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2021-08-24, 11:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I'm not sure I'd even call it incompetence, IIRC as the setting of that movie is rather incidental to the plot and so it doesn't particularly behoove them to get it right anyway. It's a little bit like an architect complaining that the buildings painted on the backdrop at a play don't look structurally sound
Last edited by Bohandas; 2021-08-24 at 11:30 AM.
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2021-08-25, 01:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
The whole point is that if your PCs are constantly beating up your BBEG and making him run away, he's not going to be very scary for long.
Look at Darth Vader. In the original trilogy, the heroes run from him and watch him kill Obi-Wan as they try to escape. The first time Luke actually tries to fight him, he gets his ass beat and comes away minus a hand. It's not until the very last movie (the end of the campaign) that Vader can be confronted directly.
If, in every movie, they consistently beat the snot out of Vader and he ran for the hills, he wouldn't be the menacing figure he is seen as today. He would be just like General Hux. A sad, sorry little beeyotch."Sleeping late might not be a virtue, but it sure aint no vice. The old saw about the early bird and the worm just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
- L. Long
I think, therefore I get really, really annoyed at people who won't.
"A plucky band of renegade short-order cooks fighting the Empire with the power of cheap, delicious food and a side order of whup-ass."
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2021-08-25, 05:58 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
From my experience, the best Vilains and Big Bad Guys Tm are... created by the actions of the PCs.
Directly or indirectly.
-Ok, so you get rid of this local death cults wich assassinate random peoples for apparently poor/no reasons ?
And if regular sacrifices were necessary to prevent the doors to hell to re-open (again) ?
-You see this little orc kid screaming vengeance on the corpse of his very dead father ?
Now, you don't see him. Because he is following you, learning from you, studying your vulnerabilities... He will come back to the remains of his tribe, rich of a unique experience, wll rally other clans, make alliances with local monsters and uncanny powers...
You won't see again him before it's too late.
- You you have been paid to find this cursed relic for a sinister magican
=> Will you keep it for you, gaining a very pissed off, well connected and dreadly powerfull mage as an ennemy ?
=> Of will you give it back for an effty sum. Enjoy your gain quickly, as he turns the sky black, hide the sun, , invoque Great Old ones, and take the soul of every first born in the country.
Of course, you have noticed that the said cursed relic had a peculiar vulnerability, but your ennemy is now even more dreadly powerfull...
Not only is it funnier that way, but PCs to handle way more personally vilains, people, monsters or consequences that are directly linked to THEM.
So, there's nothing wrong with the mustache twingling vilain abducting the Princess trope , but things get wayyyyy more interesting if the said princess is your actual girlfriend , and if the mustache guy is your rival since 6 scenario.
(or your unofficial mustachio lover, as PC may have various tastes ).Last edited by Oliver; 2021-08-25 at 05:59 AM.
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2021-08-25, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
A good way to create a villain whose face you just want to smash in is to make them sanctimonious, like the evil politician from Elysium or Col.Jessup from A Few Good Men or the slaver guy from the Fallout 3 DLC The Pitt
Last edited by Bohandas; 2021-08-25 at 02:06 PM.
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2021-08-25, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-08-27, 09:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Yeah, exactly, who's the one running away makes a huge difference in the tone of the villain.
I will say though, player characters are (in my experience at least) the single least likely entities to flee from combat. If you still want an intimidating villain, there are ways to separate characters that involve neither running away. Maybe his plan is time sensitive, and he doesn't have time to deal with the PCs, he created a portal that's closing quickly. Or maybe he delegates the party to one of his underlings, bosses love to delegate.
I'd be careful with these, it seems really easy for any of them to feel like a bait and switch "gotcha" moment. If the first quest is to go fight some orks who kidnapped some farmers, the players are going to go along with it mostly out of genre expectations and not wanting to be disruptive. If it's presented to them as a world where you're expected to kill orks, they're going to go around killing orks. It's pretty unsatisfying then to pull the "Hah! You didn't think about the consequences of your actions!" card. The players followed your plot hook to be nice to the dm and go along with the story you prepared, I don't think it's a good idea to routinely punish them for doing that.
