What Makes a Good Villain?

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[@AgentSnowpuff]

Usually I watch a video and I think, "oh, that's cool." When I watch a Matt Colville video I think, "Man, I really want to write something right now."

[@mcolville]

This is high praise.

[@maxherzog3287]

I second this, and I hate writing lol.

[@robnelson1191]

I third this! As a forever-aspiring DM (can never get a group together living in a small town with like 3 friends, all with conflicting schedules of course), any time I watch a Matt Colville video I have to write at least five pages of ideas, because the creative juices are pumping with vigor

[@matthewgallaway3675]

@@maxherzog3287 all writers hate writing they just like having written.

[@maxherzog3287]

@@matthewgallaway3675 very well put, indeed.

[@jakey.p5489]

My players sparked an encounter with (what was not yet revealed to be) a BBEG far beyond their current level, who proceeded to down one of them, charm another, and basically intimidate the others into forfeit. He had one of the still standing PC's, the Warlock to whom he was Patron, grab a dagger and demanded he plunge it into the fallen PC's heart - or he would kill the entire party. When the player finally said he would do it, BBEG laughed, stopped him, and said he just wanted to see if he would. He then teleported away. One of my players said it was their favourite moment of D&D ever, and I knew they'd be on the hunt when the time was right.

[@SirKaibel]

I am SO stealing this idea!

[@Ironhaert]

Amazing! I'm also stealing this idea. Thank you! 🤫

[@All4Tanuki]

That's amazing. "haha, just messin' with ya *foop!*" and then your players turn to the guy and are like "dude, really??"

[@andrewt3797]

Puts that bible story in a new light, eh?

[@deathbypuppermixes]

@@andrewt3797 God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son" Abe say, "Man, you must be puttin' me on" God say, "No, " Abe say, "What?" God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but Next time you see me comin', you better run" Abe said, "Where do you want this killin' done?" God said, "Out on Highway 61"

[@carlfishy]

DM: Once you are asleep, you all share a dream. One player, inevitably: Well actually I’m an elf. We don’t sleep.

[@thomascrans9550]

Then you aren't included😂

[@daheadsmiter2052]

Campaign-------------------------> (Elf's Head)

[@Darkwintre]

Actually during your trance you witness the others and find you can get involved in this along with the others...

[@JWK1101]

You can trance if you want to, you can leave your friends behind ...

[@Darkwintre]

@@JWK1101 actually that trance is what let's them realise this is a dreamscape and a potential escape option since one of them has figuratively one foot in both realms. However what if that villain comes back with them too?

[@shortseater9379]

god the fact that i was expecting the acolyte to say "leave them to me" is such good writing. such a dramatic scene

[@mcolville]

Sometimes you gotta write the thing everyone expects you to write! :D

[@IceFire1800]

The best part of having something everyone sees coming, is the satisfaction of seeing it play out exactly how you thought!

[@oddtail_tiger]

One variation on the "cutscene about the villain" that I've used rarely, but that absolutely works in some circumstances, is telling players what their characters don't realise or notice during a scene. The common way to describe a failed Perception check is to say "you don't notice anything" or to describe something innocuous. Which absolutely is a way to go about it. But what about this - the party set up camp, and you have them roll Perception based on who's keeping guard. One of the characters rolls very low. You describe a shadowy figure sitting in a tree near the camp, watching the PC from the darkness. You say something like "you don't notice him, and he observes you, silently, for a long time". Then you describe the NPC leaving after they're satisfied they've learnt enough about your group. Heck, you might say as much. If players are being dicks and metagame too much, this could theoretically go wrong, but when done right, this tells players there's danger, and that's fun. If their characters get paranoid - that's fine, too. They're heroes, they have a sixth sense about this sort of thing. Same can be done with social interaction. If a player rolls for Insight to figure out an NPC, and rolls a natural one, you can describe the NPC acting friendly and reasonable and you say "he seems on the level". Then you add "you walk away, and you never notice that the mask of friendliness falls off his face as soon as your back is turned. He smirks with amusement as he watches you with unmistakable contempt, pleased with his little charade just a moment ago". This is best used sparingly, but "bad thing happens, you never noticed it" or "NPC is obviously plotting something" can be fun occasionally.

[@BrendyorNot]

"And the great thing about D&D is: it's fun the whole time, even when you're suckin' at it" is exactly the DM support I needed right now! Silly perfectionism getting me down!

