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I get this impression this was more a list of things not to do, rather than a list of things to do... and that the actual advice was in the Lord Paxton example. I get out of this feeling this video acknowledges that I sometimes have tough dilemmas, and yes, I have a fair grasp of things I should avoid doing. But... this was more tips on what to avoid than actual good ideas aside from the example... which I've heard of before. So, sadface. ___________________________ This said, I can share one frustration of mine. At some point in my current game, my 10th level group got outmaneuvered. They infiltrated a castle keep on a rescue mission, only to be ambushed right and left... and ended up herded where the ruler's held court, expecting them. Cue the realization of a big upset, reveal than a trusted NPC ally present with them was possessed and actually now a double agent. They'd been outmaneuvered, a valued ally stolen from them... and I asked them what they would do? Fight? make a running battle for their objective anyways? Flee? I knew for a fact that the Cleric in the group had Word of Recall ready. I was counting on it. I had subtly encouraged them to prepare ahead of time for their time in there, foreshadowing they were in going to a primary enemy stronghold and that things could go wrong quickly. There was that Word of Recall, they had invisibility potions they crafted after being gifted with pixie dust. They had the means to fly. They could relocate to bottlenecks and try to hold their ground if they wanted the stalwart go-down-fighting solution; they had plenty of healing available to hold out. I built on the suspense of the moment and spurred them to action: "What do you do?" And they gaped, at a loss for words. The compromised NPC, under duress, still encouraged them to flee. They just stand there, missing their window of action, and I eventually have NPC guards collect them to imprison them. The imprisonment was not something I was too bothered with. I had planned ahead, and knew it could happen as well, along with some ideas on how a jailbreak could entertain them (incidentaly, this placed them next to the person they were supposed to rescue, so their escape didn't mark a complete failure of their mission). What annoyed me, though, was how I expected to reward their precautions. After that session, I asked my players why they just sat there and *took* it in the face. Yes, they had been stunned - they admitted - but even worse... they thought it was a cutscene. It. Wasn't. A. Cutscene! I wanted to reward player agency, not railroad them. Listening to DM Lair videos inspired me to make my scenarios "situations" rather than encounters so I wouldn't just drag them by the nose through the solutions I expected them to do. It was just disappointing, and perhaps a stab on how I've run things before... something I've done in the past coming back to haunt me. _______________________________ I don't feel my summary entirely conveys this, but I've faith that this was a good twist. But it could have been *great*... and this cutscene assumption from my players dashed my enjoyment of it. I need to be able to do better the next time I set something like this up. This is why I appreciate videos like these. I do, this time, emerge having more questions than answers... but still, thank you for being here to give us this kind of advice.
I like to have them interact with him when they just can't know he is the big bad - Like maybe he is somebody who hires them (or tries to) to go on a quest to retrieve an item. That item could look innocent in the first place, but later would be playing a huge roll in his plans for conquering the world. And by the time the players found out they inadvertantly helped the villain it is too late for them to do anything about it. Or they meet him, but not in a fight or something, but in a social encounter. Like he could be one of the advisors of the king and be present in an audience or they are fighting in an arena and he is one of the people in the audience or the players and the villain are both invited as guests by an important person. That way the villain could be forshadowed in his conversation with the players and the other characters and they could still act, but just fighting him would be taken away as a viable option as the situation would mean there would be dire concequences to starting a fight.
@@Battleguild at level 3 a fireball can take most of them out haha, just leave them on the ground dieing and have him say: "if you survive I may find some use for you in the future" and lettem roll death saves kek
Strahd is one of the only go to where I think having him regularly interact with the players works. It actually works with his character because he is a narcissistic bully who doesn't think that anybody could ever harm him. It gives the players personal incentive to track down the magic items needed to defeat him.
A scene like dinner with Strahd needs to be handled with finesse, though. Many players or PCs (given a particular personality/build) would find dinner with Strahd incredibly frustrating and not fun or automatically exclusionary. For instance, why would Grimlock Axebeard, uncompromising angry drunk dwarf barbarian, even attend? Story-wise it makes sense for him not to be there as he's only going to cause massive trouble but this means that the player's going to need something else to do. So plan that to happen when the player's going to be absent or late or enlist the player to play the creepy butler for a bit. Or have Strahd tailor things for each PC. Or... well you know your players. The DM really needs to play the whole thing more like a monster movie with some lightness and behind the scenes wink and a nod, or it just turns into grinding gloom or constant situations of plot overriding player agency.
Yeah, Strahd is fun, as he's designed to be able to show up, say some stuff, show the party they need some level and item grinding, spare them, refuse to elaborate, and leave.
Some of my players have trouble recognizing villains who don't run around going "Muahaha, look at me being Evil!", and I have absolutely capitalized on that in the past in order to have them meet and chat with major antagonists. Though at one point this did backfire a little when one of the PCs decided to hook up with the BBEG. It led to strange and interesting shenanigans, the BBEG being able to pin everything on a lesser antagonist, and the two of them sailing off into the sunset on his airship while the reanimated corpses of his previous victims (the mysterious unseen crew) danced to the Love Boat theme. The player seemed okay with this.
If the evil villain is super powerful, then what's to say they dont have powerful allies that could do something like ya know resurrection. Most villains are gonna have back up plans in case something goes really wrong.
I really want to run a game where the BBEG has a necromancer working for him BBEG dies and now the necromancer decides to take over, using zombie BBEG to enforce his rule
@@minnion2871 Funny you should mention that! My players met an "ally" they later discovered was a lich but is helping them against a mutual threat. They sent her a message and an illusion of her appeared, asking what they needed to assist on their quest. One of the party members asked for diamond dust. "Hold out your hands." And the illusion holds our hand and upends it, pouring the requested dust into the PC's hands. 2 of players audibly gasped at the power that would take. They never talked about turning on her again after that (the mutual threat arc was the conclusion of that campaign or they may well have resumed eventually).
Having the powerful ally take over and become the new BBEG is also a really interesting idea. It lets the campaign continue while still allowing the player's victory to have a noticeable effect on the world.
The last campaign I was part of did this. We fought ( and won) a battle against a resurrected evil king, but his right hand man just escaped to resurrect him again causing our group to search for a spell of true banishment and make everybody do the big forget of the bad guy.
And for an example where it was used a little less effectively. FF9 and the Necron fight, I love that game but having some rando come out of the woodwork after the Kuja fight and be like "I was behind it all" LITERALLY OUT OF NOWHERE was a little headache inducing
Use them in a situation the players can't do anything about like if they are scrying or stuck behind a wall of force the bbeg made. Never do it in a situation where the players can hurt them or have an opportunity to intervene. But most times, it's better to not do it at all.
I have made an agreement with my players that there will be cutscenes, aka things happening while the characters don’t interact, in order to have interesting things happen and stuff that would mechanically not work otherwise. The condition is, that I allow the characters to act at the next best possibility. This way you can cutscene travel, story points, events etc. without having the PCs on constant pressure to find a way to impose their will on the world all the time. Example: You have been taken prisoner, you are taken in front of a judge and he hears you. Then you get thrown into jail. The first day passes and after the sunlight has faded, someone throws a little metal object into your cell - what do you do? This way we avoid any and all stupid „they will never take me alive“ and „I hold the judge hostage to get out“ attempts, because my players know I will throw them a rope... or a key to their cell in this case.
I like writing short stories or just a few sentences of a conversation that the PCs aren't actually privy to, that I send to an archive channel. Players are okay with it because they enjoy narrative, but it really depends on the table!
@@Nepfbert That's a really good way to do it, especially because it opens up the possible range of stories you could tell. It requires trust on the part of players but in this case cutting down on the "you'll never take ME alive!" mentality that some players have helps because you did it really quickly.
sooo this is bad news for me. Im about to dm a one shot next week and it has a cutscene at the start.. the rest is all 100% player though. im worried now
Barbarian: your not very good at this dungeons and dragons thing Hold on, you don't know what you're talking about. That's luke heart, he's been a dungeon master since high-school!
@@roland4618 I mean... the module never makes him out to be a secret entity, there is no mystery about him being the big bad. And don't the players find out his name in chapter 1?
I see a fake villain to throw us off the trail of the real one. I see your meta plot for the skits now Luke! Well played. (Starts going back through older skits to find foreshadowing that secretly point toward Fat Cat or old man commoner being the main villain of the skits.)
Luke: And you’re probably saying, “Enough if the stupid skits, just give us the 5 tips.” Me: Enough of the tips! *draws dagger* Now it’s stabby stabby time!!!!
If the definition that we are using for Cutscene is "The part of the game where the Dungeon Master talks and the players listen.", then of course I agree that it is not necessarily fun to experience. However, we already have the solution to this problem that can make cutscenes fun for the group. Allow the players to interact with the cutscene instead of gawking. When I had a villain enter a scene and start doing dastardly deeds while proclaiming his greatness to everyone present (players included), one of my players said "I'd like to cast lightning bolt at this guy." Do you know what my response was? It was not "You can't do that, this is a cutscene." Instead, I said "roll damage." There is no rule stating that the players cannot participate in the dungeon master's cutscenes.
In fact, sometimes, cutscenes can be designed to be interactive, such as what you describe when the rogue interacts with a trap. You could start describing the environment and inclusing a 'click' or similar sound in there. The player gets a bonus to their save if they react correctly (i.e. get out of the trap's area, block the arrow trap with a shield or similar object, etc.) or penalty if they react poorly (i.e. actually put themselves in the trap's trajectory, jump towards the pit, etc.) or didn't react at all, if you made it obvious enough. Credit: That example is the 'Click Rule' borrowed from Dael at Monarch's Factory. I haven't playtested it yet, but it seems like a fun dynamic.
My personal favourite is for the BBEG to leave a trail of destruction that the players can follow. For example a mad wizard who releases magical plagues on unsuspecting towns trying to perfect the technique and when the players arrive they find his notes strewn about in some cottage.
I had a campaign where the players were just like what you were doing in the beginning of the video (i.e. murder hoboing), so about half way through the campaign I switched it up where the players were the bbeg's and didn't realize it.
@@theDMLair They would hear distorted rumors about a group of villians pillaging and assume it was the original BBEGs minions. Along the way they fought what they thought were the minions of the bad guy but were mercenaries hired by the people and nobles to stop the rampaging player characters. When they confronted the BBEG it thanked them for doing all the dirty work destabilizing the forces of good making it easier for it to take control. The real kicker is there were no "evil" aligned players in the party, they were all either chaotic neutral or chaotic good, but their interpretation of 'chaotic' meant they could do as they pleased.
@@AvenueStudios Yeah, I feel like too many people don't really take the time to read into what those alignments actually mean. I can see why so many DM's avoid using the system entirely. To me, Someone who is neither good nor evil means that they aren't particularly malicious but also don't really have any reasons to step into defend innocents who are being attacked or wronged. I'd think that a character with that alignment would need some kind of self-serving motivation to do so. Chaotic Neutral PC's can still be viable "Heroes" if played correctly. Unfortunately, some players just want to murder everyone and everything regardless of what their alignment is. I'd say, in that case, talk to a DM about maybe putting together an evil campaign. You can murder to your hearts content... or just go play Skyrim and lay waste to Whiterun like any other well adjusted human being. :P
The Necromancer's Boss Who The GM Totally Did Not Just Make Up Just Now: "What? My figurehead was killed in a tavern brawl? It is time to escalate. Bring out the skeleton dragon!"
I did a bunch of different things in my current campaign to introduce the Big Nice Goodie Guy (a Bronze Dragon, players are playing pirates). They first got some info from their captain, who wants to kill it. They later had something about it in a museum during a heist quest. Some time later they had a personal encounter but managed to remain incognito, and lastly they found a pirate adrift, a survivor from the dragon's attack on his ship. When the survivor told his story, instead of me telling what happened, I gave the players NPC statblocks to run in a fight against the dragon in a flashback. This got them the chance to see the dragon fight and maybe start thinking of a strategy, and it let me run the dragon. Plus, one of the NPCs I gave them succeeded his death saves, so that was the survivor, and they got a strong crewman out of it.
if nothing else you can tell he has watched Running The Game, lots of "subtle" references/coincidences. also, Matt Colville has used cutscenes very effectively in short bursts for helping sell a side narrative. So..... yeah might be a jab, might not be
Goliath Barbarian was very surprised when he tried grappling a 12-14yo girl who had just killed a beholder, a fomorian, 12 orcs and a bassilisk. He rolled a 24 strength check, but unfortunately the polymorphed ancient dragon rolled a 31 and she just twisted his arm, grabbed the giant crystal and walked out... with half the party stuck in a force cage.
@Trin Silvers Nice. I usually use just some random schlep to do it like a family dies in a raid the players mess up and their son is a wizard in traing who is sent over the edge when they hear the news. Or the players are defending a village from orcs at level 3 and a peasant girl gets killed, sending a random knight in training into the arms of Asmodeus or even a random bandit group you beat at level 1 that stumbles on a magical artifact in long-forgotten ruins that causes them to kill each other until one is left who now feeds on the souls of the living using the said artifact. I like it because it keeps the villain out of the party’s reach and allows the villain to grow in power along with the party while giving your party an organically personal connection to the villain.
I kinda use cutscenes, I just don’t let them have an enormous impact on the story. At the end of all of the sessions, I use little “epilogues”, where I show that the world that they are in is constantly changing. Usually it’s to foreshadow something, but sometimes it’s to show how they’ve impacted the world. The epilogues aren’t long either, I try to keep them short.
I was creating a part of the campaign where information flow was kind of the focus, I created intrigue, complex relations between the npcs and their objective was to slowly but surely collect information, that is until the sorcerer found a very important character and used suggestion with subtle spell and basically sucked all the information they needed for free, it sucked, a lot.
