Bard of Valiant

Villains are a definite requirement to any story, whether it be an epic game or a sandbox campaign. No antagonist of any sort means no conflict and a game without conflict is just boring.

Here are some unique points of view on villains and 2 articles I recommend for advice on making them three dimensional.

Cracked.com did an article on 6 historical villains who were “actually ok guys”. I don’t know how ok they were but I pulled out some interesting concepts from the article including:

• A man who can pull all the gangs of LA together into a coherent army of evil with a single goal. (Genghis Khan)
• Make a player want to be a villain by treating him as if none of his accomplishments were of any note – ever. (Benedict Arnold)
• The guy who isn’t actually a villain but just a victim of a really nasty slander campaign. (Salieri, Captain Willian Bligh, Edward Longhshanks)
• The villain who screws up everything but has so much power that his screw-ups make every one’s life miserable. (King John)

Once you have the idea seed for your villain, go over to The Core Mechanic and read the article Anatomy of a Villain. Jonathan prompts you to ask several questions about the bad guy including:

• What kind of villain are they?
• Who are the minions?
• Who bosses the minions around?

A similar article can be found at At Will. While covering many of the same points as Jonathon,the point of view is different enough to be worth reading.

So go find a new idea and flesh it out to give your game a truly unique bad guy.