How Do I Make A Great Recurring Villain?

[Chrono]

I tried to introduce a Red Court Vampire as a recurring villain, and the werewolf in my group killed the vampire with a grapple. This occurred on Accorded Neutral grounds, so I have plenty of opportunities to work with the results, but now I am left without a recurring villain.

How do I create a great recurring villain that my players will love to hate? And how do I make them grapple-proof?

[Haru]

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Really, not even a villain is alone in the world. They might have families, co-villains, devoted underlings, etc. Any one of them can return with a grudge against the characters and try to make them pay. On accorded neutral ground, it could even be a minor opposition who demands the other forces of the accords to bring your characters to justice. Alliances are formed, pacts are made, there is a lot you can do there.

I think recurring villains only make sense if they have a strong connection to at least one of the characters. So if you bring in a new villain, make you players care for him, not only as an "end-boss", but actually as a recurring villain. The concession rules (YS206) might also be your friend here. Instead of fighting to the end, you can say "Ok guys, you got him on his last breath, you could kill him now, but Jeff, remember that he is the only one who knows about your father. If you kill him now, you will never find out what happens." Or something along those lines. The idea would basically be to let the players help create the villain, give him a background and a story and such, so that they would not want to kill their own creation.

On grapples:
A grapple is a block against every action the grappled character wants to do. As such, he can free himself with every action he tries to do. Well, within reason, but theoretically, he could do a great alertness roll and get free.

For a red vampire, there are a number of options: he gets at least inhuman strength, which gives a bonus on grapples. Inhuman speed with its bonus on athletics is also a great option, using agility against strength to get out of the grapple.
But for the most part: If a player of mine was stupid enough to try and grapple a red court vampire, I would unleash the red's narcotic venom on them. Use a fate point to tag the grapple aspect, and you should easily be able to apply the venom.

Also: do not forget to give your villains a nice big bag of fate points.

[Mr. Death]

I find my best recurring villains are the ones who don't actually directly conflict with the heroes all that much. They show up, maybe exchange a round of attacks, then leave to let the minions fight it out. The main villain gets to fight another day, the players get the satisfaction of smacking down a badguy, it's all good.

It also helps to put the recurring villain at such a power level that the heroes can't beat him yet. Make that part of the quest--gaining enough power to seriously challenge him.

[UmbraLux]

How do I create a great recurring villain that my players will love to hate?

The best recurring villains are often those who didn't start out planned that way - they occur organically.  The weasel not quite evil enough to kill, the PCs' victim (accidental or otherwise) out for vengeance, or simply the determined pest who won't give up...they're not over the top evil but they are personal.  Making it personal is what makes it memorable.

And how do I make them grapple-proof?

It's not just 'grapple proof' you need someone who isn't going to get caught at all.  Cowards work well.  They'll always try to have a way out and, more importantly, they'll work through others whenever possible.  Whatever you do, never send a solo opponent against the PCs unless you don't mind chancing a loss.  Snipe and run.  Send hirelings in while watching from a distance.  Use indirect attacks.  Attack friends and allies.  Destroy their property.  Start a malicious whisper.  And run like the wind if they ever get close!

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

I've been tossing around an idea for a recurring cabal of RCVs for a while - the idea is that they're moving in on the city to gain an advantage in the Vampire War, so I've got four definite named NPCs: Regulo Qintana, the ex-special-forces (when he was alive) leader on the ground, Alberto de Braganza, a dilettante who's thee for political purposes and is nominally Quintana's superior, but who Quintana hates. Then you have Antonia de Carapuega, the general in charge, who the character's don't meet for a while, and isnt even in the city at first, and their first encounter is when she's trying to do something really bad, like blow up a neighbourhood with a thaumaturgic ritual, and finally Kevin McAllough, a venom-addicted mayor controlled by the Reds

This way, you get a heirarchy: Quintana is the one the PCs fight most, Braganza can be safely killed a couple of scenarios in, and McAllough can be removed from power, giving the PCs a sense of accomplishment, while Carapuega is the Big Bad, who you can build up to be seriously badass, but, because you only ever really have her offscreen, you're not going to end up with the wizard setting her on fire in their first meeting.

