How do I get my players to take my villains seriously?

If players don't care about NPCs then it's impossible to make them care about npcs. Villains or allies.
And if that's the problem, then it needs to be fixed first and the easiest way to start is by talking to the players. Not the characters, but the smelly dudes around the table and ask how to get them invested.

>you can have your villain target their material possessions and wealth

Frankly, the easiest way to get any player on board with defeating the villain. Even the most Lawful Good paladin will be extremely annoyed when some NPC steals his shit.

Downside is this is also a great way to make your players hate you. They won't fear the villain so much as just resent his existence and want him out of the game as soon as possible.

That'd just kill my group, we don't run away from shit even if it's obvious that we'll almost definitely lose.

>One shouldn't look at man and go, "yup, I'm gonna kill him." for no real reason.
What you should do and what players do are not the same thing.

Hell, do they even have any kind of ability that lets them run away? In most RPGs, there's just nothing to help facilitate an escape.

Make them lose the campaign.

That's a bad idea if they don't fear the guy already. Players rarely escape from an enemy, no matter how strong it looks, if they don't mechanically know it's too strong. Also a lot of systems overpunish retreat once you're in melee, making it less risky to fight and try to get lucky than exposing your back.

I'm that kind of guy too in parties, i just love too much Last Stands or sacrificing my character so others may escape.

That'll just cause the players to hate the GM.

The problem with a smug villain is that its really hard to make a villain that is justified in being smug -- you either make him corny and nonthreatening because you had to cheat to help him get away, or he steals the spotlight from the players and comes off as a DonutSteel GMPC.

>How do I get my players to take my villains seriously?
TPK.

My players treat the current bbeg as a joke. They haven't met him yet (well, they actually have, but don't know it) and I'm planning to have him show up next game to kick ass.

Most of the party wants him dead, but they're not super invested in helping the good guys either (despite bbeg being a very real threat to their homelands and the entire fucking world).

My question is, how do I get them more engaged? They know they have to stop Marnag, but they don't really CARE that much (part of it is my friends intentionally being difficult because it's funny).

Should I have Marnag kill their npc buddy?

This is ultimately the problem with most threatening villains -- the only way to make the PCs hate a villain with game mechanics is to annoy the players.

You really want them to hate the villain? Ask your players to work with you to establish a backstory where this jerk was involved. Anything else, and most of the time you're just setting up a villain who steals the scene, and at that point you're no longer playing with your group, you're telling them about your DonutSteel.

Depends, in my time playing I never really cared if the npc was just outright killed because in most settings we'd either get a replacement or buy one.

When they were disabled, a sign that we may not actually be able to get a replacement for them, there was some more care for them.

Ultimately it's up to you but just think on it for a bit.

That's their own problem. Next time the GM gives them a second shot at this same smug motherfucker, you can bet they'll be as serious as can be about tearing him a new one.

Stop making mustache twirling villains, first of all. The guy that laughs evilly to himself and takes a lot of time to act smug to the party isn't a threat, just a joke.

Second, make sure you play him as straight as possible. He wants to reach a certain goal and isn't afraid to commit a few atrocities along the way if he has to. If his goal is to get the party, his presence should be everywhere. They get recognized as the guys Bad Guy was asking for, someone mentions to them the Bad Guy is looking for some guys who wont live long afterwards, have every little thing that happens to them have his signature, his hand-prints or at least happen in his name and honor by some goons of his goons.

Here's another thing: make sure the party knows how powerful the guy is. Give him a display of power, not necessarily his very own, but of his minions. If they have in mind that there is an entire mob out there willing to lose a limb or two as long as they get you killed, you tend to tense up.

Also, one last and most important detail:
Never overexpose your villain. When he shows up, it must be because something big is going down.

Have him kill at least one of them.

This is doubly true in D&D, where not only do you have few escape options, but most enemies are as fast, or even faster, than the party, and usually have extra movement modes like flight that player's don't get until later.

So it's really beat into your head that running is simply not a valid approach, and it messes with people's perception of how to approach fights.

That really depends.

If the PCs feel like he escaped via cheating, they'll want to get rid of him, but they'll still be pissed at the GM -- and this event reoccurs, they may quit, or ask the GM to step down.

Unhappy players are always the GM's problem.

How would I make a hedonistic villain who does evil stuff just for the attention. Very dangerous and powerful, but deep down, utterly pathetic.

Was thinking he was once a great hero who did heroism for the adoration and attention, but eventually realised it was far easier to get said attention by being evil. Going by the principle that you still get arrested for killing one person, even if you previously saved 100.

Looking at this thread, I feel like many people who think they have OP's problem actually have something else.
Like:
>How to get players to take my npcs seriously.
>How to get players to take the game seriously.
>Hot to get players to take my pre written, really cool story, seriously.

Not saying that those are any easier problems to solve, but it's best to try to solve the actual problem instead of one of it's edge cases.

