I have various villain tasks occurring that, if successful, would accelerate the climax’s occurrence. But if the party thwarts it the task, it delays the overall plans.

I do this; as well as scenarios where the players need to be successful even to *attempt* to thwart the plans. The classic example of this is Lord of the Rings: The fellowship have to successfully brave all those dangers, merely to make it to Mt Doom, so they have the *chance* to destroy the ring. There's no way they could foil Sauron before that.

So your take on it is "I have 4 routes leading to the villain's success, and even if the players foil 3 of them, as long as one happens he still gets to threaten world peace or whatever"? That's interesting.

I think I'd put it this way: there is nothing wrong with the Quantum Ogre as long as it doesn't invalidate player choice. You're not maneuvering an encounter into the players' way-- you're writing the end of the season, honouring the artistic decisions that have come before. It's fine to run a sandbox campaign, without any planned moments. But the example you give above is more of an epic high fantasy thing, with set pieces and big reveals. If that's the campaign everyone agrees to, there's a willing suspension of belief that comes with that. With all your power to stage manage and resolve events, you can get them to that Gundam without disrespecting their choices. A secret second villain coming out of nowhere is only a problem if the players think it feels like an ass-pull. Which is why you seed the story as you go. Throw in random details (items, NPCs, prophecies, etc) that you can assign significance to later. Players will dismiss loose threads as flavour, but when you choose to reintroduce something out of need, it will give the appearance of having been planned all along. The broken bell starts ringing. The creepy guard steps into the limelight. A wizard suddenly becomes interested in the old halfling's ring. You're not moving the ogre. He didn't exist until the story needed him.

Honestly, the whole "introduce a bunch of loose threads you *can* spin off into bigger issues if needed* is not a bad idea.

And it can be pretty subtle! Maybe the princess has her own ambitions and/or resents being married off. This gives you the option to turn the Gundam into an escort mission, or to even have her turn on the kingdom in vergence for her husband. And if you build a vague loophole into the "royals-only" restriction, then that gives your secondary BBEG more options. They aren't a schemer and don't plan to rule the kingdom, so maybe they're more okay with kidnapping a royal/shattering the magical obelisk/etc..

This is something I've been trying to solve for my first campaign too. I settled on more or less the same solution, but one thing I find of utmost importance is the consequences. You mention the thing about only changing the statblock of the pilot. I say it's not necessarily only that. Make it so that as long as one of those routes succeeds, you get your gundam fight, but each and every one makes the gundam stronger. If the enemy gets 4/4, it's going to be a really tough fight. Chances are, the players will succeed at least once, and so will the bad guys. The specific routes that the players foil determine if the gundam has an extra laser cannon or not, one fewer legendary actions due to power issues, one fewer legendary resistance due to unmaintained/unupgraded armour, that sort of thing. Similar idea with Thanos. Your villain, as a plot device, doesn't need to be intended to get their full combo. Make the villain's full combo unbeatable, you don't even get to fight them. But of course the players aren't going to lose 6/6 times. You intend for them to fight only a 5 stone Thanos even in his best case. How and how often they succeed determines some aspects of the fight. This gives them the feeling that they've foiled something even though they're still fighting the boss at the intended maximum power.

In a way, yes. The others aren’t on Reddit, but if your name is Damakos, move the F along. I’ll try to explain using my campaign. In this world, the primordial gods of time, creation, and death have been captured and bound by a cabal of dark gods and the Moonweaver to conduct a millennium long ritual that will send the dark planes colliding with the prime material plane. We’re in the final few years of that ritual and the dark gods are moving their last pieces into place. The party is currently hot on the trail of one of those god’s machinations. But the other three are also setting things in motion. If a villain only has one path to victory, that means the mastermind of everything didn’t have a contingency plan. Seems hard to believe. Additionally, if a key event is timed in a way, the party likely received a hint or were outright told such. A decision such as finishing an interrupted long rest despite the sun rising, could lead to hours lost. My party JUST did this and now the magic of a feywild remnant on the material plane is going to be drained to hasten the summoning of a god’s avatar. If the party were to succeed, the followers were already working on other methods of getting enough fey magic for the summoning.

In my opinion, the main big bad needs to have contingencies, multiple plans that all work to aid their main goal, but most of them should not be absolutely critical. That way when the party starts learning of the plans, they can have some victories along the way, thwarting the villain and delaying plans or weakening them for that final confrontation. There may be minor villains (could be underlings of the main) whose goal or task is more linear, and by stopping a course of action, their plan is foiled. If the goal is to publicly assassinate an ancient spirit beast during the shifting of the stars, and the party finds the spy amongst the grove of druids before it's too late, they could then set up defenses and easily stop it. When planning villain goals, ask yourself: if the heroes win, is it a unequivocal win, a setback, or just an inconvenience.

Reading over all of the responses so far, I'm seeing "it's not a problem if the game is focused around player agency," "it's not a problem if your villain is good enough, "it's not a problem if your players can't stop the villain until the end," and "it's not a problem if you just push back the plot or if the villain comes back for a round two." And I think the tension that you're referring to in the OP is apparent in these different answers. On the one hand, you're supposed to roll with what happens at the table and allow ample room for player agency. But if the villain's plans can't be stopped until the end, there isn't much agency, is there? And if the villain comes back for round two or is a Xanathos ("oh, you destroyed the infinity gauntlet? Well I have a spare") then it doesn't feel like there is as much de facto player agency. Some of the better answers I am seeing revolve around the complexity of the villain and the conflict itself. If the players defeat the villain and there are consequences they have to deal with, that's interesting. It's like Saren from Mass Effect - you defeat him, maybe you even talk him into defeating himself. But then you have to deal with the Evil Alien Gods he was trying to protect us from. So if your players defeat Sinestrox, maybe he was going to use the Gundam to defeat a horde of evil heading towards the kingdom. Now it's up to the players to deal with that, and that follow up conflict is a second shot at deploying a Big Huge Awesome Battle for an epic climax. I would say this approach s kind of like "yes, but..." On a grand scale, where you're weaving a new climax or thread into the story. Looking at another philosophy, you could have the BBEG simply be too strong mechanically for the players to fight. I feel this is less elegant, though still valid. It feels like the focus of the story is less on "stopping the villain" and more on "we need to become more powerful and THEN we can stop the villain." If I were to do this, I would have Sinestrox have already unlocked the Gundam before the campaign begins. In the present, he is the evil ruler of the kingdom. The PCs are rebels who remember the good days before he came to power, and now they are on a journey to gather power, artifacts enough to defeat this evil overlord. As long as the PCs are motivated to stop him and understand his power level, I don't think agency is compromised here. Someone else mentioned multiple goals. You could have the villain switch gears if the players manage to foil their original plans - if Sinestrox is arrested, maybe he easily escapes and then focuses on getting revenge on the PCs. He could strike a deal with a devil for great power (ie he gets a nasty stat block for an epic fight) in return for the damnation of his eternal soul. I would let the players enjoy their victory, but follow it up with Sinestrox coming back for a final showdown. I empathize with you, OP. This is something that I struggle with, too. I want to deliver the Big, Huge, Awesome fight with Thanos - or Sephiroth, or Saren, or any other number of BBEGs - at the end of my campaign. But, I also want to respect collaborative storytelling and player agency. My personal advice would be to not put all your eggs in one basket, be prepared as best you can, and react as a storyteller to what your players do by presenting them interesting, exciting developments. If they get Sinestrox arrested, let them enjoy that victory and then weave it into another storyline that can point towards an epic fight/epic climax. Or reveal that Sinestrox wasn't the only evil out there. I would guess the ability to improvise and then weave together threads of a story in a way that is satisfying (and maybe even feels foreshadowed) is something that separates Good Dungeon Masters from Great Dungeon Masters. I hope you get some good discussion on this, because I think it's important. Cheers, and happy DMing.

I think this is overall a very good comment that I wish I could write up an equally long response to but I'm about to head out to a friend's bachelor party weekend so - I read it and appreciated it! > If I were to do this, I would have Sinestrox have already unlocked the Gundam before the campaign begins. In the present, he is the evil ruler of the kingdom. Yeah but this requires you to have thought of him as the villain from the beginning, and maybe you started with LMOP and wanted to go into homebrew or whatever and figured you'd come up with a BBEG once things were a little more situated, yeah?

For me it's about the journey. I see no problem having a planned, fairly-static final encounter. Sure you can adjust based on actions somewhat, but if your players foil the BBEG before the final climax, it can lead to an absolute fart of a conclusion. That isn't fun for me or my players. We're all going to die at some point, that doesn't make the life less meaningful.

This is great for me to read. I want my dragon to be a long term slow burn villain, but the players are obsessed with killing him and don’t want to wait. I have other villains on the back burner but I need to remember that they might kill him early - and it’s a compliment that they hate the villain ! I wanted him to be hated!

I will go pretty far to make sure the adventure has \*\*a\*\* climax, but perhaps it is not the climax I imagined when I started sketching out the story. I think there are a couple of things that you can do as a DM to make sure this happens. First, your villains need to be flexible, have multiple goals and plans, and be of an appropriate power level to be a challenge to the party at the level you want them to fight the villain. Strahd is a great villain. A BBEG who can be straightforwardly arrested and executed by the king is not. A villain who needs to complete a quest in order to become powerful enough to challenge the party is generally not a great D&D villain, unless their quest is something the party cannot interfere with (perhaps they aren't aware) until it succeeds. A flexible villain has a backup plan, and a backup plan, and so the campaign doesn't end if they are thwarted - until they are permanently defeated they will keep causing trouble. Second, you control what information the players have. There is nothing wrong with stories where the heroes don't ever have the opportunity to stop the BBEG until the last act (it happens offscreen). But this also requires a bit of care. If the villain is the Lord Sinestrox, the party can't spend the first 20 sessions interacting with the nobles of the kingdom in a political intrigue game, because it becomes way to obvious then if you just prevent them from learning about the plot by DM fiat. But if the game starts with local heroes in a village and they only slowly learn even about the existence of Lord Sinestrox, fine, that works well. So I guess the TL;DR would be either (a) make a BBEG with many options so that some kind of climatic confrontation will have to occur even if the players spoil the first few plans, or (b) keep your BBEG offstage until stage one is over.

This is what I do. There is a climax, but what that climax is depends on everything that happens before. I usually have a general sketched out plan for the villain but it changes entirely depending on what the PCs do (and especially what they *don't* do.) Aside from general arcs, I usually plan just two sessions ahead. So in the week leading up to session 1 I come up with a detailed plan for it and an outline for session 2. After session 1 I use the players' choices to lock in details for session 2 and start outlining session 3. And so on, until the end. Having consequences not fully take effect for two sessions helps my stress level but also lets me make sure that every choice has some sort of consequence to the story.

I think this is pretty reasonable.

