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How do I make a villain my players will truly hate and/or fear?
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- Опубліковано 30 бер 2024
- How do I make a villain my players will truly hate and/or fear?
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To make a villain vile, kill an NPC.
To make a villain scary, kill a villain.
To make a villain both, kill a hero.
Dog for last one.
@@magnarcreed3801that makes them a monster
@@oinkytheink1228I’d say that makes them extra dead
Nah...
To make a villain vile and scary, introduce them as a friend and have them sacrifice that friendship for power with a method that makes sense for the character.
and make the va sound like peter griffin 2:10
The answer that says "dont make your PCs think you are out to get them" gets it.
Yeah, having an enemy that can just teleport and beat the snot out of the players or a villain who always knows what they are doing isn't scary, it's annoying. You are the GM buckaroo, you could do that at anytime. The real challenge is making a scary villain who doesn't *seem* to need GM fiat to be scary (of course he needs the fiat, but the secret is not letting it show)
@@RocknRoll301199 zactly 💯
For a party of murder hobos, have the bbeg be a necromancer who brings back the people who they kill and rather than controlling them, have them get trained up to kill the party
Sounds like part of the thing with the BBEG from the Deerstalker Productions shorts
@@AzraelThanatos i figured that it'd be a good way to punish murder happy players
wait does that even qualify as a bbeg?
hes getting justice
@@raileynashpallada9559 bbgg?
Operation jumpjustu
So one of my campaigns was once a not so subtle Pirates of the Caribbean style homebrew campaign in a fantasy setting. One of the main villains was Commodore Horatio Ironsmith, a mixture of James Norrington and Cutler Beckett. That's right, we were fighting the BRITISH.
So for a good period of the campaign this guy was seen as a little bit of a joke, sort of a team rocket for us, as we were too busy fighting the other pirates, like Captain Twin Hooked Teake or the Dreaded Captain Keel-hauler. He was competent, exemplary even, but he was undermanned, underfunded, and operating in an area so corrupt that it would make South America during Pablo Escobar look squeaky clean. This would usually end with the officer wigless and clinging to the mast of yet another sinking ship, cursing our names.
However in about the middle of the campaign, the ongoing rampant piracy had caused a grave side effect. We'd cut into the Spice Coast Trading Companies profit margins, and likewise the margins of his Majesty King Octavius II. The King gave Horatio a blank cheque and carte blanche to do what he wanted in the area. Then we realised that apparently Admiral Thrawn was also an inspiration.
So we arrived at the equivalent of Tortuga after another fun adventure, to the place burnt to the ground pretty much everyone our characters knew and loved either hung for piracy or transported to the far colonies.
The man then established martial law, sacked most of the corrupt governors, gave letters of marque to a bunch of pirates, and a fat pension once they were done hunting down their former colleagues, and the next half of the campaign was us fighting for our lives against a much more ruthless and well organised force. This man was ruthless. He resurfaced and deliberately triggered one of our characters trauma to win a battle, continued to hang or imprison allies or associates, stubbornly refused to die, shot our captains parrot (godspeed Ruby) and shot her love interest as well, because, lol, lmao. What a dick.
The worst part was that the general public, not being pirates, absolutely LOVED the new Admiral. Every port we docked we'd get "Oh hey stranger, you heard that Admiral Ironsmith caught Captain Keel-Hauler? He keel hauled her for a change! He's such a hero that man, thank the gods he's here to help our islands!" It was infuriating. So by the end of our campaign most of our players had a visceral, seething hatred of this man. Good job DM. You evil man.
DAAAM!!
Your DM is ruthless for this! Especially for having him be the one to take out Keel-Hauler instead of the party, that must have stung! And R.I.P. Ruby😢
that just sounds like a police officer
@@raileynashpallada9559 acaaaaaaab ✌
THIS is one of the things that made Handsome Jack such a legendary villain. To the very end, Jack believed HE was the hero of the story. Some of the best villains are the ones that genuinely believe they're doing the right thing, or that the ends justify the means
If you want to make the villain truly despicable, make them fight enough enemies for them to burn just enough spells and/or actions to be low but not enough to have none, and do not let them rest. The lack of rest needs to be justified like, "A lot can happen in 8 hours, how do you know reinforcements won't come?" or "I need to remind you you literally waited until the last minute to stop them". Then make the villain relatively strong so the players can agonize their lack of options. They could use their spells or action now, but will they need it later.
That just sounds like they're gonna hate YOU
So anyway, that's one of the reasons Blue seems like a formidable rival.
@@termicrafteron2794 To be fair, it's not a dnd experience if the players like the dm all the time.
@@justinn8541 we clearly play in different tables
@@termicrafteron2794 It's a love hate relationship.
If fear is what is intended (and it is what I like to use most of the time), there is nothing like making sure your party knows the villain can take them by surprise at any given time and mop the floor with them. One of my better villains, Malthus the Shadow Whisperer, literally just manifested from one of my player's shadows as his first interaction with the party. After effortlessly dodging all of the party's attacks and even (not severely) wounding some of my players, he proceded to explain that he would be watching them very carefully... No one slept that in-game night. Fast forward a few sessions, the party is traversing a dark forest. They were all scared as hell from the mere possibility Malthus could appear at any time. They even made it a rule that someone HAD to stay awake at night in case he appeared.
I usually take notes from characters like General Grevious (the 2003 show version)
Rather than just being a big tank he was stealthy, studying the jedi and messing with them until they show vulnerability where he than strikes
That sounds like a curse upon a character where they had a relative who killed Malthus’s son resulting a curse within the extended family of the uncle
@@oinkytheink1228 The what now
@@LFMG-qu5fq basically a curse from Malthus send onto your bloodline due to the actions of your player’s uncle killing or capturing a relative of Malthus like a nephew or grandfather
@@LFMG-qu5fq and they need to eliminate Malthus to lift the curse
10:16 - My DM, a friend, and I, basically did all that.
My friend had a "player" character, who was on our side all the time. I had a little birb healer who was around him all the time.
Eventually, both the "player" and my healer (whom I replaced with another healer lmao) disappeared.
Then, when "player" revealed himself to be BBEG's second-in-command, he (with my consent) killed my first healer in front of everyone.
My first healer.
The birb.
The cutie pie.
Needless to say, the final confrontation turned out absolutely *E P I C.*
I love reading stories like this. Cool tale
My Dm made a villian hand a cursed object to a kid and have her carry it to her parents, who were royals. The itme activated and melted her father infront of her and then he accused the little girl of killing the prince. Our party had to prove her innocence. During our investigations we found out the guy exclusively weaponized unknowing little kids to commit terrorist acts. And he'd been doing it successfully for 3 decades while running an orphanage. It gave us a MASSIVE hate-on for the guy...
I don't think I've ever enjoyed killing a made up character more (We let him slide into a leather makers vat with 2 broken legs).
My favourite thing is to set a sandbox campaign setting. You have your bbeg be an established threat in the world, but not something that directly affects your players
You let them explore the world a little. They can go to different towns and cities, do quests (often which seem to link somewhat into the overarching world story), discover lost dungeons and history, meet local heros/deities, etc. Then when they find a place that they love and feel comfortable with NPCs they cherish, potentially pets and/or homes, that's when the bbeg strikes. It's a beast that runs rampant, a cult that releases a curse, or a god that decided that this city is a sacrifice to them
Make the group feel helpless against it through numbers, circumstances, or sheer strength
That's when the characters hit ~level 4-5, and they decide that they need to intervene 😎
Goated idea.
Make their motivation relatable. One of my villains had a line that has stuck with my players the whole campaign and beyond.
“Those that die in my pursuit of this forbidden knowledge will be saved once I obtain it.”
Sounds like a line that Bondrewd from "made in abyss" would say
Ah, the Nox Gambit. A good narrative play.
I had an NPC who boarded the party’s riverboat under false pretenses, and when river pirates attacked the NPC set off an explosion that knocked everyone else off the boat she used the confusion to commandeer the riverboat to complete a secret mission. The NPC was not associated with the pirates, but stealing the boat and then leading the party on a wild goose chase was enough for the party to hold a grudge. The curious thing is that depending on how they proceed with the story, they may very end up on the same side of the main story. Whether the NPC is considered good or bad depends on your views on restoring a republic with a dark past to an otherwise lawless land, or maintaining the status quo to keep a firm, but fair warlord who is the only one standing between order and chaos.
Make the bad guy ordinary. Take someone who could be a PCs parent, sibling or cousin and then give them power and control. That's how you make a Delores Umbridge of your own
Having the players be in the wrong makes a really compelling the villain, if the bbeg is someone that the players scammed, stole from, were dismissive of etc. is a brilliant way to make your players feel like it’s their own fault
I duped the entire party with my BBEG. She was a pirate sorceress and a cult leader but *none* of them knew this. She had been established as an NPC under a totally different name, being a kind of off kilter but kind character towards the party. They loved her. The banter she had with the group under this persona and the “bond” they formed really stung when she revealed her true identity and mulched another beloved NPC on the spot.
