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Melamoto
2009-02-16, 12:27 PM
Hi, i'm going to start DMing a campaign for the first time, there will only be 2 PCs and both are Neutral. Does anybody have any ideas for some good recurring villains, or advice on how to fit them into the campaign? Maybe there are some good stories about some recurring villains, or tips to make them memorable for a long time. Anyone have a clue?

BRC
2009-02-16, 12:37 PM
Make them challenging, as in, "The PC's can't take them in a fair fight" challenging, this makes the PC's work around them. Also, give them somthing memorable, for example, my campaign had "The Poet", an undead rogue that spoke only in shakespear quotes. my PC's loved him.

afroakuma
2009-02-16, 12:45 PM
I can think of eight, at the moment: yeah, you knew this was coming. Shameless self-promotion for the win!

The Maiden’s Weeping/Swain of Varrone
The Caillteanas
Dandag the Quiet
The Augmoha
The Silver Hellstar
Prince Meridius
The Thief King's Palace
The Omenwrath

I'd like to point out that that fifth one comes with ~seven new monsters to play with and a full campaign outline.

LurkerInPlayground
2009-02-16, 12:52 PM
If your players manage to kill your recurring villain let him die.

See, the guy they killed? He was just the realvillain's lieutenant. You may have planned to have him be your main big-bad, but they don't actually know that. Just roll with it and keep moving forward with the plot.

Atelm
2009-02-16, 12:55 PM
Mine always have some sort of gimmick or another, both roleplaying- (how I present them, describe 'em, do their dialogue, etc.) and mechanic-wize (I give 'em usually a homebrew class found from some source or another, unique items/weaponry), etc..

One short campaign/adventure I ran where the players were locked up inside a shifting mansion (the mansion had moved from the material plane to the plane of shadow), featured a simulacrum human fighter dual-wielding pistols (one shot muskets that is) called The Red Ryder. Who appeared together with illusory terrain, none of my players got the reference though.

Sadly, none of my campaigns are ones that last long enough to truly have any reccuring villains. :smallfrown:

Dienekes
2009-02-16, 01:02 PM
Well, what I would suggest is to first get your players to do somewhat detailed backgrounds and find ways to fit villains in there (maybe only 1 or 2) it adds some desire to find a beat them with the players. Example if 1 of your players is stating he is a peasant, have one of the villains be the evil dictatorish Duke that ruled the lands he was under. Or maybe the assassin that killed some PC's father.

To make them memorable there should be a few things 1) a FORCEFUL (note this does not mean confrontational as some of the best villains are sneaky backstabbers) personality. There is nothing so forgettable as a wishy washy villain. What I did when I started out was take villains I read about in books or saw in movies and transported them into my world to fill various holes. Being the nerd I was my first villain was based off of Darth Vader (before he became an annoyance). You'd be surprised that the players generally wont make the connections to popular villains if you change their voice or rolls in society. 2) To be truly memorable have them beat your PCs at least once. Make a demi obvious way for them to escape, especially if they too are new players. But nothing sets fire under a PCs belly like getting their butts handed to them, rather firmly. 3) Especially for a Big Bad, villains are judged by their underlings. For serious gameplay I'd suggest having other forceful personalities as less dangerous obstacles the PCs have to go through. The other 2 rules apply to them as well, especially if the underlings are to be returning as well.

For aspects into a story, it really depends on the campaign. I'll admit my weaknesses as a GM is that my campaign is pretty much centered around what some big bad is doing. I'd suggest first coming up with a campaign, maybe a warlord is trying to take over the world. Then set up numerous events that must take place in which the PCs will have to meet with the warlord be it battles or caves with some magic gem. Always have a way for the villain to escape if things go bad, until the end. Remember, a villain isn't stupid and has access to everything a PC does.

Now to keep them memorable, I'd suggest slowly showing the villain's back story and development to the PCs so they maintain interest. And, while not afraid to go on tangents and side quests the results of what the villain is doing should be apparent. Be it that he gained a lot of money and he's corrupted some officials, or that an entire village was burned to the ground.

Totally Guy
2009-02-16, 01:15 PM
In my game I planned 2 recurring villains each with a different narrative role.

One guy was the pro-active evil guy. He went out and made the plot happen via his evil scheme.

The other guy was a reactive villain. He looks out for opportunities for evil but otherwise has no plan. When there is ever a loose end plotwise that isn't otherwise going to be resolved I use him to exploit it. Another interesting characteristic is that he's always one step behind the party. But he's got to be very slippery to not get killed off.

JonestheSpy
2009-02-16, 02:21 PM
If your players manage to kill your recurring villain let him die.



Second that. Very little annoys players more than when a DM fudges things to save a 'pet character'.

Also, my fave way to introduce a recurring villain is have them spend some time interacting with the players in a non-villainous capacity first. An NPC who goes on a couple of adventures with them, or maybe even a mentor. Adds some nice ambiguity, and it also makes it more likely the players will be willing to talk to the character if the villain wants to negotiate, parley, etc.

Totally Guy
2009-02-16, 02:43 PM
Second that. Very little annoys players more than when a DM fudges things to save a 'pet character'.

