You know the old saying: “Villains, we love to hate them.” I don’t buy it, not for a minute. We love our villains. When Darth Vader, Loki, or even Plankton are on the screen, we can’t take our eyes off them. It’s not that we admire their evil deeds, but there’s something magnetic about their confidence and scheming. So how do we bring those kinds of central villains into a roleplaying game.
In this article we’ll look at the advantages of having one main villain in your campaign, and also some of the concerns if you go that route. Campaigns aren’t exactly analogous to books, movies or television series. They have some special considerations to note.
ADVANTAGES
A central villain, introduced early in the campaign, can give a unifying feel to the game world. Players get to put a face to evil almost right away, and have a reason to come back session after session. They want to defeat someone specific, not just vanquish nebulous evil forces. (Or nebulous good forces, depending on your focus). For example, in the original Star Trek, leaders like Kor, Koloth, and Kang stick with us longer than your average Klingon soldier. In one of my campaigns, they hated our villain, the Autumn Queen, so much so that one character was willing to sacrifice himself during the final confrontation.
Central villains can also help provide a theme to your campaign. Perhaps in your fantasy world the central villain uses their minions to create slave villages. Fighting to restore freedom can be the theme for your players’ characters (PC’s). Maybe your villain is searching for ancient powerful artifacts. The PC’s can make procuring, securing, or destroying such artifacts their mission in life. Indiana Jones got four movies out of this exact theme, and Lara Croft got two so far.
Central villains also make things a little easier for you as the GM. You don’t have to keep creating new threats session after session. Think about the central villain’s main goal (enslave all the elves, collect all the pieces of the Sword of Kadula, capture all the scientists needed to create the superweapon, etc…). Then consider the possible steps needed to meet those goals. Plan your sessions around those steps, always making sure that the PC’s have the chance to disrupt those plans. There’s a reasonable length campaign right there, and the central villain can help it remain in your players’ minds for years to come.
CONCERNS
As stated before, games aren’t like other fiction. There are some special factors you’ll need to think about before implementing a central villain. First, the focus of a game session needs to be on the PC’s almost all of the time. In fiction, you can cut to the villain plotting, scheming, and torturing in their lair or starship. That’s usually not practical in a game: PC’s would then by privvy to information they would otherwise not know. Unfortunately, your central villain’s best scene-chewing monologues may have to take place off-stage.
You may need to keep your central villain offstage for another, very practical reason. You don’t want the players to kill or capture them too soon. If you’ve done your job, your players will hate your central villain. Every time you bring them onstage, the PC’s will be looking for the quickest way to neutralize them. If you’d like your central villain to stick around a bit, they will have to work through minions much of the time. Now, one option is to have them teleport to safety at the end of every session, but that can be frustrating for players. Skeletor could get away with it, but you probably can’t. (Unless you are running a He-Man game. Which you totally should. Please invite me, too.)
Another question to be asked is how does the central villain get ahead? Unless you want your players to lose frequently, they will be disrupting the villain’s plans on a regular basis. Imagine if Darth Vader and the Empire were constantly prevented from acquiring the technology they needed to build the Death Star. If you want the finale of your game to involve a Death Star, they’ll have to build it away from the party.
A final concern involves your villain’s popularity. A good central villain can be a tough act to follow. When the villain is finally defeated for good at the end of a campaign arc, what do you do next? You may not want to just rush in and create a new central villain. Create some small-time opponents and see if any of them stick. Try some smaller scale adventures for a while. Don’t rush the players into a new adversarial long-term relationship on the rebound. Let them have coffee with a few different ne’er do-wells first.
CONCLUSION
A strong central villain can add a lot to a campaign, but it shouldn’t shackle you as a GM. There’s nothing wrong with having opponents not connected to the central villain, or running side treks that have nothing to do with the Big Bad. If you listen to your players, they’ll tell you how badly they want to take the fight to them, or whether you need to switch gears and take your campaign in a different direction.
Have you used a central villain for any of your campaigns? Do you avoid them for the reasons listed here, or other reasons of your own? Let us know below. (And watch your back, can’t trust that Skeletor for a minute).
I’ve used a few central villains over the years, but have forgotten key elements (like keeping him off screen!), resulting in the villain’s villainy getting cut short.
Bryan did an excellent job with Sith lords in our Star Wars games. Their minions were active, and they were present enough to taunt us, but didn’t fall early. They were great motivation.
I love villains in positions of power; the evil king’s guards’ harassment doesn’t involve the evil king on screen… but the players know who’s at fault!
Scott, thanks for the perspective. Recurring villains (and recurring minions) also help the players build a real hatred. I have a group of “Dawn Kings” in my campaign now, may even let them kill one of them in a week or so.
Gotta make some progress. Thanks again for the thoughts.
Thank you Scott! Lianne aka Darth Treya was the spider at the center of a very large web. She was very much the manipulator and guiding force behind all that the Sith Triad was hoping to accomplish. There were so many awesome things going on behind the scenes in the power struggle between her and the other two Sith Lords of the triad. Of course I couldn’t share any of it lest I spoil the player’s side of the story. It would make for one hell of a novel or movie.
Lianne had so many minions it was easy to keep her insulated from direct confrontation until the climax of the adventure on the Ithorian space station. In a level-based system like Saga Edition the delay was also necessary mechanically. Your PCs needed some experience before that confrontation or it would have been brief and brutal. So much went right in that campaign and my players deserve their share of the credit.
I think henchman, minions, or whatever you want to call them are important to keep key major villains from getting the focused attention of the PCs too early. This is good for the players as much as the villains. For example in the first series of the Star Wars campaign, the major villain was Dronos, a Sith Apprentice, and he had a student named Ethan. But Darth Agonon was the power behind Dronos and Lianne was just another part of the equation. Lianne and Agonon were unknown factors behind the scenes until series two.
Required viewing: The Usual Suspects.
If you haven’t seen it, do NOT wiki the plot, just download it and watch it in one sitting.
Then.
Watch it again with your foreknowledge, this time keeping your eyes open and your ears pricked up.
Then.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
Do it all again with the insight that ssentiw elbailernu na si ruetnocar eht
Warning: this can be a time-sucking recursive process bar none.
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
END OF SPOILER
Now you are ready to start working out how to use a major villain through his minions in a campaign.
Situations, where your PCs meet the actual villain in person without being able to kill him need to be carefully tailored.
There is the obvious physical separation (opposing sides of a chasm/torrent, talking to the PCs via videophone etc.), which might render direct attacks impossible. Yet, social rules might work just as well – if both the PCs and the villain are guests of honour at the king’s dinner, they might refrain from open attack. Or maybe the PCs get a shot at the villain, but he’s with his sad little daughter…
And in cases where you want to implement more “hands on villains” instead of the evil overlord/genius/god, maybe try the following procedure: In the beginning, the PCs witness the bad guy(s) doing some evil, but without direct/personal connection to the PCs. On the next encounter, the PCs understand that the bad guy(s) actually are after them, but they are a lot stronger and the PCs barely escape. On their third encounter, the PCs have gotten significantly stronger and the confrontation ends a draw. At their fourth encounter, the PCs are very confident of being able to defeat the baddies, but then some situations arises that forces the PCs to cooperate with the enemy. The fifth and final encounter will be the epic showdown.
By the way, I find it perfectly reasonable to “cut to the villains secret lair” in an rpg. Communicate clearly the change of scene and let the players play the role of the villain’s prisoners/luckless generals/whatever so they can interact with him. That way they will get to know and learn to hate him. Just don’t reveal any secrets you do not want the players (!) to know at that moment, like the villain’s vulnerability to cold iron/etc.