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Any NPCs the party has gotten to liking? Kidnap them.
Ruin villages for no good reason. Speak in detail about the weeping women, orphaned children, and devastation and bodies.
Have the bad guy employ torture. Get a temporary stronghold after taking someone captive, and have him leave behind obvious clues that torture took place (including the disgusting body of the victim).
Target Good (aligned) people for no other reason than they're Good. Low-ranking members of a good church (particularly Sarenrae or Shelyn) are good choices.
Take hostages (preferably children) and when the party backs off, have him kill them and escape anyway. (For this one - don't cheat out the party, but have escape plans in mind based on their abilities. Always have a backup escape plan).
Have him leave behind cryptic clues that show that he knows who they are, down to details and secrets PCs have hidden away (he has several high-powered clerics aiding him).
Have him spread a rumor in a town the PCs have come to love and see as their home, and the town forces them to leave their home (or tries to arrest/hang them for some made-up crime).
Be as evil as you can be.
As a GM, I always look over my players character sheets and create villains based on the pc's particular skill set. In the current campaign I'm running one of my players is a young female gunslinger who stumbled upon her gun by accident. I came up with the backstory to how the gun was lost in the first place, and the person who want's it back. He's an mercenary with a huge scar running down his face and a big ass chip on his shoulder.
Whatever you make, make it durable. The villain must be really hard to finish off for good, so you can have a lot of ood fights with the same evil git showing up again.
Liches, Grave knights and ghosts will come back to "life"
Everyone else needs a way to escape to fight another day.
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Make the BBEG a snarky, arrogant, prick, continually pestering the PC's.
He might have a spy slip laxative into their food, steal their clothes, or destroy the bridge the PC's needed the cross. The idea here is that the BG is too arrogant to think that the PC's can beat him, but he makes their life miserable anyway.
One of the many villain types I personally love to hate, are the kind that has control over law enforcement, nobility and royalty either through blackmail, money or something else. Imagine the players getting the run around from their own Queen, merely because big bad evil guy has her in his back pocket. Hell, maybe the Queen's a simulacrum under his control and the real queen is being held captive by BBEG.
There is also the mad scientist. Now, it depends on how dark you want to go, but I could see the BBEG kidnapping NPCs that the PCs have gotten to know and like and turning them into twisted monsters through experimentation. For added effect one could have the NPCs original voice come from the monster just before the final blow.
If you want something to effect the PCs directly then give BBEG some power over them directly. At the beginning you could say they each have a rune or oddly shaped scar somewhere on their persons. Through this rune / scar, the BBEG can easily push powerful illusions and enchantments through the rune / scar. Few things tick a player off than a BBEG saying, "Kneel." and the PCs being forced to do so.
There are others of course, but needless to say there are a lot of routes you can go to make a hated villain.
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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Third Mind is on to something. Authority figures make great villains - and they don't even have to be truly evil! I ran a campaign (almost 10 years ago now) where the Mayor of the town (I don't even remember the town's name anymore) was always on the PCs' case - they couldn't blow their nose without getting a fine or being arrested for some minor law. Not a true BBEG, but a real stickler for law and order and always trying to pin stuff on the PCs. My players still bring up "The Mayor" to this day.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Whatever you make, make it durable. The villain must be really hard to finish off for good, so you can have a lot of ood fights with the same evil git showing up again.
Liches, Grave knights and ghosts will come back to "life"
Everyone else needs a way to escape to fight another day.
Of course in a fantasy game that way to fight another day could be to die and be "reborn." In the Shackled City AP my players really hated when they finally killed a particular villain only to have him come back from dead more powerful than before.
Infernal pacts, Ghosts (or similar undead), minions with access to ressurection all provide the possibility that the villain could return even from death.
1. Have him harm children. This is ticket #1 to BBEG hate.
2. Have him either seduce/coerce/force people the PCs like/love to actively work against them.
3. Have him kick a puppy. Or a basket of puppies.
Yes. If they are very self centered, then the BBEG needs to make them fail, make them laughing stocks (as whisperknives) had said.
You could go the Mister Mxzyptlk route. For those who don't know or don't remember he's basically an all powerful trickster from the superman comics and cartoons. Essentially what I'm getting at for this particular BBEG is one that always screws the players over at the worst times. (Not exactly what Mxzyptlk does, but I got an idea from him.
Players trying to sneak past a small horde of goblins with weapons? BBEG pops in, bangs a pair of metal pans together right behind the PCs, laughs and pops out.
Players need to speak with the queen about an important matter? BBEG appears right before the queen comes into the room, turns the parties clothes a bright frilly pink dresses and the queen starts laughing at them as does the captain of the guard and others who have accompanied her.
All animals in the area have been enchanted by the BBEG to urinate on the PCs like they're fire hydrants whenever they stand still for more than 3 seconds.
PC reaches into one of their pockets to give a guard the papers to get into the city, he does so, not knowing that the words have been altered to a love story from that player to the guard.
There are a lot of things a magical prankster villain could do. Add to his love for pranks the fact that if he gets bored he'll simply try to kill them and you have a BBEG. This will effect them directly, effect their egos and possibly their health. Hard not to hate a character that makes almost everything go wrong for them.
Just an idea.
Though, with my last suggestion, you'll probably want to space out the prank events a bit so as to not overly annoy the players.
Though, with my last suggestion, you'll probably want to space out the prank events a bit so as to not overly annoy the players.Not sure if pranks are the way to go, that is more toward the annoying villain side and away from the respected villain side.
More like rob them blind and make them look bad doing it, or you could just frame them for a crime, that way their rep is ruined and they lose stuff.
