| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have a game coming up which utilizes the Lost City of Barakus from Necromancer/Frog God Games. It will be played in the Pathfinder system.
In this campaign the PCs investigate a lost city. An ancient evil has been sealed in the underground layers of the city for millennia but its prison has been nigh unbreakable. This is one of the potential final villains of the campaign.
I'm coming to ask for advice on how to make my players hate this villain.
Its been locked away, so it can't have directly caused a destruction the PCs are avenging. The same restriction means it doesn't have much contact w/the outside world so that doesn't help my case either. How do you make a helpless prisoner into a satisfying final villain?
Some initial thoughts I had were
1. a cult has grown up around the villain's memory
2. since said villain was a necromancer, some of his old creations carry on his work
3. there might be scenes which bleed through time allowing the PCs to relive the villain's past atrocities
I'm open to any advice you can offer.
Any chance there's a cult or school of necromancers who follow the ancient evil's traditions? You're right that an inactive, helpless character doesn't make an impressive villain.
Presumably there's going to be some way for it to break out of the prison by/as the endgame or you'd think the PCs could just walk away saying 'our job here is done'. Is there any way that early signs that it will break out are showing? Poisoned groundwater, lesser undead or outsiders leaking out of the prison, commoners nearby being driven mad by the dreams bleeding thru' time, etc.
I agree with avr’s suggestion about dreams. The villain could start showing up in nasty dream sequences which get worse as the campaign progresses. At first they might just be spooky and require a Will save to avoid being fatigued the next day. Eventually they could feature mini encounters which give you some XP if you “win” them but penalties of some sort if you “lose” (maybe ability damage and later on ability, drain, negative levels, or brief periods of losing control and performing spooky or Evil acts while sleep walking)
As for the bleeding through time stuff, that’s OK for dreams, but there could also be tortured spirits, ancient oracles, etc who “show” such stuff to the PCs. I suppose there could be a magical book which has info the heroes will need but also really horrible stuff about the villain and his Evil glory.
Depending on how your group feels about such things you could ascribe some widely reviled characteristics to the villain. In addition to his Evil day job perhaps he’s a sex criminal of some sort. I guess you could also have the cultists stress that they’re doing whatever horrible stuff they do for the glory of the villain and or in an attempt to free him.
Is there a chance that he is still communicating to members of his cult? Directing them even though he is imprisoned?
Basically, he is the great criminal/ terrorist / madman who is locked away, but some of his evil remains in the world. He could be the mastermind directing crimes while still in prison. However, I get the impression this BBEG has even less contact.
Perhaps a cultist has cracked his prison enough to allow him to communicate to his devoted. The PCs aren't going to confront him in the end, but must repair and reinforce the prison. To do this, they must get past cultists as well as defenses of the prison.
Before that they could encounter his writings which inspire other evil doers. This would give insights directly to the foe and build why they hate him. Perhaps a cultist is compiling long lost collections of his work, and the cultist just happens to have a list of where other evil memoirs / manifestos can be found.
|
In part it depends upon what kind of players you have.
Are they the type who get attached to NPCs? If yes - you could have the villain's followers kill an NPC that they like.
Do they like to solve mysteries? Don't tell them about this villain at first. Have adventures which are basically mysteries - and then when the group is about to catch someone to solve it, they bite down on a poison pill (or some such) while shouting "For the glory of *Evil Villain*!" (actually shouting whatever his name is)
Do they hate being duped? (virtually every player ever!) Have them suckered into doing something which will allow the villain a small hole in his prison to start affecting the world again - his influence growing ever stronger until the party is forced to open up his tomb and defeat him once and for all! (Perhaps just a passive thing like the madness caused by Asura in Soul Eater.)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
In my early DMing days, I once did an enemy my players truly hated...
An ethereal snatcher of sorts, that stalked the PCs, waited for them to go to sleep, and snatched their loot to bring it back to the ethereal plane.
