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Paseo H
2011-10-17, 02:05 PM
After agreeing that revealing her too early sort of ruined the suspense, plus maybe being too powerful I decided to make the identity of the Big Bad ambiguous once more, to allow for the possibility of someone else taking up that mantle.

Now I'm going to try to brainstorm massively to come up with the best ever. Is there any important characteristics, in terms of comparative power levels, personality, history, that should be considered a must-have?

Hyudra
2011-10-17, 02:42 PM
The BBEG and their actions should make sense, first and foremost. As long as that's done, most other mistakes are excusable.

Story-wise, I think it's best if the antagonists are defined by their strengths, while protagonists are defined by their flaws. A story is most interesting if the adversary poses a threat. With this in mind, a good thing to do is establish the BBEG's power early. Look at FF7 - the players arrive at the main offices of the most powerful corporation in the world, only to find that Sepiroth had shown up and murdered everyone present. You need that key moment that puts things in motion, that sets the tone for everything that follows.

There's a lot of ways to build a BBEG, though. Hard to give some key characteristics or anything if we don't know whether you're building a Chessmaster, a Warlord, a Cultist or a Machiavillain.

Paseo H
2011-10-17, 07:45 PM
Hmm...I'm thinking warlord or cultist. Chessmaster and Machiavellian sound too pompous to me. "Ooh look at me I'm so shrewd and a step ahead of everyone," know what I mean?

Howler Dagger
2011-10-17, 08:31 PM
Rich has a good villain-making article, if your interested (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html)

Anderlith
2011-10-17, 10:14 PM
I like villians that are evil & they know it. Like the Operative in Serenity. They don't all need to be twirling their mustaches going "I'm sooo evil" nor should they just run around killing people because they are "evil". No evil should be corrupting, & the villain should try to corrupt the heroes, even in death (think the movie Se7en) Also never make the goal to try & take over the world! It's lame. Oh, & the best villains fight other villains (think Magneto)

Traab
2011-10-17, 10:40 PM
Are you looking for a confrontational bbeg? Or one where the good guys are basically trailing behind him as he does his own thing, and he might not even know the good guys are after him? Both can be great, you can even combine the two and have the good guys be tracking down the villain, and when he has a reason to notice them coming for him, say they manage to halt his local scheme, he starts setting up traps and ambushes specifically for them. The distant bad guy is good for conveying a sort of, "He is so far beyond us that we dont even register as a threat to him yet" vibe. The confrontation bbeg is great for making your party paranoid that every dungeon they enter, or city they hunt for clues in, could have a death trap placed in it as he is actively trying to kill you.

"Ok guys, according to the beggar, he saw someone that looked like lord evilton heading into the city sewers. Lets go find him!"

/4 hours of sewer surfing and random encounters when suddenly, "BLAM!" Trap doors swing shut around you, and in front of the only exit is the bbeg, and his giant sewer monster. Monolouge, evil laughter, and now you have to fight the monster while he saunters away, smugly certain of your imminent death.

A good example of the distant bbeg is in a game called Legend of Legia. The basic gist of the story is, there are these giant fortress sized machines that produce a Mist that covers the countryside. This Mist drives the creatures in the area nuts and makes them aggressive. Humanity is barely surviving in various protected strongholds, and the story starts with your characters stronghold getting busted wide open. Your character and his party have to wake up some magical trees to push back the mist, (dont ask, its complicated) then take out the generators.

Now, the bbeg isnt even aware that you are doing anything till at least a couple of these generators go down. He has pretty much taken over the world, and you are in the middle of nowhere to start. Up till then you are dealing with flunkies and low ranking officers at best. Then the boss becomes aware of your party, but you still dont know who he is, so you are now dealing with random ambushes and attacks, because he knows where you have to go next, and has plenty of progressively stronger flunkies to send after you. You never even meet the bbeg until the final fight times start up, and you dont learn who he is till I think the halfway point. Its an awesome setup because there is that mystery where you never know if you have found the big boss yet until you get the standard flunky speech and find out the princess is in another castle. :p

Paseo H
2011-10-18, 04:25 AM
All good stuff so far.

On my "might still be big bad," I realized a bit of important detail about her motivation:

When she first attained an item that grants wishes, she did in fact try to resurrect her dead 'mistress,' only for it to fail because said mistress decided not to allow herself to be resurrected (just like Lord Shojo).

