How Pro DnD DMs Create Villains
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- čas přidán 28. 05. 2024
- How the DM's of #criticalrole and #dimension20 make good dnd villains.
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00:00 - Intro How To Create Villains in D&D
00:30 - How Matthew Mercer Creates A DnD BBEG
01:10 - Matt Mercer Recommends D&D Archetypes
03:17 - dScryb
03:49 - Matthew Mercers biggest tip
04:16 - Figuring out what your villain looks like
05:57 - Aabria Iyengar's Whammie Sheets
07:28 - Creating A DnD Monster Stat Block
09:13 - Brennan Lee Mulligan Ties His Villains To A Bigger Theme - Jak na to + styl
Even Sauron, the big bad of LOTR who is the personification of evil, saw himself as good. The chaos of a world where everyone was running around doing their own thing was the world's problem. The solution was to have someone smart enough and strong enough to put it into order -- and that was, of course, him. Not unlike many tyrants and dictators.
Maybe in the Amazon version...
@@mattk6719 Or maybe according to Tolkien.
Sauron did nothing wrong! He was just slandered by all those elves and those weed-smoking hippies! Ever thought about why Gandalf and his crownies wanted to bring him down for centuries? Follow the money! It is all a big conspiracy, I am telling you...
“The Boys” was a huge inspiration in an early campaign I ran. I wanted to capture that morally ambiguous zone where the good guys had to do bad and the bad guys were seen as good.
I’m planning on making a big bad that is a meta gaming munchkin. He knows the rules of the game because he was driven to Lovecraftian insanity by a wayward copy of the dungeon master’s guide that fell through an astral portal.
Oh dang. That’s an interesting concept.
What class was the BB and did you have them change or multi class after wards?
That’s perfect
@@TheOneNotTheOnly Evocation wizard to start but then drop two levels in tempest cleric. Two levels in fighter for action surge and defensive fighting style, two levels in moon Druid for combat wild shape and some more healing. I’ll keep this idea in my back pocket because it can be a great way to scale them. Lower level party? Don’t add the cleric levels to keep them squishy. Higher level? Add more levels in wizard, change it to scribe wizard and have them switch fire ball to lightning ball. Plus’s most of the classes are full casters so you’re not losing much spell progression.
@@davidcantrell2568 wow. Yeah that’s a wonderful build
Yup, Lucien was originally one of the player's character who died and was later resurrected as a villain. So his physical appearance was originally designed by one of the players. That description was further embellished by the other players after Molly's (PC Lucien's) death to the point where they became something of this mythical entity...which was definitely emphasized by the final designs Matt came up with.
Man I can't wait to see that campaign animated. That whole final arc from the original death to Beau's obsessive murder board style piecing the puzzle together to the discovery to traveling with and fighting against Lucien was absolutely phenomenal. Matt & Talisen combined put together some of the best villains.
I accidentally made my BBEG Lucian. I'm in a sandbox campaign ran collectively by several DMs and players, so DMs can also play PCs. I'm playing a Tiefling bladesinger who, upon death, will be snatched up by some outer god, driven to insanity, and return resurrected as a lieutenant for the evil god. Sound familiar?
There are enough differences to not make him a copy though, so I think I'm in the clear 😅
2:24 - In my just finished adventure I flipped this around, and I think it worked really well. The players were actually working with the villain, because he had engineered circumstances such that their short term goals were exactly in line, and he could help them better than their patron.
The best villains are kept hidden from characters until a point in time where the characters are either weak or terrified, and then revealing who it is. The backstory can be fleshed out when the characters start researching the villain's backstory in a library, but only some of it. No single library will have the whole story of how or why the villain became a villain in the first place.
1:24 A lot of the old D&D books can be found archived online, and once I find if it is what I need, DMs guild has PDF copies for relatively inexpensive.
You know what they say: Good villains think they're right. Great villains ARE right.
My man is making Ozymandius from Watchmen.
I was once struggling to make a bbeg for a campaign I was running so not knowing what else to do, I based the villain of myself... When I tell you my players have never been more scared of or hateful towards a bbeg. I didn't know whether to cry out of pride or because I felt insulted.
Another old source for villains is "The Complete Book of Villains" (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide Supplement). Has a lovely worksheet/workbook for villain creation that helps, and lists of Alignments and how they can be villains (hint: only Neutral Good didn't have a compelling villain concept, and they mentioned why). may be available digitally somewhere, not sure (I have my copy from the 90s still)
Its availlable in the internet archive
@@vaporeonlvl1009 I thought so, but wasn't sure.
Matt Mercer in particular is REALLY good at making compelling villains. the Briarwoods from c1, Lucien from c2, Ludinus from c3.