[@RasmusNJorgensen]

1) I think one of the staple “Colville” methods Letters from the Villain is also a good technique, as they add context, information about the villain’s evil thoughts, plans and motivations. 2) Finding results of the villain’s evil: decimated villages, blighted fields, executed rebels etc 3) Having the PCs connections being affected by the villain’s villainy - imprisonment, death, punishment, eviction, forced labor, forced conscription excessive taxation!

[@c7d5a69]

I had my PC receive letters from Big Bad. I print them using fancy font and handed to PC a few times during the campaign. And when PC found and defeated the Villain, they found a letter with the same font on him. Turned out it was Villain's lieutenant, and a letter with along with commands that contained information about the true identity of BigBad. It was a lord with whom they were familiar and met before on common business. The best part was that was not only a surprise. But because I did little foreshadowing my party said something like: "Of course it was this lord!".

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

My low tier villain left a letter for the party that was coated in contact paralytic poison and signed with a glyph of warding that exploded upon being read. And was left in a house with the doors tampered with so they were trapped inside the burning structure. Good times.

[@monfernova]

I think Oblivion does that somewhat well with Mankar Camoran (number 1)

[@RasmusNJorgensen]

@@cholulahotsauce6166 That’s just mean! 😃 How did you handle the resulting paranoia?

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

@@RasmusNJorgensen leave them more letters obviously.

[@russellstephens3580]

One of the most succesful gambits to get the villain in front of the players in a tense way without them trying to fight that I've ever pulled off was in a campaign where the end goal was to find a way to kill a dragon and it was something I came up with at the table. On the way to one of the magic items they're looking for, they find a wounded soldier in a swamp they're crossing. He tells them the lizardfolk attacked them while they were on patrol and captured the rest of his comrades while he remained hidden. The characters are noble heroes, so they come up with a plan to free the soldiers. They did all the right things, they scout out the lizard folk camp, they made a plan and I thought "that's a really good plan, they are going to flatten this encounter even though the difficulty of this encounter is enormous. The characters knew they were massively outnumbered and decided the only way they could win was to succesfully ambush the lizardfolk and create enough of a distraction for the party's warlock to teleport into the cage and arm the soldiers. Because they'd scouted out the enemy camp, they knew this encounter was right at the edge of what was possible for them to achieve and the only reason they had a chance was because they'd planned. It was at this point I had a lightbulb moment, this encounter needed some tension or the big encounter we've been building to for 3 sessions is going to fall flat. While they're making stealth checks to ambush, a shadow passes over head. The dragon lands in the middle of the lizardfolk camp and the lizardfolk kneel. The players knew the fight would be a close thing with just the lizards. With the dragon here, the fight is impossible. The players had to make some stealth checks while the lizardfolk leader explains that they've nearly got enough captives to perform the ritual, explaining the stakes to the players. The dragon then picked one soldier out the cage and eats him in a single bite. The players had to make checks to restrain the wounded soldier who's accompanying them from crying out his name and rushing to attack these villains and ruining everything. After the dargons left, the player's plan went off flawlessly. It was a real turning point for the campaign. They realised how effective having a plan and scouting ahead are. I basically had to double the difficulty of all subsequent encounters because they realised how effective going in with a strategy is. I think without the dragon being there to build tension, the encounter would have just felt like a pushover though.

[@skapunker96]

man thats awesome. The fact that you saw they were going to steamroll that encounter and still gave them that victory to reward their planning, yet found a narrative way to add tension without invalidating their efforts is well done!

[@BLemonTea]

I know Matt makes these videos primarily for us to improve as storytellers and game masters but I always appreciate the general life advice. 8:40 "that's not how confidence works. You do it, maybe you suck at it kind of, you learn and you kind kf suck at it a little less next time." It's honest, its good advice, and grounded in reality so it feels genuine!

[@michaeldorn3950]

My thoughts exactly. I didn't expect to incidentally get actual sage advice for life when trying to design a freaking alien overlord for my campaign but here we are.

[@joeg451]

Fun fact: the "players watch the villain kill some powerful characters in a dream" thing happens in the original adventure where Vecna was first introduced

[@bareawareness]

You know you’ve been overdosing on Matt Colville when KZbin starts suggesting Rush videos… Thanks, Uncle Matt. Inspirational and engaging as ever. (A version of the Chain of Acheron has made its way into my own campaign world as villainous NPCs holding an entire kingdom to ransom.) ⛓️❤😊

[@jimyoung9262]

I was watching Rush videos and Matt got recommended

[@Boxvoko]

I didn't think I'd hear Colville say "You suck at it differently" and "It's fun the whole time, even when you're sucking on it" when I started watching this video, yet here we are. Am I a child? YES!

