How to Properly Build Up to Your Villain in Dungeons and Dragons
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- čas přidán 24. 04. 2022
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"You took everything from me."
"I don't even know who you are."
Yooooo honestly a great line!
I reviled my BBEG by having them send the party on a mission to another kingdom that had been ruled by a Undead king for the past 600 years, the BBEGs plan was to have the king kill the party so they could move on with their plan of conquering the party's home kingdom, all neat and shorted, the party died trying to stop an Army of undead.
The BBEG however forgot about a painting in the castle of the undead king, that clearly showed the BBEG handmaid as a little girl and a woman with her face scratched out and the words
'Blood Sucking Bitch'
written across it
needless to say the party worked out what was going on pretty quickly.
it was only after this the party realized the Handmaid, every time she had asked them to do a mission to stop the Cult of Undeath, she had added the line
'could you please'
I used this as 'Would you kindly' would have been to obvious
I've actually done something a little similar to this before!
That is utter genius.
I still didn't get it... Would you help an idiot here?
If the party died, how would they have pieced that information together?
@@nathanielpotter9259 That was the BBEG Idea, the Undead King would kill the party, and so remove her problem, as the party had been messing up her plans to take control of the kingdom.
I'm currently running a campaign where the player characters are working under a npc. Who currently isn't a villain, but through the story things will happen to him such as losing a love one. And in turn he will become the BBEG. I have to do it right and I'm going to have be ready for my players not do what I expect. Either way if goes well I think it will be a lot of fun.
Tell me how it goes!
This sounds like such a cool idea!!! I'm a DM and I also do therapeutic D&D in my job as a therapist, and this would BLOW the minds of my teenage clients
@@anacoanagoldenflower Oh Wow. I didn't even know therapeutic D&D was thing. But that seems even cooler, and I hope that it continues to go well!
@@anacoanagoldenflower that's cool as said I didn't know that D&D was actually been implemented in such a way, it seems like a brilliant medium.
Love it, I classify character arcs as ascent or descent and apply a descent character arc like this for an actual villain is a great idea.
When I DMed Cuse of Strahd, Strahd is in every fiber of that campaign. Even when he is not "on screen", his presence can be felt. He was so much fun to play because of that. Not all BBEGs are that imbedded into an adventure, so it's more difficult. The adventure I'm doing now has been, admittedly, a little all over the place and I don't think I've properly conveyed the power of the villain and his followers. I'm trying to drop hints again about it, but I worry it's too little, too late.
That's okay! I struggle so much with realizing part of the way through that something essential needed to be happening from the beginning. I'd look back at your campaign and see if there's been any themes to it; usually groups will make there be one accidentally. Maybe the theme is that no one gets left behind, or that we don't have to worry because we can magic and/or punch our way out of anything, or that we're always together, or that no matter what we can always turn to __________. There's almost always something stable in a campaign, whether it's physical (2nd and 3rd examples) or ideological like the first example, or a setting factor like the last one. Find whatever that stability is, that things that give the characters and/or the players comfort, and have the BBEG or his followers TAKE IT. Since you've had multiple sessions by the sound of it, that's something woven into what the PCs and players know that suddenly isn't there anymore or is warped beyond repair. It's a move that often hits players in the gut and gets them invested fast. If "we can always depend on each other and no one else" is the theme, the BBEG's follower slips something into a drink that makes one of the PCs constantly take the Rage action against the party. If "don't worry, the wizard can always get us out of this!" is important, someone makes him incapable of using magic, same thing if the tank is dependably saving everyone. I hope these ideas helped!
Strahd is an outlier when it comes to villains because Barovia is his domain so it's easy to insert him or his influence everywhere.
I'm going to add this.
When I look at D&D villains, I'm reminded of Critical Role, and how Matt Mercer tied an early villain, the Briarwoods, into the later BBEG, Vecna. At the end of the third-to-last episode, Matt was asked how could he do what he had done. Quick context: In ascending Vecna's tower Entropis, Vox Machina came across 3 NPCs that the players cared about, who had been kidnapped and had a mind-altering bracelet placed on their heads, to keep them unconscious. The 3 NPCs were: Sean Gilmore, the shopkeeper and arcanist; Scanlan's daughter Kaylee; and Cassandra de Rolo, Percy's sister.
That episode ended with all three being saved (two were resurrected) and teleported out by Gilmore, as Vox Machina prepared to face Vecna himself.
The point here is that Matt answered Travis's exasperated question of, "How could you do this, Matt!?" with, "Well, when you show a god who is important to you...", I think that it's important to remember something: Villains don't just "stand still and wait." They plan. They machinate. They do things that affect the PCs, even when they aren't present. They have plans on top of plans on top of plans. And as the DM, I find that it's a little bit like playing a card game. You're not just playing the game itself, you're playing the players themselves, not just the PCs. Plus, you have more information than the players do, since the DM runs the villain(s). The point is, outhink and outpredict what your players will do. Think like you're the villain. Ask yourself, "What would I do, if I had X, Y, and Z information about the PCs?" Don't be afraid to do something that turns the PCs' world upside-down. Don't be afraid to do something that could even be detrimental to the world, that sets the world against them. Don't be afraid to be the bad guy. Most importantly, as the BBEG, as the villain, never apologize. Because there are always reasons why the BBEG, why the villain does what they do. And hey, I would even say, write a backstory for your villain you can reference while things happen in-game. Use that backstory as a reference to how they act, and why. If anything, a villain, or BBEG, is your opportunity to create your own PC that you set against the players -- who will eventually engage in PvP combat against the party. That's what a villain does. And especially if the PCs are trying, or have succeeded, in stopping plans of theirs in the past.
My villain is the 'hero of his own story' type, he tends to ignore heroes who leave his plans alone. The party put him in a fish.
Dude, it’s a “comment”
I had a mini-boss recently, I had planned for him to escape on his boat, feeding the party with some info about his employers as he departed. I had also made an alternative in case he died. They knocked him out and handed him into the guard.
I had an interesting idea while watching this video, and I will probably try to find some way to use it, the villain is not a part of any of the player's backstory, but he causes people to have false memories related to the players' backstories. Completely unfamiliar characters suddenly trying to get "revenge" on the party and other scenarios that don't make sense, until eventually they realize what the villain is doing.
Wait that's such a good idea
Ooo that's amazing!!
