My villain first became friends with my players, than persuaded my players to kill one of their own in order to save the world from other foe, and they did it... and the world was not saved. I gave them a choice though, save your friend, or let the world go to hell. Asked other players to leave the room while this conversation was happening, btw. Once they got in the battle, low and behold... they killed one of their own. World has not changed. Other players were shocked. The players who killed their own were shock. Lots of drama, that ended up creating the most hated villain by all my players. They are still chasing him...
my players absolutely hate a bad guy I have for them, a demon prince who has been helping the players, is friendly towards them but has definitely been capitalising on their successes and it's driven them mad, they know he's evil and the longer they leave it the worse it's going to be for them, he hasnt lied to them and they know that him helping them is helping himself, his own goals co-inside with theirs for now, they worry about the day they stop being useful
One thing to note is that presentation is very important to how your players perceive the big bad evil guy. This doesn't just mean having a villain show off, but having the world react to that villain. Maybe this means people who have felt the BBEG's wrath weep and wail in despair upon hearing the villains name, maybe a villain that gave the party a hard time works for this guy out of fear. Make the world you write truly feel the presence of your villain. The imaginations of your players will be painting this guy in a very scary light.
One of my favourites is when the hero becomes the villain. You spend all this time working together, suffering together, and progressing together. Then, as time grinds on, that guiding force dissolves and the cherished ally slowly becomes the villain you once fought, despite all the efforts to curb them away from a darker path. They want you to hate them since they know they are becoming the villain. They want you to fear them because they know all your weaknesses from all the time spent together. Darth Treya from KOTOR II once said, "It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
Give the enemy an advantage that can't be overcome with power alone, because if the enemy's power is all they fear, then the fear will lessen throughout the campaign each time the players gain another level.
Make it personal but only from the party's perspective. like, target the property and family/friends of the party but when the party faces the bbeg to get revenge, the bbeg has no clue who "these random nobodies" are.
love it, it really throws a wrench in their plans when the villain doesnt know who they are 'for you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day in your life, for me, it was a tuesday'
@@zeriul09 pretty much (though even taking it one step further "... for me.. well... i dont actually remember stepping foot in your village.." lol that'll get under their skin)
To make them fear the antagonist? En from Dorohedoro. An ability to instantly kill anybody regardless of their power (provided they fail a save, in case of D&D), combined with an aura and cunning of a mob boss. Have them present their power on some poor npc's. Also make sure to add a few npc's working for that antagonist who are a team maybe not as strong but maybe better coordinated than the players. But of course, there must come a point when they can do something about him.
My idea is to do one of two things. The first is to make the villain sympathetic. Think about the Sandman from the Spiderman movie, whose creation is an accident born out of desperation. Better yet, have the villain be friendly, polite, and even sympathetic towards the players, but his final goal is something that he can't simply give up - the pieces were set in motion long ago, and to give up now would possibly derail decades of planning... They MUST see it through, because otherwise they spent their effort for nothing. The second is to make it something on a cosmic level. Have any instance of it appearing in the world be a source of chaos and panic, as even basic elements of reality bend and break under the metaphysical mass of it. Players can stop him as he comes out, but only because he thinks they are beneath his notice. Have things get FAR worse once he recognizes the players...
Make PvP Great Again! Started up a seperate group (B) who are uncovering the actions of the original group (A). The bbeg for Group A isnt evil at all, and is very benevolent, but in his attempts to remake the realm a place of peace he is unintentionally (and unknowingly) antagonizing the groups ambitions. In the end, they'll either sunder the bb"e"g, or join him, at which point they become the eventual bb"e"g for Group B, which will culminate in a PvP match between the two groups. All in all, the DM is the real bbeg who is pulling all the strings. A 4th-wall break might be in order at some point.
Holy Heck! Sgt. Delco made it into a video! I never thought my stories would! This makes me so excited especially when I'm a new GM with not even a year under my belt!
@scribblerstudios9895 just random OC I made when I joined the Fandom. And yeah they really don't want to tangle woth him till theu are much higher level which as you said is smart as he is designed for high level fights but can show up anywhere at any time as he is actively tracking the ghoul.
The best way that I've found to make a villain that the PCs will truly hate/fear is to give them a personal connection to one or more of the PCs. Like in Campaign One of Critical Role, where Lord and Lady Briarwood were the ones who murdered Percy's family and usurped the rulership of Whitestone. Then the Chroma Conclave were lead by the same red dragon that destroyed Vax and Vex's hometown and killed their mother. Kevdak beat Grog nearly to death and exiled him from The Herd Of Storms for standing up for Pike's great grandfather. Once you choose a villain with a personal connection with one or more of the PCs, make them incredibly tough to beat. Not just by making them extremely powerful as individuals, but also give them several disposable troops and particularly tough personal guards. Thus, the PCs who don't personally hate the BBEG will at least fear them. Another good example of this is Star Wars. When Luke meets Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader had betrayed and murdered Luke's father. Then after discovering the jawas slaughtered by imperial troops, Luke raced home to find that they had murdered his aunt and uncle too. Later, Princess Leia is forced to watch as her home planet of Alderaan is blown up by The Death Star. Then during their escape, Luke watches as Obi-Wan, the closest thing he has to family left to him, gets cut down by Darth Vader. From the perspectives of Luke and Leia, the Galactic Empire in general, and Darth Vader in particular, are the worst villains in the galaxy. The best feuds in pro wrestling are always the ones where the fight between the heel and the babyface is extremely personal. The feud between The Macho Man and Hulk Hogan during the Mega Power Meltdown at WrestleMania V is a great example. Heck, any feud that starts where a babyface turns heel and double crosses his friends is almost always the most compelling. Hogan vs Andre, Hogan vs Macho Man, Hogan vs Mr Wonderful, the list goes on and on.