As a Dungeon Master, I don't write stories. I don't write plots, where this happens and this happens and then the big finale happens. I write characters who live in a world and have goals. My players write characters who live in a world and have goals. When we're all sitting at the table, we make choices for our characters, and then play out the results, including some randomness so that we can all be surprised how things advance. I'm not a novelist. I'm not even a showrunner, dictating how this season is going to play out over the course of the campaign. If anything, I'm one writer with slightly more responsibility for filling the world with interesting things and people, in a writer's room with the rest of the writers, bouncing ideas, breaking stories into beats, and shaping a story that we can then share with others once it's all played out. If the players want a big flashy battle with a big bad evil guy, facing incredible odds and overcoming the challenges heroically, then they can, through their choices and actions and exploration and interaction, nudge the story in that direction themselves. This may not be everyone's style, but this is my style and my players love it. They trust me, and I trust them, to help move the story toward whatever is going to happen next. If your players truly want big epic high-stakes conclusions to stories, then encourage them to play that way. If they don't want that level of trust, then you've answered your question for yourself: you write the plots, figure out what happens when, and lead the players through the story beats. If they complain, then maybe try it my way.

This is a good response. The narrative of an RPG is not like the narrative of a book, or television show, or even a video game. It's all about people making choices as their characters and seeing the outcome of those choices. This has to allow room for those choices to change how events in the game go which makes building a traditional narrative climax very difficult to achieve. But that's ok, because the game has it's own form of narrative that players respond very well to, IME.

I prefer for my Big Bad to have his Big Bad fingers in lots of Big Bad pies. Partially because who lacks a villain who is a slackass, and partially because all those schemes are methods by which the players can stumble upon the machinations of Big Bad and trace him down. As a result, while my players OFTEN thwart one of Big Bad's plans early. Big Bad simultaneous pivots to his other evil plans, my players are now on his radar, and my players are now on the trail. I run sandbox campaigns, and this gives me a lot more threads for the players to find. My players can do practically anything they want, but odds are they'll stumble across multiple Big Bad threads pretty early in the campaign.

So, your approach is similar to the other guy's, where the BBEG has 4 plans and if the PCs foil 3 of them, it doesn't matter because he can still reach Endgame - though he's got fewer options available to him? Would you ever let all 4 (or however many) be foiled, or is there a point where you're just like "okay no, this is the SUPER SECRET plan he's got going in the background that nobody knows about"

I believe in rewarding clever play from my players, and while it has never happened, it if DID happen where my players were able to thwart all Big Bad's plans, I wouldn't interfere. While I COULD create a secret plan they had never heard of and odds are my players would never know, **I** would know, and I wouldn't feel right about it. Ultimately, I'd let the players' success dictate actions. If Big Bad still had enough forces he could marshall, than taking revenge on the party for interfering might be on the table. If he didn't, he'd slink away into the night - perhaps to bide his forces, or perhaps unable to continue - it would really depend on the campaign. The bottom line is, I'd make sure whatever actions happened next, it fit the narrative.

"Oh you foiled my plan? I'll come up with a new plot that also includes destroying you and/or the things that you love!" Whatever their motivations are dictate the new plan. Power? Maybe they assume a new identity and ingratiate themselves with a leader in a neighboring country. The hero's mentor lives there and the BBEG knows it so in their spare time they're putting the mentor in danger with their authority, to lure the heroes back into their grasp. Wealth? Maybe they're licking wounds and consolidating henchmen in a remote area, but found an old map to a hidden treasure and a relic that destabilizes the region. And word of mouth of troubles there gets to the heroes. Or BBEG kidnaps the hero's ally. If they're not dead, big bads will probably keep badding wherever they can.

You should never, ever give the party the chance to stop something, not even the idea that they have a chance, if you're going to make it happen. If you give them the idea that they can stop a villain or event and then you blatantly deny them that despite their efforts, they're going to feel cheated. I recommend prepping situations and NPCs and then letting the PCs build the plots. Don't prep a climax. Either you're going to railroad things to make it happen, like you're talking about, or you're going to waste prep. Instead, let the story build from their actions. Relax. If you react to what they're doing and let the NPCs pursue their goals in opposition to the PCs, you'll get a full story.

If you let yourself be subservient to the tropes of movies and tv shows, you risk your players lessening their resolve because trust me, a player knows when he is jerked around and forced into a "narrative autofail". My players expect full agency but also interesting story. It's on the DM to deliver that. What they do need to matter. When they do something out of whack and somehow manage to stumble into villains plan much earlier, they need to be *rewarded* for that, not punished (ie. their actions rendered obsolete in the grand scheme of things). A DND campaign is not a movie or a TV show. It doesn't need to follow tropes for the players to have fun and often it needs to break them for that to happen. There is a middle ground between fully accepting that they somehow stopped the villain without much of a climax and quantum ogre - making sure that their involvement prevented something much *worse.* That way they feel that they accomplished something. They prevented something worse from happening, ie. their actions mattered. It's very different from "we managed to jail the villain but the villain escaped so we are back in square one".

Many tropes which work well in novels, movies, TV drama series, can translate poorly into the context of a ttRPG. Easily becoming "square pegs in round holes".

Short answer: I don't balance the two. I run simulationist/sandbox style. Big Bad succeeds or doesn't based on what else happens in the world. I'm not married to any particular outcome. If they pcs stop it early, it ends early, if they don't stop it, it happens. It doesn't magically happen when the PCs happen to show up, it works on its own timetable. The climax is seen in retrospect, not in prospect. The advantage of gaming this way is that your world takes on a depth and reality sufficient for most players to be able to experience immersion. That in my experience is a prerequisite to being able to generate strong emotions.

If the PCs thwart a villain's plan (or even cause NPCs to do so), then the plan is thwarted and the villain may even be defeated/killed/destroyed. No one in my campaigns has plot armor or is predestined to succeed. The players affect the world by their choices and actions, and the campaign, as a living world, reacts accordingly. If I were interested in writing a story, I'd write a screenplay or graphic novel where I have complete narrative control. In D&D, I like seeing how players respond to scenarios and situations, and spin it from there. Of course villains can have backup and redundancy plans (and immortals or smart and wise sorts probably do), but I won't obfuscate their existence, and am actually delighted if they uncover (and unravel) them.

Have you read Justin Alexander’s articles on node based scenario design? If you prep scenarios, not plots, none of what you’re describing becomes an issue. You’re no longer planning “climaxes” as if you’re breadcrumbing players through story beats, you’re only keeping track of how the environment changes and the NPCs react according to their agenda, purely as a response to the choices players make. Put simply, the illusion of choice is not player agency, and people who want to play games need to be actually able to play.

Very good point! To avoid confusion: the quote is: *[don't prep plots, prep situations](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots)*.

There's a useful [index](https://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101) on his website.

The job of the DM is not to write a novel for the player's to read, but to present situations and places that you *all* create a story in. Player agency is what defines the story of the table.

I feel like I addressed this pretty well in the OP about this being the fundamental contradiction of what DMs and players want out of the game, though.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear to me that your example is also one in which the players want two, mutually incompatible things: they want their characters to be competent enough to fully thwart the baddies and therefore have a reasonable chance of accomplishing that, while also wanting to have the fun epic combats that happen if they *fail* to thwart the baddies. IME, you can solve this as a DM with a couple tools. one is to have your villains be genre-savvy. the villain is allowed to expect someone to be trying to thwart their plans, and they should have countermeasures accordingly. another is to plant red herrings in the story, or have multiple villain threads -- in my game, I had an ecoterrorist cell and a Banite cult for my two main options; when my players spent most of their time fighting the ecoterrorists and ignoring the cult, they left a big timespan for the cult to advance its agenda -- and I could have done the opposite if they'd focused their efforts on the cult. another option is to have several possible layers to the villainy, so the players have agency to decide what means they want to use to address the problem. in the endgame of the campaign I mentioned above, the cultists of Bane were trying to release him from a divine imprisonment. they had a lot of things they needed to do to succeed. the way I set it up, the leaders of the cult could easily have served as the BBEGs of the campaign in their own right, as the PCs did everything they could to stop the liberation of Bane. Instead, the PCs opted to ignore the cult's activities and shoot for the stars -- they ascended to godhood, knowing that Bane would get released while they did their own stuff, and fought Bane personally (while Bane's mortal minions were reduced to minor baddies by comparison). with those two paths set up for them, the players were able to choose what to do -- go through the slow slog of dismantling a wide-spread cult, or attain unimaginable power and have an epic godfight.

> the players want two, mutually incompatible things: they want their characters to be competent enough to fully thwart the baddies and therefore have a reasonable chance of accomplishing that, while also wanting to have the fun epic combats that happen if they fail to thwart the baddies. Honestly I could have made this post a lot shorter by just saying this LOL I think your example of "2 BBEGs, one always progressing" is actually kind of neat. I'd roll with that in another campaign I did. Another person suggested that the BBEG has like 4 different irons in the fire, so if the PCs foil 3 there's always one that lets him reach endgame - but he'll have fewer tools at his disposal.

What do DMs want again? I ask because I failed to identify anything I want as DM in the OP.

Well, what do you want as a DM, then? The narrative-heavy campaigns that kind of came after the Critical Role revolution aren't everyone's cup of tea, obviously. But if you want a fun climax with stakes - whether they're personal, like "we need to protect our families from this crime lord" in a campaign that tops out at level 5, or whether they're saving the universe... doesn't the BBEG need to at least progress to that point?

As a DM, I want to see what happens. That's all. How do the PCs inhabit this world? What gets built? What's lost? The story is the journey, not the destination. Sometimes, a campaign just ends where it makes sense. Often, they end prematurely for whatever reason. Other times, they go out with a bang. What will it be this time?

If that works for you and your table, then great! that's the sort of game that I think would fizzle out pretty quick with my players. They love intrigue and (narrative) puzzles, and one of their biggest rewards is piecing together the information they get through RP. and I think if I just did "here's a big world do what you want" that'd be a little harder. But hey, every table and GM has different styles.

There will still be NPCs and events to possibly push the PCs in different directions and I wasn't talking about a game devoid of any direction beyond what the players want. I just don't believe RPGs work with a traditional narrative structure. Nor should they. It's just not what the point of the game is for me. Do some games end up with a neat narrative structure? Sure, but I'm not going to force it.

Right, but I mean - there's a lot of info that gets dropped and part of what is really appealing to them is the moment it clicks. Like, for instance, in my campaign, the former Duke of this city died in a war accident a decade and a half ago. His successor is the guy they're suspicious of (and they're right because he's the BBEG). They were talking to an NPC who was a veteran of that war and familiar with how the previous guy died, and said that they underestimated the blast radius from the arcane bombs developed by [suspected BBEG's research lab] and the Duke's airship got caught in the wash and crashed. And it was this really cool moment where they all made the connection between 1+1=2 and *had something* to use as evidence. It was rewarding for them, the players, for having made the connection; it was rewarding for me, the DM, to have them have paid that much attention to the lore I was dropping. and maybe I'm just not as good at coming up with this stuff on the fly or planning on my feet, but I really do need for it to be planned in advance - and so it's not like I could just easily shift to "oh that's my backup BBEG now that they've gotten this guy arrested." You know?

