What's a nice innocuous hobby or other humanizing feature for a BBEG? Some interest that isn't in itself evil and...

Roleplaying.

Also, painting miniatures - then playing with his thugs. They always let him win, and he gets angry about it.

The BBEG, when not out on conquests or plotting the downfall of civilizations, is an amateur chef.

Stargazing.

The BBEG of my last campaign routinely stopped his marching army of darkness to set camp and look at the stars with his wife (also evil).

Wedding planner, Ironic isn't it?

The villain creates intricate clockwork sculptures.

My PC had a rival who she absolutely despised, nearly killed, and held in utter contempt. (Rival started it.)

Later, after rival had died in a war, (same side) she'd been wandering around Rival's former home and found a secret chamber with Rival's family relics, some private mementos from her children's lives, and the results of Rival's layman sculpture hobby.

PC felt just absurdly uncomfortable and indignant and self-conscious because when had *she* had time to engage in a hobby, or have a life, or have children.

It was a nice little moment.

>BBEG

How many dicks do you suck?

why do you keep trying to force your shitty meme
At the very worst can you try to unword something worth the effort?

Agree here. It's almost obviously a cheap ploy for sympathy.

What are you talking about?
If anything, BBEG is a meme, and calling it gay and dumb is just a proper reaction.

You seem to have deadened yourself to how gay and dumb Big Bad Evil Guy is, so people are reminding you.

I want a hobby for my primary antagonist.
She's a devout worshipper of the goddess of hedonistic excess as well as a powerful mage, and was happily married until her beloved husband was killed and his soul imprisoned by a Fiend. Now his body is reanimated to do the Fiend's bidding, and his soul is held captive as leverage to force her compliance in conducting a dark ritual to elevate the Fiend to divinity by killing thousands and desecrating a huge swath of the world. He requires a mortal with certain arcane skills, and she's the unlucky bitch in the hot seat.

What's a good hobby for a hopeless necromantic filled with despair and hatred?

scrimshaw

Flower Gardening. It's the only beautiful thing left in her life and something that her husband always found wonderful about her. It's her last non-necromantic pleasure and the only thing that reminds her of the bond she had with her husband.
Don't know how to link that to hedonism though.

Dancing.

>Good tier: He only does it because his cute servant girl insists on teaching him. He's not very good at it and it's embarrassing but it makes her smile and that makes him happy.
>Cheap Sympathy tier: His favorite dancing partner is dead/permanently crippled. He tries to find a new partner or train one himself but they're never quite as good.
>God tier: He doesn't make stupid dance puns when you fight him.
>Elder God tier: He DOES make stupid dance puns when you fight him.

Surrounding yourself with beautiful things can be super extravagant.
I suppose she could fertilize them with halfling children if we want to get weird.

Cartography. They really like big, ancient maps. Collecting them, comparing them, making them.

Bird watching. Going out, finding tall places and watching birds do stuff.

his favorite drink is orange juice; whenever given the choice he picks it every time.

What if it's done in a way not to kick the players in the dick for killing the guy? Like it doesn't take away that the dude was a monster, he just happens to care about his kid. But yeah I can see it like a "well then why did you even include the kid if it -wasn't- specifically to make the players feel bad"?

Babysitter.

Last time this was pulled I shot the kid in the face with a crossbow.

My general workaround is the kid is already dead.

I think a way to prevent this is to make him a bit more gray throughout the whole campaign instead of making him the usual ho hum burning down villages summoning demons type of pure evil that you usually fight in fantasy settings until suddenly at the end OH NO MY CHILD WILL NOW BE AN ORPHAN. That way you aren't just immediately assaulted with a sense of FEEL BAD NOW because you have seen his more humane aspects throughout the campaign.

I always thought knitting would be good for a dexterous character, but I guess plenty of old ladies knit with arthritis ... perhaps sewing?

I mean Bane in the Dark Knight Rises knits whilst Crane does his kangaroo court thing.

I'll second this. Preparing food for someone is just about the most universally recognized gesture of friendliness.

Autistically making a scale model of his planned capital city once he conquers his empire. Hitler seemed to quite like the idea of transforming Berlin into Germania a massive city full of architectural wonders and the capital of a Germany that dominated global politics.

Whenever I'm asked to think of some way to humanize the faceless superevil of the BBEG, I usually point in the direction of Mr. Freeze. He knows he's doing evil, but he has the best intentions.

