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View Full Version : Villains you just can't take seriously



ZeroGear
2013-03-02, 02:38 AM
Ok, the title says it all. I was wondering what evil masterminds people have run into that they just couldn't stay serious about and why. This could be the creepy leather-clad guy saying "Yes! Yes! Again! Harder!" every time someone hits him in battle, the mad genius with the "Squid Launcher! Oh Yeah!", or the evil guy that just accidentally tripped and fell down the stairs. So, what n'er-do-wells do you remember that were just too ridiculous to forget?

Personally, mine is Thump, the half-orc brute and his "loyal" giant centipede mount 'Legsie'. Thump was...thicker than a mud brick. He would always show up here and there, always falling off his mount, which was actually smarter than he was, forgetting who he was supposed to eliminate and just making wild accusations before attaching the group he was supposed to for wildly different reasons (usually after they managed to get him to go away before he realized he had been tricked). Somehow the centipede ended up always saving his bacon before the group managed to completely finish him off (he was a barbarian with the toughness and diehard feats).

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 03:01 AM
The closest I ever had to that was "Marg".

And that was only when they first met him. He was just this "Wacky" NPC who seemed obsessed with fish sticks and a stuffed cat doll he wrapped up like a mummy.

...

...

THEN they learned what his villainous plan was and what he was really up to. And suddenly no one laughed at him. In fact it made people noticeably inch away from me at the table as they realized just how deranged I must have been to think that up.

Rhynn
2013-03-02, 03:36 AM
Who could take villeins seriously? They're just serfs.

Villains, though...


Erm, I had a mean grandmother who owned a mill. Not terribly threatening? She had the inn the PCs were staying at set on fire, and when they confronted her at her mill, one of the PCs climbed up a stair on the outside and caught her at the top, only to be knocked into the river (in full armor) by her ring of the ram. Fortunately, the party included a minotaur sailor who was a strong enough swimmer to save the poor man...

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 03:55 AM
Ah, Dragonlance and it's silly "Minotaurs are master seamen" bit eh?

Killer Angel
2013-03-02, 04:05 AM
Well, there was this movie called Street Fighter...
(...and there was an adventure with monks, inspired to that)

Rhynn
2013-03-02, 04:41 AM
Ah, Dragonlance and it's silly "Minotaurs are master seamen" bit eh?

Exactly. :smallbiggrin:

It's perfectly logical, too. I mean... sea cows... um...

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 04:45 AM
I'm all for giving Minotaurs a place. Not enough settings really use them. Just always seemed weird.

The last setting I made featured them pretty heavily as sort of the central race of the setting. The old and failing empire that is shrinking every year as one of them. Another nation run by minotaurs which was also the Mercantile powerhouse. And another little kingdom which was the reason the failing empire was in fact failing.

What's wrong with Sonny Chow, Killer Angel?

Hyena
2013-03-02, 04:50 AM
Hutts. I just can't take them seriously. They are giant immobile fat slugs, who somehow control everything and everyone, yet are neither clever, nor manipulative enough to be crime lords. The only thing they have is crapload of money, that they SOMEHOW gained.
BBEG of our last campaign had an evil plan of slaughtering them all and freeing Nar Shadaa. I would help him, but my character was currently dead.

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 05:14 AM
And of course, Shell Hutts. It's the SPAM of villains. Meat packed tight in a metal can.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-02, 09:32 AM
Devil's advocate time? Hell yeah, devil's advocate time.

I'm all for giving Minotaurs a place. Not enough settings really use them. Just always seemed weird.
Well, the Minotaur was supposed to live on the island of Crete, so it would kind of make sense with the original idea...

Hutts. I just can't take them seriously. They are giant immobile fat slugs, who somehow control everything and everyone, yet are neither clever, nor manipulative enough to be crime lords. The only thing they have is crapload of money, that they SOMEHOW gained.
BBEG of our last campaign had an evil plan of slaughtering them all and freeing Nar Shadaa. I would help him, but my character was currently dead.
Well, the Hutts are SUPPOSED to be portrayed as cunning, brutal, and extremely well-connected. Y'know, the way you're supposed to be when you are capable of claiming entire areas of space from under the Empire's nose without them being able to do anything about it. Unfortunately there's a lot of lazy writing in the world, and it's easy to use the obese slug that doesn't speak Basic for comedic relief. Most of the Hutts in the various video games were done pretty well.

JusticeZero
2013-03-02, 10:52 AM
Hutts. I just can't take them seriously. They are giant immobile fat slugs, who somehow control everything and everyone, yet are neither clever, nor manipulative enough to be crime lords. The only thing they have is crapload of money, that they SOMEHOW gained..
That's probably exactly how they got all that power. Crime lords gain power when you neglect an area and group, discriminate against both and leave them in pseudo-anarchy with token leadership from afar; leaders fill the void, but since it's only a pseudo-anarchy, and they cannot gain legitimate power, those leaders come from the entrepreneurs in the underground economy. As they expand, they remain mainly in the underground economy.

One day people look back and say "Wait a minute, the school and library are only solvent because of donations from the leadership of the street gang that controls all the drug running, illegal guns, and prostitution in that part of the city? They make all the businesses pay protection money - that's just a bad word for taxes!" By that point they are so powerful and entrenched in the community that you just can't dig them out.

Hutts are.. well.. yucky slug things. Nobody wants to administrate a world populated by yucky slug things.. and then one day they find out that two dozen of the biggest gang lords that have been filling the gap in your inaction have expanded their operations to a number of other planets that you haven't been paying all that close attention to.

