How do you come up with your BBEG's lieutenants, /tg/?
With my ~IMAGINATION~
>>34457482
I think of avenues my BBEG doesn't cover. If he's a martial warlord, he has at least one magical lieutenant. If he's a mage, he's got at least one hulking muscleman.
Also, can't forget the Starscream, effective or not.
I read one piece/jojo and work from there.
>>34457482
Depends on the tone of the game.
It can go anywhere from a cabal of fanatical sycophants in darker games, to a group of the BBEG's genuine friends and companions in more neutral ones to having some kind of monstergirl/power ranger/maid squad in more surreal ones.
>>34457482
I'd fuck it
>>34457632
She have to taste like bubblegum.
>>34457632
The possibilities!
She's a majin, so she can alter her own body.
She can put a vagina anywhere, she can put several vaginas inside of her mouth!
>>34457746
Depending on her mood, you might taste like bubblegum by the time you're done.
Well I made mine have a wide range of specialties. Particularly in areas that the BBEG doesn't excel, which is oddly in case a lot of areas (he's a spooky behind the scenes controller type).
Basically I thought up a bunch of random abilities, character traits, ages, genders and back grounds and slapped together a bunch of unique specialist subordinates then linked them fluff wise.
>>34457632
You're on /tg/. This statement was superfluous.
I usually cover the Standard Fantasy Evil Empire Hierarchy
- General of the Armies; if someone's portrayed sympathetically it's usually him
- Warden in charge of a prison or other fortress. Usually cruel and/or a coward, since he's sitting in his presumably safe fortress whipping prisoners or slaves or whatever
- Archmage in charge of anything magical. Usually the hardest to kill individually
- BBEG's right-hand man, his personal attack dog that shows up whenever one of the above wouldn't fit. Usually leads a small team of elite mooks who may or may not be characters unto themselves depending on how I'm feeling
- Power behind the throne
Then I pick out which ones would fit and adapt them to whatever society is fitting the role of standard evil faction.
>>34457482
>Majin Boob
>>34457482
My current game has the BBEG being a spectral fucker from the Great Beyond, who cannot directly manifest or intervene in the mortal realm. His main lieutenant was a farmer, but is now the commander of several armies, a black-armored knightly figure who calls himself Dreadlord Gothrax. His birth name, Zeke Flanders, is long forgotten to all but himself and those dead villagers he used to live with.
The others, who think Dreddie Goffs is the big boss trying to conquer the continent (he is, but he's doing it because he's trying to bring his boss to this world and needs a whole lot of manpower and resources to do it), are a bunch of thematic supervillains really. For them and the mid-bosses they use to control smaller groups of their armies I did less thinking, mostly stapling a thematic monster, a personality disorder and a wacky costume together and seeing what comes out of it.
>>34457787
Sex always give her the munchies
Think she can turn people into things other than candy?
>>34458107
Maybe, maybe not, but a big, thick, phallic lollipop is well within her abilities
Rejected or unused PC ideas are good place to look for potential candidates. One of my BBEG's token not really all that evil at all lieutenants was actually an idea about female mages who use dance and fans to help augment their spells..
>>34458097
>His main lieutenant was a farmer
>His birth name, Zeke Flanders, is long forgotten to all but himself and those dead villagers he used to live with.
Is there any way for the PC to achieve this information, or it is just fluff-wanking?
>>34457482
Goddammit. Now I can imagine what would've happened if Maijin Buu was a girl in DB. Think about the doujins...
>>34457482
As a general rule I don't use BBEGs. If the characters kill the most recent bad guy then it turns out that they were working for someone more powerful. Repeat as necessary.
>>34458319
There is. There's also a way to use it to get him to see the error of his ways.
As it turns out, he's not the worst emperor someone could ask for. His minions pervert the law, he has secret ninja death squads and trying to resist his conquest isn't very healthy, but there are definitely worse options.
I use his background as an option in case the PCs want to appeal to his humanity, get him to realize his boss is likely to award his success by letting him be the first to be eaten, and turn his empire into a nicer thing.
Or they can kill the shit out of him and his legions, overthrow the empire and throw the world into a state of chaos, justifying it as being better than the alternative involving an unstoppable genocide monster.
>>34458349
There's a whole Maijin race in Dragon Ball Online
>>34458400
And they were created via love beam after Buu made his wife.
>>34457775
She can put several dicks anywhere too.
