Actually playing the Bad Guy

[Nibbens]

A bit of background before my question:

I've been running a high level game for a couple years now intermittently. Recently my PCs came across the big boss reveal, and the baseline info about her is that she's the boogyman that dragons tell their hatchlings about. Any contact with her has been chilling for the PCs (The PCs contacted her through sending, which she promptly ignored their question and instead called one PC by his name ((she learned it while scrying on them when they came into one of her many lairs - my PCs know that a name is enough for Vision spells to reveal quite a lot of info over enough castings. etc etc)) And the only rumors they have about her is that she doesn't target the people who oppose her, but rather their families/friends/allies to get her opponents to stop (hit them where it hurts the most type of thing).

Here's the thing. As a DM, I know my PCs will win in the end. (I mean, a near endless supply of wealth and a single APL encounter gives them enough gold to cast true resurrection - pretty much makes death a speed bump in d&d). But I've been running the villain in a peculiar way.

You see, our games aren't really all that scripted. Sure, I have a story to tell, and they have their roles to play, but what happens game to game determines what my NPCs experience and therefore can change the entire flow of things over the course of a couple games. That being said - I'm playing the bad guy.

I know, I know - a DM does this all the time. But, the boss is actually me. Not necessarily my big baddy character, but me. This is what I would do if I were the boogyman that dragons tell their hatchlings about and I had gobs of nigh infinite resources. As it turns out, she's cruel, rutheless, always 10 steps ahead of the PCs (due to perfectly legitimate divination/scrying cheese), they fall into her traps perfectly, the PCs are constantly paranoid of her, and (as I said) I have no problems with adding a little cheese on this big bowl of chili I've made either to make sure she is just so.

She's making their lives miserable... and they are loving it. (Let me be clear here. They are enjoying the heck outta this situation they are in - even if they don't know that the bad guy is me)

I've been using them against themselves. All their allies and friends and families (and the city they protect) are targets, and she has no compulsion about teleporting hordes of undead into the city they control just to distract them from her objectives. (Because now she knows were they are located - things will start to get bad) Assassination attempts on their friends and allies (not without the appropriate threat/warning first - I mean, I'm cruel, but not unfair) are starting and will not stop.

So, my question is - has anyone else done this and/or have any experience with this sort of thing? Any words of wisdom or pitfalls to potentially avoid? You see, I'm used to bad guys with their own personalities and motivations - but this is different, obviously. I'm in new territory (and giving my PCs the ride of their lives) but it's unfamiliar terrain and I'm just wondering if there's any advice out there that I may need.

Also, for good measure, since we are talking about me being as evil as I can possibly be while still seeming to be fair to my PCs (even if they are only vaguely aware that I'm actually being fair - balancing on that thin line between oppressively cruel yet actually possible.):

RED FELL...

RED FELL...

Red Fell.

May the D&Deities have mercy on us all...

[Ortesk]

I am currently running a campaign where I really wanted them to hate the BBEG. See, there past DM's made the bosses look more like generic, plot device people. They never made them really pop out, you know?

So this boss, he is the rumple stillskin. He is the devil at the crossroads, and he is that guy who likes to pull cons and make deals. He is also ruthless, vindictive, and has a massive ego mixed with a deep down inferiority complex.

They got in the way of his plans, so he played with them. They didn't mess anything major up, so he dressed up this old man to send them on a quest. They got items in return. The issue was, at night the items would become sentient "transformer" like things. which burned down the parties house with them in it, and also ate the Tibbits finger (was random, but she will get it back with regen spell)

So now they don't like him. Just don't like him, but don't hate him. So they decide on revenge. They decide they will take his Lieutenant of the last 6 eons away. He loves his LT like a brother, an enslaved Mind Raped brother. Well BBEG is very angry about that. So the party come to their new house, and find 1) the fighters mother, 2) the rangers animal companion, 3) the tibbits mentor, and 4) an orphan the healer saved, all hung from there intestines and on the wall is "you took what I love, i take what you love" written on the wall in blood. Now, they hate this guy. So he still isn't done, and creates Simulcrums of them and has the Sims go all murder hobo on a village, leaving a few survivors left to tell who did it.

