Recurring villains!

[Cdre Bob Wesley]

Hey all, what do you think of this RPG trope? One of my players in the CODA system that I'm running chose an "enemy" flaw in his character development. My player then decided the "enemy" would be the character's own family, like he's a runaway from a clan of space pirates. So I'm thinking about making the space pirates (and their Dad) like a recurring bad-guy.

QUESTION: What recurring villains have you used in your campaign(s), and how do you run them? What are the potential risks particular to this RPG setting when utilizing recurring villains?

Stories are always welcome.

[selek]

Well, since the "enemy" flaw pretty much requires that they be a recurring villain....



... I think you're on pretty safe ground in exploiting the character's flaw.

If you're not using it to advantage, then it's not a flaw, is it?


I've used a number of recurring villains/adversaries and Dukat is an excellent on-screen example.


For my own part, here are my recommended "rules" on how to best use (and conserve) your villain.

• Start small- Too many gamemasters start out by throwing their uber villain into the mix too early- and winds up with either dead player characters or a dead villain. Your arch-nemesis should (at least initially) be a somewhat shadowy figure surrounded by a small army of minions. The heroes shouldn't even see the uber-villain until at least halfway through the campaign. They can thwart his lackeys left and right- without ever meeting the person pulling the strings. This gives your players both enemies over which to triumph and lets you draw out the story line.
  
  
• Make Your Villain Real- In order to have the greatest impact in the heroes and upon the story, your character needs to be three-dimensional. Dukat was a ruthless ammoral monster who deserved to be tossed out an airlock at the earliest convenience. He was also a patriot, gifted tactician, and a doting father who tried to do things right (at least as he understood them). He gave up everything to support his daughter when she was discovered- and his mind snapped when she was killed.
  
  Dukat's best lines (IMO) include the dialogue from the episode in which Thomas Riker stole the Defiant and kidnapper Major Kira. Sisko was discussing tactics but Dukat was distracted- thinking about his son's eleventh birthday and his own promise to take the boy to an amusement park.
  Sisko tossed off a preachy line about understanding and forgiveness and Dukat pointed out- rightly- that when the boy looked back and remembered, it wouldn't be with understanding. He'd look back and remember that his father broke his promise and was absent on his birthday because a Federation officer was threatening their home.
  
  Three dimensional villains- characters with virtues and redeeming characteristics are MUCH more interesting than the two dimensional cardboard cutouts who sneer and twirl black mustaches...
  
  
• Make Your Villain Smart- Too many gamemasters create a character who's able to establish a thriving (until the heroes showed up) criminal empire, who winds up dead because he does dumb things at the climax of the story.
  
  By the same token, this means your villain must have an ultimate goal and sound reasons to see that goal accomplished. "I don't like the players and want to see them fail" isn't enough- there has to be a reasonable (if not necessary valid) justification for the villain's actions.
  
  Sloane (Section 31) was a monster- but he was also a believer. Everything he did was to preserve the Federation (as he saw it). Sloane did things that made little apparent sense, but which were (conceivably) part of a greater scheme/plot.
  
  Eddington (Maquis) was almost the same thing, but where Sloane was simple reprehensible, Eddington was principled. He betrayed Sisko and the Federation, and committed treason- but everything Eddington did was done for a specific reason and a concrete material (or tactical) gain.
  
  Of the two, Eddington was the better villain because he wasn't indiscriminate or unfathomable in his motives and actions. He was smart, he was effective, and while we despised his actions- we could relate to him, and mourn for him.
  
  
  To create a truly memorable villain, you must use those kinds of distinctions to bring him (or her) to full life.
  
  Everyone knows who Kahn was, and why he did what he did. Do we really remember the name of the Romulan Commander Troi made a fool of?
  
  
• Villains Are Mortal, Too- If your players get the best of you early on and manage to kill/maim/imprison your villain, let it happen.
  The most frustrating thing for a player is a Game master's "pet" villain- who emerges from every encounter stronger than before, and who is never really dead- no matter how many times the players stake him through the damned heart.
  
  One of my early gamemasters stole the character of Admiral Rittenhouse from the Original Series novel Dreadnaught. The character was excellent- well worth stealing.
  
  Unfortunately, such outright theft was the limit of that particular GM's creativity, and my ship and crew personally killed the character three times. The third time, we captured him, and I gave orders (and supervised) having the decapitated corpse drawn, quartered, pulped, pureed, and finally boiled down to soap.
  
  ....and then I burned the soap to ashes and chucked the ashes into the sun.
  
  Not only had this character died when Kirk and company blew up his ship, he kept reappearing whole and hale, with more co-conspirators, more allies, bigger starships, and more powerful weapons- with no attempt whatever at in-story justification.
  
