The orc warlord wants to slaughter all the halflings in the vicinity. Give the character personality flaws serious enough that his pursuit of this will involve doing evil acts. Pick something for the character to want (money, power, love, respect, control). The person who wrote out the most concise way of doing this is Rhynn from the Giantitp forums:ġ. The Players will invest more emotionally if the BBEG seems more human and has a personality deeper than the character sheet he is written on. When first designing villains (not just BBEGs, it can also be done for evil PCs), it is important to figure out what they want, why they want it, how they plan to achieve this, and what in the Nine Hells is wrong with the guy. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North. Teacher – Why did the Marian Reforms occur and why were the Romans involved in unsustainable wars? Etc. Me – Because of problems with the Marian Reforms leading to loyalty to the generals and not Rome and the unsustainability of multiple wars. Teacher – Why was Rome’s military overextended? Me – Because the barbarians were being driven west by other barbarians and Rome’s military was overextended. Teacher – Why did they occur and why were they successful?
Teacher – Why did the Roman Empire collapse?
#Bbeg dnd 5e character builder how to#
So, when I was gathering tips on how to make memorable villains I used my google-fu extensively, finding mostly unhelpful, but a few helpful, tips on how to design villains and decided to compile a few of the ones I found and add my some from my own experience as a DM, but the best advice came from my old history teacher who would ask “why?” after every answer. First of all, it took me a while to figure out what BBEG was an abbreviation for.