How to make a chessmaster bbeg easier to spot?

[Togath]

In one of the campaigns I'm running, one of the current villains is intended to be a chessmaster style one, he has strong psychic powers and is able to read minds, and is a member of an evil organization that kidnapped and brainwashed one of the player character's when she was a child.
The main problem is that even though he is purposely trying to hint that he can read minds and such, the pc(the one kidnapped and brainwashed by his organization) still hasn't noticed.
I'd thought having him refer to her by her name(when she hadn't introduced herself) and another of the pc by his last name(he was using a pseudonym) would be a decent clue.....but neither one has had a response to it yet, heck I half expected his appearance to cause the pcs to find him suspicious(he’s 9 feet tall, and almost inhumanly skinny).
edit: if it helps any wih ideas, the setting is a school setting, inspired by the manga rosario + vampire.

[Asheram]

I think the best thing is just make him affably evil.

If The Chessmaster has done his job correctly it can't be traced back to him. He sets in motion a myriad of small innocuous events which later will topple goverments, playing the wating game in order to not rouse suspicion.

Ofcourse there is the inept chessmaster which it seems you are trying to make.

[4th number]

I think the best thing is just make him affably evil.

If The Chessmaster has done his job correctly it can't be traced back to him. He sets in motion a myriad of small innocuous events which later will topple goverments, playing the wating game in order to not rouse suspicion.

Ofcourse there is the inept chessmaster which it seems you are trying to make.

Well, if he's too good the players'll never figure it out. If you want PCs to solve a mystery, you've gotta absolutely bombard them with clues and hope they pick up on at least one.

[Giegue]

If he is masked there is an easy way to get the PCs to fight him....have him "pull a tobi." If you don't know what that means when his plan nears completion and he has all the resources he needs have him totally abandon his "nice guy" facade and act as a true villain, waging war on the world and causing mass chaos. If he's not actually normally evil, have him act as if he's a true evviillllll villain and have him start pulling seirous stuff around the world. Your heroes will be basically forced to fight him at that point and since he's built up all his resources to do this he's going to be a difficult opponent. Give him a legitimate reason to "play the overlord" and you got a dramatic reveal once the heroes break the villain's mask and see he was that nice guy that helped them all those times back when they where weaker.

Of course, if he's not masked, this doesn't work as well, but still could be done. The most important thing is if you go this route be sure to give him a believable reason to "play the overlord" as if you don't then it's just a lame plot device to make the PCs fight the villain.

[ArcturusV]

Seems like a case of your players being thicker than mud. It happens. I cannot count the times where my players were paranoid about everything but the one thing they SHOULD be paranoid about.

At this point if the hints aren't getting through I'd almost drop the issue and stop hinting. Just let them fumble through until it reaches a point where he ends up having to blatantly hit them over the head with a reveal. I mean keep dropping the minor hints you are, just don't give them any other clues. If the information is out there at some point you just gotta wait for your players to put two and two together.

[MukkTB]

To be honest if you're just playing name games the players may not realizing he was talking in character. Our group isn't always precise about who is addressing who how. We frequently use player names ect. If a DM did that we would assume he was just cutting through some of the niceties.

Second people traditionally look weird in D&D. My current party is an angry Dwarf, an oily elf, a slightly crazed human, a beautiful 10/10 woman, and a Gnoll Musketeer. Slender man wouldn't get more than a second glance.

-Edit By its nature every student in Yokai Academy is a monster of some sort. If they aren't actively using their magics to be obnoxious then they get left alone.

[Erik Vale]

1: He's a chessmaster, If he's been spotted, he's doing something wrong.
2: Your players are thicker then mud. That means you have a surprise at the big reveal, but keep dropping minor hints [They may be faking no noticing]
3: Have a player roll an int roll. By God, things like this is why Deduction is a ev-man skill in all Heroes games, for when a player is dumber than the character, or doesn't take the hints.