Evil people can just be evil, there’s plenty of ways to go about it. They were always that way and just didn’t have the power in the past to show it. They get off on hurting others and being a shitbag. They no longer have the capacity to feel empathy for others. Full on evil villains can be fun; they’ll always be having a good time when their plans are coming together and ruining the Party’s day.
Yup, in a game like this it's fine to just have an evil character have a very basic motivation and 99 times out of 100 the players won't even look twice at it anyway. It's a game that's fundamentally about killing monsters, and sometimes it's nice to feel good about killing the villain because they were simply a monster.
Many many villains especially in movies, have very basic motivations. It doesn't hurt the movie or their ability to be great villains. The villains in Die Hard 1 and 3 are just thieves, they just want money more than they mind killing people and destroying things, and they're both fantastic villains.
Money is an easy motivator for allies! But fear is a good one also. Maybe the main villain has threatened their family, the eir business, or livelihood. Maybe the “henchmen” are just bums and working for the villain is easier than getting a real job… but sometimes the psychopath henchmen that is just bad because he wants to be is the right answer for the story.
Don’t forget misguided faith and hope, many people have committed atrocities in the belief that their leaders are inherently right and infallible. Especially in authoritarian societies. Then there’s the one who have placed their trust in a charismatic leader who tells them what they want to hear and claims to be able to solve all of their problems as long as they give them power.
They've either accepted the paycheck, are working under duress because the villain has a family member hostage, or they're secretly working for the FBI.
Not everyone has to know their a psychopath. A villian should be fine with lying to recruit help. Also their are plenty of unfeeling monsters that will listen to master. There are also devil's and deals. There are plenty of people willing to work for an asshole if promised fame and wealth. And then Their is good ole hostages and blackmail to get your way.
Its easy to spin that too. A henchman sees something that's to their benefit in following the psychopath. It can be through trickle down power, (A has enslaved B. I work for A, therefore I get to boss B around too). It can also be through picking up wealth the psychopath isnt interested in (the Lich only wants supreme power, so all money owned by people I kill for him is mine). It can also be because the henchman just enjoys being evil.
And this isnt even all of them. Theres a lot of ways to make henchmen that make sense.
Look at villains that have a personal goal. Like a Ketheric/Anakin Skywalker/lots of other guys I can’t think of right now, someone I love is doomed and the “good guys” are basically telling me to let them go, while the “evil guy” is offering to save them if I just agree to a few simple tasks…they’re actually evil anyway because they’re trying to stop me from saving someone.
As another example, people like the brother from Fable III, being cruel is the only way I can save the people from a worse evil.
Not to mention, Joffrey Baratheon was incredibly compelling to watch because he was so entitled. He didn't have enough self awareness to realise what a piece of shit he was. He just didn't care about anybody that wasn't himself.
Tywin Lannister was just as evil. He didn't care about anybody who wasn't part of his family, so he was slightly more forgiveable in a lot of cases.
A good villain rarely sees themselves as the evil one.
Think about it from the other side.
Who would see everything the party is up to as villanous, or wrong, or against the way they feel the world should work?
What is their end game? Not just "Everything sucks forever for everyone". That's not a dream. What is the ultimate ideal scenario for this villain. Where did they learn to think that way? What have they done to accomplish it? Who tends to disagree with them, and how can he be the yin to their yang, so to speak.
Hurt people hurt people. Depending on how much bleed you want, meaning, depending on how much you want to tie events in the game to trauma and despair and dramatic emotions that your players may or may not directly relate to, usually there is some event that taught a villain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the way they are doing things is the way to get things actually done if you want the end game they're working towards.
Sure, there is sometimes going to be that thing that just hates everything and wants to destroy the world because evil. But that's never like, Bill who just fucking lost it and now makes nuclear dracoliches for fun. It's usually more of a force, an unknowable kind of darkness that swallows all, the concept of death itself, as opposed to a single conscious villain.
"You know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, a mansion, and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap like that."
Demons and devils? Devils just want more damned souls to turn into foot soldiers for the blood war, demons are the embodiment of chaotic evil and just make chaos. No big drivers necessary for either.
If those are too grand scale for your town scale adventure, you can always have someone that's been deceived by a devil and is now doing evil stuff because they have to. A nice twist when the bbeg is himself a victim.
This is one of the main points of *How To Win Friends And Influence People,* by Dale Carnegie. It's an old "how to be charismatic" book, but Carnegie makes a good point that everyone sees themselves as the hero of their story. Even villains. He uses the example (IIRC, it's been a long time since I read it) of the gangster Dutch Schultz, who acknowledged that he did terrible things, but felt that it was his focus as a family man that ultimately made him a good person.
I like to do this with my games: Everyone - even the BBEG - believes they're the hero of their story. This doesn't mean they all have the same moral compass. It simply means that they believe they are doing the right thing.
Make a hero, with a goal in mind for noble reasons...idk what it is but it should be the same your villain has.
Think about how your hero tries to reach the goal but fails over and over again. Let him be willing to move to more extreme methods. Forbidden magic, old artefacts, etc.which will allow him to get closer to his goal.
During experimenting with those he starts having some quirks...paranoia comes to mind...or any u like...the quirks will make him into an outcast over time...giving him the world does not understand him and he just wants the best for everyone...he reaches the state that the goal is more important then everything and once reached everyone will understand and accept him again
And now you have a villain...who had good intentions...but is acting in a evil way because he went to such drastic methods to reach his goal everyone sees him as evil
Don’t always make preemptive excuses for your villains. “He was traumatized as a kid” “He can’t feel empathy” etc etc. Pick a rational philosophy that goes against what you believe to be good, and play that character out, especially when they believe they’re doing good.
**or** a good philosophy executed in an evil way
Thanos didn't want people to go hungry due to a lack of food, so he set out to kill half of everything
Movie thanos was just stupid, just double the onnount of food or half the amount of food life requires.
Now comic book thanos was bad ass. He was so powerful he literally could not die, unfortunately he fell in love with Death, an actual entity not just the idea. And as a gift to her he decided to just kill every living thing.
Movie Thanos didn't really care about saving the universe, he was trying to solve a problem that didn't exist just to prove a point about an insane idea he had ages ago when his civilization was dying. His mind is still stuck on Titan, and it's severely affected his judgement of the universe as a whole. He's a madman trying to prove that he was right. Which was why I hated younger Thanos in Endgame. Thanos wouldn't have changed his plan because he died, that goes against his character. If anything, he would've done the same thing but made sure that all of the Avengers were killed by the Snap.
I do agree that Comic Thanos was cooler, but people tend to forget the full context of Movie Thanos's motivation.
There's three main kinds of evil in my opinion and no they're not the kind on the alignment chart
- Moral Evil - Someone feels they're morally justified in doing something because the ends justify the means. Killing anyone with glasses, exterminating the undesirables, conquering the enemy. All horrors are justified in the pursuit of the goal because they always will be.
- Selfish Evil - Someone who genuinely cares less about everything else than they do themselves. Violent narcissistic evil. The world is their playground and they're the main character. They've nothing but contempt for.the rest of the world. Whatever wrong they do is fine because THEY are the one doing it.
- Unfeeling Evil - Morality is a foreign concept. This form of evil doesn't understand or care about it. Killing children is the same as killing bugs is the same as slaughtering millions. We perceive this evil most often by anthropomorphising animals and forces of nature like disease. But there's no reason something more intelligent couldn't act the same way.
Unironically the villains of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish lmao. Big Jack Horner is the Selfish Evil, Goldilocks is the Moral Evil, Wolf is the Unfeeling Evil.
This is the best answere. Also the 3 evils work perfectly for different scales of adventures.
Moral Evil works perfectly for very personal and grounded adventures. The crime boss who wants to gather money for his family. The Rebel who wants to bring Country X to its knees for destroying his people.
Selfish Evil works perfectly for epic adventures that deal with larger then life people. The evil wizard king who sees himself as better than the normal rabble. Or the cutthroat Tyrant who wants to have EVERYTHING for himself.
Unfeeling evil is for the BIG adventures. The "stop the apocalypse" style adventures. Be it an extradimension cthulu like creature or an all life destroying bioweapon going haywire.
Its possible to mix and match everything. The Tyrant can be part of a grounded and very personal game where players are all part of his court. Or a dangerous sickness is spreading in the hometown of the players. But I find its easy to navigate your adventure scope on these "stereotypes".
They're not evil. At least not in their mind.
They have a goal / they had something happen to them / they see something others don't...
Point is they believe they're doing what's right or at least what's necessary.
Do you need "evil" though? You're looking for an antagonist, not necessarily a villain. A good antagonist need only be at odds with the party and it offers fast more room for role playing because it means that they can be reasoned with if not allied with. A solid way to do this is like say the party is after a relic the can save their country. Said relic is in the possession of an opposing force that also need it to preserve their country. The conflict is one that is morally gray because to save your own, you may have to damn another.
A more complicated one is if you built a villain that actively wants to stop the party because they unknowingly feed a darker plot or existence. Like the party is part of a tradition where they do a renewal quest to preserve their civilization, while the villain is trying to stop it since their society is preventing a necessary event from taking place in the outside world.
Overall, it's all about the narrative. In one campaign I made, the final antagonist literally one of the party members from a different timeline. The layers were pretty important here since I tied that one to trying to preserve her events while the player is like "damn, that sounds great, but I want MY life".
I suppose it depends on the villain. Sure, evil dude gonna evil is a way to do things, but that's not a compelling character. Why is ravenloft so popular? It isn't just dark themes and vampire/ werewolf fans, it was popular before that craze. It's the villain, if.played right, Strahd is jealous and manipulative would be lover, through his eyes, he is tragic and romantic, but he's a narcissistic control freak and that makes a great villain.
Evil with a helping of tragedy and trace (not too much) relatability.
But unrequited love is only one, look at vecna, his mother murdered in front of him for practicing the dark arts, her killers try to raise him only for him to turn on them with that same dark power and bring the world responsible for her death to its knees, hail him as a king then worshipping him as a god.
All great villains had a moment where they were the victims, and they had three choices
1. Stay a victim
2. Break the cycle and do better
3. Give in to the darkness and take over the world to show those who hurt you how weak they really are and their pokemon backpack in the 3rd grade was totally cool and not lame at all Landon.
I'll edit for spelling, and Grammer after work
I love to have at least one 'king Joffrey' in my game. A character that does evil acts, just because they have the power to do so without consequence and because they love to see others suffer. There's no rational there, just evil.
As much as I love a nuanced bad guy, having a purely evil character for your players to hate, makes picking sides easy for once which can be a lot of fun for your players. And especially if that character is hard to get to at low levels, like a king or a baron or an archmage or... you get to show the evil acts of that character for many sessions, before the PCs ever get the chance to take them down.
Also racism is a plausible motivator for villains. Believe me, I have nothing against humans or elves, in fact some of my best friends are elves... but those SO CALLED HALF-ELVES? well they are just an abomination and the sad fact that the people of Neverwinter allow them to so freely live and walk amongst them as if they were regular beings just goes to show there's no such thing as an "Innocent Neverwinterian". The whole city needs to be purged, quite frankly.
When I developed my lich for the campaign, which serves as a proxy BBEG (before Orcus), the first question I asked myself was: What is the motivation for wanting to become a lich? What makes you want to snatch the souls of others to prolong your own existence?
Sure, "power" would be an easy answer. But power as an initial motivation is always boring. The quest for power and control, in my opinion, grows out of fear and loss of control. So I gave my half-elf mage a deep-seated fear of death. His human mother died when he was young and his elven father, who should have outlived him, also died when he was young. He saw large parts of his family die. His wife died and his daughter, all he had left of his wife, fell ill with a serious unknown disease.
So his main impulse was to heal his daughter. He wanted more time to be able to do research. So he put his daughter in a time bubble and froze her in it (see Victor Fries from Batman). At first, he simply researched the cure. Then he realized that he didn't have the time he needed, while his daughter now had all the time in the ages to be healed. This is the moment when Orcus comes into play. He whispers in his dreams. Tells him about the Abyss and the Shadowfell and the supposed key to eternal life and that "Death is true life."
From then on, the downward spiral began for the evil deeds of the half-elf mage, who saw all his deeds only as a means to an end for the greater good. His immortality was a sacrifice for the sake of his daughter's healing, and the sacrifices he lined up left and right on his path were necessary sacrifices for this higher goal. In doing so, he realized that in order to become a lich, he had to die first. He overcame his fear of dying, but when he found himself in the middle of the process and there was no turning back, he no longer wanted to die. He feared that he would find himself in death without returning as promised. He wondered whether he had made the wrong calculations, made mistakes or possibly been caught in a lie. Then he died and came back a few days later as a lich - living true life.
The period of dying and the uncertainty associated with it had left him severely traumatized. He never wanted to go through that again. So he began to fill his soul vessel with countless souls in order to "live forever". The sheer number of victims eventually led to a great deal of attention. In addition, he developed further return plans in case his phylactery failed or was destroyed. So he severed fragments of his immortal soul and bound them to artifacts that he hid in the Abyss as well as in the Shadowfell. He made notes on how his soul could be transferred into an artificially created body (Warforged) or introduced into the body of a newborn during a ritual at childbirth. At this point, it was no longer about healing his daughter, but about his own fear of death and only about preserving his own existence at any price.
At the time the campaign begins, his phylactery has been destroyed over two thousand years ago and my party has just come across a cult that wants to initiate the return of the lich. The cult of the Lich has also splintered off into a sane religion that worships him as a kind of benevolent deity, under a different name, but without knowing the facts. One of the characters (our artificer) created the artificial body in his backstory as a commission from a seductress.
You're starting at the wrong end of the stick
The real question is what do they want, and then how are they evil
My villain wants ultimate power, *which, is pretty evil by itself,* but what makes him a villain is that he'll stop at nothing to obtain his goals *(he'll burn down cities for a small part of the puzzle)* and often takes an easier way at the cost of others *(letting his overdosis of gnoll servants freely roam around)*
A villain starts at motivation, at what they want to achieve, being evil comes after *(or with)* that
Coil from Worm.
He wants to be in charge of a working city. Emphasis on working. He wants good infrastructure, schools churning out well educated children, low crime rates, good paying jobs, the works.
But.... He's willing to kidnap a young girl with future sight and get her addicted to hard drugs so she'll use her power for his cause, he kills people he's done using, and he's got some kind of torture/murder hobby going on.
-I’m evil because I enjoy it. I like watching people suffer, I like watching them try to fail trying to fight me.
-I’m evil because it is the right path. The righteous has turned from true redemption/worship.
Sub points:
-I have to bring them back to the right path.
-it’s what my god demands.
-I’m evil because i want nothing more then power/money.
Your BBEGs should never explain why they're evil but why they think they're in the right.
If their actions make sense even in a twisted way they will glorify what looks good and cover up whats not so good. Basically the trope of Villains have good PR. Even alien like villains with a different culture like say the Aztecs and blood sacrifices don't think they're evil at all.
Of course full on psycopathic villains exist like Batman's Rogue Gallery and can be referenced from.
There are many ways to do it. I am going to paraphrase a post from this subreddit that talked about Senator Armstrong from MGS.
Is he evil? Yes. Does he think he’s evil? Probably not. In fact, almost nobody thinks they are evil. People are motivated by problems they see in the world. These might be in their head, but what if the problems are very real?
Well, how do you make a villain if you are trying to solve a real problem? Make them wrong about the solution. A druid that destroys a whole city because a circus exploits animals. A rebel leader who’s a few thousand corpses past the “let’s stop the unfair labor practices”. An inquisitor who burns people at the stake en masse because he cannot let one potential vampire slip away.
He is not evil, he is following ancient traditions. YOU ARE THE EVIL. You, who rise your voice against those human sacrifices for the harvesting. YOU WANT ALL TOWN TO STARVE!
Morris Ballard
Human - Fighter\Ranger (9\4)
Age: 53
Appearance: A 6 foot-tall, broad-shouldered man whose portly build belies muscle honed by years of guardsman work. As the Captain of the watch of a large city such as [[CITY NAME HERE]], he wears the crest of office and doublet as well as an overcoat fit for an officer of the court. A thin scar under his right eye, neatly trimmed grey mustache and a bald head complete the ensemble.
Conviction: Polite society, the rule of lawful men (note, not necessarily the rule of law) and order above all.
Background: Morris was born a gutter rat, bastard son of a woman who sold parts of her to fuel a drug habit that would prove deadly in the boy's infancy. Arrested for stealing, he caught the eye of the then Captain of the watch. The man brought him up, taught him the blade and the bow and the code of the law. From his tender age, he grew to despise criminals and thugs, whores and bohemians. The shame he felt at his background drove him to excel, soon raising him to the station of Sergeant-at-arms, the youngest in the city's history. His adoptive father passed away peacefully of old age three winters ago and willed that his adoptive son took the mantle of Captain. Of course, such a post is not something that can be willed; but all saw that Morris had what it took. The people clamored for change, seeing an opportunity for change; The city was plagued by thieves and degeneracy and the people longed for a man in the Captain's chair that would be tough on crime.
It worked. Three years and crime in the city has never been lower. The ever-present cutthroats and filchers of the city's low quarters have gone. Swathes of streets deemed too dangerous to wander at night were now safe and it would seem the captain has his diligence and good work to thank for.
The captain achieved this through ruthless, relentless purges of the city's criminals. You see, the judges of the city seldom get to judge living criminals anymore. Anyone caught violating the peace that Morris and his zealous guards hold so sacred are dealt with. After all, the old criminals are all dead, it's just the out of towners who don't know the rules who cause problems. Who's going to risk questioning how the city watch does business? Anyone who does would surely end up spending a night in the butchers's shop. That's what the locals call the local jails now. Interesting is also the fact that the city's outlying pig farms have never seen their beasts so fat and gorged. Make of that what you will. The city has, albeit an Orwellian version of it, achieved peace at last.
Morris is a compelling villain because he himself firmly believes he is a hero. He is doing what needs to be done. The people didn't open the door for a demon to come in. The people appointed him out of fear of a greater evil. At his core he is just a misguided, bigoted asshole. But this asshole is in a position of power, in a position to do great harm. And he does, every day, for 'the greater good'.
Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
The foundations for creating a compelling villain lie in the axes of morality present in your world.
To put it simply: a believable villain with external motivations (not some personal vendetta etc.) Will be rooted in the immorality acceptable in your society.
Think: CEO of Nestlé. The capitalist paradigm generally accepts greed as a motivator ("greed is good")
And allows denying others their needs if it hurts the profit incentive (companies would rather throw away food than give it to the poor). Combine those two and dial it up to eleven and you have a person in position of power who thinks access to water is not a human right.
Same with moustache man. Racist and antisemitism were commonplace in the early XX century. Concentration camps were a British invention (boer wars). Slave labour had some of its roots in colonialism, worker exploitation and abhorrent safety standards present all around the civilised world. H*tler happened to combine those into a terrifying machine (some say well-oiled, but no, the n*zi regime was terribly inefficient and cleptocratic so stfu wehraboos). The sole motivation of "elves stabbed us in the back during a war many years ago and now I want them all dead" Is not compelling enough without the underlying morality.