Lesson to be learned from this? "Whatever you think is a joke is probably organizing in the shadows". :smallbiggrin:

randomhero00
2013-03-02, 12:04 PM
I never saw hutts as particularly clever type villains or even especially socially adept/manipulative. The reason I see them as good villains is that they have the ability to create lawlessness/chaos in lawful lands and keep it chaotic, they are then good at intimidating the weak. And hey, 1 on 1, when you can swallow someone whole, you have some intimidation power automatically. So in other words they make good crime bosses.

The villains I've never been able to take seriously are any of the so called, intelligence based villains. Especially in comics. They always end up doing stupid stuff even though they are supposedly so intelligent they can predict the near future...

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 01:06 PM
I find that less of a villain problem and more of a problem with the intelligence limitation of the writers in question.

It's why I cringe anytime someone gets described as something like a "master strategist" or "12th level intellect" in DCU, etc.

Especially if the someone using words like "Genius" and "master strategist", etc, is Matt Ward.

Dr.Epic
2013-03-02, 01:16 PM
There was this one villain. He was a wizard. The DM tried to make him sound intimidating by giving him this cool, badass title, but it just didn't work. He was just really lame. He couldn't even kill this one helpless baby. Like, he failed several times just to kill this one child. I have no idea why so many people feared him. He was just really incompetent. In fact, the only reason he seemed to cause so much destruction was because the good wizards were even more incompetent. But he was just really lame. The DM even tried giving him this stupid, cliche snake theme and making him a Magneto expy, but he was just really lame.

I still can't believe it took like 7 gaming sessions for us to kill that guy.

:smallwink:
:smalltongue:

Arbane
2013-03-02, 01:37 PM
There was this one villain. He was a wizard. The DM tried to make him sound intimidating by giving him this cool, badass title, but it just didn't work.(SNIP)

Way more than 7 sessions. No way those doorstopper books were one session each.

Jay R
2013-03-02, 01:40 PM
Personally, mine is Thump, the half-orc brute and his "loyal" giant centipede mount 'Legsie'.

Really? You think he's worse than Baron Pineapple (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html)?


Well, the Minotaur was supposed to live on the island of Crete, ...

... where he was supposed to stay forever in a labyrinth. This does not argue in favor of sailing skills.

Dr.Epic
2013-03-02, 01:42 PM
Way more than 7 sessions. No way those doorstopper books were one session each.

"Doorstopper books"?:smallconfused: I don't know what you are talking about. This was his own original character, Bloldemort.

Negativethac0
2013-03-02, 02:43 PM
Many years ago I hosted an ad&d campaign in which the villain was an industrious genius who had found a way to unleash the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O (from ‘Book of Artifacts’). Even though it was a high level adventure, it sort of seemed excessive to use such an artifact, but hey; it seemed brilliant.

I would describe to the heroes how several villages had been annihilated and when they got there, all they would find was ruins and some odd tidbits, like oil and a few scraps of metal. Eventually they met witnesses who described this towering abomination made of metal and how awesome an opponent it was.

Problem is, pretty much from the beginning everything went wrong for this guy’s reputation. At first it was a snide player-remark here and there, about finding a harddrive, a ram-block or a monitor in the ruined cities as well. Then the Transformers-jokes started and it was unofficially dubbed the ‘Villaintron’. Even when it attacked a village in which they were staying, it failed utterly to make an impression. Other than produce more jokes about its controller likely being like Mechanicles from the Aladdin animated series…
So yeah. That ended pretty quickly.

genderlich
2013-03-02, 05:52 PM
The closest I ever had to that was "Marg".

And that was only when they first met him. He was just this "Wacky" NPC who seemed obsessed with fish sticks and a stuffed cat doll he wrapped up like a mummy.

...

...

THEN they learned what his villainous plan was and what he was really up to. And suddenly no one laughed at him. In fact it made people noticeably inch away from me at the table as they realized just how deranged I must have been to think that up.

Oh come on, you can't just say that and then not explain the plan. That's just unfair.

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 06:46 PM
I'm putting it in a spoiler tag because it may disturb some people.

He was a man who had suffered at the hands of "something". It was never mentioned what (Even I wasn't sure what exactly happened, I wanted to leave it open in case the players stumbled across some cool idea). What was known was this was a young guy, upstanding citizen, etc, wife, single daughter, respected citizen, etc.

His young (6 or so) daughter gets sicker and sicker. Lots of pain and suffering, but no death, no sign of healing. No one can help her. Eventually out of desperation Marg brought in a witch (like figure) for some possible cures from the darker side of life.

Next thing anyone knows.... Marg's wife is dead, looks like it was done as a ritualistic sacrifice. Marg's hair went white from shock and he looked like he had been malnourished, starved, and wasted away as almost a living corpse, was huddled in a corner incoherently muttering to himself. The Witch was about to (Apparently) Ritual Sacrifice the Daughter. Local heroes busted it up, killed the Witch, saved the daughter. In the following week the daughter starts to recover leading most everyone to presume the witch had cursed the kid to start with. Marg's "recovery" takes a lot longer. And his sanity has been broken and never recovered.

When the players reached Marg in the campaign it's basically 15 years later. Marg is kinda functional, as described. They meet him in a freak meeting and think he's "Kooky". They also think that he "Must be rich" or something because he had what seemed to be a Hot Wife and he was this wasted, burnt out, middle aged figure.

