What do I mean by this? Well, a warrior tribe might fight to the death but an owlbear might only fight until it’s gotten some food or until it knows it’s been out numbered. What is the motivation of your monsters?

Fight Or Flight

When things go poorly for a monster, what are they going to do? I gave two examples above, but think about it before you get into combat. Every monster will have a motivation for what they are doing. A group of bandits might want to intimidate and rob, a mama dragon will want to protect her young, a zombie wants to eat your brains.

So when you plan a session, and combats, think about what they want. Will a bandit surrender if the rest of their party is killed. Will they run away? Or maybe a bandit leaves the party for dead and steals their stuff if they beat them. What makes sense for your story and for the monster you bring into battle?

On the flip side, a monster that is dumber, like an owlbear, what do they do? Most wild animals don’t want to fight. They will run if put in a situation that is dangerous to them, or until provoked. But back them into a corner and they fight. Maybe the owlbear spots your gnome and is hungry, do they continue to fight the party if they knock over the gnome, or do they pick up the gnome and run? I would say that the owlbear probably plans to run and separate the gnome from the party.

How Long A Fight?

Like I talk about above, this is another question to ask when planning. How long will something fight. Let’s go back to that mama dragon protecting her young. She won’t stop fighting. On the flip side, bandits will most certainly run if things go south.

This becomes an assessment of how long a creature will fight. Think about it before the session but also during the combat. An owlbear won’t fight for three rounds and run. If it is getting hurt, it’ll run. A bandit won’t fight until it’s at 1 hit point. If half the bandits die, the other half will run. So it’s less about the timing of how many rounds of combat versus what is happening in combat that makes that determinations.

And like I said with that mama dragon, she won’t ever run. A zombie, they won’t run. But the big bad of your campaign, they might run before combat even starts. A smart bad guy tries to avoid getting killed. And if they have a plan in place they want to enact, why wouldn’t they run immediately. Now, the players might not be a threat. In that case, the BBEG would not run but would they fight?

Target Priority

Finally, I want to talk about target priority. I think this is where DM’s, including myself, trip up often. We like to go after the tank or spellcaster, but I don’t think that is how it should always go. Some monster target based on other things.

I want to go to my game. The last session, you can read about it here, I put an arcane stalker in the parties way. The arcane stalker prioritized spellcasters. Why, because that is the arcane stalkers job. They kill spellcasters for the Winter Court of the Fey. And with a teleport ability, they didn’t care so much about the fighter. It made sense for them to ignore the tank to get the casters.

On the flip side, an owlbear, they will go after who they think is the biggest threat. And an owlbear threat isn’t going to be how humans maybe perceive a threat. The larger the character, the bigger the threat. Or, on the flip side, if the owlbear just wants to grab a snack and get out, they might go for the smallest. Either way they do not prioritize based on abilities, but on a simpler system of size.

Going back to our bandit example. Think about the composition of the party and of the bandits. If the bandits have a spellcaster or ranged fighters of their own. They might send two or three members to engage the tank. Then the ranged attackers will go after the healer or a spellcaster. Basically trying to keep the tank occupied so they can’t get to their own weaker members. Target priority is really something fun you can play with in Dungeons and Dragons.

How Do You Handle This In Your Games?

I want to know what you do in your games. Leave a comment below. Or let me know over on Twitter or Facebook, information down below.

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Unknown To The Players

Introduce the big bad guy to the players not as the big bad guy. The saying goes something like, the villain is the hero of their own story or in their own mind. So rarely do you get a moustache twirling villain who just exudes evil. The bad guy thinks they are doing something good, not something bad. And what they do might look like it is good, especially early on in the story. Create this go getter character who is forward thinking and out to do great things to the players. Give them some quests from that player, and then start to drop hints slowly over time that this person isn’t as good as they seem. But introduce someone to the players who ends up being the bad guy.