This might have been what truly sent said villain over the edge.

mint
2011-10-18, 06:34 AM
All good stuff so far.

On my "might still be big bad," I realized a bit of important detail about her motivation:

When she first attained an item that grants wishes, she did in fact try to resurrect her dead 'mistress,' only for it to fail because said mistress decided not to allow herself to be resurrected (just like Lord Shojo).

This might have been what truly sent said villain over the edge.

Might want to have her quest (ruthlessly) for the wish granting item during the game. When her mistress doesn't want to come back, that's a great time to have her spin completely out of control. Use it as a pivot point where her behaviour changes.

Paseo H
2011-10-18, 07:28 AM
Thanks, though she is over 1000 years old and this happened long before the campaign started.

Kolonel
2011-10-18, 08:58 AM
Some evil types:

"Addict" villain - consumed by lust (be it for blood, fighting, wealth or power), he/she has no motivation outside of getting more and more.
"Morals are just chains of the fools, it's only X what matters."

Short-sighted savior - he/she is convinced people must be kept away from a certain "evil influence/menace", which if touched would destroy everything we hold dear. He/she feels that every crime (no matter how big) is excusable if it helps against that "evil force".

Anachronistic villain - last crusader of a lost cause, driven by revenge, false pride and an outdated moral code fighting for a goal which everyone (but him and his most fanatic followers) can see is not achieveable anymore.
Might turn into "if I can't succeed, there is no reason we should exist, we failed, now I make sure everyone dies".

And always remember:

The BBEG and their actions should make sense, first and foremost. As long as that's done, most other mistakes are excusable.

the_fencer0
2011-10-19, 11:09 AM
Personally, I feel the best kind of BBEGs are those who begin misinformed or have a flawed logic, then follow that path to its evil conclusion. For instance, one BBEG I had was a cleric who was very troubled by the suffering he saw in the world.

The party worked with him a few times, became friends with him, and especially when the city he lived in was attacked by undead army. That attack snapped something in him, and he worked on a way to stop the world from suffering, cutting himself off from everyone (and the party).

As the party goes off to find the necromancer responsible for the attack, the cleric ultimately concluded that life is suffering, and only way to end suffering was to end all life. To insure that he causes the least amount of suffering, he learns necromancy himself, and begins a campaign to end all life, taking on a new name, and eventually lichifying himself.

Best part is when the party realizes that their new enemy (since the cleric got to the first necromancer before the party, taking a very powerful necromatic tome), they have to deal with fighting and old friend and seeing how far he has fallen.

Silverscale
2011-10-19, 12:18 PM
I remember hearing a story one time about a Cleric/Priest who took the ideas that "All life is worth saving" and "Even an Aborted Fetus counts as a Life" to their "logical" conclusion as the players find him reanimating Aborted Fetuses in the sewers. The players were understandably grossed out when they finally figured out what had been biting at their legs as they slogged through the sewers to find the Priest.

NikitaDarkstar
2011-10-19, 12:22 PM
I'm no DM, but that shouldn't matter much since this is just character creation anyway. First of all, stop thinking of your Big Baddie as Evil. He's just another guy who happens to have motivations and reasons the party don't agree with. If your party are fairly neutral and lawful, possibly even has a follower of St. Chubert with them or a similar Law & Order sort of view on the world it might just be enough that the baddie happens to believe the world is much better off with less restrictions, allowing people to think for themselves and follow their own moral codes. It's not evil per say, it's just conflicting philosophies, now turn it up to 11 and you're fairly good to go.

Also in my opinion bad guys that actually has some history with the characters are far more interesting than the random bad dude that just happened to show up. Like one from an old campaign I played in, he was my characters old teacher, but they had a fall-out (or more exactly, my character finally understood his teachers real motivations.) and now said teacher is trying to kill my character. So not only is he far more skilled than my character, he knows all his moves and his power-level and exactly what buttons to push to mess him up. By the time my character finally gets to the point where he can challenge the baddie he's also pretty far down the paranoia path since the guy has been showing up at random to mess with him, setting traps here and there and so on. (By trap I mean turning an entire town into zombies while the group was out dealing with some ogres that had been raiding the place and kidnapped a kid.)

