Villain Builder

Basic Villainy
Part 1 of 7
Wolfgang Baur

The following article kicks off a limited Villain Builder series from industry veteran Wolfgang Baur. Last
year, Wolfgang delivered our much acclaimed Adventure Builder series, focusing on better design
elements to incorporate into your adventures.

If 2006 was officially the Year of Dragons, 2007 might well beat least in some partthe Year of
Villains. Looking at the online product catalog for the year, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits releases
next month, followed by Drow of the Underdark. Later in the year, Robert Schwalb delivers Exemplars of
Evil (September) and Elder Evils (December), providing specific examples of villains to use in your
campaigns, as well as advice on how to construct and play memorable foes.

In advance of these materials, we wanted to start the conversation on villains with the following limited
series. This week, Wolfgang some basic theories of villainy: what makes an evil mind tick, and why
should you care when it comes to your game. Next week, look for the second article to examine villains in
combat. We hope you enjoy the series; as always, feel free to send us your thoughts and feedback to:
dndfeedback@wizards.com.

D&Ds alignment system and the conventions of fantasy sometimes

make DMs lazy when it comes determining motive. When I read
queries for Dungeon Magazine, Id often run across villains with
incredibly complicated plots and absolutely no motive. The
manuscript might say that the wizard is insane or the cultists are
evil, but thats not really an explanation.

Why Be a Villain?

A good villain is not planning to destroy the town because hes

Chaotic Evil. Hes going to destroy it because hes Chaotic Evil and
hes got a good reason to hate that town: they branded and exiled
him, they executed his father after a rigged trial, or just because they
laughed at his froggy familiar.

People are sneering, villainous bastards when they act in a particular

way. What makes them act that way is what makes them interesting
villains as opposed to just another goblin, skeleton, or other faceless
mook. Villains are full of powerful, albeit twisted, emotions. They
want big, dramatic things to happen, and they want them badly:
demonic summoning, war and plague, the destruction of entire cities
and nations, the slow torture of the innocent, or the death of
knowledge. Not exactly the sort of gold, food, and magic that goblins
and giants care about.
Actually, the comparison to standard monsters is very revealing.
Monsters without clear motivations arent villains; theyre just combat-shaped obstacles in the game. Villains
have plans, and the good ones also have style. Villains make the players react to them, striving to foil their
plans. They ooze bad intentions, and they have goals and the ability to reach those goals.

Choosing a CR, class, and equipment for a villain is only half the design challenge. Motivation is the key
element for a truly great villain. And giving a villain a great motivation has the happy side effect of making the
rest of your adventure design easier.

Why Bother With Motive?

Motive makes creating and running adventures easier in at least four ways:

1. It suggests possible allies for a villain.

2. It clarifies the right targets for your villain to strike.
3. It suggests what the villain does next if the adventure derails.
4. It helps players figure out the villains goals.

For example, if a villain is a dragon who seeks to recover a gem stolen from its hoard, it might first choose
targets such as merchants and wanderers travelling between villages. It might even ally itself with a group of
bandits who promised to return its gem to it, gathering information in ways that the dragon could not. If the party
does not choose to follow the adventure hook of the bandit dragon, it might soon escalate to attacking and
looting a village or small town, with a special focus on jeweler shops. The goal is obvious: regain the gem (or
failing that, sooth the heartache of losing it by collecting other gems to replace it).

A dragon whose motive is finding a mate might act quite differently, as would a dragon seeking revenge for the
destruction of its eggs (which might burn out villages indiscriminately, and harbor special hatred for armored
foes). Motive makes them distinct.

The most common motives of a villain are all familiar from books and movies: vengeance, greed, lust for power,
abuse of authority, impersonation by evil forces, religious zealotry, and madness. Other motives are less
familiar: villains who act out of love, out of fear, shame, and out of error (Lear). Some of these make excellent
motives for adventures, specifically because they dont get a lot of play in standard fantasy item-quests.

