Union Dues
The latest Patreon poll was a bit of an odd duck. When we introduce a named character, it’s usually a matter of asking our Quest Givers to choose a new class — Street Samurai or Space Marine? Antipaladin or Assassin? But this time we had an existing character. He’s appeared in the comic before on multiple different occasions. We didn’t know his name though. Happily, I think that the good people of Handbook-World got it right. I hope you will all join me in welcoming BBEG to the comic! (Runners up “Dark Lord” and “Boss Monster” will be consigned to the “next campaign” folder.)
There’s a weird pressure in getting villains right. That happens to be true on the tabletop as well as webcomics. When we first introduced The Evil Party, I figured that they would serve as the comic’s primary antagonists. That didn’t last long. Sure they do villainous things. So does Drow Priestess. But I think that there’s a difference between lovable antiheroes / treacherous minions and THE CAMPAIGN VILLAIN.
When you’ve got a proper villain running around your setting, you want a chance to show off their villainy. That’s why you’ve got powers like the lich’s phylactery, the vampire’s misty escape, and BBEG’s rejuvenation. You want the party to interact with them, witness their nefarious deeds firsthand, and then fight them later. That’s why the villain’s escape kit gets its own subheading on the Pathfinder SRD. You want to clash with the heroes and then ninja smoke bomb your way out of there. That’s how those detestable do-gooders learn to hate you.
As for the Union of Goblinoid Guards in today’s comic, they are Exhibit A in showing off villainy. Sure it’s a cheap trick, but mistreating your own minions is efficient shorthand for showing the world that, “I am a bad guy.” And that of course brings us to our question of the day! When you’ve got your own BBEG to introduce, how do you convey to your players that they’re pure, dag-nasty evil? Let’s hear all about your best nefarious deeds down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Given that I work hard for a more “Shades of Gray” approach to evil, I don’t have a lot of tricks for showing actual unrepentant evil aside from what I feel are the standards.
Trick 1: “Made out of Evil”. This obviously shows my Pathfinder/D&D 3.5 history, but certain creatures are literally formed from evil energy according to mythos. Demons, Devils, most other Evil Outsiders, and Undead are the main offenders, but you can also get the occasional Evil Fey and Chaotic Outsider in this category.
Trick 2: “Card Carrying Evil”. This category is reserved for people who have already effectively made a super evil choice by what they are. Clerics of the god of murder, for example, are pretty dedicated to murder by default. Clerics of Undeath who serve a god who wants to convert the world to a Necropolis are hard to reconcile to good, given that they literally want to kill everything in existence.
For most other things, I include an event that shows off or celebrates how evil the character is so that the players can feel no remorse for their death, a Moral Event Horizon. Generally, I try to make this also feel personal to the players so that I get that “Oh I am going to f*** this guy up” response. Remember, good villains are key to good stories. If he is supposed to be hated, make him easy to hate. Have him kill NPCs that PCs have supported or helped the PCs in the past, have him kick over some sand castle the players have built.
Examples: I ran one game where the players had put a lot of work into starting an Adventuring Guild. They had guys in charge of the guild who had distinct names and personalities, certain members who were known for certain exploits, good and bad, and we had all put a lot of work into the guild, myself included. So when I introduced the Big Bad by having him attack their Guild headquarters, kill Bob the Loveable Accountant, Leroy the Drunken Barbarian and Fluffy, the Gray Render that followed them home, they were ready to go five degrees of Scry and Fry on this guy. I made sure all of these characters got cool deaths where they stood up to the Big Bad, but were defeated cause they just weren’t powerful enough. I have rarely had a villain so hated.
In fact, only the Fey Prankster villain that was built for that time I got hit with a surprise game was as hated. That game, I rolled my plot out of the back of the 3.5 DMG, which had a table of one liners to build a plot around. I rolled “The High Priest is an Illusion”. Hilarious shenanigans followed.
Now see, if it were me I wouldn’t make my villains out of pure evil. Shit’s a liability hazard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qw1hcevmdU
I dig that whole “allies who stood up to the Big Bad, but were defeated cause they just weren’t powerful enough” shtick. That’s a great trick for making for turning on the player hate.