My point is, make the villain human and make them monsters. Show someone this BBEG loves, something she cares for. Something innocent (maybe she has a young child) and allow the players to use that on her. Push them, see how dark they will go. Let them become the monster they hate.

Also, don't just target them with a little scry and traps. Target their wives, husbands, children, mothers. Target their wealth, gear, freedom. Take everything from them, and make them helpless to stop it. Have her cast some irresistable mass hold person, after a Dysjunction, then they can do nothing as she slits their favorite NPC's throat. Making them feel helpless, in dnd, is a quick way to make the Player hate the enemy

[Falcon X]

I recently had a game where I succeeded at having the players truly hate the BBEG.

BBEG was originally a PC that the player eventually handed over to the GM. The character betrayed them, then continued to manipulate them, then betrayed them again. Having the character actually be one of the players let them get to know his full deceptive and underhanded nature. About the time he had them all enslaved (Into to Out of the Abyss), they didn't even care about escaping the underdark. They just wanted the BBEG's hide.

[ATHATH]

You spelled Red Fel wrong. I'm pretty sure that Red Fel won't like that. Please fix it; Red Fel is not someone who you want to be angry at you.

[Dromuthra]

I'd make liberal use of the Love's Pain spell from the Book of Vile Darkness. Force them to walk through rooms and rooms of traps of the spell, eventually one of them will realize what's happening (no obvious ill effect to the character, but they should be crushing the Spellcraft DCs to identify the spell) and realize that with every step forward they take they are actively killing their loved ones.

Also/alternatively, you could have her send traps of Mind Rape (or Programmed Amnesia if you don't want to go quite that far) to cause the ones they care about to either entirely forget the PCs or change their alignment and turn them evil.

For more fun, remember that a dominated target can be ordered to fail their saves, and with rotating weekly castings (perhaps administered through a self-resetting trap?) you could have their loved ones constantly dominated to do your bidding.\

You might consider looking up the sacrifice rules in the BoVD - you could either sacrifice their loved ones for power, or force their loved ones to sacrifice themselves through one of the aforementioned methods. Heck, you can even get a Wish out of a sacrifice, so you could have them use to Wish to REALLY mess things up further.

If you want to go nuclear, wight-pocalypse or releasing a few Greater Shadows into the hometown of one of the heroes could kill an entire population fairly quickly and leave a nasty mess for your party to deal with.

EDIT: Furthermore, with high level magic, it shouldn't be too hard to trigger a war between two good kingdoms that the PCs like - a simulacrum here, a well-timed assassination there, some general nasty rumor-mongering to really rile the public up, and soon enough you have a truly bloodthirsty contest on your hands. Bonus points if you can make it a war between races, as those psychologically are easier for sentient beings to justify (on average; it's easier to kill and slaughter those who are as different from you as possible) or if the war involved succession. High level Druid spells are also pretty darn good for wiping out mass numbers of people, such as Epidemic and Pestilence.

[Red Fel]

RED FELL...

RED FELL...

Red Fell.

May the D&Deities have mercy on us all...

They will not.


You spelled Red Fel wrong. I'm pretty sure that Red Fel won't like that. Please fix it; Red Fel is not someone who you want to be angry at you.

This is so. And I am among you now.


A bit of background before my question:

I've been running a high level game for a couple years now intermittently. Recently my PCs came across the big boss reveal, and the baseline info about her is that she's the boogyman that dragons tell their hatchlings about. Any contact with her has been chilling for the PCs (The PCs contacted her through sending, which she promptly ignored their question and instead called one PC by his name ((she learned it while scrying on them when they came into one of her many lairs - my PCs know that a name is enough for Vision spells to reveal quite a lot of info over enough castings. etc etc)) And the only rumors they have about her is that she doesn't target the people who oppose her, but rather their families/friends/allies to get her opponents to stop (hit them where it hurts the most type of thing).

I love it so far.


Here's the thing. As a DM, I know my PCs will win in the end. (I mean, a near endless supply of wealth and a single APL encounter gives them enough gold to cast true resurrection - pretty much makes death a speed bump in d&d). But I've been running the villain in a peculiar way.

You see, our games aren't really all that scripted. Sure, I have a story to tell, and they have their roles to play, but what happens game to game determines what my NPCs experience and therefore can change the entire flow of things over the course of a couple games. That being said - I'm playing the bad guy.

Obviously.


I know, I know - a DM does this all the time. But, the boss is actually me. Not necessarily my big baddy character, but me. This is what I would do if I were the boogyman that dragons tell their hatchlings about and I had gobs of nigh infinite resources. As it turns out, she's cruel, rutheless, always 10 steps ahead of the PCs (due to perfectly legitimate divination/scrying cheese), they fall into her traps perfectly, the PCs are constantly paranoid of her, and (as I said) I have no problems with adding a little cheese on this big bowl of chili I've made either to make sure she is just so.

In other words, you're trying to make her as rational and effective as you can, as DM with NI resources. I see no problem.


She's making their lives miserable... and they are loving it. (Let me be clear here. They are enjoying the heck outta this situation they are in - even if they don't know that the bad guy is me)

You need to stop talking about this distinction as though it means something.


I've been using them against themselves. All their allies and friends and families (and the city they protect) are targets, and she has no compulsion about teleporting hordes of undead into the city they control just to distract them from her objectives. (Because now she knows were they are located - things will start to get bad) Assassination attempts on their friends and allies (not without the appropriate threat/warning first - I mean, I'm cruel, but not unfair) are starting and will not stop.

Again, loving this.


So, my question is - has anyone else done this and/or have any experience with this sort of thing? Any words of wisdom or pitfalls to potentially avoid? You see, I'm used to bad guys with their own personalities and motivations - but this is different, obviously. I'm in new territory (and giving my PCs the ride of their lives) but it's unfamiliar terrain and I'm just wondering if there's any advice out there that I may need.

Also, for good measure, since we are talking about me being as evil as I can possibly be while still seeming to be fair to my PCs (even if they are only vaguely aware that I'm actually being fair - balancing on that thin line between oppressively cruel yet actually possible.):

Simply put, the rule is this: You, as DM, have NI resources. Any given NPC does not. No matter how powerful, the NPCs are operating within the rules. The PCs are (hopefully) trying to learn her rules, in order to exploit them or use them against her. The one thing you cannot and must not do is to exceed the bounds of her rules - if the PCs figure out a way to use her "perfectly legitimate divination cheese" against her, give them the opportunity to succeed. Don't let her suddenly develop a new trick to offset the PCs' skill.

Or, to put it more simply: You've given her a mechanical ability, within the rules, that gives her an advantage. As long as you continue to operate within the rules, things should be fine. When you start fudging to keep her ahead, things have left "fine" and have become "punitive," particularly when dealing with a villain this despotic.

Second point, keep a finger on the pulse of the players. They're loving this. That means you're doing something right. That's pretty much a full stop, right there - if the players are genuinely happy with your game, you're giving them a great game and don't have to worry. But keep attention paid; if their enthusiasm starts to flag - for example, because the story remains exactly the same, futile and dark, without end - then you need to figure out a new trick to keep them engaged.

Here's where a knowledge of storytelling comes in. In a horror or suspense story, you need moments of rest, safety, or humor. Why? To release the pressure. If the pressure continues to build, eventually it becomes meaningless; the reader becomes inured to the tension. So you offer moments of hope - a new weapon, a strong ally, a joke or a laugh. A moment of light amidst the darkness. Pulling something like that allows you a break from the sense of fear and futility, and raises the PCs' spirits.

You know, until you dash them again by setting something or someone on fire.