The villain knows he is inside a tabletop rpg game

Easy: Villain's meta-awareness is hinted at in his monologue--something about capricious entities above the gods and unseen fate.

Medium: Villain explicitly talks about GMs and players. Can send the game in weird directions.

Hard: Villain metagames. Can see character sheets, "foresees" events via GM notes, etc.

Very Hard: Villain cheats. He walks over and casts a spell to change the die face. He treats the grid as simply a grid with marker streaks rather than walls. Hitting him requires rolling AND making your mini actually hit his.

Dante Must Die: Villain moves in real time (at the proper scale) while the party is stuck in turns. The only way to kill him is to knock his mini off the mat physically; he has achieved gnosis and cares not for the results of dice and numbers.

>sherlock holmes villain
Prof. Moriarty?

yeah.

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This could be even better in the kind of game or setting where the players or characters are already kind of paranoid.
then again...doing it in your hum-ho fantasy universe helps with them not seeing the twist coming.

all these years and i still laugh at "spaceballs the flamethrower"

Have him aware of things that are going on when he's not around, because he's listening in.

Make the PCs plan things without your input, so he can't know what they're planning.

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I don't think it would work. He would know that the only thing which could possible stop him is the GM, because for better of for worse, the villain is controlled by the GM and if the GM wants it, the players will not stop him.
Which would basically lead to either the GM doing a rocks fall, everyone dies or the players finding out that the GM is planning that and try to talk him out of it

Could always do it Overlord style.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=6dxICJHd518

Or have the villains be PCs in a parallel evil campaign you also DM

into the reaction folder it goes.

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>Dante Must Die: Villain moves in real time (at the proper scale) while the party is stuck in turns.
I can imagine the villain abusing casting times, either lobbing a fireball every six seconds or using a minute-long casting spell because it takes the player(s) forever to explain their turn and roll to see what happens.

ok fuck you.

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make him a munchkin, exploiting RPG game rules and being genre savvy.

I wouldn't because I am an actually good GM

Pun-pun as a BBEG?

If it's not 3rd ed D&D as a campaign, have the story involve him pushing his way into control of reality via the BBEG (inb4 the idiot who complains about that term), who is powerscaling to become an avatar of Pun-pun. (or the peer of pun-pun, except Pun-pun is already overpowered and will just mind-control him when the BBEG gets powerful enough to use.)

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I actually ran very hard mode minus the minis rule as the final boss in an evil campaign where my players set out to kill god. They loved it.

ok thanks for the reaction images.

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This is how I'd have a Psycho Mantis boss fight

>Not saving them as "Spaceballs the Filename"
7/10, you tried.

Don't be a party pooper. A villain breaking the fourth wall could be fun to with the right game and right group.

I hate this idea and this trend but if I had to do it, I'd run him as a total munchkin, optimized in the most stereotypical ways possible, with an intent on collapsing the world in order to get out.

He knows that he is just a figment of this Kalpa of the Godhead. Thus he knows that anything that he does was preordained by a nearly omniscient being. He knows its a game but what he doesn't know is if the intelligence that controls him is good at making games fun. Or if that being is even particularly intelligent.

If the goal is to deny his fated foes their ultimate goal, to have fun, he must test the abilities of his Master. He knows that he will never successfully design the impenetrable fortress or deadly trap. He knows everything he does will have the distinct chance to bring his foes to fight him in person. He must create an evil plan so labyrinthine, with so many moving parts that it will inevitably fail if the GM is incapable and thus create an unsatisfying conclusion to the detriment of the players which upon their displeasure will banish this entire cursed real back to the primordial chaos of memory and subconscious.

Or he could try to game the system. You know how long running game groups have favorite characters and running gags? Well he is aware this is a game and so his entire world exists just long enough for a group of extra-dimensional beings to derive pleasure from it before it is eventually destroyed. But some things persist. Tropes. Jokes. Favorite characters. He must become the meme-companion. The goblin that gets abducted and forced into the party mascot. The poor squire boy who by the power of luck accidentally save the party's life and is a true hero. The one shop, bar or inn keeper who is just in EVERY GODDAMN TOWN. He must be loved. He must dance and degrade himself if need be to make an impression on these damn beings so that when they abandon this world, his Master will have reason to take him with them to the next. All while having an appropriate patsy to have the thwartable evil plot of course.

Play him like Red Mage from 8-Bit Theatre, i.e. have him be a blatant powergaming munchkin who believes in a mythology about gods who draw-up "character sheets" and roll dice to decide people's fates. Drop references to stat bonuses from his feats and equipment into his dialogues and have him ruthlessly metagame the PCs. When he does something particularly nasty he should literally tell the PCs to "roll to save".