Looking Down On The Players

Another way to do it is to introduce the characters to the bad guy just to show them how far they have to go. The bad guy can come in being known as the bad guy and not even bother fighting the players. They are just seeing who is being tasked to be a pest to them. And because the players aren’t a high enough level, the bad guy can just leave, probably leaving a henchmen behind. It shouldn’t be until the players are at a higher level when they will actually be a concern to the bad guy. If your players are a quite low level, have the bad guy one hit knock out one of them and leave. It’ll create that impact and push the players towards the end goal of stopping the villain.

Through Their Henchmen

If your bad guy is part of a crime ring, or controls some sort of gang, runs a cult, anything like that, you have other characters that can introduce them. In this way bombard the players with villains, low level and then up the food chain of the group. Make it obvious they are all part of the same group. The players will know that there has to be someone at the top that they’ll deal with eventually. You can even build up the legend of the person over time for the players. Talk about how cruel or crazy the person is, or how sneaky and cunning they are. Build up the mystique around the big bad guy for even if the players don’t meet them right away, they know them.

At The Early Stages

The early stages is going to be different than the unknown to the players, though it will cross over. When the players don’t know that the big bad guy is going to be the big bad guy. In this case, the big bad guy doesn’t even know that they are the big bad guy either. They are some small level bad guy who is down on their luck and sells the players a sob story of some sort. Ideally, you do this in town where killing someone would get you in trouble with the town guard. But give this person a down on their luck, stealing because they need the food, try and get the players to feel sympathy for the bad guy. Then, in the background have the bad guy slowly become a big bad guy for a big reveal at the end. Almost think Count of Monte Cristo style where the Count is actually known as someone else as well. It’ll make for a fun reveal when this bad guy who goes by some odd name turns out to be the bad guy they helped at the beginning.

Final Thoughts

Now, with that said, you can not introduce the big bad as long as you want. If your ultimate big bad guy is going to be a beholder, that makes sense that you wouldn’t just stumble across a beholder. But, it can be fun to try and introduce the big bad guy early, give the players some target or some surprise later on. It is a twist on a lot of stories where the big bad guy is revealed towards the end. But it can be just as good to introduce them early and make them sympathetic or untouchable so that the world develops more.

What is your most memorable bad guy you’ve encountered or ran in a Dungeons and Dragons game? How do you make them stand out from other bad guys?

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The Dungeon Master

The Dungeon Master has the most that they need, and even that isn’t all that much. As the Dungeon Master there are two books that you need, plus a few other things. The two books are Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook and Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual. There are a lot more books, but those are the two books that you need.

The Player’s Handbook is going to have all the options for your players as to how they can build their characters, or at least what they need to know for starting out in a very first game. There are additional books with more options, but those are just options, and you don’t need all of them to start, or really ever. The Monster Manual is going to give you a ton of things for your players to fight against and to build a campaign around. It’s really a great way to figure out what you are going to do in your campaign by just flipping through the book.

The last thing that only the Dungeon Master needs to provide, in my opinion, is character sheets. Now, not filled out ones, but ones for filling out for session 0. This doesn’t meant that they don’t need more, but it’s stuff that everyone will need. The character sheets are important because I’m not going to recommend that players have the Player’s Handbook, for me that is not an essential thing. So as the Dungeon Master, that person will have a copy of the character sheet they can make photocopies of, or you can find it easily online and print them.

What Does Everyone Need

I thought that I was going to split this between the players and the dungeon master, but really, the dungeon master just has more that they need to have before starting a game. So what do you recommend that everyone has?

Firstly, everyone should have their own set of dice. Personally, I probably have enough dice sets for 15 people comfortably, but that’s just me and a lot of other players who have been playing longer. When you start out, a single set of dice (should be 7 dice) is all that you need. It should have a D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20, and percentile die in it (D4 = four sided die, D6 = six sided, etc). While you might need to roll some of the dice multiple times for things, you don’t truly need more than one set.

Next I think everyone should have a pencil, which you need for making your character, but also a notebook. The notebook, or paper, is for taking notes. It’ll be handy for character creation, but also for during the campaign remembering everything that is going on. For the players, they should be jotting down what they find interesting, what seems to be important plot points, etc. For the dungeon master, you’d be using it for keeping track of NPC’s, plot points you’re creating, and general recaps of what the players have done.

