PDA

View Full Version : How to make players hate the BBEG?



Tridax
2013-07-15, 04:50 AM
Simply that. He is a mage of a noble house which controls the kingdom. Yes, his troops pillaged some villages. He himself was one of those who killed a likeable npc.

But that's not enough. I dont want the players to be like; 'Yeah, we must kill him because he is bad and we are heroes'. How do I make them hate this bad guy? How do you guys handle that in your campaigns?

Kane0
2013-07-15, 05:06 AM
You could always give him some sort of 'diplomatic immunity' on top of his obvious evilness and such. Make him untouchable unless the pcs create more problems than they solve by simply killing him, force them to wait and watch for a bit before they get a chance to get at him.

In that time, perhaps establish him as someone that is reasonable and/or sophisticated despite being evil. Someone the pcs can respect but can never admire. The kind of guy that will not think twice about sacrificing one city/race/world in order to save dozens.

Edit: but even then, sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop the players from reacting to him less violently. Picking the wrong name, making him say or do some small thing, just one little thing you take no notice of may cause them to see him as the funniest or most over the top villain they have ever seen you employ against them. Just cant be helped. You're probably better off making him more memorable than hated.

Totally Guy
2013-07-15, 05:12 AM
Make it personal. Have him target something the players care about and cannot ignore as part of his plan. Ideally something they've cultivated through play.

Scots Dragon
2013-07-15, 05:22 AM
Simply that. He is a mage of a noble house which controls the kingdom. Yes, his troops pillaged some villages. He himself was one of those who killed a likeable npc.

But that's not enough. I dont want the players to be like; 'Yeah, we must kill him because he is bad and we are heroes'. How do I make them hate this bad guy? How do you guys handle that in your campaigns?

Do the bolded part well enough (http://classic.mystara.net/bargle.html), and people will hate your villain for decades.

Eldan
2013-07-15, 05:39 AM
Making it personal works with most players.

What also works with many is doing something that is humiliating to the characters. If they face of early, have him defeat them in some place that is public, in a way that is shameful. Not with weapons and death, necessarily. He's a mage, he can be more creative than that. Few things annoy the players more than being ignored, too.

His house controls the kingdom, so he has power and probably some legitimacy. I suggest you set up an encounter somewhere public, like a tournament, a banquet, a ball. Set it up so the players confront him in front of witnesses and then have him brush them off. Harshly.

And yeah, find something they are invested in. Don't be too mean about it, though. If they just invested a session and half their WBL into building their ship or stronghold, don't just blow it up. Go for something with RP value. If they finally managed to talk an NPC into helping them, that's perfect. Sometimes, the players will form an attachment to some quirky harmless NPC they meet randomly, even if you didn't think they would. Fair target.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-07-15, 05:55 AM
Have him join the party, single-handedly solve every problem, and demand to have all the treasure and XP for himself.

I promise you, nothing will breed animosity in your players toward this character faster. Maybe not the kind of animosity you wanted, but animosity nonetheless.

DigoDragon
2013-07-15, 06:40 AM
Making it personal is the way to go, but doing it right means you have to take your time and invest in the plan.

For example~
Early in one PC's career, her best friend and mentor was killed by drow. Thus the player had a hatred of drow for a lot time. Later in the character's career, she started to have a thing for the BBEG (Who was evil, but not world shatteringly so. The PC thought the party could redeem him). After a few encounters the PC found out he was a necromancer.

A necromancer that happened to have found the remains of her mentor years back and made it into a personal zombie slave to attack the party. :smallbiggrin: THAT made it personal. It took quite a number of sessions to build up to it, but well worth the effort.

Jacob.Tyr
2013-07-15, 07:43 AM
I tend to hate NPC's more when they "use me" as it were; having me work to an unstated goal that winds up being counter to my character. Try to throw in a quest from him or his proxies to the party, something that seems benign but winds up being a small part of his overall plot. If it's something insignificant that he wouldn't be bothered devoting his resources to, and the PCs only helped him because they had been lied to and manipulated, possibly suffering losses during it as well, this will manage to make it clear that he looks down on them and thinks is willing/able to use them as puppets. People hate that.

Calinero
2013-07-15, 08:16 AM
In my experience, the best way to get them to hate him is to let them meet him. Don't give him plot armor when you do so--if they want to attack him, they should have the chance, even if it's unlikely they'll kill him--but give them a chance to just talk.