Oh, they hated it alright. They must have been lvl 5 or so at the time?
I think it should be self-evident why this was a really terrible idea. As a GM, you want your players to have a great time. If you want to throw in a little hate, it has to be hate they love, in other words, a villain they love to hate. The creature who took all of their loot, without them really being able to do anything about it, had absolutely nothing fun about it. It was pure hatred, partially at the beast, but mostly at me for being such a troll (we were teens).
It's really a delicate balancing act. For the heroes to hate him, he must do stuff that undermines them, but at the same time, you must be careful for him not to take all their fun away. The villain turning their victory into a defeat ("Aha! That artifact you destroyed wasn't the source of my power as I led you to believe, it was powering my emprisonment!") can work occasionally, but if it's repetitive it'd just make the players want to give up altogether, for example.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Play the villain as Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. I hated that guy so much.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think it should be self-evident why this was a really terrible idea. As a GM, you want your players to have a great time. If you want to throw in a little hate, it has to be hate they love, in other words, a villain they love to hate. The creature who took all of their loot, without them really being able to do anything about it, had absolutely nothing fun about it. It was pure hatred, partially at the beast, but mostly at me for being such a troll (we were teens).
Granted in a group of teens it's normal that things end working out exactly in that way, but I'd play a bit as the devil's advocate, in regard to matters like these.
If the whole gaming group is solid, and both parts of it (GM and players) know they can trust each other, even things like that can be see as a challenge like any other, rather than trolling.The hate (of the bad kind) of having all the loot taken away comes from seeing all your previous efforts nullified, and from being left with less than you should have under normal and fair circumstances, having to struggle tenfold just to keep your head out of the water because the world is against you. Sort of what happens in the PVE of MMOs. You never feel powerful for one moment, you're always feeling as if you're being left behind. You kill a thousand monsters to get higher level, and when you get it you enter a new area where you have to obtain the strongest equipment available before killing another thousand monsters, and repeat, and repeat...
But.
If the group, as said, is solid, a player knows the GM isn't just a cheap bastard who wants to make her suffer and keep her contantly in check. The challenge of a thief taking what's yours can be a fun arc which will normally end with the character testing her own abilities in unfavorable circumstances, growing, and retrieving her things and probably other loot that. And even in the event where your character end up with dust in her hands, you can trust that's just part of a greater arc and the GM will bring you back to glory, in full fairness.
Personally, I've thrown an immeasurable amount of s**t at my players, but what I took with one hand, I gave with the other. For a really quick example, ask them if they're ooc-mad for a thief stealing a few thousand GPs, when a patron armed the PCs for free with a ten times equivalent in magic weapons and trinkets...
This to say that what you can or cannot do largely depends on a given group's dynamics. If you aren't just trolling and the players know it, you can build their good hate for the villain even with things that would otherwise cause the bad hate for you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think you are about to have a hard time.
I atleast probably wouldnt hate a guy who did me nothing bad , at most apparently is his cult doing the evil stuff , not him , so i would try to stop them , but not hate the guy.
I would try to go from the "there might be scenes which bleed through time allowing the PCs to relive the villain's past atrocities" and say they experience and feel like the victims , that might work atleast a little...
For a situation such as this, the villian has to have had some means of influencing the rest of the campaign. Even if it's only by way of telepathic suggestions / advice to the rest of the bad guys, make him have had a hand in it. The fighter's family slain? At the command of the final evil. The mayor murdered, and the evil cult rising to take over the city? At the suggestion of the final evil.
And here's the thing - as they go after The Final Evil, have it start communicating directly but individually with each of the PCs - it KNOWS they're coming after it, so it tries to turn one of them to its side, cut a deal, whatever. Have it apologize for one of the bad things its people have done to that PC - thus cueing the PC in on the fact that all this happened because of The Final Evil - and do your damned level best at converting the character to his side.
