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View Full Version : Does your campaign have a BBEG?



Comet
2016-01-20, 02:27 PM
The Big Bad Evil Guy. The antagonist waiting at the end of the campaign. The guy who is supposed to be scary for 95% of the campaign but very much defeatable for the final 5% when the time comes.

Does your campaign follow this structure? Do you make sure to build up a single character that drives the entire arc of multiple sessions of gaming? Do you carefully balance this character's appearances so that the players respect or fear him/her but aren't entirely powerless when the time comes for the final battle? For that matter, does the storyline of your campaign depend on a single, final confrontation that the campaign itself has been made to build up to? Do you have a storyline in mind at all when designing a campaign?

Oh, and what game are you playing?

This concept seems to come up in several threads so I thought I'd throw up a bit of a questionnaire to see how that translates into actual play :smallbiggrin:

hymer
2016-01-20, 02:39 PM
Not for entire campaigns, no. In my current D&D 3.5 campaign, there are various bad entities, but as it is a sandbox campaign, there's not one that's the BBEG. And quite a few may have only a peripheral role in the campaign, depending on what the PCs do.
Also, I'm not above having it turn out later that the recently defeated BBEG was only the Dragon (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon) or some pawn to an even worse BBEG - and the new BBEG was probably not detailed when the PCs first began tangling with the recently defeated BBEG.

DigoDragon
2016-01-20, 02:46 PM
I'm running a D&D 5e campaign with a Big Bad Evil Group~ the Brotherhood of the Black Stallion. They're assassins who are currently making folks disappear for some deep plot purpose. The PCs are slowly figuring out what the purpose is, but once you're on their radar, your life starts getting interesting. :smallbiggrin:

ElFi
2016-01-20, 02:49 PM
My current campaign (Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition) definitely has a BBEG, but it's up for debate (even for me) as to who it actually is. The campaign has a lot of planned bait-and-switching as to who the primary antagonist of the moment is, which should create plenty of hell and Sherlock Holmes-style brainstorming for my players. It is set up as a heist mystery. The three biggest candidates for the BBEG in the story itself (which I'll refer to as X, Y, and Z for convenience) are:

X, a superpowered thief who kicks off the plot by robbing a laboratory previously thought to possess an unbeatable security system. Her goals are actually noble (never trust the first suspect) but she's willing to do some pretty dark things to reach those goals, and will definitely be presented as the primary antagonist for my PC's for the majority of the campaign.

Y, owner of Exalt Security (an in-universe security company that specializes in anti-superhuman tech and personnel) who's also a deep-seated racist against superheroes, and wants to get the world to share his views by showing them just how dangerous superpowers can be. Which leads to...

Z, an unpowered reporter who is, unbeknownst to him, destined to become the most powerful superhero on the planet courtesy of a forced empowerment event planned by Y. In terms of overall threat he ranks the highest but, in terms of overall narrative importance, the lowest.

I'm leaning toward considering Y the BBEG overall, but eh. I dunno.

Talion
2016-01-20, 03:01 PM
At the moment I'm not running any campaigns but:

In a Guild Wars campaign we're playing, our immediate opposition is comprised of the Sunspears, the Vabbi Princes, and a splinter faction of our old guild. At the moment however I wouldn't say there is a BBEG...unless we survive and play through the next 50-60 years and have to deal with Palawa Joko. In the meantime....global conquest, here we come! (I suppose that makes ME, the party leader, the BBEG but...details).

Then in Star Wars...we're looking into getting some Force training, since a surprising number of party members are Force capable, from the first person who offered (a dark sider) but we're mostly a motley crew of smugglers, mercenaries, and legitimate business people. There isn't a distinguished BBEG in this one either, though there's a sub-plot that may implicate some Nemodians in some shady business.

Finally, there's a one super generic fantasy game we're also playing in, which is pitting us, a party of witches and heretics, against the growing influence of what is basically the Spanish Inquisition. In a couple months we'll be up against a similar faction, but for difficult political reasons (IE a new campaign). We don't have names or faces yet, but I imagine there's a BBEG or two in the mix for both of these.