My DM introduced Strahd after we just finished a large battle, and at that point whe had already almost gotten our asses handed to us by a vampire spawn, so when he rocked up with his vampire possie and most of us were at 1 hp, he had the perfect opportunity to talk down to us
One good idea for having your BBEG show up near the beginning is to have a social encounter with them rather than a combat encounter, where there is a possibility of receiving rewards or even punishments depending on how well the players Roleplay and interact with the BBEG. As an example, I’m currently building a campaign where the bad guy shows up in basically session 2-3, and the players have a chance to interact with him. If they choose to try to attack him, he will cast Command at 9th lvl and force all of them to kneel in his presence. If they manage to appeal to his superiority complex, they may receive rewards form him. If they anger him, he will place a curse on the ones that anger him, which can be removed by Greater Restoration or a certain NPC in-game. Because the option of fighting has been removed from the table (and even if it wasn’t, he was holding a meeting with the 4 lords that work directly under him, each one a later boss fight, so the fight would have been short-lived at best), they are forced to try to negotiate or appeal to the BBEG, and the results of the encounter have legitimate consequences to the rest of the game, so it still feels like it’s worth it because it was a legitimate encounter
I thought I'd share my favourite foreshadowing of a BBEG that occurred during my homebrew campaign. The party was completing a side quest to infiltrate a gang who was stealing items from a nearby town. They just so happened to run into the villain (disguising himself as a Wandering Druid at the time) who also had something stolen which he wanted to grab from the gang. Neither party (the PCs or the villain) knew that the other was a target. Without even knowing it, they began to work alongside each other and the party began to learn more about the villain's motivations and what drives him during calm moments in the infiltration. After the quest is completed and the temporarily joint group splits off, they eventually meet again once more back in town but this time, they realize who the other is, the goals they want to achieve, and that they're now the biggest threat to their current goals.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with story moments. Players can literally do whatever they want for 99.99% of the game. The DM has to have their fun too and contribute to the plot.
I tend to agree only in the case that the DM doesn’t get out of hand or is showing something players will actually care about. Generally BBEG’s are not good story moment focuses because players are the heroes and want/should be the focuses of the game. However, putting the focus on a beloved npc/town the players met/passed by some time ago, and showing them suffering or coming across some plot relevant thing due to the BBEG is amazing fun for players. Also, I love introducing new PCs through slightly scripted “movie moments” where the new PC gets to be the lead decision maker and feel awesome and important coming into the game.
I have my fun by setting up the situations and then running the game and RPing the NPCs as the resulting story unfolds. That's my contribution to the story.
I think cutscenes can be used in moderation and with common sense. A defeated enemy transforming dramatically into a monster for round 2 of the fight is fine, players shouldn't be allowed to exploit something that is obviously just meant to increase immersion and beat the shit out of the boss while he trasnforms. That said, an enemy escaping in a cutscene while players aren't allowed to try and stop him, or an npc killing another in dramatic fashion while everyon just stands there and watches, those are some bad uses of cutscenes in an RPG.
"I'm sure that there is someone that made a cutscene work and they will let me know down in the comments." Yup, i did one once, and my players LOVED it. Allow me to elaborate. Homebrew campaign. Two of the PC's were brothers from a noble family, the BBEG was their 3rd brother, a mage tyrant who was gathering ridiculous amounts of magical energies to reshape the world into a formal version of itself (which had previously been turned inside out, long story). The players met by happenstance a legendary NPC, the Phoenix, a girl blessed/cursed to live infinite lives. She is thousands of years old and one of the single most powerful pyromancers in the history of the world. They didn't know it was her at first but that had heard stories about her and pieced it together eventually and somehow, through really good role play and amazing persuasion rolls, convinced her to join their cause. Not long after that however, on their way back to headquarters, BBEG brother #3 teleports in front of them, having just absorbed a massive amount of magical energy, he was going to end them once and for all. Characters at this point are about level 5. BBEG does a shockwave and everyone fails their saves and gets knocked back/prone.... everyone that is except for the Phoenix, resisting the magical effect as flames erupt from her and fiery wings form on her back. The BBEG's smile drops as he begins to realize just WHO PRECISELY he just pissed off! The Phoenix and the BBEG break out into an almost DBZ style magical battle that takes to the sky as i activate my cutscene and describe for the next 2-3 mins the ridiculous battle taking place in front of them, putting into perspective what kind of power they are dealing with. The battle ends with the BBEG exhausted, but the Phoenix mortally wounded. BBEG teleports away to recharge as the Phoenix asks the PC's to scoop up her ashes and take them with them. She dies and her body magically catches on fire. A few days later the Phoenix reemerges from the ashes, but she is a toddler. She retains her memories but explains that it takes several years after she dies to get her powers back. They kept the Phoenix as as ally but this event also caused her to not be able to use her crazy power for their own benefit. Like i said, my players LOVED this event, it really put into perspective the kind of power they are contending with, while simultaneously making them freak out and wonder how they are going to deal with that. It also allowed me to roll with the fact that they befriended a Legendary hero of old without it derailing the campaign or her being too powerful and overshadowing the PC's, as now the best she can do for them is give them advice and tell them stuff about history.
Well played. That is not easy to do. I haven't cutscene'd, but I have made a "DMPC" and made it work, contrary to every YT channel ever. We're just that amazing, I guess :P
@@danielpayne1597 We take turns being the DM and all use DMPC's as well. The trick is for the DMPC to not be a leader and if the PC's ask for his opinion or a vote or something, have them give answers that make sense for the character but not necessarily for the situation. My last DMPC was a nerdy, pessimistic weakling of a warlock. Everything always sounded like a bad idea that was going to get them killed and he spoke like Jason Funderberker from Over the Garden Wall. He was fun to play.
@@Zarkonem Exactly what I did. Getting to play the game as a PC while DMing is fine if you focus on the other players and use your character to provide information and entertainment. My players love my character.
i never dmpc a rogue, my party are too paranoid, so if my dpmc checks for a trap on a thing, whether or not there is one they just "know" it has a trap
@@Cutie_Amor I DID DMPC a rogue, but he was a goblin that was very simple minded and just wanted to help the "humies" to earn "shinies" from them by doing "the poke poke". He almost never did anything without being instructed by the other PC's and if they asked him things he would usually tell them "Me no know, me goblin!" Such a character might not be all that fun to play by normal standards, but as a DMPC, he was perfect.
Cutscenes can work if you make them very sparse and very short, also always at the end of the sessions and of events far away from the players. I've been running a campaign for ~4 months now and I've only done 2 cutscenes, the first one showed an NPC get murdered by a mysterious figure that they would learn about next session anyway; and the next showed a villain ordering 1 known minion and 1 unknown minion after the party, which they'll face only a few sessions later. If you make em small, to the point, out of the way, and reserved, like end-credits scenes, this can work wonders for boosting player engagement. With just that first cutscene alone I managed to create a wave of out of session theorizing in the group that only made everyone more excited to come back next game, especially so when I started to leave breadcrumbs of who the killer was through the next sessions that provoked even more questions. The TL;DR is this: Cutscenes can work IF: --They are very short (2-3 minutes MAX) --They deal with information the PC's already know about, while also introducing new and vague unknowns into the mix --They happen at the END of the sessions --They are a rare occurrence --Any information gleaned from the cutscenes by the players is introduced to the PC's soon after in the next session(s) There are a lot of restrictions you need to follow, but it can work *wonders* if you do it right.
I do not use cutscenes to foreshadow bbeg but they are a useful tool to give the players more context into events happening around the story. A meteor shower destroying the lords castle destabilizing the area and leading to the bbeg using their army to conquer the region has more impact when the players know more info then they could have come across that quickly. I usually use cutscenes as a way to introduce potential allies/enemies. In the prior example maybe I describe an ettin performing a ritual to summon the meteor shower from a cave in the mountains to the northwest. But that character has their own reasons for doing that deed. I feel like this is a useful tool to help flesh out that the world is a living place. And although the players shape the world with their decisions there is always something things going on in the background. The world isn't static and just waiting for them. Although the bbeg is important for game reasons they do not exist alone in a void, and as various events unfold through the world the players get to experience the plans of the bbeg more organically as the villain uses these events to their advantage. It also makes it a little easier in my opinion to prep as you already know the bbeg's desires and agenda and through these events the party can learn that without you smacking them in the face with it.
In my current campaign (we just finished session 6) the BBEG was set up to be an ancient shadow dragon... the party teamed up with the Raven Queen to absolutely destroy him in 3 rounds of combat only for it to be revealed that the Raven Queen used them to help her take the dragons power. She then betrays the party and becomes the new big bad. There’s also a war going on so they have to deal with that as well...
One thing I like to do is have big bads meet the party at lower levels not because I as a DM contrived it, but because the big bad in-character contrived it. It's a bit of a tightrope, but if a player does something unexpected, seeing that it's not the DM who gets surprised but the big bad themself does embolden them to feel like even there their choices matter.
I plan for my PCs to meet the BBEG in a couple different ways, 1 through a cult that worships him learning through environmental tidbits or 2 (my personal favorite) the opportunity to stumble into my BBEGs house (a reflavored twist on the CoS Death House). Most likely both. There's also a bit more or a planned lore dump before phase 3 but that's in character through a character that they'll most likely meet, who knew the BBEG before he became the BBEG. In the basement of the death house, they can meet a residual projection of him that he can interact with the world through but can't leave the house in. Functionally a visible Poltergeist with a couple extra actions. As of right now he's been banished to the Abyss, so he can't interact with the mortal plane directly; just in small bubbles. So a pseudo remote BBEG that gets closer and stronger the longer the campaign runs.
Number two is really easy in modern settings. Had them meet the BBEG over security cameras in Shadowrun. They also had a chat with him using dead bodies brought back through blood magic as proxies. Tried getting them killed too, it was a race to get out of that area in one piece. Half of the game was actually piercing his identity, and that step was practically a victory in itself. Got to foreshadow him without the players thinking it was cheap.
In my campaign, I let the players arrive on a boat with the bbeg, have the bbeg drown an npc from a distance for trying to get a free fare (the players saved him) and than have the bbeg give the players a letter to deliver to the king, that held a declaration of war to the island. They were therefore single handedly responsible for the destruction of the island, but it gave the party reason for vengeance (the true reason to take up the adventure, next to some peer pressure
I did a campaign once with the "BBEG meets PCs at low level" thing and, in my own opinion, it worked quite well. What I did was have the BBEG command three adult black dragons to descend on a town from across a canyon, and when the PCs finally tracked him down, he's guarded by six black half-dragon elite warriors. The PCs tried to negotiate, the BBEG ignores them, then the PCs attack and are held at bay by the elite warriors for a few rounds, when suddenly the BBEG says "there it is", transforms into an ancient black dragon, and flies towards the town. The elite warriors back down, even though they clearly had the upper hand, and one of them warns the PCs to not get involved in stuff way over their heads, before black wyverns descend and, with the warriors mounting them, fly off. By the time the PCs get back to the ravaged town, they learn about the thing the BBEG was after, all the bad news that would come with him obtaining it, and set the PCs on the path to try and stop him. In this event, I think the thing that worked was that the BBEG wasn't focused on the PCs, he had his own goals, and he had the entourage fitting a guy of his status. As for cutscene, I think I've only found one instance in ANY game, not just D&D, that I think made sense, and that's in Assassins Creed (2 and Revelations to be precise). When Ezio sneaks through a vent or whatever and eavesdrop on the bad guys doing their planning. I think the way to make that kind of scenario work in D&D (purely speculative here, I've never used cutscenes before and I doubt I ever will, but IN CASE I DO, this is how I'd go about it) is to either have the meeting room be very well guarded so even if the PCs crash the meeting there's a high possibility of TPK and not doing squat to stop the bad guys; or, have the bad guys' plans be already in motion, so even if the PCs take out the bad guys then and there all they're doing is wasting time while the evil plan is wreaking havoc elsewhere, perhaps in the hometown of one or more of the PCs, giving the PCs an invested reason to leave the BBEG alone for the time being and focus on stopping the bad things currently happening.
Though I don't use them at all, the only way I can think of that cutscenes would work is if the characters are looking through a screen/portal/whatever else that makes it so they can't actually affect what is going on. It's very useful for creating a helpless scenario and cementing the BBEG as someone who needs to be defeated.
I have successfully introduced the bbeg early without infringing on player choice. My secret sauce: necromancy. The party caught the necromancer when he was weakened, and intended to capture him alive for questioning. The necromancer had backup clones, so instead of being delayed by unimpressive adventurers, he killed himself. One of the party members had been separated earlier from the group, and met the newly revived clone on the road who told her "Tell your friends: better luck next time."
I used to use cutscenes in my Monster of the week game (think buffy the vampire slayer) to help set up the main plot of that session, I'd only really do a "cold open" where I explain something happening before a violent act happens (think someone walking into an alley and the alley is described as covered in blood, cultists sacrificing someone) to help set my players in the right direction and bury themselves into the mystery!
I’ve introduced the BBEG to the party at level 2 and it went well ONLY because they were unaware he was even a villain. They were escorting some merchants and at the town he was the enforcer that maintained law and order in that town. He was made into an a-hole but that was mostly because the players actions caused quite a stir in town so he told them to knock it off. The players relented and I’ve been laying seeds that tension between this town and the royal family are building hoping to hint at the eventual civil war lead by the towns enforcer (aka. The BBEG)
My ways of foreshadowing a big bad? 1) He's the one that hired the party to take care of things, the party thinking that they are doing good when really they're doing evil. Big Bad is using a different name, playing both sides for an ulterior motive no one is aware of. Adventure unfolds 2) Leave a recurring clue, a token or some other artifact that all enemy encounters carry. The entire time the Big Bad was an innocuous NPC that the party encounters but often overlooks; a peddler, barkeep, travelling bard, any local color that the party will overlook. 3) Big Bad is a part of a party member's character history. Big Bad raised the party member with the long term goal of doing his bidding. (Ref. Jade Empire the video game by Bioware)
The example given in the skit can be made into a much better situation by making one simple change: the necromancer sends a minion (a powerful one, but still just a minion) to collect the corpses instead. If the players decide to fight him and win, they still get to feel accomplished for having thwarted a part of the villains plan, but also potentially become terrified as the party realizes this grueling fight was only with a minion and not the master. And if they don't fight him, this minion is the perfect sub-boss to bring back at a higher level (maybe 5 to accompany the new tier of play) so players can have this awesome "look how far we've come" moment.