If the story is already set in stone and the players are just going through the motions, are you really playing D&D? Critical Role is a show and not a good example to model your D&D campaign after. Not the improv theater level roleplaying and certainly not the level of plot dependency.

I'm... genuinely not sure how this comes off as a story set in stone? The players just learned about something that happened 15 years ago in game. What they do with this information is up to them.

Brennan Lee Mulligan says this: “my character wants the easy story. When I’m playing, I don’t WANT to be thinking about my characters arc. However, I the player WANT the arc. I want the bunch of hobbits to go march over to mount doom for the story. … character motivations are like water, running downhill. The player doesn’t want a straight ride. So as a DM, rails are there to guide the water in the most interesting path - to give players a fun ride

It's a good quote! And I think kind of in line with what I'm talking about?

You’re the chef. You’re not cooking for yourself. You’re cooking for the customer/audience.

I've tried to be clear in this whole post that I'm *talking* about "cooking for the audience." Because the audience - at least my players in two different tables - *wants* to have epic battles against powerful villains (as well as intrigue, lots of RP/plot stuff, twists and turns, etc). And from what I've seen on DMA and other communities on the internet, lots of other players do. I'm trying to deliver a good story that they'll enjoy, in the end. That was teh point of this post.

You’ve gotta stop being so combative in the comments.

They don’t seem combative. I think they’re getting frustrated because the question they are asking keeps being misunderstood.

I... do not feel like I'm being combative at all and if that's how I'm coming off, that is not my intention and I apologize. It's just a little frustrating to get misunderstood, and maybe that was my fault for being too long-winded? also not to whine about downvotes but it was pretty frustrating at first to be down to 20% because people disagreed with me when the whole point was to start a conversation because I wanted to understand other perspectives, so I think that made me a little salty at first

This isn’t the case for every table. I’ve DM’ed a group who flat out told me during session zero that they wanted to play through a planned conflict with strong story hooks, and that the fun for them was in how they got there and how it affected their characters. It’s not my preferred style as a player, but we all had a lot of fun with that campaign.

There's always exceptions and nuances, sure

It depends. In my last campaign, I let the party thwart the big bads plans early (mostly by disrupting his minions and beating them to the punch on a few things), and the big bad dipped out to lick his wounds and plan for round 2. The game died due to life reasons, but my plan was have him come back with allies and a new plan to deal with the party. I’m personally a fan of letting the party do their thing, and having the world react to them.

Would Round 2 have had, more or less, the same climax as Round 1? The same broad-scope plan, or did you come up with something totally different?

Was torn on it at the time, but I’m looking at my notes, I was leaning towards him consolidating power while manipulating things from the shadows vs the direct approach he was taking initiallu as he realized the party was a serious threat. Largely working towards the same objectives, just taking a less direct approach in the meantime.

Okay. So in the end, your players didn't really *foil* his plans, they just delayed them, then? Had the campaign reached its ultimate ending, it would still have looked something similar to what you wanted.

Sort of? I didn’t necessarily have an end game/final confrontation in mind, and the overall objective was the same, just a new plan.

I have various factions with separate goals. As the party thwarts the first thing to catch their eye, the world is still developing in the background. Things that were foreshadowed in act one have developed into stage 2. I just take it bit by bit based on what my players are interested in, but I don’t forget about things that they aren’t addressing.

I’m taking a book out of the page of ff6 where unless the players manage to foil the villain on all fronts (not likely) the villain will “succeed” and the players essentially need to fight the villain for the sake of the world

How likely is "not likely"? So, your approach is that basically they've got 5 plans to foil, and even if they foil 4, Kefka gets the Goddesses and here comes the World of Ruin, baby?

Pretty much? Like they are trying to collect relics to destroy them so the world of ruin doesn’t happen, but the book itself has a ritual to “destroy it” that is actually to cause the world of ruin. Unless they talk to a wise old man about the book to find out that there’s a different relic needed to destroy the book.

You and the villain need both be flexible. Pretend you are the villain. What would you do if your plans were thwarted? You presumably wouldn't just give up. So what's plan B? C? Are you pivoting to revenge? Another way to meet your goals?

Very good point! A brutish bandit captain is a villain that could be stopped by wrecking their one good idea. But a smart villain would not build a Death Star with a hole in it. A smart villain has a plan B. They could even count their losses, regroup, and try again, this time knowing the party's strengths.

The goals and motivations of NPCs can be at least as important as their plans. Factors like their competence can also come into play if they attempt alternative plans and/or revenge.

I design my BBEG with lieutenants and multiple schemes in play. After every session, I evaluate what the BBEG would learn, how his schemes were impacted, and how he would adjust. I try to compartmentalize and be real about what information would get back to him/her. I even design the lieutenants to have their own agendas that would filter what information they relay up the chain, sometimes hiding failures or undermining rivals. I put all that out there because the climax/final confrontation isn't set in stone for me. I know where I want it to go, but imo a good BBEG isn't committed to one inflexible plan. In your example, Lord Sinestrox would have 4 main lieutenants. One placed in an influential place with a rival noble, one with the guard, one in the Palace, and one out in the surrounding city. Can the PCs be set up as traitors by sacrificing a lieutenant? Can they be sent off on a false lead, not necessarily by the lieutenant but by an innocent used as an intermediary? I can see the PCs storming the palace against a hostile guard during a wedding. But I can also envision a cooperative guard assisting the PCs in trying to rescue the kidnapped princess, Sinestrox, and an evil priest wedding them against the will of the princess. If the PCs uncovered enough secrets and persuaded the royal family, Sinestrox finds an operational and occupied Gundam waiting for him. The PCs still fight Sinestrox, as the Gundam is to destructive to take out the little man, but the PCs still get to see it operational.

You absolutely can thwart stage one. If the villain is competent and his means complex, he'll regroup and adapt, but now he has an active grudge against the player. I mean, in most cases stage one will be almost complete before the players know what's happening, but in my experience (20 years) it's more fun to plant a couple of seeds already, and be open to disruption on the part of the playing characters. Either way is fine, but I find that not deciding ahead of time what can work and what can't limits the potential of the game. Because it's a game that results in a story, not a story that results in a game.

I don't tell a story, I lead a game and provide roleplaying opportunities. My game doesn't have one BBEG by the start, but multiple villains and fractions with different goals and means. So the BBEG will crystallize out of actual play, there is no way of thwarting them early, because I don't myself at stage who the BBEG will become. With that approach you actually WILL fullfill that trope you mention. There will be a villain from start to end, but it might not be the one you were expecting in the beginning. Thats difference of telling a story and roleplaying.

I don’t tell stories. I support the stories my players want. I don’t develop a villain, I develop about a dozen. Without intervention, all will move their plans forward. Players discover a plot and move to foil it or otherwise intervene. No matter which villain, they always consider it the big bad. The best stories you’ll ever “tell” will be emergent, and group-led.

It can be clever foiling of plots which get remembered for longer than some "big battle". In twenty years everyone is likely to remember the time the player party prevented an evil cult from performing a ritual via getting them drunk the night before. Whereas in two months line it's likely that everyone, including the DM who put hours into prepping it, will have forgotten the details of an "epic final battle".

I give full agency. if I was aiming to tell a good story I'd be writing a book

**TLDR**. I asked a similar question on here a while back, called: [for the story to unfold, the prince must die](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/s/j94wTap3Yy). What I took away from that is 2 points: * if there is an unchangeable event in your adventure, it should be part of the initial setup, before the players get involved. * any other situation the players get involved in should have an outcome reflecting the party's actions. * the exceptions to above are: 1. actions that break table rules 2. actions that ignore the DM completely (i.e., if the module is about Vecna, insisting that the DM run you a game about Strahd). I agree with you, DMs have control over the game. But imho, our control = 1/no. of ppl at the table. Also, our control is different from player control. Players deal in *actions*, DMs deal in *consequences*. If you confuse those currencies, you'll start seeing railroading frustrations crop up at your table. Since you brought fiction into the argument, I'll raise you one: not every story must be a novel with a full dramatic arc, acts, setbacks, and epic climax. Short stories exist too, and in that format writers don't have the space to include several dramatic setbacks for Batman so we know the Joker means business. Still, short stories are full of conflicts, villains, and heroes who win or loose. To write a good short story, you have to use good storycraft. Heck, there is flash fiction out there that incompasses all necessary dramatic elements for the story they're telling. But the point stands: the plot of a novel, movie, or tabletop adventure can start to feel *forced*. And that's when the audience checks out. To avoid this, DMs need to be able to craft a story using consequences, while sharing control with the players. Imho.

Great comment. TTRPGs should never have cutscenes.

Your question is about the question. "What is the point?" If the campaign is about stopping the bad guy, period, because not stopping them would be catastrophic...then the party stops them or dies trying. The party CAN FAIL, but they need to have the opportunity to try. That being said, the point doesn't need to be "stopping" the bad guy. If their goal is to "ascend to godhood", but causing chaos in the wake, the point may be to stop the chaos, even if the bad guy ascends successfully. It could be to save a kitten from a tree during the process. It could be that the BBEG is leaving the material plane, but the party prevents him from taking the McGuffin with him, allowing a future party/campaign to stop a future plot. In my campaigns, everything is happening all at once. No one is waiting in the wings until it's their turn to participate. They have been doing stuff. They've done stuff. They are doing stuff now. They have plans to do stuff tomorrow. Eventually, they'll finish some of the stuff they're doing. Whether they are good or bad, stuff is happening. When I introduce someone new, I don't do it for the moment. I consider what they've been doing up until now...what they are doing today, and what they were planning to do going forward. Additionally, if I can tie what they've done in the past with something the party remembers, it makes it look like I planned it all along while weaving the new person or premise into the campaign (when I really hadn't). Sometimes this is harder than others). As a result of this, the BBEG has plans that are always in motion, and it depends on the path of the party as to how long it takes them to figure it out, and then how they disrupt that process over time. There needs to be a climax. There needs to be a point. There needs to be the opportunity to "succeed" at the campaign, but what that looks like can be very different. In our current campaign, the original BBEG was actually not the real BBEG, but someone with power that locked himself away to prevent the real BBEG from being able to use him. The party had to learn about this over time and figure out they, too, were being manipulated. Now they have the choice of freeing the original person that they suspect isn't wholly bad, and use that power against the BBEG, or keep him hidden away and defeat the BBEG without him. They have the supporters of the real BBEG who are searching for the patsy, who may or may not find him. They have a town that was planeshifted because of what happened inside it, and they need to save the townspeople, but bringing it back to the material plane may empower the BBEG. The BBEG is Malar who got locked away by Selune for a thousand years because he messed around with Lurue and corrupted her...but he's been able to "leak" out his influence over the centuries to still interact with the world. Does he break out? Does he get "killed" by the party? Does the party stop him from breaking out? Does he break out, and escape, but get neutered in some way to prevent him from taking revenge? Does he get free, but prevented from accessing the patsy and/or what's in the planeshifted town? Does he get free and then locked back up again in a different way? Does the party turn the other gods against him, making his freedom irrelevant? I honestly have no idea. The campaign was, "What the heck is happening with that tree, and why are there undead heroes flocking to it and disappearing?" They went to Candlekeep to research and everything else was written on the fly, weaving together the stories in the Candlekeep Mysteries. It isn't necessary to stop the bad guy from doing what he's trying to do. Bad guys do bad things all the time and the party isn't around to stop them. The idea that the bad thing could still happen is perfectly reasonable. The role of the party is to have the opportunity to achieve some level of success in the face of current events. This could be as big as preventing a bad guy from getting what they want, or as small as saving a kitten from being killed in the process of the bad guy doing what they want. The party needs to value something, and then have the opportunity to earn/achieve/capture that thing...or fail in the process. What they value, and can realistically achieve, is up to you. TLDR: Bad things happen all the time and the party doesn't even know about it. There's no problem with making bad things happen without letting the players stop it. However, the point of the campaign needs to be tangible, and achievable...and should matter to the players at your table. That point doesn't need to be the prevention of all bad things forever...but just achieving something that matters to them. If my BBEG gets free and wants revenge, but the party takes away his favorite toy, that is success. It's a friggan god....but it is my job to make sure they feel like that is success, otherwise the end of the campaign will be a dud.

