Underwear Gnome Villains

A villains plan needs to make sense given his character.

It doesn’t need to make good sense, but it needs to make sense based on what he wants to accomplish, what he’s willing to sacrifice for it, and what he wants.

I’m not saying a villain can’t have a plan that might be insane (if you want to portray him that way) or demonstrate poor judgment. Those are both ok. But, as an example, which of these below seems more reasonable?

Bob wants to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, so he arranges for a Princess to be assassinated, hoping that this will result in heroes coming along to flout the assassination and then discover that his assassins were dispatched from the Temple of Goobers where he will hide himself as a beggar providing advice and magic items, so that he can sneak into the temple with the heroes. However, he also arranges for a tribe of orcs to try to kill them on route to the Temple of Goobers so that he can delay them long enough for him to make suitable preparations. After the Demon Lord is resurrected, he plans on ruling the kingdom (which will now be flooded with demons and fire ants).

Charlie wants to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, so he sets up shop in an old burned out temple complex. He needs manpower, so he makes forays out and decides that messing with the local lizardfolk tribes is the best bet because nobody cares about them, and they’re dumb and superstitious enough that he can keep them overawed. However, there is also a nearby human settlement and he sics his lizardfolk on the settlement, wanting to drive off the humans who live there, so that nobody who might know what is going on, will realize what he’s up to.

Dan wants to rule the kingdom, and so he has contracted with a collection of evil wizards to resurrect the Demon Lord of Fire Ants. He imagines that with the power of the Demon Lord at his disposal he will be able to not only control the kingdom, but spread his power elsewhere, and that as the one instrumental in the resurrection of the demon lord, he will ‘hold the strings’ so to speak. He’s done it to noblemen and even thugs in the streets (the local guildsmasters answer to him). He’s a political mover and shaker, and one of the major power brokers in the kingdom, but he wants that crown on his own head. He uses those guildmasters to cover for him, and to get him money to pay for expensive reagents for his wizards.

Eamon is a fanatical cult worshipper of the Demon Lord of Fire Ants. All is proceeding as he intended. The heroes will assault his facility and provide him with either their own deaths, or the deaths of his minions. They will be unstoppable. There is no flaw in his plan, no mindset he has not left available to exploit and he is able to react to decisions of heroes opposing him with a constant nigh clairsentient capability to predict their actions and twist them to his own benefit. He will see the Demon Lord resurrected, oh yes! And then he will cast himself into his gaping maw, so that he will be spared the glorious desolations to follow.

Which is the best set up for a villain? If you mentioned Dan, I’d agree. If you mentioned Bob, Charlie or Eamon, well, I’ll tell you why I think that’s wrong. Putting aside that they’re strawmen I created in about two minutes.

Bob’s plan makes no damned sense. He’s a collection of disconnected plots lazily slammed together under one bad guy. He also represents the design problem of a bad guy who the DM wants to be responsible for everything. So he’s required to oppose actions beneficial to his own plan quite frequently. Also, he has no real end goal plan, no real motivation besides being an ass. What does he want? What does he gain from the Demon Lord rampaging around and ruining everyone’s lawn? He doesn’t. He just exists so the heroes have a name to point to as a big bad. And his end game plan requires the players to pick up a beggar who I can promise you will so obviously shout ‘trap NPC’ to them that they will need ear plugs.

Eamon’s plan seems more thought out. He actually has a motivation. He’s a cultist, driven by insane dedication to his god, and his eschatological aims are to become his god’s lunch first to avoid what he sees as inevitable horrors visited upon the world. However, he doesn’t actually have a plan. He has a plot. A plot his DM doesn’t want to deviate from. Eamon benefits from his plan being developed retroactively to the PC’s actions. Anything they do to try to stop him, he’d already planned for. He didn’t actually plan for it, the DM invented it after the fact. He’s going to summon his boss, the PCs are going to probably fight him in a throne room, and they won’t get too engaged because they’ll have little train whistles going.

Charlie might seem like the guy I’m putting up as the ‘good example,’ but he’s not. His plan is sensible. It’s downright well thought out, and the ‘flaws’ of his plan are what bring the PCs in. The problem with Charlie isn’t his plan. It’s Charlie.  There is no Charlie. Charlie is just his plan and methods. He’s got no personality. He’s a collection of the most pragmatic actions, coupled with a good amount of verisimilitude. Now, you could make him the kind of guy who is super pragmatic, but you need to explain why the super pragmatic guy wants to summon up the Demon Lord of Fire Ants, not just how.

Now..Dan’s plan, is stupid. He’s an arrogant dolt.

He obviously has bitten off more than he can chew, but his personal arrogance keeps him at it. He’s the ‘big fish, little pond’ bad guy, and as a result people can understand that. Whereas Bob is a nonsensical name attached to a pile of bad tropes and Eamon is a railroad conductor, and Charlie is a ghost with good operating principles, Dan is a self-important asshole with a dream. He’s the kind of guy players have probably dealt with in their real lives. The guy who thinks he knows better, even outside his own field.

He knows how to push around thugs and bureaucrats, so he thinks he can handle a duke of hell. And that’s a thing, he has to be ruthlessly competent in his little pond. What’s the difference? While his plan might be idiocy, its sensible, understandable, idiocy based on his character and morals. The PCs can deal with it, they can interact with it and him, and get a sense of his personality from what he does. They can use his personality against him, so they benefit from learning it. So when they fight him, they might actually give a damn. Also, because he has a real reason (dumb as it is) for doing what he does, the players and not just the characters can feel a sense of accomplishment for defeating him.

Take the Underwear Gnomes clip as a koan. Is Spook saying that they represent well written villains (for having a stupid plan because they themselves are greedy morons) or that they represent poorly written ones (for just being about their plan, and their plan making no sense)?

Not even he knows.