Big Bad Evil Guys (BBEGs)

[GRWelsh]

Have you all used Big Bad Evil Guys (BBEGs hereafter) in your campaigns, and if so, how did that go? I'm not just talking about established villains like Iuz, Iggwilv, Ivid, Tharizdun, Acererak, Vecna, Keraptis and so on but also your own original creations. Do you feel having a BBEG helps to give the campaign focus with a main villain the players are aware of and have work against? Or does that detract from the traditional spirit of D&D? For myself, I like the idea of these powerful BBEGs being around in the lore (using Greyhawk for this example, although this topic isn't necessarily Greyhawk-specific), as it allows me to develop ideas around them, dungeons, tombs or temples built by or dedicated to them, their followers as foes, etc. But in general, I have never used a BBEG as the focus for the plot of a campaign. At most, I've had recurring villains as ongoing NPC's, because they survived, were particularly irritating to players, and/or because I wanted to makes things a bit more personal (players never get more motivated than when stole from or personally wronged)! But a "defeat the Dark Lord" plot for a campaign never felt like it was in the traditional spirit of D&D to me. It's great for fantasy novels, but to me D&D is about player choices rather than having a plot imposed upon them. If a villain emerges organically out of play, I think that's great -- but I am averse to saddling the players with a quest to do anything, arbitrarily.

P. S. This may sound like I'm contradicting myself, but I actually do have some notes on BBEGs in my current campaign, but the difference is the players don't even know about them. They are written up for my own personal knowledge as the DM, only, to help me plan for why certain events have happened and will happen. If the player characters get to high levels, they may find out about these characters and possibly get involved in those epic plots. These BBEGs are an arch witch and a cambion warlord.

[geneweigel]

One of the aspects of the Broken Castle adventure is the references to the 3 eyed skull which is a big menace of unknown evil parts. It like other aspects of my campaign world are designed to confuse the players.

There is also well known and anonymous rotten magic-using types who try to thwart the party's plans.

I mentioned this before, that I had an anti-paladin be the brother of my brother's paladin character and menace whatever party he was in. He eventually faded (with my brother) and was replaced by his mentor a more powerful anti-paladin.

One wizard is a real pain in the ass has his stooges, who wear his symbol, looking to thwart adventurers to get to treasure first.

Another pattern is giving presents to evil characters by some secret powerful manipulator. One manipulator gives them a communication device and I pass the players notes so the other don't know what is going on.

The 3 eyed skull is not the organization that I had for a massive player and non-player alliance of evil game in the 1990's but some of the non-player characters that were involved are also in the 3 eyed skull or secretly aid the group.

[GRWelsh]

Jan 2, 2024 1:34:48 GMT -5 geneweigel said:

Another pattern is giving presents to evil characters by some secret powerful manipulator. One manipulator gives them a communication device and I pass the players notes so the other don't know what is going on.

In the dungeon room the party saw a table with a fat old man sitting at it. He had pointy ears, rosy cheeks, and twinkling eyes. On the table before him were nineteen rings made of various precious metals and some set with fabulous gems...

"Ho, ho, ho... Who would like a magic ring?" He asked in a merry voice. "I have nine for men, seven for dwarves, and three for elves... And they are FREE, FREE, FREE!"

"Ahem, what about halflings, sir?" the little halfling piped up from the back of the party.

"What's a halfling? Never heard of them," the fat old man replied.

[geneweigel]

I literally had the Mouth of Sauron teamed with Dracula in Transylvania, Thoth Amon of Stygia, Yyrkoon of Melnibone and the Horned King of the Black Cauldron in the Greyhawk apocalypse world that was like Secret Wars. Germany was "Mirkwood" and Asia Minor the Levant was "Mordor". Draculas Castle was combined with Minas Morgul. So that was the 10 tons of big bad guys campaign of namedropping that was ultimately stupid but it had a lot of players. If it anything it made me curate my good ideas.

There is this one "dungeon finale" monster who has returned over and over who they slew twice. At one time they thought he wasn't mobile due to his curse.

[GRWelsh]

I suppose on Oerth (or any AD&D world, really) a team of "super villains" from multiple planes is possible. There does seem to be precedent for that laid down by EGG in the Gord books, and I think he referenced the Rhennee and Attloi as being from another world (our world's gypsies?) and Iggwilv being the same as the Finnish witch Louhi. I once had the idea to do a TIME BANDITS-like adventure with characters getting help from the worlds of Boot Hill, Gamma World, Gangbusters and others to fight "the Devil" but it never got to that stage. There was a time when I was overly ambitious as far as mixing genres and alternate Prime Material planes... We had multiverse burn out long before the MCU came along! As long as the players have fun with it, that's all that matters.

[geneweigel]

I had a "dungeon master" in 82 before the cartoon who was quasievil.

