>dark lord antagonist has the power to personally wipe out

>>52267616
because the unneccesarily powerful bad dude represents the mindless forces of evil.

It makes more sense to have complex factions than a single person behind bad stuff, but dnd playyers have tiny cervixes which can't fit big enough thoughts to comprehend bad things NOT being the plan and aim of a single, hampstermind supervillian.

>>52267616
Usually XP isn't a thing in the setting or is exclusive to the PCs and the dark lord doesn't have acess to that meta-knowledge.

>>52267616

Your party starts at a tavern. The evil overlord portents his demise at the hands of a promising band of adventurers, and thus destroys the tavern and everyone in it. Game over, see you guys next week.

>>52267616
It's an easy and convenient way to structure a campaign

Also, up to a point it makes sense. Would you send the SEALs to deal with a minor biker gang?

>>52267616

I think the general idea is the Dark Lord is restrained, distracted, or otherwise indisposed and cannot personally find and kill the hero(es). That was the gist of it in LotR: Sauron was busy with his wars and he knew the Ring would find it's way to him eventually. Of course, the servants he dispatched after it were leagues ahead of just about anyone he expected them to fight.

There are also inversions of this. Remember the entire plot of Empire Strikes back was the Dark Lord chasing the hero, then setting a trap for him when he slipped through his black-gloved fingers.

>>52267616
Because xp mechanics don't usually exist in a narrative sense.

>>52267691
>Would you send the SEALs to deal with a minor biker gang?
more like
>would you send a minor biker gang to deal with the SEALs?

i mean this jokingly but also somewhat seriously. the strength of the hobbits was in sneaking over to mordor. all the ringwraiths could do was ride around menacingly and occasionally threaten them. the skills of the hobbits were more suited to their task than the ringwraiths' skills to theirs, though.

>>52267745

Sauron knew virtually nothing of Hobbits though.

>>52267616
Big Bad longs for the sweet embrace of death.

>>52267698
>>52267770
Sauron subverted it because he was indisposed. Without the Ring he could barely even take physical form. That's why there's tension because it's made perfectly clear that if Sauron got the Ring he could and would rapidly come lay the West's ass out with extreme prejudice.

Problem is that a lot of other fantasy fiction and campaigns have an evil guy perfectly capable of hunting down and killing the players if they piss him off, but he never does and only sends cannon fodder or at most boss-tier minions after them, even after he realizes the PCs and/or their allies threaten his existence.

>>52267822

This is why I love Darth Vader as a villain. He's completely proactive and involved. When Luke shows up, he either goes right after him or starts chomping at the bit when he can't.

>>52267868
Darth Vader is a really nice exception, while the Emperor for all his trickery and power blunders right into it because of how much he underestimates his enemies. He knows the whole Rebellion will be at Endor, and out of a fleet of 15,000 he brings 20 ships and a tiny garrison. He knows he could get Luke and end it quick, but he allocates barely anything to Vader to help him out.

>>52267616
XP for killing enemies is a stupid concept and ruined DnD, that's why.

>>52267897

>out of a fleet of 15,000 he brings 20 ships and a tiny garrison.

Bear in mind the movies never actually establish the size of the fleet. I always got the sense the EU assumed the Empire was far, far larger than George and his writing team actually intended.

>>52267911
>ruined DnD
>was a planned concept from the beginning

what did he mean by this?

>>52267616
>be super powerful lich
>some faggots break into my lair
>im not gonna get off my lazy ass to do such menial work that's what minions are for
>well shit they killed my weak ass minions
>guess i have to do it myself

>>52267922

Did you originally get XP from acquiring treasure in the first few editions?

>>52267955
As far back as I can remember XP for killing monsters was a thing except for first ed., but it was always planned and was an optional feature before being made official. That's still a good 30+ years of XP for killing shit.

>>52267616
Obviously the party carries the one thing that can utterly destroy the villain. He's just a but too afraid of oblivion to try fighting them personally, at least up until he has no other option.

>>52268023

So why doesn't the party just make a beeline for the villain then?

I feel like we're now dealing with an inverse situation from what the OP describes.

>>52267745
Frodo technically fails on his task, though. The ring is destroyed by dumb luck/implied divine intervention. And he almost dies to a ringwraith near the beginning, then spends something like the last book and a half on the brink of death. He is also captured and tortured when he actually gets into Mordor, only getting out because they don't really know who he is, and the whole experience of bearing the ring damages his soul so badly the only cure is for him to spend his last years on the Undying Lands.

>>52268023
>>52268035
Villains don't always have to be ancient dark lords or powerful liches. Some villains can be weak but have the money and power to throw hordes of underlings at the enemy they have no chance of beating on their own.

Others can just be cowards or afraid. Back to Tolkien, the only reason Morgoth doesn't come demolish everyone's shit early on is because he's mortal unlike the other Valar. He's stronger than everyone else except God, but he's so afraid of the off chance that he might die that he never wants to risk it.

>>52267616
Well in my game so far it works pretty well. BBEG can't leave his domain without being weakened, also its no guarantee COULD beat the pcs if he just decided to take them on.

>>52268035
Who said the party know that they even have the item?

Hint: It's Friendship.

>>52267651
Anon, very few people think with their cervix, and those who do are complete sluts. One of them is also my best friend and favorite fuck-buddy.

>>52267616
>>dark lord antagonist
Ugh.

>>52267616
Okay guys, let's start the new campaign.
Before you can do anything, the bad guy teleports in and casts circle of death, killing all of you instantly.
Okay good game, see you next week.

I'd make it into a test, assuming the dark lord is already in power. Everything he does is to test the strength of the populace, and to find those worthy that he could use. The PCs confront him, think they're hot shit, and are given a deal.

I'd make the lord ridiculously OP(or at the time anyway). If D&D, have one of my players roll a save. If they fail: they die. If they succeed: they die since the attack does so much damage. He's revived and a deal is struck that plays to their inherent desires of hopefully self preservation: I require a thing to fully ascend and become one with the gods, and you're going to get it for me. They agree, get thing, harder than anything they have done before, but now have a choice of their own without lord intervention.

