Thread 96311236

What makes a good villain? Looking to start a campaign and I want to either create or use a preexisting bad guy to torment my players. What's the best way to do this? Whats the best villains in TTRPG or ones you've come up with or villains that came up in your game done? Any experiences you've had or can share would be appreciated.

>>96311236 (OP)
Engagement with the players. Have the players meet the villain before they ever fight, unsure if the character is a bad guy. Maybe even work for them once. Then have a betrayal to get your players personally invested in hating them. Then have a fight that the big bad escapes from. Then have the villain harm something or something the players care about. Then have a big fight against the villain's bad guys. Then have a final showdown with the villain.

Really doesn't matter who the villain is. Follow that or some similar formula and it'll be a villain your players care about defeating. There's no list of attributes that will make the villain interesting or not. There's just how you use the villain in your game. Hell make it a prancing unicorn with shark teeth who throws a magic 8-ball. What'll make it good is the player involvement.

>>96311236 (OP)
In the most basic terms, someone that's directly affected your party's player characters either positively or negatively will have far more effect than just a nebulous overlord or distant threat. That's not to say you can't use them, but an evil lord's general who just put the last city the party visited to the torch will elicit far more of an emotional response than his boss will. And really, there's a lot of ways you can do this, from having them backstab the party, to threatening someone or something they value, or even actually be someone the party likes for whatever reason yet be set against them because of irreconcilable goals or moralities.

And if all else fails, you can just throw them an antagonist that just gets under their skin somehow, whether because they're too competent to be easily caught or just a petty cockbite, so that when they do catch him it makes it feel worth it. Though I wouldn't make it your first option if you don't want your players to be bitter about the experience you for a while.

>>96311236 (OP)
Unapologetically evil for the sake of being evil.
Why do they want to destroy the world? Fuck the world that's why.
Why are they summoning a being from outside space to destroy reality? For the lulz

There is no bargaining, no redemption, no grand design, just outright destruction back up by unstoppable might.

>>96311685
Boring and cliché, but more importantly it's extremely unfulfilling. "I dunno lol" is not an interesting answer to anything. Note, I'm not saying that you can't just not know why. I'm not saying that you can't say it. I'm saying that it's not interesting and thus is a terrible foundation for character design.

A good villain is not merely an antithesis of whatever the protagonist's perspective is constructed to be. The villain is supposed to lead to a meaningful synthesis or development of the protagonist's character such that their new perspective is more complete.

There is no such thing as "lol chaotic randumb madness!" that isn't how minds work. It immediately reads as shallow abdication of responsibility on the part of the writer. It's beyond lazy.

Even in the case of Kefka / The Joker, they aren't lol randumb, they're bitter and wrathful nihilists who present their rage and despair as mockery of what they perceive as vapid and banal failures to find meaning. They're destructive because they are resentful that others are able to find fulfillment in those insufficient diversions. Diversions the villain deems insufficient to alleviate the pain and despair that they feel within themselves. They're bitter that what works for others can't work for them.

Just like how incels can't understand that the entire reason they're so repulsive is precisely because of their maladaptive, dysfunctional bitterness. The self-reinforcement / feedback pattern of darkness cannot just be reversed by will. It requires an extraordinary, nigh mythically rare gesture of the very mercy and compassion they do not actually deserve. Indeed where might one find such a saintly spirit...? It would have to be a fantastical hero...

>>96311915
>Indeed where might one find such a saintly spirit...? It would have to be a fantastical hero...
That's quite the flattering way to talk about "freshmen girls in the dorms after you get 'em drunk on wine coolers."

>>96311927
Yeah drugging young girls so you can rape their unconscious bodies is a great a start on the redemption of your soul. They're totally gonna love you when they wake up. You're totally gonna be celebrated as a hero.

>>96311948
Doesn't matter had sex

>>96311948
>What if I assume the worst about everyone
>Then I'll get to be self-righteous on the internet!
Bro wine coolers are like 6%. Turn the volume down on your outrage meter.

>>96311236 (OP)
I can share my experience with Dming a BBEG in an ongoing campaign. It's in 3.5 D&D.

I pitched it to them as a Dungeon Crawling thing that would evolve into something more plot-oriented.. There was one big dungeon, a couple of villages, a great city and Forest and Mountains full of things to discover, fight and be destroyed by. I'll just focus on what they did in the Dungeon since that's what's relevant:

It was the, well, dungeons of a ruined castle, under which there was a complex of catacombs that sprawled underground. From the first floor, it was constantly decorated with Tapestries, Engravings and Statues that depicted 2 main characters: the mythological First Warrior and another, real person: Volkmar, the shining paragon of what a Knight could be. He was famous for three things: His conquest of the North, his magical sword and his slaying of the only dragon the world has ever seen.
As they kept exploring the catacombs they found more and more weird stuff: Living statues created to keep intruders from advancing, riddles, tests of character, corpses of unlucky adventurers and necromancers, Demons and Undead. They kept learning more and more about Volkmar, until, at the last floor, they learned the the entire complex was a mausleum for him, his men and his family.

