It's Good To Be Evil
01-20-2009, 06:41 AM
It's Good To Be Evil
by KaosTenshi
by KaosTenshi
Simple steps to making your villains⦠how to make your bad guys really bad⦠how to make villains your players will love, hate, or even sympathize with.
Are you sick and tired of the standard villain that appears in nearly every âhomebrewâ RPG? Ah, arenât we all? These villains are flat, dull, and rather than being a focal point for the storyline, they instead become âthat guy you have to fight after youâre done with the puzzles and mini-gamesâ. A dull villain can turn a fantastic gaming experience into a very âso-soâ game⦠or even ruin a game altogether. So how do you fix this? Well first of all, you should understand the villains⦠There are usually several basic types of villains.
Stereotypical Villain
First of all, you have your stereotypical villain - pure evil. This is the kind of person that shouldnât even be considered a person. He kidnaps princesses for no reasons, has cities burned, steals candy from small children and kicks puppies. He doesnât have to have a reason; heâs just evil. This kind of villain is extremely over-done, and while it may have made the cut in old school RPGs, heâs just going to seem dull these days. It doesnât mean a villain canât still be cruel, it just means that a villain has to be cruel for a reason.
The Abuse Excuse
This kind of villain grew up in a bad situation. Maybe he was born an orphan, so grew up hating rich people and rulers who turn a blind eye to the poor. Maybe he lost someone he cared about or was injured by war, so hates soldiers and war. Maybe he was just mistreated by his parents so decides to take out his anger on the rest of the world. Whatever the excuse may be, this is the kind of person with a lot of inner-pain. He needs to seek serious counseling.
Manipulation
Yes, he does evil things. Why? He does it because he wants something. It can be money, love, power, land, or any numbers of other motivations⦠but these motivations are his reasons for being evil. He doesnât act evil just for the sake of being evil, and he probably doesnât even mean to be evil⦠itâs just that everything he does revolves around bringing these dreams to realization, and he will do anything it takes to make it happen. Should some group of heroes come to try to stop him, he will certainly do his best to crush them like any other obstacle.
Plead Insanity, Type 1
Ah, beloved insanity⦠who better to write about the topic of insanity than me? Anyway⦠An insane character doesnât have to make total sense on every level, but a common mistake with insane characters is that people donât have them make any sense at all; this just creates a plot that seems shabbily thrown together. Why is the character insane? What is it that heâs trying to accomplish, and why? If you canât get these things in order, you might as well just stick with the Stereotypical Villain and save yourself the trouble of coming up with an insane laugh instead of an evil laugh (ânjaff njaffâ is already taken, people).
Plead Insanity, Type 2
â¦And then sometimes you just get characters that donât know what theyâre even doing. This can just be a case of classic insanity, or some other force can possess a character. In any case, this kind of villain doesnât even truly know the consequences of what theyâre doing, and in rare occasions donât even know why theyâre doing it. This is a very difficult kind of villain to write, but they can also become the most sympathetic; the player canât really help but say, âPoor guyâ at least once⦠this is also just the type of villain to even be killed by their own device.
The Henchman
Okay, this is a very common âsecondary villainâ⦠the lackey/maid/secretary/assassin/mini-boss battle character that is sent to terrorize the good guys at the end of dungeons and important scenes and such. The Henchman is (usually) fiercely devoted to their master⦠usually.
The Henchman (With A Plan Of His Own)
Ah, now this is what Iâm talking about! The henchman lets the so-called major villain do all the tough work and bides his time before slaying his own master to reveal himself as the true villain! â¦Or he could just let the good guys kill his master instead of needing to clean the blood out of his gloves. This type of henchman usually works extremely well doubling as the âManipulationâ type villain, while his master usually works very well as the Pure Evil or Insanity Type 1 villains.
Are these all the different kinds of villains? Well, no. The human imagination is an amazing thing⦠so naturally it can create amazing things. Your storyline and your villain are limited only by that imagination of yours.
Unless youâre working with a Pure Evil character or âinsane, working without reasonâ character, your villain must always have reasons and emotions. Often times it is just as important for the villain to be human as it is for the hero to be human. The first question to ask yourself unless youâre writing the stereotypical villain is âDoes my villain have a code of honor? Is there anything he wonât go low enough to do?â Itâs also important to establish before you start writing the script if your villain has any soft spots, as these can be written into the storyline, and even better, should be influenced by the villainâs personality or past.
Most importantly, remember one thing⦠A villain does not have to have evil intent! (Most) villains are human like the rest of us, and have goals and dreams too⦠their goals may be humane, but it can be their methods that make them the villains.
