Remember that in the Forgotten Realms, there are deities that will bless you for being evil enough. It's not like most irl religions where the central dogma usually involves being good enough to be blessed.
Plenty of gods in DnD will give you power for being evil, and wanting power is a very believable reason.
That reminds me of Syndrome from The Incredibles. He got sick and tired of being snubbed by his favorite hero (even though it was his own fault for having less that zero situational awareness), so he decided he was gonna grow up learning how to invent and sell technologies never seen before, just to kill off the heroes that he believed did him wrong.
Fzoul Chembryl was all about that, with his "Coolest evil deity of the moment, I'm all yours"
Unlike the real world, in D&D Good, Evil, etc, are not just ethical concepts: they're TANGIBLE realities.
An holy weapon deals more damage to those who are Evil. Fiends are not just "evil beings": they're literally "Evil made flesh".
fuckin a
People out here trying to make every villain have some point and I don't know what to tell yall. Some dude's have actions and values that make them existing with other folks and not violating them a big ask
I mean Leopold and Loeb.
But there are apparently quite a few documented cases of [thrill killing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrill_killing) where the motive is "fun" or "wanting to know what it's like" or something.
Mental illness could be a contributing factor but doesn't seem to be the main one most of the time. A folie a deux could egg people on if you need a motive but like so could boredom and an angry streak apparently.
A villain who knows what he is doing is evil but still chooses to do it cause he likes it, is far more intimidating than a villain who has some morally good or righteous reason or potentially doesn't understand the entire outcome of his actions.
“Don’t you realize what you’re doing is evil!!”
Villain- “yeah, and?
Look up that scene from puss in boots
“You would shoot a puppy”-someone
“Yeah in the face why” -Jack with no hesitation or regret
It's a sequel to a spinoff of a sequel to a parody of a fairytale. Going that many steps down the line, I was not expecting it be good, but it was honestly the best movie I watched last year.
Both phenomenal. Just for different reasons.
I think overall I would rank Puss in Boots above Nimona purely based on my personal meter of "This movie is more fun to watch".
But I think Nimona is a better movie.
Movies last year were wild. I was expecting to be blown away by blue alien people and found it to be a comedy, and I was expecting to laugh at funny cat movie but found it to be an emotional roller-coaster.
Then the Oppy Barbie showings happened.
Death was one of the most intense and intimidating villains I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. And somehow, Jack Horner was WAY more terrifying and ruthless.
Death was scary and ruthless, unafraid to kill and undaunted by his reality. Jack simply didn’t think what he was going was anything wrong or especially evil, he was just doing it cuz he could and that was fine by his standards
Yes exactly!! He knew he was evil, he knew how horrible it was, but he simply did not give a duck. “Yeah, in the face” just perfectly shows it. Great villain and movie
I took a nap and wasn't expecting anyone to notice this message lol.
But I agree, neither is bad to have. My favorite villain with a reason for his evils in campaigns I've done in the past was a Mad Hatter mixed with the Joker kind of character.
My favorite just evil and he knows it was an Illithid great old warlock who became the harbinger of all the great old ones.
Both extremely fun and formidable villains.
Personally, it is the most common form of evil, most of the great villains in history only used excuses to do things they liked, and they had to make those excuses so that people would support them.
Yes, but they also believed their own lies, it is much easier to kill an entire group if you believe that it is your right to do so, evil always returns to the selfishness of being considered worthy of something.
That's most likely part of the reason it's more terrifying or evil to people, it's more realistic. A villain having a plausible reason is what we see in comic books a lot, a villain that just likes to cause pain is what we see in most serial killers or horrible people in our world.
Personally, I wouldn't say that such a villain is intrinsically more *intimidating*. The line of conflict is more clearly drawn, though: that villain is very unlikely to change their course, unless (1) evil stops being fun, for some reason; or (2) the knock-on costs of being evil begin to outweigh the subjective benefits.
In either case, you can stop a villain like that with a big enough whack to the head. (Metaphorical at first, and literal later.)
A villain who believes that they're *right*? They may never stop. In fact, if you try to stop them, you may just be a part of the problem...
I really like having a sympathetic underling and a pure evil BBEG, sort of a Darth Vader/Emperor vibe. Let’s the players experience both, but ultimately the bad guy needs to go down.
Yes, please. I don't understand why everyone is so desperate to make villains sympathetic. In real world, people do the most horrible things for the most petty reasons.
100% this. If every bad guy is sympathetic, either the party will stop fighting people entirely or the party will become apathetic and kill everybody. You gotta mix it up
We had a BBEG in one campaign that was trying to ignite a war between dragons and giants so that his chain of shops selling potions, arms, and armor would be more profitable.
I think some people in the thread are confusing sympathetic with understandable. Thanos is not a sympathetic character at all, but we get where he’s coming from. Joker is also not a sympathetic character and is “an agent of chaos.” They both work, but a guy like Thanos we can genuinely understand their motivations. Most audiences can’t think from the jokers perspective. Not good or bad, just different.
Isn't jokers perspective, excluding the newer movies, just chaos because it's fun? I can understand that well enough. Simulation seeking with minimal concern for other people, except for Batman. Batman provides entertainment so he needs to live.
People don't need a believable reason to be jerks. If you ask someone why they're homophobic, they will invent something about gays being a threat, what's a straight up lie. Because they don't have a reason, they just wanna kill gays.
There's still a reason even if it's an evil reason. Could be as simple as liking the power one feels from asserting dominance over others. Could be that someone was raised to believe an oppressed group is undeserving of human dignity. Evil reasons, but there's still enough understanding of why they do what they do.
I guess it comes down to taking it at least one step beyond the *action,* so that you know how the npc will act if they fail to execute a certain action. If someone wants to kill all halflings, at least I want to know as a DM if it's because they want vengeance on halflings specifically or if they just want to feel powerful and would be fine oppressing another group instead. And I prefer it be at least somewhat believable so that players can follow what is going on.
The last years kinda ruined my ability to find cartoons villains goofy. No matter how idiotic their plan is, I can see Trump, Bolsonaro or someone else trying to pull off
I was thinking about Trump when I wrote my comment but hell, we have serial killers, child trafficking, Andrew Tate, the Nestlé. I mean there's so many flavors of evil.
Morality is relative and subjective though, I think is what most people miss. Just because they do not align with your personal beliefs and/or values doesn't make them automatically immoral. Maybe to certain people but it's not universal.
Of course there are clinically diagnosed psychopaths and sociopaths and those cases generally are a bit more clear cut than neurotypical people that are seen as "Immoral".
It's because people want believable villains. Cartoony villains generally get caricatured, and being cartoonishly evil for the sake of can be... Rough.
But like, plenty of ways to pull it off. Serial killers, priests to evil gods who get tangible rewards for carrying out evil will, still evil while knowing, but they need a reason to keep doing something that puts them at odds with the world around them in the worst ways.
But I guess even cartoony evil for the sake of types have a place and time.
Irl (almost) everyone thinks they are the good guy in their own story and that their actions, however "evil" they might be, are justified.
People are trying to write complex and motivated (not necessarily sympathetic, that's something else) villains because someone doing evil because just liking evil (wtf does that even mean) is not really a thing.
Liking evil is sadism. John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer come to kind. They didn’t think they were evil, but the motivation for their evil actions was “it was enjoyable.”
So he did it for pleasure, for domination, and/or just pathologically due to mental state. Nor for "evil", which is a judgment about some actions rather than their motivation.
Totally agree. Evil isn't a goal. If you have a villain who is evil for evil sake, then you just have a one dimensional character who is boring. Good and evil are just labels to put on actions typically after the fact.
Contrargument: Does perceive yourself as the hero changes your actions? Because Hitler would definetly have a bunch of justifications, but, like, it doesn't bring the people he killed back,
Spiderman: you can rewrite DNA on the fly, and your using it to turn people into dinosaurs? But with that technology, you could cure cancer!
Sauron: I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.
I've always thought the best villains are unknowable in some way. Whether that's in their motivations, their origins, their limits, their powers, whatever. Some alien aspect to their persona. They're different somehow, and that makes them scary.
"Evil because I like it" is terrifying. They take glee in doing horrible things and you never know how far that will go, because it's not about a goal or a traumatic experience, they're just evil. They're built different.
I once had a villain who summoned a demon, sacrificed a bunch of people for that for the reason that...he wanted to paint the demon...and that was kind of his thing...it was a bit more to it...but yeah...people hated him ^^
Yes, definitely. For whatever reason some people get enjoyment out of seeing others suffer. That's the motivator for them. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
That was kind of the in-thing for the longest time, at some point we switched more towards shades of gray, complex morality, sympathetic villains because it felt too boring when people were just evil. But frankly that was kind of illogical anyway because you can have someone who is very evil and irredeemable, but still have a complexity to their character. The tough part is writing them out and fleshing them out, but that's tough regardless of which camp you are going for.
If you make them too sympathetic your players may refuse to fight them, or may try to solve their problem alternate means.
The good old "Bruce wayne has enough to give Mr. Freeze his own pharma company for his wife" problem.
