D&D General Strong, Complex Villains

[Jacob Lewis]

It just occurred to me that I don't have signature showing on this site anymore. It is the same sig I have used for many years, even on different sites. I point it out here, now, because it is this:

"There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies."

- Glen Cook, The Black Company​

 

[Reynard]

The best villains are those that are absolutely convinced that they are the heroes.

I think those can be interesting villains, but I don't think they are "the best" by any stretch. A Great villain can absolutely own that they are a villain. itis the fact that they are a fully realized character that makes them a great villain.

Exhibit A: The Dark Knight (film) Joker.

 

[Reynard]

Did that come off as snark?? I'm sorry.

But, to be fair, a lot people have. a tendency to find offense where none is intended. So no matter what I write, or how I write it, someone will find reason to take offense because they want to be offended. (Probably not the case here. Just saying.)

For the record, it wasn't you initial post that was the problem for me, it was the follow up:

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

I felt that was intentionally offensive.

 

[Quickleaf]

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?

I think I accidentally created a thoroughly compelling villain in our last story arc.

Horminutur was a tiefling orphan raised among scribes who was recruited into a spy ring operated by the vizier, spying on various temples to search out a conspiracy. In exchange for his services, the vizier promised him farmlands east of the city. However, Horminutur got overzealous and exposed himself. The vizier denied all connection and Horminutur was exiled. Over the years, the lands east of the city were given to human, dwarven, and halfling farmers. Feeling like he'd been denied his just reward, Horminutur began a campaign of mischief, terrorizing these farmers with various tricks (e.g. baiting a quasit to "haunt" a farm), pressuring them to pay him for his "protection" from whatever ailed them, and gradually strengthening his chokehold to try and pressure the farmers to sign their lands over to him. When the players grasped his backstory, they were very torn about how to handle Horminutur, eventually deciding to bring his case before the vizier themselves if he agreed to stop terrorizing farmers.

It was a really fun little adventure, because Horminutur was feigning death (he had bard spells) in a funeral party entering a necropolis, in order to eavesdrop on someone he thought was connected to the conspiracy. He was still trying to find his way back "in" with the vizier and spy ring. PCs had to assess which of three corpses was the one feigning death, then discretely clear the guests so they could take him down.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

THIS more than anything else. ESPECIALLY if the villain takes their stuff.

Heck, IME, most of the time, anyone who takes stuff from the PCs is automatically classified as a villain and is therefore set for righteous smiting.

This is the most true thing someone ever wrote. Ever.

take your players stuff and they will hate the villain forever.

I had this happen in my Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign. Long story short, the players were around a dozen levels deep into the dungeon and were taking a magical portal that Halaster Blackcloak had set up to travel between the levels, trying to get up to the surface again to spend their gold and treasure, which contained magical runes that you would draw from a deck of photo-copied cards in order to decide which effect you would get when travelling through it (there's also a 50/50 chance of getting a good effect or a bad effect, so not only do you have to draw from the deck of cards and choose which player is targeted randomly, but you also have to determine if the effect is a boon or a bane).

The party's "banker" character that kept all of their gold and treasure on them ended up being the character effected by the Rune, with Bane effect of a card that would steal all of your character's valuable items off of their person and teleport them to Halaster's Hoard at the bottom of the entire dungeon (so about another dozen levels of the dungeon below the lowest the party had ever gotten at this point).

The party ended up losing about 90% of their valuables just due to sheer bad luck (which was around 100,000 gold pieces worth of treasure that they'd just recovered from spending multiple sessions in the dungeon).

Let's just say, when they eventually killed Halaster Blackcloak, they did so with way more hatred than they had for anyone else in the entire campaign, including when they'd killed the villains that had kidnapped or even killed a member of the party.

 

[Argyle King]

Like Thanos or Neegan!

or Rey "Skywalker"

 

[Asisreo]

The best villains are those that are absolutely convinced that they are the heroes.

One of my adventures features a vampire (Vampire Lord homebrewed to CR 25). He is dressed in white and gold and he's the first person the adventurers meet in the land. He tells the adventurers that he helped establish the government but the government officials have become corrupted by power and he needs the adventurers to take down the corrupt individuals while maintaining the country to keep the peace.

When the players meet the citizens, it's revealed that every bit of corruption he accuses of the other politicians are things he engages in as well. The only difference: he thinks he's justified to protect others that way.

He hires assassins, launders money, lies, cheats, and steals. But he always sees it as a necessary evil against the corruption. "Do whatever you can for the sake of the people." Yet the people continue to suffer directly for his actions. He refuses to see it. He's not selfish, just misguided.

But he always treats the party like they're his best friends. Openly sharing his supplies. Welcoming them in. Even constantly leaving himself partially exposed to garner trust.

Despite being a vampire, he operates in the day because he thinks it shows that he is willing to endure supernatural pains to be a good person. But it's only ironic to his citizens.