[@1q2s3c4r5g6n7u8k9]

I have a Changeling villain in my campaign and using his shape shifting abilities has been so useful at keeping him in the player's minds. They've met him countless times and only know of a few of them but the two that stand out to me the most are when he snuck into the party's home base and literally pinned a note to the barbarian's chest without waking him; it showed how careful and almost untouchable this villain was without any big moves. The not wasnt event massively important, it was just the act of being that stealthy and knowing where the player's go to rest. The other is when the party wanted to speak to an NPC who can get answers for them. They were busy with another client and the party saw somebody leave the office before they entered to find the NPC had had their tongue cut out with a note reading "loose lips sink ships". The party immediately chased the person who left the office only to find a helpful NPC instead. They worked together before somebody noticed that the helpful NPC was missing a key item of theirs and the penny dropped that it was, in fact, the major villain in disguise the entire time.

[@Fishyninjabreadman]

I love this! I am writing a new campaign and I want the Villain to be a constant overarching threat but somewhat unknown and this ticks all the boxes!

[@demago3265]

Perfect timing! About to run a "villain campaign" where we all play high level, over-the-top villains, and the "bad guys" are the heroes. Excited to see how I can use this for those heroes

[@jeanschyso]

the party meeting a minstrel, going on a quick adventure with them, and them just turning into Strahd von Zarovich as he's leaving on Nightmare was the best part of my Curse of Strahd game

[@liefbread]

Staying up late pays off!

[@intelli-gent9863]

Same! Doing some late night laundry lol.

[@Goneth]

Working night shift pays off

[@evan11711]

It's 4:20 for me rn, fax

[@mcolville]

This is my take on the Stormbreakers. You can see how I forgot how Dragonmen talked for a little while. >.< www.twitch.tv/videos/1423130900?t=0h3m9s

[@civilbeard]

This is awesome! I can't wait to run my next campaign.

[@cameronlloyd9752]

I am a big fan of using "accorded neutral ground" for interacting with villains. Set them up in a location/situation where if one side tries to act against the other, the rest of the world will see and be turned against them. Lots of neutral observers (or potential allies!) will become their enemies. And it will be futile, because there's plenty of room to escape. Also a great time for the villain to flex and show their social power. Did a great scene where an NPC the party liked invited them to the opera. When they get to his private box, they discover the villain sitting there, discussing a business deal with their friend's father. The villain pretends not to know them, and is super polite. A plite villain is more despicable and frustrating than a raging one. Think Hans Gruber. "This isn't personal. It's just business. Why don't you stop fighting the inevitable and just help me out? I will make you rich..."

[@tuomasronnberg5244]

Wholly agree. I don't like the concept of BBEG (they feel contrived to me), so instead I like to give my antagonists just as valid motivations and rationales as the player characters, and it is just through circumstances that they are on the opposing sides. Think of war where there are good, honest men on both sides, yet they have to kill each other. It leads to tragedy instead of good triumphing over evil, and that kind of drama gets my creative juices flowing.

[@sidecharacter7165]

Sometimes rational can vary by race/species in DND too. A giant eating a human is just like a human eating a rabbit. A revenant villain wanting vengeance for being murdered by the edgy rogue can be especially good with the classic Lawful Good Paladin in the party.

[@Avoncarstien]

"Motivation isn't important to a good villain" is a hot take I can 100% get behind. This is a fantastic fresh outlook on making a great villain.

[@Canadish]

Pathfinder did this well during one of their big Advenures. During the low levels, the chapter 1 end dungeon is actually the remains of a colossal statue head half sunk into the sea, a staute of the BBEG. Inside, you see a broken/flawed hologram/illusion message. Chapter 2, you face a minion from his ancient Empire who bears his sigil. Chapter 3, you battle over a giant damn he built, and find its powered by a Pit Fiend he defeated and turned into a battery, an enemy still far far beyond the players. You get to talk to this thing. Chapter 4, he finally directly contacts them via possessing one of his minions, the previously assumed BBEG. Chapter 5, you explore one of his ancient homes and meet his servants from the old Empire. You get more of sense for him as a person and his aesthetics. Chapter 6, he begins possessing players and messing with them, prior to the final battle with him. It's a great steady escalation of the relationship and stakes.

[@claudiolentini5067]

Which AP was this in ?

