I have seen a number of references in the thread about having the BBEG be a friendly NPC with the party and honestly I have some thoughts.
The biggest Narrative pay off you can aim for with this is betrayal. Someone the party trusted, used them, misled them and was always against them. There is one small problem.
no one trusts NPC’s that travel with the party.
much like clerics in small villages and old white men that own broken down amusement parks it’s a really used trope. And players honestly cannot help themselves but to metagame and predict story beats.
IMO the only way to do this and get the required pay off is to make the npc joining the party seem like something you had not planned. An enemy they talked down from combat and convinced to repent, a bounty hunter they hire for assistance etc.
now the problem with this is the wannabe murder hobo players will rarely try and talk anyone down from combat or believe they can’t do everything themselves (“I mean sure the piano is a complicated instrument that people spend decades mastering but my hobgoblin bard that has never seen one before has +6 on performance which I am sure means they can win the Faurun’s Got Talent Piano division”).
So crafting a perfect backstory for the villain to enter the parties world only for them to breeze past it, can be fruitless and then trying to have that same villain just pop up everywhere until the party asks them to join them on the road can make it even more obvious this is the bad guy.
my suggestion if you are intent on seeking this out is to come up with a dozen different ways that the party could encounter an individual and create a different looking NPC for each one and use them all until the party invites one to tag along - then they become the BBEG
Town A has a bounty hunter they can.....walk right past....okay so it also has a side quest with a villain they can....decide not to take.......okay well no worries there is a hitchhiker on the road to.....oh they will travel by the under dark now......that’s fine because in this under dark kobold village there is a prisoner in a cage that they can......burn to a crisp along with everyone else when they cast multiple fireballs on the village....but that’s fine because I also have this cabbage seller they can......murder and steal all their cabbages........
The current adventure for me is all based in and around one town currently, The Wizard in question is the owner of the magic shop and an advisor to the town council. But he is also working to undermine the council and sow discord so is the cause of most of the misfortune impacting the town, for instance hiring bandits to kidnap merchants heading into town, secretly creating a cult that “accidentally” raises a few demons. In reality he is working with the Aboleth who he freed from being trapped deep underground, he is immune to the Aboleth, but brings people to it for enslavement. He is trying to get knowledge from the Aboleth for “reasons”. So far my players genuinely have no idea he is a bad guy and genuinely like the NPC.
Yeah the problem with approaching the players with BBEG too early and trying to demonstrate power is that usually afterwards the players ask themselves a question "why have we been spared". And sure, you might even have a good reason for the BBEG to kill every other NPC but not the players but to them it will always break the verisimilitude and feel like a plot hole introduced to keep them alive.
If you want a hallway moment for your BBEG, find a way for the players to see it without being there.
My players found a nifty magic item I made for them called The Pearl of Remembrance. Essentially you focus on the item and you are able to impart 10 minutes of a continuous event that you are able to recall. They have used it to great effect when trying to show something to an NPC or ask an NPC to show something to them.
If there was someone who barely survived the onslaught and then played dead or someone who witnessed it from a distance and the players met them and heard what had happened and they did have such an item, they would jump on the occasion to see it for themselves.
I will add that, as long as you as a dm explain to the players that not all encounters are meant to be fought instead of a corridor situation you could put them directly in a fight with the bbeg but give them a way to escape.
Matt Mercer did this well in criticaL roll when he had 5 ancient dragons attack the city his players where in. The moment one of them realised a 21 didn’t hit the party realised they had to run. Matt had them able to survive by having the dragons kill and maim the many hundreds of civilians and guards that where also in the same area largely ignoring the party enough to let them escape using a transport via plants rather then make them stand and fight.
I have used similair approaches over the years as well giving players a glimpse or a chance of fighting the bbeg while also giving them a way out to escape when they realised that I had no intention of this being a battle they could win. Think of it as having them face Vader in the corridor and then make the dash and get through the door and onto the ship in time to escape as opposed to simply having to watch.