And really that’s about it that everyone needs to get going on a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

What I skipped

So, I do think it’ll be useful to talk about some of the things that I skipped as well and why I skipped them.

Why not the Player’s Handbook for the players or everyone?

I don’t think that the players really need the players handbook. It is nice to have at least an extra copy around for character creation and leveling up, but it isn’t needed. So if someone wants to spend the money on it they can, but you really just need one copy. Also, for new players, they often get stuck in the rule book looking something up during the game and not paying attention. So for a lot of people it detracts from the game instead of enhances it having their own copy.

And the Dungeon Master’s Guide for the Dungeon Master, why not that?

While the Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a lot of useful information, it can be overwhelming. What magical items are out there is interesting, but is a lot. How to create an NPC or a bad guy also interesting, but also can be done without it. I think personally it’d have been too much for me at the start. The information is really good, but it could lead to delays in starting playing because of trying to get your campaign “right”.

Finally, these are the physical things that are essential for playing Dungeons and Dragons. Things like being willing to try it, having a good attitude, having fun, and everyone else having fun, those are important as well. And I will talk about those coming up because they are important, in fact more important. Without what is above, you can play something close to Dungeons and Dragons, but your experience won’t be as full as if you started with all of those. Thankfully, you can make it a pretty cheap hobby with cheap dice and those few books.

What do you consider to be essential for starting playing Dungeons and Dragons?

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Now, Player versus Player (PvP) is something that might never come up in your game of Dungeons and Dragons. There can be moments that make it worth it for the story to have some PvP, but that’s not that norm.

So, let’s start out with some reasons that you might have some PvP in your game?

A lot of the reasons that you might have PvP aren’t good reasons. The players out of game (or in game) might not like each other, so they might fight. This happens when you have an unbalanced party, when you have a chaotic evil wizard and a lawful good paladin, you might end up having PvP in the game. You can also run into it when you have a rogue or greedy character who is stealing from the players or is hording the good loot because, even though they can’t use it, they want to keep it because it’s pretty.

You might also get PvP, and this is a good reason, when there is a tournament. Maybe there is some sort of challenge that all the players enter into and in the end they have to face off against each other. This is something that works best when you have players who really want to show off their characters mechanical abilities for a session or two.

Finally, it might be a turn, to borrow a wrestling term. When someone turns, it means that they are going from being the good guy and helpful part of the party to possibly becoming the BBEG or some level of villain. This one is neither good or bad because it could be a really cool moment for the players if it’s done correctly and planned out. If it just comes out of nowhere and there’s no reason for it other than the player got bored, then that’s considerably less ideal.

How do you then deal with it these are some of the reasons.

If it is for a “bad” reason, I think you have to deal with it differently than you do with a “good” reason. With the some of the “bad” reasons, I’d start with an above table discussion. Take it out of the game and figure out how you can avoid conflict against two opposing characters for whatever reason that might. Odds are in those situations, one person is going to end up feeling like their character is being picked on in the game by the other character, and that can lead to issues outside of the game. But it is always possible that these players have been intentionally playing their characters in a way to build to that moment. If you don’t know as a DM, you should take that conversation out of the game for a moment before you sit back and watch them go at it.

If it is one of the “good” reasons, try and make it feel unique. If it’s a tournament, make it some reward that all the characters would want to win or need to win for their party so that they can continue going forward with their quest and the story. Or if it’s a turn, make that moment as rewarding as possible. Build to it slowly, pass a note to let the player know when it’s the right time, and then spring it on the other players. Hopefully it’ll be a shock and a good shock, and then let that combat happen. However, if you are doing this and you want that character to end up as the BBEG, give specific instructions when to run and get out of the combat, because up against a single character, the party is probably going to make quick work for them. Or give them something that will allow them to put up a better fight that the players don’t know about. I would also recommend, after that first encounter, you take over the BBEG, former player character, in any of the combats, and let the player roll up a new character.