They find out later that Marg is basically the town "Boogeyman". He's a story to scare kids. There are rumors about him killing animals, kidnapping children, etc. Most people in power were friends of the old Marg, pre-"something" to his daughter, and kinda protect him. They try to keep watch over his house, and see weird things going on at night but never catch overt evidence of what. Figures in the shadow they just miss. Odd smells, odd noises, etc.

Finally one of them, kinda creeped out and realizing they weren't getting anywhere but a quest MUST exist there? Just knocked on the door and asked to come in. They found out the "Hot Wife" was actually the survivor daughter. That Marg would get irrationally angry if anyone told him that was his daughter and insisted that it was actually his wife, his daughter was dead, and it was cruel to bring up his daughter, etc. The daughter was far too loyal, and she seemed so nice, they tried to "rescue" her which triggered a rage in Marg that almost resulted in a player getting gutted like the catch of the day. AND he had his friend in the town guard haul off all the player characters.

So they break back in. They see Marg's ritual room which is filled with tortured and brutally killed/displayed animals, mostly dogs, some rats, some lizards, some birds. A Cat Shrine to his false goddess that Marg worships. They find the back room which has a rotting patchwork corpse in it, Marg doesn't seem to notice them poking in. He's obsessively talking about resurrecting his daughter by collecting the parts of people that looked just like her, how he finally found the perfect eyes and plucked them out of a vagabond's head, etc. The thing isn't like a proper "flesh golem" or clone or anything. It's rotting meat that is being patched together crudely by someone with almost no magical talents. And he seems almost entirely oblivious to the fact that things ARE rotting other than the notice him replacing a part that is almost too putrid to even be a part anymore with something fresher.

... they dropped that Plot real fast after that.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-02, 07:59 PM
Really? You think he's worse than Baron Pineapple (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0276.html)?



... where he was supposed to stay forever in a labyrinth. This does not argue in favor of sailing skills.
Yeeah.. My thought process while writing that was along the lines of "Island! Sailing! Right!? Oh wait, labyrinth... Now this seems like a silly point... Oh well, on to Hutts!"

I'm putting it in a spoiler tag because it may disturb some people.

He was a man who had suffered at the hands of "something". It was never mentioned what (Even I wasn't sure what exactly happened, I wanted to leave it open in case the players stumbled across some cool idea). What was known was this was a young guy, upstanding citizen, etc, wife, single daughter, respected citizen, etc.

His young (6 or so) daughter gets sicker and sicker. Lots of pain and suffering, but no death, no sign of healing. No one can help her. Eventually out of desperation Marg brought in a witch (like figure) for some possible cures from the darker side of life.

Next thing anyone knows.... Marg's wife is dead, looks like it was done as a ritualistic sacrifice. Marg's hair went white from shock and he looked like he had been malnourished, starved, and wasted away as almost a living corpse, was huddled in a corner incoherently muttering to himself. The Witch was about to (Apparently) Ritual Sacrifice the Daughter. Local heroes busted it up, killed the Witch, saved the daughter. In the following week the daughter starts to recover leading most everyone to presume the witch had cursed the kid to start with. Marg's "recovery" takes a lot longer. And his sanity has been broken and never recovered.

When the players reached Marg in the campaign it's basically 15 years later. Marg is kinda functional, as described. They meet him in a freak meeting and think he's "Kooky". They also think that he "Must be rich" or something because he had what seemed to be a Hot Wife and he was this wasted, burnt out, middle aged figure.

They find out later that Marg is basically the town "Boogeyman". He's a story to scare kids. There are rumors about him killing animals, kidnapping children, etc. Most people in power were friends of the old Marg, pre-"something" to his daughter, and kinda protect him. They try to keep watch over his house, and see weird things going on at night but never catch overt evidence of what. Figures in the shadow they just miss. Odd smells, odd noises, etc.

Finally one of them, kinda creeped out and realizing they weren't getting anywhere but a quest MUST exist there? Just knocked on the door and asked to come in. They found out the "Hot Wife" was actually the survivor daughter. That Marg would get irrationally angry if anyone told him that was his daughter and insisted that it was actually his wife, his daughter was dead, and it was cruel to bring up his daughter, etc. The daughter was far too loyal, and she seemed so nice, they tried to "rescue" her which triggered a rage in Marg that almost resulted in a player getting gutted like the catch of the day. AND he had his friend in the town guard haul off all the player characters.

So they break back in. They see Marg's ritual room which is filled with tortured and brutally killed/displayed animals, mostly dogs, some rats, some lizards, some birds. A Cat Shrine to his false goddess that Marg worships. They find the back room which has a rotting patchwork corpse in it, Marg doesn't seem to notice them poking in. He's obsessively talking about resurrecting his daughter by collecting the parts of people that looked just like her, how he finally found the perfect eyes and plucked them out of a vagabond's head, etc. The thing isn't like a proper "flesh golem" or clone or anything. It's rotting meat that is being patched together crudely by someone with almost no magical talents. And he seems almost entirely oblivious to the fact that things ARE rotting other than the notice him replacing a part that is almost too putrid to even be a part anymore with something fresher.

... they dropped that Plot real fast after that.
Hm... I expected worse.

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 08:21 PM
I suppose it's all in the delivery. Or just the particular player's sensibilities. Several taboo subjects in there.

It's like the lowest of low level demons I made, named Slight. Nothing about him all that weird and creepy. Other than he was actually demonic and not "really hot person with red skin and/or horns" or something. But the way I described Slight, and how he acted creeped people out because of "how inhuman he is".

