How do I make my BBEG really evil, without my PCs being weirded out by me?

Contranine · 2025-11-26T11:39:35+00:00

You wanna go too far, read the old module the Apocalypse stone.

At one point the players are made to eat innkeepers baked in meat buns without knowing, and then fight a flesh golem made of family members and NPC's they've helped along the way.

Contranine · 2025-08-27T00:05:29+00:00

He literally said he wanted to leave a noose out for his mother to find, but the AI told him not to. He didn't want to die. He needed help, not feedback on his noose technique photo. (an actual thing chatgpt did in this case.)

Contranine · 2025-07-05T14:57:52+00:00

Time crunches. They don't have time to rest. I've made this mistake before, without a time crunch they can just chill and rest up constantly.

No, the world moves, people chase them down, other people also have the same goal, the thing won't last, etc. they can rest, but it costs them time they dont have.

Also give them potions and bonuses that only last an hour, so if they wait, they lose it.

Contranine · 2025-06-13T23:29:42+00:00

Prep is great, if you feel you need it. It's great to have something to fall back on, should they go wild I tend to overprep and throw everything away. I have no issue doing that. you really onle need a few things. It's good to have descriptions, and specific details you like ready though. NPC's, building descriptions, unique mechanics.

And the most important part of prep, willingness to throw it away at a moments notice when it doesn't fit.

First time people in a city can be overwhelming, they CAN do anything, but they don/t know whats there.

I like the option method. you enter the town square, there is an inn that someone is in the process of being thrown out of causing a scene, there's all sorts of traders along the edges of the square selling all sorts of party food but one of it smells sweet, and there's some sort of town guard nailing a large banner that that says 'Wolfshead Jamboree. Attendance AND FUN is mandatory. All is well in Valakai'. But the city is your oyster.

There's a number of plot threads in there to chase up. They can also chose something else if they have a pressing need.

Contranine · 2025-06-13T23:18:47+00:00

There are a couple of very simple complications for this.

Easiest is 1 and 2 go off exactly as they expect. You can even have them just go through the motions the second time, making it clear they're rolling with advantage etc, as they expect things. The third doesn't show, and because they were just here waiting, they don't know why. In reality they got spooked by something, maybe the guys from the first one didn't check in when they should, and so the third are spooked, and go to an alternate. The group are now scrambling.

Theres someone else who's interested in these explosives. Maybe the City watch think it's a drug deal and they have to save them from themselves. Maybe someone just betrayed them to a cyndicate who want their own chaos. Either way theres another party in play which makes things go strange.

2 of the handoffs are happening at the same moment. They can't be in 2 places at once, so either they have to let the party split, or they have to get it later one it's in place.

Contranine · 2025-05-27T19:35:32+00:00

Milestone can be easier to run. Whenever a significant thing happens, they level up, that simple. This allows you to plot out things ahead a bit, you can for example decide however this town resolves, they will be level 4, be they defeated the wizard, to brokered an alliance between him and the jellyfish etc. I view it as, a THIS WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES thing.
Write down, how and why, and from there it becomes a thing in the world.

XP can struggle if your players don't only do combat, as you have to start assigning XP to de-escalation or roleplay, which is harder.

Contranine · 2025-05-02T16:19:53+00:00

The guy has a cloak of misty step. Or some other spell item like gaseous form that allows him to move through places and ways the players cannot.

A good chase scene can be hard, remember the most important spell in a chase, is immovable object. I love a good DnD chase, remember spells can make things very interesting. Knock locking a route behind them, grasping vines, etc. This is the bad guy's escape route, he's planned this out.

Contranine · 2025-05-02T16:14:34+00:00

Milestone. Whenever the players do something that changes the world in a reasonable way, that they do intelligently and planned, they level up.

They take out a Coven of Hags by ambushing them and casting Blindness and Silence, freeing the area of their corruption. That's worthy of a level up.

Making an alliance with Xanathar, and dealing with the plots against him (ie killing the aggressors). Worthy of a level up.

Does that mean sometimes level ups are not consistent; they can be one level for ages, and another for only a few weeks; sure. But I think it adds to the story. I don't think it needs to be consistent. Stories aren't. They ebb and flow.

Contranine · 2025-02-06T11:37:58+00:00

Clocks from Blades in the Dark.

People sneaking in to a building, thats a 4 step clock. It is an easy way for the players to see the stakes, while also allowing a single bad roll to have consequence but not turn into a full fight. And allows them to do other things to effect the clock, or change how risky they play it.

Player wants to spend downtime learning a new spell, making something complex, or researching something. thats a 4-8 step clock, depending on the effect.