True enough my last suggestion wasn't one of a respectable villain, but he is definitely one that can be hated. However, I was just putting villains that can easily be hated down, without focusing on him being respected. Could make him induce fear pretty easily though.
BBEG get's bored with screwing with them and starts doing crazy things like, the mad scientist suggestion I put up. Turning their friend NPCs into disgusting and aggressive creatures trying to kill the party.
Anyways, like I said, not necessarily to everyone's tastes, but fairly easy to hate the evil magical trickster. Good luck OP.
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My 2 cents? Have the Villian actually win one, no flubbed rolls, just... A single solid win for the bad guys through better useage of abilities & tactics. They hate that even more than the Villian that got away.
Though he was only a "challenging" encounter, he was very optimized(SAGA doesn't really have gear per se, so build strengh's everything) and managed to not only hold them off, but he killed the senator, and he even ended up saving 2 of the players from an agressive player whom nearly killed everyone else in the room just to try and get the guy.
They HATED him winning. And though they completely redeemed themselves in a later encounter, his continued survival and influence on the campaign was a driving force of the game. They even had a pet name for him, "Darth Ballsack".
Usually most of my villains tend to be either two types: Joker or Darkseid.
Joker: Completely insane, mass-murdering, f***-head. Completely unpredictable and you never know when or how he will strike. Also, may have a very cynical/twisted philosophy to back up why he is right and the PCs are wrong.
Darkseid: Never truly loses. Even when the PCs have him on the ropes and they think he is down and out he always pulls out something that leaves them reeling in the end. Usually, these guys find something the PCs hold very dear and takes it out, usually right before or as the PCs defeat him.
Learn the character's back stories. Involve the villain in that. My latest campaign I had the villian as a ruthless monster doing whatever it took to save the world. While the PCs were runnign for theier lives from the horrible things he caused. Then at the end one of the PCs got to choose the allow the villian to save the world in the long run or give another PC godhood and eventually doom the world. It was epic, the world got smoked.
make the party hate my bbeg.
He creates Simulacra of the party, dresses them in fetish wear and exactly what he uses them for, is best only hinted at...
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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make the party hate my bbeg.He creates Simulacra of the party, dresses them in fetish wear and exactly what he uses them for, is best only hinted at...
Happened in my STAP campaign. A certain NPC in Scuttlecove made a simulacrum of the paladin unbeknownst to him. When the party negotiators showed up to talk to her again, there's the paladin simulacrum wearing nothing but some peacock feathers....
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Yeah, that's what I meant I guess he'll have to target them directly since kidnap/murder of innocents won't change much. Though I suppose I could also go with a crime they could stop but don't in front of witnesses to tarnish their reputation and have the bbeg, make a group of adventurers to get the pc's mercenary jobs and whatnot. Thanks you guys have helped allot. Now I'm going to have to start fleshing him out.
If you really want to create a sense of animosity between the BBEG and your PC's think of ways that you can mess with the characters that will be offensive to the players personally...
For example, I have a friend who I play with that is a bit of a Redneck. He's got a mild case of homophobia. In one campaign the Players character had a love interest that was an attractive female Elf who was pretending to be their friend (in fact it started out that she really was their friend).
The female Elven NPC was actually one of the BBEG's top level henchmen (henchwoman?).
Anyhow I let it slip/revealed to the characters that this Elven damsel was formerly a male half-orc that had been reincarnated as an elven female by the BBEG after he fell in battle (unfortunately it didn't fit in the story that the PC's had killed the half-Orc - that would have been even more awesome).
My buddy was so offended by this that his PC reacted exactly as I expected he would and it made for a very memorable villain. It was compounded by the fact that the rest of the players (not characters) teased him mercilessly about it.
People with hang-ups and prejudices are often the easiest to mess with. If your friends have quirks - play on them (or prey on them as it were).
2 Quick thoughts on this one:
1. Body jumpers (ex. trap the soul casters) who exclusively use children or loved ones of party members is always good to get some emotional "oomph" out of players. Squick factors vary from group to group, but having them do horrific things while in the borrowed body can also cause all sorts of trouble.
2. In a similar vein, using shape changers or illusion-users who emulate the PCs in compromising or illegal activities will also work to make sure PCs quickly hate the NPC in question.
-TimD
Hit them where it hurts, and make it personal.
Thats right snap the fighters prize weapon. Burn the mage's spell book and kill his/her familar. Rob the thief blind. Profane the cleric's alter. Kill/maim the PC's family members.
Bare in mind that thies are all considered d!@& moves!
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Attack their pride.
Have them attack the BBEG while they are still low to medium level. Have him just wipe the floor with them. Have him walk away while they are lying around bleeding from their wounds while stating that he has more important things to do than teach incompetent adventurers their proper place.
He might also threaten them to come back one day and kill all of them (and their loved ones) if he ever feels like it.
My party has invested a lot of resources in foiling the specific powers of the BBEG that did this to us. When he comes back, we will be ready.
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Yep. Way to make PCs HATE a villain is for him to escape them, even once.
Or even make him someone they CAN'T kill with impunity. The examples above of authority figures are good illustrations of this. It makes it all the more satisfying when the PCs circumvent whatever protection the BBEG has and can finally bring him to justice, frontier or otherwise.
I recommend not making a villain until your heroes are a little more powerful. I enjoy playing the villain quite a bit, and there isn't much more evil you can do than with a powerful lawful evil enchanter. You can cause so much damage to anything the players do. Geas their npc friends to fight them to the death.
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I recommend not making a villain until your heroes are a little more powerful.
Oh, I don't know about that. Some of the best villains are on screen from Act One. They don't have to be directly interacting with the PCs, but their actions could be on display. My favorite example is Kefka from Final Fantasy VI.