Could also be for memory loss if you make the reason for memory loss in the start well off. But a fantastic idea none the less
@@JollyRodger2667 a higher level version of a false hydra, called a Viceroy Tiamat.
I like the idea of having smaller personal villains then a big one with tons of lore, then you get the vibe of a local bbeg and an overarching villain
I'm currently running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and I'm planning on transitioning into Rise of Tiamat. Without any major spoilers: the main leader of the cult is not really in the story until the final battle, and my fix to this is the following. When the party defeats a major villain (like a cult wyrmspeaker), they can find a letter, either from the main leader himself, or from another major cult member, mentioning some kind of activity of the main leader. I haven't tested it out yet, but it feels like a fun idea...
Hints of a larger threat can be awesome to keep the party interested, so long as they don't stretch on too long without pay off!
That's precisely how they did it in Baldur's Gate.
Watchout for them copying the style of the hand writing and use it to start a major war or something big.
Not often an option, but the BBEG in a previous campaign I ran was someone I'd played as a character in another campaign. Everyone knew who he was, or at least who he'd been when last they saw him, so there was already an attachment to the character.
I don’t know, in my current game I presented a powerful character who is going to be one of the bad guys who currently lives in a city infested with ghouls and as soon as they heard about him (at 6th level) they decided the most obvious thing to do was go there and try to enslave him. They ignored every quest and every plea for help along the way there that they could have used to level up, and it’s just an abandoned city full of magical radiation so there’s nothing they have to fight through to get there, so they traveled an in game month and have decided to walk into the magically irradiated city full of ghouls, wraiths, and a very angry and powerful undead wizard. Sometimes the players walk themselves into a tpk through their own stupidity and that’s okay to not pull the punches on them I think if they decide to seek out the obviously powerful villain at an early level.
Unless you made the magically irradiated city feel like a ticking time bomb, I'd agree this is 100% on the party
My fav villain trope to use was done in "how to train your dragon: race to the edge"
Spoilers ahead:
Trader johan
The dude spends the 8 seasons manipulating everyone
Getting them into ever more risky situations to help him in hopes they die
Usually the party does not think an npc is trying to murder them if they find adversity while doing quests for them.
Also, the best part is that if you have multiple villans, and they think the trader betrayed them because of money, you can use the amazing line of:
Player: "whatever they are paying you we can do better!"
Trader: pay me??! Dear friend, i PAY THEM.
Revealing that the guy with the money that seemed to be on their side was the one manipulating both players AND villains is amazing.
Im so glad that the cutscene tactic was explained here. I utilized dramatic irony all over my campaign so far with them using roll20 and i even use them for some npcs that i know the players enjoy greatly or told me they were interested in to give them some slice of life info on them as it is a long campaign. I love the inclusion of such cause it is a VERY underrated technique and im glad i caught onto it before starting my rerun, as the first run of the campaign i wasent blessed with the amazing players i have now
I usually leave a nameless NPC in my backstory and let the DM fill that character in with a villain. It helps integrate me into the story.
I did that for the first campaign my best friend is doing. I knew he was gonna have the BBEG run some kind of criminal organisation and "coincidentally" left out the criminal organisation my character (an ex mercenary turned teacher) used to work for. He ended up asking if I was fine with that and my answer was just "I left it blank for your convenience ;)"
Side note: One thing if you want to tie everyone's backstory into being the bbeg to get them invested is that you could have it be instead of one villain have it be multiple characters that choose to work together and the reason why could work together is up to the DM to choose why they're all working together.
Currently the BBEG that I have is the ruler of an enemy nation that they're going to war with that they are trying to stop by planning on killing him. Of course when they first meet him he'll teleport away and have clone versions of him deal with the party. (I just hope that he doesn't get double counterspelled because otherwise I will TPK them. But I think I'm in the clear for now as only one person shows interest of grabbing that spell that can have it.) But after that BBEG I plan on have them deal with a lich who is in this worlds past who I've hope I've done a good job with lore as his affects are still in the affect of the world (like the reason why there's hardly any elves past the age of 200) and has been brought up a good amount of times and will probably be brought up more.
I used another approach to the villain once, it may be my favorite one and is sort of a version of the "untouchable" different to yours. It was a Hobgoblin Warlord in a campaign with a starting lvl of 5 so in a direct combat the party would have crush him. As a Hobgoblin he had minions, but he was part of a War Council so he couldn't use the entire army, and he was doing something that sort of contradicted the council and even the Hobgoblins as a whole so only his most loyal warriors could get between him and the party so he wasn't untouchable.
First of all one of his closes allies had a vulture familiar so his arrival was always marked by that bird. The thing was that he was looking for the same thing than the players, so they where first encountered by a bunch of his subordinates trying to still something the party had (essentially the "key" to get the "mcguffin") The players won so his lines where getting thinner.
He then appeared for the first time after a difficult battle the party had, he got to them making a lot of sound so they could be warned but the noise was made by his war rhinos, so a damaged party saw a group of war rhinos and their many riders and ran, still this was the first time they saw him, "untouchable".
His second appearance was after a lot of stuff happened in a short time, but basically he had captured the party's patron, and friend to many of them. At least one of the party managed to fight him for a few rounds, proving that the enemy was stronger than one of the party but having the chance to measure him and discovering he wasn't as powerful to be untouchable.
He appeared some other few times to negotiate and challenge them, but he and his convoy never entered a full fleshed on fight with him. The party also started interacting with other hobgoblins discovering that they where not fond of the villain and discovering that even among their own he was regarded as evil and treasonous. They encountered more of his allies and minions and discovered that he was allied with some Shadar Kai, furthering his presence and importance.
At the end, after he was casted out of the Hobgoblin's War Council he managed to get most of what he needed to get the mcguffin, and trick the players to follow him to the Shadowfell where they finally fought him and his last loyal warrior, and wife. The battle was nice and all and the players where actually pretty invested but there was a twist, they weren't aware of the personal connection between this las 2 enemies but they were partially aware that the monsters they had encounter during the campaign (the sorrowsworn) where once humans or humanoids. Naturally when the fight began the enemy was not a huge challenge to the party, not after they had already leveled up a few levels. So… The point is that after the players killed his las minion (and lover) he was transformed by his rage and grief and the energy of the Shadowfell into The Angry, confirming the suspicions the party had about the sorrowsworn. He was, at the end, an excellent closure, not only for the fact that they hated the Hobgoblin by that moment but also to give a visual prove to the lore and nature of the campaign in general.
