DM Advice: Villains
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- Опубликовано: 24 июл 2024
- The real villains were the friends we made along the way.
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Song: Be My Doll - Adrian Von Ziegler 
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I was sent here by the greatest villain of them all... Jacob
I...CAST...F-F-FIREBAAAALLLLL
Glad to not see I'm the only one lol
Same.
I saw this video before Jacob's, but he sent me back anyway. Hi, Davvy.
FUCKING SAME
The worst feeling in Tyranny of Dragons:
While the Red Wizards were torturing the party, they asked what the party knew about Severin’s plans. My player literally just looked at me and said, who?
Funny, the exact the same thing happened in our party last week when we did the torture scene. Severin is just so forgettable when he is in the shadow of Tiamat.
I actually had a solution for this I never mentioned the tyrany of dragons
*No survivors.*
Pre-written adventures are always the most forgettable
@@butcanyoudothis3320 Not true, it's just that tyranny of dragons sucks.
“The hardest thing to do as a writer, is to create a character smarter than you are.”
-Some...guy
Hence why no Devil will ever be as cool as they should be. We're just too dumb to comprehend their slyness.
That's really interesting. In theory, it's impossible because you can only be as smart as yourself, so the next best thing is to make your character as close to yourself as possible, so that you can think the way you do (the smartest way you know).
The Stranger 🤯
@@thestranger954 I mean you could just give him impressive feats, like his own set of spells he made or some invention. Nobody else really needs to know how that actually works. You could make it look like he planned for everything by having him have planned for whatever happened. Sure, none of these things are really smart, but they can look smart. Smoke and Mirrors and Stuff.
@@thestranger954 in practice, you can make them do great split-second decisions, talk about how quickly they learn, or make them predict world politics or something and have them use that to achieve their goals. The reader wont have enough info about the fictional world to call out their stupid political predictions, especially after they turn out to be correct.
"There's just nothing that clicks better than finding a song that fits your villains personality. "
*Grand Admiral Thrawn and Davy Jones with their terrifying organs and pianos*
I have a dragon whose personality may or may not perfectly fit Rasputin
@@SpookySquid14 Russia's greatest love machine?
@Boruch Arnold same man, pure perfection
ruclips.net/video/mQheaCpjH0I/видео.html
Courtier the Chaotic Evil Warforged with a habit of skinning humans and wearing their meat as a disguise. Ultimately she’s only interested in having her own demented version of consequence free fun.
Thusly she often works under an employer as their henchmen. But given her access to the clone spell, and a penchant for embezzling from her employers. She’s survived multiple campaigns, and is pretty frequently a minor thorn in the player’s side. Though mainly serves as a way to spice up more boring modules and nerf home brew modules that’d give players too much gold too early.
Honestly? I'd LOVE to do a Star Wars TTRPG where the characters are mucking around as plucky Rebels and then the DM goes
"A Star Destroyer pops out of hyperspace. It's transponder says it's the ISS Chimera."
Because OH SHIT IT'S FUCKIN THRAWN WE ARE FUCKED
"Find a good song you associate with villains." *plays we are number one before encounter*
They thought I was in a funk until they fell into the trap game.
I am honored my friend. Thanks for the shout!!
This is the best day ever.
Real talk though, I found you because of Davvy's video here, and that song is fire
Davvy you cheeky bastard, this was a 6 and a half minute long advertisment for your favorite obscure music, wasn't it?
I literally just wanted to promote Shayfer James.
Matthew Frutos, it’s true though. Music is an important thing about your villain
And picking someone who's sung (at least) one of the endings of _Vampire Knight_ of all things as the vampire theme is amazingly unsubtle.
I hereby will forever call Strahd Mr. Bleh Bleh Bleh.... On top of the title of D&D Dio
Surely you mean D&Dio
Nota Hooman Glorious suggestion.
Should I ever play Strahd, I’ll make sure to go “WRRRRYYYYY!”
I feel so bad for strahd if there is a gloomstalker ranger and a moon druid in the party. Poor guy can't deal with their huge power at low levels.
@@KuyalawVA Make sure to have him say Muda/Useless a lot as well :P
I had a Way of Astral Self Monk in my CoS game... it was straight up Jotaro vs Dio
Party finally catches up with BBEG.
BBEG: "Now you will see the true power of my god! With this magic sphere, I shall blanket this world in a plague of death and raise the corpses to rule the entire planet!!!"
Player: "Why?"
BBEG: "Uuuuuuuuuh....."
So that i can finally have all the cherrypies i ever want
So that all suffering will halt. No more sickness, only progress! Imagine that! A world where people are all equal in Undeath. Am I really the bad guy? Or are you just too blind to see through the greed you have surrounded yourself in!