The most hated villain I've ever made was a halfling druid who was, quite simply, a racist. The party came in and spoke to him. The three who were not halflings he was very dismissive and condescending towards. The halfling, he spoke to like an equal, and openly offered him a chance to join his side, if he was willing to kill his friends--he even offered to let the PC 'keep them around as tools'. In short, he was a jerk.

People do evil things in roleplaying games, and you can desensitized to that. To make them hate somebody, let them see that not only does he do bad things, but he is really annoying about it--and if possible, do so in a situation where they realistically can't do much about it. It will leave them itching for the chance to get back at him.

(My second most hated villain was a similar level of jerk, and ended up deliberately switching bodies with a young girl, then leaving his original body in their care. If they didn't get him to safety before the spell expired, he wouldn't tell them where he had left the girl's body, and she would die. They hated him so much.)

Scow2
2013-07-15, 08:55 AM
Have him join the party, single-handedly solve every problem, and demand to have all the treasure and XP for himself.

You don't even need the second part. Just have him overshadow and show up the PCs. Maybe name him Gandalf or something...

Ozfer
2013-07-15, 08:56 AM
(My second most hated villain was a similar level of jerk, and ended up deliberately switching bodies with a young girl, then leaving his original body in their care. If they didn't get him to safety before the spell expired, he wouldn't tell them where he had left the girl's body, and she would die. They hated him so much.)

Now THAT is a good one.

Dienekes
2013-07-15, 09:27 AM
I once saw a poster that read something like this.

Great villains:

Darth Vader
Saruman
Hannibal Lector
Vito Corleone
The Joker
Agent Smith

People like them, people love them, people respect them

Joffrey Baratheon
But everyone HATES THIS MOTHERF***ER!

The easiest way to make people hate a villain is to do things that are hateful. Truly despicable, and annoying. Make his ego huge. Make him love to gloat his greatness. Make him fly off the handle and act like a child if anything doesn't go his way. Make him petty. Make him enjoy torturing people. Make him stupid. Make his villainies both great and small. Make him based on every jackass, every waste of space you have ever met. And make him win (at least for awhile). And you will have a hated villain.

Probably my most hated villain was the daughter of the previous main villain who was killed off prematurely. She was wealthy, ugly, and spoiled. But also a powerful mage, who enjoyed setting things on fire. She ended up holding the entire city she controlled for ransom because the heroes embarrassed her, slightly. She commanded people tortured and killed, put the young boy that was acting as a surrogate son to one of the heroes head's on a pike because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't think they ever wanted to murder someone so much in their lives.

PaperMustache
2013-07-15, 09:39 AM
Have him take their stuff. Friends/family/jewelery etc. What else are character back stories for?

Daer
2013-07-15, 09:59 AM
Mordekains disjunction (or equivalent).. though better get some protective gear to that game session for yourself too just in case.

or then have him just destroy hard worked loot front of them.. or kill absolutely needed npc they have worked hard to reach.

EdokTheTwitch
2013-07-15, 10:32 AM
I tend to hate NPC's more when they "use me" as it were; having me work to an unstated goal that winds up being counter to my character. Try to throw in a quest from him or his proxies to the party, something that seems benign but winds up being a small part of his overall plot. If it's something insignificant that he wouldn't be bothered devoting his resources to, and the PCs only helped him because they had been lied to and manipulated, possibly suffering losses during it as well, this will manage to make it clear that he looks down on them and thinks is willing/able to use them as puppets. People hate that.

I second this one. I am using this at the moment, and it is incredibly effective. I have introduced the antagonist to the players as a wanderer, who is simply enjoying the countryside. He asked around about the area, about their hometown etc., and later, while they were away, he used the information to take over the town :D
Their faces were priceless :D

Kish
2013-07-15, 10:54 AM
It depends entirely on where the specific players' buttons are located.

One will be enraged if the NPC brutally murders a good-aligned and friendly NPC in front of you but will respond to the destruction of the party's equipment with, "Meh, it's just stuff"; another will shrug at the death of the NPC or even go, "Good, she was annoying anyway" but will flip out if the villain actually takes anything from his character.

A Tad Insane
2013-07-15, 11:16 AM
I have my bad guys destroy things the players like, then never shut up about it, and have the bbeg say how they're goingt to keep doing it.

