I'm currently working on a Western themed camping and am out of ideas and was wondering if anyone had some cool ideas for places, NPCs, encounters, subclasses, ECT...
I am running my first campaign for my group, I am wanting to create an antagonist that during session one when they are clearing out the first quest they meet him thinking he will be easy to defeat like the others but want him to absolutely body them without killing them. For him to monologue then leave. Ending the session with them all nearly killed feeling well out of their depth. How can i create it that no matter what they do its like child’s play to him?
Great question--I love having antagonist discussions.
I would actually encourage a variation from what you're planning.
In most good antagonist story, the antagonist doesn't start by destroying the party. The antagonist in fact, often appears as a friend or neutral party. Often the party allies with them, then the antognist uses them to achieve their goals and poisons their minds against his own enemies, and then, after some time there is a major plot twist when they find out the truth. mwhahahhaaa!
What I might suggest as an alternative is this: The party and the big villain, the real antagonist, cross paths and begin working together--helping each other. Then, who the party fights is not the primary villain, but one of the generals of the villain. The party gets destroyed by this general, including the true antagonist pretending to having been beaten (so he becomes the victim and allies with the party). The real antagonist then poisons their mind and tells them about this faction/group of people/etc, that sent this general--but in reality that's part of the antagonists plan.
Later the players will find out they've been used and have been gaslighted into supporting the big bad guy that actually sent the general to kill them all.
BUT! Let's talk about that first battle. First have them defeat him--so they feel confident and strong. But then he sheds his false form and becomes a grotesque beast empowered by something evil. it thrashes them easily and KO's them one by one. Fade to black.
Players awaken in the place of the battle, seemingly still alive after knowing they were killed. Some force came to help them that they can later learn about, or fate or some big narrative hook revived them (or even the real antagonist!).
That should make for an interesting start! ----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are doing a western, you can rip off a plethora of western tropes. Swap orcs for Indians, and the benevolent local king for the cavalry, forts for castles, and shepherds for cowboys, the Mexicans are the Evil Empire. Goldmines are just ancient treasure troves. And then the adventurers are the various desperados, drifting from place to place, looking for work. And the villain is an ally on one job, maybe even helps defeat what TVTropes calls "The Dragon", only to take their place as the BBEG, in a moment of epic betrayal, as a proposed ambush of the last members of the gang turns into a counter-ambush set for the PCs, and the PC set as 'bait' really is left helpless and unarmed.
I am working on a western incorporated setting, the first part will come out in a few weeks, just check out my other posts. Search: SydneyHofferson00762 for the posts
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have traversed all the outer planes- I have traversed all the inner planes- now I travel to the land of earth to ride an airplane.
-They/Them Pronouns-
If you need lore, spells, heaps of information, come my way!!
I love this thank you for deep and in depth input. Another tangent on it is how do I create the villain? Such as AC!
You'll have to think a bit in the future if you actually want to make your own villain. You have to consider what level they'll be when they are supposed to fight it, how versatile you want the moves he has to be, how the villain can use its lair to its advantage and such. Because it's your first ever campaign, you'll probably want to take a stat block from the monster manual and reskin it. And because you probably won't actually be killing this villain until much later, you can keep tweaking the stats and minions to fit how your party fights big bosses as you go along in your campaign.
Also, you might consider moving this to a different thread that actually belongs to you.
What I would do is this to figure out your villain stats: ask yourself what level you expect your players to be when they can defeat him? If at the end of it all, you think they'll be around level 6-7, then choose a CR 6-9 creature as as a stat block and then edit from there.
For example, my players finished act1 of my campaign at level 6. I threw a frost zombie giant that had emerged from the center of town, CR9, but the players had a lot of help from NPC's to battle the collosus. I set the hp to 250 so he didn't go down quickly, and then I used the same attacks and just renamed them cooler things.
Thanks Matamata I had already thought of a few of these things and I didn't think of having to rival forces but I'll take it in to consideration. Though I already have an idea for the bbeg (the villain). Although I do appreciate the help and will take your input into consideration.
I could use some help with the bbeg (big bad evil guy) of my Western themed campaign could any one give some advice/ideas. So far I like the idea of the party adventureing around solving problems that they were hired to solve by a strangely well informed person (no he is not going to be the bbeg) but i don't know who would be causing the problems.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm currently working on a Western themed camping and am out of ideas and was wondering if anyone had some cool ideas for places, NPCs, encounters, subclasses, ECT...
