How Would You Show A Villain To Be Truly Evil?

[Leliel]

As far as my BBEGs go, I have a habit of making them more anti-hero than true baddie; Not truly bad people, just mentally tormented persons who have tossed coventional morality out the door in their search for a (undeniably good) end. Besides giving the PCs moral doubts about killing them, it also serves to give them evil counterparts; A sort of warning to the world of heroes of "this could have been, and could still be, you..."

Somtimes however, I feel the urge to make a true scumbag. A villain that does not, and can not, be anything that one could call remotely redeemable, or even human.

Of course, there is the "lazy" way of doing so-make him a member of an evil church-but I believe that both (A) cheapens the impact, and (B), does not account for the villain's actions beyond, "He's evil!"

So I perfer to do it the "hard" way: Not allege anything about the villain's alligences or powers, but to show what he does with them.

In short, Raping the Dog, as TV Tropes would put it.

So how would you have your BBEG silence any doubt about his evilness?

[hamishspence]

Start of Darkness did it pretty well:

Spoiler

Show

where a teenage Xykon has his zombiefied granny kill his parents for letting a recruiter into his room

Its really more the attitude you want them to project, players don't have to see the acts to know this guy is, as the saying goes, bad to the bone.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Torture, murder, all that jazz. The villian is assumed to be evil, and if you have him capture one of the PCs favorite NPCs and Mindrape them onto his side, the PCs will stop caring about his motivations.

[bosssmiley]

I think the one word that might be of interest to you here is: 'wanton'.

The villain doesn't do cruel or vicious things because he is compelled (as would be typical of the fallen Knight Templar type); he does them for gits and shiggles.

The secret is show, don't tell. Have the BBEG wreck things and kill people that mean something to the PCs out of sheer malicious, 'can't touch me, so to hell with you!' devilment.

[Ralfarius]

What I need is a villain that's almost a caricature. Completely amoral, takes joy (or amusement) in the suffering of others. Does not bat an eye at overkill and outright slaughter, just not to the hindrance of overarching plans. Will kill NPC's to which the PC's have grown close, perhaps to get at the PC's (or just for amusement).

In short, sometimes you need Xykon.

[hylian chozo]

Since you're familiar with TV tropes, I'm sure you know that a doomed hometown is a great way to introduce a villian.

[kamikasei]

Bosssmiley has it right. I would phrase it as, "have him do something he can't possibly be justifying to himself as 'for the greater good'". Make it clear to the players that, while he's doing evil things, he doesn't have any need to excuse them in his own mind or others'.

I guess the real question is, how extreme do you have to make his actions to counteract the conditioning you've put your players through to assume any villain has a noble ulterior motive? That's the one real variable that needs to be plugged in; the rest of the formula is simply "have him do things he knows well to be evil, just because it suits him to do them, without apology or any inkling that he should apologize".

[DrizztFan24]

The heroes enter a large, grand chamber hall. You see someone sitting on the far side of a long table. They are being served by what appears to be a black smoke; it is carrying a covered, silvered platter. The something sitting at the far end of the table lifts the lid on the platter and reveals a cooked baby! You hear a deep, masculine voice explain that winter babies are always a bit more tender than those born during the summer.

This way the BBEG shows an air of confidence and control by sitting down to dinner while being invaded. He also seems truly horrendous as he is eating a baby... Does that work?

[hamishspence]

makes me think of that Blackadder 2 episode:
"and did you mention the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells?"
"I did, my lord"
"And what did he say?"
"He said "I AM the baby-eating bishop of Bath and Wells!"

[Inyssius Tor]

Walls painted with blood. Eyeballs on strings. Dead people (very, very dead people) who the players care about.

[kamikasei]

Baby-eating is oh-so-very passe. And I'm not being flippant... well, I'm being a little flippant. But yeah, there are things, like that, which you can't really see someone doing except to consciously demonstrate how very evil they are. Better if they display their evil in pursuit of some goal that actually makes sense.

[hamishspence]

hard part is balancing "Oh my, this guy is Eeeeevil" with grossing out the players and wrecking the game. DM needs to know the player's "comfort zone" That said, there are a few good sourcebooks for setting up a Villain: Vile Darkness, Exemplars of Evil, Champions of Ruin, Heroes of Horror.

[hamishspence]

Quite a lot of movies use musical theme when villain arrives on scene. Might work for some games, depends what sort of game.

[Nikolai_II]

Just do it the easy way. (The Rich Way) - Have a Lich and have him kill everything for fun.

[Saihyol]

First don't try to explain why the villain did what he did.