[admiralducksauce]

For my group, it seems like it's partially about entertainment and partially about perceived threat. If you want a villain to survive contact with your players, they need to have some sort of inferiority to them so the players don't knee-jerk eradicate them.

Make them a coward. Parting jibes hurt far less than parting shots.
Make them combat ineffective, at least at first. My players kill powerful threats but let the snitches and middlemen live most of the time.
Make their goals counter to the PCs' goals, but don't make those goals "murder all the PCs". Steal an artifact, kidnap an NPC, blow up a building, but don't wade in thinking you're going to kill the PCs and talk your way out of it when it all goes sideways.

Now, you don't have to do ALL those things at once. That's not a recurring villain, that's a running joke. As a player, though, the one thing that makes me absolutely want to murder a villain is when they're vastly more powerful AND they gloat. Man, gloating powerful villains just skew too close to "the GM is having an asshole power fantasy" for me.

Finally, well, you gotta accept it when the werewolf DOES rip your "recurring" villain's head off. Whatever you had planned for that guy doesn't matter from that point forward, what happened was that he died messy, THAT's the story now, and adjust your plans accordingly. Square pegs and round holes and all that.

[Silverblaze]

Some of the greatest villains never fight.

Mr. Death has it right.

Lex Luthor ( aside from those p[ower suit debalces ><) can't fight Superman.  However, he is the man of steel's greatest foe.  He complicates his life.  Sends things to kill him...etc.

Most of Batman's villains go down in a few hits from the Dark Knight.  It isn't the fight that make them awesome.  They have schemes that span the city.

What I'm saying is find a reason the PC's won't just kill the bad guy.

Make the villain a family member to a PC (maybe an immortal one that is many times removed but still...). 

Maybe give the villain a IoP that does scrying (like a crystal ball.) [ Pretty sure scrying is supposed to be hard in the Dresdenverse...hence the reason I suggested a scrying device].  Have them cast thaumaturgy spells to mess with teh PC's and an unending supply of loyal minions. 

Find an NPC the PC's all like.  Then

A) turn them evil or insane
B) have one of the NPC's parents be a villain

hopefully the PC's are less likely to kill this type of antagonist   

[admiralducksauce]

Most of Batman's villains go down in a few hits from the Dark Knight.  It isn't the fight that make them awesome.  They have schemes that span the city.

The only snag here is that Batman doesn't kill people. If he did, they wouldn't be recurring foes.

Part of making a memorable villain is the ability to relate to them. Maybe that's a villain whose motivations aren't THAT bad, but whose methods are twisted. The sympathetic villain. "But for the grace of God go I", I think it's called.

I personally like it when villains' plans do NOT survive contact with the PCs. That extends to other media as well. Nothing's more believable and relatable than a bad guy whose grand scheme was blown wide open by the heroes and now has to scramble just as hard as the heroes to fulfill their dreams of world domination... or maybe just domination of Delaware... okay, they'll settle for making it out of that Waffle House in one piece!

Finally, the villain who kills the PCs' collective spouses and runs over their dogs is a cliche, sure. But it works, too. The cliche is just when EVERY villain tries to prove their villainy by doing that kind of thing. You need to save up that tragedy, use some of the excellent non-girlfriend-murdering advice in this thread for a few sessions, make sure the villain is memorable enough so that they'd be recurring even if they didn't resort to familicide, and only THEN spring the car bomb on the heroes' loved ones.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I have a couple types of recurring villains in my game. 

There are cabals trying to resurrect Hecate who frequently run into our heroes.  These are a single threat, but even if the PCs kill one or two in the group, some of the Hags are always coming back.  They feed off of each other.  There's no "head" so even wiping out a trinity won't stop them.