Will they use thing to become strong like him? Or give him thing. If they use thing then final boss battle ensues.

>>52268150
your taste is wrong

>>52268284
it reminds me of the lord of the rings text game where if you wait for too long or put on the ring the nazgul immediately show up and kill you and it's game over at the very beginning

>>52267616
The Dark Lord is busy.

Can you imagine the amount of work he has to put into maintaining his evil empire. Its not like the empire works itself.

He has to balance gold budgets, approve doomsday weapon projects, schedule village pillaging, calculate solar eclipses and other magical alignments, pay his mercenaries, subdue monsters for evil familiars, job and hierarchy delegation, coordinate offensive and defensive evil military operations, analyze scout intelligence, and many many other mundane thing that are need to keep an evil empire running.

Even then he cant work all the time he still has to take time to sleep, eat, and upkeep his hobbies like weapon collecting and learning the dark arts.

He has many more things than I can list right now than a renegade trio of a barbarian, wizard, and a thief causing mischief and making hisbother duties even more difficult.

Oh great the heros destroyed his giant energy absorbing crystal. He need to replace that. Oh great the heros killed this tax collecting dark knight. He now has to train a new one in swordplay, dark magic, and tax code. Oh great the heros freed a camp of slaves now he has a labor and coal shortage.

Theres more to his life than siting on a throne looking into a crystal ball and laughing maniacally while rubbing his hands.

>>52268035
Maybe the the villain could still probably murder them to death and the object doesn't especially protect them from him. He doesn't want to risk them getting a lucky shot in and ruining his immortality, but they would probably be unwise going for said shot without a lot of preparation.

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>>52268150
BBEG!
BBEG!
BBEG!
...there, he's been banished. Back to your discussion, anons.

>>52267616
Cant be bothered/blinded by arrogance.

I want you to run a game. The baddies are the Illuminati. Now I want you to make them properly competent. As competent as you'd need to be to secretly control the world's governments.

One of 2 things will happen.
1)The game will never be about the Illuminati, and they may as well not exist due to competently staying hidden.
2)Players stumble somewhere they aren't supposed to be, and don't wake up the next morning.

Boy that sure was fun.

>>52268473
I feel like there's a (probably not /tg/) game about being The Dark Lord's assistant, and it gets harder as the heroes get more powerful and are capable of taking out bigger targets.

>One week ago the heroes destroy the backup power source for the doomsday device
>Yesterday they killed the General of Warfare.
>"Well assistant? Can we manage without a warfare general for a while while I finish fixing the backup power supply, or should I put that on hold to train up a new general?"

>>52267955
I remember the old monster manuals having xp in them, but it was usually a pittance compared to phat loot.

>>52267616
I design my campaigns in 3 acts.
The first one are when the players discover the world, they get invested, they build a reputation for clearing out the mundane shit. SUch as winning gladiator fights, going on treasure hunts, stopping a political plot. Basically, heroic stuff. But i hint to there being a larger menace at work, but there's nothing they can do about it, because there are no signs it happening now. Its nowhere near them, geographically speaking and they have their own shit going on.

Act 2 is when the shit starts happening. This act is basically them deciding on how to counter the threat. They grow immensly in power, now being challenged in their own right. They have to figure out how to best apply their powers, focus and goals.

The third act begins when the antagonist finds out they are a threat and the dragons, demons and the kill squads are sent out to target them specifically. Now there is no rest. You push on to the tasks end. No time for hugs, moral suppport or supply runs. The big bad wants you gone and will use his entire arsenal in doing so.

Currently they are being hunted by agreat wyrm, having an entire army charging at them and the tower of all future knowledge is being besiged by the BBEG at the bloody moment. They knew what they were getting into.

>>52267915
>>out of a fleet of 15,000 he brings 20 ships and a tiny garrison.
>Bear in mind the movies never actually establish the size of the fleet. I always got the sense the EU assumed the Empire was far, far larger than George and his writing team actually intended.
You can't fucking call an empire the galactic empire and not have a fleet that outnumbers a rebellion that's based out of one moon.
Though, I would assume that if they pulled all of the ships there would be long periods of time when some planets were left undefended risking more uprisings.
Plus maybe thats were all that were in range?

>>52268656
The villain lets the heroes go at first, because they're small enough fish to manipulate into helping even when they try to work against you. And once you know them better, they become easier to manipulate, and instead of trying to manipulate someone already powerful, why not guide them to more power since they're already so good at being your (unknowing) pawns?

The end result being that you can't control ALL information flow, and eventually they figure out that the invisible hand of coincidence has really been the villain all along, by which point they're powerful enough to pose a threat.

The illuminati idea is actually even easier, since the illuminati is rarely seen as just one person and more of a council. What happens when they don't agree? What happens when one person thinks "we can manipulate them into one more job" while another thinks "we need to deal with them NOW"? Suddenly the heroes become a topic of debate for the "villanous council", and come last in the order of business for the meetings, because otherwise they wouldn't hit the rest of the important points.

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>>52267616
Turns out? The PCs? They're Team C. The come-latelys. There's already paragons three times their level carving up the big bad and his forces. You're peanuts. Shit. Worth only the trash mobs.

...which you slowly and silently grow powerful on, until you shock the Dark Lord by even showing up and then tearing his spine out from his mouth after he's already wasted Team A, B, and Z.

>>52267691
The better way to put the example:

Do you send some SEALS to deal with some low power bad guys, or do you use a nuke to hit that compound?

A couple of limitations come to mind for the super baddy:
The bad guy may have ultimate power, but operate under restrictions. The blow back to using too much power may not be worth what he sees as the benefit.

The bad guy may have ultimate power, but he may not be able to simply use it everyplace at all times. In our example above, sure we could drop in a division of airborne if needed. But we can't do that all over the world all at one time.