Yes his actual motivations were horribly cliché, heck all about him was cliché, but when it's an uneven, uphill fight and it's personal you get away with it.

But it all really depends on the mood you're going for in your campaign. If it's dark and gritty, don't be afraid of having the baddie act accordingly (that town refused to give him what he wanted, okay so the town was leveled and he still took it.), and once he finds/notices the heroes mess with them on a personal level. If they know each other don't be afraid to have him mess with the heroes family to flush them out/blackmail them and so on.

But if you got a more "classical"/"normal" thing going you might want a more distant baddie. He does what he needs to do without noticing/paying the heroes much attention and when he does pay them attention it's face-to-face so to speak. (Either personally or with his henchmen, but no backstabbing "I got your little sister now do what I want!" tactics.)

But again, just treat him as another character, and make use of those character backgrounds you hopefully made your players write!

Anderlith
2011-10-19, 03:25 PM
If you really want some good bad guys, port them from A Song of Ice & Fire.

Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-10-20, 08:41 PM
I always design my antagonists with the PCs in mind. I will always incorporate the darker aspects of their personalities into my villains, as a way of teasing them. If the rogue has an anger problem, the villain killed her family out of rage. If the wizard is arrogant, the villain keeps a small groups of slaves on chains below his feet, and forces them to kneel and agree with everything he says. It makes the players and their characters uncomfortable.

Paseo H
2011-10-25, 03:35 PM
I've got some solid ideas now, perhaps we can flesh them out a bit:

Name: Tomoe Murakumo (tentative)

Race: Newman

Gender: Female

Age: 25

Height: 5'3"

Class: Martial Arts Master/Magic User

Martial Arts Style: Silat

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Disposition: Tomoe is friendly and kind, very principled, and would prefer to win people over than make enemies. She uses her magic and her holistic talents for healing. However, she shows no quarter to those who make an enemy of her, particularly those who are especially distasteful/unprincipled. Though she cares about the innocent, she is willing to make hard choices between the safety of the few and the supposed greater good of many.

Special weapons:

Poisoned Kris Blade - Saving throw vs. death upon successful damage. Tomoe uses this sparingly, mainly against enemies she has no regard for.

Blade Scabbard - The scabbard for the kris blade is also a weapon in itself, specially designed for parrying and blunt force damage like a club.


Yeah, I know there are still a lot of questions unanswered there but it's a start.

Jeopardizer
2011-10-30, 05:37 PM
First problem: her LE alignement doesn't really go well with her disposition. (But that's YMMV I suppose.)

Is she still like that or has she changed? Why did the rejection of her mistress push her over the edge?

Any idea about WHY she has earned the role of BBEG?

(Only trail I could see is that she has gone crazy and hunt relentlessly to find an item or whatever who might reunite her with her mistress.)

Cisturn
2011-11-01, 12:33 AM
That sounds cool, but she doesn't quite sound evil. What's her goal as the BBEG and why does she hate the PCs? Also whats the origin of the kris blade? Maybe she have poisoned it using her knowledge of holistic medicine That could be a cool way to show her knowledge learned for good twisted into something far more sinister.

Godskook
2011-11-01, 01:13 AM
My method is a little different:

There is no BBEG, there are only villains. The one that 'becomes' the BBEG is the one that successfully evades/tricks/manipulates/hides from the PCs. The distinction here is that if you write BBEG from the gate, you have to worry about your PCs killing them to fast, or vice-versa. Sometimes this is ok, especially if you've got ways to keep them apart, but other times, it isn't, cause your level 3 PCs will inevitably storm that Mind Flayer base of operations, no matter what you do about it.

Another issue is that writing up a BBEG is more railroady. You're *TELLING* the PCs who they have to like and dislike when you decide who a BBEG is. When you simply write villains, the opportunity for green rangers and villainous allies arise in places you didn't necessarily anticipate.

Here's what I got in my campaign setting:
1.Mind Flayers(the ones the level 3 PCs stormed). These guys are going to be major end-campaign enemies, complete with their own Ikea-Tarrasque minions. However, depending on when the PCs deal with them, they may be beseeched as trench-allies. Unlikely, but possible.

2.Tarrasque, which is currently locked beneath a city of great NPC power. His minions are bent on nothing short of destruction.

