What Makes a Truly Memorable Villain?

[Boz Shulun]

The next topic that we (the Gamerstable podcast) are discussing is the development of the villain in RPGs. What qualities are needed to make a villain memorable, despised, and loved?

(As always, we intend to incorporate this online discussion into our episode so please make it known if you do not want to be quoted or have your name aired.)

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Villains should be multi-layered and not an archetypal caricature. If the tone of the game is giga-extreme, or based on superlatives of ethics or something, then I guess it is alright for the villain to be a paragon of a particular theme, such as death.

In most cases though, villains should usually be possible to relate to. Maybe you don't understand why he decided to attack the city, but he might be thinking he is "liberating" it rather than "conquering" it. I find that most villains who are not so extreme or black and white are more interesting and therefore can cause more emotional involvement from the party, especially when even some of them can agree.

Now if you have the villain still engage in extremely negative behavior to the party's needs, such as wiping out a city that the party favors, regardless of how "nice" or "morally aligned" the villain is the party will try to stop them.

I usually like to create villains with either a "proactive" theme or a "reactive" theme. The proactive villains want to exert their influence on the world, causing trouble or doing what they think is best or right or moral. This often comes into conflict with the world/party. Reactive villains serve as reactions to the actions of the world, but more interestingly, the party.

For example the party went and engaged in a battle of a group of troublesome hobgoblins, killing their leader and returning to their home town. A reactive villain could be the leader's son or blood-brother or comrade who has come back to the town for revenge and retribution. The party just so happens to be out on adventure, and they return to find the town in ruins.

This can create a layer of guilt and moral responsibility for the party. This would be much more powerful than simply having the town wiped out for no reason.

There are lots of things that can make a villain interesting, so I'm sure more people will come up with some excellent responses.

 

[Mark CMG]

It gets said often enough yet bears repeating that the villain is the hero of his own story. Keep that in mind when planning the villain's schemes and when portraying the villain in-game and you won't go far wrong.

 

[Oryan77]

He's gotta have a big scar on his face.

Other than that, people like a villain that they can relate to even though he's the bad guy. If he doesn't have some quality that shows he's "human", he's just bland and empty.

Sort of like how the protagonist usually has an issue that causes people to have sympathy for him; a villain can be memorable when the audience can eventually have some sort of sympathy for him also. The viewer might still think he deserves what he gets while at the same time, feel sorry for him.

 

[Niccodaemus]

I think we can look at famous film and literary villains to get an idea to the answer to this question.

Some villains are loved for their motif. This motif is usually very simple. "Jaws" in the bond films comes to mind. The moment he opens that mouth full of metal, you know he is a thing apart. Giving villains a signature motif (a particular use of weapon, poison, method of attack, "calling card", etc... can all make for a memorable villain)

Some villains are loved for their philosophy. Captain Nemo comes to mind. A man who justifies his actions as being noble.

Some villains are loved for their dispassionate cruelty. Darth Vader nonchalantly blowing up planets, killing captains, and otherwise using his power in a very calm fashion. "We would be honored if you would join us"

Sometimes blatant display of the villains weakness makes him memorable. Prince Humperdink's cowardice in Princess Bride comes to mind.

Misplaced egomania can also be quite memorable, such as Vizzini in Princess Bride
Humor is often underutilized in RPGs.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Actually, I think the most important thing about a villain is really pretty basic, but at the same time can be challenging to do well:

The Villain should stick around.

The vast majority of the opponents that the PCs interact with are there for one scene, and then they're gone -- dead, defeated, forgotten.

But find a good way to make sure any sort of opponent keeps coming back -- whether we're talking about a sinister society dame whose a secret vampire or a lowly kobold who likes to carve his name in anything that holds still -- whatever that opponent is, as soon as the PCs have to deal with it twice, it starts to become interesting (at least, potentially).

In D&D especially, but in most games generally, the PCs are very, very good at making opponents go away forever -- the simple act of either preventing them from exercising those abilities, or having a villain that seems to be able to bounce back from them will make that opponent a key target for future encounters.

-rg

 

[Niccodaemus]

Actually, I think the most important thing about a villain is really pretty basic, but at the same time can be challenging to do well:

The Villain should stick around.

The vast majority of the opponents that the PCs interact with are there for one scene, and then they're gone -- dead, defeated, forgotten.

But find a good way to make sure any sort of opponent keeps coming back -- whether we're talking about a sinister society dame whose a secret vampire or a lowly kobold who likes to carve his name in anything that holds still -- whatever that opponent is, as soon as the PCs have to deal with it twice, it starts to become interesting (at least, potentially).

In D&D especially, but in most games generally, the PCs are very, very good at making opponents go away forever -- the simple act of either preventing them from exercising those abilities, or having a villain that seems to be able to bounce back from them will make that opponent a key target for future encounters.

-rg

I share your sentiment. Of course, there will be players who will see any such effort at keeping the villain around as "railroading". To which I say "PFFTT!". I have no qualms about keeping a villain around for future appearances.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

It helps if you can keep them around through something other than DM Fiat or sleight of hand, of course. All it takes is a villain who won't stick around and get killed like everything else on the table.

Right now I'm running a game where the PCs are fighting in a sort of skirmish war in a ruined city. There's a dragon that appears from time to time, dropping into an otherwise ordinary encounter for a round, then flying off. Each time he leaves, having just messed with the PCs battle plans for a round, they hate him more and more.

 

[d2OKC]

I'm not sure if this will help or not.

The best villain I ever used was dead before the campaign even began.

I described a person to the players before the start of the game, and asked them to each come up with a reason their character hated him, because he was about to be hung after being found guilty of a string of murders and I wanted all of them at the execution for the opening encounter.

It turns out, of course, that the villain never committed any of the acts he was found guilty of, or any of the acts the characters described (he was being controlled by an intellect devourer the whole time), but every time his body resurfaced in the campaign (once at the hanging, once as a zombie bodyguard, once as a flameskull, and finally as a helpful spirit in the final battle of heroic tier) they had an irrational hatred for this person who never really deserved it in the first place.

 

[kitsune9]

The villain I remember the most are the ones who constantly a thorn in the side, frustrating to fight, or were super-idiotic.

In one campaign, we had this evil wizard pop up from time to time, hit us with a fireball, send his minions at us, and take off. Hated that guy. We never knew what his motivations were, but it involved dragons, and we were always ruining his plans.

In another campaign, I remember fighting Strad the vampire who would do hit and run tactics to drain our levels before he tried to kill us off. The good thing was that we found his secret lair before he could really get busy with picking us off and then we took him down. Bastard.

In the same campaign with the evil wizard, we ran into this intelligent ghoul who went into this long litany of how powerful he was and he ended the text box with, "I'm the master now!!". He died in the first round. Awesomely funny. Even more funny was that his minions was animated furniture which gave us a serious pounding. Nothing like getting your butt kicked by a lingerie chest and a vanity sink before taking on the ghoul.