[Scott]

I like the idea of the BBEG.
I think it works best if introduced early, anything from directlt to flunkkies, rumors, whatever.It could be common knowledge in the area, like the town is controlled by the BBEG. The party could witness some display of evil and power, but because the party is so weak at the time the BBEG just ignores them. Like just as the party is arriving at a meeting with a higher level NPC they are aquainted with they witness him being easily knocked off by the bBRG. Even if the character isn't the initial focus of the campaign, it starts that BBEG association with the players, and the longer it goes on, the more the players will grow to actually dislike the character.
Also, it could be cool if the original BBEG is actually not, and upon defeating him the party finds out he was just the servant of the actual BBEG all along.

[geneweigel]

Stepping into the game I had assumed the existence of Sauron on some level then a few months later by the end of the year I was like: "Oh, thats not the case." By that time, I DMed 70 + game sessions easily with the entire neighborhood. So those glib fresh new D&D dabblers of 1981 walked away thinking that the game was saturated with Sauron from listening to me get situated.

[GRWelsh]

There's no reason your D&D campaign couldn't have Sauron in it. I think Tolkien creations were a part of D&D from the beginning and even before. The CHAINMAIL Fantasy Supplement had Tolkien references in it such as with the names of the orc tribes. The famous "Blackmoor" game Dave Arneson ran at the Gygax house in November 1972 had multiple balrogs in it. AD&D has treants, worgs, halflings, Type VI demons (with one named Balor which seems to be a nod to them once being balrogs), and elves that appear to a slightly altered version of Tolkien's Elves (gray, high, wood, etc.). It seems obvious that a lot of people must have wanted these elements in their fantasy games, or were going to put them in anyway, so EGG included them. The only mistake would be in assuming Sauron and the other Middle-earth things are essential to D&D, i.e. that it cannot be played without them.

I remember plenty of pseudo-Tolkien fantasy settings created by DMs, but none that actually claimed to be Middle-earth using the D&D rules. No one said "My D&D campaign is set in Middle-earth." I did have a friend who put "the Land" from Stephen R. Donaldson's THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT in his D&D world, which was a bit strange. Mostly, the DMs I knew of the early 80's just had vaguely defined swords & sorcery settings that could accommodate a hodgepodge of sources, including Middle-earth. Most were more similar to the settings from Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etc. In retrospect, I wonder how much the Marvel Comics version of Conan had on early D&D players (not EGG so much, but us kids).

I had my own version of Sauron in the early 1980's that I called the Shadow Lord, who had servants I called the Shadow Knights, but they were mainly there in the background and weren't encountered by the PC's. But there was an artifact created by the Shadow Lord named the Shadowstar that was a central theme of my 1984 campaign. The Shadowstar was a dark crystal -- inspired by THE DARK CRYSTAL movie -- and was the campaign MacGuffin (everyone was after it). I even came up with a title and artistic logo for that campaign, which I still have... It was called the DARK SPECTRUM.

[geneweigel]

That is awesome. Was SS portable or a big thing?

As for the "Sauronisms", I had an atmosphere assumed that the Shire was right over the hill and you might even find the ring.

[GRWelsh]

The Shadowstar was about the size of the shard in the DARK CRYSTAL movie. It was an artifact like those described in the DMG, partly inspired by the Ring of Gaxx which was said to be from another world. I posted images above of a synopsis I put together after the campaign ended in 1984. The sketches of the player characters are by me, the map was by me, and that last sketch of the dark elf is by my friend Eric who was also DMing at that time. The reference to the Doorway to Infinity is a magic item Eric invented to allow characters go to alternate Prime Material planes... Essentially an in-game explanation for how the same PCs could adventure in different DM's game worlds, it appeared like a book which was activated by a gem -- the Eye of Infinity -- and when opened, put the characters in what appeared to be an unending hallway with doors on each side, each of which went to different plane. The synopsis that I wrote is pretty incoherent but gives a sense of what my games were like in the 80's: lots of combat and with so much going on that it was difficult to keep track of it all. The players enjoyed it but I learned as a DM not to shove so many ideas into a campaign at once.

[rredmond]

Wow, that whole thing, The Dark Spectrum, looks old school amazing!

[geneweigel]

I knew a few art-oriented kids that played D&D but I was the only generous one who did images for free so I had illustrated the whole Northwestern regional #7's various D&D campaigns. I mentioned this prior that my archenemy, Kevin an evil DM (or was I the evil DM? ), paid me to illustrate for his games. Honestly? If I could go back in time I would want to see what all the campaigns were like. It seemed Tolkien-esque was the aim for a lot of the campaigns that I had illustrated for with "dark towers with lights".

If I dissect how I had such a high volume of players, it was because as I approached the mid-80's I had the shared campaign. We switched to Greyhawk, it had become a shared DM anti-campaign of book first over freeform. Most of my big baddies, that I would project into the background, were secretive and hidden away from the other DMs. That setup had painted the hub of many of my hardcore "Darth Vader" types as not being as "loud" as Sauron but instead being of a vast "quilt" of usually quiet but underlying menace (Ala Fu Manchu, Blofeld or the maybe the Kingpin). I think the Greyhawk setup hinted secrecy with the alignment tongues plus the multi-layered organizations with unhomogenous setups (Horned Society LE having an unknown NE element)