Tell the pcs there is a contract out on them (via the rumour mill).
Ask for details of all the pcs routines.
Have a minor non-magic item of one PC go missing (but mention it specifically).
Have an NPC close to the pcs disappear.
Have other NPC's react nervously around the PCS.
Have one PC get the impression they are being watched (scryed upon).
Ask for details of all the pcs routines (again) and ask if there are any changes.
Have another PC observe that an NPC close to them is behaving strangely, appears to be under the influence of an Enchantment Spell (sense motive).
Have another PC think that their lock was tampered with.
It's not loathing but I can assure you by this point whoever is doing all of this WILL have the PC's attention before they have even made a (well planned) move against the PCs.
Good suggestions here.
A bit more information from me though. The party at the start, stated they wanted a rich and roleplay heavy campaign. RoTRL provides exactly that, but characters such as Tsuto, Deverin, Naulia, Brathazmus etc... are all "Standard" NPC's.
None of them inspire hate, intrigue or love.
We've replaced Ameiko with my own old PC, Malog. I consistently voice him like an over-exited Sam Tarley from Game of Thrones. He's stupid, lovable and a highly competent ally, who provides free food and lodging.
Tsuto, we've turned into a recurring foe. A powerful magic user, raised as a spoiled brat, with a blatent disregard for life. He had a pocket dimension (used for a puzzle), and the PC's roleplayed stealing it from him. They also maimed his hand. They dislike him, but I need to grow this to an acute hate. I want them to want to find and kill Naulia and Tsuto, instead of just "playing along".
It was mentioned that many GM's who go the extra mile, often have a rigid "on rails" campaign. I assure you, ours is not (but I'll deal with that problem in a separate thread!).
Some of the top suggestions in this thread, deal with very simple methods of generating a hated NPC with the GM being disliked:
1) Steal from the party
2) Deceive the party
3) Take credit for something the party did.
4) Destroy items of value in front of the party
5) Maim, scar, visually alter members of the party negatively.
6) Directly compete with the party
7) Plausibly survive, despite considerable effort.
8) "GMPC", sharing in loot, Gold and XP
9) Kick around an "underdog" style character.
10) Debilitate them. eg. Give a Rogue a knee injury, that clicks at inopportune moments.
We need to buff Tsuto into something more substantial, because we need to replace the Skinsaw Murders and the Hook Mountain Massacre chapters with new content. Three of our PC's have already played those two chapters as part of their own campaign a few years ago. And Tusto will be the end boss of this custom campaign chapters.
In addition to what's been said so far, you could have the npc give the players a nasty curse. You could for example, turn them into the opposite gender? Or make them all switch bodies? (Come to think about it that would be hilariously amazing.) Or (if your players are cool with this sort of thing) you could have the npc attempt to scar them mentally. Like having them tortured and humiliated in public. Or something like that.
Always keep a small smile on his face whenever he hurts them. Everyone hates a dick, but even more so when he smiles slightly while he's hurting others. It's a sign that he enjoys giving you the pain, but he's not extreme about showing such enjoyment. Hell I'd say it's a billion times more obnoxious than a villainous laugh because smiling dicks exist in the real world. Hardly anyone laughs like a villain in real life.
Someone said wrote:
In addition to what's been said so far, you could have the npc give the players a nasty curse.
Oh wow. That's good.
Domestichauscat wrote: Hardly anyone laughs like a villain in real life. but it's so therapeutic!
even I indulge from time to time.
Do you really need a loathsome npc? Mabe your players just are´nt into it atm.
Isnt RoTL an adventure path? I for one know many players who loathe Adventure paths and vastly prefer sandbox or homebrew.
Also, its March/april, at least in my region game sessions all over the place are stalling and failing over missing players and tardiness, tis the season of tests and tax reports where I live, do your players have tests/tax reports? if so, perhaps this kind of high-profile game isnt what they want right now.
Im currently running backup for my main group.
The main story is a homebrew campain of mystery & mischief where we fight fey and dragons for a chance at power of mythical proportions. The characters are thought out with backstory and special backstory sessions between main sessions where the GM and player go mano-a-mano in mini stories about their characters past. We´ve played every Tuesday since january, and only played 4 sessions of said story.
The backup story is a mysterius dungeon crawl where the characters find themselves underground, beset by traps and suffering from amnesia. With only their names and their skills the players have to contend with this mysterious place at a brisk pace, driven forward by the mysterious sense that something terrible is ever right on their heels.