My charecter already has two personal villains. The first tried to sever her soul from her body in order to stuff some hellspwn soul in her body. (She survived and ran away with a permanent reduction to her magics) The second is a several thousand year old angel that chased her across a desert and almost killed her for 'funzies'
At the moment, my friend is running Curse of Strahd and my character is an immortal [by age] Dragonborn Fighter that once sought to protect the innocent and those he cares for, only to have his ideals twisted. I feel like a character that works alongside the party, only to eventually reveal their dark truth could work as a villain the players would hate. 'Wait, you... you'd sacrifice even US if it meant you'd grow stronger?!' 'Of course. If the power to protect comes from your sacrifice - willing or otherwise - they it will be paid.'
Ran Phandalin campaign with my own twists with my family that's played a good bit. Threw a high level oni as the behind the scene boss of the goblin cave that had transformed into a goblin. The party cleared the cave pretty quickly as I let them start the game a few levels up for funsies. They charged the "goblin" and he started to laugh off the damage. Cue creepy music box fx track. The small bad started growing into a large bad and started smacking down onnthe party. They flew out of the cave with that "giant sized goblin" on their heels. They managed to get away and loose him. It was all they could talk about for months until they squared up with the oni in a village that was being ransacked by hill giants and were able to take it down. The oni's motive was to hide behind the goblins and then giants actions to consume human children without drawing to much attention to himself.
7:09 I've created a similar bbeg for my current campaign. His name is Ragdevilen Mercrow, or Ragdevil for short. But instead of hating gods he hates other mortals and wants to purge the world from them. So he turned to the force created by his ancestor more than two centuries ago, called The Dark. Then he took over his country and assembled a team of nine powerful, like minded individuals from all across the world called Nine Phantoms, he gave them access to vast abilities granted by The Dark through pact with him, which in turn would allow him, if he'd ever fall in battle, to instantly overwrite any of the Phantoms mind and continue his plans. Currently the party is going after Nine Phantoms, breaking their pact if possible or killing them if they don't want to collaborate. But Ragdevil always plans ahead, so he has a tenth phantom hidden safely in another plane, his only son, that will play a major role in future campaign, if the party succeeds at stopping his father. Also he's polite and invited party to a dinner on few occasions, but he regularly entangles them in his machinations and makes their lives harder, so their hatred for him is constantly burning. Also there is this thing that he is a reincarnation of his ancestors soul (not mind). So his connection and understanding of The Dark is the strongest possible, and he basically crated a new reincarnation circle just to preserve his mind and escape the former one. Ragdevils ancestor was a powerful dark mage, but he played a minor role in previous campaign, technically getting oneshoted. This is a twist that this not very important character and his actions play this major role in the grand scheme of things
The best way to get players to fear and hate a villain is to make one that plans.the brute force villain that is super-powerful in combat is just an obstacle. You want one that the players will hate because of their plans. Take my last D&D game. It started with the party getting a book of angelic magic for the vizier to the king and Archchancellor to the tower of high sorcery. So of course he had a full docket and couldn’t do it himself. The book was in the tomb of a good wizard (red flag 1). Then he tasked them with locating an amber crystal ball that had been stolen by goblins. When they got back he was having an argument with the princess, a Paladin, who needed soldiers to escort an important item. But the vizier couldn’t spare any because he was constantly keeping them on the border on the off chance of war with a neighboring kingdom (red flag 2. At no point was a war ever said to be brewing). This led to its own adventure when the princess hired the party for the job. Bit by bit, the party worked for the vizier, becoming ingratiated to the kingdom, and friends with the royal family. Every quest the PCs were given by the vizier, finding a tablet to help decipher the tome, figuring out who the creature that kept draining young men of their life force was and bringing it in alive (it was a succubus, that fight nearly caused a tpk), and finally bringing back a man who was innocent of the crime he was imprisoned for, was furthering his goal. And I kept laying out red flags that the PCs noticed and promptly ignored. When he was done with them, he sent them into an ambush to be killed. They were doing alright, but the princess and her younger sister, an evoked, helped in the fight. It was then that the younger princess, who was also friends with the party, revealed that she had discovered the vizier’s plan, to create a stone that would make him unkillable and immortal. All he needed was to reverse a spell in the book of angelic magic and have a man that was innocent and rescued from the gallows have his heart ripped out still beating by a fiend and the blood allowed to drip over an amber crystal ball. The look on my player’s faces was worth the build up, as I laid out the whole thing. By the time they got back, it was too late. They had helped the vizier in this, and now want to stop him more than ever. And that is my final tip for making a villain your players will hate. Give them wrath. Make the reason they hate the villain all their own fault.
This had nothing to do with dnd, but maybe it could be used in a campaign. There was one villain in a video game that I loathed with every fiber of my being. She thought of herself as a researcher of ruins, and would constantly just murder people without any regard to who they were if they stood between her and her research, which she wasn’t even good at. Describing her actions is sort of like: La de da de da MURDER. La de da de da MURDER. Hey look those runes look kind of cool. Wanna do a genocide now? The game ends with her getting a ten second redemption arc and now she’s apparently a good guy. I hate her so much.
That gave me an idea. The party arrives at a bandit camp they have to take out to save a village but find every single bandit mummified having lost all blood. The only sign of life is music and singing coming from the biggest tent where they see tha the boss of the bandits mummified dancing to the rhythm of a vampire's violin. The vampire will antagonize the party but leave to play over the next weeks dead members of the party's members backstory will appear dancing some previously alive family will appear as vampires leading to a grand confrontation on the vampire's home where he will use all the dead family members as puppets.