@@gingadreamurr6238 Personally, I'm not a fan of villains like these. They come off as being evil due to mental illness, rather than personal motivations.
kaaghalaa understandable i just was just put on the spot
@@kaaghalaa I actually had a villain character appear who's concept was simple: He had gone insane from constant hunger. He literally was always hungry no matter what he ate, and had subjected himself to experiments to try and fix this. The experiments only quickened his insanity, and by the time the heroes found him, he had become a lean, mean, killing-and-eating machine. He had little to no personality, but the fight that ensued was one of the most memorable for my party EVER. On top of that, he wasn't even the main bad guy in the campaign, and the thing is, he didn't really have any personal motivation and was literally a villain because his view of the world wasn't right anymore. My point is that a good villain doesn't just rely on personal motivation, it also relies on your ability as a DM to give a compelling story and reason for the PC's to fight. In my case, it helped that the villain was an actual threat to the party, and it was important to the party that he be won over or killed. Since he couldn't be reasoned with, they fought and had a difficult time. In the end, he was fun to fight BECAUSE he was little more than a bag of hit points covered in razor blades. There's something to be said for villains that you don't have too many qualms in killing.
My best villain was Michael Gallorasso, an old, bitter and extremist paladin who tried to kill the entire noble family of a major city in my setting because they were corrupt and did not care about the extreme poverty in their city. The players were bounty hunters hired by the city's noble family to find out who was killing them. The party discovered he was a villain when he was about to kill the last heir to the throne, a baby. It was a tough moral choice, and the fact that he was a paladin just made the victory way more bittersweet for the party. One of the players (A cleric) even rolled an insight test to check evil hidden intentions, but Michael was pure-hearted in his twisted world view.
f8ck this gave me the chills
Pff easiest moral choice ever: side with him, the end. Your party were the villains 😱
@@8Smoker8 He wanted to kill a baby. You're the villain.
@@xei2694 no u
Had a great idea for this...
So the party enters your typical town...farms, inn, blacksmith, etc...
The inn also doubles as an orphanage, providing food and housing. Your players meet there, and they interact with some of the orphans there. Nice kids. They might ask for money; you can see if your charitable players are willing to donate.
Introduce a particularly grim-looking band of adventurers...these look like dangerous people, led by a dishevelled paladin in rough-looking armor. Everybody is giving them a wide-berth.
Have the players then venture out to deal with a local goblin / kobold problem for a reward.
When they return, they find that the town is ablaze.
Direct them back to the inn, to see that party of adventurers just SLAUGHTERING everyone in sight. The paladin is shouting about purging the town of evil, and you see some of the orphans amidst the dead.
The adventuring party can choose to engage these corrupt adventurers, but make sure to emphasize that the paladin is of a high level and should NOT be messed with.
See if the adventurers manage to beat some of the lower-level mooks, then have the rest of these villains flee, satisfied that the town is destroyed.
The party (yours), will find that this entire town has been destroyed. They will continue on for the duration of the campaign.
Now...the twist.
These adventurers, led by the paladin, have been chasing a cult dedicated to Vecna (or a malevolent god of your choosing).
This cult operates in secret, but recently, have been using the "Clone" spell to disguise themselves as children...the children the party encountered at the orphanage.
The paladin is on a quest for revenge, and has gone quite mad, but is leading his ragtag adventurers on a hunt to purge this evil cult. Unfortunately, this cult surrounds itself with innocents, which has caused this paladin to have to purge entire towns and villages to ensure their demise.
So...you have a Vengeance paladin who has fallen to evil, and the other members of his group to serve as "minibosses" throughout your campaign.
Should your players make it to higher levels and successfully kill the paladin, you still have a cult of necromancers to serve as an even bigger villain.
This gives a "face" to your story, and a mystery to solve.
Tony Favilla interesting idea! Thank U!
And copy
So basically you are suggesting to include Arthas in d&d campaign? ....neat
aaaaaand
putting that in my encounter vault.
Just gonna reply to this so I can sneak it later thank you very much
For the love of Pelor don’t let your villain monologue for exposition. Just have the heroes find his notes somewhere in the dungeon. The players will just interrupt his monologue and make him look stupid anyway so what is the point in having a generic monologue that we have seen everywhere else if he won’t finish it?
No, if you give your villain monologue when the villain can be interrupted you're doing it wrong. Give it when the players are captured or otherwise in a position under the villain's complete control.
Tortture so just give them a monologue they have no choice but to endure?
If I do a villian monologue. It is less one sided. For me if my villian does most of the time he is trying to explain and convince the heroes he is the good guy. They are the villian.
@@mollymauktealeaf Yes, if you're trying to make the villain hateable. Make the villain boast with their position and piss off the party in at least a few ways. Maybe have the villain insult the players for opposing the villain's side, because the villain views the heroes' opposition as irrational.
