Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 68 - All About the Big Bad

Episode Date: April 11, 2021

A good villain can make or break your campaign.  How do you make villains that feel real, are well-rounded, and memorable for your players?  Come on in and take a listen. Edit:  Yes, it's a touch over 20 minutes.  I edited down and edited down and feel like I already cut too much.  I'm asking for your forgiveness for the 24 extra seconds.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Taking 20 podcast, episode 68, all about the big bad. This week's sponsor, Unrelated Stupid Jokes. Why did the chicken go to the seance? To get to the other side. Yeah, that was lazy. Don't worry, next week's won't be any better. Like, subscribe, rate, follow, all the stuff I'm supposed to lead off with, because there is no time for love, Dr. Jones. We've got a lot of shit to cover, so buckle up. I will use the term big bad or villain to refer to any of the following concepts.

The baddie, the antagonist, the big bad evil guy, etc. There are fine line differences between antagonists and villains, but I'm not going to get wrapped around the axle in this episode. Okay, in case you're curious, antagonists get in the protagonist's way, but may not be doing so for selfish or evil reasons. The nosy neighbor, the boss who insists on doing things by the book and puts red tape in the way of our heroes. You fired your gun 37 times in that firefight with the Black Rock gang. One of the shots ruptured an oil tanker. Hundreds of volunteers are at the docks trying to clean

oil off the seagulls. Turn in your badge and gun. That's an antagonist, not a villain. So when I say villain, I'm talking about the primary source of the events or situation that leads to the adventure. The evil overlord, the mastermind. Examples you could pull from include Emperor in Star Wars, Strahd in Ravenloft, Mother Gothel in Tangled, who by the way, sings my favorite villain song in any movie. The reprise of Mother Knows Best, not the original in the tower, the version in the woods when she confronts Rapunzel about leaving. Now I don't normally enjoy musicals, which is what Disney movies basically are, but that song was freaking amazing.

Obviously, I can't play it here or I'd get a copyright strike, but screw the whole let it go from Frozen. Mother Knows Best is where it's at. Fucking chills when she sings that song. And maybe just a touch of an erection. But back to villains. Ultron, Thanos, and there's more examples of villains than we can possibly name. By the way, throughout this episode, I'll be talking about Thanos quite a bit, so if

you haven't seen the MCU all the way through Endgame and you don't want spoilers, thanks for listening. You may want to turn the episode off, because a lot of spoilers are coming. By the way, I did get an email suggesting that a term that I've used a lot is a little bit sexist. Quote, the big bad evil guy. Your primary villain doesn't need to be male. It can be female or even neither. Big bad evil guy, I will admit, is an archaic term that got seared into my brain by years of role-playing games. I do apologize if anyone was offended by the term. That certainly wasn't my intention. So to avoid assigning gender in this episode, I'll use terms like villain or big bad. So let's talk about villains and the differences between writing RPG villains versus book and movie villains. A lot of times an author of a book

or movie will decide on a villain before they ever put pen to paper, before they ever start writing the story. They can use the villain as the basis for the theme and arc of the book or movie. They can use the villain as the basis for the theme and arc of the book or movie. RPG villains, though, aren't needed from the very beginning. I've started entire campaigns and not even known the name of the villain until one-third of the way through the campaign. I started with some low-level adventures that weren't related at first except for by maybe a term or a phrase. And then after I saw how the PCs were reacting to the different types of events, the big bad started taking shape from there. So what makes a good villain?

Villains are usually type A alpha dogs. Type A personalities are the ones that are used to being in charge. Outgoing, ambitious, organized, status conscious, impatient, anxious, proactive, concerned with time management. Type A personalities are often high-achieving workaholics. There's nothing wrong with running your big bad as one of those, but I've talked many times in podcast episodes about playing against type. The muscle wizard, the nerdy barbarian, that type of thing. So consider playing your villain as a soft-spoken, achievement-oriented personality type rather than an overlord built on world domination. Play them as kind or convivial even until you fail to deliver what you promised or disappoint him in a certain way.