Villains are hard for me. I have trouble figuring out their motivations. Sometimes it’s easy – the guy wants wealth and power and so tries to take over the kingdom. Other times it’s hard – why exactly does the guy want to raise an evil god to destroy the world? Heroes are easier to make.
I always find that it’s easier to create the motivation first, then from there determine what the villain does, rather than starting with the evil scheme. And the easiest way to figure out someone’s motivations is by creating a backstory! Just take the hero-creating skills, pump the tragedy levels up by a dozen, and quickly you’ll have a villain who hates everything and can’t wait to sacrifice this hopeless world to an evil god!
Mr. Freeze. You’re talking about Mr. Freeze.
https://thecomicvault.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/mr-freeze.jpg?w=800
Ok, got any good ideas for a backstory for a dragonborn priest (mechanically a monk/sorcerer) that wants to give the planet to Rovagug?
He’s extremely unhappy the GM diety made him multiclass monk and sorcerer and really want a do-over? =P
Seriously though, for priest types you can basically just look at cults for inspiration. If you raise/indoctrinate people well enough to believe some rather weird things you can keep pushing that further and further until they think blowing up the world is what’s best for everyone because the world is terrible/what’s next after this specific destruction is great/people themselves are bad for the universe/whatever.
Gestalt, not multiclass actually. but I will keep that in mind.
Perhaps he’s from a variant cult of Rovagog who believes that everyone will “Become one” when the universe is destroyed and he is super into stopping conflict through unity? Or he has just embraced the Nihilism after failing the Test of the Starstone, which let him see how meaningless he truly was.
It won’t let me reply to Kat, but that sounds pretty good.
Kat above mentioned liking “Shades of Grey” evil, and I also like using that it my villains. Of course, you still need them to be hated by the party, so the approach I’ve started trying out is to have two villains: a BEG and a fully-fledged BBEG.
The BEG is a Bad Evil Guy, who is ruthless and evil, and doesn’t hesitate to leave a pile of innocents dead if it even slightly furthers their cause. In my most recent campaign, the party needed to break into the villain’s lair to steal an artefact, however the lair was protected by a force field. The party managed to convince a treacherous minion to teleport them in and out. While the “in” part went well, the “out” part did not, as the party was discovered by the BEG. She descended upon the party, easily trapping them. She then ruthlessly slaughtered the treacherous minion as an example to others, and to the party (who was not to work for her, under pain of torturous death).
Then later on in the campaign came the BBEG. The BBEG is typically a “for the greater good” character, who is similar to Infinity War Thanos in that their motivations are honourable but their goal, and methods of reach it, are horrific. They might regret the people they kill to achieve the goal, but they kill all the same. However, they still aren’t pushovers, so for the BBEG, I prefer the entrance to be one of menace, rather than malice. In the same above campaign, the players had to break into the villain’s lair a second time, and this time were accosted by the BBEG. The party were way under leveled for this fight, so I demonstrated menace in the fight, by having him pull his punches, but also had him talk, using roleplay to demonstrate that this guy isn’t evil, just severally deluded as to what constitutes “good”.
And so that’s how I reveal my villains. One is sadistically evil, while the other is menacing.
I think that sadism might be the defining trait of the four-color villain. You take pleasure is the suffering you inflict.
In both cases though, it sounds like you’re relying on power differential to keep the villain alive. Do you ever worry that the PCs might pull a fast one, and accidentally kill a villain before they’re “supposed to?”
The BBEG’s main weakness, in keeping with his “misguided altruism”, was emotion, so the players were actually able to lead the BBEG and the BEG into a trap, in which they called upon every ally they had and killed both of them. Fortunately, the BEG happened to specialise in clone spells, while the BBEG has raise dead 1/day. These villains are going to be tough to keep down.
Contingency: it ain’t just a spell. Jolly good preparation!
