D&D - The Very Powerful Non-Villain Antagonist
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- We look a very powerful tool in our Dungeon Master toolbelt, the non-villain antagonist. Here are 4 types of these 'villains' to use in your games.
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Yeah, the problem with this is that my players basically define 'evil' as 'whatever happens to be opposing us'
hahaha.... well you win some...
Indeed you do, though I'd be curious to know how you deal with that general mentality. I make sure the worlds have reasonable consequences for their actions, in fact a PC recently had to go to court and ended up paying heavy fines for attacking someone in the middle of a market place. Even though that person was a "bad guy", he was in town minding his own business and had not broken any laws. This has not seemed to really change this group of PCs view that they should be able to get away with what ever as long as they shout "it was a bad guy" after doing it though.
(this reply may be rather late but.....) Make your players into the villains, let them run wild with their actions only to bring down the full weight of a nation onto them, the people despise, mistrust or fear them; shopkeepers hike prices or refuse sales altogether; taverns and inns close their doors. Then bring in the major conflict, a group of strangely familiar adventurers out to right the wrongs of the players; a group who won't listen to the pleas of the villains because they are villains.
Another late reply (but hopefully helpful to yourself or whomever may read this), but something you could try to do is create a scenario that really highlights the flaws in that mentality - Create a person acting as an obstacle to their progression, but then if the players harm them in any way, they then see that the person they harmed was purely good.
Perhaps they stumble upon a woodsman who treats them with suspicion and threatens to kill them if they come further into the forest. If they then harm him in any way, have them come upon his cabin later in their travel through the woods where they find the woodman's family, who will tell the party that their parent is patrolling the woods to keep them safe due to the recent bandit/monster/etc. activity. If they actually kill him then you can really drive home some guilt by having them hear a rumor in the nearest town about how the woodman's family is now living in a chapel basement, or even died at the hands of the bandits/monsters soon after the party's meddling. Maybe they overhear about how great that woodman was, so nice and caring, wouldn't hurt a soul.
Of course if your party is a bunch of murder-hobos that will kill someone for not selling them a potion for cheap enough, then that's an entirely different issue and there are full videos on dealing with that XP
Taking20: Some great examples of threshold guardians are...
Me: Black Knight from Monty Python, Black Knight from Monty Python, Black Knight from Monty Python...
Taking20: **Doesn't list the Black Knight**
Me: Tis but a flesh wound...
This needs to be seen 😂 classic. Tip of the hat to you sir.
The Knights of Ni would qualify, too.
You're forgetting the most feared and despised of all threshold guardians...
doors. **shudder**
"Strangely, you cannot get through this rickety and surprisingly gaudy wood door, despite all your party's major skills in lock picking, magic, and brute strength. You then notice a small stamp of manufacture at the top of the door:
'This Artifact is of DWARF FORTRESS Quality!'"
The dreaded moment when you charge into combat and your RAW-obsessed DM makes you spend your action to just draw your sword because you "already spent your free item interaction on opening the door to enter the room."
Summon Hodor to hold it
*war blashbacks to that rpghorrorstory critcrab read once *
And a pit with 1d4 dire rats.
I would like to add another type: the ideological foil.
The ideological foil has goals which actually align to the player characters goals, but their methods are destined to clash with the players methods. Most Suikoden games have this kind of villain. Code Geass has it as well, depending on where you stand, with Lelouch or Suzaku
Let's say your group joins a group of freedom fighters in order to oppose a tyrant. Among their opponents, there is:
- A general who needs military successes to get close to the emperor and lead a coup against him.
- A governeur who wants to reduce the burden on the common folk and is member of a faction of nobles who push for reforms.
All of these characters seek an end of the tyranny and none of them really does evil things. However, they will still hunt the resistence down and thus fight the players.
Don't forget L and Light from deathnote.
This is a nice idea, but then there's a challenge for the GM: what if the players will not find any of the villains' methods particularly harmful? That way, you won't have a single villain, just a bunch of people your players may oppose or support based on their own views. But at the end of the day that adds to the fun and variety.
The brother of the protagonist in fable 3 is a great one
I actually had a pretty cool one that follows along these lines, and I'm glad you pointed it out. My pc's and my antagonist were both trying to stop some evil dark lord from rising, and the antagonist was willing to do anything to stop this, including methods that were in direct conflict with my pc's.
Thanos
I recently introduced a non-evil antagonist in the form of a cash strapped baron who tried to claim right of tax on the loot the players obtained from a dragon lair close to his ancestral lands. He was looking for a 10% cut of their loot essentially and tried to obtain it through legal loopholes.
I set it up as sort of an arbitration with a council of lords where the baron presented his legal claims and the players were able to present evidence to disprove the baron's claims such as: the dragon may have attacked them in his barony, but the lair was not within the barony, the amount of the take was far less than anticipated (even though they brought a ton of riches back into town dragging the skull of the dragon behind their horses), if he deserved a cut why didn't he do anything to help, etc.