Have the villain be their friend first and turn evil later. Have them be friends long enough to find out personal secrets and stuff and/or trauma and have them use it against them. Have them deliberately use triggers and weaknesses or even blackmailing them with a secret they don't want the party to know.
If you wanna go real dark have the villain recreate a traumatic event with innocent people or loved ones in front of the pc
That's hard to make work because of online memes.
The players I've played with tend to immediately try and investigate any NPC I put too close to them in too many sessions....
Make the villain the protagonist. Having the entire world against the party because the villain is the one everyone wants to follow, all the while having a few willing people to stand up to them makes for interesting storytelling.
Omg this Is good
holy shit WHY HAVEN'T I DONE THIS WITH MY VILLIAN IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE 😭
Personally, I would make the BEEG be the ally NPC who is their quest giver. Since that way, there would be a level of trust between them that would eventually be broken. Especially if the party had just told their former friend all their secrets and fears.
Plus everything they've been getting from the fretch quests helped aid in the BEEG's plans.
In my opinion there’s two types of good villain
A force of true evil, something that cannot be reasoned with, something that cannot be understood. You question how somebody could do something so evil and you fail to even begin to understand them, theyre so far beyond any reason, it’s terrifying.
Somebody that makes you question your own morals and really makes you shudder of what somebody is capable of, if they’re dedicated enough to the wrong cause. They believe they’re doing the right thing and they do what it takes.
Of course this is a spectrum ig and there’s more good villain types that don’t fit this, but those are my favorite.
Follow all the rules of the evil overlord list. Like Ozymandius in Watchmen monolguing after launch his plans an hour ago. Zero time to stop him.
Use caution, however. Running a campaign in which the players have already lost before they even rolled their characters can be considered a great setup for a sequel, or it can be considered a massive "F you" to the entire group.
@@MemoristCed Okay maybe at least skip the monologue. You know the players are ADHD.
@@DevilFruitZero And whatever you do, don't cast Jeremy Irons to replace the BBEG in the sequel.
I personally make a policy against making trusted NPCs betray the players. Do it even once, and your players will never trust any of your NPCs again - which makes it much harder on the DM in the long run, since now it'll be much harder to send players on ANY quests.
Betraying your players is how you end up with entire sessions wasted bc they're so paranoid around new NPCs that that they refuse to speak to or even go anywhere _near_ one without first running an exhaustive background check that takes hours of real-world time.
a summoner or necromancer who they encounter multiple times, but who always gives themselves an out for when the encounter turns on them, but gives them at best phyrric victories, making them burn through resources, or the next day's spell slots with lasting effects, being a consistent thorn in the party's side, even when they think the enemy has no reason to interfere... also a good idea to link the character to either a loved NPC or PC's backstory.
having them be an underling of the BBEG and not the actual BBEG can be a useful idea for extended campaigns, especially as the BBEG may just assign another underling to mess with the party, but this time in a different way. (that only really works for really long running campaigns though, unless you're running a big bad per module kind of setup)
I ran a one shot a few days ago that possibly had the most hated villain in the whole three year campaign, despite only having a few lines. To give a tiny bit of context, I have a system in my campaign called a "drama point". Players get them at my discretion. They basically allow them to add ten to a check or attack, it becomes an auto nat 20 if they add 2. They're awarded for an amazing piece of RP or for an ingenious idea pulled off perfectly. They're very rare and they only tend to have a few at a time, so they’re often used very sparingly. Both players used about 5 or 6 just to take this guy out.
I think it comes down to a few things:
1.Fear = Power & Motive. The guy was more powerful than any of them individually, and was enough of a psycho to actually attack them. I established him in a flashback when one of the players encountered him at a tournament when they were 12 harassing a young girl. Standing up to him was enough to make him flip and draw his sword, only stopping when his friends started calling for him. All he cared about was his good reputation, it was enough to make them on edge whenever he arrived.
2. Personal evil acts in the past and present. The session was for a character's backstory and revolved around the two players being adopted into a noble family. They knew from the handout that a year prior, the family's castle had been sacked, the mother was killed and one of the daughters was assaulted by this guy. The collective trauma rippled throughout the session, with everyone having something to say about it. They then learned that they had got off scott free on a political technicality with his family being close to the king's biggest backers, thus they could still encounter him being a smug prick in public. Near the end of the session, he participated in the murder of one of the PC's love interests. Real detestable dude.
3. Hypocrisy. In some ways I think this is the big one. I run a standard magic is illegal, inquisition campaign and this session was telling how it started. This guy's family joins the king whose banning magic. They had a combat with him mid way through with him being all smug, but he fled when he was losing. When they fought him again later, his ac was much higher and he was doing way more attacks. I didn't make it obvious, but with a bladesinger in the party, they quickly figured out that this was because he was under the effects of bladesong and haste. All of this was happening because the characters were born with magic, and he went out and learned it purely because he lost to them.
I have a bit of a reputation with my groups for creating the most detestable villain. I find that if you incorporate all three of these things, you can't lose. Give them more power than the player, have them abuse it in a way that personally affacts the PCs and make them a hypocrite, and you're golden
In a space travelling campaign (Wanderer) I ran, I once introduced a fleet commander who was the pary's direct superior and their greatest quest giver. Everything they did, they reported to him as they slowly watched the universe become a better place thanks to their actions and their help. Until one day, after a peculiar mission where they uncovered a convoluted conspiracy spanning multiple star systems hundreds of years in the making. The commander didn't thank them. He didn't help them. And they didn't get the credit they deserved. Instead, the commander left the party to their own devices, "sacrificing them for the greater good of mankind" and kept the conspiracy under wraps. They fought and fled through hell and high water, just barely managing to survive all on their own and finally escaped only to find all of their rights in the universe revoced. Bankaccounts frozen, travel passes invalidated, allies not answering their calls, then seeing their own funeral broadcast to the whole universe.
Now, it was personal. Now... it was on.
So, what I concocted to be the despicable villain is a charismatic noble which under the "greater good" guise hides some really nasty stuff, of which kidnapping and assassination plot PCs are involved in is one of the cleanest ones. So if PCs survive what I've prepared (no guarantee), they may find what exactly is that "nasty stuff" - a chunk of them would be quite personal.
the most memorable villain I ever fought as a player was one we started to hear about every once in a while doing generically cultish things that weren't actually super terrible. the players (myself included) thought "huh, that's neat, but not our problem." one night, after we stopped at an inn to spend the night, the BBEG broke down the wall of our wizard's (or sorcerer's) room and they started a magical duel. the noise woke up the rest of the party in other rooms who grabbed whatever equipment they could and ran to join the fight. after the rest of the party showed up, the BBEG inflicted the wizard with a curse, said some theatrical stuff, and teleported away. after that encounter, the only thing I wanted to do was track down and murder that asshole who violated my party member, and I was a that-guy who didn't do anything in game unless it benefitted me specifically.
so to break down the reasons this was the best session of that campaign:
1. foreshadowing. we had heard about the BBEG before we ever met him, but in a vague way that we didn't really feel the need to do anything about.
2. we were ambushed in a location we thought was entirely safe. it made me think that if we had been prepared, we may have been able to take him down in a straight fight.
3. unsubtle power. he made a dynamic entrance, spoke in a theatrical tone the entire time he was there, and used a curse that could not be broken by normal means.
4. he made it personal when he came to us.
My players still hold this one over me.
Ok so a brief summary, my players got very attached to a town they have spwnt most of the campaign help out, on top for completing the main objective for the campaign. So when they are out doing a quest this finsh and as they make thier way back they notice smoke on the horizon neaeby where the town is. They then immediately rush over and see and smell zombies, lots of them. They are eating corpses of the towns folk. I ask the players if they remember thoses bandits they demolished a while back and the paladin did not give them a proper barrial, in the setting it is believed that if you dont give a dead person a proper barrial theg will return as a zombie, and instead left as heads on spikes on the side of the road. They immediately start to panic, and proceed to destroy every last zombie, theg found out the fire works really well and start using it with a little disregard to the surroundings. While they are killong the zombies i decide to play "Klendathu Drop" in the background because it fwlt appropriate as hoardes of zombies are coming in at them and they hold thier ground. Then when they kill the last zombie, I say, "Then the Illusion fades" they became horrified as they realize there never were any zombies, and all the zombies they brutally killed (I did describe some of thier kills as being extremely brutal) were actually the townsfolk. Then the hear laughter and clapping, as standing at the entrance of the town is an old man. They become enraged and the Sourcer and Druid simultaneously cast Frieball and Lighting Strike at the Old man leaving behind a crater. From the smoke the Old Man is unharmed and still laughing and clapping, then the illusion fades, he never was there to begin with he was somewhere else. Suffice to say my players now really want to kill the Old Man, and they both hate me and consider it a great twist in the story.
Sometimes, the best villains will be chosen by the players, even of you intended to only use them in a minor role.
