Basic Villainy
Part 1 of 7
Wolfgang Baur
The following article kicks off a limited Villain Builder series from industry veteran Wolfgang Baur. Last
year, Wolfgang delivered our much acclaimed Adventure Builder series, focusing on better design
elements to incorporate into your adventures.
If 2006 was officially the Year of Dragons, 2007 might well beat least in some partthe Year of
Villains. Looking at the online product catalog for the year, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits releases
next month, followed by Drow of the Underdark. Later in the year, Robert Schwalb delivers Exemplars of
Evil (September) and Elder Evils (December), providing specific examples of villains to use in your
campaigns, as well as advice on how to construct and play memorable foes.
In advance of these materials, we wanted to start the conversation on villains with the following limited
series. This week, Wolfgang some basic theories of villainy: what makes an evil mind tick, and why
should you care when it comes to your game. Next week, look for the second article to examine villains in
combat. We hope you enjoy the series; as always, feel free to send us your thoughts and feedback to:
dndfeedback@wizards.com.
Why Be a Villain?
Choosing a CR, class, and equipment for a villain is only half the design challenge. Motivation is the key
element for a truly great villain. And giving a villain a great motivation has the happy side effect of making the
rest of your adventure design easier.
Motive makes creating and running adventures easier in at least four ways:
For example, if a villain is a dragon who seeks to recover a gem stolen from its hoard, it might first choose
targets such as merchants and wanderers travelling between villages. It might even ally itself with a group of
bandits who promised to return its gem to it, gathering information in ways that the dragon could not. If the party
does not choose to follow the adventure hook of the bandit dragon, it might soon escalate to attacking and
looting a village or small town, with a special focus on jeweler shops. The goal is obvious: regain the gem (or
failing that, sooth the heartache of losing it by collecting other gems to replace it).
A dragon whose motive is finding a mate might act quite differently, as would a dragon seeking revenge for the
destruction of its eggs (which might burn out villages indiscriminately, and harbor special hatred for armored
foes). Motive makes them distinct.
The most common motives of a villain are all familiar from books and movies: vengeance, greed, lust for power,
abuse of authority, impersonation by evil forces, religious zealotry, and madness. Other motives are less
familiar: villains who act out of love, out of fear, shame, and out of error (Lear). Some of these make excellent
motives for adventures, specifically because they dont get a lot of play in standard fantasy item-quests.
For instance, imagine an elvish villain. This elf is a spurned lover who seeks to destroy a noble woman and her
family: he tries to impoverish her, ruin her reputation, and poison her new lover. The actions may not initially
seem directed at the noblewoman at all (the poisoning is indirectly aimed at her, the loss of money could just be
a crime of greed). Once players understand the motive in this adventure, theyll understand the villain and know
where they can confront him.
Motives to Ignore
You can go overboard with motive, of course. Not every encounter with mooks, hirelings, and minions need a
motive; some monsters are just evil and need killin. Thats usually the case for the majority of combat
encounters. Oftentimes the only combat encounters that require you to define motives, aside from the main
villain himself, are the NPC allies of the villain. For instance, a half-devil lieutenant who stalls the party may be
deceptively friendly as part of a switch encounter. Others may attack the partys mounts to slow down pursuit of
the master villain, or they may be paid informants for the villain, false friends who lead the party into danger, or
an invisible voice who tries to talk the party out of its goal. These types of short-terms goals are typical of the
real villains servants.
Types of Goals & Powers
Sometimes, the villains motive is simple, but his methods are Whats the difference between a motive and
not. Second to the creation of a powerful, useful villains are the a goal? A motive is the reason why a villain
creation of solid goals and powers. These define the villains is a psychopathic killer with reckless
abilities and make him or her a worthy adversary for the players. disregard for life and happiness. A villains
When I wrote the villains for Castle Shadowcrag, for instance, I goals are the way he shows his reckless
knew what they wanted but not how they would achieve those disregard for everyone elses life and
goals. Over the course of writing the adventure, I figured out happiness. Its the difference between
how theyd get there: I used a new monster, the shadow fey, to inspiration to act, and the specific action.
do some of the villainous work required, and gave them powers
that supported those goals.
Its not necessary to design whole new creature types (in my case, I went a bit overboard). Whats necessary is
creating a worthy adversary, a monster or NPC who has both the intelligence and the magic or class abilities to
give the party a real challenge, not just a slugfest. Flight, invisibility and teleportation are common tools, but they
arent necessarily the best for a villain; a fighter who can go toe-to-toe with the party and laugh off wounds (until
they discover his weakness) is at least as much fun as the villain who is merely hard to catch.
The tricks from Complete Scoundrel are appropriate for many villains, who love to outwit and outsmart heroes.
The Luck feats and tricks are especially appropriate for the bad guys, as they allow them to avoid critical hits or
failed saves which could end an encounter. And frankly, villains need to be lucky to survive against PCs;
Complete Scoundrel simply builds some useful guidelines around that luckiness.
The important thing to remember is that sometimes its best if a villains abilities dont pack a lot of offensive
punch, but keep a villain alive and provide leverage against his innocent victims. This forces a truly motivated
villain to rely on minions and allies, a topic Ill pick up in the next installment of the Villains series.
Conclusion
Understanding and building on the motivations of your main villain can make it easier to keep a villain focused,
and to decide how they react when the party does something unexpected. Above-average defensive powers
keep a villain alive to grow into a long-term threat rather than a one-shot obstacle.
Wolfgang Baur is plotting his elaborate-yet-ruthless vengeance even now. His escape hatch is a series of
cleverly-disguised blogs like Open Design, where he shares further design secrets.
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