I would suggest Q'Barra country in Khorvaire, Eberron. It has a strong western vibe, although very original and fresh.
I wrote a bestseller dungeon set there:
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/342905
Hello,
I am running my first campaign for my group, I am wanting to create an antagonist that during session one when they are clearing out the first quest they meet him thinking he will be easy to defeat like the others but want him to absolutely body them without killing them. For him to monologue then leave. Ending the session with them all nearly killed feeling well out of their depth. How can i create it that no matter what they do its like child’s play to him?
thanks in advance!
Gpope,
Great question--I love having antagonist discussions.
I would actually encourage a variation from what you're planning.
In most good antagonist story, the antagonist doesn't start by destroying the party. The antagonist in fact, often appears as a friend or neutral party. Often the party allies with them, then the antognist uses them to achieve their goals and poisons their minds against his own enemies, and then, after some time there is a major plot twist when they find out the truth. mwhahahhaaa!
What I might suggest as an alternative is this:
The party and the big villain, the real antagonist, cross paths and begin working together--helping each other. Then, who the party fights is not the primary villain, but one of the generals of the villain. The party gets destroyed by this general, including the true antagonist pretending to having been beaten (so he becomes the victim and allies with the party). The real antagonist then poisons their mind and tells them about this faction/group of people/etc, that sent this general--but in reality that's part of the antagonists plan.
Later the players will find out they've been used and have been gaslighted into supporting the big bad guy that actually sent the general to kill them all.
BUT! Let's talk about that first battle.
First have them defeat him--so they feel confident and strong. But then he sheds his false form and becomes a grotesque beast empowered by something evil. it thrashes them easily and KO's them one by one. Fade to black.
Players awaken in the place of the battle, seemingly still alive after knowing they were killed. Some force came to help them that they can later learn about, or fate or some big narrative hook revived them (or even the real antagonist!).
That should make for an interesting start!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I love this thank you for deep and in depth input. Another tangent on it is how do I create the villain? Such as AC!
If you are doing a western, you can rip off a plethora of western tropes. Swap orcs for Indians, and the benevolent local king for the cavalry, forts for castles, and shepherds for cowboys, the Mexicans are the Evil Empire. Goldmines are just ancient treasure troves. And then the adventurers are the various desperados, drifting from place to place, looking for work. And the villain is an ally on one job, maybe even helps defeat what TVTropes calls "The Dragon", only to take their place as the BBEG, in a moment of epic betrayal, as a proposed ambush of the last members of the gang turns into a counter-ambush set for the PCs, and the PC set as 'bait' really is left helpless and unarmed.
I am working on a western incorporated setting, the first part will come out in a few weeks, just check out my other posts. Search: SydneyHofferson00762 for the posts
I have traversed all the outer planes- I have traversed all the inner planes- now I travel to the land of earth to ride an airplane.
-They/Them Pronouns-
If you need lore, spells, heaps of information, come my way!!
You'll have to think a bit in the future if you actually want to make your own villain. You have to consider what level they'll be when they are supposed to fight it, how versatile you want the moves he has to be, how the villain can use its lair to its advantage and such. Because it's your first ever campaign, you'll probably want to take a stat block from the monster manual and reskin it. And because you probably won't actually be killing this villain until much later, you can keep tweaking the stats and minions to fit how your party fights big bosses as you go along in your campaign.
Also, you might consider moving this to a different thread that actually belongs to you.
"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
Gpope,
What I would do is this to figure out your villain stats: ask yourself what level you expect your players to be when they can defeat him? If at the end of it all, you think they'll be around level 6-7, then choose a CR 6-9 creature as as a stat block and then edit from there.
For example, my players finished act1 of my campaign at level 6. I threw a frost zombie giant that had emerged from the center of town, CR9, but the players had a lot of help from NPC's to battle the collosus. I set the hp to 250 so he didn't go down quickly, and then I used the same attacks and just renamed them cooler things.
Hope that helps!
Thanks Matamata I had already thought of a few of these things and I didn't think of having to rival forces but I'll take it in to consideration. Though I already have an idea for the bbeg (the villain). Although I do appreciate the help and will take your input into consideration.
I could use some help with the bbeg (big bad evil guy) of my Western themed campaign could any one give some advice/ideas. So far I like the idea of the party adventureing around solving problems that they were hired to solve by a strangely well informed person (no he is not going to be the bbeg) but i don't know who would be causing the problems.