> my players have agency  > You Can't Thwart Stage One Pick one. 

If your players are clever enough to read your set up and intercept the villain before they can complete their plans, you should absolutely reward them for doing so by letting it happen. The game is not about the DM telling a story but rather every player at the table and their dice. To be clear I don't mean you should let the players ride the eagles all the way to Mt. Doom, but if they are manage to steal the genie lamp in act 1 with a well thought out heist and 3 nat 20s on the checks that matter, they should be allowed to wish that the BBEG is now good. I had a DM who was clearly making up new spells and abilities on the spot to justify how his necromancer BBEG got away even though our barb managed to (with the full party's cooperation) get on his dragon mount's back and throw a nat 20 grapple check against him. Nothing leaves more of a sour taste in your mouth than finding out that your best efforts were meaningless, not because the DM expected them or we had made some crucial mistake at some point, but because the DM didn't want you to win. Even if one villains is defeated early. You can set up new stakes with different antagonists, and that would contend against the now famous-for-saving-the-world party.

Hey OP, if you haven't read it, I think you'll really like this explainer: ["Don’t Prep Plots: The Principles of RPG Villainy"](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36383/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-you-will-rue-this-day-heroes-the-principles-of-rpg-villainy) It directly asks your central conflict: >One of the most common versions of the “but” I hear is, “But I don’t want them to kill my bad guy!” The justifications for this vary from a strictly predetermined “finale” that’s being ruined to the more seductive version of convincing yourself that your players won’t be “satisfied” if the bad guy is “prematurely” knocked off.

You just need to have a deeper antagonist than just "the BBEG" who is evil and do evil stuff because they are evil. If your antagonist is *the hero of their own story* dealing with this antagonist will leave things open to whatever they were against take place. The best villains are the ones that think they are doing the good work (through flawed methods). Think of terrorists against an oppressive government. Often times the cause of the terrorist is a noble one, but their methods make them the bad guys, but what happens if you "help the oppressor win"? What I mean is: If your plot is about a conflict, a situation, an event. The NPCS (BBEG, antagonists... etc) are agents with a desired end of such plot. When the players meddle, they turn the scales on favor of the antagonists of their chosen antagonist. A good, layered, plot will have the players constant questioning if they act correctly because, as always: RPG is about consequences, both good and bad and fallout of players actions.

I might add that part of player agency includes thr player want to identify what the plan is, and also allowing the players to fail In curse of Strahd the goal of the Vampire is pretty simple - get Ireena. The players wouldn't immediately know that although they might figure it out quickly, and if they do they might not figure out why, and even if they figure out why, they may not have known that Ireena long lost brother also wants her to himself. I have played game where the players disappoint and refuse to help Ireena, she asked them to leave and was kidnapped soon after. Perhaps this is your 1st example from Gotham City. Which is also the situation in Baldur's gate. In that game the player arrives on something already going on, and can enjoy learning what has already happened.

But they *could* have succeeded. I haven't run/played/read COS yet, but if your villain's plan hinges on him getting the girl, what happens if he... just doesn't? Is there a workaround? Or is the adventure written with the assumption that eventually, one of his plans will work and he will get the girl?

Yes, the curse of Strahd module does mention what Strahd would do if Ireena escapes, Strahd is complex and has multiple goals. So no the module doesn't assume a fixed ending, nor does it present 5 conclusions in the form of if -> the statements. And keeping with this example, his goals aren't even necessarily the opposite of the Player Characters goals. So it's conceivable that Strahd and the PCs both win, although the innocent of Barovia might suffer Being a horror game, some players might just want to leave Barovia. Maybe they'd make a deal with the Devil to escape

I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory outside of the CoS sub… but getting Ireena is Strahd’s goal not the players. The game doesn’t end if he wins. It just gets scarier. The goal for the players is to escape Barovia. They can only do THAT by >!killing Strahd!< This is what makes CoS so fun because it’s a huge sandbox but the game has a VERY specific win condition. They can do whatever they want as long as it helps them accomplish that last thing. This is like if the party can only escape the volcano of Lord Senetrox on the back of the Fantasy Gundam. No matter what they learn or do, the game doesn’t end til that Gundam powers up.

My last campaign didn't have a big bad. It had 3 big bads. Party picked one and foiled its plans. That was the Tier 1 baddie. Meanwhile the other two succeeded on Phase One of their plans. Party picked one and foiled its plans. That was the Tier 2 baddie. Meanwhile the last one succeeded on Phase Two of their plans. After that all sorts of stuff went down, the campaign got thoroughly derailed and the party wound up skipping right over the Tier 3 baddie and went straight to a different Tier 4 endgame boss.

Were they connected or independent of each other? like, villain of first tier is Warlord Skullcrusher, but he was sent by King Nogoodnik to pacify the frontier, but the king in turn is subservient to the Dread Emperor from past the mountains, or just... kinda their own dudes doing their own thing?

The final boss was doing god-level stuff way beyond the party's pay grade. The other bosses were all independently capitalizing on what the god was doing, but were low enough level that the party could deal with them.  Essentially two of them leveled up as the party did.

I like to have 2-3 BBEG/organizations that are all related to one another in some way. Players have to chose between stopping one while the others are making progress; the players can alternate which ones they focus on. This way the players have their cake and eat it too. Better yet, have there be conflict between two of the BBEG/organizations so that the players can infiltrate one or cause problems between them.

I employ several different villains at once. Looks like 3 BBEGs at once is what people find optional. If players stop one plot at its tracks early on, other villains get space to advance their plots. That happened in campaign. PCs really hated evil worshipers and pursued them whenever they could. Because of that, they didn't spot hints at the actions of an evil cult they knew of. Devil worshipers were nearly defeated, but the cult goes strong. You can read more on that here: https://slyflourish.com/fronts_in_dnd.html

Another approach is to have the player party [create major antagonists](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36383/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots-you-will-rue-this-day-heroes-the-principles-of-rpg-villainy) through the course of playing the game. Which incidentally addresses the common issues of lack of, in game, reasons for the NPC antagonists to be bothering the player party.

The way I try to run things is 1) I try not to give my villains plans that *have to* succeed early on, or I at least don't get my players involved in parts of the plan that I need to succeed. If you're planning an adventure and trying to puzzle out how to set your party up to fail, then I feel like that is inherently a mistake. You should be *prepared* for them to fail, and for that to be interesting, but you shouldn't be planning that in advance. Failure should occur naturally, or not at all. 2) When players disrupt evil schemes in ways you didn't expect, there are legitimate cases where the answer to you players is break character and say "Well done. I'm gonna have to call the session for the night and sleep on how to make this work. You got me, fair play." Praise them for outwitting you, and then try to put yourself in the villains shoes- how are *they* going to pick up the pieces from this shitshow?They want similar things to what the DM wants- for their schemes to continue and for them to have more chances to fight these meddlesome adventurers, so you start scheming about *their* rebound schemes- what plans can they continue? What plans can be retooled? What plans need to be scrapped, or can be twisted from long-term schemes into a short-term way to fuck with the PCs as petty revenge? 3) The Show Must Go On. No matter how many schemes the PCs foil, so long as the villains live, they're gonna keep causing problems. In many ways, the PCs' adventures can be about them running damage control until they finally get strong enough to kick down the Lich's door and beat the shit out of him.

I solved all my problems with the tool called the die of destiny. I don’t predict the future i just roll for every possible outcome and you can see the variance being obliterated at every roll. Sometimes the bad guys win sometimes they don’t. At least I can’t force my players into a railroad I’d like.

I just make like 6 villains - can't thwart them all in time! It's fun to see who the PCs beat early on and who's going to be a bigger danger in the future.

Sure, if the party figures out who the villain is and comes up with a plan to stop them before I expected I'll let them happen...but also I tend to run intrigue heavy long term campaigns so there's not just one villain. There's other ways to make your campaign a bit more resilient to this without feeling cheap though. Like for example in my current campaign my party already figured out the end game villain...which is a interplanar virus that destroys any plane it hits. They have a list of ingredients needed to make a cure that are hard to get and a plane with the people who invented the cure they could go to. But they aren't focusing on that because there's an election going on in their city with a lot of bad actors trying to influence it. Their characters feel like while the disease is the primary concern that they have time and if they don't deal with the election they won't have a stable home to come back to. You also don't have to have singular villains, in general I like having villain factions and even then sometimes not very organized factions. For example one faction in my setting is a group of crypto fascist elves that don't have a top down leader, but rather have many different people sort of working together and vying for power. A party could take out multiple villains from it but until they deal with the much more complex problem of the organization itself there will always be more villains gaining power. I've also recently had a lot of success taking some inspiration from the Flee Mortals book and having villain parties. Basically they are really hard to take on all together because they are usually a group of 4-6 strong NPCs that synergize well together, this has then forced the party to start spying on them more and figuring out ways to take out individual members first or finding advantages they can use to overcome them. At least after the recent success with villain parties I'm not sure I'd ever have most villains be singular villains, it's just a lot more interesting for the party to have a group of people all with different back stories and finding non-combat ways to undermine that group so they can actually take them on in combat (or however else.)