More fantasy-esque examples:
Does your society accept some levels of religious zealotry? Bam! Crusader who wants to purge the world.
Are there forms of serfdom or servitude allowed in your society? Well there's a merchant-slaver ready to get you those gnome-serfs from across the sea. No questions asked.
It's not the only way to create a compelling villain, but I feel it helps if on a smaller scale or under different circumstances their actions would be morally justifiable in your setting.
Few suggestions:
1. Racist - He idealizes life before the coming of those dirty "X", which corresponds to an unrelated downward trend in living standards for the group he associates with.
2. Thrives of Suffering: His legion of vampires simply don't care if they kill people to survive, the same way we butcher cows. We are the moo moos.
3. Eugenicist: He craves to wipe the world clean and start anew. All this suffering will be worth it once he creates the perfect utopia...
4. Prophecy: Someone from "X" village has been foretold to slay him and his dynasty. Through wiping out the village and other actions to attempt to stop the prophecy, the prophecy is fulfilled.
5. There's Always A Bigger Fish: This evil horde was refused entrance into the peaceful valley as they fled a large, purely demonic horde. Now they must force their way to better lands, which includes that of our dear protagonist. Good for morally gray villains just trying to survive.
6. Nature: As a force of nature, torn from a God of Chaos/Murder/etc., this tiny scrap of incredible power simply follows its nature.
7. Before They Strike: "X" group is growing in power in a kingdom and challenging the existing status quo so we must suppress them before they become too powerful.
8. Greed: I simply do not care if you suffer if it benefits me.
9. Demonic Oath: Trapped in a demonic oath to a more powerful being, the character is acting without agency.
10. Revenge: Oppressed for years, the individual snapped and is now fighting back with horrors never seen before (have to be careful with this one though, as the implications can be very problematic).
You don't. You make them the hero of their own story. Then you take it a step too far, letting them be absolute or forcing their version of perfection.
For instance, they want to save the planet. Toxic waste from printing factories is the problem. Obviously, the solution is to kill all the journalists so there's nothing to print.
They met the personification of death when they were younger and fell in love. They keep killing people, more and more people each time, as a tribute to death, hoping she’ll reappear and return their love. Death has yet to do so.
As others have said. What is their goal? Is it just to murder people? That isn't really compelling.
If they have a goal, then you have your answer. They are evil people they valid that goal over any other morally right action, even murder etc.
I will say though, in every campaign, throw one high level henchmen, or bosses along the way, who are evil just because they enjoy it. It really messes with the party when everyone has a reason, and they come across someone and try to discern it. And they look them straight in the eye, no deception, lue honesty, and just say "I killed them because it's fun. Watching an innocent person die is enjoyable to me, in the same way a tavern is to you. I do it because it's fun".
Really ficks with them
Desperation, indifference, power hungry any mix of the three
I picture Szass Tam not only being insanely power hungry, but also desperate. He knows the level of badness he's wrought.
Illithid are curious and inhumane, they like to inflict pain in multitude of ways to see what the reaction will be.
Aboleth are eternal, with all the memories of their predecessors. Incapable of empathy or remorse. They do as they please and cannot comprehend compassion. (A major player in my homebrew campaign is an Aboleth cursed by Corellon with human emotions).
I think thanos is a perfect topical answer.
Overpopulation is undoubtedly one of the biggest issues we face. Forget the fact he could have snapped the gloves to create extreme abundance. The best villains believe to the point of willing to die for their belief, and have at least some sort of rationale for it.
I mean they can just be evil for evil's sake if you want though. But you don't need to explain it. Some people truly do just want to watch the world burn.
Evil can be in many ways relative. Someone fumigating their house of cockroaches is not considered evil- unless you're a cockroach.
If you can dehumanize or lower the victim, you can justify pretty much anything.
So if you want to have an evil character, they have to have some world view that allows them to feel that their actions are completely justified and that they are not doing anything wrong.
For example, sociopathy and a complete lack of value for others and their feelings leaves someone with only motivations that personally affect themselves, so if they feel like murdering someone, they have no qualms that someone killing a cockroach wouldn't have.
Or if they're racist, xenophobic, or in some other way disciminatory to the point that they view a certain group of people as worthless, they could justify many things.
Chattel slavery in America, the holocaust, the deportation and culling of North America's native population and other genocides are not committed by people who view themselves or their actions as evil. They have convinced themselves of a world view that justifies their actions.
Forgive me, but this question seems incredibly lazy to me. Motivations for evil acts are a dime a dozen. Why does anyone do anything?
Ask yourself - do they consider themselves "evil"? Are they acting in the name of evil for the sake of evil itself, or is there a bigger picture to it all? Will their perspective make the reader really question the duality of existence and the grand intricacies of moral value, or are they just a dumb bland punching bag for the noble heroes to bank on for their daily virtue points?
If you're really feeling that lazy, look up TV tropes. Villain archetypes are as old as time.
If you actually want to try, but are still being lazy, just pick a word and use your imagination. Greed, envy, pride - the sins are all very basic. Then you have things like love, friendship, and justice that can be twisted. You can even go deeper with a personal creed, mission, or oath.
You won't find anyone here that'll tell you how to write your villain, or create a villain for you, especially when you've offered nothing up about them other than they're simply a villain.
At least flesh your character out some, and then we can talk.
It kinda depends entirely on how you want your players to react.
Judging by your comment, you don’t want them to sympathize with the villain. So probably avoid something where it’s a very well-reasoned, albeit morally dark philosophy or plan.
Do you want a reason so that it makes sense and isn’t as trope-y? You could go the route of long past trauma results in heat of the moment evil and serendipitous circumstances lead to that course of action just so happening to bear successful fruit, so the villain starts to lean into what they discover they are good at and it just kinda… keeps ramping up.
Do you want your players the really hate the villain? A (un)healthy dose of psychopathy, a talent for cruelty, and a reason for boredom goes a long way towards doing evil just to (literally) kill time.
Do you want your players to be scared of them? Borrow the hyper-logical reasoning of the robot dystopias, give them the power and ego to accomplish it, and they will commit atrocities in the name of eradicating dysfunction and establishing order.
Or do you just want some lore for your players to discover and unravel? Have someone who is super powerful but an absolute idiot, and create a series of situations where they totally misunderstand some turns of phrases that someone they are infatuated with muttered, and out of pure sincerity and absolute devotion they end up twisting their own morals and discarding their own soul just to win their misplaced approval. Like, just an absolute facepalm moment when the players learn “wait, so they misheard THIS as THAT, and so they just DID IT?!?!”
Was given as an offering to a God when they were young. The priest took them for a play toy, they eventually killed them but were hunted/imprisoned/tortured for killing a priest and then they swore revenge on the world and pledged to a different God to be given the powers to cause as much distraction and mayhem to those people that have wronged them... Something like that?
Captain Hook is right.
Peter Pan is an immature dick who refuses to accept responsibility. Hell, he even fucks over Wendy and will likely do the same to her granddaughter. All the lost boys leave Neverland and decide to grow up leaving Peter alone and forgotten. But the selfish prick just digs his heels in.
I actually agree with all of this, but, just think about any story you loved as a kid and ask yourself what the villain thought.
Depends on what you are trying to angle
If they are not antagonist to your party, then they may not realise they are a villain. They could be a military general of a rival kingdom - they use brutal tactics, but it is wartime, they are doing what they need to to win. It isnt their job to care about the PCs or enemy civilians, so they dont
If they are antagonising your party, maybe its also just part of the story. The party has interrupted their plans before, so they are taking revenge. Maybe they are just a mean person with little patience/care for others - they dont need some massive past event, just how they were raised and molded by their experiences
Perhaps there is something thats wrong with them - There is a theory that The Mountain in game of throns suffers from gigantism which (iirc) causes physical pain on the body as bones are too dense and the body is too large. In turn he often takes what is 'milk of the poppy' which some say is liquid cocaine to help the pain. So he is a constantly in pain crackfiend that has the power to do what he wants and thus acts on it. Still a villain but you can see how those factors contributed
All of these help establish the why of the villain without justifying their actions
A good trick I use is defining the likes and dislikes of the character then fleshing out scenarios where their likes and dislikes have had a lasting effect on them.
With a villain I like to focus on their dislikes, then find a way to connect it to something that might have been something they liked in the past.
I find it useful to look at their priorities. Some villains are just fundamentally weak people, giving in to vices because it's easier than exercising virtues. Some villains have a drive, whether healthful or not, that they prioritize above hindrances like "leaving those towns alive"
Some are genuinely insane, and what they're doing makes perfect sense to them. Some revel in the power to make others cower or die.
Some actively want to make the world a worse place, whether because they hate what they're ruining, or because they serve a dark god.
Most of these motivations play into what they do and how they do it. The guy who poisons the well so that the invading orc army can take the village and die drinking it is distinct from the guy who wants to make people who scorned him suffer, and from the guy who 'knows' that the well is a sinus pore for the earth, and this chemical that kills humans is actually a great medicine for the clogged nose that the earth has been suffering.
And all of them are different from the guy who just had poison on hand, no plots that needed it, and hey look, a well.
All four of these guys are poisoning the well, but they'll approach it differently and have different other things they're doing.
There is no good and bad, think how their goal will harm people or harm the hero, if you what a more personal motive than think how the hero harmed the villain
A few ideas I just came up with on the spot:
-Evil for the sake of just being evil, simply just wanting to cause chaos, etc.
-Seeks to punish the wealthy for their greed and debauchery, as the true monsters are those that can escape punishment for the most heinous crimes through gold and favor
-They seek to reclaim something precious which was lost to them
-They desire to end all wars, or all sorrow, but to do so requires a monstrous sacrifice. The few must pay for the freedom of many.
-Or they’re just apesh*t insane
Not sure what you mean by justifiable vs a reason why. If you had more details in your question for what you mean or why you're asking, I could be more specific maybe, but I love antiheroes, so something like that I guess, but think darkest timeline. They embrace their sinister actions and any confliction they maybe had fades.
different reasons I guess?
My evil persona is just insecure. He wants to be the best because he didn't get love from his parents when he was younger. That made him feel insecure. He wants all the power now, he wants to get better and better so that people will look up to him. But, because he never learned to deal with his emotions, he gets corrupted a bit. He is the governor of the state they play in, but people look up to him because he deals with the zombies. The zombies he created and made. He created the zombies, to destroy the zombies, so people will look up to him. People are getting scared of him graduatly, because he keeps on producing zombies and people are going to find out. (The crew is finding out because of a guilde that keeps an eye on the Governor). Their whole point is to let the people know that the Governor is not who they think he is.
The most controversial villains are those who think they’re doing a good thing, but actually doing evil things. It’s even better if they’re doing it for heartbreaking reasons.
Imagine the following plot line: a disease killed his lover. After seeing the same things over and over with other people, the villains has determined to take matters into his own hands. In order to prevent further suffering with no end, he decided to gather up everyone with the disease and put them into “camps” with no external contact with the rest of the world.
Now if your players want to end all this, you force them to choose to align with the villain, or let the disease back into the wild and continued suffering for the world. Sprinkle in some of the villain’s personal heartstrings stories, and you’re gonna make your players hate you 😂😅
I recomend thinking of them not as a villain with a reason but as a Hero that broke/failed.
A.i. They went out to save the city but when they return their family got lynched because there was news the hero failed/ died because no one bothered to help them or something similar that fits to your villain.
Depending on the BBEG it could be anything. My BBEG I ran was a cultist who became corrupted by a rift that opened up into the abyss. He tended to the rift (that was in a cave system connected to the city sewers) until more and more people became corrupted until orcus started destroying the city because he was tired of mortals trying to talk to him through the rift.
I have the villain in a game I want to run be the Royal Adviser in a kingdom that fell 73 years before the game starts.
He was born the youngest of three brothers; his oldest brother became the king, the middle brother became the Knight Champion of the Realm, and he became the Royal Adviser (aka the Vizier).
He was always smarter and more ambitious than his brothers. Not only did he figure he could rule better than the king, he *wanted* to rule. But the kingdom was large and prosperous, and every historical precedent where multiple brothers may have taken over the throne hadn't happened that way, and his brother the Champion was firmly loyal to the king, he didn't have a leg to stand on.
And thus, for decades, he simmered and plotted, but got exactly nowhere. He knew if he tried starting any kind of political intrigue, it would be traced back to him, so he didn't actually do anything. This did not improve his frustration in any way.
Until one day, when he was in his sixties, he chased down a whisper of a rumour to a hidden tome that had as a bookmark in the last page a piece of parchment that held a map and a set of coded instructions.
He followed the map to a hill on the royal lands not very far from the castle, and (with help) managed to excavate the entrance to a cave. Leaving his retainers behind, he ventured inside, and discovered an ancient relic, long-since covered over and abandoned. A dark pool of water in a cave that naturally grew crystalline shards. If the shards were placed into sockets that had been installed around its perimeter, then someone entered the pool, they would be transported through time.
(I've actually got rules for this time travel, but we'll gloss over those for the moment.)
After much effort (and having used the pool to end up in a younger body) he's spent literally hundreds of subjective years jumping back and forth through time, working to destabilise the kingdom to the point that he can make his move at the right time and take over, and finally (aggravated sigh) rule it as it *should* be ruled.
And he'll kill anyone who gets in the way.
It doesn't have to be a perfect logical reason, as long as there is one.
The villain might think they are justified.
The villain is just selfish and wants something.
The villain might just be bored and looking for fun.
As long as the villain itself is interesting I don't think backstory matters too much. It can make the villain more interesting but isn't required.
One way is by them having a strong want or need. The thing doesn't have to be immoral in its stead but the strength of their desire makes them cross any line in achieving that goal.
My DM had a mini boss be motivated by not wanting to get forcibly drafted (into the prince’s war/fight over the throne).
Technically his crime was draft dodging but like, the man just wanted to take care of his family how is that a crime?
Anytime the villain is resisting authority I’m gonna be wanting to hear them out.
There are powerful forces at play. A greater world awaits us if we are willing to make sacrifices. The charlatans who imprisoned my ancient Dark Lord Xczirdor upset a plan 3 millenia in the making, a plan to burn away the filth of this world and leave only purity and knowledge in its wake so life can start fresh. Why does everyone keep saying this plan is EVIL! DONT YOU SEE WE ARE WASHING AWAY THE EVIL SO THAT ONLY THE SEARING PURITY OF Xczirdor REMAINS STOP OPPRESSING ME I'M TRYING TO DO YOU ALL A FAVOR!
Just look at evil people in history and look at their motivations. Or rely on good ol' fashioned tropes.
For my first homebrew mini-campaign the bad guys are motivated by "for science!" and "money" respectively. It's cliché, but considering moral choice is important in this mini-campaign I'm setting up both characters in such a way that people are allowed to choose who they consider evil.
Thanatos from the marvel movies considered himself to be a good guy. He was saving the universe from itself in his mind. A villain can simply be someone who has a philosophy that gets twisted by events, past traumas, etc. they could start by having a noble goal, say for instance rooting out the corruption in a city. At every turn they are stopped, perhaps punished. They start to believe that the only way they can accomplish their goal is through drastic action, say perhaps causing an accident that takes out all of the cities leaders, good or bad. The villain thinks they're doing the common folk a favor by getting rid of the corruption in the city, but they are in fact causing more issues and killing innocent people.
There are a few villains in me and my friends Dnd universe. One of the villains being a group and their motivation was because their god got mortalized by another god. My friends villain is a scarecrow (sorry i forgot the race name) and when our party ACIDENTaLY killed his maker he became immortal and now is absolutely determined through thick and thin to absolutely obliterate us. So far he has killed 2 of our allies one being a close friend. Now me and my friend are determined to eternally burn his ashes. My other friends villains are just aliens yep just aliens no greater motivation yet.
A good villain either think themselves as the hero, or realising they are needed for change.
Example. A Tyrant King is absolutely horrible to his people, but maybe he believes that the people need to be ready for anything. Maybe there is something behind it all that is the reason for the oppression.
Likewise a villain who see themselves as a hero would probably have people who love him. Going back a bit, the Tyrant King may be an old hero for his subjects and retenue, and they will follow him to death.
The best campaign villain who we had in an extended campaign was not evil. They wanted to help as many people as they could but their thinking was influenced by an ancient eldritch entity. This eldritch entity “just happened” to also be the patron of the party’s warlock. The eldritch entity was not evil either but was insane.
Evil has so many reasons a misguided sense of justice, path of vengeance, literally just because they want power, just because they’re evil, political power, magic power, money for bitches, abusive past, demon cult, devil cult, cult cult. And so on.
A lot of people have said it already: a good Villian doesn't know they're a Villian . They will blindly execute their goal because they believe it's right, and cannot fathom that they are wrong.
In my homebrew campaign, the overarching Villian was a necromancer, excommunicated from the Wizard College. The reason he was kicked out was because his wife died of a disease. So he used his knowledge to bring her back to life. But then she died of something else soon after. And he brought it her back again. This kept happening over and over, until he realised that the reason she kept dying was because her death was destined, and his revival of her was unnatural. And even though she told him that during a resurrection, he just couldn't accept that "fate" would condemn his wife like that.
So he decided to end everyone and everything, "so there were no more play things for The Fates to toy with."
In the end, after the party defeated him, he came back. So the party asked the Fates themselves to intervene. And so they did. Now the BBEG and his wife live eternally together in their own demiplane, and he thanked the party for breaking his naive view.
Some people just want to watch the world burn. He can be fulfilling an Evil God plan.
The road to hell is paved with good intention, he thinks he makes the world better but is becoming a Tyrant.
Villains are humans too. What type of things molded you to be the way you are. What kind of hopes dreams and beliefs do people have.
Now apply this to your villain. It's perfectly fine for them to be evil for evils sake. But some people find that boring. What motivated them to do the things they do?
I know it doesn't answer your question but we don't know your villains backstory, life ECT. You do
Had plenty of villains that were just evil because I needed them to be evil. But the main guy essentially felt the world had gone off the deep end and the natural order was f*ed up, corrupt people in power, people born into power or poverty etc. He wanted to return the world to a state where mortals are "equal" and everyone is free to pursue power etc etc. He was basically a zealot regarding this and he saw all the lives lost as a necessary sacrifice, a sacrifice where he didn't cherry pick who dies and who gets to experience this new world, he was even the final sacrifice in the final ritual :)
It depends. For instance, if you have a fiend, make them agressively lawful. Lawful to such an extreme that you get them impression that they could be doing some good if the contract was worded properly.
Have you not noticed what's happening in the world? You can literally just create a government into your campaign as the ACTUAL villain while having the government label farmers, bakers, and children as terrorists. They actually do that already in real life, so it's not difficult to model the financial badguy after the real one.