Both of those allow the bad guy to have 'ultimate' power in relation to the PC at the beginning of the game, but not crush them right out.

In OP's example, maybe the Dark Lord could personally take out the PC. But that doesn't mean he would want to expose himself to other forces of good/evil by leaving his base for such a small payoff as wacking guys in a tavern.

>>52267616
>villain personally hunting every adventurer on the continent
>no time to actually do anything meaningful
>has existential crisis
>goes back to lair and eats Ben and Jerry's for the next six months
>henchmen convince him to see therapist
>flash forward three years
>villain is now a zumba instructor with a smoothie addiction

Sorting Algorithm of Evil.

>>52267926
This.

BBEGs usually can't be asked to take out the trash themselves or clean up the laboratory after an experiment.

ZERO reason to think the BBEG knows about the PCs or their significance
ZERO reason to think the whole XP thing is a fundamental constant of the setting
ZERO reason to think most campaigns will feature "a convenient plot device that will allow them to defeat the dark lord" (99% of the time, the BBEG is just, ya know, fought)

>always

I assume you mean virtually never, since this is a mix of movie nonsense + RPG mechanics that don't frequently get combined.

>>52268289
I like your ideas but,

>If they fail: they die. If they succeed: they die since the attack does so much damage

I think this is a bit disingenuous. It breaks the immersion of the game too much to just have arbitrary shit like this, and the players will catch on.
At least give them more an illusion of choice, for example: if they fail they die, are revived and take the deal. if they succeed they are brought a hair's breath from death, 1 hit point. The dark lord then plays it off as another test, and commends them on withstanding their attack, at which point they take the deal.

>>52267670
>The evil overlord portents his demise at the hands of a promising band of adventurers, and thus destroys the tavern and everyone in it

Isn't this practically how Dragonlance starts?

>>52267616
My big bad did it because he's secretly a Zoom tier psycho and does horrific things literally for the purpose of creating great hero's, reasoning eventually someone will be great enough and pure enough to destroy him will protect the world for ages to come.

This is why he plays by tropes, this is why he's needlessly cruel to his followers (to punish them for their moral failings), this is why he rarely kills 'true' innocents. He's a completely insane former paladin who was afflicted by a curse of alignment change

>>52267616
Very little (if any) of the math in the actual game is directly part of the setting. Plenty of it only exists as a gameplay mechanic to create fun and (unless it's D&D) balance in characters, and narratively makes little to no sense. Many times the only reason the dark lord in an RPG storyline is the strongest is because it makes sense from a game perspective to have the hardest boss be the last.

Think about it. What world leader in the real world is made that way exclusively because he's the best in combat? Even barbaric tribes and cultures that fellated warriors on principle didn't do this. Your best warriors are out fighting or teaching the new batch how to fight. Putting them on a throne and asking them political questions gets you nowhere.

A realistic game (if we were to abandon fun entirely) would probably have whoever is actually in charge of this whole thing be pretty mediocre by the time the PCs get to them. Instead, he's got amazing powers because then PCs can fight a fun challenging enemy at the end and won't feel bad for stomping some 90 lbs old man while he shits himself.

>>52267616
PCs are just one out of 1000 minor threats to BBEG. He is too busy dealing with more powerful enemies like gods and ancient dragons while leaving local minor resistance to minions.

>>52267616
Phase 1
>players are unknown to the BBEG, and possibly vice versa
>any encounter with the BBEG's forces is either on the PC's inititative, or purely coincidental

Phase 2
>players are recognised as a nuisance
>BBEG's forces will attack the PC's on sight

Phase 3
>players are recognised as a threat
>BBEG sends out hunting parties to deal with the PCs, as the BBEG himself is busy fighting other, stronger, adventurers / factions or preparing some kind of scheme (gathering material for a ritual)

Phase 4
>players are recognised as the de facto existential threat to the BBEG and possibly his faction
>BBEG is likely to either prepare for the PC's assault, or lead an attack against them himself

>>52270253
>kill BBEG
>his organization was killing horrible monsters to keep them from interfering with plans, suppressing various cults to ensure people followed him instead, kept scores of bandits on indirect payroll to keep things busy for the king's investigators, and ran several large criminal organizations to keep their funding up
>without the BBEG and his league of supervillains, a massive power vacuum emerges
>gang wars in the streets
>bandits who are now more hungry and broke get worse
>monsters stop being held back at the edge of the nation
>doomsday cults are popping up like weeds
>the legendary heroes are dead or have flown off with the lion's share of the nation's riches never to be seen again, further demolishing the economy as a major recession hits
>the threat of civil war looms over the countryside
RPG hook acquired.

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>>52267616
>Hero has been bred and trained to do one thing, their power lies in purity of resolve.
>They fail to do the one thing due to trickery
>Dark Lord sends weaker minions at them so they grow old and experienced. As they, having faced countless challenges, become clever and able to play the dark lord's games, so does their resolve to prevail dull at first, their tactics practiced less direct and ultimately weaker head on, thinking out of the box until they themselves become as morally relativist as the villian.

>Face countless of wanna-be heroes and resistance cells
>Sure, one of them is probably the Chosen of the gods, but you have no way of knowing it and the other 99% will go down like fodder
>There is only one of you, and you have shit you'd rather be doing
>Send your minions to have a 99% effectiveness rate on your foes
>By the time one survives and shows himself to be a actual threat, now it'd be a productive use of your time to go kill him in person

All villains are attempting to run the above gambit since they can't just go around personally doing all the fighting themselves, like, they want to do other shit too. It's just that often times they wait too long and fail the gambit.

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>>52270251
That's why you have the concept of a Dragon, anon. The BBEG's fiercely loyal first commander is the fight in every game in which the party is in over their heads and all the bets are off.

The hero confronting the villian himself, then, should be a mental contest of slippery trickery and fortituous will, as their ideals clash.

>>52270350
PCs took matters in their hands. 5 years later BBEG's rule is remembered as good old times...

