How to make players hate the BBEG?

[Tridax]

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]

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]

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]

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, and people will hate your villain for decades.

[Eldan]

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)]

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]

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. THAT made it personal. It took quite a number of sessions to build up to it, but well worth the effort.

[Jacob.Tyr]

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]

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]

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]

(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]

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]

Have him take their stuff. Friends/family/jewelery etc. What else are character back stories for?

[Daer]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...)

Spoiler

Show

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 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]

Really, it depends on your players' buttons.

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

[Amaril]

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]

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]

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

/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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.