Motivation is a core component of good storytelling. Few things ruin a good story like poor character motivations. The worst characters have one dimensional motives – the worst of these being the “insane bad guy” motivation. He’s such a bad guy because he’s crazy! It’s overdone, weak, and thin as a hair.
Likewise, an overly complicated motivation can become muddy and difficult to understand. Instead, choose a clear motivation that is easy to understand, realistic, and, perhaps, easy to relate to. Below are three such villainous motivations.
Fighting For the Pack
Since the dawn of time, human beings have battled over tribes. Everyone from kindergartners to Nazis know the draw of fighting for the pack, fighting for the flag, or fighting for skin color. This motivation is easy to apply to any intelligent D&D creature. Orcs fight for their tribes. Giants fight for their empire. Even the undead might fight for death against life. Their way is the RIGHT way, the ONLY way and they will fight to the death over it.
The End Justifies The Means
We build laws around ideals, but sometimes, in order to protect those laws, we must break them. Sometimes we must do evil in order to protect good. This is the flawed philosophy of many villains and a great one for D&D. Consider the necromancer who must call up the undead and make pacts with evil to save his city. Consider the lover who must use any power he can to bring back his lost love. Consider the prince who must build an army to kill his own father lest his father’s twisted ways ruin an empire. The ends justifying the means is a great motivator that drives good people to perform evil deeds.
Wanting To See The World Burn
There is a difference between insanity and vengeance. Sometimes the world has become so twisted, so broken, that only a clean slate will do. Like the fires that feed the mighty Sequoia tree, sometimes the only way to bring new life to a planet is to see the world burn. Perhaps it is to clean the slate. Perhaps it is the furthest form of vengeance, where all life must pay for a single horrible slight. This is a specialized version of insanity – not simply “crazy” but truly vengeful on a global scale.
These are only three of many powerful motivators for villains. For further research, study your favorite movie or book villains and distill down their motivations. A simple statement of motivation can take a flat bad guy and turn him into something really sinister.
Nice article, well done. I have always thought that villains should have a reason for being the way they are. Few individuals (and the best villains IMO) actually don’t think of themselves as evil, let alone do what they do “just for the sake of being evil”.
Nice choice of pics, but the way.