What Makes a Great Villian

What makes a really good villian?

I started thinking about this latley and dreged up my answer to this question form the RBDM fourums. I now pose this question to the rest of ENworld. As a DM or as a player, what makes an really good villian?


My take is as follows:

1) The villain needs a motivation. Why is he a villain. Is he out for power, revenge, money, is he simply insane? The answer for this question should be evidenced in the way he interacts with the world, and the PC’s.

Example: The dwarven villain Ombi is out to destroy our hero’s city. Why though? Our friend Ombi is heir to a fallen dwarven clan that was assaulted by an army of orks. He was sent, as the kings heir, to get help from their human allies. But the humans spent to long gathering an army and playing politics. They were to late, and his clan was destroyed. After a decade in mourning, he decides that the humans were the reason his clan fell. They took to long to come to their allies aid, and therefore his clan was destroyed. Honor demands that they pay.

Once the motivation for a bbeg’s evilness is in place we can start to understand how he’ll react, as controlled by the DM, when the PC’s jump left instead of right. Also, we will now understand how our villain should react when his plans are thwarted by the actions of our PC’s.

Example: Our hero’s have just spent the last month in the wilds clearing out the orc invested warren that once was Ombi’s ancestral hall. In the hall they have found the history of this dwarven clan carved into the wall. A final stanza added to the history noting that the clans final son would seek his vengeance on the people that betrayed him. Ombi’s agents hear of these humans defiling the halls, and their recovery of his fathers sword. This sword is now wielded by a human. He flies into a rage and orders his forces to invade the human lands before he had originally scheduled. Their target? The PC’s city, he wants to make the humans pay, and get back the sword that he thought was lost.

2) The next thing after a motivation is a well thought out introduction to our villain. I would normally suggest a meeting that doesn’t involve our beloved unholy combat machine actually being in combat. A chance encounter in a social situation, seeing him in action along with a horde of his underlings where the PC’s aren’t involved (be careful with this option, some PC’s will try to rush in even if the odds are hopeless and instead of an introduction you get a TPK), or even simply a letter. Anything that can be used to introduce the terrible evil of our villain without getting the poor guy dead.

Example: Our PC’s are sneaking through the sewers of the city desperately attempting to avoid the death squads searching the city for them. They have decided to sneak into the cathedral through the catacombs underneath, that just so happen to connect through the sewers. As they attempt to remain unseen they hear voices up ahead. Sneaking forward they come upon a drainage grate in the floor that leads to a level below. The can now see and hear as a dwarf, along with a troop of 15 warriors who are calmly torturing the cathedrals priest to find our PC’s. As their friend is defiant and resists heroically, our villain calmly beats him and threatens death if he doesn’t give them up. This is the first time they’ve seen Ombi, they don’t know who he is, but they do know that they want him dead.

3) The next thing besides having a well thought out motivation, is the wow factor. (To borrow a phrase from Mr. Cook) The villain needs to have something that just makes him stand out from the other villains the PC’s face. For my money this is more than just a few more levels and a couple of interesting trinkets. This needs to be something that marks them out as being the large and in charge kind of villain that they are.

Example: As the PC’s are silently watching the torture of their NPC friend, they can see that a dwarf in red armor the color of blood calmly stand behind the torturer watching the display. Just as our PC’s are about to blow their cover to save the NPC’s life, the dwarf steps forward and with a gesture sends the torturer flying across the room. The sorcerer’s and priest don’t recognize what just happen, but the affect is undeniable. He then, in a calm, rumbling voice tells the warriors that this was enough, for now. They didn’t want to brake their prisoner beyond repair. Not when he would make such a better sacrifice to the dark powers they had sworn themselves to.

Our heros now know he is powerful, as evidenced by his warriors obedience. He has powers that don’t fall into the normal scheme that clerics and wizards understand, as seen by his hurling the torturer without ever touching him. He is in an unholy pact that even a calm torturer calls “Dark Powers”. Finally he is distinctively dressed in blood red armor, setting him apart from his common warriors.

4) Our BBEG needs to have a glorious death that meets up with the build up we’ve given him. This can be an epic battle on the side of a mountain as the party clashes with the forces of the evil giants king, or a silent battle in the shadows of the sewers as the PC’s and the villain dodge and weave through the tunnels.

If you can’t tell from that, sentence my recommendation is location, location, location. Make the place he is to die mean something to the PC, or have it set a suitable mood. If our villain is going to be reoccurring then location is even more important. It can be used to set up our villains ability to reoccur. After all, there’s only so many times our villains can dimension door or teleport away at the last second before our PC’s start casting dimensional anchor, or just get fed up.

Example: As the rag tag army lead by our hero’s clash with the army led by Ombi they finally face him on the bridge that cuts though the city. This bridge is is 30 feet across and has towers along it that mount catapults. Catapults fire and the armies clash along this bridge the PC’s finally meet Ombi in mortal combat. He and his body guard square off against our hero’s in battle as bodies are pitched in the river, catapults launch, and arrows fly. As the combat moves on Ombi stays near the edge of the bridge using his powers to target the PC’s while his bodyguard’s act as a shield. As he dies he tumbles back into the water, carried down by the weight of his armor.