I didn't expect them to get so upset over the possibility of losing 10% and honestly expected the confrontation to wrap up in a couple of hours. The players deliberated for TWO SESSIONS whether to kill the baron, pay him off, black mail him, dishonor him, kidnap him. It went on and on. It was fantastic.
It was great as all I did was set up this simple scenario where a guy had a potential claim on a small amount of their hard earned wealth and sit back and watch while they went wild with it. I had no idea where they would end up and they demonstrated a lot of the behaviors you would expect of someone who is embroiled in a lawsuit they think is unfair.
Greed, the great motivator of players.
I had in my last game made a small but fairly well equiped bandits attack my PC's. After a long fight they found out where these bandits came from, a small but fairly well run little camp where only the woman and children were left.
Now I had planned this as a slight gray area where the PC's could feel slightly bad not about their actions but about what happened to these woman and children since your family name is what carry the crime and not the person in this world meaning that a lot of these people had done nothing wrong but either some of their previous family had or their husbands had.
Instead what I got was the phychotic parts of my PC's loot hungry feelings out. I overspoke a bit from one of the women that didnt really seem to give a shit about her husband's death and said they had enough resources to last a while even without them but would have a hard time handle living outside now. I meant for this to be a bit of a quest hook..instead 2 of the PC's started thinking about maybe just murdering them and taking all the loot..not just pushing them out and stealing but damn right murdering them..a suprisingly evil act from some otherwise fairly decent people characters that so far had helped a city but looking back only really for their own benefit...It was hillarious but also exstremely suprising that they would just go with that attitude especially since there wasnt really a lot I could do about it.
Every single one of these people were seen as bandits or along those lines so killing them wouldn't really be anything too bad if they were even found out about...
It did end up with them choosing to help these poor people..mostly because one of them seriously wanted to try and see if he could get a relationship going with one of them and another one arguing that if they give them a good life in a nearby village they could end up working for them when they became lords later on.
Moral of the story...Never fucking mention loot if it seems easy to just take unless you want murder hobos XD
My legal argument:
"The purpose of government is to protect the property of its people, and since the dragon stole from the people yet lived despite this responsibility the government had, that the government has no claim on ANY percentage of the treasure. Moreover, without paperwork on specifically what was taken from who, any outside claims to the coin could be considered defunct, especially if the coin was given to the dragon in sacrifice to it.
The sacrifice would be considered a legal transaction to ensure the people's continued survival. However, because the dragon was not a citizen of the town/kingdom, the dragon does not hold any legal right to life, nor against theft, therefor adventurers or dragonslayers such as ourselves could not be charged for such crimes. But, because the dragon is indeed a sentient being, and thus was the owner of said coin, the coin also cannot be considered to be obtained through natural work, like that of mining or production, which could be taxed. All in all, if you had wanted the dragon's treasure, you should have either seized it, or made them a citizen and somehow taxed them.
We have no legal obligation to return any of the dragon's treasure; however, we can make exception for sentimental items on a per-case basis."
I think players should only be able to use this legal argument if they have a lawyer's degree; and the DM should tell the player this exact legal option if they have a lawyer's degree from the Nine Hells. :3
Dude, I added into my sessions that a kid got a piece of parchment that passively used turn undead with a 10 ft radius (Exclusively to explain how the kid managed to get back through a horde of zombies), players start threatening the kid after clearing out the immediate area of zombies for him to hand over the parchment.... FML....
@@doomguy19931 "Greed" is apparently now not wanting some d!ckhead to steal your money. Go figure. XD
Just one small bit of advice. I watch a lot of TH-cam and usually I have my volume at about 1/3 on the TH-cam slider and 80% on my PC. This is about right for most videos. For your videos, I have TH-cam set to max volume because you're so quiet. The audio is fine quality, just quiet. You may want to boost the volume a little as sound matters the most in these sorts of videos.
the music in the intro seems a bit loud to me, you may want to balance it a bit in my opinion.
It seems every video you make lately is so low that I can barely hear you. I listen a lot in my car. I have everything cranked up to max and it's still too low.
Yeah I’m watching on my phone and at mad volume he’s still quiet, the music is as loud or louder than his voice.
@@feartheghus Yes, the music is AIDS loud. Like I have ear aids every single time it transitions.
I'm actually making a false antagonist in my campaign. I'm hoping it takes them by surprise. I'm planning on making it a lich that lives near a small village and the players will be hired by the village to bring back some young maidens he "kidnapped." It'll turn out the village was using virgin maidens in blood sacrifices to keep the crops growing almost monthly and the lich had kidnapped these girls to save them from this fate. i doubt they'll se it coming.
so, how was it?
I’m using this.