Usually, all it takes is for the players to learn that all the good they've been doing isn't good. And that this BBEG is, in fact, manipulating them. All the power and good name they've grown has been because the BBEG wants it. Once they learn that the BBEG has been grooming them and moving their lives along, they will resent him. Caught in a web they can't get out of, and locked into the plot planned by the BBEG. When they finally do meet the BBEG, and learn they have been his most faithful servants, they are going to be hot. All hell will break loose and the party will fight to the death to right the wrong.
Tbf some villains can be assholes who know and just dont care, but its hard to write a compelling one without it being edgelord garbage if you dont restrain yourself
Made a beholder influence the kingdoms people against the group in my campaign, burn away traces and witnesses in full display to deny the beholders influence over the royal cabinet. Chased them across the lands like ragged dolls and lastly nearly invoked a colossal war with neighboring empires for the sake of pettiness as well as reluctance to ease taxes on the citizens. Oh and killed a baby owl 🐻..
BlackSkull, a 1000 years old lich who has forgotten where he live. My party don’t even know about him that much. Just his arch general (a very powerful fighter that lead all armies on the continent) told them a bit of lore behind it. The order isn’t that present right now, just few nuisances they can fight through raw strength. But when the plot will need them to go away, they will soon learn about the order. As the order of the Black Skull has THE strongest naval force. Even what is called a ”pawn” can conquer a small island. Even whole continent that never ever had to deal with them fear, as they know that when the ships come, they cannot hold for so long.
I've done something that makes my villain very easy to hate. Every cultist they reach the point of interrogating carries on the conversation where the last one left off when he/she died. In other words, the leader will literally kill the cultist from the inside and just taunts the party every time they think they can get vital info. Also, having it so the cultists have points that can't be negated so interrogations end early works great. To top this off though, the cult is all humans and only uses non-human children as sacrifices. That's basically got my entire table fuming at them very much.
1. Make it personal. The villain's actions should directly affect the PCs. 2. Make the villain intelligent. Don't make him (or her) effectively a powerful zombie who basically just waits for the PCs to attack them. They should have their own goals and be actively employing strategies to complete their goal. Think of them as one of the main characters in the story, not just a MacGuffin to overcome. 2a. Make them mobile, don't just have them sit in one spot waiting for the PCs to attack. Bring the fight (figuratively, I don't mean combat, necessarily) to the PCs. For the Villain to stay "one-step-ahead" of the PCs they need to keep moving. Take the Hans Gruber character in the movie _Die Hard._ Why is he such a great villain? Because he's smart, he's continuing his plans while dealing with McCain, he works to just keep McCain out of the way not mindlessly attack him.
Probably the scariest thing you can do is to create a villain who treats everything around them like something that can be broken, manipulated, or played with. And I mean everything. I'm not saying make your villain a psychopath. Make them treat every horrible thing they do as unfeeling and easy to brush off as possible. ex: In our current campaign, there is a woman who is in charge of hosting a bardic competition that our party is participating in. She has two daughters: an older daughter bard who is disabled and wheelchair bound, and a younger daughter who is autistic. This mother of the two girls is awful. She basically treats them like trained dogs jumping for treats and has had them both play in competitions and concerts in order to have them (and herself) gain profit and fame (think dance moms, but barding). A few years ago, the eldest daughter was made to be part of a bardic competition in which a horrible accident happened while she was on stage (a balcony collapsed and completely shattered both her legs). This is why she was wheelchair bound. The eldest daughter is responsible for taking care of her younger sister, because her mother completely neglects them both. Now, the youngest daughter (who is really uncomfortable with preforming on stage in front of a massive crowd of people, and would much rather focus on being an artist instead of being a bard), is being made to perform on stage by her mother. At the same venue, on the same stage, and under the same balcony that BROKE HER FIRST DAUGHTER"S LEGS. The mother is not the BBEG. She just one horrible person. But if she's just a regular person and this is how awful an average person can be in your campaign...think about how evil your own villain is in comparison to the real-life actions of normal people in your world. If this lady is this bad...I am genuinely nervous about facing off what has been hinted as being a litch at the end of the campaign. That quite possibly imploded a capital city and started an outbreak of an army of the undead.
For those level 20 parties Make a npc that uses a combination of 3.5e and 5e character designs. Have it be a racist villain that s.a women and eats babies, have it battle the party multiple times only to let them live with major injuries like missing limbs, burned flesh ect. Have the villains secret identity be that of a major king or priest that's beloved by all and highly protected. Have the villain destroy the towns and villages that the party members are from only to use necromancy to force their loved ones as undead attack them. Have the villain Curse a member of the party with lycanthropy and kill another in public execution for a crime he didn't commit. Have the party of heroes look like the villains tryin to kill the beloved leader so that all of faerun turns against them then to make matters worse set bounties of unimaginable prices on their heads. Make one player character so paranoid he attacks another player character and gets locked up for it only to discover that another party member was secretly casting spells to make him go insane.