Although, of course, villain-resurrection is only if the villain realistically has access to such magic. If the ancient red dragon is slain by a party of level 4 adventurers, cheerio to them! I’m sure that the dragon’s (slightly weaker) son can take over the (slightly weakened) organisation and continue the plans to end/rule the world!
In the business world this would be a win-win manuever. BBEG shows off his (wicked) leadership qualities by raising a competent and (eternally) loyal workforce/ship crew out of the skeleton(s) of the formerly unruly workers (now undead instead). The survivors meanwhile will be doubly motivated and singled out for a potential promotion into a role where those high saves will buy them an extra minute or two of life versus adventurers.
Those goblins should know better than to work for a necromancer. They consider death a promotion!
What? Naw man. Those goblins down’t work for Necromancer. They work for BBEG. Completely different characters. 😛
If necromancer becomes a BBEG, what does that turn BBEG into?
An EBBBEG. An Even Bigger Big Bad Evil Guy.
Due to the BBEG being a powerful dragon currently taking a nap to digest the volcano god he ate, his villainy has to be shown off indirectly through his minions, which are currently spreading a diesease through volcanic ash that corrupts fate and turns mortals into his personal zombies/demons
Damn. You’ve got one hell of a tight theme going.
How does news of the dragon come down the pipeline if he’s sleeping and his minions are mindless undead?
Not all his minions are mindless zombies. He’s got a cult formed of the former secret police of a totalitarian human god that decided supporting a new god would be better than serving their previous master
Treacherous minions, eh? I’m guessing that old gold is none too pleased.
All my sentient enemies will try to retreat if combat turns against them unless they have the Hobgoblin-esque training and discipline to know that escape would be impossible so tactically the best thing for their side would be to fight to the last. I’ve had an Orthon mount a Nightmare and go ethereal, and I’ve had a Succubus fly off into the night to later switch to an Incubus to harass the party anew. (Don’t trust attractive strangers who wear outfits that would not be appropriate for a workplace! Not trusting attractive strangers is literally so basic that it’s in X the Mystic’s rules.)
I have yet to introduce my BBEG, but they’ll be making prodigious use of Clone, Simulacrum, Magic Jar and Contingency: Dimension Door as ways to have staying power.
Goddamn contingency is good. Also of note: I never have enough Dimension Doors prepared. That’s one spell I’m never sorry to have available.
And this is why it is important to have beautiful (Desired gender here) come on to the PCs frequently. That way, when your Succubi and Incubi need to do something, they don’t come up as sudden interest from attractive strangers.
My campaign doesn’t have a defined BBEG (yet), more a collection of nebulous forces all after the same Tablet of Absolute Power. But there is a recurring BEG who’s worthy of mention.
During the party’s first encounter with him, he was too powerful to defeat and simply rode away when his minions stopped getting the job done. He was explained away as the servant of a god of chaos and destruction who spread death wherever he went.
The second arc of the campaign revolved around him. The BEG was revealed to be a shapeshifter, able to transform into anyone and anything. The party hunted him down through various guises across the town, but he escaped twice – first through a teleporting crystal that only he could use, second by turning into slime and hiding inside the belly of an NPC sorceress he’d captured. The party swore revenge.
Their third encounter was much later. After a hard-fought battle with a volcano god, one of the NPC allies they’d been travelling with turned out to have been the BEG all along. He stole the local Tablet fragment and nearly escaped, but the party was able to confront him directly and finally killed him. The Tablet piece was reclaimed, the day was saved, and the threat of the BEG seemed to be gone for good.
The kicker, though? My players haven’t realized it yet, but there’s more than one of him.
I need to use that clone shtick one of these days. It seems popular.
I recently read a Reddit post talking about how the AP Hell’s Rebels starts off with the PCs having to pay 3 cp per person whenever they cross the bridge into town. That is a meaningless amount of money, even for low-level PCs, but it was cleverly created by the writers to irritate players and make them hate the governor who installed the tax. (The Reddit poster was talking about how his party spent 100 gp on a rowboat to avoid the tax, despite that actually losing them money.)