At the end of the last floor, they found a great passage that went further and further underground, at the ent of whitch they found his tomb, that was contained inside the skull of the dragon he killed. The tomb was open.

1/2

>>96312014
2/3
The party's Paladin, feeling a great evil emanate from the sword, stepped forward. Volkmar drew his blade, and pointed it towards her, as if to challenge her. In the follong duel, he killed her in a singe round of combat. The Warblade (a Sort-of fighter with weird maneuvers) wanted to avenge his friend, but the rest of the party managed to restrain him from throwing away his life. Consumed by shame, he took off his family's ring and threw him at Volkmar's feet, swearing that he'd return to retrieve it only when he's be ready to fight him.
As a response, Volkmar looked at the ring, lifted his sword and swung at it, but stopped just before hitting hit. Then he lifted it again, and this time broke it in half. At this point, he began to chase them. They had a head start, so they managed to exit the dungeon before him. He stopped right before making contact with Sunlight. He stared at them for a while, then tossed them the 2 pieces of the ring. The warblade came closer to take them, with his hand just a few centimeters from Volkmar, who began raising his sword-arm, but did not swing until he was far enough away as to not hit him. The Warblade threw one half of the ring at him, and renewed his vow.
After htis, they discovered a few thing about some NPCs and the Dungeon, but they're not relevant.

This was their first encounter with Volkmar. They had only heard of him beforehand, and yet they "felt" his presence every time they delved deeper into the dungeon, and now their first priority is to avenge their fallen friend. They don't know that he'll start doing shit and try to re-establish the Old Empire etc. However, they already want to tear him open a new one, because he has a personal relationship with the party: He killed one of them, the Warblade feels like he lost his honour because of him and the Cleric (Who's specialized in destroying Undead) is convicend that it's her sacred duty to rid the world of his presence.

>>96312014
>>96312018
3/3
So, basically this is what I did:
Character-wise, he's nothing special: The doomed hero that's been corrupted by his cursed blade but still tries to fight against it, even in death, is as cliched as can be (although I find this trope really cool), but the players are invested in fighting him because I spent the whole-ass dungeon building him up, and then he left a big scar on their characters after their first meeting.

TL;DR: Build him up properly, make a big impression, create a relationship between him and the party.

>>96311984
>>96311986
ooooooooo I mean I expected to touch a nerve, I just didn't expect it hurt you *that* much. Does your mom know that you're violating the terms of your parole hangin' out with kids online? Do I have to wait twenty minutes for your next League match to surrender before you reply?

>>96311236 (OP)
Just write the base character, as simple as you want. The rest will come naturally. For me I just wrote a generic bad guy who is bad at his job because he was tasked with cleaning up demonic cultists, it goes well for a little bit before he turned his crusading up to 11 and started getting townsfolk and his own men massacred. He reinforces from local gangs and eventually his fighting force is just heavily armored bandits given unlimited authority. As the game progressed I figured I give this guy a motive for his actions and revealed that he was on a time crunch from a panel of nobles and was thrown at the cultist problem last minute as a fallguy for the empire's fuckups. He dies after the town and his own men turns against him and sells him out to the party.

Don't be afraid of stealing ideas from people or other media either, you can be inspired by something and make it your own.

>>96312014
>>96312018
>>96312027
Kinda tacky Black Knight trope, honestly. There doesn't really feel like any kind of personal connection to the character. The PCs were working harder to indulge you but they didn't actually have any compelling reason to give a fuck.

The paladin's "sacrifice" was really just a foolish and prideful assault. A lawful-stupid "raaaah smite duh ebil!" moment should have been punished by such a shitty character being forgotten.

The main development of a Black Knight trope is that he establishes a personal vendetta with the protagonist from the beginning. Yeah, killing the dumbass paladin technically counts. But ... what was the survivors' attachment to that dumbass? Was it really so significant that they felt real investment in the revenge vendetta?

It doesn't feel like it.

It feels more like they just recognized the trope and decided to play along. It doesn't really resonate or mean anything to them.

>>96312058
Geez man relax it was just a joke.

>>96312090
Not for nothing, but if we're reviewing 4chan comments here, you sound like a massive snob

>>96311685
>There is no bargaining
That's specifically terrible for an RPG though. The thing that makes them different from other games is the freedom to engage with them in any way that suits the world rather than being restricted by the rules. Taking that away is terrible game design.
It also means it's not actually worth the players engaging with them at all, so it's a disaster narratively as well.

>>96312090
>Kinda tacky Black Knight trope, honestly.
Yes. I said as much.

>The paladin's "sacrifice" was really just a foolish and prideful assault.
The paladin didn't "sacrifice" herself. She was obsessively single-minded about killing demons and since she felt demonic shit in the sword she charged even though realistcally she didn't have any chance to survive. (Plus she was a member of a knightly order that worships the god of Fate that joined them in order to repent of her past sins, charging into certain death was basically her thing.) Basically, yes.