Sorry about the lore dump, this thread just reminded me of one of my adventures.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think those can be interesting villains, but I don't think they are "the best" by any stretch. A Great villain can absolutely own that they are a villain. itis the fact that they are a fully realized character that makes them a great villain.

Exhibit A: The Dark Knight (film) Joker.

"The Dark Knight" would be a very different movie if it was told entirely from the Batman's point of view.

 

[Reynard]

"The Dark Knight" would be a very different movie if it was told entirely from the Batman's point of view.

I mean, sure, but I'm missing the connection to my post.

 

[Laurefindel]

What kinds of motivations and goals do you give your villains?

TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! Mouahahaha!

ahem

well, actually, that what my present campaign’s villain wants…

She’s a cool villain-in-chief. Gives me the opportunity to monologue. Then she has many minions. And some minions turning against her to become proper villains in their own right to… take over the world I guess? Or maybe just the five nations of Khorvaire. Gotta start somewhere.

 

[Scribe]

I think those can be interesting villains, but I don't think they are "the best" by any stretch. A Great villain can absolutely own that they are a villain. itis the fact that they are a fully realized character that makes them a great villain.

Exhibit A: The Dark Knight (film) Joker.

Sometimes I wonder if this is what makes Joker a good villain. He's nothing but a Villain. No positive spin possible, he's just this elemental force.

You can have characters on the other side as well, ones who have motivations, desires, goals, that are not objectively counter to the morality of the day, its just the methods, or some such.

Not Joker though.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

I used to have a similar preference, but anymore I don’t feel it’s necessary for villains to be so sympathetic, as long as their motivations are understandable. Take Strahd as a familiar example. He started out as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain. He was an evil Dracula and as far as the adventure was concerned, that was all he needed to be. Later, I, Strahd gave him a tragic backstory, which was the in thing for villains at the time. He wasn’t just evil because he was evil anymore, he was evil because he was spurned by the woman he loved. Now, that may be less of a sympathetic angle these days, in light of the whole incel phenomenon (and maybe it never was all that sympathetic to folks who grew up having to deal with dudes acting like entitled creeps), but regardless, the goal was certainly to make him sympathetic, and to at least a portion of the audience at the time, it did. But the Strahd of Curse of Strahd isn’t even that. He’s not in love, he’s obsessed. He was always a brutal conqueror, and he had already been courting the dark powers by the time Sergei and Tatyana got married, killing Sergei was just the act that sealed a deal long in the making. His tragic backstory has been recontextualized to make him understandable without being sympathetic. You can see what led him to be the way he is, but there’s no longer any shadow of a pretense of that excusing him. And I think it’s the best version of the character yet. It combines the complexity of the tragic villain with the moral and narrative clarity of the irredeemable moustashe-twirler.

 

[Charlaquin]

I always think of Magneto from the X-Men comics as a great example of a complex villain. As a young man, Max Eisenhardt fled Germany to seek safety in Poland only to end up captured when war broke out and sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. Max lost his whole family to the Holocaust, and as he grew older came to fear the the growing hatred people had for mutants. So Magneto fights against Homo sapiens sapiens because he's afraid they're going to start rounding mutants up and sending them to death camps. We understand what motivates him and empathize with him even though we (most of us) don't agree with his actions. He's a great villain.

I don’t know, these days I feel less comfortable with oppressed minorities engaging in direct action against their oppressors being cast as villains…

 

[Charlaquin]

Sometimes I wonder if this is what makes Joker a good villain. He's nothing but a Villain. No positive spin possible, he's just this elemental force.

You can have characters on the other side as well, ones who have motivations, desires, goals, that are not objectively counter to the morality of the day, its just the methods, or some such.

Not Joker though.

Not that that stopped them from trying to make him sympathetic anyway with Jouaquin Phoenix’s Joker. I know a lot of folks liked that film, but I just don’t see the appeal.

 

[Scribe]

Not that that stopped them from trying to make him sympathetic anyway with Jouaquin Phoenix’s Joker. I know a lot of folks liked that film, but I just don’t see the appeal.

There can still be a sympathetic back story, but if its not really impacting the end result of being well...really just a random force of chaos, I personally dont think it fundamentally changes the perception of the character?

 

[Charlaquin]

There can still be a sympathetic back story, but if its not really impacting the end result of being well...really just a random force of chaos, I personally dont think it fundamentally changes the perception of the character?

I agree that it doesn’t fundamentally change the character. So, what is it doing? The Killing Joke gave Joker a tragic backstory, but did it with the express purpose of revealing something about the character: that he doesn’t really remember, or even care what his actual backstory is, because to him the only thing that matters about it is that he was a regular person who became like he is now because of one bad day, and he truly believes the same could happen to anyone. The Dark Knight gave a nod to The Killing Joke with his various stories of how he got his scars, and for much the same reason, because that version of the character had very similar motivations to the version seen in The Killing Joke. But the Joaquin Phoenix version? What is that backstory doing for the character? Conflating his iconic manic laughter with Pseudobulbar affect? Blaming his violent behavior on mental illness? Teasing the possibility of him being Batman’s illegitimate half-sibling? Making him sympathetic to incels? I just don’t see it doing anything useful, or even particularly interesting.