In my own campaigns, the main trick I used in the first one, The Dark Island, was having multiple villain factions and establishing a hierarchy. The ghouls keep attacking the players, but the ghouls are afraid of the drow, and the drow are afraid of the Black Heart (basically a mini-god they made and lost control of). Then at the end the drow that the other drow work for show up in force. Each villain group sort of ends up serving as the next group’s hype man. (For individual bosses, I made good use of notes scattered around the abandoned drow base, usually communications between drow leaders or memos to their soldiers about how there was an accident in Section C BUT EVERYTHING IS FINE! to introduce the players to certain names and give a sense of their relationships before they actually showed up and tried to kill the PCs.
In my newest campaign that just started, I have planned several tricks to introduce the lead villain. First off is the PCs’ trip to his gladiator games, where we see both his cruelty and watch him personally fight a big monster single-handedly. Later, the PCs are invited to a party that he and several other high-ranking villains are attending, hopefully with enough guards to discourage rash PC action. So the PCs get to interact with him in person, and see scenes like him shoving a servant that bumped into through a window and other things to establish him as a power-mad jerk.
Later in that campaign, a new villain is introduced by kidnapping one of the party’s allies and leaving her assistant nailed to the floor with a bomb implanted in her torso that the party will have to try and disarm. My hope is that I’ll be able to squeeze a lot of tension out of that scene despite the fact that the bomb definitely is not strong enough to kill any PC.
Goddamn I love that.
Smart.
Classic villainy. These are strong techniques all around, and this post might be my favorite of the bunch so far.
If they do attack the gladiator games PC, what’s your plan for his reaction? PC death, thrown into the dungeons, or something else?
I don’t think the players attacking the BBEG early is too much of a concern. Earlier, they tried to get out of paying a 10 gp entrance fee, caused enough of a stir to attract the attention of a mid-level Inquisitor foe, and this happened:
Hoaxer Bard: “I use my Charm Hex on him to make him agree to waive the fee.”
Me: rolls “He resists.”
Bard: “How?”
Me: looks at sheet “He has a +8 Will save.”
Bard: “Oh snap! Guys! He’s too high level for us! Pay the thing!”
So I don’t think they are likely to jump on a guy who clearly outlevels them. In the party sequence, they will also have been assigned to steal an object (except it turns out to be a person – a paralyzed person, no less) from upstairs during the party, so that objective will probably keep them distracted. One of the party’s guests is also an enemy of the tyrant and has been observing the PCs as possible pawns, so if they really screw up, that character will covertly summon a devil to attack the party and cause chaos to cover for them. If all else fails, having the party become fugitives earlier than planned isn’t the end of the world for me. If they try something at the games, security is likely to keep them away. (I guess if they INSIST on fighting the boss greatly above their level and don’t figure out that they need to run, he might knock them out and force them to do harder gladiator challenges or a public execution “fed to lions” sort of thing that gives them more options.)
Oh, hey, somebody else to add to the cast page when it eventually gets an update. 🙂
I haven’t gotten many chances to do the whole BBEG moment yet, but that’s mostly because all the foes my group has faced so far have been more arc villains than anything.
I’d actually been just about to start dropping hints for some of the bigger villains I have planned, but then our Ranger got distracted by a thing when he remembered he had Primeval Awareness, and so they ran off to go look at the nearby volcano instead of going back to town like they planned.
Fortunately, I’d already planned another arc villain around that volcano, so my party promptly ran into a bunch of firenewt cultists of Imix and got their butts handed to them. Now that their backup characters have formed a rescue team and are storming the firenewt stronghold, I’ll get to introduce the high priest of the cult by having him storm out screeching “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?”, command his warriors to recall the patrols and cut off the intruders’ escape, and then ritually sacrifice one of his minions to make a fire elemental.
I am ashame.
Ha! Let me know how it works out. I’ve got some experience with this trick, so I’ll be curious to hear how (or if) you decide to incorporate the two groups into a single adventuring guild.
Currently, I believe everybody’s planning to go back to playing their old characters once the current situation is dealt with, though maybe I should float the idea of making a guild out there. That’s not within the realm of things I was planning to run, but if everyone is really into the idea, maybe I could make it work.