I never played dnd but imagine a boss like lies of p where the team is about to tpkd then the real big bad comes out and kills the boss like it was fly only because he went to far. Then have the big bad apologize cause he didn't realize the party was so pitiful. So he gives them a month to get stronger before he comes to the town to kill all little ones. Then comes to the town, realizes once again that they didn't improve then uses some mind controlling ability to force to the little ones to killing the party. Only for it play out like the party is some kind murderous group. But only for them to realize they haven't left the the big bads boss room and everything up to that point was nothing but fantasy the big bad put them in. Let's them go because there not worth his time. I know it's long but maybe some part of this makes some sense it all seems so awesome in my noggin
*!!my time has come!!* The best villains are the ones that stand in the way of the heroes' code, and yet they can't be defeated by it. For example, Batman cannot kill Joker, because then Joker wins by making him break his code. Try to add some level of emotional attachment, if possible. For example, a friend, relative, student or ward, etc, whose ideals cause conflict with the heroes (see, Star Wars). Make them annoying! You don't necessarily need to have a big epic combat every time, as long as the heroes have a thorn in their side every step of the way on their journey. There are 2 basic ways to go about the grand introduction: the big flashy reveal where the villain comes in and absolutely decimates them, gives a speech, and dips out; or the long, slow, subtle build up into a big reveal. The former is good for the power-hungry, god-complex, or zealous-for-a-cause archetypes, while the latter is good for the criminal mastermind, misguided/fallen, or friend-turned-foe archetypes. Have fun! When the villain is actively present for whatever story-beat the players are in, really try and dive into the character in such a way that makes you *enjoy* being the villain. One last tip: Play in an Evil Campaign. You'll be surprised at what your character(s) will be able to teach you about being a villain when you're the one who has to play out every motive, method, and philosophy of your character. And its fun!
Cyberpunk. They never meet the client. The client is a corpo. The client is running the absolute worst fast food joint possible. Even McDonnalds would be considered fine food compared to this. This fast food joint takes over the only facility in the entire city that every gang agrees is neutral ground. A pizza place. "Only real pizza in town." I ran the party ragged with so many gangs throwing all sorts of things at them. Invading corporate black ops sites across the city and a few outside it. Ending it at the worst fast food place HQ. They get in, have to surrender their weapons, and after getting them returned get escorted to the CEO's office... and find themselves unable to pick up their weaponry. The entire time all the items they've been picking up are for a cure for the executive's daughter. The voice they recognize speaking to the CEO on walking in. After all the history, backstory, everything is settled... I let the party hear the clicks of the weapons of another group right behind them. All wearing armor emblems of Alpha. CEO orders the execution of the party... And nothing happens because Alpha's weapons are all codeword jammed. CEO grabs a classic level flintlock from his desk and blasts the executive's head. This unlocks the party's weapons as all firearms in the building are disabled unless the executive issues the order or is eliminated. At this point not a single party has failed to take the fight straight at Alpha, 3 have managed to kill the CEO, and only one has picked up the backstory that the executive's daughter is in the building waiting for the cure the party has which the CEO was holding over the executive's head. Treatment to keep him loyal and eliminating every threat but never the cure. The daughter of the person actually married to this corpo executive. They run their own business. "Only real pizza in town." The only surviving person who knows how to make real pizza. They're both trapped in the basement lab, which happens to be the only exit possible after the lockdown initiates upon the executive's death. The escape tunnel there leads straight to one place. Guess where? It's not much but if they stop to not leave the spouse and daughter they can reinstate the peace of pizza.
If you want some really good ideas that you don't have to come up with yourself, check out the lore from Terraria's Calamity mod. The one problem I can't figure out is how the heck you would run a bullet hell style boss in a TTRPG.
If all else fails just make a villain who wants to end the world because they see all of creation as pointless since all that comes from it is an inevitable end where everything you are or do is eventually forgotten to time and it's as if you never existed in the first place, which to them feels like a sick joke. So because of this belief the villain just says fuck it and tries to end all of creation just to flip god the middle finger.
Hey where do I go to get you to actually put my responses on these lists? Are you actually looking into the comments for these, or is a specific thread or site?
I don't know exactly how it was in Final Fantasy, but... If PC thought they needed to get rid of the organisation that was bad enough, I feel like at least some players will cheer for a guy who killed them off. Or maybe I just play with a whole bunch of murder hobos
let the antagonist be former aquaintances and friends who walked away from you. make them better, worthier people than yourself. place yourself under the boot of history forever branded as a worthless soulless undignified worm. no accomplishment for the protagonist, only pushing back the losses and the disdain in the memory of the people. be crushed by opponents so often that the victory after endless attempts just tastes bitter. thats how you cultivate hate and fear.
Easy: make a villain that ticks a lot of no no boxes. The most disturbing character that I have ever made (as a storyteller, not as a DM) is an unholy abomination born from the sins of gluttony and lust, and the horsemen of plague and famine. They are Patient-0 of a constantly snowballing infectious hive mind of various ailments, sicknesses, parasites, and SCP grade body horror. I absolutely hate this character myself and it makes my stomach churn
My villain first became friends with my players, than persuaded my players to kill one of their own in order to save the world from other foe, and they did it... and the world was not saved. I gave them a choice though, save your friend, or let the world go to hell. Asked other players to leave the room while this conversation was happening, btw. Once they got in the battle, low and behold... they killed one of their own. World has not changed. Other players were shocked. The players who killed their own were shock. Lots of drama, that ended up creating the most hated villain by all my players. They are still chasing him...
my players absolutely hate a bad guy I have for them, a demon prince who has been helping the players, is friendly towards them but has definitely been capitalising on their successes and it's driven them mad, they know he's evil and the longer they leave it the worse it's going to be for them, he hasnt lied to them and they know that him helping them is helping himself, his own goals co-inside with theirs for now, they worry about the day they stop being useful
Genius! Beats all the tropes, except for the original bbeg himself: Lucifer/Jesus, aka The Morning Star
Coincide.
One thing to note is that presentation is very important to how your players perceive the big bad evil guy. This doesn't just mean having a villain show off, but having the world react to that villain. Maybe this means people who have felt the BBEG's wrath weep and wail in despair upon hearing the villains name, maybe a villain that gave the party a hard time works for this guy out of fear. Make the world you write truly feel the presence of your villain. The imaginations of your players will be painting this guy in a very scary light.