  Rittenhouse simply spawned anew, undamaged, unbowed, and completely un-impacted by anything that had happened before.
  
  And it was easily the most unsatisfactory role-playing experience of my career, because nothing I did impacted the story, advanced the plot, or slowed the villain in anyway.
  
  
• Crap Happens to Villains, Too If your heroes thwart the "master plan", the villain needs to shift to "Plan B"- which is always less effective and more haphazard than "Plan A". If the heroes cut off his left arm, then he comes back minus a limb (or at least with a prosthetic).
  
  If they blow up his flagship, he comes back in a lesser vessel- not a bigger, more powerful one. If this one is bigger and more powerful, how come it wasn't his flagship in the first place?
  
  In short- your villain CAN and WILL suffer adversity just like the players. He, too, has finite resources that once spent or destroyed are lost forever, not simply respawned between commercial breaks.
  
  
• My Villain is fighting the Players, Not ME- This ties into the point above: the VILLAIN is attempting to beat your players, not you. This ISN'T a competition, and a triumph for your players is NOT a loss for you.
  
  DO NOT FORGET THIS- or turn in both your GM and your "man-card" now and get it overwith.
  
  Having your players outwit your carefully crafted villain is the entire point of the exercise. Developing an enjoyable and memorable story is a collaborative exercise, not an adversarial one.
  YOUR job as Gamemaster is to be an impartial (or mostly so) adjudicator of the rules and to facilitate the story. You're there to represent adversity, not embody it.
  
  The minute you start resenting that the characters have triumphed, your impartiality is gone...and you need to rethink your priorities.

Given the fact that character's enemy is his own family, I'd detail at the outset exactly what and why the family is up to. They need to have specific activities and priorities (other than screwing up Junior's life).
I'd also determine in advance just how far they're willing to go, and precisely WHY they're willing to throw their own son (or daughter) under the bus.
I'd also map out situations where the heroes might be forced to cooperate with their "enemies" in order to accomplish a greater good and how they might try to tempt him to rejoin the family.
It might also be a good idea to map out a means for one to triumph without utterly destroying the other. Ultimately, Data had to disassemble Lore in order to protect the Universe from the threat he represented- and it was, ultimately, a tragedy.
Killing off a rogue brother is one thing- having to wipe out one's entire family is something else again.

[Owen E Oulton]

Well, one of the Vulcan officers on Dyson Base was actually a Romulan spy. When she tipped her hand she went covert on the Sphere unitl she was assimilated, and in the wake of Voyager's return, I intend to make her the next Borg Queen. Bwah-hah-hah-HAH!

[Nuclear Fridge]

A few ideas for ‘ramping up’ to a meeting with the Pirate Family from Hell:-

If the character’s family is a pack of pirates, it follows they’ve picked on shipping for quite some time… If they favour one particular region of space, they’ve left various people injured/dead/sold into slavery. So if, say, the character looks a lot like his father did 30 years ago, what happens when local officials see him?
“Just a moment, Lieutenant… what was your name again?”
The character finds himself thrown into the local jail. The officials won’t give him the benefit of the doubt, because of his family’s past misdeeds. To make things worse, they’re talking about something called ‘public disintegration’…

Let’s say his family have long haunted a region of ‘frontier’ space, outside of regular Starfleet patrols. They’ve picked on outposts and mining stations for years. Finally, after a raid on a Federation colony, enough is enough: Starfleet assigns the PCs’ ship to patrol the region. Can the character bring himself to fire upon his family’s vessel?

Shore leave at a border outpost. The PCs are visiting the local version of Quark’s Bar when the character bumps into his sister! Is she there to broker some underhanded deal with the Orion Syndicate? Is she casing the outpost for an upcoming raid? And is the character going to blow the whistle on her? If he hesitates, how is that going to look to his Starfleet colleagues?

What if his family have nothing but contempt for ‘Starfleet shinies’? Long ago, their remote colony failed, Starfleet didn’t do enough to help them, and they were left with nothing… shades of how the Maquis colonies were sacrificed to a treaty with the Cardassians. The family had to scrape by, surviving by any means necessary – including piracy. They are justified (in their eyes, anyway) by their circumstances. To muddy the waters, it turns out the library-computer files verify their claims: not nearly enough was done back in the day. And the character has signed up with these moralising hypocrites??

[Dan Gurden]

Oh. If you want a REALLY nasty villain.

Should you be playing Starfleet then at the very last have him surrender into their custody. As Starfleet officers they SHOULD now be bound to by law into taking him in and not sumerily executing them.

Once safetly in the JAG have the villain either;

A-Cut a deal, offer up a bigger fish in exchange for his freedom (in which case he can easily come back to haunt the players later)

or B... Reveal his collected evidence (real or fabricated) that casts suspicion over the players themselves. They thought chasing their nemesis around the galaxy was hard wait iuntil they have to defend their actions in a court-room.