There are a lot of great GM advice videos on CZcams so it can be hard to find suggestions I haven’t heard before, but this had some great ones!
I'm so glad I could help, I try really hard not to make a video if it's something I think has been talked about a lot before!
I feel like the "the villain is responsible for everyone's backstory" thing can be done well without it being seen as a plot-necessary coincidence. The party's fighter was part of the imperial army sent to fight an enemy. He could've been left for dead, dishonorably discharged, accused of a crime, or maybe he could've been sent to kill innocents. Either way it plays out, the king who started this war is responsible. The rogue who's parents lived in poverty their entire lives and barely could feed their child, forcing said child to start stealing to feed them or get enough money. The guard catches the parents stealing and they're either imprisoned or executed. Who was responsible for these conditions that made them suffer this long or the laws that said their parents must die? The king. While they may not be directly responsible for the player character's suffering, their actions and the ripples that spread from them were the cause of it, even if they weren't intentional. They may never know the player characters exist, yet their actions can be felt far away. They could have hired several corrupt people who were the ones causing the suffering, but the fact he hired them and never saw wrong in what they did means he let those things happen, he's responsible.
Two weeks ago of the time of writing this, in my Star Wars Edge of the Empire game, my players encountered Darth Vader for the first time. We've been doing this campaign for a couple of months now. It is a group of bounty hunters and mercenaries that are working with the Alliance before Ep4. There is one force user and one Jedi. The Empire is aware of their abilities and they arent afraid of the Empire. With an earlier plot of assassinating a regional governor and bragging about it around the outer rim.
It felt natural that Vader had to show up and remind them the power of the Empire. Building up is key. When I first started this campaign I didnt want to include big name characters, especially Vader. So as a joke I would keep Vader on my GM screen as the classic "This big bad boss is always waiting-" kinda thing. There faces when I placed him down after they defeated a pair of Inquisitors. The session ended with them running of course. With one player dying, one NPC ally being captured(presumed dead), and their star ship and droid being taken by the Empire when they stowed it off somewhere for their mission. I always kept Vader in the back of their minds, at least I hope I did. The constant reminder of other forces at play. The occasional orders coming in from these high up leaders in the Empire that they hear about. And of course the fact that two of them are force users that were by that point, ousted to the galaxy. Although there are plenty of these big bad Imperial admirals and warlords, there is always the Dark Lord of the Sith right around the corner, hunting them.......
I'm currently planning my first campaign for my friends and this really helped out, thanks a lot!
Good video, great help for my own campaign. I've been having a hard time coming up with ways to tie their adventures together and now I've got some tools, thank you
Of course! So glad I could help!
My BBEG was the leader of a Cult, and the entire time throughout the whole campaign, he was messing with either the players or the NPC's, who the Players got invested in quickly. Like, he kidnapped these two NPC's who where married kids, then said the only way they could get even some of them back was that the PC's had to go to a certain place at a certain time then tried to kill them. Then, when they went into his lair, he set up traps and obstacles specialized for them, based on their backstories/ subplots. Like, one of the players is a Paladin, so he had to stop a ritual because his character couldn't leave them alone to stop the BBEG, which would cause the ritual from working. Another character was playing a extremely greedy Rogue, so the BBEG let him get into his treasure room because he thought he'd be too distracted by the treasure to stop him. And it was so satisfying when they finally crushed him.
My DMs taught me one good trick for planning a game. The doomsday clock. Have a small list of plot lines that are self propelling, and have the players throw them off track, or have them throw the party off track when they walk the other way, leaving those plots to tick away in the background, causing disturbances of varying degrees the whole time.
This is my first video of yours that I've watched and I'm so happy to have found it. Concise GM advice with a real understanding of story telling? Yeah, I'm subscribing to that. Thank you!
An important thing to note about tying player backstories into the campaign: You must be prepared for any given player to leave or miss part of the campaign, meaning that you cannot rely on any given player character being in the right place at the right time. If the party must have exactly 6 people with a specific birthright or something in order to complete a ritual etc, then a player dropping out of the campaign effectively causes a soft lock
Thank you for the tips! Im setting up a Humblewood campaign and working up the idea of a few forgotten, fallen gods that the party accidentally rediscover the existence of and unleash into the wood, so the idea of setting up some myths and legends around them to draw them in really clicked into some inspiration for me!
Thanks for the tips, I felt like I really undersold my BBEG the last time i ran my campaign. You gave me a few ideas how to include him more heavily in the story earlier than five or six out of 12 sessions in.
The fact you have an Iroh poster on your wall is GOATED my guy
I have been thinking about running a game where the BBEG is a sort of "anti-party" created by an artifact the players would eventually use in thei future. The campaign explores the idea that knowing the future sets it in stone.
Essentially, the PCs are caught in a time loop of their own creation, repeating at the point which they kill their future selves. Their future versions are trying to stop them and steal the artifact back and break the loop (which the PCs don't know).
Time would continue to advance outside this, meaning that there are people in the world who might recognize them even though they had never met. Little things could pop up here and there.
This is basically the tl;dr of Final Fantasy I and frankly sounds like it would be _phenomenal_ if done right
My only tip is to find a way to account to PC death, because it currently sounds a tad too reliant on the 1st characters being there
So for the campaign I am running, my players already know of one of the two BBEGs from a oneshot and interactions with her from a dream experience. (As it is a two main villians type situation where one is the more prominent face while the other lurks in the shadows.)
How she ties into their back stories is that for two of the party members, she had people the cared for and loved killed for her own goals that she needed their bodies for turning them into strong Undead Construct Puppets of hers to control artifacts that relate to the gods of the campaign world. (There was a certain condition as to why she chose them specifically. And one of the two characters loved ones that died was straight up killed by her in the oneshot as it was their PC as they were at first a oneshot guest until they joined the main campaign. XD)
Because of that, she already had tied into both of the players back stories as she continues her hunts for these specific types of people as she was not specifically targeting them. One of the 5 other players has a tie in story to one of her generals that she is in charge of, but I will not say that here in case of it being seen within the next while. The only time that she has shown interest in the group was the one specific player that had the tie in story as she knows of his origins and similarties to the person in her command and because he got one of the artifacts she needs.