Then he shows his evil side. There are so many great personalities for a villain. The devil, the reborn former outcast, the fanatic, the oppressor. the reborn former outcast, the fanatic, the oppressor. I use Marvel Cinematic Universe as examples a lot in this podcast, probably because I've seen every MCU movie multiple times and a vast majority of the Netflix series, and they're now on Disney+. If you've seen any of the MCU movies, think about Thanos as a big bad. Yes, he could be cruel, torturing Nebula,

murdering half the population of planets before he could ever execute the snap. But he could also be kind, shielding young Gamora from the executions of some of her people, adopting certain young ones that he takes a shine to, taking them and raising them as his own. He was almost kind and respectful of Tony Stark after their one-on-one battle on Titan. Thanos is a being with a singular conviction.

Left on its own, life on all planets will end the way it did on his. His planet wouldn't listen to his radical solution, a random lottery to cut their population in half. So in his mind, he saves other planets by reducing their population to a level that can be sustained on the planet. In his mind, all the way to the end, he is convinced he is saving the universe. Villains can have such a wide variety of personalities, though. They can be chaotic like the Joker, or unhinged like Norman Bates, eager to find his match like James Moriarty. Decide what sort of personality your big bad will have early on in the villain design process,

whether it's before the first die is rolled, or one-third of the way into a campaign. A good option for your villain is to have some sort of connection to one or more heroes. The best villains are connected to a character in some way. This connection can push the character's development and make them even better. The hero and villain could be related by blood, or their co-workers, friends, or former lovers. Voldemort killed Harry Potter's parents. Vader was Luke's father. Ego was Star-Lord's father.

Yon-Rogg was Captain Marvel's mentor and trainer. Buzz Topper's father was responsible for Kent Gregory's father's death. The movie, by the way, there is Hot Shots, and it's a great parody of Top Gun. This type of connection is a great way to add tension to your game, and you could have a great reveal moment when the relationship comes out. But I want you to go one level deeper regarding connections. Try to make them connected in their beliefs and desires. Maybe a hero and a villain, so a PC and a big bad, are connected by what they want.

The PC and the antagonist both want to abolish crime in the city. The PC wants to arrest the head of the criminal organization to pull evil out by the route. The villain is willing to nuke multiple city blocks to get rid of a crime boss. If a few thousand innocents die, well, you know, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. They want the same thing, they're just different in what they're willing to do to get it. Imagine they're connected by an ideology. They have similar political or cultural beliefs. Both yearn for a better island nation.

The protagonist believes the best way is to embrace differences in race and ancestry. The villain believes that racial purity is the route to a better nation. That example may have hit a little bit too close to home here in the United States, so let me try that again. Halflings and Cheliax are treated as slaves. The protagonist wants them to have the option to be free citizens of Cheliax or leave, whichever they prefer. The antagonist wants them to destroy and burn the oppressive system they have and kill anyone who stands in their way. A third example of a deeper connection is imagine they're connected by how similar they really are. The hero and the villain grew up in similar circumstances. Their life experiences were largely the same. They had similar types of friends.

The difference is the villain had some negative event that pushed them towards evil, whereas maybe even the same event may have hardened the PC's resolve to do good. Imagine a brother and a sister and their parents are murdered when they're young. The state splits them up for some reason to live in different households. One brother is nurtured in the ways of temperance, patience, forgiveness, and calm. The sister is raised in a home and encouraged to embrace the anger she feels and use it to accomplish great things. Same event, two outcomes. A connection between the heroes and the villain isn't required at all, and I don't suggest you

have connections from a single big bad to all of the PCs. That just strains the limits of credulity. Instead, pick one or two PCs and roll the big bad into their backstory. In one of my campaigns, and I genuinely hope she's not listening, there's a big reveal coming for one of my player characters. She's had three major bad events in her life. Her father abandoned her, her lover was murdered, and she was kicked out of her coven. Not only was the big bad involved in all three, so was the woman she's currently helping, and I can't wait for that two-parter reveal. Give your baddies motivation, goals, and a morality. Let's take these one at a time. A goal is what someone wants. A motivation is

why they want it, and both need to be defined for your big bads. A good motivation is critical to having a good antagonist or villain. They're motivated to survive, to stand out against her peers, to achieve their version of justice. Revenge against those who wronged him. A good motivation will give the baddie internal justification for the evil actions that they're taking. That motivation naturally leads to the goals of their plan. They have a motivation of revenge, so they patiently wait until their target is the weakest. That's why their goal is to explode the luxury space liner to kill the captain who stole the big bad's promotion. They're motivated by survival at any cost, so that's why their goal is to steal one of the few shipments of oxygen being sent to the colony to ensure they and those they love have what they need to survive.