>>34458349
Female Buu are canons in one DBZ game
>>34458107
she could probably turnsemen into chocolate
It's not like any of you would get to fuck a majin buu even if she was real.
>>34458473
thanks /b/
>>34457482
I never come up with a lietenant or shit.
I just choose between the evil mooks that survive encounters against PCs.
>>34458400
>>34458450
nigga das kawaii
All of my BBEG's lieutenants are not-so-nice but not evil people who have been pulled into his machinations.
One of them is essentially Mr. Freeze with Magneto's politics (the setting has mutants but they are bio-horror wtf is wrong with their bodies kind of mutants. Not supers).
>>34457482
>>34458473
>implying
All you'd have to do is tell them that if they lick your lollipop enough, candy comes out
They're fucking obsessed
>>34457482
I take two concepts.
>Ok, so they're fighting an evil cult.
>Concept 1: Cultist.
>Concept 2: Uhhhh... science!
And there you go. The lieutenant is a cultist who used to be a scientist but got expelled from some academy because of his wierd experiments that involved demons and other interplanetary beings.
>>34457632
Booby is Buu's waifu though...
>>34457482
>Potion Seller (Who sells only the strongest of potions to the strongest of beings, and you and your party are clearly of the weakest)
>Decadent Dandy
>Obnoxious Frenchman
>Thermal Furry Digman
>Subject Delta from Bioshock 2
>A Spooky Ghost
>Perpetually Angry Nordic Teenager asked to Shovel Snow
>Midget
>>34457482
Big bad is always some kind of sniveling practically crippled lithe mastermind with lots of brainpower
Lieutenants are always huge juggernauts with giant bulging muscles and enough willpower to fight long after a normal guy has died. Note that he's not stupid, just not smart enough to get into politics.
>>34458627
I will never forgive shovel knight for inventing a villain group with such an awesome name before me. I mean, Order of no quarter, holy shit, so badass.
>>34458784
>Using the generic "MANLET BBEG, STRONK LIEUTENANT" formula
>Not making your own quirky miniboss squad
Such wasted potential.
>>34458871
1: How do you do quirky miniboss squad?
2: I myself usually do the opposite funnily enough, strong muscled BBEG, and some nice smart Lieutenants who advise him.
>>34458460
She could turnchocolate into semen
>>34458895
Have a squad of five or so guys, a special forces team. Make them all very strong but in different ways, like having one very strong guy, one extremely fast guy, one guy who is actually kind of weak and pathetic, but has special powers, a wizard who is very good with ball style magic, and give the captain some dangerous cool ability like bodyswapping.
>>34458934
where have I seen that before...
>>34458934
Ah, OK, makes sense. It's basically 5 man band or seven samurai type thing only for the badguys.
>>34458975
>>34458934
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezrbyf6t9mY
>>34458975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDC30IMeD8
I think what would fuck up a specific member of my group and take that an extra ten steps. What'll fuck over the rogue, a nice construct Monk. What'll make the whole party mad, rust monster/ gelatin cube. What'll tick the mage off, anti-magic field/ monster that attacks dreams.
>>34458996
Yeah, though while the that anon was referencing DBZ, I was referencing Shovel Knight, which shows a great way of creating a boss squad of wonderful concepts (Such as Propellers and Moles, of all things), or reusing old ones like Death or Ice, making an all around wonderful villain team.
>>34458910
She could also kill you by turning into a liquid state form and invading your body trough the urethra.
I usually follow this list:
>BBEG
>Second in Command
>Enforcer
>Spymaster
>Archamage
>Generals (from 1 to 3)
>Assassin
>Auxiliaries (from 2 to 4, these guys have their own separate goals but work with BBEG)
>Pawns (People that aren't aware that they work for the BBEG)
For example:
>BBEG: Gnollish-Khan, extremely charismatic female gnoll warlord
>SiC: Gnollish-Khan's husband, the spiritual leader of the Gnoll horde
>Enforcer: former ogre warlord, defeated by the khan and mindraped to submission by her husband, 100% loyal but not particularly smart
>Spymaster: human raised by gnolls, had a spy and saboteur network that ensued that the khan’s enemies were weakened by infighting, sabotage and traitors
>Archamage: SiC doubled as this
>Generals: 2 less powerful gnoll warlords, one of them betrayed the khan after she was convinced by one of the auxiliaries, an orc cleric, that war was lost and following the khan would get them both killed
>Assassin: human, a hired killer
>Auxiliaries:
>orc cleric, the supreme leader of 3 orc tribes
>dwarf barbarian, strong as bull and commanded a force of 300 mercenaries
>Pawns:
>a bandit leader, harassed the trade lines, had he not be stopped those supply lines would had been unusable
>rogue noble, the false BBEG for levels 3-7, attempted to cause a civil war in the PCs’ homeland
>cult of necromancers, attempted to resurrect a long dead human demonologist
>coven of smugglers, SiC attempted to use them to deliver plague to the PCs’ homeland
>>34459054
i think propeller and tinker have too much in common to be 2 different guys
>>34458975
Marvel?