For me, this villain was Dr. Takeda. Introduced as a one-shot villain set in the world of My Hero Academia, he was a morally corrupt researcher that borrowed money from loan sharks(2 of the PCs), then tried to frame them for arson. He initially had no fighting skills, and relied on a local gang and taking children hostage to try to get his way. The PCs stopped him, the loan sharks cleared their names, and Dr. Takeda was last in police custody.
At at a later point in the campaign, I decided to bring him back as an underling to the arc villain of the time. My players hatred for the man was greater than I anticipated, for they promised to prioritize fighting him over any other villain.
I decided to lean into this further by making him seem like he level grinded along with the players; he wore power armor in their next encounter. He was 'defeated' when one of the PC's knocked him off a moving train with a motocycle, but he was not detained.
Dr. Takeda was not heard from for a while IC and OOC. Eventually, many sessions later, the players find out that he went directly to the bigger bad of the overall campaign, and managed to get their support to really show what he is capable of.
Now well funded and with his own research facility, Dr. Takeda became the final boss of the campaign. As two new players joined, they witness first hand the sort of cruelty and evil Dr. Takeda was capable of. He ran unethical experiments that involved the slaughter of mass produced clones, and even created a single clone that one could argue was his daughter... but he had no paternal instincts at all.
I did my best to make sure even the newer players that joined the campaign at this point had every reason to want to defeat Dr. Takeda by the very end.
In their final encounter, Dr. Takeda built a large Eggman-like exosuit that shoots beams to take them all on. He lasted longer than his other encounters, and the players had fun with banter he and their characters had.
When Dr. Takeda was defeated, his exosuit malfunctioned and exploded. No one mourned him after all he has done. He was not cool or charismatic, he was just too much of a cowardly despicable person that they loved to hate.
In the one campaign I ran, I tried to make my BBEG someone the party would fear, but not necessarily one they'd hate because I wrote him as a more tragic character only doing evil as a means to an end that in and of itself wasn't evil and was even debatably noble (hoping to create some moral conflict in the players, which I think would've succeeded if the campaign fully played out because the cleric was proving to be an excellent mirror to the BBEG). To do this, I did a few specific things in the earliest interactions he had with the party: showing up unannounced right in their camp interrupting a long rest (a la some encounters in BG3, though this predated the game), obliterating a NPC ally stronger than the player characters in one turn while using Counterspell and Banishment to harmlessly shut down interruptions from the player characters, and using another one of his abilities to watch the party from a distance so he could bring up info he learned from that later without the party knowing what he did. Intended effect of all this was to give the party a feeling of "this guy can show up at any time, know our secrets and destroy us effortlessly...", while simultaneously planting the mystery in their heads of "...but why doesn't he just do it?" (the answer being that aside from there not being a story if he did, he doesn't actually want to because he considers the party partly misguided as well as just an obstacle in the way of his actual targets, making him consider killing the party right away both unnecessary and outside of his own misguided sense of justice)
Use party strategies against them.
I introduced one of my Villains as an ally in the very first session of a Pirates Campaign.
A Pirate Lord that actually helped the crew out by setting them on the road for the captain player to become a Pirate Lord herself. It wasn't until later when they realized how unhinged this Pirate Lord was. Kidnapping and mutating people, brainwashing them to become his crew, justifying it as "They were just Navy scum when I took them."
The player who became a Pirate Lord hated slavery in any form and this started the party down the road to conspiring to kill who is technically their ally, but who they can clearly see is becoming more unhinged by the day.
And to top on the intimidation factors is the Lord has collected powerful artifacts which has only made is ego and isnanity worse. But the worst part is, the technically still need the Lord to fight against another threat to the party.
The campaign is still on going, so no resolution yet, but I am excited to see what they will try.
A thought that I had regarding this, is having a group of players who had particularly high hero complexes after defeating the last BBEG. Have the players arrive to a town that they will be staying at for the foreseeable future. Have them do odd job quests, help gather chicken eggs for the farmer, play a bit with the kids, help out at the local tavern, overall be good people, and make sure they are genuinely rewarded for their efforts, maybe having some of the eggs from the chickens, maybe a kid gives a player a teddy bear as a good luck charm. Maybe the tavern keeper gives free drinks to the heroes. Overall do as said in the video and have these players become invested in this town, and keeping it safe.
One day, have a rumor spread about a goblin nest in the nearby forest. Make the town worried, and thus the players go to subjugate the goblins and ease the minds of the townsfolk. The players would arrive at an empty cave with a small pool of water in the center. Nothing more, nothing less. Confused they head out of the cave and intend to go over and tell the town that it's a false alarm before they see smoke in the town's direction.
Have them arrive too late. The town is up in flames, and everyone is dead. That farmer they helped? Sprawled on the ground in two pieces. Those kids they played with? A little trigger warning first because their body parts are strewn about everywhere. The tavern keep that, maybe one of the characters wanted to romance? Well her head is nailed above the door to her tavern now.
Explain this in visceral detail, to the players. Shatter that hero complex of theirs. They will already want revenge, except through tracking down the person who did it. They wind up encountering more towns that have been decimated in similar ways. Whenever they meet the BBEG, who in this case is a warlord fully covered in armor, they will either be met with an army of monsters, a general of this warlord's army, or they will just be left knocked out by the BBEG, not killed, but knocked out as another insult to injury, more salt in the wound.
This thought, this idea is not just about making your players hate or fear your BBEG, but having the BBEG break them mentally, and emotionally. Everything they built up in the last campaign, their reputation, their friends, family, and homes. Take it all away. So that when they finally kill that BBEG, fight through the armies, the generals, and face the warlord. That victory will be a wave of emotions.
For those who read this all the way through, I apologize for the longwindedness of this, I'm a writer at heart, and I try to specialize in getting readers invested in stories via emotion.
Kill the party’s favorite NPC. It could be the pet dog, the friendly tavern keeper, the talking sword, really anyone.
Oh, come now. Killing them is easy.
TURNING them? Now THAT'S nasty.
I burn down their tavern… 😂 a kingdom fell chasing that random travelling arsonist 🤣
My party's favorite NPC ALSO happens to be the only magical item salesman left on the continent. I LOVE this idea lmao
A friend of mine used me to pull it off as well.
He was having issues with players that kind of went roughshod over the setting he had and were not behaving at all there. And went more into trying to take over a city there with random murders and more.
I had a break from other things so time to play for a few months, and, well, the country ended up having the local equivalent of Darth Vader who got sent in to deal with the problem there and basically went with a solo campaign up against a party there...started by finding the tavern they used for their characters hangout spot and sent in the troops while they were out slaughtering their way through another gang, and was gone by the time they got back to find their minions rounded up and already on their way to prison elsewhere, their stuff having been hauled off, and the place burning to the ground.
They were apparently not to pleased with that...especially since the party had no real concept of opsec, so interrogations were going to commence.
Ontop of that, they were dealing with reinforced city guard and rumors of an Inquisitor running things in town now, and their next thing was the city mayor that they'd subverted having a public execution scheduled for obvious corruption in not dealing with things and discovering that the rumors were true and he was, functionally, the city mayor until the Emperor sent someone else to run the major port town.
Mainly capitalizing on them making zero effort to hide their shit early on and being blatant in way to many things that meant to many people knew who they were.
Eventually they started figuring that out, but they were forced to leave the town to head elsewhere to start again...to terrified to come back because they thought that tactics using enemies was unfair.
I have some characters made for superhero settings where if someone called them "A walking nuclear bomb" they would be like "Fair enough" although they would also argue it's how you use it, not what you CAN do, but what you do with it.
If he takes/damages the party’s Fancy Hat™︎ they will want his blood.
An ally of the party that fights alongside the party to help them beat who they think is the bbeg, but along the way, the party has to make a the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many type decision that involvse killing the family of that ally
Together, they defeat the villain they were currently hunting, but all of a sudden.....
Everyones rolling saves that only a nat 20 seems to beat
Those who fail will lose conciseness and take 9d8 psychic damage but can never drop them below 1 hp, but those who succeeded will get knocked prone as their friend kills all of the players' allies and pulls the head of the party mother figure by the hair who automatically saves the roll and he says (how does it feel to watch your friends die?.... oh you think im gonna kill the rest of them?..... no.... i want them to feel something akin to what you feel now..... AND THEN YOU'LL KNOW YOU BETRAYED THE WRONG PERSON!!!!!!!)
This isn't something i had happen to me it's something i wanna do
Genre change I will use classical music for all mini bosses world and encounters for a area then they get to the bbge and they are hit with phonk and it hits the new players hard and my regulars are used to my hard bosses with interesting gimmicks (I also like dark souls)
Also remember that betraying charcters have to be the same charcter before and after the betrayal.
If their entire personality/character was just a facade, you loose all the benifits since you've functionally just replaced a charcter they like with a new character they don't.
You basically cash in all the build up for a single knife twist.
If you truly want to make this a character they HATE (or fear), don't focus on how bad the villain is. Focus on how badly treated the people who crossed the villain became.
Just saying "The villian Eldronar decimated villages!", you should create a few npcs that have lost family, a few limbs, and have been irrevocably victimized after the destruction of their village.