With our example our villain can now be brought back, but this begs the question how, and why? How did he live through this apparent drowning and his fatal wounds? This needs a decent explanation if only for the DM’s own internal running monologue. In our example this can be accomplished by using the necromantic energies unleashed by the evil artifact the PC’s themselves were using to win the battle. It’s energies were causing the dead to rise and fight for them. But once it was resealed the undead tumbled back to dust. But perhaps one undead, fueled by his hatred and rage did not return to death so quietly.

5) Excellent, now when he returns as an undead creature there is a reason, and the PC’s will undoubtedly smack themselves for not looking for his body harder. Why would he want to tangle with our hero’s again if they’ve defeated him once? Revenge, but that’s an easy answer. How about to gain the artifact they still have so he can claim the source of his immortality and posses the one thing that could bind him to the will of another again. If the PC’s only new it could. In this way the PC’s will see a villain who’s modes and methods change as the campaign progresses. His powers will increase, with his fall to undeath, so he is a challenge for a higher level party, yet the PC’s won’t have to wonder what he’s been doing to get more powerful. They’ll see.

Or perhaps instead of utilizing his undead powers and growing from them, he has started a cult sacrificing people to the “dark powers” he serves to garner the power he requires to get the artifact from the PC’s. His methods change from armies to cloaked cultist’s, and his power switches to “dark blessings” instead of his odd mind powers.

Example: Our PC’s, hot on the trail of a new lead on this cult that has sprung up in recent months have finally managed to catch them in the act. They stormed the warehouse used as the cults base of operation and now they’re ready to take down the cults leader. A rasping voice from under the leaders hood sounds eerily familiar as he thanks them for this new lease on life. As he lowers the hood to revel who he is and his undead state he thanks them for opening his eyes to the small minded pettiness of simple revenge that he had sought before. This cult is his tribute to the dark powers he serves, and to our PC’s for opening his eyes to his narrow mindedness.

The point is that the villain should not be static. He should grow and evolve just as the PC’s aims grow and evolve. If he’s a one shot then this really doesn’t matter as much, but for a reoccurring villain this is a must. A villain without the proper complex motivations, and goals, is nothing more than a cardboard cut out for our PC’s to ram a sword through. XP worthy? Perhaps. But memorable and hate-able as the ultimate villain should be? Not a chance.

-Ashrum

Excellent advice. Very cool villain. But no self-respected dwarf needs human aid.

Seriously, though, my personal favorite antagonists are those whose motives are understandable, even sympathetic. Maybe even their methods aren't truly vile, just a shade more ruthless than what the PCs like. The real trouble is the "villain's" goal.

Perhaps he's a general (LN or, at the start, even LG in D&D terms) sent to secure a vast supply of rare materials to cure a plague in his homeland. A noble goal, to be sure. Pity that the "rare materials" can only be extracted from dead (insert typically PC-allied race here - gold dragons, treants, unicorns, elves, whatever). He doesn't like it, but his own wife and children are infected, along with most of the populace.

The PCs, coming from a rival country - one that's, for instance, ruled by an ancient gold dragon or full of elves, either way it has a vested interest in not having its citizens slaughtered for medicinal purposes - consider the general a hideous villain.

Then they meet him.

Specifically, they see him weeping over the bodies of those his army has slain.

When they confront him, he tells them that he can't turn back, the fate of his people, of everything he loves, hangs in the balance. He will not stop. And he won't allow them to stop him.

After an extended campaign of this sort, the PCs eventually discover the real truth - the "emperor" their antagonist serves is not himself. Five years ago, a powerful devil accidentally unleashed by the court wizard killed and replaced the once-noble emperor. This dark luminary unleashed the plague precisely to engineer the very war it has instigated.

Unfortunately, the PCs have no way of convincing their immediate enemy of this. Not until they face the infernal imperial imposter on his own terms, and the latter reveals his nature to properly confront them.

No doubt the general will eventually die heroically, albeit in vain, trying to slay the devil. No doubt his sacrifice will weaken it enough that the PCs stand a chance.

In this case, the devil, although the "main bad guy," is really a plot device. He should be himself loathsome and cool - but the memorable antagonist is the general.

Ashrum the Black said:

2) The next thing after a motivation is a well thought out introduction to our villain. I would normally suggest a meeting that doesn’t involve our beloved unholy combat machine actually being in combat. [...] Anything that can be used to introduce the terrible evil of our villain without getting the poor guy dead.

Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth?

I was lucky enough to play in a game once where the main villain got a fantastic introduction. It was one of those setups where the good guys are uncovering the evil plot in the time-honored "kill your way up the bad guy ladder" method: you know, where they stumble into one evil plot and take down the henchman-in-charge, then read through the henchman's orders to figure out where they need to go and wreak havoc next.