But I might use a dragon or a horde of goblins.
Exaclty, how was it? And why would players team up with a lich after all?
Honestly, I kinda hate when DM's come up with "oh you were the bad guys all along" like, come on man, I wanna be a hero. Now I don't know if they'll eventually have the opportunity to find out about the fact that the "bad guy" isn't the bad guy or if you'll just let them find out after they've killed him and ruined the day. But yeah, if your players enjoy it, that's all right.
A good lich? Thanks, i hate it.
Here's how an antagonist I threw in did.
My group of players were while walking in a populated area, when a *seemingly* random bystander stabbed an innocent person.
The crowd immediately made a circle around the body, and lo and behold, the murderer had rolled a NATURAL 20 with a sleight of hand check to actually PUT THE MURDER WEAPON IN ONE OF THE PCS' HANDS. (I didn't even cheat at that moment)
A traveling swordsman got out of the crowd and pulled his sword towards the adventurers' party.
Long story short, the swordsman assumed the PCs had murdered this poor innocent fellow.
The townsfolk fled the scene and not a lot of eyes ended up on them.
They ended up killing him, and their decision was made fast.
That was supposed to be an encounter made to make sure my players wouldn't start killing anything resembling an antagonist.
What I had in mind is that they attempt persuading him that they (at least probably) didn't do it.
They didn't even try. They just outright beat the hell out of the man before killing him.
They didn't even go "I'ma just make non-lethal final damage to put him out.". No, they had to kill him.
EDIT: At least they got a dagger, a nice sword and stripped a man out of his armor.
I’m thinking of something like a Double Blind Antagonist.
This antagonist works in the background towards its end goal but its actions still affect the protagonist(s) , who in turn thwart the antagonist without either of them knowing who is messing each other’s plans. Culminating in a race to try to figure out who the other party is first.
Could be even better if it turns out that they were close to each other all along, e.g. Lelouche and Suzaku from Code Geass. The trick would be keeping it unobvious. Players aren't NPCs. They aren't gonna ignore the tiny hints you drop.
You could have another group of adventurers who are tying to collect whatever item the players are searching for. Perhaps if they make peace with the party, then they can later find that party dead deep in whatever dungeon holds the item as a testament to how dangerous the dungeon is.
For your competitor I like to use things like the race to the pole as inspiration. Neither side is clearly good they just both want to reach the south pole first.
Great example.
Well, Filch desperately wishes to torture students. That's rather evil.
Nah, he works in a school with bad behaved, disgusting brats who do not obey the rules. That reaction is pretty much the standard for school staff.
Some teachers/staff just hide it better. :D
(Sorry to bump an old comment)
He actively asks for permission to use physical punishment on the students. If you think being bratty is an excuse for that, I know a good therapist
I've never played DnD but I enjoy your videos, they help me with story ideas.
Man, you help me come up with so many ideas. You make it so clear! All the different types of characters and possibilities just open up from listening to these.
Here is a way to spice up your game. Use the Non-Villain Antagonist!
(For Aspiring Writers and Dungeon Masters alike)
Taking20 LIKE THANOS
How do i do that
One of my favourite Non-Villain Antagonists I have used is in my current game. They party are a group of adventurers hired by the king to help them against an empire that wishes to conquer them. The Knight Commander of the nation, however, utterly hates the party because he feels that they are doing jobs that should be done by the military, even if he ultimately has the exact same goal that they do. He does things to try and circumvent them, like sending soldiers to deal with threats that the party is supposed to deal with, or have soldiers supervise the party on important missions. In fact, at this point the party is more antagonistic with him then with the main villain, who views the king as his personal nemesis rather than the party. But the party can't just go and fight the Knight Commander, since aside from the fact that it would be betraying the king's trust to try and do that, he's currently more powerful than they are (they're level 7's and he's level 15), so they have to instead find other ways to get around his dislike of them and do their job.
Not to mention all of the soldiers he has under his command who, legally speaking, would HAVE to fight the party if he ordered them to should they give him a reason...that's probably also high on the list of things they want to avoid...
@@morgantaylor84 Or give the party a chance (though perhaps a small chance, or make it difficult to pull off without getting caught if they lack "inside help") to find proof that the Knight Commander is intentionally getting in the party's way rather than trying to help them, and then let them bring that proof to the King. Then the King would basically be obligated to punish or even "oust" the Knight Commander. Or you could give the Knight Commander a direct subordinate (like a lieutenant or aide) whom is as supportive (albeit secretly) of the party as the Knight Commander is not, so that that subordinate may "briefly misplace" orders from the Knight Commander to give the party a bit of a head start over any interference from the Knight Commander.
