How do you create the perfect unassuming villain?

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That is not Ai... if nothing else, she wouldn't smile like that and you should know that. Also, the filename points somewhere, for sure.

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I'd actually go about this a bit differently, but with a similar basic concept.

Have this villain first introduced in an arc that he has nothing to do with. But people suspect him anyway. The party can totally believe he's the one responsible--even better if they do. Because, when they investigate it, it turns out that, no, it really wasn't him. Now, that doesn't mean he has to have a heart of gold, and he can still have his hands in some shady business. He's just not actually responsible for this.

Have a few other stories in which he isn't actually tied to the events unfolding, but either someone suspects him or he's around. He can even be useful to the party--perhaps he is a bit of a criminal, and has contacts who can get them information. He's around, and they get used to him. They don't necessarily think he's a good person, they don't necessarily trust him, but the players are comfortable with and acclimated to his presence.

Then, when his plot starts to unfold, the party will unconsciously dismiss him as a possibility. Not because it's out of character for him or unreasonable for him to be involved, but because they've become so accustomed to him. He wasn't waging some kind of disinfo war on them--after all, the villain doesn't know that there is such a thing as a "player character," so he would have no reason to target them in particular for deceit.

The Villagers that cried Wolf huh?
I like it, might use it myself to trip them up.

"Has a small car" is pretty unassuming.

OP here. Is there a wah to make the UV actually on the player's side at first and then make the players scorn said UV? I want to make the players feel as if they made a terrible mistake they could've fixed.

>ie Jimmy's Revenge
youtu.be/lSHdj-jbtoU

Smol Car UV con-fucking-firmed.

make him into a goofy dude
not just goofy, but seemingly hilariously inept

Not much to help with getting that result I'm afraid, that requires your players to be in a specific mindset.
Your best method would be a modification of that is a helper NPC for a good chunk of the game, but it's really debatable if they could be considered unassuming at that point.
Otherwise some modification of my method in might be more your alley, add in some rather seemingly innocent foreshadowing to make them think "Why the fuck didn't we notice?". Now that I think about it they don't even have to be a hero archetype.

It wouldn't be exactly unassumig but you could do something similar to Basically introduce this shady character who is implied to be involved in some nasty shit but doesn't clash with the players. Instead he would present himself as an extremely pragmatic man who, though amoral, understands that fucking with the players would be a bad idea and thus offers them his help and his resources in exchange for small favours, things that aren't exactly good but nothing outright illegal (maybe removing a rival who is way nastier and dangerous than he is or helping a "friend" of his who got in trouble with some minor villain). He should also convince the players that he is kind of a necessary evil, that the darker side of society will always exist and it's better for them to have a reasonable guy like him making some profit there in exhange for helping them eliminate the nastier guys.
And when the time is right, reveal that he has actually been using the players all along to expand his own power and influence. He doesn't hate the players and is quite thankful for their help, but also knows that they are too dangerous and thinks now he is capable of openly defying them.
So like the other guy said, show a sympathetic evil guy, have the players grow fond of him even though none of them will think he is actually a good person and then have him reveal his true goals when they are already comfortable with his presence.

In my game I’m convinced DM has an evil luck god on my PC. Because despite playing a literal commoner every earth shattering event is caused by me taking self-preservation as an option. The party is starting to think killing me off is a viable end to the game (can’t blame em)
Meanwhile we have an ACTUAL LE in the group trying to summon a planet destroyer for his evil religion

Would it be better to say/make a sympathetic neutral guy rather than a sympathetic evil guy? If the players were brought an NPC who had definitely done shady or vile things for the sake of self profit, some of the players' characters would probably put an end to him then and there. This is to an extreme, but I know players who lean into their characters' alignments far too much.

However, if the NPC was just neutral with just a knowledge on some shady/vile stuff he didn't act on, will it be better?

