Why do PCs want villains with interesting backgrounds and motivations if they are just going to kill them anyways?
Why do people think giving Villains reasons for their behavior is worth it if they are just going to say "well it doesn't excuse their behavior."
Why are people bored when an evil npc just says "i'm evil. No reason. Kill me or die."?
I made a villain who I thought had an interesting background. His parents sold his soul to a very high ranking infernal entity and it cannot be broken except if he becomes immortal or he surpasses that devil's position in hell by becoming so hilariously powerful and evil that even devils would be scared of him.
But the Heroes just said "Who cares, lets just kill him."
and then after that, i made a villain who was a dragon who had no motivation other than "is on a rampage."
and the PCs just thought it was boring that the dragon surely has some motivation and wanted me to create a compelling backstory that they can hear about once, then ignore.
Owen Young
Because you play with ADHD kids and need a new group.
Ian Russell
>Letting your PC's kill the BBEG
Ayden Taylor
Make a villain who is having definite impact on the world, or is not evil but still and opponent.
Robert Barnes
Not all PCs have 'kill' as the go to solution.
Kevin Cruz
You should be craftin a gripping story, not a videogame mission of "go here kill that."
Also, you play with unimaginative fuck trophies
Dylan Gutierrez
> Why do PCs want villains with interesting backgrounds and motivations if they are just going to kill them anyways? Because they need to justify their killings. If the villain is boring, no one is gonna bother stopping him.
Jayden Ortiz
Because you're not delivering them what they really want: Story. They want reasons and motivations so they're not just playing another Hack and Slash game. They've made characters with names and stories, and they want reasons why those characters should care about a major conflict. You're telling a story as well as playing a game. Remember that.
Hudson Hernandez
alright OP, here is a tip for you; never, ever let your players actually make it to their foe.
Playing an adventure on the high seas chasing down a dread pirate king? Good luck finding a ship. Good luck finding sailors for your ship. Good luck getting inventory for sailing on the ship. Good luck getting permits with the dock and merchant guild for your ship. Good luck getting the king's leave to go chase down this fiend.
They want to go pirates themselves and chase him down without permission? Good luck dealing with having no safe places to make land in the nation.
The BBEG just needs to throw a wrench in the works every so often. Have him raid an area and thus flood a zone with navy men blocking their passage.
Think of Dio form JoJo part 1. Have him be a real ass in the first five minutes, then fuck off for the rest of the series ruining lives elsewhere as the crew ineffectually chases after him.
Chase Thompson
But OP said he did deliver on a story and interesting villain. His players didn't care.
James Hernandez
>Why do PCs want villains with interesting backgrounds and motivations if they are just going to kill them anyways? Becaus they need someone that inspires them to be mad. Most DMs are either too limpwristed and make a boring or """""complex""""" villain, others go too far and kill the entire party's family. For the sake of an RPG you don't need to write an entire biography, just give the PCs a valid reason to hate them. The more personal, the better. It can be the merchant who jewed the fighter's dad out of his money until he went bankrupt and was sold into serfdom, it can be the nobleman who personally slandered the bard-prince's family name, or it can even be the villainous duchess who manipulates the king into doing her bidding and drives the kingdom into the ground with no solid proof that leads to her, knows there's no solid proof, knows the PCs are looking for it and mocks them to their faces in the knowledge that she's fucking untouchable in public.
Make the players grit their teeth every time the villain is near... and in the end, give them a satisfying combat that allows them to pummel the PC they hate so much.
Going back to the "killing your family" thing, it doesn't work because it has no stakes. A dead father ain't coming back, a father sold into serfdom is in danger but it's hypothetically possible to save him. There's something of value that hangs in the balance. A character killed is a plot hook, NPC or questgiver that's permanently eliminated. One endangered or even mutilated can play a new role. It's an NPC enriched rather than destroyed (from a storytelling perspective).
Andrew Ortiz
it's like people post here without even reading the OP
Adrian Brooks
they just need to know that killing the douchebag will bring them the gratitude and admiration of commoners. other than that, he is irrelevant.
John Ortiz
>The party enters a new kingdom >The peasants start whining about how oppressive king Fuckface III is and how grateful they'd be if he died >The party kills king Fuckface III >He was actually a talented and kind king that the masses hated purely because his controversial religious beliefs >The ensuing power vacuum allows king Rapesalot IV to take over >Women are raped >Men are castrated and raped in their bleeding holes >Children are unbirthed, then raped >The entire kingdom is in chaos >The masses are too afraid to express their distaste, a privilege they had under the kindhearted king Fuckface III but lost as power switched hands >With forced smiles they praise their "wise and benevolent" ruler
A job well done!
Matthew Nguyen
...
Juan Campbell
Strange that no one raped any dogs or got raped by dogs
Mason Mitchell
>the peasants are perfectly happy to convince a band of adventurers to stage a five-man coup and assassinate the king, apparently without expecting any reward >they're too "scared" to do the exact same thing again, despite the situation being far worse this time Yeah, nah.
