GREAT GM: Creating the Ultimate Villain NPC for your RPG session - game master tips

diabolical...

Can also ally a known villain with the party using a Greater Evil.

Like the way Thor and Loki ultimately have to team up to stop Thanos

I know this is an older video, but I wanted to share a "nemesis" story from the homebrew western I lead a few years back.

Two player characters had it in their backstory that they had been farmhands in debt, practically slaves, to a plantation owner. The game had been going on for several sessions before they had a chance to choose if they wished to keep on the chase and tail the villain of the story that was set in the first session or go to act out personal revenge against a minor villain from their backstory (who they had never met in the actual game) by taking a detour that would give the actual villain a better lead. I had planned for the possibility that they would do the detour for revenge, though they split the party with half going to act out the revenge and half to keep tabs on the main villain by giving chase, but I didn't force their hand nor guide their decision more than by saying "the next possibility to revenge the past wrongs can be a while."

As they planned their murderous scheme I gave information that the previously enslaved characters recall how the evil plantation owner had a female bodyguard who is a gunslinger turned bounty hunter. This female gunslinger became the nemesis for the group in the future, or rather a "frememis" (friendly nemesis) as they prefered to call her in the end which I shall explain later on.

All they knew was that the plantation will be guarded by regular guards and the gunslinger who presumably only works for money and has no actual loyalty for the owner of the place. When they managed to break in and sneak to the villain's room a fight begun and as it progressed the gunslinger realized that no matter what she would do she wouldn't be able to save her employer in time and she just left the scene as she knew no one would pay for her additional troubles fighting the players. So the players managed to revenge the past wrongs done by this minor backstory villain, but when they moved on to meet up with the other half of the party in a nearby town they met the gunslinger from the plantation. Given that they had also looted the whole plantation and had a lot of money to throw around they decided to hire the female gunslinger to their party with the knowledge that the moment someone else does a better deal she will turn on them.

They get to travel at least two sessions, which inculuded combat that only made them like the gunslinger more despite losing money since they had to pay for each kill they made, before they came to another cross road in the story. They had an option to take a shortcut through a rocky desert into another town with a good assumption that the main villain they were chasing after would go there as well, but they weren't 100% sure and knew that if the whole party would take the shortcut and their assumption was wrong they would lose them.. So they had more than half of the party take the shortcut with the attempt to organize an ambush for the main villain before they would make it to the town they were traveling towards while the rest went to tail the main villain to keep tabs on them if their assumption was wrong and they would be heading to another place so they wouldn't lose them after all by having the small group deliver the news of the change in plans if their initial plan and assumptions weren't gonna work.

This smaller group who went to ensure they wouldn't lose the villain took the gunslinger with them since they thought that the main villain was traveling with a group of at least 20 men and the best shooter of the player group was good to have around. However when they found the villain and made camp further away from theirs failed the dice rolls to notice the guards who villain had patrolling the area.. When they were caught and a firefight was about to start the gunslinger turned on the players in moments notice and shot them in back (to wound them, not to kill) and then proceed to get the main villain hire her to their group instead after coming to their camp with guards and the imprisoned players.

The players knew from the start the female gunslinger would betray them but they had just assumed she would only betray them if someone else would make a better offer.. They hadn't even entertained the thought of her betraying them in the face of trouble that might be more than her pay was worth without any ensured deal suggested by the bad guys before the possible betrayal and then proceed to use the act of betraying the players as a "pitch talk" for her to get employed by the main villain instead.

It was a betryal that hurt, yet the players realized that they couldn't really blame anyone else for it than themselves. However what hurt more was how the main villain then interrogated the imprisoned players who spilled the beans about the upcoming ambush that was being prepared by the majority of the players and whenever they tried to lie to the main villain the gunslinger fact-checked them with whatever knowledge she had learned about the players during their short journey together (with some lies going through as "facts" since she didn't know them that well). The main villain didn't only get to hear their plans and how many players were there to attempt to do this ambush, but he also got to learn what kind of weapons they carried and he was these "mastermind" type of villains who went as deep as to ask the relations of the player characters (and the few side characters) who traveled together. So he knew all their plans and mostly how to manipulate each and one of them after the imprisoned players had told everything they knew.