 

[MGibster]

I don’t know, these days I feel less comfortable with oppressed minorities engaging in direct action against their oppressors being cast as villains…

The X-Men sometimes take direct action against their oppressors as well but that doesn't make them bad guys. What makes Magneto a baddie is that he's working to create a world where mutants rule over humans. Given his origin it's ironic he adheres to a philosophy of a master race ruling over their lessers.

 

[Charlaquin]

The X-Men sometimes take direct action against their oppressors as well but that doesn't make them bad guys. What makes Magneto a baddie is that he's working to create a world where mutants rule over humans. Given his origin it's ironic he adheres to a philosophy of a master race ruling over their lessers.

Yeah, for sure. To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting Magneto isn’t or shouldn’t be seen as a villain. Just that he’s less comfortably villainous than I think he was meant to be. Which is always a risk when making villains sympathetic.

 

[Reynard]

The X-Men sometimes take direct action against their oppressors as well but that doesn't make them bad guys. What makes Magneto a baddie is that he's working to create a world where mutants rule over humans. Given his origin it's ironic he adheres to a philosophy of a master race ruling over their lessers.

What makes Magneto a villain is he is willing to kill innocents. He is a terrorist.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Many interesting ideas in this thread, some directly contradicting my experience, so it's obviously group-dependant.

1. Attacking the thing the PCs (and players, in fact) are invested in

Burning their stronghold, taking their stuff, killing the NPCs they are attached to... I can see that working, but I also found that it tend to have players invest themselves less in the world. "What's the point in building a stronghold if it will be razed by the next dragon?" "What's the point of getting attached to NPC X if he'll be kidnapped... several times? Let's not let the GM have leverage on us, henceforth we will be loners, going from tavern to tavern and we'll never have more than a business relationship with anyone not having the PC glow around him". Being to "heavy-handed" can make this approach backfire in the long run. I have found that having the villain just... ignore them or consider them beneath him. Not being respected as heroes is something that infuriates PCs even when they're with allies, let alone foes. PC Sherlock Holmes would immediately hate Moriarty if Moriarty was saying "Him? Let him go. Sherlock is no threat, the real threat is Lestrade, not his incompetent henchman!" Lack of respect is a strong motivator.

2. Taking their stuff...

Sure, PCs tend to have an extended notion of property rights. You took my stuff, I'll cross the world over to kill you, even if I actually got my stuff back 18 sessions ago... But it borders on another problem... the KoS problem. You absolutely need to telegraph that the big boss is above their ability to defeat when they meet him. If not, you risk them to fight to the death instead of letting themselves become prisonners & being captured. There is some sense that the GM is expected to provide CR-appropriate foes for the players. The idea (present in real life and MMORPG) that some monsters are very dangerous and can kill you easily is less present in D&D. As the system also allows large power discrepancy, half of the PCs can be dead before they realize... and even then, they might not accept defeat as a solution. Risking a TPK and campaign failure because one wanted to make the players invested with the villain is not a success. Players are prone to do reckless things.

3. Have the villain be an organization, not a single foe

This is my favorite trick. It makes confrontation possible. If X the villain is killed during session 2, before establishing his backstory, then the real leader was Y, not X. Once they have started hating the faction and his leader by extension, then it's time to let them get clues about the villain (and avoid any direct confrontation, except in a context where it's not possible to use violence (meeting in public place like the king's court). Not all villain need to be KoS by everyone, if your villain is a noble family wanting to overthrow the king, they are the king cousins before proof can be delivered and so they can basically go wherever they want and the PCs would be unwise to harass them. Il also prevent scry-and-die techniques until they discover the identity of the true leader of the organization they are fighting.

4. Make sure you give the PCs the time to get information about the villain but don't force it down their throats. There is no saddest story that the GREAT backsory of your villain the PCs didn't get the opportunity to discover because the campaign went in another direction. But there is a risk that the GM becomes too invested into his villain's story to allow the PCs to bypass/ignore it completely. It's first and foremost the PCs story, and explaining the villain backstory must be organic to the story of the PCS.

5. Make the villain plan realistic and not evil overlord-like (or have him read the list)

Single foes are easily defeated. If you want your villain to have some staying power, he must confront the heroes and escape (thanks to his henchman dying for him to buy him time). Nobody will die for a raving lunatic, even if he pays well. The servant must be convinced they are working for the greater good (ideally) or at least for something neutral. Even the mafia tries to pass as good, and blatantly terrorist organizations can have armies because the rank and file believes that they're right/doing the right thing. Nationalistic conflicts are better for this than "destroy the world" scenarios, religious, too: the villain's army must be sustained by something. Bonus point if the players can see the villain having a good point to act like that and could see themselves in the same situation as him.