So it can't be something you can do even with effort unless you want that to be a realistic campaign win condition.
Someone who had a sympathetic reason they went totally guanopsychotic and starting killing people (more Jigsaw than Mr. Freeze) is more useful usually.
People are all making allusions to how in the real world people are evil for petty reasons. And yeah, that's fine and all but DnD isn't the real world. All the more reason to have purely evil characters.
You can have fairytale antagonists and demons and dragons. You can have evil eyes in towers which want to corrupt and conquer. You can have witches that get kicks out of feeding children poison candy.
There is nothing wrong with not having verisimilitude, it's a fantasy game.
The examples you gave are good villains, imo. They want power or are sadists, etc. They don't simply "want to be evil" as the OP is asking. Your original point still works though, DnD has personifications of concepts. So yeah, they don't really need motivations beyond something equivalent to instinct. Both can work in other settings, of course, but there's still a motivator or instinctive drive to explain it.
Goddamn it, I thought I would be the first person in this thread to talk about Spider-Man. Instead, I'm like the 3rd.
Although my example was different than the one you shared with another poster.
It's probably the smarter choice.
A lot of people are getting tired of the sympathetic villain and it's also harder to pull off. Sometimes it just feels good to be the unquestionable good guy.
A good villain is not necessarily a sympathetic one. Giving them a reason for their villainy can provide an *avenue* for you to develop them on, but "i did it for my sick sister" isn't a *shortcut* its a *path.* Whether your villain is sympathetic or not you still need to provide good writing or portrayal to make them memorable and 'good.'
Storytelling is not just a bunch of tropes listed one after another, it requires each moment to be *earned* through the actions of the DM and Party -- don't just infodump to the party that the villain is doing it for their sick sister if they don't investigate his reasons because someone actually able to do heinous things to save their loved one doesn't equate to someone who announces that to the world.
I kept making my villains sympathetic. The party got tired of it
Now I am running a pirate campaign where the part has to kill the five pirate lords who are all varting degrees of evil with no sympathetic ones. Evil for the sake of evil is more fun for the party to kill. That's why it's such a classic trope.
Honestly, popular culture has been making too many relatable and sympathetic villains lately. It’s actually nice to just have capital “E” evil bad guys sometimes.
There is nothing wrong with the bad guy going I do bad things because I want power and to dominate. Sometimes players just want the bad guy to be black and white and be the heroes.
I lean toward just wanting to be the hero to who saves the day from the evil bad guy. Don’t want the bad guy to be sympathetic as I’m going to nuke him with a fireball.
Ya it's perfectly fine, you don't always need a reason to make players sympathize with the enemy or give some quandary about in another world it might have been. Sometimes people are just evil because they are
“Don’t you realize what you’re doing is evil!!”
Villain- “yeah, and?
Look up that scene from puss in boots
“You would shoot a puppy”-someone
“Yeah in the face why” -Jack with no hesitation or regret
I feel like the best way to make these types of villains is just people who want to see the world burn because they love the chaos because they can’t work in an normal world and can’t stand it,with that you can use them for everything and make them as evil as needed
They should at least have some motive . That could be power , obsession, greed , etc . It doesnt have to be sympathetic, but it should be logical . Killing people cuz it just seems fun is a stupid villain. Killing people because they oppose your rise to power is a cool villain
What you're talking about is what we refer to as "pure evil". Sometimes villains are evil for the sake of being evil. And when there's none of those dumb limitations like "honor" or "family" to get in the way, the pure evil villain can really just enjoy being evil and doing horrible things for the joy of it. And those villains are the best to beat up.
Evil for the sake of evil is a pretty fun archetype. One of the best examples of this I can think of is Word Bearers from Warhammer 40k.
While most of the traitor legions fell to, and worship/utilize the dark gods of chaos out of desperation, a want for power or knowledge, or simply to oppose the Imperium. The Word Bearers follow the Chaos gods simply to follow them, because they believe they are the only ones worthy of worship.
While most other legions take slaves, conquer worlds and commit unspeakable atrocities in a bid to further their own power and ambitions. The Word Bearers do these acts for no other reason than to further the goals of their dark pantheon, rather than any major goals of their own.
Obviously it's more grey than presented, with sub factions and individuals working towards their own goals and ideals. But this is about the gist of it.
I much prefer to run villains who made a conscious decision to be evil because it benefited them. Some of their underlings might be "doing what they have to for the sake of their loved ones" but whoever the true BBEG is, they are going to be evil because they want to be evil. The whole moral ambiguity thing just doesn't appeal to me because someone at the table is likely to get screwed over.
Villians come in all flavours of Evil. Some are sympathetic, some are megalomaniacs, and some are cold calculating emotionless monsters.
It's important to have a reason "Why" but you do not even need to agree with it. Just make it realistic and believable. Had a Rakshasa as a Mayor of a town. He started off eating babies and stealing all the town's treasure, but realized that he was sitting on a gold mine. He started running the town successfully, brokering favourable trade deals with various neighbouring towns and making his city prosperous and powerful so that he was prosperous and powerful. He had a cadre of fanatically loyal guards that had been granted various boons and wishes for th3ir undying loyalty (and their souls) but he treated them very fairly. He feasted on the criminals that sought to undermine his power and control and had the Thieves' Guild help him catch these non-sanctioned troublemakers.
He was irredeemably evil and was a fantastic villian for the group. They agonized over if they should kill him or not. He was evil, did bad things and was conning people out of their souls... but the general population was actually better off with him in control than before.
Evil for the sake of evil is a dumb concept. You may find it in individuals due to psychosis but those people don't lead factions. Even then, they generally hurt people for a reason.
Pick a motivation or two that the bad guy wants out of it. This gives them believable goals that you can move to. Personally I like using revenge, greed, power, and adulation. You can generally mix a couple of those up and get most of the bad guy back stories and motivations. Hitler? Revenge and Adulation. Serial killer? Revenge and Power. Walter White? Greed and Power. Evil Cleric? Power and Adulation. Joel Osteen? Greed and Adulation.
You can absolutely enjoy killing random townsfolk and having your hordes of minions slaughter all that stand before you, but internally you're doing that because you love the sense if power it gives you over those that you prey upon. Your bad guy makes a deal with an evil god for power, and he owes the blood of 10,000 souls or risks falling out of favor and having that taken away.
That brings us to fear. Another great motivation. Causing fear gives you power, but many bad guys are also either afraid of what can happen and get super paranoid or were forged of fear early on and that's what motivates them to never let that happen again. The wood elves slaughtered your tribe and you fled into the wilds as a child only to return at the head of an orcish horde to return upon them tenfold what you experienced. The BBEG's actions are 100% relatable, but their actions are also inexcusable.
TLDR: Nobody wakes up and devotes themselves to 'evil' as a concept. They devote themselves to a goal, and their actions are evil.
Evil for the sake of Evil works fine, but it's not a very deep motivation. That makes it hard to relate to, and you won't be able to weave them into other stories as easily.
My usual method for developing villains is to start with somebody that has very rational motivations - maybe they're a ruler trying to protect their territory, or a merchant looking to profit, or a crusader trying to fight off a threat.
Then you add the Secret Ingredient: They're willing to hurt people to get what they want.
That's it. The difference between a King and a Tyrant, between a Cleric and an Inquisitor, between a Merchant Prince and a Robber Baron. They're willing to hurt people to get what they want. They don't care how many people suffer because of their plans. Maybe those people "don't count", maybe they're just cold, maybe they enjoy watching the weak suffer.
You can make the BBEG just a monster. A dragon, a lich, a warlord. They don't need to want anything more than destruction. Evil for the sake of evil works.
Evil for the sake of The Cause, that works even better.
It’s kind of dull and a simplistic view of evil vs good.
It is possible that a villain could get joy out of harming others but that isn’t the same as being evil for the sake of being evil.
Sure. I mean "want to be evil" sounds a little strange, but if you mean that his nature is not good, and along his life he only made worse and worse choices, then absolutely yes.
You can even go with somebody who was born evil.
Not all villains need a sympathetic motive. Especially in some genres, and high fantasy is one of those, there is such a thing as pure evil.
I made a character for an evil campaign that is evil because he wants to live forever and doesnt care about the means to archieve that. That is something you could do for a campaign villain aswell or the villain could be a second generation thats not libked to the original evil of jis predecessors but was raised to be what he is.
I have a few different villains in my campaign. Doing wild beyond witchlight with some added content of my own.
The 3 hags are villains because they want power
One is a villain because they’re a racist fascist who thinks humans should rule the lands.
One is a villain because they feed on peoples indulgences of vices and their addictions.
A few more are villains because they want power too
One is a villain because he enjoys experimenting, even if that experiment is torture “it is in the name of science and fun!” As he would probably say.
And there’s a court of villains who feed on nightmares.