From there the main villain got to do this improvised "darkest hour" moment for the player group that was fueled only by their own miscalculation and the betrayal they should have seen coming when the majority of the party were attacked during the night instead of them managing to ambushing the villain as planned. During the attack the players found themselves in a house set on fire where they had been sleeping in while being forced to stay inside by the villain and his men (along with the female gunslinger who now fought for the bad guys) who kept aiming towards the door and the windows with revolvers and rifles to prevent the players from escaping. However I let the main villain be close enough for them to try to kill him but trying to do so would leave them open to be fired upon by the henchmen.. One player took this chance, had a succesful roll and wounded the main villain with a lucky shot to the head (though they actual damage roll was terrible). While he drew first blood of the villain who only got a scar out of it the player who did it were shot to oblivion and were critically injured for it. They got to have a small moment of victory during their darkest hour where one player and one npc almost died while one npc actually died with rest of the group getting injured badly.. And the little sister (npc) of two brothers (player characters) was kidnapped by the main villain during the chaos.

Yet somehow they pulled through and the villain retreated. From there the players had to sneak to the town to see a doctor (since the villain was staying there as well) and there one player met the female gunslinger who had betrayed them and in a way caused the whole mess along with one liked npc getting killed and sister npc being kidnapped. She said she didn't regret what she had done and warned them that if they will keep chasing the main villain she has no choice but to shoot them, but it wasn't personal for her but since she warned them the players did realize she was more of a "reluctant henchwoman" who didn't like the idea of shooting at the players but will absolutely do so from now on since she was on the villain's payroll.

Rest of the group learned that the villain was about to head towards the mountain and if they wouldn't go after him right now they would propably lose him for good. So all of them decided to give chase despite all the characters being barely in shape to fight, but they knew that the villain had lost a few men during the attack as well so they had a slim chance to win and attempt to save the kidnapped sister.

In the end their chase took the group to the mountains a day or two before snowfall and there they fought against the gunslinger and few henchmen who were left behind to take care the players who he knew were badly hurt and a small group could deal with them given that the bad guys had high ground in a mountain forest. The players won the fight and critically injured the female gunslinger who laid down on the ground bleeding to death as they thought what to do with them. One player wanted to just leave, most wanted to grant them mercy and put them out of their misery accompanied kind words.. They gave the female gunslinger peace and actually granted her wish of "shoot me in the heart, I want to be beautiful when I die" and despite knowing that the main villain was getting away they took time to properly bury the gunslinger who had betrayed them in the past. She was this minor character who I hadn't planned to use more than in the revenge plot at the plantation (which was a thing they could have skipped) yet I thought bringing her back for a nice call back would be more fun and then the players decided to hire her.. And as they say rest is history. One of the best "nemesis" or "friendly nemesis" type of characters I have had the pleasure to play as and improvise with as a GM.

...If anyone is interested for the rest of the story: The players finally met the main villain and defeated him, freed the kidnapped sister npc and barely survived without losses after the fight was done at the shore of a mountain lake. When they finished off the main villain the snow start to fall.

I know this is a bit old now, but this was really helpful. Been struggling to properly flesh out my villain and this gave me a few diabolical ideas which I think is going to be very fun to play with.

This is a really well thought out and explained video. Thank you.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Bumbling nemesis .
Look up Darth Jar Jar Binks theory .

