So it's time for another update, and today we're talking about the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy/Girl). This topic is near and dear to my heart, as well as the hearts of DMs the world over. You lovingly craft your world, create entire nations with unique cultures and mannerisms...just so you can make your very own godzilla try to knock it all over. The intention, of course, is that you succeed so brilliantly in your world creation that your players care about its continued survival as much as you do, and want to fight terribly hard for it.
Well, uh, I hate to break it to you, but they don't care about your world nearly as much as you do. Sorry, but them's the breaks. I don't care how detailed you get, I don't care how much you draw them in, you will always care about the world more than them. You don't get them to care about the continued survival through love and care. You get them to care about it through hate - the sort of hate that only a well conceived BBEG can provide.
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Why You Need A Good BBEG
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So your story, your world, your game in general, hinges on having a BBEG that your party can hate. In that case, you need him to be good. I don't mean like, a good guy. I mean a really effective guy. You need one that incites fury at the mention of his name, the kind where they make up funny nicknames for him just to take the edge off. You can try this a few ways, with varying results.
The obvious way to do this is to just make the BBEG do despicable things for the shit of it, to piss off your party. This can be effective, but mainly in the "that guy's being a douche, let's get 'im" sense. Not really hate so much as a "dude, really?" sort of villain.
The next way to do this is to give the BBEG a Master Plan. Give him a little bit of the 'ol Batman Gambit if you're so inclined. This can lead to players being pissed at the BBEG for eluding them and for carrying out his plans regardless of their progress, but more than likely the group will be more pissed at the DM than at the BBEG. Not really the way you want the seething hatred to be pointed.
The way I recommend is to give your BBEG a Master Plan, but to make it believable, with real motivations and incentives to guide his path. Basically, make him just as fleshed out and detailed as the PCs are. He's supposed to be your focus, so give him the attention he deserves!
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A Question of Motive
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So, in terms of making your BBEG detailed, believable, and thus really worthy of your players' ire, before we even talk about if he's a Fighter or a Wizard, whether he's Lawful or Chaotic, or any of that, we've gotta talk about what he wants. Maybe he wants to destroy the world, maybe he wants to control it, maybe he wants to ascend to godhood, maybe he wants to resurrect a dead god, whatever. Figure out what he wants to do, and then figure out WHY.
The question of why he wants to do what it is you've given him the end goal of is the single most important question you can ask of your BBEG. It informs every single other decision you make about him. If he wants to drain out all the life energy of this world before moving onto the next (and you decide you want his name to rhyme with Talactus), then you have to ask yourself how he knows how to do this in the first place. It's probably a matter of extensive research, so maybe he's a wizard with some access to some supremely privileged information. In that case, it's very possible that he's gotten very good at covering up his more evil tendencies and has gotten in good with a king or has risen to a very high rank within an organization of wizards and hasn't given anyone reason to suspect him until he's ready to put his plan into action (a la Saren). All of this I thought of on the spot just because I briefly outlined his end goal and then asked "Why". Motive is more useful a tool in making a believable BBEG than any other.
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Believability of Actions, and Why Personality Matters
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Take for example, the first example I supplied when talking about making villains the PCs hate: doing despicable things for the shit of it. It's possible that your BBEG is some sort of evil warlord who gets his jollies when pillaging random villages...but how likely then, is it, that he would be able to rise to the level of anything more than a foot soldier, no matter how effective? The sort of psychopath who kills for the shit of it usually doesn't have strong leadership qualities, and as a result isn't the sort of person who would lead a warband, an army, or a country. He doesn't have the personality traits required to marshal the resources necessary for the Big Evil Plan.
If, however, he does have the personality traits required to marshal the resources necessary for the Big Evil Plan, he probably realizes that razing a village might be necessary in order to create chaos and turmoil in a specific area, distracting any would be heroes from his true prize in another place; or maybe he's doing this as a show of power to a group of monsters that he can proceed to put under his control. He's no longer doing evil things for the sake of doing evil; he's furthering his Master Plan. It goes back to the motive question earlier. Why raze this village? What's the importance? How does it help him further his plans? And more importantly, what does he get out of it?
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The Economics of Ending the World
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I labeled this post "Villainomics" because a) we're talking about your big bad villains, and b) because like anyone else, villains respond to the laws of economics. I'll be honest with you though, I don't know shit about economics. I do know about Freakonomics though, and the principle that people respond to incentives. I recommend applying this to your BBEG at all times, to help craft his personality, and in turn his responses to situations.
A good way to take this approach is to look at things from a risk/reward viewpoint. How risky is the action the BBEG is going to take, and how much of a risk taker is he? Is the reward consummate to the risk involved in the action? If the MacGuffin is in the village and he knows it, then the reward almost always outweighs the risk involved in alerting the entire region to his activities. If it's more along the lines of "I don't like the way that one guy looked at me", the risk (alerting the region to his barbarism) isn't usually worth the reward (personal gratification).
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The Human Factor
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Sometimes though, it's not all about risk/reward. It is if your BBEG is cold and calculating...and if he's successful, he probably is both of those things. But sometimes your BBEG is driven as much by passions as anyone else, and says "to hell with the risks". Remember, your villain is villainous. He may have master plans, but he's still a douche. It's your job as DM to remind the players of this fact.
Here's a good exercise in helping to craft the BBEG's personality. It's not hard, and you've probably done it on yourself or your friends before already. Take a sheet of paper, and write down the 7 deadly sins. Then rate them in the order that your BBEG would lean most towards. It's so simple that you may have already thought of it, but if you haven't, it's a good exercise to not only get to know your BBEG better, but also to give him personality quirks. Maybe he's a cold calculating sumbitch, but still falls victim to the sins of the flesh, or food & drink. Chances are pretty likely "Sloth" is gonna fall pretty low on this list, since BBEGs are nothing if not motivated, but you never know.
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Oh Shit, My Whole Group Nat20'd My BBEG
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I've given you food for thought on how to make some memorable villains; next time, I'll go into what to do if your campaign meets a sudden end, when one of your physical encounters with the BBEG ends in DM tears.
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