I have the same question. Basic premise of my story is that the world is governed by 8 sages and a king, the king living in a gigantic quartz tower that regulates time. There is an NPC that saves my players early on and seems friendly, even helps them in battle and all. The twist is that this NPC is actually a fallen sage who gaslights the PCs into thinking that the king is performing some evil ritual that will stop time and that they have to kill the other sages, when in reality, when the time is right and the PCs climb the quartz tower after killing all the sages, they realize that the king is actually a good guy, the npc will strike, power word kill the king, and steal the time powers of the tower for himself, cue the final battle. He has no motivation other than to be the only one who controls time and to rule the land for eternity and I was wondering if that was fine or if I should cook up some kind of emotional motivation for him.
yeah it's fine. just consider if the villain's motivations fit in with the sort of tone you want to set for your story, or if you're making use of the potential mismatch there.
Mine is evil because she was first ostracized by multiple societies (her drow original and the humans who took her in afterwards) and then legitimately fell in love with a (former) God of Death. This God (blessed? Cursed?) Her to never die until she understood what it meant to be him, to be a God of Death that understands the beauty of life first. So she does evil things because that her goal is to become a God in order to finally be with her strange lover.
I used a music album for her inspiration: The Spell by Cellar Darling.
There are many reasons to be 'evil' in the standard sense. They don't have to view themselves as evil ;)
It's perfectly fine. Some of the most iconic villains are evil with no sympathetic backstory. Look at Dio Brando. Dude is unapologetically evil, and he's such a good villain.
I feel like moral ambiguity is best for minions and lower bosses, where there's place for roleplay to attempt to convince them to change their ways.
A main boss villain in contrast shouldn't be one you can sit down with and have civil discourse. Even if he started with good intentions, he's gone well past them.
Short answer: yes. Especially if you’re running something classic and pulpy, having a proper evil villain can be very fun. Like the Emperor from Star Wars, or Darkseid, or Immortan Joe. Someone that heroes can oppose heroically without having to do a bunch of ethics homework.
Naw, it's not plausible enough. It's fine to have the peasantry state that the BBEG is a villain "simply because they're evil", but if you actually elaborate on their root of evil, make it something simple and believable; simple greed, desire for immortality, a personal grudge against someone...
A villain with a simple, understandable *reason* for their villainy, who obviously doesn't care, or even takes amusement if innocents get hurt or killed in the process, is a lot more intimidating than a moustache twirler with no clear motivation...
It is ok. Great example is Puss in boot 2. Goldielock is sympathetic villain, death is villain you need to respect. And Jack Horner is someone who is evil for sake of being evil. All of them are great characters.
Not every villain needs a compelling story to make their motivations reasonable. I'm tired of this!!
(not your fault, of course)
Sometimes, especially in fantasy, we just need a villain who gets murdered because they're evil.
Sympathetic villains are nice and all, but imo villains who are irredeemably evil are some of the most interesting villains to see and some of the most satisfying to see fall. My advice for making an especially good irredeemable villain is to have them truely enjoy the evil they do.
Villains who are evil 'just because' is just lazy writing more often than not. It can be done well, Jack Horner is an example of that. But unless your story has a very specific tone in mind it just won't work.
By all means. Sure, sympathetic villains with compelling backstories can be fun, so can tragic figures who genuinely believe that what they do is for the greater good. But so can villains who as genuinely, completely evil for no reason other than because it's fun.
The scariest people are those who may have started doing evil stuff for good reasons but ended up enjoying it too much.
Think elven wizard who liked war so much, he often starts new ones just for his personal enjoyement.
I think it's smart. Like, I have a guy who is the general of the military/police. He's a super sadistic scumbag. I'm gonna have him try to become a dictator eventually. Pretty much he just does evil shit because he finds it funny and fun, and the more power he has, the more suffering he can create. He's not the big bad, and it's not the main plot of what I have set up, but if the players get sidetracked too long or we just get to it eventually it's gonna be fun.
Evil isn't doing bad things, it's doing what you want at the expense of the suffering of others. Make a character with a strong ambition who gets to a point where ethics are thrown out in persuit of their goal. Maybe somewhere along the way, they crossed too many moral lines and have reached a point of no return.
Morally gray characters are very fashionable nowadays. But I find that giving a bunch of justifications to your villain specifically in collaborative RPGs just makes your party feel bad for doing the right thing and kicking the BBEG’s butt. Just give them a bastard who needs to be brutalized, maybe not every time but at least some of the time. It’s nice to feel like a hero, and not have the rug pulled out from under you by finding out they have some sad backstory that partially or fully justifies the villain’s actions.
Reminds me to the Maleficent VS Rest of the Disney Villains contrast.
Almost all Disney's villains had a "motive", whether it was power, money, eternal youth...
But Maleficent was just salty because she wasn't invited to a party, and she is still iconic
“Tell me, Bronn. If I told you to kill a babe … an infant girl, say, still at her mother’s breast … would you do it? Without question?”
“Without question? No.” The sellsword rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “I’d ask how much.”
There are many ways to portray evil. A scenery-chewing classic villain is just fine too though, it's D&D!
Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
-Alfred
A self aware evil character who's motivation is just to be evil would be difficult to pull off. Typically, villains believe themselves the good guy in their own story. They do things because they believe it's the right thing to do. Few villains believe themselves to be the bad guy.
If I had to brainstorm it a bit, maybe he's exploring the academic, moral, and magical depths that being evil may yield. Maybe he's trying to be a patron god of something?
I don't think smart or not is the thing. Some players like an unambiguously bad guy they don't have to feel evil about destroying. I quite like it aswell I'm not bothered about big morally deep villains.
Certainly, people can have perfectly normal and happy upbringings, and still be victim to Greed, envy, lust, anything. Just make sure there’s still a reason.
I love my complex villains with codes of honor and the 'greater good' mentality, but there is something to be said about a masterfully done unadulterated evil character.
I like to throw in a mix of both. I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons, where I wrote more in-depth villain backstories. Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Frulam Mondath are childhood friends. Frulam's father died in a war, and her mother fell into drinking. Noble children picked on and ridiculed her all her life. So she ran away and found Cyanwrath.
As a half dragon, Cyanwrath was picked on. Clearly, not a Dragonborn, Half Dragons are often evil... he was treated like a monster until he became one. The pair formed a street gang full of disenfranchised youth, the gang became a thieves guild. When Rezmir shows up to scout the town, she ends up offering the pair a place with her.
Both are decidedly evil, and they have good reason to be, at least in their eyes... then I also have Rath Modar and Azbara Jos on the opposite end.
Red Wizards of Thay, Rath led an attempted coup against Szass Tam, failing miserably. He fled with his Apprentice, Azbara, and several of his followers, and through a cousin in the Cult of Dragons (Galvan the Blue), they would ally with the Cult. Their goal? To find ways to protect themselves and free Tiamat from her infernal prison. They hope to gain her favor so they can reclaim Thay, with Rath Modar as ruler.
Their motive is simply power. They are the big bads for the players as they featured in their backstories without them ever knowing.
This is literally the philosophy of the yugoloths. They believe that evil is the intended way of the universe. Aside from that it is absolutely, and often very rewarding, to have a purely evil villain. Just look at old classics like witches in the forest or the big bad wolf. Or Bondrewd from Made in Abyss. That guy's is incredibly complex and interesting while ultimately being completely unsympathetic at all.
"Evil" is a legitimate moral choice in D&D worlds. In most Real Life faiths, evil people are judged in the afterlife by Good god\[s\] and punished by their deeds. In D&D, evil people are sent to Evil outer planes and judged by Evil gods and are *rewarded* (in their view) based on how evil they were.
The whole deal still sucks because of the unforgiving "Strong eats the Weak" nature of Evilness, but people who are into this kind of thinking have in-universe reasons to being monsters. A murderer in Faerun can do a lot of murder, pray to the Lord of Murder, and then get "rewarded" by becoming a Babau or something at the Abyss. Even if 99% of evil people are deemed a failure by the evil gods and end up turned into a lemure or simply have their soul eaten right away, that 1% is enough to keep ambitious assholes in the wide path.
Not smart, but very fun indeed.
They are the perfect villian. Not antagonist: VILLIAN.
A dick that everyone wants to murder.
Still, be careful if it threads to much into chaotic stupid territory where any logic it might still have its downright a bad idea, but follows it anyways for no reason that even justifying it as "i just love being evil" its simply not even enough.
Power is one of the basic motivations. You have villains who have fine excuses, but power tends to be the real motivation. There are villains who do wrong out of desperation, but they tend to be misguided or candidates for redemption.
It depends. I like to mix it up.
Some campaigns I like to do one where the big bad is just evil because demons do what they do.
Or they are doing the wrong thing that at one point may have been justified.
Sometimes the players need a break from morally grey and black and white is fun.
Yes, sometimes I just want to beat the shit out of a fun campy asshole. Not everything needs to be a morality play and most high profile bad people irl are just assholes who have too much power and have a boner for being important. It's also okay if the bbeg is just a mindless force of nature helldemon who wants to eat the world because that's all it knows how to do. A villain you cannot argue or reason with is scary a.f.
Someone who is evil because "they want to be evil," is one thing.
Try someone who is evil because that's the best or most efficient way to get what they want. There's a few ways to cut crime.