(Long post ahead but it's worth it)
One of my DMs pulled the ultimate bamboozle on all of us. When he started DMing, he created a homebrew campaign with a party where the main villain was a CE College of Glamour bard. This guys was a pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, overdramatic son of a bitch who couldn't even use a sword but damn, was he good with words and hot damn, was he an absolute psychopath. He manipulated two kingdoms into obtaining an extremely evil artifact with the aim of ultimately getting his hands on it himself...but the artifact had the condition of having to be given up volutarily. The first time he wasn't successful, but the second time, he won.
That campaign, for one reason or another, was never finished.
One year later, the same DM calls us, different party, to finish what he started. He had new ideas, he was a great DM and I hopped in with...well, a Bard. And my first mission was to find a guy and say I was there on behalf of [insert name of the Bard here]. My character was the Bard's most beloved pupil, friend, ally and confident. She was aware of around 60% of the shit he was doing, but couldn't care less (CN) and when she could, she gave him a hand. What he felt for her was genuine and he really did consider my character the best thing ever happened to him. She had seen everything nice he could actually do when he was in a good mood or just very, very drunk.
The Bard shows up some time later. Nobody else in the party had any ties to him, so his global celebrity face allowed us a very fun arc in a city, before another party member joins in...the only survivor of the previous party, now a Redemption Paladin. Who remembered the Bard exactly for who he was before lunging at him, sword in one hand and a Smite Evil in the other. The Bard hastily explained why he was in town and, long story short, in the finale of that arc, sacrificed himself to thwart the evil guys' plan. My character was devastated, but he donated to her the evil artifact (unbeknowst to the rest of the party) and his most prized possession: his violin.
The Paladin was tied to another npc in the previous campaign, who showed up at the end of another arc to help us. She was an elf baelorn (a good lich) and his previous lover, so when she asked for help retrieving an artifact, we were more than happy to help.
Turns out...SHE was the BBEG. And we found out because the resurrected Bard shot her head off her neck with a gun, then teleported us away while she was regenerating. The artifact she wanted was the ring of a particular god. He explained that all he did during his 4000 years of existence (he was half-celestial) was to stall the baelorn's attempts at destroying reality, as she had gone completely crazy after losing something. He had done terrible, horrifying things to get enough power to do this and was aware he could never stop, not even in death. He made plans to resurrect himself just for that case. It had become his only purpose in his life. He asked for help and us, the Paladin and even previous NPCs reluctantly accepted him in the gang.
Final fight, 12 levels later.
We find out what was stolen from the baelorn. Her feelings and purpose...and the culprit entered the room with a pompous, arrogant, self-absorbed, overdramatic flair. The Bard made her go crazy to cover up his steady gaining of enough power and retrieving artifacts, to return to his previous existence...a God.
We had the real BBEG with us all the whole damn time and helped him almost destroy the world.
But the secret to bring him down was to challenge him with an important remnant of his mortal life...and the only thing existing in the world was the violin the Bard gave to my character. He literally gave his pupil the key to his own demise because he couldn't bear the thought of destroying the most beautiful thing in his life.
(We won and I took revenge on my DM by making him cry his eyes off when I sang 'Stand By Me' while helding the dying body of my character's best friend in my arms. I still haven't forgiven the son of a bitch for how he played with my feelings but DAMMNNNNNNNN that was good.)

“Do you have the DSM?” “We got it sir!” “Good, that’s one less loose end.”

My players don't trust NPCs anymore. :) No damsel in distress will join their group for sure.

This was is very similar to what I was planning for my next game

Bassically, the bulk of the campaign takes place in the only steampunk city in the mostly fantasy world. While everywhere else is classic fantasy, this city has hearts and factories and constructs, etc... the place is paradise, but the players quickly learn of a terrorist group with bronze dragon masks. The players deal with the local politicians to take down the organization, only to find that the terrorist was trying to take down the corruption in the city, and that same politician is now launching an airship invasion against the capitals of the world.

And those of us who don't speak superhero will miss a few points.

Why did you just spoil my plot o_o
I literally have a game with this mastermind villain. I am having a really hard time to get the players to trust him.
Because ooc they have a very very good hunch he is evil, but ic he was the "I give you stuff" character.

Another Suggestion. Make a Player the Arch Nemesis. (Only possible If the Player works with the gamemaster. ) In our group this was devastating when WE found Out.

Never Pressent Nemesis in real life is called the invisible hand and they want to create the One World Government, from which they rule...

is there also a villain that just want to test the players and when finally caught he says it was all a test to see if the players are worthy? would that count as a villain?

I was so excited when Guy mentioned White Collar. That has pretty much been my inspiration for writing interesting complicated campaign plots that span between adventures.

I’ve got my campaign where the king and queen are actually part of the team of the main villain. But they seem so sincere because of their stories that have been passed down for a couple centuries about how they defeated the main villain.

Darke was saying a prayer at the city fountain, the party overheard him and asked tf he was doing. He was going to look for his mom in orc territory. Party adopts him and he chooses to train as a rogue. He excels in all his training, eventually surpassing the party. He still wants to go find his mom, and when the party says 'you gon die kid' he burns his bridge with them and attacks the tabaxi barbarian who saved him. A scar and a scroll of darkness later and the kid is gone. He assassinates a very important noble in the area because (the party doesn't know this yet) that lord bought his mom and sold her to another continent. The party chases him and his blood trail after every big mission they accomplish, ultimately finding him in a graveyard, beside a dead guard doing nothing but protecting the grave of his mother. He does not resist, but he explains why he chose this path (looking against hope to find his mom alive) apologizes to the tabaxi and touches his scar. He slips away as his metamorphosis is complete and his trade is refined so that he's among the most lucrative assassin's alive today.
He was just supposed to die in the forest and the party was going to buy his house at an estate sale. That's my favorite part, Darke's whole arc was a direct result of the lies the party told a child, of youthful stubbornness leading to mistakes made, and ultimately being surrounded by all the destruction he sowed, he was great

This is extremely helpful thank you! I now know how to place my nemesis, in my first campaign!

Did i understand it correct, that the never present nemesis, is something like cuthulhu or like the Chaos gods of warhammer?