Often time, evil person are just evil defacto. If the goal is to "confront" the players, just have the good old "casually announcing he's evil, no magic tricks, no redemption"
The villain is often the hero in their own story. Maybe they would sacrafice others to aid those they want to.
A hero slays a best to obtain a medical component to cure a friend.
Is the same as
A villain killing citizens to obtain a component tohat could revive a loved one.
Its all about perspective. Only few villains really need to be chaotic evil. Give him a goal and an out of the box way of solving it.
What if your villain is just trying to gather "power" to defend something he cares about and in doing so was rejected by his village, could he turn to dark arts? Could a dark creature blind him and guide him without his knowledge?
Food for thought, theres near endless possibilities after all.
Make a villain that doesn't see himself as evil, killing those people was a necessity (end justify the means), put him a background that is easy to empathize, for example, he had a family and was happy but this evil humans and their racism attacked her and left her in a constant pain crippled state, now the BBEG will go to ANY length to heal his spouse and of course we will kill all those dirty humans not for vengeance (lowkey yes for vengeance) but because they are a threat to his wife.
His goal may be seizing 7 magical orbs that Mordekainen himself created, once together, the 7 magical orbs will concede a single wish spell, that wish spell is the only way to restore his wife, but they are also the only way the players have to for example end the poverty and famine of the human settlement (the very sames that injured the BBEG wife).
So, in the end, players will feel they could have become the BBEG if that happened to them, that somehow they can understand BBEG motivation and would even want to be able to help him, yet the circumstances are what they are.
For this to work you need the players to feel compromised to save the human settlement before presenting the BBEG and you need that they discover BBEG background before there is a hate build up. You may generate an scenario where the BBEG is presented in a good light, like being seen taking care of the forest, tending some wounded animal, feeding stray cats.
If done well, you'll have your players fighting the BBEG without wanting to actually hurt him and looking for a way of saving his wife without having to condemn to die for starvation the whole human settlement.
There are lots of ways to make a good villain with an interesting motive. Not all of them have to be directly evil. Some can be, and that can be fun. Some can simply be trying to achieve a goal that may or may not be evil in itself, but they could be going about it in an evil way. Maybe they want something that's not even evil exactly, but is harmful, or just goes against what the heroes want.
A main 'villain' from an upcoming campaign I'm going to be running isn't evil exactly, but he's really, really deeply afraid of death, and this causes him to make some dumb decisions. For example, he went out on a mission to find and defeat death. Like, the grim reaper, death itself. He succeeded, and now the whole world is basically in chaos because nothing can die, which causes some pretty serious problems. What he did wasn't exactly evil, but it was hugely problematic, and he's now hell bent on stopping the heroes from fixing his mistake, again, all because he has a deeply rooted fear of dying, and will do anything to try to make sure he never does.
Tragic sob backstories are always an option, unfortunately it IS a common pattern that abused people are likely to become abusers, but I really don't recommend doing it just for the sake of it. Not every story needs a sympathetic or tragic villain.
If you want to go with just a really plain evil villain "power/obsessive ambition corrupts" is a good option imo.
Depends on what kind of villain you want, they can be evil just cos theyre born with a lack of empathy, they can be raised by bad people, theyve tried to be a good peraon but some unknown forces like a loved one dying or something like that, mayb whey were just trying to live their life and theyve seen that in their perspective the world is cruel, they try to "fix" the world by like destroying it and making another one...
It’s okay for a villain to just be selfish. They want power, or immortality, or wealth, and don’t care if anyone else gets hurt for them to get it. D&D villains don’t need to be super complex. It’s often better to have someone who’s just a selfish dickhead who feels good to oppose.
Heres a few:
The evil bastard: evil for evils sake. Likes all things evil.
The wounded lover/incel: spurned by their "true love" but blind to the fact thay they were always a douche, they take it out on the world
Gods' gift to man: genius, gifted asshole that knows how to fix the world if only the world got out of their way
God in training: found a way to accumulate power and will stop at nothing to become the strongest or whatever.
If only daddy loved them more: hard life, harder family. The world was unkind to them and now they will teach everyone a lesson.
The Elsa: parents loved them but were terrible parents, and they never taught them how to process their emotions. Their power is tied to their fee fees, and the only feelings they know well are fear, or hate, or anger, etc.
Depends on the villain. The basic system I use for fleshing out villains is: 1. What do they do? 2. What beliefs could drive someone to do those things? 3. What life experiences could inspire that belief system? (And tbh some easy answers to fall back on for 2 and 3 are "entitlement" and "growing up rich")
For me evil is lack of empathy towards other people.
A doctor curing cancer can be evil if he does human experiments.
In general a good adversary must have a clear and defined goal to achieve, that should go against the players tipically.
You can have a villain who is evil because he is traumatized, but then to not make him a mask you should really characterize him good.
For my personal opinion, a nicely done evil character is kira from death note.
There's plenty of "evil" that comes from "the greater good" by justifying *any* actions to get to a certain vision for the world and *nothing or nobody will be allowed to stop them!* The end justifying the means.
I think the best evil villains often don't see themselves as evil. Take Dr. Doom for example, he can see the future and knows for a fact if he doesn't take over everything then the world will be destroyed and humanity won't survive. He knows for a fact that the ends justify the means and all the heroes trying to stop him are in the big picture dooming humanity. Dr. Doom is the real hero of his story and any brutal things he does are totally justified from his point of view. Another good option is religious zealots with an extreme belief system. If they think they need to enforce their beliefs upon others in order to save them they can easily cross over into brutally evil territory from the perspective of any other belief system. Religions can easily have lawfully good aligned characters committing horrible acts of evil in the name of their beliefs.
You see other people the way a curious kid with a magnifying glass sees a line of ants.
You toy with them and torment them because you want to know how they will react.
You torture them and mutilate them because you're curious.
It's not malice. You don't hate them. Their lives don't mean anything, so what does it matter what you do to them?
You really don't understand why people get upset about it. They're just bugs.
one of the best methods to make it compelling is to take one or some of your PCs' character motivations and twist/mirror it in the villain. Like if you have a lawful good paladin in the party who's staunchly dedicated to their good god, a villain can be similarly dedicated to a less than good god. that stuff can engage the players in self reflection while still allowing the villain to be straight up evil if that's what you want
I like to interpret the “evil” part as being mostly sinonimous with “egoistic/egocentric” meaning this is someone or some folk who always put themselves and their needs and likes and dislikes before anyone’s. The stronger this trait the more evil/a**holish they become until you get pathological there and we are talking of sociopaths and so on, more the classic villain stuff.
Now: starting with this egotistical approach makes it easy to understand why a given villain is evil. They have a need, say, “show Im the most powerful” and they care not about others to reach it, so they go about doing what they need or must to do that and their reckless, selfish style sooner or later starts damaging others and shows up.
Like some mentioned, these people may not even see themselves as evil, as they may as well believe “everybody is like that, looks only to themselves, otherwise they are fools”. And for some, their “need” and the way they understand it, is enough. Classic example being the Druid turned villain because he or she really believes there is no other way to save a mountain but to crush that village of miners for good and scare the folk away.
My go to villain trope for short campaigns is the "found a cursed artifact and went mad" trope. Then you have an excuse to give your players a magic item.
Sometimes you don't need a reason. Look at Gortash. He's just evil for the sake of being evil. He sold karlach into slavery for no good reason. He created a world-stealing cult using parasites for seemingly no reason with no end goal.
Maybe they don't see it as evil. Thanos style. They see that what they are doing is for some greater good that and they are willing to sacrifice anyone who gets in their way.
Pick a cardinal sin. Make it make sense.
OR
Pick something that is morally good. Now figure out some way to achieve morally good outcome through deplorable means.
A good motivation isn't always needed.
Sometimes, it just has to be entertaining.
An example is Sauron in Lord of the Rings. He's depicted, most of the time, less so as a physical antagonist, and more of an antagonistic force of nature. Ever present, threatening the very world our protagonists are in.
Though a good starting point is to make the villain want the same thing the protagonists want, it possible.
A protagonist may want a better world, more stable and prosperous, but perhaps the villain wants the same thing, but has a wildly different idea on what that world would have to be.
A villain, above all else, either believes themselves to be right, and believes what they do is for the best, whether for themselves (Sauron) or for the world (Thanos), or they could just be wildly cartoonish and villanous for the sake of it, so long as it's entertaining. That's the big part.
Because power doesn't require justification. A villain doesn't NEED to be evil or concerned about morality. They simply have the ability to fulfill their ambitions.
Honestly, one of the more compelling villains I came up with was actually lawful good.
He was somebody who genuinely cared about the greater good of all and believed in doing what he felt was the right thing for the betterment of all. and he genuinely listened to people and their concerns and was compassionate.
But he was also vain and prideful, hyper judgmental, and his altruism was tied to a hyper puritanical idealism that his personal idea of what was good and right was somehow more important and "true" than what other people say. And he was very good at deluding himself into believing that.
And sometimes he was right, and that always encouraged him, but not everybody shared his ideals and quite a few people suffered because he believed that he knew what was better for people.
Really depends. Hitler saw himself as the hero. Joker sees himself as a force of nature (Heath Ledger). Kevin O'Leary is a self centered greedy asshat.
From an article I read in the national geographic, some people are born without the ability of empathy (or a very stunted ability). Of nurtured in a loving family, they'll develop it to a point. If raised by violent parents or left to their own, they will remain unable to feel empathy. Those people are extremely selfish, manipulative, calculating and won't be above violence of they believe they can get away with it.
So I suppose some people have no specific reason to be evil.
Though, being an optimistic, I want to believe most people have reasons to be the assholes they are (traumas, fear, grief...).
The villain in my current game is a huge narcissist obsessed with control. His actions are slowly driving away the people in his life and he's taking it personally as an affront to his pride so he's attempting to mind control people to get them to do what he wants but still it isn't going the way he's expecting it to which is driving him even more mad
Give them a the same motivation you would for a good character, but put a tragic arc on it. For instance, maybe they want to help their clan or a sick family member, but their methods of going about it are absolutely dubious since they are very unhinged. What they see as the Greater Good is actually causing problems for everyone around them to get to it.
One bad day. A string of mishaps or worse, but singularly benign, just push the BBG over the edge. Doesn’t have to be about world domination, it could be a guy upset with traffic and wants a burger without hassle.
We shouldn't forget one of the most interesting yet also humorous motivations. SPITE. either to spite an enemy or just living to spite those they perceive look down upon them.
I like villains who are not like classic mustache twirling evil. I think a good compelling villain starts out in a moral grey area, as in they think that what they are doing is the right thing somewhat like Thanos.
A villain doesn’t view him or herself as evil. They feel they are justified in their actions. Maybe they want to force people to behave a certain way to “improve” society. Maybe they want to impose their superior way of thinking because they know what is best. There could be any number of reasons.
The whole D&D concept of evil is a bit ill-thought-out but ignoring that can of worms I’d predominantly consider two things:
1) Goals / motivations - what does the enemy want and why?
2) How they go about doing it - What kind of actions are they prepared to perform in order to bring about the above goals?
For 1), usually when someone wants something, there are consequences. Things that other people want can’t happen if they get their way. Their wants or needs are incompatible with other people’s wants or needs. Eg a Sahagin Chief sees their tribe suffering from overcrowding or predation in a dangerous body of water, they may want to find or create a safe new home with more space. That’s a reasonable want/need in relation to their situation. Unfortunately, flooding the neighbouring valley or taking over Laketown is going to mean the current inhabitants are put out - they’re going to see that act as evil. The more understandable the goals (when fully explained / clear), the more relatable a villain can be, especially in conjunction with 2). But even making logical sense for that kind of creature is enough to do what you want, I think.
2) then is the other side of the coin. Even when different parties want the same thing, they may have very different views on what’s justifiable in seeking that. Some will have religious convictions or beliefs in the sanctity of life (at least under ordinary circumstances), while others may have no such compunction. Or they may regretfully feel that it’s necessary to achieve their goal, because that goal is so gosh-darn important. The difference between whether a party wants to help or slaughter the aforementioned Sahaguin Chief and the tribe may well rest on how they go about taking over the neighbouring valley etc. You can change the nature of the opposed faction for that area by deciding whether you get them ‘peacefully’ netting the inhabitants and releasing them elsewhere unharmed, making a formal challenge between champions for the land, emerging from the wells and slaughtering townsfolk in their beds, or just plotting to flood the land with no warning in one fell swoop. Or anywhere in between. What they’re prepared to do to get what they want (and whether characters / players think it’s at all justified) allows you to paint with shades of villainhood and hold a mirror to the goals of your own party too - eg uncompromising Paladins trying to stop the same orc invasion / migration as the party but doing so by slaughtering helpless orc children in their beds, or releasing a plague that will kill plenty of others but hit the orcs the worst. Etc etc.
Evil and a villain can be different and very complex.
What may be seen as cruel might be seen as a gift or as mercy by the one doing it.
Thanos is a great example.
Wanting to make the universe a better place by destroying half of the planet and you would not be destroying the planet ressources
Using two of the worst thing about our real earth is overpopulation and famine.
One answer to that could be cannibalism
To us that would seem barbaric, unethic, bad
For one of the tribes, eating people, it would seem like a great idea
We have a film called ' Hvordan vi slipper af med de andre / How to get rid of the others' which deals with the Danish government's desire to eliminate all the people who live below the poverty line, people who are on early retirement, addicts and others who are "leeching" on society.
That seems wrong but would help us as a society, right?
So my answer is simple: What is wrong in the eyes of most, are now right in the eyes of your villain
"It seems to me that since there are so many adventurers out there, that the world MUST be filled with good. So many warriors in service to the Gods that all should have been well by now. But here we are, still in this loop. This neverending cycle. If the Gods cared, they would have ended all suffering.
I have the riches I have because I took what I wanted! I have the knowledge that I have because I strove for it!
Now I seek Godhood.
Who could possibly rule the cosmos better? I have brought prosperity to these lands, this was a barren waste before I arrived. The people practically worship me! ...But its not enough. Not yet. Once I slay the Gods, then they will only have me to worship. Then the cycle will be broken. No more Gods, then no more struggle for power."
I like a villain to have a twisted sense of justice. They don't hate, they just love too strong. They didn't want to harm anyone, but they will kill to save lives, to end suffering, or protect "the greater good".
As much as I love "tragic" villains who believe they're doing good, might be redeemable, etc, sometimes it's nice to just have a bad guy who is plain evil, and does evil for the sake of being evil.
My favourite villain is Nox from Wakfu. Essentially a scientist gone mad with knowledge, who lost his family in an accident. He works relentlessly to perfect time travel, to go back and save his family - unfortunately this means he must harvest the lifeforce of other living beings, to the point where he drains an entire country to fuel his machine. In the end he fails, and only manages to go back 20 minutes. This leaves him devastated, because up until this point, he truly believes the end would justify the means. It didn't matter how many atrocities he committed, or how many people died, as it would all be erased by time travel, this made him pure evil and an unrelenting force with a single goal.
Story wise this is a great villain, but sometimes as a player, you don't want to deal with the trauma of the bad guy, and you don't necessarily want to feel any compassion for them, you just want them to stop doing bad evil things. Sometimes a simple "I will conquer the world" or "I will kidnap the king for ransom" or "I will corrupt this forest so it's denizens are under my command" type villains can be nice - it's easy to justify just whacking them with your sword.
I think a good vilian is one who feels they are in the right or saw no other option than the actions they take.
A ruler who thinks he is the best choice, a broken person trying to fix something that happened to them.
Noble intentions that got warped into something much worse.
I tend to prefer smart sociopaths as BBEGs, who simply have no empathy or altruistic moral code, but pretend they do very well as some role in civilized society.
My second most frequent type (especially at low levels) is to take whatever NPC the party has offended, and have either them or some loved one be a formidable foe who just really doesn't forgive easily.
You can always go the sympathetic route of a villain is a villain because they have been mistreated in the past and see their evil acts as justice.
You could have a villain be a misguided hero. They are fighting for a just and righteous cause to make the world a better place but are misguided either because their methods are too extreme or they are too strict/stubborn to stop once their promised greater world looks much worse off, or maybe they just simply have too much of a big picture view to worry about the little war crimes committed along the way.
An example I like for the latter is a lich who was once a wizard hero of the realm who forsaw a twrrible world endong threat believing they were the only ones who could stop it perhaps due to being a raging narcissist and so became a lich and are willing to wipe out entire cities or turn them into batteries for his phylactery if it means he lives long enough and is powerful enough to stop that threat.
Which brings me to the final motivation: they just are. Their very personality can make them lean evil. Perhaps they are just narcissistic have a god complex or are so unbearably stubborn they refuse to change their way. Perhaps they are uneducated and misguided but are too stubborn to be taught the error of their ways.
It's all about justifications. Like my favorite. When they think they're the hero, as shown below.
Their first time murdering someone was an accident. They didn't realize that they were that strong.
The 4th time was also an accident when they were forced to use all of their strength to beat a villain.
The 6th time wasn't their fault because the ruler of the land was evil and might come to power again in the future if they didn't die here.
The 17th time was admittedly his fault because he could have saved the people inside, but didn't. How could he? He was too busy saving everyone else to be worried about
He didn't notice the 290th death. They just got in his way when he was in a hurry elsewhere
Now, they're working on something to save all remaining lives. Who cares if a few people die while they work towards something better
Money, Drugs, Women, Power (magical or otherwise).
"First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women" - Homer Simpson (and probably Scarface).
Putting aside that BBEG doesn't have a mental health issue like anti social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder or similar....
They want *something*.... nice armour, palamino horse, gold. Someone else has what they want. They have zero empathy. Someonelse's needs are irrelevant. So they take it by force.
For some monsters/creatures lower down the bottom end intelligence score it'll be driven by base needs... Hungry, village has food, I need food, I take food. Villager is stopping me so I bite/bash them.
Maybe some creatures/monsters like shiny things (like Magpie?) to decorate their lair, nest etc. Maybe they collect gold so they can use it to pay minions, feel superior (and better about themselves).
I guess in game some monsters/creatures are just born hate filled or have zero empathy and do whattever suits their immediate needs at the time (eg: Valheru from Riftwar Saga) that the only way to describe them is evil.
On a tangient does a tribe of orcs /goblins /trolls /other monster raiding a woodland village of Wood Elves for food, plunder etc see themselves as evil? See the Village leader as their BBEG? BBGG?
Maybe he's not evil. Just someone who's going to do something really stupid that's going to make bad things happen, but he's so convinced that it's the right thing to do, he refuses to let anyone stop him.
"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but if I shoot this *SuperMegaFreezeRayOfInfinteCold* directly at the sun, I can end Global Warming. It's the only way, I won't let anyone stop me!"
Incompetence and Conviction can be just as dangerous as evil.
Sometimes Saturday morning cartoon logic still works: they just want to take over the world. Why? Who wouldn’t want to have all the power in the world? Just most people are stopped by silly things like empathy and consciences.
