Remember that (almost) no BBEG is being evil for the sake of evil. Everyone who acts to affect the world believes they are doing so to improve it in some way, often either their own self interest, or a twisted sense of what is desirable in the world. Many interesting BBEG's pursue goals which seem noble, but they go about them in a way that the heroes cannot abide. Start from the high level, broad strokes description of your BBEG. Figure out what your villain's motivation is, and how they would go about it.

Make the BBEG believe, unrepentantly and without remorse, in something that the pcs find disgusting. He could worship satan when the pcs are christians, could believe in the notion of all other races being slaves to the pureblood aryans, etc. If you use that as a starting point, you can create a character who is both evil to the players but also feels legitimate.

When you make lesser villains, especially ones who might be directly subservient to said BBEG, experiment with different motives and different evil activities. Keep track of which ones the players and/or their characters react most to. Combine strong, compatible evils, and then turn it all up to 11. If you have to introduce the BBEG early, try to keep them as vague as possible so they'll have maximum impact when the time comes. Having them primarily act through their personal Dragon helps a lot with this. I've found a personalized, hand-tailored BBEG for the party almost always trumps even a well-designed prewritten BBEG.

>>10435
1. Take a political figure you like
2. Exaggerate one or more of their features until it ends in a dystopian setting (eg. free healthcare? extreme government control of things like diet and mandatory 'helpful' procedures. religion? strict religious theocracy. family values? absurd legal system with things like inherited guilt, guilt-by-blood-relation, et cetera)
3. Put them in control of something or into a position where they're going to take control of something.

Bonus points if you can trick the PCs into helping them ascend to power before realizing how much of a douchenozzle they are.

>(almost) no BBEG is being evil for the sake of evil

"Evil for the sake of evil" is a perfectly valid villainous motivation. The difficulty in making it an effective central villain is that if they're going to be THE big bad, then they have to want something more than just to be a dick. Achieving a long-term, overarching plan requires serious motivation and a propensity for delayed gratification.

You can forego some of those elements, but unless you can justify it some other way it's going to fall apart.

See Also: The Joker, well known for just wanting to see the world burn. (nolanverse joker, of course, but still)

Make the BBEG believe, unrepentantly and without remorse, in something that the pcs find disgusting. He could worship satan when the pcs are christians, could believe in the notion of all other races being slaves to the pureblood aryans, etc. If you use that as a starting point, you can cre

skeleton wheels. kool

fuck that shit.

Here's something I like to use. Just simple: set them against the player's morale. For example: (and I hope none of the WiI players are here: get back to the thread!) the "big baddie" I have planned for Wars in Immoren is a Cryxian warcaster, Sheerah Ravenmane, daughter of the Satyxis Queen Skarre Ravenmane. While she does have the general "necromancer pirate" theme of Cryx, I have the knowledge that /quest wants to keep every single person alive, no matter how inconsequential to the story. So I made her cause the most collateral damage possible: she does not know the meaning "of subtle," she will kill you and raise you from the death just to skull fuck you. She is so sadistic even other satyxis are scared of her.

tl;dr, Use the normal stereotypical BBEG for your setting and twist it to make it seem horrifying to your players.