Okay, let's build a Big Bad for a DnD campaign, and think of approaches that will mean it's easier to run the Big Bad in your campaign, in a collection of neat ideas, which can be summarised as:
- Have a theme for your campaign
- Decide what your Big Bad poses a threat to
- Give your Big Bad a clear long-term goal
- Play them like a character
- Give them allies and enemies in the world (make them embedded)
- Let them have their moments
- Make sure there are ways that your players can slow the long-term goal without undoing any final fight.
If you follow some of these, running a big bad becomes a lot easier
This is optional, but makes things a lot easier. If you have a clear and consistent theme for the campaign, you can use your Big Bad to play the devil's advocate to that theme.
An example, the theme I set up for my campaign was the idea of holding on to what exists, verse moving on to something new. This meant that the villains needed to either be trying to overdo stasis, or tear down the established world in the interests of doing something new. One of the major villains of the campaign was Seras Black.
If I were to run a campaign of an empire trying to bring order to a land, I might make two villains, a person from the empire, and a person from outside it. Lets call our empire builder Janus, and our rabble rouser Fury.
Not every campaign needs to be the end of the world. Sometimes the threat is to a kingdom (or an overthrow of a monarch), or a city, or maybe even a town the players love. Knowing the scope of what you want the villain to threaten can determine both how complicated their plan is going to need to be, and how many levels you expect the story to play out over.
For my campaign, I wanted the world itself to feel under threat, so I picked the scope as destruction of the entire world.
For a campaign about imposed order, the scope of the conflict might be a single city.
There are two parts to a long-term goal. The motive and the means.
Motive is what gets the big bad out of bed in the morning, the cause they believe in that excuses their transgressions or questionable decisions
Means are the thing in the world they need to acquire or create to succeed in their motive. A big bad should have complicated but explicable means, as this allows the players to work towards thwarting them, but their plans should be robust enough that a bunch of third level mooks can’t break the entire plan by, say, smashing a single amulet. If there is a single point of failure, the villain should keep it very secret and very safe.
Seras Black discovered that there used to be a world with an afterlife, but the world as it was had been cut off from this, and couldn’t be reconnected. She wanted to either reopen the afterlife or make whatever change was necessary to make sure future generations have one.
To do this, she want to collect some magic daggers called annulments, and use them to destroy the star, killing everyone in the world but allowing the gods to build a new world with an afterlife.
Janus wants to become the next emperor, and bringing the visigothicish into the empire, where dozens of others have been rebuffed, would help set him up for this.
To do this, he needs to raise an army (implement conscription), plan his attack (gather intel) and remove the current governor, who wants to maintain the current truce. If all else fails though, he holds three apocalypse stones that are designed to destroy a city, which he will deploy if he thinks his work will fail.
Grace has seen multiple generals raid her people to take plunder and slaves, and lost her own family in such an incident. The city has always been the staging ground, and so she wants to see it wiped out, with such brutality the empire never dares to return.
To do this, she plans to meet the leaders of all the towns, hold a grand meet and convince them all to join her in a crusade against the city. She also plans to bring in demonic help to give them what the need to win.
Each of these plans have ways to hinder or weaken the plans, without immediately detailing them.
A lot of NPCs remain pretty static if the players aren’t watching them. A big bad should never feel static. It should feel like if the players walked away and quit the big bad would succeed. They should also adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and even respond directly against the players if they feel threatened. They should be smarter about picking battles and making retreats than most enemies.
Big bads are scary because they threaten more than just the heroes, and that means more people than just the party should be invested in the struggle. Having allies who support their cause helps set up conflicts that don’t require the big bad being present (mini-bosses!), while giving them enemies in the world gives the players a sense of working with others, people to help them in a tight spot, and people to give them leads for adventures.
Seras Black is the leader of a mercenary crew (the black suns) so most of her allies come from within that, as her lieutenants, out in the world doing missions for her. Later in the campaign she also allied with an archmage and an ancient undead spell caster who both wanted to become gods, and worked with Seras.