Or, you could eventually set up a situation where the party and the Knight Commander have no choice but to *work together* (like, say, if assassins managed to infiltrate the castle with the intent of killing the King, so the Knight Commander and the party need to team up and help each other to stop the assassins before they can reach the King), and perhaps have such an event lead to the Knight Commander developing enough respect for the party that he may back off a bit on how much he tries to interfere with the party.
....Or perhaps the Knight Commander secretly has a "thing" for the King's daughter and hopes to win her heart, but she could be very supportive of the party, so if she finds out what he's been up to it could ruin his chances of ever "winning" her heart, and this could possibly then be used by the party to threaten the Knight Commander into backing off and letting them do the job they were hired for.
@@gamester512 Well, I was more responding to what the logical conclusion of the party deciding to just outright fight the Knight Commander would be. All of the above would be excellent ways of alleviating that particular non-villain antagonist.
Since it’s been a while since this comment was made How has this relationship developed and how is the campaign as a whole doing?
Great video. I liked that you clarified for people your view on the words "villain" vs "antagonist" using definitions. Then, when talking about non-villainous antagonist types, you used mostly good examples. Well done, clear video.
+Tletna :-)
This is my favorite of your videos so far.
I just subbed yesterday and I'm so glad I did! I absolutely love the way you think and how you explain things - strikes the nail on the head, for me.
This was my first non roll 20 specific video I've watched and it was very helpful! Thank you for your work.
Chris Williams Glad you enjoyed it Chris!
the quality of the video blows me away, you're on the right track !
Thank you so much. Been trying to learn new stuff and put it to use.
Just found your channel yesterday, love your videos. Very helpful and inspiring. Definitely subscribed, and I look forward to more!
every now and then i like to take a trip on over to tvtropes.com because videos like this.
IMHO the music should be less loud
This so much. The music detracts from the amazing advice or just general talking of the videos.
I think any amount of volume is too loud for most of the time in this video.
I had the volume on my phone at 75%.... Sounded great. Turned up to full volume, it's a little distracting
First campaign i played, second or third session in, we hear about this group called "The Silverspears" a group of bandits that have been attacking merchants and we will get payed for each one we kill. We head off searching for the bandits and not long after we start are search do we find a group of 6 people in uniform. I step forward and roll a successful deception roll telling the group that me and my compatriots are looking to join the silverspears. I had instantly assume they're the bandits, and they were, but the wizard gnome of the group decided to burning hands the shit out of the group causing us to roll initiative.
We find out after killing 19 of these "bandits" that these guys are ex.military, the government is corrupt, and we killed about 20 innocent people. ALSO THAT MY WAY OF DECEIVING THE BANDITS WOULD HAVE WORKED OUT AND WE WOULDNT HAVE NEEDED TO KILL A BUNCH OF INNOCENT LIVES.
Yep!
Not everything is black and white; good and evil. Love this.
I’m not gonna lie I would’ve killed that wizard. I usually play paladins and druids so the idea that someone would just go off Half cocked and kill a bunch of innocent people when it wasn’t necessary would make my character very angry. Although that might be me as a player getting a bit too involved
First game I played I killed the wizard PC because he thought using lighting on a fisherman was funny also he kept trying to derail everything and run away from the group.
that's hw most paladin lose their powers tho xD
I'm just getting the confidence, and time to start running a game. I know this video is old, but it earned you a new sub. Great stuff. Looking forward to watching your other stuff!
Great video! Love the content and the editing as well!!!!! Really brought it all together!!!! Thanks!
(Also, bonus points for referencing DodgeBall!!!!)
No one makes me bleed my own blood!
Dude the music in this one reminds me of a seminar or an info-mercial! Sweet!
I also like to use what I call the "non-ally who is an ally". This is playing into the natural suspicions that of ally NPCs. Because of the trope that ally NPCs turning on the party has been done to *death*.
So have an ally NPC who has their own objectives, their own goals which can put them in opposition to the PCs. Sometimes this goal can even be forced on them.
Here's an example. In my recent running of The Mines of Phandelver. I had a tiefling NPC who was also a love interest of one of my PCs. But she was working with the enemy. The PC did a really good job of playing his reluctance to fight her. But then in a battle where she was with a group of enemies that the player was fighting, she rolled a crit on an attack roll, but the attack still missed. But that's all I said. I left it to my players to realize that she was intentionally missing her attacks. As it turns out the BBEG had her sister in the Wind Echo Cave and this NPC was only working with the BBEG to get her back.
I love this vid! So many great ideas compacted into a simple video.
Thanks Khadim. Glad you dig it.
I love the new intro so much! Tone down the music a little bit throughout the video though, should be very low-key.
Just finished and this is your best made video so far, grats!
Thanks. Not quite as much research as Volo's, but... some leg-work involved hahaha.
Now if I can just figure out the perfect balance for music.