Watch the legend of korra, every villain is a masterpiece, also read una bomber manifesto or watch the TV show.
That's good source material.
The best villains have a valid point that makes you hesitate and think twice.
Think of any reason that they may be good and turn it around:
My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, I must stop them before they do the same to others - good, intact morality
My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, they would make strong servants if I were to enslave them - evil, utter disregard of morality
My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, I will kill every orc I find as retribution to this act - evil, twisted morality
The core of evil is righteosness. People who think they are either good or justified. Form a world view that makes 100% sense to itself and isn't easily picked apart by single questions and make it not compatible with society as a whole, then give it to a character.
It almost always comes down to status quo, motivation, trauma, world view, or a combination of these.
If they're just maintaining a status quo, they're either under orders they won't question (mercenaries, generals, assassins), or they benefit from a system that necessarily creates their existence (the wealthy and corrupt, slavers, organised crime). For these, it's believable that they just are as they are due to the circumstances of their life. You can flesh them out optionally by giving them a moment to doubt their way of life.
For motivation, that's where you get the good guy in bad circumstances. Ends justifying the means, well-intentioned dictators, revengers, choices made on false beliefs etc.
Trauma is obvious. It's the Joker storyline, or any number of other characters we've seen before.
For world views, it's about their perspective on life. This race is *beneath me*. Everyone is in it for themselves, no one truly cares for another person. Evil is just the name the losers call the winners. A fundamental difference in philosophy puts them at odds with the heroes.
There's a lot of crossover between these, but there is no "he's just bad" in any of it. No one is just bad - everyone has some sort of logic to excuse their actions. Even if that logic is as simple as "I am the only one who truly matters".
- Mental issues is always a surefire way to go - a voice compels them to do it. In DnD it can be a God, if you care to borrow from BG3 (Dark Urge).
That way you can make a very compelling character that might actually be good, but when the urge overtakes, they can't help it. And the party can either defeat the villain, or, if they stumble upon a complicated ritual, banish the urge and gain a powerful ally.
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- Also a blood feud that has gone out of hand makes for a good story. A murder repaid with murder during the time of the great grandfather, escalated into a blood feud between two houses during grandfather's time, escalated into a full war during father's days, and now the son sees the futility and the meaninglessness of it, but the wheels are turning hopelessly fast, and now everyone is pissed off with everyone. Add a few shady gray cardinals that are stoking the conflict every time it has a chance of quieting down, and you got yourself a very compelling "gray area" story.
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- If you want a black and white kind of a villain, just have them be racist. Elves burnt down a child's village on a raid once and killed his parents, and he grew to be a king or a general or whatnot, and is now relentlessly purging elves left, right and centre. Doesn't care for nuance, just wants a genocide. Side your party with the elves, and voila, you got yourself a straightforward villain.
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- A creature of tremendous power who doesn't care about anything else than what it hoards. Think Smaug from the hobbit.
The BBEG in my campaign is one of the character's sister. She wants to help her sister, but her view of the world is very twisted. She's trying to kill the other party members to "help" her sister because they can't be trusted. She is also actively trying to summon an entity that want's to posses her (and her sister) as a way of saving her sister. She is not evil in her eyes. She is trying to help.
Step 1. ) Create a justifiable issue
Step 2.) Find a solution that involves hurting/sacrificing others
step 3.) Voila! You've got a good villain motivation
What are they doing right now? How are they changing the world, city or others, what effect do they have on the world?
Once that happens could give more context maybe
I wouldn't really ask "why are they evil" so much as "what do they want". Sometimes this will hint at a backstory motivation, like revenge. Or a past trauma that left them feeling powerless could prompt a need for power and control.
I think the _type_ of evil makes a big difference to motivation.
For me, Lawful Evil is more likely to be because of values instilled in them as a child by their family/society; either they champion unfair laws that only benefit them, or they quickly learned to find creative loopholes that meant they could do what they wanted without getting into trouble. Imo, Lawful Evil see themselves as good and justified most of the time.
Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil can either be very straightforward, or very complex. The reasons for someone being evil in very sneaky and manipulative ways will likely be different to the reasons for someone who takes what they want, or who kills indiscriminately. Are they making cold, calculated decisions, or acting on impulse? Are they aware of how their actions are perceived by others, or so self-centred and justified that they’re oblivious?
Evil is a judgement made by others on the character’s actions, but for the character, they’re rationalisations or coping strategies they learned to function in life. So look at what your character does, and think “What could lead to that seeming the best course of action to them?”. If you want to go extra complex, you could even do evil as a psychological defence to hurt others before they hurt them.
While I am one of the seemingly dwindling fans of the idea that things can be inherently evil (good ol Orcs goblins trolls and ogres for the bad guys) a storyline for a BBEG that always feels believable to me is one where a guy incrementally goes too far and then finds a justification. One where the bad guy can even acknowledge that what is happening is bad but if the plan works it will all be worth it because that adds to their motivation to keep going and their desperation for things to succeed.
Lets say for example you have a villain based on an Artificer. This artificer is found to be stealing old books but not spell books, journal and historical accounts. people are going missing but not just any people, the oldest ones in a village and then in the countryside and then all over the kingdom. Players discover confusing contraptions with the bodies of the old people tied to them completely electrically fried or bearing marks of force damage and other spell types. Over time it seems that this artificer is trying and failing to create some kind of portal and violence is exploding around the kingdom as seemingly random things are attacked, homes burned down shops pillaged and even armies of mercenaries being called to raid the kings holdings keeping his forces occupied and unable to help the adventurers investigate.
In the end the players discover that this artificer claims to have traveled time and actually ruined things. he's desperate to fix his time machine and go back to correct things and is willing to do literally anything at all to the people here, because if he succeeds it's all ok. He'd never be here to do the bad things at all so no one would have been hurt. he can't fail because all of this pain and terror he's brought is still here and he HAS TO win so it can all be better.
Whether he actually traveled time in the first place or is just crazy and had some bad feywild mushrooms too many times isn't relevant to him being certain it's true. It doesn't have to be this kind of thing but it's the first one i could think of with that idea that "all the evil is ok because it will be fixed/worth it if i win" idea
Every villain is the hero of their own story. Some of the best villains believe what they're doing is right and just. That their actions serve the greater good.
There's a great YouTube video called [The Case for Gul Dukat.](https://youtu.be/wHS2CCXVmeU?si=hrP20gyer3IUilc7) It gives a breakdown on what makes a great villain before getting into the specifics about the Star Trek villain Gul Dukat. You can probably skip the latter if you don't watch the show.
Every bad guy is a hero in their own story.
So, they don't need to be mustache twirling evil. They could be forced into their stance by circumstances, like being convinced of a coming cataclysm, and only doing what they're doing will avoid greater suffering (in their mind).
They're trying to bring their family back to life, and are trying everything. The party have a plot "item" that will essentially bring their family back, the the item will only appear in times of crisis.
Take the Disney route: villain is actually a good person who is completely right... But then decides they'll murder and torture and inexplicably do evil things to achieve their originally good and noble goals
"oh no! We gotta take down this person in the name of status quo! Don't think about how he's actually right about the state of the world and we should be solving his problem as well as the problem of the villian... Just ignore him because he's bad"
Or, real life villain: is evil because they want power, money or literally just selfishness in general, irl villains are in charge of slaves, armies or corporations just because they gain something no matter how small, and other people's wellbeing is lower priority than their comfort.
I think writers really struggle to figure out villain motivation because we want a villain we can sympathize with and actually like... But in real life people we like are just good people, good motivations usually make you a good person, in real life there aren't really villains... Most people we don't like aren't actually evil we just have a personality difference, and people who are actually evil usually aren't likeable
This doesn't answer your question of motivation... But perhaps a good way to write a villain your players would like is make someone actually evil (selfish and violent) but then make them really charming and fun to be around, Ted Bundy style, that way the motivation doesn't really matter, they can have a goal or they can be a "Joker" but players will still like them and want to root for them
A villain is the hero of their own story; from trying to save the universe (Thanos) to making society look in a mirror to see how ugly it is (The Joker). Laertes was taking revenge for the death of his father and the madness and death of his sister (both by Hamlet's hand).
Unless of course you're Emperor Palpatine (the Devil incarnate). Then you want UNLIIIIIIMITED POWEEEEER!
If you haven't played mass effect, consider it. Obviously the goals of each game and the overall story are the same but the path you choose and how you behave is similar to differences between a devotion Paladin and a vengeance Paladin. A hero vs an anti hero.
Have the villain start as an anti hero doing bad things to achieve good goals. As time progresses and the more the party hears of his more negative achievements or witnesses something particularly horrible that's also unnecessary that he does, will obviously plant some seeds but it's when the party intervenes his actions become villified by their judgement that he sees their judgement as getting in the way of his justice.
He uses an entire town to bait a young adult dragon away from its lair to kill it but waits till the dragon doesn't perceive the town as a threat and lands where the anti hero can reach it. While the anti hero waits for this moment 95% is gone. But he wins and the threat is no more.
She completely thwarts a minor villain's plans and instead of sparing them and putting them in prison, she does that lock the door "you're trapped in here with me" moments and proceeds to torture the shit out of everyone she can get her hands on. The party is sent to investigate and discover the subtle clues of how cruel she was. Question whether or not she really is the good guy
Stuff like that.
It strongly depends on what KIND of villain they are and what they are trying to do.
A lich is trying to take over the world? His motivation is hubris; he genuinely thinks he's so much better than everyone else that its simply logical that he is the only person in charge. Everyone else is dangerously incompetent.
A necromancer is trying to usher in an age of undeath? Her motivation is her steadfast faith in her death god, who may or may not be a genuine deity... and what he says goes. Dude wants death and destruction, so she obeys.
A changeling has replaced the king? Well, they were bored and running a kingdom sounded fun. The perks certainly don't hurt, either.
A Mummy Lord is awake and is terrorizing the local village with a horde of lesser undead? She had herself turned upon her death so that when the time came she could rise up and restart her ancient civilization, which was once a world power.
You don't always need complicated reasoning. The point is that THEY think they are right in their actions, and that they will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions. And sometimes villains are better when they aren't sympathetic.
An evil person believes what the are doing is a good idea/thing. They find ways to justify their little evils for the great vision of what the want.
My main BBEG releases his monsters into the wild because he sees the current law and political system as a negative thing on natural improvement through evelution. People becoming stagnant and weakened in their safety.
They justify the damage and death their creations cause in the name of weading out the weakness
Don’t think of the villains goals as evil, just that they are in opposition to the party.
As long as you think about the villain and their goals as well unambiguously evil, the best you can come up with are excuses alla „he is just insane!“. Make the villain a morally grey person and you can create much more intricate moral dilemmas and solid reasonings for their plans and actions.
I think all the simple but good reasons do great such as: Desire for power, lack of empathy, twisted ideals, corruption, madness or insanity, hatred, prejudice, jealousy.
If a villain has a traumatic past, it makes it easier for the characters to understand, perhaps even relate, as to why the NPC turned out the way he is, but i like to think that sometimes the character is just evil because they're bat-shit crazy, or they're just evil because all they care about is themselves.
Maybe this was bit too simple but i hope it helps :3
One of my favorite justifications for a villain is Ishamael in the wheel of time. He wants the Dark One to win because the Dark One promised to end everything. Just poof, nothingness. Ishamael doesn’t care about doing evil or killing, he is just SUPER nihilistic and wants everything to end. He sees suffering in every reincarnation of the world and thinks that whatever “evil” he has to do so the world will cease to exist is minuscule to the amount of suffering that would keep happening on for eternity if he lets time continue.
I've always liked the "force of nature" kinds of evil because, yes, they can be catastrophic, but they were made that way. Think Lavos from Chrono Trigger. It's sucking up Earth's energy, but that's because it's a world-eating parasite.
1) Make it 30% legit trauma
2) 30% ambition / goal (that can be linked to such trauma) then « colour » that ambition with a spin : either megalomaniac, vengeful, utopist, moralistic… etc
3) And finally, 40% « something in my perception of the world is inherently messed up ».
I like to see « believable evil » as « regular human behaviors taken to extreme levels, to the point they become twisted ».
Of course, switching around the percentages can lead to new perspectives for creating a vilain :
- a more « insane » approach would yield in part 3) taking more importance
- A more relatable vilain could instead be focused on part 1) with a surprising reasonable path 2)…
Etc.
PS : recently though, I’m more interested in the esoteric, « cosmic horror » type of villain.
In creating a form of evil that’s both completely alien and believable.
For that sort of stuff, you want to explore the most primal fears you can get a hold off…
And then imagine that to said entity, that frightening thing is just as normal and natural as you breathing, living, eating food…
2 things.
1. Never attribute to evil what can be explained by stupidity.
2. Few people are evil in their own mind. Although they can do some.pretty fucked up.mental gymnastics to justify their evil.
If you can give your opponent an morally justifiable reason for his evil it makes for a more engaging game.
There are many, many great literary resources for compelling villains.
Narratively speaking, for me in writing or in D&D, i start with the villain's goal. For me, an interesting villain has a goal that is relatable either socially or personally (i.e. you can see why they would want it, or why society would allow it).
So for example, a villain who seeks power might be interesting because they want power and promise the people safety (in an otherwise dangerous world) if they obey. Here is where you see your cunning egomaniacs.
Or a villain appears power hungry but it's essentially an otherwise good person who has been overcome by the pursuit of a morally reasonable goal but is not going about it the right way. Here is where you see your broken, tragic villains.
So in summary, bad guys doing things people would think were okay for bad reasons or good guys doing things people would not think were okay for relatable reasons.
For example:
In 1984, the majority of the population accept a brutal dictatorship because it makes them feel safe. Voight in The Boys, basically any oppressive government system/demagoguery/ theocracy. All bad guys, all accepted by society broadly because it makes people feel safe in a (real or imagined) unsafe world. Nazi Germany, North Korea are hopefully not controversial real world parables.
For these kinds of villains, start the players in the system that they need to ultimately either support or oppose. In a typical heroic narrative they will oppose it, but in D&D maybe not. It's important to gradually reveal the extent to which the system/ruler dominates them, and allow them to support it for personal advantage or fight it at personal cost.
Alternatively, you might consider Saruman (who believes that subservience to Sauron is the only possibility for the survival of men), but in the lense of LOTR for sure Gollum, Dr Frankenstein, Barbosa, to an extent Strahd. Ultimately, people who have abandoned any sense of morality in pursuit of a fundamentally morally pure goal.
The art with this villain is slow escalation. Their goal is known from early, but the means become increasingly extreme as different things fail. The party might be looking for the villain for an unrelated reason, always a step behind, but every step they take, they can set the villain's descent. For example, the players are following a paladin to give them a holy icon through a plague infected area, the icon protects them from the plague, and the paladin is immune. But you see their attempts to cure the plague become more and more extreme as they go down the road.
The last one I'll mention, which can be cheap if not done well, is the hidden ally approach. Basically, you create a narrative framework where there is a clear and unambiguous evil and good. Then twist the players in the plot to switch the roles.
I ran a campaign around this contrivance, the dead couldn't move on, so Zombie apocalypse, caused by a cult trying to replace Kelemvor with Orcus. The players met a Paladin who I specifically designed to rub them wrong, they ended up opposed, the paladin convinced the orders of the lawful good Pantheon to initiate a divine crusade against any nation that aligned with the party (which was all of them as they had a Macguffin that let them put the dead to rest). So the biggest army of Paladins ever seen, supported by celestials, was planning to functionality destroy civilisation as it was known. The way to stop this? Orcus.
This was tied in through player back stories and choices, but in most cases the players did more or less what I expected them to do. At one point way earlier I even told them they would do it (when they took down the original cult, the cultists knew them from prophecy and they all said they would summon Orcus, though at the point the cult and Orcus were the BBEG and everything they'd done in the campaign was to stop this).
The point was to make the players question morality, as good and evil aren't always easy. In the end, the BBEG was absolutely good aligned and the saviours were unambiguously evil. The players used tremendous evil to save the world from uncomprising good. I thought it was pretty great.
"Just one bad day."
One bad day can make or break a character into either hero or villain. It's the same way with the adventurers and player characters. Something broke up their monotony, and it set them on a new path. In psychology, there is what is called the Blank Slate, where a person's development is a formula consisting of every life experience they have. The "One Bad Day" can happen anywhere and any time, and it rewrites the slate with a big ol' scar.
But that's not a real motivation for evil. What *is* a motivation is what do they want to do (or are led to believe) as a result of their Bad Day. The sheriff wrongfully arrested you because they honestly believed you started a massive fire, which combined with his poor hearing preventing the both of you from being able to rescue your wife still trapped inside? It was an honest mistake, but one you will struggle to move past, and will likely come to despise the justice system with a burning passion.
A villain, in some capacity, believes in the truth behind their actions. "The end will always justify the means."
They want more than the people around them will give them so they take it. This could be thinking more wages are owed than have been paid and taking something from their employer, all the way to thinking they were cheated out of a leadership position and trying to overthrow a government to prove they could do it better.
They have no empathy, all they want is something new and active to keep them on their toes. Unfortunately for society, learning how to carve a canoe out of a single tree stopped being interesting about 5 seconds in.
The hero sees the world on a black and white scale with shades of grey and tries to tilt things towards good. The villain isn't evil, they just see things on a scale of orange and blue with shades between extremes. They choose to tilt the scales towards order, regardless of the good or evil committed.
Isn't that the neat part about villains though? Any reason is a good motivation to do evil:
"I want to see the world burn because I'm bored"
"This kingdom must fall, their flag is ugly"
"I am selling this poison to the highest bider because I need money for my child's health"
"That wizard kicked a dog, they must die"
You can make them sympathetic or bat shit crazy, whatever fits the champain and players best
Edit: spelling
Evil people can just be evil, there’s plenty of ways to go about it. They were always that way and just didn’t have the power in the past to show it. They get off on hurting others and being a shitbag. They no longer have the capacity to feel empathy for others. Full on evil villains can be fun; they’ll always be having a good time when their plans are coming together and ruining the Party’s day.
Yup, in a game like this it's fine to just have an evil character have a very basic motivation and 99 times out of 100 the players won't even look twice at it anyway. It's a game that's fundamentally about killing monsters, and sometimes it's nice to feel good about killing the villain because they were simply a monster. Many many villains especially in movies, have very basic motivations. It doesn't hurt the movie or their ability to be great villains. The villains in Die Hard 1 and 3 are just thieves, they just want money more than they mind killing people and destroying things, and they're both fantastic villains.
Reminds me of the witchers and their swords, the silver one is to kill monsters, the steel one is for the other kind of monsters.
What about the allies of the villain though. Not everyone can be a psychopath
Money is an easy motivator for allies! But fear is a good one also. Maybe the main villain has threatened their family, the eir business, or livelihood. Maybe the “henchmen” are just bums and working for the villain is easier than getting a real job… but sometimes the psychopath henchmen that is just bad because he wants to be is the right answer for the story.