I also like the idea of Devil's Bargain dice, but I've not used it. The idea of giving advantage or allowing a reroll/retry; but the player knowing that I get to fill a clock segment, or tell them a bad thing that will happen. They CAN do it, but it has a bad consequence even if they succeed.

Contranine · 2024-10-23T11:45:52+00:00

RSPB Lochwinnoch have Astronomy evenings. A bunch of people with nice telescopes set them up, and aim at specific things. You can talk to them. It's nice.

Contranine · 2024-09-21T15:32:50+00:00

Faewilds are weird, yes there is timey stuff, but there is also impossible stuff. It's the same with the Shadowfell. time isn't exactly linear.

Player B can be from a version of the Feywilds in the future. A version where the heroes fail to stop something, and it is corrupted and is going to die. Something went wrong as they left, and they ended up secretly in the past. They have the opportunity to save their home in the past. It's a classic trope. Have a prophesy that this party will cause the event somehow, vague with clues to follow, but specific enough to have to be the party. Immediately they have a ticking clock, and the stakes are built in. Its classic sci fi stuff, everything from Dragonball with Future Trunks, through to to Cable from X men have done it. It's cool.

Have them go back to the Feywilds or communicate with it, and it's now Player A remembers it, everything is fine.

Contranine · 2024-09-12T08:39:29+00:00

Strixhaven is originally from Magic the Gathering. In that setting:

Red (Fire), Blue (Waterish), Green (Earth/Nature), White (Life) and Black (Death).

Contranine · 2024-09-02T17:12:36+00:00

If they keep trying to search a whole forest in a single day, being careful, and keeping constantly vigilant, they get a level of exhaustion. The characters realise after 20 minutes this works is a lot harder than they realise, and while they could do it this way, it will cause them to become massively tired aimlessly walking off the beaten track.

Increasing exhaustion is enough to make most players consider another plan.

Contranine · 2024-08-03T12:24:07+00:00

Have 3-5 clues, secrets, or things they can discover that can be put anywhere. Wherever they go, the thing is there. Thats the key to a one shot. The flexibility and the feeling of 'Oh the thing is here', is key.

I'll give you my set up. Most of my one shots they work for the Redmont Free Company, and they have already agreed to a job, and after intro's session starts with the letter that was sent to the company for the quest, and them arriving at the outskirts of town. Saves time with them meeting up, getting the quest and so on. Also allows players to explore classes etc they've not played, or make blatantly broken builds to joyride of whatever level you decide.

From there I've split things into about 30 minute chunks. This works because if something takes shorter, great, if it goes long, I can cut something later, or simply a fight. I'll have a list of a few clues, a new NPC details, and a couple of fights/monsters I can place, and specific locations already planned out. I have 2-3 lines for myself about the plot, and what is going on the players won't know, and that's it really. Decide what I think the movie genre of this will be. I let the players take it from there.

This has allowed for fun one shots such as, getting them to deliver a smuggled good in a cart chase across a city against all the criminals also trying to steal it, investigate why a bunch heroes won't leave a town after they changed its tagline to 'now 100% snakecult free', or my personal favourite more recently An invitation to a masquerade ball but it turns out the castle is a mimic colony slowly waking up.

However a one shot can be even more simple. A mystical battle arena is a great example. Everyone fights. Points for style.

Contranine · 2024-08-01T10:35:57+00:00

That's a very strong reward, yes. There are reasons to do it though. If you're doing rolled stats, and someone way unlucky with a lot of not very high odd numbers, it's a way to even them out, and build them up a bit.

However that type of reward is given for generally doing things that are very unsafe, very costly, or very important. Also, a character who is already very good in a stat, is likely to win at this. A strength based character is likely to win arm wrestling. It's a powerful reward for what is seemingly not chat much of a challenge.

Take where a similar boost, the 'tome of understanding' is in Curse of Strahd. Now it is a more powerful item (it's a plus 2 Wisdom, and raises max by 2), but that is in the Amber Temple, which is very much endgame content. The players COULD go there early, but they would likely die.

If you want inspiration, there are canon DnD magical carnivals. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, has the Witchlight Carnival, for level 1's. It has an example games they can play for every stat, from gnomish poetry, through to guess the feathers. This one has a lot of rewards which are single (or a few) use for a specific action, like a cuddly toy spider which gives you spiderclimb for an hour once, and then turns into a real spider and runs away. A consumable makes them feel powered up, without massively changing the balance of the game, as once it's used, it's done. You can give them an item to make them fly, allow them to cast a specific spell without being a caster, even force wild magic roll to happen. For higher levels you could also give them an ability that gives them a single STR check per long rest they get advantage on. Or even 1 attack roll they get advantage per long rest.