For both of the good reasons for PvP, I would use them sparingly as if it draws out too much, you are likely going to lose the focus of some of your players at the table. When you are doing PvP with a group of people at the table larger than two, that means that you are going to have some players just sitting around and watching, and unless it’s compelling for the reason for it, or if it’s the whole party against the one character who has turned on them, So keep things moving, keep it interesting, and create some sort of countdown for the players so that it doesn’t end up being a long and drawn out slug fast, though, I doubt it will be. Also, try and avoid fatalities, unless it’s supposed to be a a situation where, going to the example of the character who turned, that they are not the BBEG, but have just been giving information to the BBEG. Then see how many of the party members they can take out before they are taken out.

Overall, I think that PvP in D&D is something that can work sparingly. And I think that’s something that needs to be done carefully. There are plenty of ways for it to go bad, particularly above table that you don’t want to create resentment at the table. You are going to have to get the buy-in from the players to make it really work. Like I’ve already said in the article, keep it moving as well, don’t let it drag out too long, because you might not have the whole party involved in it, and you don’t want them to be bored at the table.

Have you run into a situation where there was PvP at a table that you were a player at or that you were running the game? How did that work for you?

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This is definitely going to be grim fantasy setting where you are dealing with some fairly heavy issues. Much like the show The Walking Dead and game Dead of Winter deal with humans who are causing problems to the other humans.

So, we have a small group of survivors who are our players. They are going to have to look for a safe haven. Whether they all know each other before the apocalypse is up to the players, but it’s possible that some of them could be an outsider to the group. I think that would be a way to cause tension in the game quickly by planting seeds of doubt, whether the person can be trusted fully or not.

You can also set this up by having an DM PC, something that I would say never do, in the party where you have a character, but really they are a reoccuring NPC who is going to screw over the party some night. They are using the party for their own good, but then they decide that the party isn’t useful for them, so they are going to take what they want and then leave. I’d make this a lower level bad guy for them to deal with, while still having to fight zombies often or try and sneak around zombies. You could even, if they don’t track down the NPC and kill them, have that character build up into a larger bad guy.

If they do kill the NPC, then create a new one who has a rival gang fighting for resources and doing a scorched earth policy to keep other people from following behind them and getting the zombies to follow those people and getting to them. However, this would obviously have a very negative effect on other survivors beyond the more resourceful PC’s.

Eventually, I think the big bad of the campaign, besides the zombies, should be a wizard or lich who has a controlling rod that they build after the apocalypse has started. This rod is what they are using now, to control zombies and take over territories and subjugate people. Taking out the lich/wizard won’t solve the problem of the zombies, but will at least give people a fair chance.

I’d make it so that the BBEG is either the only who who can control the zombies, or that the rod is something like a crystal ball so that the players won’t likely get the magical item that allows them to send zombies away or keep them away from an area. Or at least cause that as a threat for the players and the players can either decide that destroying the control rod, which would then cause the zombies to attack the BBEG as well as the players might be an object, or try and figure out how and use the control rod.

Maybe give it to the players, now that I’m thinking about it, or give them a chance to get it, because then you could narrate a cool ending where the players could use the control rod to create a little oasis of safety for people to live.

With all these kind of major points, I’d also have the players dealing with survivors, dealing with injured people, dealing with bitten people who haven’t turned yet, and things like that. I would nerf a few healing options, basically only wish should be able to stop the zombie virus as it takes over the body where it could be argued that Greater Restoration or even Lesser Restoration might be able to normally.

Now, would I want to run this game? I think it could be interesting to run. I think the big focus of this game is going to be putting the players into situations where there isn’t a good outcome. This is supposed to be a dark fantasy scenario, and you don’t want them to be too heroic. I’d throw them up against situations where it’s about surviving. With that, though, I’d also give them a saving throw against turning into a zombie, but I would expect some PC’s to die along the way.

Would you want to play in a dark fantasy game?

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First off, what is the BBEG? BBEG, if you don’t know what it stands for, means the Big Bad Evil Guy. The BBEG is also going to be the person or deity or monster that is causing the issues that your party faces in the campaign as planned thus far. It’s possible that your game could end up having several BBEG, but each one would be a separate arc, and we’re planning one arc that could be your whole campaign unless you decide to continue playing more.

