Dungeon Master: Creating Antagonists

When playing an adventure, there is some kind of adversary you are usually trying to overcome. Often times it is a big, ultra-powerful baddie that takes an entire campaign to kill. However, there are other ways to create antagonists for your players. I purposely avoid using villain here because, really, they may be perfectly respectable people and had the tables been turned, the hero of the story. As I am always interested in having antagonists ready to go (you never know when a game of D&D will break out), I will be talking about some major things I consider when creating antagonists as well as how the choices and planning can have wider reaching effects. The overall scope of this piece goes can be used in any kind of role-playing game and will focus on the character side of antagonists, instead of mechanics. I hope it helps.

Tone

The way the conflict is set up for the players will set the tone for the campaign being run, though this could be done intentionally as well. Very few would suspect the big bad lich hatching a plan for world domination using an army of unicorns. However, the choices made reach beyond that. When having players that like to experiment and think outside the box, I don't want to rail road them. However, general outlines still help in making the entire plot seem planned (though adhering to them strictly is usually a bad idea) and one element that stays relevant regardless is the personality of characters.

I will be going over a few specific elements I use to make an antagonist. When thinking about them, it is best to see them interacting together in forming the character of the antagonist.

Preliminary Considerations

When designing the personality of the antagonist, their strength can play a role in how things will run. Naturally, with an extremely powerful lich players will need to avoid direct contact. However, if the main baddie is actually a low level noble (as in level 5 when the party is level 9) who instead uses bodyguards and plotting as their strength, the dynamics change. Even though the personality of the antagonist in this case is separate from the outline of the adventure, their motivations and methods they use to achieve them have a significant effect. You can also try building them using the “Traits, Flaws and Bonds” stuff from this edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but I generally prefer to approach that kind of thing more generally (particularly for antagonists, that generally benefit from being more complex and deep. For less important characters, I've found “Traits, Flaws and Bonds” to allow for quick creation of characters). You could use that system on top of something like this (usually it isn't hard to pull them out of the below, but sometimes using a different system as a base and adding what is missing helps save time).

Motivations and Goals

The motivations and goals of the antagonist could be one of the most important parts of creating an antagonist. Simply, your players may not actually be 100% against a character in your world but only disagree on one specific issue (if your world is more politically based, this may happen more often). Once the current issue is resolved and a new one arises, it may make sense for the old antagonist and the players to be allies. Even if the motivations of your antagonist are completely against the characters (see lich trying to kill everything living), the antagonist's attention may not be on the players because the players have been careful not to be discovered or because the players have not actually acted against the antagonists motivations. This will naturally interact with the personality of the villain, as it will determine what they do if there is no hope of success in their goals anymore (do they fight the party to the death or surrender?).

Personality

The obvious part of creating the personality of an antagonist is thinking about their mannerisms as well as values. However, a character may have multiple motivations and goals that sometimes conflict. In such a case, deciding which goal is most important may fit into their personality (why is one goal more important?). It also helps me to break this into two different parts. Thinking about the mannerisms and outward actions of a character separate from their internal thoughts and decision making process can make sense for characters that lie a lot, for example. Even if they don't, making the decision that the character you created is perfectly honest is still an active decision between these two parts (even the almighty undead lich may have some secrets that are used internally for decisions but never mentioned externally). In one sentence, what does this character know, how do they make their decisions and how do they try to seem?

The methods the antagonist uses to advance towards their motivations are also extremely important. Your antagonist could be an honourable and good person, but their motivation puts them in direct conflict with the players. When I say methods, I also don't mean specifically how they wish to achieve their goal as this may change over time. What methods are off the table? What is this antagonist not willing to do in pursuit of their goals? If your antagonist starts noble and then gets progressively more evil as they become obsessed, this can change. Remembering this helps me take the correct actions in a scenario as well as help define boundaries for antagonists.

Other Things to Considerations

Since each antagonist is different, there may need to be special considerations. Examples include fears and special weaknesses. In both these cases, they will also feed back into the sections mentioned above but would be specific things under the “Preliminary Considerations” and “Personality” (they affect the strength of the character as well as their personality).

In a general sense, any character can be created using this kind of system but often times I find it too involves for character you may only see once (“Traits, Flaws and Bonds” work great for these in D&D 5^th edition). If your game is taking place over the course of one battle where your characters are trying to survive and get their pay, the entire opposing army may be considered an “antagonist” and as such have their own goals (what they want to take) and personality (how is there morale and do they expect an easy fight).

Conclusion

I believe considering the strength, the motivations and goals as well as personality (mannerisms, outward actions and inner thoughts/decision systems) when creating antagonists is important. It helps ensure sure they are well defined and consistent. It can be used regardless of system and though is planned, can be done without railroading players. I hope this helped and if there is anything you wish to add, feel free to say so in the comments.

Examples

Evil Undead Lich

Preliminary Considerations: Very strong.

Motivations and Goals: Kill everything living. Avoid discovery. Stay alive (by which I mean undead).

Personality: Arrogant. Knowledgeable in arcane matters. Lacks business sense. Doesn't trust minions and prefers to do things itself if risk is small enough. Tries to allocate resources as optimally as possible (won't go after players until they actively oppose the lich). Nothing is off the table in terms of pursuit of goals. Will outright lie, including assuming identities. If goal cannot be accomplished, will leave while trying to cause as much damage to opposition (those that wrong it) as safely as possible. If choices needs to be made between its goals and its undead life, it chooses its undead life.

Noble

Preliminary Considerations: Weak. Strength comes from army of bodyguards. Always has at least two ranks of bodyguards in all directions when moving from place to place (assuming square grids, 24 guards). Probably built as low level rogue with emphasis on “noble” skills (if goal is to have players take them out, should be able to be reduced to 0 HP in less than a round).

Motivations and Goals: Get fame and fortune. Help those they deem as “worthy” get more prosperous. Stay alive as long as possible. Optional: Prevent enemy from damaging their kingdom/state.

Personality: Cowardly. Actively will delegate tasks they see as “below them” to other people. They will not actively try to kill or assassinate anyone, except in self-defence through their guards. Their preferred method always involves their goals being put forward and accomplished through the legal system. If confronted in combat, they will try to run away. Talks down to those not of royal blood or not within a profession they deem as acceptable (mainly successful merchants). Slightly paranoid about people trying to kill them (wears heavy armour, despite not having the strength for it), but trusts their guards and staff.