I have a high level necromancer/time master spell user antagonist. He is held up in a mansion that is caught in a time warp, existing in two places at once, or rather two times. He's from the distant past, at least originally. He's lived so long he's been able to try and change what goes on in the past, but our heroes find that in trying to change the past by using the unexpected "time-slips," he is causing harm to the present. What they don't realize is, someone else caused the true timeline to disappear due to changing the past and the entire party, and possibly the necromancer/time master, must work together on both sides to change the timeline back to how it was prior.
I am using this a bit. I have an enemy who was a once proud young man who overthrew another evil ruler who became immortal and killed everyone. This young man named Raditz Cairn fought him long ago and was able to disarm him and wounding him but was also wounded. He took the evil rulers weapon and ran. Well come to find out the sword is cursed and twists its wielder.
One of my PC's has a backstory involving the once evil ruler named Teldor who turned good after being released from the evil swords control. Right now they are in the middle of a war and are about to confront the big baddie, but through a series of Insight checks and careful talking they were able to get Teldor to reveal his past and how he was responsible long ago for hundreds of deaths and how the big bad they are to fight actually stopped him and fell under the evil swords control.
Needless to say, but they are now severly conflicted lmao!
I think anytime you can give your players conflict on what the right thing to do is... THAT's the best thing for your game.
th-cam.com/video/WcHupt29HBw/w-d-xo.html
Thank you for this video. As an aspiring author, "Antagonist vs. Villain" is a topic that I love to poke at. Just because a character does something that directly opposes the motives and interests of the character we're supposed to be rooting for doesn't make them inherently evil, and I love it when people explore that creative space.
Personally, I'm building a Battle Royale campaign (that will hopefully be starting soon), and I'm excited to see how my players react to the NPC competitors. Some of them aren't truly "evil," but they just want to win, and I'm wondering how many my players will actually bond with versus how many they just try to defeat outright.
I have to agree with some other posters, I am finding the music distracting. I think some fade-transition music is fine, but not quite so loud.
All in all good work, keep it up!
Another great show man... for sure. I miss your old intro music... Heheheheh :)
Thanks for the clarifications. I've already been working on a non-villain antagonist, who'll present himself, as soon as my party finishes their first dungeon.
Hey, Cody! I'm a new viewer to your channel and have subbed up for sure. Found you thanks to the guys over at Nerdarchy (also on the youtubes). Your videos are really great and I wanted to say thanks for the great work and you have gained a big new fan.
Thank you so much! Glad to have you!
This was awesome!
Thanks! It's hard to watch this video now with audio levels and lighting... but glad it helped!
What about the "Force Antagonist". I use this a lot, this goes for people hypnotized by the big bad, somebody being blackmailed, somebody being tricked, a skeleton or ghost being controlled by an evil necromancer, ect. I think these are great antagonists, that make the players think about weather or not they should be hurting them, or killing them. I think it's such a good non-villain antagonist, and when you didn't put it in, I was sort of mad. I really think more people should use it!
Great Video!
Good video!
Great comments and input, thanks!
Thank you for making this video - I'm working on an adventure for my game that uses a group of 'adventurers' that I plan to have 'mirror' the PCs, and was looking for a way for them to interact competitively on a quest where both sides are searching for the same item. I've put in place some controls that rein in the more murderous souls, but I wanted to have them compete in a semi-friendly fashion. This gave me some ideas as to just how I might accomplish things.
My only quandary now is if I should have the competitors actually win the competition and retrieve the idol, or have the PC's win in a *very* narrow victory...
I know, WAY late response, BUT.. others may see this and have it help them.
I have to say... NEITHER. Set the goals, set the objectives, set the stage... and let the players' actions and the dice decide.
SO many times i have heard DM's talk like this... which makes me think that many more THINK like this. It's a mistake. Game Masters do not "decide" the outcome... they set the stage, but if you stack the deck with a pre-determined outcome, where's the fun? Players eventually figure it out. They WILL eventually clue in that either the one running the show won't kill them off... or worse yet, begin to believe they live and die at YOUR whim. This can lead to groups dissolving, hard feelings and worse.
It is NOT the DM's job to pre-determine outcomes!! I cannot stress this enough. We set the stage. We provide the conflicts, and the hooks. But the choices are theirs... the wins and losses are theirs. What player would feel any pride and sense of accomplishment in succeeding in a challenge that was railroaded? Once they know their campaign is on rails... may as well go watch a movie, cause it's the same thing.
Set the stage. Write the score to the piece... but let the PLAYERS dance the performance. Believe me, long term it will work out FAR better.
The non-villain antagonist in my game is a halfling named Pip, who is the leader of a rival adventuring party. My players HATE him, and it's hilarious because he's never done anything to slight or oppose them, and is actually pretty nice to them, if a bit snarky. But it's that him and his party is just a liiiiitle bit more successful than them, that the party hates him. His basically Gary, from Pokemon.