Make the bad guy in-human (not in the sense of being an Orc)- in Silence of the Lambs the calm look in Anthony Hopkins eyes as beats the guard to death or the comment that his pulse didn't increase while eating someone were more chilling to me than the image of the crucified guard.

Villain forces someone else to be evil - have the PCs find a weeping villager outside a burned out cottage who was forced to set fire to it (with his neighbor and family inside) to save his own family. Have a small settlement forced to sacrifice ten virgins and hang their corpses from the palisade for a month or be destroyed and let the party see that.

Defending himself with innocence - PCs storm into the BBEG's main hall to find him sat on his throne with fifty young children chained to the floor around him to use as shields and prevent any aoe by the party, though this doesn't stop the BBEG dropping fireballs and turning the children into screaming candles. Alternately if you don't want them to be hampered in combat have him declare he has 50 children held prisoner just as they are about to beat him and he'll draw them a map if they let him go. Of course the map might end up reading 'I prepared explosive runes this morning' and they later find the children who have starved to death.

Wanton/casual evil - prisoners who can't help him any more are fed to the pet wolf/tiger/lizard - obviously whatever use they had wears out quickly as the pet seems to be surrounded by 50-60 skulls.

[Saihyol]

makes me think of that Blackadder 2 episode:
"and did you mention the baby-eating Bishop of Bath and Wells?"
"I did, my lord"
"And what did he say?"
"He said "I AM the baby-eating bishop of Bath and Wells!"

Awesome I'm not the only one quoting BA

Also quite worried about how easy that list of evil things was to write...

[ArmorArmadillo]

As much as being evil for evil's sake or out of cruelty shows evil, I think it strains disbelief much in the same way the "evil church" does.

What I think is best is an act, although ostensibly "for the greater good" shows the villain commiting an act that visually shifts his focus from that greater good to his own evil aims. Redcloak is a bad example, because he's such a tool.

An example of this would be a mage who experiments with undeath. He claims that he does this so that he can save his kingdom from the superior armies of the orcish empire. The players fight him because he begins stealing live subjects, and is clearly evil, but he still gets to claims some sense of "greater good."

However, once the players catch up to him, they find he has turned the armies of undead he claimed were to help defend the kingdom back onto the kingdom, and has allied himself with the orcs to take command of both nations. Furthermore, the order of patriotic warriors who helped him build the army have been slain at his hand.

This kind of story demonstrates evil without being touchy-feely "anti-heroic" or evil for evil's sake, and I think it makes for a better overall villain.

[Jayngfet]

"so sauskes cooler eh, well I've got your screaming bloody wife on line 2 rooting for lee"

[Nerd-o-rama]

Have him kick a puppy.

[MeklorIlavator]

I think this method could work well:
Storytime with Skjaldbakka

[Green Bean]

Baby-eating is oh-so-very passe. And I'm not being flippant... well, I'm being a little flippant. But yeah, there are things, like that, which you can't really see someone doing except to consciously demonstrate how very evil they are. Better if they display their evil in pursuit of some goal that actually makes sense.

Exactly. Instead of baby-eating, you should try baby-wearing. Find some babies, give 'em Rings of Sustenance so you don't have to feed them, and tie 'em to your armour. Guaranteed to slightly increase the bad guy's resiliency and cause serious alignment issues for any Good characters. If you have a particularly high strength bad guy, you should switch to toddlers. They're still young enough to be innocent bystanders, but they're old enough to beg for mercy.


Wow. I'm going to the special hell, aren't I.

[kamikasei]

Exactly. Instead of baby-eating, you should try baby-wearing. Find some babies, give 'em Rings of Sustenance so you don't have to feed them, and tie 'em to your armour. Guaranteed to slightly increase the bad guy's resiliency and cause serious alignment issues for any Good characters. If you have a particularly high strength bad guy, you should switch to toddlers. They're still young enough to be innocent bystanders, but they're old enough to beg for mercy.

Heh heh heh.

[Randel]

A few ideas.

1). No sense of empathy- the villain simply doesn't care how much he hurts people. If they are in his way he forces them out of his way by either killing, maiming, or shoving them (based only by how much power he can afford to waste to move them). Torturing people isn't something he enjoys, its just "that thing I do to people to get them to do what I want." Though he's likely to do something cruel just because he likes to see how they react.

2). No sense of honesty- He can lie just as easily as he breathes and feels no shame in it. He could give a huge speech on what his plans are and then only later do you realize that he just lied to your face and his real plan is completely different.

3). Cooks Soylent Green- Has no qualms with ruining peoples lives in his work. A necromancer that kills people only to add to his undead horde, an artist who uses sentient people as parts of their artwork, or just uses people as test subjects or whatever. (Like the villain from the Saw movies or arguably GLaDOS)

4). Gets Away With it- Put in a few failsafes to keep him alive. If he is brought to the authorities where he is presumably to be brought to justice... he just walks out of the Cardboard Prison.