Aka, Big plotline VS mindless dungeon crawl.
The reason were far behind on the main story is that over the past 2 months theres been 2 conventions and 2 test periods in 2 different schools, and our university people have got Finals on the horizon, so they wont play for a while. Those sessions we do play many players are just so tired that they favor a relaxing hack & slash over the complex stuff.
If you still want more ideas for obnoxious enemies, have you any experience with mythic?
Try making a mythic foe with maximised saves and maximised speed, then give him whatever combat style you need.
The most hated guy in my last major story was the NPC miniboss who routinely moved faster then Usain bolt, he was veritably impossible to catch and because he was APL+2 he was pretty much impossible to go solo against if that one lucky player ever managed to get in close. With high saves he was relatively safe from being locked down and he was an alchemist, if he got into movement hampering situations he was just one potion away from a remedy.
My three tips:
1) Memorable, yet annoying mannerisms, coupled with a snooty personality.
2) An opponent who is tough enough to trounce the party, but one they can beat if they're on their toes. Problem is, as soon as the party starts to turn the battle against him, he pops his escape hatch. After he does this a couple times, your players will WANT to kill him.
3) Make the villain French.
A gun mage named Chuck Finley that likes to use various disguises (All using various names for chuck like charles, charley, etc.) and I hope you get the Burn Notice references. Hires them for a job that he could more or less not care if it gets done. When it gets done he forgets to pay them or it's in the mail, or lures them into the next quest with promises of bigger rewards "Okay Okay so maybe the money didn't pan out but this next gig, hoo baby it's going to be big!"
I have a "Bad" guy, (under secratary Alonso Borelia).He is "helping" the PCs getting out of some legal problems and to get the goodwill he need from powerfull folks in the City he is using the PCs for all sort of dangerous Jobs. They know he is using them but at the moment they dont know where to turn for help and in the meantime they do semi illegal stuff for him and his power over them grows.
Some of them already dislike him but they will all hate him before long.
One that seems to have been overlooked so far: make the NPC obnoxious to interact with. Sneer when you play him. Address the players in the most condescending voice you can muster. Be insulting, but not personally insulting... by which I mean, don't insult particular aspects of a PC. Instead, use generic insults like "pathetic dolts" and "hoof-handed peasants". This is actually *more* insulting, because the metamessage is that you're not even bothering to insult them as individuals; they're just generic stupid people who happen to be in your way.
Feel free to go over the top with this and ham it up -- in a tabletop context, this really works.
Doug M.
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pennywit wrote: My three tips:
1) Memorable, yet annoying mannerisms, coupled with a snooty personality.
2) An opponent who is tough enough to trounce the party, but one they can beat if they're on their toes. Problem is, as soon as the party starts to turn the battle against him, he pops his escape hatch. After he does this a couple times, your players will WANT to kill him.
3) Make the villain French.
WHY DO YOU THINK I HAVE THIS OOOUUTRAAAAGEOUS ACCENT YOU SILLY ENGLISH PIG DOG?!
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What are you doing in England?
French Person: Mind your own business!
Back at the topic: There are three ways I know of to make an NPC utterly, utterly loathed. The first, as others have indicated, is to create an NPC who steals or breaks a PC's stuff. Seriously. They hate it worse than losing a limb.
The second is for the NPC to get to the adventure goal first. This can shade into the first if the quest was to retrive the thingy of thingness, but it can also be a case of the NPC sharing everything he knows about the PCs with the local villain, offering to sell the Terrible Secret to the PCs at an exorbitant price (after destroying the original documents), or setting the heroes and the local bad guys against each other for reasons of his own.
The third is for the NPC to reflect one of the PCs' nature somehow - or in extreme cases, for everybody in the party to have a foil who is just enough like them to set their teeth on edge.
If you don't mind cartoonish extremes, NPCs can even steal the PCs' identities; letting their "names" slip just before they rob the local orphanage, then riding out of town just as the PCs are arriving. Torch and pitchfork time!
Mulet wrote:
We've replaced Ameiko with my own old PC, Malog. I consistently voice him like an over-exited Sam Tarley from Game of Thrones. He's stupid, lovable and a highly competent ally, who provides free food and lodging.
Hmm - any chance Malog could betray the party members, viciously hurt and wound them and then steal their things and run off? If he's providing free food and lodging he's in a great place to do so.