I ran a campaign around a Cult of Joy, basic idea was an angel of joy got trapped by evil forces long ago and who turned it undead, and unable to return to the Upper Plains for many centuries, they went insane. The angel isn't evil, it's barely aware of what is happening around it. So where does the villain come in? Well, since the angel gives off an aura of joy that gets stronger or weaker the closer or farther you are from the angel, various mortals, intelligent monsters, and other creatures have been ensured by the aura and become addicted to the sense of joy if gives. The cult seeks out those who are suffering, depressed, or abandoned, as well as evil mortals or beings, to give them "joy", in other words, force them to be "good" by making them dependent on the angel's aura. The campaign started with the players helping a new religious order (the cult) clear out some undead from an abandoned orphanage. While the "priests" offered the party healing should they need it, as well as gold for their efforts, they didn't seem all that off besides some odd quirks. Eventually, the characters put two and two together and realized the "religious order" was actually a cult after a few people went missing across a few towns and villages. Still, the people that went missing always reappeared, and always seemed much happier afterwards, usually sporting all yellow clothing, which marked them as members of the cult.
It was a fun campaign, and it let me through a lot of interesting enemies at my players. From making most of the cultists celestial warlocks, or having a lich who was a life cleric, and singing ghosts who enchanted the villagers into dancing until they died of hysteria. All of them infused with healing abilities immune to radiant damage. Made for some interesting combat encounters where the players had to find some way to destroy the angel before the cult brainwashed everyone and everything, kinda like the Mormons.
I just started making a flow chart for some of my Pathfinder 2e monsters, which has helped a lot. It's especially useful because there are so many things that need to happen in a specific order to gain the best benefits. Also, with the three action economy, the options are wide open and I almost need to have a flow chart to be effective against the PCs who definitely know how to play tactically and apply teamwork effectively
I have the Book of Vile Darkness and it's basically relies on the gimmick of "Oooh, this is a Rated-M book with stuff on drugs, sex, and torture!" For some reason the Book of Exalted Deeds is Rated-M as well...
Some of the stuff is good for inspiration but the book itself leans too far into its own conceits and turns into "Here's how to make moustache twirling puppy punters with no redeeming qualities!" At times.
One thing that's missing here is: How does the villain relate to the PCs? How will they even encounter him? (I suspect answering this question does a lot to address the 'heroes see villain, heroes murderhobo villain, the end' issue too).
The god could be using the priest, knowing that they will fail but in trying to destroy the city will set events in motion
For example, it could be the beginning of a series of event that make for a strong societal change in that short sighted place, with the pc's at the center of it once that cleric is gone. Big drama, is what the god does acceptable?
Realizing that you nearly were wiped out is a big incentive to rethink your ways
6:30 I URGE people to do this to your characters and to introduce this to new players too!!
It's extreeeemely helpful, setting a cheat sheet for your actions, bonus actions and reactions means you're very fast in combat, which make it more fun!
you're are able to use your character to the fullest without too much work or having played them before and finally and more importantly to me is building a more efficient character!
it enables you to build more useful and fun characters where you CAN use all your stuff together, before this I was lost when combat started or when choosing feats/spells/items and so on why?
Because of action economy, if I have like too many spells that use action's and none that use bonus action, I could pick up one or two just to make more use of my capable character, make me feel like a pro while I know I'm not lmao.
I have a similar villain who used to be a member of the Golden Scale, an organization that serves the lawful good Sun Dragon, Boitata the Brilliant, but became convinced that the organization was being misled and formed a splinter group known as the Ray of Hope, which despite the name is basically a radical terrorist organization. Yet, she is actually being doped by the lawful evil deity, Ifrit, Demon Genie of Temptation, who masquerades as the Sun Dragon in order to enact an evil master plan.
Watching this made me realize I did what Brennan does a lot with his villains with mine as well:
some of the overarching themes in my campaign involve 1. no matter how bad the world is, there will always be good, and 2. the importance of humility and the recognition of individualism (which is mainly realizing that no two people are alike, and that what one person does does not apply to a whole group, or at least that's the best I can describe it). Because of what I wanted, as well as a few biases I have due to some overexposure in recent times, My Main BBEG is actually mostly pure evil, as I wanted him to be a sort of representation of just suffering, with a bit of a lean towards mental illness specifically. he's an eldritch god who, after living for hundreds of eons, developed a sort-of "Corrupted" view on life, where he believes, due to his immense power, that he is the apex being, and that he should rule all of reality, as it would be reasonable for someone who was basically born a god to be the one in control, and had since tried conquering planets. HOWEVER, once he got to the planet the game takes place, he ended up starting a war ending up with a king sealing him in a meteorite. Due to this, he had tried anything he could to absolutely destroy everything this king loved, from making his wife fall to her death, reviving his grandfather and making him wear cursed armor around his corpse, to even kidnapping his daughter and giving her to one of his followers to make them king of a country, as well as giving her so many issues it makes Azula from ATLA look like a functional human being (Don't worry, she's not as evil as Azula, she's actually a decent person).