For instance, imagine an elvish villain. This elf is a spurned lover who seeks to destroy a noble woman and her
family: he tries to impoverish her, ruin her reputation, and poison her new lover. The actions may not initially
seem directed at the noblewoman at all (the poisoning is indirectly aimed at her, the loss of money could just be
a crime of greed). Once players understand the motive in this adventure, theyll understand the villain and know
where they can confront him.

Motives to Ignore

You can go overboard with motive, of course. Not every encounter with mooks, hirelings, and minions need a
motive; some monsters are just evil and need killin. Thats usually the case for the majority of combat
encounters. Oftentimes the only combat encounters that require you to define motives, aside from the main
villain himself, are the NPC allies of the villain. For instance, a half-devil lieutenant who stalls the party may be
deceptively friendly as part of a switch encounter. Others may attack the partys mounts to slow down pursuit of
the master villain, or they may be paid informants for the villain, false friends who lead the party into danger, or
an invisible voice who tries to talk the party out of its goal. These types of short-terms goals are typical of the
real villains servants.
Types of Goals & Powers

Sometimes, the villains motive is simple, but his methods are
not. Second to the creation of a powerful, useful villains are the
creation of solid goals and powers. These define the villains
abilities and make him or her a worthy adversary for the players.
When I wrote the villains for Castle Shadowcrag, for instance, I
knew what they wanted but not how they would achieve those
goals. Over the course of writing the adventure, I figured out
how theyd get there: I used a new monster, the shadow fey, to
do some of the villainous work required, and gave them powers
that supported those goals.
Whats the difference between a motive and
a goal? A motive is the reason why a villain
is a psychopathic killer with reckless
disregard for life and happiness. A villains
goals are the way he shows his reckless
disregard for everyone elses life and
happiness. Its the difference between
inspiration to act, and the specific action.

Its not necessary to design whole new creature types (in my case, I went a bit overboard). Whats necessary is
creating a worthy adversary, a monster or NPC who has both the intelligence and the magic or class abilities to
give the party a real challenge, not just a slugfest. Flight, invisibility and teleportation are common tools, but they
arent necessarily the best for a villain; a fighter who can go toe-to-toe with the party and laugh off wounds (until
they discover his weakness) is at least as much fun as the villain who is merely hard to catch.

In any case, villains should stand above the

common ranks of monsters and minions. The
usual tools are elite ability scores and AC, well-
chosen magical items, or spells such as mirror
image or create fetch, and (in the non-mechanical
category) important status or favors owed to the
villain.

Ability scores are pretty obvious; the elite array is

given in the Monster Manual, page 290. Having
exceptionally high Armor Class (and at higher
levels, Spell Resistance) simply means that a
villain lives longer in combat and has a better
chance of survival. Ill have more to say on villains
in combat in a future installment in this series, but
mention now that defensive powers are more
important than offensive ones for villains.

Magical items should be limited to one or two

defining items that help a villain get away with it.
Invisibility, heal, and non-detection powers are all
pretty popular choices. But ideally, some of a
villains toys should force the party to make
difficult choicesfor instance, using charm spells to create a group of innocent bodyguards out of villagers is a
truly villainous thing to do.

The tricks from Complete Scoundrel are appropriate for many villains, who love to outwit and outsmart heroes.
The Luck feats and tricks are especially appropriate for the bad guys, as they allow them to avoid critical hits or
failed saves which could end an encounter. And frankly, villains need to be lucky to survive against PCs;
Complete Scoundrel simply builds some useful guidelines around that luckiness.

The important thing to remember is that sometimes its best if a villains abilities dont pack a lot of offensive
punch, but keep a villain alive and provide leverage against his innocent victims. This forces a truly motivated
villain to rely on minions and allies, a topic Ill pick up in the next installment of the Villains series.
Conclusion

Understanding and building on the motivations of your main villain can make it easier to keep a villain focused,
and to decide how they react when the party does something unexpected. Above-average defensive powers
keep a villain alive to grow into a long-term threat rather than a one-shot obstacle.

About the Author

Wolfgang Baur is plotting his elaborate-yet-ruthless vengeance even now. His escape hatch is a series of
cleverly-disguised blogs like Open Design, where he shares further design secrets.

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