Now, once you know the villain's motivation, ask yourself how far she's willing to go to get what she wants. Lie? Cheat? Steal? Would she kill? Would she commit genocide? Consider this. If your big bad was pushed to the brink and on the verge of seeing their plans come undone, what would they be willing to do? What would they be willing to give up? How far would they go to not lose their plan? This helps define your villain's morality. Give them a morality no matter how twisted it may be. Villains are best when they have some sort of a moral compass, even if it's off compared to the PCs or off compared to the rest of the universe. Thanos, for example, only wanted to kill half the population of each species.

He didn't want to commit genocide and wipe out entire species, outside of one line in Avengers Endgame, about reducing the universe to atoms to build it back up, because his plan would never work as long as there were those who remembered what came before. Throughout the campaign, try to put yourself in the headspace of the villain. Consider their moral compass, motivation, and goals to determine what he or she would do next. Next tip. Villains need a backstory just as much as PCs do. Use their backstory to justify their motives and goals. It adds complexity to your villains, gives insight as to why they believe

the way they do. The old, there but for the grace of God, go I. Or if I were there, I could have made those exact same decisions. Humanize your villains. Show why they became corrupted. Evil for evil's sake is fine. Trauma or other reason why they are cruel, ambitious, malicious, or hate-filled can help show their motivations.

The way you reveal this backstory is entirely up to you. Have clues as the PCs progress through the story or first-hand accounts by people who knew her. Files and folders on recovered hard drives or, my personal favorite, short scenes and vignettes occasionally at the beginning of a session from a godlike perspective to show PCs what they couldn't otherwise have observed. I have a doozy of a vignette written and waiting for my group running through Pathfinder Adventure Path Reign of Winter just before they have the climactic battle against the big bad. Don't over-rely on the backstory though. Use it as a base for their beliefs, but they are still acting in the here and now with goals and motivations designed to work today. Unless you want this to

be a character flaw for the villain, don't have them trapped by events that happened 25 years ago. They just use them as motivation. As a side piece of advice, don't use a mental disorder as a reason for someone to be a villain. PTSD or associative identity disorder, not good motivations for a villain. There are people who legitimately suffer from these conditions, and they don't need to be demonized in your campaign. Another tip, villains need secrets. These secrets also need to be revealed at the right time. A lie they believed, a false teaching they received,

a terrible choice they made when their options were slim, distressing experiences that were visited upon them. Secrets that maybe they would go a long way towards keeping and making sure no one discovered. Many real-life villain stories are cautionary tales of being vigilant in how we respond. Harmful and painful experiences such as shame, betrayal, loss, and undeserved mistreatment can take someone who is normally good and turn them into a villain. And a lot of times the villain is someone who could have broken some cycle of destruction if only they'd made a different choice. Give your villain a softer side. Occasionally have them be

kind to others and not just to mock others in a fake example of being kind. Have them help those less fortunate. Have them take care of an ailing relative. Villains aren't villains 24 hours a day. They should have things to do, hobbies and activities when they're not running their evil empire. Give them a garden to tend, an aquarium to take care of. They love designing capes and outerwear. They collect stamps. They watch certain TV shows. They cook. They're trying hard to perfect that breakfast pizza recipe, but they just can't quite get it right. The more normal the softer side is, the better. I apologize for this coming example because it fully applies Godwin's law to

this episode, but Adolf freaking Hitler loved dogs and liked to paint. He had hobbies. It wasn't all arm salutes, concentration camps, and leather boots for him around the clock. Even he took breaks from the horrible actions he committed and the decisions that he made. Of course, he also took opiates and cocaine and methamphetamines, and oh, he also took the lives of over six million people. He's as big of a villain as it ever existed on the planet, and he had hobbies. So leaving Nazis and returning quickly to Thanos. Thanos evidently longed for the simple life as a farmer, as evidenced in the movie Endgame.

