REVIEW – PART #1
The Complete Book of Villains
Here comes the second article about Old School Books and Accessories. Once more we will be talking about a AD&D book.
The Complete Book of Villains
This is one of my favourites of the collection. It contains a bunch of interesting tips and techniques for creating a villain worth of its name and a chapter where it describes techniques to create an adventure or a campaign.
I consider this book a must have in every Game Master shelf.
The book has nine chapters, but I consider the first four chapters the most relevant.
The other five chapters are interesting, but not as much the first four.
So, let’s give a look at the index to see what it contains.
The Introduction presents to the reader a custom built villain that will accompany the reader through the book.
A humble villain, but an interesting one. He basically hates priests and is fond of dogs, that’s why he is called “Priests Hunter” and “Dogs Eater”.
Chapter 1 – Defining Your Villain
The book suggests 11 steps to define your villain, trying to enrich his/her personality so that it will be easier for you to roleplay and build the plot of your adventure.
Occupation
What does the villain do? Where does she find resources to support her agenda? By defining this point I will be able later to define other important details.
Objectives (or goals)
What does the villain want to accomplish? What in the short, middle and long terms? Defining the objective implies the villain has to take into account what are her resources.It is possible that a short term goal could be seizing some resources the villain lacks in order to plan her middle term objectives.
We need to think about objectives that are in contrast with those of the characters OR, if we wish to run a small campaign with villanous characters, then we must think about objectives that include the characters.
Motive
What are the villains motivations? Why is she pursuing her objectives relentlessly?
Being a villain, we should consider her motivation as a compulsion, the wild need to obtain something no matter the cost.
In some way, a villain motivation is also her weakness.
The book presents some possible motivations, however I’m not going to explain all of them because this is something that should be analyzed by the single game master.
I’ll just make a list of the possible motivation proposed by the books: achievement, affiliation, aggression, autonomy, exhibition, safety, nurturing, order, power, succor and understanding.
Consider them as macro-categories, you’ll have better results if you dig deep on your own into your villain motivations.
Personality
What kind of behaviour defines the villain? What traits distinguishes him from anyone else?
The book makes an interesting suggestion. It tells us to define two dominant traits and one contradictory trait.
Two dominant traits should define what makes our villain a villain. While the contradictory trait should be something that makes her “human” or a trait that does not normally qualifies someone as a villain.
Attitudes and behaviors
These two noun may be confused sometimes. To make it clear, consider attitude as something that has to do with the inner way of being of a person, while consider behaviour as something that has to do with how you manifest your way of being to others.
A villain may possesses a paternalist attitude when dealing with people “Whatever I do, is for the good of everyone” and she may possesses a cruel behaviour in order to enforce her attitude “If you do not understand what is good for you, I’ll find a painful way to change your mind”.
Let’s make it more clear.
I can usually observe someone behaviour, but I need to sense her attitude in order to understand what lies behind the mask.
Tastes and Preference
This part is easy to understand and funny to make. Defining a villain tastes is something that poses no limits to our imagination.
What does the villain like to do? How does the villain prefer to do or obtain the things she likes? Is it a sophisticated taste for something? Is she a collectionist? Is it a sort of compulsion that the villain can barely control?
Surroundings
Where does the villain live? What kind of beings does she deal with ? Does she mask her true nature behind an ordinary life?
This could be helpful when we decide to draw a map of our villain’s headquarter.
History (or background)
Who was our villain before becoming what she is today? Where did she live? How her past influenced her behaviours, attitudes, tastes and preferences?
This is a process that is not very different from writing a character’s background down.
We just need to care of any possible connections between her past, her present and her future objectives.
Network
Who does the villain know? Does she have allies? Is she part of a bigger network of villains? Does she serve someone more powerful? Or is she a lonewolf that has to rely on her strength?
Appearance
Villains represented in books, movies and stories always come with eccentric clothings. Their appearance distinguish them from the many.
However appearance is not only about clothings, it includes facial traits and physical traits.
Even if we want to make a villain from a creature described on a bestiary, we should think about some features that help the players to distinguish this specific villain from other of its kind.
Abilities and Alignment
The final step. Our villain’s character sheet.
A villain is not a player character, neither a non-player character.
Yet she deserves a proper treatment. She deserves a character sheet and nothing less.
So, the review of Chapter One Complete Book of Villains is complete.
I consider this book very interesting, so other three articles will follow soon, about Chapter 2, 3 and 4.
The next week I’ll start a campaign. Before the campaign starts I’ll share on this blog the creative process where, by using some of the books reviewed, I’ll create a villain and a first introductory adventure for the players.
I’ll post the chronicles of this campaign either, so that you, the readers, will be able to see how the campaign evolves.
The players have never played a rpg game.
The players are both females.
Next Article…Old School Review – AD&D DMGR6 The Complete Book of Villains #2
Stay tuned if you want to know more and give a like to Angry Golem Games
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