The Best Villains

A good villain elevates our Dungeons & Dragons game by creating fun opportunities and lasting memories. But designing and deploying good villains isn’t easy. Our best ideas fall flat. The villain is force caged into oblivion. The final battle fizzles to nothing as the high-level party decimates our dreams of dramatic tension. We need better villains. We need Xanatosian villainy.

David Xanatos is the antagonist in the acclaimed animated series Gargoyles and an excellent model for creating better villains.

“Revenge, as they say, is a sucker’s game.” - David Xanatos

Selfish not sadistic. Great villains aren’t evil for alignment’s sake. Xanatos was capable of awful things to serve his own needs but upon learning of a plot aimed at killing all humans in NYC, he set out to stop it. Likewise, our villains can seek their own motivations without entirely losing their humanity. The easiest way is to identify the villain’s “red lines” that they won’t cross and make them clear to the players.

Enemy or ally? One way to make a great villain is to blur the line between ally and enemy. At times, Xanatos was an ally to the gargoyles, even if he was seeking his own ends. Other times, there was no doubt he was an enemy. For our games, we can create opportunities for the villain to be something other than a villain—like a rival or ally. But avoid trickery. We want the party to know this is the villain but circumstance has changed the relationship for now.

A dynamic arc. After the birth of his child, David Xanatos shifted away from some of his most amoral tendencies. He even offered acts of kindness towards the gargoyles. Similarly, we can use the party’s actions or campaign circumstances to evolve our villain and give them a dynamic arc. Possibly even redemption.

How do we know when we’ve got a Xanatosian villain? We can use the following litmus test: Would the party kill them if given the opportunity?

The answer to that question might be difficult to arrive at but it’s likely a no if we’re dealing with a Xanatosian villain. We can help drive this by focusing on giving the party reasons not to kill the villain.

When we embrace Xanatosian villainy, we add the opportunity for more complex relationships to develop with our villains. This adds fun and creates lasting memories. Sure, we still want the unambiguously evil cultists once in a while. But a David Xanatos will be remembered for life.

Game on.