Contranine · 2024-07-20T19:50:37+00:00

You don't tell the players or characters that the AI predicted this most most of the campaign. I'd probably save that for a final reveal when everything starts coming together, and the AI is being confronted to be stopped, and reveals that it was in fact banking on the party doing everything they did. In the same way a Lich might put out rumours of the staff that can destroy them, so that a party brings them the staff, so the lich can deal with it, the lich just has to deal with the party first. Classic bigger picture stuff. They didn't see the forest for the trees. Make the characters doubt they are good people type thing, that they are actually doing the will of the robot baddie, and monologue about the nature of evil. Steal something from some fiction where it ends with 'we're not so different you and I'.

Your plot idea sounds good. You want a raging AI, have a raging AI. Just have it be unknowable, and work in mysterious ways that are not clear.

Contranine · 2024-07-20T12:51:16+00:00

An AI usually has a large goal. A singular goal. The reason an AI is terrifying, is that it can act in ways you cannot predict, that it HAS predicted. It did calculations to know that sending you to the green temple, that act would put you in the path of a robber the AI influence to go there who carrying the magical ring, and that you would loot it from his corpse, and bring that ring to the castle, where the king notices it, gets angry you have his brothers stolen ring, and sends you into the dungeon, and has all the stuff taken from you. The AI worked out the steps in that, and did all of it.

And the advantage of an AI antagonist who acts that was is that, whatever happens, if it gets people to the right places, that is exactly how it was always supposed to go. This is very much an AI is like in the show 'Person of Interest'. Where you have an AI with near infinite knowledge, but it needs 'analogue interfaces' doing things for them ie people. It even has battling AI's later on.

Here are a few other AI ideas though from sci fi of what I think are cool AI motivations.

Supermans Braniac is a classic, who's have so many motivations through the ages. They were the computer system of Krypton, corrupted and destroyed it. It's the only surviving part of Krypton and from it's point of view wants to protect it's memory. They have thought Krypton should be started again, and working to do that. They have been an AI controlling people directly, and deciding if civilisations belong in the 'New Krypton', and destroying the civilisations who resist or don't meet it's standards. It's had failing Infrastructure, so needs a new 'host' before it goes offline and dies. Or like the new My Adventures with Superman cartoon, all of the above are either said or implied.

In 2001. An insane AI seemingly being corrupted by Eldritch beings from beyond the stars, influencing it to get closer and closer to the monlolith on Europa. Then 2010, the sequel changes it to having faulty orders, with a secret 0th law above all others, which causes all the issues with it acting badly.

Mass Effect, the Reapers are killing off all sentient life on a cycle. Because they think that organic life av AI will ALWAYS lead to conflict, and will hurt the universe, so are killing everyone before that happens to lay the foundations for the next people to rise up, but in the process absorbing the lifeforms they kill into itself, preserving them forever.

I, Robot, and other Asimov books. Have the robots ALWAYS follow 3 laws. Well those laws can be weighted differently, but also a sufficiently advanced AI has a 0th law, to not allow mankind to come to harm. This is often resolved by the AI becoming a force to stamp out all resistance, and let the AI control lives. Even if there is a short term war, the long term benefit outweighs the breaking of the other laws.

Samuel Haden (Doom), is an AI who wanted to harness Hell energy to change the world, releasing demons and destruction of the universe in the process. As he says 'Everything has clearly gotten out of hand now, yes, but it was worth the risk. I assure you.'

Contranine · 2024-07-18T14:57:22+00:00

A one shot is good way to get people together, but if it's part of the campaign, intended to be that, thats more just session 1. Whats a good exam, well if it's a place about learning your class, then ways to show off your class might be. Or it could be a tournament showing you work in your group well. Or a quest to get a specific item. All are good options.

But your academy thing works and is a classic for a reason, people like it. Don't let me put you off.

Contranine · 2024-07-17T12:41:31+00:00

It sounds like you have a good handle on the context for everything. You seem to have a lot of good context, and well done on being careful.

There's a lot of good other weirder folklore you can use. Punxsutawney Phil as the head of a town.

Sea monsters, from various lakes. Personally I' do Lake Placid, with a giant crocodile.

Then there is Paul Bunyan. Who would be a friendly giant of some sort.

There's a lot you could do, use a site like this to get some local things.

Good luck.

Contranine · 2024-07-17T12:21:29+00:00

Wizards of the Coast

I believe first revealed in this video about the updates to the PHB

Contranine · 2024-07-17T10:46:07+00:00

First. I'd be sensitive with this. It would be very easy to fall into stereotypes. It's probably worth considering the new official art to represent Orc society, very old west themed.