Make them a random NPC that screwed the PCs out of their money early in the campaign

So your Urkel

>make them a shopkeeper who buys strange and specific magical artifacts off PC for very high prices
>turns out these are fuel for his BBEG nonsense or something

you can now no longer enjoy this doujin because of her feet on this page

The problem with that is that it would be kind of hard to hide his evilness without it coming out as an asspull.
I think it's better if the NPC is evil but way nicer and reasonable compared with other NPCs who share his "profession". Like, for example, some gangster who own a casino and only gets violent if someone is hostile to him compared to a gangster that goes around kicking orphans and selling girls into slavery.
You know the guy is evil, but his brand of his evil seems almost harmless or at least not as dangerous as the other guy's brand of evil, not to mention that he is useful to the party.
Fuck, maybe he is worse than the other guys but he is just better at hiding it.
Players are paranoid as fuck and they will suspect anyone so you might as well make a guy who they know is up to no good from the very beginning, with the catch being that they ignore how dangerous he really is.

Make him an incompetent dummy.

Or he has a very winning personality, and although subtle about it, is able to sell even his bad side.

>"Free food! A petting zoo! Acrobats! Child sacrifice! Bingo!"
>"Yeah!!! Wait, did he just say..."

Like this;
youtube.com/watch?v=Wf9OqtHv1p4
I know it's a parody of The Usual Suspects but this one is funnier.

>not acknowledging demons by their feet

Footfags should be shot.

i agree

If anyone in your group watched the first season of the CW Flash show they'll be on to you in a heartbeat.

He's originally not a villain but after several sessions you realize that it'd be pretty easy to retcon him into being responsible for stuff behind the scenes and the players will be none the wiser.

My favorite twist villain was an incompetent journalist who accompanied the party on a quest to save a little girl.
After they saved her he drugged them and made them watch as he torture murdered the girl and escaped.
Turns out he was the villain they were searching for in the first place playing dress-up to pass time on the way to his goal.

Just go full Eichmann and make your villain a guy just doing his job with an unseen boss.

Banality of Evil, lets go

You need to make a really over the top obvious villain AND a quiet unassuming guy that always seems to show up near him and otherwise doesn't really seem to have an obvious role in the plot.

Make the unassuming villain someone completely unrelated to those two.

The players will focus on the over the top guy but they'll pat themselves on the back for figuring out that the other guy is the "real" villain. Having decided that they know what the trick is, they'll stop looking for it. That's how you achieve surprise. Too many novice GMs think hiding something is how you surprise players - it's not, every GM hides things. Leading them to draw an incorrect conclusion, then confronting them with that, is how you surprise players.

Pulling a villian out of your ass, while a fantastic party trick, is an awful DM trick. If you just declare "HAW HAW IT WAS X NOT Y ALL ALONG" Without ever even alluding to it the players will just assume you're bullshitting, even if you aren't.

Of course you have to allude to it and give them enough of a motivation that it makes sense. As I just said, any GM can just hide shit from players.

The point of giving them someone else to focus on is that they don't think about it and thus don't realize what should be, in hindsight, obvious.

Make several - like 3-5 - characters who each could potentially be the main villain and who each has a plausible (which does not necessarily mean obvious) motivation for being the villain, each of which is discoverable but not provable by the party.

The real villain is whichever one the party doesn't suspect.

What's wrong with her feet?

Solid State Society

Make the villain someone that was helpful and pleasant early on in the adventure, if you can make them fond of them then they won't suspect them of foul play.

Alternatively make the NPC that seems to be guiding them around by the nose the villain and give them a sob story, then make the people who the party thinks are the villains out to stop the actual villains evil goals.

I think the best way to achieve this is by having an npc that is fully supporting of the PCs and fervently pursues their goals, going further than the PCs ever would.
"Killing the patient to cure the disease" kind of thing.
Then, when the PCs have to rein them in, it works, but they resent the PCs.
The resentment builds up until they snap, like Robin burning down Arkham Asylum with everyone inside.
This is best when coupled with a dramatic surge in power, as well.

Pic related was the closest I could think of as an example.

Btw, while looking for that image, I discovered that Sara Ryder was in Megamind.
I did not know that.

Like Shane. Subtly manipulates events to cause great evil for personal gain.

His frustrating paranoid skittish behaviour is optional.

>suddenly stands up
>"My motives are complex"

Make one of you players the villain
>I'd post the Star Wars screencap with the Sith janitor, but I'm on mobile

>walks with Parkinson's
>"My movements are complex."