3.The Dragons. They want to kill the Tarrasque, then the Titans, then probably content themselves with ruling the world. They're at least more reasonable than previous members, and would likely be amenable to less totalitarian policies once their goals are complete.

4.The Titans, currently recovering from some private gambits they've made, are gearing up for another attempt to strike down the god-raisers(aka the humanoids). The PCs will need help to take these guys down, should the campaign last that long.

5.A necromancy dubbed Smiley by the party, he's a gnollish cleric and currently at 4th level spells, likely attaining lich-hood in the next encounter with the PCs, which will be his 3rd such fight. The more he fights with them, the stronger he gets, and the stronger he gets the wider his aims get.

6.A great wizard named Dominic, that the party hates. He's actually a sympathetic character that'll wind up being their ally if they'd allow it, but he's had to do quite a few sleazy things for the good of the world, and the party took the brunt of the pain for that.

7.The Thieve's guild, which one of the players tried to join. The price of admission was set and a deadline given. If he doesn't pay up in time, their coming after him and shooting to kill.

8.There's one Dragon in particular, whom the party has tried to kill already, and will likely not fancy parley. He's small enough that they could fight him now and directly, but how long are they going to wait to do that.

And my party is level 5. They've downed quite a few villains already, but the above mentioned ones are weaving tales throughout the campaign setting, such that the PCs have plot that will extend till at least level 21 or so.

Traab
2011-11-01, 12:33 PM
I always thought that the mayor from sunnydale in btvs was the awesomest bbeg. He had this charming smiling happy kind face, but you could TELL it was just a mask he wore. He had no problem ordering peoples deaths, torture, ritual sacrifice, etc. He was the kind of bad guy that would have his thugs beat you unconscious, wake you up tied to a chair, and offer you a fresh oatmeal cookie while he explains how he is going to make you suffer for an eternity. Then ask you if you would like some milk. No trick, no trap, no poison, he just wants to offer you some damn milk! All this, and his final goal was to ascend into a greater demon form and planned to devour the entire graduating class of the high school and their families as a victory feast or something. I keep getting a blue screen of death trying to combine those two elements.

TheThan
2011-11-01, 01:14 PM
First problem: her LE alignement doesn't really go well with her disposition. (But that's YMMV I suppose.)

Is she still like that or has she changed? Why did the rejection of her mistress push her over the edge?

Any idea about WHY she has earned the role of BBEG?

(Only trail I could see is that she has gone crazy and hunt relentlessly to find an item or whatever who might reunite her with her mistress.)

I've always believed the best way to create a villain is to start with either a motivation, or an emotion. Both are powerful aspects of a character that can quickly lead to a fully fleshed out character.

With that in mind the answer is pretty obvious. She's in love with her mistress. but its un-returned. When she was rejected by her offer of restoration, she broke, gone a little on the crazy side and now wants to do something about it, maybe "prove" her love or devotion in some way.
Or maybe she's too selfish for that and is after some sort of forced resurrection. Now if that's the case we can extrapolate more about her mistress, maybe she’s the “real” threat, and the pcs need to stop her from being resurrected. She could be anything from a demoness to an evil warlord/queen etc. whatever floats your boat.

QuidEst
2011-11-01, 01:30 PM
I'm a fan of scheming villains myself. If you aren't as much of a fan, one of the ways to give your real villain a lot of cred is to pit your heroes up against a Chessmaster who's using your real villain as a pawn. Half way through, have the real villain abruptly kill the Chessmaster. They get away with it by doing it at the moment they need the Chessmaster the most- who, knowing the real villain to be intelligent, ruled out such an ill-timed attempt. This lets you throw in a twist, flesh out your real villain as practical and ruthless, and at the same time give a good reason for the villain to not just wipe the heroes out: they have to consolidate the power formerly held by the Chessmaster.

There are a few other villain styles I enjoy as well… Extreme rationality and amorality with occasional evidence of significant imbalance that they're hiding. Weak villain who pits his enemies against one another on both ends. Genre-savvy, although the degree to which that works is restricted by the mood of the game.

