Bringing Characters to Life!

[MeepoSose]

Some of the most memorable ones I've seen or used were the unlikely villains. I turned Meepo from the D&D 3.0 module into a kobold genius mastermind who manipulated the party into killing the kobold queen for him and leaving him in charge to "convert the rest of the kobold clan to good." Only the party rogue, who spoke draconic, ever knew the truth until much later. From that point on, the party referred to him as Meepo Sose, like Kaiser Sose in The Usual Suspects.

Other times, single acts were enough to bring out intense hatred. With most of the party incapacitated or near defeat, I've had a villain gruesomely coup de grace a downed party member and then leave the battlefield with a trophy. I tried to be as descriptive as possible. They eventually defeated the evil minions left behind to "deal with" the players but the hatred was already ignited.

Another useful technique is to make the main bad guy so miserable and feeble that the party feels bad about killing him. He always surrenders when cornered and never overtly takes action against the party. This only works if there are one or more goodie-goodies in the party but it does work if played right. The party instead brings them to the authorities where he is locked in jail. Once safe on the other side of the jail cell, the evil guys courage returns and he begins taunting one or more party members by drawing his finger across his throat menacingly or something or whispering some threat. Eventually, the party can't stay and baby-sit the jail every day so they go about their business. Later they find the bad guy has escaped, was acquitted, bribed someone etc and is back on the lose to plot revenge against the party. The challenge here as a GM is to see how far you can push this with the party before they finally snap and take the law into their own hands.

[Oberoten]

And lets not forget cut-scenes.

We do a few of these each session, letting the players see the villain give orders or deal with THEIR friends.

Nothing builds hatred better'n knowing that the villain is not only planing to kill you, he is also corrupting your woman... and worse she is falling for it.

- Obe