I once had the party assult the lair of the bbeg, and they were joined by a slightly low level npc who wanted to save his mother. After he went missing during their raid, they met the "body guard" of the bbeg, who was actually the npc that had an illusion cast over him and a threat including his mother as motive to fight the party. After they killed him, they found lots of bodies that looked like him, and when they met the bbeg again, he said he did that, and was planning to kill other people the players like, just because it would piss off the party. One of my players said "I cast empowered magic missile at his tiny pengus (not the actually word)", and I knew I need to keep this bad guy around

valadil
2013-07-15, 01:31 PM
Make it personal.

Correct response.

I have two tools that never fail to bring the hate.

The first requires that your players provided a backstory. Take someone from the backstory and make that NPC into the main villain. If possible you might even be able to take a couple NPCs from different backstories and merge them into one villain. PCs are way more likely to buy into anything that came out of one of their backstories.

The second option is betrayal. Put the NPC in their party for a while. Then turn him against the PCs. If it's too late for that, oh well, save it for next game.

I'm especially fond of betrayal because it lets the PCs witness the NPCs power without a direct confrontation. This doesn't really have anything to do with hate, but it will make the PCs fear the BBEG if they've seen how powerful he is.

Quorothorn
2013-07-15, 02:29 PM
One thing this topic reminds me is of how Mr. Rich Burlew described the story design choices he made near the end of the Battle of Azure City (spoilers for the third book, specifically up to strip #448, in the box below, just in case...)

He said in the War and XPs commentary that he wanted the audience to cheer when Soon's ghost manifested, and the best way to do that was to see to it that much of said audience would be angry at Xykon at that moment. Further, Xykon killing Roy was not 'enough' for that, since the lich gave Roy multiple chances to back out of the fight, and then killed him relatively cleanly. Thus, the "follow the bouncing ball, children" scene (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0448.html) was crafted.

So, I suppose it's not just the fact of doing Evil things that can make a BBEG hate-able, but HOW they do such things.

Alex12
2013-07-15, 03:25 PM
Really, it depends on your players' buttons.

I really like the "make him a racist" idea, though. I need to use that.

Amaril
2013-07-15, 03:32 PM
The thing that makes me hate a villain more than anything else is self-righteousness. Either make them convinced beyond all doubt that they're doing the right thing, or have them decide that they just want to act like they are to piss off and demoralize the PCs (note--in the latter case, also make sure this villain can do so convincingly). Then in conversation, have them act as though it is completely self-evident that they hold the moral high ground and that the PCs are both incredibly stupid and wrong about everything they do. This trait is the sole reason why Miko Miyazaki is the character I hate more than any other in OOTS.

This might just be me, but if it's not enough to get your players to hate the villain, you can always rely on some of the other techniques people here have suggested.

Edit: Oh, something I forgot--you also have to make them condescending. This combination will produce the most infuriating villain possible.

Autolykos
2013-07-15, 03:53 PM
I think my most hated NPC is Harlekin from the Shadowrun campaign. And he isn't even supposed to be an enemy. After our group got set up and kidnapped by Ehran the Scribe's goons to "teach us a lesson", everyone assumed Harlekin to be behind it and we tried to ambush that mofo in the next meeting (didn't turn out too well, though - fraggin' god NPCs).

From this I conclude that one of the most sure-fire ways to make a NPC piss the players off is:
- Start by giving them quests
- Treat them as cannon fodder/distraction
- Make it quite clear that you think they aren't good for anything else
- Steal their spotlight at every chance you get (e.g. by riding in and achieving the real objective while they just look stupid, or singlehandedly ending the tough boss fight just when the PCs were about to win)
- Make a point of rubbing it in as much as possible
- Have everyone else love/admire the NPC for it
- Backstab them or refuse to pay them (ideally while blaming them for failing a mission that was just a set up anyway)

I'd be surprised if you even make it down half the list without the players hating the NPC's guts. If you go all the way, they'll probably be itching for an excuse to finish him off.

EDIT: That could probably be combined with Amaril's suggestion. Some self-righteous, arrogant, bratty aristocrat kid that gets to play general with daddy's army seems to be the perfect choice (I'm just forced to think about Arthas in Warcraft 3 - he's probably my most-hated video game character ever).
Or maybe a handsome swashbuckler/rogue who thinks he's Robin Hood but often conveniently forgets about the "giving it to the poor" part while being so good at propaganda (i.e. bragging about his exploits) that the peasants still love him.