Making all (or at least most of) the bad crap be the fault of The Final Evil is key. Making it so that the players find out at the last moment gets all the anger channelled towards it.
The best way to have the players hate a villain is have the villain directly do something to slight the party. Steal something from the party. Frame the party for murder. Attempt to sacrifice the wizard's cat.
If the villain is some kind of ancient evil locked away, then introduce a new villain that's his follower.
Use swarm controlled by him.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is an old trick that always works: make the villain steal something from the pcs. Pretty simple, but I can assure you that they will go to the end of the world to get back their thing (whatever it is) and hate the guy for taking it. Period.
Bonus points if you taunt them any time they are about to catch him and he ends up scaping.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The best way to have the players hate a villain is have the villain directly do something to slight the party. Steal something from the party. Frame the party for murder. Attempt to sacrifice the wizard's cat.
My personal favourite to get the feud started: let the Villain claim (and receive!) the credit for a PC's accomplishment.
Do any of the players have a tragic backstory or something nasty in their family history?
If not, create one and let them discover the truth of their own past. Then, eventually reveal that the necromancer was behind it all, way back when.
The villain doesn't have to be the PC's villain at first. He could have been their ancestor's villain.
Tragic ghosts of a PC's grandmother, old journals found detailing how a great-uncle got roped into the cult, a defiled grave of a family member. A very old relative who remembers the horrors of that time from when they were a very young child.
Maybe even have one of the necromancer's lieutenants be the undead body of a PC's ancestor.
Mess with their heritage.
|
Back when I was contributing to the Great RPG.net Motivational Posters Thread, someone hit on a great source of truly gnashing-of-teeth-inducing villains, and I added another almost-as-good-source later:
Watch Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Twilight Zone, and take lessons from their villains. Both of those shows turn out to be fantastic showcases for Campaign Villains Your Players Will Hate.
Although not the BBEG I made a RotR specific boss a permanentely hated nemesis of the party fighter by having him hand over his bow to said boss who in turn ran away with it. That boss now uses the bow for any and all encounters with the players, good spite-filled fun. Was a an adaptive bow of ashes btw, not fun to lose.
Cruel, but not left unpayed for
Ever read the end of the RotR adventure path? It's pretty much what you describe right here.
Anyway, what you want to do requires buildup. It needs to have agents which toil for its release; they wreak havoc on the pcs lives and friends in their efforts to free their master, and then, as the pcs desperately race through the city to get to the prison beforehand, with the mcguffin they need to kill him before he gets too powerful, but they're not there in time, and they have to fight the thing as it's released.
Another example of an AP that does basically this is Carrion Crown.
Play the villain as Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. I hated that guy so much.
Handsome Jack isn't so bad, after all he named his diamond pony after you.
This topic now depresses me, because I made a villain elsewhere, and they were INSTANTLY hated. Like, before someone else even knew who they were or what they'd done or how they viewed the world.
o wo;
...As a GM, that feels like a very strange failure to me. I want villains to be hated for the right reasons, not randomly. (And I was trying hard to make a decent villain, too... the "you know, they kind of have a point" type.)
To make your players really hate a villian, you need to know what sets them off. This is tougher than it sounds, because let's face it, that's not an aspect of ourselves we normally tell people...
A great way to make a villain hated is to have him escape 2 or 3 times, like legit just get away and drive the party crazy trying to get this guy. Bonus points is if he gets away because the player's had their hands tied (on the first time) since they will regret not having nipped him in the bud early on. Of course, he can't get away too often or your players will feel like they're being railroaded - there should always be a chance they get him early.
This topic now depresses me, because I made a villain elsewhere, and they were INSTANTLY hated. Like, before someone else even knew who they were or what they'd done or how they viewed the world.
...Do I know this villain? I feel like I do.
@CommandoDude: You don't know the villain. XD They're not even on this forum, and I'm preeeeeetty sure you're not in any way involved with the roleplay they're from.
