How do I write a villain who is always two steps ahead?
>>96910674>>>/lit/
>>96910674In RPG terms, you do realise you can hear the poor fucking players planning, right? Just make up some bullshit about your villain reading body language like a bene gesseret or picking up bullshit clues like Adam West Batman, or whenever they announce an action, go I KNEWWWWW YOU WOULD DO THAT! like Stallone's Dredd.
>>96910782Does every thread on this board need to require the words "in my ttrpg"?>>96910674Anyway, this is a difficult thing if you're stupid. I mean that genuinely, it will be hard for you to write smart characters if you yourself aren't smart. But assuming you're the GM, which you should be, you probably already have a rough idea for a story outline written. If this is the case then congrats! Your villain should now know more about the steps they need to take than the players do. The problem is making this seem fair to the players. You can't just have your evil Black Knight go do the plot without your players, but you can have him subvert their expectations from time to time.While I'm begrudging the retard who is immediately directing you to /lit/ because he cries about half the threads on here, he is partially right, read a few books to gauge characters or their methods that can be similar to what you want from your villain. Have your villain be smart, have them slight the players in tricksy ways, have one dungeon where they found out the important artefact has already been taken (but assuage the players by ensuring they still earned loot of some sort). I'm not sure how to fully help you, because I don't know your game system or story, but I'll believe in the best for you & guess you can glean some ideas from this already.
>>96911538> Does every thread on this board need to require the words "in my ttrpg"?It is admittedly different preparing a villain for an rpg as opposed to writing them for a a book, if only because suspension of disbelief regarding “villain was prepared for that exact thing you just did” is a mite harder to pull on a person sitting in front of you compared to a passive outside observer like a reader
>>96910674First, you have to have goals for your bad guy. If you don't have any development for him other than to be a punching bag for your "heroes" then how is he going to be able to be ahead of the party.Second, you need to have a path for the bad guy to go on to achieve his goals. His tasks are going to shape everything else that is going to happen in the adventure.Third, you need to think about tow different things to present the PCs, red herrings and McGuffins. The bad guy should be seen as the one that creates the red herrings. The other thing you can do is have the bad guy snatch McGuffins right as the PCs are about to acquire it. (think of Radiers of the Lost Ark).
Like him?
>>96911791First off. Korra is a idiot so anyone can be two steps ahead of her. Second, the show was poorly written.
>>96911829Okay here is a better example than fussy anon
>>96910674>>96911538No seriously just write a book. ttrpgs arent good for conventional storytelling.
>>96911832I don't know who this is.
>>96911872Lord Yoshii Toranaga from Shogun
>>96911872>>96911902If you want to see a serious example of the concept. I would recommend watching Shogun.
>>96911902He was great, but also admitted that he was riding the dragon and any of his plans failing would lead to complete disaster.Skill and luck.
>>96910674Don't. I mean, you obviously can just listen to players plan, as >>96911525 says, and you can also call the session when players do something unexpected and take your time thinking up contingencies meant to counter whatever the players did the villain retroactively had in place all along, but don't. Smart villains are fine, villains who start off knowing more about what's going on than the players are fine, and not mollycoddling your players is great, but if players come up with something unexpected, don't devalue it by having the villain actually expect and prepare for it all along. Just let the villain have elaborate plans and let players be the unexpected element ruining those plans, as God intended.
>>96910674Aside from just metagaming the PC plans and justifying it by saying the villain had spies, a crystal ball, or is jus that smart, you can also set them up where they're manipulating both sides of a conflict.Then no matter what happens, it's moving their goals forward in some way, and so they're always able to claim that the PCs did exactly what they wanted them to do.
>>96911829>Korra is a idiotSo are your players.>the show was poorly writtenSo is your campaign.
another one of these threads. keeping a steady 20 aren't yah
>>96912036Anon you might be surprised that people on the internet are different people.You would be one of those players that it's way to easy to outsmart because you're too ASSuming.
>>96911985IMO he knew how to hedge his bets. A lot of it was more than luck.
>>96910674Write a villain who is three steps ahead. Then, remove one step.
>>96910674Write the adventure around the villain's plan. He should have all the pieces almost lined up, with a back up plan in the event of a setback. This way the villain can fail forward, still moving on with his plan, just in a reduced or more arduous capacity. Stealing some mcguffin or killing an important npc will still feel like a win to the party, just not a victory. This also leaves room for the party to fail forward. The party might not have stopped the current phase, and the end might be harder, but they can still stop the next step with what was learned.
