old name to become Melinoe, infiltrated villages and cities and poisoned the inhabitants with illness and disease. There are ruins throughout the kingdoms in the current times, filled with nothing but skeletons and rotting stone and wood due to her work. And, Sesha... Wynrel had been one of her lieutenants, but she had been killed in the early days of the War. Her death snapped whatever tenuous grasp Sesha still had on her sanity, driving her mad and transforming her talent for misfortune into a lust for chaos and destruction. The half-orc laid waste to villages, towns and entire armies, driving those who stood against her as insane as she was. Other Witches joined their numbers, some dragged in unwillingly by the Corruption the Witches spread like wildfire, others drawn to the Corruption's tantalizing power, but none stood higher than the Apprentice-Generals.
Dolone was eventually slain, but not before all the nearby kingdoms pooled their strength and sent out a party of their 8 greatest warriors, aided by legions of men ready to stand against Dolone and her growing army of Witches. The Apprentice-Generals slipped away into the shadows, and now bide their time, waiting for the day when their Queen would return to them...
The lands recovered as best they could. Forces, groups and organizations dedicated to the destruction of the Corruption have risen and fallen in the last 500 years. But it will not be enough.
The Cursed Witch Queen would rise again. And this time, there would be no stopping her. Not without some luck, some help, and some timely intervention.
Just sayin, another name for "Ranger Danger" could be "Monster Manual Hunters" (courtesy of the popular game monster hunter)
Love all the anime references lol, great video guys.
Awesome video! Some great tips for a new DM like myself currently in the process of crafting my first campaign. Love the show, keep it up
Ive actually been thinking about a villain whos motive is to actually destroy all the gods. Believing the gods to be the main cause of turmoil and suffering so the villain and his followers are called godslayers. I think it's really great because in the d&d world it's kinda true that gods are as much a cause of good as they are bad (regardless of if the god in question is good or bad) and also as a threat to EVERYTHING the villain is a good reason for all kinds of adventurers to set out together.
Also one of my favorite villains ever is from Last Remnant, he's introduced pretty early on and its very clear that hes the villain but also is never really out to get you, like hes on a mission that is like lawful good on a cosmic scale
this video helped me very much, thank you!
A player of mine killed a god (trickery and scrying), but not their last devotee. That NPC they lead around ended up possessed by the god (she was their orical and channeled the god, idk why they didnt kill her, they knew this fact).
By the end of the campaign, when the moment was right, she ended up beating in the skull of the player who killed him/her.
All my players just had a surprise pikachu face on.
Bad whiplash=Mass Effect 3
God level villains like tiamat or vecna should be able to break some rules to make them seem like gods
Another great one guys!
I wanted to weigh in with an example of an indirect villain, but TOMB OF ANNIHILATION SPOILERS, ALBEIT JUST SMALL ONES THAT ARENT REALLY SPOILERS.
I'm playing ToA, where the Archlich Acererak is the BBEG. At first, I debated on making him appear to the players every so often to taunt them like Strahd tends to do, but decided not to even mention him until the very end. All my players know is something is causing a curse and they have to stop it.
I've given them small tastes that there's more to it than that. I made a mistake in A recent session, and forgot to include their NPC companion in the initiative order against some Wights. I brushed it under the rug by having a Wight hit the NPC with an arrow and all the sudden he was paralyzed.
Well, I decided to play on this, because the Wizard performed an arcana check on the NPC. He sensed great necromantic power behind what he identified to be a curse, but no more than that. So now the NPC wasn't just paralyzed, but cursed as well.
Last session they joined with Artus and Dragonbait, so now my action economy is muddled up. So I prepped next session to address it and go into more on the curse.
Well, the Wight comes back as a Champion Wight (combined Wight stats and Champion stats from Volo's Guide) with some buddies. He instigates Level 2 of the curse and the NPC will go down again (thanks Book of Vile Darkness...) and Dragonbait will pull him to safety (action economy issue solved).
After the new Wight encounter, Artus will suggest Dragonbait take the NPC back to Port Nyanzaru to have the curse looked at.
So I made a mistake, a big plot came out of it off the cuff as they do, the players get a feeling something bigger than a curse is looming over them, and Acererak becomes a very indirect bad guy.
