Celebrim
Legend
#18: Misanthrope: The villain is deformed or disabled in some manner that has made them reviled their entire lives and forced them to live outside of normal society. They may have been born that way, or they may have become deformed as a result of abuse and torment. Regardless, they are socially, mentally, and often morally stunted, unable to relate to people on a normal basis and having known only cruelty and scorn from others. It may even be possible to befriend the misanthrope by treating them compassionately and avoiding frightening them. Unfortunately, it may also be too late, as the misanthrope has developed engrained habits of thought and modes of behavior that invariably will bring them into conflict with society or which will explode again into violent behavior if the misanthrope is ever once again subjected to scorn. Villains of this sort are among the most tragic in literature: Lennie in 'Of Mice and Men', the monster in 'Frankenstein', Carrie in 'Carrie', and so forth.
#19: Charismatic Scoundrels: Their is a place in literature reserved for the rogue or scoundrel which has so much charisma and panache that the reader overlooks behavior on their part that the reader would find despicable and evil in a less charismatic individual. Indeed, a great deal of literature often depends on differentiating two individuals with very similar modes of behavior by giving one sympathetic traits in their personality and another less sympathetic traits. The classic trait for doing this is marking one as treating women well and another disrespecting them or treating them poorly. Also common is to make the villain be obnoxiously arrogant, or to be physically disgusting. One excellent example of how the reader can be manipulated in this way that has been analyzed recently is 'The Karate Kid', where the movie successfully gets the viewer to excuse behavior by the protagonist and revile behavior by the antagonist based mostly on personality traits - or to put it another way, mere charisma. Another pretty good example of this is Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which as a series takes this idea so far as to reform the villain of the first film into a sympathetic protagonist merely because he has panache. Probably the most extreme example are slasher films, which use a variety of tricks to make the truly psychotic murderous nominal antagonists of the films into effective protagonists that the viewer may even be rooting for. Panache and charisma makes murder seem less vile, shutting down the forebrain by tickling the lizard brain. The same tricks can be used in an RPG to get players to classify villains in the category of charming rogues. They will recognize intellectually that the villain is not a nice person, but will blind themselves to their potential villainy if you are careful to not openly step over certain societal bounds that are 'beyond the pale'. Indeed, it's quite possible to 'Han Solo' or 'Jack Sparrow' some of these villains and let players trick themselves into the expectation that they are going to reform or act honorably in a pinch and so forth. You can then pull the rug out from under such expectations after a suitable period.
#20: Hunted: The villain was originally the victim of some great injustice. Perhaps they were framed for a crime they didn't commit. Perhaps they were sold into slavery. Perhaps they had a legitimate need for justice - for example they were raped or abused or swindled - that wasn't recognized by the larger society, and when they were forced to take matters into their own hands, society viewed them only as a criminal. Unlike the villain motivated by Vengeance, the Hunted desire only to get away or to be left alone, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. Instead, they became hunted and to protect themselves from capture, they've been forced into actions which in turn made them only more hunted which in turn has made them more desperate. The great thing about this concept is that whether the Hunted is villain or protagonist often rests on knifes edge, and its easy by selectively recounting the facts of the Hunted's history to make them seem either villain or hero according to the biases we are likely to have. Depending on who the PC's first hear the Hunted's history from will make a big difference in their initial impression. Depending on how the story is handled, as they learn new facts and the Hunter takes new actions to avoid capture the PC's may move back and forth on their stand regarding the hunted. One of the most nuanced outcomes you can strive for is to ultimately have the PC's decide to join the hunt despite having considerable respect and sympathy for the hunted. It's also worth noting that its quite possible to seduce PC's into villainy and becoming hunted themselves with villains such as these so some care should be exercised if you don't want to go that direction. Note this motivation often heavily overlaps with #9 ("We all have to survive") above.
#19: Charismatic Scoundrels: Their is a place in literature reserved for the rogue or scoundrel which has so much charisma and panache that the reader overlooks behavior on their part that the reader would find despicable and evil in a less charismatic individual. Indeed, a great deal of literature often depends on differentiating two individuals with very similar modes of behavior by giving one sympathetic traits in their personality and another less sympathetic traits. The classic trait for doing this is marking one as treating women well and another disrespecting them or treating them poorly. Also common is to make the villain be obnoxiously arrogant, or to be physically disgusting. One excellent example of how the reader can be manipulated in this way that has been analyzed recently is 'The Karate Kid', where the movie successfully gets the viewer to excuse behavior by the protagonist and revile behavior by the antagonist based mostly on personality traits - or to put it another way, mere charisma. Another pretty good example of this is Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, which as a series takes this idea so far as to reform the villain of the first film into a sympathetic protagonist merely because he has panache. Probably the most extreme example are slasher films, which use a variety of tricks to make the truly psychotic murderous nominal antagonists of the films into effective protagonists that the viewer may even be rooting for. Panache and charisma makes murder seem less vile, shutting down the forebrain by tickling the lizard brain. The same tricks can be used in an RPG to get players to classify villains in the category of charming rogues. They will recognize intellectually that the villain is not a nice person, but will blind themselves to their potential villainy if you are careful to not openly step over certain societal bounds that are 'beyond the pale'. Indeed, it's quite possible to 'Han Solo' or 'Jack Sparrow' some of these villains and let players trick themselves into the expectation that they are going to reform or act honorably in a pinch and so forth. You can then pull the rug out from under such expectations after a suitable period.
#20: Hunted: The villain was originally the victim of some great injustice. Perhaps they were framed for a crime they didn't commit. Perhaps they were sold into slavery. Perhaps they had a legitimate need for justice - for example they were raped or abused or swindled - that wasn't recognized by the larger society, and when they were forced to take matters into their own hands, society viewed them only as a criminal. Unlike the villain motivated by Vengeance, the Hunted desire only to get away or to be left alone, but unfortunately that hasn't happened. Instead, they became hunted and to protect themselves from capture, they've been forced into actions which in turn made them only more hunted which in turn has made them more desperate. The great thing about this concept is that whether the Hunted is villain or protagonist often rests on knifes edge, and its easy by selectively recounting the facts of the Hunted's history to make them seem either villain or hero according to the biases we are likely to have. Depending on who the PC's first hear the Hunted's history from will make a big difference in their initial impression. Depending on how the story is handled, as they learn new facts and the Hunter takes new actions to avoid capture the PC's may move back and forth on their stand regarding the hunted. One of the most nuanced outcomes you can strive for is to ultimately have the PC's decide to join the hunt despite having considerable respect and sympathy for the hunted. It's also worth noting that its quite possible to seduce PC's into villainy and becoming hunted themselves with villains such as these so some care should be exercised if you don't want to go that direction. Note this motivation often heavily overlaps with #9 ("We all have to survive") above.
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