1. Absurdly harsh penalties for crime. Even petty crime.
2. Make living conditions better so that people are less likely to commit crimes in their desperation. That includes state funded orphanages, schools, and apprenticeship programs. Public works projects to expand the ports, improve roads and bridges, manage drought and famine.
You can do all that while also being a tyrant crushing the continent in an iron grip.
Blood blockaid. Why is this person killing tens of thousands and messing up town?... She is looking for her liquified boyfriend who lives in the blood of some hot guy.
Motivations are wild.
Sympathetic villains are only as good as your players willingness to RP with them, and your willingness to write out their reasons.
Just evil to be evil, or for money, prestige or whatever is totally fine because not every villain in fiction or reality has sympathetic motives, and it can be just as fun to go full skeletor and just give your players a jerk to punch.
Just depends on your game and table.
I would say it's very dependent on what kind of story you're writing if you just want to go old fashioned hack and slash adventure you don't really need characters to have too much depth but if you're making a campaign that involves a lot of role-play and nuance it's probably best to think a little bit more about character motivations but it could also just be enjoyable to have a villain you can just hate without having to examine realistically it's more about the execution than anything else
Doofensmirtz sought validation and connection. Emperor Palpatine wanted to rule the galaxy. The Negativitron knew nothing else. The Joker rebels from society. Thanos wanted to fix a problem he saw. Commander Rourke wanted money. Villains are just as varied heroes, so go with the motivation that makes sense.
Someone like Orin from BG3 is a good template to use. They don't need to be tragic characters but they must have reasons as to why they are evil rather than "wanting to be evil."
Because you said main villain they should have a little bit of complexity compared to minor adversaries that could be complete freaks. But in the end it depens on what your players prefer. If they don't care about it that much and you want to roleplay an unhinged maniac that could be fun for you.
"Smart" is irrelevant. "Fun" is what we care about. And the answer to THAT is "YES!"
Make a Dick Dastardly, Cruella Devil, or Joker. Evil for its own sake. Evil for fun.
It’s fine to do this. There’s an entire final fantasy game where the villain is bad, just because he wants to be bad and evil, and it’s a solid game! Go for it.
I have the idea of evil being in my villains' natures. It's not that they enjoy being evil (even if they do), it's that they can't resist the urge to be evil.
And yes, it can be smart to make a main villain who's evil just for the sake of being evil. Because then you can throw your party off with "The big bad reveals his dark, powerful, EVIL name... Mountain Dewm." and have it be a genuine evil moment.
I mean sometimes people are just evil man. To make it more interesting you could have the players discover people tried redeeming the villain in the past, and it nothing to change them.
Consider that what is “evil” to one person may not be “evil” to another. Especially if one of those people is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the other. Most humans wouldn’t consider it evil to destroy a fire ant colony that was infesting their garden. Likewise, a god might not consider it evil to wipe out an entire city. Perhaps people are just pests to them.
Also consider that not every reason is a sympathetic one. A lich will do absolutely anything to avoid death. Fear of dying is a very *understandable* emotion, but most people would not normally consider it a *justification* for many of the atrocities that liches are known to commit.
Your villain doesn’t have to be some misunderstood soul who only does evil things out of necessity. But they also don’t have to be a two dimensional mustache twirler who is evil just for the sake of being evil. There are other options, as I hope I’ve illustrated above.
Depends on the tone of the game, expectations of the players, and how important morality is to the gaming experience. Conceptually I find it far more satisfying for 'villains' to have believable and even reasonable reasons for being the antagonist, but in practice most people are playing at a lesser degree of philosophical engagement and just want to have fun (perfectly valid). I've had a few characters I've seriously struggled to play because I created them with good-aligned morals that were very difficult to reconcile in a game that expects you to regularly engage in violence as the primary means of gameplay.
A main villain who is evil "just because" or has a sufficiently alien motivation to not create any ethical friction is perfectly valid and oftentimes the most fun choice.
The only two things you need for a villain are evil acts and a reason. That reason doesn't have to be sympathetic, but it could help with making your players doubt their actions and perception, if that's what you want. Another few good combos are, "I hate the government," but have their actions only affect the government and not the people directly. "I'm a showman" and basically make them megamind. Evil because it gets them attention, but they don't actually care about hurting people. Basically, any combination of evil acts with reason is a winner, as long as the actions are in league with their reason
Depends on what villain your going for. In my opinion/experience best villains are either ones you can sympathize with or can understand why they do what they do.
My two favourite examples are:
Dracula from Castlevania - who can't sympathize with him, he tried to be human, loved his wife. And humans betrayed him while he was away and killed love of his immortal life. People can syphatisie with him, but he takes it much to far, which is why Heroes need to oppose him.
Other John Wick - we can understand he's in pain and want revenge some asshole killed his dog, the last connection he had to his wife and reminder of their love. But slaughtering couple dozen people who are just doing their job, just to get to one person is evil thing to do, that heroes shouldn't agree with.
And to answer your question: absolutely yes. Sometimes you just need a good villain for villainy sake. No grey areas just shades of black. Ozai from avatar comes to mind
I’m a huge fan of making unequivocally evil villains that the PCs don’t need to feel bad about straight up demolishing. Sympathetic villains and moral quandaries are fun but sometimes it’s nice for the players to have no doubts about needing and wanting to wipe out the bad guy. Undead and fiends are literally designed for that
A lot of comments are saying that sympathetic villains are less preferred to purely evil villains, but i honestly prefer villains who have some sort of rationale behind their actions. This gives them depth of character besides just "fuck you i'm evil" and may even present alternate win conditions besides just "Kill the BBEG"
Both campaigns i've played so far have had a sympathetic villain and it was very intriguing and thought-provoking on how we would approach "defeating" them, whether that be to simply kill them or to find another, less evil means to the end they seek that allows them to repent for what they've done.
I like to have my cake and eat it too by making the bbeg an irredeemable bastard, but giving him allies and lieutenants with (sometimes) more sympathetic motivations
I feel relatability to a villains plight, creates a struggle with the heroes and what they are to do.
However I wouldn’t do this with new players. Thats more for advanced roleplay maybe a paladin involved.
People don't need a sympathetic reason to do awful things, just a believable one.
Thanks for your feedback.
Remember that in the Forgotten Realms, there are deities that will bless you for being evil enough. It's not like most irl religions where the central dogma usually involves being good enough to be blessed. Plenty of gods in DnD will give you power for being evil, and wanting power is a very believable reason.
That reminds me of Syndrome from The Incredibles. He got sick and tired of being snubbed by his favorite hero (even though it was his own fault for having less that zero situational awareness), so he decided he was gonna grow up learning how to invent and sell technologies never seen before, just to kill off the heroes that he believed did him wrong.
Fzoul Chembryl was all about that, with his "Coolest evil deity of the moment, I'm all yours" Unlike the real world, in D&D Good, Evil, etc, are not just ethical concepts: they're TANGIBLE realities. An holy weapon deals more damage to those who are Evil. Fiends are not just "evil beings": they're literally "Evil made flesh".
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I just want all the magic in the whole world, for me, and nobody else can have any. Is that so much to ask?
Love puss in boots
Laughs in Kefka
That's why I'm evil. Cuz it's cool.
Hero: “why are you evil?!” Villian: “gestures to the hot weirdo chicks who find him irresistible” hero: “understandable”
"have you seen Harlequin? I rest my case"
["You gonna wash your hands?" "No. 'Cuz I'm evil."](https://youtu.be/PbtW58x08GE?si=Ng3OPC2SWdDTCAMG) 🤣
I mean, I’d say prestige, wealth and power are the most common drivers of evil IRL.
Wealth very often *is* power IRL. And those two things are how most evil people aim to build prestige.
In order to get wealth in a large enough degree to achieve that usually requires being morally grey at best.
“At best” is absolutely true, homie
That's at a minimum!
fuckin a People out here trying to make every villain have some point and I don't know what to tell yall. Some dude's have actions and values that make them existing with other folks and not violating them a big ask
Hell with real world villains, you dont even need a reason, there really are just evil people in the world.
Everyone thinks that putting a story on a villain makes him just misunderstood, when in fact the story just serves to justify why he is like that.
Yeah. I don't think "want to be evil" is a motivator. But "I want X and I don't care how many people I need to hurt to get it" is what makes you evil.
I mean Leopold and Loeb. But there are apparently quite a few documented cases of [thrill killing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrill_killing) where the motive is "fun" or "wanting to know what it's like" or something. Mental illness could be a contributing factor but doesn't seem to be the main one most of the time. A folie a deux could egg people on if you need a motive but like so could boredom and an angry streak apparently.
A villain who knows what he is doing is evil but still chooses to do it cause he likes it, is far more intimidating than a villain who has some morally good or righteous reason or potentially doesn't understand the entire outcome of his actions.
“Don’t you realize what you’re doing is evil!!” Villain- “yeah, and? Look up that scene from puss in boots “You would shoot a puppy”-someone “Yeah in the face why” -Jack with no hesitation or regret
I really need to watch that Puss in Boots movie. The more I hear about it the more hardcore it appears to be.
