G is for Getaways

This is the third post in my Building a Better Villain thread, which runs throughout my April A to Z efforts.

The smart villain knows when she is outmatched!

In order to convert a villain from a mere Big Bad End Guy into a true archenemy, you have to keep him/her/it alive through more than one encounter. Any chump can fight a group of heroes once, but it takes something special to survive the first encounter in order to harass and/or return to seek vengeance at a later date. Surviving run-ins with the forces of good can be tricky, especially in a medium like D&D, which has a very high villain mortality rate.

In fiction, authors can use any number of devices to ensure their villains are long-running antagonists and foils to their heroes. The author has complete control to ensure their clashes end however they wishe. In D&D and other tabletop RPGs, there is a strong element of uncertainty created by the dice and the inclusion of the players as creative forces in the story. In over three years of running my game on a bi-weekly basis, my players have had a total of 5 major antagonists survive their first encounter. Only three of those antagonists remain active, the others having been destroyed after their second run-in with the forces of righteousness... and one of the active ones was only seen standing on a distant hill (see "Lead from the Rear" below)

So, what techniques can a GM employ to ensure that his/her big baddies get away to fight again another day?

First and foremost, play your top villains smart. Intelligence was one of my must-have qualities for an archenemy. A smart villain will likely err on the side of caution. They will be tactically cautious upfront to help ensure their advantage before willingly engaging their foe. They will always have an escape plan in case something goes wrong, and, if possible, they will not wait until they are on the verge of death to use said escape plan. Here are some specific examples of smart villain tactics:

Lead from the rear: A wise antagonist, will likely send in his troops before wading into battle himself. Allowing others to throw themselves against the PCs can not only soften the heroes up a bit, but it can also let the big bad leader analyze and assess their capabilities from relative safety.

Git while the gettin's good: If you were losing a fight you didn't need to be in, how long would you stand and slug it out? Unless something major is keeping them there, I would have most smart villains head for the exit, or at least attempt to disengage and heal once they were drained to about half-strength. Really tenacious bad guys like barbarians might be a little more cavalier, but I'd still have them consider their options by about 25% health.

Decoys and quick escapes: D&D offers several magical options for getting out of a tight spot fast. From invisibility, to teleport spells, a villain has numerous panic-button options to chose from. Heck, even a wall of bees might do the trick in a pinch. (That's not really a spell, though it should be!) The inherent quick escape abilities of creatures like mindflayers, vampires or liches makes these monsters excellent options for recurring villains. Vampires and liches can only be permanently destroyed if respectively found in their coffin or phylactery (horcrux for you Harry Potter fans). Smart undead would set up decoy versions and keep the real thing well hidden. For more mundane villain sorts, like human warlords or the like, a spring-loaded portcullis or sudden rush of minions might do the trick, though it is far from guaranteed.

Call in Miracle Max: If worse comes to worse, a villain with loyal followers and a little cash could always rely on them to resurrect his/her arrow-riddled corpse. Even a relatively low level arch might have access to a spell like reincarnation... In fact, it might be really amusing to have some vain and villainous duke brought back in the body of a kobold or something.

These guys know what I'm talkin' about!

E is for Evil

Welcome to the second post in my Building a Better Villain series. Today, we discuss the topic of evil, or, more properly pronounced, “eeeeeeeeeeeeevil”

It is not difficult to guess that a great deal of time playing D&D is devoted to the struggle of Good vs. Evil in all their capitalized meaning. Indeed, much, if not most of action-oriented fiction and media addresses this most elemental of struggles.

This is not the first time I have posted on the nature of evil in D&D. In fact, I recommend you check out my post V is for Verisimilitude from last year’s A to Z challenge.

Today, I would like to focus on how villains come to be perceived as evil, and how that may differ from the way they perceive themselves.

As a child of the 80s, I was brought up in a media environment saturated with super-simplified heroes and villains. The bad guys in my childood cartoons were generally motivated by one thing. They wanted to be bad. moustache twirling, fist-shaking, cacklingly bad. Villains like Cobra Commander, Skeletor and Megatron reveled in their own nastiness. Heck, Skeletor even had a sultry sidekick named “Evil-Lyn!” What were her parents thinking!? Did Mr. and Mrs. Lyn expect her to become a veterinarian!?

This simplified form of evil for evil’s sake works fine for kid’s shows, but I prefer a deeper, more nuanced approach to my villainy. Unfortunately, the D&D rules seem geared to perpetuate the ultra-simplified worldview that one who commits evil acts is evil to the core. Characters, creatures and even entire races are given an alignment that includes criss-crossing axes of good-neutral-evil and lawful-neutral-chaotic. By a strict reading of the 3.5 edition rules, anyone/thing of evil alignment radiates an aura of badness that anyone with the right spell can detect... like paladins... judgmental pricks.