>Yeah, killing the dumbass paladin technically counts. But ... what was the survivors' attachment to that dumbass?
The campaign has been goin on for literal months, and so far nobody had died. Plus she saved their lives a LOT of times. And she had a "my god's better than yours but we're still friends" deal with the Cleric. Her and the party had gone through a lot of adventures together: the party began at level 1, and now they're level 8.

>It feels more like they just recognized the trope and decided to play along.
The Warblade's player did. The rest of the party got it only after Volkmar gave back the ring.

>>96312090
Oh, also Volkmar has a connection to an NPC they took to their liking.

>>96312126
I have standards. I've read a few stories in my day. Maybe if you weren't a functionally illiterate child you would have standards, too.

>>96312904
Figures you would be a snob.

Well then, why don't you give a better example from one of your own games so we could see how it should be done then?

>>96312904
NTA, but I've read lots of Fantasy too, and we should realize that TTRPGS cannot hope to match fantasy literature in terms of narrative, simply because of their nature. They can create engaging and emotionally compelling game sessions, but you usually get invested because you're the one experiencing them, not because of their narrative quality. GMs are not writers: their role is completely different.

>>96313047
Let's get together over coffee and you can pitch your proposal and I'll offer you standard contract options and we can go from there to hammer out the details. Sound good? Gimme your business email address and we can set this up. Consultation sessions are 2.5 an hour, minimum one hour, billed in advance.

>>96313058
>TTRPGS cannot hope to match fantasy literature in terms of narrative, simply because of their nature.
Their nature being that lazy slobs, boors and children are making them? Fair enough.

>>96313080
Figures the snob would be a braggart and coward
But then maybe that's my fault for expecting people on /tg/ to actually have played games before talking mad shit about other's

>>96313091
Nah, it's because the players have an extreme amount of agency and as such the GM cannot hope to create a narrative that follows the conventions of literature. That said:>>96313096

>>96313080
>>96313091
you’re a boring person

>>96311236 (OP)
Understandable motivations and real world stakes make a good villain. Start by only facing off against followers of the villain, they only get mentioned, as if they're intangible, always off screen. As the campaign continues more and more often the villain comes up, in dialogue, in face off with enemies, their influence and impact is felt. When the villain is met in the flesh they steal the spotlight, or rather compete with the players for the spotlight. This isn't just an enemy it's a character, it's someone who you've heard a lot about, and their presence is finally being felt.

>>96311236 (OP)
just be yourself

>>96311263
/thread.
All the villains my Players have grown to hate were those who hid their vileness and have personally harmed the PC's loved ones.

>>96312058
You're trying too hard

>>96313101
You talk about games. I get paid to make them. If you're good at something, don't do it for free. No matter how mad some nobody gets that you won't work for them for free. Maybe if you were good at anything you could paid to do it. Then you'd be able to afford to pay other people to do work for you.

>>96313108
Maybe you should meet better GMs. Have you tried paying for talent?

>>96313126
Riveting and insightful, I'm eager to hear more details about your indubitably deep thoughts on the matter.

>>96313433
Going on 4chan and telling such outrageous lies? Goodness grraciious

>>96313319
>>96313452
Ok, incel.

>>96313465
Show us all how it's done. Impress us with your writing skills.

>>96313465
He reminded me of this meme

>>96313478
If only you weren't so obviously >>96313096

It would be so easy to just demonstrate superiority. That would really show the snob who's boss. You could even just ask ChatGPT to generate a really great story and then just claim that you wrote it.

>>96313761
Anon, I am not a superior GM or writer. My villains are admittedly shallow as fuck. I'm the type of person who when deciding how to throw a challenging wall of a foe at my players, I set them up against a martial artist god wearing a bear suit that talks in xian xia cliches for my amusement. I'm the type of game master who sets up their villain of the week as a demon playing at being a city's mobster kingpin because he couldn't hack it at anything more grandiose, and repeatedly taunts and harasses the party while sending many disposable minions and quirky mercenaries to fight them in his stead because he's secretly a coward afraid of the remote possibility of losing and being humiliated for it, solely because I know that my party will eventually smash through all of that and give him the most humiliating beatdown of his life. I'm the kind of hack that sets up a game where the players build an terrifying monster-filled dungeon filled with all manner of traps and treasure they designed themselves...and then sends a bunch of overpowered stupid teenagers straight out of the average isekai anime slop story to try and tear it down, and watch the party work overtime as they do everything possible to keep their precious dungeon safe from those brats.

None of that shit is getting a Pulitzer. Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm not even on the level of the guy who made that black knight BBEG up above. I'm a hack. I admit it. And I won't ever pretend I'm not anything more than that. But I would rather bash my brains in with a copy of the D&D Dungeon Master's Guide than ever use ChatGPT and pretend whatever it said was my work. Especially if it's to get one up on some other loser on 4chan. I don't have dignity, but I still have some fucking standards.

>>96311236 (OP)
half to three-quarters of it is simply having the villain show up to antagonize the protagonist (which in a ttrpg is the players).
just look at Lord of the Rings like so many people on /tg/ do, and see that Frodo's being harried by Sauron's black riders before he's even out of the Shire, only barely has time to catch his breath in Rivendell before Saruman's betrayal, and so on until the end of the story.

