Every time people lament changes to the lore that amount to "not every member of species X is irredeemably evil" and claim the game is removing villains from it, I think how villains of so-caleld evil species fall into two cathegories: a) bland and boring and b)have something else, unrelated to their species going on for them, that makes them interesting.
Can confirm, I run a LOT of dragons and the interesting dragon villains are generally about finding unique takes on their common traits or villains because of their response to their circumstances rather than pure random villainy. We've got the red dragon who self-perpetuates her own cycle of violence, we've got the black dragon who's mentally broken because their worldview of being entitled to everything due to their strength collapsed after they lost a territorial struggle, we've got the emerald dragon who's desire not to be bothered by their humanoid allies led them to neglect their promises, we've got the silver dragon who loved her friends so much she was willing to fall into necromancy to try and undo their deaths.
Also we have That Bastard With Eight Player Kills.
That said, always remember: To become cliche, something needs to work super well first- so well that everyone does it. It only crosses from great into cliche if everyone does it and forgets why and how it worked in the first place.
Oh, please do tell the story of That Bastards With Eight Player Kills
Young Black Dragon called Gendridd, wasn't meant to be a major obstacle, his personally is that he's evil mostly just because he's having a fantastic time being an asshole and constantly taunting people (to the extent that the first and so far only lair effect he's got is the ability to heckle people at any location in the lair). Anyways he was fully aware that he'd get one-rounded trying to fight a party of four level 7 PCs, so instead of fighting them stole the party's unattended bags and sat in a tree to taunt them about it before flying off (he did not consider this might lead to fighting them anyway).
The party's plan was to ambush him in his own territory, so their plan was to cut through some of the most overgrown parts of the swamp to get behind his lair and set up an ambush, instead of confronting any of his minions. However, between several spellcaster party members who had both completely dumped their strength/dexterity and couldn't cast spells while drowning, party members wearing full heavy armour that weighed them down significantly, and bad rolls, then two of them fell into a bog, and in trying to rescue them the others also fell in and they all drowned, resulting in the first TPK.
Obviously that wasn't a super satisfying ending, so for closure I offered to run a oneshot with a level 5 party in Gendridd's lair, sent to avenge the original party, on condition that I wouldn't hold back with enemy strategy and tactics (no bullshit with magic, just good enemy postioning, balanced teams that had lots of options in fights, and had actual battle plans). They made it through most of the dungeon pretty well, while constantly trading off verbal barbs with Gendridd who basically ran a snarky sports commentary the entire way through, letting them know how eager he was to crush them when they made it to HIS big boss chamber. Anyways they reached the outside of the chamber and they were just preparing to fight the skeletons who were guarding his door when he jumped out of an acid river behind them and got a Surprise Round, hitting two of them with a breath weapon and then rolling good enough initiative to knock out their fragile backline casters.
After that then he's become popular/respected enough to get Promoted To NPC.
TLDR: First wipe due to RNGiamat cursing the d20 and a party badly suited to dealing with falling in a bog. Second wipe because Gendridd employed the secret chromatic dragon art of 'lying to people'.
That's hilarious. First TPK to the hardest boss of the campaign, the bog. And that dungeon crawl with snarky commentary sounds like an absolute blast. Thanks for sharing!
I’m known for running mostly human campaigns, but one of my favorite tricks is to run a seemingly human villain with personality traits usually associated with an evil monster, then as the adventure goes on the learn that the heraldry features the monster etc etc.
Of course they know me, so they all think it’s metaphor and inspiration.
But at the very last minute, when they think they have him cornered and taken care of all the lackeys…. SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS! He drops his magical disguise and it’s an old fashioned D&D lair boss battle!!!!!!!