Christian Morgan
>Why do PCs want villains with interesting backgrounds and motivations if they are just going to kill them anyways? >Why do people think giving Villains reasons for their behavior is worth it if they are just going to say "well it doesn't excuse their behavior." >Why are people bored when an evil npc just says "i'm evil. No reason. Kill me or die."? Because it makes a better story
>I made a villain who I thought had an interesting background. His parents sold his soul to a very high ranking infernal entity and it cannot be broken except if he becomes immortal or he surpasses that devil's position in hell by becoming so hilariously powerful and evil that even devils would be scared of him. >But the Heroes just said "Who cares, lets just kill him." >and then after that, i made a villain who was a dragon who had no motivation other than "is on a rampage." >and the PCs just thought it was boring that the dragon surely has some motivation and wanted me to create a compelling backstory that they can hear about once, then ignore. That's just normal player behavior, they'll take intrest in what you consider irreverent and shit all over your hard work Either put the work you put into the first villian into EVERYTHING, giveup, and/or find a better group
Sebastian Rivera
>King Fuckface III allowed dissenting opinions >King Fucksalot IV has set up a totalitarian regime including a KGB-like magical police with perma-scrying that makes you shit out your own organs if you're as much as suspected of conspiring against the government
The moral of the story is that weakness, not moral depravity, inspires disobedience. People respect strength before they respect righteousness.
Levi Torres
No, the moral of the story is that peasants are stupid and evil kings are arbitrarily powerful. Despite being shown objective evidence that adventurers are more than capable of defeating their king and his forces, and the adventurers not having left this kingdom, they are still entirely unwilling to exert any kind of effort against this new king who has inexplicably set up an insanely expensive and inefficient scrying network within just a short amount of time.
Kevin Hall
>Why do PCs want villains with interesting backgrounds and motivations if they are just going to kill them anyways?
So the buildup to the murder will have a good story.
Ayden Perez
The fuck is that..?!?
Cooper Rodriguez
The moral of the story is edgelord GMs are retarded.
Adrian Collins
>I made a villain who I thought had an interesting background. His parents sold his soul to a very high ranking infernal entity and it cannot be broken except if he becomes immortal or he surpasses that devil's position in hell by becoming so hilariously powerful and evil that even devils would be scared of him. >But the Heroes just said "Who cares, lets just kill him." How was the story presented? Because I'm assuming you just slapped the players in the face with a long wordy monologue about "Woe is me/him" while they were in the middle of something. You can provide a villain with a grand excuse for their choices but that won't ever automatically make them interesting or sympathetic. It's all about the presentation, a villain with a paper-thin excuse (or sometimes no excuse at all) can still be very compelling to oppose or watch, but even someone who is in a terrible situation and doing what they think is right can still be massively boring and trite, you have to remember that this has been done over and over again so you can't just slap a paragraph of "He has to do it because his parents are enslaved by fucking demons" and then call it a day. Give the villain a few quirks that make them more human and interestingly relatable, don't go overboard with excusing everything they do and don't just forcefeed an infodump to your players, let them discover for themselves the effect that the villain has rather than just being told "She's so evil/He's so misunderstood" because that's just lazy and uninspiring, it takes agency away form the players.
Jack Morris
>Give the villain a few quirks that make them more human and interestingly relatable >relatable "Don't you just hate long lines at the DMV? Yeah, that's why I decided to take over the kingdom. Sure, we're stuck in the worst famine in centuries, I committed genocide on the northern tribes and we've been in a constant state of war against literally all of our neighbors for the past 20 years, but at least you can get your driverse license renewed in under ten minutes (mostly because I restricted the use of automobiles to myself and an inner circle of oligarchs)"
I unironically want to DM a villain like this.
Nolan Morris
This is bait.
Matthew Williams
To be honest, my favorite kind of villain is one which evokes a reaction of "Oh you petty fucking cock why'd you have to go and do that you cunt?"
Tyler Martin
People see to forget when creating villans that people are petty stupid shits and that motivations have to be entirely legitimate or just "lol i'm evul"
Daniel Hall
Make a villain they don't want to kill.
In my current L5R campaign, the second biggest bad is a merchant from a rival clan. She hates the group, the group hates her.
But we all lover the Empire more.
We have to work with her, we have to work around her, to accomplish our goals. We can't kill her, so does too good of work. But I'll be damned if she gets credit for it.
Christian Peterson
> I unironically want to DM a villain like this. There's already a villain just like that, user.
Benjamin Gray
...
Asher Young
You're probably not as good as you think, and your story wasn't as interesting as you believe. It could have not provided the players with any meaningful alternatives beyond killing the bad guy, which is obviously the default option since the bad guy is a threat. What reason was there not to kill him?
Alexander Robinson
Handsome Jack?
Jordan Clark
Hey, buddy! It’s me, Roland! Let's kill Handsome Jack and then we'll all go out for milkshakes!
Leo Collins
>villain
Gavin Rodriguez
He was the bad guy. Face it, user. D-Fens was the bad guy.
Eli Lopez
>BBEG can be killed by anything short of the equivalent of max/20th/etc PCs Seriously hope. Seriously.
Lucas Ramirez
The moral is you're a total bitch
Blake Moore
Recently I've been thinking it's better not to try to go for complex motivations. You don't have to go cliche and lazy enough to say, "I'm evil just because," but at the same time, if you look at stories from popular culture and the classics, antagonists tend to have pretty simple motivations. The stories themselves have complexity, but it's an emergent property of the interactions between characters, the setting, and the actions of the protagonists.
Give your villains motivations that can be summed up in a short sentence, and work from there.
Anthony Rodriguez
Yeah. The heavily armed dude constantly calling his ex-wife and telling her how he's "past the point of no return" is not the hero. He may be sympathetic. He may go up against some true scum bags. He may even have a good heart buried in there, somewhere. But he's still the bad guy.