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Mike Miller
2019-04-18, 11:44 PM
So I need some help coming up with some fun paranoid, crazy things for this villain to say to the party. They haven't met him yet, but they know of him. They have hints he is paranoid but not that he is crazy. His insanity is fully set and he covets an artifact like Gollum. I want him to assume the party is there to claim his artifact, even though that isn't the case. I just want his insane ramblings to be clear to the party that this guy has lost it, but I'm just having some writer's block. I also intend him to shout nonsense at the party during combat. For frame of reference (although it isn't necessarily relevant), I'm using D&D 3.5.

hymer
2019-04-19, 12:49 AM
I know what you want, oh yes, I do know what you want. The little holes told me all about you, and you have come all this way in vain I tell you, all in vain! Your ugly hands will never touch it, it will burn you and crush you and drown you! It's the hoooooles! You will all buuuuurn! Good morning!

Frozen_Feet
2019-04-19, 02:11 AM
"You. You have come to claim it, yes? You want it for yourself, don't you?"

If the other party denies:

"Lies! YOU LIE! They all do, at the start... but I can see it in your eyes... you covet. You covet that what is NOT YOURS! And you lie, so I wouldn't suspect you... but I know, oh, I know..."

If the other party admits:

"I knew it! I KNEW IT! Everyone wants it! Everyone, scheming, to take it... behind my back... But you shall not have it...! It is mine! MINE! It must not leave my hands...!"

Bonus points if you can keep the first half up so long, the other party caves in and admits they want the thing. Then you can smoothly transition to the second half.

Kaptin Keen
2019-04-19, 03:46 AM
Ok, this is academic and irrelevant, but crazy isn't a diagnosis - paranoid is. What you seem to be looking for is someone having a psychotic breakdown, which isn't a diagnosis, but a condition. Often, but by no means exclusively, associated with paranoid schizophrenia. Mind, no one runs around in a permanent psychotic breakdown, generally speaking on an ordinary day the 'voices' may be there, but the patient is very well aware they're not real. Breakdowns may or may not have triggers - but when they happen, the 'voices' overpower the knowledge that they're not real.

Voices may or may not be a part of it.

But you propably don't want someone who seems genuinely crazy - you want movie-crazy. Which is totally fine for an RPG.

Then I suggest setting the scene, more than acting it out. Have writing over every inch of walls and floor - ceiling, especially if there's no easy way in which it would be possible to write on the ceiling. Have piles and piles and piles of notes and news clippings, all seemingly random and irrelevant. Like, an article about some old lady and her cats, with one particular cat marked in red, and notes saying "THIS IS IT!! THIS IS IT!! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!!"

I'd also recommend avoiding combat - or having the crazy guy scamper early. Have him run, shouting "HAHA, MORONS - YOU'LL NEVER FIND IT, NEVER, NEVER!!" Have the artifact sitting right in the middle of the floor, not hidden at all. Have them wonder what it is they're never going to find.

So the artifact doesn't work properly, until you find 'it' - it being, maybe, a truth ... that makes you mad. Or some such. Though we're straying into something Cthulhic now.

JeenLeen
2019-04-19, 12:01 PM
Think through how the "crazy" works.
If they believe something that is false, and that shapes their reality and how they look at things (such as 'everyone is after my artifact, but it is MINE'), then respond accordingly. Try to think ahead of how he would react to different circumstances or questions, so you can get into the NPC's head. Part of the big fun can be the group trying to figure out the meaning behind the crazy rants.

Let me give an example.
In our group's games, we tend to have a crazy and powerful (and usually evil-ish) person named Richard, originally based off the Looking for Group webcomic but now with just those traits. Our usual GM does a good job by thinking how he is crazy and relating things through that.

In one game, he believed everything was soup. And he ran a soup shop. He was also a crazy-powerful reality warper, such that near him everything literally was soup.
In another, we were playing vampires. He believed something like vampires were demons (but the good team), werewolves were angels, and good vampires served Cthulu. Or something like that; I never quite figured out his madness, but it made for a neat game of trying to understand how to appease him to get info without risking ticking him off.
In a Call of Cthulu game I ran, I had the players not quite sure if they were talking to Bast (the Egyptian cat goddess) or a crazy dude who believed he was Bast.

It sounds like you want a more mild craziness, but keep this stuff in mind.

Segev
2019-04-19, 01:05 PM
I'm a fan of the creeping realization that he's lost it. Start with him being paranoid. Maybe even something that passes for properly (if a bit excessively) paranoid.

First, he won't meet with them except under very specific circumstances. If they try to meet him at his place, he'll explain that that's just where they'd be expected to meet, and name a different location. Say, a ravine or cliff. He'll say to meet at a landmark near or at the bottom.

When the PCs arrive, his voice comes from an indiscernible location (barring a Perception check at a DC equal to his Stealth check, with a +2 circumstance bonus for him having arrived the night before and carefully prepared). He demands they disarm, and, if they refuse, pauses, then acknowledges that that's fair, and they're right to be cautious. But they'd better keep their hands where he can see them!