Also, have him be crazy and nihilistic. This is a character who is aware of the fact that he's just someone else's fantasy. This is a man who knows his life is just a game and he suffers for the entertainment of others. He should be torn between trying to be entertaining, so he can survive, and wanting the PCs to kill him, so he doesn't have to suffer his ludicrous existence any longer. When asked why he kills the innocent he should just say "they are just NPCs" or "I needed the experience points."

Maybe watch the Truman Show for some ideas.

You probably already know this if your familiar with anything writing related but breaking the fourth wall is a really fucking bad idea. If I had to do it though I'd do what medaka box did and just go crazy with it and talk about narrative theories.

THE SHADOW!

The villain has spent all of his time developing some kind of "dice disruption" skill that fucks up the player's rolls. The only way for the party to beat him is to start playing like they're actually in the game (no idea how this would work though). Basically reverse the roles.

I'd run it like the anonymous player in Cards Against Humanity (can't remember what he's called) ...
>select a black d20
>once per turn, the black d20 gets rolled alongside someone else's roll.
>If it wins, that person's roll somehow plays into the villain's plan. It's what the villain WANTED to happen.

The villain is aware that his plans are expected to somehow be defeated and for the players to win. So now he tries working things for the best possible outcome he can get - either a stalemate, or a situation where they would accept his surrender.

Ooh that's a good idea.

>villain is doing some crazy ritual that the party has to stop
>looks like some kind of charm spell, but much more powerful than usual
>party fails to stop the ritual in time
>GM starts doing a different voice and acting in the villain's personality until the party stops it

>Can you hear me, CHARNAME? I'm going to be honest with you: I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it. I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell- if there is such a thing. I feel... saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it. It's repulsive, isn't it?
>I must get out of here. I must get free and in this mind is the key, my key.

I was actually thinking of doing something similar for a Freddy Krueger-esque dream villain.
When the players are trying to fight the thing in the dream-world I would make my narration way more antagonistic, to sort of reflect that the dream-reality is tainted by this thing's will

Very this.

Rando Cardrissian
You know the rule states that if Rando wins all the player go home in eternal shame?
A bunch of my friends lost to Rando.

Tbf the trick to winning CoH is pandering to the Czar's sense of humour, so Rando winning is more likely than you think

His evil plan is to gather enough slaves to make the peasant railgun.

Actually, Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe was exactly this.

>Villain abuses rules to devestating effect
>Villain can read character sheets and plan accordingly
>Villain attacks player characters when the player has gone to the bathroom/is distracted
>Villain monologues about how they see "two realities": the in game reality as described by the DM narration, and the reality of the game itself in which people somehow move both sequentially and simultaneously at the same time.
[Spoiler] >When villain is about to lose, he refuses to end his turn, thus keeping him alive and speaking forever as a free action.

Dont forget for him to know and curse the GM for gifting him with the knowledge of what his existence really is as opposed to the ignorance all the other NPCs,

>The villain realizes the world is fictional
>his entire existence, nay, the existence of the entire game world relies on the DM running it, which he only does if his players want to
>the villain becomes a villain to act as the antagonist for the player's PCs
>he makes plans and commits crimes, ruining the PC's lives, and plays the Bad Guy solely to make the PCs want to keep playing to destroy him
>In doing so, he ensures the DM keeps running the game, letting the game world continue to exist

CHIM.

>meta trash

I wouldn't, because "lol the characters KNOW they're inside a game XDDDDDD i am so clever and cool and smart" is the worst fucking thing and has never been done well

He only works if the players are being murder hobos. Otherwise, he's just a comic relief who knows he's in an RPG.

"Y-you'll let me come back in the next campaign, r-right?"

>the current game ends, so in a last ditch effort, the villain escapes somewhere into the new campaign
>he wants to destroy the current PCs in revenge for the players destroying the last world because they stopped playing

BBEG develops a spell that allows him to fudge dice rolls. He literally makes the DM move the die to not miss or not be hit. Players get seriously butthurt. BBEG openly mocks the players and the DM. He says he's taking control of this story. When players against all odds face the BBEG in a final confrontation, he reveals he's been reading the DM's notes and listening to players' conversations and knew exactly when PCs would appear. Instead of defeating them, he casts a spell and disappears. Game over, PCs won.
BBEG then reappears in the next game the players are playing, even crossing game systems.

>he chases players through settings and even game systems
>the secret to beating him is starting a campaign at a much higher level than him, then curb-stomping him

>GM decides to try out some GURPS after the last game of D20
>boss shows up
>he's rolling like he's from a D20 system

Is that the same voice actor as DIO?

Now that's rad

Like Deadpool?

You need to first decide on what type of villen and their motivations, to figure such things out.

Problem is a pure evil villen will work to break everything, and any lesser form will just become a managable jerk that poses no major threat. Meta powers are very dangours, unless everyone is cool with thing getting really goofy which can be very fun if everone agrees.

