To Kill a Henchman
June 14th, 2010
Hello everyone. In light of the positive response to “Mastering Dungeons,” my two-part article discussing the ins and outs of dungeon design, today’s article will once again foray out of the comfortable zone of game design theory and into the realms of the Dungeon Master (or “Game Master,” as the case may be). The subject this time? How to make a good villain. Unlike the “Mastering Dungeons” articles, however, we’re zooming in a bit more this time—instead of trying to cover all the ins and outs of villainy in one or two articles, this article is all about a single aspect of your villain: the means by which you demonstrate his evil ways to your PCs (and, more importantly, your players) while avoiding what I like to call the “Vegeta Complex.”
The “Vegeta Complex” (known in some places as the “you have failed me” trope) is a phenomenon which occurs when the villain needlessly slaughters his own followers for failing him—even if it was their first failure in years of loyal service and the failure may not even have been their fault. The complex gets its name from the Dragonball Z villain of the same name who murders his long-time henchman—a loyal and generally capable follower who is also now Vegeta’s only such subject—for losing a single fight against a superior foe, and is one of the worst examples of this in particular villainous pitfall I have ever seen. The reason that this sort of thing ever occurs (in fiction, at least) is because it makes perfect sense from a writer or director’s standpoint: it is an easy way to demonstrate that the villain is, in fact, quite evil, and that he places little to no value on the lives of others, even his loyal followers. This is a very useful tool, then, because with very minimal effort (after all, we’ve all seen Star Wars, and Vegeta-complex scenes more or less write themselves, at this point) we can clue the audience in to the fact that this is the bad-guy and they need to sit up and pay attention, because he means business.
Unfortunately, from an in-character perspective, the entire thing makes absolutely no sense: what has your villain gained by killing this henchman, who was valued and helpful in previous situations, and has the ability to be so again? As long as the henchman is loyal, he can always be put to some other task. In fact, many of the minions killed in this way are highly skilled, and have years and years of excellent service behind them (presumably flawless service, considering the villain’s policy on failure). Contrary to what kung fu movies would have you believe, ninja assassins don’t grow on trees, and they probably don’t come cheap. Having a reputation for killing your underlings isn’t going to make it any easier to hire them, either (some might argue that punishing failure with death could inspire other minions to work harder, so as to avoid suffering the same fate, but I’m pretty sure what it would lead to is a rebellion, or at the very least desertion). Quite possibly you’ll have to train new ones from the ground up (especially if you want them to be loyal to you). I can’t even begin to count the number of extra-super-cheesy Saturday morning cartoon villains who killed their henchmen off one-by-one for failing to defeat the protagonists, instead of waiting for them to heal up, then pooling three or four of them together and sending them back on what would likely have been a successful mission. And that’s precisely what your players are going to see, too: a cheesy, over-the-top Saturday morning cartoon villain. Now, if that’s what you’re after that’s fine, but the point is that killing your own men doesn’t go very far towards making him impressive or believable (I have, in fact, known PCs to laugh in the face of a villain who did this sort of thing, mocking him for his poor resource management and tactical skills, and wondering aloud how he could have ever hoped to accomplish anything).
Of course, that isn’t to say that your villain can’t kill his henchmen, if that particular trope appeals to you. It’s simply delicate, and needs to be done well, if it’s going to be done at all. There are, by my estimation, four ways for a villain to believably go about killing his own minions (though with some work you could probably produce several more, especially if they were more context-specific). Ultimately, it all comes down to motivation: your villain needs a reason to go around killing his own men, and there has to be more to it than just allowing you to demonstrate to your players that this guy is playing for keeps (though, ironically, if your villain has a reason to care much about the PCs, he might actually kill his followers to intimidate the PCs and demonstrate to them that he means business, even as you demonstrate the same thing to their players).
