Villians:

One thing I haven't seen much of in gaming is the use of the villain as a concept. Certainly there are 'baddies', but an oddity of gaming that I've observed is that players are often uninterested in the motivations or interests of 'baddies' and will quickly take the first opportunity to stab said baddie in the face without blinking.  Perhaps its an artifact created by most players (In my experience) getting started with D&D, where most face stabbing involves monsters that probably don't even have proper names, much less identities beyond 'Kill player Character', and the complexities of Dungeon Ecologies is reduced to a humorous punchline.  THere are always four orks in room 3b. You can wait until the universe dies a heat death, and there will STILL be four orks in room 3b, unless your players run in there and stab them in the face.

Plenty of games and groups move beyond Room 3B, but they never seem to get past the pavlovian conditioning that those four orks will still be waiting for them to walk through the door.

Of course there are two reasons why more complex, compelling villains than the Orks of Room 3b never seem to manifest.

The first is that Players are inherently genre savvy, and GMs always forget that. The moment that a recognizable bad-guy shows up, as he often does in literature and film, to establish himself as an interesting character, the PCs will, absolutely and remorselessly stab him in the face. Because even if the die to the inevitable legal repercussions of senseless murder, if the big-bad of the adventure dies, they win.  

The second is, honestly, most people are shit writers who have no idea how to make an interesting and compelling villain. If that includes you, don't feel bad... you too can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (or more!) writing for blockbuster hollywood movies.  Hell, JK Rowlings is one of the richest women in the world and Voldomort is about as deep as a wet fart when you get right down to it.  Her actual compelling 'villain' turned out to be one of the good guys.

Almost inevitably creating a compelling character of any sort, including the villain, comes down to motivation. This presents an unanticipated third problem, which is that Players rarely get invested in game worlds beyond some sort of keeping score. To them it doesn't matter if Oceania beats Eastasia in the war, because either A: One side is clearly the Evil Nation which will never actually win because that would mean an end to the Game World (and ergo a hard reset) or B) If neither nation is clearly Evil, then the next game they might be on the side of Eastasia!  Almost by definition,  Nothing Really Matters because its all wishy washy make believe.

I need to point out that ever piece of fiction ever has had to overcome this exact same problem.

So how do we get Players to invest in the Imaginary World enough to care about the Villain's reasons for his villainy?  

That is an interesting question with many possible answers... which isn't the same as saying it can't be answered.  

One of the simplest is to eliminate that game logic of the Player Characters as Protagonists.  The idea that events occur on the PC's schedule is one that has been written into the DNA of GMing since the early days of Gygax, and it is a problem.  The Goblin Horde isn't waiting to attack Homlet until the PCs arrive to stop them.  Call it the clockwork universe concept, the idea being that the Players will be more invested in being proactive if they learn that fucking off and doing their own thing means missing out on the adventures behind offered to them, because those adventures won't wait on them.  

This idea of always having scripted events occur exactly at the right time, when the PCs happen to involve themselves is in some ways necessary, but is so ridiculously overused that it ruins immersion.  Goblins preparing to Raid Homlet? Eh, we'll go check out that mountain cave for a few weeks to get some loot and levels and deal with them when we get back.  

If the PCs return and find Homlet has burned in their absence it helps create more of a sense of immersion.

Another technique for getting players invested, one I've actually had used against me by GMs in the past, is to tap into that point-scoring/loot collecting mentality.  Before introducing your 'Big Bad', or the existential threat to Oceania, have friendly NPCs offer the PCs business investments, or let the found churches and monasteries or mercenary bands... get them involved in some way shape or form in the local landscape.  Suddenly the idea of Oceania being burned and conquered by Eastasia MEANS something to the Players, since it means they'll lose all that loot they've invested in Oceania.  Moving to Eastasia to set up shop there instead doesn't solve the problem, since Eastasia might be threatened with destruction instead.

By whatever means you get the players invested in the game world, immersed in the world, once you have that suddenly they might actually care about your villain and his motivations, which is, of course, what we wanted.

But first lets talk about Active and Reactive Characters. When your PCs decide to go hunt down the local dragon to take his gold (or maybe to take his scales to make magic armor) they are being Active. When the Dragon attacks them while they are camped in the woods they are being Reactive.

In general Active Characters are much more interesting than Reactive Characters.  

In a GAME one of your goals should be to make your players more ACTIVE.  Ultimately this lies at the long running complaints against 'railroading' GMs.  Active players are immersed, they can come to care, especially if the world around them, the NPCs that matter are ALSO Active.

Ah ha! I hope you just said.

That's just it: The Villain (really any main NPC in your world) is more interesting when he is Acting rather than Reacting!  What that means is that his motivation should never simply be to react to what the PCs are doing.  In a more complex view his goal (his motivation) could very well be to Thwart the PC's plans at every opportunity, but his efforts to do so should be pro-active rather than re-active.  That's not an easy way to go about it, so lets look at a simpler method.

