The player characters in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition are, of course, the main characters of a campaign. They are what it lives and dies by. They’re also the other people present around the table, so you’re not just narrating goblins to yourself.

While the PCs are the most important component of a D&D 5e campaign, the villain, the Big Bad Evil Guy, might just be the second most important. Think of some of the best campaigns in D&D 5e, and their villain will typically be one of the most highly recommended things about them.

Would Tomb of Annihilation be half as good if Acererak wasn’t waiting for you at the end? One of the most talked-about parts of Out of the Abyss is the end, where the Demon Lords wreak havoc on one another. And Strahd is so legendary and such a good villain that his module is named after him. Imagine Curse of Strahd without Strahd. Just Curse of wouldn’t be nearly so much fun.

So, a villain is important, and motivation is an important part of your villain. Not to say it’s necessary. In D&D, both Demons and Devils are basically evil ‘just because’, and it’s awesome – but for a more ‘human’ villain, a good motivation can make or break them. Your PCs might hate your villain, want to take him down, and then stop and think “But why does he want to claim the Jewel of the Saints and conquer the world?” and be taken right out of the moment. Motivations make your villain feel real, and real villains inspire real hatred.

So, what are some ideas of potential motivations? I’m glad you asked.

Fear Can Be Sympathetic While Inspiring Great Evil

Fear is a relatable motive. Your D&D 5e BBEG doing things because they’re scared is something the most empathy-lacking player can relate to.

Even if what your D&D campaign villain is doing makes them entirely reprehensible, it’s a strangely human motivation to have. Everyone has been scared, and I’m willing to bet that everyone has done something irrational or unreasonable because they were scared. Of course, most people haven’t tried to slay the world’s last Ancient Golden Dragon to use its corpse in a magical ritual out of fear, but your BBEG might just be dramatic.

It’s also a very versatile motivation. Your villain could be afraid of any number of things, and do any number of things in response. In my first D&D 5e campaign, the villain had been an adventurer infected with a rotting plague and had taken over a death cult so its patron would extend his life. He was entirely reprehensible because he feared death so much that he would inflict it on a thousand others, but his desire not to die was understandable.

In the acclaimed video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Darth Revan attempts to conquer the galaxy out of fear of a Sith invasion, hoping to unite it under his iron-clad dictatorial rule and strengthen it.

So not only does fear humanise a D&D villain nicely, it can also set up for subsequent threats. Unlike, say, a video game, a campaign is unlikely to have just one single villain. Due in part to how threats need to escalate as the PCs level up, and that endearing habit PCs have of killing your villains when you least expect them to, you often need several. And if not a villain, then some big threat.

After this particular villain dies, the thing they’re afraid of can show up and be the next big threat. Were they afraid of the huge legion of Devils pursuing them? Well guess what, the legion is here, and they’re not happy the villain is dead. Were they trying to protect the world against the dreaded Spellstorm, by any means? The spellstorm’s arrived, and it’s hugely dangerous. It also adds some nice build-up to a villain or a threat, something that can be hard to achieve.

So, due to its ability to both humanise your current antagonist and potentially foreshadow a future one, fear is an excellent motivation for your D&D 5e antagonist.

Revenge Can Be As Complex As You Like

Okay, let’s make this clear. Revenge is not an original motive in the slightest. The use of revenge in fiction goes back probably as long as we’ve had fiction. Humanity is a fairly vengeful species, and it shows up a lot in the stories we tell. From Grendel’s Mother in the tale of Beowulf, coming to slay the killer of her son, to Odin conceiving a son solely so that son can kill Hodr for his manslaughter of Baldr, to the Greeks, who told so many stories about revenge it had its own goddess.

But you know what? Originality is overrated, particularly in D&D. Some things are classics for a reason.

Revenge, like fear, can also be a very flexible motive. Your D&D villain might simply want to kill a PC out of revenge for something, whether that something occurred in the backstory or the ‘frontstory’, so to speak. Alternatively, the villain could want revenge on the Queen of the land and have an elaborate plot involving seven artifacts and the Crown Prince that the PCs have to foil.

Revenge can be against a great many people, PC or NPC, take a great many forms, and be for a great many reasons. Unlike fear, which is almost always humanising to some degree, revenge can be used like a dial, to determine how sympathetic you want your D&D BBEG to be. Are they looking for revenge because an earlier evil plot was foiled? Not very sympathetic at all. Do they want an elaborate revenge involving the Crown Prince because the Crown led to their own child dying in hideous agony? It’s more sympathetic, to say the least.