1. Introduce a NPC the party will like only for them getting killed by the villain(Look at Project Moon games for example)
2. Make the villain soo competent at their job that they are litteraly only messing around with the party just to not get bored(See Ajin for example)
Here's a simple way to make the villian be hated. Create a loveable and adorable npc that the party will love and adore and then have the villian kill them. Easy
Edit: should have watched the video before commenting.😅
I think it’s important that the death is a surprising and cruel. Our party’s main nemesis was introduced in a quest where we tried helping a veteran adventurer rescue his daughter from a cult. We got captured, villain showed up in front of the cell, we had a quick chat in which we learned that he just used the cult as a source of cheap Labour and had them all fooled. He then walked of, we broke out, found the daughter and escaped, session was about to wrap up in safety, until the daughter stabbed the father in the neck, before pulling of a magical mask to reveal her as the villain. The man’s last words were asking what happened to his daughter. Villain just stared him down coldly telling him „you sweet, oblivious fool…she has been dead for days“ than he teleported away, before anyone was able to react.
Fear is a weird one to instill. It's either easy or impossible, and that entirely depends on player investment and mentality. The *obvious* answer is to make them powerful, but that's also the wrong answer. In tabletop, stronger enemies are always on the horizon and growing to meet the challenge is the game.
What you want to do is completely throw off their expectations. The most primal fear is the fear of the unknown, and one way of using that is to let players *think* they know what they're about to face, then pull the rug.
One of the more amusing ideas I've seen of this was the idea of having liches in 5e casting spells per the rules of the older editions.
Another good idea is using rules and systems that the players didn't have as an option when creating the party ("well, you guys didn't have the means for these black market dealings, but this warlord you're fighting is not only a powerful warrior in their own right, but also has the resources and training to use firearms." the DM explains after a gunshot put the cleric in mortal peril)
The villain I made exploits a being's natural desire to survive. The bosses they fight aren't even wanting to harm anyone, they have to do so because if they don't, they'll have their lives destroyed. They'll be tortured, they'll lose their loved ones, until finally defiance results in their eventual execution once all forms of leverage are dried up. Make the first boss attempt to unalive themselves after the battle but don't make the players roll if they attempt to stop him. Stopping him is a guaranteed success if they take that initiative.
My players hate this villain because of it. They're all united to go against one common enemy.
Oooh i knew my Homebrew campaign had it going for it when i planned for the BBEG to swoop in and steal their rings of power half-way through the campaign, first post gave me all the validation my plan needed
You’ve made Fire Emblem: Engage
@@thod-thod time to go back to the lab, then, ain't no way i made a reference to a trash ass series
@@termicrafteron2794 have you ever actually played a game from it? The writing and plot is actually really good of some (not all) of the games
I was a part of a campaign where we were actually slowly being corrupted by this ancient evil without any of us knowing. There were minor buffs given to us over time, and we questioned why, but the DM, ohhh no, not a word was said. So eventually, we came across a book that was just radiating evil energy. Of course the most corrupted of us thought it was a brilliant idea to grab this book. And without warning, our party member had become the BBEG of the campaign. It was the closest fight in D&D history. Evil sorcerer had used all her spell slots and was on literally 1 hp. The rest of the party was dead, except for the paladin, who also had no slots left. Got to tell you, one of the best D&D experiences I've ever had,
Sounds great, but turning one of the party characters into the villain can be a bit risky. How did you pull it off?
A few villains ideas that really beat the stereotypes:
1)A villain that stays with the party from the start and looks like a helper only to stab them only at the very end. Still, he secretly makes their lives a living hell or ruins their happy moments just because. All the while he looks friendly and helpful.
2)An untouchable villain that cannot be harmed or touched due to some condition(s) and spares no time into taunting the party about it. (Note: a Lich doesn’t go under this description)
3)The faceless villain. You think you killed him, he comes back wearing a different face even that of one of the characters beloved ones.
Rather than doing horrible thinks, i kept my villains memorable with their own themesong.
Not a batman or cartoony one, but a low, tense song without understandable words.
Whenever he popped up, before they even were visable or present, i rolled up the song.
The entire table always went quiet for 4 seconds while the picture clicked together, and the hype started when an innocent undead crypt suddenly was an encounter with the bbeg.
That's genius, do you have any song recommendations here?
My songs that had the most hype were Rok Nardin's "The Devil" For an ancient spirit of corruption, Russian winter from tabletop audio for an ancient hag they hated, And finally, fear & hunger OST the ascension for an assasin they couldn't seem to kill.(a simulacrum of the bbeg's true assasin)
I saw a lot of people make hated bbeg but I think a good way to make them fear is show an insurmountable threat decently early
Take for example the party takes over some enemy camp as a “side” quest and once they use their abilities and the fight is over
Roll a couple of dice audibly and easy to notice
You see their reactions and when they ask roll one last time
Introduce the bbeg or bring them to the area
Just to wound the party slow them down
Make their stats high or Ac35
So they have to run
While their running have one or two be injured by the bbeg like a limb being almost cut off organ damage
The way I make them hate the bbeg is by making the bbeg just true evil their is no rhyme or reason to what they do they just find it fun as they laugh and feel joy in forcing the party to watch helplessly as they murder a companion and mutilate them
And to make it more unbearable
Force them to be on the same side as the bbeg such as a corrupt politician or guild member if their evil someone who is well connected in the underground world and can’t be killed without starting wars and massacres
This forces the party to gain not only power but political power to end with the bbeg and the party in a war and when the party confronts them and is about to kill them make the bbeg beg or be afraid of the party or if you want to bring them back make them laugh
Establish personal connections. In one of our campaigns, the main villain is my character's ex who tried to kill her in the past, a secondary villain is another character's fey doppelgänger (she's a hexblood), plus she's "looking after" (i.e. using as a way of getting close to the party) yet another character's sister who's had all her hopes and dreams drained by a vampire... All of us have some reason to hate them.
True place of hatred to me comes from annoyance with the character.
A BBEG that can do things we can't, one that has safeguards for plans that we can come up with, one that does research on PCs and poses like a diva when our plan goes awry. Hatred forms from spite, the will to counter *their* counters, to watch them groan, panic and scream "but this isn't how it's supposed to go!" as they're being pounded into dirt by a collective of armored boots
Give them a sign, a symbol, a musical cue that plays when they enter a scene or an animal that isn't unique but rare enough that if the party sees them, they know the bbeg isn't far away. Have the bbeg appearing always cause a slight derailment to the plan. Perhaps the party finally gets sick of it and tries to fight them so you let them burn resources and when they realize it isn't working you sacrifice an NPC guide a la the hero's journey.
Make the villain practically an omen of things going wrong, and then give them their own omens to give the heroes anxiety.
Fear lies in negative spaces, make the party fear the implications, and the villain's menace grows.
My favourite villain i've ever run can be summarised very easily: betray the party.
The party was searching for a maguffin that belonged to a dwarven king, but that dwarven king was dying of some unspecified illness, which had muddled his mind so badly that he believed the party were responsible for that maguffin going missing, and had them thrown in jail. They met two NPCs there; the prince, and an elven merchant, who had both been thrown in jail for the same thing. They agreed to help each other once they realised they all had reasons for finding the maguffin, and broke out, using one of the merchant's magical items to begin tracking the maguffin through the underdark. MANY sessions, shenanigans, helping each other out, sitting up for watches, the party wholeheartedly came to trust the prince and the merchant completely. The merchant even helped them steal the maguffin from under the nose of a sleeping, ancient red dragon, even though he got badly injured in the escape. The prince was a bard, very friendly and supportive, came to know the party well, and while the merchant wasn't actively talkative, he just kept to himself more than he was malicious, and he came in EXTREMELY helpful given that he was a wizard, and some of his utility spells were on point.
They make it up to the surface, find a nearby farm, where a farmer kindly lets them crash in his barn for the night. During the night, one of the party (drow monk) hears the barn door creak, and the merchant grunt. Before he can react (failed dex check), he heard a whispered incantation, and his entire body locked up, completely unable to move. He heard quiet footsteps, then the rummaging of someone going through a bag. Those footsteps then approached him, and the silhouette of whomever had cast this spell on him was visible in front of him, before they crouched.
The elven merchant squatted before him, holding the maguffin and making eye contact. The player's eyes were wide with SHOCK as the merchant quietly went on to explain that normally he'd have preferred to take it and leave quietly, but another elf being in the party made that difficult, but while he had the opportunity to do so, he wanted to make it clear how absolutely ANNOYING he'd found the party, and if he wasn't so busy, he would take GREAT pleasure in burning the party beneath his boots like the irritating pests they were. They were lucky he was busy; however, if they didn't take his warning, and if they tried to follow him, he would very quickly find himself Not So Busy. Then he just got up and walked out.