>>96311236 (OP)
puckee thread

Why not just not play at all then.

Jenny from Forest Gump

Does the villain like CCR?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aae_RHRptRg

>>96312018
Kudos for blatantly murderizing a player in one round instead of playing with baby gloves. I hope that wasn't scripted though.

So how did it end? Did you make Volkmar put up a serious fight at least?
Also finish your story up until that point.

>>96311236 (OP)
Post state IDs and birth certificates of your players.

>>96311948
you sound like reddit

>>96313952
Well idk about that, having run one game that your players enjoyed makes you a superior GM in this case, as that's more than none.

>>96315493
That's true. But I'm also pretty certain that any stories I'd have to tell about my campaign are the epitome of "you had to be there" and would make for terrible re-tellings.

Though I do admit I'm still fond of the dungeon building one. It was mostly just filled with little moments and touches, like watching the players talking about what kind of rooms they wanted to set up in the dungeon. One of them even found and adopted a blink corgi during their search for exotic monsters to include in the dungeon.

>>96313761
>It would be so easy to just demonstrate superiority
The snob is free to do so at any time.

>>96314847
Nah, it wasn't. He was just OP for their level.

>So how did it end?
It hasn't. The campaign is still going on.

>>96313952
>Hell, I'm pretty sure I'm not even on the level of the guy who made that black knight BBEG up above.
To be fair, the thing my players praise the most about me is my worldbuilding and my ability to create athmosphere. My "plots" are usually pretty standard, and I'm ok with that.

>>96313952
>I'm a hack. I admit it. And I won't ever pretend I'm not anything more than that.
Anons, GMs are not writers, calm down. Who your villains are is not as important as how you use them.
Litterally just have the BBEG make a big impression with some proper building up and then have him wrong the party in some big way, that's all' you have to do.

My rule of thumb is: Could they be the PCs in another campaign?

>>96312126
>t.nogamesretard

>>96313952
OP here, I think im going to go with the karate guy. Thanks for the chuckle.
>>96311263
This is good advice, thanks

>>96322208
Anytime, OP. I'll throw in a free idiom guide if you want to abuse it

https://www.wuxiaworld.com/page/chinese-idiom-glossary

>>96311915
>>96312161
These guys are why villains are faggots these days.

>>96322574
What would you do instead then? Enlighten us please.

>>96326844
Not that anon but just go with the original statement of
>Unapologetically evil for the sake of being evil.
You don't need a deep empathetic understanding of an evil characters narrative motivations to be properly engaged with how their actions affect the world and those around them. They get joy out of causing others (and consequently your party) pain and misery. You get joy out of foiling his plans and uplifting the world from his malicious machinations.

I think people get so caught up in complexity and defining morality that they forget that being intuitively good can just feel good of its own accord. Stopping evil is fun without justification.

>>96327903
>ou get joy out of foiling his plans and uplifting the world from his malicious machinations.
What? But how? That's just not possible unless you actually believe you are doing the right thing.

... so... How do you know you're doing the right thing? How do you know you're right? You have to explain that. You can't just ignore it. You literally HAVE TO confront that question at some point. And until you do confront it, you do not have a story. You do not have a villain. You do not have anything but prologue.

This is incredibly fundamental story design stuff, anon.

What you're doing is the equivalent of a child lecturing a theoretical physicist about how gravity works. It's not a topic that no one actually knows anything about so a child could come in and drop some keen insight about it.

>>96327903
But that's both retarded and boring. Which is fine if you're writing a story and just want a simple Scary Bad Guy to keep all the focus on the hero and make the audience feel good when he's beaten. But the whole point of an RPG is to have the players interact with the world, and characters having coherent motivations is a key part of that.
You don't need a "deep empathetic understanding of evil", just an actual fucking motivation that you can engage with beyond, "I roll to attack. Again."

>>96328096
NTA, but I think most people consider the protection and preservation of life to be something "good", oftentimes because as a communal species we do associate qualities such as stability, safety, liberty, and happiness to be generally innately desired qualities for the majority of people. That's why it's generally considered "good" when someone's stated plans that would otherwise involve killing others to achieve it is considered "bad", particularly if it threatens or outright disrupts the general status quo.

But definitely don't take this as me discounting the possibility that those qualities are objectively good. Any of them can be twisted into evil means. And there are many times it is far more important to upset the status quo if doing so leads to a better overall situation than if you'd just let things lay fallow. But I do think that's why people tend to default to simpler narratives of "good vs evil", with evil being more or less qualities we're taught to abhor by society and "evil people" being the kind that utilize those qualities, particularly the ones that are basically sociopaths.

Granted, I have my own view of it in that sometimes, it is cathartic to have a villain that is nothing but a sociopath who wants to hurt others get their just deserts. Plenty of those do exist irl. And sometimes, it does get wearying to go through a seemingly never-ending parade of bad guys who think they're "doing the right thing" when the right thing involves essentially killing a shitton of innocent people and then hoping their stupid plan will end up working out, usually without considering what'll happen if they actually fail. That gets so very tiring after a while, especially if the GM tries to stan for their own villain's "Blow up fifty busses full of nuns and children to save the economy" plan.

