Last week, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting on a panel of other GMs and TTRPG lovers to talk about a topic that I think about a lot: Villains.
The three pillars that you need to have in a good campaign are Strong Characters, Clear Goals, and Fun Villains. Strong characters allow for you to riff off of your players and create a truly joint storytelling experience, clear goals give your players a framework to improvise in, and fun villains cause just enough chaos and drama to keep everyone emotionally invested in the game.
In preparation for the panel, I was provided with a few questions to think about and I thought I would share those questions (and my answers to them) with you. I hope they spark some ideas that you can take and implement in your game.
Q: Who was your most memorable villain, and what made them remarkable?
A: It was a fae in an early 5e campaign named Old Harry. His main motivation was to become the summer king and he did not have a lot of moral issues with doing that by any means necessary. I think what made him most memorable was that he was the player's fault. I had intended for him to be a minor villain who was trapped in a dungeon at the beginning of the campaign. Someone who they would accidentally release and would be a thorn in their side but their reaction to having let this ancient evil loose and being responsible for all of this destruction really made them hate Old Harry… I should bring him back.
Q: What was the single thing that made your players genuinely connect with your villain?
A: Nothing I did. In terms of character he was pretty much your standard conniving evil vicious aristocrat. It was that every single evil thing he did was a consequence of the players letting him loose. Fixing that one original sin really became the thing that connected them to the villain.
Q: What made your villain’s goals feel like a real threat to your players?
A: I am not sure they did. It was all fairly abstract. A lot of NPCs were very concerned about the ramifications of him being in power but the players themselves were more concerned about the damage he was doing to everyday people rather than his ultimate goal. I wont say that villains goals are not important but I have found that they are almost always less important motivators for players than the villains actions.
Q: What made your villain’s motivations unique?
A: Absolutely nothing. He wanted to be in power. He wanted to dominate. He wanted revenge. I don’t think it is ultimately that important that a villain’s motivations are unique. In fact, when they are familiar it is a lot easier for players to understand the story they are working within the bounds of and it helps them build their own stories into the game.
Q: What in your villain’s personality made your players love to hate (or hate to like)?
A: I have found that the fastest way to make a player hate a villain (or any character really) is to make that character arrogant and the fastest way to make them like a character is to make that character humble. Harry was arrogant, cunning, and vicious. He played games with them and manipulated them into doing terrible things for him. After that, they could not wait to kill him.
Q: How do you allow characters to interact with your villains before a final showdown?
A: I love to have villains disguise themselves as other characters after the initial meeting. This lets you build a report and opens the opportunity for a fun and dramatic reveal later down the line.
Q: What elements that you personally don’t like or think that doesn’t work on a villain?
A: I think you can make anything work as long as people are willing to play along. I don’t like villains who are overwhelmingly powerful though. I find gods, and liches, and dragons to be a little dull. I like villains who are at the same level or maybe even a little underneath the characters. I like villains who succeed because they are clever and ruthless rather than strong. I also like making villain’s main power just being really rich. Really gives you a lot of options and opens up the ending beyond just killing them.
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