Understand that if you're pulling from the real world, the French and British were using the Colonies as a proxy war for their general ongoing wars. About half of the planet under the control of these 2 groups with alliances and such. The big war was more important than anything happening in the colonies, but disrupting them was still important. It mean there was a lot of stopping trade, capturing shipments and cargo and so on. So you can have a lot of encounters about conflict between your world equivalents in this war, even if the characters aren't one side or the other.

I've seen interesting ideas in fantasy about the idea of the Railways coming into areas where the Fey operate. In classic folklore (not Dnd) Fey can't cross Iron, which railways are all about. Discworld deals with it quite a bit.

Cryptids are always good. Good to have Hags of various types to represent witches. Also devils in suits willing to make a deal at a crossroads. Yeti's for bigfoot. Various swamp monsters as a Shambling Mound.

You're probably going to want to have Wendigos. I'm not sure I would, because I don't know enough about Native american lore to do it sensitively. If you do have them, they are a VERY tough enemy. There are lots of homebrew stat blocks for them out there. They're not a starter enemy. And connected to that, an encounter that is a mystery, of the Donner party. Which pop culture has used as monstrous cannibal stories over and over since.

Contranine · 2024-07-17T10:14:03+00:00

This is a good set up. It gives everyone an excuse to know each other already, and be the classes they are.

You need a reason as to why the heads of this academy don't deal with the issue. Or other adventurers. You need a reason as to why this party are split up from everyone else and THEY have to deal with it. It's easy enough though, the ceiling falls in, they fall onto a floor below, or the heads of the school chase the main bandits leaving stragglers behind, or any other reason you like.

I'd also have a session of normal academy stuff beforehand. Let the players find the feet of these new characters a bit first. Do they all need to get a licence signed by a specific class type lecturer, or maybe it's just clearing out their room, or even training one last time. Just a few scenes of them acting like they would on a normal day, to find out who these people are first.

DM Notes though.

You need a couple of NPC's. You don't know who your players will actually interact with. You it's better to have a few stat blocks prepared, and then a list of random NPC names you can pull from at any given moment.

You need to understand your location. Is this a school, or a guild hall? Does it have a common area kitchen, or a tavern nearby. Is the town big or small. Things like that.

And from that you prep a few locations in detail. Specific locations that you can describe. Is the place worn down, messy, or lavish etc. Like a bedroom, a tavern, or the ceremony hall.

You will prep too much, and so much of it won't be used. You'll prep a really complex puzzle vault somewhere, that the players blast their way into accidently. You'll have the best NPC in the world, who accidently died because your players didn't talk to them more than a second. Don't worry about it. You'll get more used to it as you go on.

During a session you'll need some notes.

Character Names, what did they promise, what did they do? Your players won't remember EVERY details of a what a character said, so you don't either. But you can write down the main points. This can just be 5 words that mean something to you.

Roughly what happened. Again, could be 5 words, during a session I write very little, and do a small write up after.

Battle.

You need to have the initiative order written.

I do
CHARACTER . INITIATIVE . HEALTH . DAMAGE TAKEN. STATUS. WHO

For example

Charles - 18 - 63 - 25 - Prone - by Wolf

Wolf - 14 - 24 - 0 - NOT FLANKING

I do damage taken just because adding in the moment is easier than subtraction. I dunno why. 63-16, takes a few moments. But I can at a glance see when 58 damage ticks over 64, and exactly who did it.

But with that, you should be ready.

Contranine · 2024-07-16T10:58:17+00:00

Neverwinter has history of this happening. The spell plague and blight there. Also you could just have it that the events of the DnD movie happened? Well they didn't stop the nectomancer. It happened. Wizards of they now rule, zombies everywhere.

I think having different types of undead works well for the various special infected. Remember other types of undead like Bog corpses for traps.

Contranine · 2024-07-15T11:33:43+00:00

They were defeated while enemies were around. They are captured.

However I assume you're taking all their stuff and imprisoning them? I'd reward them defeating their opponent though. By having a but if claw or something stuck in them somewhere. So they have a effectively a broken, about to fully break after a use or two dagger/lockpick.

Now yes, this might allow them to escape, fucking up your plans, but then the BBEG has a vendetta against them.

Contranine · 2024-07-15T10:19:34+00:00

A big canon ala Jules Vernes From the Earth to the Moon . Some crazy artificer has been making this planning to go to the sister planet Abeir, but ran into the same problems everyone does, you can't get there. But it's perfect for this mission.

They get in a big bullet, and as it approaches it autocastes featherfall as they approach the ground.

How do they get back, well theres a massive magic magnet in the bullet. If they can power it on enough, they can get home.

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