>Should I have Marnag kill their npc buddy?
Keeping him alive as a clockwork torture buddy helps a little
Full edgelord but whatever
Have the players come across crucified farmhands, guards, and other adventurers roughly of equal level to said players.
Have the price of everything explode in response to the BBEG being around
Easier to implement than you think

Murder.

...

Have them threaten something they like, desire, or have.

Players will care if you threaten their shit.

Naw, bad idea. A villain needs presence, or he's a non factor in the game.

Spend more time on the restive moments between action. Have their NPC buddy make them a pie when they get back from a mission. Have their dog excitedly greet them on their street. If you are going to use NPC as bargaining chips, you first to have to make the players actually appreciate them.

If your players are particularly hoboish, start off with the bonus being material reward. A thankful friend repairs their equipment for them, and makes sure they have good potions on hand. That'll create a direct parallel to the players with positive reinforcement, which you build on as you flesh them out as characters in of themselves.

Then, once you've pulled the players out of the shells, and gotten them invested in these otherwise minimal side characters, you snatch it aw-okay, don't just snatch it away to make the BBEG seem imposing, because that's a douche move, and why so many players create friendless orphans. But threaten them. Have a friend be attacked in a caravan, broken but alive. Make clear the fact that the BBEG is a clear and direct threat to the things the party cares about. And if necessary, kill someone off.

Funny you should say that.
This particular NPC isn't so much a "buddy" as some rando ass motherfucker the PCs took a shine to that the PCs keep kidnapping and dragging along with them. He actually hates the party a lot because he just wants to try to live a normal life after losing his entire family and livelihood.

He's been tied up, dragged into dungeons, used as a masthead, left for days in the wilderness without food, and occasionally beaten for disobedience. He's been stabbed, nearly drowned, almost had all his blood drained, eaten, shot at, and had everyone he's ever known killed in front of him.
And my players force him into their fucking wagon like a mascot.
My players are the worst.

>Also his name is Dornald Tramp because I'm uncreative as fuck and didn't prepare.

Also funny that you should say "make all the prices go up". Marnag used to be the world's greatest hero and was so rich from all his adventures that he would destabilize economies by flooding the market with gold.

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

Have the villain fucking kill them.

Then when they roll new heroes the same villain is the threat.

Now they know you're not fucking around.

Most groups just quit after a tpk.

Depends.
A villain can have a 'presence' in a storytelling sense without being literally present.
One of the best villains I ever ran was "The Lady in the White Hat" who spent around 16 levels being seen involved with every backstory villain, dungeon boss and political rival, directly or indirectly. It was over a year of play before they even got a name for her.
When they finally caught up with her and figured out what it was all about, she explained that she was the real hero all along and they were just the clean-up crew.
The characters were devastated.

>you first to have to make the players actually appreciate them
>make

The easiest way for players to start hating your NPCs is to make them feel they're obligated to like those NPCs.

Players are a funny bunch. They choose which NPCs they think are worth getting invested in.

>NPC exists to steal the PCs' thunder
I can't say for sure that it's bad GMing, but from a storytelling perspective, it's shit.

>Should I have Marnag kill their npc buddy?
That's a start, but if you *really* want to get your players upset, you need to have him target their loot.

Grease their items so they drop them and sunder what they don't drop.

Give him some land and tax the fucking shit out of the party whenever they go through it.

Have them eat somebody.

Poor wording, then. The idea is to reinforce investment of the characters they like.

This. Have them butcher and eat the cutest PC to prove a point.

One way or another, you've solved the problem.

The thing, though, is to make the TPK feel fair, and provide an incentive to continue. What you should be doing if you're aiming to be the DM from hell is set traps to kill the players that they are entirely within their power to avoid. Don't drop them in a lava trap with magic unscalable indestructible walls or whatever. Instead, have NPCs talk about a super deadly valley that has eaten many adventurers before, and if your guys go for it, have the challenge within turn out to be way above the threat rating they're rated for, and have the villain show up to taunt them in their last moments, or otherwise inform them that it was his doing. If they survive, or if they ignore it, then you continue as usual, and wait for another opportunity. Eventually their curiosity or their greed will get the better of them and the dice will not be in their favor, and they'll get fucking rekt.

The incentive to continue is trickier. You can perhaps inform them that, having been sprung, the trap still contains all their goodies, so their new characters can go get their stuff. The best course of action will vary from group to group, of course, but it's not un-doable.

Nah, nothing like that. The main villain was just Chaotic Good

>The always just sort of treat them like guys they know they're eventually going to murder.

So are you planning on letting them eventually murder him?

Have it become abundantly clear that while this guy is evil and a complete bastard the people who would succeed in his place should he be killed are FAR WORSE and more likely to lead to widespread destruction and chaos.

I mean, you could base an entire campaign on trying to manage the power balance and kill off just the right people to prevent any one of them from reaching dominance and conquering everything.

This is good.