Make them steal 40 cakes and don't make them wash their hands after using the bathroom.
It says 'how do I make a villain my Players will truly hate or fear', not 'how do I make a villain so evil my Players leave'.
@@theoverpreparerlamenters3r436 So how do I tone it down then?
@@justinn8541akaDrPokemon...make them steal 25 cakes instead.
@@theoverpreparerlamenters3r436 Thanks
Lex Luthor. Beautiful
One of my favourites is when the hero becomes the villain. You spend all this time working together, suffering together, and progressing together. Then, as time grinds on, that guiding force dissolves and the cherished ally slowly becomes the villain you once fought, despite all the efforts to curb them away from a darker path. They want you to hate them since they know they are becoming the villain. They want you to fear them because they know all your weaknesses from all the time spent together.
Darth Treya from KOTOR II once said, "It is such a quiet thing, to fall. But far more terrible is to admit it."
Give the enemy an advantage that can't be overcome with power alone, because if the enemy's power is all they fear, then the fear will lessen throughout the campaign each time the players gain another level.
That artificer villain sounds like a fusion of Relius Clover and Yuuki Terumi
Make it personal but only from the party's perspective. like, target the property and family/friends of the party but when the party faces the bbeg to get revenge, the bbeg has no clue who "these random nobodies" are.
love it, it really throws a wrench in their plans when the villain doesnt know who they are 'for you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day in your life, for me, it was a tuesday'
@@zeriul09 pretty much (though even taking it one step further "... for me.. well... i dont actually remember stepping foot in your village.." lol that'll get under their skin)
To make them fear the antagonist?
En from Dorohedoro.
An ability to instantly kill anybody regardless of their power (provided they fail a save, in case of D&D), combined with an aura and cunning of a mob boss. Have them present their power on some poor npc's. Also make sure to add a few npc's working for that antagonist who are a team maybe not as strong but maybe better coordinated than the players. But of course, there must come a point when they can do something about him.
My idea is to do one of two things. The first is to make the villain sympathetic. Think about the Sandman from the Spiderman movie, whose creation is an accident born out of desperation. Better yet, have the villain be friendly, polite, and even sympathetic towards the players, but his final goal is something that he can't simply give up - the pieces were set in motion long ago, and to give up now would possibly derail decades of planning... They MUST see it through, because otherwise they spent their effort for nothing.
The second is to make it something on a cosmic level. Have any instance of it appearing in the world be a source of chaos and panic, as even basic elements of reality bend and break under the metaphysical mass of it. Players can stop him as he comes out, but only because he thinks they are beneath his notice. Have things get FAR worse once he recognizes the players...
PANR has tuned in.
Make PvP Great Again!
Started up a seperate group (B) who are uncovering the actions of the original group (A). The bbeg for Group A isnt evil at all, and is very benevolent, but in his attempts to remake the realm a place of peace he is unintentionally (and unknowingly) antagonizing the groups ambitions.
In the end, they'll either sunder the bb"e"g, or join him, at which point they become the eventual bb"e"g for Group B, which will culminate in a PvP match between the two groups.
All in all, the DM is the real bbeg who is pulling all the strings. A 4th-wall break might be in order at some point.
9:03 THIS IS ACTUALLY FREAKY. I have no knowledge of dnd and my first character is an artificer named Vanguard.
Holy Heck! Sgt. Delco made it into a video! I never thought my stories would! This makes me so excited especially when I'm a new GM with not even a year under my belt!
They have a smart plan for dealing with him. Most would run in head first and die. Also nice pfp. That uh Halo or FoE?
@scribblerstudios9895 just random OC I made when I joined the Fandom.
And yeah they really don't want to tangle woth him till theu are much higher level which as you said is smart as he is designed for high level fights but can show up anywhere at any time as he is actively tracking the ghoul.
@@scorch2155 fair enough on all counts. Well, let’s hope they’ll be ready when the reaver comes eh?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't T-60 Power Armor the variant designed by the Enclave?
@christopherbravo1813 T-60 was the version released just before the bombs fell, the Enclsve uses XO-1 and XO-2.
The BOS uses T-60.
The best way that I've found to make a villain that the PCs will truly hate/fear is to give them a personal connection to one or more of the PCs. Like in Campaign One of Critical Role, where Lord and Lady Briarwood were the ones who murdered Percy's family and usurped the rulership of Whitestone. Then the Chroma Conclave were lead by the same red dragon that destroyed Vax and Vex's hometown and killed their mother. Kevdak beat Grog nearly to death and exiled him from The Herd Of Storms for standing up for Pike's great grandfather. Once you choose a villain with a personal connection with one or more of the PCs, make them incredibly tough to beat. Not just by making them extremely powerful as individuals, but also give them several disposable troops and particularly tough personal guards. Thus, the PCs who don't personally hate the BBEG will at least fear them.
Another good example of this is Star Wars. When Luke meets Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan tells Luke that Darth Vader had betrayed and murdered Luke's father. Then after discovering the jawas slaughtered by imperial troops, Luke raced home to find that they had murdered his aunt and uncle too. Later, Princess Leia is forced to watch as her home planet of Alderaan is blown up by The Death Star. Then during their escape, Luke watches as Obi-Wan, the closest thing he has to family left to him, gets cut down by Darth Vader. From the perspectives of Luke and Leia, the Galactic Empire in general, and Darth Vader in particular, are the worst villains in the galaxy.
The best feuds in pro wrestling are always the ones where the fight between the heel and the babyface is extremely personal. The feud between The Macho Man and Hulk Hogan during the Mega Power Meltdown at WrestleMania V is a great example. Heck, any feud that starts where a babyface turns heel and double crosses his friends is almost always the most compelling. Hogan vs Andre, Hogan vs Macho Man, Hogan vs Mr Wonderful, the list goes on and on.