Mastikator
2011-11-02, 04:03 AM
I'm similar to Godskook on this issue, I don't make one BBEG, I just make a cornucopia of factions and individuals with different goals, attitudes to each other and different moral compasses (or lack thereof), with the PCs each being such an individual, and a wildcard to boot.
The villains automatically becomes those who oppose the PCs, the "BBEG" becomes whoever defeats the PCs on multiple occasions.

Ossian
2011-11-02, 04:33 AM
I like Martial Arts BBEG. I think they combine well with cleric, to make a potent warlord/religious figure, channelling the will of the Gods and blending it with some chakra/chi work, a perfect ruler of some far-east fantasy game (purple combat aura is a must, I dare say).

Would you be able to integrate a PC "screwing up" (intentionally or not) in the plot line that end sin the BBEG unable to resurrect her mistress? It would be a perfect personal grudge, and it might work even better if the BBEG is simply convinced the PCs were instrumental in preventing the return of said mistress, but in actual fact they weren't.

Herabec
2011-11-02, 12:01 PM
The primary villains of my campaign world were all once great heroes of another plane of existence - a party of adventurers from long ago. Then, as all epic level parties are prone to do, as they wandered the planes looking to stem the tide of boredom, came across the aftermath of a great battle between two Gods.

The victor was still there, severely weakened. So as any good adventuring party would do, they killed it and took it's power with awesome epic powers and whatnot.

Unfortunately, a good group of people absorbing the power of an evil god tends to have bad side effects, such as alignment shifts and being subtly manipulated by a god that's not truly dead.

Their goals have been warped and shifted into terrible things; the great war hero, who wanted only to protect his people now believes that only by throwing his people into a constant state of war and strife will they grow strong enough to weather any storm - regardless of what cost it may have, for instance.

Of course, their goals all have one thing in common - rising from Demigod status (Cuz Godhood split four ways equals Demigodhood in my campaign. >_>). Easiest way to do that? Ritual involving the annihilation of a plane of existence.

So the overarching plot line is 'Stop the bad guys from killing everything' for the players, but over time they discover clues, hints, journals and other things that allow them to delve deeper into the pasts of these godlike beings that have made themselves the party's enemies, making the journey to stop them more personal. Especially upon the realization that these xenocidal fiends were once mighty heroes and how easy it is to fall from the pedestal most heroes are held upon.

... Gee, look at me ramble on. >_>

If you couldn't tell, I'm a fan of the 'Fallen Hero' archetype of villain. :smallbiggrin:

Paseo H
2011-11-02, 03:18 PM
First problem: her LE alignement doesn't really go well with her disposition. (But that's YMMV I suppose.)

Is she still like that or has she changed? Why did the rejection of her mistress push her over the edge?

Any idea about WHY she has earned the role of BBEG?

(Only trail I could see is that she has gone crazy and hunt relentlessly to find an item or whatever who might reunite her with her mistress.)

I was talking about two different things, the LE chick right above yours is not the one about the mistress.

Chainsaw Hobbit
2011-11-02, 06:25 PM
The primary villains of my campaign world were all once great heroes of another plane of existence - a party of adventurers from long ago. Then, as all epic level parties are prone to do, as they wandered the planes looking to stem the tide of boredom, came across the aftermath of a great battle between two Gods.

The victor was still there, severely weakened. So as any good adventuring party would do, they killed it and took it's power with awesome epic powers and whatnot.

Unfortunately, a good group of people absorbing the power of an evil god tends to have bad side effects, such as alignment shifts and being subtly manipulated by a god that's not truly dead.

Their goals have been warped and shifted into terrible things; the great war hero, who wanted only to protect his people now believes that only by throwing his people into a constant state of war and strife will they grow strong enough to weather any storm - regardless of what cost it may have, for instance.

Of course, their goals all have one thing in common - rising from Demigod status (Cuz Godhood split four ways equals Demigodhood in my campaign. >_>). Easiest way to do that? Ritual involving the annihilation of a plane of existence.

So the overarching plot line is 'Stop the bad guys from killing everything' for the players, but over time they discover clues, hints, journals and other things that allow them to delve deeper into the pasts of these godlike beings that have made themselves the party's enemies, making the journey to stop them more personal. Especially upon the realization that these xenocidal fiends were once mighty heroes and how easy it is to fall from the pedestal most heroes are held upon.

