So I just introduced the party of mine to the (hopefully) main villain of the campaign. he's a master manipulator,ambitious imperial captain who just happens to sport a mustache and look like Hugo Weaving when he was in the matrix. He is going to (hopefully) rise through the ranks as he battles the party and finally come into command of the Asserter class star dreadnought wrath and have one big final battle with the party and their allies. However a villain is not a good villain without being loathed or feared. I have a few ideas in mind but I was wondering if you guys had any ideas on how to get the party to loath/fear the villain without A. getting him killed by their tank character who single handily hijacked a AT-ST and B. not give monologues every two sessions and become a cliche.

Thank you,Samuel Richard

Your party doesn't even need to meet him right away. Have them find the aftermath of his nefarious actions. Maybe a city they were supposed to visit has been destroyed from orbit via turbolaser or a high ranking official that was a potential ally is murdered. Drop hints that all the terrible things happening around them have been committed by Captain Bigbad.

You can even go so far as to show him working his way up the Imperial ranks. A sector's Moff is killed or discredited. And who's there to fill the power vacuum? Always have your villains acting in the background, regardless of what the PCs do.

Make it hard for them to even access him. If he's that conniving, he won't be walking around personally picking fights with every PC party who comes along. He'll send troops or hire bounty hunters, or just blast at them from the safety of his capital ships.

57 minutes ago, Samuel Richard said:

Honestly I am with Rouge here. One thing you can do with him if you want him to be a ground force that meets up with the players at least one time is if the players have a base or maybe there is some other Rebel base that the PC's come across that they get intel the Empire will soon attack, have that base get attacked by a full Star Destroyer or even a couple star destroyers that start landing massive ground forces, have the entire base having a fighting retreat with what ever the base defenses has, and put Captain Big Bad in charge of the ground assault, when the players run into him he will be surrounded by a slew of Storm trooper Lieutenants, AT-AT walkers, and of course with a bunch of Lieutenants you have a bunch of standard troopers. Have it be his squad that finally breaks into the base and maybe captures and Executes anyone that doesnt make it off planet, maybe he keeps a couple alive and they find out they were tortured and when they finally go to rescue those people they may rescue 1, but the torture has left him so broken that he cant speak and can barely walk. If he is a manipulator type maybe the team goes to try to convince someone to join the rebellion but the captain has already gotten to him (kinda like Lando) a manipulator in particular I think should work a lot behind the scenes to undermine the players and be turning the masses against the Rebellion with propaganda, maybe he kills a whole village looking for the rebels and then follows up by blaming such a terrible act on the players.

Never let them meet until you want the Villain to be dead. Players will find a way to kill him.

Better than Rogue09's idea, let the villain advance up the ranks for something he DIDN'T do. Maybe something the group did (like foil a bank robbery). Villain gets credit and promotion.

Have group THINK they killed him only to have him get away. Have them fall for a decoy, perhaps.

They get false reports on his location. Go through struggle to get there only to find out he is not there.

One way is to have the villain show up frequently in the media in your scenes. For example, the party is in a cantina, and the Empire Approved News Channel is doing a piece on the local governor (or whatever fits your scenario). That person is the villain, and you take a few minutes to relay his interview to the players. How he describes how he will "Crush ze puuuny Rebel forcez in ze area! Zere will be NO place for zem to hide from our might!!" *insert Dr. Strangelove voice there*

Then, later on, have another news update about the results of that attack, and show the bodies of those they killed, and how brutal they went about doing it. Describe how the camera focuses on the villain, looking over the carnage with pride, and a smile on his face, clearly pleased with his actions. Then sort of pepper stuff like this throughout the campaign, with ever increasing brutality, then eventually have the villains focus turn to the PC's actions, and then they realize "Oh crap, he's talking about us!"

This way, they've got a history with the villain, without having actually directly encountered him. The fact that you have him looking like Hugo Weaving with a big mustache, only helps to nail home this larger than life villain. Heck, you could channel his performance as the Red Skull to nail the Space Nazi persona, which is what the Imperials are anyway.....**** I think I'm going to have to steal this guy from you for a campaign of my own one day Space Nazi, Mustachioed Hugo Weaving Red Skull. That's so much camp that I need a backpack and a bedroll!

Seriously though, since he's a part of the Empire, you have the entire infrastructure of the Empire itself to convey the villain's presence, without having to directly present him to the party. Think of any murderous dictator/tyrant from history that had access to television broadcast technology, imagine the people living under that person, and then have the broadcasts suddenly be aimed at them . It should, if done right, cause a significant amount of tension for the PC's.

Think about the Mandarin from Iron Man 3, how much menace he created with nothing but TV broadcasts, and how personally Tony took it when the Mandarin started directing them at him. Stuff like that, but with Space Nazi Hugo Weaving.

Make him use them as scapegoats for Imperial atrocities. Whether they're a random freighter crew or Rebellion spec ops, they're now the face of terrorism in the sector. Everything bad that happens will be pinned on them by the Imperial-controlled media. Every time a stormtrooper harasses someone at a checkpoint he'll mention it's because of credible threats from those **** terrorists.

Thank you all for your help I think I have found ways to make them loath good old space Nazi Hugo weaving (thanks for the laugh KungFoFerret, you may steal my cliche creation.) I've also got a few ideas of my own. You know the old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" well the villian isn't the only person the PCs have gained the ire of. A temporary alliance may be in order.

