Whats a way of making a recurring/overarching villain feel intimidating for players?
Whats a way of making a recurring/overarching villain feel intimidating for players?
Whats a way of making a recurring/overarching villain feel intimidating for players?
Make them sexy and hit on the players while still being totally evil.
Worked wonders for me.
>Fat greedy neck beard says the bbg is a sexy drow wearing nipple tassels and a cod piece made out of a human skull
>Tries to talk to us like some flirty dominatrix
>Using this weird voice like some shitty lady what's her face from the new resident evil
>Tries to flirt with the gay pc cleric and his fat sister who I am pretty sure had Asperger's character that was a gnome rogue
>They're visibly uncomfortable
>Threatens to spank the barbarian if he tries to interrupt her(his) monologue when he asked the DM if he could swing at her
>Makes a weird moaning sound before starting the muwhahahaha bad guy laugh
>All the other tables and customers are looking at us at the gaming hall
>Asks the party if they know the mating rituals of drow as he looks at the other customers and tables not part of our game with a shit eating grin
I'll never play in public or with dms I've never met ever again.
Wait? You're supposed to hit on your PCs when playing a sexy villainess? I though "sexiness" was just an attribute to make a villain seem interesting.
Does this still work if my players don't want to have gay sex with me?
Works fine at my table, but we play via text
Make the villain recurring, make the player get used to the villain, make the players see the villain as a characte,
Make them underestimate the villain
Then let the villain actually pull off the plan, make the players action instrumental in it. The more obvious it was in hindsight the better.
Make the villain win a battle, hard. Not kill the party but overthrow the worlds stage. Kill the king, usurp the throne, steal the ancient weapon, turn brother against brother. Make it personal and make it clear the villain is much more competent than expected.
Also
>Play strange mismatched music while it happens
It took me 3 years to pull it off, but it was worth it.
I turned what the party thought was an irrational, annoying character who yes was scheming but never effectively into a terrifying greater power and the worst of it is the fact that the party unwittingly helped create this situation, because they ignored numerous red flags.
I also used to have this villain show up a lot to gloat. Now I don’t, the party played their role, now they aren’t of interrest anymore
It works, you know what also works for a minor character? Make a conventionally attractive female that hits on the party… but make that character disgusting, it’s a good dissonance.
I once discerned a hot blonde girl but she was constantly sweating and smelled like a locker room, her hair was greasy and she sometimes drooled.
It really got under their skin
You don't. You humble them instead.
His first appearance was genuinely terrifying. Might have a lot to do with my own dads abuse but I think a lot of people agreed
>Might have a lot to do with my own dads abuse
The subtle stuff in older cartoons really drives home a lot of underlying character development that most media nowadays would try to convey through 2-3 movies.
>His first appearance was genuinely terrifying.
Damn straight. Father was damn terrifying. His later appearances, while not as intimidating, still made him a serious threat to KND.
I had mine kill the setting's Santa Claus.
Everytime PC's kill him he returns.
Keep them offscreen at first, only spoken of in hushed fearful voices. Let the party encounter the aftermath of their misdeeds before encountering the villain themselves. Burned villages, murdered innocents, stolen treasures.
And for the love of god, when they do show up, do not put them in a position where the party can gank them early. You keep it a surprise and you make sure they have security that cannot be easily surmounted. If possible, don't even have them show up in person, use audio or video, illusions or hallucinations, written letters, anything to keep them from being within stabbing range during their introduction.
I'll add to this, 'don't cheat.' You will only annoy/bore your players if you put them in some sort of abominable 'cutscene mode' to keep them from planning ahead. Don't have them pointlessly grandstand, either. No one is impressed by megalomaniacal speeches (though they can be useful in communicating a character's self-absorption).
that's why I'm having the whole legion of doom show up when they meet the big bad, so that the ancient shadow dragon can just breathe strength damage on them turn one after they're already battered.
>Keep them offscreen at first, only spoken of in hushed fearful voices. Let the party encounter the aftermath of their misdeeds before encountering the villain themselves.
That's pretty much how the original FFVII introduced one of its most memorable villains of all-time.
He's also a good example of what happens when you oversell a threat to the point of self-parody. You have to let the players cultivate their own unease after to coax a threat into being, if you try too hard to force it, it just becomes goofy.
You're confusing FF7 Seph with FF7:R Seph
I'm not, I'm referring specifically to all his appearances after 7.
That's the same difference, really. FF7:R Sephiroth is what pop culture turned him into.
>only spoken of in hushed fearful voices
Lord Moldybutt?
You really can't, if someone keeps losing over and over it becomes impossible to take him seriously as a threat.
>it's a game
>obviously have the villain show up and use game mechanics to frick up the players
gee idk, OP
I very much doubt this would work for 99% of scenarios you're describing, but the way Nyarlathotep was handled in Masks of Nyarlathotep is probably the best I have seen an overarching villain be handled in a ttrpg before.