This is a great idea and something I haven’t really utilized. I already have some ideas to inject such an antagonist into an existing game.
This is great food for thought. The false antagonist is a great story element, if you can pull it off.
A fifth type is counsellor- throws ideas at characters so they are no longer have a simple idea of what to do. Has to be powerful or else they'd might try to get rid of him.
Funny Valentine is my favorite antagonist. Wanted him to win more then the protagonist.
I always love the threshold guardian bait and switch. One of my favorites was a Shadow Dancer Copper Dragon as the target for the PCs to go after. An entire dungeon level behind him there was this huge stone statue of him, which obviously was going to be one of those stone guardians and the PCs felt they were being watched in the room with it. They went to move through the next door and... well the shadow of the stone statue was the Dragon's Shadow. A fight ensued, but no one figured that would be what happened
Cody: @2:23 "Some great examples of zealots are..."
Me: "Who are all these people. :D
I'm going to have to really put some thought into this. I have a definite *villain* for my campaign (a shape shifting slaver who's taking children. Pretty clear cut evil, there). But for some side stories, I can incorporate a few of these ideas...what I like about what you're talking about here is that antagonists introduce a degree of ambiguity into your game, and once you can do that, you are enriching your game in ways that can potentially be quite profound.
One of my favorite examples of this comes from the Anime Bleach. In the conflict between Ichigo and Byakuya. Ichigo is determined to rescue his friend and first teacher Rukia from what is to believed as sanctioned execution. Byakuya is her captain who is enforcing the execution. Though not a villain, he stands opposed to Ichigo, and an epic fight breaks out between the two. Ichigo could be identified as "Chaotic Good". While Byakuya could be identified as either "Lawful Good" or "Lawful Neutral" Byakuya is defeated by Ichigo, and both character's motives are brilliantly explained for why they opposed each other. Later the order for Rukia's execution was reveled to be falsified. Byakuya immediately, welcomed Rukia back into the ranks of the Soul Reapers when the truth was reveled to him, and once again became her captain. Rukika resumed her duties as a fully fledged member of Byakuya's squad.
There’s also more rational antagonists like that of an enemy during war, if both sides are fighting over a territory and neither is committing war crimes, neither outright invaded the other just to murder people, etc. then you can have quite the opponent without having it be about good and evil, instead being about which side you’re on in that specific conflict, or even just about survival.
Come on, you forgot the knights of ni for threshold guardians. They're the best of all time.
This is just what I needed. Planning a massive treasure hunt campaign that has several non-villain antagonists (as well as a couple of clearly villainous antagonists), and I'm reconsidering the initial role of one organization that is dedicated to preserving and protecting the arcane. False antagonists, HO!
Good video. Many stories use these( come to think of this). I've used these without realizing I was doing it. Happy accident!
Love the Green Lantern stuff in the background.
In Brightest Day!
In Blackest Night!
So I am the player but a character from my backstory for the game my friend is about to start accidentally fell into this category. See, my character is an orc Golem Architect (though the class is unimportant) whose goal is to become strong enough to go toe to toe with his spouse, a war cheiftain who is famous for her brutality and cunning, or, as my DM decided when I told him my idea, a level 15 barbarian with really high WIS. My character wants to defeat her not as a show of power or because he doesn't feel worthy, but because she teased him one time by saying Golems are nothing more than front line fodder and he is extremely petty. He is now on a quest to create a Golem so powerful and so intelligent that it'll easily best her in both competitions of combat and strategy. So he hasn't told the rest of the party why he wants to defeat this chieftain. All they know is she insulted him and he wants revenge. They don't know they're from that they're married or even from the same time, and now I don't think I'll tell them. It'll just be a minor antagonist we will have to defeat later. It's a weird motivation, but I wanted to make him light hearted and fun because every other party member has at least one dead person in their backstory.
One of my favorite threshold guardians was the Morpheous character in Samurai Jack.
One of my favourite none villain antagonists to use in games is Bureaucracy. My players are currently in a city where everything has to be documented, surveillance is tight, there are rules for everything and they are very unforgiving. It's fun because it takes the characters out of the usual murder-hobo mindset and makes them find other ways to solve problems. It creates frustration for the characters, but done right with a bit of humour, it's vary amusing to the players.
I had the main antagonist of my last big campaign be a combination of an ideological foil and false antagonist. The PCs ended up being unwitting pawns in a quest from an adventuring guild that lead to them discovering someone behind it all. After a campaign of following threads and acting as the occasional foil to the antagonist, they finally met. I set him up as going a bit far to complete his goals, but ultimately he was working for the greater good. If the players disagreed with his methods, then there was a final encounter planned. If the players agreed to join him, then the campaign would end with them becoming allies in his plot that would affect a future campaign.