[@Canadish]

@@claudiolentini5067 Rise of the Runelords, their first Adventure Path.

[@claudiolentini5067]

@@Canadish Nice, been playing Pathfinder second edition (both as a gm and as a player) for a few months, and i know there are a bunch of conversion for that. Definitively checking it out now

[@Canadish]

@@claudiolentini5067 It's a solid AP, widely beloved. Lots of material to add onto it via the Paizo forums, very very much recommend having a look in that for ideas, there is some very good ideas to expand on the early parts of the story. Having run it a few times, its better with the additions.

[@jonathancrosby1583]

I think my favorite player response to the villain plan was when the lizard folk told the party they attacked the town to collect the “veal”

[@RandoFromMars]

I love these "philosophy of writing" videos. I suck at running games but I love hearing about how you build characters/games/stories.

[@eleintblood]

Omg same

[@matthewgallaway3675]

I also think I suck but everyone still plays my game so…

[@a.morphous66]

You won't suck at running games until you stop trying to improve.

[@IDarkPrOX]

Cutscenes are an amazing thing to add to your campaign, not just to show how the bad guy is bad, but to show anything that would be nice for the players to know, but is unlikely for them to find out, like the backstory of a character, a battle that happened around the ruins that they are now going to explore, anything that u can think of that would be cool. I do this EVERY session at the beggining to get them hyped up for the game and it is a way to "warm up".

[@meow-px6kk]

my favorite online example of pre-battle encounters with a bbeg is robert moses from the unsleeping city. the tension keeps rising, we keep meeting him and slowly finding out how horrible he really is. so scary, and even after combat still haunting everyone

[@ItsShatter]

Hey Matt, your audio quality is the best of any content creator I know here on KZbin. Would you ever consider doing a video on what hardware, software, and settings you use for doing vocals/voiceover? Thanks!

[@mcolville]

I think our audio quality is pretty good, but there is an awful lot of better audio out there. To compare our stuff with like Marques Brownlee for instance. But yeah I think it would be a good idea to make a video about our studio setup. Like a tour of the studio in general. We've been talking about doing that for a long time.

[@ItsShatter]

@@mcolville I’ll check out Brownlee and definitely look forward to anything you have to say on the matter. Thanks for the response and great video as always!

[@DungeonsAndDrams]

@@mcolville I would love this. I've been using a video mic pro for years on my other channel, but would LOVE to upgrade microphones... mostly just not sure what makes the most sense, but my videos are very similar style to yours (just about whiskey), same framing and everything... would probably work for me too

[@buckhunt6832]

@@mcolville please! I'm trying to be like you Matt!

[@ariaflame-au]

@@buckhunt6832 no, try to be like you, the best you you can be

[@JoeAuerbach]

Great info here, but watching Dael read the fiction was the icing on this layer cake of villainy. Very nice. Love the improved set, too.

[@Niggelsworth]

I love Dael's "Jesus Matt I don't what this word is." at 21:42. I've been trying to read more and fantasy always seems to have these "what the fuck I don't even know how to use context clues to figure out what this means" kinds of words. The only thing you can do, to quote a great GM 21:48

[@jajssblue]

Tywin from the GoT show is one of the best villains IMO.

[@scruffydog101]

Dude, this is the first of your videos I've watched and I just wanted to say you have a TREMENDOUS talent for orating. Fantastic voice and perfectly spoken. A pleasure to watch and listen to. Kudos!

[@scruffydog101]

@@mrosskne You seem easily amused. I'm guessing from your other comments that this dude killed your dog or something. Or you're just a very angry human being.

[@scruffydog101]

@@mrosskne Shhh. It's okay.

[@sixmonthgaze135]

@@mrosskne this is literally the definition of: let people enjoy things

[@axer112]

So, for the pet mini's... I can confirm, having a mushroom pet is the best. Granted, mine was an alchemical familiar granted by my class, but that thing was an eldritch abomination, and we all loved him.

[@imissnewspapers]

In the adventure “Trial of the Beast” the main villain puts an intelligent Golem (Frankenstein’s monster) on trial for crimes the villain committed, using the players as pawns, all the while being part of the Golem’s legal defense, after framing the Golem for the crime. The Heroes then never think of him as the mastermind.

[@MulberryDays]

that AP is also relevant because the writers fully forgot to put the Big Bad anywhere in the first five books - so there's a lot of player-made dialogue about how to incorporate them both early and throughout. there's a bunch of letters and other plots on the forums, and debate about when the players should know who they're fighting and how much mystery to try to build. honestly Carrion Crown has so much potential, i always wanted to run it!