Whenever I tried to do anything like this my group just got angry because I put something in front of them that they couldn't immediately kill. I'm glad I'm not DMing for those guys anymore.
Have him do something that actually affects them, like stealing gear or being directly responsible for the death of a favored NPC
easy, just have them do 3 things:
>show up
>antagonize the players
>leave
if he pulls these off without getting ventilated, hey look it's your BBEG
addendum: do as
says and play fair when your baddy's trying to leave, and let the players fricking ventilate him if they do end up outplaying him or just getting crazy lucky because there is no worse feel than getting cucked out of a win because the GM's bad guy is too precious.
Your players will be intimidated if they think they can fail. Intimidating villains means the players know when they get involved that their plans are about to fail.
You can make them invincible. I think Curse of Strahd Reloaded does this pretty well.
>Hints of Strahd in the Death House
>Direct talk about Strahd in Barovia village
>Meet Strahd in person at the Crossroads. He is gentlemanly, but make it clear he is way too powerful and could kill you with a snap.
>At this point, Strahd is literally invincible and they could do nothing to stop him.
>Next interaction is a playable retelling of Strahd's history
>Next 3 interactions are Strahd watching with cold indifference as his brides enact plots in his name.
>Invited to Dinner and up the stakes with his soulmonger.
>Realize he's invincible and you need to be strategic to defeat him
They represnet a threat to their status, loot, stats, etc. They would never clash in a physical confrontation but they could trap your party in a bureaucratic hell, pin players against each other or even work with them from time to time.
>They represnet a threat to their status, loot, stats, etc.
>Can I have some money?
>[Inland Empire]: Is what you want to say. But it isn't that easy, is it?
>What? Why not?
>Look at that BBEG. He is a paragon of wealth and success. His clothes are of the finest threads and colors. His hair is neatly kept in a widow's peak befitting of aristocracy.
>So?
>Look at you, you misery clad simian barely able to care for yourself. Your clothes reek. A haze of alcohol from your breath threatens to set fire to the air around you. Your hair is a matted rats nest peppered with clumps of dirt.
>I-I
>You're poor. You can't ask the BBEG for money. You're too...
Quality.
Yeah, I'd be motivated to kill him now. Ain't nobody mocks the faded, rustic cloak my PC's momma stitched for him when he left to go a-venturin'. Bein' rich and fancy ain't no excuse for lackin' manners.
Also he disregards the weird hygeine of the steppe: obsessively brush your coat but bathe rarely so as not to offend water spirits hehe
Do critical damage on accident.
He keeps showing up in important positions to "help them. npcs believe him to be a good guy, only looking out for you.
>what's goin' on big guy?
>hey buddy
Ruthless and basically unstoppable, more a force of nature or legit threat they cannot escape, negotiate or fool for long.
My Fallout game was set up in El Paso and Texas territory and had an NPC called "The Gringo" (more like the "Green Judge" but most people, according to rumors, only lived enough to call him "The Green Ghhh..."), an errant supermutant that is "Judge and executioner" and chased my players through all the campaign since he "hunted sinners" and they were on his list
My most recent method:
>The party fights an intimidating being who seems nothing but amused to be facing them
>It's drawn-out, exhausting, even with their multiple NPC companions but they ultimately triumph
>As he lays there, there are flashes of light around them
>Another of him steps out
>And another
>And another
>He was but one of a collective, and you have struggled so mightily against a mere fraction of his self
>Let them flee with that knowledge
shit you just reminded me of an old dbz movie (can't remember the name) where goku spends the whole movie fighting frieza, barely manages to win, is almost dying and at the end an army of friezas come up on the hill looking down at him, terrifying stuff for me as a kid
That was Meta Cooler
cooler was one of the better movie villains, and the meta cooler fight was one of the best fights of all the movies.
kill one
never show them
I'm running a cyberpunk game with a Charles Augustus Milverton-based bad guy (Actually if they meet him that's what his name is but I don't think they'd get it). The players have only started to notice how they're encountering similar enemies or outfitted goons on supposedly unrelated jobs and are getting freaked out.
Betrayal's a good start, poppet.
Have him win an engagement with the party. It doesn't have to be a direct fight, but instead them failing to accomplish goals due to the villains influence. Make the setback meaningful to the party if you can.
Make them lose.
> Whats a way of making a recurring/overarching villain feel intimidating for players?
Have their motivation not only be arguably more virtuous than the players', but also their goal more plausible to succeed.
See picture.
How do you get the party to conflict, then? Make the guy an butthole on a personal level?
> How do you get the party to conflict, then?
The players are the problem the "villain" is out to solve.
