Killers, Manipulators and other Big Bads

Now that the planning thread is out, I thought it would be fun to discuss an important part of an RP in more detail. How do you like your big bad antagonistic force handled? There are a plethora of ways to do it, in one powerful villain that slows down all players, a shady organisation that controls a selection of dangerous villains, or maybe even just a general notion of darkness or corruption?

Is there any way you prefer it in? Is there an RP that you feel does it very well?

I prefer having my bad guys in the background, always threatening but the players never able to catch up to them however hard they try. I think that in an RP its important to have a single big bad guy with maybe a few smaller ones along the way, but its important to have an antagonist that the players can recognize and fight against. Having multiple bad guys gets confusing in my opinion unless its done properly with one per story arch.

As for my favorite way is to have one manipulating bad guys who pits players or teams of players against each other. Creates confusion and mayhem and fun!

It depends on the setting I guess. In a superpower world I think a main antagonist who creates, hires, or subjugates lesser antagonists is better. So that even when you're facing some bbeg, once you manage to defeat he just laughs at your efforts and tells you about some even bigger power. In a more realistic setting though the general notion of darkness or corruption is better. Because while it is scary to explore and discover the powers that some beings hold, I think it's even scarier to see the things that normal people can come up with when the moment arises.

I think this depends a lot on the RP itself more than anything. In sandbox RPs, it's generally a lot easier to have a range of antagonists to deal with whilst in a chapter-based RP it often makes sense to have a more limited number.

As you said, there's a plethora of ways for this to be handled and each RP has a few different methods that suit them really well. I think an example of an RP that handles villains really well is One Piece. There's a fair few, but they're often tailored to specific characters or story arches and each villain is always handled very well by the GMs.