My contract usually forbids this sort of blatant hinting and fourth-wall pounding, but the Management’s busy applying to library school; she won’t notice a thing, and even if she is paying attention, I’m pretty sure she won’t care. So let me make a couple of things clear.
One: I’ve been doing this regularly for two years [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, Generic Villain | 
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You are The Main Villain, and it’s your time. The part where you reveal yourself to those foolish heroes who choose to defy you. You’ve got your best armor/biggest coat/creepiest prosthetics/most intimidating combination of visible magic effects, the spot where you’re supposed to come in is just right, and all you have to do is [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, first impressions, Generic Villain, poses | No Comments »
Let’s face it: the mad scientists among us are prone to some questionable behaviors—and I don’t mean morally questionable, that’s all of us, but questionable in the “seriously, what were you thinking?” sort of way. One of the most popular of these behaviors, from the biologists who make up the majority of the mad scientist [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, experiments, Generic Villain, mad science, superhuman powers | 1 Comment »
Most of us have a pretty good idea how to deal with protagonists who figure their claim on victory is due to their greater moral fiber or their Power of Love and Friendship. This isn’t about them. This is about offshoot parallels of theirs who most often show up in gray and gray morality pieces [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, common sense protagonists, Generic Villain | No Comments »
Happy New Year from the minions, the Management, and me!
So you’ve won! Your greatest foe is (at least apparently) dead, the allies are scattered, the minions are cleaning up the mess, and it’s time to party. And why not? It’s good for morale, it’ll let you de-stress yourself a bit, and it’ll be fun! But [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, Generic Villain, PR, victory celebrations | No Comments »
RPG Blog Carnival this month is on the topic of Heroes, Living and Dead—and having appealed to the Management’s sense of the ironic, I’ve persuaded her to let me take the first stab at it. I talk about living heroes all the time, those little impediments, but I haven’t done quite so much about the [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, dead heroes, Generic Villain | 1 Comment »
We all know how important intimidation value is, so it’s not surprising that we make sure our minions sound impressive from the moment they’re introduced. The trouble is, many of us really aren’t that good at it, giving them dramatic titles or noun-phrase names that instead of invoking trembling bring forth raised eyebrows, muffled snorts [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, Generic Villain, names, titles | 1 Comment »
You have to admit, it’s a tempting thought. You’re powerful, you can handle it, and there’s this miles-long creature you know perfectly well you could control. What’s the first thing a lot of us think? Let’s build on that thing!
On the one hand, it makes sense. It gives you a self-moving base of operations that [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, Generic Villain, giant monsters, monster-mounted citadels | 1 Comment »
Let’s assume for a moment that you’re one of those Hands of Darkness who sits at the end of a long, travel-intensive struggle for survival on the part of an at best awkward and at worst utterly mismatched crowd of protagonists, probably with some grand ulterior goal or guiding idea of world-saving, whatever the heck [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, decisive strikes, Generic Villain, timing | No Comments »
Yes, I’m well aware that in the media the Management usually caters to, this is unlikely to come up, but I’ve seen enough fellow Hands of Darkness trip over this concept that I find myself obligated to comment on. The issue is the villain song.
The idea? Simple. We’re stuck in a world where every major [...]
Categories: Generic Villain |
Tags: advice for antagonists, audiovisual media, Generic Villain, villain songs | No Comments »