What makes a good book, or a great movie? More often than not, it isn’t the hero. Sure, they’re great and all but you know the saying, "Behind every good guy, there is a greater bad guy." For GMs of and other TTRPGs, this poses quite the conundrum. Every adventure that our heroes embark on must have a compelling reason for💛 them to risk th✨eir lives. In 99% of the cases, this will involve a villain of some sort. But how far should we go? And what makes a great bad guy in the first place?

What Is A Villain?

Let’s start by defining what a villain is, in storytelling terms. The villain may not be a pers♒on, or even something alive. The villain refers to, whatever it is, something that is causing bad stuff to happen. It could be a disaster of some sort, a monster꧑ terrorizing a town or an evil mastermind about to blow up the world.

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Start by imagining your heroes working as hard as they can, in a race against time to evacuate the residents of a town at the foot of a volcano. In this, the volcano is the villain using lava, poisonous gas, and hot ash to maim and 🐼kill. The non-living villa𝐆in can be that kind of straightforward threat. It could be a natural disaster - just one of those things. Or, it could be that the eruption has an extra layer of villainy beneath the surface.

Living Villains

So, how do we go about living villains? As a general rul🍬e, in much the same way... but a deeper answer will depend on how we classify the living. Typically we will have three classifications that we want to work with, note these do not necessarily tie into RPG system classification:

  • Beasts - non-sentient, ranging in size from a mouse to a small monster
  • Monsters - sentient, anything larger than a small monster. This would cover Dragons, Oozes, feral tribes of humanoids, etc.
  • Humanoids & playable races - sentient and civilized (to a fashion), humans, orcs, dwarves, elves, dragonkin, etc.

If we think of living villains in this way we quickly determine the level and types of interaction that our players can have. Beasts with zero to little intelligence and are unlikely to be reasoned with. For heroes, the only resolutions will be to kil🐎l or relocate the threat with force. Monsters are typically intelli🍃gent beings that can understand some aspect of logical thinking. In some cases, it may be simple logic and in others like Dragons there could be high levels of intelligence. Regardless, Our heroes will always have a chance to reason with their foe before any other action can be taken. With the remaining category, humanoids and playable races, these will, generally speaking, be of high intelligence and capable of rational thought. They will pose the most difficult challenge to our heroes. Their abilities will be at the higher end and will present complex puzzles and strategies that the players will have to overcome, before getting the chance to face them in the flesh.

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Making Villains Challenging

The one thing that unites all villains is the challenge. Rescue a cat, evacuate the town, prevent gnolls from killing the livestock, prevent a powerful sorcerer fꦅrom placing a country under a curse. Whatever the challenge, there must be a way to stop it. Our heroes must complete this before they can face the source, with the exception where the source is the only way to stop it. Creating a puzzle or chain of tasks/events that are dependent upon other prior tasks/events is a daunting task, but will represent at least 50% of the fun your players have. All your typical fantasy tropes will be included: following ❀a map, speaking to a mysterious stranger in the local tavern, finding a lost temple with a hidden room, lost keys to locks, etc. If you’ve seen it in a book, or a movie - use it.

When your heroes solve that problem, it becomes time to cut off the head (literally?). The bad guy, the final boss. Batman has the Joker, Superman has Lex Luther, and Spider-Man has the Green Goblin. All have a backstory for how they became the person that they are now. It c🔥ould be betrayal, their hearts were turned evil by a curse, or maybe they don’t see themselves as the bad guy - they are doing good in their eyes and doing it the❀ only way they know how. Perhaps, even, the bad guy has been brainwashed and is being used, to save her/him, and the town, the control must be broken and reversed. The back story and the actions they are taking now will determine what the heroes do.

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We also need to consider our bad guys' abilities. What can they unleash upon our heroes? What actions can they take?ไ Choosing their combat (physical or magic) actions and also some storytelling descriptions to go with them will help you during the fight. No need to think on the spot. If/when they hit, a quick roll of an extra die and a lookup table could quickly tell you how they have inflicted 🌠damage, i.e. “He lands a swift knee to the chest as they jump, bringing their hands down on the back of your neck.  Winding you as you fall to the ground, you gasp for breath.”

The who and the why is 50% of making a believable bad guy, regardless of it’s living status, and whether it is beast, monster or human. Get this right and your players will get excited for what's to come. The other 50%, is down to solving the 𝓰challenge and the final boss showdown. Before you sit down to play, choreograph the combat in your mind and through different scenarios. Think of the physical moves that could be 💃made and countered. The leg sweeps, the swinging from the chandeliers and the force a mage can exert as they wave their hands to cause a chair to fly across the room. Look at the steps the hero must take to get to the bad guy. Whether it is to traverse a maze, play wizard chess, or something different, this all adds to the adventure and the lead-up to a great final encounter. Happy Dungeoning.

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