Thirded. With another little caveat. If the players consider killing the villain or putting him in jail and eventaully decide that they'll go with jail, make sure that the Villain doesn't break out.

When you break a villain out of jail by contrived means then players are conditioned by you to no longer consider jail to be a legitimate way of dealing with that particular problem. You'd be teaching your players to kill every time.

I had a whole session about a lieutenant of the main villain trying to escape jail and the party forming a plan to exploit that. It was a really good session only downside was that they used their entrapment plot to kill the BBEG 2 sessions early. They didn't know that and I still had plot left so I just let it happen.

Yukitsu
2009-02-16, 02:58 PM
Am I the only PC that tries to keep recurring villains alive?

Anyway, it doesn't really matter how much of a challenge they are. Just make them interesting enough that the players don't want to see the character go.

CartaRulla
2009-02-16, 03:04 PM
In the campaing I'm DMing there are basically three main villains.
Disclaimer: the plot might be clichéd, but so far the PCs are liking it... so well.


The first one is in the possession of a Sigil Stone, which is one of seven. Another one is in the possession of a PC and the others are scattered across the globe. Neither the PC nor the villain know what it could be used for. When the seve Sigil Stones are brought togheter, using the proper spell one can open a portal to the Shadow Plane, and to be more precise, to the prison of a powerful sword which has the ability to permanently harm any diety. It was sealed in the Shadow Plane in a rather difficult dungeon to avoid the possibility of someone stealing it (did I mention it is indestructible?). I plan to use Rappan Athuk as the final dungeon, with some tweaks to fit the level of the characters.
Anyways, the first villain knows that the PCs want the Sigil Stone and sets his minions to stop them; the PCs are looking for him and he constantly flees or beats them up pretty badly, and so THEY flee.
He is neutral evil.

The second villan is a Fei'ry, an Elf-Demon. The PC's don't know about her existance. She has a powerful magic item, the so colled Gem of Visions, that let's her see certain events in the future, and she has seen something wielding the god-killing sword. She wants to obtain it in order to kill a god and gain godlike status (she doesn't know that this wouldn't actually help her). Anyway, through her researches she discovered that the sword is sealed, and she's now looking for the sigil stone.
She still hasn't crossed the PCs paths, but she keeps on sending Fei'rys to try and kill the PCs and obtain their Sigil Stone. She doesn't know about the first villan.
She is chaotic evil.

The third villain is, in truth, an ally of the PCs, even if he is somewhat... unhortodox in his methods. He was imprisoned in the Abyss during an experiment, and he survived there for some years. He learned a lot of things from the demons, both magic knowledge and glimpses of the future. He knows that the second villain is looking for the sword, and he's setting his forces to stop her. His plan is to get hold of the Sigil Stones before her, and try to destroy them.
He's trying to stop the second villain's plan because he believes that this act would unleash chaos on the world, and he believes in order.
My PCs still haven't crossed his path, but he will be there when they try to fetch one of the last Sigil Stones. I plan to have them fight him some times, and then have them discover that he was actually trying to help him.
He is lawful evil.

Prometheus
2009-02-16, 05:48 PM
Well, what I would suggest is to first get your players to do somewhat detailed backgrounds and find ways to fit villains in there (maybe only 1 or 2) it adds some desire to find a beat them with the players...
This is usually pretty surefire. I had one PC who had a brother, father, uncle, grandfather, mother all play a part in the story - a villain had a strong grudge against the entire family and sought to hunt them down one by one. Even the PCs who didn't pay attention to their own backstory were intrigued when one of the players was. This villain had attempted to kill the father twice, killed the uncle (who came back as a ghost), and kidnapped the brother (who he interrogated to find the PC). The villain killed each member systematically (he was a Blood hound) by running them through with a rapier, and I gave the PC both a vision and a description of the deaths, and the PC had to imagine the same was to come for him. Ultimately the final showdown came when the NPC found the PC, not the other way around.

I had a plot hook in which the antagonist was going to become the main villain. The PCs didn't care about him, so I demoted him.

Nothing gets the PCs angry like betrayal. I had one villain who took everything they had wanted, did it better than them, and when they finally faced him they found out that it was the bitter incarnation of a former PC.

A villain that is untouchable is one that is equally aggravating. I had an NPC that had the ability to simultaneously open thousands of gates between the planes which would plunge the world into apocalypse by pitting heaven against hell, law against chaos, fire against water, air against earth - and if they killed him this would trigger automatically. Still they came to him when they needed something, and he always seemed to use them for his own purposes. For example, he helped them kill some bad guys who later turned out to be his political rivals and he is the real reason those bad guys did what they did in the first place. Later he helped them retrieve a universe destroying artifact, but only because it was his universe that was being destroyed. The PCs, of course, finally did get him in the end.

EagleWiz
2009-02-16, 06:55 PM
My group has The Warg. Due to a random encounter with a goblin riding a warg, the party palidan tryed to make deals with said goblin and warg. All of this resulted in a dead goblin, a nearly dead palidan and the warg being knocked to -7hp and left for dead. The warg stabilised, became a cleric, and has been a minor annoyance ever sence.

Dienekes
2009-02-16, 07:25 PM
Generally I would agree with people that you cannot be afraid to kill recurring villains. But BE CAREFUL! Sometimes (and I mean last resort) a recurring villain must survive for the sake of the story.

But do it elegantly. There are 4 ways to go about this. 1 be obvious and say things like "oh shoot..." and then have him somehow get away. This is the single worst method. 2 be upfront and tell your players that you need the character and you're sorry, this is slightly better. 3 take it in stride and rewrite the entire plot, this is probably the best if you can. I have a hard time doing this. 4 fug rolls good. Be an excellent liar and make the PCs not even know what just went over their heads. This is the best other than 3 as a villain getting away in such a flashy way can add to his prestige.

Please never use the "and he disappears it was all an illusion" it just pisses everyone at the table off.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-16, 07:32 PM
Surprisingly, Monks make good recurring villians. They can survive most spells, have good AC, and throw a bunch of attacks and special abilities that don't threaten to kill the players but do scare them. And then they run away.

BRC
2009-02-16, 07:35 PM
There is also the trick where, when they get down to 0 HP, you have them say something like "I don't have time for this" and vanish.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-16, 08:12 PM
There is also the trick where, when they get down to 0 HP, you have them say something like "I don't have time for this" and vanish.That only works with Wizards who have Contingency.

BRC
2009-02-16, 08:20 PM
That only works with Wizards who have Contingency.
Or rogues with hide in plain sight, or anybody with a pre-planned escape route, you know, "The Warlord chugs a potion of fly and soars away, making a rude gesture as he leaves"

Assassin89
2009-02-16, 08:29 PM
You might want to consider the race of the PCs or the setting. In the campaign I am in, my character is under the employment of a wizard named Prince Heward. Apparently, elves hate this guy for destroying a forest during a war, meaning that a good recurring villain would be an elf who lived in that forest, or was involved in that war.

Another idea for creating a villain is the look to Rich Burlew's article about creating a villain (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html)for advice

herrhauptmann
2009-02-16, 09:12 PM
A few options, the character they know right off is just a lieutenant is way stronger than they are. (Subverted if lieutenant is actually stronger than BBEG, but just lawful and loyal.) But having just the second in command be thatmuch stronger might actually scare them off, especially if there's no lawful stupid paladin.

Make the BBEG who they accidentally killed off too fast be the underling of someone else (already stated).

Make the BBEG who gave them such trouble, actually be someone elses unknowing puppet.

Worked on a story like that a while back. Evil party, went around killing drow in the name of good (leader was named for Lathander), they focus on the main character of story thinking he can lead them to a certain drow, to the point of even kidnapping his girlfriend.
Was supposed to go that in the end it would be a showdown against teh evil party leader and his cleric partner. (Other members having been defeated previously). When hero stopped/killed the party leader, the cleric was to suddenly burst out greater power than previously shown (imagine the cleric you thought beat suddenly turning Clericzilla and bringing out spells a good 2 or 3 levels higher than you saw him use previously. More possible since the hero wasn't yet a hardened killer, and was willing to leave defeated enemies alive), thank the hero for providing some amusement, and leave.

In this case, the cleric, a follower of Mask, had been using the others to aid him in killing followers of Vhaeraun and Cyric.

That was the plot at the time, but I never got past the third or fourth scene.
1) Hero/girlfriend intro (long, well written)
2)Evil party intro (quite short, pretty badly written)
3)Intro of wise sage archetypes who aid the hero (mercifully short)
4) See evil party fight, and discover they are evil. (Decent length, well written, especially the ending)
Total of about 45 pages typed on microsoft works.

XenoGeno
2009-02-16, 09:17 PM
There is also the trick where, when they get down to 0 HP, you have them say something like "I don't have time for this" and vanish.

Depending on the level of the party and how long the campaign is supposed to last, I'd recommend instead making the villain turn out to be a Simulacrum. It's a legitimate out, and then the players realize that the enemy is at least twice as strong as that, which can really screw with their heads if the fight was already pretty hard.

herrhauptmann
2009-02-17, 03:01 PM
Using a simulacrum also sounds a bit less cliche than "I don't have time for this." *Teleport*

And in the instance of a new group of players (who haven't memorized the spell list) they'd probably be very unnerved by the enemy suddenly melting away.

Who_Da_Halfling
2009-02-17, 03:12 PM
You could always try having a villain who is in a position of legitimate power (say, a somewhat ruthless king of a kingdom with no close, powerful enemies and no obvious usurpers to the throne). Then, the campaign can be about finding subtle ways to subvert his power without out-and-out going "let's just kill him and take his stuff." You'll have to heavily imply that the king is well-guarded and repercussions for killing him would likely be a TPK or something similar.

Alternately, since your party is Neutral, try a Good villain. I admit this may be tough, but you can take a long look at the motivations for good and see how they can be twisted a little so that individual acts which are Good add up to an ultimately Evil or at least self-serving purpose. For more fun, make the villain really truly believe he's doing Good. This type of villain does run the risk of pushing your party towards one end of the spectrum though (either they revel in openly defying the Good villain and go Evil or they try to show the Good villain the error of his ways and go heavy Good).

-JM