The female BBEG is the kind of person that does not try to rush certain tasks to be completed, but more manipulates certain events to happen for what would entertain her the most as her arrogantly thinks that all will be in her possession eventually, so it would be fun to play around with what she considers her dolls until she is bored of them and decides to get rid of them. Her thought process is to have fun along the journey before obtaining her end goal as she is having to wait for all of the Artifacts to be found and active again before making her move to try and claim them in one fast swoop.
Currently doing an arc villain for a Ravnica campaign, an Orzhov Syndicate slumlord. The party's actually met him before, one of them lived in one of his tenements before it was destroyed in a battle, and when he tried to insist that he, rather than the tenants who lived there, deserves compensation for the destroyed building, they turned the crowd against him and got him run out of the neighborhood without laying a hand on him.
Except now they can't find him again, he's using his connections and lackeys to make things miserable for them, and they just found clues that this isn't the first time one of his buildings has "accidentally" burned to the ground...
This is a wonderful video! For those new dms as well as us seasoned folk who just need a refresher sometimes!
The Radiant Citadel campaign I'm currently running, a cult trying to release four Elder Elementals to ravage the multiverse, does have an interesting concept:
The leaders of the cult who serve as the BBEGs each have modified simulacrums they use as avatars to fight the heroes. These Simulacrums are noted as much weaker than their true selves, but also still strong enough to pose the largest challenge the players have faced so far. The cult leaders can't go after the heroes in person because the Radiant Citadel has a powerful Ancient Brass dragon as its ruler who is powerful enough they don't want to face her directly yet, and she's also the party's patron, so they'll only appear in the flesh if absolutely necessary. So they send these simulacrum avatars to enact their plans and challenge the party. They're also, you know, running a multiversal cult, so they don't exactly have a ton of free time.
This allows the players to interact with and even defeat the BBEGs in boss battes, foiling their current plans, without actually killing them. So the players accomplished something, but the villains escape to fight another day while maintaining their sense of menace, because the players know no matter how much of a challenge that boss fight was, the real version of that cult leader is far stronger.
Thanks for these tips!
I’m currently running a campaign myself in a world that has two other dms (we’re running campaigns in different regions that have no interaction aside from trade and stories). I’ve already introduced the first villain the party has to deal with, and already used the tip you brought up at 7:50 . :D A noble who has a seat at the governing council of a major city (where the party started in)
Great video, I seem to be doing the option that you shouldn't do, but I have a specific reason for it.
Just in case anyone from my group is watching, all I'll say is there are big links between characters and to the BBEG that make it quite feasible and a reasonable assumption.
Great vid Jay!
Thank you!!!
I'm currently building up a long term villain, this is gonna help a ton!
Edit: so! I've been doing a few of these, for better or for worse. I'll definitely take a lot of this advice
I really hope your villain turns out great!
@@PlayYourRole thanks! Theyre a little dangerous - inspired loosely by a number of classic villains from various dnd books (I can't say which or my party may see - I believe they follow you) but! I'm hoping to balance damage, intelligence and cosmic terror. I'm good at writing horror, but I can only hope this villain really sells it.
One of the reasons I do so many one on one sessions before a campaign starts is to flesh out the players back story and party connections based on some of their choices. There are also somethings I home brew for each PC that I may want them to have that they have to discover about themselves or an heirloom item they wanted to search for that leads into the main narrative. I use the subversive but powerful BBEG… like Prof Moriarty. It’s a spiderweb they are hung in, not a rope.
I felt like it was important to list the "chapters" here for a quick reference since nobody else did it and the video doesn't summerize all the points at anywhere in the video.
Hope this makes someone elses life easier too lol
1:13 Your villain should have significance in your world
2:48 What if my villain isn't set up to be significant in the world?
3:17 Create a web of connections characters can link together
4:12 Tie the villain into your players backstories
6:52 Let players see sneak peeks into what the villain is doing
7:22 Make the villian a regular NPC in your campaign
7:49 Introduce the villain and make them untouchable until your PCs are mechanically ready
9:01 Give your PCs lore throughout the campaign about your villain
Thanks for the video homie!
Running an offshoot of Descent to Avernus right now. My BBEG is someone who the party thought was just a subvillain significant to a couple of the character's plots but nothing more...
Last session he killed 2 of the party and usurped control of the plane of Avernus from Zariel while the party watched helplessly. The golden moment where they realized he was the BBEG all along, and most of their actions up to this point have been according to his plans , was peak drama and my party has not stopped losing their shit. Great video!
Two ways I can see a main villain being tied into everyone's backstory are if the group already has a shared backstory and the villain can fit into a lynchpin moment in that shared backstory, or if prophesy is a major theme of the campaign. In the latter, in the case of a mastermind villain, perhaps they feel they can manipulate fate, the driving force behind prophesy, by preemptively trying to force the prophesy into existence, and by superseding fate, break the prophesy and succeed.
Another approach with the reveal along the lines of what you mentioned for the "shadowy manipulator" types can work even for some more overt villains. Namely, the organization they lead may be more well known than the identity of the one who heads it. If the players keep running into their minions and lieutenants because they're the cause of the issues the players are trying to resolve, they'll want to know who this organization is, and then who's in charge. In a world without social media and the internet, I imagine it's not hard for an independent evil organization to not have a publicly known leader if they're not actively trying to garner a personal reputation. But the players will come to hate the group, and so long as you can convey that all the decisions come from a singular figure from up top, players will get invested up the chain of command until they finally confront in some manner the one who gave the orders to do all the evil acts they've been fighting against.
Establish the villain as a threat either before the players ever encounter them, or make that first encounter a serious act that effects the players directly somehow (preferably in such a way that there's no reasonable way for the party to just walk up the the villain and go toe to toe with them on the spot).
Being a starter DM with a brand new group, I started my games being an episodic story where the players do have choices but they follow the storyline I created. I write my characters backstories into the story and they make a few important decisions that change the direction the game goes in. We just finished full level 20 and we all had a great time
My friend ran a duo session where we did Age of Worms. He essentially ran it like that last point, where we, the players, eventually learned everything about Kyuss’s plot, but us as the adventurers were continually underestimated over and over until we actually beat him down. It was totally cool!
For my own campaign (which fell apart after several years but before the plot threads could be tied together), the primary villain was a lich named Hocota who had been the party's nemesis since literally the first session: he was packing up some of his old books from a bolthole when the PCs burst in and he basically ignored them since nothing they did could hurt him. Said something insulting and mentioned backstory-hero Delmas. So when the PCs eventually meet Delmas and are recruited to help stop a crisis (Delmas fights a massive monster in a cinematic battle the PCs see as they battle through a fort to kill the cultists summoning the monster), they mention a lich and get put on the trail of Hocota. From there, so many of the little plots end up being minor schemes of this millennia-old lich who's trying to arrange a ritual to throw down the gods.