Like the wizard who keeps his wife frozen in time while he tries to find a cure for her condition, only to realize decades later that he's running out of time. He's still trying to save the woman he loves, so he looks into necromancy to buy himself more time. Suddenly that hateful lich has depth and character, plus even though the PCs won't think twice before dispatching him from this realm they'll probably feel bad about it.

>BBEG offers the heroes a nice meal before their final encounter
>they refuse, thinking it's poisoned
>he's thoroughly offended- he just wanted to show off the result of his hard work learning to cook

Painting.

I JUST finished this guys story mode yesterday. Are you in my life OP?

Bonsai. I always thought it was a creepy af hobby, no idea why. Also im pretty sure i remember a villain or two from movies who collected fish.

Mediocre but earnest painting.

Stamp collecting.

>still using "gay" as an insult
>In the year of our Lord, the Twenty-First Century and Seventeen

You've got to be over 18 years of age to post here, son.

To add: a fairly unattractive wife that the BBEG actually cares for and cherishes deeply

Figure modelling

Season three never.

he likes getting drunk

Poetry, except maybe they aren't particulaly confident in their skills.
The party might find a draw of "in progress" poems hidden in a draw or something.

All the flowers are opium poppies.

Elaborate tea ceremony

Sampling food from around the world and has a giant exotic spice collection

Fireworks

Dollmaking and collecting, with a room dedicated to just that There is a doll of each party member on a prominent shelf, faithfully recreated based on reports from the underlings. If any characters have a thing for each other the dolls might be holding hands or such

Traditional folk music type stuff, like throat singing or playing a banjo

Mediocre but earnest anything. Being bad at something ans still throwing your ll into it is the most humanizing trait.

...

Smithing. Not smithing horrific evil artifacts of doom, mind you. Just smithing everyday needful things, like nails, brackets, horseshoes, shovels and the like. He can even give the things he creates to peasants in need.

He makes movies starring old, washed up actors because they were the guys he looked up to when he was a kid.

All the movies are terrible, but not boring, and are distributed for free within his domain.

Amateur dramatics. The players find several scripts in his study, with his lines highlighted. Perhaps he's writing his own production with some mundane subject matter
Biology. He has several books on various flora and fauna, perhaps of one particular type.
Unicycling. You don't even need to have any details, just a unicycle sitting somewhere in his lair.

Between plotting the apocalypse, conducting human sacrifice, summoning demons, and scheming to bring about literal Hell on Earth, the BBEG shitposts autistically on Tibetan sand-painting boards about why Saber is objectively the best waifu.

He plays table top war games with his young son in the hopes of inspiring him to real life war as he was introduced.

The militaristic brute BBEG studies biology as a pastime and is actually compiling a revolutionary paper on the subject of dog breeding. This isn't connected to making a better war dog, dude just loves dogs and knows more about dog breeding than anyone else in the area.

>Amateur dramatics. The players find several scripts in his study, with his lines highlighted. Perhaps he's writing his own production with some mundane subject matter

Before the fight the party realizes that he's cribbed most of his monologue from one of the newer scripts.

Models.

Dude likes building model villages and cities, with little model people and animals. You could hint that he likes it because it appeals to his desire for total control and perfect order, but on the surface it's just a guy humming while he finishes the paint on his new villager.

Civilized, learned debate and interaction.
He's genuinely curious about why the PCs are trying to counter his master plan, and will invite them into his study for a snifter of brandy and a cigar (even agreeing to let the female party members in on it) before seguing into an earnest talk about the events of the plot.
He's not going to poison the drink. He's not going to rig the cigars. He's not even going to try to corrupt or tempt the PCs. Someone just managed to fight their way through all his minions and reach his door, and he wants to hear how they did it, what they feel about the events that came before and most importantly why they're acting against him. He's been doing all this for a reason, not just cackling cruelty, and when the people who've poured so much hard work into countering him and just him are knocking on his door, the least he can do for himself and as a gentleman is to talk before fighting.
A lot of 3.PF players freeze up in confusion when confronted with an antagonist who's not a villain. Even the most stereotypical "General-Emperor of the Empire of Dark Iron" can get players unawares if he's not a screaming berserker, just the kind of well-read, old-fashioned former army man that most of these people would actually be.

Tennis.