Cutscenes do have their place - when players are using Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, a crystal ball or something similar. Or similarly, if they alter self or polymorph into creatures and are attempting to stealth (especially good for an espionage campaign). Such situations have the players initiate the "cutscene", and put them into positions where either they can do little to nothing, or the risks inherent in doing ANYTHING make interrupting the "cutscene" close to suicidal.
I like the "Shadowy figure on a distant hill taking notes of the party mid-battle then disappearing shortly after being noticed" approach to showing the players that something or someone is taking notice of them... Also, I like calling for random perception checks in the middle of a fight to see how the players react. Plus having the BBEG's minions far away stops them from repeating that time they broke into a high-level dungeon, repaired the escape teleportation circle early, then teleported the dragon boss to a field full of battle-ready adventures who quickly dealt with it.
In the beginning skit, the DM could have saved the campaign by having the necromancer the party just killed be an underling to the big bad. If you think about it, the big bad should never work alone and should only have to get his hands dirty under extreme circumstances. Y'know, 'cause he has more important things to spend his time on like furthering his evil plot. Making the guy they just killed an underling serves three points: First, it stops your campaign from ending immediately. Second, it ropes the party into the story because it makes them direct enemies of the big bag (they killed his henchman, dude). Third, if the fight was challenging, it puts a little bit of fear/anticipation into the hearts of the party for the expected power level of the actual big bad ("Man, that guy was tough... What!? He was only an underling?!").
One method I didn't see him touch on is showing the aftermath of the Big Bad's handiwork. A little taste of just what they are capable of. I actually used this to rather great effect in one of my most successful campaigns to date
I think a good way to bypass the problems of the party meeting the villain at low levels is for the BBEG to sent some sort of duplicate of himself using illusion magic
The way I foreshadowed my villain was I had the villain summon many shadows, one of them looked like the villain, so that they can see the villain, and not kill them, while also showing some of the villains power.
I recently played my first game as a player. It was a fan made game, my girlfriend was the dm, and I was playing 4 characters at once ( I'm sure this probably breaks some rule, but I don't care). The BBEG was some giant demon that burst out a mountain wall in front of me (he was supposed to run off and reappear in chapter 5 or something) but my 4 level 1 characters decided to fight him. I only lost 1 guy who promptly rolled a nat 20 saving throw and was back in the fight.
Every game contains cutscenes, basically everytime the party or a PC enters a room, the DM pans the camera around pointing out all the important bits and pieces in the room. And thats how cutscenes in D&D should be, Short and to the point.
The best big bad I've had was the rich noble who straight up told the players not to trust him since he was only interested in his own well being and that he'd sell them out if it was good for business, and they trusted him anyway because they thought he was honest.
Cutscenes are totally fine if you do short ones, like a minute or two long. I do it, though very sparingly, during times I want the players to be aware of events that their characters wouldn't possibly be there for, like a bad guy rising up the ranks in their faction, or a character they thought died being alive. It gives then hype for when they run into those characters later. It's the same reason why tv shows do the whole "next time on Dragon Ball Z!" thing. Anticipation is a helluva drug. So yes, cutscenes are fine, just keep them extremely short. That is the only railroad storytelling you're allowed to do.
On the topic of Strahd...We really hate (but our characters are thankful), that an npc, who helps us is too powerful, and told it to the DM numerous times. So, he pulls up BBEG at the Bonegrinder, just as we got an artifact. The intent was, that he asks for the artifact, we refuse, he kiss the npc, so we have a personal vendetta and the npc is gone from our lives. What went down... The bard covers in fear as she tries to beg for our lives. The warlock (who has the artifact on him) is standing there doing nothing. My paladin, who is a chaotic good reckless boy, who really hates how everyone thinks Strahd is some untouchable god (as the character really doesn't think gods should be revered, as they are just as flawed as mortals) steps forward (after a will save) and tries to negotiate with him. The artifact for our free exit from Barovia. After a few lines, there were some initiative rollings, and everyone talked about the next characters they want to play. But instead, we went into the building, defended ourselves and with a well placed nat 20 attacks we could get through Strahds defense and did some points of direct damage to him. Then the bard rolled a nat 20 to persuade BBEG that we are more fun alive. Success. So in the end, we saved our npc friend and injures the local "god". From now on, my character tries to rise the spirit of the locals, telling them that we can injure Strahd, so there is a chance. In conclusion...a scripted BBEG reveal where the players are should have been audience we grabbed the wheel and came out in a better situation. And why? Because I refused to accept, that this is a scripted event, when I should just watch and not act.
In the session 0 for the first serious campaign (3.5) I played in, I ended up killing a villain who was very much designed to be unwinnable through a repeated series of extremely lucky dodges and crits. Ultimately it was unwinnable, as the guy's minions had my PC surrounded while we dueled so my PC was immediately taken captive afterward, but my PC choosing to duel this guy instead of running/surrendering ended up turning what was supposed to be a wholesale slaughter of a bunch of cute little NPCs into a situation where 1 died, 2 were captured, and the rest were able to escape.
9:00 the entire point of Curse of Strahd is to instill the feeling of dread and despair into the players, every step forward comes with two steps back. The diner scene is not meant to showcase how awesome Strahd is, but to show the players how deep in the sh*t they're in. Hell there's an option to leave Barovia thus beating the campaign, but the players have the knowledge that Strahd still rules.
I have a feeling/theory that cutscenes can be used to make the players curious (not the PCs). What if you had a cutscene that's happening with somewhere else that lasts no more than 1 minute. The thing that happens in that cutscene is mundane but a bit ominous. Like a halfling with brown hair walks down a dark alley and bumps into a hooded figure. The figure apologizes and leaves and the halfling gets back to walking only to realize that there's a letter in his hand. Then the cutscene ends and it's back to PCs and all questions of "What was that about?" is met with vague non-answers. "Trust me, it'll make sense later" or "Oh don't worry about it, it's nothing." I personally feel that a cutscene like this (done better than the example given above) can be used to make the players suspicious and want to figure out what the heck the cutscene was all about. The problem is that I have never done this, I have never heard anyone do this, I have never heard anyone suggest doing this and I have not personally seen anything like this in any other media. I think it is very easy to do wrong and doing it wrong would probably just annoy the players and make the story worse on top of all the cutscene problems Luke mentions in the video. Cutscenes in general are a bad idea I think and the hypothetical use I mentioned may not even work as intended. I just believe that they can be used this way to great effect if the DM really really REALLY know what he's doing and trying this without knowing what he's doing can go very poorly. I don't use cutscenes because I don't believe I am an amazing enough DM is successfully pull it off.
In the fan made JJBA ttrpg show “Carbon Interface” the DM is reallyyyyy good at seeding these scenes in. Albeit they are streaming these and the players are amazing role players and patient. These scenes are still wonderful, and I think it grabs everyone’s attention.
@@Zulk_RS its just a tabletop “system” - like dungeons and dragons, warhammer, pathfinder, etc. - which was made based off JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by fans of the show. They have my personal favorite tabletop show - and by show I’m talking about streams of them playing the game like critical role for example - but I’m also a major JoJo fan, so that could be a big reason. JJBA Carbon Interface is on the “Stabbyness” twitch/channel I think if you do end up interested in checking it out.
@@Zulk_RS I think, if you keep them short (like your example), you can absolutely make them work. Basically, limit it to one (MAYBE two) actions that you're describing in detail. Of course, there are two pitfalls that I can think of off the top of my head: 1) If you have too many details, your players will 100% latch onto the wrong ones. 2) If you have too many details, your cutscene will be too long and the players will get bored. 3) Even if all of the details are relevant, if you have too many, the players will get bored and miss some.
The one time I used a BBEG and it worked, I used an alternate form of misdirection. They heard rumors about a diabolical boss of the under city, who was as ruthless as he was intelligent. They hunted down leads left and right, and finally got an audience with him. He walked in, a creepy mask covering his face, and he offered them cookies. He then spent fifteen minutes becoming friends with each and every one of them. He then took on the role of kind quest giver, and used the party to further his own ends. But now that the party is about to betray them, the party will have to figure out how to destroy someone who knows everything about them.
A good DM will want to find a way to make sure that the players still can make meaningful decisions during such a scene...but good players are going to respect and accept that the bbeg is here and that they can't defeat him in that moment. In this way, a Good DM and Good players end up being at odds haha. - obviously communication is the best way to deal with this. the problem is that the players expect and accept that the outcome is fixed, so as long as the DM communicates that it isn't, then the players will be free again. - This actually happened to me once. I had the BBEG and his best lieutenants ride up on a dragon, drop down from the sky space marine style, and initiate a combat with the party. The thing is, the party was level 11. they were absolutely no pushovers, so even though I was describing how ridiculously epic the bbeg and his first string lineup were being, I actually planned for this to be a fight. I wanted a huge slugfest where people were going to go down from both sides, and I wanted to engage in a prolonged dialogue between the BBEG and the party during the fight as an opportunity to dump exposition and stuff, and I had prepared for either outcome of the players winning or losing the fight. But the second combat initiatiated, the players were in full retreat mode. They spent their first round of actions throwing out spells to delay the enemies while they all grouped together, and then they used their "get out of jail free" magic item that allowed them to cast windwalk as an action to just run. They were all like "we can't defeat him, he's the BBEG!!!!" and I was like "I wasn't prepared for you to respect him..." haha. it was still a very fun sequence, but I probably should have did my initial description of the encounter initiating with a reminder to the party that they were pretty epic themselves. I guess I'm just sharing this story because sometimes you are gifted with amazing players who are trying to tell the story with you, so when you make the effort to make sure encounters with the BBEG aren't scripted, they might still try to guess the script and play along if you don't let them know ahead of time that they don't have to do that if they don't want.
In my campaign I revealed the BBEG very early in the campaign. While the bard of the group was fainted near the BBEG's lair (the BBEG is an aboleth), Nashor (the aboleth), tried to corrupt the bards minds but was stopped by the bard's guardian spirit. Now the bard is still asleep and the party is going to a quest to find a powerful priest that can help their friend
I did misdirection with my players, and they were absolutely certain through the use of dreams and visions for a character that the second in command partner of the big bad was the final villain when it was actually one of the NPCs I had introduced as an ally, and they never saw the big reveal coming. Like it was absolute betrayal on their faces
Could start with one of the main characters being attacked at a strange location by a baddy. The rest of the group is lying asleep and the shadowy baddy just casually steps over one of them heading towards the only one who is awake Let the character, starting from lying down, to take any actions they want, getting to feet, drawing sword, even make attacks, cast spells. Have the baddy make an attack, if/when the baddy hits, describe the attack in detail just up to the point it makes contact with the Player. Then tell them they wake up All a dream - memory of baddy fading - remember one feature about them (stag head sword pommel/that they were and elf/smelled like elderberries) Drama llama, party wakes up and has breakfast
This is a crazy video because just last night I put my mini boss necromancer in front of the party (expecting them to kill him.) when they kill him his clone spell activates and they see his soul leave his body and travel west (into a younger stronger body)
My player's met "a big bad" early on, but my Big Bad is just a flawed human. He genuinely LIKES the party and to hear them tell of their adventures. He actually helps them on their quests and is a Patron to them, providing them a cottage (rent free) to use as their home base. It will only be later, when he creates a horrible monstrosity that he cannot control, that he will demand the PC's help him cover up his mistake. This "big bad" isn't a boss fight, but a moral fight. Will the PC's help their friend who is in deep need, or will they do the "right" thing and turn him in and expose his crimes? I can hardly wait to find out what they do?
Idk if I quite agree that giving players and unwinnable fight removes agency. Telling them "no, you can't attack" is removing agency. Allowing them to get roflstomped is just giving consequences to their actions. If the evil prince is traveling through a town his his guard and the party decides to attack at a low level, that's on them. I'm not on the same boat that just because an option is available to players means it should have a chance to work.
I actually use the introducing the bbeg at low levels a lot. Especially if my bbeg is an organization or group of bbegs. I always just make a reason the bbeg has to leave.
I dunno if I've done them right, but my players have said they enjoy my cutscenes. If they're lying, that's not my fault. If they don't like it, I've told them directly to give me feedback as to what they want me to improve on.
I really Loved my Foreshadowing of Strahd in Vallaki... I had a monologue written up so that he could tell the players about the history of the EVIL Thing he was doing, but I had it broken up into ~6 second segments. And after each segment, I asked the party what they were doing, or if they had a response. Whenever one of them did something to interfere, he counter-attacked with a Legendary Action, but other than that, wouldn't attack... About half the party was heavily wounded by the end of it 😈
I have had success with cut scenes through dream sequences. What sells it is to make it disorienting and change perspectives. Player: "I walk up to the bar and order an ale." DM: "The bartender turns around and pours you an ale. When he turns back you see that it's you, and now you are serving that ale to a tall male elf with a goatee. He says thank you." What I would avoid is direct conversations. It ends up being far too direct or annoyingly coy. You have to have a reason for these dreams though. So far I've used it for an Aasimar PC getting info from their Celestial, and for a Warlock getting info from their patron. I plan to use a cut scene in the next session or two of my Dragon Heist campaign. If/when a PC attunes to the Stone of Golorr they will see some moments from it's history to clue them in on the greater plot.
Would be interesting if instead of telling everyone who the big bad is have them meet the big bad in an auction, where the players have a chance to bid against the big bad on a McGuffin.... Or they could just sit back and save their money to make a bid on that +1 longsword, or some trinket or item that would normally be beyond their budget at the time.....
#6 - Make them NOT want to kill him. Make him useful for the party. Maybe there's a reward if they can turn him in alive, maybe he has challenged them to defeat the monster in x time and then he'll help them, maybe they have to cooperate because the current problem is larger than their beef, perhaps he's related to a special NPC and why would you kill their relative?? Maybe the BBEG is the quest giver and has more to give. #7 - Make him inconsequential at the moment. He's finishing up a purchase off the black market just as the characters arrive, he gives an evil speech in the court room but the party is only after evil captain at the moment, he's welcomes all the guests to a dinner party that turns fatal.