>>96328096
>... so... How do you know you're doing the right thing? How do you know you're right? You have to explain that. You can't just ignore it. You literally HAVE TO confront that question at some point.
If you want to overthink it then it's justified as a form of common consesus with an implict form of utilitarianism (the majority) against a destructive unchecked hedonism (for a single individual)

>>96328224
>characters having coherent motivations is a key part of that.
>just an actual fucking motivation that you can engage with
Do you think it's incoherent for a person to choose evil for the joy it brings him? Do you think the only way to for it to count as proper engagement is if you can have a moral debate against a villian?

>>96328453
Who said anything about moral debate? The point of characters having motivations isn't to discuss them, but to give you a way of engaging with the character and affecting their behaviour. A bandit that wants money can be bribed or baited, for instance.
Why do I have to explain basic concepts of human interaction to you? How can you function at all without knowing this?

>>96328453
>Do you think it's incoherent for a person to choose evil for the joy it brings him?
That's not a motivation. People don't do "choose evil for the joy it brings" them. You really can have a more intelligent motivation than that without "justifying" it. People doing evil things have motives. Maybe they want something and they're taking it and screw everyone else. Maybe they're manipulative 'cuz they want power, or recognition, or money. Maybe they get off on it. But they don't get off on "evil." They get off on something particular. Figure out what that is and portray it thoughtfully. They aren't just twirling a mustache and cackling. They're trying to DO something.

>>96328532
>That's not a motivation. People don't do "choose evil for the joy it brings" them. >Maybe they get off on it. But they don't get off on "evil." They get off on something particular.
Okay so they get off on inflicting suffering on others? I don't see how this is anything more than advocating for the removal of "evil" as a semantic shorthand because of the quagmire that is subjective morality.

>>96328532
>portray it thoughtfully
I disagree with this part. The game is about the player characters, not your NPCs. His motivation should be simple and clear rather than nuanced and thoughtful for much the same reason it shouldn't be, "evil just because": the point is for the players to understand it, not to portray the subtleties of the human condition.

>>96328580
You're the only one bringing up morality, anon. even if they're sociopaths, they've still got motives. Things that they're trying to accomplish. A reason and a logic for what they're doing.

They're trying to do some specific thing. Maybe they're eating babies as part of an immortality ritual. Or kidnapping widows to induct into a cult of evil crones. Or whatever gross thing you feel comfortable communicating to your players because it's just their kink. Whatever. They're trying to accomplish something specific. And that's their motivation.

>>96328642
>His motivation should be simple and clear rather than nuanced and thoughtful for much the same reason it shouldn't be, "evil just because": the point is for the players to understand it, not to portray the subtleties of the human condition.
Yeah we're saying the same thing. Portray as in "have the villain take actions that are for reasons." I'm not suggesting writing a clinical study on their psychology.

>>96328660
>A reason and a logic for what they're doing.
I brought up morality because we're essentially talking about the exactness of language. The only issue here is that "evil" is being considered a vague nebulous thing with a myraid of different perspectives (because it is) and that one should consider his motivation with terms more specific and less bias. I guess I don't even really disagree with that in the slightest, but there's still an element of the fact that the actual writing of the character hasn't changed.
>He's takes joy from doing evil
>He takes pleasure from inflicting pointless suffering on others
Are the same observable things, it's just that one isn't making a moral judgement on his actions to define his character.

>>96311915
What a magical realm you have.
>4 posts in and he's already raping

>>96328749
It's not the exactness of the language. It's about the fact that, as the GM, you've gotta play the character. It's not
>He takes pleasure from inflicting pointless suffering on others
It's
>He shoves mangos up the ass of bad gardeners until their guts rupture, and then he plants the seeds in his undead mango garden
It's not lolrandum. It's goal-oriented. The villain's actions have a purpose. Morality doesn't have to get involved, but there's no character if there's no motivation.

>>96328808
>It's not lolrandum. It's goal-oriented. The villain's actions have a purpose.
If there isn't an issue with the language in how evil is defined/percieved; Explain to me what's wrong with a villian committing evil actions because he enjoys doing them? Explain to me hown hat isn't a motivation if not for the vagueness of what "evil" is?

>>96328853
>Explain to me what's wrong with a villian committing evil actions because he enjoys doing them?
Because you can't do "evil." You can do things that ARE evil. So what's the things he's doing, and why? Sure: he gets off on causing suffering. How? When? Where? To whom? You can absolutely have a kinkmaster satan sadist, if that's what you wanna describe to your players. But he doesn't randomly go around pulling girls' pigtails. He does a specific thing.

>>96328889
>Because you can't do "evil." You can do things that ARE evil
Tell me again how this isn't an issue of how language is being used? I don't disagree with what your main point is so I'll just leave it here because
>Sure: he gets off on causing suffering.
As an acceptable motivation of a villain's backstory is essentially what I was wondering if there was a contention on.

