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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rogue Agent" data-source="post: 5825114" data-attributes="member: 6673496">If you're running this kind of non-railroaded, "let the dice fall where they may" kind of campaign (and I heartily endorse that), then you can't try to pre-plan who the recurring bad guys are going to be. You just have to let the dice fall where they will and see who the recurring bad guys turn out to be.For example, in my current campaign the PCs have just recently managed to kill a woman who has been tormenting them for 20 sessions. She started life as a minor NPC who was there to deliver a little bit of exposition. But instead of getting killed the way I thought she would, she survived. And shortly thereafter circumstances found her bitterly angry at one of the PCs and leading a group of assassins to kill him... and somehow managed to escape from that one, too. And things just kind of built from there.OTOH, in the middle of all this, I had a player join the group and decided to set things up so that he would have a vendetta against a cult leader. I figured this cult leader would be good fodder for some recurring villainage. Instead? The cult leader got killed with a single shot in the back of the head while his back turned. He literally never even saw them coming; and the PCs didn't even know who they'd killed until half a session later.This is actually true for a lot of stuff: For example, if I want the PCs to become friendly with a couple of colorful characters in the local bar I won't just prep a couple of colorful characters in the local bar. I'll prep six or seven and whichever ones the players "click" with are the ones who'll get developed as play continues.Out of all of this, I can give you two tips:(1) The villain needs a supporting cast. And they need to decide to run away long before the end of the encounter.(2) Once a bad guy has clicked with your players, you can effectively build their hatred for him through minions without ever putting the bad guy back in the line of fire. (This can also work with the bad guy never getting introduced, but it's trickier and usually less effective. But if the PCs have already met the guy, forged a personal connection, and got a real hate-on going... That's when any mention of his name is just going to piss them off more.)</blockquote>

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