I've got a black court vampire who is stronger than the PCs can match in a 1 on 1.  He does the whole "vanish while you fight the minions directly attacking you" thing.

We've got a human character that the PCs didn't kill because he surrendered.  He's come back a few times now, but snivels his way out of death by bribing them with information about the other threats.

There's a cop who's not really a bad guy, but out to get them.  He thinks they're terrorists, and that's a hard thing to deny.

Finally, we have an ally (character of a player who no longer plays) who has been sent to capture the PCs.  They left him out in the cold in a fight once, and he hasn't forgiven them.

So there are some ideas.  Things they can't kill (either because they're too strong, the PCs can't morally bring themselves to do it, it's a group which would have to be completely obliterated to destroy, or someone they trust and want to reason with). 

One on one, direct conflict is the easiest way to get a character killed.  If you don't concede, expect him to never come back.

[Silverblaze]

The only snag here is that Batman doesn't kill people. If he did, they wouldn't be recurring foes.

Part of making a memorable villain is the ability to relate to them. Maybe that's a villain whose motivations aren't THAT bad, but whose methods are twisted. The sympathetic villain. "But for the grace of God go I", I think it's called.

I personally like it when villains' plans do NOT survive contact with the PCs. That extends to other media as well. Nothing's more believable and relatable than a bad guy whose grand scheme was blown wide open by the heroes and now has to scramble just as hard as the heroes to fulfill their dreams of world domination... or maybe just domination of Delaware... okay, they'll settle for making it out of that Waffle House in one piece!

Finally, the villain who kills the PCs' collective spouses and runs over their dogs is a cliche, sure. But it works, too. The cliche is just when EVERY villain tries to prove their villainy by doing that kind of thing. You need to save up that tragedy, use some of the excellent non-girlfriend-murdering advice in this thread for a few sessions, make sure the villain is memorable enough so that they'd be recurring even if they didn't resort to familicide, and only THEN spring the car bomb on the heroes' loved ones.

It is only half a snag.  My point is  - make the villain important to the PC's.  Just like Batman and Superman or Spider-Man for example (he may even be a better example honestly).  Hell most heroes....

Batman is personally connected to most of them.

Two-Face- they were friends.
Catwoman - well, they are connected intimately from time to time you don't kill your friend with benefits.
Joker - the only one Bruce should just up and kill - though Joker asks the question that haunts Bruce (would all these villains exist if Batman didn't?)
Most other villains have become important to him in some fashion throughout years of comics.
Most of them are insane and truly in need of help.

Freeze - just wants to get his wife cured (True Love anyone?)
Ivy - crazy and often anti heo material
Harley - same deal
Penguin - getting close to Joker territory, but i guess he's kinda crazy too.

Croc, Grundy, Clayface, etc.  Most have had reasons to hate the Wayne's or Bruce.  Also it is hard to justify killing truly insane people.  Unless you have some sociopathic tendencies.

[Silverblaze]

Could always go the Green Goblin route.

Make the villain an important politician or CEO.  Then have them drop the heroes girlfirend off a bridge. 

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Poor Gwen.

[Richard_Chilton]

You could always go with a social character.

Senator Kelly is a villain to the X-Men, one that they can't defeat in combat.  In the early Dresden books Marcone is a great "background" villain.

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In a short story set a few months before Changes, we learn that Marcone builds "I do this if Dresden bursts in and I have to kill him" plans into whatever building is serving as his current HQ - which means he's still serving a villain type role at times.

  That has me thinking that almost any old style criminal who knows a bit about magic could make a wonderful background villain - from the Godfather to Tony Soprano.

A Resource base character can complicate the PCs' lives by offering rewards to "crimes" connected to them (let's face it - most PCs see laws as things they shouldn't be caught breaking).  Make that person a former Changeling who regrets that he choose "mortal" and is targeting the PCs because they have the powers he lacks and you've got a thorn in their sides that will last for game after game.

