Pic related: this is how I generally BBEG.
Or at least this is how I try to.
>>43912711
This is how I Villain of the Week
>>43912711
So, loud, obnoxious asshole that makes unfunny jokes?
I can honestly see that working, you'd certainly get hate from the players.
Posting great BBEGs.
>>43913335
>>43913161
>not liking memelands
I bet you don't even have an open relationship.
>>43913351
>>43912711
I guarantee your players think its awful and hate you for being both unoriginal and awkward.
>>43913351
Horribly misguided and underwritten?
>>43913394
I try.
>>43913161
>>43913365
>>43913412
>implying he doesn't turn into a hate sponge
>implying this doesn't make you want to kill the BBEG five times as fast
>>43912711
I literally hate you.
Handsome Jack makes me as angry as Mania Krieg
>>43913485
Case in point: >>43913514
>>43913462
But he wasn't evil
>>43913540
You didn't know that at the time.
>>43913485
>>43913539
In the BDSM subculture, people make a distinction between "good pain" and "bad pain," which has to do with context, level of intensity, and the exact kind of pain being experienced. Even the biggest pain sluts don't enjoy stubbing their toe or closing their fingers in a car door, for example. That's the best analogy I can come up with for my problem with Handsome Jack. If he had about half as many lines he could have been one of the greatest video game villains of all time, but it just gets to be too much after awhile, and there are way too many points where he crosses the line between being cartoonishly outrageous and obnoxiously hamfisted.
I love enemy within/without tropes, monsters that the protagonist unwittingly nurtured in their minds are great cerebral villains
My pic is too big and I'm on phone
Was supposed to be the Jabberwock
They have to be fabulous. A fabulous villain will always win out over a villain who is less fabulous.
Actually the spirit of Walt Disney posessing a mickey mouse robot from inside a bottle of bourbon, but his overall personality was similar
>>43913766
Exactly. You are supposed to hate the villain, not the author.
>>43912711
This is how I BBEG
>>43913465
That was a great campaign. Though I must admit, I thought the henchmanenchork?was cliched.
>>43912711
My BBEG is a distant unstoppable force not to be fighted, but witnessed in awe. He is killable, but not now, not here, and not by you guys. But you can help, so let's start...
I decided to use the Mist as my "BBEG" so that the players can never tell for sure what is actually going on.
I try, but I'm bad so it comes out hamfisted and from nowhere.
>>43912711
this is how i BBEG
>>43914772
Does one of them consume it and become god at the end.
>>43912711
>Or at least this is how I try to.
Thank you for being honest.
Pulling off the kind of villain your players are genuinely confused about without there really being any room for consideration is high art. Most of the time they can't suspend their disbelief to see a mass murderer as a hero. If you pull it off, you deserve to be able to pat yourself on the back.
>>43913351
Royce was the only decent character by virtue of being essentially the only character.
The writing in Transistor was great, but there wasn't a whole lot of it. Also, that ending wasfucking stupid.
Bastion was better in every respect.
>>43913365
I'm no Anthony Burch, I don't think I'm made of the right stuff for that
This is how I BBEG. Almost literally, in fact, with a few key differences accounting for setting/lore.
Sure, it's very unambiguous, but things don't have to be shades of grey to be interesting/fun.
>>43913465
I think my favorite part is you can get him to stand down if you talk right
>>43915431
I want to run a game with Anthony Burch as the BBEG.
Or just NPC that clings onto the party.
I stole him shamelessly.
A dude who's not in our game saw my drawings of the metal bugs they've found and figured it out.
I try to portray him well. His backstory is also a lot more available to the PCs. Still just hinted at, though.I wonder if I should steal the S2 villain as well...
>>43915334
I never joined the Cult of Jack. I saw him for what he was and mostly got more resolute about killing him as I learned more.
I sympathize with a tormented antagonist a little, but I smiled when Lillith fried John like an egg. That was satisfying, if brief.