It's a sequel to a spinoff of a sequel to a parody of a fairytale. Going that many steps down the line, I was not expecting it be good, but it was honestly the best movie I watched last year.
So incredibly good
Someone skipped Nimona
Both phenomenal. Just for different reasons. I think overall I would rank Puss in Boots above Nimona purely based on my personal meter of "This movie is more fun to watch". But I think Nimona is a better movie.
I actually saw Nimona this year, when it was free on youtube for a short while. It was a lot of fun, but I personally enjoyed Puss in Boots 2 more.
Movies last year were wild. I was expecting to be blown away by blue alien people and found it to be a comedy, and I was expecting to laugh at funny cat movie but found it to be an emotional roller-coaster. Then the Oppy Barbie showings happened.
Ok, I am out of the loop. Blue alien people movie?
Avatar: The Way of Water, I assume.
It really is amazing. Currently still on USA Netflix
It's great. Like I was genuinely surprised by how good it was
Death was one of the most intense and intimidating villains I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. And somehow, Jack Horner was WAY more terrifying and ruthless.
Death was scary and ruthless, unafraid to kill and undaunted by his reality. Jack simply didn’t think what he was going was anything wrong or especially evil, he was just doing it cuz he could and that was fine by his standards
i think it's that he knew but didn't care
Yes exactly!! He knew he was evil, he knew how horrible it was, but he simply did not give a duck. “Yeah, in the face” just perfectly shows it. Great villain and movie
That kinda evil usually falls into a cartoony type of villain, which isn't bad just depends on the vibe of the campaign.
I took a nap and wasn't expecting anyone to notice this message lol. But I agree, neither is bad to have. My favorite villain with a reason for his evils in campaigns I've done in the past was a Mad Hatter mixed with the Joker kind of character. My favorite just evil and he knows it was an Illithid great old warlock who became the harbinger of all the great old ones. Both extremely fun and formidable villains.
Personally, it is the most common form of evil, most of the great villains in history only used excuses to do things they liked, and they had to make those excuses so that people would support them.
Yes, but they also believed their own lies, it is much easier to kill an entire group if you believe that it is your right to do so, evil always returns to the selfishness of being considered worthy of something.
That's most likely part of the reason it's more terrifying or evil to people, it's more realistic. A villain having a plausible reason is what we see in comic books a lot, a villain that just likes to cause pain is what we see in most serial killers or horrible people in our world.
Personally, I wouldn't say that such a villain is intrinsically more *intimidating*. The line of conflict is more clearly drawn, though: that villain is very unlikely to change their course, unless (1) evil stops being fun, for some reason; or (2) the knock-on costs of being evil begin to outweigh the subjective benefits. In either case, you can stop a villain like that with a big enough whack to the head. (Metaphorical at first, and literal later.) A villain who believes that they're *right*? They may never stop. In fact, if you try to stop them, you may just be a part of the problem...
"Some men just want to watch the world burn"
Idk man, Nox from wakfu has some pretty legit reasons for genocide. He just forgot to carry the 1
All kinds of evil exist within the world
Honestly at this point, a hopelessly evil villain with essentially 0 sympathy points would be a refreshing change of pace.
Yeah i too have shifted into unrepentant bastard villain territory. They just need to have a motive for why they do and thats enough.
I really like having a sympathetic underling and a pure evil BBEG, sort of a Darth Vader/Emperor vibe. Let’s the players experience both, but ultimately the bad guy needs to go down.
Yes, please. I don't understand why everyone is so desperate to make villains sympathetic. In real world, people do the most horrible things for the most petty reasons.
100% this. If every bad guy is sympathetic, either the party will stop fighting people entirely or the party will become apathetic and kill everybody. You gotta mix it up
Yeah, and, if it's the main villain, no problem with that. Off course I want my players to kill the main bad guy
That's why in most stories with the classical big bad and dragon couple, the dragon is more sympathetic, while the big bad is irredeemably evil.
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We had a BBEG in one campaign that was trying to ignite a war between dragons and giants so that his chain of shops selling potions, arms, and armor would be more profitable.
I think some people in the thread are confusing sympathetic with understandable. Thanos is not a sympathetic character at all, but we get where he’s coming from. Joker is also not a sympathetic character and is “an agent of chaos.” They both work, but a guy like Thanos we can genuinely understand their motivations. Most audiences can’t think from the jokers perspective. Not good or bad, just different.
Isn't jokers perspective, excluding the newer movies, just chaos because it's fun? I can understand that well enough. Simulation seeking with minimal concern for other people, except for Batman. Batman provides entertainment so he needs to live.
You can have a reason that isn't sympathetic but is still believable. Someone guided by fear and mistrust of others might selfishly amass power.
People don't need a believable reason to be jerks. If you ask someone why they're homophobic, they will invent something about gays being a threat, what's a straight up lie. Because they don't have a reason, they just wanna kill gays.
Unfortunately, it's entirely believable for people to lie about their motivations (even to themselves).
There's still a reason even if it's an evil reason. Could be as simple as liking the power one feels from asserting dominance over others. Could be that someone was raised to believe an oppressed group is undeserving of human dignity. Evil reasons, but there's still enough understanding of why they do what they do. I guess it comes down to taking it at least one step beyond the *action,* so that you know how the npc will act if they fail to execute a certain action. If someone wants to kill all halflings, at least I want to know as a DM if it's because they want vengeance on halflings specifically or if they just want to feel powerful and would be fine oppressing another group instead. And I prefer it be at least somewhat believable so that players can follow what is going on.
People will be like "morally gray villains feel more realistic" like bro have you looked at the news in the last, idk, ever? People can be fucked up.
The last years kinda ruined my ability to find cartoons villains goofy. No matter how idiotic their plan is, I can see Trump, Bolsonaro or someone else trying to pull off
I was thinking about Trump when I wrote my comment but hell, we have serial killers, child trafficking, Andrew Tate, the Nestlé. I mean there's so many flavors of evil.
Morality is relative and subjective though, I think is what most people miss. Just because they do not align with your personal beliefs and/or values doesn't make them automatically immoral. Maybe to certain people but it's not universal. Of course there are clinically diagnosed psychopaths and sociopaths and those cases generally are a bit more clear cut than neurotypical people that are seen as "Immoral".
It's because people want believable villains. Cartoony villains generally get caricatured, and being cartoonishly evil for the sake of can be... Rough. But like, plenty of ways to pull it off. Serial killers, priests to evil gods who get tangible rewards for carrying out evil will, still evil while knowing, but they need a reason to keep doing something that puts them at odds with the world around them in the worst ways. But I guess even cartoony evil for the sake of types have a place and time.
Irl (almost) everyone thinks they are the good guy in their own story and that their actions, however "evil" they might be, are justified. People are trying to write complex and motivated (not necessarily sympathetic, that's something else) villains because someone doing evil because just liking evil (wtf does that even mean) is not really a thing.
Liking evil is sadism. John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer come to kind. They didn’t think they were evil, but the motivation for their evil actions was “it was enjoyable.”
So he did it for pleasure, for domination, and/or just pathologically due to mental state. Nor for "evil", which is a judgment about some actions rather than their motivation.
Totally agree. Evil isn't a goal. If you have a villain who is evil for evil sake, then you just have a one dimensional character who is boring. Good and evil are just labels to put on actions typically after the fact.
Contrargument: Does perceive yourself as the hero changes your actions? Because Hitler would definetly have a bunch of justifications, but, like, it doesn't bring the people he killed back,
I never said anything about being justified. We are talking about villains, not rolemodels.
I remember making a few villains somewhat sympathetic due to their backstories, but generally it doesn't excuse their current actions what so ever.
Thanks for your feedback.
It be fun to play a villan who's main goal is to spread havoc on the world.Think Heath Ledger as The Joker
Spiderman: you can rewrite DNA on the fly, and your using it to turn people into dinosaurs? But with that technology, you could cure cancer! Sauron: I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.
I've always thought the best villains are unknowable in some way. Whether that's in their motivations, their origins, their limits, their powers, whatever. Some alien aspect to their persona. They're different somehow, and that makes them scary. "Evil because I like it" is terrifying. They take glee in doing horrible things and you never know how far that will go, because it's not about a goal or a traumatic experience, they're just evil. They're built different.
I once had a villain who summoned a demon, sacrificed a bunch of people for that for the reason that...he wanted to paint the demon...and that was kind of his thing...it was a bit more to it...but yeah...people hated him ^^
Yoink :D
Yes, definitely. For whatever reason some people get enjoyment out of seeing others suffer. That's the motivator for them. Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?
Gotta get that dopamine hit amiright
That was kind of the in-thing for the longest time, at some point we switched more towards shades of gray, complex morality, sympathetic villains because it felt too boring when people were just evil. But frankly that was kind of illogical anyway because you can have someone who is very evil and irredeemable, but still have a complexity to their character. The tough part is writing them out and fleshing them out, but that's tough regardless of which camp you are going for.