>not a screaming berserker, just the kind of well-read, old-fashioned former army man that most of these people would actually be.
>Former army man
>Not a screaming berserker who uses "Fuck" as punctuation, "Faggot" as an article, "pussy" as an all purpose adverb, and is at all times roughly six seconds from cussing you out and teaching you cuss words not even Veeky Forums knows.
You must know a different kind of former army man than I do.

If you really want to fuck with your players, have a villain who either uses his innocuous hobby as a disguise or just earnestly wears it on his sleeve.
He's still engaged in the events of the plot, but you don't just throw away everything a lifelong hobby did for you. It reflects on your looks, your fashion taste, your way of speaking, your habits and your opinions, and there's no "villainous revelation" that blasts this all away and replaces it with pure evil.
Imagine a villain who used to be a comedian. It's in his every movement, laugh and reaction, and even though he doesn't make a career out of it anymore, he's still a bright, irreverent man with a smile on his face and a habit of making little jokes that still don't get Kender-level.
Just a shame that the drive to make people laugh and be happy at the cost of his own hard work also drove him to collect cult members from his fanbase, build a small private army compound and spend contacts on having the police look the other way, because he's convinced that unless he has a thousand human sacrifices by the end of the year, there'll be nothing for anyone to laugh at ever again.
There's a difference between "Jaden who went out of the army at 30 after a stint in Afghanistan" and "fantasy-medieval general who retired when he became too old to fight and spent the next thirty years of his life in the army, raising new recruits and worrying about his country".

Takes care of their underlings, maybe even hanging out with them.

One that I'm always a big sucker for is collecting. Any type, be it 'collecting skulls or trophies from slain foes' or 'collecting a single knucklebone from each enemy/ally who died well', all the way through to 'collecting flowers from every territory conquered' and 'birdspotting & collecting rare bird feathers.

I don't know exactly why, but collecting mementos is the most down to earth, humanizing thing to me. To have a passive, orderly hobby that is little more than a simple pleasure to indulge in. No greater meaning or use, no purpose, and no value to anyone else. I love the idea of a BBEG asking the fight is moved to a different room in case his collection is damaged, or asking that he be buried along with his most loved treasures (which are, of course, utterly worthless but possess sentimental value).

>co's boardcanon is that all of the villains in gotham are horrible to their henchmen in their own twisted way
>except for freeze, who takes care of his hench people, and does things like hold of batman long enough to let the henchmen get away, provides healthcare and long term disabilty, etc

What show is this? I find that scene legitimately funny. Warrior dude just gapes with an open mouth after the master says he won't punish him.

Geology? Maybe they get a rock from every place they visit.
And to think that I can barely hold a brush.
These are good ones.

There's nothing wrong with making the players feel bad occasionally. We create sad movies and enjoy stories like this all the time. Acting like sadness never has a place in the story of a tabletop game seems pretty boring to me.

I'd absolutely promise to save her as he drew his last unbreath. It would be an awesome epilogue quest.

>Put the coffee down. Coffee is for closers.
>what the fuck are you talking about? We're here to stop your plan to unleash the hell army of Nito the Gravelord on the unsuspecting populous.
>YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH.

Brewing wines and ales

Making cheese

Gardening

He enjoys music and frequently invites the best musicians into his court to play. Most think he just does that to add a shallow veneer of barbaric simplicity but In actual fact he knows and can play decently okay on several instrument and can even sing.

In order to preserve his image as a ruthless tyrant, no one knows this fact and the servants just assume that the singing coming from his private bath chamber are being used by a... well voiced male concubine.

He's even privately and secretly sponsored several aspiring musicians. More than one has ended up writing a song about rebellion against the dour king which caused some headaches, country wide bans and eventual beheadings. That said, the Tyrant begrudingly acknowledges the quality of songs and keeps copies in his private room.

Photography is something that seems innocuous but on further thought and seeing his work could be extremely fitting for a villain.

His best friend was a clown.

He picked up juggling in his spare-time.

>"Bbeg"

No thank you.

Music. Flute I would say, but perhaps a violin.

>Finding a baby dragon hiding behind the hoard after you've slain the big one.
"Score. Does anyone have some spare shackles? This thing will fetch a pretty penny.

Despite being a 1000 year old Lich, he will stop all his non critical plans to read up on the latest topics of history.

The lich will actually sit down and be hospitable to the heroes if they have interesting historical topics to discuss and is willing to share tidbits of what life was like during different periods of time.

Sometimes he uses it for his own neferaious schemes. But generally speaking it is just interesting to him and helps keeps his thinking into perspective.