It doesn't feel like a "You (the characters) fell into my (the ork's) trap" and more like a "You (the players) fell into my (the dm's) trap".
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2021-08-29, 02:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I mean, the real solution to that last scenario is to hand the artifact over and then double cross the villain and take the artifact back using weapons purchased with the reward money
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2021-08-29, 06:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-09-19, 11:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
It may well have been mentioned already, but check out Justin Alexander’s stuff on “the principles of RPG villainy”:
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...f-rpg-villainy
It boils down to two crucial points:
1) Don’t plan a “BBEG” for your campaign from the start. Instead throw in a ton of villains. The PCs will kill or otherwise deal with most of them. Whoever survives gets to keep causing problems for the party and organically becomes the BBEG.
2) More relevant to OP’s question: Find ways for the villain to threaten the PCs and the things they care about from afar. They can send their agents after the PCs, they can wreak havoc in the world, burning down villages, killing important NPCs, turning people against the party and so on.
Especially with respect to the first point, it’s important to understand that this approach to villains fits into a broader approach to GMing in general that strictly forbids planning any kind of plot. If you’re wedded to the idea of the GM as storyteller, crafting a narrative in advance and leading the players through it, you will need to find another solution for your villain.
And on the Darth Vader subject, Justin Alexander uses him in an example of his principles, asking what would have happened if Vader had been killed in the first half of the first film. And the answer is that Peter Cushing’s character would have taken over as the big villain, being fanatically anti-Jedi and embodying an ideal of fascist bureaucracy as the ultimate form of power instead of the dark side of the force. You would have a completely different story. Would he be a less iconic villain than Vader? Yes, almost certainly, but he would have emerged as the villain organically because of the players’ actions, and that’s the magic of RPGs.Last edited by HidesHisEyes; 2021-09-19 at 11:24 AM.
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2021-09-19, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I think this problem only exists if your group expects you to expect them to go along with your campaign. If you don’t have a pre-existing campaign and instead make it very clear from the outset that “the campaign” is simply what happens at the table, then the expectation that there are things they’re “supposed to do” goes away, and players will start to respect the consequences of their actions. This is a holistic approach to playing an RPG though, you can’t fake it or only include one aspect of it.
(Sorry for the double post, just came back to this site for the first time in years and I’m trying to get the hang of how forums work again).Last edited by HidesHisEyes; 2021-09-19 at 11:19 AM.
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2021-09-19, 01:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I agree there are, or at least should be, consequences for PC actions. It's just that there are a lot of players that don't think them through, and have been thoroughly trained by movies and books to think that stabbing the bad guys is the best solution, even if it's actually digging them into a bigger hole. Piling on excessive and unlikely consequences isn't the solution, unless you're trying to railroad them into a 'plot'. Assuming this wasn't just a glib answer to get in the last word.
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2021-09-20, 02:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I think as long as you’re *not* trying to railroad them into a plot, there’s no need to pile on tons of contrived consequences with the intention of, like, teaching them a lesson. You just introduce the consequences that seem natural and right for the campaign. If the players understand that it’s not a railroad situation they will intuitively get what’s going on, in my experience.
In a railroad campaign, the campaign is already there in your notebook/Google doc/published product, and any consequences of the players’ actions are this external thing that you’re adding in, which can feel frustrating because it’s getting in the way of doing what you’re supposed to be doing (ie following that railroad). But in a non-railroad campaign the consequences of the players’ actions just *are* the campaign, and dealing with them *is* what they’re supposed to be doing.
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2021-09-20, 03:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Which is why I dismembered the corpse of, and burned in a hot fire, my nemesis in a recent campaign. (We are not sure if True Resurrection even works in this world ...)
Our Tier 3 campaign has that structure: BBEG wants to ascend to god hood / demigod hood. And we are trying to stop them.
Maybe a better way to put it is that the villain's plan needs to be accomplishable in stages, and those stages shouldn't spell death for either side.