My problem with this is that real evil... the absolute worst kind of people do not believe they are evil when they commit evil acts. Let’s start at the top. Hitler, who is arguably the paramount example of evil in the 20th Century (or at least the most well known) was not motivated by a desire to kill millions of innocent people. He was motivated by a desire to restore his country to glory--taken by itself, not such a bad goal. When the means to achieve that glory involve the genocide of 6 million people, that goal becomes just about the most evil thing anyone’s ever done.

The more believable and more sinister form of evil boils down to evil means to attain an otherwise good or at least understandable end. This adds an element of discomfort for the heroes attempting to take down that villain. Maybe some part of them understands the baddie’s perspective. A villain seeking to attain an otherwise noble goal is also much more likely to draw followers to his/her cause. “Hey, how about joining me for some good ol’ evil” just doesn’t have the power to sway most people. Now, the “goodness” of the goal does not have to be completely altruistic. A villain might be motivated by an elevated sense of self preservation--a seemingly reasonable, if selfish goal. The important thing is that they believe their actions are justified.

So, when creating a truly dastardly villain for a book or game, think about their motivation. Why do they want what they want, and why are they willing to commit such horrendous acts to get it? A vampire tearing a rift between the material realm and the plane of shadows to protect his family from possible annihilation by sunlight is a stronger villain than one who just wants to scare the crap out of people and make them sad/dead.

Here are some other examples of villains with strong motivation:

• Frank Hummel (Ed Harris’ character from the Rock) - To draw attention to the injustice done to his men. <-- One of my all time favorite villains... and he's from a Michael Bay movie!?

• Eric Lensherr (Magneto) - To prevent a second holocaust committed against mutants

• Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman in Die Hard) - Personal Comfort / monetary gain

• The Six Fingered Man from the Princess Bride - Intellectual Curiosity

• Joan Crawford as depicted in Mommie Dearest - Maintain order and control (actually, in popular media, this seems to be a very common motivation for female villains of the overbearing mother-figure variety.)

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.


Update: On my morning drive I heard a radio piece about the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. In a discussion about their rock opera, Jesus Christ, Super Star, they mentioned something that really illustrates what today's post is about.

Rice says what eventually made it a yes was a brainstorm: the idea of telling the story from Judas Iscariot's point of view.

"It's logical that he might've been worried about the man that he admired, and had joined, [that he] was kind of getting out of control," Rice says. "In the Bible, there is absolutely no motivation for Judas, other than that he is sort of a 100 percent figure of evil. And it seemed to me that that was probably not the case."

B is for Backstory

Throughout the month of April, I will be creating a series of posts called “Building a Better Hero”, which focus on character development for D&D and other tabletop RPG characters. Like the tangled fates of Protagonist and Antagonist, this series will parallel and intermingle with “Building a Better Villain”, both of which are part of my attempt at the 2012 April A to Z challenge.

We begin our look at Building a Better Hero with the Backstory. A hero’s backstory does more than tell the tale from whence they came, it helps to establish their motivation and their personality. It is fallow ground from which grow the hero’s strengths and weaknesses. In the realm of tabletop gaming, it serves as a touchstone to guide the player in his/her roleplaying and helps the GM craft situations that are meaningful/challenging/inspiring for that character.

The backstory as roleplaying tool has its share of pitfalls. Late last year, Vanir, over at Critical Hits posted about the corruption of backstory from tool to oversimplified justification for bad behavior. The wary GM would do well to heed his advice. Actually, Vanir has some excellent suggestions for implementing backstory jiu-jitsu to turn an otherwise unwieldy backstory bludgeoning back into a tool for deepening the character.

Anyway, players’ approaches to their characters’ backstories are about as varied as the stories themselves. In my own group, I have one player whose character is essentially a blank slate. Childhood trauma has “blocked” much of her memory. Some GMs might feel like this player just didn’t want to flesh anything out, but that’s not necessarily the case. I have another player who sits at the opposite end of the backstory spectrum. The tale for one of her characters involved a complex yarn about illegitimate birth, devil worship, the murder of her mother followed by the character’s escape with a prized token of her mother’s memory and so on… Both of these approaches are perfectly valid, and both can be leveraged to draw the character deeper into the story.

Using these different approaches to backstory as a tool for adventurecraft is simply a matter of how you, the GM, go about incorporating them. A character with an extensive, pre-written story offers a wealth of hooks for entangling them in the adventure. In the case of my own game, Ms. Storytime found out that the same cult that had murdered her mother was behind the major conflict at the center of the adventure. With the pre-told stories, figures from the character’s past, with all their established meaning, can make return appearances. Old grudges can rear their heads and past loves can be used as a catalyst for adventure. Backstories are often the playground for a hero's nemises. Archenemies are often born from the shadowy depths of the hero's adolescence. If not, a clever nemesis, will certainly attempt to dredge up as much discomfort as possible from the hero's past.