If they don't allow the NPC to go back, they face him as Cursed Taban (gladiator + Bodak stats) and now have to deal with their friend attacking them, giving them a moral dilemma.
I just figured this story fit well with today's topic, as it employs many of the points you guys touched on, by coincidence.
I'd love to hear what you guys think!
Naraku From Inuyasha is an Indirect villain, Shigaraki from My Hero Academia is a direct Villain
Hey! I saw you guys talking shit about EKs in the multiclass episode. eldritch knights are amazing, if you choose the right spells. Shield, absorb elements, blur, mirror image, haste, and greater invisibility make you almost impossible to kill. you won't do as much damage, but a 26 ac and disadvantage to hit you at level 7, is unbelievably hard to hit. It isn't until you get to creatures with +15 to hit, that you are really threatened.
Tower of god has lots of twist and turns with their villains
♡♡♡♡you guys are perfect, keep doing what you do. ♡♡♡♡
You should totally do a henchman episode!!!
Any chance you guys have recorded sessions of playing the offical campaigns?
yoshikage kira and funny valentine nuff said for great villains
is that a jojo refrence!?
A villain that hates concrete and steel lmao
If you guys like heart-wrenching backstories, you should see Oda.
Hmm.... A BBEG finds a prophecy that says that someone that is born on the eclipse (just throwing some physical phenomenon) will inherit the world. And he/she was born on an eclipse so they think that they will inherit the world. The players will then find the prophecy and learn that the BBEG was in fact born in the middle of an eclipse. However, the person the prophecy was actually talking about was someone who was just born, or have yet to be born.
I always thought moriarty was watson because when sherlock was solving mysteries he was sober
I like playing as a villian with waves of heroes coming to stop the players
I assume your party is a bunch of CN's.
@@an8strengthkobold360 you can play chaotic evil. The sticking point is always the player, if they are prone to being a murder hobo then NO it will NOT work. The only thing that truly defines evil in the DnD setting is one's propensity for malicious acts. LE might have a number of reasons for following the law but they are still prone to acting selfishly or with a Paladin's self righteous "I know better" mentality with all the trappings of the "best of intentions".
NE is probably the most dangerous of the lot by far, loyal -until they arent. They do whats best for number one, ya? Only thing is they have no moral objections where as others might, the perfect mercenaries.
CE is the hardest to play because most people are stupid, thus are murder hobos by default, add in these same idiots thinking of HOW they can be "evil" makes for even worse consequences. CE makes for the best villains though when done right. Agent Smith who just wants to tear the whole Matrix down. Brianiac who only cares about acquiring knowledge. The Dark Knight Joker, who just wants to burn it all down for laughs.
You want to play a CE character right? Just look at ANY hero and flip their morals and motivations on their head. It doesn't have to be sane but there IS consistency in their actions. If not much ryme or reason.
Lucas spoke to Joseph Campbell about mythical archetypes.
good episode. though tbh I don't think you need a greatly written villain to have a good villain. don't get me wrong, a villain with great writing makes for a fantastic story. just look at grand admiral thrawn from star wars. every time he showed up in rebels he legitimately had me frightened with his damn near omniscient knowledge of military strategy and stuff.
however at the same time I feel a more simplistic bad guy can be just as good, even if their motivation is just world domination for the sake of it.
it may not be as complex but it can create a good charming and enjoyable story. one example is bowser from super Mario bros. yeah his plan is pretty much always kidnap the princess which is just a huge cliche, but hey cliches become cliches because they're worth repeating. the only thing I feel makes them good or bad is personal opinion. for instance I love the old classic cliche of the princess being kidnapped and needing to be saved. rarely if ever gets old for me.
So Griffith...
(From Berserk)
But Griffith did nothing wrong.
Griffith did everything wrong.
(As an evil person myself, I can say he could have achieved his goals with a lot less effort,
not that I'm gonna say how he could. [maybe if someone asks nicely...])
Griffith Did Nothing Wrong
Shou Tucker is World’s Best Dad
All good hero's need good villains unless the hero is there own villain.
In the military we had what was called the inadvertently bad guy. I can explain it if you contact me.
Please do a video on tabaxi