7 Tips to Better Villains
Players in my D&D games almost universally consider me to be a particularly evil bastard (my wife included). It’s a skill that I’ve honed over the years. After all, being a good antagonist goes hand-in-hand with being a good DM. More than anything, however, I find that gaining the title of “evil bastard” is all about having a good villain. Here are my seven tips to creating a better villain in your campaign.
- Good guys make the best villains. Nothing stirs player hatred quite like betrayal, be it on a personal level or simply a betrayal of principles. If it’s possible, get the party actively involved in your villain’s fall from grace. By making them partially responsible for the villain’s existence, you make them feel responsible for his crimes and that much more committed to stopping him.
- A good villain isn’t untouchable. Remember; your players are the stars of the story. Don’t make your villain so powerful that they don’t pose a threat to him. Make him challenging, even oppressive, but not untouchable. That way acting against him isn’t a seemingly futile prospect.
- A good villain is evil by choice. Someone forced to commit wicked acts against his or her will is a victim, not a villain. Someone who chooses the path of evil, however, is much easier to despise. It’s okay for the party to understand, and perhaps even empathize with, the villain’s decisions; just don’t make those decisions easy to forgive.
- A good villain acts by proxy. Until the climax of the story, your villain should never be in real harm’s way. Send proxies to do your villain’s dirty work. After all, they’re expendable; your villain isn’t.
- A good villain forces hard decisions. Stop the villain, or stop the forest fire he started to distract you? Kill the villagers he infected, or let them spread the plague to others? A good villain will actively put the party into situations like these where the consequences of either choice could be disastrous.
- A good villain finds creative ways to torment the party. Sending wave after wave of minions after the party is a natural part of villainy, but it gets boring if that’s all you do. Have your villain attack the party’s family or allies, defame them in the next town over, curse them, put a bounty on their head, etc. By harassing the party from many different angles, you keep them on their toes.
- A good villain is never truly defeated. Although your villain shouldn’t be unkillable, he should have a contingency plan for nearly any situation. Naturally, he’s there to be thwarted, quite likely numerous times, but the fat lady shouldn’t be singing for him until the very climax of the campaign. Even then, leaving a twinge of doubt about his demise is a great lead-in to another campaign.