  

With the blank slate character, by contrast, the GM has the opportunity to craft his/her backstory as the game progresses. A character without a written back story doesn't mean they don't have one, just that it is not written down, or hasn't been fleshed out by the player. In many ways, playing through the game becomes a way to build that backstory. In the case of my particular game, the blank slate character went from being someone whose motivations amounted to “I’m just along for the ride” to the long-lost princess of such'n'such kingdom that the heroes were actively working to save (the kingdom, not the princess). Blank slate went from a passive rider to someone with a spot in the driver’s seat.

Regardless of which approach a player takes to his/her character’s backstory, the GM should keep them in the loop as much as possible when crafting stories that draw upon, or reveal new aspects about that character’s history. A secret reveal to just the character’s player can both test the waters for the new information and put that player in charge of determining the time and place for a more public revelation.

A is for Archenemy

And so, it begins.

Throughout this month, I will dedicate a series of posts to “Building a Better Villain”. These posts will look at ways to push a game’s Big Bad End Guy (BBEG) into the realm of an archenemy. This first post looks at the qualities that set an archenemy apart from the daily villainous grind.

What's the matter Colonel Sanders? Chicken!?

The Archenemy is a staple of heroic fiction and many, though not all, heroes have them. Batman has the Joker, Harry Potter has Voldemort, Peter Pan has Captain Hook and Zim has Dib. An archenemy can be a powerful tool for an author or game master (GM). They act as a foil for the heroes, add depth to their motivation, and help drive the story forward. For GMs, however, implementing an arch can be tricky. The reoccurring aspect of the archenemy trope is difficult to execute in a game like D&D where the heroes’ may exercise a strong motivation to “kill all the things!”

So, what is it, exactly, that makes an enemy an ARCH enemy? The term "Archenemy" derives from the Greek arkhos, meaning "most important". However, the nuances of the archenemy as a trope of heroic fiction expand upon that sense of importance. Archenemies are also typically:

Recurring: “So, we meet again, for the first time, for the last time.” – Dark Helmet 

The hero can’t quite ever quit the arch. They are a constant thorn in his or her side. This is likely the most difficult aspect of the archenemy trope to implement at the game table. In literature and movies, authors often have the arch slip away just as the heroes are about to strike the final blow. At the very least, they implement a “mysterious” death in which no body is found. At the game table, however, a great deal of a villain’s recurrence depends on the dice and the GM’s ability to extract them from tight situations. We'll go into this in more detail in future posts.

Antithetical: “Evil will always triumph, because Good is dumb!” –Dark Helmet

An arch’s actions, if not necessarily his/her motivations oppose those held by the hero. Voldemort wants to establish an evil magic master race, while Harry wants everyone to be friends. Artemis Entreri kills indiscriminately for profit, while Drizzt only does so in defense of his friends. Often boiled down to good vs. evil, the struggle between a hero and his/her arch can become a complex interplay of similarities and differences.

Similar: “We are not so different you and I” – Dr. Evil

Many heroes and arches have much more in common than the hero might like to believe. They may once have been friends (Professor X and Magneto) severed by a difference of fundamental outlook. They may have shared a pivotal life-changing event (Potter and Voldemort). Or they may simply share some common trait that seems to intertwine their destinies (both mutants, shared magical prowess, both societal outcasts or pillars of society). The similarities between a hero and arch can foster a sort of understanding between them, instigate self-reflection on their part and deepen their conflict beyond the physical into a psychological and philosophical struggle. For GMs, a player character’s backstory can be rich fodder for developing these similarities in an arch.

Intelligent: “You can't escape by teleporter, little Gaz. I cut the power! Your pitiful attempt to escape is nothing but a PITIFUL FAILURE! Stupid, stinking humans!” -Zim

Arches tend to be smartypants. The term “mastermind” is often used in conversation about them. An arch’s mental prowess elevates him/her above the thuggish rabble the hero battles on a daily basis. An arch’s intelligence factors in to many of the other arch characteristics. A smart villain will have planned traps contingencies, decoys and escape routes to prevent the hero from reaching him/her, and to get away quickly in the event of a direct confrontation. A smart arch will also make use of commonalities and differences to make the hero’s life more difficult. On some level, the villain understands how the hero thinks and will use this to his or/her advantage wherever possible.

For authors or GMs hoping to craft an archenemy, keep these qualities in mind. I hope to touch a bit more on the antithetical/similar relationships of heroes to their archvillains in tomorrow’s post, B is for Backstory. There will be more villainous ideas forthcoming as April A to Z progresses.