Do scenarios need a BBEG?

[Odhanan]

For the adventure to be adequately engaging and in the end, satisfying for the players involved, I do think there needs to be a momentum and finally, some sort of climax to the adventure, yes.

Whether this is effectively a "boss" to overcome or some sort of other obstacle, a combat or not, is another matter entirely. I do not think there needs to be a monster to beat particularly, but some sort of obstacle or climactic situation to resolve, yes, definitely, simply because of this momentum I was talking about.

If the level of dramatic intensity (whether it'd be obstacles, confrontations, puzzles whatever) remains constantly the same players will get used to it and in most instances, will become bored in some way.

Idem, any adventure needs closure at some point, even if it was running "in the background" for some time. The main threads need to come together at some point for the adventure/campaign to be satisfying dramatically speaking. This is not to say some mysteries can't remain, some can: that's like ending a movie by an opening towards a potential pre/sequel, but it shouldn't be more important to the end of the adventure than the closure itself.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I for one would like to see a moratorium on BBEGs and Dramatic Climaxes and all that nonsense. It's a cliche that's been done to death and is usually a crutch for those who lack imagination.

And you dress funny.

Good call insulting about 3/4 of the people on this thread, though.

I'm just sick of every gang of bandits, every goblin raiding party, every ogre or werewolf being part of some Grand Plan by some BBEG.

But gangs, raiding parties and wolf packs being anarcho-democratic communes without a leader, that would make more sense to you?

 

[DonTadow]

I think the problem is that a lot of DMs stop telling the story when the BBEG is encountered. There's a way to run that battle and if you don't make it epic its going to fall flat. Too many times its treated as another encounter either ending in a complete beat down or a complete victory. To those DMs I recommend watching some climatic movies and notice the type of circumstances that come up when the BBEG is envolved. I'm famous for altering the encounter mid battle and throwing in random elements one way or the other to drag it out making for some really cool "end scenes" .

 

[Victim]

I like having some boss encounter that's tougher than the other enounters in the adventure, but it doesn't have to be some big solo boss. Really, I tend to think mixed group battles are more interesting than either solo BBEG or BBEG + weak, similar henchman fights.

 

[Ourph]

I think this is a great theory, but deeply unsatisfactory in practice. While the overall plot can (and should) continue, these sorts of stories work best in chapters.

Which is why I generally shy away from anything resembling "story" or "overall plots" as well.

Think of a game session: How often do you stop in the middle of a conversation with an NPC and say "OK, next week, he'll answer that sentence, and then we'll continue talking for an hour and then do something else?" Probably not routinely.

I suspect most people like to end a session on a cliffhanger or having resolved something. In a game where the primary form of solving a problem is sticking three feet of sharpened steel into it, that resolution is often combat. And again, while you could end a session after the group kills Random Guard #3, doesn't that seem a bit dissatisfying?

Sessions don't end in the middle of an NPC/PC discussion but they often end at some random place in the dungeon because we've run out of time. I don't think of sessions as installments in a weekly TV adventure show, they're just game sessions where we pick up with wherever the game stopped last time. Occasionally, I'll call a game at what I call a "good stopping point" like before the PCs open the next door in a dungeon or right after a fight where I know some of the PCs are likely to level up, but I've never even considered manipulating the game to end the session after an important and climatic encounter. I don't see the need. It doesn't seem dissatisfying at all to end the session after killing Random Guard #3 to me. As a DM, where the session ends makes no difference. As a player, I'm just happy if the session ends with my PC alive.

What's more, it's not realistic: Power structures imply someone at the top, probably served by lieutenants. It's not only more dramatically interesting and more satisfying to have the player characters conquer a lieutenant at the end of a long game session, it makes more logical sense than "OK, you kill all the faceless bureaucrats and search their file cabinets. Cross-referencing the results of last year's audit with the most recent census, the group discovers the next place to go." In real life, there'd at least be a middle manager guarding that file cabinet, surrounded by his army of temp-mooks.

I don't buy the realism argument. I wouldn't consider the nominal leader of a bandit gang a "BBEG". He's just the guy in the group who calls the shots. To me, a BBEG implies some sort of higher-challenge mastermind (like a high level NPC or a "boss monster") and AFAIC the idea that every group has such a leader and is built on a regimented hierarchy is what's unrealistic. If you're talking about LE monsters and NPCs maybe it makes more sense, but for other groups without that alignment, a less regimented and organized structure seems perfectly natural. I usually try to steer away from using complex organizations with a single mastermind as a behind-the-scenes puppetmaster in my campaigns at any rate. To me (and from what I have heard in idle chitchat from my players, they agree) game elements like that are too cliched and restrictive to be appealing.