Even with only having encountered him in person twice, having been ignored and denigrated left the PCs with a grudge and then with so much of what they fought turning out to be tied back to him, the PCs despised Hocota with a passion.
I had a game yesterday, and the combat with the BBEG was so difficult that it was the entire session, and they still haven’t defeated him!
The best part was that the first 3 rolls of the combat were nat 20’s
'First 3 rolls were nat 20s' 'still haven't defeated him'
My lord tell them im praying for them
@@PresidentMystry what makes the BBEG so difficult to kill?
@@LunaroseClaire He is only affected by attacks of an gnome
For my current campaign I am not sure who the BBEG is, but the players (currently on session 37) have come across several moments where they have come into contact with machinations of baphomet (who recently thanked a very upset party for helping him push forward his goals), while they have been building up to fight another villain. All along the way, since session 1, they have found mysterious gemstones in black pillars that release weird creatures they have to kill. They are starting to piece together meanings but if they continue they likely call Atropus to them. Or they could drop it and investigate one of the other long term sidequests they have had about Giants or a lost advanced civilization.
Had a side villain actually that happened to be involved in multiple party member's backgrounds (not all of them but three of them) and they had no clue they were all involved with each other in anyway other than adventuring together. The reveal was fun because the links were loose enough that it didn't feel like the bad guy guessed they were getting together but through odd twists of fate they happened to meet up, so they all felt good finishing him off.
I think one thing that I've found to be incredibly useful that you didn't mention, is the idea that you can have multiple or even many different BBEGs.
Personally, when I prep a campaign and create maybe half a dozen or more "BBEGs," basically powerful NPCs in the setting that have some sway over land and/or other NPCs in some way, and often embody both something positive and negative. I then think of what their goals would be, which of the other "BBEGs" they might interact with, as allies, rivals, or not at all, and then how I could realistically introduce them to the players.
This basically allows the players to focus on the BBEG they want, so I can basically never "miss the mark," per say. They can even ally with one or more of them against others, it also makes it so if they somehow circumvent my plans and manage to take out a BBEG earlier then I had anticipated, well, there's always more in the world who are already established, and now the PCs would be a known entity so I can bring in whomever I'd want lol
Just wanted to add that, cause all your points are good, but I don't see this way of doing it mentioned anywhere near often enough.
Right now I'm running a Cyberpunk red campaign and I feel like this could apply to both. I hope they like it and have fun I'm nervous and excited
At 6:50 I actually do this for the Star Wars campaigns I run. I start and end sessions with "interludes" showing what the villains are up to. Seeing the Dark Lord of Belderone rebuilding the Imperial Army after the Battle of Endor, or seeing the Acolytes of the Beyond scheming how to bring down the New Republic. It helps my players see just how many dark forces are at play in the Galaxy, without them needing to necessarily run into the bad guys every session. It also just feels very Star Wars-y to me, since all of the Star Wars movies do the same thing pretty often. Cutting away to the viewpoints of the villains, letting us see Vader and Tarkin on the Death Star, or Palpatine conniving with Dooku.
Love your content! You're the best! This is my obligatory comment to enhance your CZcams algorithm performance.
the bbeg in the current campaign I'm playing in is an Elder brain that hasn't revealed itself yet and my character found some tech made by mind flayers and was studying it and multiclassed into warlock with the elder Brain as his patron
One thing I do is have many NPCs, both friendly and enemies, talk about the BBEG for at least half the campaign. Then, after a major battle, usually in their home city or some other personal location/situation the BBEG shows up for the first time. I don't give them an chance to fight.
I actually have a bit of a unique approach with a BBEG that I am planning. For anyone familiar with Wildemount, there was once a floating city called Shattengrod that fell when the gods were at war. My BBEG is a powerful and famous wizard who escaped the Calamity and extended his life by several centuries. He enacted a plan to bring the city back, first by capturing the souls of the fallen citizens and finding hosts for them to dwell in. Fast forward to the current era, 800 years later, and he is finally ready to begin.
Long story short, the PCs are chosen at random for some illegal experiments to be injected with soul fragments. As the campaign progresses, the fragments growing, giving the characters memories and abilities. I plan on making these memories fond of the villain and when they awaken, remember the city in its glory. When they find out what the villain is planning however, I want it to be an emotional decision to fight a part of themselves to oppose him.
in my current campaign, I made a party of villains who are part of the PCs backstory (most of them at least). And that was kinda the reason the players met; each following their own enemy, they ended up running into each other. I've also made a cleric with true resurrection as one of the villains, so their goal is to kill the cleric first, because the other villains will come back from the dead all the time.
You could always do the star wars trop where the villain is a hologram ordering his minions and they literally can’t touch the villain because he’s not there.
My friends (9 of us total) are running a star wars campaign set in 17bby. The Party started as members of the republic navy. Our leader was a jedi master (pc) and his padawan(pc), we had a Zabrak officer who was basically thrawn, a geonosian smuggler/slum lord, a lasat big game hunter, and the rest of us were clone troopers. A year passed irl and like 3 in game and we eventually ended up exploring the unknown regions under the chiss ascendancy's command. 2 sessions ago we random slipspace jumped and ended up in a system with a dark side corrupted sun. Our fleet was decimated almost immediately by imperial guns and we were forced to land. At this facility we ended up being interrogated by Darth Vader (after 2 max rolls on a d100 on the encounter table), and he ended up killing 7 children and our commanders wife. I broke out of my cell and attacked Darth Vader, buying enough time for the rest of party to escape, he cut my legs off and was about to kill me when i revealed a massive explosive device embedded in my now cyborg body. I detonated the nuke, but he still survived. The base and his soldiers did not. Good soldiers follow orders I regret nothing
Thanks my guy.
I'm running a campaign where the players are trying to defeat a sealed God of dealth. As the progress they see more things that have been affected by his influence that has slipped out through the time of his improsiment. To the point where the land around his prison has decayed and left empty expect for undead.