Emmerask
2013-07-15, 03:59 PM
Hmmm
You could make him be a Drow with say two scimitars and let him have a black panther as a pet and maybe make him a bit emo but still he should be better at everything then anybody else and then to top it all of, let him sparkle in sunshine!

making it personal though is also a good answer :smallwink:

/edit to make the post a bit more substantial ^^

What I did in one of my campaigns was that he murdered the adoptive "father" of the players (having been adopted by this church leader himself).
This was more or less the beginning of the campaign and they did hate this guy ^^

Jay R
2013-07-15, 04:20 PM
Why do anything?

My suggestion: you handle the emotions of the NPCs, and let the players be in charge of the emotions of the PCs.

Make him do whatever makes sense for him to do, based on his character development and plotline, and let them be free to decide PC reactions.

Just as if the party were a bunch of, you know, player characters.

BWR
2013-07-15, 04:26 PM
Echoing the 'make it personal' crowd.
Find what the PCs care most about, then take it from them.
It's hard to do that to NPCs the characters like unless you've spent a lot of effort building them up. Just saying "The BBEG kills your family who you've mentioned in your backstory but we've never seen in play" just doesn't cut it. Sure, a good roleplayer will play that his character hates the villain, but the player's heart won't be in it.

For many people, just stealing/ruining all their hard-earned loot and/or levels (or equivalent) is enough. In my game we have a dragon the party is chomping at the bit to get. In one of the PC's backstory, this dragon stole much of her gear and sent her on her merry way.
Later, he landed in front of the PCs. One player thought quickly (CR 16 dragon against 9th level chars) and bowed to the dragon and offered him his "royal share of the loot". This, plus a good Diplomacy roll mollified the otherwise curious dragon, who just took the party's chock-full Bag of Holding, filled with 100,000+ gp worth of treasure.
One player mentions wanting to kill the dragon at least once every session.

The Fury
2013-07-15, 04:36 PM
Agreed, it should be personal. If the main villain manipulated the player party in his own scheme, used them as fall guys which had them sent to jail, and took all their stuff that would be a good start.

Bulhakov
2013-07-15, 07:16 PM
From my experience, even hinting at child molestation turned every player into a self-righteous violent vigilante. Have the players rescue some tied up children or early teens in one of the encounters and have someone remark the kids were en route to BBEG's "personal collection".

Kaun
2013-07-15, 08:28 PM
Have him take their stuff. Friends/family/jewelery etc. What else are character back stories for?

Yeah +1 for stealing from them.

It doesn't even have to be that important an item. It just amazing how much theft will p**s off a players.

If the first time doesn't work, once or twice more should do the trick.

Knaight
2013-07-15, 09:04 PM
Don't worry too much about the players hating the BBEG. Things can work just as well if they absolutely despise some sort of crony or other, and if you make them distinctive enough at least one will be the sort that everybody hates.

Arkhosia
2013-07-15, 10:09 PM
Yeah +1 for stealing from them.

It doesn't even have to be that important an item. It just amazing how much theft will p**s off a players.

If the first time doesn't work, once or twice more should do the trick.

even better: he is "caught" by another person, who hands back a cursed version of the item.

Mr Beer
2013-07-15, 10:13 PM
The villain captured the PCs and made them row his slave galley around until they finally broke free. Not only did he spend a few minutes every morning taunting them (and have his goons whip anyone who backchatted), he was a sexual sadist who had slaves beaten while he watched intently, sweating and adjusting items in his pockets.

I did briefly consider having him also be a child rapist but decided against introducing that theme into the game. Still, the players were quite cheerful when they eventually killed him.

Arkhosia
2013-07-15, 10:26 PM
The villain captured the PCs and made them row his slave galley around until they finally broke free. Not only did he spend a few minutes every morning taunting them (and have his goons whip anyone who backchatted), he was a sexual sadist who had slaves beaten while he watched intently, sweating and adjusting items in his pockets.

I did briefly consider having him also be a child rapist but decided against introducing that theme into the game. Still, the players were quite cheerful when they eventually killed him.

You get a +5 to Craft (hated characters) if any of the female PCs suffered the second part.
Must. Resist. Urge. Will. Too. Weak. No. Mu-BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!
Noooooo! It was too strong!

Mr Beer
2013-07-15, 11:44 PM
You get a +5 to Craft (hated characters) if any of the female PCs suffered the second part.
Must. Resist. Urge. Will. Too. Weak. No. Mu-BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!
Noooooo! It was too strong!

