Craft complex antagonists for unforgettable adventures

The final showdown. After smashing aside all the diversions, mental games, tricks and traps, the party has caught up to the villain. They've been forced to face their demons along the way, made sacrifices, but have finally earned the chance to end the villains reign of terror once and for all. That's the kind of villains we want to bring to the table. And in this episode, we're discussing our best techniques for doing just that by creating a charismatic, manipulative father figure villain for our adventure, Corruption in the Temple of Trials.

To create a villain that is not only a powerful character, but is useful in your game isn't easy. They need to be bad people, but obviously not so bad they cross boundaries. They need to be fun to hate, but in a way the players feel compelled to stop, rather than laugh at. And they truly need to be custom-built, because as great as Darth Vader is, he's a great villain for Luke Skywalker and his pals, not for Indiana Jones. Our process is to look at our player characters, determine themes and threads we want to pull at, consider any inspiration points, and fill out our NPC generator with a villain in mind. In The Extra-Dimensional Gateway, we bring up three great villains to inspire our concept. Hans Landa of Inglorious Basterds offers us a ruthless monster under a disciplined, polite exterior. Rhas al Ghul of Batman Begins provides a great model for a mentor, mixed with an "ends justify the means" mentality. Finally, Joseph Seed from Farcry 5 gives us the mindset of a zealot that believes himself the only one capable of shepherding his people to a better life.

Then, in The Conspirator's Conclave, we start to fill out our NPC creator. We get into the nuances of how we plan to introduce this villain, the light version of his "origin story", and his goals. Then we make sure we have some elements from our mystery guide, like a fleshed-out plan for the party to stop, and other suspects for the villains' crimes that might throw players off the scent.

How we build NPCs: NPC Creation in Stages

How we build mysteries:

D&D Mystery Simplified I: Worldbuilding — Hook & Chance (hookandchance.com)

D&D Mystery Simplified II: Story Beats — Hook & Chance (hookandchance.com)

D&D Mystery Simplified III: The Details — Hook & Chance (hookandchance.com)

As always, huge thanks to our patrons for making this episode a reality.

Inigo the Brave, David P., Adam F., Alex R., Steve A., Sigma, Kuraidoscope, Skyler E., Deadman, Ninja Duckie, PseuArt, Blackthorne, First Law, Peacockdreams, DM Thunderbum, Marley R., Timewarp, Dangerous Marmalade, Zach G., NoMaam, Michelle T., Adlerious, Chris F., The Senate, Lucas D., Lyla G., The GM Tim, Nevermour, Thomas W., DM Natske, Heavyarms, Leprecan, and Will H-P.

Quickly populate your world with meaningful characters that the players need to know.

NPC's are the tool of a GM. They are how you draw the players into your world, they're how you communicate with them, they're expressions of all your plots and schemes and worldbuilding. They're entertaining, they hold secrets to uncover, they allow great roleplay, and work together to create suspense! Easier to just say they do everything. So we better make 'em good. We offer our NPC Creation Guide in order to do just that.

We've solved a lot of our previous stumbling blocks with our NPC creation guide. No more hours spent tweaking the perfect badass outlaw that's absolutely crucial to the plot, only to have the party push him off an airship just to watch them fall. No more disastrously named and conceived NPCs that force you to throw out all your prep, as the party now wants to make them ruler of all the lands. Just what you need, when you need it.

In The Sanctum of Scholars, we get an idea of the NPC we will build in this episode, starting with why we want them in our game in the first place. Running with our concept of "A child that needs protection and moral guidance so they can know how to handle their new powers and responsibilities", we crack open a couple of psychological concepts to inspire them. The first is the theory of psychosocial development from Erik Erikson, which helps us put this kid firmly in the middle of an identity crisis. The second comes from It's Not All About "Me": The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone by Robin Dreeke, which gives us a few ideas for how to make sure the party likes them.

In Orrick's Landing, we explain how our NPC Creation Guide works while putting it to work on this character. We come out the other side with a wise, confident kid that's naive to how the world really works. At only 12, she can be found going about her many temple chores while having a thrilling conversation with her best friend Candle. After greeting the party with a friendly gap-toothed grin, she asks for help finding everyone she's ever known.

NPC Creation Guide

As always, huge thanks to our patrons for making this episode a reality.

The Secret to Purpose-Driven Villains

Build a Likeable NPC in Stages