I’m currently prepping a campaign and have made a whole world and I can’t wait to attempt to tear it apart with my bbeg
My bbeg is currently a traveling merchant that the pcs always run into. He accidentally let slip how much he really knows and was actually a scapegoat for the crimes of the first kingdom. He was banished to “The Attic” where he grew in power. Now all he cares about is a good show and builds up heroes and sets up enemies for them. If they stray too far or dont entertain him, he kills them and starts over. All the greatest wars, most evil of villains, or noblest of heroes were all his doing.
You make em perfectly fine with killing a baby.
Your players regardless of background evil or not they get invested in crushing this guy.
Somehow just by coincidence, three of my four players tied the same bad guy into their backstory. He's a known quantity in the world, the leader of the largest and most powerful and ruthless orc clan (in my games there's a few and are politically pretty relevant). And so two of them have been directly affected by raiding, and one is a former member of that clan, now trying to attone for her past actions and help the smaller less violent clans allied with the human kingdom. And then the fourth PC was broke and needed a job lmao.
The main villain of my current campaign is not a physical threat to the PCs, but they are unable to directly harm him for plot reasons (though they won't know that until they try). He is the scion of an old and prestigious family that has fallen on financial hard times. However, his evil plan has secured him the support of a lot of wealthy investors, so he does have a lot of cash to throw around to exert influence to stymie the party, but only as long as he has the confidence of the people backing him.
He's mostly the second type of villain, with his behind the scenes influence affecting most events in the campaign story and connecting, directly or indirectly, to every PC's backstory. It manages to avoid being contrived because the party was brought together by another NPC specifically to foil this villain's plans, although they don't know it yet.
He's also likely going to be friendly at first, obviously depending on how the party decides to play it. He genuinely bears them no ill will and he shares with them a grudge against the NPC who assembled them in the first place (who is an extremely unsympathetic character). The PCs are essentially going to have to decide on their own accord that his plans are too evil to be allowed to happen.
When they first meet, both will have heard a substantial amount about the other but neither will be aware of the other's true motives, so there will be a lot of mutual manoeuvring around, trying to suss out what's really going on.
Oh, yeah, I had some stuff to do with weaponized PC's backstory, as you said at 5:40.
You said that, when threatened, PC can either become crazy murderhobo without real bonds either edgy loners with killed families. But there's another one option: to quit, refuse to pursue main tasks to not put relatives in danger. Because this is exactly what I've dealt with.
So, I was a player in solo campaign, I gave to my DM a backstory and few sentences of descriptions of my PC's mother and father. And my best buddy DM did a wonderful job bringing them to life: they were absolutely lovely, fantastic NPCs, I didn't even expect them to feel so alive. But then, as campaign progressed, I found myself in situation, where I became an enemy of tyrant demigod king (literally) who wished my death (or at least inprosonment, I dunno). I already have been given some clues and information from DM, wich let me know, that this dude has assassins and spies even in other demigod's domains. I felt cornered and desperate, nothing I did to protect family really gave me feeling that it would be enough. Even when DM tried to give me some signs of parent's safety or introdused NPCs to help with my PC's ambitions, my character wasn't even able to distract himself with main things of his interest.
And even though I, as a player, understood that I need to do stuff to progress in campaign, that I should support my DM and play along, I couldn's force myself.
Some day, when one of the main NPC asked my character, will he join their second expedition (first one initially started whole story), my character said: "No". No, I quit, I don't want to put my family in any more danger, I can't protect them while away from home.
Yes, just because "this is what my character would do". It really was the most rational choice. Otherwise it was not worth taking risk. Moreover, my character was drow - it was centuries of life ahead, so he could more easily let himself wait decades until danger sibside.
And don't you think I enjoyed this move. I felt really bad and guilty - not like "haha DM, I quit lol". It took some time to figure out how we could fix this mess. DM offered me to create new PC, but I wanted to keep this one, to lead him back on a track, because for me otherwise it felt like total failure from my side. Happily I came up with the idea that shifted tides, I think.
Maybe this crisis was connected with my burnout as a DM or something else, I don't know.
Anyway, if you did read it all untill the end, I hope you have tea and cookies in this random moment.
Another video I actually found really helpful on this topic wasn't even actually about D&D, per se
It was a video in the One Villainous Scene collab - the video by UnholyBasil, about Emperor Belos, from the Owl House
To anyone not familiar with any of that, it sounds like total word salad, but the video itself basically touches on how pieces of media can make villains seem present before even meeting them, and how to make that meeting pay off when it finally happens
It was really good, and I totally recommend watching that as well
I am DM’ing, and THANKYOU so much
You helped me so much
I'm about to run a villain who's an evil scientist who hires doppelgangers to kidnap people who the evil scientist turns into zombies
I have two BBEGs in the story I'm DM'ing. My group has decided to, with no help, blow up the BBEGs bandit stronghold by navigating through a cave that leads to it and blowing it up with an arcane bomb. But, they've decided to split up. The 3 leaving to cause a distraction will be ambushed by the BBEG, the 2 is the caves will be attacked by the other BBEG, a mind flayer. Simultaneously, both groups will lose but barely make it out alive. This will establish how dangerous this group is, and the need to get help from other groups (rival gang / city watch).
I wanna eventually run two campaigns. One group is the heroes and the other group is the villains and they meet eventually. Villain group will be in on the idea but the heroes will only find out at the final fight that who've they've been working against is actual IRL people plotting against them
It helps when your villain has access to potent illusions. Especially in the early game. The villain can interact with the players via those illusions, but the players will have a very difficult time retaliating against the villain, or even proving their involvement.
Also, villains that surveil. Scrying and divination are powerful info gathering tools. Once the players are on the radar, the villain should use these tools if they have access to them. To go along with that, most game systems have means for people to communicate long distances or even appear in dreams/nightmares of another. If the party is sufficiently on the radar, harass them. Have the villain actively mess with their dreams from time to time.
Remember also it goes both ways. One of my players decided to drunk dial one of the antagonists. With Sending. They ended up becoming frenemies, but that could have gone a lot worse.
I've been trying to make a ravnica campaign where nicol bolas is the bbeg, and the end of the campaign is supposed to be the giant battle where he attempts to take over all the planes
It's funny, I have two players that like giving me "backstory knives" to specifically use for villain plots, and we've had fantastic results from it. Though I only do that when given the OK (they usually give me them without me asking 90% of the time)
I’m planning to do a mentally gray villain who is sacrificing a lot of lives to try to make the world better. I don’t know if it’s a good thing to have a BBEG that you could agree with. (He’ll fail anyway). I was also thinking of making it a surprise villain, like the major quest giver who is giving the PC quest will actually be the BBEG.