Of course. This happens every time. I’m trying to improve my dming skills so I look up some advice for world building, character building, villains, etc. then I’ll spend an hour avoiding your vids hoping for multiple perspectives but in the end... I always come back, I always like what you have to say better. I should stop wasting my time and just watch your vids first I guess. Nonetheless love the content!

This video is going to make my players hate me. Very nice.

I disagree with your definition of Nemesis. I look at it as an Antagonist opposes your heroes for any reason. A Villain is an explicitly evil antagonist and a Nemesis opposes your heroes for personal hatred.

One of my favorite characters was a Lawful Evil Drow Assassin (D&D 2e). I also had a Mage/Cleric (Lawful Neutral) that got powerful enough to take control of a city-state. The Mage commissioned the Drow to be the head of his secret police. It worked out SO well.

Anyway, he was running in a party of characters where he was the lowest level character. The Lawful Good Ranger was constantly giving him crap, talking down to him, distrusting him, the usual racist stuff against the Drow. Daggar saved every member of the party at least once, most twice, and the Ranger 3 times during the several-session campaign. During the very last session, within a matter of about 20 minutes, every character died a horrible death. The Ranger was the last to go. Except, of course, Daggar, who just walked away. Everyone was PISSED. Oh, did I mention the player running the Ranger was my brother?

Anyway, we were driving somewhere a few days later and my brother was still moaning and groaning about how unfair the DM was. On and on he went. I finally had to admit, just to shut him up, that Daggar had been commissioned, from the very beginning, to kill the party. I tried REALLY hard to find an excuse not to, to justify letting them live, but they treated my character so poorly that he was fine with just destroying them all.

And the absolute beauty of the whole thing is that NO ONE knew that it was Daggar that slaughtered them all except the GM and me. I usually don't like running Evil characters, but that day was GLORIOUS!

Don't over use the traitor.

Important distinction here: Player Villain !== Player that turns out to be a villain
For all the players who made me roll my eyes out of my head over the years.

Aaah, I miss old Guy <3 Something about thew new videos are just not as helpful!

Is there any way for me to consume your content in podcast form cuz I really feel like it would fit

Love it

This was a helpful video, thank you very much for making it! I've never DMed yet, but I've got a general idea of a campaign- a sort of rogue's gallery of villains (think shounen anime or superhero comics), but I worry it could be a bit difficult to implement:

1. High priest of a mighty theocratic kingdom devoted to an ancient evil entity. He has a bombastic, long-winded manner of speaking. After being cast out from the church of the god of light, he denounced the pencil-pushers who would dare speak for the gods above, and is fervent in his belief that the gods' will is absolute and must be obeyed, even if it means his own death or that of others.

2. Queen of doppelgängers. Once a wide-eyed naïf who sought prosperity for her kingdom, she was driven mad by an eldritch influence. She has become cruel and obsessed with conquest, taking a sadistic glee in trapping her enemies in a corner. She utilizes doppelgänger spies to infiltrate PC-friendly regions and keep an eye on them, making it difficult for them to trust anyone.

3. Two brothers whose mother and father were killed by groups on the opposite sides of the alignment spectrum. As such, they have founded what is essentially a cult of true neutrality, claiming that good, evil, law, and chaos are all equally meaningless- and after their ideology finds little mainstream success, they seek to summon an otherworldly being and teach the world their ways by force. One of them's an eldritch knight with a brilliant mind but a tendency for violence, and the other a stoic wizard who strives to be ambivalent in all things.

4. Leader of a fringe group of extremists who shun learned magic or assistance from deities or patrons- following a "might makes right" system, they believe that one's own natural strength is all that can be relied upon. Their leader wields a magic spear that he believes belonged to a hero of antiquity, and can animate to battle independently of him- the hypocrisy of wielding such a weapon is lost on him.

Of course, they're all actually being manipulated by the entity the high priest worships- the brothers are unknowingly trying to summon that entity, the might-makes-right guy's spear actually belongs to him, and so on. The entity himself was sealed away in ages past, but has bided his time for countless millennia- he claims that he is darkness and conquest incarnate, and that him breaking free and destroying all things is just an inevitable reality.

(Apologies if I've started talking about my ideas too much-)

I have had only one rule when it comes to villains... Make them ultimately good, then ask yourself "where can I see an area for *corruption*?"

This sounds like a terrible idea. By doing the twist Bond villain, you are telling your players they should never ever trust an NPC ever again. Took a bullet for the team? Evil. Got in a love relationship with someone? Still evil. Years battle harded friendship? Mega evil. If I was in campaign like that, I would start killing every single npc in a dark alley because literally everyone could and would be the nemesis no matter how close they were to the player

As a new dm I think back on a past session as player.