When he finally comes out, he's at the top of the ravine, or near the head of the waterfall, or on a ledge near a cave (with a back exit only he knows about some distance away). Wherever it is, it's hard to get there from where he told the party to meet him. He shouts from where he is, and there's communication issues due to distance and maybe the waterfall's noise (if it's at a waterfall). The waterfall, if there, is "so we can't be overheard."

Litter his reactions with suspiciously specific denials. If they mention they want something, "I don't have it! Why would you think I have it?" without specifying what "it" is, and visibly relaxing - briefly - when they explain what "it" is they want and he grasps that they're claiming not to want his precious artifact.

Any questions they ask: "Why do you want to know?" if he can't tell how it's angling for his artifact. If they give a suitable answer, he'll grudgingly share information, as if teasing out enough rope for them to hang themselves. He's looking for "proof" that they're really after his artifact. Any Diplomacy that gets him to Friendly will get him to trust they maybe aren't, but at any excuse to assume they're probing for it, he drops to "neutral" as he becomes suspicious of their motives again.

If the information the party does want from him relates to anything another group might be interested in, especially if he knows of the group, he commisserates because they are after his own...nevermind. They're always after other people's things. There should probably be other groups he maligns with the general pronoun of "they" or "them," and which are easily confused between each other. If any PC speaks up in defense of ANY such group, he immediately gets suspicious. "You're with them, aren't you? I should've known you weren't really--" he scoffs. "'We only want [whatever it is they said they were after]'," he mimics in a mocking, sing-song voice. "I should've seen right through that. I DID see right through it! You can't fool me! I know what you REALLY want. You can't have it! It's mine! Not that I have it - you can't prove I have it!"

He should also periodically compare the party to other people, and every time he does that, ramp up the paranoia, because everybody else is after it, after all, and all those he compares them to eventually betrayed him and proved to be out to take it from him. At first, if he's trusting them, he will compliment by saying they're NOT like whoever. Because they're not after it.

Any questions about what it is are immediately interpreted as proof they're after it for themselves. Denial of knowing what it is is also proof and lying, unless he's Friendly or they can succeed on a bluff check at -20 that still beats his Sense Motive (because he's convinced they're lying).


Getting the unhinged nature across is all about gradually building up references to it in more and more obvious but inappropriate ways. How he twists everything to assume they're as obsessed with it as he is. He should have detailed (if convoluted) reasons why every group and individual he knows of is secretly out to get it. And be ready and willing to go on at length about them, right up until he suspects they're stalling him or using him to get information about it by pretending to be interested in them.

"But you already know all that, don't you?" he suddenly grows more suspicious. "Because you're WITH them! I see you're wearing their symbol!" he points accusingly at the cleric. "Everyone knows they corrupted the [name of the holy symbol he wears] with those markings (which are probably earth stains or scratches from wear and tear) to help cover up their real affiliations! Hiding in plain sight!"


That sort of thing.

the_david
2019-04-19, 06:35 PM
Weird twist. Everything Crazy Jared says is true. A successful Sense Motive check would only reveal that he believes what he says is true. Ofcourse, once the PCs discover that Crazy Jared was telling the truth they'll want to visit him again. By then he'll be in a mental institution, ofcourse.

You can have so much fun with that.

noob
2019-04-21, 07:51 AM
You did not met the villain because in his crazed paranoia the villain trapped itself forever in a pocket dimension in which it is the only creature that can exist.
However you are endlessly meeting the decoys which are simulacrums of the villain.

Kyutaru
2019-04-24, 08:43 PM
YOU AGAIN!!!! (the party has literally never met him before)

You're the one who stole my brick, aren't you?!

Where did you hide my cornflakes? TELL ME!!!

Wait, if you're here then who is steering the cave?

You can't fool me with that human disguise, I know you're a rust monster!!!

Strangers... maybe they want to be friends... maybe they are demons... their liver will tell me which.

You're not here. I killed you with my acid pit trap. You're just an illusion sent to make me think I failed.

Crazy? I'm not crazy. It's the ear worms those sheep implanted in my brain. They make me crazy.

Jay R
2019-04-27, 07:53 AM
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

"You think that's an ordinary Flaming Sword in your hand, don't you? I can tell that you haven't unlocked its true powers."

"There you are! I've been waiting for you. To become a hero, one needs villains. You will be my villains. After I kill you, and tell everyone how you came to rob me, I will be the greatest hero of the age!"

redwizard007
2019-04-27, 04:18 PM
Did George Soros send you?

Let's put some essential oils on that.

You vax?

Fake news!

Paid actors!

Malifice
2019-04-27, 05:20 PM
'I'm not going to fix the wheel, Im going to break the wheel'

'Bend the knee, or die.'

'If you betray me, I'll burn you alive.'

"When my dragons are grown, we will take back what was stolen from me and destroy those who wronged me! We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground!"

