So, I need my players to hate their patron...

>>51801186
Lazy solution: Arising circumstances necessitate that a thing or person the PCs care about must be destroyed and His Grace do the deed themselves.

>>51801240
That feel a bit cheap. I'm also pretty sure he'd re-consider if he found out they cared about the thing. The saved a close family member's life.

>>51801268
Why do you need them to dislike the guy? Tell us the story, maybe then we can help you better.

Speaking of cheap though, is there any third party that is opposed to both him and the players? If those were able to stage a convenient false-flag operation there might be some way to at least leave it up to chance.

>>51801186
what's wrong with just having them work for the bad guy?

>>51801186
Give him a weird fetish. Let the PCs find out about it. Now he has a good reason to hire them for a more dangerous than advertised mission because he'd rather have his best mercs dead than risk the world knowing he's a kidfucker/tilefucker/horsefucker/etc.

>>51801186

He fucks the love interest of one of the PCs.

>>51801186
Let him balance the books somehow, then he will feel free to engage them having honorably cleared his debt to them. Say he gives them something they want or need, but accepting the gift opens them up to his enemies or gets them out of his hair. If they realize that the strings attached to his gift have manipulated them into a position from which he can benefit they'll either admire him, or mark him as an enemy, or at least break their amiable friendship.

Or have him hire them to do a job, but tempt them through circumstance with something that violates the spirit but not the letter of their agreement. Ideally this small misunderstanding costs him both his original goal and also sours their relationship.

>>51801186
whatever purpose hating him is supposed to serve, give that to an advisor/man behind the man.
if they like the lord, then they'll dislike someone working against him

>>51801186
This is fairly easy, he gives them something that is at the expense of quite a few people. Even evil people have friends, so let's assume he does an evil act to try and please his new-found friends.

I.E. he kills a mayor in a town who refuses to step down, burns his family's house down, and hands the players ownership the land, putting them under his care and supervision.

>>51801186
I don't want to troll, here, but... Don't be a railroading asshole. The campaign is now about something different than you wanted, but the players are having fun. From one GM to another, you really should be happy you have a chance to improv.

>>51801186
>My players recently did a favor for a powerful noble, and he feels indebted to them. I need them to dislike him.
Perhaps he HATES being indebted to people, especially mercs.

Or maybe have him go on a rant and have a servant executed for failing him, and then have him turn to the PCs and say "Oh, of course I'd never do anything like this to you."

Have circumstances arise that he asks unreasonable things from them. A good suggestion is asking for one of them to give up a body part for them "because they're obviously so loyal". Perhaps someone manages to kill someone close to the villain, and the PCs were witnesses; but they only saw a disguise. A Diviner can extract the true identity of the assassin from a witnesses' eyeball but it needs to be removed and destroyed in the process.

When they refuse he enters a terrible rage for them having "betrayed" him.

Alternately have him go through a horrific disfigurement because of the PCs. Have them accompany him and someone attacks them with a bag of acid; they miss and hit the noble and his face is ruined. Thus he starts nursing a resentment to the people who he thought was his friends and acts coldly and aloof to them. Eventually ordering them chased out of town.

>>51801186

He's a noble. He doesn't want to be indebted to anyone because they can come and fuck up his plans at any point. Make it so they are getting accosted by bandits and assassins for a few days after and have one drop a cryptic note.

Have the note be some sort of cypher so they can figure it out like write it in Britannian or something your players won't understand straight off and have them continue their adventures with constant assassin raids at the worst times. Not a proper threat ofc but think 'as you rest from your battle with the orc horde -the size of which numbered a small town - a bunch of PC level -2 Bandits/soldiers/assassins attack. Have one drop the note and leave it at that.

If they figure it out then they realise Lord Mcevilpants is trying to off them. If not then a bunch of assassins begin fucking with them constantly as the noble sends progressively more powerful bands of evil adventurers.

Remember he's evil. He might not be openly evil to the PCs but the guy is secretly trying to kill them to avoid being indebt because they could come back and disrupt his plans and he's anal about how clockwork his fiefdom is.

>>51801186
Make him repay his debt even if they don't need it.
>adventurers are clearing a difficult combat situation in a bandit lair
>as they are about to storm the boss' room, they hear struggles inside
>turns out the noble called his personal guard to go full SWAT on the bandits, effectively and smugly kill-stealing all the boss fight, just to get rid of his cumbersome debt.
>they still get the treasure and say they were clearly capable of defeating the guy on their own
>he realizes his debt isn't cancelled yet, even if the players tell him otherwise
>it's a matter of honor now
>he does this a couple more times in hope of getting them to actually thank him for saving their hides
>eventually realizes he's actually stealing every boss fight from them

File: Ultimacypher.gif (13KB, 1439x687px) Image search: [Google]

13KB, 1439x687px

>>51802109

Example of the Britannian cypher.

>>51801490
There is, actually, that would be pretty good.

As for why I need them to hate him, I don't want to monty haul them too much. They've already looted more than I like off of enemies.

>>51802109
I don't think he'd try to off them. If nothing else, he wouldn't want them finding out about it.

>>51802061
Fair assessment, but I don't want the game getting stale later on, which I think it might if they're still working for him.