PCs hate being betrayed, especially by a GM's PC.
If this Tsuto is a powerful magician and has run into the PCs, then done any prep he'll find out Malog is where they're vulnerable. Dominate Person, Magic Jar or Create Undead later and he's in!
Hopefully n session in they'll kill Malog and then discover he was their loyal friend and this Tsuto guy was behind it, and they've been made to look like idiots.
There's a risk that PCs just wont want to trust any NPC after this, so be careful.
Disguise Self, running through town looking like the PC's and giving them a bad name.
Suddenly, no one will sell to them, children hide inside, windows shut as they walk by. No one will talk to them. Irritating as heck.
Stealing items, or flat making the NPC the foil to the PCs via game mechanics is just going to come off as you the GM taking it out on the players.
Create a story reason for the NPC to get under the PCs skin. Generally what I've found is to have that NPC be someone untouchable, not because of game mechanics, but because he's protected by law, or monarchs, or something along those lines. And he TAUNTS the PCs about it. "Yes, I was the one that put the things in motion that lead to <your downfall, the NPC death, collapsing your good name>, but I had no direct hand in it, so you have no legal leg to stand on, now do you? Oh, do put away the blades and magic! So typical of you adventuring types, and boring. I've done nothing illegal, and if you harm me, well the <prince, judge, magistrate, etc> will just have a field day. It would be a pity to see you all disemboweled for laying hands on a noble. Now, if you'll excuse me, I still have <information, item, something the PCs want> and you'll simply have to do what I say, or you won't get it, and I'm late for breakfast. Ta."
If you make the PCs powerless, even with all their power, and make the NPC contemptuous and throw it in the faces of the PCs, they will want to throttle the NPC, but it's all directed at the characters, not the PCs.
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probably a bit late but i post this for future researching GMs.
Credentials: GMing since the 90s, longest running storyline 5 years @2week intervals, made a player actually vomit with a vile room description (he was new *shrug*)
there's two answers to this dilemma, one for the actual Role player (fluff luvers) and one for the powergamer(mechanics luvers)
For The Role Player Breed.
Take what they love and mutilate it. it is important to be completely unbound by morality in this endeavor when preparing the story just as much as the villain surely is. figure out what they love, then threaten, kill, rape, imprison, enslave, steal, massacre, mutilate, dismember, or otherwise maim it until the cry the one word heroes scream "why". be crafty in the setup, elaborate and vile in the description, and be sure to add boasts and insults with which to season the worm on the fishhook well.
BUT DONT FORGET the most important part of all... HOPE. Hope is, oddly enough, what tends to drive the PC's pursuit. kill their hope and the players will devolve to feelings of castigation and maybe even drop from your game. kindle their PC's hope while keeping juuuuust out of reach till your ready for a climax. to know "hope of what?" you will need to seriously analyze the characters and answer that yourself.
For the PowerGamer
far more easier (and boring *sigh*) than a fluff lover, simply take their gear, give them permanent negative effects (ie. negative levels, curses, etc), and spare no moment with the NPC's tongue to taunt, insult, or othwise mock their "power". example quote: "Guess your not that much of a hero after all <grin>". thats part 1, part 2 is using magic or high power level sources that allow the villian to evade capture or defeat constantly or what i like to call "the rub" as in rubbing it in. op sorry, well fought, but i win again, bye. that has been the result of numberous objects being hurled past my GM screen lol.
in either situation the goal as story tell is to engage the players which few GMs can actually do or even understand. my recipe for doing this is as follows.
1. know the players preferences, likes, and dislikes of gaming in its entirety.
2. use that to craft a story element that will engage them to you. symptoms of an engaged player are: curiosity, excitement, investment, abnormal amounts(as relates to the player) of inquiry on game knowledge, and comments of approval "this is crazy" is one of them believe it or not but OMG is a more common one.
3. give the reigns to the player (aaaand everyone look at me funny now). as a gm most of my briliant ideas and memorable gaming moments are not mine at all, they are the result of flexible and fluid GMing. when players investigate possiblities or speculate, i listen, and if the idea would make for a better story it suddenly becomes what was in the script. Dont tell them that your basically hijacking their idea cus it reduces the level of entertainment most times but do nurture it like your own child. the player will be happy cus he guessed right and feels in control (powergamers have serious esteem issues typically) and you will be known as the awsome GM.
the opposite of step three is railroading, mazing (dead-end ing), and typically ME vs. YOU gming which is crappy gaming and a total waste of valuable time in this day and age. imagine reading a book and having somebody constantly turning the page your about to read back to the one you already read...would you hate that? yeah so dont be that guy.
easy as 1-2-3 :P
sorry for my longwindedness and thanks for reading, hope it helps someone out there become a better Game Master and bring more people to the game(s) i so love.