"I will take what is mine with fire and blood."

"The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands."

“If I give everyone what they deserve I’ll have no one left to rule”

Guizonde
2019-04-27, 05:31 PM
Did George Soros send you?

Let's put some essential oils on that.

You vax?

Fake news!

Paid actors!

i lol'd. wasn't expecting a stereotypical conspiracy theorist in this thread.

redwizard007
2019-04-27, 05:40 PM
i lol'd. wasn't expecting a stereotypical conspiracy theorist in this thread.

Well we are looking for crazy

noob
2019-04-27, 06:23 PM
The villain wants to become a lich but due to its paranoia the villain trusts no reagent that was not made by itself and so the villain is stagnating on its path to lichdom.

Kyutaru
2019-04-27, 06:56 PM
Well we are looking for crazy

"Don't vaccinate your kids!"

noob
2019-04-27, 07:01 PM
"All the deaths ever are caused by maruts so we have to destroy the forges that create them"
"I must become undead so that people stops to seek to kill me"(technically true)

Spore
2019-04-28, 09:52 AM
For D&D and insanity I am always a fan of illusion and enchantment magic. Basically stuff that allows the heroes to "see" what the crazy villain sees. He perceives these illusions - made by the artifact as a resolution of one or several curse spells - as real, and anyone who touches said artifact gets the same curse.

Of course he would never part with it or grant the "sheeple" the insight of the powerful artifact - he basically believes this thing grants him true sight when it actually just plummets him into a waking nightmare.

If we knew a bit of mechanical background we could help more. If he is a wizard you can do so much more fluffwise than with a deranged fighter for example.

noob
2019-04-28, 03:22 PM
"I need to sword the universe before it swords back!"(said by swordsalot and an actual concern in the immortal handbook)

MrSandman
2019-04-28, 04:47 PM
"My marbles! What have you done to them!"

Elvensilver
2019-04-29, 03:52 AM
*Talking to himself*: "They can't see me. I'm protected. They can't see through my cloak."
Make him wear lead. Lead protects against divinations, and it is possible that someone concluded it als protects against normal seeing. After all, that's just a inferior version auf true seeing, so noone will ever recognise him!
Make him occasionally turn around, point into a corner and yell: I see you!
Make him try to dispell the illusion of the party (bonus points for doing so with a bardic performance without being a bard)and grow increasingly desperate because of the might of the caster behind it. All in front of the party.

Mike Miller
2019-05-01, 08:56 AM
I used a bunch of the one liners. Thank you all for the input. I think it went over well. I especially enjoyed the "who is steering the cave" one. The cornflakes took hold though, because one of the PCs was affected by an Insanity spell. Perfect timing!

Segev
2019-05-01, 11:26 AM
I used a bunch of the one liners. Thank you all for the input. I think it went over well. I especially enjoyed the "who is steering the cave" one. The cornflakes took hold though, because one of the PCs was affected by an Insanity spell. Perfect timing!

How'd the party wind up handling him?

Mike Miller
2019-05-01, 07:52 PM
How'd the party wind up handling him?

Well, they started out fine. Then one of the more boisterous PCs decided to taunt him with his own craziness. Needless to say the paranoid lunatic didn't take too kindly to the PC claiming to want his cornflakes.

It ended with two dead PCs from a prismatic spray but the party still won.

MrSandman
2019-05-02, 12:42 AM
Needless to say the paranoid lunatic didn't take too kindly to the PC claiming to want his cornflakes.

It ended with two dead PCs from a prismatic spray but the party still won.

You should never mess with a crazy guy's cereal.

Segev
2019-05-02, 11:43 AM
Well, they started out fine. Then one of the more boisterous PCs decided to taunt him with his own craziness. Needless to say the paranoid lunatic didn't take too kindly to the PC claiming to want his cornflakes.

It ended with two dead PCs from a prismatic spray but the party still won.

Oh my. How serious are dead PCs in this game? Is it jsut a few thousand gp and a spell slot, or is this "new character" time?

Mike Miller
2019-05-02, 08:07 PM
Oh my. How serious are dead PCs in this game? Is it jsut a few thousand gp and a spell slot, or is this "new character" time?

Funny you should ask... It shouldn't be too difficult with the body. Unfortunately, prismatic spray (dnd 3.5) hit over half the party. I rolled an 8 for two of them. They both failed the save vs death poison. The second effect of one of the players (which I ruled happened at the same time) was plane shift...also failed that save. So the one corpse was plane shifted away to the elemental plane of air. Scrying showed the corpse in the air... Surrounded by nothing... Not the most useful info, but way better than a number of other planes. It took a day, but the party was high enough level to get there and back with the right divinations and travel boosters to find the body in time. That was the end of the session.

Avista
2019-05-02, 08:47 PM
"...My preciousssssss..."

Bohandas
2019-05-02, 11:30 PM
He claims that one of the gods has chosen him to wield the artifact, but precisely which god it supposedly was changes from tirade to tirade