My charecter already has two personal villains.
The first tried to sever her soul from her body in order to stuff some hellspwn soul in her body. (She survived and ran away with a permanent reduction to her magics)
The second is a several thousand year old angel that chased her across a desert and almost killed her for 'funzies'
At the moment, my friend is running Curse of Strahd and my character is an immortal [by age] Dragonborn Fighter that once sought to protect the innocent and those he cares for, only to have his ideals twisted.
I feel like a character that works alongside the party, only to eventually reveal their dark truth could work as a villain the players would hate. 'Wait, you... you'd sacrifice even US if it meant you'd grow stronger?!' 'Of course. If the power to protect comes from your sacrifice - willing or otherwise - they it will be paid.'
YOO THE FIRST ONE IS MINE!!!
Sergeant Delco sounds amazing! I love him! May he do McCarthy proud!
Thanks, I'm really proud of him :-D
@@scorch2155 Scorch? Did you name yourself after a certain flamethrower wielding little green man by chance?
@@SuperLumianaire nope, after a certain explosives expert who has the same face as all of his brothers.
@@scorch2155 hmm. What is that from? Mine was Army Man Sarge's Heroes.
the changeling one is actually so cool
Ran Phandalin campaign with my own twists with my family that's played a good bit. Threw a high level oni as the behind the scene boss of the goblin cave that had transformed into a goblin. The party cleared the cave pretty quickly as I let them start the game a few levels up for funsies. They charged the "goblin" and he started to laugh off the damage. Cue creepy music box fx track. The small bad started growing into a large bad and started smacking down onnthe party. They flew out of the cave with that "giant sized goblin" on their heels. They managed to get away and loose him. It was all they could talk about for months until they squared up with the oni in a village that was being ransacked by hill giants and were able to take it down.
The oni's motive was to hide behind the goblins and then giants actions to consume human children without drawing to much attention to himself.
The Implications - in other words the changeling king is Dennis Reynolds.
Makes sense, I've often compared being a DM to Charlie work.
7:09 I've created a similar bbeg for my current campaign. His name is Ragdevilen Mercrow, or Ragdevil for short. But instead of hating gods he hates other mortals and wants to purge the world from them. So he turned to the force created by his ancestor more than two centuries ago, called The Dark. Then he took over his country and assembled a team of nine powerful, like minded individuals from all across the world called Nine Phantoms, he gave them access to vast abilities granted by The Dark through pact with him, which in turn would allow him, if he'd ever fall in battle, to instantly overwrite any of the Phantoms mind and continue his plans. Currently the party is going after Nine Phantoms, breaking their pact if possible or killing them if they don't want to collaborate. But Ragdevil always plans ahead, so he has a tenth phantom hidden safely in another plane, his only son, that will play a major role in future campaign, if the party succeeds at stopping his father. Also he's polite and invited party to a dinner on few occasions, but he regularly entangles them in his machinations and makes their lives harder, so their hatred for him is constantly burning.
Also there is this thing that he is a reincarnation of his ancestors soul (not mind). So his connection and understanding of The Dark is the strongest possible, and he basically crated a new reincarnation circle just to preserve his mind and escape the former one.
Ragdevils ancestor was a powerful dark mage, but he played a minor role in previous campaign, technically getting oneshoted. This is a twist that this not very important character and his actions play this major role in the grand scheme of things
The best way to get players to fear and hate a villain is to make one that plans.the brute force villain that is super-powerful in combat is just an obstacle. You want one that the players will hate because of their plans.
Take my last D&D game. It started with the party getting a book of angelic magic for the vizier to the king and Archchancellor to the tower of high sorcery. So of course he had a full docket and couldn’t do it himself. The book was in the tomb of a good wizard (red flag 1). Then he tasked them with locating an amber crystal ball that had been stolen by goblins. When they got back he was having an argument with the princess, a Paladin, who needed soldiers to escort an important item. But the vizier couldn’t spare any because he was constantly keeping them on the border on the off chance of war with a neighboring kingdom (red flag 2. At no point was a war ever said to be brewing). This led to its own adventure when the princess hired the party for the job.
Bit by bit, the party worked for the vizier, becoming ingratiated to the kingdom, and friends with the royal family. Every quest the PCs were given by the vizier, finding a tablet to help decipher the tome, figuring out who the creature that kept draining young men of their life force was and bringing it in alive (it was a succubus, that fight nearly caused a tpk), and finally bringing back a man who was innocent of the crime he was imprisoned for, was furthering his goal. And I kept laying out red flags that the PCs noticed and promptly ignored.
When he was done with them, he sent them into an ambush to be killed. They were doing alright, but the princess and her younger sister, an evoked, helped in the fight. It was then that the younger princess, who was also friends with the party, revealed that she had discovered the vizier’s plan, to create a stone that would make him unkillable and immortal. All he needed was to reverse a spell in the book of angelic magic and have a man that was innocent and rescued from the gallows have his heart ripped out still beating by a fiend and the blood allowed to drip over an amber crystal ball.
The look on my player’s faces was worth the build up, as I laid out the whole thing. By the time they got back, it was too late. They had helped the vizier in this, and now want to stop him more than ever.
And that is my final tip for making a villain your players will hate. Give them wrath. Make the reason they hate the villain all their own fault.
This had nothing to do with dnd, but maybe it could be used in a campaign. There was one villain in a video game that I loathed with every fiber of my being. She thought of herself as a researcher of ruins, and would constantly just murder people without any regard to who they were if they stood between her and her research, which she wasn’t even good at. Describing her actions is sort of like: La de da de da MURDER. La de da de da MURDER. Hey look those runes look kind of cool. Wanna do a genocide now? The game ends with her getting a ten second redemption arc and now she’s apparently a good guy. I hate her so much.