The next in-game morning, I clarified that the reason he hadn't gotten a saving throw was because the spell that had been used was power word stun; another player let out a shocked "THAT'S AN EIGHTH LEVEL SPELL?!", because they'd believed he was the same level as them (at least 6th)
And from then on, the party LOATHED him. All I have to do is mention him and they begin seething. And he keeps coming back to haunt them, too! :3
I currently have an arc where my PCs are stuck in the pocket dimension of a dwarf who wants to mentally destroy them before killing them as he finds it fun. Recently (with the players permission who had to leave the campaign due to scheduling conflicts) one of the characters was killed after attempting to attack the projection of the dwarf in said dimension. He later reanimated the corpse of said PC and attacked the party all while having them ask the party in her voice why they were hurting her. I have never seen them more blood lusted than after that. The hate they feel towards that dwarf was palpable.
If the party are murderhobos do this. The sweet, innocent NPC they murdered was studying necromancy to become a lich. The final part of the lich ritual (lichual?) required his death. They created their own BBEG.
Oh I have someone else in mind to be a bossfight for a murder hobo party. An old character of mine. Gaeyln Morvyre. He's a half-elf bard from the college of whispers with levels in rogue and the sharpshooter feat as well as the crossbow expert feat. . He has numerous scars from his adventures and has a prosthetic arm. His arrival will be signified by violin music playing in the background. He's dressed in a jester outfit and wears a comedy mask which has been shattered and he looks like the phantom of the opera. He has a very flamboyant personality.
But once he drops the theatrics he reveals himself to be extremely dangerous. He has a modified crossbow called the messenger basically a small harpoon gun that does double the damage of a normal light crossbow. He also has a rapier enchanted with lightning. Due to his cunning action and high burst damage as well as his aoe spells and multiattacks he will abosultely wreck an unprepared party. He will use every dirty trick in the book and sneak around sniping you with his crossbow or dropping spells on you every chance he gets. To add insult to injury if he kills you and you roll new characters he might appear in taverns happily singing about your characters gruesome demise turning it into song as a way of mocking you.
He even carries a songbook around composed entirely in blood. He will write his next piece in your blood. He's essentially an assasain for hire and no one gets out of paying the piper when he's around.
Make the villain publicly pour milk before cereal
I was *always* rooting for Handsome Jack! One of the most hilarious and entertaining villains ever, I love him
I introduced this super honorable orc (think jimbei from one piece) who along with a couple of others were part of a prophecy of blood. The party gets all buddy buddy with them and they also meet another person the ratfolk mother of the ratfolk child that is also part of it. The mom was timid, genuine had a lot of knowledge on the prophecy and was really honored to meet the orc, she was also keenly aware of how over her head she was and. Constantly on the run from the bad guy and indirectly the party was responsible for leading the baddy to these two essential characters Super cool dialogue (dang that’s such a cute mom really made me question if I should go through with and all). The villain an albino elf of tremendous power with complete indifference slaughters (but still keeps him alive) the orc after completely bodying the party (they aren’t even on his radar and it shows why) he murders the mother and takes the super cute baby ratfolk pup with the orc dragged along through a portal.
Needless to say, even the jokester character who took nothing seriously was fuming with rage. Side quests were completely abandoned they became obsessed hunting him down.
Get them to kill a character, a beloved npc will do it, but if you can take out a player controlled character, hate and fear
I personally made my bbeg very charismatic and flamboyant, but he got serious when fighting, they didn't really have any reason to hate him, just the sense of "we gotta stop this dude", but the spark that lit the fire of hatred was when I made an npc that everyone just absolutely loved, and she was pretty strong too, well, he beat up the party (scripted dw they escaped) but she stayed to buy them time, the bbeg then used a high level disintegrate on her and one shot her, needless to say, now they have a very strong desire to just put the guy down, kinda like John Wick with the puppy
Give them LOTS of time to interact, and really accentuate why the villain's a villain. Ensure that the villain is practically always a step a head, slithering away out of even the craziest crap, dangle victory in front of the players. And make them have to deal with the villain(s) etc. This'll make the players despise the villain... note that this tactic may lead to accidentally getting the villains killed early.
Beloved NPCs are a great lever to use. I particularly like it when there are repeating locations. The inn in the colonial capital my players were staying in had an inkeeper which a particular accent. They did not notice him at first. But slowly they liked him. Traded sotries with him. He became a staple. His wife's strew became a staple. Something they looked forwards to when returning after a week of battling lizardfolk in the jungle.
One time they brought home a McGuffin that made anyone that looked at it ravenously hungry. They knew it had an even worse effect on wild beasts. They forgot they wanted to hand it in with the mage guild and in the end, a timer ran out and te city was ravaged by Ankhegs which had buried towards the artefact.
Long story short, the inkeep lost a leg and the party just arrived in time to save him and watch his wife gettnig eaten alive.
Being the good players they were, their characters were so filled with regret and self loathing they did not mind when the authorities placed them in a penal batallion to send on suicide missions in the bug tunnels that now had to be cleared and closed.
Good times.
And when they found out the whole drama was the ploy of a green dragon wanting to soften up the city before taking it over, they had found their sworn enemy.
Humanize the villain. Have them destory a village, but spare a child. Have them question there actions, but rationalize them anyways. Give them someone they truly care for, but have them hurt them anyways to further the goals. This males the villain truly abhorrent, because they are aware of the harm the causing, they are capable of doing good, but are simply choosing not to.
I made one for a recent campaign out of a minor enemy.
Monk and Warlock (a Paladin came a couple of session after that) encountered lowly bandits on the road. Monk take the bandits down but spares them, only knocking them out.
One bandit grew bitter over being denied a "good death" or not being considered worth killing. Seeked the aid of a Hag to get revenge.
One ingame month later and he comes back to besiege a village the PCs rested at. The PCs let everyone escape through old tunnels and draw the attention of the bad guy.
This guy is now a barbarian, chases after them, seems to be imbued with weird magic. The climax of the chase is the Bad guy jumping on the Pc's carriage on a long stone bridge, over a raging river.
All three pcs plus the npc they escort managed to push the barbarian into the river bellow.
Later the PCs continue through the underdark. Unbeknownst to them: the bad guy ended up in there via the river current. Arrived ahead of them and became stronger cause of the hag magic and the fight against the local wildlife. They meet again. He ambush them in the begining of a long rest, and cripple the wing of the npc (an aarakocra).
All three pc are on the backfoot and barely manage to flee with the npc. Later emerge from the Underdark but discovers the bad guy came out way ahead of them and burned a village the PC considered to be their safehaven in case they needed help. And worse: he spreads the word. Any who helps the PCs would end up this way. Locals are now scared and the party have way less allies and places to rest or hide from him.
In summary I made them feel more powerful first and then slowly made the bad guy take more and more. Both parties are spiteful at one another now and I cannot wait for the next time they meet the guy.
I do plan on him crossing the final line and kill someone the PCs really love to seal the deal, but for now that's where things ended.
This is inspired by a villain who I absolutely despise (and praise the writers for writing him as such), even though he's pretty minor in the overall plot. Kamoshida from Persona 5. I appreciate this won't work in every game/story/setting, but there is flexibility.
This villain needs to be an authority figure, but not at the top. Somewhere they have direct authority and influence over the players, but still have to answer to someone. They need to abuse this power, but not make it obvious. They can't be all "I'm the greatest at everything! Give me everything I want!", but they need to be civilized on the surface and easily ignored by higher ups when convenient. Have them be abusive to others, yet not in overt ways. "Accidentally" injuring, "toughening up", "it's for your own good", and being just overly suggestive enough to those they are attracted to to be creepy but not breaking any actual rules. Then you make it personal, some horrible action to each PC, that they can't do anything about.
Then a friend of the PCs has something horrible done to them. Don't make it explicit, but make it heavily implied. And have that thing cause the friend to attempt to remove themselves from existence. Yes, anyone who as played P5, I'm talking about THAT moment. That is what drove me on the warpath against Kamoshida. And that is the sort of thing you want to bring out of your players.
One villain I had in my campaign was a killed off PC that returned to get revenge against the party. He was a jokester so to torment the players he would sneak during their over night camping and play horrible jokes. Shaving the dwarfs beard and gluing it to the elf's face. Causing the donkeys to get sick leading to PC getting covered in runny shit. By the end of the 7th day of travel they hated this character so much even ended up killing him once(NPC as PC was cursed and can't be killed until the god who cursed him decides he is no longer an champion of Thiers) Sadly the story line was ended as one of the group members died in RL and I ended up moving out of state
I love how seeing the title of the vid I'm like "Handsome Jack". Lo and behold, he's one of the first posts read in this vid.
“Hey player 1, your Aunt was beaten up by thugs.” *Micky Mouse laugh*
If you ever play Pathfinder 1e, qnd want to make a villain the players will detest, it's very simple.
All you need is an aasimar bard (street performer archetype) with some levels dipped into vigilante. Now you have a character who has a bluff so high they'll never beat it, who can appear looking and sounding like any other character, that can pop in at any time to send the party on a wild goose chase, errands, suicide missions, etc., and they'll have no way to know if it's the bastard or genuinely just a farmer or mayor. And every time they get a mcguffin for the villain, he just amasses more power.