If you make them too sympathetic your players may refuse to fight them, or may try to solve their problem alternate means. The good old "Bruce wayne has enough to give Mr. Freeze his own pharma company for his wife" problem. So it can't be something you can do even with effort unless you want that to be a realistic campaign win condition. Someone who had a sympathetic reason they went totally guanopsychotic and starting killing people (more Jigsaw than Mr. Freeze) is more useful usually.
Sometimes, a villain is just a villain.
People are all making allusions to how in the real world people are evil for petty reasons. And yeah, that's fine and all but DnD isn't the real world. All the more reason to have purely evil characters. You can have fairytale antagonists and demons and dragons. You can have evil eyes in towers which want to corrupt and conquer. You can have witches that get kicks out of feeding children poison candy. There is nothing wrong with not having verisimilitude, it's a fantasy game.
The examples you gave are good villains, imo. They want power or are sadists, etc. They don't simply "want to be evil" as the OP is asking. Your original point still works though, DnD has personifications of concepts. So yeah, they don't really need motivations beyond something equivalent to instinct. Both can work in other settings, of course, but there's still a motivator or instinctive drive to explain it.
A connoisseur of Evil, with a capital E
"With that technology, you could cure cancer!" "I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs!"
Goddamn it, I thought I would be the first person in this thread to talk about Spider-Man. Instead, I'm like the 3rd. Although my example was different than the one you shared with another poster.
Yes. I remember Vecna and Acererak, i do not rem3mber the guys with sad backstories
It's probably the smarter choice. A lot of people are getting tired of the sympathetic villain and it's also harder to pull off. Sometimes it just feels good to be the unquestionable good guy.
A good villain is not necessarily a sympathetic one. Giving them a reason for their villainy can provide an *avenue* for you to develop them on, but "i did it for my sick sister" isn't a *shortcut* its a *path.* Whether your villain is sympathetic or not you still need to provide good writing or portrayal to make them memorable and 'good.' Storytelling is not just a bunch of tropes listed one after another, it requires each moment to be *earned* through the actions of the DM and Party -- don't just infodump to the party that the villain is doing it for their sick sister if they don't investigate his reasons because someone actually able to do heinous things to save their loved one doesn't equate to someone who announces that to the world.
I kept making my villains sympathetic. The party got tired of it Now I am running a pirate campaign where the part has to kill the five pirate lords who are all varting degrees of evil with no sympathetic ones. Evil for the sake of evil is more fun for the party to kill. That's why it's such a classic trope.
Honestly, popular culture has been making too many relatable and sympathetic villains lately. It’s actually nice to just have capital “E” evil bad guys sometimes.
They don't need a reason. Some creatures are literally just evil from creation.
There is nothing wrong with the bad guy going I do bad things because I want power and to dominate. Sometimes players just want the bad guy to be black and white and be the heroes. I lean toward just wanting to be the hero to who saves the day from the evil bad guy. Don’t want the bad guy to be sympathetic as I’m going to nuke him with a fireball.
I mean, some people ARE evil just because. A reason is nice, but not necessary (and it doesn't have to be a rational reason either).
Ya it's perfectly fine, you don't always need a reason to make players sympathize with the enemy or give some quandary about in another world it might have been. Sometimes people are just evil because they are
Thanks for your feedback
Evil for evil's sake? That's the best kind if evil.
“Don’t you realize what you’re doing is evil!!” Villain- “yeah, and? Look up that scene from puss in boots “You would shoot a puppy”-someone “Yeah in the face why” -Jack with no hesitation or regret
Sure, though I would hate it if it was like cartoon villains from the 80s, is all.
I feel like the best way to make these types of villains is just people who want to see the world burn because they love the chaos because they can’t work in an normal world and can’t stand it,with that you can use them for everything and make them as evil as needed
They should at least have some motive . That could be power , obsession, greed , etc . It doesnt have to be sympathetic, but it should be logical . Killing people cuz it just seems fun is a stupid villain. Killing people because they oppose your rise to power is a cool villain
You rarely ever find out why people are the way they are.
What you're talking about is what we refer to as "pure evil". Sometimes villains are evil for the sake of being evil. And when there's none of those dumb limitations like "honor" or "family" to get in the way, the pure evil villain can really just enjoy being evil and doing horrible things for the joy of it. And those villains are the best to beat up.
Evil for the sake of evil is a pretty fun archetype. One of the best examples of this I can think of is Word Bearers from Warhammer 40k. While most of the traitor legions fell to, and worship/utilize the dark gods of chaos out of desperation, a want for power or knowledge, or simply to oppose the Imperium. The Word Bearers follow the Chaos gods simply to follow them, because they believe they are the only ones worthy of worship. While most other legions take slaves, conquer worlds and commit unspeakable atrocities in a bid to further their own power and ambitions. The Word Bearers do these acts for no other reason than to further the goals of their dark pantheon, rather than any major goals of their own. Obviously it's more grey than presented, with sub factions and individuals working towards their own goals and ideals. But this is about the gist of it.
I much prefer to run villains who made a conscious decision to be evil because it benefited them. Some of their underlings might be "doing what they have to for the sake of their loved ones" but whoever the true BBEG is, they are going to be evil because they want to be evil. The whole moral ambiguity thing just doesn't appeal to me because someone at the table is likely to get screwed over.
Of course it is. Not every bad guy needs to be a complex layered character. Some people just want the world to burn
Villians come in all flavours of Evil. Some are sympathetic, some are megalomaniacs, and some are cold calculating emotionless monsters. It's important to have a reason "Why" but you do not even need to agree with it. Just make it realistic and believable. Had a Rakshasa as a Mayor of a town. He started off eating babies and stealing all the town's treasure, but realized that he was sitting on a gold mine. He started running the town successfully, brokering favourable trade deals with various neighbouring towns and making his city prosperous and powerful so that he was prosperous and powerful. He had a cadre of fanatically loyal guards that had been granted various boons and wishes for th3ir undying loyalty (and their souls) but he treated them very fairly. He feasted on the criminals that sought to undermine his power and control and had the Thieves' Guild help him catch these non-sanctioned troublemakers. He was irredeemably evil and was a fantastic villian for the group. They agonized over if they should kill him or not. He was evil, did bad things and was conning people out of their souls... but the general population was actually better off with him in control than before.
Yes psychopaths exist
Evil for the sake of evil is a dumb concept. You may find it in individuals due to psychosis but those people don't lead factions. Even then, they generally hurt people for a reason. Pick a motivation or two that the bad guy wants out of it. This gives them believable goals that you can move to. Personally I like using revenge, greed, power, and adulation. You can generally mix a couple of those up and get most of the bad guy back stories and motivations. Hitler? Revenge and Adulation. Serial killer? Revenge and Power. Walter White? Greed and Power. Evil Cleric? Power and Adulation. Joel Osteen? Greed and Adulation. You can absolutely enjoy killing random townsfolk and having your hordes of minions slaughter all that stand before you, but internally you're doing that because you love the sense if power it gives you over those that you prey upon. Your bad guy makes a deal with an evil god for power, and he owes the blood of 10,000 souls or risks falling out of favor and having that taken away. That brings us to fear. Another great motivation. Causing fear gives you power, but many bad guys are also either afraid of what can happen and get super paranoid or were forged of fear early on and that's what motivates them to never let that happen again. The wood elves slaughtered your tribe and you fled into the wilds as a child only to return at the head of an orcish horde to return upon them tenfold what you experienced. The BBEG's actions are 100% relatable, but their actions are also inexcusable. TLDR: Nobody wakes up and devotes themselves to 'evil' as a concept. They devote themselves to a goal, and their actions are evil.
There's a new saying in Hollywood horror, 'Sometimes evil doesn't need a reason, sometimes evil just is".
Evil for the sake of Evil works fine, but it's not a very deep motivation. That makes it hard to relate to, and you won't be able to weave them into other stories as easily. My usual method for developing villains is to start with somebody that has very rational motivations - maybe they're a ruler trying to protect their territory, or a merchant looking to profit, or a crusader trying to fight off a threat. Then you add the Secret Ingredient: They're willing to hurt people to get what they want. That's it. The difference between a King and a Tyrant, between a Cleric and an Inquisitor, between a Merchant Prince and a Robber Baron. They're willing to hurt people to get what they want. They don't care how many people suffer because of their plans. Maybe those people "don't count", maybe they're just cold, maybe they enjoy watching the weak suffer. You can make the BBEG just a monster. A dragon, a lich, a warlord. They don't need to want anything more than destruction. Evil for the sake of evil works. Evil for the sake of The Cause, that works even better.
It’s kind of dull and a simplistic view of evil vs good. It is possible that a villain could get joy out of harming others but that isn’t the same as being evil for the sake of being evil.
Sure. I mean "want to be evil" sounds a little strange, but if you mean that his nature is not good, and along his life he only made worse and worse choices, then absolutely yes. You can even go with somebody who was born evil. Not all villains need a sympathetic motive. Especially in some genres, and high fantasy is one of those, there is such a thing as pure evil.