>>34459431
propeller is french foppish type who attacks you with a rapier and flies around.
Tinker is generally useless until he breaks out his MASSIVE MECH SUIT which fires missiles and shit at you.
They're pretty different
>>34459431
Not really. Propeller is all about Mobility and being a sky pirate. Tinker is all about conveyor belts, gears and cogs, andhaving a giant tank after you beat his pathetically easy first stage.
>>34459514
I really feel like Tinker would have been a better main villain than the Enchantress, I mean the Enchantress' reveal was good and all, but I just think Tinker would fit the knight theme better, and he already has a massive tower for the final boss stage as well. His second form also reminds me of some of the Wily fights.
>>34459514
Isn't that back wheel turning the wrong way? Why is it fighting the tread?
>>34460034
Vidya logic.
Tinker Knight's HQ is full of crazy, impossible machines.
You think the BBEG is the smart mastermind hiding behind his luitenants, but it turns out one of his Luitenants is just controlling vizer who is controlling the mastermind.
>>34457482
BBEG's lover/harem who will collectively scoff against the PCs & make sport of hunting them down
>>34460792
>Order of No Quarter in thread
>Posts Haremshit
Truly the worst of the worst.
I usually make my lieutenants first, then figure out what kind of BBEG it would take to get them to work together.
I currently have a setting in the works themed extensively on the Four Humors, with the four lieutenants all being a particular humor running rampant, and the BBEG being the one who's trying to get these fucking idiots to work together.
they're all quite powerful, but only in one area.
>>34460850
i apologize for never having heard of your obscure indie game and for hailing from a different niche of nerdom
if my ideas do not intrigue you, i will promptly unsubscribe you from my newsletter
>>34458364
Way to blue ball the party and rob any sense of accomplishment.
>>34460850
Shovel autismo pls.
>>34457540
>the Starscream
I really really like this being the term for an incompetent lieutenant, and I don't know why.
He's just the perfect example of completely stupid and impotent evil.
>>34462450
The Starscream has nothing to do with competence. It's the villain whose ambitions exceed his current station and who ends up fighting the BBEG (who he used to work for) not because he disagrees with his ideals, but because he wants to be the one in charge.
>>34462450
I thought Starscream was a term for the lieutenant that tries to betray the BBEG to become the true BBEG and fails horribly.
>>34462554
He doesn't have to necessarily fail, though he usually does as the audience/players feel ripped off if you change BBEGs halfway through without the hero having the chance to beat them.
Tropes pls go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZEVGNGSmL4
>>34462657
Thank god that shit got pruned. Shame about all of the stuff that purged for having any amount of adult material.
>>34458377
You. I like you.
>>34462765
Yeah. Not that they could help it, you can blame Google (and ultimately the good old invisible hand of the market) for that.
I mix and match MGS bosses and change them to fit the setting.
I ran a fun The End fight using Crossbows and magic.
Then there was the Psycho-Ocelot fight.
>>34462657
How do people like this exist.
>>34461146
Pot, kettle, black.
>>34462657
>crazygoggs is dead
I usually make a random gen out of shit I think I might like, then roll them up.
>>34457775
I like you.
I went full weeaboo and gave him a quirky miniboss squad of cute girls, complete with mythological theme naming and each one exponentially more powerful than the last. Also, obscure astrophysics references.
I try to have at least a major underling of the BBEG that is related to each player character.
>>34463520
So all your player characters are related to this one underling of the BBEG? Is it Kevin Bacon?
A good lieutenant is someone who covers what the BBEG misses, while also being a major threat. perhaps even capable of being a BBEG in a different situation.