I just DM "The Haunt" an one shot with some nice use of cutscenes. Is a mansion where the story of its haunting is played by ghostly echos in some of his rooms.
In the first campaign I ever ran, the big bad was a merchant who was anarchist and organizing an insurrection across the entire nation. They met him in session 1. Because he hired them to retrieve his son who had been kidnapped. Because he wanted to distract them while he did his thing.
I dig this video. In a recent campaign, I put the BBE in mortal danger in front of the party very early on. They had no idea they would be the BBE, though I dropped a few clues, but they ended up saving them! Lol I love players
I introduced my big bad the very first mission when my players were third level, but I introduced him as someone who was helpful to them, in fact the big bad has been working with them since the first mission. But I'm not sure if I should reveal that he's the big bad mid game or late game, part of me kind of wants them to align themselves with the big bad without actually realizing that he's the main villain, just subtle clues, and then part of me wants to reveal it more in the mid game and let them really fully make the actual choice of going "You know, we think he's right"
Have the biggest "good guy" influencer seem more like a cliche villain and if the party ends up going at them have the BBEG send his main minion visit the party to taunt them via giving them an out. There's so many ways to do this.
If your BBEG is a high level caster, Simulacrums. The Pathfinder 1e version I think works the best as the Simulacrum is only half the creators level with only the abilities they would have at that level, but a 5e DM could just use a young version simulacrum since it's as powerful as the creator, but never grows. You've got something the players can fight, can actually kill, and if it's an hard fought battle and they find out it's a Simulacrum that is a fraction of the bbeg's power, they'll get their own "oh shit" moment.
One of my later bosses of this campaign is getting a two stepp foreshadowing. Step one: He's the areaboss of the curent zone the PC's are inn, and i (thru NPC's) told them flat out that they die iff they fight him. Stepp two will be a wasted citty, inwich he'll be to bussy roasting the lokal guards and burning a whole binder of charaktersheats/sidequests. That whay the PC's can experience their lack of power while they are still able to use what they have to atleast save some of their friends. (Smal victories for the greater good that is my players enjoiment) Iff that doesn't get them hocked on this arc and my redd dragon vilain I don't need to prepp more as a vilain of the week will be enough.
My 4th level players tried to fight my BBEG Death Knight who one punched the entire party with destructive wave. Deeming them unworthy of a TPK, allowed them to live but, stole everything while they were unconscious. Lol
I am having quite a bit of fun with my party. I have a NPC that acts super sus and that the whole party thinks is the BBEG. They fear him, they don't trust him, and it's great because they completely trust one of the actual BBEG who paints that NPC as super sus. This NPC even has a reputation as the black sheep and his past is a mystery. The best part is that this shady NPC is actually a complete good guy who is doing everything he can to help the party with their quest. I honestly can't wait for the real BBEG to show his true colors and shock the party.
Also cutscenes arent bad but they need to be short, sweet, and at the end of a session. Like the end of an episode on tv to keep up hype for the next episode. And they must be used sparingly
The big bad of a previous campaign of mine was a character I'd played as a player in another campaign. The game started with the players getting attacked by him and saved by a dragon, who the big bad sent packing fairly easily.
One alteration to the "PCs meet the BBG at low level" approach could be to meet them in a completely non-combat/non-confrontational scenario where they don't even appear to be a villain. This would probably work better for more intrigue or mystery focused villains rather than combat focused ones and shouldn't be used all the time because it has similar pitfalls to "NPC backstabs the party". Instead of having the big bad appear and taunt them or having the party come across them attacking some random village, introduce them as if they were a normal, friendly NPC and/or questgiver with potentially a few hints at what they are planning such as them not agreeing with the current leadership of the region. Maybe they haven't even started to execute their plans yet or aren't very far along and are secretly looking for allies and followers so they try to befriend the party before attempting to recruit them later down the line. Maybe they aren't even plotting anything when they first meet, but something (potentially even something caused by the party's actions) happens that puts them on the path to being the villain of a plotline or even the BBG for a whole campaign.
I tried foreshadowing the big bad evil guy for context I and my two players are noobs the royal ball was crashed by an enemy organization my original idea was to make the big bad evil guy steal a rusty but needed sword from a player then give the players a choice are they chase the evil guy, stand ground help the people, escape or join the enemy forces my goal first make the big bad and the players meet each other (one of the players had already met him in a disguise) second goal was for them to find out make the players experience a special homebrew spell some rolls later and the big bad was gripped very strongly at the wrist and then I either forget that he was grappled. the player released him and bookout of the castle or I made him magically disappear
It is not plot armour to have it too strong. Plot armour is contrivances and luck that allow them to survive inescapable. Saying that your characters lose agency by not being able to win against it is like saying you've taken your barbarian's agency by saying it can't just float all of a sudden.
Lol I can only add that the cutscene is doable and well. It's about timing and context like everything else. So here's the set up: players just beat mini boss, and are leveling up (a key component is time they had alot of time not playing), they are choosing to stay in city when a bunch of refugees arrive with the expo dump. Bbeg just destroyed the kingdom. Bbeg has allies. And bbegs location. Are all for shadowed in this time as I discribe the empire falling I finish around the time they start finishing leveling. I also anwer questions and sell items sitting this time since it's all word of mouth. Other options include the party needing a scrying mirror or something to look at the bbeg/figure out something about him, convenientces of what he's doing is up to the dm but it means the players don't feel like it's out of game or something like that. They can look away from the mirror or end the spell or anything if they don't want to finish the scean. I have a pc who if any bad guy speaks he lanchrs into assault mode. He doesn't listen o monologues I sometimes give mid bosses a mini monologue to get interrupted only 2 lines in. I'm in trouble if he ever let's one finish cus it's gonna get trailpy
Im using a cinematic in person, where my players will finish the boss, and then a paladin of a religion that will cause problems for my players later comes in to clear out another boss level monster that is too much for my players. This is foreshadowing a boss later in the campaign, the actual god of that religion whos paladin acts as his sword in the world so he doesnt have to reveal himself. Essentially my players do get to do the boss fight, a consequence of that fight happens, and this paladin comes and calls down the judgement of his radiant god down on it. Im neither taking agency away from my players because it wasnt part of their fight to begin with, im not showing a "cutscene" thats taking place away from the players, and im adding foreshadowing for an adventure and an npc while allowing my players to interact with him now, and create questions for them to consider. Its like the soldiers in the 2014 Godzilla movie, they're doing their part while godzilla is beating Muto ass, the world of the titans taking place alongside the main characters. Eventually my players will be at level to clear this future adventure, fight this paladin of a corrupt religion, and even face off against the very god they worship. I'm hoping this isnt bad for my game, its very necessary for the scale the campaign is at, hopefully allowing my players to cash in on every piece that is foreshadowed.
So several campaigns back I had my group meet the BBEG in the second session of the entire campaign. They didnt realize this until they spoke to him, instead they met him in a tavern as he was gathering information of his own and one of the group went to talk to him. Through conversation the character learned that this was the person who destroyed a village the previous session (good insight check) and continued to talk to him about the information he was gathering. Using that they then went to the location he was gathering information on to try and beat him to whatever goals he had there. They fought him here (two or three sessions after meeting him) and lost. However rather than kill them he let them live, actively revealing that he was doing so because of the talk they had before. He would let them live and try and gather what he was looking for. He would view it as a challenge between himself and them, his goons and them. Who can gather the maguffins, who can gather the most. Who will get to change the world. Having the party meet the BBEG early doesnt have to be a 'you have no agency here it is cinematic' and you dont need to come up with some 'the big bad let you live because you were beneath them' reason. A simple conversation and a challenge often goes a long way.
One of my favorite ways to introduce a BBEG was one I had in a sci-fi post apocalyptic campaign. For the first 2 sessions, the players had been hearing rumors about this CEO of the major evil corperation attempting to control the region. When session 3 rolls around, they band together with a large group of rebels to attempt to assassinate the guy. The reality is that his time outside of corperate HQ was completely planned and intentionally leaked to draw out the rebels, who he then sacked his lv 15 elite guards on leading to a massacre. The encounter is not so much of trying to defeat the BBEG, but the players trying to brainstorm and figure out how they can escape the massacre and hide long enough to regroup and continue their journey to finding some way to defeat him.
Wanna introduce a big bad early on? Do it like Blackbeard in one piece. Make the party believe this villain is a no body. Maybe even make the bbeg easy to get a long with at first. Then later when the party forgets all about him BAM. They’ll never suspect it.
Guys, I need some help with a D&D issue and I think that this channel can help me with that: In later sessions that I master, when the BBEG or an important boss is giving its evil monologue to flavor the consequent and inevitable combat, players take advantage of that moment to make things so they start the fight with advantage (for example, a cleric invoked his spiritual weapon while a boss was talking to save his bonus action at the start of the fight, or in other campaing, the Lycan Order's Blood Hunter transformed into his werewolf form as an action when my boss was giving her evil speech). I know that as a player is an intelligent and strategic thought (and the truth is that it is really stupid to not take advantage of that situation), but as a DM, that bothers me a lot and I think that is anticlamatic and ruins the mood before the fight. What do you think I should do? I have thought that if my players take advantage of that I should make that the BBEG notice this and casts one of its most powerful spells or makes a powerfull range attack to punish the pcs for not paying attention. What do you guys think of this.
first remember the tools at your dipossal, make the bbeg be at some distance before a fight, most actions hav a range make use of that, also make subtle but efficient nodes at the situation and make th ambienc so that the characters have some sort of difficulty to do so(specially if this i somthing that is happening often) have the party be at a disadvanteous terrain so that it wont be wise for them to try and do that (make some minions appear even if weak they could opportunity attack on the players before they can interupt for instance), if the bbeg can use some spells to disguise himself of have copies of him usethat so that they dont know were to attack, try to make the engagement more intersting, and i thing the most important part of this, talk to your players before and after sessions explain that you also want to tell a story and whatseems to you that is breaking that part ofthe game, DMs are part of the game and want to have fun too remember that
I mean you could do all this... but what if they met the big bad at level 3, killed him, and he'd already used the clone spell, or maybe it was a simulacrum
Came across this video again and thought of another way you could foreshadow the main villain without risking him: Send his powerful enforcer/emissary to do his dirty work! You get the effect of showing off the BBEG but without the risk. And if the party somehow kills the emissary/enforcer, that will only draw attention to this new threat to the BBEG’s plans and will get them to react in some way to it either by sending an invitation or a hit squad to squash these upstarts.
You know what works better than I ever imagined in my Curse of Strahd campaign? Letters. After Death House my party found a picnic basket with a letter saying "Welcome to Barovia." signed by Strahd...and promtly sent an imp to Castle Ravenloft with a reply. They keep having corespondences with the Big Bad now
Nice. My PCs have done something like that after discovering the Bad Guys have lawyers. They exchange very polite letters, and on one occasion, even a contract.
In a campaign I DM, I did step two thing, but instead of showing him do something bad, they all encountered him during a tournament event in a city. He was after the price, they could slow his plan by winning.... oh and he has a personal connection to one of the player characters as he is that characters uncle.... he is the charismatic guy that pretends to be on your side to get what he needs from you as he plans to invade his brother`s kingdom after he was exiled in order to take the throne. (The PC is a naive character, and do not know why she suddenly could not see her uncle anymore, as she also had overprotective parents) This proved to be very effective because the entire party started liking him, then they realized his real motivations, so not only did they get to know a little too OP NPC at the time they met him, but it did become a nice plot twist later on as well
How do you foreshadow a Big Bad?
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do you use music in your games? if so can you direct me to somewhere where i can get some atmospheric music/combat music etc please.
Fireball at level three?
I get this impression this was more a list of things not to do, rather than a list of things to do... and that the actual advice was in the Lord Paxton example.
I get out of this feeling this video acknowledges that I sometimes have tough dilemmas, and yes, I have a fair grasp of things I should avoid doing. But... this was more tips on what to avoid than actual good ideas aside from the example... which I've heard of before.
So, sadface.
___________________________
This said, I can share one frustration of mine. At some point in my current game, my 10th level group got outmaneuvered. They infiltrated a castle keep on a rescue mission, only to be ambushed right and left... and ended up herded where the ruler's held court, expecting them. Cue the realization of a big upset, reveal than a trusted NPC ally present with them was possessed and actually now a double agent. They'd been outmaneuvered, a valued ally stolen from them... and I asked them what they would do? Fight? make a running battle for their objective anyways? Flee?
I knew for a fact that the Cleric in the group had Word of Recall ready. I was counting on it. I had subtly encouraged them to prepare ahead of time for their time in there, foreshadowing they were in going to a primary enemy stronghold and that things could go wrong quickly. There was that Word of Recall, they had invisibility potions they crafted after being gifted with pixie dust. They had the means to fly. They could relocate to bottlenecks and try to hold their ground if they wanted the stalwart go-down-fighting solution; they had plenty of healing available to hold out.
I built on the suspense of the moment and spurred them to action: "What do you do?" And they gaped, at a loss for words. The compromised NPC, under duress, still encouraged them to flee. They just stand there, missing their window of action, and I eventually have NPC guards collect them to imprison them.
The imprisonment was not something I was too bothered with. I had planned ahead, and knew it could happen as well, along with some ideas on how a jailbreak could entertain them (incidentaly, this placed them next to the person they were supposed to rescue, so their escape didn't mark a complete failure of their mission).
What annoyed me, though, was how I expected to reward their precautions. After that session, I asked my players why they just sat there and *took* it in the face. Yes, they had been stunned - they admitted - but even worse... they thought it was a cutscene.
It. Wasn't. A. Cutscene! I wanted to reward player agency, not railroad them. Listening to DM Lair videos inspired me to make my scenarios "situations" rather than encounters so I wouldn't just drag them by the nose through the solutions I expected them to do. It was just disappointing, and perhaps a stab on how I've run things before... something I've done in the past coming back to haunt me.
