Hey, everyone.

TL;DR - What are some great, wicked things for a Lethal Weapon style of diplomatically-immune (though not really, see below) nemesis to do to players (or involve players in so they become conflicted)?

I'm running a colonial-style game with five players on a weekly basis. They're focusing on developing a homestead and helping build up the colony with which they're affiliated.

I just introduced a campaign nemesis (named Tuuvo the Vile), a Hutt that I randomly rolled off of T&D's H is for Hutt page cunningly designed. He's posing an agricultural equipment and supply dealer (his legit business front), and deals in obscure Jedi artifacts on the sly.

Now, that which makes him truly evil (at least to my players) is his vice. All my players are part of a college community that has a very serious campaign against modern human slavery IRL, so I made the villain a legal slaver who is more than willing to report anyone who infringes upon his "Imperial Rights." It makes it worse that one of the PCs is a Marshal and the town's effective police chief. It's effectively his duty to protect Tuuvo's rights, and it pisses them off, SOOOO bad. I literally sat there eating popcorn while two of my players had a five minute argument in-character about what they should do.

Tuuvo isn't really diplomatically immune, he's just not guilty of crime as far as they can tell. He has a master slicer who's helped him cover up and get rid of criminal evidence, so finding anything to pin on Tuuvo is going to be really hard.

Just give him some competent bodyguards to prevent attacks on his person and you have yourself a highly effective recurring villain. Good job.

It sounds like you're already playing to your PCs' Motivations if most (or even just some) are concerned with immoral activity. He doesn't necessarily have to make it personal for all your players, but if you're looking for a way to really get under their skin, have some righteous individual free one or a handful of his slaves. At Tuuvo's insistence, your Marshal PC is ordered to track the slaves down and return them, as well as bring the man who freed them to justice.

If you want to twist the knife further, have the now-criminal be someone the party is familiar with and likes, or just give him a sympathetic reason for doing so. Maybe he loves the slave or is related to him/her.

This leaves the party with a tough decision: follow the law and damage their moral standing, or let them go and earn a criminal record themselves (at worst) or Tuuvo's ire. From there, let the situation develop organically.

Just give him some competent bodyguards to prevent attacks on his person and you have yourself a highly effective recurring villain. Good job.

It sounds like you're already playing to your PCs' Motivations if most (or even just some) are concerned with immoral activity. He doesn't necessarily have to make it personal for all your players, but if you're looking for a way to really get under their skin, have some righteous individual free one or a handful of his slaves. At Tuuvo's insistence, your Marshal PC is ordered to track the slaves down and return them, as well as bring the man who freed them to justice.

If you want to twist the knife further, have the now-criminal be someone the party is familiar with and likes, or just give him a sympathetic reason for doing so. Maybe he loves the slave or is related to him/her.

This leaves the party with a tough decision: follow the law and damage their moral standing, or let them go and earn a criminal record themselves (at worst) or Tuuvo's ire. From there, let the situation develop organically.

I really like that idea. They have a couple supporting characters who'd work well with doing that. Incidentally, he also has a retinue of bodyguards led by a lesser nemesis. Bare minimum, the party would have to fight through a dozen souped up rival tier Zygerrian slavers and one Zygerrian nemesis before they even got to Tuuvo. And then they'd all be murderers.

I really like that idea. They have a couple supporting characters who'd work well with doing that. Incidentally, he also has a retinue of bodyguards led by a lesser nemesis. Bare minimum, the party would have to fight through a dozen souped up rival tier Zygerrian slavers and one Zygerrian nemesis before they even got to Tuuvo. And then they'd all be murderers.

You have heard of the phrase "murder hobos", right?

One darksider later...

You have heard of the phrase "murder hobos", right?

There's actually a pretty cool ability the Imperial Moff has which is fairly effective at stopping 'some' of the gratuitous firepower your murderhobos will pump out in the direction of your favourite baddie.

Imperial Valor - use a maneuver to cause all ranged attacks targeting the moff to hit one ally or helpless enemy (he's got in engagement range) until the beginning of his next turn. Plus he can yell at the peons to give them a blue dice to make them less abyssmal at killing things.

That's pretty much best armour you can give a baddie in the game, even better if its some innocent/not so innocent friend of the group to use as ablative armour as murderhobos typically love guns, (which is ok, everyone love guns) but it gets pretty dull when murderhobos can just dump a pierce 2, damage 20 crit, 2 shot into **** near everything.

I really like that idea. They have a couple supporting characters who'd work well with doing that. Incidentally, he also has a retinue of bodyguards led by a lesser nemesis. Bare minimum, the party would have to fight through a dozen souped up rival tier Zygerrian slavers and one Zygerrian nemesis before they even got to Tuuvo. And then they'd all be murderers.

You have heard of the phrase "murder hobos", right?

Of course, but my point is none of them...well...only one of my players actually plays that way, and he's a Hired Gun. We have four mostly civilian classes that are all playing to a high degree of morality. They're playing this largely Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good. They don't kill unless they really have to (unless it's a wild animal, wooooooboy). We've got a Marshal/Hunter, a Trader/Politico, a Doctor, a Scientist, and that aforementioned Heavy. They will of course lay waste to the scum and villains that draw on them first, but they're not about to go murder a bunch of slavers who have every legal right to be on the planet.