In borderlands 2 there is Handsome Jack. a beautifully crafted antagonist. He has clear motivations, reasons, and he even states that he wants to return order to the land by wiping out all the bandits/robbers/evil guys. He is a very interesting person to read about or look at his reasoning
Always love ur vids but could u do some diff music or none?
One that I think is often overlooked is the unknown antagonist or the indifferent antagonist (depending on how you look at it). The unknown antagonist is an antagonist that oppose the player by the consequences of their actions but nor the player or the antagonist know each other. There are rare examples of this types of antagonist in the media because they don't make a good story in terms of movies, but are often found in comedy. An example would be when the protagonists are competing in an event trying to win first place just to show another team (their known antagonist) who's better. In this type of scenarios, nor the protagonist nor their know antagonist won the game, it was a different team that had nothing to do with them or care about them.
In role play, if done right, make a sense of discomfort and mystery with personal and character growth. Who is stealing our pray? Why the town that we knew was in danger is now safe? Who bought that cool looking sword that my character was dreaming of? The players obviously would feel annoyed that their adventure would end just because someone beats them to do it. They may feel aggravated because was their time, their sense of achievement taken away. They may want to find and confront their antagonist... just to find that that antagonist didn't even knew the protagonist or care about stealing from them. Heck, they may shared a tavern or two in their adventure. And the best part; the party did the same to them in more than one occasion. They stole their reward, they solved the problems that the antagonist was looking for, and buy that good looking armor. That is the idea, to create a more to the ground antagonist that threaten the party in realistic ways.
At the end of the day, that unknown antagonist may become a real antagonist-friendly team that they would help each other in time of need, exchange a few banter and gets in each other way by accident or "accident". Or they become a very bitter enemy that looks to throw them to the mud at any opportunity. You may never know.
I had a game in which almost all the main NPCs and many from different factions or groups almost always seemed villainous but they all claimed to be there to help the PCs well all but one so far. The rest of the game is of vague world ending threats. Anyone that seems friendly or nice seems weak. Really leads to some gut checks. So the undead paladin of conquest or the clearly diabolic charmer who really has my best interest in mind. Maybe the Wight that gave me his sword oh I think he is friends with that undead paladin or maybe not. Drives the players crazy but you really can watch their faces and know they are thinking hard who they help and who they ignore or even attack.
I have a concept where the antagonist is a city mayor who is following the laws but is almost assassinated when the party arrives in town. The party is accused despite their innocence and they become criminals. If they fight the guards they become more and more notorious or they try to use the underground with the actual villainous element. It can potentially split a single campaign into 2 seperate ones. The first through the underground and the second through the city watch.
The last campaign I finished, I had 2 groups of antagonists that were misunderstood and competitive and a bit of zealots, at least in their ideas for defeating the evil antagonist. It created some awesome story and the players were so distrusting of anyone, that they made a 3rd party and opposed the other two while trying to figure out a 3rd option. It was chaotic, it was beautiful. They did end up mostly saving the city.
V’Ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a delightful antagonist of this sort. It isn’t evil-it’s explored what it can and wishes to complete its mission, to discover its Creator or God. It just can’t comprehend that an organic race like humans could fill that role.
Had to check to see if my video was skipping due to the in and out of the music around the 3:30 mark
My party would probably end up with half of them committing murderhoboism while the other half turns around and whistle while profusely denying that they know them.
That could be a cool branching path for a campaign. Maybe by paying attention you realize that the false antagonist isn't an antagonist and can avoid killing him or you can kill him and realize your mistake after
The Rival Adventuring party that just so happens to be slightly ahead of the main party. The Pokemon method always works.
Huh, surprised he didn't mention the Templar and the room with the Grails from indiana jones when talking about the threshold guardian.
one of my pcs has an explorer that despises him from his background, I need to figure out a way to make him a problem without letting the party of two paladins and a cleric just waste him.
My last character ended the campaign when he switched from being a hero Conjurer and Baron, to being a Zelot that ended the world several times trying to "fix" it.
My plan was to drag it out and be fun for everyone but the DM wanted to wrap the game up on short notice so he took control of him befor I was going to have him NPC, when It'd make sense. Now the other players want me out of the group, and I didn't even do the thing!
I'm currently using a theocracy as both a Zealot and a Competitor, as well as a possible False Antagonist for my D&D campaign. They have a very "Vengeful Paladin" type feel, and one of the players is a Tiefling, which are seen in the same light as Cambions (half-fiends). Both the theocracy and the party are fighting the same evil cult, but the theocracy views the party as hostile due to the Tiefling (who is a really nice guy and a doctor). With luck the party could prove the Tiefling's innocence, but I doubt the players will manage.
I'm disappointed you did not use Gary/Blue as a competitor for this list. He's the perfect rival antagonist
7:28 also consider Ballast McGee from Thrilling Intent.