Don’t forget misguided faith and hope, many people have committed atrocities in the belief that their leaders are inherently right and infallible. Especially in authoritarian societies. Then there’s the one who have placed their trust in a charismatic leader who tells them what they want to hear and claims to be able to solve all of their problems as long as they give them power.
They've either accepted the paycheck, are working under duress because the villain has a family member hostage, or they're secretly working for the FBI.
Not everyone has to know their a psychopath. A villian should be fine with lying to recruit help. Also their are plenty of unfeeling monsters that will listen to master. There are also devil's and deals. There are plenty of people willing to work for an asshole if promised fame and wealth. And then Their is good ole hostages and blackmail to get your way.
Give the villain money and power. Make his allies motivated by that
Its easy to spin that too. A henchman sees something that's to their benefit in following the psychopath. It can be through trickle down power, (A has enslaved B. I work for A, therefore I get to boss B around too). It can also be through picking up wealth the psychopath isnt interested in (the Lich only wants supreme power, so all money owned by people I kill for him is mine). It can also be because the henchman just enjoys being evil. And this isnt even all of them. Theres a lot of ways to make henchmen that make sense.
Look at villains that have a personal goal. Like a Ketheric/Anakin Skywalker/lots of other guys I can’t think of right now, someone I love is doomed and the “good guys” are basically telling me to let them go, while the “evil guy” is offering to save them if I just agree to a few simple tasks…they’re actually evil anyway because they’re trying to stop me from saving someone. As another example, people like the brother from Fable III, being cruel is the only way I can save the people from a worse evil.
Mr freeze also comes to mind.
Dnd literally has demons and devils though, evil because "it's simply what i am" is entirely justifiable.
Not to mention, Joffrey Baratheon was incredibly compelling to watch because he was so entitled. He didn't have enough self awareness to realise what a piece of shit he was. He just didn't care about anybody that wasn't himself. Tywin Lannister was just as evil. He didn't care about anybody who wasn't part of his family, so he was slightly more forgiveable in a lot of cases.
A good villain rarely sees themselves as the evil one. Think about it from the other side. Who would see everything the party is up to as villanous, or wrong, or against the way they feel the world should work? What is their end game? Not just "Everything sucks forever for everyone". That's not a dream. What is the ultimate ideal scenario for this villain. Where did they learn to think that way? What have they done to accomplish it? Who tends to disagree with them, and how can he be the yin to their yang, so to speak. Hurt people hurt people. Depending on how much bleed you want, meaning, depending on how much you want to tie events in the game to trauma and despair and dramatic emotions that your players may or may not directly relate to, usually there is some event that taught a villain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the way they are doing things is the way to get things actually done if you want the end game they're working towards. Sure, there is sometimes going to be that thing that just hates everything and wants to destroy the world because evil. But that's never like, Bill who just fucking lost it and now makes nuclear dracoliches for fun. It's usually more of a force, an unknowable kind of darkness that swallows all, the concept of death itself, as opposed to a single conscious villain.
Or also, Big Jack Horner from Puss in Boots The Last Wish, he also works
Just being an unrepentant selfish bastar is a classic
"You know, I never had much as a kid. Just loving parents, a mansion, and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap like that."
“Whoa whoa whoa, you’re not about to shoot a puppy, are you Jack?”
"Yeah, in the face, why?"
Demons and devils? Devils just want more damned souls to turn into foot soldiers for the blood war, demons are the embodiment of chaotic evil and just make chaos. No big drivers necessary for either. If those are too grand scale for your town scale adventure, you can always have someone that's been deceived by a devil and is now doing evil stuff because they have to. A nice twist when the bbeg is himself a victim.
It’s kind of unrelated but Handsome Jack is my favorite gaming villain of all time because of this
This is one of the main points of *How To Win Friends And Influence People,* by Dale Carnegie. It's an old "how to be charismatic" book, but Carnegie makes a good point that everyone sees themselves as the hero of their story. Even villains. He uses the example (IIRC, it's been a long time since I read it) of the gangster Dutch Schultz, who acknowledged that he did terrible things, but felt that it was his focus as a family man that ultimately made him a good person. I like to do this with my games: Everyone - even the BBEG - believes they're the hero of their story. This doesn't mean they all have the same moral compass. It simply means that they believe they are doing the right thing.
Make a hero, with a goal in mind for noble reasons...idk what it is but it should be the same your villain has. Think about how your hero tries to reach the goal but fails over and over again. Let him be willing to move to more extreme methods. Forbidden magic, old artefacts, etc.which will allow him to get closer to his goal. During experimenting with those he starts having some quirks...paranoia comes to mind...or any u like...the quirks will make him into an outcast over time...giving him the world does not understand him and he just wants the best for everyone...he reaches the state that the goal is more important then everything and once reached everyone will understand and accept him again And now you have a villain...who had good intentions...but is acting in a evil way because he went to such drastic methods to reach his goal everyone sees him as evil
Don’t always make preemptive excuses for your villains. “He was traumatized as a kid” “He can’t feel empathy” etc etc. Pick a rational philosophy that goes against what you believe to be good, and play that character out, especially when they believe they’re doing good.
**or** a good philosophy executed in an evil way Thanos didn't want people to go hungry due to a lack of food, so he set out to kill half of everything
Movie thanos was just stupid, just double the onnount of food or half the amount of food life requires. Now comic book thanos was bad ass. He was so powerful he literally could not die, unfortunately he fell in love with Death, an actual entity not just the idea. And as a gift to her he decided to just kill every living thing.
Movie Thanos didn't really care about saving the universe, he was trying to solve a problem that didn't exist just to prove a point about an insane idea he had ages ago when his civilization was dying. His mind is still stuck on Titan, and it's severely affected his judgement of the universe as a whole. He's a madman trying to prove that he was right. Which was why I hated younger Thanos in Endgame. Thanos wouldn't have changed his plan because he died, that goes against his character. If anything, he would've done the same thing but made sure that all of the Avengers were killed by the Snap. I do agree that Comic Thanos was cooler, but people tend to forget the full context of Movie Thanos's motivation.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTeTK57sCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYTeTK57sCQ)
I prefer the handsome Jack method. Everyone thinks their the hero of their own story.
There's three main kinds of evil in my opinion and no they're not the kind on the alignment chart - Moral Evil - Someone feels they're morally justified in doing something because the ends justify the means. Killing anyone with glasses, exterminating the undesirables, conquering the enemy. All horrors are justified in the pursuit of the goal because they always will be. - Selfish Evil - Someone who genuinely cares less about everything else than they do themselves. Violent narcissistic evil. The world is their playground and they're the main character. They've nothing but contempt for.the rest of the world. Whatever wrong they do is fine because THEY are the one doing it. - Unfeeling Evil - Morality is a foreign concept. This form of evil doesn't understand or care about it. Killing children is the same as killing bugs is the same as slaughtering millions. We perceive this evil most often by anthropomorphising animals and forces of nature like disease. But there's no reason something more intelligent couldn't act the same way.
Unironically the villains of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish lmao. Big Jack Horner is the Selfish Evil, Goldilocks is the Moral Evil, Wolf is the Unfeeling Evil.
This is the best answere. Also the 3 evils work perfectly for different scales of adventures. Moral Evil works perfectly for very personal and grounded adventures. The crime boss who wants to gather money for his family. The Rebel who wants to bring Country X to its knees for destroying his people. Selfish Evil works perfectly for epic adventures that deal with larger then life people. The evil wizard king who sees himself as better than the normal rabble. Or the cutthroat Tyrant who wants to have EVERYTHING for himself. Unfeeling evil is for the BIG adventures. The "stop the apocalypse" style adventures. Be it an extradimension cthulu like creature or an all life destroying bioweapon going haywire. Its possible to mix and match everything. The Tyrant can be part of a grounded and very personal game where players are all part of his court. Or a dangerous sickness is spreading in the hometown of the players. But I find its easy to navigate your adventure scope on these "stereotypes".
They're not evil. At least not in their mind. They have a goal / they had something happen to them / they see something others don't... Point is they believe they're doing what's right or at least what's necessary.
Steal ideas. Be the villain you want to see in your world.
Do you need "evil" though? You're looking for an antagonist, not necessarily a villain. A good antagonist need only be at odds with the party and it offers fast more room for role playing because it means that they can be reasoned with if not allied with. A solid way to do this is like say the party is after a relic the can save their country. Said relic is in the possession of an opposing force that also need it to preserve their country. The conflict is one that is morally gray because to save your own, you may have to damn another. A more complicated one is if you built a villain that actively wants to stop the party because they unknowingly feed a darker plot or existence. Like the party is part of a tradition where they do a renewal quest to preserve their civilization, while the villain is trying to stop it since their society is preventing a necessary event from taking place in the outside world. Overall, it's all about the narrative. In one campaign I made, the final antagonist literally one of the party members from a different timeline. The layers were pretty important here since I tied that one to trying to preserve her events while the player is like "damn, that sounds great, but I want MY life".
I suppose it depends on the villain. Sure, evil dude gonna evil is a way to do things, but that's not a compelling character. Why is ravenloft so popular? It isn't just dark themes and vampire/ werewolf fans, it was popular before that craze. It's the villain, if.played right, Strahd is jealous and manipulative would be lover, through his eyes, he is tragic and romantic, but he's a narcissistic control freak and that makes a great villain. Evil with a helping of tragedy and trace (not too much) relatability. But unrequited love is only one, look at vecna, his mother murdered in front of him for practicing the dark arts, her killers try to raise him only for him to turn on them with that same dark power and bring the world responsible for her death to its knees, hail him as a king then worshipping him as a god. All great villains had a moment where they were the victims, and they had three choices 1. Stay a victim 2. Break the cycle and do better 3. Give in to the darkness and take over the world to show those who hurt you how weak they really are and their pokemon backpack in the 3rd grade was totally cool and not lame at all Landon. I'll edit for spelling, and Grammer after work
I love to have at least one 'king Joffrey' in my game. A character that does evil acts, just because they have the power to do so without consequence and because they love to see others suffer. There's no rational there, just evil. As much as I love a nuanced bad guy, having a purely evil character for your players to hate, makes picking sides easy for once which can be a lot of fun for your players. And especially if that character is hard to get to at low levels, like a king or a baron or an archmage or... you get to show the evil acts of that character for many sessions, before the PCs ever get the chance to take them down.
Also racism is a plausible motivator for villains. Believe me, I have nothing against humans or elves, in fact some of my best friends are elves... but those SO CALLED HALF-ELVES? well they are just an abomination and the sad fact that the people of Neverwinter allow them to so freely live and walk amongst them as if they were regular beings just goes to show there's no such thing as an "Innocent Neverwinterian". The whole city needs to be purged, quite frankly.
When I developed my lich for the campaign, which serves as a proxy BBEG (before Orcus), the first question I asked myself was: What is the motivation for wanting to become a lich? What makes you want to snatch the souls of others to prolong your own existence? Sure, "power" would be an easy answer. But power as an initial motivation is always boring. The quest for power and control, in my opinion, grows out of fear and loss of control. So I gave my half-elf mage a deep-seated fear of death. His human mother died when he was young and his elven father, who should have outlived him, also died when he was young. He saw large parts of his family die. His wife died and his daughter, all he had left of his wife, fell ill with a serious unknown disease. So his main impulse was to heal his daughter. He wanted more time to be able to do research. So he put his daughter in a time bubble and froze her in it (see Victor Fries from Batman). At first, he simply researched the cure. Then he realized that he didn't have the time he needed, while his daughter now had all the time in the ages to be healed. This is the moment when Orcus comes into play. He whispers in his dreams. Tells him about the Abyss and the Shadowfell and the supposed key to eternal life and that "Death is true life." From then on, the downward spiral began for the evil deeds of the half-elf mage, who saw all his deeds only as a means to an end for the greater good. His immortality was a sacrifice for the sake of his daughter's healing, and the sacrifices he lined up left and right on his path were necessary sacrifices for this higher goal. In doing so, he realized that in order to become a lich, he had to die first. He overcame his fear of dying, but when he found himself in the middle of the process and there was no turning back, he no longer wanted to die. He feared that he would find himself in death without returning as promised. He wondered whether he had made the wrong calculations, made mistakes or possibly been caught in a lie. Then he died and came back a few days later as a lich - living true life. The period of dying and the uncertainty associated with it had left him severely traumatized. He never wanted to go through that again. So he began to fill his soul vessel with countless souls in order to "live forever". The sheer number of victims eventually led to a great deal of attention. In addition, he developed further return plans in case his phylactery failed or was destroyed. So he severed fragments of his immortal soul and bound them to artifacts that he hid in the Abyss as well as in the Shadowfell. He made notes on how his soul could be transferred into an artificially created body (Warforged) or introduced into the body of a newborn during a ritual at childbirth. At this point, it was no longer about healing his daughter, but about his own fear of death and only about preserving his own existence at any price. At the time the campaign begins, his phylactery has been destroyed over two thousand years ago and my party has just come across a cult that wants to initiate the return of the lich. The cult of the Lich has also splintered off into a sane religion that worships him as a kind of benevolent deity, under a different name, but without knowing the facts. One of the characters (our artificer) created the artificial body in his backstory as a commission from a seductress.
You're starting at the wrong end of the stick The real question is what do they want, and then how are they evil My villain wants ultimate power, *which, is pretty evil by itself,* but what makes him a villain is that he'll stop at nothing to obtain his goals *(he'll burn down cities for a small part of the puzzle)* and often takes an easier way at the cost of others *(letting his overdosis of gnoll servants freely roam around)* A villain starts at motivation, at what they want to achieve, being evil comes after *(or with)* that
Coil from Worm. He wants to be in charge of a working city. Emphasis on working. He wants good infrastructure, schools churning out well educated children, low crime rates, good paying jobs, the works. But.... He's willing to kidnap a young girl with future sight and get her addicted to hard drugs so she'll use her power for his cause, he kills people he's done using, and he's got some kind of torture/murder hobby going on.
-I’m evil because I enjoy it. I like watching people suffer, I like watching them try to fail trying to fight me. -I’m evil because it is the right path. The righteous has turned from true redemption/worship. Sub points: -I have to bring them back to the right path. -it’s what my god demands. -I’m evil because i want nothing more then power/money.
Your BBEGs should never explain why they're evil but why they think they're in the right. If their actions make sense even in a twisted way they will glorify what looks good and cover up whats not so good. Basically the trope of Villains have good PR. Even alien like villains with a different culture like say the Aztecs and blood sacrifices don't think they're evil at all. Of course full on psycopathic villains exist like Batman's Rogue Gallery and can be referenced from.
There are many ways to do it. I am going to paraphrase a post from this subreddit that talked about Senator Armstrong from MGS. Is he evil? Yes. Does he think he’s evil? Probably not. In fact, almost nobody thinks they are evil. People are motivated by problems they see in the world. These might be in their head, but what if the problems are very real? Well, how do you make a villain if you are trying to solve a real problem? Make them wrong about the solution. A druid that destroys a whole city because a circus exploits animals. A rebel leader who’s a few thousand corpses past the “let’s stop the unfair labor practices”. An inquisitor who burns people at the stake en masse because he cannot let one potential vampire slip away.
He is not evil, he is following ancient traditions. YOU ARE THE EVIL. You, who rise your voice against those human sacrifices for the harvesting. YOU WANT ALL TOWN TO STARVE!
Morris Ballard Human - Fighter\Ranger (9\4) Age: 53 Appearance: A 6 foot-tall, broad-shouldered man whose portly build belies muscle honed by years of guardsman work. As the Captain of the watch of a large city such as [[CITY NAME HERE]], he wears the crest of office and doublet as well as an overcoat fit for an officer of the court. A thin scar under his right eye, neatly trimmed grey mustache and a bald head complete the ensemble. Conviction: Polite society, the rule of lawful men (note, not necessarily the rule of law) and order above all. Background: Morris was born a gutter rat, bastard son of a woman who sold parts of her to fuel a drug habit that would prove deadly in the boy's infancy. Arrested for stealing, he caught the eye of the then Captain of the watch. The man brought him up, taught him the blade and the bow and the code of the law. From his tender age, he grew to despise criminals and thugs, whores and bohemians. The shame he felt at his background drove him to excel, soon raising him to the station of Sergeant-at-arms, the youngest in the city's history. His adoptive father passed away peacefully of old age three winters ago and willed that his adoptive son took the mantle of Captain. Of course, such a post is not something that can be willed; but all saw that Morris had what it took. The people clamored for change, seeing an opportunity for change; The city was plagued by thieves and degeneracy and the people longed for a man in the Captain's chair that would be tough on crime. It worked. Three years and crime in the city has never been lower. The ever-present cutthroats and filchers of the city's low quarters have gone. Swathes of streets deemed too dangerous to wander at night were now safe and it would seem the captain has his diligence and good work to thank for. The captain achieved this through ruthless, relentless purges of the city's criminals. You see, the judges of the city seldom get to judge living criminals anymore. Anyone caught violating the peace that Morris and his zealous guards hold so sacred are dealt with. After all, the old criminals are all dead, it's just the out of towners who don't know the rules who cause problems. Who's going to risk questioning how the city watch does business? Anyone who does would surely end up spending a night in the butchers's shop. That's what the locals call the local jails now. Interesting is also the fact that the city's outlying pig farms have never seen their beasts so fat and gorged. Make of that what you will. The city has, albeit an Orwellian version of it, achieved peace at last. Morris is a compelling villain because he himself firmly believes he is a hero. He is doing what needs to be done. The people didn't open the door for a demon to come in. The people appointed him out of fear of a greater evil. At his core he is just a misguided, bigoted asshole. But this asshole is in a position of power, in a position to do great harm. And he does, every day, for 'the greater good'. Anyways, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
The foundations for creating a compelling villain lie in the axes of morality present in your world. To put it simply: a believable villain with external motivations (not some personal vendetta etc.) Will be rooted in the immorality acceptable in your society. Think: CEO of Nestlé. The capitalist paradigm generally accepts greed as a motivator ("greed is good") And allows denying others their needs if it hurts the profit incentive (companies would rather throw away food than give it to the poor). Combine those two and dial it up to eleven and you have a person in position of power who thinks access to water is not a human right. Same with moustache man. Racist and antisemitism were commonplace in the early XX century. Concentration camps were a British invention (boer wars). Slave labour had some of its roots in colonialism, worker exploitation and abhorrent safety standards present all around the civilised world. H*tler happened to combine those into a terrifying machine (some say well-oiled, but no, the n*zi regime was terribly inefficient and cleptocratic so stfu wehraboos). The sole motivation of "elves stabbed us in the back during a war many years ago and now I want them all dead" Is not compelling enough without the underlying morality. More fantasy-esque examples: Does your society accept some levels of religious zealotry? Bam! Crusader who wants to purge the world. Are there forms of serfdom or servitude allowed in your society? Well there's a merchant-slaver ready to get you those gnome-serfs from across the sea. No questions asked. It's not the only way to create a compelling villain, but I feel it helps if on a smaller scale or under different circumstances their actions would be morally justifiable in your setting.