The first good way to let your villain start offing his cronies is to give him some anger issues. As we discussed above, it’s a little ridiculous for a cool, calm, and composed baddy to start throwing away his best men and be taken as a serious threat (at least, intellectually), but someone in the grips of homicidal rage doesn’t care as much about what makes sense. He’s angry, and someone has to pay for it RIGHT NOW. It’s not that he really thinks it’s the smart thing to do; it’s that when he’s angry, all he can think about is doing some damage to someone. Sometimes it’s just a matter of punching a hole in the nearby wall, or destroying the furniture. But when he gets really mad (or when his henchmen get a little too close) he just doesn’t hold back, unfortunately for his victims. This goes a long way to making the villain more interesting as well: for one, berserkers are scary, and not just because they tend to be bigger and stronger. Generally speaking, people expect other people to behave rationally. But when someone makes it clear that they care more about hurting you than they do about their own well-being, alarms tend to go off in most peoples’ minds. It’s no longer about “can I take him,” because you have no idea how far he’s going to go. He’s unpredictable. And, more than that, that kind of single-minded dedication to violence is something that most people have real trouble comprehending.
But it also gives your villain a flaw: something that gives him both depth and a weakness which can be exploited by clever PCs. If your villain goes around killing people for (apparently) no reason, it tells your audience that he’s evil, but it doesn’t tell them much else. If he kills them because he has anger issues, that’s another thing. Maybe they can use it against him. They could goad him into acting prematurely and making a mistake: after all, he clearly has a short fuse. On the other hand, perhaps the PCs can point him at someone else, and let him explode in that direction, making him someone else’s problem. And, of course, it’s possible that if they can get to the root of his anger, they might be able to redeem him (especially if that anger is coming from, say, lycanthropy, and not hot-blooded barbarian spirit).
The next two ways are similar enough that they can both be covered together, and ultimately they boil down to your villain getting his jollies from disposing of his minions. It can be as simple as sadism (wherein your villain enjoys causing pain and suffering) or something a little more complicated, such as a hedonistic streak (in this case what he’s getting out of killing his minions isn’t so much the fact that they’re dying, but the fact that he is able to casually dispose of them). It may not seem like very much of a reason, and it’s true that the villain is still making the decision to lose a valuable tool, but he gets a very deep satisfaction out of it, and even if it isn’t tangible (though it certainly could be—villains such as vampires, who feed on the living, could feed on those who fail them believably enough: after all, they have to feed on someone, right?) it’s still very important to the villain.
The biggest thing to note here is that you have to make sure to play up the enjoyment that your villain gets from killing his men. Your players have to understand that the villain has a very deep-seated need to kill (or, again, in the case of hedonism, to perform in obscene displays of excess, such as disposing of people the way one might their leftovers). If you don’t sell it hard enough (an evil grin of pleasure, an amused cackle, or, if you don’t mind your villain being just a tad effeminate, perhaps even clapping his hands with glee) your players will assume he’s just doing the same old thing.
It’s also worth noting that unlike rage, sadism and hedonism are more likely to cause your players to react with disgust than fear. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: disgust can be a great emotion to feel towards a villain, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the emotion you want, so bear that in mind. It’s also somewhat less likely that the PCs will get much in the way of a weakness to exploit, here, either (though it would be an excellent way to reveal that your villain is secretly a cannibal…).
Finally, you can have your villain truly gain something from the henchman’s death. Though a henchman is a terrible thing to waste, there are certainly times when you can profit from it—sometimes quite literally: one of my favorite examples of this option comes from the very unlikely place of the Pokemon Saturday-morning cartoon series. Sick of his underlings failing at every turn, the head of the “infamous” crime syndicate Team Rocket orders the two flunkies in question to fly an old, derelict blimp somewhere for some excuse or other. The blimp is heavily insured, and given their track record, it’s a safe bet that it won’t survive the trip, thusly gaining Team Rocket a hefty capital income at the expense of two of their least-important members. Pretty smart for a cartoon villain.
