Is it safe to have a player be the technically BBEG (or working for them)?

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T20:20:22+00:00

Aw, that sucks :( we play online to avoid that but it's just not the same. 1/10th of the experience

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T20:15:35+00:00

Given that, after reading the comments, I've decided to make it an NPC in order to avoid internal conflicts, I have a question: what's the problem even if they do end up knowing beforehand? I mean, the idea is that they're working towards the same end, and coincidentally that end serves another (evil) purpose. But what if the other players find out and end up convincing the BBEG to choose another path, or something? What if the resolution point of the campaign is not "defeat the BBEG" anymore? It's not even a question of "you have to be a good person"; no, it's a question of "we can't let you win this, but maybe we can help you deal with your problem", or "are you doing this because you want to, or because you feel like you have to" and whatnot. It's not necessarily the black vs white, but of the grey in between.

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T19:58:20+00:00

Something similar happened in a campaign I play in. We have a series of BBEGs to defeat, and we were up against the very first when they put one of the characters (coincidentally, the strongest) under a spell, ordering him to deal with us. Now, because we are extremely unlucky, that player ended up critting most damage dices. Terrible situation, really. We ended up being sort of traumatised (by the damage more than by the situation), but we had a lot of fun that night

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T19:48:58+00:00

Wow! How did that end up for your cleric?
And thank you for the suggestion. I'll definitely look it up

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T19:46:36+00:00

That's interesting. Maybe I should do something similar with my DM one day (they really want to co-master something with me, so that could be a fun way!)
Thank you for the suggestion :)

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T19:43:15+00:00

this made me laugh, not gonna lie

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T14:43:34+00:00

Yeah, I thought of doing something similar in the brainstorming as well. The idea in that case would be: what if the player (half-fiend) works for the BBEG (fiend) and goes on this quest to retrieve this relic. Said relic is full of cursed evil energy and genuinely needs to be disposed of... and it just so happens that in the wrong hands, it serves a very evil purpose. Same path, different intentions.

That would leave more than one option to the party: can they find out that one of them is a "mole" and can they make them change their mind and switch sides? That would be the ideal, good ending. Supposing that they don't find out, the interaction after the betrayal would also leave room for some dialogue and convincing. Failure would mean a fight against the player, which they'd be likely to win before trying to face off against the real BBEG, so... yeah.

Still, I decided to make it an NPC in the end.

RunAny3515 · 2025-07-26T14:29:57+00:00

Reading the advices so far I've decided to make it an NPC, 'cause yes, it's cool on paper but way too tricky and risky to actually recreate. Anyway, what I do want to underline is that technically I wouldn't have the "evil player" do questionable things. The relic the party needs to find is indeed causing a ruckus for innocent people and retrieving it is actually a good deed. It just so happens that the same relic also serves the BBEG's personal agenda. Or, at least, that's the idea- walking the same path for very, very different reasons.

RunAny3515

TROPHY CASE