_______________________________
I don't feel my summary entirely conveys this, but I've faith that this was a good twist. But it could have been *great*... and this cutscene assumption from my players dashed my enjoyment of it. I need to be able to do better the next time I set something like this up.
This is why I appreciate videos like these. I do, this time, emerge having more questions than answers... but still, thank you for being here to give us this kind of advice.
I like to have them interact with him when they just can't know he is the big bad - Like maybe he is somebody who hires them (or tries to) to go on a quest to retrieve an item. That item could look innocent in the first place, but later would be playing a huge roll in his plans for conquering the world. And by the time the players found out they inadvertantly helped the villain it is too late for them to do anything about it.
Or they meet him, but not in a fight or something, but in a social encounter. Like he could be one of the advisors of the king and be present in an audience or they are fighting in an arena and he is one of the people in the audience or the players and the villain are both invited as guests by an important person. That way the villain could be forshadowed in his conversation with the players and the other characters and they could still act, but just fighting him would be taken away as a viable option as the situation would mean there would be dire concequences to starting a fight.
The opening skit reminds me of Matt Colville's intro for Kalarel the Vile, any inspiration?
If the party can take on the bbeg at third level without getting totally owned, the DM needs some more practice in designing their bbegs...
Or maybe be more discerning on player’s OP character builds. (I'm looking at you, Grapple Monk! 👁)
Legendary Actions x 1-3
Legendary Resistance x 1-3
Martial BBEG?
Adamantine Armor
Spellcaster BBEG?
Robes of the Archmage
@@Battleguild at level 3 a fireball can take most of them out haha, just leave them on the ground dieing and have him say: "if you survive I may find some use for you in the future" and lettem roll death saves kek
The bbeg can just cast wall of fire and envelop the party, there is really not much a party can do at level 2
@@andragonm8932 Except die!
Strahd is one of the only go to where I think having him regularly interact with the players works. It actually works with his character because he is a narcissistic bully who doesn't think that anybody could ever harm him. It gives the players personal incentive to track down the magic items needed to defeat him.
Also he controls the place, they can't run from him and even if he is defeated he still recovers and can come back anytime.
A scene like dinner with Strahd needs to be handled with finesse, though. Many players or PCs (given a particular personality/build) would find dinner with Strahd incredibly frustrating and not fun or automatically exclusionary.
For instance, why would Grimlock Axebeard, uncompromising angry drunk dwarf barbarian, even attend? Story-wise it makes sense for him not to be there as he's only going to cause massive trouble but this means that the player's going to need something else to do. So plan that to happen when the player's going to be absent or late or enlist the player to play the creepy butler for a bit. Or have Strahd tailor things for each PC. Or... well you know your players.
The DM really needs to play the whole thing more like a monster movie with some lightness and behind the scenes wink and a nod, or it just turns into grinding gloom or constant situations of plot overriding player agency.
Yeah, Strahd is fun, as he's designed to be able to show up, say some stuff, show the party they need some level and item grinding, spare them, refuse to elaborate, and leave.
Also misty escape can save his ass. My 4th or 5th level Paladin smited him right back to Ravenloft once.
Some of my players have trouble recognizing villains who don't run around going "Muahaha, look at me being Evil!", and I have absolutely capitalized on that in the past in order to have them meet and chat with major antagonists. Though at one point this did backfire a little when one of the PCs decided to hook up with the BBEG. It led to strange and interesting shenanigans, the BBEG being able to pin everything on a lesser antagonist, and the two of them sailing off into the sunset on his airship while the reanimated corpses of his previous victims (the mysterious unseen crew) danced to the Love Boat theme. The player seemed okay with this.
I want a novel of this.
If the evil villain is super powerful, then what's to say they dont have powerful allies that could do something like ya know resurrection. Most villains are gonna have back up plans in case something goes really wrong.
Or you know, they're a lich or some other critter that simply doesn't stay dead.... or a magic clone an illusion.... OooOOoooOOOOoooh Spooopy!
I really want to run a game where the BBEG has a necromancer working for him
BBEG dies and now the necromancer decides to take over, using zombie BBEG to enforce his rule
@@minnion2871 Funny you should mention that! My players met an "ally" they later discovered was a lich but is helping them against a mutual threat. They sent her a message and an illusion of her appeared, asking what they needed to assist on their quest. One of the party members asked for diamond dust. "Hold out your hands." And the illusion holds our hand and upends it, pouring the requested dust into the PC's hands. 2 of players audibly gasped at the power that would take. They never talked about turning on her again after that (the mutual threat arc was the conclusion of that campaign or they may well have resumed eventually).
Having the powerful ally take over and become the new BBEG is also a really interesting idea. It lets the campaign continue while still allowing the player's victory to have a noticeable effect on the world.
The last campaign I was part of did this. We fought ( and won) a battle against a resurrected evil king, but his right hand man just escaped to resurrect him again causing our group to search for a spell of true banishment and make everybody do the big forget of the bad guy.
The "fake BBEG" technique was used in Final Fantasy 6 quite effectively. I remember being shocked when Kefka betrayed and murdered Emperor Ghestal.
And for an example where it was used a little less effectively. FF9 and the Necron fight, I love that game but having some rando come out of the woodwork after the Kuja fight and be like "I was behind it all" LITERALLY OUT OF NOWHERE was a little headache inducing
“Use cutscenes”
“Don’t use cutscenes, ever!”
Whaaaaaaat?
Use them in a situation the players can't do anything about like if they are scrying or stuck behind a wall of force the bbeg made.
Never do it in a situation where the players can hurt them or have an opportunity to intervene. But most times, it's better to not do it at all.
I have made an agreement with my players that there will be cutscenes, aka things happening while the characters don’t interact, in order to have interesting things happen and stuff that would mechanically not work otherwise. The condition is, that I allow the characters to act at the next best possibility. This way you can cutscene travel, story points, events etc. without having the PCs on constant pressure to find a way to impose their will on the world all the time.
Example:
You have been taken prisoner, you are taken in front of a judge and he hears you. Then you get thrown into jail. The first day passes and after the sunlight has faded, someone throws a little metal object into your cell - what do you do?
This way we avoid any and all stupid „they will never take me alive“ and „I hold the judge hostage to get out“ attempts, because my players know I will throw them a rope... or a key to their cell in this case.
I like writing short stories or just a few sentences of a conversation that the PCs aren't actually privy to, that I send to an archive channel. Players are okay with it because they enjoy narrative, but it really depends on the table!
@@Nepfbert That's a really good way to do it, especially because it opens up the possible range of stories you could tell. It requires trust on the part of players but in this case cutting down on the "you'll never take ME alive!" mentality that some players have helps because you did it really quickly.
sooo this is bad news for me. Im about to dm a one shot next week and it has a cutscene at the start.. the rest is all 100% player though. im worried now
Barbarian: your not very good at this dungeons and dragons thing
Hold on, you don't know what you're talking about. That's luke heart, he's been a dungeon master since high-school!
He's a high school since Dungeon Master!
That’s high school, he’s been a luke hart since dungeon master
Everytime he says this, I hope he's being sarcastic.
Wizard of the Coast way: put the main villain in the adventure's cover
My one personal gripe with curse of Strahd... place the big bad evil guy right on the bloody cover with his name and everything in the title...
@@roland4618 I mean... the module never makes him out to be a secret entity, there is no mystery about him being the big bad. And don't the players find out his name in chapter 1?
I honestly like how storm king’s thunder does it, I didn’t even see it for a while
Lost Mines of Phandelver disagrees
@@offspringfan100 unless you make Venomfang the BBEG ;)
“Enough of the stupid skits”? Dude, I never will say that, your skits are entertaining!
Thanks! 😀
Skits are the best half of the videos. Helps give us an example to be ourselves.
Part of the lesson to be learned from the skits is how not to play the game. :-)
Skits are the best
They're pretty cringe
I see a fake villain to throw us off the trail of the real one. I see your meta plot for the skits now Luke! Well played. (Starts going back through older skits to find foreshadowing that secretly point toward Fat Cat or old man commoner being the main villain of the skits.)
I'm waiting for the warlock to come back as the Silent Shadow or something.
My foreshadowing is so next level but it will take you years to analyze all my past skits and find it. Best of luck to you. :-)
@@theDMLair And you have to view them in intended order, and not production or release order, don't you.
Luke: And you’re probably saying, “Enough if the stupid skits, just give us the 5 tips.”
Me: Enough of the tips! *draws dagger* Now it’s stabby stabby time!!!!
Ummm I like the stupid skits.
Everyone stabby stabby this guy.
The perfect comment doesn't exi.......
By the gods, he's done it, the mad lad's done it!
If the definition that we are using for Cutscene is "The part of the game where the Dungeon Master talks and the players listen.", then of course I agree that it is not necessarily fun to experience. However, we already have the solution to this problem that can make cutscenes fun for the group. Allow the players to interact with the cutscene instead of gawking.
When I had a villain enter a scene and start doing dastardly deeds while proclaiming his greatness to everyone present (players included), one of my players said "I'd like to cast lightning bolt at this guy." Do you know what my response was? It was not "You can't do that, this is a cutscene." Instead, I said "roll damage." There is no rule stating that the players cannot participate in the dungeon master's cutscenes.
In fact, sometimes, cutscenes can be designed to be interactive, such as what you describe when the rogue interacts with a trap. You could start describing the environment and inclusing a 'click' or similar sound in there. The player gets a bonus to their save if they react correctly (i.e. get out of the trap's area, block the arrow trap with a shield or similar object, etc.) or penalty if they react poorly (i.e. actually put themselves in the trap's trajectory, jump towards the pit, etc.) or didn't react at all, if you made it obvious enough.
Credit: That example is the 'Click Rule' borrowed from Dael at Monarch's Factory. I haven't playtested it yet, but it seems like a fun dynamic.
My personal favourite is for the BBEG to leave a trail of destruction that the players can follow. For example a mad wizard who releases magical plagues on unsuspecting towns trying to perfect the technique and when the players arrive they find his notes strewn about in some cottage.
I had a campaign where the players were just like what you were doing in the beginning of the video (i.e. murder hoboing), so about half way through the campaign I switched it up where the players were the bbeg's and didn't realize it.
How did that work out?
@@theDMLair They would hear distorted rumors about a group of villians pillaging and assume it was the original BBEGs minions. Along the way they fought what they thought were the minions of the bad guy but were mercenaries hired by the people and nobles to stop the rampaging player characters. When they confronted the BBEG it thanked them for doing all the dirty work destabilizing the forces of good making it easier for it to take control.
The real kicker is there were no "evil" aligned players in the party, they were all either chaotic neutral or chaotic good, but their interpretation of 'chaotic' meant they could do as they pleased.
@@hikikomicklori9290 showing the consequences of 'chaotic neutral' one campaign at a time. Thank you!
~Dan
@@hikikomicklori9290 should've have them face an entire mob ready to kill them
@@AvenueStudios Yeah, I feel like too many people don't really take the time to read into what those alignments actually mean. I can see why so many DM's avoid using the system entirely. To me, Someone who is neither good nor evil means that they aren't particularly malicious but also don't really have any reasons to step into defend innocents who are being attacked or wronged. I'd think that a character with that alignment would need some kind of self-serving motivation to do so. Chaotic Neutral PC's can still be viable "Heroes" if played correctly.
Unfortunately, some players just want to murder everyone and everything regardless of what their alignment is. I'd say, in that case, talk to a DM about maybe putting together an evil campaign. You can murder to your hearts content... or just go play Skyrim and lay waste to Whiterun like any other well adjusted human being. :P
He’s a necromancer. When they killed him, his “clone” spell activates :)
It was just one of his (many) doppelganger henchmen.
Or right as his health is low 25% or something a contingency spell activates.
oh look at that, it's everyone from your hometown, but zombies.
*cheerful music*
@@FrostSpike Handsome Jack here, and I approve of this idea. (Or am I and do I?)
The Necromancer's Boss Who The GM Totally Did Not Just Make Up Just Now: "What? My figurehead was killed in a tavern brawl? It is time to escalate. Bring out the skeleton dragon!"
I did a bunch of different things in my current campaign to introduce the Big Nice Goodie Guy (a Bronze Dragon, players are playing pirates).
They first got some info from their captain, who wants to kill it.
They later had something about it in a museum during a heist quest.
Some time later they had a personal encounter but managed to remain incognito, and lastly they found a pirate adrift, a survivor from the dragon's attack on his ship.
When the survivor told his story, instead of me telling what happened, I gave the players NPC statblocks to run in a fight against the dragon in a flashback. This got them the chance to see the dragon fight and maybe start thinking of a strategy, and it let me run the dragon. Plus, one of the NPCs I gave them succeeded his death saves, so that was the survivor, and they got a strong crewman out of it.
Sorry I am stealing your idea, that's a very good one 😁
Oh, _that's_ a cool idea. I am so using that.
that flashback idea is genius
Is this a jab at Matt Colville
Fun, in a good way:
Kaervek the Vile has entered the chat
if nothing else you can tell he has watched Running The Game, lots of "subtle" references/coincidences. also, Matt Colville has used cutscenes very effectively in short bursts for helping sell a side narrative. So..... yeah might be a jab, might not be
Me a jab? I would never do that
@@theDMLair it's a stabby stabby
My tip: Make them someone inconsequential that they might even forget that was affected by the player’s actions and wants revenge.
Oof, that one's brutal
Like the potato girl from Dingo Doodles?
Goliath Barbarian was very surprised when he tried grappling a 12-14yo girl who had just killed a beholder, a fomorian, 12 orcs and a bassilisk. He rolled a 24 strength check, but unfortunately the polymorphed ancient dragon rolled a 31 and she just twisted his arm, grabbed the giant crystal and walked out... with half the party stuck in a force cage.
@Trin Silvers Nice. I usually use just some random schlep to do it like a family dies in a raid the players mess up and their son is a wizard in traing who is sent over the edge when they hear the news. Or the players are defending a village from orcs at level 3 and a peasant girl gets killed, sending a random knight in training into the arms of Asmodeus or even a random bandit group you beat at level 1 that stumbles on a magical artifact in long-forgotten ruins that causes them to kill each other until one is left who now feeds on the souls of the living using the said artifact.