If I could spare Angel if I spared him I would be in a dilemma; otherwise he's just a dead man spamming my radio and making my replays annoying.
>>43913766
Mm. I went to the dentist last week.
I don't mind the scraping and the drilling (though it hurts), but the needles in the gums? Yeahp. Bad pain.
>>43915541
>I smiled when Lillith fried John like an egg.
> Mfw Deathtrap autokilled him before he can even start monologuing.
>>43915729
>>and also For The Win.
Deathtrap, fuck yeah.
>>43915523
The rich, sociopathic Banthony Urch has created a doomsday device capable of keking every man for all time, it's up to the party to stop him
>>43915757
>At the end of the day it was all a ploy for attention, he just wanted to taken seriously as a villain
This thread makes me realize that I actually am pretty broad when it comes to my villains.
So far I've finished campaigns where the bad guys were :
>handsome rich charming noble necromancer with God complex
>the genocidal mass murdering super power giving return of Jesus chist
>a first mate pirate who became satan through Underhanded tactics
>obligatory "humans are the real monster, you ruin your own life" boss boss' life campaign
>mind controling super scientist in a coma who wants revenge against those who put him in it who loses a bit of himself with every use of his power
That's pretty nice for diversity.
>>43915536
Quilby is much easier to do right because he is completely evil. There's no ambiguity to him at all, but it doesn't really detract from his character. He's still interesting and well characterised despite not being very relatable.
He's a glorious asshole, and probably one of the most petty and selfish villains I've seen in any medium, and that's what makes him great.
His spiel in the last few episodes had me grinning like a madman:'But what about me!?' he asks the hundreds of children who's parents he killed, while he is actively destroying an entire world full of sapient beings because he wants to go to space. 'You don't understand my pain! I deserve to be happy as well!'
>>43914772
>>43915279
>iunderstoodthatreference.jpeg
except she's a dragon cultist and not a snake-wizard cultist.
although, dragons and snake-wizards are pretty much the same thing.
he did nothing wrong
>>43915877
I'm not sure I can properly display his madness, though. The scale might also be slightly off, since I'm running Rogue Trader.
PSA: if you're in a Rogue Trader game with the villain being named Eiael, you should probably leave this thread. I know some of you lurk.
Though if I would, he'd probably besome kind of Necron. The not-Cube is the battery and another thingy is the actual time travel device.
>>43915536
None of my friends have even heard of Wakfu, so I know that one day I'll inevitable do this too.
He's just too perfect.
>>43916039
NOTHING
O
T
H
I
N
G
WRONG
R
O
N
G
>>43914700
>Trevor BBEG
Yo have good taste anon, assuming that is who you meant.
Also he's arguably a big Neutral Neutral Guy
>>43916039
He had some pretty good banter too.
>You're weak, a failure, all of this has been for nothing!
>>43915378
Transistor had better art direction and world building.
Bastion had better characters and storytelling.And better gameplay.
>>43913433
You know, that makes skitter look as terrifying as she really is.
This is how I BBEG.
Is Sans hard?
>>43914483
Man I fucking hated him by the end, super satisfying to irony his punk ass
I tend to go fairly tropey for my BBEGs and my players seem to enjoy it. Current Baddies are the Emperor they serve, since they can't act out as good honorable samurai. And a Bloodspeaker (necromancer for those not familiar with l5r) who they uncovered on complete accident and is now slowly gathering forces to fuck with them.
>>43917186
My nigga
>>43915536
"If I fail, I don't care if the world survives or not."
So epic.
>>43917072
I was so disappointed with the final battle. They could have made that shit so much more interesting if they just had the turns happen simultaneously, with the AI attempting to predict your moves and you doing the same to it.
>>43917316
I beat it after72attempts. I don't know if that says more about my reaction time or the difficulty of the fight, but for what it's worth, I beat Gwyn first time round in DS.
I don't tend to have BBEGs, there is just a wide-spread set of secret cults trying to summon something on the same order as pic related to end the world as we know it. None of the cults are a match for the PCs, but their hidden nature, the horrible monsters that they summon, and the mortals they enthrall are what make them the threat that they are.