I played a human previous samurai backstory whom has an alternate personality with a different alignment and everything (keep in mind my group is all very new to d&d and have the growing pains of such newness).

In the very first encounter, we’re met with a family, a woman with a spear and her husband with two children, running from angry kobolds. What do we decide to do?

our cleric continuously uses the “trigger” word for my traumatized samurai and turns him into a child eating, dead-body raping agent of hell itself. Why did I go with that path? no clue, but we were so damn derailed that I ran with the complete depravity of my deranged samurai with a, looking back on it now, upsetting acceptance of this fate.

Yeah, safe to say we restarted that campaign and the same DM did not allow such foolishness. It was definitely a hell of a memory though and as one of my very first sessions ran, I’ll remember it fondly when i’m playing d&d at a higher knowledge of the guidelines itself.

I have a feeling our DM placed one of these in our Cyberpunk Red campaign after watching this.
We found a washed up borg in the water whilst at sea called Scotti. He happened to be jacked up with cyberwear, mostly lethal cyberwear and demanded Whisky, talking about surfing and other such dudebro things.. He has been paying for drugs and drinks, even though he never has any possessions on him, and NPC'S always give him shit he needs, which is real handy for when you want to build a motorramp and build a motorcycle to jump off it whilst at sea. My character recently got asked by people if I'm with him a lot. But as in with his crew... I later found out this submarine is on the way to our location and confronted him, asking if we can hitch a ride. He said he's not sure I'm cool enough, hence why we started building a motorramp in the first place, to prove to him I'm cool enough. Next sessions jump will determine if we get passage on the submarine or not.. as he deemed the other PC's useful or cool enough. My character is a bit of a brute, murder hobo, which is why some of the things he does don't vibe with his peeps. Are we being played here?

You're my god now. Please fix the bible next.

How jar jar had everyone fooled he was actually a sith lord working behind the scenes and with the players

The players helped me come up thier mastermind criminal by accident. A bounty hunter player had another bounty hunter contact who kept getting dragged into adventures and basically doing much of the work of the player for them. Anytime I tried to remove the NPC, the party would find a reason to bring them back into thier hunt for the mastermind. I decided to make the NPC the mastermind, who was using the party to eliminate his 7 duplicitous generals who were jockeying among each other for his position as leader.

Darth Sidious is a great mastermind and for a while he won

Anyone watching this in 2022 who also happens to be watching critical role??? This is giving me really scary vibes of Lord Esteros!!!

Adam Ant the Ranger finds a horse breeder/trainer to buy horses for the entire party. I as GM really played up this breeder/trainer as a professional who specialized in warhorses. I knew the party had a ridiculous amount of wealth on them, so I was trying to convince them to burn some of that off. This was a mistake. Later they would be adventuring into caverns for weeks. How was I to get them to part with the horse's.
A horse thief! Who steals the horses in the dead of night. (This was very difficult to pull off). This much higher level master thief, became a recurring nemesis. Stealing bags of holding and overly powerful items (keeping my game balanced). I invented a annoying laugh to alert the PC's to the escaping rogue. Lots of fun.

Once my secret villain was a shopkeeper that they bought magic items from for a high price.
“Wait he used all that money we gave him to summon Tiamat? Ohhh so that’s why he had so many magic items!”

if the mastermind is a truly mastermind, it's perfectly possible that not even the henchmen know he is the mastermind. he just contacts with his army of henchmen using a trusted proxy (or a few of them)
the mastermind may even fake the role of being an average villain/henchman that the PC believe they managed to kill but he is alive and just changed his/her look to enter again the party as somebody else.
rinse and repeat until the party doesn't trust their own mothers.

Weird video, honestly. You started out sort of explaining the different roles and archetypes, which was solid, and then you just sort of spun into a 15 minute rant about a very specific type of betraying/backstabbing character and claiming how they're just the "best".

I didn't get it. Boiling a player nemesis down to this oddly specific infiltrator was very reductive and just took up most of the video when you could have talked about a number of interesting concepts.

I really love this video so much I almost became the villain of my new campaign myself 😏

My favorite villan/anti hero character ever is still the Cardassian from Star Trek Voyager alot of people can learn about the "redeemed villan" by watching his character development in my opinion.

Step 1) Build trust of PCs.
Step 2) Betray them.
Step 3) Run like hell.

I have improved so much as a DM thanks to your vids. I come back régularly just to get à refresh on the knowledge that you are sharing for free. I canot thank you enough 🤝