(And by hated, I mean the other person was all "I want to brutally hurt them for no reason", with the player being more of a villain than the character. They admitted, outright and up-front, that there was absolutely no reason or explanation. They didn't even KNOW the character, and by their own admission were utterly irrational about the entire thing. I'm not the GM there, and they immediately set about doing everything they could to deliberately and maliciously ruin the story I was trying to make there even when specifically told not to. ...So, currently mulling responses to that. I want to troll the heck out of them, but I don't want to be a jerk. XD)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's very delicate to pull off, but recently my GM just made our entire party HATE a villain by have him do in character to us what every player hates OOC: he took away our agency. The villain put us in a situation where we couldn't do anything to stop it. And we hated it, and we got pissed. And then had the blame for the situation placed on us afterwards to boot. We really REALLY hated that guy. And as we were in a situation where we the villain was in a position of authority over our characters, we had to put up with that. Hating it more and more.
So when we finally did get to deal with that guy, he was DEALT with. Brutally. And even the party member who forgave NPCs deliberately trying to kill him didn't have a single objection to it.
BE A JERK!!! The player is obviously being one and it would be right to nip this in the bud. I would do something unexpected like make a disguise check and have a beefy NPC get mistaken for the BBEG. Make the disguised character awesome at sunder but not much else and destroy some prized possessions during the fight and not drop hardly any replacement loot because he mostly used potions or one use items. And, when the PC brutally murders him have the local sheriff get on their trail. He is after all just some murder hobo. Should be lots of fun and now you gave the BBEG a great reason to truly be hated.
Betrayal.
Have his minions seem like they're "good guys," helping the party out, providing clues to important treasures, all to make the players do the dirty work and then rob them of their gains. Betray their trust. Pretty much guaranteed to generate hatred.
Probably already mentioned, but I'm on my phone and on break at work so.... I'll just add to the list anyways.
I'd probably use illusions and make the villain get really personal with the PCs, via their background. Someone they like or love? He kills them or has the PC accidentally kill them in an illusion. Have the PCs family insult and berate them, make them accidentally hurt a nice dog nearby. Whatever gets under the characters skin. Nothing in their past or mind is sacred. If you can manage to inconvenience them via the illusions too, even better.
Kick puppies. Have the villain do something despicable to someone weak and innocent, with not even a reason to do so. Raze the village they fought to protect at some earlier point. Kill someone's pet. Demand someone marries him, or he will destroy X, and then when she does, kill the girl needlessly, before destroying X anyway. Burn down a library open for all. Poison the well of a village that stood up to him, just out of spite, and after the village ceases to matter. Torture someone who aided the heroes, even if it was just emotional support. Crush someone running a soup kitchen through debt because he can. Kill off a tiny remnant of a knightly order consisting only of old, feeble men that were allowed to remain in business because they were honoured. Burn down the life's work of a gentle soul.
In my experience, nothing gets hackles up better than this.
Goatee.
Have the players willingly help him in his goals, even sticking out their necks to rescue this guy. Make them think it's a good idea. Then have this guy f++% them over.
Make believe that the actual villain is this guy's captors and that by rescuing him they are righting a wrong.
What did he do?
Obviously it was a long time ago, but some things have a big effect on history. If the world now is a much worse place because of what he did, especially if you can show that a few times, you might can generate a good hate without the bad guy being active at all during most of the campaign.
Genocide, creation of a destructive magical technology of some kind, destroying something good and important, and of them could have an major effect on the world and make this guy that worlds 'Hitler' who most of us hate even if he didn't kill anyone related to us and he was dead before we were born.
It would require something equivalent to 'Holocaust Photos' in your game, but if you can make the bad bad enough, and make the players feel it, not just know it, it could be a very satisfying villain.
My thoughts are similar to Secret Wizard. If the "villain" can send dreams to the party so that he appears to be a helpless prisoner, they could be manipulated into freeing him. After he thanks them and disappears, they start hearing of him in connection with atrocities -- he may be paying back the truly innocent descendants of those who put him in the prison, possibly even killing friends or allies of the party. They may not exactly hate him, but they will be motivated to deal with him.
