D&D General Strong, Complex Villains

[Reynard]

A lot of digital ink has been spilled over the last couple days about villains (villain races in particular) and I though we should talk about how to create strong, complex villains regardless of what species or alignment they are. After al, a good villain can elevate a decent adventure to GREAT. Plus, a good villain give the GM someone to "play" as satisfyingly as a GMPC.

The first and most important aspect of any villain (any character, really) is motivation. What does the villain want, and how do they plan to get it? If you, as GM, know these things, you hardly need prep anything else. As soon as the heroes get involved and get in the way of the villain (intentionally or by accident) the villain is going to respond. With a well realized motivation, goal and set of resources, what follows should flow naturally and easily.

So what does a villain want? Maybe they want money. okay. Why? Money is not an end unto itself, it is a means for some other goal. Do they want to buy their way into high society? Do they want to use wealth to control politics? Is it just a salve for a destitute upbringing? Maybe they want to build the Ultimate Weapon or fund a great army, and that costs money. Now, how is the villain aiming to get that money? Are they robbing banks, museums and private collections? Or do they have a long con in mind? Maybe they have decided to hire a bunch of adventurers to kill and dragon and then plan to betray them after the fight when they are spent, and steal the hoard for themselves. In any case, knowing these things means the GM is in a position to portray the villain consistently and with intention.

What kinds of motivations and goals do you give your villains? What is your favorite villain you have used, or fought against, in a game? Do you design the adventure around the villain, or vice versa? What's your ultimate example of a great villain, from any medium, and how would you implement them in D&D?

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have a rule to make any NPC main villain to have either a redeemable quality, or a tragic backstory that caused them to become warped. Often many villains are certain they are doing the right thing. They aren't all out for conquest and subjugation.

For rank and file villains, I don't normally go that complex. Sometimes the players just want a bad guy to beat.

 

[Reynard]

I have a rule to make any NPC main villain to have either a redeemable quality, or a tragic backstory that caused them to become warped. Often many villains are certain they are doing the right thing. They aren't all out for conquest and subjugation.

For rank and file villains, I don't normally go that complex. Sometimes the players just want a bad guy to beat.

I'll grant you "redeemable quality" but I am kind of suspect of "tragic backstory" in general. The latter often feels lazy. "Oh, his dad was a drunk so now he wants to murder the world." Lots of kids had drunk ass dads...

Not that it can't be done well, just that you don't usually see it done well.

One of my favorite villains is Silko from the Arcane series on Netflix. He is so utterly human, and yet absolutely a villain. It's amazing.

 

[RangerWickett]

For the War of the Burning Sky adventure path, the main antagonist is Leska, whom the party is introduced to originally as just the classic trope of 'vizier who took over after the ruler mysteriously died.' But you get snippets of her history throughout the campaign - sometimes not even realizing that stories you're hearing are about her - and as you get closer to actually confronting her, you meet someone pivotal to her life, someone who betrayed her, someone she has kept alive and in a prison to torture him for decades.

Ultimately, you find out that Leska was in her youth a patriot and an idealist, and was looking forward to serving the emperor until a fight between her nation and their neighbors put her home town in peril. She intervened to try to stop the emperor from attacking, and he was impressed by her gumption, but was obliged by honor to order her death. So he gave her an impossible task - find the secret of immortality. He gave her a year to do it, promising he would spare her home that long.

She undertook a quest, suffered horribly, made terrible choices she regretted, found love, was betrayed, nearly died, but nevertheless succeeded at the impossible. When she returned to the emperor, she was all but broken by the ordeal, but had a cold pride for the victory she'd achieved.

The emperor commended her. Then he gave her the regrettable news that while she was away, the army of their hostile neighbor razed her home town and killed everyone there.

From that point on, Leska was motivated by a desire to get power so she could hurt the rest of the world, but her plans were patient. She was, after all, immortal. She could take her time.

---

Now, I came up with her 15+ years ago. If I were writing the adventure path again today, I'd put in more ways to force the PCs into situations parallel to hers, where they lost things they cared for, where they were betrayed and had sacrifices. I'd try to turn the PCs into mirrors of the villain, so perhaps they could understand why she'd make the choice she did. But the challenge of the set-up of an adventure path is that it's really hard to let the PCs meet the big bad early on if you don't want the PCs to, y'know, kill them when you've still got story to tell. So the party never met Leska until the end. But I hope they understood her, at least a bit.

 

[Reynard]

For the War of the Burning Sky adventure path, the main antagonist is Leska, whom the party is introduced to originally as just the classic trope of 'vizier who took over after the ruler mysteriously died.' But you get snippets of her history throughout the campaign - sometimes not even realizing that stories you're hearing are about her - and as you get closer to actually confronting her, you meet someone pivotal to her life, someone who betrayed her, someone she has kept alive and in a prison to torture him for decades.

Ultimately, you find out that Leska was in her youth a patriot and an idealist, and was looking forward to serving the emperor until a fight between her nation and their neighbors put her home town in peril. She intervened to try to stop the emperor from attacking, and he was impressed by her gumption, but was obliged by honor to order her death. So he gave her an impossible task - find the secret of immortality. He gave her a year to do it, promising he would spare her home that long.

She undertook a quest, suffered horribly, made terrible choices she regretted, found love, was betrayed, nearly died, but nevertheless succeeded at the impossible. When she returned to the emperor, she was all but broken by the ordeal, but had a cold pride for the victory she'd achieved.

The emperor commended her. Then he gave her the regrettable news that while she was away, the army of their hostile neighbor razed her home town and killed everyone there.

From that point on, Leska was motivated by a desire to get power so she could hurt the rest of the world, but her plans were patient. She was, after all, immortal. She could take her time.

---

Now, I came up with her 15+ years ago. If I were writing the adventure path again today, I'd put in more ways to force the PCs into situations parallel to hers, where they lost things they cared for, where they were betrayed and had sacrifices. I'd try to turn the PCs into mirrors of the villain, so perhaps they could understand why she'd make the choice she did. But the challenge of the set-up of an adventure path is that it's really hard to let the PCs meet the big bad early on if you don't want the PCs to, y'know, kill them when you've still got story to tell. So the party never met Leska until the end. But I hope they understood her, at least a bit.

One of the potential downfalls of the complex backstory that helps develop a complex villain is that no one but the GM ever sees it, so the villain is just another bag of hit points for the PCs.

 

[Fenris-77]

A second round of aging, preferably in an oak Sherry or Port cask. Really brings out the bouquet and undertones in the villain. YMMV.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Edit: So, my initial remark might have come across as snarky. That wasn't my intent. Let me see if I can rectify that:

There have been a number of great books about designing villains from previous editions. If you can get your hands on them, or a pdf (I bet several are available at DriveThru RPG site), much of the information is still relevant regardless of what system or edition you play today.

 

[Reynard]

Or, you know, read a book?

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What about those books excites you about villains? Which villains presented in them have stuck with you. What lessons did those books teach you about developing villains that you think are important to share?

It is, after all, a discussion forum.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

What about those books excites you about villains? Which villains presented in them have stuck with you. What lessons did those books teach you about developing villains that you think are important to share?

It is, after all, a discussion forum.

You're not going to learn anything if you keep asking for the cliff notes.

 

[Reynard]

You're not going to learn anything if you keep asking for the cliff notes.

That's a strange take in a community built around sharing ideas, but you do you my man.