I like it because it keeps the villain out of the party’s reach and allows the villain to grow in power along with the party while giving your party an organically personal connection to the villain.
Yes absolutely love all these ideas! The payoff for a setup like this would be so delicious muahaha!
~Dan
I kinda use cutscenes, I just don’t let them have an enormous impact on the story. At the end of all of the sessions, I use little “epilogues”, where I show that the world that they are in is constantly changing. Usually it’s to foreshadow something, but sometimes it’s to show how they’ve impacted the world. The epilogues aren’t long either, I try to keep them short.
I was creating a part of the campaign where information flow was kind of the focus, I created intrigue, complex relations between the npcs and their objective was to slowly but surely collect information, that is until the sorcerer found a very important character and used suggestion with subtle spell and basically sucked all the information they needed for free, it sucked, a lot.
Kudos for the clever pun. :)
I always love the intros
Yup, the intro skits got me into this channel
@@akrinornoname2769 I got into this channel to get tips on becoming a better DM
Definitely
My DM introduced Strahd after we just finished a large battle, and at that point whe had already almost gotten our asses handed to us by a vampire spawn, so when he rocked up with his vampire possie and most of us were at 1 hp, he had the perfect opportunity to talk down to us
One good idea for having your BBEG show up near the beginning is to have a social encounter with them rather than a combat encounter, where there is a possibility of receiving rewards or even punishments depending on how well the players Roleplay and interact with the BBEG. As an example, I’m currently building a campaign where the bad guy shows up in basically session 2-3, and the players have a chance to interact with him. If they choose to try to attack him, he will cast Command at 9th lvl and force all of them to kneel in his presence. If they manage to appeal to his superiority complex, they may receive rewards form him. If they anger him, he will place a curse on the ones that anger him, which can be removed by Greater Restoration or a certain NPC in-game. Because the option of fighting has been removed from the table (and even if it wasn’t, he was holding a meeting with the 4 lords that work directly under him, each one a later boss fight, so the fight would have been short-lived at best), they are forced to try to negotiate or appeal to the BBEG, and the results of the encounter have legitimate consequences to the rest of the game, so it still feels like it’s worth it because it was a legitimate encounter
I thought I'd share my favourite foreshadowing of a BBEG that occurred during my homebrew campaign. The party was completing a side quest to infiltrate a gang who was stealing items from a nearby town. They just so happened to run into the villain (disguising himself as a Wandering Druid at the time) who also had something stolen which he wanted to grab from the gang. Neither party (the PCs or the villain) knew that the other was a target. Without even knowing it, they began to work alongside each other and the party began to learn more about the villain's motivations and what drives him during calm moments in the infiltration. After the quest is completed and the temporarily joint group splits off, they eventually meet again once more back in town but this time, they realize who the other is, the goals they want to achieve, and that they're now the biggest threat to their current goals.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with story moments. Players can literally do whatever they want for 99.99% of the game. The DM has to have their fun too and contribute to the plot.
I tend to agree only in the case that the DM doesn’t get out of hand or is showing something players will actually care about. Generally BBEG’s are not good story moment focuses because players are the heroes and want/should be the focuses of the game.
However, putting the focus on a beloved npc/town the players met/passed by some time ago, and showing them suffering or coming across some plot relevant thing due to the BBEG is amazing fun for players.
Also, I love introducing new PCs through slightly scripted “movie moments” where the new PC gets to be the lead decision maker and feel awesome and important coming into the game.
I have my fun by setting up the situations and then running the game and RPing the NPCs as the resulting story unfolds. That's my contribution to the story.
I think cutscenes can be used in moderation and with common sense. A defeated enemy transforming dramatically into a monster for round 2 of the fight is fine, players shouldn't be allowed to exploit something that is obviously just meant to increase immersion and beat the shit out of the boss while he trasnforms. That said, an enemy escaping in a cutscene while players aren't allowed to try and stop him, or an npc killing another in dramatic fashion while everyon just stands there and watches, those are some bad uses of cutscenes in an RPG.
@@CidGuerreiro1234 Agreed. But I wouldn't exactly count describing "an action" in minute detail as a cutscene.
"I'm sure that there is someone that made a cutscene work and they will let me know down in the comments."
Yup, i did one once, and my players LOVED it. Allow me to elaborate.
Homebrew campaign. Two of the PC's were brothers from a noble family, the BBEG was their 3rd brother, a mage tyrant who was gathering ridiculous amounts of magical energies to reshape the world into a formal version of itself (which had previously been turned inside out, long story).
The players met by happenstance a legendary NPC, the Phoenix, a girl blessed/cursed to live infinite lives. She is thousands of years old and one of the single most powerful pyromancers in the history of the world. They didn't know it was her at first but that had heard stories about her and pieced it together eventually and somehow, through really good role play and amazing persuasion rolls, convinced her to join their cause.
Not long after that however, on their way back to headquarters, BBEG brother #3 teleports in front of them, having just absorbed a massive amount of magical energy, he was going to end them once and for all. Characters at this point are about level 5. BBEG does a shockwave and everyone fails their saves and gets knocked back/prone.... everyone that is except for the Phoenix, resisting the magical effect as flames erupt from her and fiery wings form on her back. The BBEG's smile drops as he begins to realize just WHO PRECISELY he just pissed off!
The Phoenix and the BBEG break out into an almost DBZ style magical battle that takes to the sky as i activate my cutscene and describe for the next 2-3 mins the ridiculous battle taking place in front of them, putting into perspective what kind of power they are dealing with. The battle ends with the BBEG exhausted, but the Phoenix mortally wounded. BBEG teleports away to recharge as the Phoenix asks the PC's to scoop up her ashes and take them with them. She dies and her body magically catches on fire.
A few days later the Phoenix reemerges from the ashes, but she is a toddler. She retains her memories but explains that it takes several years after she dies to get her powers back. They kept the Phoenix as as ally but this event also caused her to not be able to use her crazy power for their own benefit.
Like i said, my players LOVED this event, it really put into perspective the kind of power they are contending with, while simultaneously making them freak out and wonder how they are going to deal with that. It also allowed me to roll with the fact that they befriended a Legendary hero of old without it derailing the campaign or her being too powerful and overshadowing the PC's, as now the best she can do for them is give them advice and tell them stuff about history.
Well played. That is not easy to do.
I haven't cutscene'd, but I have made a "DMPC" and made it work, contrary to every YT channel ever. We're just that amazing, I guess :P
@@danielpayne1597 We take turns being the DM and all use DMPC's as well. The trick is for the DMPC to not be a leader and if the PC's ask for his opinion or a vote or something, have them give answers that make sense for the character but not necessarily for the situation.
My last DMPC was a nerdy, pessimistic weakling of a warlock. Everything always sounded like a bad idea that was going to get them killed and he spoke like Jason Funderberker from Over the Garden Wall. He was fun to play.
@@Zarkonem Exactly what I did. Getting to play the game as a PC while DMing is fine if you focus on the other players and use your character to provide information and entertainment. My players love my character.
i never dmpc a rogue, my party are too paranoid, so if my dpmc checks for a trap on a thing, whether or not there is one they just "know" it has a trap
@@Cutie_Amor I DID DMPC a rogue, but he was a goblin that was very simple minded and just wanted to help the "humies" to earn "shinies" from them by doing "the poke poke". He almost never did anything without being instructed by the other PC's and if they asked him things he would usually tell them "Me no know, me goblin!"
Such a character might not be all that fun to play by normal standards, but as a DMPC, he was perfect.
Cutscenes can work if you make them very sparse and very short, also always at the end of the sessions and of events far away from the players. I've been running a campaign for ~4 months now and I've only done 2 cutscenes, the first one showed an NPC get murdered by a mysterious figure that they would learn about next session anyway; and the next showed a villain ordering 1 known minion and 1 unknown minion after the party, which they'll face only a few sessions later.
If you make em small, to the point, out of the way, and reserved, like end-credits scenes, this can work wonders for boosting player engagement. With just that first cutscene alone I managed to create a wave of out of session theorizing in the group that only made everyone more excited to come back next game, especially so when I started to leave breadcrumbs of who the killer was through the next sessions that provoked even more questions.
The TL;DR is this:
Cutscenes can work IF:
--They are very short (2-3 minutes MAX)
--They deal with information the PC's already know about, while also introducing new and vague unknowns into the mix
--They happen at the END of the sessions
--They are a rare occurrence
--Any information gleaned from the cutscenes by the players is introduced to the PC's soon after in the next session(s)
There are a lot of restrictions you need to follow, but it can work *wonders* if you do it right.
I do not use cutscenes to foreshadow bbeg but they are a useful tool to give the players more context into events happening around the story. A meteor shower destroying the lords castle destabilizing the area and leading to the bbeg using their army to conquer the region has more impact when the players know more info then they could have come across that quickly. I usually use cutscenes as a way to introduce potential allies/enemies.
In the prior example maybe I describe an ettin performing a ritual to summon the meteor shower from a cave in the mountains to the northwest. But that character has their own reasons for doing that deed.
I feel like this is a useful tool to help flesh out that the world is a living place. And although the players shape the world with their decisions there is always something things going on in the background. The world isn't static and just waiting for them.
Although the bbeg is important for game reasons they do not exist alone in a void, and as various events unfold through the world the players get to experience the plans of the bbeg more organically as the villain uses these events to their advantage. It also makes it a little easier in my opinion to prep as you already know the bbeg's desires and agenda and through these events the party can learn that without you smacking them in the face with it.
In my current campaign (we just finished session 6) the BBEG was set up to be an ancient shadow dragon... the party teamed up with the Raven Queen to absolutely destroy him in 3 rounds of combat only for it to be revealed that the Raven Queen used them to help her take the dragons power. She then betrays the party and becomes the new big bad. There’s also a war going on so they have to deal with that as well...
One thing I like to do is have big bads meet the party at lower levels not because I as a DM contrived it, but because the big bad in-character contrived it. It's a bit of a tightrope, but if a player does something unexpected, seeing that it's not the DM who gets surprised but the big bad themself does embolden them to feel like even there their choices matter.
I plan for my PCs to meet the BBEG in a couple different ways, 1 through a cult that worships him learning through environmental tidbits or 2 (my personal favorite) the opportunity to stumble into my BBEGs house (a reflavored twist on the CoS Death House). Most likely both. There's also a bit more or a planned lore dump before phase 3 but that's in character through a character that they'll most likely meet, who knew the BBEG before he became the BBEG.
In the basement of the death house, they can meet a residual projection of him that he can interact with the world through but can't leave the house in. Functionally a visible Poltergeist with a couple extra actions.
As of right now he's been banished to the Abyss, so he can't interact with the mortal plane directly; just in small bubbles. So a pseudo remote BBEG that gets closer and stronger the longer the campaign runs.
Number two is really easy in modern settings. Had them meet the BBEG over security cameras in Shadowrun. They also had a chat with him using dead bodies brought back through blood magic as proxies. Tried getting them killed too, it was a race to get out of that area in one piece. Half of the game was actually piercing his identity, and that step was practically a victory in itself. Got to foreshadow him without the players thinking it was cheap.
I’ve used cutscenes in prophetic dreams the players have had. Keep it short and players enjoy it, in my experience.
In my campaign, I let the players arrive on a boat with the bbeg, have the bbeg drown an npc from a distance for trying to get a free fare (the players saved him) and than have the bbeg give the players a letter to deliver to the king, that held a declaration of war to the island. They were therefore single handedly responsible for the destruction of the island, but it gave the party reason for vengeance (the true reason to take up the adventure, next to some peer pressure
"Enough of the stupid skits"
Me: No! We need more stabby stabby time!
Very well... 😂
I did a campaign once with the "BBEG meets PCs at low level" thing and, in my own opinion, it worked quite well. What I did was have the BBEG command three adult black dragons to descend on a town from across a canyon, and when the PCs finally tracked him down, he's guarded by six black half-dragon elite warriors. The PCs tried to negotiate, the BBEG ignores them, then the PCs attack and are held at bay by the elite warriors for a few rounds, when suddenly the BBEG says "there it is", transforms into an ancient black dragon, and flies towards the town. The elite warriors back down, even though they clearly had the upper hand, and one of them warns the PCs to not get involved in stuff way over their heads, before black wyverns descend and, with the warriors mounting them, fly off. By the time the PCs get back to the ravaged town, they learn about the thing the BBEG was after, all the bad news that would come with him obtaining it, and set the PCs on the path to try and stop him. In this event, I think the thing that worked was that the BBEG wasn't focused on the PCs, he had his own goals, and he had the entourage fitting a guy of his status.
As for cutscene, I think I've only found one instance in ANY game, not just D&D, that I think made sense, and that's in Assassins Creed (2 and Revelations to be precise). When Ezio sneaks through a vent or whatever and eavesdrop on the bad guys doing their planning. I think the way to make that kind of scenario work in D&D (purely speculative here, I've never used cutscenes before and I doubt I ever will, but IN CASE I DO, this is how I'd go about it) is to either have the meeting room be very well guarded so even if the PCs crash the meeting there's a high possibility of TPK and not doing squat to stop the bad guys; or, have the bad guys' plans be already in motion, so even if the PCs take out the bad guys then and there all they're doing is wasting time while the evil plan is wreaking havoc elsewhere, perhaps in the hometown of one or more of the PCs, giving the PCs an invested reason to leave the BBEG alone for the time being and focus on stopping the bad things currently happening.
Though I don't use them at all, the only way I can think of that cutscenes would work is if the characters are looking through a screen/portal/whatever else that makes it so they can't actually affect what is going on. It's very useful for creating a helpless scenario and cementing the BBEG as someone who needs to be defeated.
I have successfully introduced the bbeg early without infringing on player choice. My secret sauce: necromancy. The party caught the necromancer when he was weakened, and intended to capture him alive for questioning. The necromancer had backup clones, so instead of being delayed by unimpressive adventurers, he killed himself. One of the party members had been separated earlier from the group, and met the newly revived clone on the road who told her "Tell your friends: better luck next time."
