A look at the Major recurring villain in roleplaying.

By Marc Farrimond.

Buck Rogers had one, Robin Hood had one, Superman and Batman were plagued by theirs, even Bart Simpson has one. Too what am I referring? The recurring villain of course. Since the eighth century saga of Beowulf, to the moustache twirling villain of the silent movies. The villain has held both readers and audiences spellbound. Who can forget the entrance of Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, or perhaps the unstoppable killing machine in the Terminator. From shouts of ‘He’s behind you!" in theatre and pantomime to the sheer scale of the big screen extravaganza, the major villain has all too often become larger than life, and sometimes outshines the heroes of the piece.

 

But what makes a villain? To attempt to answer that I will draw upon film, television, and literature, plus the medium of comic books . When roleplaying, a villain can make a simple adventure into a complete work of art if used correctly.

 

The villain isn't a new idea by any means. Shakespeare held his audiences in captivation with his over the top villain's. Throughout written history the villain has played a major part in the way we tell tales. Sometimes he or she is a person with an agenda, or perhaps is an unstoppable force of nature hell bent on destruction.

 

To get to grips with the villain we must take a long look at the reasons behind them. What are the goals and passions that drive them often to the very brink of insanity.

 

Moriarty the arch nemesis of Sherlock Holmes was driven by his desire to pit his intellect against Holmes, in battles of wills and wits, and not as many would believe world domination. Here we have a prime example of the major villain. Almost unstoppable and possessing a very high intelligence, and it is the latter that made him so formidable.

 

As with all fictional characters, Moriarty began his life as an idea in the mind of his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But believe it or not, many people today believe that he and in fact Sherlock Holmes were real people and not fictitious characters. This says a lot for the powerful imagination of Doyle and his creative writing style.

 

Like most writers Doyle used a character profile to create the master villain. This is a very simple process that involves working out a highly detailed background history for the character and is now common place among writers the world over. Drawing on events of the time, Doyle built up a profile of Moriaty. From his childhood and adolescence to his first encounters with the underworld of crime, everything was worked out even before Moriarty made his appearance in a Holmes story.

 

You can create a profile for all your characters in your games, and in fact some companies such as White Wolf use a character worksheet to develop your npc’s and pc’s. The first and most important thing when creating a detailed character background is be a thorough as possible. Details such as height, weight, and eye colour are pretty standard fare and play little importance in most games. But a childhood disease or incident could change a character from being just mere words on paper to a living and breathing entity.

 

One of the major things that makes villains often more memorable than heroes is their ability to survive against overwhelming odds. If you ask someone to say the first thing that comes into their mind when you mention the movie Star Wars, then the answer is nine out of ten times going to be Darth Vader. When you make your villain, make them larger than life. Don’t be afraid to go over the top, as after all the villain is more than likely going up against a whole party of heroes and needs to have a little edge.

 

So then here’s how we start.

 

1. Background: Our villain was born in a ghetto in a large city. He was the youngest child of a large family and his elder siblings picked on him as he was a very sickly child. He was somewhat a bookworm and his father used to beat him often. He grew up to become a repressed teenager, and took a menial job far below his intellect to please his overbearing parents. Working hard for very little money, he was forced to mix with the wrong people. A shining moment came when he met his first love. They married after a few weeks of courtship and she soon found herself pregnant.

 

To help pay for the small, dank apartment the couple lived in, he took a job running numbers for a local mob boss. He used his high intelligence to run a racket and fixed the books so it wouldn’t show that he was stealing from the mob. Part way through her pregnancy his young wife took ill. He needed a fast input of cash to pay for doctors fees. So he skimmed a little more off the top, but the gained the attention of the mob boss. Soon he was a wanted man and was forced to flee for his very life. He was chased through the city by the mob gunmen and ended up killing one of them accidentally. This event caused him to gain the attention of a vigilante, a man who took the law into his own hands. The hero cornered the frightened man in a disused chemical plant and by accident the man slipped and fell into a vat of toxic waste, forever scaring him both physically and mentally.

 

Now years later the man is one of the most feared villains in the annals of history. He wiped out his past completely by killing all of his family, his estranged wife, and the mob boss. And soon became a leader in the underground.

 

 

2. Development:

Now we have a background for our villain. We know about his personality and his past. It is now time to expand on this a little further and add lackeys that will act as a front line of defence for our villain.

 

Our villain soon drew the attention of other villains in the underworld. The came to him like moths to a flame, and he used them for his own needs, often sacrificing them to save himself.

 

Pushed over the edge of sanity by his disfigurement, he no longer cared for life and lived only to corrupt and destroy.

Here are some motivations for major villains:

1. Defy the Odds.

All major villains should always have the chance to escape from the heroes. A hidden trapdoor or an escape car. A bulletproof vest, or the sacrifice of a loyal henchman. No matter how he or she survives they should do so with flair and style. How many times did Freddy Kruger come back from the dead to haunt the living or Jason Voorees in the Friday 13^th series. Of course it is easier with supernatural villains than flesh and blood ones but don’t let it put you off. When played well the major villain gives the games master a chance to roleplay themselves, a rare thing for a lot of GM’s but highly rewarding and fun too.

 

2. Overuse:

The golden rule of using villains is simple, ‘Don’t over use them.’ There is nothing more likely to make a good game go stale quickly, than the overuse of a major villain. Remember the Borg form Star Trek? Just imagine how lame they would become if the USS enterprise fought them every week, a reason why they only appear once every season or so. The more they appear the less menacing they become.

 

Use your judgement when creating adventures. You don’t have to have the villain in every adventure you run, but you could have them indirectly involved behind the scenes. A major villain should have many contacts and resources to fall back on and any one of these could also cause major headaches for the players.

 

Players can get sick of pains in the butt who keep on turning up and as a rule of thumb I only tend to use a major villain once in every half a dozen or so adventures. Sometimes the players can really get off on the return of a arch nemesis, perhaps an unsettled score or just glad to see a familiar villain. The possibilities are endless.

 

 

3. Go over the top: