BBEG Motivation help

[Morax]

So as things worked out, suddenly now i´m a DM.

So far i played 2 Sessions, my players (most of them are new to the hobby) traveled to a small remote Village
to serve under a Noble. They have to investigate Bandit Activities in the near forest
which has strange magical properties).

The Problem is, i need a good Motivation for the Bandits. So far they attacked two villages and targeted the Churches there. They also stole Food and some People are missing after the attacks.

So i thought about making the BBEG an Ogre Sorcerer, who wants to obtain power, since my Orgres are like the Irda in Dragonlance.
(They were once people of tremendous magical power, but their society was destroyed thousands of years ago and the whole race was transformed to brute monsters because of the acts they commited).

Now The Ogre wants to set up a powerbase. The magical forest itself isn´t suited for this, but inside the forest are old ruins.

Now i have 3 Ideas and i need suggestions which one to choose.

1) The old ruins are part of an ancient flying Citiy of the Ogres and the BBEG wants to let it rise again. He targeted the churches, because they had something he needed for his ritual to let the city fly again (pretty standard stuff.)

2) The old ruins contain a portal to an abandoned dwarfen Hold. The BBEG learned about this on his travels / from his ancestors, because the dumb ogres fought the Dwarves some 100 years ago. Now he wants to forge a Kingdom in the mountains.

For either of those 2 Plans, he needs Food, Manpower etc so there would be a good motivation why he should amass Bandits and other evil guys. Also the Churches were his targets because of the ancient lore / magical items stored there. Also a young priest joined the BBEG and betrayed his church. (This would be his Underling, a minor boss so to speak and a nice sidequest for my players.)

The last one would be more a political reason. The Orge Mage simply wants power, so he works together with the Hobgoblin Army to find a way to smuggle an Army in Human Lands. ( Via the Portal in the Ruins).

Which one would be the best option in your eyes ?
Sorry for the bad english, im in a hurry right now and i really need help
because the next session is on thursday and i want to set things in motion.

[EggKookoo]

I wouldn't sweat which idea is the best. The question is, which idea are you most comfortable with playing out?

All three approaches can make a good motivation. Does one of them intrigue you more than the other two? Your enthusiasm for it will translate into it being a better adventure for your players.

[da newt]

I find it helps if you don't think of the BBEG as EVIL - just as someone who wants to achieve something and is willing to do whatever needs to be done to make it happen.

Oni are great foes - good start.

Now it's just a matter of figuring out his quest, and then how he would go about achieving it - perhaps it's as simple as his people used to rule this region, but then the humans moved into the area (bringing their Gods and religion), fought with the Ogres, defeated them, took their land, etc. The Oni is waging a war to take back his ancestor's lands from the human invaders. The churches have been targeted because they took the ogre's holy relics, and the church was the one leading the call to wipe out his race (and reduce the survivors to crude beasts - if that is part of your lore, "They were once people of tremendous magical power, but their society was destroyed thousands of years ago and the whole race was transformed to brute monsters because of the acts they committed" - from the Ogre's point of view this last bit is BS - they were transformed into brutes because they lost to the greedy humans who turned them into stupid brutes so the humans could dominate them).

I'd keep the notion of ruins in the forest, but they ought to be ruins of the old ogre nation. I'd shape the BBEG as someone who truly believes he is doing what is right. His first steps of this quest are to recover the important things (McGuffin) of his people and start building an army / force / stronghold. I find it makes motivation much more logical, believable, and realistic. Your BBEG thinks he's the hero - just like your PC's do ...

[noob]

I find it helps if you don't think of the BBEG as EVIL - just as someone who wants to achieve something and is willing to do whatever needs to be done to make it happen.

Oni are great foes - good start.

Now it's just a matter of figuring out his quest, and then how he would go about achieving it - perhaps it's as simple as his people used to rule this region, but then the humans moved into the area (bringing their Gods and religion), fought with the Ogres, defeated them, took their land, etc. The Oni is waging a war to take back his ancestor's lands from the human invaders. The churches have been targeted because they took the ogre's holy relics, and the church was the one leading the call to wipe out his race (and reduce the survivors to crude beasts - if that is part of your lore, "They were once people of tremendous magical power, but their society was destroyed thousands of years ago and the whole race was transformed to brute monsters because of the acts they committed" - from the Ogre's point of view this last bit is BS - they were transformed into brutes because they lost to the greedy humans who turned them into stupid brutes so the humans could dominate them).

I'd keep the notion of ruins in the forest, but they ought to be ruins of the old ogre nation. I'd shape the BBEG as someone who truly believes he is doing what is right. His first steps of this quest are to recover the important things (McGuffin) of his people and start building an army / force / stronghold. I find it makes motivation much more logical, believable, and realistic. Your BBEG thinks he's the hero - just like your PC's do ...

Then one session later the players assuming the bbeg is right sets on fire random human towns to help.

[Morax]

I find it helps if you don't think of the BBEG as EVIL - just as someone who wants to achieve something and is willing to do whatever needs to be done to make it happen.

Oni are great foes - good start.

Now it's just a matter of figuring out his quest, and then how he would go about achieving it - perhaps it's as simple as his people used to rule this region, but then the humans moved into the area (bringing their Gods and religion), fought with the Ogres, defeated them, took their land, etc. The Oni is waging a war to take back his ancestor's lands from the human invaders. The churches have been targeted because they took the ogre's holy relics, and the church was the one leading the call to wipe out his race (and reduce the survivors to crude beasts - if that is part of your lore, "They were once people of tremendous magical power, but their society was destroyed thousands of years ago and the whole race was transformed to brute monsters because of the acts they committed" - from the Ogre's point of view this last bit is BS - they were transformed into brutes because they lost to the greedy humans who turned them into stupid brutes so the humans could dominate them).

I'd keep the notion of ruins in the forest, but they ought to be ruins of the old ogre nation. I'd shape the BBEG as someone who truly believes he is doing what is right. His first steps of this quest are to recover the important things (McGuffin) of his people and start building an army / force / stronghold. I find it makes motivation much more logical, believable, and realistic. Your BBEG thinks he's the hero - just like your PC's do ...

Wow, thank you very much, i never thought about something like that, but it would make perfect sense !
I planned the Ogres of the old Age to fight against the Gods of the other Races so this would fit with my world !
Yeah so i want to create an Antagonist who´s believable, i surely will let him do evil acts like sacrifice forest animals and villagers only for the players to hate him but his goals should be understandable at least.

[noob]

Wow, thank you very much, i never thought about something like that, but it would make perfect sense !
I planned the Ogres of the old Age to fight against the Gods of the other Races so this would fit with my world !
Yeah so i want to create an Antagonist who´s believable, i surely will let him do evil acts like sacrifice forest animals and villagers only for the players to hate him but his goals should be understandable at least.

I think some forest animals in dnd actually should be killed if you want to preserve animal diversity.
I think "cute woodland critters" being a more focused category would work better but I have not seen any dnd sacrifice rules that takes in account cuteness or weakness: in general higher hd creatures works better and commonly higher hd creatures are more dangerous.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I like to really mindwarp my players with my BBEGs. I don't know if your newish players can handle this:

Your Oni has a portal to another place where they are a savior, a village on an island perhaps.

The island was struck by calamity. The food was brought to feed the island village so they don't starve, the items were either wanted or needed by the villagers for reasons, the people abducted for their skills (or maybe to breed with the islanders?!?! eeew-ick). So why didn't the oni ask nicely and say please instead of stealing? Language and limited time.

In short, they are Santa Claus in one place, the grinch in another. The payoff occurs after they've slain the oni and go thru the portal and are asked, "Who are you guys? Where's Baba Plenti?"

I find the best BBEGs think they are the good guys, or at least have the right (not purely selfish) motivations.