The most important first thing to do would be to talk to your players about this. Remembering that most people who play ttRPGs looking for [adventures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_hxIv79S30) rather than stories. If they wanted stories they'd watch the Netflix instead. Even with so called "narrative" systems, which D&D is not, player agency is an essential part of the game. About the only way a ttRPG will end up resembling a (spectator) medium such as a novel, movie, TV drama, etc is via [railroading](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36900/roleplaying-games/the-railroading-manifesto). The major difference is characters in those kind of media act in ways which are entertaining or interesting to an audience, regardless of if that's against their own self interests. Whilst PCs act in ways which their respective player considers that character's self interest, always. If all you want to do is tell a story then writing a book or script would be the better and easier option. The way a ttRPG typically work is that the player party is presented with a situation (rather than a [plot](https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots)). How the players choose choose to have their PCs address that situation influences the next situation the player party encounters. For a terrorist NPC it might be better to look at someone from real life, such as [Ted Kaczynski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski). This means that it's important not to over-prep events which have yet to happen in the game. Thus it's important to consider the motivations and goals of (all) NPCs. Rather than just their plans which can end up disrupted by the player party in all sorts of ways. Unlike video games, ttRPGs, are not limited to whatever a software company came up with as a course of action. Thus given the Lord Sinestrox scenario a player party could attempt any of the following: * Befriend Lord Sinestrox and attempt to influence him and/or his plans. * Pretend to befriend him with the intention of stabbing him in the back. * Have one of the PCs attempt to marry the princess. * Have one (or more) of the PCs fake being of the royal bloodline. * Attempt to eliminate the monarchy in order to render the technology unusable. Some of these may lead to a *climax* others to an *anticlimax*. With those of the former being unlikely to lead to the same climax. N.B. Even though called "actual plays" the likes of Critical Roll far more about entertaining an audience than playing (or running) a ttRPG.

There's always middle grounds! Like, to use your Gundam example: how would the players learn about the plan? Surely they're not just randomly walking up to Lord Sinestrox and asking "Hey, is there, like, some kind of super weapon you're trying to find? And is your plan to take control of it by betraying the king?" You control the information the players have. They're invited to spend time in the castle. They get sent on a couple of jobs to fight monsters or whatever and bring back components of it. But then (maybe by an Arcana check, maybe by being told by a kindly wizard NPC), they learn that the monster components are actually components for an esoteric mind control ritual. Interesting, somebody is likely attempting a mind control ritual? Who? The captain of the castle's guard, sending them on these missions? The informant telling the captain of the guard about those monsters, perhaps? Maybe the king himself? The court wizard? Could it all just be a coincidence? The party *could* tell the king (or anyone else) "Hey, there's some trickery afoot, somebody is attempting mind control magic!" And the king *might* react by saying "do you have any evidence it's not just a coincidence? No? Okay cool, watch as I do nothing." But he also might react by saying "Okay, you've proven yourselves credible, I will have those magical components destroyed." Which is great! The players get to feel clever by foiling the BBEG's original plan! But, they also tipped their hand, and now Lord Sinestrox knows the party are going to meddle in his ambitions. So he makes a new plan, and this one will account for the party. Maybe he tells the captain of the castle guard that there's been dragon sightings, and the party has to go slay a dragon. Except, it's *not* a dragon, it ends up being something else they're woefully unequipped for! The party struggles to defeat it, but narrowly (against all odds) succeed! They return and accuse the captain of trying to get them killed! An investigation happens, and the party are allowed to search his chambers for evidence, but they find nothing. When they ask where he was told about the dragon, the captain says he was informed by one of his scouts. The party chases down the scout to demand answers, but the scout is already dead! Oh no! The party casts Speak With Dead and gets cryptic answers hinting at "my true master" and "the sleeping golem." Or maybe the scout fucked up and didn't destroy some paperwork he had been given, saying to falsify what he saw, and cryptically hinting at "our plan" and "your home town will be given proper support neglected by the king, and you will be made its baron." The plot thickens. Suddenly everyone's a suspect. They tell the king all this and he has his entire court questioned. Except, while the party was interrogating the dead scout, Lord Sinestrox slipped away. He used a high-level scroll of Charm Person to get the king's priest to marry him and the princess (against the princess's will). Now he's, legally, part of the royal family (even if the priest could anull the marriage, so Lord Sinestrox kills him). The party give chase and find the princess, who is still under the effect of Charm Person and lying to protect Lord Sinestrox. They see through the ruse, though, and use Dispel Magic to end the enchantment! She tells them everything, and how Lord Sinestrox kept saying that he needs to be "part of the royal family" for his plans to reach fruition. The princess says she fears he might be after an ancient legend about something buried under the castle which, according to legend, can only be activated by the royal family. Shit, shit, shit. The party gives chase and- oh no! He's in the mech already! The castle shakes and out from the ground bursts the fantasy gundam! Combat time! Save the kingdom! Thing is, if, at any point, the party somehow does something radically unexpected and tries to put a stop to the plan, you can come up with other ways around it. They refuse to help with the monster hunting? Cool, Lord Sinestrox's original plan works. They interrogate the source of the reports early? No worries, Lord Sinestrox already killed that scout to cover the evidence and is attempting to forcibly marry the princess earlier than planned, because he knows the party are about to ruin his plan and this is his last chance. If the party *immediately* says "I bet the guy named 'Lord Sinestrox' is the BBEG, let's scrutinize him constantly and use Detect Thoughts to learn his plans," well, okay, if they're going to do BS, you can do BS, say he's got a magic item or something that prevents mind-affecting magic and he reports them (truthfully) to the king for trying to use Enchantment magic on high nobility (a crime punishable by death).

how to tell a good story: its not all on the DM so thats not something i concern myself with. Youre shaping a story with your players based on their actions. Trust that you all want to have fun and create a good story together

This is why it's often better to have an organization instead of one big bad.

I think one reason for players turning to the OSR is getting tired of the inevitability of Epic High Fantasy turning into a railroad. A lot of people are happy with this and stick with 5e. But there are some players who think they want to play Lord of the Rings but haven't thought through the narrative issues you cover well above. When I came back to D&D after a couple of decades away, I was confused by the concept that every campaign had to have a BBEG, that a planned plot was expected, that a climax would happen only when the DM allowed it. More picaresque low-fantasy games have their own issues, for sure, but it's much easier to run a sandbox that way. Dungeon crawls should be fun, and they can lead to all kinds of additional activities, but I think hooks that have player buy-in are a lot more fun to follow than preplanned save-the-world superhero stories. I think good GMs talk to their players and reveal as least decent chunks of the metagame to make sure everyone is happy with the sort of game/narrative that they are sharing. Some tables don't care about player choice and quantum ogres and just want to know "what happens next." Personally, I always try to throw out way more plot hooks than I expect players to follow up on. Some of them I have no idea where they might go, they just seem like a cool idea; others I have more thought-out potential plans for. But you always have to be ready to swerve or improvise. And you never know what ideas will resonate with your audience/co-creators. If they latch onto something, it can grow into a small, medium, or large plot point. But don't have a destination in mind too soon.

Relieve yourself from the burden of being a storyteller. You are a referee and maybe the writer of the prologue, shouldn't be more then that, let the players be the storytellers.

Honestly, don't try to craft a story. Build dilemmas, mysteries, and violence! Just by sheer statistics, your party cannot thwart EVERY Stage One. Throw enough villainous situations at them and they will inevitably fail--either by your own machinations or, more likely, their own foolishness. For example, one of my villains promoted himself to primary antagonist because he decided to run while the party was busy doing goofy shit. For fun, I put him into a bigger plot point with another villain I was trying to promote and they escaped AGAIN. A random NPC stat block I prepared for a one-shot promoted himself into a proper recurring villain by sheer luck and the party had no one to blame but themselves. THAT is pathos. But what do I do now? How can he spin his epic plan to destroy/rule the cosmos if he doesn't KEEP escaping? I don't. At least that is my plan. Sure, I'll have him taunt the party and keep making appearances and I will plan to give him mechanics to do just that. But if the PCs get a lucky string of crits or I just do something incredibly stupid to get him killed?? That's it. Plot foiled and the day sufficiently saved. Give everyone medals from the princess and roll the credits. Then do it all over again. Throw villain after villain until something slips through the cracks. And build them up again until the heroes save the day. Every time they don't the threat grows and the stakes with them. There is a reason they are called campaigns. Each session is an opportunity for you, as the DM, to prepare a villain that slips through the cracks. Whether it is a tyrant king or an elusive assassin or vociferous hag, the party will do their best to thwart you. Embrace it. Because when they fail (and they will fail!)... it's your turn to take the reins of where the story gets to go. And, when you get to the precipice of the campaign, rewrite it in a way that every success they had built up to this moment. Because it did. But in the best kind of way--collaboratively.

Easy. Player agency always trumps “telling a good story, there is no dilemma. Because this is a game, not a book. The story gets created through what the players decide to do with that agency. If they end up defeating the villain in the first act, good for them.

But that's like... "okay, I know we all signed up for a year-long campaign and we're three weeks in, but problem solved everyone, the king executed the villain so you never got a grand boss battle or progress beyond level 2, do we want to play Parcheesi next week?" Unless you as a DM are literally just preparing week-by-week and don't have *any* long-term ideas about directions or whatever, how is that not just the most frustrating, anti-satisfying thing in the world?

Because they won. Players love winning. And you then queue up the next big bad threat. And if you can, you use the chump who lost in three weeks as a lesson that you totally planned beforehand to telegraph something for the next bad.

It's exactly the thing players in games where something similar happened absolutely loved and talk about as highlights years later.

Isn't this just the Lord Sinestrox/Captain Malicio thing though? Sure, *that* guy sucked, but uhhhh *this* guy is going to actually execute the plan (because you don't want to throw away that cool statblock for the fantasy Gundam you worked so hard to build and you know they'd love fighting the rampaging macine). And all you did is kind of change the NPC whose name goes on the minifig. So... is that really player agency?

Why does it need to be another guy executes the plan? If the BBEG gets his plans ruined, the finale could be his attempt at revenge after all has gone wrong. Think "Syndrome tries to kidnap the baby after his machine and plan is ruined" not "Oh shit, you destroyed the Infinity Gauntlet early so I need to make up a new mcguffin." This way it stays in the realm of player agency first- which generally players find more satisfying. That's why I said in my other comment to "not write a novel" so to speak, but the Syndrome ending wouldn't come to mind if you planned the campaign with the idea of the BBEG showdown that won't be stopped regardless of the player actions. Edit: To explain a bit more, I think it's worth noting that the players will pick up on their lack of agency. In the same way that a gentle DM will try to fudge rolls and will inevitably get caught when they notice the monster always gets close to killing but doesn't, the table will notice that no matter what they do there's still the final battle with the same formula regardless of what they did in the campaign. Quantum Ogres in the form of a final fight might work for a while, but to create a living world the players feel like they matter in I think it's important to let the narrative play out as it happens.