And with the vigilante dip, the real kicker is this -- not only will the bastard have have an absurd disguise score between both classes, but he will also have a perk where he appears dead but actually stabilizes automatically every time he goes unconscious, and only an active medicine check will reveal otherwise -- meaning, if they don't have a habit of desecrating corpses, he'll just KEEP coming back, under a new name and appearance, and the party will be none the wiser with his bluff score.
While the party will think it's a series of minor bosses, maybe with a common employer, they'll flip a shit when they realize it's the same guy over and over again, and then the paranoia will kick in as well.
Fun times.
Firstly, you have to know what the players are striving for in-universe. (Bonus points if you just know them and how they think).
Secondly, create a story for someone that _makes sense_ but is antithetical to the player character belief structure.
Thirdly, create reinforcement as to _why_ the villain is who they are
Fourthly, have them interact with the party in one way or another _A LOT._ Have your party's Negan be constantly present in one way or another. Have them with similar goals but opposing manners of getting those goals. Have your party see the aftermath of the villain's actions.
Bonus round: have your villain in a way that makes them morally gray, someone who had to choose what they feel is a hard (but necessary) decision and have the inability for them to choose reconciliation with the party as a result (even in a world with magic).
I had the villain be a bard. The end.
For those who want more: the BBEG in a homebrew campaign was an eloquence bard, but he didn’t start out that way. I’m only gonna tell his origin. So I had a short sub arc where they entered this village and recently there had been a dragon attack and it was saved by this swords bard. He was in a tavern singing songs about it showing off a talon he got before it fled and the players weren’t too suspicious purely because i made him seem like a spotlight hog hero. To the party he was a narcissist, not evil. They could tell he had some magic items with a arcana check, but they didn’t know what they did. Eventually the party hears of a troll that started to attack some villagers and they set off to kill the troll. Of course the bard had to invite himself so that his glory wasn’t stolen pretending it was cause he only wished to protect them. He talks all about himself and the party starts to ask questions and he ends up showing some items. There were dynamite sticks (which he gifts one each to the party) some poisonous berries (non-lethal) and a bag of holding that opened up into a walk-in wardrobe where he stored all his clothes. Soon they encounter some wolves and the bard shows off one of his best items. This was an illusion projector. Think the projection drones from spider man far from home but a bit different. Essentially you put something into the box and you can project that object as an image, but you didn’t need to put the full object inside. He grabbed a leaf and was able to project a whole tree, and duplicate that tree into a wall of trees with a single leaf making their passing of wolves easy. The projector couldn’t move while making the illusion and it required attunement, although he could control the image at a distance. They watched him pull out a small stick of a poisonous bush and put into the box to project a whole field of bushes so that they could take a make camp in the woods safely. They get to the trolls cave and the fight starts. On the bards first turn he runs in without hesitation and cuts the troll, much to the party’s surprise as they did think he may be a bark. But round 2 he gathers some troll blood in a vial and misty step out of the cave and blows up the entrance with dynamite. The party are obviously pissed and had to finish the troll on their own and dig their way out of the cave. Upon going back to the village they see a projected troll ‘fighting’ the bard in an epic clash in view of the whole village and as they approach they watch the ‘troll’ get stabbed before running off. The bard then see the party and acts as if they abandoned him forcing him run before taking on the troll. The villagers hear this and start to glare at the party. The party is seething before eventually one of them make an attack. They miss and that was the nail in the coffin. It happens like this.
“13 to hit?”
“Miss. You see the bard quickly move out of the way “First you leave me for dead and now your going for straight up murder, what is wrong with you people, all I ever did why try to help you, does being the hero mean that much to you?” you see the townsfolk start yelling to leave him alone ‘get outta here’ ‘leave murders’ ‘why you trying to kill our savior’ “
*the most sensible party member chimes in*
“This bard is not who he says he is, you are all being de-“
*I cut them off*
“A villager throws a stone at you”
“Wait wha-“
“Then another one comes flying, and another, and another until you find yourself being pelted with stones. In fact the whole party is being pelted with stones. And the villagers are shouting for you to leave, get out, we don’t want you here, stuff like that”
“Can I get them to stop?”
“Uh, yeah a moment passes and the bard pipes up. “Hey now, I understand these folk tried to kill me, buts it’s alright, I’m not hurt, why don’t we just let ‘em go” he turns to the party and now out of view of the townsfolk he gives a grin knowing he won “Why don’t you get out of here while we are being nice, it will be the last chance you get” he turns an heads toward the village leaving the party outside. They soon left the town after that. That was the birth of the most hated NPC and eventual BBEG
All this happened because I once before did something like this and the party ignored the distraction completely and went for the object causing it. I planned for the same thing to happen this time. Somehow the party never thought of searching for the projector which would make his illusion wonky. But hey, that’s DnD. Afterward I had this character show up every so often always in a higher position than last seen with even more influence causing the party headaches. Eventually this bard stole a kill of a god from the party and the party didn’t want to kill this god but had to. That’s a whole other story but that scene was what raised the bard to true BBEG status as he gained the gods power. I don’t think I’ll ever have a NPC more hated.
10:09 This is actually something I've been thinking about doing for my first homebrew campaign. I intend for the antagonist to actually have good intentions, but his zeal for achieving his goal drives him to methods that can easily result in a lot of innocents getting killed as collateral damage. In his eyes, achieving his goal would potentially save more lives in the future than the potential few hundred thousand who might die as a direct result of his actions. I'm thinking the villain would be chaotic good, but with a little too much chaotic.
If you want your villain to take a more aggressive approach, make the villain ever present. Some perfect ways to do this would be having the villain grow essentially a spy eye on one of the characters, or you can even work with a player to have their character become one of the villain's subjects. Any form of "this guy is sabotaging you at nearly every turn and watching your every action and you can't do shit about it" would be a great way of doing this.
May I add a few concepts?
Joke villain: prepares to place a curse of "perpetual unluck" on the world. Every unlucky moment, like accidentally hitting your toe, creates another unluck. For example: broke a mirror -> lost wallet -> got aids from wife that cheated in you. For eternity. Entire world. Each and every living being on the planet.
Hated but kind of understandable: equality fighter. Guy who've lost everyone and everything cause of nobles/politicians. He sacrificed his own soul (or something else. Maybe some noble's child. Or children) to gain some kind of power. He started movement that fights for equality amongst the people. There's just a few small problems: they unalive everyone who doesn't want to join in. And their entire families. Also they do that as sacrifices to some entity that gives them powers, thus adding more people. Add a few details.
Don't fall into displays of villain power. Use a matter of degrees. In a recent adventure, the Arson Hobos (official name now) razed the villains' town to the ground in anger at the villains' actions. What did he do? Nothing directly, but his minions kidnapped people they saw as good and innocent. The friendly Bard, the autistic orphan... very sympathetic npcs. After they were taken, they were sacrificed. The final straw was the sacrifice of Moon (m o o n, that spells Moon). It was at this point they saw the villains' power, and they declared never again. Villain destroyed, town burned to the foundations, ground salted.
Like I said, just use a matter of degrees.
My dm just had the bbeg just say “ok im not cruel so get the pet out of here the battle” and some replies with “and if we don’t”, “he’s the first target if you don’t”
I'm currently running a campaign in a setting that's a darker, but magical Las Vegas. The whole city is funded by an evil dragon's horde, and said dragon acts as the highest authority in the land. Working under him are several Barons, corrupt people who keep the money flowing into the city, via gambling, drugs, brothels, enough debauchery to make sodom and gamorrah look like a grade school playdate. Anyway, the party were all on the same caravan into the city, and the first thing they see when getting off is a girl getting mugged. They save her, not realizing they just pissed off a lackey of one of the Barons. As thanks, she leads them to a cheap hotel that they can stay at. After spending a couple nights in said hotel (run by kobolds who were secretly burrowing into a bank across the street), they end up getting arrested on charges of attempting a bank robbery, after one of them was caught investigating the basement. Turns out the girl was forced to lead one of the Barons back to the hotel. They were put on trial in front of the dragon, who offered that any one of them could go free if they killed the girl with a magic sword. The catch was that the sword was enchanted specifically so it would never kill a person, but instead cause serious pain to its victims.
At the end of the session, I had a player come to me and say "I don't know how yet, but I'm gonna kill that son of a b**** dragon."
I made a goat that watched the parties every action in the psuedo video game campaign world
he would appear randomly and would never do anything, but witness what was happening often to hilarious results.
inevitably a player attacked the goat once.
only for an ethereal voice to say "Remember, you chose this."
as a giant health bar filled the roll20 screen and I played ominous Latin music and the secret boss fight started. They had a new objective: survive for 1 minute.
after 3 player deaths, the party never touched the goat again
For my players, I want to try and take at least one personal villain and level them up to be a BBEG for the story arc (or even the campaign).
Start them off with all the despicable qualities that the PC hates, surely, but make them evolve and aggressively expand their influence while entrenching themselves in a position beyond the characters' reach (whether for political reasons, geographic obstacles, or whatever else you find appropriate for this particular bastard). Find ways to make them a villain not just for the one PC anymore but for the rest of the party as well. It's fun to watch my players' tension rise after this villain "takes an interest" in them after their first meetings and discovering whom the party associates with.