As stated elsewhere, another good way of doing things is to build up to the villain, leave little clues and gaslighting details in the adventures suggesting that something is going on. Make sure it's not oversaturated though, and for the love of god make sure you know what the villain's goals are, why they're doing it the way they're doing it, etc.

Even if you never plan to tell the players one iota of their motivation.

And if you plan on making it a recurring character, it sounds corny as hell but really you can't go wrong with watching Gargoyles and paying attention to Xanatos.

Gradually turn a likable - better yet, useful - NPC into a villain. The most obvious way to go about this is to have the NPC manipulate the party into believing he/she's consistently good.
Corruption is another good way to make this change, but the process has to be fool-proof.

Make the villains active. Not just a final boss who sits at the final stage and waits for the players. The villain should act and make players react. In fact, the villain should drive the adventure, not be tacked onto it. Make the villain's goals completely incompatible with the players' and make it clear that the more players are fucking around, the less their goals can be achieved.

If they don't treat your villians with respect it's because they don't respect you as a GM.

Stop being a pussy, stop making pussy villains. A villain should always be stronger, smarter, and scarier than the PCs. They need to feel like the odds are really against them and they will have to pull off some serious tactical skill and planning to have a chance against it.

If you haven't had at least one PC death in the past year, odds are you're insufficiently challenging them. Without a possibility of loss, there is no enjoyment of victory, no tension in facing a battle.

I used to have a bunch of murderhobo's for players, but once I amped up the difficulty and a few of them died they now consider all sorts of options, get creative, and only use combat as a last resort. Everyone wins.

Murder them first

Either make them really good at giving the players a hard time, REALLY annoying, or both.

Last game I ran, the main villain was magic user with a shit eating grin and condescending attitude. He once set up an ambush that consisted of a dungeon made purely to frustrate, annoy, and hinder them more than being super lethal (with plenty of stolen ideas from a Veeky Forums thread called the "fungeon").

The feedback I got was positive on play experience and the character overall.

>Me: glad you liked the dungeon. What do you think of the villain who set it up
>Warpriest: I'm going to shove my mace up his ass
>Monk: Anal fisting.
>Druid: Bear claw up the ass, and I don't mean the donut.
>Me: not sure how to take that...

Can't remember what exactly was said after that, but they were along the lines of "you made us legitimately hate him, so good job."

Isn't that the point?
To get the party to look at this dude and say, "The plan is, make sure this fuck dies."

NTR

Congratz, you just made a new group of players into murderhobos. Well fucking done idiot!

embrace it, have them step in with false bravado before wiping the floor with them

Make everyone roll up a person who has at least some form of attachment. family, friends, familial surrogates anything, and then have the villain slowly creep his way into the party members lives.

Make your players very aware that he's doing his homework on the people who threaten his plans and let them know that he's a looming threat to the people and things that the party cares about.

Make him unkillable.
Not in the sense that he's immortal, but that he needs to live for some greater purpose (he might have a mass-destruction spell that only he knows how to dispel). Not only does this delay his death, but he gets another chance to backstab the players and become a long-standing adversary who is hated beyond the whole "I need to kill the BBEG"

Problem is that if you ask players to make npcs for the sole purpose of being targeted by the villain, they see what you are doing and won't be properly invested in those npcs.

There's plenty of systems that help you roll up at least part of your background. Who your parents were, are they still alive, how many siblings do you have, what's your relationship with them, etc.

No man is island.

DMs like you are the reason so many people play friendless orphans.

Make your villain last longer. Have a fight that the villain escapes/recovers from. Or, a fight that the players are forced to retreat from. Multiple encounters give the impression that the villain is important.
And, make your villain's plots more personal. Have the villain do nasty things to people/places the players like while they're away.

Have him be actually competent and as dismissive of them as they are of him.
>"Oh, look, another bunch of heroic yokels. Just fucking kill them so I don't have to waste my breath monologing to a bunch of half-assers."
He'll only take them seriously when they start taking him seriously. He won't fight them himself, he'll use printed form letters to address them, he'll send his squad of B/C/D-listers after them.

>No man is an island

No but acting like one becomes really appealing when every family member they bring up dies horribly for """drama""".

Granted, it's still a good idea to make the plot affect the PC's family. Just remember to play it close to the vest.

I usually send the heroes on a basic quest that the villain forces them to fail, due to an unrelated need of the villain. The villain should be barely aware of the heroes. Then, establish the villain as something that needs to be dealt with.

So if the heroes need to escort an ambassador into enemy territory, the villain might be on a quest to kill the ambassador. The villain doesn't care about the heroes as anything but added difficulty, but should be strong enough to deal with the heroes in some capacity on his way to the target. So, in addition to defeating the heroes in a 'feels bad boi' encounter, the heroes have to deal with repurcussions later.

This establishes the villain as a powerful force that doesn't care about the heroes. It might be tempting to then roll them into being smug, but smug villains are frustrating for the wrong reasons.

>Make your villain last longer.

KY Jelly?

Steal something from the party.

youtube.com/watch?v=rVxkpOolpKw