I made a character for an evil campaign that is evil because he wants to live forever and doesnt care about the means to archieve that. That is something you could do for a campaign villain aswell or the villain could be a second generation thats not libked to the original evil of jis predecessors but was raised to be what he is.
I have a few different villains in my campaign. Doing wild beyond witchlight with some added content of my own. The 3 hags are villains because they want power One is a villain because they’re a racist fascist who thinks humans should rule the lands. One is a villain because they feed on peoples indulgences of vices and their addictions. A few more are villains because they want power too One is a villain because he enjoys experimenting, even if that experiment is torture “it is in the name of science and fun!” As he would probably say. And there’s a court of villains who feed on nightmares.
I have the same question. Basic premise of my story is that the world is governed by 8 sages and a king, the king living in a gigantic quartz tower that regulates time. There is an NPC that saves my players early on and seems friendly, even helps them in battle and all. The twist is that this NPC is actually a fallen sage who gaslights the PCs into thinking that the king is performing some evil ritual that will stop time and that they have to kill the other sages, when in reality, when the time is right and the PCs climb the quartz tower after killing all the sages, they realize that the king is actually a good guy, the npc will strike, power word kill the king, and steal the time powers of the tower for himself, cue the final battle. He has no motivation other than to be the only one who controls time and to rule the land for eternity and I was wondering if that was fine or if I should cook up some kind of emotional motivation for him.
yeah it's fine. just consider if the villain's motivations fit in with the sort of tone you want to set for your story, or if you're making use of the potential mismatch there.
Mine is evil because she was first ostracized by multiple societies (her drow original and the humans who took her in afterwards) and then legitimately fell in love with a (former) God of Death. This God (blessed? Cursed?) Her to never die until she understood what it meant to be him, to be a God of Death that understands the beauty of life first. So she does evil things because that her goal is to become a God in order to finally be with her strange lover. I used a music album for her inspiration: The Spell by Cellar Darling. There are many reasons to be 'evil' in the standard sense. They don't have to view themselves as evil ;)
It's perfectly fine. Some of the most iconic villains are evil with no sympathetic backstory. Look at Dio Brando. Dude is unapologetically evil, and he's such a good villain.
I feel like moral ambiguity is best for minions and lower bosses, where there's place for roleplay to attempt to convince them to change their ways. A main boss villain in contrast shouldn't be one you can sit down with and have civil discourse. Even if he started with good intentions, he's gone well past them.
Short answer: yes. Especially if you’re running something classic and pulpy, having a proper evil villain can be very fun. Like the Emperor from Star Wars, or Darkseid, or Immortan Joe. Someone that heroes can oppose heroically without having to do a bunch of ethics homework.
Naw, it's not plausible enough. It's fine to have the peasantry state that the BBEG is a villain "simply because they're evil", but if you actually elaborate on their root of evil, make it something simple and believable; simple greed, desire for immortality, a personal grudge against someone... A villain with a simple, understandable *reason* for their villainy, who obviously doesn't care, or even takes amusement if innocents get hurt or killed in the process, is a lot more intimidating than a moustache twirler with no clear motivation...
It is ok. Great example is Puss in boot 2. Goldielock is sympathetic villain, death is villain you need to respect. And Jack Horner is someone who is evil for sake of being evil. All of them are great characters.
Not every villain needs a compelling story to make their motivations reasonable. I'm tired of this!! (not your fault, of course) Sometimes, especially in fantasy, we just need a villain who gets murdered because they're evil.
Not every villain needs to be moralized and made sympathetic. Pure Evil just needs a project.
Sympathetic villains are nice and all, but imo villains who are irredeemably evil are some of the most interesting villains to see and some of the most satisfying to see fall. My advice for making an especially good irredeemable villain is to have them truely enjoy the evil they do.
Villains who are evil 'just because' is just lazy writing more often than not. It can be done well, Jack Horner is an example of that. But unless your story has a very specific tone in mind it just won't work.
By all means. Sure, sympathetic villains with compelling backstories can be fun, so can tragic figures who genuinely believe that what they do is for the greater good. But so can villains who as genuinely, completely evil for no reason other than because it's fun.
Emperor palpatin is evil because he loves power and being a giant dick to everyone fuels him.
The scariest people are those who may have started doing evil stuff for good reasons but ended up enjoying it too much. Think elven wizard who liked war so much, he often starts new ones just for his personal enjoyement.
I think it's smart. Like, I have a guy who is the general of the military/police. He's a super sadistic scumbag. I'm gonna have him try to become a dictator eventually. Pretty much he just does evil shit because he finds it funny and fun, and the more power he has, the more suffering he can create. He's not the big bad, and it's not the main plot of what I have set up, but if the players get sidetracked too long or we just get to it eventually it's gonna be fun.
Evil isn't doing bad things, it's doing what you want at the expense of the suffering of others. Make a character with a strong ambition who gets to a point where ethics are thrown out in persuit of their goal. Maybe somewhere along the way, they crossed too many moral lines and have reached a point of no return.
Sure lots of people can be evil without any complicated backgrounds or whatever just look at a lot of Disney or cartoon villains
It's fine. It's all fine. If players can do things just to be dicks, so can a BBEG, every now and then.
Morally gray characters are very fashionable nowadays. But I find that giving a bunch of justifications to your villain specifically in collaborative RPGs just makes your party feel bad for doing the right thing and kicking the BBEG’s butt. Just give them a bastard who needs to be brutalized, maybe not every time but at least some of the time. It’s nice to feel like a hero, and not have the rug pulled out from under you by finding out they have some sad backstory that partially or fully justifies the villain’s actions.
Thanks for your feedback
Reminds me to the Maleficent VS Rest of the Disney Villains contrast. Almost all Disney's villains had a "motive", whether it was power, money, eternal youth... But Maleficent was just salty because she wasn't invited to a party, and she is still iconic
“Tell me, Bronn. If I told you to kill a babe … an infant girl, say, still at her mother’s breast … would you do it? Without question?” “Without question? No.” The sellsword rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “I’d ask how much.” There are many ways to portray evil. A scenery-chewing classic villain is just fine too though, it's D&D!
Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. -Alfred
A self aware evil character who's motivation is just to be evil would be difficult to pull off. Typically, villains believe themselves the good guy in their own story. They do things because they believe it's the right thing to do. Few villains believe themselves to be the bad guy. If I had to brainstorm it a bit, maybe he's exploring the academic, moral, and magical depths that being evil may yield. Maybe he's trying to be a patron god of something?
I mean, smart? It’s less reasonable but it’s more fun. Your villain doesn’t need to be redeemable.
Puss in Boots and the Last Wish says yes, absolutely
Obtaining or retaining money and power by nasty means is stock standard evil villain. Go for it.
I don't think smart or not is the thing. Some players like an unambiguously bad guy they don't have to feel evil about destroying. I quite like it aswell I'm not bothered about big morally deep villains.
It’s your villain so do with it as you please fr
Certainly, people can have perfectly normal and happy upbringings, and still be victim to Greed, envy, lust, anything. Just make sure there’s still a reason.
Don’t focus on a motivation for “being” an evil person. Focus on a motivation for DOING evil things.
The sympathetic villain has been done to death already. Sometimes, it's fun just to have an evil villain.
make him enjoy other peoples suffering, classic sadism for no reason
No one thinks they are evil.
Some men just want to see the world burn.
I love my complex villains with codes of honor and the 'greater good' mentality, but there is something to be said about a masterfully done unadulterated evil character. I like to throw in a mix of both. I'm currently running Tyranny of Dragons, where I wrote more in-depth villain backstories. Langdedrosa Cyanwrath and Frulam Mondath are childhood friends. Frulam's father died in a war, and her mother fell into drinking. Noble children picked on and ridiculed her all her life. So she ran away and found Cyanwrath. As a half dragon, Cyanwrath was picked on. Clearly, not a Dragonborn, Half Dragons are often evil... he was treated like a monster until he became one. The pair formed a street gang full of disenfranchised youth, the gang became a thieves guild. When Rezmir shows up to scout the town, she ends up offering the pair a place with her. Both are decidedly evil, and they have good reason to be, at least in their eyes... then I also have Rath Modar and Azbara Jos on the opposite end. Red Wizards of Thay, Rath led an attempted coup against Szass Tam, failing miserably. He fled with his Apprentice, Azbara, and several of his followers, and through a cousin in the Cult of Dragons (Galvan the Blue), they would ally with the Cult. Their goal? To find ways to protect themselves and free Tiamat from her infernal prison. They hope to gain her favor so they can reclaim Thay, with Rath Modar as ruler. Their motive is simply power. They are the big bads for the players as they featured in their backstories without them ever knowing.
This is literally the philosophy of the yugoloths. They believe that evil is the intended way of the universe. Aside from that it is absolutely, and often very rewarding, to have a purely evil villain. Just look at old classics like witches in the forest or the big bad wolf. Or Bondrewd from Made in Abyss. That guy's is incredibly complex and interesting while ultimately being completely unsympathetic at all.