I used to use cutscenes in my Monster of the week game (think buffy the vampire slayer) to help set up the main plot of that session, I'd only really do a "cold open" where I explain something happening before a violent act happens (think someone walking into an alley and the alley is described as covered in blood, cultists sacrificing someone) to help set my players in the right direction and bury themselves into the mystery!
I’ve introduced the BBEG to the party at level 2 and it went well ONLY because they were unaware he was even a villain. They were escorting some merchants and at the town he was the enforcer that maintained law and order in that town. He was made into an a-hole but that was mostly because the players actions caused quite a stir in town so he told them to knock it off. The players relented and I’ve been laying seeds that tension between this town and the royal family are building hoping to hint at the eventual civil war lead by the towns enforcer (aka. The BBEG)
My ways of foreshadowing a big bad?
1) He's the one that hired the party to take care of things, the party thinking that they are doing good when really they're doing evil. Big Bad is using a different name, playing both sides for an ulterior motive no one is aware of. Adventure unfolds
2) Leave a recurring clue, a token or some other artifact that all enemy encounters carry. The entire time the Big Bad was an innocuous NPC that the party encounters but often overlooks; a peddler, barkeep, travelling bard, any local color that the party will overlook.
3) Big Bad is a part of a party member's character history. Big Bad raised the party member with the long term goal of doing his bidding. (Ref. Jade Empire the video game by Bioware)
The example given in the skit can be made into a much better situation by making one simple change: the necromancer sends a minion (a powerful one, but still just a minion) to collect the corpses instead. If the players decide to fight him and win, they still get to feel accomplished for having thwarted a part of the villains plan, but also potentially become terrified as the party realizes this grueling fight was only with a minion and not the master. And if they don't fight him, this minion is the perfect sub-boss to bring back at a higher level (maybe 5 to accompany the new tier of play) so players can have this awesome "look how far we've come" moment.
Cutscenes do have their place - when players are using Arcane Eye, Clairvoyance, a crystal ball or something similar. Or similarly, if they alter self or polymorph into creatures and are attempting to stealth (especially good for an espionage campaign).
Such situations have the players initiate the "cutscene", and put them into positions where either they can do little to nothing, or the risks inherent in doing ANYTHING make interrupting the "cutscene" close to suicidal.
I like the "Shadowy figure on a distant hill taking notes of the party mid-battle then disappearing shortly after being noticed" approach to showing the players that something or someone is taking notice of them...
Also, I like calling for random perception checks in the middle of a fight to see how the players react. Plus having the BBEG's minions far away stops them from repeating that time they broke into a high-level dungeon, repaired the escape teleportation circle early, then teleported the dragon boss to a field full of battle-ready adventures who quickly dealt with it.
In the beginning skit, the DM could have saved the campaign by having the necromancer the party just killed be an underling to the big bad. If you think about it, the big bad should never work alone and should only have to get his hands dirty under extreme circumstances. Y'know, 'cause he has more important things to spend his time on like furthering his evil plot. Making the guy they just killed an underling serves three points: First, it stops your campaign from ending immediately. Second, it ropes the party into the story because it makes them direct enemies of the big bag (they killed his henchman, dude). Third, if the fight was challenging, it puts a little bit of fear/anticipation into the hearts of the party for the expected power level of the actual big bad ("Man, that guy was tough... What!? He was only an underling?!").
One method I didn't see him touch on is showing the aftermath of the Big Bad's handiwork. A little taste of just what they are capable of. I actually used this to rather great effect in one of my most successful campaigns to date
Best intro in a while! XD good ol murder-hoboing
Thanks! :-)
I think a good way to bypass the problems of the party meeting the villain at low levels is for the BBEG to sent some sort of duplicate of himself using illusion magic
The way I foreshadowed my villain was I had the villain summon many shadows, one of them looked like the villain, so that they can see the villain, and not kill them, while also showing some of the villains power.
I recently played my first game as a player. It was a fan made game, my girlfriend was the dm, and I was playing 4 characters at once ( I'm sure this probably breaks some rule, but I don't care). The BBEG was some giant demon that burst out a mountain wall in front of me (he was supposed to run off and reappear in chapter 5 or something) but my 4 level 1 characters decided to fight him. I only lost 1 guy who promptly rolled a nat 20 saving throw and was back in the fight.
Every game contains cutscenes, basically everytime the party or a PC enters a room, the DM pans the camera around pointing out all the important bits and pieces in the room. And thats how cutscenes in D&D should be, Short and to the point.
The best big bad I've had was the rich noble who straight up told the players not to trust him since he was only interested in his own well being and that he'd sell them out if it was good for business, and they trusted him anyway because they thought he was honest.
Cutscenes are totally fine if you do short ones, like a minute or two long. I do it, though very sparingly, during times I want the players to be aware of events that their characters wouldn't possibly be there for, like a bad guy rising up the ranks in their faction, or a character they thought died being alive. It gives then hype for when they run into those characters later. It's the same reason why tv shows do the whole "next time on Dragon Ball Z!" thing. Anticipation is a helluva drug.
So yes, cutscenes are fine, just keep them extremely short. That is the only railroad storytelling you're allowed to do.
On the topic of Strahd...We really hate (but our characters are thankful), that an npc, who helps us is too powerful, and told it to the DM numerous times. So, he pulls up BBEG at the Bonegrinder, just as we got an artifact. The intent was, that he asks for the artifact, we refuse, he kiss the npc, so we have a personal vendetta and the npc is gone from our lives. What went down...
The bard covers in fear as she tries to beg for our lives. The warlock (who has the artifact on him) is standing there doing nothing. My paladin, who is a chaotic good reckless boy, who really hates how everyone thinks Strahd is some untouchable god (as the character really doesn't think gods should be revered, as they are just as flawed as mortals) steps forward (after a will save) and tries to negotiate with him. The artifact for our free exit from Barovia. After a few lines, there were some initiative rollings, and everyone talked about the next characters they want to play. But instead, we went into the building, defended ourselves and with a well placed nat 20 attacks we could get through Strahds defense and did some points of direct damage to him. Then the bard rolled a nat 20 to persuade BBEG that we are more fun alive. Success. So in the end, we saved our npc friend and injures the local "god". From now on, my character tries to rise the spirit of the locals, telling them that we can injure Strahd, so there is a chance.
In conclusion...a scripted BBEG reveal where the players are should have been audience we grabbed the wheel and came out in a better situation. And why? Because I refused to accept, that this is a scripted event, when I should just watch and not act.
In the session 0 for the first serious campaign (3.5) I played in, I ended up killing a villain who was very much designed to be unwinnable through a repeated series of extremely lucky dodges and crits. Ultimately it was unwinnable, as the guy's minions had my PC surrounded while we dueled so my PC was immediately taken captive afterward, but my PC choosing to duel this guy instead of running/surrendering ended up turning what was supposed to be a wholesale slaughter of a bunch of cute little NPCs into a situation where 1 died, 2 were captured, and the rest were able to escape.
9:00 the entire point of Curse of Strahd is to instill the feeling of dread and despair into the players, every step forward comes with two steps back. The diner scene is not meant to showcase how awesome Strahd is, but to show the players how deep in the sh*t they're in. Hell there's an option to leave Barovia thus beating the campaign, but the players have the knowledge that Strahd still rules.
I have a feeling/theory that cutscenes can be used to make the players curious (not the PCs).
What if you had a cutscene that's happening with somewhere else that lasts no more than 1 minute. The thing that happens in that cutscene is mundane but a bit ominous. Like a halfling with brown hair walks down a dark alley and bumps into a hooded figure. The figure apologizes and leaves and the halfling gets back to walking only to realize that there's a letter in his hand. Then the cutscene ends and it's back to PCs and all questions of "What was that about?" is met with vague non-answers. "Trust me, it'll make sense later" or "Oh don't worry about it, it's nothing."
I personally feel that a cutscene like this (done better than the example given above) can be used to make the players suspicious and want to figure out what the heck the cutscene was all about.
The problem is that I have never done this, I have never heard anyone do this, I have never heard anyone suggest doing this and I have not personally seen anything like this in any other media. I think it is very easy to do wrong and doing it wrong would probably just annoy the players and make the story worse on top of all the cutscene problems Luke mentions in the video.
Cutscenes in general are a bad idea I think and the hypothetical use I mentioned may not even work as intended. I just believe that they can be used this way to great effect if the DM really really REALLY know what he's doing and trying this without knowing what he's doing can go very poorly. I don't use cutscenes because I don't believe I am an amazing enough DM is successfully pull it off.
In the fan made JJBA ttrpg show “Carbon Interface” the DM is reallyyyyy good at seeding these scenes in. Albeit they are streaming these and the players are amazing role players and patient. These scenes are still wonderful, and I think it grabs everyone’s attention.
@@ryedj707 What's a JJBA TTRPG show?
@@Zulk_RS its just a tabletop “system” - like dungeons and dragons, warhammer, pathfinder, etc. - which was made based off JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure by fans of the show. They have my personal favorite tabletop show - and by show I’m talking about streams of them playing the game like critical role for example - but I’m also a major JoJo fan, so that could be a big reason. JJBA Carbon Interface is on the “Stabbyness” twitch/channel I think if you do end up interested in checking it out.
@@Zulk_RS I think, if you keep them short (like your example), you can absolutely make them work. Basically, limit it to one (MAYBE two) actions that you're describing in detail. Of course, there are two pitfalls that I can think of off the top of my head:
1) If you have too many details, your players will 100% latch onto the wrong ones.
2) If you have too many details, your cutscene will be too long and the players will get bored.
3) Even if all of the details are relevant, if you have too many, the players will get bored and miss some.
The one time I used a BBEG and it worked, I used an alternate form of misdirection. They heard rumors about a diabolical boss of the under city, who was as ruthless as he was intelligent. They hunted down leads left and right, and finally got an audience with him. He walked in, a creepy mask covering his face, and he offered them cookies. He then spent fifteen minutes becoming friends with each and every one of them. He then took on the role of kind quest giver, and used the party to further his own ends. But now that the party is about to betray them, the party will have to figure out how to destroy someone who knows everything about them.
These skits are amazing. :)
Thank you! :-)
A good DM will want to find a way to make sure that the players still can make meaningful decisions during such a scene...but good players are going to respect and accept that the bbeg is here and that they can't defeat him in that moment. In this way, a Good DM and Good players end up being at odds haha.
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obviously communication is the best way to deal with this. the problem is that the players expect and accept that the outcome is fixed, so as long as the DM communicates that it isn't, then the players will be free again.
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This actually happened to me once. I had the BBEG and his best lieutenants ride up on a dragon, drop down from the sky space marine style, and initiate a combat with the party. The thing is, the party was level 11. they were absolutely no pushovers, so even though I was describing how ridiculously epic the bbeg and his first string lineup were being, I actually planned for this to be a fight. I wanted a huge slugfest where people were going to go down from both sides, and I wanted to engage in a prolonged dialogue between the BBEG and the party during the fight as an opportunity to dump exposition and stuff, and I had prepared for either outcome of the players winning or losing the fight.
But the second combat initiatiated, the players were in full retreat mode. They spent their first round of actions throwing out spells to delay the enemies while they all grouped together, and then they used their "get out of jail free" magic item that allowed them to cast windwalk as an action to just run. They were all like "we can't defeat him, he's the BBEG!!!!" and I was like "I wasn't prepared for you to respect him..." haha. it was still a very fun sequence, but I probably should have did my initial description of the encounter initiating with a reminder to the party that they were pretty epic themselves. I guess I'm just sharing this story because sometimes you are gifted with amazing players who are trying to tell the story with you, so when you make the effort to make sure encounters with the BBEG aren't scripted, they might still try to guess the script and play along if you don't let them know ahead of time that they don't have to do that if they don't want.
Stabby stabby time
Always.
No... *fire ball time*
In my campaign I revealed the BBEG very early in the campaign. While the bard of the group was fainted near the BBEG's lair (the BBEG is an aboleth), Nashor (the aboleth), tried to corrupt the bards minds but was stopped by the bard's guardian spirit. Now the bard is still asleep and the party is going to a quest to find a powerful priest that can help their friend
I did misdirection with my players, and they were absolutely certain through the use of dreams and visions for a character that the second in command partner of the big bad was the final villain when it was actually one of the NPCs I had introduced as an ally, and they never saw the big reveal coming. Like it was absolute betrayal on their faces
Could start with one of the main characters being attacked at a strange location by a baddy.
The rest of the group is lying asleep and the shadowy baddy just casually steps over one of them
heading towards the only one who is awake
Let the character, starting from lying down, to take any actions they want, getting to feet, drawing sword, even make attacks, cast spells.
Have the baddy make an attack, if/when the baddy hits, describe the attack in detail just up to the point it makes contact with the Player.
Then tell them they wake up
All a dream - memory of baddy fading - remember one feature about them (stag head sword pommel/that they were and elf/smelled like elderberries)
Drama llama, party wakes up and has breakfast
This is a crazy video because just last night I put my mini boss necromancer in front of the party (expecting them to kill him.) when they kill him his clone spell activates and they see his soul leave his body and travel west (into a younger stronger body)
My player's met "a big bad" early on, but my Big Bad is just a flawed human. He genuinely LIKES the party and to hear them tell of their adventures. He actually helps them on their quests and is a Patron to them, providing them a cottage (rent free) to use as their home base. It will only be later, when he creates a horrible monstrosity that he cannot control, that he will demand the PC's help him cover up his mistake. This "big bad" isn't a boss fight, but a moral fight. Will the PC's help their friend who is in deep need, or will they do the "right" thing and turn him in and expose his crimes? I can hardly wait to find out what they do?
Idk if I quite agree that giving players and unwinnable fight removes agency. Telling them "no, you can't attack" is removing agency. Allowing them to get roflstomped is just giving consequences to their actions. If the evil prince is traveling through a town his his guard and the party decides to attack at a low level, that's on them. I'm not on the same boat that just because an option is available to players means it should have a chance to work.
I actually use the introducing the bbeg at low levels a lot. Especially if my bbeg is an organization or group of bbegs. I always just make a reason the bbeg has to leave.