So give your big bad a hobby, something to do other than antagonize the PCs. Have them trying to become fluent in calligraphy, love to camp, they're an avid lacrosse player, or they make delicious brine to cheese. American author Justin Cronin had a great quote, put some dirt on your hero and some sunshine on your villain. That sunshine gives your villains depth and rounds them out. Do give your big bads some distinct personality or even appearance. What they're wearing is a good trope to fall back on. How they dress. Are they dressed up? Dressed down? Are they showy? Subdued? Joker in his white face paint. Vader in his black armor and cape. Thanos was the only Titan ever seen in the MCU, so his being big and purple... Hang on. Come to think of it, I can't think of another character in the MCU that was purple. What am I missing? I'm sure I'm missing something.

Some of the Xandarians were pink and yellow and that kind of thing. Anyway, email me with any purple characters in the MCU that you can think of off the top of your head. The way Thanos was described and shown made him distinct from other characters, the heroes and the other villains. So do the same thing for your villain in your RPG story. Every bad guy believes they're the hero. They don't say so in so many words, you're not the hero, I'm the hero. But they genuinely think they are the heroes of their own story. It ties directly to their motivation. Their motivation may even be a good one, they just have a warped sense of right and wrong compared to the PCs or society at large.

I'm doing these horrible things to provide for my family, or save my tribe, or make myself better looking, or whatever it is. I'm not a bad person. They believe all these bad acts will be worth it in the end. Sure, they're murdering an emperor, which makes me a bad person, but the world will be better for it. Thanos thought he was saving the universe, and only he could do it. Quote, the strongest choices require the strongest wills. Another one of my favorite examples is Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. So well written. He's a caricature or parody of a good charismatic villain. He even keeps calling you, the protagonist,

villain and you villains multiple times. Of course, he also keeps his daughter locked up in some sort of misguided attempt to keep her from harming others. But all the way to the end, he believes he is truly the hero of the story. Tie this belief to their motivation and baby, you got a stew going. Baddies need to be strong adversaries for the PCs, at least at first. At their first appearance, they need to appear extremely powerful. Gradually, the PCs we know will grow more powerful until they can challenge the big bad. So how do you make them appear powerful?

They could beat the PCs up in battle, nothing wrong with that, but somehow the baddie leaves them alive. The PCs could learn about some of the baddie's accomplishments secondhand from witnesses. The PCs could see the baddie do something powerful and horrible, or the PCs come upon the aftermath of the baddie's actions or her minions. Make your bad guy entertaining, charismatic, maybe even likable. Persuasive, affable, laughs easily. Whether it's their black-hearted sense of humor or odious worldview, our favorite villains possess qualities that we love to hate.

Bad people can still be attractive, charitable, charismatic, even friendly. Don't have those good traits contradict any villainous traits you've already decided on. But for fun, really amp up the villain's charisma or friendliness. It makes them creepy, and I love it. Last major tip. Villains are humans too, or orcs or demons or halflings or whatever. Have your villain make tactical or strategic mistakes. For example, maybe a villain treats their right-hand woman terribly, breeding resentment that could result in betrayal during a high-stakes moment. Have them make emotional mistakes, like the villain's a psychopath and doesn't have

empathy towards anyone. Maybe they act out of emotion in a way that gives the PCs the upper hand. One of the most cliched mistakes, by the way, is monologuing. Having the villain brag endlessly and tell all the characteristics of all the parts of their plan to some tied-up hero in some misguided attempt to make them feel stupid. I would skip that one. But give your villains flaws in their plans, flaws in their personalities. Don't make them invulnerable and absolutely mistake-free, because that makes for a boring villain. Villains are the most believable when villains' mistakes stem from flaws in their own insight or awareness. Before I go, I want to make sure I call

attention to a resource I used quite a bit in this episode. A book called Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches by Jessica Page Morell. I'll put a link to the resources page on www.taking20podcast.com. In it, she discusses anti-heroes, antagonists, villains, and sociopaths. It's written from an author's point of view for authors, but the tips and tricks really do apply to RPG villains as well. If you want to learn more about writing good bads, that's a great resource. Thank you so much for listening to Episode 68, All About the Big Bad. I once again want to thank our sponsor stupid jokes

so why do we tell actors to break a leg so they'll be part of the cast my name is jeremy shelley and i hope that your next game is your best game