NRSASD
2016-01-20, 03:33 PM
Mine does currently. It's sandboxy in nature though, so once the PCs defeat him the game continues. Although he's a villain for many other reasons, he also has the last piece of an artifact the PCs need to find a lost city, so I expect that's where they'll be heading afterwards.

nedz
2016-01-20, 06:52 PM
Current games
3.5 Forest game - no
3.5 Island game - minor BBEG, but the game is low level and I'm not the only DM

Previous Games
3.5 Dwarf Game - no, but the alternate DM did use a succession of Gnome BBEGs
AD&D2 Tesphesus game - no
AD&D1 Conspiracy game - no, but then it wouldn't
AD&D1 Emphor game - yes, but only at the end (epic stage). Before that no.

I tend to run sandboxes with conflicting organisations.

One trouble with BBEGs is that they can die unexpectedly and prematurely, especially in the presence of PCs. Organisations are only weakened when this happens.

BBEGs also get old, so I like my villains to die at some point.

There are other advantages.

Knaight
2016-01-20, 06:52 PM
I'm deliberately running something extremely traditional (by my standards), to get a new group better acquainted with a range of RPGs. This translates into a "kind of". There's a single organization responsible for the bulk of the hostilities towards the PCs, and they also have a great deal of control in general and cause a number of problems. I can think of one other campaign out of the last dozen or so that also manage to reach a "kind of". The rest don't have anything even vaguely approaching a BBEG.

As for the games in question, most are Fudge. That's a generic system though, so it doesn't say much. The two that come close involve a fantasy game, and a science fiction one, the antagonists in one are a cabal of Atlanteans with drastically better technology than the locals who are hounding the PCs (also Atlantean) because they think that exploration mission might be a threat to them; the antagonists in the other are a big company by the name of Galactic Fruit, who are involved in the blatant exploitation of a backwater jungle planet that is the home of the PCs. Most of the rest are either more episodic, political intrigue with lots of sides, or other things poorly suited to the BBEG structure.

Quertus
2016-01-20, 08:37 PM
Rarely. The last big BBEG I used, in 3.x, I introduced him to the party by having him hiring spellcasters to cast their most potent spell, at a point some months in the future, at something like 100x the going rate. Later, he checked up on the party, to make sure they were still alive, could still cast, etc. Shock and surprise, they helped him cast an evil epic spell. Did he become the campaign villain I intended? No. Eventually, the party decided to side with the BBEG.

Mastikator
2016-01-20, 08:51 PM
Never done a campaign with a BBEG, though I've never done a "world ending" style campaign.

If I want villains I'll just add NPCs that have goals that are incompatible with the PCs goals. If the PCs don't have goals then I'll make it incompatible with their way of life/lives.

Sam113097
2016-01-20, 10:20 PM
Creating a Big Bad is hard.
For me, at least, it is hard for me to create a villain that is effectively convincing. All my attempts to create enemy leaders who seek world domination/destruction just come off as clichéd.
Instead, I like multiple major enemies with a variety of viewpoints. If their goals oppose the PCs, it doesn't matter what their alignment is.

For example, in one setting I am building, I have a paladin who has been convinced that one of the world's "high gods" is dead, and that he needs to unite the world to prevent the apocalypse. He's conquering the world in order to protect it. He's thinks that he's killing thousands to save millions, but many do not believe that a god can die, and the natives of the lands he has conquered hate him.
His alignment: lawful good

Hunter Noventa
2016-01-21, 09:40 AM
Our current campaign that is about to go on hiatus does not, because we've been playing a party of consulting detectives in a city similar to, but definitely NOT Sigil.

The next campaign has more of a Big Bad Evil Force, whether or not there's a single entity behind it remains to be seen.

Malimar
2016-01-21, 11:57 AM
The first campaign I ran had a BBEG, a high-level mind flayer. The PCs failed that campaign, so he became a god, and is no longer involved in petty mortal affairs like BBEGery.

The second campaign had a more minor BBEG, a lilitu whom the party met in their first session, disguised as a harmless half-elf.

My current sandbox megadungeon has a variety of organizations, BBE or otherwise, that the parties can choose to attack or irritate.


I'm running a D&D 5e campaign with a Big Bad Evil Group~ the Brotherhood of the Black Stallion. They're assassins who are currently making folks disappear for some deep plot purpose. The PCs are slowly figuring out what the purpose is, but once you're on their radar, your life starts getting interesting. :smallbiggrin:

Bad Horse, Bad Horse, Bad Horse, he's bad...