Bonus points if you can find a way for this bastard to become a champion of some cause that lets them amass a following. Are they a charismatic-as-hell celebrity that can enchant people with a mere smile? Are they a powerful healer who turns public opinion to their side with miraculous displays of power and [seemingly] no price for their services? Are they a gifted and ambitious political figure who manages to accomplish public programs that nobody else can seem to, resulting in growing and abundant support from the general public?
One of the best villains I ever created was this sleazy priest/wizard that was out questioning people about a McGuffin the players had recently found.
he had basically managed to find the guilt the players really liked being around and were strong-arming the guilt to give him information thanks to his incredible powers in the church.
I can't remember the last time my players were that terrified about an antagonist I had created because he wasn't threatening them but instead the whole guilt.
He had two guards that would give their characters a problem, but it wasn't impossible to win against them, but they knew that, if he found out they had the McGuffin, they would be in deep shit, and so would the guilt.
The whole questioning, detect thought usage and zone of truth were some of the most tense dice rolling I have ever experienced simply because he had the power to destroy the guilt they had gotten so close to by having the church destroy it.
They barely managed to throw him off the trail for a while, but they had to leave the guilt to keep it safe until they managed to deal with the corrupt church.
Having a powerhungry, incredibly snoppy, rude jackass that they had NO WAY of defeating at that specific moment was amazing! Like, yeah, they could technically kill him, but if they did they knew the church would destroy them AND everything they cared about, so they really had to walk on eggshells around him, and it worked so well!
So when I joined the campaign I'm in, my PC was basically a BBEG. We toned that down because there's still stlry between the three way pirate war and now, but I still plan on being their biggest threat as soon as that picks back up.
I was introduced - at a time when we weren't set up to play by the normal rules - as the first mate of a captain that was chasing them. And I was able to successfully force their ship to stop. I did this by:
1) casting Vortex Warp when one of the other PCs cast fireball directly at me. This put him in the blast range, forcing him to drop the fireball.
2) Using Shape Water to harass said PC as he was swimming back to his ship. This nearly made the poor guy drown.
3) Using Misty Step to teleport Davey Jones' style onto their ship. They responded by casting a spell scroll they knew nothing about, allowing them to speak with plants. The algae were very scared.
4) Using Vortex Warp *Again* on the same guy to put him back on my ship, where he was promptly captured by my men.
5) Dropping their anchor.
6) Freeing them from their prison in the middle of the night to use them to enact a coup, letting me take over as the new captain of the ship that just captured the other two PCs and solidifying me as an ally.
Then we landed at the biggest pirate port in the world: Andromeda. Basically a NYC sized amalgamation of ships tied together and anchored to the sea floor by a chain bolted to it. One PC, Monkey D. Jelly, went and ate Kraken meat and egg... By fighting in underwater at level 8. Needless to say, I made 50,000 platinum betting that he would manage it, and used the money to buy a stronghold. The other PC, Sea Shanty, bought a 2,000 gp magic item to be delivered to my stronghold. He used my name, so when I signed for it, it came out of *my* 500,000 gold. He then pulled a heist to steal it, barely avoiding being caught but still exposed.
Now here's the lesson to learn, kiddos. Make sure the villain of your story can do much worse to the players, than the players can do to them. I demonstrated that lesson by getting a friend involved, and pulling a bigger heist on one of seven pirate lords at Andromeda... Then framing the entire crew of pirates the other two PCs are a part of. They aren't welcome on Andromeda anymore.
By one evil line that self explains. "Let's not turn this rxxx into a murder."
We had an NPC we (the party) only knew as the red cloaked man. He continually ran at the end of combat and we hated him for it. We did eventually kill him but for months in game he was all we thought about because we couldn’t get him.
Create pair of NPC (Mother and Daughter, two lovers etc.), make them lovable and helpful (preferable little goofy), at some point one of them (NPC1) betray party in brutal way leaving NPC2 heartbroken.
Chase NPC1 through world discovering increasingly horrendous deeds performed by NPC1, NPC2 assist party by providing missions, support, information, etc. also growing in rank for example levelling from simple soldier to army general.
Drop subtle hints regarding whereabouts of NPC1 (something crawling under skin, afraid of sunlight or other) .
After epic showdown with NPC1, player wins and mind control over NPC1 is broken. Player discovers that NPC1 was controlled entire time by NPC2 but unable to do anything (still conscious but unable to control own body/actions). NPC1 dies/commit suicide (preferably still conscious) and new hunt (for NPC2) begins.
So most of these are about hate and not fear and it makes sense as fear and hate usually overwhelm each other instead of stacking. So start by doubling down on one or the other. Most of these are on hate so I will give some tips on fear first thing first fear scales with immersion so make them realistic and not cartoonishly evil rather than giving a reason for the players to hate the villain give the antagonist a reason to hate and hunt the party down and make the antagonist feel like they are in the right. For example ask the party if they want to assassinate the king or be framed for it have the prince seem innocent and fair just to use the kingdom to hunt you down tell the party if they use there real names they will be attacked by guards but still let them interact with NPCs and do quests remember they aren't the inherently the bad guys just under constant threat. Remind them to stay mobile and secret and if they don't give them more and more challenging combat if you want the party to hate them arrest and interrogate any NPC the party spends quality time with. If the party flees to a neighboring country they the prince will declare war on them for sheltering terrorists for the campaign started with the death of a king and the only war the party will survive to the end is by killing the kings morning and emotional son. Bonus points if you make the prince something normally good or lawful like a paladin
I have a simple pairing of traits that I like to use for making reprehensible villains:
One, give them a very simple motivation. They can do complex things, but as long as their motivation is simple, like power or to hurt someone else, it keeps them from being too sympathetic.
Two, they have to absolutely love their own evil deeds. It's easier to sympathize with a villain who has a minion killed because he's become too much of a liability but feels bad about doing so; liking a villain who killed a minion because they weren't cleaning the throne fast enough is a lot harder.
Another thing that helps is to either not give them a backstory or for the villain to not care about their past. If the villain is motivated by revenge, this is an exception. The key is that the villain's revenge has to be at least ten times worse than what was done to them.
Something I've found that makes players seethe in rage towards a villain is lack of accountability in their actions, ESPECIALLY a victim complex. Take Crimson 1 from Project Wingman for example. Nukes a city, millions dead, and what does he say?
"Look what you've done."
Nothing rubs salt in a wound more than having the bbeg kill off a beloved npc and go "Why did you force my hand like this? It's your fault he died!"
A unique idea could be a character the players rely on. For example, a trusted item seller that sells the players all their weapons and or items. The items could be secretly cursed or rigged in some way that when the trusted character shows their true colors, they could have the upper advantage in the fight or know how to counter what items the players have as they were the one who provided the items in the first place.
OP here, i never in a lifetime would have thought one of my posts would be featured here. This is honestly a great honour. Thank you :D
I had a villain earn the party's hatred in one simple way. He got away. Multiple times. Every time they'd corner him and whittle his health down, he'd plane shift away. Old Noodleface was hated so much.
If you want the villain to be “hated” this video has a lot of good advice but it can all be summed up in some way or another as
“make it feel personal”
the opposite of love is not hate but indifference, so don’t give your players room to become indifferent towards the villain. The villain can be indifferent to them that’s fine a cold uncaring type can easily get under their skin as long as the things the villain treats with disregard is deeply valued by the players. But by no means does the villain need to be one specific way to achieve the hatred.
Like I said the key for hatred is to not let the players become the ones who are indifferent, make it personal in some way. (But yes also make sure they know its not you as the dm out to get them or else that hatred will be focused behind the screen not on the table in front of it)
Now if you want to make the players FEAR the villain…
…If you want the villain to be feared there’s a bit more of a challenge but also a few more options at your disposal, you can use one, many, or all if you’d like, but each one done properly will pack the desired punch of dread.
Long story short, appeal to any social or psychological application of the innate fears every human has to some degree.
There are a few different models in psychology but any of them should realistically work fine. I will however give my picks below in no particular order and explain more in depth in further comments.
1. The unknown / uncanny
2. Incapacitation / helplessness
3. Imminent harm or death
4. Isolation / social retribution
5. Loss of self
6. Disease
7. Sudden unexpected and unpleasant stimulus
1. Make them unpredictable:
this doesn’t necessarily mean chaotic, if you make them too chaotic without rhyme or reason they may just come off as two dimensional evil. No, you want them to have a reason, but a reason fueled by a motive the party can’t pin down, or a motive that even once the party knows they struggle to understand or better yet a motive the party struggles to accept not because it’s unbelievable but because it’s close to a line of reasoning they can begin to understand that just jumps off the deep-end unexpectedly. If all the premises are correct make the conclusion horrifyingly, disturbingly wrong.
