Do you STAT your Big bad or do you just kinda play it by ear?

[devonapple]

No, you as a GM are working purely to entertain your players.  If the big bad is going down in an unsatisfying way you work to make sure he is more of a challenge so the players have FUN.  You're looking at GMing as a competition.  You're telling a story.  If the story ending sucks the players don't have fun, and you as a GM have failed, (or at least gotten a C.

Exactly! I agree.

That said, I have definitely allowed NPCs to be killed off because I hadn't folded soon enough and offered a Concession.

[UmbraLux]

  You're telling a story.  If the story ending sucks the players don't have fun, and you as a GM have failed, (or at least gotten a C.

This is a never ending dichotomy.  Many of us prefer to allow a story to build through play.  To let it unfold in sometimes surprising directions.  Not to push towards a preconceived end or simply work off a script.

It's not "failure", it's a more open, more inclusive style.

[admiralducksauce]

You as a GM are working purely to entertain your players.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, but

You're looking at GMing as a competition.  You're telling a story.

Sometimes the competition, the game of it all, is what the players find entertaining.  And sometimes they want to explore the story.  Fact is, you can't boil it down to either thing.  Hey, UmbraLux said it better while I was posting during work. 

That said, I have definitely allowed NPCs to be killed off because I hadn't folded soon enough and offered a Concession.

You're saying "I didn't cheat", basically?    Were you tempted for whatever reason to just GM fiat the NPC's fate out of the hands of the player who Took them Out?

Anyways, I realized I have an example of tweaking a Big Bad right on these forums, in my Highway to Hell writeup.  I had an evil warlock statted up and I nearly plastered a PC in one turn.  I'm going to quote my thought process from that thread:

“Holy shit!  Wizards are fucking ridiculous!  Time to strip off this guy’s Resilient Self-Image stunt so he’s only got 2 blasts left before eating consequences (he used one to enthrall the bar with a zone-wide Aspect and one just now on Bill).  And better take a page from Mutants and Masterminds and say directing his thralls takes his action so he can’t mindrape AND swarm the guys at the same time.  Man, I thought Scott was gonna be here so he could tank some of this with his crazy Discipline stat...”

The warlock had not done anything at that point that would have contradicted the changes I made, and that part I feel is key.  My objective in doing this was to try to provide a difficult but balanced encounter tailored to the PCs' abilities, and in doing so have NPCs that I could play hard with and in doing so avoid a pushover PC victory nor completely steamroller the PCs.  Once I made those decisions for that warlock, I stuck by those changes.  To me, that's the game - the competition aspect - and I made those changes hoping the players would be more entertained by a better-balanced encounter.

[DFJunkie]

There are really two questions that people seem to be answering, 1) do BBEGs have cemented stats at all, and do you as GM stat your BBEGs ahead of time.  To answer question two, I don't stat out all my NPCs ahead of time, but once I do stat them they stay statted absent some legitimate reason for the stats to change (accept a pact for more power or suchlike.) 

As for the first question, I understand that other GMs may have different opinions on the matter, but I think that anyone, or anything, the PCs come into conflict with should either have stats or be so insanely better than them that the stats become meaningless.  Stories include setbacks as well as victories, and I don't think it's the GM's place to determine which the players will experience ahead of time, and fudging NPC stats to determine which side comes out on top of a given conflict does weaken the game. 

One of the most challenging aspects of running Fate for me has been creating victory conditions for my NPCs other than "I kill all the PCs," so if a conflict goes south on my players I don't have to choose between handing them a hollow victory they didn't earn or allowing the players to be wiped out.  Fortunately concessions make that a lot easier.

[Mr. Death]

It's also possible to change the difficulty of an adversary without changing stats at all--just change his tactics based on either his Aspects, or the direction of the scene. If the villain's kicking the hero's ass, have him "know" he's won, and start monologuing. If the villain's getting his own ass kicked, have him concede and escape, and come at the heroes from a different angle.

Two examples where I had to modify it in this manner...in a Dresden game, I had the fallen-Warden adversary face off against one of the PCs (an Egyptian Temple Dog with some entropomancy-based Channeling instead of Mouse's Bite Monsters' Faces Off abilities), and the dog pretty much kicked his ass--I offered a Concession (the bad guy didn't get to kidnap the girl he was after), and had him change tactics--the next encounter was an ambush where he threw a car at the PCs rather than confront them strength-against-strength (it helped that he had a few fate points to spend from the previous Concession), and he sent minions out the next couple times he went up against them in the scenario to balance the odds. I didn't change his stats any, I just had him approach things differently when his initial tactics failed to work.

In a Mega Man X-based game I ran based on the Dresden rules, I had a bad guy whose whole thing was an absurd amount of power he could throw around with his buster shots, and he had extremely high toughness and built in armor. In the final encounter with him, he started off by pounding the team's tank at full blast, when she couldn't even muster 2 or 3 shifts of damage on him because of the armor. So after he'd caused her a solid consequence, I had him get cocky and switch to melee attacks, at which he was much weaker, because he felt like he'd won and could just play around with her, which gave the party time to figure out how to deal with him.

[devonapple]

You're saying "I didn't cheat", basically?    Were you tempted for whatever reason to just GM fiat the NPC's fate out of the hands of the player who Took them Out?

I was tempted to make a few Declarations and spend from the GM reserve of Fate Points to put that defeat off for another round or two, yes.

[DFJunkie]

I was tempted to make a few Declarations and spend from the GM reserve of Fate Points to put that defeat off for another round or two, yes.