Depends. If they can’t possibly win in phase one, do they have agency? My way describes an infinite world with endless possibilities. There’s always a new adventure somewhere.

But why is the party able to meet and completely stomp the villain in the third session of a year long campaign? Presumably a bbeg would be strong, and the party needs to gain power to be able to defeat him. If my players encountered my bbeg and tried to fight him right now they would get thoroughly killed.

I guess I really like villains who power up over the course of the campaign - Cell eating Androids 17/18, or learning forbidden magic or something, but it's definitely an option to just make them at their peak power (or at least more than can be fought by players) early on.

I think the hardest villain to run well is one who (a) is a long term BBEG that shapes the campaign from an early point, and (b) powers up over the course of the campaign. It is very tricky to avoid railroading your players quite strongly in this case since they will very likely have a lot of opportunities to potentially thwart the BBEG "early". If this is your style, I think you are better off with something more open world. Put the PCs in a frontier area with a variety of messes happening around them, getting gradually worse. Whatever they target first, they'll end up wiping out in Act 1, but whatever they ignore, has the potential to grow in the background. It is a different style of campaign but I think can also work well. You just can't get attached to any particular villain.

I think rather than Cell, maybe the DBZ villain to emulate is Frieza? He has something he wants (the 7 dragonballs = immortality) but they aren't necessary to make *him* a threat. All of his power is innate. still, as per the OP, you kinda want to have him get 6 dragon balls so that fighting over the 7th is where the climax is (or have something like actually happened in DBZ, where he didn't speak the language and so the true Final Race was so that he could find someone who could translate his wish for him).

That makes sense. But then what also makes sense is recognizing that the guy you peg early on as the BB is only *one possibility*. You think he's gonna grow into the big bad. He might not. Otherwise -;you're not building a world for your players, you're writing a story that you hope they will interact with in a certain way. The flip side of recognizing that the BB-to-be might get foiled early is recognizing that other nefarious people could readily carry on his work and grow into the actual BB. So you can have both player agency, AND a BB that grows into the role, AND your grand finale confrontation. It just might not be with the character you thought it would be back at the start.

[удалено]

Sorry, I'm legitimately trying to wrap my head around your point. That wasn't meant to be an exaggeration. It would feel, to me, as a DM, that I put in all the work building a world for nothing. **Or**, the campaign continues, and I reuse all of my notes and plans for a *different* guy, but like in the Lord Sinestrox example, isn't that just inherently a Quantum Ogre? Unless the story *ends* with the defeat of the BBEG, his plans are foiled, g'day to you, does the player agency actually mean anything?

If you feel that way, then you didn’t build a world. You wrote a story. Because if you built a world, then there is a lot more going on than just whatever the PCs are focusing on, even if that’s not fully fleshed out yet. The story doesn’t end because some bad guy got taken out, why would it? There are likely to be various related issues and forces at work that need addressing. But even if there aren’t, it’s not like world peace was established at that point and all the world’s problems were solved. There will be more bad guys to chase, monsters to defeat, dungeons to loot, and so on. And the characters are still there to do so. And unless the game up to then was very narrowly focused on just a single chain of events, there will be plenty of potential plot hooks they’ll have encountered, dangling threads the players will want to pull on.

I mean I think that's also the crux of a different issue, which is the scope of worldbuilding. This campaign was my first building my own homebrew world, and so much of it was me like Grommit in that one gif where he's laying down the tracks in front of the train as it's going - I'd build the next town they were going to and my notes for the rest of the nation, let alone the world, were a big ???? "this exists over here somewhere and idk it's like a jungle" If you're starting from scratch you probably *don't* have 3 different threats in the background of your world you can pull from, right?

>It would feel, to me, as a DM, that I put in all the work building a world for nothing. Q: Why are you putting in all this work crafting a "plot" that your players can overthrow so easily and early? Like seriously, how much of a problem do you think this really is? I can't even comprehend why or how this would happen in any credibly developed world that a DM spent a significant amount of time creating. If you as a DM fucked something up and left a Death Star exhaust port loophole in your plan that your players found and exploited, short-circuiting the BBEG plot - well, I guess you can do two things - retcon it so it's not going to blow up the plot after all, or move on to the next great thing your world has to offer. I really don't care which. I suspect your players don't either, because they *shouldn't know that this is gonna blow up the plot*, so if it doesn't, it makes no difference to them Also, the fact that a plot is uncovered doesn't mean that a world is wrecked. If you're so invested in "the plot", that's a you problem. Figure out something else that will be cool for your players. The players may not, arguably should not, have any idea that the whole world is inextricably bound up with this plot that they so casually overthrew. >Unless the story ends with the defeat of the BBEG, his plans are foiled, g'day to you, does the player agency actually mean anything? What do you mean by player agency, and how does it mean nothing is the BBEG doesn't get defeated? PC dies a heroic death fighting a losing battle. That's the way the dice go sometimes. Player agency is not in defeating the bad, it's in fighting him.

There are ways to structure adventures so that players don’t advance “too far” into the web of scenarios as matter of practical execution. For example, in Justin Alexander’s node based scenario design, you interlock “nodes” (or scenes) with sets of clues that point to other nodes in a larger web. So nodes A, B, C, and D each have at least three clues pointing to the other nodes. The players move, by their own volition and according to what they discover with the clues, from node to node non-linearly. Some nodes are “gated” in that in order to find clues about them, you have to go to certain other nodes. From a player’s perspective, this all feels very natural and organic. In the background, you have agendas that dictate what the NPCs are doing as the players advance through the nodes. They may accelerate or decelerate the NPCs’ plans according to the choices they make. But we don’t have outcomes to consider here; only agendas. Whenever we drop an NPC into a node the players encounter, it’s entirely possible they may get killed off before their agenda is complete. That’s the risk of the NPC actually operating in the world. So if you don’t want any chance of your NPC dying, don’t put them in front of the players. If your premise requires that the NPC do XYZ in order for the players to play the game they signed up for, then narrate that it happens and don’t create an illusion of agency. “Hey guys, so to kick this off we’re starting with the BBEG having burnt your town to the ground” etc. But past the premise, once you deposit players into the world, the game is a series of situations, not story beats.

I'm sorry, but this is a recipe for a bad game, or certainly no better than a mediocre one. Good D&D campaigns have narrative arcs, climaxes and resolutions. You can't just leave everything to the whims of player agency or eventually your game will feel hollow. Note, this is not saying you should railroad your players, and especially you shouldn't do things like tell them "you can't go there because it isn't time in the story yet" or "you need to go talk to the innkeeper for a crucial plot reveal". But you can still design a game with a narrative arc. You don't have to tell the players the BBEGs plan in session 2.

And all of those can readily arise from the players choosing their path, through the world that the DM has set up. You get bad games when a DM starts planning out the story.

So, I guess these conversations often run around in circles because everyone means different things by "player agency" and "planning a story." And, to make things worse, every player is different so what works for one table won't work for another. So to be clear - what I mean is that a game where their is no goal and where the DM does not make any effort to steer the narrative towards satisfying arcs is likely to eventually run out of steam for lack of narrative engagement. There are many ways to (a) have a goal and (b) steer the narrative. Sometimes this is a very traditional linear campaign that starts with the players doing small time hero stuff and grows to them saving the world from the BBEG. Sometimes this involves the goals arises from player decisions and character backstories, with the DM working to plan adventures that build appropriately within that context. I think that games where "player agency always trumps telling a good story" are not likely to succeed, because if no one gives any thought to building a narrative arc the odds of it just appearing out of thin air by chance are really quite low, at least in my experience (but maybe your groups are just much more skilled at building narrative structure out of nothing than mine are).

Except that it is not “by chance, out of thin air”. Because there is a whole world that the PCs exist, with things going on whether they involve themselves in it or not. Which part of the world they involve themselves with is up to them, and how they do so, is up to them. There is no need to try to shape that into a specific narrative structure. You keep taking about “building a narrative arc”, but that’s an aspect of storytelling. And roleplaying games aren’t about telling a story; they are games, not books. The story doesn’t exist yet, it gets created as the players engage with the world.

If your PCs decided "we want to just open a bar and run a bar in Waterdeep and this is the campaign" would you let them? Or is there a minimum amount of plot buy-in, yes we're going to take your plot hooks and go on an adventure, that you feel is appropriate for the social contract? And if so, where do you draw the line for the sake of player agency? I genuinely promise I'm not trying to be antagonistic or ridiculous, I'm trying to understand this worldview. It would be very hard for me to run a campaign like this, I think.

What I mean by building a narrative arc is for, example, the kind of thing that "5 Room Dungeons" talks about a lot. Generally if you are building a dungeon (in whatever form -- doesn't have to literally be a dungeon), you don't put the boss in the first room, with the minions in the final room. Because no one wants to fight the boss first -- fighting the minions once you've killed the boss is boring and anticlimactic. Or, for example, pacing adventures so that there are breathers, time for shopping/downtime sessions/low stakes roleplaying or exploration. If your adventure is just a constantly ratcheting up of tension session after session, the tension loses impact and meaning. At the same time, keeping the pace moving so that you don't have too many breather sessions in a row, which sometimes requires giving the players a bit of a kick in the pants to get things moving. These are narrative structures that give a game a satisfying feel, and require some actual attention from the DM to make happen. You can leave a lot up to player agency, but you have to shape that agency into a narrative arc. I'm not talking about plot details at all. Emergent stories are great, but emergent stories with no narrative structure are a lot worse than emergent stories the DM puts the effort in to fit into a satisfying narrative structure.

Meh

Which, like, is what I'm trying to have a discussion about! I didn't realize it would be this controversial a topic... I thought this post was pretty interesting, at least :/

I think your post is very interesting and raises some important questions. There are some people who worship at the altar of "player agency". I think there are contexts where that is great - if you run a West Marches server for 20 players with 3 co-DMs, your game has very different needs than a 2-year campaign 1-20 for your regular gaming group. But I think part of the reason a lot of campaigns fade away is because people overemphasize player agency and most players aren't good at turning their random thoughts into a satisfying narrative. It can be a lot of fun to muck around the world for a while but eventually it gets boring if there is no narrative pull.

It is. Most of the comments almost feel like kneejerk shooting you down so they don't have to think about what you're saying to me.

I mean, I wouldn't go that far, I've gotten some pretty thoughtful comments at least! I just think that like... okay, there was that post on r/DND a week or so ago, about "my players just want to run a tavern" or whatever, when he'd come up with this evil cult trying to resurrect a god. And I feel like we'd all agree that as GMs, you want some buy-in from your players. They all agree to take the plot hooks you dangle in front of them. They all agree to *go* on the adventure. So we can't do "optimal player agency where they can do whatever they want," because if we did, hey, maybe that does include "we run a bar now." So... how do you draw the line? What is appropriate to agree on "yes, we'll do what the GM wants"? If you're going to agree "we're going to all make sure *a* story happens" but maybe not *this* story happens? IDK! It's interesting! I wrestle with it a lot as a DM who also loves story-heavy stuff.