another aspect that kinda gets this idea is the two primary factions that are in the campaign. The Watchers (the one the BBEG formed), to heavily simplify them, believes that all things are either 1. superior, or 2. inferior, and something that is inferior will always be inherently worse than something that is superior in every way. (example being comparing a pebble to a mountain, or a mortal to a god. the former will never become as equal to the latter). Most of their members, which consists of either High ranking officials in society who seek to keep their status or peasants who feel they deserve to be on top, seek to free the BBEG from the meteorite, who will then promise them a world where they are on top, and everyone will submit to their rule. Meanwhile, the other group, known as the White Rose, to simplify their beliefs, believe that just because something is better than something, it doesn't mean that the worse thing will ALWAYS be worse. (One character explains it best by asking the question "Can one gold coin beat an entire army?" in which he says the Watchers will say the army will ALWAYS win in EVERY context, while the While Rose will ask for the context behind the situation, like "How Many coins are their?" "How Skilled am I with using the Coin as a weapon?" "How many people are in the Army?" etc.). Their members mainly consist of mainly Paladins. however, they will accept basically ANYONE as long as you agree and/or at least support their beliefs, and won't really force people to join, (think like how the Assassins work in Assassin's Creed, you don't have to be an "Assassin" to be part of the "Assassin's"). They primarily try to help people out whenever they can, and try to prevent the Watchers from obtaining power, as well as potentially fighting rulers who happen to abuse their power over people. The best comparison between the two is that, while the Watchers will try to manipulate things to their advantage, without really changing it, The White Rose will try to explicitly help people when they can, even if it means completely changing how something works in the process.
Love you content! I have been wondering what the countdowns at the top of your videos is for. Is it a countdown for the remainder of the section of the video?
Yes, its a countdown left of each "point".
The Book of Vile Darkness is my fav 3.5 book, I'm currently using as inspiration for an Inferno: Dante's Guide to Hell campaign. Great resource!
Or, hear me out, your villain does not need a stat block.
People have preferences.
The word you are looking for...is hubris....
"This entire city must be purged". Oh yeah, that's one hell of a villain
I am so glad that I never threw away any of my books from 2e forward. I have myself a copy of the BoVD, and its such a quality book. Back in the early 3.5 days WoTC was putting out great products, but that quality so swiftly fell off as they end of 3.5 approached.
With making a BBEG, I want to make it personal. In the current campaign I’m playing in, the villain has taken the party’s stuff and forced them to fight in gladiatorial games for his own amusement. Right off the bat, I knew my goal was to kill that man.
If I get to DM, I will give each character a personal stake from session one, as if the villain razes an village of complete strangers, the party know they’re too dangerous to be allowed to go unopposed, but it’s not as motivating as if the villain kills that one NPC that the party loves. Once the villain does something that makes the players angry, they are hooked.
And I can even use backstories. Perhaps the party’s Paladin is the BBEG’s twin sister, and she’s pursuing her sister to bring her back to the light. Perhaps the party’s Rogue went on a mission with the BBEG, but was betrayed and left for dead, and he wants to kill her. That can cause conflict, with the party split upon the Paladin’s side or the Rogue’s side. Perhaps they reach a compromise, where the BBEG isn’t killed, but she still faces trial and is imprisoned for her crimes, until she can be redeemed or she dies in prison. Or perhaps the Rogue decides to let bygones be bygones. Or perhaps the Paladin realizes that she must kill her sister.
Also, I make sure that the villain is a dark reflection of the hero. Perhaps both the party’s Druid and the BBEG Druid agree on protecting nature, the difference is how far they’re willing to go and if they think civilization is even compatible with nature. Perhaps the Bard is a famous hero, but hates being called a hero, as she feels like it’s for self-mythologizing, narcissistic autocrats, and the BBEG is invading other countries and committing atrocities to be lionized by his kingdom. Perhaps the BBEG Barbarian is what the party’s Barbarian would’ve become if she was consumed by the trauma of losing the love of her life.
Am I the only one recognizing the backstory of Arthas from Warcraft in your example? 👀
i think i've been doing this things subconsciously😅
I always think of Matt Mercer as a villain. Lol
The Book of Vile Darkness was tryhard edgelord turned up to 11. A fragment of good idea, wrapped in a lot of unnecessarily superficial shock elements and some really ... suburban notions of morality (hint: pretty much everything a conservative suburban parent would hate - drugs, sex, piercings, etc - is "evil" and "vile").
A far better take was from another 3.x era book, Exemplars of Evil (kind of the counterpart to Elder Evils, also highly recommend for cosmic horror).
READ LITERATURE LOOK AT GREAT VISUAL ART WATCH FANTASTIC MOVIES
between a sponge for all things art--and think structurally. thats the best, best, best way. plus, also, eating rules
This guy clearly has a bias against religion.
Hey, so, could you stop using Matt Mercer and the rest for views? Surely you have your own takes, ny dude.
But you wouldn't have clicked would you.
I don't think there's anything wrong discussing dm strategies with some examples that most people can check out or have watched before. If you want to explore an idea, why not refer to examples, seems weird to strictly avoid bringing them up.
May I ask what your issue is with me using well know DMs as examples? For the viewers it means I can get my points across faster and make them more simple to understand. For me the creator it’s good marketing. I would love to know the downsides!
The whole thing is his takes on what these very good, very well known, DM's do to make compelling games. He's probably the best at these sort of videos, and way more pleasant than the enormous number of "scream at the camera to convey energy!" DM discussion channels.
How dare someone use easy to understand and well known examples!
Trash take. The video is literally what he thinks they're doing right, meaning it is based on his ideas.
dnd combat is by far my least favorite part of the game. i've moved on and i'm happier for it. branch out folks, trust me.