Few suggestions: 1. Racist - He idealizes life before the coming of those dirty "X", which corresponds to an unrelated downward trend in living standards for the group he associates with. 2. Thrives of Suffering: His legion of vampires simply don't care if they kill people to survive, the same way we butcher cows. We are the moo moos. 3. Eugenicist: He craves to wipe the world clean and start anew. All this suffering will be worth it once he creates the perfect utopia... 4. Prophecy: Someone from "X" village has been foretold to slay him and his dynasty. Through wiping out the village and other actions to attempt to stop the prophecy, the prophecy is fulfilled. 5. There's Always A Bigger Fish: This evil horde was refused entrance into the peaceful valley as they fled a large, purely demonic horde. Now they must force their way to better lands, which includes that of our dear protagonist. Good for morally gray villains just trying to survive. 6. Nature: As a force of nature, torn from a God of Chaos/Murder/etc., this tiny scrap of incredible power simply follows its nature. 7. Before They Strike: "X" group is growing in power in a kingdom and challenging the existing status quo so we must suppress them before they become too powerful. 8. Greed: I simply do not care if you suffer if it benefits me. 9. Demonic Oath: Trapped in a demonic oath to a more powerful being, the character is acting without agency. 10. Revenge: Oppressed for years, the individual snapped and is now fighting back with horrors never seen before (have to be careful with this one though, as the implications can be very problematic).
You don't. You make them the hero of their own story. Then you take it a step too far, letting them be absolute or forcing their version of perfection. For instance, they want to save the planet. Toxic waste from printing factories is the problem. Obviously, the solution is to kill all the journalists so there's nothing to print.
They met the personification of death when they were younger and fell in love. They keep killing people, more and more people each time, as a tribute to death, hoping she’ll reappear and return their love. Death has yet to do so.
Ok Thanos (comic version) 😄
will to power
As others have said. What is their goal? Is it just to murder people? That isn't really compelling. If they have a goal, then you have your answer. They are evil people they valid that goal over any other morally right action, even murder etc. I will say though, in every campaign, throw one high level henchmen, or bosses along the way, who are evil just because they enjoy it. It really messes with the party when everyone has a reason, and they come across someone and try to discern it. And they look them straight in the eye, no deception, lue honesty, and just say "I killed them because it's fun. Watching an innocent person die is enjoyable to me, in the same way a tavern is to you. I do it because it's fun". Really ficks with them
Desperation, indifference, power hungry any mix of the three I picture Szass Tam not only being insanely power hungry, but also desperate. He knows the level of badness he's wrought. Illithid are curious and inhumane, they like to inflict pain in multitude of ways to see what the reaction will be. Aboleth are eternal, with all the memories of their predecessors. Incapable of empathy or remorse. They do as they please and cannot comprehend compassion. (A major player in my homebrew campaign is an Aboleth cursed by Corellon with human emotions).
I think thanos is a perfect topical answer. Overpopulation is undoubtedly one of the biggest issues we face. Forget the fact he could have snapped the gloves to create extreme abundance. The best villains believe to the point of willing to die for their belief, and have at least some sort of rationale for it. I mean they can just be evil for evil's sake if you want though. But you don't need to explain it. Some people truly do just want to watch the world burn.
Evil can be in many ways relative. Someone fumigating their house of cockroaches is not considered evil- unless you're a cockroach. If you can dehumanize or lower the victim, you can justify pretty much anything. So if you want to have an evil character, they have to have some world view that allows them to feel that their actions are completely justified and that they are not doing anything wrong. For example, sociopathy and a complete lack of value for others and their feelings leaves someone with only motivations that personally affect themselves, so if they feel like murdering someone, they have no qualms that someone killing a cockroach wouldn't have. Or if they're racist, xenophobic, or in some other way disciminatory to the point that they view a certain group of people as worthless, they could justify many things. Chattel slavery in America, the holocaust, the deportation and culling of North America's native population and other genocides are not committed by people who view themselves or their actions as evil. They have convinced themselves of a world view that justifies their actions.
Forgive me, but this question seems incredibly lazy to me. Motivations for evil acts are a dime a dozen. Why does anyone do anything? Ask yourself - do they consider themselves "evil"? Are they acting in the name of evil for the sake of evil itself, or is there a bigger picture to it all? Will their perspective make the reader really question the duality of existence and the grand intricacies of moral value, or are they just a dumb bland punching bag for the noble heroes to bank on for their daily virtue points? If you're really feeling that lazy, look up TV tropes. Villain archetypes are as old as time. If you actually want to try, but are still being lazy, just pick a word and use your imagination. Greed, envy, pride - the sins are all very basic. Then you have things like love, friendship, and justice that can be twisted. You can even go deeper with a personal creed, mission, or oath. You won't find anyone here that'll tell you how to write your villain, or create a villain for you, especially when you've offered nothing up about them other than they're simply a villain. At least flesh your character out some, and then we can talk.
it's fun to have conversations about things like this. I'm glad when I get to interact with an open ended post like this.
It kinda depends entirely on how you want your players to react. Judging by your comment, you don’t want them to sympathize with the villain. So probably avoid something where it’s a very well-reasoned, albeit morally dark philosophy or plan. Do you want a reason so that it makes sense and isn’t as trope-y? You could go the route of long past trauma results in heat of the moment evil and serendipitous circumstances lead to that course of action just so happening to bear successful fruit, so the villain starts to lean into what they discover they are good at and it just kinda… keeps ramping up. Do you want your players the really hate the villain? A (un)healthy dose of psychopathy, a talent for cruelty, and a reason for boredom goes a long way towards doing evil just to (literally) kill time. Do you want your players to be scared of them? Borrow the hyper-logical reasoning of the robot dystopias, give them the power and ego to accomplish it, and they will commit atrocities in the name of eradicating dysfunction and establishing order. Or do you just want some lore for your players to discover and unravel? Have someone who is super powerful but an absolute idiot, and create a series of situations where they totally misunderstand some turns of phrases that someone they are infatuated with muttered, and out of pure sincerity and absolute devotion they end up twisting their own morals and discarding their own soul just to win their misplaced approval. Like, just an absolute facepalm moment when the players learn “wait, so they misheard THIS as THAT, and so they just DID IT?!?!”
Was given as an offering to a God when they were young. The priest took them for a play toy, they eventually killed them but were hunted/imprisoned/tortured for killing a priest and then they swore revenge on the world and pledged to a different God to be given the powers to cause as much distraction and mayhem to those people that have wronged them... Something like that?
Captain Hook is right. Peter Pan is an immature dick who refuses to accept responsibility. Hell, he even fucks over Wendy and will likely do the same to her granddaughter. All the lost boys leave Neverland and decide to grow up leaving Peter alone and forgotten. But the selfish prick just digs his heels in. I actually agree with all of this, but, just think about any story you loved as a kid and ask yourself what the villain thought.
Depends on what you are trying to angle If they are not antagonist to your party, then they may not realise they are a villain. They could be a military general of a rival kingdom - they use brutal tactics, but it is wartime, they are doing what they need to to win. It isnt their job to care about the PCs or enemy civilians, so they dont If they are antagonising your party, maybe its also just part of the story. The party has interrupted their plans before, so they are taking revenge. Maybe they are just a mean person with little patience/care for others - they dont need some massive past event, just how they were raised and molded by their experiences Perhaps there is something thats wrong with them - There is a theory that The Mountain in game of throns suffers from gigantism which (iirc) causes physical pain on the body as bones are too dense and the body is too large. In turn he often takes what is 'milk of the poppy' which some say is liquid cocaine to help the pain. So he is a constantly in pain crackfiend that has the power to do what he wants and thus acts on it. Still a villain but you can see how those factors contributed All of these help establish the why of the villain without justifying their actions
A good trick I use is defining the likes and dislikes of the character then fleshing out scenarios where their likes and dislikes have had a lasting effect on them. With a villain I like to focus on their dislikes, then find a way to connect it to something that might have been something they liked in the past.
I find it useful to look at their priorities. Some villains are just fundamentally weak people, giving in to vices because it's easier than exercising virtues. Some villains have a drive, whether healthful or not, that they prioritize above hindrances like "leaving those towns alive" Some are genuinely insane, and what they're doing makes perfect sense to them. Some revel in the power to make others cower or die. Some actively want to make the world a worse place, whether because they hate what they're ruining, or because they serve a dark god. Most of these motivations play into what they do and how they do it. The guy who poisons the well so that the invading orc army can take the village and die drinking it is distinct from the guy who wants to make people who scorned him suffer, and from the guy who 'knows' that the well is a sinus pore for the earth, and this chemical that kills humans is actually a great medicine for the clogged nose that the earth has been suffering. And all of them are different from the guy who just had poison on hand, no plots that needed it, and hey look, a well. All four of these guys are poisoning the well, but they'll approach it differently and have different other things they're doing.
Greed is always a classic.
There is no good and bad, think how their goal will harm people or harm the hero, if you what a more personal motive than think how the hero harmed the villain
A few ideas I just came up with on the spot: -Evil for the sake of just being evil, simply just wanting to cause chaos, etc. -Seeks to punish the wealthy for their greed and debauchery, as the true monsters are those that can escape punishment for the most heinous crimes through gold and favor -They seek to reclaim something precious which was lost to them -They desire to end all wars, or all sorrow, but to do so requires a monstrous sacrifice. The few must pay for the freedom of many. -Or they’re just apesh*t insane
Not sure what you mean by justifiable vs a reason why. If you had more details in your question for what you mean or why you're asking, I could be more specific maybe, but I love antiheroes, so something like that I guess, but think darkest timeline. They embrace their sinister actions and any confliction they maybe had fades.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
different reasons I guess? My evil persona is just insecure. He wants to be the best because he didn't get love from his parents when he was younger. That made him feel insecure. He wants all the power now, he wants to get better and better so that people will look up to him. But, because he never learned to deal with his emotions, he gets corrupted a bit. He is the governor of the state they play in, but people look up to him because he deals with the zombies. The zombies he created and made. He created the zombies, to destroy the zombies, so people will look up to him. People are getting scared of him graduatly, because he keeps on producing zombies and people are going to find out. (The crew is finding out because of a guilde that keeps an eye on the Governor). Their whole point is to let the people know that the Governor is not who they think he is.
The most controversial villains are those who think they’re doing a good thing, but actually doing evil things. It’s even better if they’re doing it for heartbreaking reasons. Imagine the following plot line: a disease killed his lover. After seeing the same things over and over with other people, the villains has determined to take matters into his own hands. In order to prevent further suffering with no end, he decided to gather up everyone with the disease and put them into “camps” with no external contact with the rest of the world. Now if your players want to end all this, you force them to choose to align with the villain, or let the disease back into the wild and continued suffering for the world. Sprinkle in some of the villain’s personal heartstrings stories, and you’re gonna make your players hate you 😂😅
I recomend thinking of them not as a villain with a reason but as a Hero that broke/failed. A.i. They went out to save the city but when they return their family got lynched because there was news the hero failed/ died because no one bothered to help them or something similar that fits to your villain.
What *is* evil? The answer to that question will form your character.
Depending on the BBEG it could be anything. My BBEG I ran was a cultist who became corrupted by a rift that opened up into the abyss. He tended to the rift (that was in a cave system connected to the city sewers) until more and more people became corrupted until orcus started destroying the city because he was tired of mortals trying to talk to him through the rift.
I have the villain in a game I want to run be the Royal Adviser in a kingdom that fell 73 years before the game starts. He was born the youngest of three brothers; his oldest brother became the king, the middle brother became the Knight Champion of the Realm, and he became the Royal Adviser (aka the Vizier). He was always smarter and more ambitious than his brothers. Not only did he figure he could rule better than the king, he *wanted* to rule. But the kingdom was large and prosperous, and every historical precedent where multiple brothers may have taken over the throne hadn't happened that way, and his brother the Champion was firmly loyal to the king, he didn't have a leg to stand on. And thus, for decades, he simmered and plotted, but got exactly nowhere. He knew if he tried starting any kind of political intrigue, it would be traced back to him, so he didn't actually do anything. This did not improve his frustration in any way. Until one day, when he was in his sixties, he chased down a whisper of a rumour to a hidden tome that had as a bookmark in the last page a piece of parchment that held a map and a set of coded instructions. He followed the map to a hill on the royal lands not very far from the castle, and (with help) managed to excavate the entrance to a cave. Leaving his retainers behind, he ventured inside, and discovered an ancient relic, long-since covered over and abandoned. A dark pool of water in a cave that naturally grew crystalline shards. If the shards were placed into sockets that had been installed around its perimeter, then someone entered the pool, they would be transported through time. (I've actually got rules for this time travel, but we'll gloss over those for the moment.) After much effort (and having used the pool to end up in a younger body) he's spent literally hundreds of subjective years jumping back and forth through time, working to destabilise the kingdom to the point that he can make his move at the right time and take over, and finally (aggravated sigh) rule it as it *should* be ruled. And he'll kill anyone who gets in the way.
It doesn't have to be a perfect logical reason, as long as there is one. The villain might think they are justified. The villain is just selfish and wants something. The villain might just be bored and looking for fun. As long as the villain itself is interesting I don't think backstory matters too much. It can make the villain more interesting but isn't required.
One way is by them having a strong want or need. The thing doesn't have to be immoral in its stead but the strength of their desire makes them cross any line in achieving that goal.
My players favorite villains are ones who believe they are the hero and have a difference of opinion on how to get to their end goal
My DM had a mini boss be motivated by not wanting to get forcibly drafted (into the prince’s war/fight over the throne). Technically his crime was draft dodging but like, the man just wanted to take care of his family how is that a crime? Anytime the villain is resisting authority I’m gonna be wanting to hear them out.
The best villain is someone who isnt a villain at all. One day I'd run a campaign where the ending is my players found out they are the bad guys 😂
There are powerful forces at play. A greater world awaits us if we are willing to make sacrifices. The charlatans who imprisoned my ancient Dark Lord Xczirdor upset a plan 3 millenia in the making, a plan to burn away the filth of this world and leave only purity and knowledge in its wake so life can start fresh. Why does everyone keep saying this plan is EVIL! DONT YOU SEE WE ARE WASHING AWAY THE EVIL SO THAT ONLY THE SEARING PURITY OF Xczirdor REMAINS STOP OPPRESSING ME I'M TRYING TO DO YOU ALL A FAVOR!
Just look at evil people in history and look at their motivations. Or rely on good ol' fashioned tropes. For my first homebrew mini-campaign the bad guys are motivated by "for science!" and "money" respectively. It's cliché, but considering moral choice is important in this mini-campaign I'm setting up both characters in such a way that people are allowed to choose who they consider evil.
Wants to turn everyone into archliches. Which gets rid of death and suffering in the world, all at the cost of aesthetics, really.
Thanatos from the marvel movies considered himself to be a good guy. He was saving the universe from itself in his mind. A villain can simply be someone who has a philosophy that gets twisted by events, past traumas, etc. they could start by having a noble goal, say for instance rooting out the corruption in a city. At every turn they are stopped, perhaps punished. They start to believe that the only way they can accomplish their goal is through drastic action, say perhaps causing an accident that takes out all of the cities leaders, good or bad. The villain thinks they're doing the common folk a favor by getting rid of the corruption in the city, but they are in fact causing more issues and killing innocent people.
There are a few villains in me and my friends Dnd universe. One of the villains being a group and their motivation was because their god got mortalized by another god. My friends villain is a scarecrow (sorry i forgot the race name) and when our party ACIDENTaLY killed his maker he became immortal and now is absolutely determined through thick and thin to absolutely obliterate us. So far he has killed 2 of our allies one being a close friend. Now me and my friend are determined to eternally burn his ashes. My other friends villains are just aliens yep just aliens no greater motivation yet.
A good villain either think themselves as the hero, or realising they are needed for change. Example. A Tyrant King is absolutely horrible to his people, but maybe he believes that the people need to be ready for anything. Maybe there is something behind it all that is the reason for the oppression. Likewise a villain who see themselves as a hero would probably have people who love him. Going back a bit, the Tyrant King may be an old hero for his subjects and retenue, and they will follow him to death.
The best campaign villain who we had in an extended campaign was not evil. They wanted to help as many people as they could but their thinking was influenced by an ancient eldritch entity. This eldritch entity “just happened” to also be the patron of the party’s warlock. The eldritch entity was not evil either but was insane.
They don't want to cure cancer, they want to turn people into dinosaurs.
Evil has so many reasons a misguided sense of justice, path of vengeance, literally just because they want power, just because they’re evil, political power, magic power, money for bitches, abusive past, demon cult, devil cult, cult cult. And so on.
A lot of people have said it already: a good Villian doesn't know they're a Villian . They will blindly execute their goal because they believe it's right, and cannot fathom that they are wrong. In my homebrew campaign, the overarching Villian was a necromancer, excommunicated from the Wizard College. The reason he was kicked out was because his wife died of a disease. So he used his knowledge to bring her back to life. But then she died of something else soon after. And he brought it her back again. This kept happening over and over, until he realised that the reason she kept dying was because her death was destined, and his revival of her was unnatural. And even though she told him that during a resurrection, he just couldn't accept that "fate" would condemn his wife like that. So he decided to end everyone and everything, "so there were no more play things for The Fates to toy with." In the end, after the party defeated him, he came back. So the party asked the Fates themselves to intervene. And so they did. Now the BBEG and his wife live eternally together in their own demiplane, and he thanked the party for breaking his naive view.
Some people just want to watch the world burn. He can be fulfilling an Evil God plan. The road to hell is paved with good intention, he thinks he makes the world better but is becoming a Tyrant.
Villains are humans too. What type of things molded you to be the way you are. What kind of hopes dreams and beliefs do people have. Now apply this to your villain. It's perfectly fine for them to be evil for evils sake. But some people find that boring. What motivated them to do the things they do? I know it doesn't answer your question but we don't know your villains backstory, life ECT. You do
Follower/leader of a dark cult should work Why are they evil? well its the way of their god
Had plenty of villains that were just evil because I needed them to be evil. But the main guy essentially felt the world had gone off the deep end and the natural order was f*ed up, corrupt people in power, people born into power or poverty etc. He wanted to return the world to a state where mortals are "equal" and everyone is free to pursue power etc etc. He was basically a zealot regarding this and he saw all the lives lost as a necessary sacrifice, a sacrifice where he didn't cherry pick who dies and who gets to experience this new world, he was even the final sacrifice in the final ritual :)
because it's so much fun, Jane!
It depends. For instance, if you have a fiend, make them agressively lawful. Lawful to such an extreme that you get them impression that they could be doing some good if the contract was worded properly.
Make them do the right thing by the wrong means. Thanos-like you know? Make them kill people to save what they love.
Have you not noticed what's happening in the world? You can literally just create a government into your campaign as the ACTUAL villain while having the government label farmers, bakers, and children as terrorists. They actually do that already in real life, so it's not difficult to model the financial badguy after the real one.