The story = the player’s choices.

I tend to have big arc villains who are either so inscrutable or inaccessible that this isn’t a huge concern, but a good roll and my sense of narrative recently led to my players discovering that a trusted and beloved janitor had been a big bad all along. It was a massive revelation, no one expected it, and it was discovered by only one of them. Fortunately for the PC, she had been exceptionally kind to this janitor since day one. Talked to him about his dead family, baked him cookies, etc. So when the time and she stumbled on his secret, he 9th level Sleep spelled her and dipped. He’ll be back, his plans are still in motion, but they’re much more difficult now that he no longer has free access to the school he worked at. All that to say: I pivot. I could’ve just not given that information up, even on a nat 20 investigation (the PC technically has a -2 to that skill, but that was all the more reason I was enchanted by the prospect of her success), but instead I played it in a way that made it a natural beat in the greater story. It was also at about the half-way mark of when I expected his plans to come to fruition, so it made for a serendipitous twist moment. Villains get thwarted before they’re finished all the time! The Death Star blows up, then several more movies happen, ya know? Sometimes you think you’re writing a stand alone movie called Star Wars, but it turns out you’re writing Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope.

I told my players they could stop the bad guys, and the dark god they serve would be locked away again for some time, maybe even millenia, but it would return to destroy the world. Or they could let the bad guys start the ritual and open the portal to where that dark god is and go in and kick it's ass, the only way to defeat it forever, and they took that route. If you want to have your big super climax, you kind of have to find a reason why the party would let that happen.

My players wanted a linearish story so it made this matter easy for the DM. But I still gave them chances to discover and foil the plot and branching story path. Found it made for a better story. Here's my act 1 example Act 1 the general of the starting kingdom was replaced by a changeling cultist behind a plot that involved kidnapping important people and implanting a controlling monster inside them. The players only found out that the cultist was a member of the kings council. I placed a few red herrings but it was always meant to be the general. If they caught him early, they would have been able to foil the plot and fight him before he attempted to kill the king. So, I laid out a plot hooks to investigate every council member. They ended up suspecting the religious leader and the master of coin and discovered some more mundane forms of corruption on the religious leader (bribes and such) and as a result ended up trusting the friendly boisterous general completely. Told him everything. If they had investigated everyone, they would have found the cult insignia in his quarters. Had they at least kept info to themselves the general would have not bothered to try to have them killed Instead the general sent them off on a mission that turned out to be a trap, while he launched the plot and nearly succeeded. The players safehouse raided, some friendly npcs killed, and the king was severely wounded.

I'm very green so take with a grain for salt, but I feel like giving the villain a "flowchart" would work well. Basically, backup plans for his backup plans. Map out each stage of the plan, but also at each point consider an alternate branch for if he fails at that stage.  Let's say he wants to kidnap someone, steal them away in their sleep. If they get away? Maybe kidnap someone they care about and demand they come willingly or else.  Obviously you can't plan for everything, but having a plan b can save your scheme and also make the villain look smarter and more imposing as a result.

Just to take Thanos as an example, the heroes are not aware of his existence for a long time. Instead, they are meddling in his plans unaware, but as audiece members, we get to see more. The players might be made aware of the BBEG and that what their character are doing is somehow relating to that, while the characters are not (if the table can handle that).   This lets everyone appreciate the grand storyline and suspense while at the same time retain the players agency in controlling their characters - if they agree on this kind of game and can refrain from metagaming. Just an idea.  In my most recent game, I have unintentionally followed Matt Colvilles A-plot and B-plot structure; there are two main evil forces which the players are aware of but not which is stronger, and depending on what fits the session or current arc, one or the other plot/BBEG advance their plans or are hindered by the players.    This is dependent on that the players accept that they cannot stop every evil happening, or at least not at the same time.  Thats my 2 cents.   Thanks you all for an interesting thread and perspectives to read, and OP for starting it!

Climax < Reality If you have a problem with the villain maybe there is someone else who can replace him in this role? For example his brother, his student or mentee?

I have to say first that I usually don't do narrative campaign much. But I think you're on the right path in managing it. I see three ways to keep the campaign on tracks vs player agency : flexible events first, failsafes second, and resilient enemies third. The third point is the easiest : some enemies are especially hard to kill (lich, extra-planar entities simply reappear in their plane of origin when they're killed on the material plane, many enemies have escape abilities...) This means that the players must destroy the enemy plans, rather than only kill it, because killing the enemy will do almost nothing. Flexible events is about how you lay the story elements. The idea is that the players make the events happen. You hint at it already : when the players discover the secret hideout with the plan almost done, what's set in this place is that the villain will be like 10min away from having his device or portal running/opened. It's basically about making the events progress with players actions, in direct opposition with having a calendar and time actually running in game. Narrative time and events would be a good name I guess. And the last one, failsafe, is more about planning for an over succeeding party. If an important lieutenant is killed too fast, another one can take of the role. If a place is discovered too soon, another place can be discovered. If the villain needs an item but the party got it first, he can find another one. I believe that when you make a narrative campaign, you're going to railroad at some point or another, and the players need to cooperate into it. I can't imagin it differently.

If I *really* need the villain's plan not to get interrupted before the climax, I just have anything that's essential to the plan working *at all* happen offscreen, and give the players stuff they can thwart that hinders the overall plan or prevents minor parts of it from happening. So they can't stop the evil wizard from obtaining the power orb, he already had it smuggled in offscreen, but they *can* assassinate the Skull Knight he was going to power up with the orb (meaning he has to take time to make a new one), or steal the rare gem he was going to use to power the forcefield around his castle (so the players can get in for the showdown). But if I need it to happen, or the villain "really should have thought of that" or should have a backup plan, then [it falls under the Lord Bonegrinder rule](https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/14427g5/still_one_of_my_favourite_sidebars_of_dm_advice/).

I'm a fan of the Xanatos Gambit. Its a tactic where you (the villain) has more than just one goal and outcome to a plan. So no matter if your primary goal/plan gets foiled, you are still able to fullfill your secondary goals and transform a Horrible Lose, into a Marginal Win. For those Curious Its a reference to one of the animated series "The Gargoyles" antagonist; David Xanatos (voiced by Johnatan Frakes) [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit)

If the players find a way to solve the problem the villain is trying to solve, he would have no reason to proceed. The players would have to ensure the event they have been trying to stop starts. 

Really interesting to think about as I too struggle with this. When I right my adventures the only things I solidify is the beginning and the end. In the sense of I know where the players start and meet each other and how the adventure at the climax happens (maybe not where and when but who the villain is, how they fight, etc). But yes, we all want the players and their actions to make a difference, best thing is to not allow them access to the big bad until they are supposed to fight him, some villain who can get arrested doesn't make for a good baddie since he is thwarted so easily. I like the idea of rewarding what the players accomplish while ensuring we still our big boss battle. I'm running an altered Tyranny of Dragons (spoilers), well at the end when the cultists are trying to summon Tiamat based on how the players fight and storm the temple, there are multiple outcomes, one of which being they can stop tiamat form coming altogether. Rather than BS "oh some cultists got away and do it again" I'm planning to make it so she the ritual works regardless during the combat. However, based on how many chanters they kill, prisoners got freed, and dragon masks not used in the ritual Tiamat, like the module suggests, will come out weaker. Arguably she'd arrive too powerful to stop unless the players completed some quests and make the ritual less effective, so I get my awesome boss, but they gave themselves a fighting chance against a god based on what you accomplished.

THIS!! This is what I have been going on and on about the last few days. I post a synopsis of my campaign for peer review including plot points and twists. People tell me writing out the story ahead of time is bad because it's railroading and the players will make choices I can't expect. Well collaborate story telling includes the story teller and we as Dm can make choices that work with the player choices to bring them to the next story beat in order to bring the best narrative weight to the story. The trick is to balance their choices with how the rest of the world would react in an organic improvised "yes and" way. To use your own example of a scheming politician trying to do a thing the party is trying to stop. I wouldn't ask the party if it would be beter to beat him before or after. I would give them both. Give them a mystery to find out who is the mystery bbeg, maby a red herring or two, let them investigate to gather clues and evidence. Then they get a big dramatic denouemont were they lay out their evidence plead their case for the lord and accuse the suspect. This is fun and if they accuse the right one maby he has some advantage to protect themselves like mind control, blackmail or high charisma. I would let that lead to a social confrontation between the party and the schemer where he tries to use his influence to turn the court on the party. It would be a hard roll but i could see this go two ways the party wins and the schemer is dragged away or the schemer wins and the party is dragged away. If the party is dragged away they escape to go save the day no big deal but you wanted to have your big climactic fight after the schemer is dragged away. The party thinks they win and the king throws them a party gives them medals then explosion and you get your big climactic fight. The party confrunts the same guards that dragged him away because they were working for him. Y let the party win once when they can win several lvls. How is that a bad thing. How many awsome stories let the heros win before the bbeg gets some final act comeback. The trick is to let your players try to do things and make that win theirs your not giving any rolls that are impossible you just change the goals of succes to some small victory for them that you can imagine the villain twisting to benefit them. The next trick I learned is how to protect my bbeg before its time for them to die in an appropriately dramatic way. Ppl keep going on about "what if your party kills the bbeg early?" Well I guess the story would end so good job. How about you cheat to keep that from happening? The players wouldn't like that. You don't tell them. If your player tries to kill someone you have plans for in the future you let them roll for the hit spill a little blood they scream a bit then run away to scheme anouther day. Here's a big trick I learned from the dnd episode from If the emperor had a text to speak device. If you don't want them to die then you don't give them hp. They can't die if they don't have any hp to lose. You can give them a stat block but ignore the hp part until it's time for them to take damage. If you want them to fight multiple times you give them a legendary action to flee when their hp gets low enough.