In general, the challenges I throw at my players are more along the lines of "Here's a dangerous place. Here's a reason to go there. Decide what you want to do. Go!" or "These people are doing X, these other people over here are doing Y. You can either take sides, form a 3rd faction or try to avoid getting involved. Go!". And as I said before, usually these challenges are either extensions of or based on ramifications from previous events in the campaign, so there's no real "scenario" with a beginning and an end; the events are extensions of the ongoing action. My experience has been that this kind of organization is far from dissatisfying. YMMV.

 

[Piratecat]

Proponents of BOTH sides need to continue this conversation without insults, please.

Personally, I think climactic challenges (whether confrontations, moral decisions, or choices) are great fun. The trick is to challenge the players' expectations. It's quite simple to have a BBEG who is no cliche' and who keeps the players on their toes. For me, that's what makes the game really enjoyable.

 

[DonTadow]

Which is why I generally shy away from anything resembling "story" or "overall plots" as well.


Sessions don't end in the middle of an NPC/PC discussion but they often end at some random place in the dungeon because we've run out of time. I don't think of sessions as installments in a weekly TV adventure show, they're just game sessions where we pick up with wherever the game stopped last time. Occasionally, I'll call a game at what I call a "good stopping point" like before the PCs open the next door in a dungeon or right after a fight where I know some of the PCs are likely to level up, but I've never even considered manipulating the game to end the session after an important and climatic encounter. I don't see the need. It doesn't seem dissatisfying at all to end the session after killing Random Guard #3 to me. As a DM, where the session ends makes no difference. As a player, I'm just happy if the session ends with my PC alive.


I don't buy the realism argument. I wouldn't consider the nominal leader of a bandit gang a "BBEG". He's just the guy in the group who calls the shots. To me, a BBEG implies some sort of higher-challenge mastermind (like a high level NPC or a "boss monster") and AFAIC the idea that every group has such a leader and is built on a regimented hierarchy is what's unrealistic. If you're talking about LE monsters and NPCs maybe it makes more sense, but for other groups without that alignment, a less regimented and organized structure seems perfectly natural. I usually try to steer away from using complex organizations with a single mastermind as a behind-the-scenes puppetmaster in my campaigns at any rate. To me (and from what I have heard in idle chitchat from my players, they agree) game elements like that are too cliched and restrictive to be appealing.

In general, the challenges I throw at my players are more along the lines of "Here's a dangerous place. Here's a reason to go there. Decide what you want to do. Go!" or "These people are doing X, these other people over here are doing Y. You can either take sides, form a 3rd faction or try to avoid getting involved. Go!". And as I said before, usually these challenges are either extensions of or based on ramifications from previous events in the campaign, so there's no real "scenario" with a beginning and an end; the events are extensions of the ongoing action. My experience has been that this kind of organization is far from dissatisfying. YMMV.

There are many ways to run the game. It seems you play the game more like a game whereas some play it more like a story. If you're just playing it like a game with no ending then the subject of this thread is pretty much moot to you. It seems your asnwer to the thread is, well i just play a completely different way where there's no story. Its obvious that a story is important to the author and ending it is the point of the thread.

 

[Rel]

I think that if every encounter or every session ends with some kind of BBEG then it gets a little dull. But I do like having them in my games, especially when they manage to slip away from time to time and become the "recurring BBEG". Once the player really start to hate them then that's good. And once they hate but ALSO respect them then that's GREAT.

 

[Kristivas]

I've seen a lot of "as long as there's some kind of climax" posts, but how do you handle the end of a session, adventure, or campaign where the PCs actually lose? While anti-climatic endings leave PCs feeling disappointed, what about losses?

A huge, Final Fantasy 7-type campaign occurs. The BBEG, his Lts, and his minions do heinous things to the PCs (and of course the PCs do a lot to thwart their plans). It comes down to the end, and the group is facing the last guy and his two warriors. Not only has this guy burned the towns where the PCs have come from, he's managed to murder people dear to them (family member, spouse, ect) for all they've done in ruining his plans. The battle is too heated, too bitter to end with mere words. Blood must be drawn.

And... the PCs lose. One escapes with his life, while the others died heroically. This one (the rogue haha) has no plans of going back for revenge because, quite frankly, the beating they took scared him enough that he's not going back after that BBEG again.

So, you're sitting there after what the players have considered an epic game, but they lost and it's over. The BBEG will rebuild and carry out his evil plan, and it would be too cheesy to have each player roll a new character to take up the exact same battle. You fold up your DM screen and you notice your buddies all looking forlorn, as though you just kicked their new puppy. A few grumble, some look away, and one of them is looking at your head like it's the bag of doritos.....

How do you handle THOSE kinda climaxes? The bad ones.

 

[Dr Simon]

I guess using the term BBEG was perhaps a bit too specific.

I'm not wondering if you need a Pit Fiend Overlord behind every evil in the world, more that whether the end of, say, a particular campaign thread, needs to be climactic or not.

A climax doesn't mean that the PCs win. It means that events are pushed to one critical situation where the outcome changes everything. That might be that the PCs lose, but the point is that things after the situation are different from before.

Time is short, I shall return to this later.