Quote:
Originally Posted by Brett
I prefer to plan in terms of an antagonist rather than a villain, and "feel strongly about opposing" rather than "love to hate", because an ambivalent relationship with the opponent stops the intrigue and so forth from collapsing into assassination and outright war.
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I second this approach. Some games will benefit from a clear-cut "evil supervillain" who the PCs can unquestioningly oppose and triumph over.
Others, depending on gaming group and campaign flavor, will benefit from "shades of grey morality". The campaign I'm running right now is set in a civil war, and there really isn't any clear "good guy" faction. There are plenty of factions that do terrible things to each other and to the hapless civilians in the crossfire... but almost every one of the factions has something to recommend it, something that the players might think twice about opposing and demolishing. They all have negative aspects and the players could choose any one of them as the villains of the piece, but I leave that for them to reason through rather than imposing that on them.
It's the difference between the Wicked Queen in Snow White vs. Shakespeare's Macbeth. Even if the villain is ultimately bad news and he must ultimately be removed for the greater good, I like to give him enough redeeming qualities so that the players might think "there, but for the grace of God, go I".