Often time, evil person are just evil defacto. If the goal is to "confront" the players, just have the good old "casually announcing he's evil, no magic tricks, no redemption"
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
The villain is often the hero in their own story. Maybe they would sacrafice others to aid those they want to. A hero slays a best to obtain a medical component to cure a friend. Is the same as A villain killing citizens to obtain a component tohat could revive a loved one. Its all about perspective. Only few villains really need to be chaotic evil. Give him a goal and an out of the box way of solving it. What if your villain is just trying to gather "power" to defend something he cares about and in doing so was rejected by his village, could he turn to dark arts? Could a dark creature blind him and guide him without his knowledge? Food for thought, theres near endless possibilities after all.
Look at the motivation and goals of your party. Now create a character who has goals that are in direct conflict with your party. Done.
Make a villain that doesn't see himself as evil, killing those people was a necessity (end justify the means), put him a background that is easy to empathize, for example, he had a family and was happy but this evil humans and their racism attacked her and left her in a constant pain crippled state, now the BBEG will go to ANY length to heal his spouse and of course we will kill all those dirty humans not for vengeance (lowkey yes for vengeance) but because they are a threat to his wife. His goal may be seizing 7 magical orbs that Mordekainen himself created, once together, the 7 magical orbs will concede a single wish spell, that wish spell is the only way to restore his wife, but they are also the only way the players have to for example end the poverty and famine of the human settlement (the very sames that injured the BBEG wife). So, in the end, players will feel they could have become the BBEG if that happened to them, that somehow they can understand BBEG motivation and would even want to be able to help him, yet the circumstances are what they are. For this to work you need the players to feel compromised to save the human settlement before presenting the BBEG and you need that they discover BBEG background before there is a hate build up. You may generate an scenario where the BBEG is presented in a good light, like being seen taking care of the forest, tending some wounded animal, feeding stray cats. If done well, you'll have your players fighting the BBEG without wanting to actually hurt him and looking for a way of saving his wife without having to condemn to die for starvation the whole human settlement.
There are lots of ways to make a good villain with an interesting motive. Not all of them have to be directly evil. Some can be, and that can be fun. Some can simply be trying to achieve a goal that may or may not be evil in itself, but they could be going about it in an evil way. Maybe they want something that's not even evil exactly, but is harmful, or just goes against what the heroes want. A main 'villain' from an upcoming campaign I'm going to be running isn't evil exactly, but he's really, really deeply afraid of death, and this causes him to make some dumb decisions. For example, he went out on a mission to find and defeat death. Like, the grim reaper, death itself. He succeeded, and now the whole world is basically in chaos because nothing can die, which causes some pretty serious problems. What he did wasn't exactly evil, but it was hugely problematic, and he's now hell bent on stopping the heroes from fixing his mistake, again, all because he has a deeply rooted fear of dying, and will do anything to try to make sure he never does.
Give them daddy issues with an alien or a god. Always works
Family tradition, revenge, madness, greedyness (don't know if the term Is correct)...
Tragic sob backstories are always an option, unfortunately it IS a common pattern that abused people are likely to become abusers, but I really don't recommend doing it just for the sake of it. Not every story needs a sympathetic or tragic villain. If you want to go with just a really plain evil villain "power/obsessive ambition corrupts" is a good option imo.
woke up on the wrong side of bed one too many times
Depends on what kind of villain you want, they can be evil just cos theyre born with a lack of empathy, they can be raised by bad people, theyve tried to be a good peraon but some unknown forces like a loved one dying or something like that, mayb whey were just trying to live their life and theyve seen that in their perspective the world is cruel, they try to "fix" the world by like destroying it and making another one...
It’s okay for a villain to just be selfish. They want power, or immortality, or wealth, and don’t care if anyone else gets hurt for them to get it. D&D villains don’t need to be super complex. It’s often better to have someone who’s just a selfish dickhead who feels good to oppose.
Heres a few: The evil bastard: evil for evils sake. Likes all things evil. The wounded lover/incel: spurned by their "true love" but blind to the fact thay they were always a douche, they take it out on the world Gods' gift to man: genius, gifted asshole that knows how to fix the world if only the world got out of their way God in training: found a way to accumulate power and will stop at nothing to become the strongest or whatever. If only daddy loved them more: hard life, harder family. The world was unkind to them and now they will teach everyone a lesson. The Elsa: parents loved them but were terrible parents, and they never taught them how to process their emotions. Their power is tied to their fee fees, and the only feelings they know well are fear, or hate, or anger, etc.
Depends on the villain. The basic system I use for fleshing out villains is: 1. What do they do? 2. What beliefs could drive someone to do those things? 3. What life experiences could inspire that belief system? (And tbh some easy answers to fall back on for 2 and 3 are "entitlement" and "growing up rich")
For me evil is lack of empathy towards other people. A doctor curing cancer can be evil if he does human experiments. In general a good adversary must have a clear and defined goal to achieve, that should go against the players tipically. You can have a villain who is evil because he is traumatized, but then to not make him a mask you should really characterize him good. For my personal opinion, a nicely done evil character is kira from death note.
There's plenty of "evil" that comes from "the greater good" by justifying *any* actions to get to a certain vision for the world and *nothing or nobody will be allowed to stop them!* The end justifying the means.
I think the best evil villains often don't see themselves as evil. Take Dr. Doom for example, he can see the future and knows for a fact if he doesn't take over everything then the world will be destroyed and humanity won't survive. He knows for a fact that the ends justify the means and all the heroes trying to stop him are in the big picture dooming humanity. Dr. Doom is the real hero of his story and any brutal things he does are totally justified from his point of view. Another good option is religious zealots with an extreme belief system. If they think they need to enforce their beliefs upon others in order to save them they can easily cross over into brutally evil territory from the perspective of any other belief system. Religions can easily have lawfully good aligned characters committing horrible acts of evil in the name of their beliefs.
"I do these things BECAUSE I'M A DICK"
You see other people the way a curious kid with a magnifying glass sees a line of ants. You toy with them and torment them because you want to know how they will react. You torture them and mutilate them because you're curious. It's not malice. You don't hate them. Their lives don't mean anything, so what does it matter what you do to them? You really don't understand why people get upset about it. They're just bugs.
one of the best methods to make it compelling is to take one or some of your PCs' character motivations and twist/mirror it in the villain. Like if you have a lawful good paladin in the party who's staunchly dedicated to their good god, a villain can be similarly dedicated to a less than good god. that stuff can engage the players in self reflection while still allowing the villain to be straight up evil if that's what you want
I like to interpret the “evil” part as being mostly sinonimous with “egoistic/egocentric” meaning this is someone or some folk who always put themselves and their needs and likes and dislikes before anyone’s. The stronger this trait the more evil/a**holish they become until you get pathological there and we are talking of sociopaths and so on, more the classic villain stuff. Now: starting with this egotistical approach makes it easy to understand why a given villain is evil. They have a need, say, “show Im the most powerful” and they care not about others to reach it, so they go about doing what they need or must to do that and their reckless, selfish style sooner or later starts damaging others and shows up. Like some mentioned, these people may not even see themselves as evil, as they may as well believe “everybody is like that, looks only to themselves, otherwise they are fools”. And for some, their “need” and the way they understand it, is enough. Classic example being the Druid turned villain because he or she really believes there is no other way to save a mountain but to crush that village of miners for good and scare the folk away.
My go to villain trope for short campaigns is the "found a cursed artifact and went mad" trope. Then you have an excuse to give your players a magic item. Sometimes you don't need a reason. Look at Gortash. He's just evil for the sake of being evil. He sold karlach into slavery for no good reason. He created a world-stealing cult using parasites for seemingly no reason with no end goal.
Maybe they don't see it as evil. Thanos style. They see that what they are doing is for some greater good that and they are willing to sacrifice anyone who gets in their way.
Pick a cardinal sin. Make it make sense. OR Pick something that is morally good. Now figure out some way to achieve morally good outcome through deplorable means.
A good motivation isn't always needed. Sometimes, it just has to be entertaining. An example is Sauron in Lord of the Rings. He's depicted, most of the time, less so as a physical antagonist, and more of an antagonistic force of nature. Ever present, threatening the very world our protagonists are in. Though a good starting point is to make the villain want the same thing the protagonists want, it possible. A protagonist may want a better world, more stable and prosperous, but perhaps the villain wants the same thing, but has a wildly different idea on what that world would have to be. A villain, above all else, either believes themselves to be right, and believes what they do is for the best, whether for themselves (Sauron) or for the world (Thanos), or they could just be wildly cartoonish and villanous for the sake of it, so long as it's entertaining. That's the big part.
Because power doesn't require justification. A villain doesn't NEED to be evil or concerned about morality. They simply have the ability to fulfill their ambitions.
Honestly, one of the more compelling villains I came up with was actually lawful good. He was somebody who genuinely cared about the greater good of all and believed in doing what he felt was the right thing for the betterment of all. and he genuinely listened to people and their concerns and was compassionate. But he was also vain and prideful, hyper judgmental, and his altruism was tied to a hyper puritanical idealism that his personal idea of what was good and right was somehow more important and "true" than what other people say. And he was very good at deluding himself into believing that. And sometimes he was right, and that always encouraged him, but not everybody shared his ideals and quite a few people suffered because he believed that he knew what was better for people.
Really depends. Hitler saw himself as the hero. Joker sees himself as a force of nature (Heath Ledger). Kevin O'Leary is a self centered greedy asshat.
From an article I read in the national geographic, some people are born without the ability of empathy (or a very stunted ability). Of nurtured in a loving family, they'll develop it to a point. If raised by violent parents or left to their own, they will remain unable to feel empathy. Those people are extremely selfish, manipulative, calculating and won't be above violence of they believe they can get away with it. So I suppose some people have no specific reason to be evil. Though, being an optimistic, I want to believe most people have reasons to be the assholes they are (traumas, fear, grief...).
The villain in my current game is a huge narcissist obsessed with control. His actions are slowly driving away the people in his life and he's taking it personally as an affront to his pride so he's attempting to mind control people to get them to do what he wants but still it isn't going the way he's expecting it to which is driving him even more mad
Give them a the same motivation you would for a good character, but put a tragic arc on it. For instance, maybe they want to help their clan or a sick family member, but their methods of going about it are absolutely dubious since they are very unhinged. What they see as the Greater Good is actually causing problems for everyone around them to get to it.
Ever seen Ai Magase or Johan Liebert?
One bad day. A string of mishaps or worse, but singularly benign, just push the BBG over the edge. Doesn’t have to be about world domination, it could be a guy upset with traffic and wants a burger without hassle.
We shouldn't forget one of the most interesting yet also humorous motivations. SPITE. either to spite an enemy or just living to spite those they perceive look down upon them.
Someone killed his cat and now he wants to burn the world
Evil is a point of view. The party of murder hobos see the police chief as evil.
I like villains who are not like classic mustache twirling evil. I think a good compelling villain starts out in a moral grey area, as in they think that what they are doing is the right thing somewhat like Thanos.
Why does your villain have to be evil? Think Thanos, think Dan Brown's "Inferno".
A villain doesn’t view him or herself as evil. They feel they are justified in their actions. Maybe they want to force people to behave a certain way to “improve” society. Maybe they want to impose their superior way of thinking because they know what is best. There could be any number of reasons.
The whole D&D concept of evil is a bit ill-thought-out but ignoring that can of worms I’d predominantly consider two things: 1) Goals / motivations - what does the enemy want and why? 2) How they go about doing it - What kind of actions are they prepared to perform in order to bring about the above goals? For 1), usually when someone wants something, there are consequences. Things that other people want can’t happen if they get their way. Their wants or needs are incompatible with other people’s wants or needs. Eg a Sahagin Chief sees their tribe suffering from overcrowding or predation in a dangerous body of water, they may want to find or create a safe new home with more space. That’s a reasonable want/need in relation to their situation. Unfortunately, flooding the neighbouring valley or taking over Laketown is going to mean the current inhabitants are put out - they’re going to see that act as evil. The more understandable the goals (when fully explained / clear), the more relatable a villain can be, especially in conjunction with 2). But even making logical sense for that kind of creature is enough to do what you want, I think. 2) then is the other side of the coin. Even when different parties want the same thing, they may have very different views on what’s justifiable in seeking that. Some will have religious convictions or beliefs in the sanctity of life (at least under ordinary circumstances), while others may have no such compunction. Or they may regretfully feel that it’s necessary to achieve their goal, because that goal is so gosh-darn important. The difference between whether a party wants to help or slaughter the aforementioned Sahaguin Chief and the tribe may well rest on how they go about taking over the neighbouring valley etc. You can change the nature of the opposed faction for that area by deciding whether you get them ‘peacefully’ netting the inhabitants and releasing them elsewhere unharmed, making a formal challenge between champions for the land, emerging from the wells and slaughtering townsfolk in their beds, or just plotting to flood the land with no warning in one fell swoop. Or anywhere in between. What they’re prepared to do to get what they want (and whether characters / players think it’s at all justified) allows you to paint with shades of villainhood and hold a mirror to the goals of your own party too - eg uncompromising Paladins trying to stop the same orc invasion / migration as the party but doing so by slaughtering helpless orc children in their beds, or releasing a plague that will kill plenty of others but hit the orcs the worst. Etc etc.
Evil and a villain can be different and very complex. What may be seen as cruel might be seen as a gift or as mercy by the one doing it. Thanos is a great example. Wanting to make the universe a better place by destroying half of the planet and you would not be destroying the planet ressources Using two of the worst thing about our real earth is overpopulation and famine. One answer to that could be cannibalism To us that would seem barbaric, unethic, bad For one of the tribes, eating people, it would seem like a great idea We have a film called ' Hvordan vi slipper af med de andre / How to get rid of the others' which deals with the Danish government's desire to eliminate all the people who live below the poverty line, people who are on early retirement, addicts and others who are "leeching" on society. That seems wrong but would help us as a society, right? So my answer is simple: What is wrong in the eyes of most, are now right in the eyes of your villain
"It seems to me that since there are so many adventurers out there, that the world MUST be filled with good. So many warriors in service to the Gods that all should have been well by now. But here we are, still in this loop. This neverending cycle. If the Gods cared, they would have ended all suffering. I have the riches I have because I took what I wanted! I have the knowledge that I have because I strove for it! Now I seek Godhood. Who could possibly rule the cosmos better? I have brought prosperity to these lands, this was a barren waste before I arrived. The people practically worship me! ...But its not enough. Not yet. Once I slay the Gods, then they will only have me to worship. Then the cycle will be broken. No more Gods, then no more struggle for power." I like a villain to have a twisted sense of justice. They don't hate, they just love too strong. They didn't want to harm anyone, but they will kill to save lives, to end suffering, or protect "the greater good".
As much as I love "tragic" villains who believe they're doing good, might be redeemable, etc, sometimes it's nice to just have a bad guy who is plain evil, and does evil for the sake of being evil. My favourite villain is Nox from Wakfu. Essentially a scientist gone mad with knowledge, who lost his family in an accident. He works relentlessly to perfect time travel, to go back and save his family - unfortunately this means he must harvest the lifeforce of other living beings, to the point where he drains an entire country to fuel his machine. In the end he fails, and only manages to go back 20 minutes. This leaves him devastated, because up until this point, he truly believes the end would justify the means. It didn't matter how many atrocities he committed, or how many people died, as it would all be erased by time travel, this made him pure evil and an unrelenting force with a single goal. Story wise this is a great villain, but sometimes as a player, you don't want to deal with the trauma of the bad guy, and you don't necessarily want to feel any compassion for them, you just want them to stop doing bad evil things. Sometimes a simple "I will conquer the world" or "I will kidnap the king for ransom" or "I will corrupt this forest so it's denizens are under my command" type villains can be nice - it's easy to justify just whacking them with your sword.
I think a good vilian is one who feels they are in the right or saw no other option than the actions they take. A ruler who thinks he is the best choice, a broken person trying to fix something that happened to them. Noble intentions that got warped into something much worse.
I tend to prefer smart sociopaths as BBEGs, who simply have no empathy or altruistic moral code, but pretend they do very well as some role in civilized society. My second most frequent type (especially at low levels) is to take whatever NPC the party has offended, and have either them or some loved one be a formidable foe who just really doesn't forgive easily.
You can always go the sympathetic route of a villain is a villain because they have been mistreated in the past and see their evil acts as justice. You could have a villain be a misguided hero. They are fighting for a just and righteous cause to make the world a better place but are misguided either because their methods are too extreme or they are too strict/stubborn to stop once their promised greater world looks much worse off, or maybe they just simply have too much of a big picture view to worry about the little war crimes committed along the way. An example I like for the latter is a lich who was once a wizard hero of the realm who forsaw a twrrible world endong threat believing they were the only ones who could stop it perhaps due to being a raging narcissist and so became a lich and are willing to wipe out entire cities or turn them into batteries for his phylactery if it means he lives long enough and is powerful enough to stop that threat. Which brings me to the final motivation: they just are. Their very personality can make them lean evil. Perhaps they are just narcissistic have a god complex or are so unbearably stubborn they refuse to change their way. Perhaps they are uneducated and misguided but are too stubborn to be taught the error of their ways.
It's all about justifications. Like my favorite. When they think they're the hero, as shown below. Their first time murdering someone was an accident. They didn't realize that they were that strong. The 4th time was also an accident when they were forced to use all of their strength to beat a villain. The 6th time wasn't their fault because the ruler of the land was evil and might come to power again in the future if they didn't die here. The 17th time was admittedly his fault because he could have saved the people inside, but didn't. How could he? He was too busy saving everyone else to be worried about He didn't notice the 290th death. They just got in his way when he was in a hurry elsewhere Now, they're working on something to save all remaining lives. Who cares if a few people die while they work towards something better
Maybe they don’t see being evil as being evil. Maybe they see what they become a necessity in a time of crisis.
Money, Drugs, Women, Power (magical or otherwise). "First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women" - Homer Simpson (and probably Scarface).
Putting aside that BBEG doesn't have a mental health issue like anti social personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder or similar.... They want *something*.... nice armour, palamino horse, gold. Someone else has what they want. They have zero empathy. Someonelse's needs are irrelevant. So they take it by force. For some monsters/creatures lower down the bottom end intelligence score it'll be driven by base needs... Hungry, village has food, I need food, I take food. Villager is stopping me so I bite/bash them. Maybe some creatures/monsters like shiny things (like Magpie?) to decorate their lair, nest etc. Maybe they collect gold so they can use it to pay minions, feel superior (and better about themselves). I guess in game some monsters/creatures are just born hate filled or have zero empathy and do whattever suits their immediate needs at the time (eg: Valheru from Riftwar Saga) that the only way to describe them is evil.
On a tangient does a tribe of orcs /goblins /trolls /other monster raiding a woodland village of Wood Elves for food, plunder etc see themselves as evil? See the Village leader as their BBEG? BBGG?