They're all male, I would be more hesitant about the whole "whipping gets the villain off" theme with female players. Put it this way, I wouldn't have it in the game if I thought there was any chance the players would imagine I was introducing some kind of personal fetish.

Arkhosia
2013-07-15, 11:57 PM
They're all male, I would be more hesitant about the whole "whipping gets the villain off" theme with female players. Put it this way, I wouldn't have it in the game if I thought there was any chance the players would imagine I was introducing some kind of personal fetish.

Good! It would worry me if anyone actually did the latter. As a very wise sensible lich once said: "save it for the fanfic".
Besides, trying to get a bonus that way is the equivalent of boosting your thievery skills by reverse pick pocketing grenades without pins.
...I'll just be over here. In the corner. Being absolutely silent.

Tridax
2013-07-16, 09:18 AM
I've read all the posts and I'll probably take the option of killing one more favorite npc or humiliating them in front of a crowd (though I don't think this would do for everyone, since some players can just not like it). The other options sometimes just don't match the villain, because he can be a psychotic sociopath bastard. In my case, at least. Thanks for the help!

About the 'lore villain', though. I don't think making a villain the central enemy in the PC's backstory develops that personal hatred from the player. More like 'oh right, my character hates him, yeah whatever.', unless the player wants to embrace his character fully.

SethoMarkus
2013-07-16, 10:04 AM
I've read all the posts and I'll probably take the option of killing one more favorite npc or humiliating them in front of a crowd (though I don't think this would do for everyone, since some players can just not like it). The other options sometimes just don't match the villain, because he can be a psychotic sociopath bastard. In my case, at least. Thanks for the help!

About the 'lore villain', though. I don't think making a villain the central enemy in the PC's backstory develops that personal hatred from the player. More like 'oh right, my character hates him, yeah whatever.', unless the player wants to embrace his character fully.

I don't think the point of the "lore villain" is to write the hatred into the backstory of a character, but to abuse a character's backstory to cause them to hate the villain.

Say, for example, Frank the Fighter wrote into his backstory that his son, Bobby, was abducted at the tender age of three, and Frank now adventures to try to find his long lost child. Introduce the BBEG several times, having him be generally antagonistic of the party. They dislike him, they see him as a threat, but they don't hate him yet. Now, when the party thinks they have the upper hand, the BBEG throws them off balance by introducing his apprentice. The BBEG smirks that evil smirk and looks Frank right in the eye as who else but Bobby walks around the corner. What's worse, make Bobby think that the BBEG is his real father; have Bobby admire the BBEG and want to protect and serve him. The BBEG then laughs evilly as he commands Bobby to take care of the party, leaving through some secret passage that seals shut behind him.

It isn't so much that you say "oh yeah, when Frank was younger the BBEG kicked his puppy"; you need to kick the puppy in front of Frank during play, and make it so that Frank can't do anything about it until a later time. Furthermore, that puppy isn't just some fluff adventure hook, make it a quest for Frank to get the puppy. Maybe he finds a litter of puppies in a gutter and has to find a special potion to cure an illness one of the puppies has, or maybe the puppy follows the party around on adventures until they finally adopt it formally.

The key is, you don't want to take away the players resources, in the way of gold, items, or anything with a mechanical benefit; you want to take away something that the characters and players both enjoy in the game that really has no impact on the crunch at all. Something the players became attached to that they had to earn, but that you aren't upsetting game balance by taking away.

At least, in my experiences as a DM and player, these are the things that got me and my friends most riled up.

Mr Beer
2013-07-16, 06:22 PM
It isn't so much that you say "oh yeah, when Frank was younger the BBEG kicked his puppy"; you need to kick the puppy in front of Frank during play, and make it so that Frank can't do anything about it until a later time.

Very much this.

Trinoya
2013-07-16, 07:04 PM
Have him help the party... but have another npc or player play up how evil he is, while having another play up how good he is.

I did this with a NPC once years ago. He gave the party equipment and sent them to run his errand and after they succeeded and he teleported in wanting his item the party refused to give it to him on the grounds that 'he is clearly evil.'

He even gave them a second chance to give it to him even before he began disintegrating them.

To this day I have players who will attack the guy on sight. :smallcool:

Farastu
2013-07-19, 04:50 PM
I actually am having the villain of my game travel with a character right now, whom has managed to get separated from the rest of the player group. It is a situation ripe with opportunities to make the group want badly to murder the villain. I really did not plan for it to happen though.
The villain currently has agreed to show the player "the horrible truth of things" and will live up to that in a way that I hope will make the whole group, but especially the character that has managed to get singled out, hate him immensely.
Yes the villain is going to try and do horrible horrible things to the character, that will make him wish the villain had just killed him :sabine:

kyoryu
2013-07-19, 06:09 PM
Make it personal. Have him target something the players care about and cannot ignore as part of his plan. Ideally something they've cultivated through play.