I'll have to play it again to know, but I believe Tales of Berseria uses all of those types of antagonists and a lot of types of protagonists
The Threshold Guardian can be a very powerful trope when used late in the game: the powerful, heroic party, in order to obtain the power of the Final MacGuffin, must defeat its previous guardians to prove that they are worthy to become its new caretakers. In my experience this results in a feeling of awe, purpose, accomplishment, respect, and even reverence.
I using a beholder as a threshold guardian. When they notice the ancient sword from one of the players. He disengages and attacks the bad guys, giving the players enough time to escape.
One of my favorites is Rose from Legend of the Dragoon's backstory.
A fanatic is someone who redoubles their efforts while losing sight of their goals.
I misread the title I thought it would be a video about non violent antagonists.
One great thing about non-villainous antagonists is that a party of non-evil characters will often be reluctant to kill them and thus may seek non-violent alternatives to solve the challenge.
Also, a good example of a villainous false antagonist that was also a zealot was Magus from Chrono Trigger (who was also coincidentally the son of a woman named Queen ZEAL, who was an actual villainous Zealot). He's built up as this big villain, the creator of Lavos, and the "big bad wizard", but it turns out he was indirectly a victim of Lavos' machinations, and everything he's done has been with the intent of destroying Lavos before it can consume the entire planet, so the player ends up discovering that the main bad guy they've been pursuing was actually trying to prevent the very thing they thought he created, yet he still doesn't become an ally until much later, and that's optional.
Im working on world building for a campaing im planing on Narrating next year (we have a queue XD). this helps a lot
Glad you found it helpful. Happy Gaming my man!
I feel i could get a lot out of non-villain antagonists, but i'm unshure how to incorporate them. The Problem is, that i'm currently running an evil campagne, where the pc's have a fair bit of history of killing npc's that annoy them or travel alone carrying nice stuff...
I actually plan to have a reluctant villain who ends up being the harbinger of the elder gods and a faction that is against that goal, the players are going to help the reluctant villain and the faction is going to be opposing them that whole time. Interwoven with a false prophesy that says the villain is the savior to help keep the players on there side to begin with and small clues throughout to then have a reveal at the end of act 2 once they have all but ensured that they have sucessesed
Most mystery driven campaigns will include a number of false antagonists (or some level of hybrids of the others). As the story unravels, the trick for the players is to identify which of these the true villain may be. A good DM will drop enough damning clues for each so that it’s hard to discern which is which until later in the game. The occasional false antagonist NPC may even eventually align with the players to aid them in some way. The big reveal should feel like a revelation, avoiding the Scooby Doo ending being paramount -barring of course an intentional parody/comedy (which, let’s be honest, can be a fun break, but not generally the effect you want when tying up a lengthy adventure).
Early on in the video, I couldn't help but think of Miko from Order of the Stick. She starts as a powerful paladin zealot who is working to help save the world. But things get worse, read the comic. Anyway, she is an amazing example of an antagonist with good intention and she is set in the world of D&D, making her a great example of what can be done.
Also a perfect example of how NEVER to play a paladin in a serious campaign (now, O-Chul, on the other hand...).
I'm throwing my PCs in a dungeon with a Saw-esque beginning, only for them to find out that the guy who throwed them there wanted to test them and also had a problem with giant rats in his cellar (and the traps were actually designed for the rats). If they survive he will give them a mission to retrieve some artifact from further in North and give them the gold they salvaged from the "dungeon" as up front. So, looking forward to that :)
Please increase the volume of the microphone. Got you on max on my phone but are struggling to hear at some times
I don't do the "enemy-turned-ally" thing because most of my players are new, and, therefore, a few of them are murder hobos. They already try to kill the explicitely good NPCs, so inviting a false antagonist is just asking for the death of that character
Could an ally still be considered a rival, or is that just a rivalry? I would think if it’s an ongoing point of frustration of the character (not the player!) a continued jockey over party leadership or the affection of a 3rd party might be an example of an antagonist that still functions well in a party (of experiences role-players).
My favorite non-villain opposition to players, is the rival party of do-gooders. Usually either more mercenary or utilizing distasteful methods to beat the PCs to their goal. They must be different enough in character in order for the PCs to hate them rather than recruit them.
Iceman and Slider from Top Gun are good examples of competitors
Threshold Guardian: You have chosen poorly.
I'm currently running a campaign based on Arthurian lore. I have SEVERAL of these characters in the campaign, because a huge part of that mythos was the level of politics and intrigue between members of the Round Table. My campaign is set after Arthur's reign, with Mordred reappearing to claim his birthright on the throne. Much like the original stories, Mordred will be the catalyst for the breaking of the Round Table, and players will discover which antagonists were just annoying, and which are truly villainous.
What if the antagonist methods are actually "holier" than those of the PCs?
You can have them rethink their way of behaving.
This would make wonders for those parties that start interrogating the prisoners by snapping their fingers.