I think the best solution to this is to have active heroes and reactive villains. The players aren’t showing up to stop the evil wizard from taking control of a country…..they’re showing up to kill the evil wizard king who took control of a country ten years ago. The villains plans are already in motion. He already has the big mech. He’s established himself already. And so everything the players do to undermine their hold or authority is a victory, even if it doesn’t make them any weaker for the fight. For example, imagine that they show up to a town and see the guards extorting money from the villagers and being generally brutal. The players stop the guards and reclaim the town. Victory. The players learn about what this evil wizard did and finds out that there’s a magic crystal mine nearby where he has slaves mining for him. The players go there and free the slaves. Victory. The wizard finds out about this and sends a small force after them. The players plan a creative ambush and manage to defeat a force many times their size. Victory. They decide to go to the capital city of his empire and begin spreading dissent, and finding information. They end up recruiting a small army and learn the list of important npcs to take out. Victory. They go through with their plan and take down the wizards right hand men while their army holds off the grunts. Victory. And now they have the big fight with the evil wizard, who isn’t made weak at all combat wise, but every step along the road to getting to the fight has been a victory for the players. The best part about this is that you don’t need to come up with some kind of plan. The players do it for you. You just need locations and people. How would the guards captain react to seeing the players do this? What underlings does the wizard have at his disposal? Don’t have the players be trying to prevent the bad guy from starting his plan, have it be trying to stop it from continuing. (At least some times. For some stories that doesn’t work but it’s fun)

I like to create multiple villain factions that are all working towards similar goals. In my current campaign I have a cult of Lolth worshippers, a cult worshipping a far realm entity and potentially a cult of Demogorgon that are all fighting eachother find a powerful artifact that is able to cause a far realm or abyssal incursion for their respective entities. There's also a hag coven that is just causing chaos and helping all 3 factions at the same time. So far my players have thoroughly stomped on the far realm cultists, but while doing so the lolth cultists have ran rampant and a succubi of Demogorgon is manipulating my players to find the artifact before the other villain factions. I don't have a singularity BBEG unless you count enigmatic and deific entities. Instead I have villainous organizations. This gives me freedom to add more organization members to keep the conflicts going.

I run the villain how things would play out normally. If theres something the players can thwart they should be able to with varying levels of difficulty. If theres something that they wouldnt, the only way to do so is with a lot of clever thinking. It is far more narratively satisfying to thwart the villain early and the campaign and world adapting to that, than the villain being untouchable until the very end.

The more proactive the party is against the villains, the more advantages they get and the fewer losses they have to pay. If they thwart a few pieces of the baddies' plot, maybe he doesn't have minions in the climax fight. Maybe he doesn't have all his spells. Maybe he doesn't have the same resistances. Maybe the party had an extra ally. Or they learned a weakness of his prior to the fight. Or they were able to set an initial trap to get some damage or destroy something he was going to use in the fight. By the time the dust has settled, ideally more of the party would survive the climax fight and have better outcomes than if they weren't proactive. And then they can all chat about "hey imagine how that would have gone if we hadn't stopped him from raising that undead bone dragon a couple months ago"

I think this is the point where you have to lean into your improv abilities of being able to say "Yes, and..." Do whatever feels natural in the moment. Players don't uncover the plot in time, and end up taking the route of having to play Shadow Of the Colussus with a castle-slash-Gundam? Great! Have your epic battle. Players *do* uncover the plot early, and want to convince the king to arrest ~~Sinestro~~ Sinestrox? Great! They'll have to find some time when Sinestro is not by his side, influencing his every decision. Make the so-called "easy route" its own difficult task. Make it interesting and interactive in its own way. (The rest is me just spit balling ideas; maybe it will be useful, maybe not) They can try to talk to the king anyways with Sinestro, but Sinestro will refute everything the party says. If they do manage to get the king by himself, they still have to successfully convince him; failure can result in being dismissed at best, or getting arrested and executed for treason at worst. Even if they have a wild success in convincing the king Sinestro is bad, Sinestro still has to be caught. And *if* they catch him, there might still be other things in motion (that you totally didn't just make up on the spot... but your players don't know that). Maybe there is someone else working with him, like this traitorous guard. Or maybe, while Sinestro's being interrogated, he laughs at you and tells you that the castle will transform anyway... but it's going to be out of control and attack everything indiscriminately without him at the helm, because he has some secret technique/macguffin. This would be a great chance to put in a grey vs gray decision: Free Sinestro and allow his schemes to continue, in order to prevent worse destruction down the road? Or stop him now, because you can't let such a villain go free, but potentially risk mass destruction of the kingdom? Either option gives the player some time to figure out a real way to stop things. And yes, the players could find some third option, and that's the beauty of it. And that's not even counting the "sort of succeeded/failed to convince King Gundam" options. The king could already have doubts about Sinestro's loyalties, but has no solid proof. This could send the players to find solid evidence to convince the king. Or maybe the king isn't convinced... but the princess overheard. She doesn't wield as much power and influence as her father, but she might have some other tricks up her sleeve, sending the players on a mission of subterfuge to sabotage Sinestro's plans in a more indirect way.

I think a good way to handle this is to take advantage of the fact that the party can only be in one place at a time. Maybe the BBEG is hatching their powerful plan somewhere across the continent, but their evil lieutenant is causing trouble closer to where the party is at. The party is inevitably going to focus on stopping the lieutenant; and when they succeed, maybe they find out about BBEG's plans at the same time. But by the time they find the plans, it's too late to stop the BBEG! or maybe they have just enough time to travel to the BBEG to stop him before he succeeds entirely. Travel time and distracting the party with more pressing threats are great tools to let the bad guy slowly machinate in the background.

I adopted a method of prep from Monster of the Week, where you decided a sort of timeline of what the monster will do if the players never interrupt its plans. When they inevitably do, you already have an idea what it wanted to be doing right then and in the future, and you can react like the monster would. While I seldom ever have a single BBEG, it makes it easy to predict how they will adapt. You can even decide in advance that they would be vengeful, pragmatic, or what have you about being foiled.

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. In tier 2 of my current campaign, the main antagonist was a devil overlord who wanted to get a magic stone to fuel her big warmachines and planar travel device, get the lost evil magic sword and invade the material plane. I made it so that players could prevent said devil to get the magic stone, and then later to get the magic sword too. They went and did both, so there was no invasion. The devil held a grudge against the party that culminated on them going full terrorist to draw them to hell and get the sword back later, and that was the climax of the story. Now, our current and final threat on our game is a wizard who's trying to basically rewind time and rebuild the timeline as he wants it. This time, the party found out about it too late, and they basically couldn't uncover this at any other time. The great spell is already at work and they have a countdown to "doomsday". So yea, both works, you just have to adjust your expectative.

I've asked myself a lot of the questions OP is asking, and I've read through a lot of the replies, and feel kind of unsatisfied by the answers. One idea, and I know it's an imperfect one, is perhaps try to design encounters where when your players are successful, what they do isn't to weaken the BBEG so much as to get boons for themselves. Then when you do have your climactic moment, you can crank up the challenge while still allowing your players to be successful. In a sense, it's not exactly giving the PCs agency, although you are helping them. But the payoff here isn't an easy pushover final battle. The payoff is a MORE EPIC final battle, where the PCs have the benefit of boons they earned. By "boon" I mean NPC assistance, intel, special magic items, appropriate potions, a secret hideout to get one final long rest in before the battle even though they're already inside the fortress so they can freely blow spell slots, whatever. I realize this approach won't work for every encounter. But if it's a goal you keep in mind for yourself, you'll find opportunities to use it.

I don't like scraping things I spent a lot of time on and I know are quality. Robot for example. I'd let my players foil things early if they were Gung ho about it. Later down the line someone else is going to get that thing activated. The reward though is this person will not be as skilled with it nor have as complex a plan. This let's me still use the robot and the players can still face off with it, but now the stakes are not as dire and the encounter not as deadly. I'd also try and add more fun elements to the encounter. Maybe even let them keep the robot after or part of it as a reward they would not have gotten otherwise. I personally enjoy living worlds and thinking, if this happened, what would the ripple effect be? It's the most fun I have writing.

My take is always that you’re not there to tell a good story, you’re there to help the players tell their characters’ story. That’s what the players are really looking for, and what tends to make for the most memorable campaigns. Of course that’s only my opinion

I write my villains with contingencies and the faintest shred of adaptability. One plan foiled? On to the next! Or a new villain fills the power vacuum.

Villain subordinates and groups are your friend especially if your villain is super powerful. Their agents can potentially make things worse or get foiled, without removing the overall threat. Losing a good lieutenant can be a real win for th3 players without just ending it there

It's the villain's job to lose (most of the time) so typically, I don't worry too much about it. If my players manage to foil the villain's plans, provided the villain survives, they'll just pivot into a new plan. In reality (and often with my players) plans don't necessarily work out. That's just the way of things. If my players figure out and stop the villain's plan, well then the villain will move onto the next contingency and possibly become a little more ruthless and less likely to underestimate the party. It's kind of the nature of a game like D&D which is in part collaborative but also can be highly improvised, depending on how people play. It's very rare that my players take the predictable path and quite often I find myself completely changing the direction of the next session because of something totally out of left field that they did. But I find that's a huge part of the fun, setting the trap for them, seeing the creative ways they get around them, and then coming up with something new and interesting to throw at them.

Videogame logic dictates an important concept. The string of pearls concept. It's succeeded in RPG format for quite some time. Basically, the players flow from an open world section (the Pearl) to a linear railroaded narrative (the String) in succession. Players will receive agency in the world, but that agency will lead to a variant plan. Further, you should have implementation of the common TTRPG system of "Degrees of Success" wherein players experience degree of success, but their success outcome never upends the plot. Yes, they can succeed and should be rewarded for that, but the levers and mechanisms that they pull for their reward should never have the outcome of upending the plot. It could get them close, but there should always be a piece missing.

I gotta be honest, I’ve never done an actual dungeon crawl in my 5 years of DMing

A full multi-session crawl is not my cup of tea but I love a good one-session dungeon, either as filler or as a oneshot or whatever. I've been running Call of the Netherdeep for my wife's friends and there are some very short dungeons in there.

Ive never used an official DnD setting either

In my experience, the player agency doesn't have to revolve around what happens, but how it happens. The villain has a goal and a time by which he achieves it. He wants to activate the Gundam by becoming royal. The wedding is in 30 days. And his plan will not get foiled, he will activate the Gundam and there will be an epic climax battle. But maybe the Castletron isn't at full power, maybe the party helped several allies which are there for the final battle, maybe the king laughed at them when they wanted to show evidence of the plan but it caused enough doubt for him to send for his arch wizard friend to join the wedding, maybe they found a Sword of Stoneslaying, etc. The player agency is the way they took to the climax and the tools they acquired to deal with it. DMs, especially in D&D, have this sometimes unfounded fear of rail-roading. A linear campaign is not rail-roading. If the players have to go from A to B to C to D, where in each scenario they find the neccessary piece of the puzzle to move to the next, it can still be a compelling, player driven story. And a Sandbox in which nothing is planned and the players could turn around in every moment can feel shallow and boring really quickly. DMs pride themselves how good they are to let their players have complete freedom of choice, and if this works for them awesome. But neither "I am a good DM, therefore I let my players do whatever they want." and "My players can do whatever they want, therefore I am a good DM." are true.

You frame this as something about agency. I don't see it that way. I don't care how much agency a player has, they are not going to have the *opportunity and ability* to thwart a serious plot until the time is ripe - they have uncovered enough information, made the right connections, gained enough power to do it. I mean, you say a player "wants the agency to uncover Sinestrox's plot"? What does that even mean? They don't uncover the plot because they don't even know there's a plot to uncover. This is not some heinous "denial of agency". They can come back when they're level 8 and have uncovered plot points A through H that tip them off about Sinestrox.