>>96328961
>As an acceptable motivation of a villain's backstory is essentially what I was wondering if there was a contention on.
And the answer is "yes" because it's so nonspecific that it is utterly meaningless. What, he chronically fails to use a blinker? I've run out of ways to say the same thing to you, over and over.

>>96311236 (OP)
There's already a villain thread up anon.

>>96311236 (OP)
Someone who's meaningfully involved with the player's journey, and is opposed to the players. Their presence is felt throughout the campaign, even if they don't show up directly. Those early game bandits were taking advantage of new lapses in guard patrols, but who was causing those lapses? What was so fearsome that it drove that conspiracy to assassinate and replace the local lord with a home-grown tyrant? Who was so fearsome that the temple was bathed in blood to placate them?

>>96328313
Which issue is this from?

>>96331218
Issue 68

>>96332185
Thanks. Do you like any other Invincible villains?

>>96311236 (OP)
In my setting, the ultimate evil is a living cosmic mistake, one that wished to either corrupt or destroy all of creation (even its closest followers aren't 100% sure which), twisting or copying what already exists because it is physically incapable of true creation. I'm thinking that it would have trouble acting directly in the mortal realm, so it has commanders, each ruling over a different archetype of minion for the heroes to face. I want orcs to be a regular race, so besides archmages driven made by its power, and a lich for the undead that serve it, what else could work for these commanders?

>>96333365
>>96335150
>>96335424
>>96335948
>>96336295
kill yourself bumpfag

>>96328313
Is this guy actually right or is it just bullshit?

>>96339940
Dinosaurus's gimmick is that he's only right from a very, very, very utilitarian viewpoint, and even then he's only right if you accept his doomsday visions as pure fact instead of an accelerated intelligence that is hyperfixated on "solving" issues in a very narrow viewpoint. The main issue is that the condition that turns him into a dinosaur man and accelerates his intelligence also accelerates his paranoia and need to find problems to solve. So, while he's technically right, he's also very much wrong in that he comes to realize that even if the scenario goes as planned, he'd still find some horrible flaw that requires "correcting" to save mankind, and it'll come at such a horrific cost that would amount to just constantly culling humanity again and again in a never-ending loop.

Which is why he ultimately asks to be killed, since he recognizes he has very serious problems that he can't fix or overcome, and even if he has good intentions, those intentions are more likely to damn the world than save it.

>>96340000
Thanks. What is your opinion of other villains in Invincible, like picrel, Anissa, the Mauler twins, etc.?

>>96336615
A mad scientist archetype is a pretty simple solution, though it might not be the sort of piece you are looking for. Maybe a legendary general who's sick of war and is willing to do anything to create a world without one; or maybe looking for a final battle that will have his name inscribed into history forever. Maybe a dark priest, changed after his faith touched a different power. Maybe a spy-master/assassin lord, willing to work with pure evil for an ephemeral reward; or maybe feeling betrayed by a former master, now willing to burn down everything to settle the score.

>>96343872
Omniman: Interesting and neat twist on the Superman/Goku mythos, though it's one of the aspects the show did better than the comic just because they altered the twist by letting the viewer early in on the secret so they could see Omniman's subsequent advice and fatherly guidance in molding Mark in a whole new light. That's the kind of thing that actually goes to the thread's main advice of making the villains personal to the party.

Mauler Twins are still conceptually my favorite for their cat and mouse gimmick of accusing the other of being a clone but not otherwise being incompetent, just having something that's the equivalent of an in-joke between the two.

>>96328313
How did he do anything to Invincible? I thought that he was discount Superman.

>>96350036
Despite his name, he is in fact not fully Invincible, and can get the shit kicked out of him by a lot of folks who also carry super strength

>>96328532
Get a load of this guy.

>>96350080
Maybe he should change his name then, lol. I wonder what his thoughts on his villains are?

>>96311236 (OP)
How do you like the idea of an eldritch tentacle monster puppeting the body of a priest? I was inspired by this image I found.

>>96358187
Really terrifying look! I say go for it!

>>96361267
Thanks. I was thinking that the priest tried to contain/exorcise the monster but failed, died, and had his corpse turned into a vessel.

>>96358187
It's cool but I'd like to have their head explode revealing the monster re4 style

>>96364321
That does sound based. I second this.

>>96311236 (OP)
I was thinking of doing a mad scientist villain, have you ever had one of those, and what advice do you have on the topic?

>>96351451
Wasn't he legitimately insane? A lot of Roman emperors were rather unstable, now that I think about it.