What is his goal?

This is one place where all too often writers, professional or otherwise, fall down... and so too do GMs.  All too often the Goal appears to be 'Do Evil'. This is particularly obnoxious in D&D lands, and High Fantasy in general. Yes: Sauron is a highly recognizable villain whose main goal appears to be 'Be Evil', though that is incredibly reductionist.  The truth is that LotR is littered with more immediate villains, all of whom have their own personal motivations and goals, many of which are orthogonal to the goals of the heroes.   The Ring Wraiths don't care about Hobbits, they just want the Ring. Boromir isn't even a 'Bad Guy', but he so desperately wants the Ring because he believes it can save his people. His father is just mad with grief, Sauruman tried to use the tools of the enemy to beat him and fell unwittingly into a trap...

In all cases it is the ACTs of these characters that drive the plot, not their reactions, and while Frodo reacts to their actions, he constantly has his own Goal he is pursuing.

And that is where all of this is going.

A compelling bad guy should have his own personal goal that has little, or nothing, to do with the PCs, but nevertheless brings them into conflict.  Its not necessary for EVERY bad guy, but most of them, certainly.  Indeed, its actually useful for the Bad Guy to not actually be Bad.  Making the King of Eastasia a cackling Ming the Merciless rip-off might be amusing, but its not very interesting.   Making him desperate to secure Oceania's fertile farmlands to feed his people after a blight destroyed half Eastasia's croplands makes his sudden invasion more meaningful... and might offer more options (options are good, yo!) in how to end the war other than simply 'stab all the faces', though 'stab all the faces' should always be considered when dealing with PCs.

Of course, there is a small risk of making the villain too sympathetic. That is a good problem to have, however.

For a slow burn it can be very useful to humanize the villain early on, before the PCs have a reason to stab his face (genre savvy or not...).

Consider this crude example:  The PCs are setting up shop in Homlet in Oceania, building a sort of Adventurer's Guild (They are the only members, sure, but its a useful tool for dealing with local politics).  During one of their adventures they discover that the Undead Goblin King driving all these attacks is cursed and can be defeated only by the sword of his first love, the long dead elvish princess Zelda.  After some digging they discover that the sword is the prized possession of the Gnoll Pimp, Zukerborg, and as they are planning their assault on the sewer base of the Gnoll Pimp, a messenger from Zukerborg arrives, inviting them to a meeting.  They go, expecting an ambush or trap or somesuch, but instead Zukerborg offers them the blade as a reward if they'll do something for him.... free his sister from the Goggle-Gnomes.

Again, they do, fully expecting the clearly evil Zukerborg to betray them, but he gives them the sword along with some treasure, and they go on to kill the Undead Goblin King with the sword of Princess Zelda.  Not only that, but they find that Zukerborg's network of beggers and prostitutes is a great benefit to their Adventurer's Guild, giving them access to political secrets, hints of other adventures and so forth.  In fact, Zukerborg himself becomes a regular feature of the campaign, almost a Huggy Bear for the PCs.

Then, after a year or so, Zukerborg becomes the villain.  He discovers an ancient prophecy that predicts that the Gnolls will have their souls consumed by Yenoghu if a Gnoll princess bearing the sacred mark isn't sacrificed to him on a certain day. It happens that Zukerborg's Sister is that Gnoll Princess, and worse: After rescuing her from the Goggle-Gnomes, the party grew attached to her as an NPC, she's been living in their Adventurer's Guild, doing research and minor rituals on their behalf, and even secured the Allegiance of the Easter Gnoll Island packs in the Party's political manuevers to protect Oceania from Eastasia.

And Zukerborg flubs his first attempt to sacrifice her, attempting to lure her away, but the party is warned that someone is after Gnoll Princess Link, their friend, by one of the Gnoll Prostitutes, who doesn't know the identity of the would be killer.




Ok, so that went a bit long, but you can see: Zukerborg is a badguy, but he's a likeable bad guy with a relationship with the PCs set up before he starts any proper villainy. The party has a motivation to protect Gnoll Princess Link, and Zukerborg's reasons for his Villainy is actually quite understandable.

I dunno about you, but to me that seems a lot more interesting than 'lets go kill the Gnoll Pimp because he's evil and worship's demons'.


What about you? What ways do you have to spice up your games?

If you want an RPG villain to be interesting and complex, then the party has to deal with the villian's actions without encountering the villain directly. If they meet too soon, the villain won't have time to catch their interest before drawing their attacks.

This is frustrating, but sometimes it can become darkly humorous. Had a bad guy in Shadowrun that came to a meet with a concealed suicide vest linked to his biomonitor. Essentially, if the guy got geeked, so did everybody within several meters. Players being who they are didn't even pause to negotiate and ambushed the guy in the warehouse. They killed his bodyguards quick (everything in SR dies quick) and before he can warn them not to harm him if they know what's good for them, one PC puts two rounds into him. BOOM! Dead bad guy, two dead PCs, and the McGuffin gets destroyed.