It can also provide a good point of interplay between the PCs and the villain. As discussed in my article about D&D 5e character motivations, a lot of PCs have revenge as their own ideal. Whether it’s overplayed or not, it is ever-popular, with tragic backstories galore.

Thus, a revenge-obsessed villain can make a nice dark reflection of the PC, and maybe help them come to a realisation about themself. Take Captain America: Civil War, for instance. T’Challa spends much of the movie hell-bent on revenge, first on Bucky, and at the very end, on Zemo. As he speaks with Zemo, however, also a man who has done everything to hurt the Avengers, he realises how hollow vengeance is, and lets go of his desire for it, even stopping Zemo from killing himself.

If a similar moment could happen with a PC, I would call that a powerful roleplaying moment. It’d be awesome. Thus, for its roleplaying potential and versatility, revenge makes for an excellent D&D 5e villain motivation.

Altruism Can Be Twisted Into Evil

The Knight Templar. The well-intentioned extremist. The anti-villain. Altruism here doesn’t necessarily refer to a villain doing the right thing, but one who believes they are doing the right thing. One who sees their villainy as a necessity, doing what has to be done to make the world a better place.

In my opinion, altruism is one of the more unsettling villainous motivations in D&D 5e because a villain with it will have already thought about what they’re doing, and decided that it is the best course of action. Perhaps even the only course of action.

They’ll often be unshakeable and do what they do without malice, just a calm resignation that they have to. They might not hate the people in their way, just see them as misguided.

There are countless examples of this in fiction. Jasmine from Angel, for instance, viewed world peace and harmony as worth the total loss of free will (and the lives of the people she had to eat to sustain her form).

Perhaps the most notable case recently, Thanos from Avengers: Infinity War (yes I’m referencing the MCU twice in one article, sorry about that), believes that killing half of all life in the universe isn’t just altruistic, but necessary. He understands why people stands against them, but he can’t let them get in his way.

This even appears in D&D 5e. Curse of Strahd has the Abbot of Saint Markovia, a priest and an actual, literal Angel who believes he is doing the right thing for everyone. The fact that he’s performing human experimentation and creating a sentient woman for the sole purpose of marrying her to the cruel vampire who rules the realm doesn’t give him pause.

An altruistic D&D villain can also be one of the more sympathetic ones. Perhaps they started out as a hero, but events (or magic) corrupted them to what they are. Perhaps they’re still heroic, and hate what they have to do, but won’t let that stop them.

You have the freedom to create as human, sympathetic, and even tragic a villain as you please if they have an altruistic motive. The hard part is getting your PCs to see the point of view of your D&D villain for even one instant.

A Lack of Choice Sets Up Tragedy

This particular D&D villain motivation is a bit less common. This may be so because it could be difficult to run. Nonetheless, fiction is replete with villains forced into their horrific acts, rather than doing them willingly.

Even if, theoretically, this would make whoever’s making them do it the villain, if the person being forced to act as the antagonist is the most obvious face of the threat, he’ll count.

There are hundreds of ways in real life you can make somebody do something they don’t want to do. D&D adds literal magic to make this easier. A pact with some terrible being. The Dominate Person or Geas spells. The threat of something worse if they don’t comply.

It’s not my favourite example to give, but Dominic Toretto in Fate of the Furious (Vin Diesel, for people who don’t want to google the name like I just did) is actually quite a good example. He spends most of the movie as an unwilling antagonist, because Charlize Therone’s character is threatening a previous flame and his infant son.

Alternatively, DMs can look to Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, one of the finest stories Critical Role has put out. Vespin Chloris blends two of these motivations. He attempts to dethrone a Betrayer God for the good of the world. However, Asmodeus then forces him to become his agonised and twisted servant in revenge.

This motive for your D&D 5e villain can create a unique dynamic between your PCs and the BBEG. Do they stop the villain with all their power? Are they okay with killing somebody who arguably has no real choice? Or, instead of swatting this one aside as with so many villains, do they instead try and find a more nuanced solution?

It could be really interesting to see how your players – and their characters – respond to the situation, and I am all for D&D villain motivations putting your PCs in interesting roleplaying circumstances.

These have been four motivations for your D&D villains, in case “raaargh I will conquer the world because I’m so evil” has become a bit tired for you. We hope we’ve inspired you somewhat with this list.

‘Five Ways to Make D&D 5e Quests When Low on Ideas‘ might be the article for you if you have the BBEG worked out, but the bits in-between are getting you down.

Alternatively, check out ‘Tips for Writing a D&D Character Backstory‘ if you’re on the other side of the table and want to bring the best background possible to your DM.

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