A non-flashy caster - someone like Molly - could make a wonderful villain.

But to make a good recurring villain, the PCs have to care about the NPC.  Either it's a tragically flawed character or it has struck at someone close to the PCs - there has to be some hook to get the PCs invested.

Here are a few NPCs that you might be able to use.  One's a hit man with a code, one was warped and twisted by the pre-teen beauty circuit, one's a drug using creep, and the last is a good time thief/con man who doesn't see what he does as wrong.  None of them would work well in a stand up fight against a group of PCs but all of them have hooks you can use to tie them to your game in other ways.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,30354.msg1288932.html#msg1288932

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,24639.msg1044245.html#msg1044245

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,24639.msg1044868.html#msg1044868

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,32803.msg1465917.html#msg1465917

Hope this helps!

Richard

[JDK002]

Very much agree with making the villain important to the PC's.  One thing I've always said about what makes a great villain great: The best villains always think they are the heroes.  They see the PC's as the villains, or misguided idealists at the very least.

Give the villain some kind of redeeming quality or moral grey area.  Magneto is a very good example of this.  Or keeping it in the Dresdenverse, Lara Raith or John Marcone are both good examples.

Also from a more mechanical standpoint, always make sure the villain has some sort of ace in the hole to give to the players.  Usually It's information or whatever maguffin the players are trying to get a hold of.  This lets you compel the hell out of the players to let the villain live to scheme another day.

[Richard_Chilton]

Thinking of great villains - some of the best I've ever encountered were in Glen Cook's book (and resulting series) The Black Company.

At the core of those books are average soldiers who are trying to stay alive in a Lord of the Rings type war, but the backdrop focuses on 11 immortal sorcerers who were buried alive then (after the 'eternal guard' had its budget cut again and again) rose to reestablish their empire.  Opposing Lady and The Ten Who Were Taken are the Circle of 18 - 18 modern wizards who think that they have what it takes to fight the Lady and the Ten.  Meanwhile, Lady's husband The Dominator (who took the ten and forced Lady to marry him) is still imprisoned in the Great Mound (Lady decided that it was her turn to rule and blocked his escape) where he schemes to get his revenge on the world...  And might have more power than Lady, the Ten, and the 18 combined.

Wow, I had forgotten how many Capital Letters that series used, but back to villains, there isn't a good wizard (or any wizard approaching good) in that book.  You have black mixed with shades of grey.  Even the ordinary soldiers on both sides are just average people caught up in the war who think nothing of slaughtering sleeping enemies or doing some raping and looting.  But even without heroes to use as foils, the villains shine.  Even the names stand out - and Cook makes each name a big part of the character.

There's Soulcatcher who speaking using hundreds of different voices, voices that are said to from the souls of his victims.
There's The Limper, a wizard who is a true survivor.  He might be limping and battered but he's going to go on killing.
Shapechanger, who has mastered shape shifting magic to the point that you never know if you're talking to him.

And so on.  If you're looking for memorable villains, there are some wonderful tricks that Cook uses in that book to make his villains stick in your mind.

Richard

[UmbraLux]

Thinking of great villains - some of the best I've ever encountered were in Glen Cook's book (and resulting series) The Black Company.

One of my all time favorites! 

They are good examples of villains as you point out.  Most are gray rather than pure evil (though a few come close), they're all willing to get personal - taking offense as well as giving offense, every single one is flawed in some way - none are perfect, and then there's the imagery - something unique about each.  The Limper, the Hanged Man, Shapeshifter, Soulcatcher, Howler, even the Lady - their names meant something and described them to everyone.  I'd even add the Company's standouts - several make for vindictive villains as often as anti-heroes.  Raven, Croaker, Goblin, One Eye, and even Silent - they all have their moments.

Definitely worth reading and provides good game fodder for a lot of things.