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Monologue through a stone of farspeech or a ward-tripped illusion spell. Hell, have the villain's illusion disintegrate only for it to trip 18 other wards that all seamlessly continue the monologue in a deafening cacophany of voices, like the BBEG knows alllll the tricks. I feel like a good DM can get creative on the spot, even if it trips them up a bit.

Second campaign I ran had an underling of the BBEG who was going to tell the players some info about where to go next and hint at who is the BBEG. Once their health was brought to 0 I had them fall to the ground "seemingly dead" as a little push to show them they should go over and check, maybe interrogate. He had talked earlier and a few of them were curious about what he was saying so I expected them to ask questions.

While most of them wanted to ask questions, one ran over and shot him in the head with his crossbow. I did the characteristic "are you sure?" And he said yes and the rest of the players just relented. So the guy who was going to tell them this info had a bolt pierce his skull pinning it to the ground while blood leaked out.

So instead I did what you're saying, all of a sudden when they searched him they found a note with less specific info than he would have told them but still some info. It sucks when players just do that shit but yeah you always have to have a backup plan.

Hell, a big ol' balcony above the party.

My DM understood this. As a bonus, by the end of the battle, everyone had taken so much fall damage.

In a campaign I ran, I had the party wake up in the bilge of a ship, tied up after being drugged. They all had a fresh, moonshaped tattoo in their neck.

I planned to have some guards talk with eachother nearby, giving them some exposition how they got there, and then the ship would bring them to a harbour where they'd be unloaded and brought into a colosseum where they would become gladiators and the rest of the story would happen there.

Instead they used magic and lockpicking to get rid of their chains and killed the guards before they could say anything. The orc of the group then proceded to punch a hole into the outside wall of the ship, causing all the remaining guards to abandon the ship on the lifeboats. They then managed to beach the ship on the nearby shore.

As a "punishment" I kept dangling the importance of these tattoos over them all the time, without ever telling them what they mean.

No, counter spells are strictly reserved for revivify

Isn't that where you just put the plan away and then the next campaign happens to be the same evil plan with minor tweaks? Throw it two campaigns from now if you wanna be fancy about it.

Clearly the campaigns weren't the same. They never found out the details of the first one, so how can it be the same?

That's how they did it in Watchmen, except the writer was in control of how long the battle lasted.

Does the process of getting to the BBEG not involve unraveling their plans? Like, shouldn't the party to a certain extent know their goal(s) before deciding to go after them? And then particulars are divulged as they uncover the threads tying the BBEG to all his henchpeople as they defeat them. And then they understand the steps of the BBEG plan as they track down the items needed to stop them? I'm sure there are some minor things not 100% spelled out, but what did you really want your party to know that they didn't already?

That sounds unreasonable. If you're stepping up to known thugs to threaten them with violence, violence is expected by the party. There should be no surprise here.