Bingo. It's about investment.

It's like Aeris in FF7. Her death hits you because you've invested in her. You've leveled her, bought her gear, and worked to make her part of your team.

And then she's taken from you. Regardless of the emotional impact of the writing/etc., the game has just targeted *your* time, *your* work, and *your* plans. That's inherently more interesting and impactful than what some writer thinks is neat.

Mutazoia
2013-07-19, 07:35 PM
If I may be forgiven for a shameless plug, try THIS (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-197339.html) thread to get you started...

Sith_Happens
2013-07-19, 08:15 PM
To put it as succinctly as possible, the difference between a villain the players want to defeat and a villain the players hate is the difference between Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge.

Arkhosia
2013-07-19, 10:03 PM
To put it as succinctly as possible, the difference between a villain the players want to defeat and a villain the players hate is the difference between Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge.

The difference being...? :smallbiggrin:

Amidus Drexel
2013-07-19, 11:12 PM
The difference being...? :smallbiggrin:

The nose, mostly. :smallbiggrin:

As for the OP... the villains I've hated the most were ones that were former allies, condescending and petty, or both. Then there's the one guy that kept referring to my familiar as a pet. (and the wrong animal, to boot). I'll have his head, for that.

Yora
2013-07-20, 02:19 PM
All the common terms seem rather inappropriate for such a funny discussion as this, but I think the key to make players "love to hate" a villain is to have him do something awful to them in a way that leaves them entirely unable to prevent or stop it. Either they have to witness it without being within reach to do anything, or by having the PCs arrive just after it's too late to do anything about it.

What exactly the villain does can be adjusted entirely to whatever fits the campaign, but the important thing is that he does a great wrong to the PCs and simply gets away with it unopposed. Situations like that are the ones that get the most frantic screams for revenge. Losing a fight is one thing that happens to heroes all the time; being made a helpless victim is something entirely else.
Be it burning their castle, stealing their ship, murdering their servants, or having an ally switch sides. Anything that is considered not to be part of the normal rules of engagement. It doesn't matter so much if it deals real long term damage to the PC, but it has to be something that goes directly against their sense of justice. The PCs have to be personally offended as well as feeling a need to bring the villain down on principle.

I really like the oppening of Mass Effect 2 in that regard. A completely new villain that has never been encountered or even been hinted at suddenly shows up from nowhere and without giving any idication who they are or what they want, they just destroy your beloved ship and kill your crew while you can do nothing but trying to escape. (Which you don't, but you get better). And after 3 minutes they are gone again and don't show up again until the middle of the game. But you really, really hate them and want to see them destroyed!

Kish
2013-07-20, 06:07 PM
The nose, mostly. :smallbiggrin:

So...Sith Happens' advice is, "Make sure your villain has a nose"?

ZeroGear
2013-07-20, 10:24 PM
Simple: have him not care.
One of the main things about the game is that most of the time, the PCs are the center of attention. If the guy simply ignores everything the group did, I imagine that it would really be a blow to their ego.
I mean, he killed someone they liked, threatens their world, and does other nasty stuff; which makes them do things like infiltrate his base, kill his minions, throw countless wrenches into his plan in an attempt to spoil it, etc. and the jerk just says that he "Can't be bothered remembering every group of powerless idiots rushing to their death"? Do this enough, each time having him walk out, telling his newest general to "dispose of these nobodies" while not bothering to consider that they might win? By the time the group actually faces him, again with him yawning and saying that he is getting tired of "another group of so-called heroes causing trouble" and that he "is having trouble getting good help" because his minions keep dying to every "random pack of morons that thinks they are special"; I'm pretty sure he's going to be the most hated person in that entire game.