After the first couple of sessions where Seras almost ended the world, several gods, and the government were very interested in finding and stopping seras, as well as finding out how she even got annulments when all 4 were meant to be hidden and protected by a dragon.
Janus, as well as being a decorated swordsman himself, has an elite guard of 68 trusted companions. They do a lot of the work of laying his plans within the city, and also help out in a pinch. He has also convinced the head of the local merchants guild that his plans are good, and his nephew is a captain in the local garrison.
On the other hand, the governor wants to maintain a peace and desperately wants to stop Janus before he gets started. The unofficial leader of the visigothicish in the city also sees the threat posed.
Grace already has several leaders on side, and has a... close relationship with her demonic patron, and they are actively involved in helping plan the battle. Three well-respected matriarchs oppose the idea of war, and will sway others to their cause. They seek to find a way to break the demonic connection
If the heroes win every time the villain feels useless, and if the big epic final battle still happens, it can make the players feel like all their actions made no difference. Neither is ideal. It’s good to plan for some big dramatic moments that let the villain flex, and do something dramatic that advances their goal.
Seras Black at one point broke into the vault of an arcane university to steal two annulments that had been ensconced there. She killed two stone golems to do so.
She also personally teleported to the party to murder them several times, where all they could do was flee. They spent six months wearing rings of mind shielding just out of fear.
Janus’ big moment off the top of my head is when he murders and usurps the governor, removing an obstacle and showing his brutality.
Let's have a different topic! Now you've designed your big bad, and their plan gives you lots of direction, how do you expose this to the players, and how do you make them really feel the threat. Let's have another list!
- Make them felt, even when they're not present
- Make it personal, let them meet
- Make them broken
- Make them feel unique
The villain's plots should be far-reaching. Have them felt in scenes that they're not present in. There's simple things like learning a raiding party that attacked a caravan are working for your big bad, to having them talked about, to doing quests specifically to find out info about them/their plans.
But also, your big bad is more of a character if the players get to interact with them. This is hard because there has to be a reason the party doesn't just attack them (though maybe just fear can do that) and a reason the big bad doesn't immediately thwop the party. If you can, take an opportunity to flex the villains' skills as well.
In addition, while a conflict based on big topics is neat, making it personal can be good.
Seras met the party several times to ask for them to join together, and tried to explain her motivation. Only after she was sure she couldn't convince people to join did she try to murder the party.
Janus murdering the governor could be impactful if the players had a good friendship with him. Also, if you took out the captain of the local military that happens to be Janus's nephew, Janus may have a particular hatred for the party. Because he is a politician, he probably can't overtly kill the party.
Grace might meet the party while they are under the protection of one of the matriarchs. Let the party be there to see her warlock duel.
Okay, at some point the players might have to fight this villain, and they should feel uniquely broken, disobeying rules that every other enemy in the game has to obey. This can help make them specifically terrifying.
Some good targets here are:
- Taking extra actions, or taking extra turns
- Having actual class abilities
- When hit, the big bad gets to roll to parry - this doesn't use their reaction for the turn
- Negating or deflecting spells
Make sure these are explained, and try and show them in more than one fight, so it feels like the particular 'feel' of the character.
Seras Black was a 20th level fighter, and as the leader of a group of mercenaries who hunted magic items, she was decked out. I also gave her broken base stats (above what point buy can get). When she started a fight she had an enchantment on her that made her immune to damage (which dispel magic removed, and I made sure to show this to the players before the final fight). She also cut through a force cage with an annulment. Every turn she got to act, she downed a player.
Janus, when he fights is an ex-soldier, so let him fight with some of his elite soldiers. Let him get them to make attacks on his turn (maybe every one of his allies within thirty feet gets to attack when he does). He also uses healing items through the fight, and can deflect attacks onto his allies.
Grace is imbued with demonic energy. She can teleport as movement, and rolls two initiative, acting on both of them. When she becomes bloodied, her demonic patron steps in and she becomes immune to damage until her patron is downed.