Very simple: Lower the Stakes, Make Variable the NPC Reactions.

If the stakes are always the end of the world, and the only sane negotiating posture is fight to the death, then ipso facto the PC responses will match the stagnant (and uninteresting) NPC setup.

This issue was acknowledged and fixed from the very beginning of RPGs with different game motivations and Reaction Tables. It was forgotten because the rise of tourney module sales outside Conventions set the baseline suggestions on module play options into assumed best/only practices. You change it by changing the adventure module template into new ways that walk new GMs through exciting setup alternatives.

(also, that was for the first half of your post, as it is very long and I wanted to reply before I forgot what I was thinking. )

OK, finished the other half...

So your suggestion is explore Contextual Grayness. Make those who disagree with PCs more than 2-dimensional evil. Good.

In fact, that is advice for In Nomine, angels & demons rpg, especially since all day murder death is NOT a viable solution. Demons have other motivations beyond 24/7 wickedness, and angels vice versa. They have other likes and hobbies. They have different agendas, and different approaches, and different intensities...

They are, for an analogy, just like PCs -- they wanna win, but they wanna relax and enjoy, too. NPCs are fleshed out by giving their personality weight, having emotional degrees in their priorities and responses. Good topic, good topic.

The problem with what you describe (IMHO) is that then villains basically become DM characters, where the game revolves around their actions and the PCs constantly reacting to what your character is doing.

All excellent comments.

Some of D&D's features work against players meeting the villain early or often; someone's going to use magic to detect alignment, or disguise, or thoughts, and act accordingly. Or the villains are always tremendously ambiguous, until they pivot into a lot of evil (which does fit one of Spike's examples, but is tedious if it becomes the common pattern just as always facestabbing does). And sometimes it ends up feeling like illusionism; it turns out the gentle astrologer who sleeps during the day is actually a vampire, but the DM worked so hard at hiding this that players feel suspicious that a paladin's divine sense wouldn't have worked the first time they sought him out for a divination spell. Modules sometimes have an arbitrary "no magic, even a wish, can reveal the fact that ..." which undercuts the players' understanding of the rules; or there's handwaving about how it's just rude to detect alignment or whatever. (Other games may have less issue along these lines, as the magic does not extend to powers that solve mysteries without investigation.)

Keeping the villain at a distance helps with those sort of problems, but makes it harder to develop a connection to the villain. Intermediaries (who may be duped by the villain and unaware of the villainy) are useful, in the same way that the PCs may be representatives of whoever hires them for missions.

It's beneficial to have things happen that are not driven by the players, and not just to start an adventure. But too many villains or not-quite villains or rival heroes or whatever all doing stuff at the same rate that the single party of PCs can leaves the player feeling like they're spectators living in a World in Frenetic Motion.

I've always used villains in campaigns, and I'm cool when PCs stab them in the face.

My solution is to make Villains hard to stab in the face, either because of their level, inherent abilities, or social status. AKA, if YOU know the king has been replaced by a doppleganger by a secret cabal of nobles, its hard to just waltz into court and roll initiative...and win. Instead, the PCs might have to even work for the villains to gain access to their secrets before they can make their move.

Also, I like multiple villains with competing goals....cuz sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my very dangerous and risky ally. That's always fun.

Rawma is right about the World in Frenetic Motion. It's cool when PCs discover plans in motion, but too much motion produces vertigo and players feel lost in the shuffle.

Quote from: JeremyR;1070373The problem with what you describe (IMHO) is that then villains basically become DM characters, where the game revolves around their actions and the PCs constantly reacting to what your character is doing.

Then you and I have not successfully communicated.  The entire point of my OP was to work up to the concept that the Major NPCs AND  the PCs should have their own goals, and the NPCS becomes the 'villain' not even necessarily because he is evil (though I did point out that my example Gnoll Pimp was always an evil NPC, but that his actual 'villain goal' wasn't driven by his evil, but opposing a greater evil...), but because the goals of the PCs and the NPCS are mutually exclusive to one another.

That is a far cry from having entirely passive, reactive PCs... which the entire first half of my post was a damn screed against in the first place... and not at all the same thing as having a 'cooler than thou' NPC hanging out with the party on their adventures showing them up in the fights (I believe I even said that NPC plot McGuffin was... hanging out at the base doing support shit, not adventuring... so I'm not at all sure where you could have gotten  GMPC from there.)

Its almost like you skimmed it, looking for ways to mis-read what I posted! That or you just hate the idea that any NPC in an RPG be more complex than an 8-bit sprite in an 80's era CRPG, just endlessly standing there, willing to give quests at any time, day or night, and utterly ignored by monsters because they only exist to respond to queries for quests and hand out bags of gold and XP...