If you're going for something more morally gray or want a more sympathetic villain then you should do as the person above me does. But it's a dialogue not necessarily a monologue.
Or, don't make the villain monologue initially. They may not see the party as "worth their breath", which will make the players hate them even more. Eventually (much later) the villain could explain their point of view, why they're evil, etc. This should lead to a sense of growth between PCs and Villains, because now they're finally talking and understanding each other, even if they don't see eye to eye.
A song that matches your villain?...so, "when you're evil" by Voltaire is a catch all then?
YES!
As good as that song is, it's basically a song for a Disney villain. Aka: being a dick just becuase.
We actually just agreed on something :D
Absolutely
No, that's a good song for villains who are villains because they like fucking shit up.
Here from XP to level 3 who recommended this video and shared the link in his recent video about Villains. Excellent video to consider for D&D! Liked and Subscribed good sir.
Just did a one-on-one session with my grandma were playing a high-level heavily modified dragon heist and she decided to join Jarlaxle so they all just fought the dragon Aurinax inside then the dragon killed Jarlaxle and now the summoned diatryma is sad. (He’ll be fine I’ll run a quest for my bregan dearthe group to bring him back they gonna steal a rod of resurrection from another drow mage it’s gonna be a fun time)
Jarlaxle is a beautiful man I love him so much
@@OhThatRobin
Jarlaxle best boy. A true example of how Drow society ruins the minds of the dark elves
I have no idea what you just said, but the fact that you're running D&D with your grandma is very sweet.
“The villain has to have a reason to be evil.”
No they don’t. It’s always nice to have a villain that’s morally grey or has a nice and understandable motivation, but you can have villains who’s one and only true motivation is evil for the hell of it.
As an example, Bill Cipher is an incredibly fun villain that pretty much everyone I’ve heard talk about Gravity Falls loves, and the only motivation that he’s ever given is that he’s bored and wants to make the world his nightmarish weird playground to entertain himself.
If your villain doesn’t have a motivation that players can understand or empathize with, I think it’s important that they be enthusiastic. After all, if the villain isn’t doing this for “the greater good” or for revenge or something, the DM can go as insane as they’d like with the villain’s enthusiasm and eccentricity without ruining his motivation.
If Thanos decided to randomly dump a billion puppies into a meat grinder while cackling like a madman, we’d probably be wondering why, because this has nothing to do with his motivation.
Meanwhile, if Bill Cipher or Alastor from Hazbin Hotel did the same, it’d be seen as, for lack of a better term, normal, and the audience (or players, in this case) might even get a chuckle out of the villain going so obviously over the top.
Of course, you don’t need eccentricity for a more or less motiveless villain to work, as their motivation could simply be that they want to prove their ideology correct to the players, or to the world at large, what have you. Or, of course, something similar. These motivations aren’t thought-provoking or even really understandable to the average person, beyond perhaps being able to relate to wanting another person to share your beliefs, which I’m pretty sure everyone has felt at some point in their lives, but they can still make for a fun villain.
Villains are one of those things which you really can’t put rules to, because they’re so versatile.
There’s nothing wrong with a pure evil villain who’s evil for the sake of wanting to be evil. Maybe he’s a rebellious teen on the inside that never grew out of that phase. What’s important is that the villain is written well so that the players enjoy his antics. This doesn’t mean he can’t still be intimidating at times, or even most of the time, but if you expect a mustache-twirling damsel-to-railroad-tracks-tying villain to be taken seriously at all times, you get Ms. Finch from Equestria Girls.
What’s important isn’t that they have an understandable motivation, it’s that they actually have a personality which is entertaining.
Mr. Cup but... Fun is a motivation isnt it ?
Nelink Cost it could be, so long as the villain’s well written.
Mr. Cup well yes everything can be Over summarised
3:27
I go by the "Emotional Weight" theory of antagonists. "What does it take to feel a villain?".
1) Sympathy for the villain
2) Reputation of the villain (the body count a monster leaves behind for example)
3) Charm of the villain (Original Maleficent, Mark Hamill Joker, Palpatine, and anything Tim Curry. Villains that seem to make friends with you out of charisma as they close in for the kill)
The audience needs to feel something each time the villain appears. Sympathy is just one way to make that feeling work............but then again, that is not the same as PLAYERS and what they need
I’d say that sympathy is a nice trick, but not the only option. They do have to feel something, but that thing doesn’t necessarily have to be sympathy. Make your villain personally sadistic and he’ll have just as memorable. The Emperor isn’t even slightly sympathetic, but he’s diabolical and powerful, so he’s memorable.
Sympathy is overdone imho. We need evil guys to be Evil. I love me some nein hellz extermination campaign now and then.
