>The bbeg actually has no idea what he's doing nor has a goal, he's just going with the flow of things.
How do you make this obvious to the players without outright telling them about it?
The players will just assume that you as the GM haven't put the effort in to figure out why the guy is doing whatever he does.
>>46860035
have him in the middle of some grand speech and then go "You know I just had an even better idea."
>>46860035
Have them overhear him say something like "To be frank my dear servant, I am following the path of nature. Everything happens for a reason, yes. To know said reason is something only gods can do. I am not a god though. Only a [BBEG race.]"
Have him assemble a horde of zombies, and the zombies fall apart due to decay and insects.
Have him acquire an artifact of extreme power, then uses it in all the wrong ways.
Have him capture the player characters in a extremely thought out and convoluted method, but he has nothing else planned for actually killing the PCs because "I never thought I'd get this far".
Basically have him fuck up the third or fourth step of any plan he has that the PCs know about.
>>46860067
This
Unless you reveal his ramdp, acts are a result of some intentionally random cause then your players will just think you're lazy.
Have the BBEG rapidly switch between modus operandi and scale of his attacks, and throw hints to the players about the nature of his random goal.
It's like you faggots have never watched the Dark Knight with Heath Ledger.
>>46860093
This is brilliant
>>46860035
That's ludicrous.
Even if it's some Heath Ledger Joker lassaiz-faire nonsense, there was a goal. He just claimed (implausibly) that he wasn't a schemer, but he still had goals or what you could call values.
A truly Zen BBEG who had no desires would act in the first place, and couldn't be called a BBEG.
If you want a BBEG following whimsey, he'll be followed by a plague of luck/chance clerics all looking to catch a draught of pure chaos off his actions. He'll still have things he wants and things he doesn't like.
>>46860035
Have him be a sensualist with attention deficit. As soon as a convoluted, diabolical plan gets boring to him (sometimes for the most menial stuff), he either drops it or continues playing along with an obvious lack of involvement. He wants new and exciting stuff constantly and since he's already done quite a lot, he's becoming jaded and inconstant.
Also adds a measure of possible drama and depth if you decide to have him break down in front of the PCs once defeated. Or better yet, have him be absolutely ecstatic at his own defeat because he hasn't been beaten in so long and had forgotten about it
>>46860035
The BBEG loves making complicated plans, then going on to make other complicated plans that totally sabotage the original plans. Everything that actually happens is just unintended collateral damage from the self-inflicted rolling trainwreck.
>>46863772
>>46860035
Someone with a supernatural luck effect who is just going with the flow.
The reason they're acting is because there are chaos/luck clerics who keep subtly fucking with his life without his knowing and putting him into conflict with larger entities.
The party is just another group involved, and the luck user is just trying to get by.
>>46860035
Just make him a guy who ends up with insane power somehow and basically fucks about. He is completely unsure of not only what he wants to do with this power he's had foisted upon him but he also has no idea how a BBEG acts.
Honestly that could be hilarious. Party fights their way into his castle and storm his private quarters. He's just sitting there in his bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.
>Uh, hi? Want some tea? Seriously this is some fucking good tea, I don't get why people keep wanting to kill me but this tea is fucking awesome and I will totally give you some just to leave me be. Come on please? Seriously the skeletons? I didn't even mean to I just wiped some dirt of my sleeve!
>Demon? Narko? What no he's cool! Okay he has anger management problems but I'm trying to help with that. I know he put holes in the kings castle but I fixed it! What do you mean 'portals to hell?' I didn't make any portals! ...Uh. What's a portal look like?
>The guys outside? Uh they kinda just started saying alot of stuff I don't get but they do whatever I tell them to and let me live in this great place so I'm totally okay with this arrangement.