Jack of Spades
2013-03-02, 08:41 PM
I suppose it's all in the delivery. Or just the particular player's sensibilities. Several taboo subjects in there.

It's like the lowest of low level demons I made, named Slight. Nothing about him all that weird and creepy. Other than he was actually demonic and not "really hot person with red skin and/or horns" or something. But the way I described Slight, and how he acted creeped people out because of "how inhuman he is".

Probably my issue more than yours or your players'. I've spent a lot of time on the internet, is all, and it takes a lot to make me shudder.

Ronnoc
2013-03-02, 08:47 PM
... where he was supposed to stay forever in a labyrinth. This does not argue in favor of sailing skills.

In the original myth the minotaur of crete was sired by a bull sent by Poseidon, the god of the Ocean. In that context some affinity for the sea makes a certain amount of sense.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-02, 08:53 PM
In the original myth the minotaur of crete was sired by a bull sent by Poseidon, the god of the Ocean. In that context some affinity for the sea makes a certain amount of sense.

By the same logic, Minotaurs would also be amazing on horseback (Greek portfolios being wacky)...

I need to see this.

ArcturusV
2013-03-02, 09:17 PM
Are they really whacky? I'm thinking like Thor, who's what, Thunder, War, and Oak Trees?

Quorothorn
2013-03-02, 09:51 PM
Are they really whacky? I'm thinking like Thor, who's what, Thunder, War, and Oak Trees?

And strength/protection of humanity, as I recall.

Thor is basically a male Sailor Jupiter.

Angel Bob
2013-03-02, 10:15 PM
Captain Stallius the All-Too-Often-Defeated:

Back when no one in our gaming group had any clue how to play D&D 4E, our DM unveiled his latest railroading scheme by having the group drafted into the national army by one of its leading officers. He didn't have a name prepared (although he did have a nice handlebar mustache); I jokingly suggested "Staal the Undefeated." This was warped into Captain Stallius.

In any case, after marching us across the country (for about 5 seconds of game time), Stallius decided to challenge some of the new recruits to a duel, just to test them. Our dragonborn paladin (creatively named I'llkillyou) accepted his challenge and proceeded to beat the ever-loving crap out of him; see, this player practically never rolled below a 16 (and no, he didn't have loaded dice, because he didn't even have his own set).

After a few sidequests, we returned to our base city, where I'llkillyou challenged Stallius to a fistfight for no evident reason. Despite pulling a knife on the paladin, Stallius was still defeated. A few days later, we learned that an army of orcs was massing outside the gates, and Stallius was nowhere to be found. Well, you can probably predict how after fighting through waves of orcs and slaying their evident leader, the real leader was revealed:

Captain Stallius had converted to follow Bane (or maybe Gruumsh... our DM wasn't very clear), for which he received an army of orcs and a magic sword that could disintegrate on a critical hit. Naturally, he challenged I'llkillyou to a duel once more. Our DM had built Stallius as a Level 8 fighter, when we were only Level 4 -- and yet somehow, I'llkillyou destroyed him in 2 rounds, finally killing him.

Trogdor the Unstoppable:

Same DM, but much more recently and in a different campaign. We were moving through a dungeon, seeking out and killing members of a squad that deserted the army and were now inexplicably aiding kobolds. The group entered a room to find the EVIL and SADISTIC fighter called "Trogdor." (This DM just isn't good with names, alright?) The battle proceeded as thus:

We sent in our ranger and our druid, who proceeded to hammer attacks on Trogdor. To his credit, Trogdor rolled a natural 20 on his encounter power against the ranger and KO'ed him, but since our ardent was within range, the ranger got straight back up again. Shortly thereafter, my wizard rolled a natural 20 on his magic missile and headshotted Trogdor, killing him.

Notice a pattern? I have come to realize that our DM does not, in fact, know how to build NPCs and has been using the NPC template as intended for use with existing monsters. Thus, the two fighter NPCs in the above stories only had 8 hit points per level, plus their Constitution score. Now, perhaps this has significantly quickened fights and almost harkened back to older editions -- but its primary effect has been rendering fearsome fighter adversaries into laughingstocks.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-02, 11:25 PM
Are they really whacky? I'm thinking like Thor, who's what, Thunder, War, and Oak Trees?
The Greeks were more guilty of wackiness. Spoiler'd to hopefully discourage derailing.
From what I've seen, the Norse gods were pretty much gods of whatever the storyteller felt like they should have power over. Other than Thor makes thunder, Odin is the wise one, Freya is the pretty one, and similar one-line descriptors, they were pretty loosely defined. Pre-Christian Scandinavian spirituality never reached nearly the level of formality enjoyed by the Greco-Roman pantheon, and it pretty much never evolved much past a set of stories and superstitions passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. Most concrete facts of what we "know" about them was made up by modern revivalists.
Also, because I missed it:

Especially if the someone using words like "Genius" and "master strategist", etc, is Matt Ward.
Zing! Completely agree. :smallbiggrin:

Matticussama
2013-03-03, 12:40 AM
That's probably exactly how they got all that power. Crime lords gain power when you neglect an area and group, discriminate against both and leave them in pseudo-anarchy with token leadership from afar; leaders fill the void, but since it's only a pseudo-anarchy, and they cannot gain legitimate power, those leaders come from the entrepreneurs in the underground economy. As they expand, they remain mainly in the underground economy.