>>52267616
Because if the BBEG personally shows up, he'll just manage to kill the heroes' mentor while the rest escape and swear revenge.

>>52267922
>he doesn't know xp was linked to gold in the beginning

>>52268137
]Is it worth the thigh cramps? Because I have to wonder...
>>52270253
Exactly. The villain has a lot of shit to worry about, and every group of murderhobos isn't always worth the time for spies to run down, watch, capture, and interview. Just do it the easy way: coopt via a steady paycheck and benefits.
>>52270350
And now I need this game.

>>52267955
>>52270558
XP from killing enemies was in from the beginning, and its ambiguous whether you should exactly get full XP for unguarded treasure in all TSR editions -- you'll notice that you get reduced XP for a too easy fight (yes, old school had encounter balancing guidelines), and it seems quite possible that you're intended to get less XP from unguarded gold in OD&D and possibly other editions (sort of hard to tell).

There is an example of PCs getting reduced gold XP due to a too easy encounter in OD&D, in any case.

>>52267616
The bbeg isn't concerned with any little band of adventurers, he has his own objectives that require his full attention and powers. He sends some minions because he doesn't realize which band of adventurers will become strong enough to kill him. He can't expend his power on weak people, he supposes that his henchman, trained to do his bidding, will be enough. It's a reasonable thinking, even though it puts him at risk.

>>52267616
This only happens in my campaigns when the PCs run into the Dark Lord's flunkies who are in the process of doing some sort of job.

Once my Dark Lord-equivalents realize the player characters' power, he starts making alliances with other dark lords to create the strongest kill teams they can bring together.
Often, my player characters have been completely outmatched by these and have needed to actively avoid them (usually while seeking out powerful treasures from mission rewards or raiding ancient tombs and the like.)

If the kill teams don't work, the dark lord gets paranoid and goes into hiding, filling up their lair with insidious traps and as many minions as they can muster.

I've done this in two campaigns now. Works every time (unless your player characters mistakenly think they can kill everything you send at them, and never have to flee.) Exciting every time. Better yet, it makes sense.

Stop playing your evil overlords like shitty saturday morning cartoon villains.

>>52270597
Sure. The first time maybe.

>>52267616
But who's to say the dark lord even has any knowledge of who the "heroes" are. If they lay waste to his minions without leaving witnesses, how does he even know there's just one group growing increasingly powerful?

Yes, contrived stories are retarded, but usually an evil conqueror will have more to worry about than just that one tiny group.

>>52270354
You make enormous leaps of logic in this post, and if you think you're being clever you should frankly be embarrassed with how easily you manage to yourself of your own bullshit.

>>52267616
You think there's only one plucky band of heroes planning to take down the Dark Lord? There's probably dozens of mixed-species groups banding together in taverns every day, going out on adventures. Some are going to get bored and go abuse Wall of Iron to make a fortune in the weapons trade, some are going to pursue other goals like legalizing gay marriage, some are going to starve to death out in the woods because they put the Barbarian in charge of the map. If you go personally wipe out each of them, how are you ever going to get any Dark Lording done?

>>52270623
Rumors and news spread freely from mouth to mouth in most medieval-equivalent settings. The reason he knows is because people are talking about it on every street corner, in every tavern, at court, at the breakfast table, at the cobbler's...

>>52270704
Why even waste your time typing if you're gonna make the bait this obvious?

>>52270705
Kinda circular reasoning, don'cha think? The whole point of killing them before they become great heroes of legend is... killing them before they become great heroes of legend.

>The reason he knows is because people are talking about it on every street corner, in every tavern, at court, at the breakfast table, at the cobbler's...

By this time, its way way WAY fucking too late to cheap shot them, and they're probably already ready to take him down.

>>52270712
Doesn't look like bait to me. The idea that the PCs are the Chosen Ones of Legend is common for vidyas, books and fiction, and ultra, crazy, uber rare for actual PnP RPGs.

They're usually cut from sterner stuff (though this is not universal), but in his quest to be clever the OP creates a hodge podge of tropes that aren't usually combined.

>>52270712
Different bait for different fish, anon. I like to catch smarmy half-wits, and it looks like they're biting today.

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>>52270686
I'm not even talking about Samurai Jack. It's been done many times before. While it looks postmodern and subversive, it's an old fairy tale story, the very one about fruit of knowledge.

There is power in focus and knowledge confuses the acts of body and disconnects the mind from nature.

The world is complicated. A childish hero can only exist as a child. Merely learning too much can corrupt. To a child, a ture adult is a monster, and in many ways, an adult will never be as great as a child.

>>52270718
No, my point was not that they were of legendary status and therefore everyone would be talking about their deeds.

My point was that everyone would be talking about their deeds even early in their careers, because that's what medieval people did.

The world was small, there wasn't much to do, and the spreading of news about everything was everyone's number one hobby.

>>52270777
Killing band upon band of monsters does not impart on you gnosis, or any higher knowledge or greater insight or philosophies about the workings of the universe. If anything, it would result in stagnation toward the opposite.

But I have no desire to discuss this with you; you're clearly a walking parody of "confidently thinks he's smarter than he is" and it's absolutely insufferable.

>>52270880
I'll take symbolism for 500

>>52270831
>My point was that everyone would be talking about their deeds even early in their careers, because that's what medieval people did.

Well yeah, the BBEG hearing tales of garden variety nobodies doing kinda meh-ish things is not going to be reason to go slaughter them.

"Sire! There's some guys in a town somewhere!"
"WHAT? TELL ME MORE!"
"A tavern had some rats in it, and they defeated them all by themselves!"
"How could this be? Surely, this band of totally irrelevant nobodies must be the guys who will inevitably destroy me! Time to send my most powerful minions to destroy them!"
"Brilliant as always, my lord!"

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>>52267616
It's all part of The Code.

Are you new to the Dark Lording business?