(oh, and if they DO execute their nemesis, then you still get a courts martial...)

By the end of the court session, if they clear their names, they can now all be assigned a new enemy of the JAG officer who they just soundly beat...

Sometimes your original nemesis may have revenge tactics beyond the whole 'blowing stuff up' line of work and will happily settle for career destructilon...

[Dan Gurden]

Oh Rule number 1 of the re-occuring villain...

They dont fight to the death if the odds are against them... Do not be afraid to have them cut their losses and run, so always try to give them an escape route, even if said escape route sacrifices everything else...

[Nuclear Fridge]

By the end of the court session, if they clear their names, they can now all be assigned a new enemy of the JAG officer who they just soundly beat...

Sometimes your original nemesis may have revenge tactics beyond the whole 'blowing stuff up' line of work and will happily settle for career destructilon...

This reminds me of Commander Doleo from LUG's Arteline Sector setting. A witch-hunting 'special investigator' who sees Tal Shiar spies everywhere. And guess whose ship he has just been assigned to...

[Owen E Oulton]

My players met (or were targetted) by a recurring villain tonight. A year or two ago, I ran an adventure where they met a set of their mirror-"twins" and one of them survived in a trans-dimensional world based on Phase World. He has now tracked them back to their home universe and is attempting to kill them, one at a time. He's saving the real Seth for last. More recently, they captured a different set of mirror-"twins", who will eventually escape and will try to take them out. Good thing I don't look on this as a me-vs.-them thing. There are just two many ways to kill them off.

[Nuclear Fridge]

I had to wince when I read your account of the Unkillable Evil Admiral, selek. Reminds me a lot of my first GM, when I started out on Traveller.

He had a huge thing about the Ancients -- so much so, he couldn't bear the idea that his players might try to grab some of the 'super shiny Ancient toys' he was waving around under their noses. A massive hissy fit followed.

One blown-up mountain (with us in a cave inside it) and my character having both his arms disintegrated later, my fellow players decided not to game with him again. As a result, I've been GM off and on for 25 years...

[selek]

I had to wince when I read your account of the Unkillable Evil Admiral, selek. Reminds me a lot of my first GM, when I started out on Traveller.

He had a huge thing about the Ancients -- so much so, he couldn't bear the idea that his players might try to grab some of the 'super shiny Ancient toys' he was waving around under their noses. A massive hissy fit followed.

One blown-up mountain (with us in a cave inside it) and my character having both his arms disintegrated later, my fellow players decided not to game with him again. As a result, I've been GM off and on for 25 years...

That was pretty much the result with our group as well.... and about the same amount of resulting experience on my part.

The "I'm out to get my players" GM is not so rare a phenomenon as it should be....

Nor, unfortunately, is the "You can't short-circuit my carefully mapped out plan by the simple expedient of thinking your way out of my traps"-type.

There have been two separate occasions when I've been asked not to return to a gaming table because I've waltzed through the first session unscathed- once by the Game master and the other by the other players (supposedly, I was making them look bad!).

In the latter case, once I was officially "out", the Gamemaster asked me to review his notes and offer suggestions for improvement. I can honestly say that my proposed edits had nothing to do with punishing the players or exacting revenge (I wasn't really that interested in the genre to begin with).


The phrase "bloodbath" doesn't do the penultimate result justice, but it's close.


The sentiment was later expressed that the players liked it so much better when I was on their side!

I consider it a point of pride that in 25-26 years of gaming, I've only once had a player complain that my scenario was arbitrary or artificial. We discussed the whole thing out of game, and while we didn't necessarily agree at the end, we at least understood where the other was coming from.

I've been been called a "sick, sadistic, diabolical, malevolent, twisted SOB"- but never "unfair", or "hostile".

And I've been told repeatedly that while my scenarios are "evil", "fiendishly Machiavellian" or a "cast-iron SoB"- they keep coming back for more.

Good thing I don't look on this as a me-vs.-them thing. There are just two many ways to kill them off.

Absolutely true- the point of the exercise is to tell a good story and to have a good time.

The Gamemaster's role is to provide logical and genre-consistent opposition, NOT to defeat the characters. He is there to adjudicate the forces opposing them, and should not be emotionally invested in their failure/defeat. Any defeat/failure the characters suffer should be a result of thier own choices, not a conscious effort by the Gamemaster.

The Gamemaster is NOT the opposition, he is the referee.

Once he loses that perspective and objectivity, the goals shift.

A GM who sets himself in opposition to his players is no longer looking to tell a good story or have a good time, he's out to defeat the other people at the table- an attitude which is poisonous to good story-telling and good roleplaying.