In my campaign the main villain is an abandoned daemon child from Hades. They have a tendency to show their children love then abandon them to feed on their despair until they eventually do the same to their own children. He refuted their abandonment and while he was still small, weak and inscrutable went to the dreams of the material plane to find a proper parent and family. He split himself in 2, a piece of himself that is not demonic at all and has no memories or ideas he's being influenced by the first half.
The first half is using demonic contracts to pool together a fake Family, the other villains of the campaign, while he sees who tries to stop them. The people that beat them, The Main Party, are the people he truly wants to be his family. He uses his non-demonic other half who they sometimes meet as a lure to get them to want to save him. He purposely sets up most of his Fake Family for failure to find competent family members. But his true objective is the King of their country, who lost his son to illness and cannot revive him since he was never born with a soul, to be his Father.
I did not watch Demon Slayer before developing this plot and had no idea about the villain group in that anime.
The first back story contrivance I thought of was prophecy. The BBEG is told vague details about the party that their minions interpret. Then they set about abducting, enlisting, imprisoning, murdering, exiling and hunting all the people they think might fit. The players families are effected but the players themselves are dismissed as irrelevant.
So not only did they do bad shit to your family, friends and community, but they also don't think you're worth shit.
For the last session we had, my players has started to connect the dots and who the BBEG may be, and I'm so happy that soon will start the "final" quest.
For now it has been a very non-linear experience, just having fun in a Dark Sun inspired setting with some other tropes and ttrpg inspirations, even some blatant Dune references here and there, but I slowly built an odd sensation that a group of yellow and orange dressed folks (weirdly most of elvish blood, but is a long story on why this is odd) may not be that good as one may think.
While the BBEG is of the Looming Shadow type, his name, intentions and even the Big Hint were hidden in the small lore I gave of the world before it burned to a crisp and showing who caused it, then spoke of him only once or twice, so they could be deviated to think of him as a random guy with a slightly different and shortened name.
Also, the fact his sect/organization has asked the players to be helped in their tasks will have a bigger impact on the story, as they are *helping* the BBEG in his plans to finish his job.
Also, there is an NPC who has contacted the players after each big consequence in helping these elvish people (once was in taking down a slaver camp, leaving a slaver and a slave behind who in the end told that was a penal colony, and that the "slavers" were more of guards for the big institution governing the land. Another time, the elvish group, now growed with familiar faces, asked to track down a few locations far in the west, one of which was an underground complex and two smaller villages with a certain "class" of characters before respectively not finding the place (players got less rewards) but eliminating and acquiring more tech from that previously mentioned class of characters), and each time offered less and less help unless players wanted to kill this group of people.
Spoiler for here, and players already guessed who this mysterious NPC is: is the BBEG former right hand and the guy who built the thing that burned the world.
But they have no idea how pivotal he is.
Even though the BBEG hasn't been revealed in my world (an eldritch being/god from another another world) I have various npcs who are villains with their own stories and reasons to be villains. Here's my example of two of them:
• A drow who defeated strahd centuries ago and took his place in Ravenloft, a prophecy of a black sun which brought eternal night to the world was about to be completed, but this person used the remaining of his strength to put the black sun inside of him. This slowly corrupted him throughout the years but no one noticed as he continued to be king and looking for a strong enough party to slay him when he couldn't contain the power anymore.
• A tiefling who is one of my player's cousin saved the player from their parents who were doing a dark ritual. This ritual was done in secret and allowed by the Ruler of a kingdom that is currently the party's main hub. As the only survivor of this discrete ritual, investigators came to the conclusion this tiefling was the responsible for the murders which later the player found out. As the tiefling didn't wanted to have the player see/know how horrible their parents were, the tiefling played the villain role and pretended to actually have done all the things he didn't do just so his cousin (the player) was spared from the horrible truth.
These stories hasn't developed yet, but the Black sun prophecy and the dark ritual I mentioned are tied to the BBEG that is currently hidden.
I don't know if I would want this as the bbeg, but maybe as a big fight really close to the final showdown with the bbeg. I want to have an Artorias the Abysswalker type character who is built up as this legendary figure, a hero that everyone reveres who has become corrupted (unbeknownst to everyone) and eventually ends up standing in the way of the party.
This sounds Awesome!, I can see it work in 2 ways- a safe way and a risky way
The safe way (for a more dramatic "oh shit" moment) is to set them up as folklore, drop it here & there as lore, have NPCs compare the party to the hero as a rare form of high praise (not too much or the party will 100% see the twist)
The risky way (for an emotional twist) was to bring back a dead backstory character, this one's riskier since not every player will approve of such liberties (I know I don't)
So, I'm not a DM myself, however I gave a DM I'm talking to an idea for a way to implement a hidden BBEG. See, I gave them the idea to have all the players roll a D20 before the game itself actually starts, before the party meets up, before anyone explains their start, before everything except building the character itself. Then give some sort of believable explanation, maybe a random encounter with an npc, perhaps a way to have someone get a magic item, or stumble upon some simple to solve issue that needs an outside perspective. The thing about this is the DM picks a number, and the player that rolls the closest to that number is now the hidden BBEG and the already established BBEG is actually the rival that the player BBEG is currently trying to get rid of to make their rise to power more seamless and a believable way to flip things on their heads. I've also come up with a way to allow the hidden BBEG to be more aware of things they technically shouldn't as a player, but as a BBEG would definitely need to know to pull strings behind the scenes, after a session the player and DM go over some key points and then the DM asks the player how would they take advantage of the things currently in play and how would they like things to play out. The player responds, and the DM tells them to roll a D20 for each thing the player wanted to happen. This allows for there to be multiple situations to play out, and allows for some failure without the entire plan falling apart. Perhaps the hidden BBEG's minions fail at introducing an addictive drug into a city's population, but they do manage to steal a very powerful magical artifact that grants immense power to the wielder. Things like that. In this way you have a game within a game, a group of heroes trying to overthrow a powerful evil, while both the visible evil is fighting a hidden evil and the heroes are none the wiser about helping this hidden evil rise to power. It's even better if no it is someone no one in the party would ever suspect. And even more so if no one knows alignments, or if the alignment doesn't play to one side or the other until the final moment arises and the party is suddenly having the rug dragged out from under them.
