Villain's Motives
Motives tell what drives your story's villain, the goal his or her plots try to achieve and (often) weaknesses that the heroes can exploit. For example, a villain motivated by greed can be tempted away from his target if the heroes create a convincing illusion of greater gain elsewhere. And a villain who is just crazy has many weak points. Here are some sample motivations. Some are expressed as goals that the villain strives to achieve.
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Corruption |
| This sinister, often
horrific villain works to debase all that is good in humanity. His or
her methods are customarily subtle and insidious. A single defeat does
not spell the end of this villain's threat. Such villains may not
necessarily be very powerful, but are truly as evil as they come.
Example: The Splugorth |
|
Evading Capture |
| The bad guy has
already seen Ryker's Island or Stronghold and has no desire to visit it again. This motive is usually transitory, lasting for an adventure or
two until the bad guy reestablishes a headquarters and begins plotting
afresh.
Example: The Supreme Venom |
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Ideology |
| This catch-all category
describes villains who do bad things for reasons of personal belief,
derangement, or just pure nastiness.
The belief can be a twisted version of an accepted ideology, such as Nuke's super-patriotism. Or the belief can be straightforward hostility to human beings' continued existence, as with Tyrannus. This category also includes those under the authority of higher agencies that support a specific ideology. For example, the SLJ is nominally controlled by the US Government, and the Red Doom usually follow the Kremlin's orders. Note that super-powered villains are independent types who seldom follow orders without question. An ideological or crazy villain works best in one of two ways: 1. A horrific expression of man's darker side. The villain throws away all notions of civilized conduct and the brotherhood of man because of a narrow, distorted doctrine. Play the fanatic carefully; keep him or her scary, not Oust) contemptible. 2. A total bozo. Some of these guys can be funny, in a twisted way. In a humorous adventure, you stress the bad guy's distance from reality, instead of his or her potential threat. Don't let the bad guy kill anybody, or the adventure suddenly turns grim. |
|
Mischief |
| Life is boring! Time to
pep it up a little. And those PC heroes-they're such stiff-necked
popinjays. Maybe they should have their lives stirred up a little, or a
lot ... just for laughs.
Examples: Merry Melody |
|
Power |
| These villains all want to
conquer the world, the universe, or at least a part of New York City. In
general they have the power to reach their goals, and a single-minded
drive that motivates them to remove potential obstacles to conquest.
Such as the PCs.
Examples: Enemies International |
|
Pride |
| The villain with this
motivation thinks he or she is the best in the world at a chosen
pursuit. Anyone in the PC group who shows ability of the same kind
becomes vulnerable to this villain's challenge.
Examples: Redblood |
|
Scouting for Invasion |
| This bad guy is just the
point man (or point thing) for a whole lot of similar bad guys. They all
want New York, or America, or Earth, but they want to see how tough the
opposition is. When the PCs fight an invasion scout, they must defeat
the villain decisively, or the invasion force will just send in another
scout later.
Examples: Tsaurids |
|
Self Preservation |
| Some villains do what they
do just to survive. This sometimes, though not always, lends them a
tragic air-that usually depends on how much the bad guy enjoys his or
her work. Remorseful villains can arouse heroes' compassion even as the
two sides square off. Frequently the general public is
unaware of, or not sympathetic to, the villain's self-preservation
motive. This can mean that, once the immediate threat is defused, the
heroes end up protecting the villain from an enraged mob.
Examples: Vampires |
|
Suicide |
| This extremely offbeat motive makes for a tragic, downbeat adventure. For some reason the villain is unable to die. Tormented by existence and longing for release, this villain dupes the heroes into attacking, in the hope that they can marshal enough force to kill him or her. |
|
Vengeance |
| The all-purpose villain
motive. Every bad guy the heroes have ever fought ... enemies of NPC
heroes that have turned to fighting the PCs as a kind of dress rehearsal
for their revenge on their NPC nemeses ... figures from the forgotten
past, attacking friends of the PCs for some barely remembered offense. All of these long-held grudges are
typical of the villain mentality. Anyone who gains power and decides to
throw it around becomes bitter and vengeful when that power is foiled.
Examples: Anybody! |
|
Wealth |
| Almost as much an
all-purpose villain motive as vengeance (above), this indicates that the
bad guy is just greedy for money, treasures, equipment, Van Gogh
paintings, or what ever the villain views as necessary for the good
life.
Examples: The Mercury Mercenary |
|
VILLAIN'S METHODS |
| These are some of the paths a villain may take to achieve his or her goal. |
|
Extortion |
| The villain has power over some person or agency, and will use it unless the victim pays up by a given deadline. Usually an urgent summons by the victim brings the heroes into the adventure, but sometimes the flashier villains make their threat known over public airwaves. |
|
Kidnap and Ransom |
| The victim can be any person of wealth or relative of such a person, but it can instead be a valuable object, such as an objet d'art, a rare chemical isotope, or urgently needed medicine. This scheme has special emotional significance if the heroes desperately need the person or object in question to satisfy another goal. For example, a hero might need medicine to save a dying NPC. |
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Manipulation |
| The villain does not care to soil his or her own hands doing the deed, and instead enlists some third party, perhaps an unwitting or mind-controlled dupe. It can send the heroes on a wild goose chase for the longest time. By the time they find out who is really behind the scheme, they should be ready to thrash the villain soundly. |
|
Mass Destruction |
| Especially suitable for insane or vengeful villains, this method demands extreme power. The source of power can be a giant monster or robot, a nuclear reactor, or that old standby, the atomic bomb. The heroes learn about the scheme just hours or days before it will occur, and the tension builds as they try to find the villain's headquarters or destructive machine and destroy it, or stop the monster before it achieves widespread destruction. |
|
Murder |
| Direct and to the point. The motives for murder coincide with those of mass destruction (above), but this is suitable for less powerful villains. |
|
Provocation |
| The villain tries to achieve his or her ends—a war, perhaps, or a battle between two equally despised heroes by arranging a fraud. The fraudulent scheme lays blame on one innocent party for an attack on another's interests. The heroes often are too late to prevent the scheme itself from being activated. But they can search for evidence to implicate the villain, or find the villain and force him to confess, just moments before the provocation leads to ultimate disaster. |
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Theft |
| The standard villain scheme. An early adventure in every campaign is the bank robbery, and attempted thefts of valuables continue on a regular basis thereafter. The players understand their goal and have no trouble telling right from wrong. And virtually no villain is above an ordinary burglary or robbery. |
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Vice Peddling |
| The standard method of the corruption-motivated villain. Gambling, racism, envy, lechery-the usual catalogue of sins are all profitable to the criminal element. The heroes may believe the villain's goal is mere wealth... until a more sinister pattern emerges. |