>>96311236 (OP)
rate my villain, /tg/
>setting info: gods are gone, no clerics
>10 (monthly) sessions in (latest session)
>players need to find a wizard who can translate an ancient book they found
>wizards at wizard academy say dude lives off the grid on his own in remote village
>players find dude in his late 30s
>lost his wife and daugther in an experiment he conducted
>broken man, takes walks with empty stroller, has puppet dressed in his wife's clothes do housework
>has no interest in translating their book
>players feel bad for him, exchange their background stories and stories of loss and hardship
>dude looks tired, devoid of life

session continues, next session
>it will turn out that a creature was feeding off his negative emotions and gave him nightmares for years now

plan for future
>he'll translate that book and find out that the gods will return for a short period in a year
>tells the players that he wants to ask them to revive his family
>but the gods are feared and one other thing he finds out is, that there's also a description of how an evil god took control of the other gods (it makes sense in-world, too long for here) and he asks the players to help him look for those artifacts, just in case the gods turn out evil and need to be banished
>wizard gets more and more obsessed with this ritual - descent into madness fully underway
ffw
>gods appear to renew their "seal of gtfo"
>wizard will grovel on the ground, pleading with the gods to revive his family
>gods will say no, they've done too much damage in the past, the matters of mortals are not theirs anymore
>wizard's last thread of sanity snaps
>uses the artifacts to do the ritual
>turns into some sort of incarnation of that evil god
>the book was a trap to begin with
>wizard is now the BBEG

>>96350080
Also, his species gets tougher by getting beaten up. And most of them are genocidal conquerors.

>>96313489
Wow, that's ancient. Here's a thought, maybe make someone a villain because they cannot believe that anyone would lie, and are tricked by a bigger villain as a result.

>>96317310
>Could they be the PCs in another campaign?
Can you please elaborate more on this?

>>96311236 (OP)
What makes a good elemental villain? I’m thinking of loosely basing my first major villain after Ragnaros from WoW, but I want to avoid just copying him wholesale, or the other Elemental Lords, what would you suggest?

>>96311236 (OP)
Your players should love to hate them. If your players enjoy the villain showing up, then you're doing your job right.

If you want to know how to do a good villain, go watch Kamen Rider. Go watch kamen Rider Build. Just make all your villains Evolt. Cunning, scheming, sometimes even helping the heroes against lesser threats if it suits their own ends, and ultimately absolute, utterly mad and reveling in their evil. Double points if they start pretending to be an ally and reveal their evil nature through the players uncovering it while investigating another mystery.

>>96385844
NTA, but I want to say I understand the general intent of what they meant. Most villains will have a reason for what they're doing, whether that reason is logical or illogical dependent on how their creator feels. And in general, what makes a villain different from just your average nihilist basement dweller is they consider their goals or themselves important enough to enact a change to the world to see them advance. Much like what makes the big difference between a PC and NPC in a game is the desire to actually go out and adventure, become stronger, accomplish a goal, etc.

Basically, a good quality some of the best villains have for ttrpgs is that they're actively working to their own goal, plotting and preparing for the next big step in their master plan, engaging the player characters either directly or through their minions, and rarely ever just sitting on their laurels waiting to be pulverized without good reason. It's not a catch-all, but it is true that some level of engagement/intruige is a good way to hook a group to a villain.

>>96390229
>Evolt
You sire have excellent taste

>>96390229
NTA, but I've never watched Kamen Rider. Are there any other good villains in it?

>>96390336
I am Evolt's biggest sycophant to the point I'm running a rider game where the premise is "you're part of AR worlds that were invaded by an AR shocker called Shocker Zero" and one player is from build where rogue just fucking kills sento in the Cross-Z debut episode and fucks evolt's plans. The player has the build driver, but the fullbottles and hazard trigger managed to get shotgunned into her (she's a medic/EMT) during the Shocker Zero assault and her evolt is one of the "ally" npcs. Been a fun game so far.

>>96392599
There's plenty in the Dark Riders alone. ouja is an outright psychopath (Kamen Rider Ryuuki), there's Chronos who can stop time and treats everyone like a product to be "discontinued" when their usefulness ends, plenty of good Kaijin (monster) villains too, such as Gremlin from Wizard who due to how the monsters are made (humans give into despair with magical potential and they have inner monsters that become them and wear their skin) was such a weird fucking stalker/murderer before becoming a monster he just... stayed himself. Blade has the Undead who are monsters based on various species within the animal kingdom fighting for which will become the dominant species at the end with the riders sort of fucking with this grand universal game of fortnite they're playing, OOO has the Greeed (yes three E's) who have lots of personality and sick designs all focused on their own aspect of... well, greed. They all crave one thing above all else and they have different animal themes, their minion monsters sharing those themes.

Rider has a ton of good villains.

>>96390229
Is that an actual quote? Nice.

>>96392599
Genuinely depends on what you want out of your villains, but Kamen Rider can do an incredible job with their villains when they want. They've got plenty of evil villain organizations, but if you want villains who are working towards a noble goal through ignoble means, they've got them with the Yggdrasil corporation and Fenix. If you want villains who are endlessly scheming and jockeying for the sake of advancing their heartless form of science, you've got the likes of Ryoma Sengoku and Kenzo Suga. You even have some that are arguably fighting primarily for survival like you've got them in the likes of guys like Heart and Horobi who are essentially androids that want to topple humanity so their species can thrive.