>>52271026
FUCK THE CODE

My next campaign is going to start with the villain using a spell to "destroy" the party that was prophecized to defeat him.
Little did he know the spell's actual function was to FLING THE FOOLISH HEROES INTO THE FUTURE WHERE HIS EVIL IS LAW

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>>52271074
The Code give but also The Code takes away. If you abandon The Code it will claim you.

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>>52267616
Let's use Aku for example since that show is out again.
He is the manifestation of all evil and is almost killed in their final battle. Instead of risking dying again, he tosses the Samurai into the future where Aku has already won.
And instead of continuing to fight the Samurai, Aku decides to wait until the Samurai dies while throwing countless minions to delay him.
>>52270293
And similar to this post. Aku has reached:
Phase 5
>The BBEG is scared shitless and goes into hiding after failing way too many times, even though the players he's fighting are considerably weaker than he is.

>>52267616
It's a numbers game. The dark overlord isn't going to go around personally dealing with every rat-catcher with enough silver to buy a sword. That's what his underlings are for. Once the party becomes a bigger threat, then he has to start actively trying to stop them.

>>52267868
Vader was an exception, because Luke and the gang got tangled up in galactic-scale events by accidentally acquiring the Death Star plans. Vader didn't give a shit about Luke personally until he realized he was force-sensitive.

If Luke wasn't a Jedi and never got tangled up in the Empire's business, and just one day said "I'm going to kill things, get XP, and eventually kill the Emperor!", of course Vader wouldn't have given a shit about him at first.

>>52270777
You have to be over 18 to post on this board.

>>52271103
Well, yeah.
There's a reason the older, code-respecting villains get to slink away to try again later, while the new 'fuck the code' guys tend to get overly-descriptive gruesome deaths, usually with some reminder that their bowels loosen up after death because that's always clever when a writer does that.

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>>52267616
>Main villain just wants to die
>He intentionally lets the good slip through his fingers so they might one day surpass him
>Many have tried before, but all of them failed, leaving the main villain in deep depression after realizing that there was nothing in this world to achieve and no will ever be able to stand toe to toe with him

>>52267616
They only become heroes by fighting the minions.

Before that, they're just clueless idiots who've somehow managed to stumble onto the plot.

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>>52271346
I've been posting here for nine years. It's not my fault Anon does not know or understand one fairly common way to subvert a story archetype, which is what the thread is all about.

>>52267616
It's not worth his time when they're weak, and it's too late when they get there.

>>52271203
>didn't give a shit about Luke personally until he realized he was force-sensitive.

No, he started caring when he realized Luke was his son. Which he implicitly did the moment he found out the rebels had a guy named Commander Skywalker.

>"First of all, what the fuck is an exp?"
>"Second, if I were to send my stronger warriors after every single peasant farm boy trying to overthrow me, that would leave both my cities and my evil lair completely undefended from any real threats like invading armies or destined heroes."

>Party uses McGuffin to kill the BBEG and save the world, taking a breather in the dark throne room.
>Villain suddenly sits up, ancient magical sword still embedded in his chest, smiling and laughing
>"Haha guys, that was awesome! Like, holy shit you really did it!"
>Reveals that the entire adventure has been a ruse.
>Every quest was staged
>Everyone whoever interacted with them was either a paid actor or a clever illusion
>Every monster they killed was made of paper mache animated by magic
>The town that the villain burned down was constructed for that very purpose. Every building they didn't go into was empty aside from some gasoline
>Even the Blade of Darkness Slaying was made by him to look flashy and do cool shit
>Promises to do something even bigger next year.

>>52271864
And nobody in any branch or the Imperial Intelligence Service or the military thought on the lines of

"Hey, this rebel has the same last name as the Boss and they are both Space Wizards. Is there a connection?"

>>52271973
People besides the Emperor and Vader who live in the Empire and know Vader used to be Skywalker:
And that's it.

>>52271964
Kinda want to play that...

>>52272023
You'd never know you were playing it until the very end, and even then nothing the BBEG says can be confirmed.

>>52270929
WHAT SOMEONE HAS KILLED THOSE 3 ABOUT 27 STEPS BELOW ME IN THIS PIRAMID SHEME I HAVE BASED MY OPERATIONS ON HAS GOTTEN DEFEATED BY A GROUP UPSTART PEASANTS THAT WHERE HIRED BY A LOCAL VENDOR THAT THEY TRIED TO BLACKMAIL?
GATHER THE MEN , HAND ME MY SWORD OF UNENDING MISERY AND ARMOR OF the LOST DEEPS MIMSY I SHALL DEAL WITH THIS PERSONALLY

>>52271973

By the start of Empire, only two people know Vader is Anakin.

One is dead, the other is living in a swamp.

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>>52271964
>>52272050
>BBEG is actually bleeding everywhere
>His balance is off as he tries to seat in the throne
>"Hahaha! I actually got you this time! But now it's the time you to leave [*blood comes out of his mouth*]"

>>52267616
Because xp isn't a thing in-universe, same goes for gameplay mechanics. TTRPG isn't an isekai anime.

>>52272656
I believe that everyone in the setting is too retarded to notice that everybody is progressing at the same pace in the same increments.

The dark lord is still constrained by needs of time, effort and occasional rest.

Does the CEO personally teach every single assembly line employee how to wield an iphone? Of course not, he deals with the bigger picture stuff, which is a full time job.

Theres also tons of bands of would be do gooders who get crushed and you never hear about them.

>>52272167

Tarkin suspected but probably didnt care.

Obi Wan knew as well

>>52272717
>By the start of Empire

>>52267616
>Why do the big bad guys always do this?
The big bad has already won, he's bored and finds it amusing. If the heroes kill him eventually than whatever he has lived for long enough and enjoyed his reign.

Another reason is that they aren't even on the BBEG's radar, a lieutenant of his lieutenant is dealing with them and sends what he can against them. So if the BBEG is say a king he might not bother with the heroes, the duke might not bother with the heroes, the count is sending whatever he can to deal with the heroes. Once the count is in a dangerous situation he might ask the duke for help, but the king won't intervene unless it is actually a huge threat. The king of France won't send 500 knights to hunt down 5 bandits.

