How to introduce a BBEG?

[Pbartender]

All you need is an indication that the minion was following somebody's orders. An unsigned letter. An NPC to remark that the minion lacked the creativity to concoct the now foiled scheme on his own. The foiled scheme being covered up or cleaned up by an unknown agent.

It could be as simple as a slip of paper with a location and date on it... Obviously, someone told the assassin when and where the PCs would be. That should be enough to pique their curiosity that a BBEG exists, but not so much that his identity is readily apparent and they charge off after him before they're ready.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I also like the technique of letting the PC's meet the BBEG in some venue where they can't take immediate action - in one recent game, one of the BBEG's was a guest at a dinner party being held by a 3rd party. The PC's couldn't just draw blades and attack. In this case though, they knew he was a bad guy ahead of time.

In another case, the PC's knew the general gist of what the BBEG was up to, and looked into getting info from the best expert they could find... who turned out to actually be the BBEG, but before they had any direct links to suspect him seriously (though they had an inkling).

 

[Ydars]

There are two ways; subtle and unsubtle.

Unsubtle; an insubstantial illusion of the BBEG is directing the minion. The illusion can move speak and see but cannot fight.

Subtle; the PCs recover an item from the fight with the minion. It is distinctive and valuable. The PCs will sell it or keep it. Later, the PCs can find out that someone was asking about "the bearer of the item". This gives the PCs a hint that someone is after them. Then the BBEG will leave a few clues to deliberately lead the PCs into a trap without revealing who he is. e.g. the PCs are lead to a coat of arms of a minor noble. When they visit his castle, they find he is dead and there is a trap laid.

When/if the PCs fight through this they will be annoyed. Then you can give them so real clues to the BBEG via marks on crates stored in the sacked castle or something similarly subtle.

 

[Pbartender]

I also like the technique of letting the PC's meet the BBEG in some venue where they can't take immediate action - in one recent game, one of the BBEG's was a guest at a dinner party being held by a 3rd party. The PC's couldn't just draw blades and attack. In this case though, they knew he was a bad guy ahead of time.

In another case, the PC's knew the general gist of what the BBEG was up to, and looked into getting info from the best expert they could find... who turned out to actually be the BBEG, but before they had any direct links to suspect him seriously (though they had an inkling).

Yep... This works too...

The last Dread game I ran, the characters met and had several benign conversations with an odd Eastern European gentleman while traveling on the Orient Express. It was not until much later, when they met him again under very different circumstances) that they discovered he was actually Baron Strahd von Zarovich.

 

[Darklone]

Simple. Last time I let the PCs spoil the plans of a BBEG... after her defeat, they started to wonder where she had gotten all that strange money from.

 

[MarkB]

Sneaky way: Put out a whole load of rumours, tales and legends about who might possibly have been responsible for all the recent nasty goings-on. Watch as your players lock onto one of these possibilities and pursue it with bloodhound intent, and whichever one they pick, make him the real BBEG.

Alternative: Everyone knows who the BBEG is and nobody tries to hide it - it's just that he's both too powerful and too far-removed to take on directly at the time (e.g. Sauron). Just be careful that access to fast-travel magic doesn't solve the 'far-removed' problem before they overcome the 'too powerful' issue.

 

[Set]

Have the BBEG be a foe of the *apparent* BBEG.

The party fights off the seeming big bad only to discover that the fair maiden they rescued from him back in scene two, who has fed them some stuff she overheard while a captive of the big meanie, has taken over his postion as crime-lord or slave-lord or evil-high-cultist of the unspeakable one, having betrayed her former boyfriend and set him up for the party to kill off, along with all of his loyalist henchmen, leaving her unopposed.

Why was she his prisoner? She'd already overstepped her bounds before, and got caught. He hadn't decided whether or not to kill her yet, when the party 'rescued' her and became her blunt instruments to try, try again to seize control of the BBEorganization.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Take your time. If the BBEG is so much more powerful than your PCs, then there's no reason for them to meet him.

Slight disagreement here. There is probably no good reason to have the players fight the BBEG. However, having the players meet and speak with the BBEG is absolutely worth doing.

The reason is simple. The players can be much more invested in killing the BBEG if they can put a face / personality to him. You can take my advice and run a 'attack and retreat' encounter, or you can have the players meet him then find out later that he is a bad guy. Or you can have the encounter happen in circumstances where combat is unlikely.

There is a reason why movies and television have scenes where the villain is doing his thing when the players are away. In the movie Brave heart, the english king is a great villain, but William Wallace never actually meets him or shares a scene with him. But his presence in the movie adds to the movie.

In D&D, things you cannot quite use that technique, but you can set things up for the Villain to share screen time with the bad guys without a fight happening, if you are careful about how you go about it.

END COMMUNICATION