But it really does excell at basically plopping down guys who are insanely cunning and scheming and incredibly intelligent, but they mostly just want the power to wreck the world for the fun of it or for its own sake. Like Evolt, or Genm, or Ark-One. Even the current season has some good villains, like a guy who is the CEO of an alien sweets company/human trafficking network that is such a merciless corporate shark that even close family will be fired if they fail to live up to the company standards he sets. And for a series that focuses on how amazing the world's small joys are and the importance of family, a villain who sees no worth in humanity beyond as cattle to be culled for profit and treats the main character with pure disgust for having the temerity to exist as a blight on his family as an unwanted brother, he works incredibly well.

>>96393500
If you have any further tales of your game, do tell, because I'm a huge Rider fan myself.

>>96400333
He has a whole lot of good quotes. His entire character is just ragebaiting the protagonists. Like, this is an official photo from the photobooks they release for each series.

>>96401207
Game's pretty early on right now. So far they've:
- Acquired the Kamakiri medal for an AR Ankh (from the world of the 10th special) who is OOO by defeating an AR Suga from Gavv and his army of bitter gavvs (Suga escaped, he was using an AR Uva to make more Shoumalings)
- Defeated an AR Graphite from Ex-aid who was kamen Rider (with a finishing move, a mechanic in the system I made, it was peak) and got Kuroto the Dangerous Zombie gashat back + the data needed to innoculate the party against the Bugster Virus.
- Next session, they're going to try and secure a Hiden 3D printer since one of the PCs is from an AR Zero-One wolrld and uses a forceriser and to get his upgrades he needs the printer.

the current NPC ally roster is:
- Geiz (World of El Salvatore, where he killed Sogo on their first encounter erasing Ohma, he is older than in canon since time has passed)
- Kit Taylor (World of Dragon Knight, the Onyx Deck getting stolen from his world is what gave Shocker Zero the power they needed to expand into the rider multiverse)
- Ren (World of Dragon Knight, he's just kind of a tagalong to Kit)
- Ankh (World of Eternity, most of his medals were stolen by Shocker Zero, the bad guys, and only the Eternity Taka medal lets him have a body)
- Kuroto Dan (World of Gamdeus, where he and kirya couldn't finish doctor mighty XX in time and the gamedeus virus took over the world)
- Kirya Kujo (World of Gamedeus, see Kuroto, he's here because of Dan's incompetence)
- Evolt (World of FAUST, Night Rogue killed Sento during what would have been the Cross-Z debut episode, and then shocker zero invaded which resulted in one of the PCs becoming a weird biological rider build with the fullbottles shotgunned into her body, he wants to get his power back, the party knows he can eat planets and he has promised not to eat EARTH. Specifically earth.)

(I'll detail the party in the next post)

>>96403618
>>96401207
Party is:
- AR Den-O with his own set of imagin that aren't the originals. There's a chuuni, some sort of shark who hasn't had his form used yet, an upbeat bodybuilder type obsessed with muscles, and a dog-man who is more dog than man. The singularity point himself is just a down on his luck office worker.
- AR Build, as mentioned she was an EMT/Medic and tried to (and failed to) save Sento, and when they were being pursued by Shocker Zero something (it's sorta nebulous on both the end of the player and myself) happened to shotgun the fullbottles and hazard trigger into her like the purple medals for OOO. The idea is her Hazard form will be a Kaijin. Her base form is FireHedgehog. She's a bumbling girlfailure who has no idea what's going on.
- AR Amazon rider, Zeta I think he called himself. He's basically an AR Sigma, he's a fucked up guy who pretends to be normal and is always hungry. Thankfully, because of that one scene in Dragon Knight, I made it a joke that the resistance group has plenty of peanut butter since it lasts and is high in protein.
- A rider from the world of Shin Kamen Rider, he's basically an AR Shin V3 since he's trained by Kamen Rider 2+1 from Shin kamen Rider. He currently goes by the name Yochu Aug, and technically does not acknowledge himself as a proper rider yet. He's bitter and jaded due to OG shocker being in his world too.
- A rider from an AR Zero-One world, he's a senior manager who started with just a Raidriser, got a FOrceriser, and his side forms are the same colors as the Game Theory channel colors and his name is Kamen Rider Theory. He's a nice guy who is very intelligent.

>>96403618
>>96403661
Your game's party sounds dope. Best of luck to all of you, especially to the Amazon Rider

Goddamn this board is shit

>>96311263
Fpbp.

>>96311236 (OP)
The female ones should be highly attractive.

>>96404896
You're just figuring that out?

>>96311236 (OP)
The villain needs to have at least some involvement with the players, sometimes direct and other times indirect. The villain also needs to have actually harmed the players in some way. Maybe he mislead them or indirectly screwed them over. Etc.

Also, not every villain needs to be sympathetic, relatable, or understandable. Sometimes it is ok to have a villain who is a selfish dick or conquering warlord.

>>96312014
Wow very cool, did you manage to tie this in to the ongoing story or are the party going to return some day to kick Volkmar's ass?

>>96409421
Building on the latter point, while a villain may have an understandable/sympathetic motive, that does not need to actually justify their actions.