RPT Newsletter #014 | 5 Tips To Creating A Truly Evil Villain

[Stephan Hornick]

5 Tips To Creating A Truly Evil Villain
From JohnnFour | updated May 20, 2021

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #014

Numerous, Non-Lethal Attacks
My new villain does not have the resources to completely wipe out the character party and still keep her other plots and plans going. So, like the mosquito, she is going to use many non-lethal attacks upon exposed areas to drive the characters as far away as possible.

Examples of her intended attacks?

• Use her minions to destroy weaker allies (i.e. those 0 level villagers the characters seem to love so much)
• Attack the henchmen so the party must carry its own stuff
• Prevent the PCs from getting rest (and therefore healing) at night (i.e. strange noises, ambushes, forest fires…)

Expected Surprise Attacks
Meaning, the players will know she’s out there, but they won’t know when or where her next attack will be until she’s already drawn a pint of blood.

More examples:

• Bribe immoral villagers and friends to betray the PCs
• Spread nasty rumours about the characters so they cannot convalesce in nearby villages or towns (i.e. they carry the plague, murderous troublemakers, seeking young daughters for wives)
• Send sneaky minions to poison the PCs food
• Endear herself to the PCs’ friends and family

Make the PCs Do Things They Don’t Want To
How many of us enjoy slopping on Off! and other chemicals? Or what about sitting inside behind screen doors on hot summer nights?

My villain is going to earn the party’s eternal enmity just by forcing them to change their plans, modify their behavior and do things they don’t want to.

Examples:

• Block paths and roads with fallen trees
• Flood the PCs’ village by damming a nearby river
• Cause the PCs to post extra guards at night
• Make the PCs check all food and provisions for tampering

Create An Annoying Itch Afterwards
Imagine how you would feel if your worst enemy performed some heroic deed and saved your friends and all you heard from them forever after is how “so and so is such a great person” and how “so and so is so brave and beautiful”?

What would you do if you found that your trusty steed has been permanently marked or branded with insults about you, in bright white paint on its rump?

It wouldn’t take much for my villain to cast a single spell and shape the stone of a local mountain into a likeness of herself to remind everybody how great she is. That would itch!


Lethal Danger To The PCs Without Risk to the Villain
Mosquitoes potentially carry deadly diseases. That element of risk turns them into true villains. And, so what if you kill one? There’s a thousand more with empty bellies buzzing closer…

It’s the same with my new villain. She has a small horde of minions whose lives she is perfectly willing to throw away. She has also done her research and knows that it is against the morality of the PCs to kill her in cold blood. Her style is to work in the background and let her flunkies do her dirty work. This means she can live in the same village as the PCs, go to the same parties and flaunt her presence without risk of retaliation. That’s evil!

 

[Stephan Hornick]

Although I believe that this does not make a villain EVIL, I do like your list.

For me, some of those aspects make up - as you write - a troublesome Mosquito Villain. I find them best combined with a grey morality and an easy to perceive human objective. E.g. the town bully who only wants to achieve recognition, but always fails.

On the other hand, you also present the Schemer Villain and the Actor Villain in the last example. These are completely different types of villains, I believe.
Especially the actor is hard to do right as a GM. It needs to be a respected person in the public face, someone no one accuses and who has done many good deeds already. The PCs will somehow get to know that he/she is evil, but there must never be any proof of it. And the word of the PCs would not suffice, would rather be detrimental to their cause. However, the fine line is how to introduce him as a villain. I believe, this is best made before the PCs meet him in a public situation, but are not successful in killing or didn't even try at that stage. Later on, they cannot anymore. He/She is always in public and people love him/her, even NPCs the PCs care about. This is frustrating for the PCs, but the players will love it, I imagine. But again, it is difficult to introduce him right.

I would love to hear some of your examples on how to introduce an Actor Villain.

To present a True Evil Villain on the other hand is a rope dancing act as a GM. You want to present the villain as bad, doing horrible things, and the PCs to hate him. But you do not want the players to hate the game or yourself. So it needs to be a combination, a hate-love or hate-respect relationship from your players' perspective. The villain can do morally horrible things like killing NPCs and poisoning whole villages, but you as a GM may never cross the line to profanity or gore or trust. You as a GM mustn't excel at the villain's deeds. You must stop before crossing the personal line of your players (which would surely include sexual harrassment, rape, killing of children, killing off NPCs/pets everybody loved dearly just for the sake of showing that the villain is evil, too gory details, intentional slow torture/killing, etc. etc.)
Further, the players must themselves have something other than hate for that villain. They may be in awe for the great things the villain can accomplish (not by sheer game stats power, but by their sly moves!), or they have respect for his clear understandable motivation, although their PCs don't share it. Whatever the case, every session is like rope dancing.
All despicable acts are evil. But True Evil lies in bringing the PCs and players to the brink of moral decisions in which both are bad. True Evil villains work great for PCs that suddenly have to choose between rescuing a henchman from the villain's clutches before he/she gets abducted and the villain flees or running to the nearby city to defend it from the hordes unleashed upon it by the villain, while the villain intentionally brought this situation to be and is laughing about the PCs' misery in decision, knowing already how they need to decide to be "good adventurers".

Whenever in nead for villains, I heavily lean on @Gerald.Lock's great overview about Villains: Goals and Motivations and regarding sly tactics on my GM tactics and stratagems, which include those above.