I know it isn't technically by the rules, but I've found that shameless fate point bribery is also very effective. 

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, I've done that once. Handed over a fate point to compel the aspect PLEASE DON'T KILL MY VILLAIN IN ONE ROUND.

[admiralducksauce]

Yeah, I've done that once. Handed over a fate point to compel the aspect PLEASE DON'T KILL MY VILLAIN IN ONE ROUND.

LOL.  I'll remember that one.

It's also possible to change the difficulty of an adversary without changing stats at all--just change his tactics based on either his Aspects, or the direction of the scene.

And this is good advice too.  Although I'll say that when I find myself constantly trying to micromanage the efficiency of my NPCs' tactics out of fear of accidentally mangling the PCs.... it's time to switch away from the ORE system.    I kid because I love.  But seriously, part of the reason I pushed for FATE with my group was so that I could play NPCs to the best of my ability.  Concessions and Taking Out (instead of rules-proscribed outcomes like "die when HP reach 0") offer the kind of safety net that I need to enjoy myself when playing the villains.  When I have to scale back, I know that I've made an egregious error with my NPCs' stats or grossly misjudged the situation in some other way.

I was tempted to make a few Declarations and spend from the GM reserve of Fate Points to put that defeat off for another round or two, yes.

This I wouldn't have a problem with as a player.  Declarations are part of the game and I assume that for your games, the GM FP reserve is a known quantity.  You'd be using the resources available to you (and known by the players) to drive events how you wish.  In a way, allowing those NPCs to be Taken Out (and killed) was using a change in tactics to manage the proceedings - in this case, the story or player entertainment or what have you.

[sinker]

I find the idea that anyone would say "This GM technique is always right (or wrong)" just silly.

I have been GMing for over twenty years. I have occasionally changed the opposition's stats in the middle of a conflict. I have never had a player tell me that it was bad or that they did not have fun as a result.

Any technique is going to have it's place with different circumstances or groups. Knowing when to use one over the other is what makes us experienced GMs.

[Harboe]

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: I'm lazy. I do try to make stats for whatever the players might end up facing, but I'm bad at prioritizing and when the session starts, I might realize that a character or two don't have any stats. If it comes up, I'll wing it or use whatever stats I have lying around that seem "close enough."

As I keep reminding my players when they're crunching numbers to be the best at dodging/swordfighting/blasting stuff with magic: I adjust difficulty to them.
I "cheat" during combat by using more (or less) Fate Points to make things exciting without being over- or underpowered. I may add/remove skills/stunts/powers on the fly, so to make sure people stay on their toes. Liberal use of concessions, creative consequence and Taken Out results means that things don't get boring.

Which is the important thing.

---

I think that tailoring encounters to your group is important and make a point of trying to match the challenge to the players. No Loup-Garous against the social butterfly mundane journalists* and no "High School Jock Jerk" trying to threaten G. "Reaper" McMurderKillDeath the Dragonslayer*.

Group of "Feet in the Water" Pure Mortals with a standard "civilian" loadout of skills and stunts?
Social Conflicts: Dealing with authority figures (police officers etc.), getting people to talk.
Physical Conflicts: Twitchin' an' Shakin' Mugger, Proud Lone (Were)Wolf.
Mental Conflicts: Mental impressions (Sight, Soulgaze, Psychometry etc.), torture.

Group of ~12 Refresh killing machines (like my current group)?
Social Conflicts: Fairy Kings, Red Court Nobles, Fairy Merchants, White Court Schemers.
Physical Conflicts: Red Court Vampires, Frost Giants, Whelp of Fenris, SWAT-teams.
Mental Conflicts: Psychomancy, Soulgazes, Torture, Partial Chronomantically-Induced Disorientation Disorder (PCIDD).

... and still they think that "If only I could get a <Sword of the Cross/Blackstaff/Physical Immunity (The Catch: Chocolate Pancakes)> I'd be much better equipped to deal with all this."

* unless I really want to.

[Ghsdkgb]

Most of the time, I just say to myself, "This guy they're going to face is most like THAT guy that Harry fought/worked with/was scared of that one time," and then just look up that guy in Our World, making appropriate changes if, for example, I'm using a Vampire stat sheet to approximate a Fae character, or if the guy in the books is a Pure Mortal but I want someone with Inhuman Strength.

Smaller mooks usually just get a quickwrite of some relevant skills (as detailed on page 327 of Your Story), and I make up new skills on the fly if my characters end up trying to talk down the guy I expected them to just fight.

BIG big bads, bosses they've been chasing for a while (like the guy my players are facing next week), get their own custom sheets done up from scratch. I fill in all the Aspects, Skills and Powers as though I were actually going to be playing the guy. That's the only time it really seems worth the effort, to me.

[Orladdin]

I think having a general idea of what your big-bad has is critical, but having specifics  (while helpful) should be just a guideline.

A lot of good ideas have been mentioned in this thread, and I've used many of them in my 4E in the past (and more recently Dresden) games. 

The two things I find key to making these DM'ing ideas work are:

• Never consistantly use the same difficulty-adjustment tactic; if you use the same method for managing a too easy/tough boss, the players will notice and start to feel like you're either coddling them or torturing them no matter how hard they try.  If they feel this way, they stop trying.
• Never tell the players how you make adjustments.  It's ok to tell them occasionally (after the fact) that you had to adjust it slightly (usually best if it's because they were "too awesome" for what you planned) but never tell them how you do it.  Don't let them get too much into the mechanics of the bad guys.  It's more suspenseful that way.