One day people look back and say "Wait a minute, the school and library are only solvent because of donations from the leadership of the street gang that controls all the drug running, illegal guns, and prostitution in that part of the city? They make all the businesses pay protection money - that's just a bad word for taxes!" By that point they are so powerful and entrenched in the community that you just can't dig them out.

Hutts are.. well.. yucky slug things. Nobody wants to administrate a world populated by yucky slug things.. and then one day they find out that two dozen of the biggest gang lords that have been filling the gap in your inaction have expanded their operations to a number of other planets that you haven't been paying all that close attention to.

Lesson to be learned from this? "Whatever you think is a joke is probably organizing in the shadows". :smallbiggrin:

Something else to keep in mind is that the average Hutt lifespan is approximately 1,000 years, so they have a long time to establish their networks; if things go bad they can just wait for their competitors to die and then take over their groups.

Furthermore, some of it has to do with Hutt history and psychology. In the distant past of Hutt history they established an extremely powerful Empire, which only fell due to a devastating civil war. Thus when the Old Republic began expanding, the Hutts were already significantly weakened. Unable to effectively rebuild their military to compete with the Old Republic, they shifted to a different form of power grab: crime organizations, mercenary groups, etc using their extensive wealth and the remains of their military. The Hutt Clan leaders still have stories of ancestors only 10 - 15 generations back who were the leaders of an Empire; thus, even though they cannot reach those same heights, they still feel the need to gain as much power as possible in order to live up to their Clan ancestors.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-03, 01:18 AM
Something else to keep in mind is that the average Hutt lifespan is approximately 1,000 years, so they have a long time to establish their networks; if things go bad they can just wait for their competitors to die and then take over their groups.

Furthermore, some of it has to do with Hutt history and psychology. In the distant past of Hutt history they established an extremely powerful Empire, which only fell due to a devastating civil war. Thus when the Old Republic began expanding, the Hutts were already significantly weakened. Unable to effectively rebuild their military to compete with the Old Republic, they shifted to a different form of power grab: crime organizations, mercenary groups, etc using their extensive wealth and the remains of their military. The Hutt Clan leaders still have stories of ancestors only 10 - 15 generations back who were the leaders of an Empire; thus, even though they cannot reach those same heights, they still feel the need to gain as much power as possible in order to live up to their Clan ancestors.

Not to mention the fact that being head of a clan has its own benefits, and that becoming the head of a clan generally means being powerful enough that no one can challenge your claim. Which creates an upward spiral, as more and more Hutts become powerful crime bosses, then other Hutts become more powerful to claim position over them, then the next Hutt comes along...

Techmagss
2013-03-03, 05:24 PM
Haemo 3rd level HE bard
In succubus castle
Sees succubus walking down hall
Smile at DM and say seduce her into sleeping with me and not killing me
Lucky 20 plus 14 or something
DM laughs and says she agrees and then :smallsigh: theyhadsex
Little did the DM know my rapier was made of silver so I soon killed her using the element of surprise.
:)

USS Sorceror
2013-03-03, 06:27 PM
Haemo 3rd level HE bard
In succubus castle
Sees succubus walking down hall
Smile at DM and say seduce her into sleeping with me and not killing me
Lucky 20 plus 14 or something
DM laughs and says she agrees and then :smallsigh: theyhadsex
Little did the DM know my rapier was made of silver so I soon killed her using the element of surprise.
:)

Quite an accomplishment, seeing how succubi are demons, and thus weak to cold iron, not silver.

Jack of Spades
2013-03-03, 06:49 PM
Quite an accomplishment, seeing how succubi are demons, and thus weak to cold iron, not silver.

She was lawful when I was done with her heyooooooooo

I know it doesn't make sense, shutup :smallwink:

Techmagss
2013-03-03, 06:54 PM
I can see how much pain Haley felt when she was shooting down whatshername
Damn mix ups.
Although I fail to see how devils and demons are different .-

Sith_Happens
2013-03-03, 07:17 PM
They found out the "Hot Wife" was actually the survivor daughter. That Marg would get irrationally angry if anyone told him that was his daughter and insisted that it was actually his wife, his daughter was dead, and it was cruel to bring up his daughter, etc. The daughter was far too loyal, and she seemed so nice,

This is probably one of the most disturbing parts if you think about it for a bit. Basically, was Marg getting any?:smalleek:


Although I fail to see how devils and demons are different

I would highly recommend you never say that within earshot of either.

Wraith
2013-03-03, 07:49 PM
I once ran the intro story to Feng Shui, in which the main antagonist is a wizened old man in a robe, so decrepit and crippled with age that he had to carry an oxygen tank around with him on a little set of wheels. It even included a little plastic tube that ran up his arm and hooked to his septum, presumably due to a long lifetime of abusing tobacco-like opiate products.

The Players thought he was ridiculous. Not just because he was old and pathetic looking, but because they knew it was a disguise for something exotic.
Even when he tweaked the valve on the O2 bottle and sent a fireball erupting 30ft across the restaurant and flash-broiling the lobsters that had escaped from the smashed aquarium, they knew nothing but scorn for this guy.
"He's obviously a Sorcerer!" They cried - one of them having read ahead in the book and passed the details around as he saw fit. "The oxygen tank is just a ruse, if we shoot it he'll be blown up!"
"No!" Said the 'overly-literate' Player, who was playing the Old Master archetype (that his, ridiculously high skill levels in Caligraphy, origami, noodle-making and Chi which let him throw out some crazy-dangerous Martial Arts powers) and thought he'd seen the NPC's stats somewhere. "I will take care of him, one old geezer to another!" and launched into a Crane Style Flying High Kick that took him fifteen feet through the air and would have taken the head off the shoulders of any other person in the room, friend or foe alike.