In practice, the easiest way to use this is with necromancers, who can kill and then raise minions who have trouble obeying orders (you could also use it as a punishment for incompetence, but considering the wide range of things that the living can do and most undead can’t, this is still a policy that it isn’t wise to take too far). The important thing to play up to your PCs with this approach is that the villain is making the decision for purely logical reasons—he doesn’t care one iota about the henchman other than in his ability to be useful, and so the second the henchman’s death is more valuable than his life, he’s a goner (in fact, this is generally what most Vegeta-complex moments are trying to demonstrate, they just make the mistake of not actually making the henchman’s death more valuable). If there’s one thing that’s scarier than a villain who can’t be reasoned with because of rage issues, it’s a villain who has no emotions whatsoever, and pursues his goals with a true and total cold-blooded ruthlessness.
And that is about all I have to say on the Vegeta complex and how to work around it in your game. It is, of course, important to note that there are numerous ways to demonstrate your villain’s, well, villainy besides killing his own men. Breaking taboos is an excellent way to do that, or he could always kill people who aren’t on his payroll with alarming frequency. Of course, for most players there is no way to inspire greater hatred than to let him outsmart them (it’s gotta be legitimate, or they’ll just hate you. Sorry. That’s the breaks.), especially if it means taking away their hard-earned stuff (or beloved NPCs, or their fame and popularity, or whatever they hold dear).
I’m still trying to find the right balance with Dark Designs, and get it into the place where it can best serve you, O gentle reader. To that end, I would absolutely love any feedback you can give me on this article: too in-depth? Too many side-comments? Not enough side-comments? More stories? Less stories? Already know all about villains but really want to know about making maps? Send me an e-mail with your thoughts and—limited time offer only—I promise to respond to each and every one I get over the next three weeks, as long as they’re related to Dark Designs in some way.
And, if you find yourself sufficiently thirsty for a quality villain, perhaps I can interest you in Ulamog's Crusher, the Eldrazi du jour?
First, the pathfinder vintage:
Ulamog's Crusher (CR 14)
XP 38,400
N Huge aberration (extraplanar, eldrazi)
Init +2; Senses low-light vision, darkvision, blindsight; Perception +28
Aura Aura of Annihilation
DEFENSE
AC 30, touch 10, flat-footed 28 (+2 Dex, +20 natural, –2 size)
hp 230 (20d8+140)
Fort +14, Ref +10, Will +17
Defensive Abilities rock catching; Immune critical hits, disease, energy drain, massive damage, mind-affecting, negative energy, poison, sleep, stunning SR 25
OFFENSE
Speed 50 ft.
Melee 2 slams +28 (2d6+15)
Ranged rock +17 (4d6+22)
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks consume spawn, rock throwing (140 ft.)
STATISTICS
Str 40, Dex 14, Con 23, Int 2, Wis 20, Cha 15
Base Atk +15; CMB +31; CMD 43
Feats Awesome Blow, Cleave, Toughness, Improved Bull Rush, Lightning Reflexes, Improved Sunder, Improved Vital Strike, Great Fortitude, Power Attack, Vital Strike
Skills Climb +18, Perception +28
Languages Eldrazi (can’t speak)
SQ
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Aura of Annihilation (Su): Any living creature who moves or begins his turn within 40 feet of Ulamog's Crusher takes 4d6 negative energy damage. For each point of negative energy damage dealt this way, Ulamog's Crusher heals 1 hit point.
Consume Spawn (Su): As a swift action at the beginning of each round, Ulamog’s crusher can absorb the life essence stored in nearby Eldrazi spawn. Ulamog’s crusher sacrifices a single willing Eldrazi spawn who iswithin range of Ulamog’s crusher’s aura of annihilation, reducing the Eldrazi spawn to 0 hit points and destroying it utterly. If it does so, Ulamog’s crusher may make an extra full-attack action this round. (For example, Ulamog’s crusher could charge and then make a full-attack, or it could run and then make a full-attack, or it could make two full-attacks, etc.)
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary
Treasure incidental
And, if that's not to your taste, perhaps you would prefer one of the 4th edition variety?
