Hey everyone! Been a while since I've been on this forum but lately been GMing a anima campaign based in my own world I've been making and the villian I've created I really like. He's a triple agent basically playing the different factions against each other, wanting to start a war so the aliens he had made a pact with can invade then wipe out their strongest opposition while they're distracted and weakened by fighting each other first (the plot's a bit like the Avengers but if Loki was a local and infultrated more from the inside. The Players are basically being manipulated by him to reveal the plot of the invaders from a country overseas, so the locals will be ready for it, making it into a war rather than a slaughter. It's working very, very well thus far.

He's a master of ki techniques, especially shapeshift and a Shadow.

It's complicated. I'm having one hell of a time with this campaign and hopefully will see it till it's end.

So as a player and GM what kind of antagonist you enjoy playing/fighting against?

The most compelling advessaries I have gone against were actualy from the canpaign we just ended. Both of them were different classes so it wasn't the challenge that was hard, it was the story driven elements that made them so compelling. When characters are connected deeply to an antagonist with love, not hate, and must face that enemy who in the egining they would take a blade for those advesaries are my favorite. Not just to throw at players but to experience as a player as well. They are compelling, moraly conflicting, and best of all they can even be stronger than the person and still have a hard time beating them.

… this is giving me some ideas for the canpaign I am currently running (mwahahaha).

Personally, I would have to say that my favorite type of antagonist is the one that they never truely meet until the final confrontation. They find that there seems to be a common thread to there adventures, and as the story progresses more information is discovered until the final leap of knowledge as to who they will have to fight.

Nurddude said:

That also works well if the characters have met the antagonist really early on in the campaign, but at the time he seemed like a completely innocuous and irrelevant NPC. Player reactions when they find out they could have stopped all of their problems before they got out of hand are beautiful to behold.

Beadle said:

I've done that twice now. First was my Dark Heresy campaign their pilot, a black guy named Ulysses (If any of them had played through any of the Fallout NV DLC he being a villian would've been obvious) All he did was drop them off on a planet and sit in orbit while they did there mission. He gave them devices that boosted the PC's vox links allowing them to talk to him even while in orbit but unbenown to them they worked constantly so he could listen to their communications. Later they got captured and kidnapped and went through the hell of the Tattered Fates scenario. They didn't learn of it until the end of that campaign they fought him but he managed to get away. It was great. Did it also with the antagonist in my lattest game , he was the first NPC they met an aide to the leader of the town they were going to but this one's a bit more obvious that he's atleast to them that he's one of the bad guys.

I think an antagonist that the characters would like is someone they built themselves. I mean if you finish a campaign, you can start a new one where the main organization they are going against are the very high level characters they played previously. Also on a website, I think it was gamegrene.com, there are articles for evil gm (I think that it is kind of fair) but you could have the munchkin make the strongest character possible (I mean no holds bar) and allow him to play that character for a couple sessions. Then restart the campaign as that munchkined player as the antagonist. I just think it would be funny RP wise in addition to an anatgonist that the players have a connection with.

The main problems I see with that are:

1) The players then know EXACTLY what abilities those characters have (or did have at lower levels if you've upped them).

2) The munchkin will create an absolutely optimised killing machine, and I never think it's a good idea to have totally optimised NPCs. If you kill the party, the campaign is over, along with the fun. And players never appreciate getting their characters killed in an intentional move like that particular one. It may end up being the last time they choose to play with you.

Ashley the Dragon said:

That….that sounds frigging awesome. How did the GM manage that? Usually with NPC's my players either hate them, ignore them, kinda like them, or have a small amount of grudging respect. I'd love to hear how he did that.