[@vaapad7261]

I had to chuckle at 'The sword of Kas is a bad weakness' comment because we had a very memorable Vecna fight in one campaign. We all agreed that if we couldn't kill Vecna in this last round, we would banish him instead and live with the consequences. Through some wishing and other shenanigans we got the sword of Kas. We each struck at Vecna with it, then passed it to the next player for their turn. There were 4 crits. It was amazing. Who knew Vecna's weakness was hot potato.

[@UltimateChallengeKit]

Your suggestion of having lieutenants as milestone markers reminds me a lot of Metal Gear Rising's bosses. I can definitely see that being super fun to taunt/reward the players with!

[@PurpleSidewalk1]

I needed to split my party up for a session because we wanted a side adventure but they were in the middle of stuff. So I had my BBEG send them into a weird pocket dimension where he could screw with those two players for a session. The best part was that they were so creeped out by the whole thing that they only told the rest of the party everything that happened in that side adventure months (irl time) later. It was great to have some of the party knowing secrets about the villain and not wanting to scare the others.

[@BlueTressym]

Nice!

[@DarkExcalibur42]

6:48 ...I did this in 3.5 D&D once. Had my recurring villain, who was a CR18 encounter, show up to taunt the party. It was meant to teach them that running away is okay sometimes. ...instead it taught me that villains are only recurring when they aren't dead.

[@buraeen5735]

You could implement the dramatic irony with a one-shot where the players play another group in the world that encounters the villain in some fashion. I did this once a long time ago where my players actually saw the dark side of a group they were allied with by playing a group of characters attempting to join the group and they found out anyone who doesn't succeed is horrifically sacrificed.

[@Will_Forge]

Oh my God, Matt! Eddy Bunsen! He's a burnout! A Bunsen burner that's burned out, but Dusten helps him light himself back up and he becomes a "candle in the dark" just before his light is snuffed out! 😮😯😲 How did I not notice this!? You called him a burnout and it just hit me!

[@edwardg8912]

Bringing out Victor Borge’s phonetic punctuation. I like it.

[@vitotamito]

You gotta love it when 75% of the suggestions you’ve already incorporated into the first 6 sessions of your campaign to picture-perfect results. The cut scene to villains actually worked great in my session tonight, great suggestion that I might start implementing every session!

[@Veelofar]

So about letting the villain gloat, I’ve been using the simple Message spell, augmented and empowered beyond reason. My current BBEG is Vryn Trykat, Lord of the Southern Reaches. He’s an extremely flamboyant villain and he’s very fond of Old School Villainy. The tradition of it! Setting up heroes and knocking them down, and the players are just the most recent heroes at his door, and he has no thoughts that they may be the last. As such, he loves taunting them by talking about him setting up future heroes who will fight him and die. One of the most recent, he was asking for opinions on what type of tragic backstory he should be setting up. He asked via a Message spell in the middle of an otherwise unthreatening combat, disrupting concentration and forcing them to either ignore him or be distracted by trying to barb with him, which they know that ignoring him could make him bored which could make the combat harder. I’m very fond of Vryn.

[@dirus3142]

The villain can posses the reflection of the hero. That way you can personally effect an aspect of the hero, with out taking away the players ability to control the character.

[@tomb1686]

An idea I've had for a while; pitch a one shot as a break from the main campaign, and give them premade characters. Tell them they will be fighting a losing battle, holding the line until (some vague offscreen objective). Then at the end of the one shot, put them up against your BBEG, unadulterated. Show them how powerful the BBEG is with expendable characters.

[@unachimba9]

IIRC a key decision made by Bioware in BGII was for the villain, Irenicus to regularly appear throughout the story. Cutscenes are an option in games I suppose.

[@unachimba9]

Called the one above before you got up to it. But yeah BG does most of these things. Computer games also have the thing though you can just take away player agency for a scene and no one complains

[@etherraichu]

12:50 reminds me of Final Fantasy 4. After you take down the wall of fire at Mt. Ordeals, screen turns black and says "Meanwhile..." and a scene with Golbez plays out in his lair.