I dunno if I've done them right, but my players have said they enjoy my cutscenes. If they're lying, that's not my fault. If they don't like it, I've told them directly to give me feedback as to what they want me to improve on.
I really Loved my Foreshadowing of Strahd in Vallaki...
I had a monologue written up so that he could tell the players about the history of the EVIL Thing he was doing, but I had it broken up into ~6 second segments.
And after each segment, I asked the party what they were doing, or if they had a response. Whenever one of them did something to interfere, he counter-attacked with a Legendary Action, but other than that, wouldn't attack...
About half the party was heavily wounded by the end of it 😈
I have had success with cut scenes through dream sequences. What sells it is to make it disorienting and change perspectives.
Player: "I walk up to the bar and order an ale."
DM: "The bartender turns around and pours you an ale. When he turns back you see that it's you, and now you are serving that ale to a tall male elf with a goatee. He says thank you."
What I would avoid is direct conversations. It ends up being far too direct or annoyingly coy.
You have to have a reason for these dreams though. So far I've used it for an Aasimar PC getting info from their Celestial, and for a Warlock getting info from their patron.
I plan to use a cut scene in the next session or two of my Dragon Heist campaign. If/when a PC attunes to the Stone of Golorr they will see some moments from it's history to clue them in on the greater plot.
Would be interesting if instead of telling everyone who the big bad is have them meet the big bad in an auction, where the players have a chance to bid against the big bad on a McGuffin.... Or they could just sit back and save their money to make a bid on that +1 longsword, or some trinket or item that would normally be beyond their budget at the time.....
#6 - Make them NOT want to kill him. Make him useful for the party. Maybe there's a reward if they can turn him in alive, maybe he has challenged them to defeat the monster in x time and then he'll help them, maybe they have to cooperate because the current problem is larger than their beef, perhaps he's related to a special NPC and why would you kill their relative?? Maybe the BBEG is the quest giver and has more to give.
#7 - Make him inconsequential at the moment. He's finishing up a purchase off the black market just as the characters arrive, he gives an evil speech in the court room but the party is only after evil captain at the moment, he's welcomes all the guests to a dinner party that turns fatal.
I just DM "The Haunt" an one shot with some nice use of cutscenes. Is a mansion where the story of its haunting is played by ghostly echos in some of his rooms.
In the first campaign I ever ran, the big bad was a merchant who was anarchist and organizing an insurrection across the entire nation.
They met him in session 1. Because he hired them to retrieve his son who had been kidnapped.
Because he wanted to distract them while he did his thing.
I dig this video. In a recent campaign, I put the BBE in mortal danger in front of the party very early on. They had no idea they would be the BBE, though I dropped a few clues, but they ended up saving them! Lol I love players
I introduced my big bad the very first mission when my players were third level, but I introduced him as someone who was helpful to them, in fact the big bad has been working with them since the first mission. But I'm not sure if I should reveal that he's the big bad mid game or late game, part of me kind of wants them to align themselves with the big bad without actually realizing that he's the main villain, just subtle clues, and then part of me wants to reveal it more in the mid game and let them really fully make the actual choice of going "You know, we think he's right"
Have the biggest "good guy" influencer seem more like a cliche villain and if the party ends up going at them have the BBEG send his main minion visit the party to taunt them via giving them an out. There's so many ways to do this.
If your BBEG is a high level caster, Simulacrums. The Pathfinder 1e version I think works the best as the Simulacrum is only half the creators level with only the abilities they would have at that level, but a 5e DM could just use a young version simulacrum since it's as powerful as the creator, but never grows. You've got something the players can fight, can actually kill, and if it's an hard fought battle and they find out it's a Simulacrum that is a fraction of the bbeg's power, they'll get their own "oh shit" moment.
One of my later bosses of this campaign is getting a two stepp foreshadowing.
Step one: He's the areaboss of the curent zone the PC's are inn, and i (thru NPC's) told them flat out that they die iff they fight him.
Stepp two will be a wasted citty, inwich he'll be to bussy roasting the lokal guards and burning a whole binder of charaktersheats/sidequests. That whay the PC's can experience their lack of power while they are still able to use what they have to atleast save some of their friends. (Smal victories for the greater good that is my players enjoiment)
Iff that doesn't get them hocked on this arc and my redd dragon vilain I don't need to prepp more as a vilain of the week will be enough.
My 4th level players tried to fight my BBEG Death Knight who one punched the entire party with destructive wave. Deeming them unworthy of a TPK, allowed them to live but, stole everything while they were unconscious. Lol
I am having quite a bit of fun with my party. I have a NPC that acts super sus and that the whole party thinks is the BBEG. They fear him, they don't trust him, and it's great because they completely trust one of the actual BBEG who paints that NPC as super sus. This NPC even has a reputation as the black sheep and his past is a mystery. The best part is that this shady NPC is actually a complete good guy who is doing everything he can to help the party with their quest. I honestly can't wait for the real BBEG to show his true colors and shock the party.
"It's like having NPCs always backstab the characters. It reaches a point where it just becomes stupid."
I feel very called out.
Sorry? 😬
Hostages might be a good way to guide your players through a big bad encounter
Also cutscenes arent bad but they need to be short, sweet, and at the end of a session. Like the end of an episode on tv to keep up hype for the next episode. And they must be used sparingly
The big bad of a previous campaign of mine was a character I'd played as a player in another campaign. The game started with the players getting attacked by him and saved by a dragon, who the big bad sent packing fairly easily.
One alteration to the "PCs meet the BBG at low level" approach could be to meet them in a completely non-combat/non-confrontational scenario where they don't even appear to be a villain. This would probably work better for more intrigue or mystery focused villains rather than combat focused ones and shouldn't be used all the time because it has similar pitfalls to "NPC backstabs the party". Instead of having the big bad appear and taunt them or having the party come across them attacking some random village, introduce them as if they were a normal, friendly NPC and/or questgiver with potentially a few hints at what they are planning such as them not agreeing with the current leadership of the region. Maybe they haven't even started to execute their plans yet or aren't very far along and are secretly looking for allies and followers so they try to befriend the party before attempting to recruit them later down the line. Maybe they aren't even plotting anything when they first meet, but something (potentially even something caused by the party's actions) happens that puts them on the path to being the villain of a plotline or even the BBG for a whole campaign.
I tried foreshadowing the big bad evil guy
for context I and my two players are noobs
the royal ball was crashed by an enemy organization
my original idea was to make the big bad evil guy steal a rusty but needed sword from a player
then give the players a choice are they chase the evil guy, stand ground help the people, escape or join the enemy forces
my goal first make the big bad and the players meet each other (one of the players had already met him in a disguise)
second goal was for them to find out make the players experience a special homebrew spell
some rolls later and the big bad was gripped very strongly at the wrist
and then I either forget that he was grappled. the player released him and bookout of the castle or I made him magically disappear
Thank you Mister Dungeon Master, sir. Bounced on my boys familiar to this!
It is not plot armour to have it too strong. Plot armour is contrivances and luck that allow them to survive inescapable.
Saying that your characters lose agency by not being able to win against it is like saying you've taken your barbarian's agency by saying it can't just float all of a sudden.
Lol I can only add that the cutscene is doable and well. It's about timing and context like everything else. So here's the set up: players just beat mini boss, and are leveling up (a key component is time they had alot of time not playing), they are choosing to stay in city when a bunch of refugees arrive with the expo dump. Bbeg just destroyed the kingdom. Bbeg has allies. And bbegs location. Are all for shadowed in this time as I discribe the empire falling I finish around the time they start finishing leveling. I also anwer questions and sell items sitting this time since it's all word of mouth. Other options include the party needing a scrying mirror or something to look at the bbeg/figure out something about him, convenientces of what he's doing is up to the dm but it means the players don't feel like it's out of game or something like that. They can look away from the mirror or end the spell or anything if they don't want to finish the scean. I have a pc who if any bad guy speaks he lanchrs into assault mode. He doesn't listen o monologues I sometimes give mid bosses a mini monologue to get interrupted only 2 lines in. I'm in trouble if he ever let's one finish cus it's gonna get trailpy
Im using a cinematic in person, where my players will finish the boss, and then a paladin of a religion that will cause problems for my players later comes in to clear out another boss level monster that is too much for my players. This is foreshadowing a boss later in the campaign, the actual god of that religion whos paladin acts as his sword in the world so he doesnt have to reveal himself. Essentially my players do get to do the boss fight, a consequence of that fight happens, and this paladin comes and calls down the judgement of his radiant god down on it. Im neither taking agency away from my players because it wasnt part of their fight to begin with, im not showing a "cutscene" thats taking place away from the players, and im adding foreshadowing for an adventure and an npc while allowing my players to interact with him now, and create questions for them to consider. Its like the soldiers in the 2014 Godzilla movie, they're doing their part while godzilla is beating Muto ass, the world of the titans taking place alongside the main characters. Eventually my players will be at level to clear this future adventure, fight this paladin of a corrupt religion, and even face off against the very god they worship. I'm hoping this isnt bad for my game, its very necessary for the scale the campaign is at, hopefully allowing my players to cash in on every piece that is foreshadowed.
So several campaigns back I had my group meet the BBEG in the second session of the entire campaign. They didnt realize this until they spoke to him, instead they met him in a tavern as he was gathering information of his own and one of the group went to talk to him.
Through conversation the character learned that this was the person who destroyed a village the previous session (good insight check) and continued to talk to him about the information he was gathering.
Using that they then went to the location he was gathering information on to try and beat him to whatever goals he had there. They fought him here (two or three sessions after meeting him) and lost. However rather than kill them he let them live, actively revealing that he was doing so because of the talk they had before. He would let them live and try and gather what he was looking for. He would view it as a challenge between himself and them, his goons and them. Who can gather the maguffins, who can gather the most. Who will get to change the world.
Having the party meet the BBEG early doesnt have to be a 'you have no agency here it is cinematic' and you dont need to come up with some 'the big bad let you live because you were beneath them' reason. A simple conversation and a challenge often goes a long way.
One of my favorite ways to introduce a BBEG was one I had in a sci-fi post apocalyptic campaign. For the first 2 sessions, the players had been hearing rumors about this CEO of the major evil corperation attempting to control the region. When session 3 rolls around, they band together with a large group of rebels to attempt to assassinate the guy. The reality is that his time outside of corperate HQ was completely planned and intentionally leaked to draw out the rebels, who he then sacked his lv 15 elite guards on leading to a massacre. The encounter is not so much of trying to defeat the BBEG, but the players trying to brainstorm and figure out how they can escape the massacre and hide long enough to regroup and continue their journey to finding some way to defeat him.
Wanna introduce a big bad early on? Do it like Blackbeard in one piece. Make the party believe this villain is a no body. Maybe even make the bbeg easy to get a long with at first. Then later when the party forgets all about him BAM. They’ll never suspect it.
Guys, I need some help with a D&D issue and I think that this channel can help me with that:
In later sessions that I master, when the BBEG or an important boss is giving its evil monologue to flavor the consequent and inevitable combat, players take advantage of that moment to make things so they start the fight with advantage (for example, a cleric invoked his spiritual weapon while a boss was talking to save his bonus action at the start of the fight, or in other campaing, the Lycan Order's Blood Hunter transformed into his werewolf form as an action when my boss was giving her evil speech). I know that as a player is an intelligent and strategic thought (and the truth is that it is really stupid to not take advantage of that situation), but as a DM, that bothers me a lot and I think that is anticlamatic and ruins the mood before the fight.
What do you think I should do? I have thought that if my players take advantage of that I should make that the BBEG notice this and casts one of its most powerful spells or makes a powerfull range attack to punish the pcs for not paying attention.
What do you guys think of this.
first remember the tools at your dipossal, make the bbeg be at some distance before a fight, most actions hav a range make use of that, also make subtle but efficient nodes at the situation and make th ambienc so that the characters have some sort of difficulty to do so(specially if this i somthing that is happening often) have the party be at a disadvanteous terrain so that it wont be wise for them to try and do that (make some minions appear even if weak they could opportunity attack on the players before they can interupt for instance), if the bbeg can use some spells to disguise himself of have copies of him usethat so that they dont know were to attack, try to make the engagement more intersting, and i thing the most important part of this, talk to your players before and after sessions explain that you also want to tell a story and whatseems to you that is breaking that part ofthe game, DMs are part of the game and want to have fun too remember that
@@EstebanBrenesV Thak you for your advice
@@thefoxofunfairstreet3004 no problem I hope it helps, enjoy DM your sessions
I mean you could do all this... but what if they met the big bad at level 3, killed him, and he'd already used the clone spell, or maybe it was a simulacrum
Came across this video again and thought of another way you could foreshadow the main villain without risking him: Send his powerful enforcer/emissary to do his dirty work!
You get the effect of showing off the BBEG but without the risk. And if the party somehow kills the emissary/enforcer, that will only draw attention to this new threat to the BBEG’s plans and will get them to react in some way to it either by sending an invitation or a hit squad to squash these upstarts.
You know what works better than I ever imagined in my Curse of Strahd campaign? Letters. After Death House my party found a picnic basket with a letter saying "Welcome to Barovia." signed by Strahd...and promtly sent an imp to Castle Ravenloft with a reply. They keep having corespondences with the Big Bad now
Nice. My PCs have done something like that after discovering the Bad Guys have lawyers. They exchange very polite letters, and on one occasion, even a contract.
In a campaign I DM, I did step two thing, but instead of showing him do something bad, they all encountered him during a tournament event in a city. He was after the price, they could slow his plan by winning.... oh and he has a personal connection to one of the player characters as he is that characters uncle.... he is the charismatic guy that pretends to be on your side to get what he needs from you as he plans to invade his brother`s kingdom after he was exiled in order to take the throne. (The PC is a naive character, and do not know why she suddenly could not see her uncle anymore, as she also had overprotective parents)
This proved to be very effective because the entire party started liking him, then they realized his real motivations, so not only did they get to know a little too OP NPC at the time they met him, but it did become a nice plot twist later on as well