Arkhosia
2013-07-20, 10:27 PM
Simple: have him not care.
One of the main things about the game is that most of the time, the PCs are the center of attention. If the guy simply ignores everything the group did, I imagine that it would really be a blow to their ego.
I mean, he killed someone they liked, threatens their world, and does other nasty stuff; which makes them do things like infiltrate his base, kill his minions, throw countless wrenches into his plan in an attempt to spoil it, etc. and the jerk just says that he "Can't be bothered remembering every group of powerless idiots rushing to their death"? Do this enough, each time having him walk out, telling his newest general to "dispose of these nobodies" while not bothering to consider that they might win? By the time the group actually faces him, again with him yawning and saying that he is getting tired of "another group of so-called heroes causing trouble" and that he "is having trouble getting good help" because his minions keep dying to every "random pack of morons that thinks they are special"; I'm pretty sure he's going to be the most hated person in that entire game.

If it works on Roy, it should work on anyone.
Except for belkar scenarios (TM), he remains calm often.

Prymetime
2013-07-21, 01:51 AM
My PC's have started a rebellion in their home country in an attempt to oust the 'evil empire.' In response, the empire has sent a Slayer--a superhuman special agent that is dispatched to 'answer problems.' The Slayer the players got stuck with is a particularly insufferable SOB. He is sociopathic and cruel. In a campaign chock full of dynamic characters that aren't morally black-and-white, he is a beacon of pure and utter evil. I love him.

After the PC's refused to surrender to the Slayer, he wasted no time making things personal. The empire has weaponry capable of leveling entire towns. He set up a bomb in one of the PC's hometowns and smuggled one into the main rebel-controlled city via one of his operatives. Then he made the PC's choose which to save. In the process, that PC's parents were killed. He proceeded to burn down the druid's home grove and slaughtered the circle of druids in front of him.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is.. make it personal, and your PC's will be calling for that villain's head on a platter.

Jay R
2013-07-21, 04:25 PM
I repeat: why bother?

If they are already hunting the BBEG down, why do you need to control their characters' emotions for them?

SowZ
2013-07-21, 08:54 PM
I sometimes do what we in the screenwriting biz call the 'Apex Beat.' A big shift in perspective/goal/enemy. So I will have a perceived big bad, they kill him at the halfway point, turns out someone else is the true big bad, (often an ally and once or twice even a PC who was in on it.) Can't do that every time, though.

So sometimes I will have the big bad do something at the halfway mark to make it personal. Kill a beloved NPC, destroy the city the game has been centered around, etc. etc. But more than that, I've learned there really is no accounting for who the players will latch onto to hate and who they will love.

The Fury
2013-07-21, 09:56 PM
I repeat: why bother?

If they are already hunting the BBEG down, why do you need to control their characters' emotions for them?

Firstly, I don't think anyone's really trying to take control of the PCs' emotions away from the players. Really I think this is more about giving the PCs a chance to be emotionally invested and a memorable bad guy seems a decent way to accomplish this. DMs can give players reasons why the villain should be stopped, sure, but it's really up to the players to decide if those are good reasons or reasons to get invested in the campaign's plot.
I mean, it's usually more exciting for everyone involved if the players are saying, "This jerk's dangerous and we're the only ones that can stop him!" as opposed to, "Yeah, sure let's get that evil wizard... Not like I'm doing anything else right now."

Mr Beer
2013-07-21, 10:47 PM
I repeat: why bother?

If they are already hunting the BBEG down, why do you need to control their characters' emotions for them?

It's much more satisfying to track down and murder someone if you really hate them.

Err...I assume...

TheIronGolem
2013-07-22, 01:27 AM
Long story ahead here.

I didn't make a BBEG that my players hated. Instead, I made an ally that they hated so much that they turned him into a BBEG. It wasn't my intent, but it was awesome nonetheless.

Backstory: Pathfinder game, took place in a world of floating islands where most serious travel is done by airship. Several friendly NPC's who sort of floated in and out of guest-star-party-member status, including a paladin. Said paladin was belonged to the "Wardens", which was more or less the Fantasy FBI and military arm of the church of Heironeus (I was kind of mixing and matching gods in this campaign).

The party had just spent several sessions on a deserted jungle island that they crash-landed on as a result of a pirate attack. After acquiring a new ship (by capturing the pirates' ship, including much of its crew and captain) and getting on their way back to their original destination, they were shortly intercepted by another airship.

The ship sent over precisely one person to the PC's: another Warden named Straad. The paladin greeted Straad happily, because hey, a friendly face, right?

Wrong. Straad proceeded to read the riot act at him, because the whole mess was clearly his fault. He then revealed that he was here with an arrest warrant for one of the PC's (whose player was absent that game), and after arresting him proceeded to interrogate every other PC, always asking loaded questions and responding to their answers with insinuations that they were nothing but criminal lowlifes (a couple of them were, but still...).

