I have a plan for an antagonist for this campaign I'm doing but I'm worried he wont make any impact and he won't really affect the story. So far what as happened is my players returned to their hometown of Phandilian after an eight day journey. While they were gone some new people joined Phandilian. In the tavern they find a crowed of villagers crowding around two people standing on a table. One is a red headed man wearing hunting gear and holding a crossbow and he's boasting about he's the greatest hunter in the world and how he's the bravest man in all the lands. Standing next to him is his spellcasting friend telling the villagers how cool they are. Later on, before the players go's on a quest he and his friend beg to join them. last session ended on the note of them leaving for the quest. 

Now here's what i was planning: I was planning this quest would go perfectly fine and the npcs would prove they actually are really skilled. But then when they return they don't get full attention and the npcs don't like that because their attention seekers and want it to be all about them (I'm going to start calling the npcs T and K because i don't want to keep on typing they, their, them over and over and over.) T and K make a plan to get full credit. I was thinking on a future quest T and K join the party to retrieve a lost artifact. On the way back from retrieving it T steals the artifact and runs away and K casts a spell to make rock from a nearby mountain trapping the party. T and K take credit for the whole thing and are celebrated. In the far future when the party are leading a small army to fight the BBEG and his men/lieutenants that T is about to kill someone from the BBEG's army but the party's silly little kobold chef companion "steals the kill" from him and T doesn't like that so in a fit of rage he throws the kobold of the mountain their fighting on. I want to make him haltable and make him leave a mark but i don't know what to do after what he does on the mountain. Same with his spellcasting friend who I'm probably going to kill of in an attack on Phandilian but idk.

You're planning too far ahead I think. Have them be rivals to the party if you want, and that should be good enough to begin. If things line up the way you'd like them to in the future, then definitely you can do the things you're talking about. But don't force them just to fit an idea you have that may not end up working. 

Alright thanks. I'm very new to dnd and this is the first campaign I'm running so I'm all over the place.

Quote from Jamie01813 >>

I have a plan for an antagonist for this campaign I'm doing but I'm worried he wont make any impact and he won't really affect the story. So far what as happened is my players returned to their hometown of Phandilian after an eight day journey. While they were gone some new people joined Phandilian. In the tavern they find a crowed of villagers crowding around two people standing on a table. One is a red headed man wearing hunting gear and holding a crossbow and he's boasting about he's the greatest hunter in the world and how he's the bravest man in all the lands. Standing next to him is his spellcasting friend telling the villagers how cool they are. Later on, before the players go's on a quest he and his friend beg to join them. last session ended on the note of them leaving for the quest. 

Now here's what i was planning: I was planning this quest would go perfectly fine and the npcs would prove they actually are really skilled. But then when they return they don't get full attention and the npcs don't like that because their attention seekers and want it to be all about them (I'm going to start calling the npcs T and K because i don't want to keep on typing they, their, them over and over and over.) T and K make a plan to get full credit. I was thinking on a future quest T and K join the party to retrieve a lost artifact. On the way back from retrieving it T steals the artifact and runs away and K casts a spell to make rock from a nearby mountain trapping the party. T and K take credit for the whole thing and are celebrated. In the far future when the party are leading a small army to fight the BBEG and his men/lieutenants that T is about to kill someone from the BBEG's army but the party's silly little kobold chef companion "steals the kill" from him and T doesn't like that so in a fit of rage he throws the kobold of the mountain their fighting on. I want to make him haltable and make him leave a mark but i don't know what to do after what he does on the mountain. Same with his spellcasting friend who I'm probably going to kill of in an attack on Phandilian but idk.

 

  

 If the PCs have an artifact assume there is going to be no way possible for the thugs to end up with it. Also, there is a point in the game (feather fall) where falling off a cliff may no longer be impactful. Also assume T&K are going to die in that fight as the PCs ignore the BBEG to go after them. 

You also only get one betrayal per campaign. Any more and the party no longer trusts any NPC you have. You also want several NPCs that don't betray the party. 

One of the most common "modes" of thinking among new DM's is the assumption that they can control outcomes and generally, I find that the newer someone is the more they think in these terms.

The reality is of course that your players are going to think stuff, act upon stuff, and do stuff that you have absolutely no way of predicting or controlling that will completely derail any outcomes you were expecting.  You learn over time that, as a DM you have a lot less control over the story than what you might have originally thought when you ventured into the world of DMing. 

So here is some tips 

1.  Create stories as if your players were not part of it.  Meaning, write stories (events, plots etc..) that will happen and only player intervention can change the outcome.    You don't need to predict the "possible" outcomes based on player intervention, let that happen naturally, the only thing you need to know is what will happen if the players do nothing, if they are not involved.

2. Write motivations, not results.  Meaning when you write the stories of your antagonist, don't write down what "they will do", rather write down how they think, how they behave and what they are planning.  NPC's are very much like PC's except for the DM, so the more backstories, background and personality you have about your NPC's the more comfortable you will be in making decisions on their behalf.

3.  Understand and this I think is the most important thing that D&D is a collaborative storytelling game, not a GM storytelling game.  You are not a storyteller (despite anything you ever heard), you are a narrator for a story that happens dynamically at the table and it is not your job to control, predict or manipulate that story, its your job to simply help the table tell that story well.  The sooner you let go of the reigns and stop trying to control everything, the closer you are to being a great DM.