@@8Smoker8 If I play one more campaign where the villain is morally grey I will pull my hair out
Speaking of villains: Does anyone know a good way to have your villain talk to the party, without immediately getting attacked? So far illusions are the best I can come up with. My party is the type who attacked Strahd at level 3, and only stopped after they all got hit with a fireball and left for dead.
Maybe have them meet at a social gathering? Like a noble's ball, where if either side attacked the other the guards would intervene and fuck their day up.
Of course, if your players insist on attacking anyway, this is a great way to teach them what a terrible idea that is.
@@adamjames1149 I like the banquet hall idea a lot actually. In fact, that makes a perfect intro for a vilain.
When they stop at taverns, they receive a letter from him. Helps create the creeping suspicion that the enemy knows the party's plans, and is therefore smarter then them.
@@scotthuff271 That sounds pretty good.
Dreams or telepathically might work
I'm here because *_JACOB_*
***Cough*** XPto Level 3
#XPGang
Same
Same
*whispers* saaaaaame....
Same... but I am not proad as I really don't like that angry rant that didn't teach much or make me want to listen
Handsome Jack may be the perfect example of a bad guy you get to know. His S talk during 2 was amazing. He legitimatly believes he's the good guy. The prequal really kicked up why he was that way. I love to hate that guy.
XP to level 3 brought me here... can't believe I missed this.
I remember one time, I had a vampire campaign but completely forgot to, well, write the vampire, i'm dumb i know, but anyway I ended up coming up with him and his motivations and presence on the fly, on the outside, he was an aristocratic fellow, pale, and only went out at night, his excuse being that his work kept him busy throughout the day, signing legislation and performing general administrative duties. But his presence was felt throughout the campaign, even though the players didn't know he was the villain until towards the end of the campaign. He was always keeping an eye on the party through the use of a variant arcane eye spell, and his spawn snuck around the town at night, as well as his minions. Whenever the party would do something that might raise his suspicion, I always made it a point to tell them that they "Felt like they were being watched", they never saw the eye though, the DC to perceive it was high (Around 25 or so) and none of them took proficiency in perception.
I love the lat part where he says to find a song that goes with the villain because that's exactly what I do with my hero's and not just my characters the PCs when I dm when it comes to a important part in there backstory showing up in game I love to add that little boost with music
As a Destiny player, "The real villains are the friends we made along the way" hit me right in the feels.
Never forget Cayde 6....
I'm glad you mentioned leitmotifs for villains as well, as it played into one of the most memorable I recently ran. Because of the sheer confusion he left in his wake, it was only natural that his leitmotif became "Epitaph" by King Crimson.
1:51 I wasn't expecting the Hotel Transylvania reference, but I laughed really hard
When I ran Hoard of the Dragon Queen for my party I did the simplest thing - gave a sending stone to a cultist that party traveled along with (caravan and stuff), who occasionally chatted which Severin (I made sure party hears these conversations). At the end of HotDQ the sending stone ended up in the position of Rezmir, so when she was killed party had a chance to finally speak with Severin himself who taunted and mocked them before crashing his sending stone. That was the moment they decided to kill the bastard no matter what.
I also made him appear as a Project Image in Xonthal’s Tower and added an entire dungeon which was his lair in Calimport, where he was present as a Simulacrum.
Ah Jarlaxle, easily one of the greatest characters to come out of the Forgotten Realms
XP to 3 recommended this vid, I watched it and came up with a good motivation for my villain. Thankyou.
Hello there youngster I do greatly appreciate your videos I find myself looking forward to them every week and watch them with my kids. Keep up the good work Merry Christmas and happy RPing into the new year.
Oui! XP to level 3 sent me here, and I'm glad it did! This almost seven minute video helped as much if not more than a few half hour ones I can think of.. so thanks for the help!
A great villain is a hero in someone else's story
Oh hey i came back to rewatch this and i've incidentally just started listening to poor man's poison. Good band.
Wow, that was excellent. Very well explained with great examples, thanks mate
What I love, is a Villain who doesn't realize who it is that keeps thwarting his plans. And the Party is unaware that A. this persons significance or B. Should Never suspect them. At first the Party will just be a minor annoyance, then they make you loose one group of cultist, and then let it spiral until it they become a Migraine for the Villain. When it gets bad enough let it be visible that something is wrong. Tell the Party that he's loosing parts of their company, organization, or even Family Members and you can be cheeky and ask for the parties advise on the matter. Make sure that there's is a reason that the party doesn't go with the Villain to them like put up that they are all around the country or say that its being done by some evil bandits that they could keep an eye out for.
Then use the Parties OWN ideas against them if any were suggested. The Twist being they claim an important Prize and show it too the Villain and the Villain screams internally "YOU" And then either mad with rage outs themselves right then and there (Depending on how badly they've hurt his forces) or goes with them on an adventure to either lure them into a trap or Push them off on Some other Villain. Have them Direct them to other Villains so that they might eliminate competition all the while keeping them away from their main quest. By the time they've killed what they thought was the BBEG. The real BBEG has his plan completed and they now have to go on a new quest in what I'd call and Apocalypses world. Now it doesn't HAVE to be and Actual Apocalypse but it should be drastically changed from before. Like the BBEG has taken over their Town HUB As the Ruler. Even then Don't reveal the Facade, keep it going as long as Possible for the BBEG to get the most they can out of the party. This way when they DO figure it out, set hints on every mission but don't make it obvious. They realize that they've been used this entire time and Will all unanimously Hate and try and Kill this Guy. That Dawning Realization is going to be all the better the longer it takes form them to realize.
I'd suggest that the BBEG Claims that they've taken over in this Dire time or found that the Current Ruler was Evil this whole time and Inspired by them Decided to do something about it.
"-He's evil isn't a personality, that's a hobby." Is such an AMAZING thing to remember when making a villain!
This video was very helpful. Many thanks, Sir Davvius Chapp!
Very helpful. I made a couple of villains up until now, but I couldn't figure out what made the good ones good and the bad ones bad. I think now I know what I did right/wrong. Thank you very much :D
Bruh moment when you create a villain that was a player’s former character, and is actually intertwined with multiple player characters backstories, and just realized how perfect this is
“Find a song that fits your villain”
Me: JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOJO!
Let me guess. Your villain can stop time?
Curious Carlo this comment is old enough I forgot the context. My villain is a magical girl reference
@@starblade8719 Ah. Which Magical Girl? I only know a few
Curious Carlo my story is based on madoka magica but slightly less dark and set in Venice
Curious Carlo because Venice is cool af
Recently started running Hoard of the Dragon Queen. This was a good heads up, and while I have a different character in mind as the villain, It’s good to know I’ll have to some finagling to make him work. Thanks!
I love using music for inspiration and sometimes you find the perfect music by accident AFTER making your character. I loosely based my genasi eldritch Knight off of the unkindled ash in gameplay with an often quiet demeanor with 8 charisma stemmed from losing a loved one to bandits while on the return trip from a pilgrimage. She was the first person (outside his father figure Garf) who really bothered to know him outside his grave keeping duties.
Glad I found this when I did. Running rise of Tiamat tomorrow and I’d already prepped an extra mini-dungeon right after didarius where the pcs would meet Severin and some of the gang for the first time (guess I wasn’t the only one wondering why we don’t really know anything about the guy until the very end). Gave me lots of story idea fodder. Thank you Davy.
My favorite villain I've run was an elf named Talamaeian. In my setting one of the major themes is Humans vs Elves. Neither side is good or bad. It's war and humans just happens to have gotten a better hand in history. Talamaeian was the elf that said 'no more' and started a rebellion. A rather feeble one, there's no chance that he would be able to topple a kingdom by himself. But he spoke directly to the heart of every elf that has suffered at the hands of the human race (which is all of them) and many of them decided to join his crusade. But what makes Talamaeian a 'villain' and not a revolutionary hero is that he is an agent of rage and chaos. He deep down doesn't want justice for his people. He wants revenge. He wants to kill every last human. Man, woman or child, it doesn't matter to him. The players came across one of the villages he had 'liberated'. Not a soul was left alive, and the humans corpses were put up as a warning saying 'This is what I'll do to you'.
My players were genuinly afraid of him for a long time.
Defeat the plan so you can foil the villian, I like that.
I love that when you talked about the villain's music, you literally talked about the same songs I relate to some of my villains. SPECIALLY Shayfer James. Counterfeit Arcade is amazing.
Jacob sent me from XP to Level 3! Well worth the journey, thanks Davvy!
Ah yes, Dark Lord Killaman... General Bonetopick told me he has a terrible health care benefits.
My recent villain was once mortal but discovered a blood pool which they build their manor around. After drinking from it they became a Vampire and the blood made them mad and now believes the whole world should be his as well as everyone is out to get them.
This was a super solid video and was both smartly delivered and entertaining, kudos!
I do think pure evil can work but its a struggle to do it, especially for D&D
Also amazing outro, XD
I agree highly. I actually ended up doing a bit with this with the villain I just introduced to my Radiant Citadel party too:
The Pale Dragon is one of four Dragonborn leaders of a doomsday cult my party has been dealing with the plans of for some time, and established as the most dangerous one. He has brain damage that renders him incapable of fearing fear and only having restraint when he uses his willpower to do so. The players were aware of this, and realizing he was completely unfettered made them fear him.
Then he was introduced to the party by walking out of a library with his right hand man, a towering guy named Aquarius. What followed was him, mostly stoically, introducing the party FOR THEM, giving a rundown of each of their backstories while refusing to give any information on himself. He did, however, give his motive through his dialog: he views information and knowledge as more valuable the fewer people know it after revealing he knew something about one of the characters they didn't know about themselves, and thus wants to find all the information he possibly can in a place and then summon the Elder Water Elemental he worships to destroy it so he has it exclusively. When someone retorts his worldview with 'knowledge is more valuable shared', his response was to break his stoic personality for a moment, laugh his head off before switching back to stoic and simply saying 'I've seen what mortals do with knowledge, and it's better hoarded than given to them,' implying a reason he feels that way.
Then then proceeds to prove that he was as dangerous as he'd been built up by breaking a well loved NPC's nose and punching her in the gut before forcing the party to look at her terrified, bleeding face, while making it clear her death would be 'intriguing' due to a specific factor about her. With his mindset, that meant he WOULD see her dead so he could learn what he wanted. This made the party both terrified for the NPC they care about, but also furious with the Pale Dragon for harming her.
He's also using a simulacrum so that the party can defeat him in the battle, but know the real Pale Dragon is much, much stronger and they basically only beat an avatar and foiled whatever current plan the cult had in motion, and thus the true battle with him is later on.
Players are having a lot of fun.
Really shocked you mentioned Poor Mans Poison. Not many people know of them but they are amazing. Plus they are all really cool and friendly guys.
Very well said.
I agree with your points, but I would also like to counterpoint and say that sometimes, a lack of villain motivation can work too. My DM created one of the most chilling villain moments I've played through with three simple words;
"Because it's fun."
That being said, an intricate motive works too, just wanted to give you my two copper pieces.
Who else is here from Jacob´s video on XP to Level 3?
davvy do the race aasimar plzzzz
I'll play Devil's advocate and say that not all villains need a super deep backstory that the players can sympathize with. Some of the most memorable villains I've put in front of my players, and in cinema, have been the villains that do it "for the evulz". Joker has stood the test of time because he just does bad things for no discernible reason (I know the Killing Joke exists but he was a great villain long before that). In D&D demons, dragons and liches make for great villains because most of the time their motivations boil down to "I'm the villain, it's what I do".
While they don't necessarily need a compelling backstory, they still need a consistent MO, and a motivation for what they do.
@@Dungeonmaster20 Oh I agree, but my point was that their motivation sometimes doesn't need to go beyond "I am a bad person"
thank you for showing me the songs I love him
Don't rewind and look 5:26, there's nothing in that flash of light
It was just after 5:25
It took a bit but it was the bookcase.
I was thinking it was a subliminal message intended to reveal a super, ultra secret to making a villain memorable for the party.
XD XD XD
A well written villain is in many cases just a hero, without the subtleties and nuances that make a hero not a villain, or at least with the opinion that whatever their goal is, it is indeed more important than anything like scruppals or "invalidating your ends, via invalid means" or such. They are those who see their goals whether they be selfish or utterly altruistic as more important than things like human life, freedom, personal property, or simply the needs of the few. Whether that be beceause they see morality as a needless obstacle or their goals as too important to restrain themselves.
Perhaps their goal is noble and it is mearly their actions that are wicked, or perhaps their ends are in and of themselves vile and unthinkable. The villain will rarly see them that way, if he does he will think leaving his great work undone is a greater evil, or perhaps you will have an "Evil be now my Good" type villain, but even for them they will likely see moral laws as a kind of cosmic, or social tyranny to which all are enslaved. If you follow this rule even your hammy villains will be believable, that Cultist Devoted to summoning the God of Anihilation into the world so it can do it's thing? "The world is a prison made of suffering and filth, only by freeing ourselves from the shackles of this mortal coil may we transcend this horror." It's that simple.
omg please please make a full list of songs that go with all the villains!
great vid, really useful
Song for a sub villain I'm using is bones by the killers. She's an undead antipaladin and follows the goddess of undead and gluttony. Fits her vibe of wanting to have fun but being dark or evil about it
I am running CoS for my Adventurers League, and they have bumped into Strahd twice. The first time they hid from him, and the second time he put down the Paladin because he gave Strahd lip. I plan a few more run ins, but because the players choices rarely stay in any town or populated area for too long it is difficult to get a good and reasonable moment to bump into old vampy himself that wont seem like me just trying to kill them. I try to have a reason for Strahd to be where they are. They actually just encountered him at Yester Hill in fact. In my thursday non-Adventurers League group, they encounter a few agents of the first primary villain, so going after him (I have dubbed the Blade of Styros) is kind of like chasing a ghost for the most part, one that is behind all the destruction but is always just out of reach. He is only one villain, and not the big bad of the whole campaign. If anything, villains to me have to fit the setting amd be eased in. To have the players bump into him/her/it/them right off the bat and know everything is antithetical to the main evil. Being mysterious is more entertaining, mainly because I like to see them figure things out or see their faces when the villains identity turns out to be someone they know. A villain makes a campaign the way it is, so playing the persona can make or break it.