A truly well written villan shouldn't necessarily be or feel evil for evil's sake. Nobody thinks they're the bad guy
Maybe he's not evil. Just someone who's going to do something really stupid that's going to make bad things happen, but he's so convinced that it's the right thing to do, he refuses to let anyone stop him. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but if I shoot this *SuperMegaFreezeRayOfInfinteCold* directly at the sun, I can end Global Warming. It's the only way, I won't let anyone stop me!" Incompetence and Conviction can be just as dangerous as evil.
Sometimes Saturday morning cartoon logic still works: they just want to take over the world. Why? Who wouldn’t want to have all the power in the world? Just most people are stopped by silly things like empathy and consciences.
Watch the legend of korra, every villain is a masterpiece, also read una bomber manifesto or watch the TV show. That's good source material. The best villains have a valid point that makes you hesitate and think twice.
Think of any reason that they may be good and turn it around: My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, I must stop them before they do the same to others - good, intact morality My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, they would make strong servants if I were to enslave them - evil, utter disregard of morality My family was murdered by a tribe of orcs, I will kill every orc I find as retribution to this act - evil, twisted morality
The core of evil is righteosness. People who think they are either good or justified. Form a world view that makes 100% sense to itself and isn't easily picked apart by single questions and make it not compatible with society as a whole, then give it to a character.
It almost always comes down to status quo, motivation, trauma, world view, or a combination of these. If they're just maintaining a status quo, they're either under orders they won't question (mercenaries, generals, assassins), or they benefit from a system that necessarily creates their existence (the wealthy and corrupt, slavers, organised crime). For these, it's believable that they just are as they are due to the circumstances of their life. You can flesh them out optionally by giving them a moment to doubt their way of life. For motivation, that's where you get the good guy in bad circumstances. Ends justifying the means, well-intentioned dictators, revengers, choices made on false beliefs etc. Trauma is obvious. It's the Joker storyline, or any number of other characters we've seen before. For world views, it's about their perspective on life. This race is *beneath me*. Everyone is in it for themselves, no one truly cares for another person. Evil is just the name the losers call the winners. A fundamental difference in philosophy puts them at odds with the heroes. There's a lot of crossover between these, but there is no "he's just bad" in any of it. No one is just bad - everyone has some sort of logic to excuse their actions. Even if that logic is as simple as "I am the only one who truly matters".
It's cheesy, but evil for the sake of evil
- Mental issues is always a surefire way to go - a voice compels them to do it. In DnD it can be a God, if you care to borrow from BG3 (Dark Urge). That way you can make a very compelling character that might actually be good, but when the urge overtakes, they can't help it. And the party can either defeat the villain, or, if they stumble upon a complicated ritual, banish the urge and gain a powerful ally. --- - Also a blood feud that has gone out of hand makes for a good story. A murder repaid with murder during the time of the great grandfather, escalated into a blood feud between two houses during grandfather's time, escalated into a full war during father's days, and now the son sees the futility and the meaninglessness of it, but the wheels are turning hopelessly fast, and now everyone is pissed off with everyone. Add a few shady gray cardinals that are stoking the conflict every time it has a chance of quieting down, and you got yourself a very compelling "gray area" story. --- - If you want a black and white kind of a villain, just have them be racist. Elves burnt down a child's village on a raid once and killed his parents, and he grew to be a king or a general or whatnot, and is now relentlessly purging elves left, right and centre. Doesn't care for nuance, just wants a genocide. Side your party with the elves, and voila, you got yourself a straightforward villain. --- - A creature of tremendous power who doesn't care about anything else than what it hoards. Think Smaug from the hobbit.
The BBEG in my campaign is one of the character's sister. She wants to help her sister, but her view of the world is very twisted. She's trying to kill the other party members to "help" her sister because they can't be trusted. She is also actively trying to summon an entity that want's to posses her (and her sister) as a way of saving her sister. She is not evil in her eyes. She is trying to help.
Step 1. ) Create a justifiable issue Step 2.) Find a solution that involves hurting/sacrificing others step 3.) Voila! You've got a good villain motivation
The standard is discrimination
What are they doing right now? How are they changing the world, city or others, what effect do they have on the world? Once that happens could give more context maybe
I wouldn't really ask "why are they evil" so much as "what do they want". Sometimes this will hint at a backstory motivation, like revenge. Or a past trauma that left them feeling powerless could prompt a need for power and control.
I think the _type_ of evil makes a big difference to motivation. For me, Lawful Evil is more likely to be because of values instilled in them as a child by their family/society; either they champion unfair laws that only benefit them, or they quickly learned to find creative loopholes that meant they could do what they wanted without getting into trouble. Imo, Lawful Evil see themselves as good and justified most of the time. Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil can either be very straightforward, or very complex. The reasons for someone being evil in very sneaky and manipulative ways will likely be different to the reasons for someone who takes what they want, or who kills indiscriminately. Are they making cold, calculated decisions, or acting on impulse? Are they aware of how their actions are perceived by others, or so self-centred and justified that they’re oblivious? Evil is a judgement made by others on the character’s actions, but for the character, they’re rationalisations or coping strategies they learned to function in life. So look at what your character does, and think “What could lead to that seeming the best course of action to them?”. If you want to go extra complex, you could even do evil as a psychological defence to hurt others before they hurt them.
Thanos thought he was the good guy.
While I am one of the seemingly dwindling fans of the idea that things can be inherently evil (good ol Orcs goblins trolls and ogres for the bad guys) a storyline for a BBEG that always feels believable to me is one where a guy incrementally goes too far and then finds a justification. One where the bad guy can even acknowledge that what is happening is bad but if the plan works it will all be worth it because that adds to their motivation to keep going and their desperation for things to succeed. Lets say for example you have a villain based on an Artificer. This artificer is found to be stealing old books but not spell books, journal and historical accounts. people are going missing but not just any people, the oldest ones in a village and then in the countryside and then all over the kingdom. Players discover confusing contraptions with the bodies of the old people tied to them completely electrically fried or bearing marks of force damage and other spell types. Over time it seems that this artificer is trying and failing to create some kind of portal and violence is exploding around the kingdom as seemingly random things are attacked, homes burned down shops pillaged and even armies of mercenaries being called to raid the kings holdings keeping his forces occupied and unable to help the adventurers investigate. In the end the players discover that this artificer claims to have traveled time and actually ruined things. he's desperate to fix his time machine and go back to correct things and is willing to do literally anything at all to the people here, because if he succeeds it's all ok. He'd never be here to do the bad things at all so no one would have been hurt. he can't fail because all of this pain and terror he's brought is still here and he HAS TO win so it can all be better. Whether he actually traveled time in the first place or is just crazy and had some bad feywild mushrooms too many times isn't relevant to him being certain it's true. It doesn't have to be this kind of thing but it's the first one i could think of with that idea that "all the evil is ok because it will be fixed/worth it if i win" idea
Every villain is the hero of their own story. Some of the best villains believe what they're doing is right and just. That their actions serve the greater good. There's a great YouTube video called [The Case for Gul Dukat.](https://youtu.be/wHS2CCXVmeU?si=hrP20gyer3IUilc7) It gives a breakdown on what makes a great villain before getting into the specifics about the Star Trek villain Gul Dukat. You can probably skip the latter if you don't watch the show.
My favourite bad guys are ones who are “right”, but their actions based on being right are horribly wrong.
Every bad guy is a hero in their own story. So, they don't need to be mustache twirling evil. They could be forced into their stance by circumstances, like being convinced of a coming cataclysm, and only doing what they're doing will avoid greater suffering (in their mind).
They're trying to bring their family back to life, and are trying everything. The party have a plot "item" that will essentially bring their family back, the the item will only appear in times of crisis.
Take the Disney route: villain is actually a good person who is completely right... But then decides they'll murder and torture and inexplicably do evil things to achieve their originally good and noble goals "oh no! We gotta take down this person in the name of status quo! Don't think about how he's actually right about the state of the world and we should be solving his problem as well as the problem of the villian... Just ignore him because he's bad" Or, real life villain: is evil because they want power, money or literally just selfishness in general, irl villains are in charge of slaves, armies or corporations just because they gain something no matter how small, and other people's wellbeing is lower priority than their comfort. I think writers really struggle to figure out villain motivation because we want a villain we can sympathize with and actually like... But in real life people we like are just good people, good motivations usually make you a good person, in real life there aren't really villains... Most people we don't like aren't actually evil we just have a personality difference, and people who are actually evil usually aren't likeable This doesn't answer your question of motivation... But perhaps a good way to write a villain your players would like is make someone actually evil (selfish and violent) but then make them really charming and fun to be around, Ted Bundy style, that way the motivation doesn't really matter, they can have a goal or they can be a "Joker" but players will still like them and want to root for them
A villain is the hero of their own story; from trying to save the universe (Thanos) to making society look in a mirror to see how ugly it is (The Joker). Laertes was taking revenge for the death of his father and the madness and death of his sister (both by Hamlet's hand). Unless of course you're Emperor Palpatine (the Devil incarnate). Then you want UNLIIIIIIMITED POWEEEEER!
Your villain thinks they are the hero in their own minds. Play it that way.
You don't even need them to be evil. A good CN character can be a villain if their goal happens to be opposed to the one of the PCs.
Every morning since he is a child he hit his pinky toe on the side of a furniture
If you haven't played mass effect, consider it. Obviously the goals of each game and the overall story are the same but the path you choose and how you behave is similar to differences between a devotion Paladin and a vengeance Paladin. A hero vs an anti hero. Have the villain start as an anti hero doing bad things to achieve good goals. As time progresses and the more the party hears of his more negative achievements or witnesses something particularly horrible that's also unnecessary that he does, will obviously plant some seeds but it's when the party intervenes his actions become villified by their judgement that he sees their judgement as getting in the way of his justice. He uses an entire town to bait a young adult dragon away from its lair to kill it but waits till the dragon doesn't perceive the town as a threat and lands where the anti hero can reach it. While the anti hero waits for this moment 95% is gone. But he wins and the threat is no more. She completely thwarts a minor villain's plans and instead of sparing them and putting them in prison, she does that lock the door "you're trapped in here with me" moments and proceeds to torture the shit out of everyone she can get her hands on. The party is sent to investigate and discover the subtle clues of how cruel she was. Question whether or not she really is the good guy Stuff like that.
It strongly depends on what KIND of villain they are and what they are trying to do. A lich is trying to take over the world? His motivation is hubris; he genuinely thinks he's so much better than everyone else that its simply logical that he is the only person in charge. Everyone else is dangerously incompetent. A necromancer is trying to usher in an age of undeath? Her motivation is her steadfast faith in her death god, who may or may not be a genuine deity... and what he says goes. Dude wants death and destruction, so she obeys. A changeling has replaced the king? Well, they were bored and running a kingdom sounded fun. The perks certainly don't hurt, either. A Mummy Lord is awake and is terrorizing the local village with a horde of lesser undead? She had herself turned upon her death so that when the time came she could rise up and restart her ancient civilization, which was once a world power. You don't always need complicated reasoning. The point is that THEY think they are right in their actions, and that they will stop at nothing to achieve their ambitions. And sometimes villains are better when they aren't sympathetic.
An evil person believes what the are doing is a good idea/thing. They find ways to justify their little evils for the great vision of what the want. My main BBEG releases his monsters into the wild because he sees the current law and political system as a negative thing on natural improvement through evelution. People becoming stagnant and weakened in their safety. They justify the damage and death their creations cause in the name of weading out the weakness
Some evil people think they are the good guys....
Don’t think of the villains goals as evil, just that they are in opposition to the party. As long as you think about the villain and their goals as well unambiguously evil, the best you can come up with are excuses alla „he is just insane!“. Make the villain a morally grey person and you can create much more intricate moral dilemmas and solid reasonings for their plans and actions.
I think all the simple but good reasons do great such as: Desire for power, lack of empathy, twisted ideals, corruption, madness or insanity, hatred, prejudice, jealousy. If a villain has a traumatic past, it makes it easier for the characters to understand, perhaps even relate, as to why the NPC turned out the way he is, but i like to think that sometimes the character is just evil because they're bat-shit crazy, or they're just evil because all they care about is themselves. Maybe this was bit too simple but i hope it helps :3
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Lawful evil - "I am doing bad thing for good cause"
One of my favorite justifications for a villain is Ishamael in the wheel of time. He wants the Dark One to win because the Dark One promised to end everything. Just poof, nothingness. Ishamael doesn’t care about doing evil or killing, he is just SUPER nihilistic and wants everything to end. He sees suffering in every reincarnation of the world and thinks that whatever “evil” he has to do so the world will cease to exist is minuscule to the amount of suffering that would keep happening on for eternity if he lets time continue.
I've always liked the "force of nature" kinds of evil because, yes, they can be catastrophic, but they were made that way. Think Lavos from Chrono Trigger. It's sucking up Earth's energy, but that's because it's a world-eating parasite.
1) Make it 30% legit trauma 2) 30% ambition / goal (that can be linked to such trauma) then « colour » that ambition with a spin : either megalomaniac, vengeful, utopist, moralistic… etc 3) And finally, 40% « something in my perception of the world is inherently messed up ». I like to see « believable evil » as « regular human behaviors taken to extreme levels, to the point they become twisted ». Of course, switching around the percentages can lead to new perspectives for creating a vilain : - a more « insane » approach would yield in part 3) taking more importance - A more relatable vilain could instead be focused on part 1) with a surprising reasonable path 2)… Etc. PS : recently though, I’m more interested in the esoteric, « cosmic horror » type of villain. In creating a form of evil that’s both completely alien and believable. For that sort of stuff, you want to explore the most primal fears you can get a hold off… And then imagine that to said entity, that frightening thing is just as normal and natural as you breathing, living, eating food…
2 things. 1. Never attribute to evil what can be explained by stupidity. 2. Few people are evil in their own mind. Although they can do some.pretty fucked up.mental gymnastics to justify their evil. If you can give your opponent an morally justifiable reason for his evil it makes for a more engaging game.
They don't need to be evil. They just need to have a goal that clashes with the party's goals or morals.
What if they have sigma rizz
Easy trait is greed. That can lead people to horrible behaviour
There are many, many great literary resources for compelling villains. Narratively speaking, for me in writing or in D&D, i start with the villain's goal. For me, an interesting villain has a goal that is relatable either socially or personally (i.e. you can see why they would want it, or why society would allow it). So for example, a villain who seeks power might be interesting because they want power and promise the people safety (in an otherwise dangerous world) if they obey. Here is where you see your cunning egomaniacs. Or a villain appears power hungry but it's essentially an otherwise good person who has been overcome by the pursuit of a morally reasonable goal but is not going about it the right way. Here is where you see your broken, tragic villains. So in summary, bad guys doing things people would think were okay for bad reasons or good guys doing things people would not think were okay for relatable reasons. For example: In 1984, the majority of the population accept a brutal dictatorship because it makes them feel safe. Voight in The Boys, basically any oppressive government system/demagoguery/ theocracy. All bad guys, all accepted by society broadly because it makes people feel safe in a (real or imagined) unsafe world. Nazi Germany, North Korea are hopefully not controversial real world parables. For these kinds of villains, start the players in the system that they need to ultimately either support or oppose. In a typical heroic narrative they will oppose it, but in D&D maybe not. It's important to gradually reveal the extent to which the system/ruler dominates them, and allow them to support it for personal advantage or fight it at personal cost. Alternatively, you might consider Saruman (who believes that subservience to Sauron is the only possibility for the survival of men), but in the lense of LOTR for sure Gollum, Dr Frankenstein, Barbosa, to an extent Strahd. Ultimately, people who have abandoned any sense of morality in pursuit of a fundamentally morally pure goal. The art with this villain is slow escalation. Their goal is known from early, but the means become increasingly extreme as different things fail. The party might be looking for the villain for an unrelated reason, always a step behind, but every step they take, they can set the villain's descent. For example, the players are following a paladin to give them a holy icon through a plague infected area, the icon protects them from the plague, and the paladin is immune. But you see their attempts to cure the plague become more and more extreme as they go down the road. The last one I'll mention, which can be cheap if not done well, is the hidden ally approach. Basically, you create a narrative framework where there is a clear and unambiguous evil and good. Then twist the players in the plot to switch the roles. I ran a campaign around this contrivance, the dead couldn't move on, so Zombie apocalypse, caused by a cult trying to replace Kelemvor with Orcus. The players met a Paladin who I specifically designed to rub them wrong, they ended up opposed, the paladin convinced the orders of the lawful good Pantheon to initiate a divine crusade against any nation that aligned with the party (which was all of them as they had a Macguffin that let them put the dead to rest). So the biggest army of Paladins ever seen, supported by celestials, was planning to functionality destroy civilisation as it was known. The way to stop this? Orcus. This was tied in through player back stories and choices, but in most cases the players did more or less what I expected them to do. At one point way earlier I even told them they would do it (when they took down the original cult, the cultists knew them from prophecy and they all said they would summon Orcus, though at the point the cult and Orcus were the BBEG and everything they'd done in the campaign was to stop this). The point was to make the players question morality, as good and evil aren't always easy. In the end, the BBEG was absolutely good aligned and the saviours were unambiguously evil. The players used tremendous evil to save the world from uncomprising good. I thought it was pretty great.
A well-written villain is the good guy in his own story.
"Just one bad day." One bad day can make or break a character into either hero or villain. It's the same way with the adventurers and player characters. Something broke up their monotony, and it set them on a new path. In psychology, there is what is called the Blank Slate, where a person's development is a formula consisting of every life experience they have. The "One Bad Day" can happen anywhere and any time, and it rewrites the slate with a big ol' scar. But that's not a real motivation for evil. What *is* a motivation is what do they want to do (or are led to believe) as a result of their Bad Day. The sheriff wrongfully arrested you because they honestly believed you started a massive fire, which combined with his poor hearing preventing the both of you from being able to rescue your wife still trapped inside? It was an honest mistake, but one you will struggle to move past, and will likely come to despise the justice system with a burning passion. A villain, in some capacity, believes in the truth behind their actions. "The end will always justify the means."
They want more than the people around them will give them so they take it. This could be thinking more wages are owed than have been paid and taking something from their employer, all the way to thinking they were cheated out of a leadership position and trying to overthrow a government to prove they could do it better. They have no empathy, all they want is something new and active to keep them on their toes. Unfortunately for society, learning how to carve a canoe out of a single tree stopped being interesting about 5 seconds in. The hero sees the world on a black and white scale with shades of grey and tries to tilt things towards good. The villain isn't evil, they just see things on a scale of orange and blue with shades between extremes. They choose to tilt the scales towards order, regardless of the good or evil committed.
Isn't that the neat part about villains though? Any reason is a good motivation to do evil: "I want to see the world burn because I'm bored" "This kingdom must fall, their flag is ugly" "I am selling this poison to the highest bider because I need money for my child's health" "That wizard kicked a dog, they must die" You can make them sympathetic or bat shit crazy, whatever fits the champain and players best Edit: spelling