If I had to?
He's the villain so that he can give himself an iota of self-direction. NPCs live and die at the whim of the plot. At least the villain
>A: Has it going pretty good while he's got it
>B: Sticks around until the end of the campaign
So he's going to milk his existence for all the luxury and enjoyment he can get before going out with a bang.

Comedic idea:
What if the bad guy didn't know what game they were in?

For example, the villain has been setting up in Generic Medieval Fantasyland #(postnumber), and has, for the moment, been assuming it's Dungeons and Dragons whitebox... and an elven druid shows up to stop him. Oh, shit.That doesn't happen in whitebox! Elf is a class, not a race, right?

(and makes an INT check, at -4 due to unfamiliarity)

Start the campaign with the villain having some vague idea of the system, but nothing concrete. As the game goes on, have them steadily narrow it down, making mistakes by guessed-at mechanics and exploits that don't quite work right, until the final fight, where they've minmaxed the encounter as best they can. The players then have to think outside the standard solutions to defeat the bad guy.)

What if the villain is a grognard that somehow went there? But he knows only the B/X or AD&D and the game is 5e.

So he can metagame but sometimes this goes wrong (as in uses only once of each spell because doesn't know spell slots work). And he can only be defeated because of this.

I wonder if we could sell that in Mexico?
I mean, Rogue One didn't do all that well, as far as merchandising...
With each new wave of star trek merchandise your old ones are worth more...

So maybe we should take advantage of the "underground" phenomenon. When things seem hip or cool because they defy the status quo. We can sell all kinds of dangerous toys to mexico and they will become rare collectables in America.

-Pentex Exec

And because we'd be unlicensed and posing as a subsidiary of Lucas Arts, we'd would be able to claim, assumming we had a patsy for plausible deniability, that we were unaware US copyright laws apply in Mexico, that we had claimed to be affiliated with Disney, Lucas Arts, ect., and that we had no prior knowledge of any of this being planned or executed.

Of course, we will, as the investors, know what transpires, but of course investors are not required to testify on behalf of the securities corporation handling their assets. And of course, that will be hired by a firm in Canada, then through another bank in Micronesia using bitcoins.

Are you aware, sir, that the country of Micronesia has no financial laws and is allowed to regulate commerce as it sees fit? And that it is recognized by the UN?

No sire, I did not. I just heard it was a good place to do business. (Chuckles heard all around the room)

look, i gotta pad my mission statement, so you press guys put this on the record: "I for one, found the implication that the toys were dangerous offensive, but I didn't want to say anything to jeapordize that deal. That deal means more manufacturing jobs... for Mexico, and Mexico desperately needs to get its economy back on track. Whats dangerous for American children may not be dangerous for Mexican children. They are used to dealing with danger, in Mexico they don't coddle their kids and shield there kids from the violence going on in the rest of the world."

"So what should the press say that are not in your pocket?"

"Why, you can say anything you want!"

You are now reading this in my voice.

No sir, a vampire is someone who sucks life right out of people. A lawyer is someone who does that for free.

is Space Balls in the public domain?

Isn't this basically the plot of that shitty goblin webcomic

oh. oh yes. right. the burning children.
no... no I guess we can't do that.

No, but he is the Japanese dub for Ron in Kim Possible

>the party is unsure how to proceed
>as they're bickering, the in game BBEG back stabs them
>he thanks the GM by name for the opportunity and for playing along

>Dante Must Die
As much as I hate the way tumblrites adopted it, I fucking loved the format screws in Undertale for this precise reason.

I wouldn't because I like my shit to make a little sense.

Irritating, douchey take-off on Spec Ops the Line: inflict stress/mental damage on the PCs by arbitrarily roadrailing them into "deconstructions" and shitty moral choices (oh, you think killing things is fun? those monsters you slaughtered were someone's kids! Oh, you think you're fighting for a noble empire? Surprise, those bandits were rogue knights trying to survive and protect those civilians you accidentally killed with greek fire!), but let the players know (not TOO overtly) that this is stupid and you can find ways around it (instead of having to murder a baby or chop an arm off, kill the BBEG's goon forcing you to do this)

Yeah, and he shouldn't.

Does he know which one he's in? Because if he thinks we're in Pathfinder when we're playing Exalted, it might be a bit difficult for him.

i am a very green gm, having ran one session. this will be my career

"The villain, bleeding from his wounds looks up from his magic circle and chuckles: "This spell is not for you."

*Rolls dice*

"There is a sound like ripping paper and a thin ray of red light blasts into the sky, only to disappear through a thin portal."

*GM briefly underlights his face for a moment with a red light.*

"The sorcerer smiles, "As I hoped, his pen is far mightier than his soul. A commoner with an uncommon power, but only twelve wisdom; No matter. Come heroes, he weaves the tale of your demise as we speak. I think I'll be healed of this undignified scratch... And I think I'll go first as well."

This. Meta plots are generally more annoying than they are funny and games based around them tend to turn into lolsorandum bullshit.