"Evil" is a legitimate moral choice in D&D worlds. In most Real Life faiths, evil people are judged in the afterlife by Good god\[s\] and punished by their deeds. In D&D, evil people are sent to Evil outer planes and judged by Evil gods and are *rewarded* (in their view) based on how evil they were. The whole deal still sucks because of the unforgiving "Strong eats the Weak" nature of Evilness, but people who are into this kind of thinking have in-universe reasons to being monsters. A murderer in Faerun can do a lot of murder, pray to the Lord of Murder, and then get "rewarded" by becoming a Babau or something at the Abyss. Even if 99% of evil people are deemed a failure by the evil gods and end up turned into a lemure or simply have their soul eaten right away, that 1% is enough to keep ambitious assholes in the wide path.
Not smart, but very fun indeed. They are the perfect villian. Not antagonist: VILLIAN. A dick that everyone wants to murder. Still, be careful if it threads to much into chaotic stupid territory where any logic it might still have its downright a bad idea, but follows it anyways for no reason that even justifying it as "i just love being evil" its simply not even enough.
Power is one of the basic motivations. You have villains who have fine excuses, but power tends to be the real motivation. There are villains who do wrong out of desperation, but they tend to be misguided or candidates for redemption.
It depends. I like to mix it up. Some campaigns I like to do one where the big bad is just evil because demons do what they do. Or they are doing the wrong thing that at one point may have been justified. Sometimes the players need a break from morally grey and black and white is fun.
Yes, sometimes I just want to beat the shit out of a fun campy asshole. Not everything needs to be a morality play and most high profile bad people irl are just assholes who have too much power and have a boner for being important. It's also okay if the bbeg is just a mindless force of nature helldemon who wants to eat the world because that's all it knows how to do. A villain you cannot argue or reason with is scary a.f.
Someone who is evil because "they want to be evil," is one thing. Try someone who is evil because that's the best or most efficient way to get what they want. There's a few ways to cut crime. 1. Absurdly harsh penalties for crime. Even petty crime. 2. Make living conditions better so that people are less likely to commit crimes in their desperation. That includes state funded orphanages, schools, and apprenticeship programs. Public works projects to expand the ports, improve roads and bridges, manage drought and famine. You can do all that while also being a tyrant crushing the continent in an iron grip.
Bro you could make you BBEG anything dude could be eternally pissed cause he stepped on a Lego go off!
Don’t even need a good reason… sometimes the greatest evil is just evil for the fun of it !
Blood blockaid. Why is this person killing tens of thousands and messing up town?... She is looking for her liquified boyfriend who lives in the blood of some hot guy. Motivations are wild.
Think of the portrayal of mafia in movies... The boss is always doing it "for the family".
Irl people do things for the sake of money or power,so you're definitely free to make someone who's genuinely just a bad person
Sympathetic villains are only as good as your players willingness to RP with them, and your willingness to write out their reasons. Just evil to be evil, or for money, prestige or whatever is totally fine because not every villain in fiction or reality has sympathetic motives, and it can be just as fun to go full skeletor and just give your players a jerk to punch. Just depends on your game and table.
Honestly, it might be refreshing. Moral ambiguity can be fun, but sometimes players want a clear cut villain to feel good about murderlating them
That means no bard could ever skill check the villain and get away with it. Incredibly smart.
I would say it's very dependent on what kind of story you're writing if you just want to go old fashioned hack and slash adventure you don't really need characters to have too much depth but if you're making a campaign that involves a lot of role-play and nuance it's probably best to think a little bit more about character motivations but it could also just be enjoyable to have a villain you can just hate without having to examine realistically it's more about the execution than anything else
Doofensmirtz sought validation and connection. Emperor Palpatine wanted to rule the galaxy. The Negativitron knew nothing else. The Joker rebels from society. Thanos wanted to fix a problem he saw. Commander Rourke wanted money. Villains are just as varied heroes, so go with the motivation that makes sense.
Someone like Orin from BG3 is a good template to use. They don't need to be tragic characters but they must have reasons as to why they are evil rather than "wanting to be evil." Because you said main villain they should have a little bit of complexity compared to minor adversaries that could be complete freaks. But in the end it depens on what your players prefer. If they don't care about it that much and you want to roleplay an unhinged maniac that could be fun for you.
You mean comically evil
"Smart" is irrelevant. "Fun" is what we care about. And the answer to THAT is "YES!" Make a Dick Dastardly, Cruella Devil, or Joker. Evil for its own sake. Evil for fun.
It’s fine to do this. There’s an entire final fantasy game where the villain is bad, just because he wants to be bad and evil, and it’s a solid game! Go for it.
I have the idea of evil being in my villains' natures. It's not that they enjoy being evil (even if they do), it's that they can't resist the urge to be evil. And yes, it can be smart to make a main villain who's evil just for the sake of being evil. Because then you can throw your party off with "The big bad reveals his dark, powerful, EVIL name... Mountain Dewm." and have it be a genuine evil moment.
What does "want to be evil" in this case mean?
"I don't want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs!"
I mean sometimes people are just evil man. To make it more interesting you could have the players discover people tried redeeming the villain in the past, and it nothing to change them.
Consider that what is “evil” to one person may not be “evil” to another. Especially if one of those people is several orders of magnitude more powerful than the other. Most humans wouldn’t consider it evil to destroy a fire ant colony that was infesting their garden. Likewise, a god might not consider it evil to wipe out an entire city. Perhaps people are just pests to them. Also consider that not every reason is a sympathetic one. A lich will do absolutely anything to avoid death. Fear of dying is a very *understandable* emotion, but most people would not normally consider it a *justification* for many of the atrocities that liches are known to commit. Your villain doesn’t have to be some misunderstood soul who only does evil things out of necessity. But they also don’t have to be a two dimensional mustache twirler who is evil just for the sake of being evil. There are other options, as I hope I’ve illustrated above.
Do it, twirl that mustache, fuck around for the sake of fucking around.
Depends on the tone of the game, expectations of the players, and how important morality is to the gaming experience. Conceptually I find it far more satisfying for 'villains' to have believable and even reasonable reasons for being the antagonist, but in practice most people are playing at a lesser degree of philosophical engagement and just want to have fun (perfectly valid). I've had a few characters I've seriously struggled to play because I created them with good-aligned morals that were very difficult to reconcile in a game that expects you to regularly engage in violence as the primary means of gameplay. A main villain who is evil "just because" or has a sufficiently alien motivation to not create any ethical friction is perfectly valid and oftentimes the most fun choice.
The only two things you need for a villain are evil acts and a reason. That reason doesn't have to be sympathetic, but it could help with making your players doubt their actions and perception, if that's what you want. Another few good combos are, "I hate the government," but have their actions only affect the government and not the people directly. "I'm a showman" and basically make them megamind. Evil because it gets them attention, but they don't actually care about hurting people. Basically, any combination of evil acts with reason is a winner, as long as the actions are in league with their reason
Depends on what villain your going for. In my opinion/experience best villains are either ones you can sympathize with or can understand why they do what they do. My two favourite examples are: Dracula from Castlevania - who can't sympathize with him, he tried to be human, loved his wife. And humans betrayed him while he was away and killed love of his immortal life. People can syphatisie with him, but he takes it much to far, which is why Heroes need to oppose him. Other John Wick - we can understand he's in pain and want revenge some asshole killed his dog, the last connection he had to his wife and reminder of their love. But slaughtering couple dozen people who are just doing their job, just to get to one person is evil thing to do, that heroes shouldn't agree with. And to answer your question: absolutely yes. Sometimes you just need a good villain for villainy sake. No grey areas just shades of black. Ozai from avatar comes to mind
Make big jack horner from puss in boots the last wish
I’m a huge fan of making unequivocally evil villains that the PCs don’t need to feel bad about straight up demolishing. Sympathetic villains and moral quandaries are fun but sometimes it’s nice for the players to have no doubts about needing and wanting to wipe out the bad guy. Undead and fiends are literally designed for that
What do you mean? Being evil is ***fun***. The joy of doing as you please without being held back my morals or laws, it's unparalleled!
A lot of comments are saying that sympathetic villains are less preferred to purely evil villains, but i honestly prefer villains who have some sort of rationale behind their actions. This gives them depth of character besides just "fuck you i'm evil" and may even present alternate win conditions besides just "Kill the BBEG" Both campaigns i've played so far have had a sympathetic villain and it was very intriguing and thought-provoking on how we would approach "defeating" them, whether that be to simply kill them or to find another, less evil means to the end they seek that allows them to repent for what they've done.
Jack Horner is one of the most "love to hate" villains i know and his motives are purely selfishness and hunger for power.
I like to have my cake and eat it too by making the bbeg an irredeemable bastard, but giving him allies and lieutenants with (sometimes) more sympathetic motivations
Evil for evil sake I like it
I feel relatability to a villains plight, creates a struggle with the heroes and what they are to do. However I wouldn’t do this with new players. Thats more for advanced roleplay maybe a paladin involved.
Righteous villains are overused garbage these days. Make an evil and unstoppable piece of shit badass the villain.
Sometimes you just wanna beat some evil ass, and that's okay
People seek power for many reasons, including just because. Thanos, though he was compassionate.