How to Create "Evil" Characters for Your RPGs

Role-playing games have evolved a great deal since their initial rise to success in the 1970's. Back then, it was quite common to find both college and high school students gathered around coffee tables in their parent's basement, calculating endless amounts of statistics, modifiers and attributes for hours on end. Those days are nearly over - today's youth find the lure of graphic-based video games too appealing to resist. After all, why use your imagination, and do what amounts to a good deal of bookwork just to play a game, when it's so easy to just switch on the television and grab a video game controller.

But there are still some dedicated individuals who enjoy the traditional pencil and paper role playing games as they once were, and of course many others enjoy the more recent incarnations of such games; Diablo, Neverwinter Nights, and World of Warcraft are just a few of the more popular video game titles that are based (at least in concept) on pencil and paper role playing games.

Many of these games allow players to create their own worlds, complete with monsters, challenges and treasures that are all dreamed up and positioned by the player. This mimics the role of a "Dungeon Master" or "Storyteller" in a traditional pencil and paper role playing game - the player who sets up the world and dictates when and why everything happens in the game. And one of the biggest challenges to those who are developing their own story or game world is in the creation of believable, evil characters for your good players to face off against.

Evil characters may have any number of different motivations. Greed is usually the most common motivating factor for a believable RPG villain, but nearly anything can work. Remember, however, that nobody truly thinks of themselves as being "evil" - even the most cruelest and wickedest of dictators still believes that their cause is the right one, and that they are doing a noble thing in pursuing their cause - no matter what the means are.

Remember that evil characters rarely act alone. Though secret agents or specialized fighters may be sent alone on a mission or to complete a task, they are almost always involved with some sort of group, and this group is usually nearby. And while evil leaders and kings may have the final say on everything that goes on in their lands, their strength would be greatly limited without the backing of their loyal army.

While most evil characters make their alignment known simply by their looks or actions, for some it may be hard to tell whether or not they are "good" or "evil. These make for compelling and interesting characters, and can provide some challenge puzzles for your players to solve in order to find out a character's true identity.