>>43917316
easiest enemy in the game. he can only do 1 hp of damage at a time.
My PCs kill anyone who even vaguely resembles a bad guy or try to, to the point of suicide, so I'm kind of forced into playing a more mastermind type of BBEG that doesn't really get caught up in direct confrontation.
>>43918027
It's okay to suck at shmups. It makes them more fun in a way. Imagine coming to an epic boss and just sort of dodging all their attacks flawlessly. Not as fun as DS, where that's revered.
But I ate a lot of shit trying to beat him, too.
>>43912711
It's pretty fun playing an insane villain that helps the party out at times and fucks them over without them realising
It's even better because they don't even know he's the BBEG
Either people who do monstrous things for 'good' reasons or eldritch, alien beings whose actions only fall into categories of good and evil incidentally.
Pic related for the first type.
>no one going with one of the best.
for shame.
>>43918668
43918602 here, Ozy is also one of the greats.
The only game I've run is still ongoing, and is a cluster fuck of background BBEG's...
>A group of anti-nationalist terrorists bend on bringing down the World's governments as retribution for the destruction of their nation and genocide of their people
>A large militaristic nation bent on "peace through superior firepower". They're currently working on a way to tap into the "quantum vacuum" as a source of unlimited energy, but in doing so are weakening an area of space/time. Through this weaken spacehole, waves of transdimensional energy are pouring through, causing anomalous events to occur across the planetHey, is that the script?
>A group of Immortals from the planet's past, bent on getting the attention of a god so they can finally die. What better way to get someone's attention than by destroying something they love?
>The Lily of Purity, a massive flesh beast again from the planet's past that was somehow captured untold millennia ago. Seeks to be free, that she may spread her love to all the corners of the globe and be one with all living things.
>Seeds of the Lily, the daughters of said Motherly Flesh Beast. Wants to free their mama.if all goes according to keikaku, the players themselves will unknowingly aid them in some way
>An SCP-esque organization. Their goal is to keep all this anomalous garbage under wraps and the world from turning into a giant, moist, quivering, love filled flesh ball. By any means necessary.[INSERT NIETZSCHE QUOTE ABOUT MONSTERS
>Space Cenobites?
All these have their own agenda which is going on in the background while the players do their thing. They're currently hunting a boar.I'm in over my head
>It takes a strong man to deny what's in front of himAt least, that's how I hoped to run a BBEG without it being the worst, anti-climactic shit for the players
>>43912711
I just throw a lot of NPCs at my players and if they especially hate one then everything is retroactively his fault. I don't think they realize that when they say something like:
>"Oh fuck, you said those guys had curly hair? Baron McNobody has curly hair! Those guys must be related!"
Well fuck, they weren't until now. My best conspiracies come straight from the mouths of my players.
Nearly every single plot in most of my games has, in some way or another, stemmed from the machinations of Nyarlathotep, regardless of system or setting. He's never actually mentioned by his true name, but his avatars have occasionally been encountered by the party. One of these days I'm finally going to run Call of Cthulhu and have him get supremely meta by making references to past campaigns.
Just regular people with morals askew.
"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
All my BBEG were once good men who have been pushed past the breaking point. When I first did DnD the villain was actually the hero who killed the previous demon lord only to be trapped in the netherworld and corrupted by it's energies so that he just mindlessly goes about being the demon lord not really putting much thought or emotion into it, which actually creeped my players out a bit.
Doin a Disney based campaign, this guy's the ultimate evil. My BBEG is the one who believes himself to be his reincarnated soul who subtly operates from the background while he is known at face by the party. He was kicked around all his life, so when offered a way out he takes it. As the game goes on, he may become more and more of a Lich while he's driven mad by the herald of the Horned King.