Build up the suspense of the unknown and uncanny. Even if you wanted to make a chaotic character, make them seem like they have a reason for the chaos, even if their reasons are prone to change or is based on their whim give them a reason and give them conviction in it, and make it plausible but not understandable or if it’s understandable and plausible, make it unnerving to accept.
2. Make them untouchable but let them still be able to harm the party:
This doesn’t need to be due to a raw difference in power though that can certainly work wonders, but anything that puts the villain out of reach and leaves the party helpless to stop them.
Resources (abundance for the villain or lack for the party)
Reputation,
Cunning,
Morals,
Fate / luck,
Personal connections,
Etc…
Anything else along these lines is suitable to set up the feeling that no matter what they try this villain is beyond their capacity to handle. Make them really fight kick and scream to take control over the situation and even harder to keep that control or else watch it slip from their grasp.
Double bind situations work wonders in this regard as well. Give them a choice but never make it an easy one, or always make the easy choice the wrong choice revealed clearly in hindsight.
Let the players have their victories but not without heavy costs. You don’t want them becoming so disillusioned they stop trying, you want to leave just enough hope to have it sting each time its stripped away.
Once the players begin to question if anything they do even matters anymore, ease up, give them some wins to rebuild their confidence let them feel like they’re actually making progress before it once again comes crashing down around them at the climax.
And when they finally through tears, trauma, and tragedy triumph over the villain, don’t make it a clean fulfilling victory, leave it empty hollow maybe even a little dirty and grimy feeling.
Maybe They’ve stopped the villain but at what cost?
Maybe they stopped the villain but they did it too late.
Maybe they stopped the villain but they didn’t want to do it in the methods they had to resort to.
Whatever the reason, if done right, this will leave an impression in players memory that will be talked about years into the future.
3. Make them Dangerous.
Once again this doesn’t need to be due to a difference in power, many of the things that work for making a villain untouchable will also work in making them dangerous.
The difference here is that an untouchable villain doesn’t necessarily need to harm the party directly to achieve their effect, the dangerous villain does.
The dangerous villain may have a personal vendetta that makes them torment the party. Or perhaps the party is just an obstacle to be cleared out of the way by any means necessary.
Anything that actively hurts the party and those close to them, regardless any encounter with this villain direct or indirect should always have a heavy presence of danger.
Wether direct or indirect, interacting with the villain will hurt tremendously either physically psychologically or emotionally for the characters and has a real or perceived potential to result in tragedy or death.
If the untouchable villain is the unmovable object the dangerous villain is the unstoppable force.
You can have many fulfilling victories against these villains but they always come back and make the party feel it even if unintentionally.
4. Make them split the party
Disclaimer for this one, be careful and know your party well enough to know what they’re ok with, because this is potentially one of the biggest risks for triggering a player’s personal traumas or making them feel unwanted and ostracized at the table.
D&D is inherently a social game and this tactic of arousing fear and dread is the one most closely tied to social values, therefore if you’re not careful something thats meant to be fun and make believe may feel very real for those that are on the receiving end.
Communication is key here, Break immersion to reiterate both as a player or Dm that none of the in game actions are personally directed but is purely for the sake of the overall narrative.
This is the kind of villain that will bring a lot of “its what my character would do” to the table and the common frustration with that phrase is a perfect example of how tied to social values this is.
And we’re going to use this exact divisiveness to split the party in more ways than one.
And once again many people will have that strong reaction to the words “split the party” these are common taboos in dnd for a reason.
This villain wants to sew mistrust and adversity between members of the party either fully turning them against one another, or subtly ostracizing a single character from the party. Getting in the party’s heads, gaslighting them, making them feel like they can’t trust or depend on anyone, making them do things that put them at odds with people they care about, spreading lies and rumors to befoul the party’s reputation, orchestrate situations where betrayal is imminent, and make unreasonable acts sound reasonable to invoke the backlash of other Npc’s or party members.
Also literally getting members of the party alone without aid to back them up perhaps to manipulate them individually, perhaps to threaten them, blackmail them, bribe, or capture them. Or perhaps they just separate them to force them into precarious situations without the group to allow natural events to unfold.
Perhaps the villain is someone important to a PC
Perhaps the villain tells a PC a secret that they know cannot be revealed for the party’s sake.
whatever it may be separating the party both physically socially and psychologically from each other and their allies is key.
The constant vigilance and paranoia this produces is very apparent in a party when they start rolling insight on one another and every npc. That’s a clear sign that the fear has taken hold successfully.
Approach one player whose character the party loves. Make them an offer; Your character is secretly the villain.
PANR has tuned in.
Here's an idea from One Piece: give your table a constant pursuant threat. Through the adventure, leave hints of how this pursuant was once a good man who was made to suffer misfortune after misfortune, and in order to save his daughter, he was put through an arcane experiment that killed all memories and personality of the man, showcasing the true evil of the actual BBEG.
“Or said members of your family are like animals?”
Nick Cannon moment lol
A villain I'm making for a new game is called the Serpent. He's a BBEG I've made before, and just tweaked him a bit to fit different settings. I make villains my players fear by making them forces of nature, or influences throughout the world, rather than a collection of stats on a page. The Serpent used Faustian Deals to coerce mortals and even some demigods into doing his bidding because he's always one step ahead of the game mentally. He's not destructive, he merely gives people the power they desired and watches from afar as the person he makes a deal with ruin the lives of those around them, before the Serpent comes back into their lives to collect his payment. He has power if he's ever confronted, but to my players, a villain who doesn't have to even lift a finger to destroy entire civilizations, just sit back and watch people destroy their own lives from power corruption, to them, that's truly terrifying, because if he can just give a guy a silver tongue to become a local governor and eventually rule a town with an iron fist, just how powerful is the man who gave you that power originally?
The rules of how to make a lovable villain, at Despicable villain, and a spotted villain, and a villain that you want to tear every fiber of his being away just to feel some form of satisfaction and still feel unsatisfied
One of my best villains I have made so far is often mentioned in regards to her influences, she is a Marchoness all a very prevalent city-state that is quickly becoming more and more like a country and eventually she is absorbing many other places to become her empire. She uses subterfuge among other things to manipulate the masses, as well as her Allegiance with a devil. This particular devil just so happens to be the father of one of the player characters, he doesn't deal with souls, souls are important but that's not what he wants. He deals with something more precious. Memories.
And of course by removing memories away from people, their hopes their dreams, but how she wins the hearts of the people is to remove their fears and more so that they're easier to manipulate.
She is the exact opposite in terms of how she wants to control the world compared to her arch nemesis who is the goddess of Anarchy survival bloodshed and contradiction.
The goddess herself isn't a saint either, she employs the same exact tactics, but as opposed to manipulating onto memories she's manipulating onto the heartstrings and emotionally manipulate and gaslights people to doing what she wants, she has many people following her willingly and the player character who is serving her is starting to get second thoughts. But she can't do anything towards her without fear of being abandoned by her or worse. And to make things even more interesting she is also assisting in a secret war with three other people to overthrow the marchoness
My player who is a servant of this goddess both loves and hates how I made this character. And it gives so many story opportunities for how his character will break away from the goddess without repercussion or other things.
Easily one of my favorite things I have done in this campaign.
A villian to fear is one that's too powerful.
A villain to hate is one that's untouchable and or admired in the eyes of others.
My favorite villain in any media is Moc Weepe from Midst. He is perfect.
Hey, just be carful with both leading your players around, betraying them and threatening the NPCs they care about.
You don't want the players to learn that caring about things will be used against them and that following the path you lay ahead of them is a mistake.
That's how you get murder Hobos.
Triple down in the event your players go off the rails with whatever it was you set up as the big problem. Or if they dawdled for in game weeks on something. The BBEG didn't just advance their own plans ... they took advantage of the PC's not being around. The town or home base wrecked ... NPCs brutally killed ... puppies kicked ... and why? You weren't there. You didn't stop the BBEG's plans ... and what's worse ... it wasn't even the BBEG themself ... it was some underling. A lieutenant? A group of mooks? Doesn't make too much different. Twist the knife to reinforce that the your party wasn't even worth the time to come out and do this vile deed themself ... only to give the order and send some errand boys.
I have one they hate, mostly hate. She is not good at combat. However, it's an Ace at infiltration. She is a Changeling genie warlock that I modified to be able to FORCE othe genies into her pact, like if it was pokemon. So now there is a race to find the main 4 genies that maintain the resources of the real magically regenerating. Hate comes from the tricks, first genie, a dao they found hiddin in a mine, but they went with an npc, who was the bbeg, and she forced them into a gem with her powers, like a genie in the lamp, leaving them trapped for 2 weeks. Then, she took a PC, (and the player roleplayed perfectly) as the party, accompied by the bbeg transformed as the partymember reached the Marid, and when they were about to save him, she took it and put the real member in a life or death, so they had to choose, chase or save.
As far, they hate her so much that spread false rumors, she spread false crimes with their faces, she smokes cinnamon flavored cigars, so they always ask for perception chekc to see if she is nearby, and she sent boxes for free to many places as distraction. Now its the "desert whore" vs "the desert rats". And the party doesnt trust even themselves.