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Sissyl wrote:

Silver dragon was suggested some time ago... But really, a RED dragon, or perhaps more likely a blue one, naturally of excessive size, would be even more impressive.

I can't really argue with this. Blue goes better with most paladins' dress codes than gold does, anyway.

hrrrmmmm..... lightning dragon.....full plate..... riiiiiiiight lol

neither!

unicorns are chaotic creatures first off, and Pegasus are so cliche i would never take one. unicorns are for druids so stop stealin the treehuggers flavor you imposing bastard.

Griffins are awesome in concept but horribly difficult to play. lets add ariel combat mechanics to it all with a carnivours mount that brings with it arial superiority. throw in some magical investments and buy your GM a bottle of asprin cus he will need it. sure it looks cool but the effect on a gaming sessions results in less fun more often than not by the bogging effects of such a complex mount. been there, done that, never again.

A beast of burden is most suitable for paladins and an intelligent one with a pension for the comical critiquing of his master makes memorable moments you'll be telling at geekouts. doesnt have to be a horse neither (boooooring), i personally played a paladin with a elephant for a mount and it was awesome. lots of hitpoints and if you ever seen an elephant in real life slap someone with their trunk and send them flying 15 feet you know that the mechanical version is very accurate hehe. plus sitting attop my steed slinging dictum like spells and subjecting my enemy to the justice of my god was strangley...appropriate. now take leadership and have archer squires riding with you...RAAAAAWR!

but if you reeeeealy wana up your status as a paladin accept no less than a good aligned dragon. hell, the story about how you even got one to serve as your mount should be awesomely memorable in an of itself.

lawful evil, hands down, and one of my favorite alignments

you have to seperate two things, what the person actually is and the persons own personal perception. the character described here is the most awsome kind of villian, the one that is arguably justified. He honestly percieves himself as doing the right thing but despite this delusion he is in fact lawful evil.

i give you an example. The holy crusaders of catholicism did horribly evil things during their crusades but perceived themselves as being a force of Good for the world.

doing some good things doesnt make you good, the absolute exclusion of doing evil things makes you good thus engaging in some good and some evil behaviors makes you evil mechanically or at best Chaotic neutral.

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.

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.