>>52267616
Because you are not the first and only hero.

Hundreds of other mercenaries, bounty hunters and heroes have risen to challenge him, and failed against his minions. If he had to personally go and deal with every single level 1 grunt "just to be sure" he wouldn't have time to get anything done.

It's just by coincidence that one party among hundreds happens to survive the attacks, so he sends stronger people to deal with them, but not the strongest because those are busy doing important evil shit too.

>>52273303
This. You don't send you don't authorize napalm strikes and Apache helicopters for some thug robbing liquor stores. It's a waste of resources.

You've got low level goons to deal with low level goon problems.

>>52267616
Because the BBEG has mooks. If you can't send the mooks to do your job, you have no reasons to have them at all. Maybe the BBEG is busy/ cowardly/ finds it amusing. But the whole point of mooks is that they do the job you don't want/ can't do.

>>52268688
See avatar tla for a recent pop culture example

>>52268711
> rebellion based on one moon
That was where they were meeting for a specific assault on a specific target. It's not like the whole rebellion was on yavin 4. "The more you tighten your grip, the more planets that will slip through your fingers."

>>52270191
The books or modules?

>>52274766

Eh, AtLA isn't really an example of that kind of narrative structure.
>>52268688

>But i hint to there being a larger menace at work, but there's nothing they can do about it, because there are no signs it happening now. Its nowhere near them, geographically speaking and they have their own shit going on.

The cast encounters the story's core plot--the Fire Nation is conquering the world--basically immediately. Every other episode is them running into this fact. Before the season reaches its halfway point, Aang knows defeating the Fire Lord is his endgame. While we never see Ozai, we know he's aware the Avatar is back because the Fire Nation plasters wanted posters for the kid everywhere. Not one but two different agents of the Fire Nation start hunting them. The season finale is the party defending a city from a Fire Nation siege.

>Act 2 is when the shit starts happening. This act is basically them deciding on how to counter the threat. They grow immensly in power, now being challenged in their own right. They have to figure out how to best apply their powers, focus and goals.

Will agree with this. Book 2 is the Gaang growing in power, finding a way to actually end the war, and then delivering that news to a party who can assist them.

>The third act begins when the antagonist finds out they are a threat and the dragons, demons and the kill squads are sent out to target them specifically.

Completely wrong because the main villain spends the first half of the season believing the Avatar is dead. The dragons were sent out well before this point and had actually succeeded. In fact, despite most of Book 3 taking place in enemy territory this season has the least instances of the party running into someone hunting them. They encounter a bounty hunter like three times, and then Azula finds them once. Much different than the games of cat and mouse in Books 1 and 2.

>>52267616
Because you don't send a B-52 to carpet bomb a rabid wolf. That dark evil dude's got bigger fish to fry than the heroes....until he realized to late just how big those heroes have become. In the meantime, though, he sends his middle-management to do its fucking job.

>>52267868
>chomping at the bit
Champing

>>52271074
You are no Dark Lord. You're just a dipshit with a stupid helmet.

The Code is all.

>>52277870
Chomping is acceptable common usage. It's an Americanization of the original word but shares the same meaning. Don't believe me? Ask bilbo baggins. "Thirty white horses on a red hill. First they champ, then they stamp, then they stand still."

It's not homophonic misspelling. It's an ascended idiom.

>>52268595
You're a very special kind of faggot. Please trip up so we can filter you.

>>52282221
Are you new?

>>52267616
he is a coward

a player is a hero
a player leaves safety to go and fight
a player rejects his temptation

a true hero calls others to their aid by will, charisma, and deed a true hero will recruit the downtrodden a true hero redeems his foes a true hero confronts the big bad brazenly sword in hand allies by their side

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>>52282856
>he is a coward
he is no coward
a true villain is proactive and visionary
they can imagine a world that doesn't yet exist
a villain is changing the world
shaping it to their liking
and making their dream come true
despite whatever opposition may exist

a hero is reactive
they and other conservative forces are trying to stop the villain and keep everything as it once was

a true villain is optimistic
they can see a better future for themselves

a hero is pessimistic, they think the world they have now is the best one there can be

a hero would never act if there wasn't a villain in the first place

every hero should be glad for the existence of villains, otherwise there would be no need for heroes and thus never exist

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>>52269083
>villain personally hunting every adventurer on the continent
>this is actually their goal, themselves an ancient hero who saw how their former friends and leaders fell to vices and corruption and if anything things are worse with the villain thwarted and the status maintained
>now they battle these forces of malignant stagnation called heroes while waiting for another true visionary to emerge to change things
>no more heroes

>>52268921
I'll have you know that wacking guys in a tavern actually pays quite well if you get in there on a holiday.

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>>52283122
>>52283465

>muh "heroes are the TRUE bad guys" villain apologetics
>no dude, the Dark Lord is a visionary

The world is better off without death camps and famine, bruh. I don't care what pipe dreams the guy responsible is having.

>>52270777
You're my nigger, even if you aren't their nigger.

>>52283594
>muh adding "muh" before a strawman invalidates any opinions or arguments
Shitposting is supposed to go in /b/ and /pol/

Even discounting most players being murderhobos that leave paths of destruction in their wake you can have legitimately good heroes whose actions have an ultimately negative effect by supporting a status quo that leads to corruption and injustice.
Maybe the death camps and famine are the doing of the ruling powers but the party is either in the dark or mislead as to the truth.

Even assuming a d&d-esque system of concrete forces of good and evil in the universe there are still opposing factions and views and everyone is the hero of their own story challenged by the villains that stand in the way of their goals.