Over the course of the trip back to Big Adventure Hub City, Straad kept this up, even as they helped him fight off an attempt by the pirates to recapture the ship. Once they arrived at BAHC, the PC in question was scheduled to be put on trial, but released on bail (the player having returned). The party found evidence proving that he was framed, and it was presented at the trial.

Straad, acting as prosecutor, agreed to drop the case when confronted with the real perpetrator confessing under the influence of a zone of truth. But not before using the trial an excuse to publicly excoriate the paladin's handling of the pirate attack, the party's stranding, and the return trip. It wound up getting the paladin in the doghouse and unavailable to help the party for a time (no trivial matter to them, as they had no other healer or buffer).

So far, Straad was working out pretty much as I expected him to. I was drawing heavy inspiration from characters like Miko Miyazaki and Donald Morgan; he can be an ally or an enemy, but either way you're not going to like him. I figured I'd occasionally have him cross the party's path, sometimes on their side and sometimes not.

But then the party rogue, who really liked the paladin in spite of being a Norgorber worshipper herself, resolved to kill Straad one day.

Being new to Big Adventure Hub City, she first decided to make contact with the local Norgorber cult and ask what she could do to prove her worth. Naturally, they just so happened to think that the best thing this newcomer could do to prove herself was to kill a Warden.

So the rogue lured Straad into a meeting at an inn (by tempting him with a promise of evidence proving the paladin to be corrupt), poisoned him, and then burned down the inn around him as he lay paralyzed. To her, this was justice for the way Straad had treated the poor paladin. Needless to say, the cultists were impressed. She had killed the most feared Warden in the city, in a public and humiliating fashion.

The rogue tried to lay low for a few days, but ended up getting found out by the same paladin (now off of "suspension") as a Norgorber worshiper (the worship of evil gods was illegal in BAHC). He was able to convince her to turn on the cult and help him break it up. The plan was that the rogue would return to the cult, who was preparing a special ceremony to formally elevate her status as a reward for her accomplishment. Once it was underway, she'd know that all the cult members were present, and she would signal the paladin (joined by the rest of the PC's) to raid the place and capture/kill the cultists.

The plan went off pretty much as expected, with one wrinkle. When the ceremony started and the rogue was being "honored", Straad appeared, bearing some creepy shadow powers and a brand new wight template. It turned out that the cult had stolen Straad's body with the intent of binding him into service as an undead, as a further insult to the Wardens. However, Straad had been so enraged by his murder, and felt so abandoned by his own god for allowing it to happen, that he agreed to willingly serve Norgorber as an undead champion. His only price: being allowed to kill the rogue who had murdered him. Even as impressed as they had been with the rogue, the cult was glad to make that trade.

So Straad started life-draining the rogue, the party came to the rescue, and this time everyone got to have a piece of that bastard Straad. The players loved every second of it.

And that, boys and girls, is the lesson I learned from Straad. If you want to make an NPC your players love to hate (BBEG or otherwise), play him up as the most judgmental, dismissive, condescending SOB they've ever met, and make sure it's in a situation where the PC's have to grin and bear it for a good long while. Then, when they can't stand him anymore, let them off the chain.

Tengu_temp
2013-07-22, 02:19 AM
I repeat: why bother?

If they are already hunting the BBEG down, why do you need to control their characters' emotions for them?

Because a game is much more enjoyable when the players, not just their characters, are emotionally invested in what's going on? Few things are more satisfying in an RPG then finally taking down the bad guy you really hate.

And it's no more "controlling the characters' emotions" than any kind of story trying to get an emotional response from the audience/reader.

Felhammer
2013-07-22, 04:07 AM
Have the BBEG call upon dark forces to plague the PC's with terrible nightmares.

Have the BBEG cut some minor body part off of a PC (like a finger, a toe, an eye, an ear, etc.). Better yet, have the BBEG do that to one of the NPCs the PC like and frequently visit.

Have the BBEG disguise his thugs to look like the PCs and then set them loose to terrorize the countryside.

Have the BBEG beguile peasants/beggars/children to throw rotten fruit and rocks at the PCs when they enter town.

Have the BBEG magically influence the Guard Captain that the PC's are a possible threat, which forces the good Captain to assign some of his men to the PCs as escorts.

Have the BBEG call upon dark forces to plague important people in the lands in which the PCs are traveling with terrible nightmares about the PCs.