My personal favorite is the big imposing knight, who is completely loyal to his boss, but is still honorable
>>34463534
No I mean related in terms of story archs. I don't try to make my campaigns like a Final Fantasy game.
Each PC should have at least one servant of the BBEG as an adversary for their own personal character arc.
>>34463161
I was thinking about doing something like this.
Just get like 20-100 traits I think could be interesting and roll them up or something.
My BBEG's base of operations is in a lawful evil country where non-human races are slaves. His lieutenants are those non-humans who he freed and to whom he promised he'd overthrow the oppressive government after he ascended to demi-godhood.
>>34462657
Suddenly I feel like all the hate for tvtropes is justified.
>>34463048
you
I like you
>>34464237
Selective sampling and 4channers being faggots. The hate for the tvtropes community is far more justified than hating the site for cataloging all the shit media recycles.
>>34464159
hmm, I think I might actually do this, is there anywhere I can go to make charts easily or should I just drop them in txt files?
And what charts should I have for rolling on?
Thinking things like
>Gender
>Race
>Weapon
>Class/Classes
>Armor/Gear
>1-3 Personality Traits
>Alignment
>Motivation
And the maybe things like
>Family/relatives
>Status (poor, weathly, noble)
>Connections
>Underlings
Maybe I am putting too much effort into this but fuck it.
>>34464369
I'd just make a list of really generic titles like 'evil clown' or 'man with four arms' and go from there
At this point, half of the BBEG's lieutenants are dead party members.
Necromancer and what not.
The other campaign doesn't even have a BBEG really. Probably going to end up being the wizard though, so I have no idea how he'll choose his second.
>>34464286
This. The TV Tropes community and the faggots running it are terrible, but categorizing conventions is really damn useful and prevents TL;DR.
>>34457482
I did make a Quirky Miniboss Squad consisting of a Macho Elf Ranger named Hunts
A Lawful Evil Monk acting as hired muscle for the BBEG
An inept sorceress who was only good for scrying shit, her only defense was an insane beholder who thought he was her manservant, she called him Blink.
And an insane Monk turned Chaotic Evil Bard who was based off Nui from Kill la Kill
>>34463247
Elaborate further, chum.
>>34458400
>>34458450
Source of the video?
>>34464369
Working on this sort of and here is what I have for races if anyone is interested. It is kind of modified for the campaign so it won't work for everyone (I doubt you have snow naga as a race)
Format will probably be a bit odd since I am pasting this from a txt file with tabs in it.
>Human 1-40
>Elf 41-50
>Dwarf 51-54
>Orc 55-57
>Drow 58-60
>Duergar 61
>Snow Naga 62-64
>Goblin 65
>Kobold 66
>Gnoll 67
>Ogre 68
>Minotaur 69
>Satyr 70
>Halfling 71
>Centaur 72
>Feytouched 73-74
>Illithid 75
>Low Demon (Imps and shit) 76-77
>High Demon (Balors, Devils) 78-79
>Inucbi/Succubi 80
>Kitsune/Kumiho 81
>Awakened Animal 82
>Motherfucking Dragon 83
>Templates (Reroll, ignore a 2nd template or something that doesn't make sense i.e. Werewolf Kumiho or Half-Human Human)
>Vampire 84-85
>Werewolf 86
>Lich 87-88
>Half-Human 89-95
>Half-Demon 96-97
>Half-Dragon 98
>Planetouched 99
>DM Choice 100
>>34457482
It depends on the BBEG.
The lieutenant might be a slave, a friend, a consort, a student, a son/daughter, a creation (construct, undead, etc), and so on.
I usually just go by what would make sense, and then justify whatever changes I make to that. For instance, in one campaign I came up with, the BBEG was a smokin hawt human sorcereress with a horde army composed of evil humanoids and giants. Her lieutenant was a charmed half-drow marshall who was the tactical/strategic leader of the horde army and her personal little concubine. She gained several of her levels in a drow city, and that's where she met him. She was a tactically retarded bitch with fucktons of charisma and personal magical power, and he was a logical male with lots of battlefield experience and training (and also lots of charisma).
>>34462554
This is pretty much it.
Starscream is, of course, the named example. He was ambitious, always scheming to get himself in charge, and was as sniveling coward whenever his plans blew up in his face. When things go wrong, he goes back to kissing Megatron's boots and hoping that he doesn't get scrapped.
