... And then Darth Vader walked in

[Rechan]

How do you introduce your villains?

A funny thing happened in my session last night. See, I had watched "Transporter 2" over the weekend, and I was inspired for some good ol' fashioned "Running through the building, jumping, leaping, dodging, hiding, and all together cinematic fight". I went with a typical "Badguy kicks in the door; after he's dead, you find a clue that leads you in that direction." That didn't quite happen.

As my PCs are coming out of their second-story inn room, intent on identifying an evil-looking scroll they pilfered off a bandit king, the far wall of the hallway exploded. A wagon was sticking out of the wall. Its rider, a woman in robes, stepped out onto the hall, followed by some hellhounds.

I expected the fight music to start. But no, the players said "Oh Crit" and decided to parlay. Apparently, they were thinking "Anyone with the power to crash a wagon through a second story wall can go toe-to-toe with us."

They encountered her again, gave her the fiend-summoning scroll, intent on stopping her later, but damn if they're not afraid of her.

I find it amusing that I got myself an intimidating villain, all by how she arrived on camera.

How about you?

 

[Drawback]

That's a good one... I'll adapt it for my game!

 

[Dalamar]

This one has some spoilers for the Eberron adventure Shadows of the Last War: [sblock]The PCs enter the Mournland in search of the Macguffin, but run into some Emerald Claw soldiers. They eavesdrop on their camp only to hear the soldiers talk about their leader Garrow, who seems to be a powerful vampire. Later they're fighting some of the soldiers inside a ruined house when they hear a horrible voice calling the soldiers. Since PCs are only 3rd level, they know they can't take on a vampire and start a frantic scamper over the wall even as glowing red eyes appear in the doorway...

Of course, they only learned to hate Garrow when they found out that he was no vampire, but a changeling.[/sblock]

 

[Rechan]

One last bump.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If anything, I go the other direction, underplaying my villains when they first come on stage. That said, the BBEG of this campaign -- whose name hasn't even been mentioned yet, but whose existence has been stated multiple times -- likely has a big enough head of steam to be impressive when he finally steps on stage, merely from all the build-up.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

If I tried that Rechan, I would hear a bunch of D20s rolling followed by woops of joy as the players celebrate their multiple natural 20s.