>>43913766
>>43912711
I definitely feel Handsome Jack worked better in Tales From the Borderlands. I mean his existance in it is pretty much fanservice, but I liked how he was twisted from constant antagonizing d-bag, to well devil on the shoulder nagging corperate id for Rhys.And his re-'death' scene is one of the best i've seen.
The BBEG for the game I'm running is an AI created for the express purpose of destroying the wandering dimension that destroyed the AI's creators' home. This would normally be good, but the problem here is that the AI is all the way out of its gourd due to untold years of half-awake dormancy with nothing to do to pass the time except stew in its own resentment and hatred of its creators while it waited to fulfill the only thing it was made for.
It's woken up, and is starting the process of gathering its power. If it succeeds, it'll execute its only reason for living and annihilate the dimension, harvesting its power in the process. Then, with nothing left in its life, it'll dominate the PCs' planet and grind it under its tyrannical and deific bootheel until everything is destroyed. Then it'll kill itself or wander the universe looking for a purpose.
>>43912711
>>43918668
He's not really a villain though.
>>43923543
Those are the best kinds
>>43923497
Forgot to actually answer the thread's question. For BBEGs I tend to go really big with their goals and to have equally big consequences coming out of the goal. Typically I like to have BBEGs who are trying to do something good, but regardless of that, I always try to have a BBEH who can be talked out of their big plan in some way, even if it's especially corny like talking the AI in my post out of its untold years of stewing in hate.
>>43923526
Such a stupid name, Lord Humungus was much better.
>>43912831
THERE HE IS
This is how I (try to) BBEG
>>43919798
I can't help but point out that he was dead the before the game even begins. To do him correctly wouldn't you have to make the players do something evil but not realize it until after the deed has been done and they just get more and more detached from reality. Even then they might say you forced them to do the bad thing anyway, nevermind the damn thing needs to happen for the whole experience to really work.
>>43912711
Generally? Something like this
So, pretty similar to what you might have, except no past of conflicting redeemable backstory, just an absolute troll.
>>43924119
As much as I adore Hazama as a character, I've never felt he was good BBEG material. He's always felt like someone trying to game the system in his favor, and it's just more convenient for him to be on the bad team to do what he wants. I also love the interplay between a minion with an obvious agenda and the BBEG from storytelling perspective, because the balance between them is so easily disrupted into a drastic imbalance, and throwing PCs into that crossfire is always good times.
>>43914214
I want to have a wrestling contest with him, with my mutants and masterminds character.
>>43918027
I don't know about reaction time, but you're surely filled with DETERMINATION!
Believes he is doing the right thing, and realizes that he is a monster as well. But he is saving his death for last, to ensure that the monsters are wiped out.
>>43924000
It's not so much the character as it is the manifested embodiment of another person's guilt projected onto that character. And that's pretty damn hard to pull off on multiple PCs without memeing on them really hard.
Though it could be a way to reel in (or indeed, push over the edge) a Vengeance Paladin that's starting to go a bit too far, if there was a nemesis in his backstory. Do a little bait and switch, make him think he's the BBEG.
>>43912711
I like the type of BBEG that actually tricks the party into helping him, and even presents himself as a friendly, dependable guy to them. Then, when the moment is right, he fucks shit up and achieves his goals. I've been doing this with my current group for over a year now. It's going to feel so good to spring the trap.
>>43912711
So, they call the players every 5 minutes to be an asshole at them?
>BBEG is druid
>give him a "summon beast horde" spell
>battle turns into an absolute clusterfuck
>one out of 4 players survive
>they question me about the difficulty
>"you were supposed to bring along some npc mercenaries , but congrats anyway"
>they believe me
>decide to use the horde spell some time again
>pic kind of related
>>43923668
Impeccable taste. I'd treat you to pizza and margarita shooters.
>>43912711
Edgy as all hell.
>>43918482
Oh you.
I intend to do this with some urban fantasy game some day. See how long it takes for them to realize how fucked they are.
>>43919798
>I'm the bad guy? How did that happen?
>>43913540
Still counts as a BBEG