... Gee, look at me ramble on. >_>

If you couldn't tell, I'm a fan of the 'Fallen Hero' archetype of villain. :smallbiggrin:

I bookmarked that post.

DoctorGlock
2011-11-03, 06:15 AM
If you couldn't tell, I'm a fan of the 'Fallen Hero' archetype of villain. :smallbiggrin:

Preach It!
Fallen Heroes are my favorite type of villains, along with "I meant it for the best", add this to a healthy dose of nihilists...

To date, my BBEGs have included:

A once brilliant idealist turned mad scientist who wanted to rebuild humanity in a more docile image to create a world that could never harm children again. (fallen/for the best)

A near saint who was taken apart mentally and wired into the AI of a massive war machine to destroy the very people she spend her life protecting (fallen)

A fallen angel/demigod who wanted to squish all planes together and observe a master race arise from the chaos as an exercise in altered evolution, and so he wouldn't be alone amongst the cosmos, and because in their current state all other races were incomplete so it wouldn't be much of a crime (fallen/nihilist)

The last scion of the line of kings of a forgotten people who wanted to restore them to glory, this sadly comes at the expense of everyone else when he awakens the sleeping legion, millions of petrified undying soldiers who were the military of his kind (for the best)

Ossian
2011-11-03, 06:48 AM
I also like a lot the story of Raoh/Laoh in Hokuto No Ken (or as it is sort of retconned near the end of the series).

Raoh is an ambitious man, and thinks about world domination, convinced that might is right. In a way, his might IS right, 'cause no one can stop him, really.

However, there is a kernel of good in him struggling to come out. This is nourished by the encounters he makes (Ken, Toki, Julia, but not only), making him realise that perhaps his vision of the world is too skewed, or just plain wrong, and that he did not really want to dominate the world, but just to become the biggest and baddest of all martial artists ever. Sticking his head well under the sand, he goes on on his crusade believing that only fear and brute force can restore order to the ravaged world. He hides his doubts behind his new "mission" and goes on to taking down all the major opponents, down to the last Nanto General, the symbol of the Yang opposing Yin.

Near the end of this path he realises he has gone too far in his thirst for power and glory. While ironically his fist of iron DID restore a resemblance of order, the ultimate force to lead the world to peace and stability must be love. So devoid of such a feeling his heart is (or so he thinks) that he cannot unlock the ultimate technique (Musou Tensei) of Hokuto. When he eventually succeeds at that too, it dawns on him that he must be stopped, and that the only one that can do so is Ken, his brother.

In a final moment of epiphany he redeems himself entirely, allowing Compassion to take the place of Power and Aggression in his heart and in the world he leaves behind.

This is easily adapted to a campaign, where the BBEG kinda wants the PCs to eventually defeat him/her (I suspect Raoh let Ken win the final battle). He sees his / her own mistakes, but does not know how to stop, how to be different, how to undo the damage done, and secretly, subconsciously, lets the PC get closer and closer to him/her until they are finally in a position to beat him / her down, and grant him / her peace and redemption (or a chance for a final big self-sacrifice).

Code Geass-Lelouche of the Rebellion (one of the BEST series I have ever watched) has a rather similar message to it.

Dust
2011-11-03, 04:47 PM
From a metagame standpoint, I always suggest people who ask this question take a glance at the link in my sig regarding villains.

Falconer
2011-11-05, 01:22 PM
I've always liked villains who were, on a personal level, fairly weak but highly intelligent individuals in a position of great power and authority. A "The-King's-Evil-Advisor" sort of character--i've found that it frustrates the party all the more when they know, at least from a metagame standpoint, that they could totally take him in a fight but for god's sake, they just can't get to him! Why? Because he's under the protection of an order of paladins, or something like that. Speaking of which, I'm also rather fond of "fallen" villains--clerics of good or paladins that have either become extremists, or just flat-out made deals with the devil and turned evil but still continue to live out the charade of goodness. It's fun to play around with that contrast.

Silus
2011-11-06, 09:27 PM
I like the idea of a BBEG that the party can't just lash out at.

Evil overlord on a skull throne on a castle atop a volcano? Clear cut target there.

Reality warping Genius Loci that has the party trapped in a self-contained-sub-dimension where it is essentially God? Less clear cut target.

Make the PCs think of a plan other than "I stab him/I shoot him/I cast a spell at him".