One I used once that almost derailed the game. I was trying to give them a villain they would hate, and g!$ d$$n I succeeded. First encounter with him? He was full defense. Buffed out the wazoo with save bonuses, AC bonuses, everything to make him hard to hit. Then I had him focus on the steal combat maneuver. He was a shadowdancer, so he popped around the combat, stealing people's gold pouches. When he stole everybody's gold, he used invisibility and scurried off, trapping them in a room and ran off. The entire time he taunted them, being just a general douchebag. It worked.
Gregory Connolly wrote: If you want your players to hate an NPC the easiest way to do that is to make the NPC always be 5 levels higher than them. Fighting someone 5 levels higher than you will usually result in a TPK so you have to have the NPC rub the PCs faces in the level difference. Which will make them hate the NPC more. Don't hold back be the most optimized villain you can be, and focus on escape plans and utility magic. I say it is almost a requirement that this NPC is a full caster. Somebody with 2 or 3 spell levels on the party who keeps sticking their nose in the parties business will drive them up a wall. Also they have to be rich, like at least PC wealth by level rich. Players hate cheatty-face NPCs who can do everything they want, so create one. You will have to stop leveling them at some point if you want the PCs to be the ones who do the NPC in. When I did something like that to my party, instead of TPK, the villains performed psychic surgery on the party, making them permanently subjected to False Sensory Input, Inflict Pain, and Mindlinked so they could always say nasty things to them. They left the party alive so the Fire Priests would blame them for robbing the temple.
Also, I added a personal touch: The villains were modeled and named after 2 of the players' ex roommates.
I had a DM who did a very good job of making me hate the villains just by paying attention to our backstories. We ran into the turned-evil, old mentor of a fallen comrade who was overseeing the burning of a town. My little gnome tinker marched right up to him, called him a coward and walked away to fight the flames and rescue people. The rest of the party was all scared because he was powerful or something.
The DM seemed to like my back story of the gnome being a political refugee, because we came across that nation on the march burning books and technology. Ooooh, I wanted to get them!
It seems that your party is just not engaged with your campaign. Ask them what they want and what they think motivated their characters. Then tantalize them with what they want, and make your villains personal to them and total D&*che B%^@s (Pardon my French.).
Be careful about taking the PC's stuff, harming NPCs that they love etc. This can backfire badly.
I have been in games where the entire group of players just up and quit the campaign because of this kind of thing.
I know that if any of my own character's back-story NPCs were harmed without the GM asking me if I would be OK with what was done, that I would not want to continue playing in that campaign (I have had this happen to one of my characters before and will not put up with it ever again).
Maizing wrote: Be careful about taking the PC's stuff, harming NPCs that they love etc. This can backfire badly.
I have been in games where the entire group of players just up and quit the campaign because of this kind of thing.
I know that if any of my own character's back-story NPCs were harmed without the GM asking me if I would be OK with what was done, that I would not want to continue playing in that campaign (I have had this happen to one of my characters before and will not put up with it ever again).
that sounds highly arbitrary which would not be anything close to what i suggested. such events should always have meaning and serve to make for a more engaging story. and if that would still cause you to drop a game then i say you are greatly lacking in imagination to a somewhat selfish fault. you might not agree, but consider this
Game of thrones is the greatest and most popular show to ever hit TV. in this piece of fiction the author (storyteller) frequently makes characters important, gets you invested in them, then KILLS them.
what makes this show so successful is the break from the expected, because expected is boring. Happy endings are for the uncreative, happy endings of a sort are the true masterpiece that will ALWAYS grip its audience.
A call from mom saying the neighbor's houses have all been sacked and looted, and she is worried about the likelihood that she is next, followed by a prolonged absence is a good way to get someone's attention. Make sure to tell the PC's owner about the proposed interaction before hand. Leave it up to the PCs owner what happened to mom, from torture and treatment most foul, to fleeing to her second cousin's home in Ustalov with no real way to get ahold of her adventuring child beforehand, perfectly safe and sound, enjoying a crumpet on the sofa..
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