[@Kingpin1880]

I'd like to mention one of my favourite villain moments in video games. Bad things start happening, messing with the hero's home town. The hero tries to deal with the threat, but they're no match for the evil minions and is captured. They're busted and thrown in jail, where they meet an unexpected ally who, despite being mischievous and sassy, helps the hero out of jail and helps them on their quests. As they travel together, the ally explains who the BBEG is and how they know them. All the while, the hero gains new powers and collects powerful gear and legendary treasures. They're feeling pretty confident after a few dungeons and after they've rescued several territories. Then the BBEG just shows up, for the first time, actually addressing this "hero" that, until now, had been beneath their notice. They knock out the hero, steal their treasures, and captures the ally, threatening and taunting the helpless ally. When the ally refuses to yield, the BBEG kills the ally and, when the hero attempts to avenge their ally, the BBEG casts them aside as if they were nothing. Before the BBEG manages to kill the hero, another ally manages to teleport the hero to safety and tells them how to save their sassy friend. The hero has been dealt a black eye and a reminder of just how powerful the villain is, but they now better understand the villain better and they now have even more reason to bring them low. The prologue and first three dungeons from Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess.

[@BaronOfBread]

A note about the cut scene/dramatic irony idea: One-off adventures within the same setting/story can be used in place of cut scenes. This can introduce extra information in an interactive way while also providing potentially useful NPCs in the form of the PCs from the one-off.

[@rudeboyjohn3483]

I'm about to run a Pathfinder game on Saturday and I think I've found the perfect NPC villain build: 12th level Mesmerist. Seriously, give it a read. Perfect social manipulation. Subtle casting capabilities. Built in "fake death/hidden escape/monologue" features.

[@GameMasterToolbox]

I remember I told a Facebook group that I did a cutscene, and I was chastise for it because I revealed who the villain was behind a certain plot and left a huge spoiler. They couldn't accept that my players loved it. They couldn't understand that when you show a huge twist to the players that you have another twist waiting for them when the their characters find out.

[@joshbecka6110]

I like how you are selling you Kickstarter books in your video while I am still waiting on fulfillment from the kickstart… Kind of sours my enjoyment of your videos.

[@NosiAttack]

I run very politically driven campaigns, so my favourite way of letting my players directly interact with the villain is his villainy being "secret". The players and their characters know he is behind the atrocities happening, but have no proof of it, and the villain is a respected person in power, so even when 5ft apart from him, they cannot strike without being marked as criminals themselves. The pure hatred is palpable in the room and it builds up to some very sweet catharsis when they finally unveil him or find a way of fighting him straight ahead.

[@MrTombombodil]

One of my favorite ways to have a boss encounter early on, is to have the boss give a massive show of force, clearly intending to just kill the heroes and then a power established npc sacrifices themselves to let the heroes escape.

[@Smashsmoosher]

Man. I’d never heard of your videos until I stumbled upon the Sandbox vs Railroad video you uploaded forever ago and I’ve been in a content spiral since. Phenomenal advice for new and old DMs-and writers.

[@Calebgoblin]

This was a great thing to wake up to! Time to binge the other two villain videos as well!

[@opiumskittles]

I've never tried this before. But I'm starting a game of Fabula Ultima where the villain cutscene moment is built into the system! It's nice to hear people bring it up as a good device entirely on their own, without talking about that system.

[@alkirk-ws4co]

With the dream idea, you can even use the old dream trope of 'If you die in your dream, you die IRL'

[@FireflyMyLife]

I greatly appreciated the Victor Borge/Phonetic Punctuation reference @11:40. Bravo to you!

[@BoyKagome]

You always got that one guy that rushes Strad when you're only level 3.

[@jetshroom]

Sam?

[@micahraney732]

Mine was a Gnome named Deronis. Critical hit too! Not that it helped.

[@sym9266]

Or chooses to saucually assault one of his wives upon their introduction into the story 😑

[@rworrick8037]

I've missed this content so much! Early on in this video I thought to myself, 'hey wait, I used a cinematic cut scene to convey information years ago...like four years...but I learned how to DM by watching Matt's videos." Always such good lessons, even when circled back, expanded upon and brought into clearer focus. Thanks man. I know quite a few players I've run for over the years who thank you too. For without you, they wouldn't have me as their DM.

[@Outhouse_Backsteak]

I have had my villain speak through his dead minions when the players tried to use speak with dead! It broke all the rules of the spell and scared the heck out of them!

[@WolfmanXD]

That four obelisks idea is really cool. Four obelisks to give the bbeg four really strong powers. The players can still fight the bbeg without destroying them, but it's so much harder to do so.

