Making Evil

So you're writing up ideas for your campaign, thinking about the geography and who governs what and so on when you realize something - I need a driving force for my players. I need to give them a good reason to go on their journey, and not stay at home and watch the world burn.

How can you do this? Well the standard go-to answer most GMs use is something along the lines of villains, however this concept can be very broad, ranging from a specific person to concepts and even ideas, not to mention forces of nature.

Considering any given villain, who is supposed to stick around, needs a lot of work to make memorable and decent. Here are a few tools and ideas on how to help with your villains.

• Make something about them stand out. Perhaps a piece of clothing, how they talk, or how they fight. Either way, it's easier to remember something you can visualize well then another commoner.
• Make them relatable. Unless they are a concept or incarnation of an idea, they will inevitably have feelings, emotions, and everything that comes with that. So having players understand that who they are working against isn't some infallible, all-knowing being can give them courage in their fight, and sometimes even sympathy for the character, and if you're particularly lucky they may try to redeem them.
• Don't hide them, generally speaking. I have tried making my villains more of a "hidden in the shadows, pulling the strings" kind of people before, and it's never worked too well for me. I understand it can be done well, but I think it takes a lot of decent foreshadowing, and proper understanding from the party to really get a worthwhile effect from it all.
• Make them a challenge, in at least one way. By this I mean that villains don't always need to be strong in combat, as long as the players face them in another arena (ex. social situations) and can lose, in a matter of speaking.
• Make sure they're beatable for your party, and if they have a specific weakness or way to defeat them try to let your players figure it out before having an NPC ruining their "Aha!" moment. Don't let an NPC kill them either unless there is an amazingly good reason why s/he should get to final blow. The players are here for their story, their adventure, and their glory, not the story of Dwayne the Ex-Commoner.

One other thing I'd like to note is an idea I ran across a short while back. The idea was that GMs don't need to use villains anymore, they are an archaic ingredient to the GM's gameplan, and can be thrown out.

I find this train of though fascinating, and in a sand-box style of game I'd almost be inclined to agree in a way. There doesn't need to be a big evil guy or girl threatening people, the party should be self-driven, but many groups don't want such a freeform type of game, preferring to see what kinds of plans the GM has next, and how the story will unfold.

What do you think of the idea? Have you ever done a game without a proper villain? How'd it go? And if any of you have questions or suggestions for articles, I am more than happy to see what's on your minds.

I hope your creations lay waste to all who oppose them,

Taylor Shuss