Don't even!
The best villain is the honest one.
So let's say this imprisioned creature defied his tyrannic rulers. You learn more about those dictators and their ruthlessness and you spend half the campaign trying to stymie them and destroy their undead bodies, while learning more about the imprisioned creature's defiance.
When you save the imprisioned creature and expect its favor and cooperation to stop those enemies, it kills NPC X to absorb its body (because the imprisoned creature's body was too frail from its long conviction) and recreate itself.
Then it goes to destroy the enemies you took so long to fight and then starts posing even a bigger threat.
|
I think you need to make it personal by having the PCs become in some way victims of the enemy.
Some possibilities :
The enemy scries on them from afar as early as possible and feeds info on their powers and combat tactics to their opponents.
The enemy has cultists trying to free it. One of the PCs' family is part of this cult, though the PC does not know that.
The enemy cursed the PCs' ancestors and the curse will soon strike the PCs.
I have made various villains that my party hated. One of them was a simple Troglodyte with levels of Rogue who took shot on the run, Run, Boots of Speed, and a few other fun feats and started chucking poison spears (using his superior dark vision to see them), getting the party to try and move up to engage, he'd hide and then sneak attack the back of the party and take off running.
The next one was a guy who acted like their patron for their low levels and only at later levels did they realize that they'd been manipulated the whole way to kill his rivals and cause problems for those who were trying to stop his ascension to Godhood.
A BBEG taking something from the players will make them hate the GM.
A BBEG framing the PC for something, however, becomes plot fuel.
A BBEG that keeps escaping, becomes a never ending "Did we finally get it?" question. Good for the most part, but room for endless sequels years later.
To make that escape happen: Simulacrum. You kill what you think is the BBEG to have it turn to snow and ice then melt right in front of you. You now know you have only set the BBEG back a little bit, and that they are higher level than you first thought.
There is a spell to reshape undead, so that you can send in undead versions as stand-ins.
For the prison, it holds his body, and his mind must return every so often, but else-when, his mind can roam nearby, inciting a cult, generating nasty effects in the area, and indirectly affecting even farther afield with dreams. Tales and lore in the area might give interesting detail on what *really* happened, as well as what people *think* is happening.
/cevah
Because due to an ancient prophecy, his minions had standing orders on how to manipulate the PCs into busting him out of jail?
|
Perhaps your PCs have some tragic flaw in their history that leads back to this villain.
For example, the PC comes from a poor family of little social standing. Have her discover that her family used to be rich nobility, centuries ago... until this guy took it from them.
Another possibility--this is more for fear than hate--is introduce a loathsome, vile, clearly evil NPC. Someone who proudly eats a baby each morning for his health. And then, show that he's entirely and without reservation on the PCs' side. Why? Because he's trying to prevent the machinations of an even greater evil from rising.
Because of how the particular material is written for this game if I run it as is the PCs eventually sort of stumble on this BBEG inside its prison and not knowing anything about it they fight an epic fight.
That's what I'm trying to change.
So what I'm getting from all your excellent advice is that I should make the BBEG affect the gameworld in some way from inside its prison. It should appear to be manipulating things, pulling the strings from far away.
I like the idea of a cult growing up around this guy. Even better, use the cult like a behind-the-scenes version of the Empire or the Corporation. This evil cult is everywhere, everyone; they're too big and well hidden to just go right at them. The cult becomes a sort of bogeyman.
The evil BBEG though must be thoroughly evil and, at the same time at least a little human. There should be signs and portents that this evil was once the lesser of 2. The cult is vile but the villain may actually be redeemable.
Just when I have them thinking that the evil betrays them. It orchestrates the murder of a loved one or commits some atrocity that cheeses the PCs off. Now the course is clear; they've got to deal with it once and for all.