5). He belongs to a super powerful race- Probably just me but I particularly despise elves, dragons, the biblical satan and devils, plus most of the cast of Dragonball Z not so much because they do evil things but because they are so unnaturally long-lived and powerful. They aren't powerful because of any skill or work they put into it, but just because they rolled a natural 20 on their 'choose a race' roll. Could expand this to encompass any villain who got to where they are entirely by circumstance of birth (see also The Caligula, The Upperclass Twit, and to another extent Screw the Rules I have Money

Also the seven deadly sins:

Pride- he's better than you and he knows it.
Gluttony- wastes the resources, lives, environment of others in his plans
Greed- is ambitious and is driven to acquire something, no matter the cost
Lust- I dunno how this could work... maybe a literal Rape the Dog, or Foe Yay?
Sloth- He's lazy enough that he doesn't build death traps he just kills you. Also manipulates enemies to destroy each other or makes you do his dirty work (while he reaps the benefits and laughs at you)
Envy- Make the villain have awesome stuff... and the heros know they can't have it. (Elves and dragons with their unnaturally long lifespans)
Wrath- Every once in a while, let his normally calm demeanor break and let them see the madness behind the mask... or alternatively just have him act completely calm while torturing or level draining someone to inspire wrath in the heros.


Example villains:

The corrupt corporative executive from the first Robocop movie: Was working on that walking robot tank thing that didn't work and killed people just for money. And then had a goon kill a rival who build a Robocop as an alternative.

The villain from the Saw movies: A monster who deserves to have his skin sandpapered off and soaked in tobasco sauce... and probably did that to one of his victims.

The Joker and all the other costumed villains from comic books: The only reason they survive long enough to be so much trouble is because of Joker Immunity and Moral Dissonance.

Seto Kaiba: In the original manga (and all other media) he was such a jerk I wanted him dead. Not the least of which because he used so much money to build a 'theme park' to kill people in, had mob connections he used to kill and threaten the previous owners of his Blue Eyes White Dragon cards, and various other nasty things... just for a Childrens Card Game!

[MeklorIlavator]

Heh heh heh.

Your link doesn't work for me.

And h_v, there's a PrC in BoVD that does something similar to that. You magically chain people to yourself, and they take all of your damage(read the sory in the link I posted if you want to see it in action). I belive its called the Dark Emperour.

[Raum]

So how would you have your BBEG silence any doubt about his evilness?

Wanton destruction by itself often appears amoral rather than evil. So make your villain 'human' and use contrast. Give your BBEG one item / thing / idea he truly loves and contrast the treatment with everything else.

[obvious pun]

The number one way to show how evil the BBEG is.

Have the BBEG make the party watch as he forces his prisoners to play Tomb of Horrors.With level 1 characters. If that doesn't work, nothing will.

[kamikasei]

Your link doesn't work for me.

Should be fixed now.

And h_v, there's a PrC in BoVD that does something similar to that. You magically chain people to yourself, and they take all of your damage(read the sory in the link I posted if you want to see it in action). I belive its called the Dark Emperour.

The Dread Emperor is an example villain in the book. I'm not sure if there's an actual class for him...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Dread Emperor is a suit of armor, not a class.

[MeklorIlavator]

Dread Emperor is a suit of armor, not a class.

Opps!
I could have sworn it was a class, but I don't have the book right now, so I couldn't check it. Of course, this makes things easier, as all you have to do is buy him a suit of armor, instead of finding a place in a build for class levels.

[EvilElitest]

Everyone seems to be promoting warront murder, but i think that is a little boring. Here are a few others

1) Anyone seen FMA? You know Envy or Kimblee? Yeah them.
2)A spin off of the above, make them a murdering pychopath. However, don't make them like Freddy or Jason, because they aren't scary. Make them very human, not monsters or insane people, just make them have a lust for pain and suffering


"Why are you doing this"
"because i can. I do it for the sheer enjoyment of having blood between my fingers."

Evil nihilism is nice
3) make them a fanatic, but so fanatical that you it just disgusts you. A super intolerant fanatic is almost as hate inspiring as a random killer. Unlike more fanatics, he literally can't be reasoned with at all. he believes that X god speaks to him and that he must commit his will. Or a radical believer in a case to the point of total ruthlessness
4) an utter tyrant, who is simple so selfish he will destroy anything for his power. Imagine Stalin
5) A nazi styled character. Really, just study the ideals of the nazis, or the KKK and use that sort of twisted intolerence.


from
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