Unfortunately, the phenomenon isn't limited to rookie GM's. There are a lot of experienced folks out there who should know better as well.

Too many game Gamemasters either fail to realize this or forget as they become emotionally invested in their creations. The results, unfortunately, are too often hurt-feelings, resentment, and antipathy towards the hobby itself.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Nor, unfortunately, is the "You can't short-circuit my carefully mapped out plan by the simple expedient of thinking your way out of my traps"-type.

Oh lord, that's happened to me more often than I care to recall, but the most memorable example was when I ran the FASA Mines of Selka module. The Starfleet crew of a dinky little disguised Intel vessel runs into a Kobayashi Maru-level crisis...

I ran it two weeks after the theatre release of Search for Spock.

You can see what happened there... But I had to let it stand.

[Nuclear Fridge]

So... leaving aside the "evil Starfleet Admiral with fiendish plan" classic...

What other "master villain" types have we seen in our games? There's the would-be 'Alexander' from the FASA Triangle Campaign, seeking to revive the Orion Empire of old, or the Romulan exile-turned-arms merchant.

A Doomsday Like Any Other (FASA again) featured S'Marus, a Romulan officer who fears & hates Federation 'butchers' after a Neutral Zone skirmish killed some of her family. She went on to be a recurring thorn for my ST-III era game group.

[spshu]

<snip>
Make Your Villain Smart- Too many gamemasters create a character who's able to establish a thriving (until the heroes showed up) criminal empire, who winds up dead because he does dumb things at the climax of the story.

By the same token, this means your villain must have an ultimate goal and sound reasons to see that goal accomplished. "I don't like the players and want to see them fail" isn't enough- there has to be a reasonable (if not necessary valid) justification for the villain's actions.
<snip>[*] Villains Are Mortal, Too- If your players get the best of you early on and manage to kill/maim/imprison your villain, let it happen.
The most frustrating thing for a player is a Game master's "pet" villain- who emerges from every encounter stronger than before, and who is never really dead- no matter how many times the players stake him through the damned heart.

One of my early gamemasters stole the character of Admiral Rittenhouse from the Original Series novel Dreadnaught. The character was excellent- well worth stealing.

Unfortunately, such outright theft was the limit of that particular GM's creativity, and my ship and crew personally killed the character three times. The third time, we captured him, and I gave orders (and supervised) having the decapitated corpse drawn, quartered, pulped, pureed, and finally boiled down to soap.

....and then I burned the soap to ashes and chucked the ashes into the sun.
<snip>
My Villain is fighting the Players, Not ME- This ties into the point above: the VILLAIN is attempting to beat your players, not you. This ISN'T a competition, and a triumph for your players is NOT a loss for you.

DO NOT FORGET THIS- or turn in both your GM and your "man-card" now and get it overwith.

Having your players outwit your carefully crafted villain is the entire point of the exercise. Developing an enjoyable and memorable story is a collaborative exercise, not an adversarial one.

<snip>

If your main villian fails earlier then the Narrator would like through error in doing some thing dumb or your players out smart him then subsitute a relative, a flunky that was off carrying out one the villians other plans but has the chops to replace him, or place some higher up in the organization's higherarchy that has to fill in to lead the plan.

[selek]

Commodore,

I'd like to explore the villains in a little more detail- which might lead to suggestions on particular adventures.

Okay...we know that they are pirates and that they are the character's family, but poor little else.

What species are they? Are they Orions with a long tradition of preying upon other vessels?

Were they somehow forced into this career and decided they liked the 401R and free-wheeling lifestyle?

Do they prey upon any (vulnerable) vessel they come across or do they limit their attacks to certain factions?

Are they in it for the money, or are there other motivations? In Symbiosis, the nefarious Brekkans were keeping the people of Ornara addicted to a narcotic called felicium. Although Picard and company broke the cycle of addiction, the result would have been turmoil in the Delos system. Are the villains (be they either Brekkan or Ornarans) commiting piracy to acquire desperately needed supplies? Are they hijacking shipments to continue their addiction, or looking for food and trade goods to sustain their people?


In the episodes Patterns of Force, Elaan of Troyius, The Incomparable Okana, A Taste of Armageddon, and in Lonely Among Us we see planets within the same (or neighboring) star system who are at war or are at least openly hostile to one another. Is this family commiting basic piracy or are they waging guerilla warfare against one of the other powers?

There's a rich vein of material to be tapped here and knowing more about these characters and their motivations will help us to help you....


....if it's done correctly, this could lead to an entire story arc as the piracy (and its causes) are explored and dealt with.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Agreed. The pirates need to be more than just "Arrr, make them walk the airlock!" stereotypes.

...Though if memory serves, in Lonely Among Us, didn't the Antican delegation kill, cook, and eat the Selay ambassador...?