I will add that, as long as you as a dm explain to the players that not all encounters are meant to be fought instead of a corridor situation you could put them directly in a fight with the bbeg but give them a way to escape.
Matt Mercer did this well in criticaL roll when he had 5 ancient dragons attack the city his players where in. The moment one of them realised a 21 didn’t hit the party realised they had to run. Matt had them able to survive by having the dragons kill and maim the many hundreds of civilians and guards that where also in the same area largely ignoring the party enough to let them escape using a transport via plants rather then make them stand and fight.
I have used similair approaches over the years as well giving players a glimpse or a chance of fighting the bbeg while also giving them a way out to escape when they realised that I had no intention of this being a battle they could win. Think of it as having them face Vader in the corridor and then make the dash and get through the door and onto the ship in time to escape as opposed to simply having to watch.
I was going to say that but it takes really experienced and tuned in group of players to not try and meta that "if the DM is putting it in front of us, it means we have a fighting chance".
Depending on players experience I would be very careful with designing an encounter where you expect the players to actually run away.
I'm currently running a couple campaigns, and the DM playing with themselves is no fun for ANYBODY, not even the DM. The DM is worrying the players aren't having fun, and the players just simply can't do anything but roleplay.
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The current adventure for me is all based in and around one town currently, The Wizard in question is the owner of the magic shop and an advisor to the town council. But he is also working to undermine the council and sow discord so is the cause of most of the misfortune impacting the town, for instance hiring bandits to kidnap merchants heading into town, secretly creating a cult that “accidentally” raises a few demons. In reality he is working with the Aboleth who he freed from being trapped deep underground, he is immune to the Aboleth, but brings people to it for enslavement. He is trying to get knowledge from the Aboleth for “reasons”. So far my players genuinely have no idea he is a bad guy and genuinely like the NPC.
Yeah the problem with approaching the players with BBEG too early and trying to demonstrate power is that usually afterwards the players ask themselves a question "why have we been spared". And sure, you might even have a good reason for the BBEG to kill every other NPC but not the players but to them it will always break the verisimilitude and feel like a plot hole introduced to keep them alive.
If you want a hallway moment for your BBEG, find a way for the players to see it without being there.
My players found a nifty magic item I made for them called The Pearl of Remembrance. Essentially you focus on the item and you are able to impart 10 minutes of a continuous event that you are able to recall. They have used it to great effect when trying to show something to an NPC or ask an NPC to show something to them.
If there was someone who barely survived the onslaught and then played dead or someone who witnessed it from a distance and the players met them and heard what had happened and they did have such an item, they would jump on the occasion to see it for themselves.
Agreed - I would even describe it vaguely and let the Players imagination fill in the rest.
then again I am also in the minority opinion that the hallway scene/DV being in RO did nothing for the story whatsoever and was in fact bad. ;)
I will add that, as long as you as a dm explain to the players that not all encounters are meant to be fought instead of a corridor situation you could put them directly in a fight with the bbeg but give them a way to escape.
Matt Mercer did this well in criticaL roll when he had 5 ancient dragons attack the city his players where in. The moment one of them realised a 21 didn’t hit the party realised they had to run. Matt had them able to survive by having the dragons kill and maim the many hundreds of civilians and guards that where also in the same area largely ignoring the party enough to let them escape using a transport via plants rather then make them stand and fight.
I have used similair approaches over the years as well giving players a glimpse or a chance of fighting the bbeg while also giving them a way out to escape when they realised that I had no intention of this being a battle they could win. Think of it as having them face Vader in the corridor and then make the dash and get through the door and onto the ship in time to escape as opposed to simply having to watch.
I was going to say that but it takes really experienced and tuned in group of players to not try and meta that "if the DM is putting it in front of us, it means we have a fighting chance".
Depending on players experience I would be very careful with designing an encounter where you expect the players to actually run away.
I'm currently running a couple campaigns, and the DM playing with themselves is no fun for ANYBODY, not even the DM. The DM is worrying the players aren't having fun, and the players just simply can't do anything but roleplay.