what motivates your villains ?

[lightful]

I thought about this a bit recently and realised that both in RL and in D&D there exists a definite dearth om possible motives.

You've got money, knowledge and love - basically with power being a sure (what is sure these days ?) way of getting any of the three when and if you should desire them.

Any thoughts ?

 

[alsih2o]

my bbeg is a lich, with revenge being his main motive. revenge on the society that exiled him into a barren desert for doing what he thought was right.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

My villian wants to save the kingdom, he just doesn't think the king is up to it and is shall we say ... morally flexible ... when it comes to the question "does the end justify the means?"

 

[Anubis the Doomseer]

Here's a list of motivations from D&D and other games (since there is nothing genre-specific to motivation):

Vampire:
- kill the "chosen one"
- subconsciously fulfill the cycle of revenge and more revenge over a broken love triangle
- get revenge on murders, find a way to make the world into what it used to be

Heavy Gear
- control the development of human society, making sure no one side overwhelms the other before you desire it

Tribe 8:
- punish those who rebelled against you, do not let them live in peace
- (insane motivation) provoke a mutually destructive orgy of violence so the survivors will worship you as a benevolent living god

D&D:
- get revenge on the worshippers of god who defeated your society
- get revenge on those who didn't treat you well enough
- try to understand your role in the greater world around you (the conflict comes when the unintended consequences of this self-discovery are "bad" for others)

Buffy:
- rewrite history by removing a dirty secret
- escape from a prison (badness comes from the efforts of allies to free you - thefts, vile rituals, murder sprees, etc)

That enough? I usually try for the more detached villains, or those with emotional motivations that can be understood by players, but still seen as being evil in their consequences. That way the villain is more believeable to my players and allows them to possibly trip up the big bad by using their motivation against them).

 

[Biyu]

My villain wants to literally rewrite history so nobody has to suffer as much as he suffered. A tormented soul he is...

 

[Shard O'Glase]

what motivates my villans?

Me, I tell them if they don't give me 100% I'm burning there stat blocks. When I say jump they say how high.

 

[takyris]

A few characters from my D&D campaign:

Revenge -- duh

General sense of anger at the world (the illegitimate son of a king, who became an evil mercenary to act out his aggression)

Moral differences -- a Lawful Neutral cleric who believed that the LG clerics were failing to keep the proper order, and that logically, removing them was the only way to keep things safe and secure. The needs of the many, after all...

Lack of understanding that people are people -- Cthulhu-esque monsters that saw people as trinkets, toys, devices, but were polite and moral with each other.

Fear -- a Lawful Evil wizard who fights demons and devils, defends the innocent, but has gotten so caught up in the royal politics that he has lost sight of his earlier goals. He now acts primarily to protect his own interests and keep his position in court secure -- so that he can keep doing "good"... He'll summon a devil and send it to kill the PCs because "They're trying to get rid of him."

Loyalty -- the LN lieutenant of a LE wizard who fights because the wizard, who saved him from a life of slavery, asks him to do so.

 

[Darth Shoju]

I won't post the motives of my BBEG in case my players read the boards. But I do have a side-story BBEG who I can talk about. He was once a powerful noble in Thasia, the kingdom the campaign is (mostly) set in. He lost a civil war bid for the country's kingship and died in the process, while his family was exiled to the border lands outside of Thasia. His desire to restore his family's rightful place in the kingdom lead him to rise in undeath as a powerful ghost. In the several hundred years of his unlife he has used the remnants of his family and their wealth to build a powerful criminal organization that has penetrated Thasia and now looks for the first opportunity to regain their family title and eventually win the kingship they sought originally.

 

[Shallown]

My last BBEG was an organization more so than an individual. Several reasons why that I hope are on topic.

Organizations are decentralized so if the kill a leader it doesn't destroy the BBEg just disrupts them.
Organizations allow for multiple motivations.
Allows for multiple adaptable plot lines giving players much more choice.
the players impact is actually greater, I think, becuase yes the can stop the whole BBEG's plan if itis one guy but if they don't they effectively lose. With an organization victories can be smaller but still effective and give a feeling of reward.

But on to motivatation. I broke my motivation up according to level in the organization. the top people are insane wishing to release the demons/devils that once ruled their world and gain power from this. They are deluded (thus the insane component) in thinking they will be rewarded by the Devils/demons who return. The next level think that they head guys have some secret means/way of controlling this flood. They have been purposely deceieved by the top tier people in this manner. These are the people who actually get things done. Last level is the grunts who don't know exactly why everything is being done but the know the money, power, revenge or whatever individual motive they have is being statisfied by working for these guys.

So you have the visionaries who are nuts
the Organizers who are being deluded
and the doers who have more base investments in seeing through the plan.

I like they way I have it set up lets me have a lot of varing motivations at the level of interaction the players operated on. Unfortunately the campaign folded for OOC reasons right before they graduated to the higher level of taking on the organizers. What a dummer.

Later

 

[lightful]

But, you see...somethiong doesn't seem quite right.
A lot of people mentioned revenge and while agreeing that The Count of Monte Cristo is a literary classic, it just doen't seem quite fulfilling.

Personally, I understand revenge and there are one or two people who I'd single out for my patented hands chopped off, shot through both knees and tongue ripped out treatment, but would that make me happy ? I'm not really certain, it might show that the world was worth living in...

Generally, all of the "set things right" motives seem a little off, there's a fanaticism there that i just don't get.