"We need to make Krynn great again, and to do that we need to get rid of all the murder-hobos and kender."
This is basically the plot for "Captain America: Civil War", "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Star Wars: The Bad Batch", and the first couple black company novels.
> "A new order is coming, one that doesn't need your kind of self-righteous, mercenary bullshit."
This, and the players can choose to side with or against the villain.
I was running a game in Megaman X with the players as Maverick hunters. They were tracking down a maverick at a power plant and about a third of the way through they started finding bodies that had been stabbed to death. The maverick in question was a ranged specialist. When they found the maverick it had also been stabbed to death. 3 stabs to the heart, 3 to the right side of the neck, and 3 to where the left shoulder blade would be. Their CO had been around in the old wars and was familiar with a reploid named Salem who went maverick from the stress and the killing. They start pushing further in and I had a random player roll a d6 and on a 4+ they were actually Salem and werent told until Salem attacked their partner. Just before the attack another party member would find the replaced one dead. By the time the party regrouped 2 characters were dead and no one was willing to trust anyone until they were able to confirm they were who they were. Salem showed up 3 more times before they were able to corner him and put him down and in each encounter a character was killed. The players were just genuinely outsmarted each time. When they cornered him and were able to take him out, the entire "fight" was a single round and no one took damage.
pretty good way to have my players afraid whenever they heard Salem was around. Also had them scared of Vietnamese Mettaurs too
You have to remember that while a character has health, wealth, friends, goals and his immortal soul as items to defend and protect, a PLAYER has only one resource; time. If you threaten that, you threaten them in a way a dragon or lich never could.
Remember not to overdue them. A villain can go from intimidating to annoying to a straight-up joke if he makes too many appearances (especially if those appearances end in him losing).
You can have other NPCs hint towards him, but when he does appear it'd be wise to have it be a turning point in the story: the royal family of the nation your PCs play in was killed, or their backstory village was raised to the ground, or some hidden scheme of theirs is revealed.
Another fun thing is to make them a reflection of the player characters. Pic related is a good example of a well written villain who's ultimately just a murder hobo. Think of something your players do and try to subtly tug at it. Something fun could be having an evil bard. You don't have to really make it obvious "this person is a bard" at first, but you could include a scene of the villain reclining back against a wall, pulling out a guitar, and playing some kind of mournful or intimidating tune. You could even do something like give him a sounddrop to announce his arrival, something as simple as the sound of a guitar string snapping.
I had a highly planned campaign for a Pokemon Tabletop game.
I introduced the villain by having him smash through a prison wall just to strangle grunt who was at his third strike, before leaving the place and setting the town ablaze.
His second encounter was at the end a multi-week long forest dungeon. Having spent several weeks fighting off the ambushes of his grunts, before finally cornering him at the bottom of an old ranger building. I then started playing "Liquid Stranger & CloZee - Ceremony"
The party then got to go through the dungeon backwards as ran them down. He ran twice their pace in a single turn. Their attacks could do nothing to the Defense he possessed. And if he caught up, he would throw them like ragdolls. Eventually they ran far and fast enough to get to the forest's edge and the local Gym Leader, who was enough to encourage him to stop simply because the villain happened to like that guy.
I then gave them the opportunity to have a pokemon battle with him, with his hands being far to preoccupied with holding something for him to bring down his massive muscles. Even then the players had a real hard time beating all his fairies.
The final battle was just him, his muscles, and a legendary Pokemon versus the players. And the players had bonus help from mercenary guests(one merc was one of the few actual combat kills in the game). But they managed it, by exploiting his weakness of cooling his rage.
A trick I did was make him legal, all his abilities were simply the result of rules legal character building. His base stats simply were multiplied by the moves granted to him by his class. Pokemon Tabletop Adventures does have a problem with having multipliers as this meant I could essentially make a character with 69 strength. His most basic attack did 1d12+5+69+116 damage.
>my big bad evil guy was just a reddit exploiter
I have always loved this trope.
Knowledge is power, and context is everything.
Make the villain relatable and the good guy all along, in a final twist make the protagonists the bad guys.
In one of the first James Bond movies the villain wanted to hack the stock market and banks through some convoluted scheme and reset all debt and wealth. Bond gets sent by globohomosexual to maintain their hegemony. In the 60s nobody thought the globalist establishment were the bad guys, now we know for sure.
In a historical example we have allies storming the beaches in Normandy for lies, so now they can reap the rewards of studying with actual evil through limitless culturally incompatible third world barbarians flooding their homelands and unchallenged international israeliteery bleeding the west dry. Our favourite Austrian Painter being only now being revealed to be right and the good guy all along.
Interesting villains are actually the good guy.
Just make him badass af
One element is the most important:
make him learn, adapt, and grow.
Anything else and they will just see him as an NPC they will eventually outgrow and overpower.