>>52283122
You're misrepresenting the concept of hero and villain as synonyms to antagonist and protagonist.
A protagonist is someone trying to do something, whose actions initiate the core of the story. The antagonist is the person trying to stop them.
The insinuation that every action taken by a protagonist is a desirable one because the protagonist is the initiator is laughable.
A change in a functioning cycle is usually a sign of sickness, not health. Something is insufficient, so a change occurs in response. A hero is only reactionary in the same way that a doctor is reactionary- something has gone wrong, indicated by the change, so the hero fixes it so that it functions properly, usually improving it in the process.

>>52283771
Considering that victors write history, and one man's hero can be another man's villain, the idea that a counterrevolutionary is always the doctor to the revolutionary sicko is laughable.

>>52283841
The example of a hero as a doctor works even in the form of hero as revolutionary:
>Nobility become corrupt
>Systematic problems and poverty arise
>Hero arises to solve the problem
>Unseats nobility
>Restores and improves general prosperity
Or is a revolution not a reaction?

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>>52283771
Not them but I'm not sure if you're just being needlessly pedantic for the sake of arguing of if you're on the autism spectrum or something but the "bad guys" have heroes too.
I'm not even saying that they aren't bad but they consider powerful leaders their "heroes" as much as anyone else.

Like plenty of minor and major villains are described as heroes of/by their people in many sources throughout fiction and rpgs.

>>52283896
No, I'm pretty sure he's needlessly pigeonholing heroes into 'protectors of the spoiled brat princess', but I'll cede that I'm being a bit pedantic, mostly because I'm tired of the concept of hero being associated with 'oh, he's just a big dumb klutz who's following the rules just cuz while the villain is visionary'.

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>>52283896

Calling someone who is narratively a villain a hero is pretty misleading though. Just because they're saying they're doing good things doesn't mean they're at all heroic, likable, or sympathetic to an outside observer (the reader or player).

I'm sure plenty of Imperial Stormtroopers thought their comrades in arms were heroes. Doesn't change the fact they fought on behalf of a terrorist police state.

>>52267616
Because he doesn't realize "the heroes" are the "the heroes" while they're still low level. He doesn't think "if I send my minions after these low level peasant troublemakers with crappy equipment, they'll butcher my minions one-sidedly and somehow grow into ultra powerful killing machines in a couple weeks time"

>>52283940
>Calling someone who is narratively a villain a hero is pretty misleading though
I'm sorry if it's too complex for you to keep track of but you should probably get used to it because it's a theme throughout rpgs and fiction.
My pic in >>52283896 is the lord of blades, I'd say it's pretty fair to call him a villain, but to his followers he's a hero.
That's just one among countless examples, it's not that hard a concept.
Even in real life throughout history one man's hero is another's monster.

>>52284021

>but you should probably get used to it because it's a theme throughout rpgs and fiction.

There's a stark contrast between "a hero" and "the Hero".

No reader will ever bat an eye to some of the villain's mooks calling him heroic or a visionary. That's part of the conflict. But in a classic fantasy adventure, like what OP is implicitly describing, he's still overall a bad dude. If he's doing standard bad guy things like killing innocents or starving people "for their own good", then the author/GM shouldn't expect the audience actually think he's heroic or justified in his actions.

"Well there's always two sides" moral relativism only goes so far, especially in fiction. Writing a villain who is not motivated by petty and shallow moustache-twirling is fine. Demanding people treat him with the same understanding and sympathy they give the Heroes is not fine.

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>>52267616
Its all part of his master plan.

He sends increasingly strong subordinates after the hero, who are just strong enough for the hero to beat by a narrow margin, until the hero is strong enough to push the big bad to his limits, and allow the big bads deus ex machina to ascend him to godhood.

Or hes preparing the heroes for an even bigger bad that will be coming soon.

Or maybe hes just lonely.

>>52284160
Exactly. He's just so high level he needs to fight really badass heroes in order to ever get any experience and level up.

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Maybe he really likes JRPGs

>>52267616
Our DM sort of inverted this. We had finished a campaign which two players power gamed after they lost their initial characters due to getting caught during shenanigans and killed for their crimes.

As revenge, he invited us all to make super powerful characters, of course they went over the top, one of them had 13 different classes and prestige classes. They spent hours, days preparing.

Then in the first session, shows up while we're sleeping and murders the fuck out of all of us and starts wiping out the town. He hands us the character sheets of a bunch of level one guards and the captain of the guard tells us to deliver a message to the next town to warn them of what's coming.

So we played out an excellent adventure fleeing from the wrath of this big badass evil guykilling, conversing, or lovin everything in our way to get to the captial to get help to handle this guy from the super adventurers that ran the place.

It was a blast, even our power gamers enjoyed it for the most part. They were of course annoyed the time they spent developing their shit was wasted, but the game was super fun in the long run.

>>52284146
>There's a stark contrast between "a hero" and "the Hero".
Literally the only difference is who the story focuses on.

The op offered no details about what the "dark lord antagonist" has or hasn't done so it's stupid for you to assume things based on some vague personal view of what's "standard" to argue your point.

Yes many writers make their villains super evil edgemiesters so there's no room for debate but that's usually just shitty lazy writing and you don't need to agree with someone's views and motivation to understand them and why they might think that way instead of them just being evil for the sake of evil.

>>52284271
>Then in the first session, shows up while we're sleeping and murders the fuck out of all of us and starts wiping out the town. He hands us the character sheets of a bunch of level one guards and the captain of the guard tells us to deliver a message to the next town to warn them of what's coming.

For some reason I thought you meant he took the characters and used them as villains and gave the players some pregens that now have to deal with these dudes in the long term.

>>52284311

>The op offered no details about what the "dark lord antagonist" has or hasn't done
>refers to him as a dark lord and even calls him "the bad guy"

Anon it's pretty obvious he's talking exactly about
>super evil edgemiesters

>you don't need to agree with someone's views and motivation to understand them and why they might think that way instead of them just being evil for the sake of evil.

And no one's making that argument. My only point is things like >>52283122 are stupid because no reader with a brain describe the villain as an optimistic visionary just because he waxes poetic about how his genocide campaigns are in everyone's best interest.

