How to Make Your Game a Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

It goes without saying, since RPG campaigns are primarily heroic, villains are practically a necessity. Therefore, right from the first plot, it makes sense to start brainstorming what kinds of villains you, as the GM, want the party to come up against. While it is possible (but only in sword and sorcery games) to have non-sentient monsters as the party's primary opponent, villains that pose only a physical threat to the party can be unsatisfying, except for the pure hack and slash crowd. So, as you are villaining up your campaign, here are some super notions to consider, in order to create a variety of obstacles for your party to overcome.

One favorite concept for GMs is to make the villain 'not truly evil'. This, of course, tends to take the form of characters that are the party's opponents, for whatever reason, but not because they are meglomaniacal sociopaths. Perhaps they believe what they are doing is for the greater good. Perhaps they are not even easily identifiable as evil, being a paladin that has committed crimes while thinking he is merely following the dictates of his god. Of course, such opponents can cause moral dilemmas for the party, whether or not they can kill the villain outright, or whether they should get involved in the cause of the villain, but doing it the right way. But, there are other ideas to consider in the case of the 'not truly evil'. One of the best I've ever encountered was the 'sentient knife'. In this case, the opponent was a soul that was bound to a knife that was able to possess other people, and thereby commit the crimes he desired. This, of course, became a major problem for the party, as they had to figure out how to disable the host, and then prevent the knife from possessing a new host. In this case, it's not that the opponent itself is not evil, but that the host is possibly completely innocent.

Another concept to consider is if the villain is a recurring villain. If you kill a villain, of course, this tends to prevent them from making any further trouble for the party (or does it? In a world of ghosts and necromancers, or even superior regenerative technology...). But, what if the party is capable of ruining the villain's plans, but not capable of capturing or killing him? On the one hand, maybe the villain is just very good at making contingency plans for escape. Or, maybe for whatever reason, the party cannot take any direct action against the villain, but only his minions, because the head villain has diplomatic immunity. Or because no one knows who he really is, and so the party has to figure this out in order to finally stop him. It could even be because the party is just not capable of subduing him, though one has to be very careful with this idea. When you have an enemy with that much power, or even that many resources, there has to be logical reasons why the party can put a halt to his plans, but are not able to defeat him, else you might be putting your party into no-win situations that result in the game self-destructing. It is possible, of course, to make the villain powerful, but flawed in the way that villains tend to be(i.e. not killing the hero outright, but putting them in escapable situations), but unless your game is tongue in cheek, that tends to be the sort of thing you should avoid. Unless of course, you can come up with logical reasons why the villain would keep the heroes alive (maybe he needs them for an experiment he's doing?).

Combining the above concepts, sometimes the villain is someone that's supposed to be on your side. The chief of police, or a king, or the head of the PC's organization, people who are on the side of 'good', but simply don't like the PCs, and will often try to stymie them. Maybe the character has a sense of rivalry. Maybe they don't like the way the PCs get things done. Maybe they're just very disagreeable, and the PCs have, however inadvertantly, gotten on his bad side. This definitely creates a conundrum the PCs will have trouble with, because this isn't an obstacle that can be dealt with physically. They either have to win this character over, or keep finding ways to outmaneuver him. It could also be that the PCs are not even aware of the menace he possesses, although the tendency, in that case, is not to make him a simple foil for the PCs, but rather a traitor, or a mole: a character that pretends to be on the PCs side, but is really working to undermine the PCs efforts.

For a final twist, maybe the villain the PCs are chasing is not, in fact, a villain in any shape or form. Maybe the above character gave the PCs bad information, so they go chasing someone who is completely blameless, or would even help the PCs, given a chance. Maybe the character has just had a the bad luck to keep showing up at crime scenes, and the party gives chase (maybe he's investigating the real villain himself?) Or maybe he really is a villian ... t's just that he hasn't committed the crimes the PCs think.

The important thing to remember in all of this is to challenge the PCs. Don't repeat yourself too often, and always keep thinking about new and different twists to place, not just on the plot itself, but on the villains central to that plot. Your group will thank you for it.