MintyNinja
2016-01-21, 02:31 PM
I'm running Out of the Abyss and although it has it's own plot and characters, one of my players and I have secretly agreed on the development path of his character. Should he survive all 15 levels and succeed in becoming separated after the climax, then he'll likely be a BBEG for a future campaign or we'll play a 1 on 1 to determine his path to Ascension.

obryn
2016-01-21, 05:03 PM
I am running ENWorld's Zeitgeist adventure path for my 4e group, and the primary antagonist (and his organization) are probably some of the best bad guys I've ever seen. Their leadership certainly qualifies as a "big bad" though he's a pretty nuanced one.


So the organization is the Obscurati, who have both the means and the resources to change the world to align with their beliefs. (What beliefs? Well, there's a whole adventure out of that.) Their leader, Nicodemus, is charismatic and intelligent. What's more, he encounters the PCs several times because he's a disembodied spirit who occupies bodies temporarily, making him especially tricky to pin down. (He also has a heck of a backstory, and the PCs will have heard all about him since the very beginning, but probably not realized it.) He's a true believer and absolutely thinks he's doing the right thing for the world.

What's especially neat about it all is that their motivations are all understandable, and that the players might even decide they have the right idea. Most of the Obscurati they've encountered have been fair-minded intellectuals, including Nicodemus. Mind you, there's been plenty of asses, too, and that's driven the antagonistic relationship.

The adventure path is flexible enough, fortunately, that if the players ally with the Obscurati, the rest of the adventures still work just fine.

Kane0
2016-01-21, 07:22 PM
The Big Bad Evil Guy. The antagonist waiting at the end of the campaign. The guy who is supposed to be scary for 95% of the campaign but very much defeatable for the final 5% when the time comes.

Does your campaign follow this structure? Do you make sure to build up a single character that drives the entire arc of multiple sessions of gaming? Do you carefully balance this character's appearances so that the players respect or fear him/her but aren't entirely powerless when the time comes for the final battle? For that matter, does the storyline of your campaign depend on a single, final confrontation that the campaign itself has been made to build up to? Do you have a storyline in mind at all when designing a campaign?

Oh, and what game are you playing?

This concept seems to come up in several threads so I thought I'd throw up a bit of a questionnaire to see how that translates into actual play :smallbiggrin:

4 actually. Theres the main one and his three spawn/sons. Each chapter of the campaign climaxes with a fight against one or another, and they are all much the same with interweaving methods and interactions. Neatly sidesteps the recurring villain trope, gives me breathing space to up the ante if they demolish one or two and also gives my players a convenient chance to opt out and postpone the campaign after every arc if we want to play something else.
D&D 5e, currently starting up part II at level 7.

Telonius
2016-01-22, 10:32 AM
In the current campaign, they're going up against the biggest baddest evil guy of them all - yep, they've been set up to fight Asmodeus.

... of course, the reason they're still alive is because it's been in his interests to give a strong group of adversaries for the other archdevils. He's intending to install his daughter Glasya as Lord of Baator (dependent on him for continued power, of course) and take up residence on the Material Plane as the resident deity, Amon-Asmodeus.

Tren
2016-01-22, 04:17 PM
I'll second (err, fourth? fifth?) the idea that a more nebulous organization or at least a group of several villains is a much more manageable sort of antagonist than one prominent recurring villain. The PCs might get tired of the dastardly villain always getting away, or worse, they might actually kill him one time when you had 5 more sessions planned out before the climactic showdown. If instead of a Lone Wolf he was actually a member of Hydra, you can have someone else step up to fill in his place and the PCs wont bat an eye. A group of villains also gives you the option to swap antagonists from session to session, so you can have memorable villains with some history with the PCs without getting too dull.

Squibsallotl
2016-01-24, 08:12 PM
My BBEG was a PC. Of course, the other PCs didn't know that till the last session, when he betrayed them.

Kid Jake
2016-01-24, 09:51 PM
In my Pathfinder game we've set up the Duke as a corrupt and remorseless despot that holds his realm together through force of will and arms while sequestering himself within his fortress away from the resentful glare of his people. A powerful magic user that usurped his power decades ago and has been abusing it ever since. If we ever continue though, they'll figure out that really...