Sucking cock is still insulting, even until the end of time. So enjoy the semen in your mouth and know that you are pathetic.

>Please, if I wanted to kill you I would have done so already. I wish you to experience my culinary skills before you die. Taste and be awed, mortals!
>Really, you made this? Alright then... Wow, it's delicious!
>I'm glad. And the pudding?
>Amazing!
>Seems like it was a complete success. Very good, you may start choking on your food now.

He's still a villain and you're a dumbass for trusting him, you know.

You can have villains who don't poison people quite easily you rube.

Just making him Lawful Evil. He has a sense of honor.

Honestly the only time a BBEG shouldn't be lawful evil is when they are either not in control of their actions or aren't humans, like a dragon.

>being this boorish

All the best villains have a sense of honour, or at least style.

But why would he bother fighting them after achieving total gastronomic superiority? If he values his pride he will perhaps offer them the antidote if they demonstrate they have an even finer palate.

This is why D&D alignments are fucking stupid, not to mention the sort of villains who refuse to poison people tend to be less civilized types.

>hurr durr fite me with sword not at dinner table
What would knuckle-dragging troglodytes know about style?

>But why would he bother fighting them after achieving total gastronomic superiority?

To demonstrate just HOW MUCH better he is than they are. Not only is he a better cook than they are, but he's also more honourable and more skilled in battle.

Why must you remind me! Goddamn that was a show

> What's a nice innocuous hobby or other humanizing feature for a BBEG?
Collecting business cards. Listening to upbeat rock bands. Watching and returning videotapes. Taking care of his own skin.

Make them fans of murder mysteries.

Have a bookshelf of Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew rip-offs, and a draft of his own murder mystery. Have a box of a CLUE ripoff laying sprawled on the table, a small diorama with the setting of his novel, and lots of sticky notes.

A full gym set up could also work. Make the guy a health nut. Only good food, well worn workout equipment, ect.

Writing stories and/or memoirs.
Maybe collecting reports that his/her underlings give off enemies and writing stories about their exploits, then when he/she finally meet the PCs he can get excited and inquire about the stuff he's heard and written about them, even get upset when his expectations of them don't meet with reality.

He could also create characters/events into his stories and get confused with separating his own fiction/headcanon from reality.

Maybe he creates a fantasy world within his mind, a place he retires too for comfort, and at the last moment of his life before the PCs kill him he goes to that fantasy world and dies happily in it.

Or maybe he likes chopping wood

Tarrot reading and misreads the cards constantly

Does that explain Hannibal Lector?

Disguise and visiting towns, socializing with the locals

>The heroes start eating
>"Wow, this is actually really good! What do you call this"
>"Pommes de Terre à la Genocide"
>"....."
>"Oh, don't become speechless just yet! Wait until you've tasted the Orphan Surprise!"

>the surprise is, they weren't an orphan until -after- I cooked them!

Not a hobby, but a humanising feature. I got to thinking and I'm imagining a female overlord who has, for one reason or another, always dressed and presented herself as a man.

It's not relevant to her power. Maybe it once was - an inheritance thing or a law that once restricted power to men. Maybe she wanted to join the army when she was younger and it was male only so she pulled a polly oliver.

She's an older woman now and whatever her reason originally was, its long past. Noone is around to question her heritage, her grasp on power is fully established. she retired from the army and it doesn't really matter anymore etc. Yet she's continued acting the same way she always has for no real discernable reason other than habit.

It's not a sex thing - she's straight or at least not a lesbian. You could probably work in something about how maybe she's never had much experience with men, given that she just assumes they wouldn't be interested in someone as unwomanly as she is (and using her power as evil overlord to make them make love to her just strikes her as seriously pathetic).

And she doesn't really try to hide it to any particular degree. If you met her you would probably assume she was a guy, though a fairly slender and androgynous one. And maybe she goes by Lord rather than Lady, but her actual gender is an open secret and easily found out by anyone who actually looks into her history.

She doesn't *wish* she's a man. As long as you get her title correct she isn't going to make you correct your pronouns around her or get annoyed because you point out she's a woman (unless you do something actually disrespectful). Its really just habit, or the only way she knows how to live after all this time.

I don't know. Something appeals to me about this BBEG. Not sure what it is. The implication that she's slightly uncomfortable about herself maybe, that there's some social awkwardness there that comes with never really knowing how to 'act womanly'.