using Villains

[jeregenest]

A while back I discussed the traps that a gamemaster can fall into, one of mine is the Scheming Villain; that is those villains, fell fiends and foul fellows such as Professor Moriarty, or the insidious Fu Manchu. Most of this type of villains seems descended from Cardinal Richelieu. For me the scheming villain is the easiest villain to do and I usually fall into these, heck with the type of games I run a scheming villain seems mostly du jour.

I’m trying hard with tantanea to avoid having a big scheming villain behind everything. Sure there are some schemers but I’m trying to avoid the Richelieu archetype. So my question for everyone is what sorts of villains have you used in your gaming and what makes them distinct?

Comments

[head58.livejournal.com]

My villains are always well intentioned, but wrong. Often distructively so. And more often than not, they are friends or even other PCs. Betrayal is always a major, top-shelf theme in al my games. I tend to use Scheming Villains as distractions from the Real Threat.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

I always end up with players who go for the obvious and ignore the scheming villain, so they tend to miss the real problem in the background until it has manipulated them to achieve it's own goal (like getting rid of potential rivals for the scheming villain).

[spiritseeker.livejournal.com]

Blockhead with anger issues. Abusive. As likely to self destruct as to have the heroes take him down. Makes his flunkys easy to infultrate and sympathize with, but amazingly duplicitous.
Someone severely imbalanced. Insane. Unpredictable and very difficult to defeat, but knowing how to manipulate the weakness is an awesome weapon. Also works with alien intelligences.
Jilted lover. Take a character's psycho-hosebeast ex, give them some skilz. Watch the mayhem.
Cold hearted good guy. Sometimes you just have to break a few eggs. He really is going to make the world a better place, but at the cost of a few million souls|world peace|the environment|etc.
There's more, but it's still to early in the day for thinking.

[sben.livejournal.com]

Recently, I've been trying to write villains as no more "right" or "wrong" than the players' characters, just opposed. My intent is to force the players to think harder about their position; I've found that they often end up at (or near) a solution that is a decent compromise, or at least that doesn't leave the opponent totally defeated.

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

I think that's the most powerful way to approach villians. Everyone is a hero in their own head, after all. Even those who loathe themselves, to a small degree. One of my favorite villains was Tarrant from C. S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy, who was dark and evil, yes, but justified on many levels.

The obvious flip side of this is the "unknowable horror" a la Lovecraft. Elder Gods and their insane minions are always fun times.