In this particular game, all the orders were being written and sent out by the main villain, and they were awesome. The first few henchmen we slaughtered had fairly typical evil-guy documents, but as we kept mowing 'em down and working our way up, the villain's letters began to just OOZE with frustration. At some point, his orders began to become extended and very insulting rants directed at his henchmen, telling them in no uncertain terms that he was sick and tired of flunkies who promise that they can keep their operations secure but can't deliver. He started making fun of the way his henchmen talked, the equipment and tactics they used, the base of operations they selected. He started daring them to show that they were worthier associates than the dozen or so other clowns we'd already bumped off. A few times, he started a threat in the best "If you fail, I shall boil your family and feed them to a manticore" fashion but stopped in mid-stream and ended with "actually, never mind, if you fail, these adventurers are going to do something even worse to you, and they'll do it at their own expense and without me even having to ask them...why my enemies seem to have no difficulty finding agents of this caliber and I'm stuck with trash like you is a mystery of epic proportions."

I swear, every time we found another set of orders written by the main villain, we would all laugh about what was in them and say, "Oh man, this guy RULES. I'm almost sorry we're going to take him down."

Then we finally worked our way up to his Inner Circle of lieutenants, and the last few documents started to have comments in them that were specifically directed to us. Then paragraphs. Then, finally, an actual sealed letter addressed to us, which started off by slagging the lieutenant we'd just mauled and then made the obligatory "hey, come work for me" offer that he knew we would spurn but had to try anyway.

I can't really describe how funny these orders were, and how much the villain's personality shone through in them. Honestly, we started looking forward to the end of a quest more for the opportunity to find out what he'd said than for the experience or the treasure.

It was the first game I've ever been in where, upon confronting the main villain face to face, the only thing most of the party wanted to do was talk to him; we felt like we knew the guy, after all. We felt sympathy for his frustration, if not for his goals. And the main villain, for his part, almost felt the same way: he wanted to let us know in no uncertain terms just how incredibly irritating we were at the beginning of this whole ordeal, and how utterly loathsome we were here at the end. It was a kick-ass, show-stopping "You are my eternal enemies, I shall stop at nothing to destroy you right here and right now, and years from now the gods themselves will tremble at the memory of this battle" villain speech, and there wasn't a single one of us who didn't think that he'd earned the right to make it without interruption, ridicule, or pre-emptive assault.

And after the smoke cleared and we'd won, naturally the first thing someone said was "And that oughta hold him until he comes back from the dead and we get to do this all over again."

--
in a tone which made it clear that we looked forward to it
ryan

Both of those are great examples of a wonbderful villian. BTW I may steal the one about the general and the demon.

If I may I'd also like to toss in another point that came tyo mind over the weekend.

6) The villian does not have to be a combat monster, he just has to thwart the PC's goals or affront their sense of right and wrong somehow. By this I mean that the main villian could be a "simple" 5th level noble, or even an expert of some type. These villains work wonderfully in the right campaign. In standard fight, these villains would get creamed, but in a political fight, or even a mystery these types can be wonderful. Not evey groups play style will support this type of villain so please bear this in mind before dropping them in.

Example: The PC's have recently arrived in a city and have found it to be in the midst of a gang war. They've tracked the gangs and begun to put a stop to things when they find out that the mayor of the town is behind the whole thing. He is using this situation to raise taxes for more town gaurd and is secretly lining his own pockets. The problem is that the towns people see him as a hero and the gaurds are all in his pocket. The PC's had better do some fast thinking and have some serious evidence before they try to take him on. for the mayor part a simple noble will do and he is a wonderful thorn in the PC's side.


Anyone else have some ideas on what makes a good villain?

-Ashrum

Shameless plug:

Villain Design Handbook (new 3.5 edition)

These are some great characteristics,

for me I like villains that are ambiguous and complex I like it when the players don't know ahead of time that this person is a villain.

I think one of the most overlooked characteristics of villians that the best ones have is good manners. Terribly polite, courteous, civil, erudite villians always seemed more threatening to me. "Gosh, he doesn't even have to act mean, he's that mean!"

I mean, how freaky was it when the door in front of Han Solo and Leia opened and you heard "We would be honored if you would join us." No sinister laugh or evil tagline like "Ha ha, we have you now" would have been as effective as Darth Vader being polite to enemies he finally has in his clutches.

Mark: Nice plug on the book. I'll have to check that out. Anything that can give a villian more depth is great.

Felix: A polite villian can be a wonderful direction to take his personality. I had one that was evil to the core, he'd kill women and children without a second thought. But he'd be terribly polite about it.

He cornered the PC's and had them surrounded. He then proceeded to tell them that he had visited their holdings in the wilderness before paying them a visit. He left a large portion of his army there to "protect" them from the remenants of the army the PC's had crushed. No no, no need to thank him for the gesture. He'd hate for anything, terrible, to happen to their people. Oh, did he mention he had been named Lord of the Armies of the East, making him the new power in the area. He'd be paying regular visits to make sure nothing had happened to their people.

Ooh were they ticked at him.

This personality made him hate-able, But without something to make him stand out he would just have been another cardboard cutout villian. What makes a good villain stand out and scream that I am evil, nasty and worthy of being chased to the ends of the earth to have my schemes thwarted?

-Ashrum

I think the core of what makes a villain cool is his or her connection to the PCs. Whether merely former friends, an evil sibling or parent, or utilizing some other connection, the familiar is what hurts the most.

double post!