In any case, everybody’s backup characters would still be around — they’ve come up with backstories for them, and it wouldn’t be too farfetched to bring them in if they needed help for something. Plus, it’s more options for plot hooks (“Hey, X old friend is asking for help, and they might know something about Y situation you guys were wondering about”).
“When you’ve got your own BBEG to introduce, how do you convey to your players that they’re pure, dag-nasty evil?”
I don’t. I’ve never really gone for the “BBEG” villain types. If I’m going the ‘evil’ enemies route it’s usually cosmic horrors (why are the cultists summoning Cathulhu? Because they are crazy).
My favorite ‘villains’ are BBGG, Big Bad Good guys. Their just as ‘good’ as the PCs (which could be pretty villainous, let’s be honest here), but instead of wanting ‘bad’ things, they just want things incompatible with what the PCs want.
Which is usually, rule of law and world peace and boredom.
Sounds like you make cops. Inspector Zenigata writ large. And that might be the elemental opposite of the typical adventurer.
You’ve still got a problem though. You have to make sure that this figure is one that the PCs love to hate. They have to enjoy the antagonism. How do you set that up?
I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this here before, but in one campaign (i was a player not the DM), we started out and this nice elven woman aided us in discovering our destiny as the Chosen (cheesy i know) as terrible things began to happen to the world including the starting village being destroyed with her being the only survivor. Imagine our surprise and rage when we discovered the SHE had orchestrated everything. I have never felt so betrayed before.
Later in another campaign (same DM) one of the PCs turned out to be the BBEG and the guy we thought was the BBEG was her minion who she killed for insubordination. We found that out as she cast reverse gravity on the party before teleporting away and sending in her army (including a dragon) to destroy the town we all lived in and helped create.
The bottom line is if you want PCs to hate the BBEG, make it personal
That first bit is the plot to Legend of Dragoon. Cheesy or not, it works!
This one is easy, we don’t. I like to work with our DM while making the campaign, we share similar tastes and so we end doing some good villains. Basically we got two kinds: the Designated Villain and the Villain Character. The Designated Villain is just that guy over there that is doing nasty stuffs so the heroes must defeat him because of reasons. It’s an excuse, a better or a worse one, but an excuse in any case. Just an action to make the heroes react. We give him some backstory, some excuse, “My daddy don’t love me”, “X killed my Y during Z”, “This kingdom requires an urgent reform over the taxation system implemented over the excedent of beer on the local areas of production, but the King is too busy overseeing the re-categorization of horseshoes into a more efficient production system to implement an reform on the kingdom’s metal production pipelines and that way get more materials to build hospitals; therefore i want to depose him and marry his son after implementing a more progressive marriage legislation that contemplate a modern view on same-sex relationships.”, you know just the bare minimum to put the plot in motion. Then the Villain Character is a character who is the villain. He serves the same function than the Designated one, but more complex and with more screen time. While they aren’t always looking for anything logical, like money, they can be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with, still some of this men just want to watch the world burn. They are a real character more fleshed and more involved, we don’t let a villain enjoy a chair, and the PCs can actually take a tea with him on good terms. What separes and makes them different is their function, excuse vs NPC. Note that i said villain, not evil guy. More than once we got a Big Good Benevolent Guy as the “villain”, even when the party is good. Our DM and i really like complex things that the rest of the group kill in one scene. Still we don’t show off the villain evilness. One particular action risk to become a defining moment is you always resource to it. If the BBEG destroys the heroes hometown, cliche by the way, there is the risk that he is the-guy-who-destroyed-your-hometown, no matter what other characteristics he posses, even redeeming ones. Therefor we use that system, excuse for plot or NPC 🙂
Why can’t the villain enjoy a chair?
Because Orcus needs his throne 😉
Ego tends to make a villain hateable. An inflated sense of self-worth aggressively rubbed in the PCs’ faces, mixed with condescension towards their achievements.
Of course you also need to make sure they get the chance to interact with the PCs. It’s hard to hate someone you just met a moment ago, even if they do happen to have a mouthful of babies.