D&D provides this with a liche and their freaking hard to find phylacteries. (We just fought the same lich for the third time, and now her boss decided to off her ... and to destroy her phylactery).
Only if they were promised a movie about tactics and warfare. Which they were not. They were offered a fairy tale/legend about a magical warrior. (Or a warrior who has/had/developed magical powers).
Oddly enough, the lich I mention further up after we beat her the first, and second times took on a little bit of that character, as regards theobscene phone callssendings we kept getting from her, threatening to kill us and our little dog too.
Your BBEG should show up once, near the start of your campaign, and almost TPK your PCs before they manage to run away (or some Deus Ex Machina such as a collapsing bridge saves their keisters).
But they should never fight him (seriously) until they are capable of taking him down, and he shouldn't be putting in any personal appearances until that time.
This is neat when it can be pulled off.
That made me smile.Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2021-09-21 at 10:34 AM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2021-09-20, 07:21 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Completely agree that consequences are not a punishment.
The feeling I was getting from the response was that these weren't natural consequences. They were something being created on the spur, with the intent to punish the players, for being totally not nice 'heroes', just like the style of many movies and books.
But if I'm way off base, and what don't seen like natural consequences to me are fully natural consequences at another table ... then I'm way off base.
Either that or my dislike of the internet rabbit hole of "what ifs" scenario chains is making me see things that aren't thereLast edited by Tanarii; 2021-09-20 at 07:24 PM.
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2021-09-21, 01:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Yeah I see what you mean. I think the examples people have listed in this thread seem unnatural because they are, because they’re examples in a forum thread. Hopefully in the context of a real campaign they’re just part of the tapestry, so to speak, and don’t feel like gotchas.
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2021-09-21, 01:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Last edited by Bohandas; 2021-09-21 at 01:48 AM.
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2021-09-21, 10:37 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
I would disagree, regardless of playstyle, almost everyone still comes into the game with genre expectations. No matter how sandboxy your campaign is, no matter how few long-term plans you prepare, your average player is still going to assume it's ok to kill orcs. When you break expectations like that, it should be done ahead of time, not as surprise consequences for player actions. And originally, my point was that you should be extra careful in these situations, not that they should never be done.
I will agree that you have to be consistent. If in session 1, orcs are mindless combat fodder, but in session 2 are an oppressed outgroup, you've ruined the consistency of your game world.
That's probably true. Still, I think it's worth pointing out that it's easy to make players upset if you try something like this and fail.
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2021-09-21, 10:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
And even Washington Irving.
A good BBEG: a Planetar (D&D 5e version) served by a Celestial Warlock (NPC warlock, reskin as needed any of the Volo's Warlock NPCs) and a whole bunch of veterans / scouts / soldiers / knights / champions / bards / priests / acolytes (NPCs, I am thinking White Cloaks in Wheel of Time, sort of).
The cult is spreading (something LG belief wise) into new areas via crusade and or other energetic efforts to proselytize in the region where the PCs are / care about.
And this proselytizing coalition doesn't tend to take no for an answer.
A little bit of Robert Jordan's white cloaks, a little bit Reconquista, and a little bit Charlemagne all mixed together among the earthly servants of this Planetar whose own boss is (pick the suitable deity from your world).Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2021-09-21 at 10:44 AM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2021-09-22, 02:04 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Sure, players will have expectations of some kind. I do think it’s less of a concern these days that people will automatically assume orcs are cannon fodder, because a lot more people have started playing RPGs and not all have the familiarity with video games and earlier experiences with D&D that we assume more experienced players to have. There’s a bit more of a sense of “it’s interactive storytelling, it could be anything” these days, or at least that’s my impression.
I do think setting expectations in session 0 or before is really important. I just meant that once the game gets going, if everyone’s on the same page, consequences can feel very natural and organic and not like a punishment. But I think we broadly agree about expectations.
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2021-09-22, 06:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-09-22, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: How do you make a good reoccurring big bad?
Last edited by KorvinStarmast; 2021-09-22 at 07:37 AM.
Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society