[@sbrevoltuion5]

I did something like the obelisks in cursive Strod, where they had to remove some of straws power, and if they had failed to do that, he would still have extra AC him the ability to fly outside the castle and other things like that that’s a wonderful fun idea because it gives the players a sense of making progress against and invincible, villain, invincible, villain

[@ChesireWaltz]

I love listening to you talk, you always seem to have a different approach to things vs how I view things and how I see others do things and I always learn something new. I never thought about using a cutscene

[@frankmcginty7483]

I love this. I was searching for a way to give my players a glimpse of what their actions, in my world, have on the campaign. Now that they are boarding a ship, I will use this cut scene idea to draw them in a bit further. Thank you Matt and team.

[@peanuts8539]

Man I was IN THE PROCESS of writing the bad guy for my next campaign and searching for inspiration when I got the YT notification for this video. Amazing stuff, as usual, I snatched a few very good ideas to use on this guy thanks to you!

[@BrianDiehlZA]

This is so timely! I was just working on a series of interludes and dreams to introduce the ominous big bad that is coming. Thanks Uncle Matt!

[@wickedly1]

This video looks amazing and the sound is very easy to listen to! Love this changed format! It's really casual, evocative, and is The One Above All!

[@JoeFlamenco]

Matt’s Barber seems to be pretty villainous. I wonder what his secret is? Kidding! Kidding!

[@x.davidwilliams83]

Huzzah! I love the cut away scene, one of my favorite storytelling tools . You're my favorite storytelling writer of fantasy type roleplaying content.

[@IQness]

Great video and brilliantly timed; my group is just about to start a Curse of Strahd campaign and this has given me a tonne of inspiration on how to run Strahd and his minions!

[@thewizardprophet6475]

Matt, I've never played dnd, and I talked a group into allowing me to dm them through a game. Session 0 is in 3 days. Your videos have been sp incredibly helpful in shaping the dm I want to be and this video acted as both motivation and acknowledgement of my efforts thus far. Your idea of a BBEG is almost exactly what I've worked to build thus far. And I have to thank you for giving me your mentorship and guidance. I really wish I could chat with you and tell you my super cool plans. Because I can't tell anyone else lol. Thanks for doing what you do.

[@raenkord7881]

Had a Magic amulet get itself into the hands of the players. For some reason they all put the amulet on. One by one they made their save and got to hear the BBEG mock them. The one of them failed, the BBEG poured through their memories, also mocked them, and now has a permanent connection to the mind of a player.

[@chelseascreatures]

When you have an idea for the next meet up for your players and then you watch a video where Colville gives a hat tip to your idea. Message received will proceed with villain arch

[@bountybernd]

Great video, as usual. I wanted to implement cutscenes a while now, but i was lacking confidence if it works at my table. Your experiences have convinced me to try it out next session, that the Lich's henchman is coming for the group. Also nice to hear about Hitchcock's bomb theory for a different kind of media than film and how it could work. Thank you, Mr. Colville.

[@SidewaysGts]

Holy hell! over 400k subscribers?! Its been amazing watching your channel grow! From amazing writer on evolve to one of the best DM channels on youtube

[@NullRageGaming]

Here's an idea I had for allowing an undead big bad to interface with the party. Feel free to take it and run. This will work best if one of your players is playing a cleric or is closely tied to undeath and knows the Speak with dead spell: Create a mystery in which the player have the option of finding information via speak with dead. A spur of assignations or mysterious deaths, perhaps a missing heirloom or hidden treasure that only "grandpa knew the location of, but he died last year." The allow that every time the players speak with the dead it "pings" the big bad, and he starts paying attention. As a highly powerful master of undeath, it would be a trifle to co-opt the players spell and allow him to speak through the corpse directly to the party without ever putting himself in danger. This could catch you players off guard and surprise them especially if they carefully planned their 5 questions and on question 3 the rules change and they just start having a conversation with a Lich...and then the corpse EXPLODES! Cause why not. Once this power of corpses is established you could have the dead speak to the party even without the use of Speak with dead, including recently slain opponents.

[@SamuraiPizzaCam]

I really like the idea of highlighting DM clips at the end of a video in a way demonstrating the material covered!

[@Exsulator2]

I had an idea the other week - to create the villain last, and rather start from the ground up of the villain’s organisation. Because imo you’ll interact a lot less with the villain than his underlings - so which content is more important? I think you could probably never paint yourself into a corner if you made the villain last, but you can sometimes make a villain and then struggle to have their organization make sense or be interesting

[@wickedpissa25]

Dael Kingsmill is just weapons-grade adorable.