The real trick is figuring out how to interact with the villain without killing him.
I’m kind of semi-unintentionally torturing my players in my main 5e game because the closest thing to a BBEG in the campaign is the guy in charge of the place that took them captive and is making them work for him right at the start in order to re-claim an ancient city. A more or less noble goal that was also deemed an impossible task that he’s successfully accomplishing with their help.
To make matters worse, while the quests they’re on are done in an effort to earn their freedom and they’ve expressed multiple times that once they do they want nothing to do with these people ever again and maybe seek vengeance…
Well them achieving that vengeance would ruin the whole re-establishing of the city which would make them villains.
And as for not working with these people in the future…. let’s just say I have plans that ensure that’s going to also be the villainous choice.
Because like Kat above, I like making shades of gray stuff.
Though somehow in doing this I became the true BBEG. =P
I’m a Skeletor man myself. And Skeletor got no time for shades of Grayskull.
Someone’s looked at the news recently…
Was it John Lennon? I bet it was John Lennon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Dh-I0_m5Y
I have a Pathfinder 1E campaign idea I haven’t gotten to use yet about a world where seven vast elemental “seas” contain a portal to another plane at their heart and a nihilistic summoner (loosely based on Seymour from Final Fantasy X) is trying to pull them into the Material Plane to destroy it. My idea to give him staying power is that rather than fighting the party himself, he leaves his eidolon behind to deal with them while he proceeds on to the next part of his plan. I’m not sure how viable it is, but I hope I get to use it someday.
The eidolon is a good idea. If it’s high-level enough it’s a suitably “unkillable” boss minion that they get to fight multiple times. I bet there’s even some power out there to let you speak and perceive through your eidolon, even while you’re on another plane. And if not, that’s some easy homebrew to do.
Also of note, eidolon: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/abyss-face.jpg?w=730&crop=1
I can’t be bothered designing a BBEG.
some of the moduled I shape my sand box around have some Standard Evil Guy lurking at the bottom, but nothing too serious.
Biggest self designed evil guy is just evil due to monster manual entry and might do a bit of slavery on the side to mine for treasure. Apart from that he just wants to be left alone and makes shure that the slaves are not missed wherever they are obtained from.
Nothing ruins your day like a bunch of adventurere crashing through the front door collapsing the souflé with the cold air that brings with it, so to speak.
How do you give the PCs the motivation to kick in that door?
they didn‘t yet.
but the Territory is marked with a line of monoliths; on the outside inscribed with „stay out“ and from the other side inscribed with „and STAY out.
that should get them going 🙂
Right on. But what I’m getting at is this: Are you satisfied with Standard Evil Guy, or do you want to make him more of a “love to hate” type villains that the PCs care about beating?
At the core I prefer „let’s come to an arrangement“ type of villain.
Especially if it makes the Paladin squirm:
Clearly Evil, but also very Lawful. Either THE local Authority or with the local Authorities blessing for providing an important service.
It’s funny. My current game (on hiatus, I refuse to be GM year round) has about 7 BBEG-level villains all playing against each other and the PC’s are basically in the crossfire. All of the BBEG’s are naturally looking for new talent-both to bring into the fold, and MERICLESSLY CRUSH before it can become a threat.
They’ve met three of them, and my take away so far is that they are concerned about the two Demon Lords, but have decided it’s the VAMPIRE who HAS TO DIE. And what did it? Well… they came to a village that Vampire Lord had nearly completely in her power. The guards were all dominated or spawn and had been rounding up the townsfolk and ‘disappearing’ them.
So they’re investigating, and they learn some…disconcerting things about the Vampire lord. Like she once ruled the valley, has dominion over any creature through which her blood flows… and saw fit to it to ensure her bloodline is carried through every living person in the region to this day. In their initial confrontation, the Vampire laughed the party off, transmuted a pile of dead townsfolk into two huge vampiric creatures, and told the party that if they survived, she’d be interested in having them serve HER.
Oh they want her so dead. It’s amazing.