...At which point my "Crippled Old Sorcerer" dropped his bottle, threw back his robe, declared "You are not the only one who knows Kung Fu!" and proceeded to literally rip the heart out of the Old Master with his Secret Forbidden Tiger Style Techniques.

Motto of the story: Never act incautiously when confronted by a little, bald, wrinkly, smiling old man!

Geddoe
2013-03-03, 07:54 PM
Hutts. I just can't take them seriously. They are giant immobile fat slugs, who somehow control everything and everyone, yet are neither clever, nor manipulative enough to be crime lords. The only thing they have is crapload of money, that they SOMEHOW gained.

I don't really take any Star Wars villain seriously.

USS Sorceror
2013-03-04, 11:32 AM
Figured I might actually contribute something.
In my current campaign (which I run), the first adventure that my party got into was rescuing a baby that had been taken from her mother by some cave-dwelling crazy. The party finds out that this cave-dwelling crazy is none other than the legendary Rumpelstiltskin. I'd designed him to have a lot of enchantments and illusions to turn the the party against each other. So naturally, the party succeeds on all their saving throws vs. his spells and the party barbarian ends up grabbing him and punching him into unconsciousness. They work out a deal where the mother gets her baby back and Rumpelstiltskin can't use magic for evil unless the party's bard speaks while around him (Rumpelstiltskin was a very lawful character, even having a job as a lawyer on the side).
Later on, the party travels by blimp to the dwarven kingdoms. While on-board, a diplomat from their home country is murdered. Who should be behind it but Rumpelstiltskin? So after getting off one spell against the party's bard, the party wizard casts a spell that makes him slide off of the scaffolding he's standing on and crash to the ground some 60 feet below him. The party wizard immediately followed up by stabbing him with a rapier stolen from the villain's ally. And so this most underwhelming villain was never heard from again.

Killer Angel
2013-03-04, 01:38 PM
What's wrong with Sonny Chow, Killer Angel?

Nah.
If your DM sets an adventure with evil monks that's inspired to Street Fighter, no matter how much he's serious, i think to this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlhOUyy4wbs). :smalltongue:

ArcturusV
2013-03-04, 01:41 PM
I do love that line.

Also:

"QUICK! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!"

Killer Angel
2013-03-04, 04:11 PM
I do love that line.

Also:

"QUICK! CHANGE THE CHANNEL!"

That one too. :smallbiggrin:
See? it seriously undermines also the credibility of the BBEG's henchmen!

elliott20
2013-03-04, 04:17 PM
wait, people take their villains seriously?

ArcturusV
2013-03-04, 04:50 PM
To be fair though, the "Tuesday" sort of line can be delivered in a serious manner, and I have used that before and no one was just cracking a joke at it.

Of course it can be expanded into a bigger joke like Xykon and Roy over the "Greenwho?" sort of stuff.

Novawurmson
2013-03-04, 08:25 PM
More from my player's point of view, but...

I had a player join a game for a few sessions as an evil character. I quickly convinced her to be a "mole" for the bad guys. On her last session, her treachery is revealed and she escapes, twirling a metaphorical mustache. The rest of the players are livid.

Sessions later (and now an NPC), she's helping lead a huge attack on the city the players are defending. She falls into a deep pit the players dug almost immediately. The players taunt her relentlessly.

Libertad
2013-03-04, 11:29 PM
I can't really take Silver Age Superhero villains seriously, although I think that's kind of the point.

Also included are sniveling, servile second-in-commands who brown noses the BBEG. They can be a threat in their own right, but they don't make prime villain material due to their personality.

DigoDragon
2013-03-05, 07:37 AM
Villains I can't take seriously? Pretty much anything from our current GM. He tends to build his BBEGs based on anime characters that have quotes he finds funny or snarky. That pretty much leads to one-dimensional villains.
Plus he can't keep a serious mood going, cracking bad jokes himself that kill the atmosphere.



wait, people take their villains seriously?

They can if the villain is made with a full personality and has a way of thinking that isn't totally wrong (Those are my favorite villains, ones who could be argued as being justified in what their doing).

Lonely Tylenol
2013-03-05, 08:28 AM
In a 3.5P/E6 game I'm currently DMing, I had spent quite a bit of work on a master of alchemy (who was probably actually an Artificer) who was working tirelessly in a secret laboratory to attempt to recreate the Philosopher's Stone, which in this game is both a unique artifact and the item to which Mephistopheles' heart was bound when he was sealed away for time immemorial (which is why the Philosopher's Stone exists only in legend; the energy needed to create it came directly from one of the Lords of Hell, and its existence has been a jealously guarded secret relegated to myth ever since). Much inspiration was drawn (unwittingly) from Full Metal Alchemist on this one: the alchemist's lab, built within a mountain, is diverting water from an underground river into a giant steam- and hydraulics-powered engine, and spitting the water back out polluted, which resulted in the population of the town downstream drinking his polluted alchemy-water, slowly turning them all to stone.

Anyway, the party happened upon the stone people first, and eventually discerned that the source of this catastrophe was probably to be found upstream. This led them up the mountain, near the mountain's peak, where they found an ivory tower with a domed observatory at the top. (I had hoped to evoke images of the "ivory tower elitist".) They break into the tower via the front door, kill their way through his kill room, raid his kitchen and bedroom above of everything overtly magical and easy to carry, and chill out in his hidden magical observatory room for awhile, but don't ever find the owner. When they get back to the bottom, the Warblade leaves a note on the front door (but the Rogue takes it off the door) and the party decides to come back after a day's rest in town.