I don’t know if this ties into the things you mentioned in your video, but I think while watching this video I’m going to do two things: first, I’m going to do that “what’s the villain doing atm” but I’m going to have the villain actually choose to tell the players as a taunt. Idk if that’s cheesy. Thoughts comment section?
Second, I’m going to change my story. They are currently helping an NPC that was actually the BBEG in disguise, a twist my whole party’s already guessed. Instead, I’m going to simply make him an ordinary person who wishes to work for the BBEG. Turn it from a cliche shapeshifter where the players feel like their characters were just fooled even though it was obvious into a twist on the cliche twist, in the process turning the villain from a standard shapeshifter into someone who has such a huge hold over the world of the players just through their power and peoples worship of them.
One of my players took dual soul as a background, and we decided that the original self wouldn’t know who this new person in the same body would be. So I made the other soul a lich’s soul that was in a phylactery they accidentally destroyed without knowing what it was in session one. We’re slowly learning more about them and they’re staying very secretive about their existence and at one point later down the line that soul will be torn from thew PC’s body and will enact his plans
My party summoned the BBEG early, undercutting his legions of doom to summon him into the body of a fish.
Right now everyone thinks he is a joke.
Nobody realizes he is choosing to comply with the indignity for now, and that his powers (including shapeshifting) are intact.
So right now they have the worlds deadliest Wizard in a fishtank
I have a tip for y’all! Do you want your players to run? Tell them ahead of time with an npc how dangerous the situation they are going into is and that they might die, have connections to player backstory of things they should fear, and then out of character you as the dm tell your players “Hey! Fighting will not always be the answer, if you try and fight everything YOU WILL DIE, sometimes you fight, sometimes you run, sometimes you talk, and anything else you might come up with.” I did all this set up and when my players interacted with the BIG BAD early in the game, with the help of one character knowing the big bad through backstory, told them they needed to GET THE HELL OUT, and they did! Even the headstrong paladin who wants to fight everything knew that this was not the time or place!
Great video! Sums up a lot of great villain ideas succinctly. Side note: are you a lefty? I think I have that same guitar haha hard to tell from that framing; Ibanez?
nevermind; i can see it in the iroh close up haha def the same model. Cheers.
Impressive eye! That is a lefty guitar, HOWEVER, I am actually right handed. My wife on the other hand (who is the owner of the guitar) is left handed.
Once picked the pocket of an old man with a pipe in Shadowdale....ended up fighting the aspect of Tiamat 5 irl years later
An alternate option, to the BBEG being this mysterious figure in all the players backstories, would be to create a middle man. Have some minor EG as an element in each player's backstory, but throughout play, the players find that they all serve the BBEG, so that way it doesn't feel like the BBEG is manipulate the party before they were a party, but that the BBEG was just some supervisory entity above all these other folk who were messing with their own individual perceived enemies. At least, that's my perspective.
When it comes to backstory manipulation I recomend making a villian that simply impacts the players backstory thrugh force of infulence rather then intention.
Make the villian so big and impactful on the setting that it becomes statistically likley that they will infulunce the players .
I might try out having a low tricky enemy with big aspirations who keeps coming back for more end up killing the "BBEG" and becoming the real BBEG
Thanks.
My bbeg is a “dead” king who supposedly died 1000s of year ago but he is a lich and the world is slowly decaying as he takes hold
The bbeg of my current chapter for my campaign is going to be a band of bards that have used the literal strings of the weave of magic to create instruments. They're going to rip large planar rifts in the middle of a concert. How do you suggest I slowly drop that in front of them?
They never run away, I have made the enemies run away through persuasion or intimidation :D
Love playing a bard and barbarian
when i create campaigns, i create them based on our session ones and the player backstories. the backstory tie-in works very well in my personal homebrew setting because the gods are active forces in the world and there is, from them, some degree of fate or destiny. my player characters are always, for one reason or another, being watched over by the gods.
So if there's a force in the world the gods wish stopped? why not gather up those with a reason to fight it? have them join together by coincidence, even if they don't know yet how that force has affected them?
Imagine a campaign based off a combination of roguelike and metroidvania games like Deadcells and Hollow Knight, where each Player begins the game in the same dungeon or prison and have to escape, finding random items, weapons, spells, etc... and after escaping, find a desolate world to explore and learn from. Every time a player dies, they return to the start instead of permanently being dead, with a handful of stuff that carries over from each run. The world provides lore and history hinting at a big bad, but also contradictions such as praise and worship for the choices made by a character that seems to imply the villain wasn't a villain to everyone. Once reaching the ending, there is something like prophecy saying the time for the chosen one to rule has come, and the players have to decide who the chosen one is between themselves, yet the progression of each player's story clashes with the motivations of at least one other player. The chosen one becomes the big bad, and only once the villain has successfully halted the progress of the other characters or the players find a deeper level of understanding of the time loop will the cycle be broken. All the NPC's know they can't escape yet also provide contradictions to confuse the players as to what time it is, how much time has passed, and whether they are reliving a moment they have already experienced or if something is new about this specific encounter. The world would have to be expansive but also accessible so that starting over would allow the player to get further in their quest using knowledge about how they expect the world to work on a new exploration. Facts that don't make sense without backtracking, character progress that seems to mean nothing until it is given more context, and a story being told through the campaign as if it is currently happening but somehow has already happened.
Also, something like the person responsible for all this chaos and backtracking has been dead a long time, and the players will either realize this and be prompted to figure out how to undo it, or they will miss this lore completely and make a story of their own where they are fighting and helping one another depending on their allegiances.
The scariest thing a villain can do is EAT YOUR BEANS.
This is why Cyrovein is such a great villian.
My bbeg will show up on occasion but he isn’t the final fight the players will meet him a couple times not knowing who he is at first cuz they’ll just meet him crossing paths to a quest to fix a mess he just started but the second encounter will teach them exactly who he is if they don’t figure it out on there own cuz he will realise they are a problem for him and knock them out to capture them and give to his underlinings to deal with leaving the party to escape and fight another day the third encounter is when they fight him for real but he will die while his apprentice who was also there in every encounter so far escapes to be part of the final fight while attempting to finish his masters work
The BBEG in the campaign I'm about to run is a Rakshasa, and golly did I pick badly. Not that a Rakshasa isn't perfect for the role, but Rakshasas are WAY smarter than I am, so I'm having to figure out ways that I can hint at the Rakshasa without making it plain as day that yes, all three of these people you've met on your adventures have backwards hands and are influential.