>>52284378
>no reader with a brain describe the villain as an optimistic visionary just because he waxes poetic about how his genocide campaigns are in everyone's best interest

You literally described stalin, and how he was viewed as a powerful optimistic visionary even though he genocided many millions of people.

>>52284404
I would say a better one is Mao but sure Stalin is ok.

>>52284419
You're right, Mao is probably a better example.

>>52284404

>and how he was viewed as a powerful optimistic visionary even though he genocided many millions of people.

Yeah: by his propaganda experts, equally awful dictators like Mao Zedong, and idiot tankies born in the 90s.

Just because some people respect and idolize monsters doesn't mean I have to entertain their beliefs.

Even if I wrote a story set from the perspective of someone who completely believes the setting's totalitarian, genocidal dictator is on the up-and-up doesn't mean audiences will agree or side with him. They might understand where he's coming from, but he'll still come off as brainwashed.

>>52284378
>refers to him as a dark lord and even calls him "the bad guy"
>this means I can assume they do/are whatever I say because it suits my argument
I can't tell if you're shitposting or stupid.

>>52284461
You're free to call him a monster, but the fact remains, if you go to russia today, and talk about stalin with the locals, or go to china today, and talk about mao with the locals, many of them will describe them as optimistic visionaries who thanks to strength and terror brought their countries into the modern era and shaped them to be stronger on the global scene than they would been otherwise.
This is despite the vast millions of dead that they created, many of their own people.

Arguably, russia might not exist without stalin. The same could be said for a unified (if of somewhat tenuous stability) china. People there are aware of that. You could say they have been brainwashed, but your opinion doesn't change the fact their's exists.

And if real life examples of such things existing can't prove to you that such a thing should exist in fiction then I don't know what more I could possibly say about it.

>>52284461
>Just because some people respect and idolize monsters doesn't mean I have to entertain their beliefs.
Litterally no one is saying you should, you're just building up this strawman to effortlessly thrash so you can ignore what people are actually saying and arguing.

>>52267616
For every adventuring team that defeats the minions and figures out how to kill the Dark Lord, there's a hundred who die.

The Dark Lord can't kill everyone and get shit done at the same time

>>52267616
The BBEG doesn't always do that. Sometimes they wait until the party is a pleasant challenge, a stimulating choice of entertainment for an evening, and then defeat them. At least, that's how it goes half the time in my campaigns.

>>52267616
Look at it this way.

You are trying to take over the world. You have plan, plots within plots, forces (both overt and covert, something people forget often) to deploy, and minions to deal with, potential betrayals and spies, and all sorts of things on your plate. Sometimes you need to eat, drink, sleep, refresh your spells, and otherwise take a short while to do things to keep yourself refreshed and sane. You've heard of CEOs and Middle Managers and Managers who work almost 12-16 hours a day every day to keep things stable? That's what BBEGs do constantly. They're working hard, constant, and with a lot of effort and skill.

Small disruptions aren't going to be noticed, not directly, because they're working their asses off, tracking things going on across the country or even the continent and trying to get everything into position for whatever they need done next. They're not going to notice the adventurers who are causing some little problems way out in the boonies, killing a few minions, disrupting an already solved problem. By the time he actually does hear about it, it's too late, they've moved on to another area and have left only traces of their passage. He sets some minions to work fixing it and continues with his own work.

And then a report comes in of a serious failure, a city liberated from your control, entirely off your grid now. Your spies and counselors are dead, or worse, imprisoned, your plans foiled, and even your backup plans are going to take years to reconnect this city to your control. Some research reveals these assholes did something similar in a couple of other towns. They weren't significant, but now you have issues.

But they left.

Now you have to send out a small force of minions, summon up something horrible, and waste time and effort to get the situation under control. You do this, and get back to the important work. A week later, your summoning is dead, ANOTHER city is liberated.

Con't.

>>52267616
Because Evil is fated to succumb to nothing but failure.

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>>52289170
As if this wasn't bad enough, the fact that two cities are free of your control - and those assholes are off the radar AGAIN - means other cities, countries and plans that were connected to those two cities now have to be reevaluated, corrected and planned around, fixed, in other words. And this isn't something you can just task a few minions to do - if you could do that, they'd be the BBEG, not you. (Sound familiar, players who try to have NPCs solve your issues?) So you not only have to fix these new issues, you MUST concentrate some actual real effort in dealing with these upstarts.

Who are no longer a minor nuisance, but serious threats in their own right, because they've steadily been gaining knowledge, skill, power, and capabilities while you've been trying to take over the world.

So you start throwing the book at them, but it's too late - they're no longer the weaklings who happened to save a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. They're full blooded Warlords, Wizards, High Priests, and Hunters of the Enemy. They're tried and true, and POWERFUL adventurers who no longer need to be afraid of a sixth circle demon by itself. You have to mobilize armies against them. But they have armies of their own, plans and skills and knowledge. Suddenly this isn't a nusiance stopping sidetrack....it's a competition, and they've got numbers and cooperation and a very specific goal: your death.

Your plans and plots and deeds and efforts are crumbling. You didn't expect it from a simple, Podunk little collection of huts. Stupid you - you were lookign at the big picture, and a couple of drops of paint threaten to bring the whole thing to useless ruin.

That's why BBEGs almost never take out the heroes early on. They're BUSY, and by the time the heroes are a threat, they're only just realizing the motherfuckers EXIST.

>>52267616
You're metagaming.

IRL:
1. The concept of "XP" doesn't exist
2. A bad guy has hundreds of people gunning for his head and nothing makes the PCs special at first. So he just sends his basic monsters after them, when that fails, sends stronger monsters, then his elite hit team, then confronts them himself. He doesn't just directly attack every enemy because that would expose him to danger unneccessarily and would be a huge waste of time.
3. Hubris, "Nothing can defeat me" sort of thing

>>52267616
Because you're not properly challenging your players. The BBEG should win sometimes, otherwise he was never that big and bad and evil.