When they arrive the next day, they find that literally everything that was not bolted to a wall or floor was picked clean from the tower entirely. The party finds their way up the winding stairs all the way to the top floor, where they find a note in the middle of the floor. When the Rogue starts reading the note (after the party discerns that it's not magical), the words on the paper trigger a command word activated trap that ignites a fuse leading to several kegs of gunpowder-fueled explosives in the observatory (out of the players' view). Eventually, they start to hear a hissing coming from above--and immediately decide they should run fast and far. After noticing that there are no windows built into the tower above the first floor, they make a frantic run for the stairs, but only two of them are actually fast enough to make it out in time. When the second one exits (he ends his turn, after double moving, exactly one square outside the front door, at the bottom of the initiative order), I begin to describe the consequences of their actions:

"Just as your character sets his first foot outside the door, you hear a deafening BOOM, followed by a concussive blast so forceful that it sends you flying, knocking you on your back several feat away. When you look up, you see the observatory dome begin to crumble and shake, before a second explosion erupts violently from the dome. Large chunks of ivory and marble are thrown into the air alongside smoke and fire, falling down in bits and pieces around you. The observatory dome begins to buckle and collapse in on itsoh crap I just created a giant ejaculating johnson."

I whirled around and looked at the party, every last one of them just sort of staring back at me in silence. Two members of the party are laughing uncontrollably in the back, but it's sort of a throaty, wheezy laugh--the kind you make when you don't want to be heard. The Bard player, in the front, is already shaking his head as I turned around, as if to say, "I wanted to stop you, but you were looking the other way." The rest of the party just sort of looks at me, some mouths agape, everyone sort of wanting to burst out laughing at my ridiculous realization, but nobody really wanting to be the first one to do it, before, finally, the player who was thrown from the doorway said, "I reach for my sunglasses on the ground and say, 'looks like somebody'"--the player puts his own sunglasses on--"'got a little too excited.'"

And then the hearts were broken. The laughter was uproarious, long-lived, and brought many of us to tears. We had to take a break from the session to recuperate both from the well-timed joke and from the Freudian-level absurdity of the fact that the party was nearly destroyed by a five-story tall, fully erect, exploding... Uh... Tower, which belonged, of course, to a Small-sized race (they don't know which). I was so flustered that I couldn't stop blushing at my own weird mistake all night.

Needless to say, I, as DM, have not been able to take my alchemist villain seriously ever since. He hasn't ever been seen by the party, but between that and the other accidental slip the next session, which I cannot, by the rules, discuss on these forums, I can guarantee that the party will never take him seriously, either.

Andreaz
2013-03-05, 09:36 AM
I'm all for giving Minotaurs a place. Not enough settings really use them. Just always seemed weird.

The last setting I made featured them pretty heavily as sort of the central race of the setting. The old and failing empire that is shrinking every year as one of them. Another nation run by minotaurs which was also the Mercantile powerhouse. And another little kingdom which was the reason the failing empire was in fact failing.

What's wrong with Sonny Chow, Killer Angel?You'd like Tormenta. Gotta know Portuguese for that one though.


Here we had the evil mastermind "Tetro". His nastier spells were all tetris piece-shaped, and he kept summoning cubes that got in our way and tried to form lines...

Jay R
2013-03-05, 09:52 AM
Vampires that twinkle.

Mighty_Chicken
2013-03-05, 01:44 PM
I'm all for giving Minotaurs a place. Not enough settings really use them. Just always seemed weird.

The last setting I made featured them pretty heavily as sort of the central race of the setting. The old and failing empire that is shrinking every year as one of them. Another nation run by minotaurs which was also the Mercantile powerhouse. And another little kingdom which was the reason the failing empire was in fact failing.


In the brazilian setting Tormenta it's almost the opposite. Minotaurs are like Romans. They control a vast northern empire which had a mostly pacific relationship with the human (core) lands. Then all of a sunden they decide to attack because they follow the God of Strenght and that's what followers of Strenght should do: dominate the weak, then protect them.

Indeed, minotaurs can't reproduce. They're all male. So they have harems of elven, half-elven and human females. All the boys are minotaurs, and all the girls are of the mother's race. Their kingdom, Tapista, is one of the only that accepts slavery. So minotaurs invaded the human kingdoms not only to expand, but also because they needed slaves to... reproduce. Doesn't seem that cool now I'm thinking about it.

Andreaz
2013-03-05, 01:54 PM
In the brazilian setting Tormenta it's almost the opposite. Minotaurs are like Romans. They control a vast northern empire which had a mostly pacific relationship with the human (core) lands. Then all of a sunden they decide to attack because they follow the God of Strenght and that's what followers of Strenght should do: dominate the weak, then protect them.

Indeed, minotaurs can't reproduce. They're all male. So they have harems of elven, half-elven and human females. All the boys are minotaurs, and all the girls are of the mother's race. Their kingdom, Tapista, is one of the only that accepts slavery. So minotaurs invaded the human kingdoms not only to expand, but also because they needed slaves to... reproduce. Doesn't seem that cool now I'm thinking about it."Might" fits better than "Strength", but yes. That's the gist of it as far as justifying their attitude goes.
They have the best seafaring force around, and may be the only potency capable of stopping the black alliance from Conquering Everything Ever
(goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears and orcs are far from mooks there for a reason too!)