That gave me an idea. The party arrives at a bandit camp they have to take out to save a village but find every single bandit mummified having lost all blood. The only sign of life is music and singing coming from the biggest tent where they see tha the boss of the bandits mummified dancing to the rhythm of a vampire's violin. The vampire will antagonize the party but leave to play over the next weeks dead members of the party's members backstory will appear dancing some previously alive family will appear as vampires leading to a grand confrontation on the vampire's home where he will use all the dead family members as puppets.
Usually, all it takes is for the players to learn that all the good they've been doing isn't good. And that this BBEG is, in fact, manipulating them. All the power and good name they've grown has been because the BBEG wants it. Once they learn that the BBEG has been grooming them and moving their lives along, they will resent him.
Caught in a web they can't get out of, and locked into the plot planned by the BBEG. When they finally do meet the BBEG, and learn they have been his most faithful servants, they are going to be hot. All hell will break loose and the party will fight to the death to right the wrong.
The first step is to write a villain who genuinely believes that what they're doing is correct.
Tbf some villains can be assholes who know and just dont care, but its hard to write a compelling one without it being edgelord garbage if you dont restrain yourself
Made a beholder influence the kingdoms people against the group in my campaign, burn away traces and witnesses in full display to deny the beholders influence over the royal cabinet. Chased them across the lands like ragged dolls and lastly nearly invoked a colossal war with neighboring empires for the sake of pettiness as well as reluctance to ease taxes on the citizens. Oh and killed a baby owl 🐻..
BlackSkull, a 1000 years old lich who has forgotten where he live.
My party don’t even know about him that much. Just his arch general (a very powerful fighter that lead all armies on the continent) told them a bit of lore behind it. The order isn’t that present right now, just few nuisances they can fight through raw strength.
But when the plot will need them to go away, they will soon learn about the order. As the order of the Black Skull has THE strongest naval force. Even what is called a ”pawn” can conquer a small island.
Even whole continent that never ever had to deal with them fear, as they know that when the ships come, they cannot hold for so long.
Syrina Valdove, highelf turned tiefling who was also a slaver and branded a member of the party. She is now hanging from the party’s bard’s belt
I've done something that makes my villain very easy to hate. Every cultist they reach the point of interrogating carries on the conversation where the last one left off when he/she died. In other words, the leader will literally kill the cultist from the inside and just taunts the party every time they think they can get vital info.
Also, having it so the cultists have points that can't be negated so interrogations end early works great.
To top this off though, the cult is all humans and only uses non-human children as sacrifices. That's basically got my entire table fuming at them very much.
1. Make it personal. The villain's actions should directly affect the PCs.
2. Make the villain intelligent. Don't make him (or her) effectively a powerful zombie who basically just waits for the PCs to attack them. They should have their own goals and be actively employing strategies to complete their goal. Think of them as one of the main characters in the story, not just a MacGuffin to overcome.
2a. Make them mobile, don't just have them sit in one spot waiting for the PCs to attack. Bring the fight (figuratively, I don't mean combat, necessarily) to the PCs. For the Villain to stay "one-step-ahead" of the PCs they need to keep moving.
Take the Hans Gruber character in the movie _Die Hard._ Why is he such a great villain? Because he's smart, he's continuing his plans while dealing with McCain, he works to just keep McCain out of the way not mindlessly attack him.
Probably the scariest thing you can do is to create a villain who treats everything around them like something that can be broken, manipulated, or played with. And I mean everything. I'm not saying make your villain a psychopath. Make them treat every horrible thing they do as unfeeling and easy to brush off as possible. ex: In our current campaign, there is a woman who is in charge of hosting a bardic competition that our party is participating in. She has two daughters: an older daughter bard who is disabled and wheelchair bound, and a younger daughter who is autistic. This mother of the two girls is awful. She basically treats them like trained dogs jumping for treats and has had them both play in competitions and concerts in order to have them (and herself) gain profit and fame (think dance moms, but barding). A few years ago, the eldest daughter was made to be part of a bardic competition in which a horrible accident happened while she was on stage (a balcony collapsed and completely shattered both her legs). This is why she was wheelchair bound. The eldest daughter is responsible for taking care of her younger sister, because her mother completely neglects them both. Now, the youngest daughter (who is really uncomfortable with preforming on stage in front of a massive crowd of people, and would much rather focus on being an artist instead of being a bard), is being made to perform on stage by her mother. At the same venue, on the same stage, and under the same balcony that BROKE HER FIRST DAUGHTER"S LEGS.
The mother is not the BBEG. She just one horrible person. But if she's just a regular person and this is how awful an average person can be in your campaign...think about how evil your own villain is in comparison to the real-life actions of normal people in your world. If this lady is this bad...I am genuinely nervous about facing off what has been hinted as being a litch at the end of the campaign. That quite possibly imploded a capital city and started an outbreak of an army of the undead.
12:06 that’s just Zenos Galvus, and I can confirm….THIS WORKS
For those level 20 parties Make a npc that uses a combination of 3.5e and 5e character designs. Have it be a racist villain that s.a women and eats babies, have it battle the party multiple times only to let them live with major injuries like missing limbs, burned flesh ect. Have the villains secret identity be that of a major king or priest that's beloved by all and highly protected. Have the villain destroy the towns and villages that the party members are from only to use necromancy to force their loved ones as undead attack them. Have the villain Curse a member of the party with lycanthropy and kill another in public execution for a crime he didn't commit. Have the party of heroes look like the villains tryin to kill the beloved leader so that all of faerun turns against them then to make matters worse set bounties of unimaginable prices on their heads. Make one player character so paranoid he attacks another player character and gets locked up for it only to discover that another party member was secretly casting spells to make him go insane.