[@Relius70]

After watching this I immediately rewrote next sessions encounter to include a brief cameo from the villain, who will now order his minions to dispatch the heroes before teleporting away.

[@rileygoodenough5000]

This is why i think descent into avernus is so good, its not written the most clearly and takes alot of page flipping to tie everything together smoothly, but ultimately this is why the storyline is so great.

[@redneckdemon2936]

I could spend all day listening to you talk about the elements of narrative fiction and applying them to game design. I haven't played D&D in over a decade, but I always come away from these little chats with better understanding and/or some great ideas. Thanks, Matthew!

[@Trenell83]

I may be wrong here but when you described cutscenes that reminded me of the vignettes from 4th edition Dungeon Master Guide 2. Yours seem to be a well polished version of that concept. Now you have reminded of it I need to implement these techniques and see how it goes. Also I hear any mention of Dusk I click like.

[@dwarfanage9379]

Nooo waaaayyy!! The video ive been waiting absolute ages for! Something our friend Matt said they would cover "soon" many moons ago.

[@quarkinjapan]

Great one Matt ! I love dramatic irony, I used it a lot in the past at the end of scenarios but I'll look into using it during the scenario as well.

[@peterabilodeau]

The lieutenants are a method I’ve used, inspired by Sailor Moon. They would appear and a fight would determine if the lieutenants stole the artifact they PCs had crawled through the dungeon for. They were collecting artifacts in order to give their master a way back into the PCs world and it was a Mad, Mad, Mad World race to acquire/steal the artifacts. So, each time the lieutenants succeeded, they’d get a cut scene of the assembly getting closer to complete; when they failed and escaped, the saw the master reach across space and time to obliterate the failure as an example to the next villain, who was then introduced. It worked like gangbusters.

[@MrJjk1000]

A high level Wizard sending their simulacrums out in the world to wreck havoc is something I'd like to try at some point

[@cthomashand]

Every time I see a new video by you my immediate mental dialogue is "Ah, fuck yeah."

[@gooserevolt]

Was not expecting to see this in my feed at this time! Great content as always

[@PaulGuy]

Didn't expect a Lo-Pan reference, but Big trouble in Little China is a pretty classic adventure structure, so it makes sense.

[@tress4726]

If your players like to use divination magic, that's another cool way for them to interact with your villain. Imagine the terror as your character spies on the BBEG while he is punishing one of his minions for their failure to deal with the party and as he finishes, the BBEG "turns to look directly into your soul and smiles." and you are now 100% certain he knew you were watching the entire time.

[@civilbeard]

Excellent video. I really enjoyed Dael's reading at the end.

[@scheele1646]

I totally am gonna use an equivalent of the villain quote at 6:31, thats such a fun and clever comeback!

[@LongSurreal]

Great video! The lighting, camera and stage look awesome!

[@ni1ix]

I really like the changes you guys did to the set, looks great!

[@stephenpatterson2860]

Andor has been doing the cutaway/cutscene thing really well, showing the ISB growing increasingly concerned with events that Cassian is becoming involved in, to the point that the evil government starts taking galaxy-wide measures to try to prevent the kind of thing the hero(es) have been getting up to. That's how your players know they're having an effect. We also see both direct and indirect effects of the bad guys upon the heroes and various characters that we spend time with, so it helps us hate the empire more. And the opponent(s) get tougher and the stakes therefore increase over time; first it's a corpo security officer who's a little too big for his britches, with his little squad. Next they ratchet up the stakes and the opponent is a whole imperial garrison, with some surprisingly competent officers compared to what we've seen in the past. It's just a really well-written show.

[@NathanWolke]

I do cutscenes but didn’t realize it’s so prevalent. I call it “meanwhile, elsewhere”. I don’t give any plot points away but it shows the impact they are having on the friends and foes so they feel the effect on the world.

[@bodiecurrier]

Seriously amazing video, Matt, as always! Each of your videos inspires wacky new ideas for my campaign, you fuel my addiction :D

[@chiefchurpa5739]

Off topic but as u've use the clip of ''I'm a river to my people'' a few times I came across Lawrence of Arabia and just finished watching it....Great movie...cheers

[@aqueousconch1103]

Wooot! Always love collaborations with Dael. I need to get on the Dusk campaign at one point

[@jackservans6906]

I had a bad guy in my underwater campaign who was a Sahuagin debt collector. He would stalk the players and wait for them outside of dungeons he had no connection to. When they emerged, beaten half to death from whatever was inside, he would take their gold and knock them out if they protested. Man, did they hate that guy.