Jack of Spades
2013-03-05, 09:18 PM
Indeed, minotaurs can't reproduce. They're all male. So they have harems of elven, half-elven and human females. All the boys are minotaurs, and all the girls are of the mother's race. Their kingdom, Tapista, is one of the only that accepts slavery. So minotaurs invaded the human kingdoms not only to expand, but also because they needed slaves to... reproduce. Doesn't seem that cool now I'm thinking about it.

I wonder if this bit of their culture was made with the Rape of the Sabine Women (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women) in mind? It would certainly fit the whole Roman parallel thing.

Andreaz
2013-03-07, 12:08 PM
I wonder if this bit of their culture was made with the Rape of the Sabine Women (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women) in mind? It would certainly fit the whole Roman parallel thing.I don't think that bit of history is drawn in Tapista. It's more likely to be extrapolated from the general roman way of doing things.

Angry Bob
2013-03-07, 06:12 PM
I'm currently running Dungeons: The Dragoning, which if you aren't familiar is a mix of Planescape, Spelljammer, Warhammer 40k, and a ton of other stuff.

The villain in question is Malachi Flex, aka The Flexmeister, aka Sir Flex-a-Lot, paladin and Chosen of Vectron. Imagine an unholy fusion Flava Flav, T-Pain, and a generic frat bro in blinged-out golden space marine armor wielding a twelve-foot long golden sword with "PIMP" engraved into the flat of the blade.

On second thought, I don't think he was ever intended to be taken seriously.

Doorhandle
2013-03-07, 06:44 PM
I'm currently running Dungeons: The Dragoning, which if you aren't familiar is a mix of Planescape, Spelljammer, Warhammer 40k, and a ton of other stuff.

The villain in question is Malachi Flex, aka The Flexmeister, aka Sir Flex-a-Lot, paladin and Chosen of Vectron. Imagine an unholy fusion Flava Flav, T-Pain, and a generic frat bro in blinged-out golden space marine armor wielding a twelve-foot long golden sword with "PIMP" engraved into the flat of the blade.

On second thought, I don't think he was ever intended to be taken seriously.

I would certainly hope not. :smallbiggrin:

On a related note: Have you ever played Mad World? I'm sure stealing a theme-song or two from the black baron would work wonders.

Angry Bob
2013-03-07, 07:19 PM
On a related note: Have you ever played Mad World? I'm sure stealing a theme-song or two from the black baron would work wonders.

One step ahead of you. I haven't played Mad World, but I am using Look Pimpin' for when he appears, usually out of nowhere.

There was another boss that was supposed to be taken seriously, but ended up on the wrong end of the vehicle crit rules: She was driving a giant tank and only got one shot on the party before someone made a penetrating blow on her vehicle. She rolled "The vehicle flips over." Of course, that was pretty much GG right there, so I had her self-destruct to prevent further ignominy and resolved to make every enemy vehicle from there on out walkers or "living" and thus self-righting.

Fighter1000
2013-03-07, 11:01 PM
I remember this one time I was playing 4th edition D&D and the party had to face a goblin villain named "Filgon the Fat"
Lol he went down without too much trouble.

Killer Angel
2013-03-08, 04:45 AM
Vampires that twinkle.

That's 'cause they aren't villains. I could object that they are barely vampires, too.


I remember this one time I was playing 4th edition D&D and the party had to face a goblin villain named "Filgon the Fat".

Any DM should take BBEG's names from death metal albums.

tommhans
2013-03-08, 04:54 AM
One time my DM was a large beast, cant remember the name of the monster, i just remember him RPin him saying "IIIIIIK", we all burst to laughter, and we never took that enemy serious after that, allthough it did make one dude unconcious and did a lot of damage hehe ^^

Giggling Ghast
2013-03-08, 05:38 AM
Oh, I always think my villains are going to be Billy Badass, but they never are. I'm pants at making villains.

I think my worst guy was a tiefling crime lord that was going to be an ongoing antagonist. Turns out his succubus lover was more of a threat than he was.

DigoDragon
2013-03-08, 07:52 AM
Vampires that twinkle.

Misread that without the 'w'. Laughter ensued.


The only vampire my players have ever taken seriously was Count Strahd from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Somehow there was a planetary alignment or full moon or something where I just role-played the BBEG with perfect charisma.
Even the player who RP'd as a stalwart paladin with zero fear (The player himself is hard to spook) was unnerved whenever Strahd showed up. I dunno how I managed it, but I certainly want to do that again some day.

tommhans
2013-03-08, 08:55 AM
yesterday my DM said, as a priest, there were dangerous monkey in the forest that we were going towards and because for some reason that was what the priest feared the most(dragons are ok, monkeys not for him)
When we finally arrived to the forest the cleric in the group did a preception test and fumbled, which made him startled and he ended up jumping off his horse and walk behind us, scared as hell for the deadly monkeys that he claimed to see everywhere, oh we laughed well :p so now the cleric has fear of monkeys aswell(ofc there had to be a tale of the restless and crazy monkeys that rode dragons and tore up peoples head with their bare hands!)

So yes, watch out for monkeys! ;D

Roderick_BR
2013-03-08, 09:50 AM
I am yet to make a trully devious villain with lots of connections. The closest I had to a villain the players didn't take seriously was a female halfling that was locked into the castle's jail. After the players got to her for interrogations, they learned she was a highly skilled assassin/something that was locked down with several locks and thick chains. And she got herself free by the time they got there, and nearly killed the fighter unarmed.