The Duke hasn't been seen in years. He was a cleric of the God of Roads that helped a rebellion against a tyrannical dictator and once things settled he packed his bindle and took off again. All of the maliciousness, callousness and scheming associated with him is actually just incompetence on behalf of the people he left to run things while he was gone and them being too embarrassment by their own failings and the fact that the man they all swore fealty to spends his nights drunk in a ditch reeking of piss to admit that they need help.

Of course since the PCs are evil buggers anyway, I doubt that'll matter much.

VoxRationis
2016-01-25, 01:16 AM
The most recent one I've run... Yes, it has a main villain the players have been set against from the beginning (a brutal warlord, somewhat less petty than the others around but still not tremendous in the grand scheme of things). But the villain is only one enemy (of many) the players will have to subdue in order to achieve their goal—and some are as sympathetic as the heroes, being just and wise rulers of their own small domains. There's a ruler in one city who has become hegemon of a wider area by virtue of using his soldiers to build roads and infrastructure for his allies, a man whose thoughts are of giving his subjects a just and decent life, and yet he will come into conflict with the PCs, because not only is he an independent monarch in a land they wish to unify, but his culture is opposed to that which the PCs are attempting to promote.
A major theme in the campaign is "Us v. Them," where morality is irrelevant next to group identity.

DigoDragon
2016-01-25, 08:22 AM
Bad Horse, Bad Horse, Bad Horse, he's bad...

Oh great, now that song is gonna be stuck in my head all morning. :smalltongue:

Mr.Moron
2016-01-25, 08:40 AM
My current one does not. There's certainly a big bad dude they're out defeat now but he's only been present in the campaign for maybe the last 10% or so of it, a relatively recent development. If you wanted to stretch it to fit your definition he's a canon character from the setting outside the context of my specific campaign so he's certainly been around 100% of it, just not on screen or in any way relevant to what the PCs were doing.

BWR
2016-01-26, 12:06 AM
I've run a mix of old BECMI adventures/modules and homemade adventures for my Mystara campaign so anything resembling a proper BBEG has been absent. There have been powerful enemies that have lasted a while, there have been characters introduced early that the PCs have eventually fought, but nothing like a single villain that has been the root cause of most/all of the adventures.


For example, in one setting I am building, I have a paladin who has been convinced that one of the world's "high gods" is dead, and that he needs to unite the world to prevent the apocalypse. He's conquering the world in order to protect it. He's thinks that he's killing thousands to save millions, but many do not believe that a god can die, and the natives of the lands he has conquered hate him.
His alignment: lawful good

Interesting. such a character would not be LG in my group. Possibly more like LN or even LE. "The road to hell...", and all that.

RoyVG
2016-01-26, 05:44 AM
In an undead-heavy campaign I'm in, we only have a story involving some super strong Necromancer that dissappeared a couple of years ago with no apparent reason, along with most of his followers. The effects of his magic are still found throughout the land, such as undead wandering ancient crypts and curses that have entire towns in their grasp. We have cleansed several of these places and last session we finally lifted a terrible curse on a town that turned every citizen (and eventually the party as well!) into ghosts at night. But having learned this fabled necromancer may have been behind this and this curse starting only quite recently as well, he may have returned to finish his job...

So yeah, if this guy won't be the BBEG, I'll be terribly dissappointed. :smallbiggrin:

Sam113097
2016-01-26, 09:28 PM
I've run a mix of old BECMI adventures/modules and homemade adventures for my Mystara campaign so anything resembling a proper BBEG has been absent. There have been powerful enemies that have lasted a while, there have been characters introduced early that the PCs have eventually fought, but nothing like a single villain that has been the root cause of most/all of the adventures.



Interesting. such a character would not be LG in my group. Possibly more like LN or even LE. "The road to hell...", and all that.

The idea is that the Paladin is obeying their god, and protecting the world from utter destruction. The people of the mortal world disagree with him, but he's not evil. The gods of my setting are more wrathful, "Old Testament" style, so that's part of it. They don't view individual people as that important, but they don't want the world to be destroyed.