DM: Creating a Truly Diabolical Villain

Nothing adds depth to a campaign more than having a villain who your players would like nothing more than to eliminate. In many cases the quality of the villain and their alignment will affect how you as the DM decides to make them act towards other NPCs, their minions and cohorts, and the party. In most cases you're going to want to remember a few rules in general.

1) Make your Villain beatable.
As a DM you have a lot of power in your hands, and well it is true, "Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but it rocks absolutely too." and if this is allowed to go unchecked eventually you get a villain who only has one weakness that is found in the belly of an indestructible snake that is only found fifty miles underneath the jungles of the southernmost continent during the winter solstice. That being said it is fun to give your villain spell like abilities and some of the better equipment of the game because, let's be honest, he/she is your main villain and we wouldn't want him to be underwhelming now would we? The goal is to challenge the party in their final conflict, not to defeat them without breaking a sweat.

2) Make your Villain untouchable to the party.
If your Villain is a prominent figure in the world or if he/she is invisible in his diabolical schemes, make sure that the party has no way of laying the blame on him/her ever. It is really fun to make it extremely clear to the party that this is the work of the main villain, and to leave clues that say that but to have it so that the guard in town is either oblivious or skeptical of the villain's existence or to have them being bought out or dominated by some sort of powerful wizard that the villain has in his/her employ. This will create a general feeling of hatred toward the villain as the campaign goes on and will make the final conflict that much more satisfying for the players.

3) Have the Villain use the party.
Nothing makes a group of people more irritated than being used. For that reason I always make sure that my Villains have plenty of points in disguise, bluff and diplomacy and have items or spells that make their true alignment undetectable which creates them as a viable source of employment for your players, that is until your villain has your players do something that has a massive negative impact on the game world. In my case I had my villain have the players release a magma primordial which promptly destroyed an entire island...they despised my villain after that and wanted him dead more than anything.

4) Have your Villain ruin the PC's lives
Going back to my first post, if your players told you their character's background then utilize this to your villains advantage. Your villain is likely to have a network of spies or intelligence gathering via mystical means and would know about anyone who hunts him/her. That being said a villain would do whatever it takes to demoralize or destroy their opponents, so don't be afraid to rough up your player's characters a little. A burned down house and missing loved ones can drive a hero a long way i.e. Gladiator.

5) Make your true Villain hidden in the midst of the heroes of the world.
In most cases the surprise villain is usually the best type that no one expects. By having someone who is good and misguided in the world be the true villain of your campaign you can create a strong and emotionally charged ending to your campaign.

So those are my tips for today. Tomorrow I might throw out a review of an old game like Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Until then keep gaming, and take it easy world.