Here I was thinking what if your players almost killed him but didn't realise it?

Imagine he's infuriated at them because of some slight they have no idea about and in response his attempts to get back at them is what's causing his rise in power!

So every time they end up fighting storm troopers it's becoming clear someone is hunting them!

Now imagine your bad guy is a Tarkin fanboy!

It is famously tricky to have PCs meet the obvious bad guy in RPGs without risking said bad guy ending up dead. Luckily, Star Wars technology and game rules hands you a few ways around this.

First of all, its quite hard to outright kill someone in this system, and unless your players are in the habit of making sure that every fallen foe is dead, a fallen bad guy can easily make a comeback with some bacta and cybernetics (cybernetic mustache! ). And a scar. Definitely a villanous scar. Don't expect your players leave him for dead more than once though, but as an imperial commander, if they face him in open combat he should have close to endless minions pouring in as reinforcements and sticking around to put an extra few blaster bolts in him once he's fallen might not be an option. Personally, as player, I like recurring villains, so if I end up in a fight with a villain I like I always look for an opportunity to end the fight by knocking the bad guy off a cliff or something so my character can go " No one could survive that! " and walk away. But not all players roll that way. Metagaming it like that is even frowned upon by some.

Secondly, thanks to the wonders of holographic communications technology your bad guy can have a face to face with the players while safely tucked away half a galaxy away. It might take a contrived coincidence or two (The players bust into an imperial command post and have a little blaster party with the local commander, only to realize that he was taking a holocall with Moustache Weaving, who has now witnessed the entire fight and has a few choice words for the PCs) but if he and the PCs get the opportunity to contact each other (The PCs loot a specially encrypted, untraceable holocommunicator from a boss mook that can connect directly to an identical one in Moustache Weaving's possession.) the opportunities are endless.

Thirdly, there is the cinematic approach. You can simply have short cutscenes showing what the bad guys are up to. A few short character establishing scenes can do wonders. It should be noted though that not everyone likes this kind of metaplay, and it requires an established level of trust with the players as they are basically handed information that their players don't have. I'm blessed enough to for the most part be able to take such things for granted in the groups I play and GM in, but not everyone has it, or wants it like that.

2 hours ago, copperbell said:

Here I was thinking what if your players almost killed him but didn't realise it?

Imagine he's infuriated at them because of some slight they have no idea about and in response his attempts to get back at them is what's causing his rise in power!

So every time they end up fighting storm troopers it's becoming clear someone is hunting them!

Now imagine your bad guy is a Tarkin fanboy!

This is gold. Did the players blow up an ATAT/Cruiser/Command post earlier in the campaign? Turns out the commander made it out alive, and is now looking for the rebel scum responsible.

You could also use it as a backup plan. Have Moustache Weaving show up right away and tussle with the players, and if he irrevocably snuffs it (A lava pit? How unfortunate!) the players will soon find themselves hunted by his brother, Goatee Weaving. And now it's personal!

I apologize for the abuse of parentheses, I hope the post is still readable. Also, random thing I've learned today: British and American spelling of M(o)ustache differs. You guys really are trying to make us second language speakers pick a side, aren't you?

You MUST make this be Mustache Weaving's theme song when you introduce him.

Omfg I came here for advice not a laugh but it's sorely needed, thank you very much for all of your advice guys. I'll think hologram technology will be my friend and I think I will also take a page out of the nemisis system and making him cheat death. Thank you again.

I've been thinking about taking a leaf from "Shadow of Mordor"'s book. If anyone isn't familiar with it, basically in any standard fight, you meet up with mooks. Orcs, primarily. Normally you just kill them and move on. If any survive, however, they go on to become nemeses with a name, a backstory, and better skills. They show up later with their own followers and the like.

In SW, I was thinking of a similar thing. That TIE pilot that escaped last session? He's now getting a name, and the beginnings of a reputation as a fighter ace. Soon he might have his own squadron. Same goes for that escaped stormtrooper. You didn't know it, but he was a senior NCO who has now been commissioned and commands a platoon. Or he's been promoted into the ranks of the Death Troopers.

It lets the GM create memorable NPCs without having to go through the trauma of developing and fleshing out a great NPC only to have the PCs kill him in their first meeting!

I think Rogue and DurosSpacer have a good idea going. 'If you stat it, they will kill it' is a phrase just about every GM knows. But having the villain as a behind the scenes NPC, working his way up the ranks, introduces the character to the player, and can give you some additional story ideas in the process.

"INN (Imperial News Network). Security on the planet Great X was cemented, earlier this week, with the arrival of the 201st Stormtrooper company led by Captain Hewgo Weavering. Captain Weaverings troopers have already apprehended several rebellion leaders and supporters and have sent them to sector command for questioning." Well, the players find out that the rebellion cells on the planet were detained, then executed.

"INN. A hostage situation turned tragic, today, as elements of the 201st Stormtrooper battalion, led by Major Hewgo Weavering attempted to peacefully resolve the situation. Rebellion sympathizers had taken several hostages in an urban residential building and were demanding the Emperor step down. As members of the 201st were setting up a security cordon, and beginning negotiations, the rebels detonated several unknown at the time explosives they had planted within the building, damaging several nearby structures. Casualty reports are still incoming at this time..." Yeah...the now-Major tracked down a rebel cell and called in an air strike, killing the cell as well as citizens in the adjacent buildings.

By the time you are ready to introduce the villain to the party, they should be more than motivated to bring him down.