So, what makes a good BBEG? Some evil tyrant trying to rule everyone? Sure, that works. A mistaken wizard who believes that the person who killed their family is the king? Yup, that works too. Is it the Queen who believes that the only way to save her people is by kidnapping the youngest child and making them part of a weird cult to appease the gods? Yup, that also works.

This is one area where you can really decide how you want to take your game. The easiest thing to do to create your BBEG is to think about what type of game that you want to run again. We’ve limited our game to this smaller area, so that probably precludes some of the ideas that I’ve come up with. But a crazed wizard in the woods is always interesting.

I’m going to create what I call a mind horror that is going to be my BBEG. The Mind Horror is going to be an intelligent monster that has come into the area and is looking to gain control of the lands so that it can create a breeding ground for more Mind Horrors. So if the players actually bother to talk with it and interact with it more than just try and kill it, they can possibly come to an agreement where it will stop killing people.

Now with the BBEG, you want to hint at them early on, but your players shouldn’t come across them until later in the game, probably still before they can actually handle it, but not that much before so the BBEG doesn’t just murder your whole party in one shot. So you have to set-up stuff before your players are at that level that they can deal with.

These are the smaller story arcs that the players get to play through that teach them about the BBEG and getting an idea of what sort of monster they might be facing again. So you most likely will want to have several of these arcs prior to them facing off against the BBEG. I’m thinking that my Mind Horror is going to be set as someone they face off against at level 10. Depending on how I do it, I think that I’d want about 3-4 arcs for the PC’s to have to go through before getting to the BBEG arc.

So in some order the arcs would go like the following:

Something strange going on in the mine. Most likely the workers are coming back crazy and some of them are murdering each other. The PC’s can go and investigate. First it’s thought that it’s a goblin tribe, but the players will find out the same thing is happening to the goblins. The players can then explore underground and determine eventually that it’s going to be a tainted under ground stream.

There’s also going to be a cult that is following the Mind Horror around that comes into the town. They are going to be causing problems because of killing of livestock, generally causing a malaise to come over the town and plants and animals are dying off. They are doing something to prepare the way for the Mind Horror to take over the land.

We’re also going to have a Grima Wormtongue situation where the Wizard is going to be influenced by a new adviser into doing more and more destructive and crazy things. So the players are going to have to figure out who is causing the problem, but then will have to figure out if they decide to deal with it as a Wormtongue problem, how to get the Wizard back to normal, or deal with the Wizard as well and create a power vacuum.

Then we’ll have a situation where there are mindlings that come out of the mines and caves in the mountains. Basically they are weaker versions of the mind horror and are setting up nests in the mountains.

This would probably be somewhere in the middle. Wormtongue part would probably be the last one before they have to face off against the Mind Horror. There would also be some overlap between these things as well. Probably the earliest thing that would actually have happened is the Wormtongue situation where the Wizard is being influenced, and that’s why the wizard wants the gems. The Goblins/Mine issue might be the first thing, but the cult would start moving into town and influencing things while that is going as well.

You can see how it can become a bit to manage, but the multi-leveled story and multi-arc story gives it a better feel. And I don’t need to plan out all the way to level 20, or even all the way through the arcs until I get closer to them. Maybe the players decide they want to continue the campaign, while that can happen with introducing a new and bigger bad guy.

You can also see how I’ve tied basically everything into the small area. It doesn’t matter where the Mind Horror has come from, because it’s there already. They don’t need to go anywhere else to deal with it besides a few days out of the town at times. Maybe the next arc is more epic. Now that the PC’s have a name for themselves the Queen of the land will send them on a mission to deal with a rogue dragon up in the mountains? Or maybe it’s to infiltrate another kingdom and deal with a problem that they thought was just a normal king, turns out to be a dragon who now wants to wipe out the kingdom they are from. But that’s how you can build stories on top of each other. You could even tie it together barely by saying that the reason the Mind Horror moved to this location is because the dragon forced them out of the other kingdom.

So what do you think of the story thus far. I’m not sure there is a ton more that I would do to create this game, but I will talk some more about creating the specifics of the town and surrounding area in a later article.

What are your thoughts on the BBEG I’ve created? How do you create a BBEG?

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