I never played dnd but imagine a boss like lies of p where the team is about to tpkd then the real big bad comes out and kills the boss like it was fly only because he went to far. Then have the big bad apologize cause he didn't realize the party was so pitiful. So he gives them a month to get stronger before he comes to the town to kill all little ones. Then comes to the town, realizes once again that they didn't improve then uses some mind controlling ability to force to the little ones to killing the party. Only for it play out like the party is some kind murderous group. But only for them to realize they haven't left the the big bads boss room and everything up to that point was nothing but fantasy the big bad put them in. Let's them go because there not worth his time. I know it's long but maybe some part of this makes some sense it all seems so awesome in my noggin
*!!my time has come!!*
The best villains are the ones that stand in the way of the heroes' code, and yet they can't be defeated by it. For example, Batman cannot kill Joker, because then Joker wins by making him break his code.
Try to add some level of emotional attachment, if possible. For example, a friend, relative, student or ward, etc, whose ideals cause conflict with the heroes (see, Star Wars).
Make them annoying! You don't necessarily need to have a big epic combat every time, as long as the heroes have a thorn in their side every step of the way on their journey.
There are 2 basic ways to go about the grand introduction: the big flashy reveal where the villain comes in and absolutely decimates them, gives a speech, and dips out; or the long, slow, subtle build up into a big reveal. The former is good for the power-hungry, god-complex, or zealous-for-a-cause archetypes, while the latter is good for the criminal mastermind, misguided/fallen, or friend-turned-foe archetypes.
Have fun! When the villain is actively present for whatever story-beat the players are in, really try and dive into the character in such a way that makes you *enjoy* being the villain.
One last tip: Play in an Evil Campaign. You'll be surprised at what your character(s) will be able to teach you about being a villain when you're the one who has to play out every motive, method, and philosophy of your character. And its fun!
I just had my BBEG blow-up a dog I described as one of my players dogs
Cyberpunk. They never meet the client. The client is a corpo. The client is running the absolute worst fast food joint possible. Even McDonnalds would be considered fine food compared to this. This fast food joint takes over the only facility in the entire city that every gang agrees is neutral ground. A pizza place. "Only real pizza in town." I ran the party ragged with so many gangs throwing all sorts of things at them. Invading corporate black ops sites across the city and a few outside it. Ending it at the worst fast food place HQ. They get in, have to surrender their weapons, and after getting them returned get escorted to the CEO's office... and find themselves unable to pick up their weaponry. The entire time all the items they've been picking up are for a cure for the executive's daughter. The voice they recognize speaking to the CEO on walking in. After all the history, backstory, everything is settled... I let the party hear the clicks of the weapons of another group right behind them. All wearing armor emblems of Alpha. CEO orders the execution of the party...
And nothing happens because Alpha's weapons are all codeword jammed. CEO grabs a classic level flintlock from his desk and blasts the executive's head. This unlocks the party's weapons as all firearms in the building are disabled unless the executive issues the order or is eliminated.
At this point not a single party has failed to take the fight straight at Alpha, 3 have managed to kill the CEO, and only one has picked up the backstory that the executive's daughter is in the building waiting for the cure the party has which the CEO was holding over the executive's head. Treatment to keep him loyal and eliminating every threat but never the cure. The daughter of the person actually married to this corpo executive. They run their own business. "Only real pizza in town." The only surviving person who knows how to make real pizza. They're both trapped in the basement lab, which happens to be the only exit possible after the lockdown initiates upon the executive's death. The escape tunnel there leads straight to one place. Guess where?
It's not much but if they stop to not leave the spouse and daughter they can reinstate the peace of pizza.
If you want some really good ideas that you don't have to come up with yourself, check out the lore from Terraria's Calamity mod.
The one problem I can't figure out is how the heck you would run a bullet hell style boss in a TTRPG.
Fear? Easy. Have the villain show up out of nowhere and instantly kill a PC.
If all else fails just make a villain who wants to end the world because they see all of creation as pointless since all that comes from it is an inevitable end where everything you are or do is eventually forgotten to time and it's as if you never existed in the first place, which to them feels like a sick joke. So because of this belief the villain just says fuck it and tries to end all of creation just to flip god the middle finger.
Make them greedy for their stuf that happend like taking a blodline
Hey where do I go to get you to actually put my responses on these lists? Are you actually looking into the comments for these, or is a specific thread or site?
Read the description :)
I don't know exactly how it was in Final Fantasy, but... If PC thought they needed to get rid of the organisation that was bad enough, I feel like at least some players will cheer for a guy who killed them off. Or maybe I just play with a whole bunch of murder hobos
let the antagonist be former aquaintances and friends who walked away from you. make them better, worthier people than yourself. place yourself under the boot of history forever branded as a worthless soulless undignified worm. no accomplishment for the protagonist, only pushing back the losses and the disdain in the memory of the people. be crushed by opponents so often that the victory after endless attempts just tastes bitter.
thats how you cultivate hate and fear.
Easy: make a villain that ticks a lot of no no boxes. The most disturbing character that I have ever made (as a storyteller, not as a DM) is an unholy abomination born from the sins of gluttony and lust, and the horsemen of plague and famine. They are Patient-0 of a constantly snowballing infectious hive mind of various ailments, sicknesses, parasites, and SCP grade body horror. I absolutely hate this character myself and it makes my stomach churn
Obligatory comment
How to make a hated villain = model villain after Don the Con Trump