A villain that doesn't see themself as a villain can be an amazing character to throw at the party. Giving them the internal conflict of WHY is this guy the bad guy? It can create an incredible dynamic between the players and the villain and will lead to a more powerful and even emotional final battle
bruh I love poor mans poison love to hear that you apreciate them too
Thank you. Helped
I made a campaign where the main villain runs a Time cult their motivations are to try to bring back their dead sister no matter how many people he hurts while doing it
Thanks
Great
That's a brilliant fix to that campaign man.
without this video i would have never heard of Shayfer James, i LOVE this kind of music
My “main” villain is a lich who created any army of undead to defend his land that he protected from the shadows, the party wipes out most of his defenses and go to defeat him where they find out that he’s just a goldfish in comparison to the next bbeg.
I have a cliche plan of a campaign for my friends, that the main good guy is secretly bad, but believes himself to be good, and the bad guys to the good guys are still gonna be an evil cult or something. The main good guy is recruiting adventures to obtain this great power first before the cult and to use it for the greater good and for the people, but wants it for himself to only further himself in power and land to own. So the party will be working under the main bad guy but won't know it yet till way later down the road. Planning on fleshing this all out later, so perfect timing on the video
According to my dm the best way to make a villain is to make him literally(not hyperbole) unkillable, show up at any point in time to ruin whatever your doing without a chance in hell of passing a save of any king, their is no way to harm him, and nothing short of a deus ex machina to get him to fuck off. I hate it so much
I remember another video that says that to make a good villain you should take a hero and put at the extreme.
While we're on the subject of villain theme songs, the theme of what every player from two different groups tell me is the best villain I've ever written is "the doctor's wife" by The Clockwork Quartet.
"Nocturne" (as the villain went by at the time) has an entire playlist that suits him, but this song quite literally details the first few entries of his journal. Which I used as the main exposition device to reveal that his motivations were quite simply a broken heart and the frustration that his literal life's work was failing him, and that what lead him to what he has become was simply being a desperate man with nothing left to lose
Jacob sent me here as well. Great video by the way!
"Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard, become evil." FunnyBunnyLogic
I love my evil Campaign because my players are the villains, I just get to help them build up to be great and throw heroes and rivals at them.
I really want to thank you for your suggestion of Kano Wakashima. I didn't know her, but I agree that she is very fitting for Strahd.
I always come back to this video when I need some inspiration. My party’s villain rn is a warlock in service to an aboleth. They’ve (very briefly) met on two occasions but as I write the end to this arc I definitely want them to get a sense for who he is before they (ง’̀-‘́)ง. Thank you!
personally, I'd add Helmet Zemo to part of a good villain because he has a good motivation (The Avengers caused his family to die) and he kinda won
In my setting, the main baddy and his fellowship of baddies are trying to revive Sardior, the Ruby Dragon and god to gem dragons, and by extension gem dragons as a whole. They are viewed as a forgotten page of history, despite playing a key role in preventing calamity 3000 yrs prior. While maybe not evil in theory, the means by which this is achieved and side effects therein do more harm to the land then good, and the villain's true goal is to "give back" to the world by granting those who survive the power of dragons while simultaneously claiming Sardior's power for themselves and become a new God altogether. When it comes down to it, they only wanted reverence and recognition after being manipulated and lied to with empty promises for most of their early life. The linchpin being betrayed by someone close to them before finally snapping. Forgot to mention that they were an Aasimar with a draconic lineage and he became convinced he was descent from a dragon god(s).
this was supa useful :) thanks
For my sci-fi campaign, I made sure the BBEG's Right Hand was a suave Spaniard-accented gentleman with a laser pistol that looks like a slim revolver in one hand and a rapier in the other, thankfully, my players friggin love him.
imo *sometimes* going for a cool guy ends you up with a cool guy that the players love fighting/interacting with and sometimes don't even want to kill so it gives ya a little learning lesson and time to prep for next time. Might kinda sound lazy ik but hey whatevs, so far it's worked in my favor.