As an aside......NPC's called T & K? Sounds like they need an new friend called P and they set out to out do the party possibly leading to a confrontation/showdown as they get a bit miffed that the party are taking all the good contracts and getting all the fame, they can show up now and then like the preverbial bad pennies complaining and challenging the party maybe issue their own challenge to do something, hunt down a monster or clear a dungeon. To paraphrase a certain wrestler.."To be the famous adventurers, you've got to beat the famous adventurers".

As the above said, don't try to plan out the whole story of the game. The PCs will do what the PCs want to do and your job as DM is to provide them with problems/conflicts to try to resolve and determine the consequences of their actions.

So for T & K you've nicely set them up as braggarts, now the question is what is the problem they pose to the PCs? 

You could either have T&K be bad at adventuring and get the party into all kinds of trouble by trying to show off maybe they set off traps out of carelessness, or trigger enemies unnecessarily in order to show off how cool they are. This would lead to them becoming recurring antagonists by having them end up working for a villain, or accidentally releasing a BBEG, or simply having them have messed up some dungeons the party is going through - see you've given yourself lots of different ways to bring them back however the story goes in the future.

Or alternatively, T&K might be con-artists / traitors, who always join up with other adventurers or hire mercenaries to do the hard work, then do everything they can to take credit. This again gives you lots of options for what they do in response to how the game progresses, maybe T&K simply steal the party's horses and race back to town to get all the credit for the quest, maybe T&K turn on the party when the party are weak from fighting the BBEG on the quest, maybe T&K try to use one of the traps in the dungeon to trap the party. Then later on, T&K could have hired mercenaries and compete with the party to complete quests, or maybe T&K become rich and have settled down as corrupt nobles in a city the PCs are visiting, or maybe they have tricked a rich noble to hire them as bodyguards while they secretly steal from the noble. 

But never plan too far ahead because the party might just turn-on and kill T&K at the first sign of betrayal.

no one throws kobalds off cliffs like Gaston!

Quote from OSR4Ever >>

One of the most common "modes" of thinking among new DM's is the assumption that they can control outcomes and generally, I find that the newer someone is the more they think in these terms.

The reality is of course that your players are going to think stuff, act upon stuff, and do stuff that you have absolutely no way of predicting or controlling that will completely derail any outcomes you were expecting.  You learn over time that, as a DM you have a lot less control over the story than what you might have originally thought when you ventured into the world of DMing. 

So here is some tips 

1.  Create stories as if your players were not part of it.  Meaning, write stories (events, plots etc..) that will happen and only player intervention can change the outcome.    You don't need to predict the "possible" outcomes based on player intervention, let that happen naturally, the only thing you need to know is what will happen if the players do nothing, if they are not involved.

2. Write motivations, not results.  Meaning when you write the stories of your antagonist, don't write down what "they will do", rather write down how they think, how they behave and what they are planning.  NPC's are very much like PC's except for the DM, so the more backstories, background and personality you have about your NPC's the more comfortable you will be in making decisions on their behalf.

3.  Understand and this I think is the most important thing that D&D is a collaborative storytelling game, not a GM storytelling game.  You are not a storyteller (despite anything you ever heard), you are a narrator for a story that happens dynamically at the table and it is not your job to control, predict or manipulate that story, its your job to simply help the table tell that story well.  The sooner you let go of the reigns and stop trying to control everything, the closer you are to being a great DM.

 This is really good advice, especially point 1.

Whenever I'm writing a new campaign, I always take some time to think from the perspective of the main antagonist: What do they want? Why do they want it? What is their plan to get it? What resources do they have at their disposal? 

Once I've thought about that, then I imagine what the first few steps of their evil plan look like, and I imagine how the world around them would be effected. These effects eventually serve as plot hooks for the party, as they notice the negative ways the villain is influencing the world and people in it. You only have to think of the first couple steps of the Evil Plan too, because eventually around say, step 4 or 5, the players will intervene and make things not go According To Plan, by which point the villain will have to adapt their plans around the players' actions, and once you get that going back and forth between the players and the villain, then you've got some good open ended gameplay.

1: do not plan too far ahead.

2: be ready to light all your plans on fire and change directions when you figure out what the players are actually interested in.

3: never assume you can make anything actually interesting. Like do not make it a goal that an NPC is interesting to your players. Instead try to provide variety of options, notice what they took interest in and expand on that.

More or less assume the POV that it is the players who will lead you to their fun, not that you know how to make that for them already.

It is all subjective POV. YOU think the NPC is cool. Everyone else might, no one else might. If you go in with the idea of the great thing they will dig on. Then if they don't like it you're in a tight spot. Also it feels bad to put a lot of work into a thing and then no one really got in for it.
So instead of much investment in one or two deep NPCs, i make a spread spectrum variety of shallower NPCs. And if any of them get glomed onto by PCs,  then i can expand on that NPC more to give them the depth that has been shown an interest in.

It's kind of a hedge your bets plan where i spread the investment out in "samples" of NPCs. Rather than few more deeply fleshed out ones that may or may not wind up with any PC mileage on them at all.

As GM of sandboxes I do a lot on the  fly. My methods may not work as well for more highly premeditated plans with lots of speciffic  details.