How do I introduce a recurring rival/minor antagonist without

Don't make stats. If he doesn't have stats, he can't be killed.
On a serious note, make him at least interesting enough to not be marked "shoot on sight" by the team's murderhobo.

You can introduce a rival or minor antagonist without even having them there. Have him do something in your world that the players won't like, whether it be competition with the group or sabotage. I wouldn't go too overboard though.

You can also try introducing him in a situation where attacking him would be really unfavorable and easy to fail, like for instance a bustling town square, or while the party is incapacitated.

>>46486801
The trick is to make sure you do so without making your player's feel like you're railroading them/cheating them out of their accomplishments/undoing their success just to keep a character you like alive.

The simplest way is to give them a sure-fire escape during encounters and just hope your players don't roll high enough to stop them or kill them before they leave.

Another option is to give this villain a way to respawn after the party kills them, like phylacteries, other villains who can revive them later, or clones/body doubles, etc. This allows your party to murder the villain again and again to their heart's content without losing that villain permanently, and they might even get some entertainment out of a recurring sidequest to find the secret of the villain's respawning and eliminate it permanently.

Additionally, you could make a quirky miniboss squad to fill the recurring villain role, allowing the party to knock off a few at a time while the group comes back at them again and again for revenge, letting you build up multiple recurring bad guys and bounce them off of each other.

It's important to not get ass pained if they do kill him. My DM once tried to have a recurring villain escape from a party that had two members built to stop people from running away. Slows, stuns, knockdowns. Mother fucker was not getting away. DM mad.

>>46486801

FIrst time the rival appears, he isn't hostile and is in a context where there's no reason to assume he isn't peaceful. Make it a public place with trusted NPCs around. The rival soon betrays the party in some way.

Second time, he contacts the party remotely. You could use this for the first time too.

Third time, he has bodyguards and some means of quick escape. If the players do legit kill him here, let them have it. You can bring in a vengeful ally or relative later.

Fourth time onwards, do what you like with him.
Other options are those that make dying irrelevant.
>a rival character who can resurrect
>a rival character who is some kind of gestalt
>a rival character who possesses bodies in some way
>the rival is a small organization, like a ninja clan. Kill one, the others come after you one by one.

>>46486801
Have them do things but not be present. Have them send minions, appear through illusion, sabotage the group, etc. but never actually appear in person so your player can't just go "I CAST DICKBOLT WHILE HE'S TALKING OH LOOK NATURAL 20"

>>46487452
>Joke's on you, scumbag, he has no dick to be bolted!

>[Varying levels of shocked gasps and a chuckle]

>>46487771
>Bullshit railroading GM it says right here in the rules that dickbolt applies to all dicks and dick-shaped body parts and obviously his spinal cord was shaped like a dick and if you disagree I'll sit here and argue about it for the next half hour.

>>46487846
>rocks fall and your character dies

>>46487846
>U fockin' wot? A spinal cord isn't phallic you twat! Go back to fuckin' grade school. I'll pull out my biology book and show you what a spine looks like you gobshite.

>tfw you've had a startlingly similar argument once about the weight of the brain and thus what level of telekinesis would affect it

>>46487994
>Not pulling out your dick instead to show him what a phallus looks like.

File: GM introduces your waifu.jpg (33KB, 600x345px) Image search: [Google]

33KB, 600x345px

>>46488296
>tfw no dick

>>46488339

A clit is like a very tiny dick

>>46488484
My high school biology teacher told me that once, but he's dead now.

>>46488526
Another innocent life lost to the dickbolt menace.

>>46486801
Have him communicate only over messages(whatever's appropriate) rather than meeting the players in person