The only thing you missed here are pure evil villains, though you almost scraped it Vader (I know Vader isn't pure evil, but thats what he was portrayed as in A New Hope so it kinda counts). Sometimes Villains don't need a relatable motivation. Old School Disney Villains like Maleficent and Ursula and Jafar are pure evil and very simple but they are still very good villains. Why? Because they do stuff, really cool stuff. Ursula manipulates Ariel then turns into Cthulhu's hotter cousin, Maleficent turns into a giant ass dragon and starts to wreck house, Jafar manipulates the Sultan then starts casting spells everywhere then turns into a giant ass genie. They may be very simple. Ursula just hates King Triton, Jafar wants power and Maleficent is just petty over an invite that got lost in the mail. But they are intensely charismatic, awe inspiring and easy to hate. Villains can be simple and good, but they can't be simple and inactive and good. Many interpretations of the Joker fall here too. The Joker in most incarnations of the character, likes chaos, hates Batman, and likes doing clown shit. That is simple, but because of all the weird and interesting and fucked up shit he does, he is still the biggest batman villain out there period.
Jarlaxle is probably my favourite antagonist ever. The party ended up figuring out what he was trying to do and ended up siding with him. It was actually a really cool moment!
XP to Level 3 says Hi.
just in time for me to write the villain 9 hours before the oneshot.
I accidentally started this with one villain in my most recent campaign, the leader of a killer cult responsible for the disappearance of a frontier settlement. He (in a time flashback) took the mayor, and bashed her skull into a well and threw her body in. Later the party fought a demon in the well that actually possessed the mayors corpse as a means to anchor to the material world.
Shayfer James villainous thing is really good, it nice to finally find someone who like shayfer
My villain had seen the world blowen up 3 time decided to restart it as he has power to destroying and creating the world
okay, so I want to do the music thing you suggested, but I have no idea what I would do for my villain in my campaign. He's named Balthazar. actually, the party hasnt really met him yet. hes a mysterious figure wearing one of those smiling masks (the happy sad drama masks) and he's trying to spread bloodshed across the world to resurrect a dark diety that has been dead for eons, and has been cocooned in a crimson tree, waiting to be reborn. He never speaks. only watches, with a smile on his face; at least he would if one could see it. he also has a crimson red and green outfit and a jester hat which I thought looked cool. I was thinking a dark and creepy sounding song incorperating the Violin or Piano would be cool.
How about My Alcoholic Friends by The Dresden Dolls? That sounds like it may line up with your guy.
If you haven't played the Witcher 3, try Gaunter O Dimm's theme.
I will warn you, he's basically walking spoiler.
Masks by Aviators
@@Amikas117 oh my god thats perfect. I'll actually use that during the sessions instead of before it.
@@soulofsunlight9720 The lyrics makes a lot of sense actually! And it has a great creepy vibe that works really well. thank you! I'll be using that.
Respectfully I'm playing in a campaign where the villain is some distant Hobgoblin warlord but this gives the party an excuse to fool around in a certain city and have some great time doing random stuff or settle small personal business when they aren't questing. Also we just had a great Tournament where a duo almost went into the finals but got recked by an unexpected crit at the last second.
Speaking of villains and songs, don't be afraid to mix and match bits from existing sources. I think my most successful example of this is a mix of Scar from The Lion King (The Spare Heir archetype), Mornelithe Falconsbane from The Mage Winds Trilogy (Ancient and Powerful Wizard archetype) and the song Masters of the Galaxy by Gloryhammer. The whole villain, who was a slowly going mad prince-mage who wanted to usurp the throne from his all to good for his own good brother, was a blast to play as the players met his agents, and eventually him. He even got them to join him for a time in setting up the king's assassination, and his nephew taking the fall. Only reason the plan failed so spectacularly was because once they realized that The Dark Prince was possessed by the spirit of what was considered a legendary dark sorcerer, they started trying to expunge it his body. He was also having an affair with the Rogue if memory serves, so that was a fun party in-character argument.
I made character a villain because he was born into an empire that was really strict and slightly oppressive, all to keep the peace. The other characters want freedom, despite what having so much freedom causes people to do. My character suffered because of the rebels, so he believes that the only way to have peace is to conquer everyone and force them under this empire's rule. It's a conflict between will and reason, freedom and peace. A justifiable and understandable villain causes personal conflict with the heroes.
Came from Xp to level 3 recommendation.
Was not disappointed!
I like you already when you said howdy
My villain was the leading of a terrorist organisation on a remote island country that had no government. This island was filled with vigilantes, criminals and the innocents that were born there.
The terrorist group were made known to the players in the first mission, as a town requested help to take out an outpost they had nearby. After doing so they found helpful information like maps and notebooks filled with code names. A resistance leader offered to pay for the documents and one player made a deception roll to keep some of the papers. The team didn't want to join the resistance group until they trusted them better, so they kept some of the information and would continue to fight the terrorists when they came across they're territory.
During the end of a cargo transport mission where the players were working with the resistance, the main villain came to attempt to highjack the payload and demolished the resistance fighters first while the party continued to go ahead.
This way the players knew there was a main villain but was unsure of their power but knew their goals, until an ambush where the villains capabilities were revealed to their allies. The players loved this reveal and I'm glad it worked so well