Why D&D’s Most Iconic Characters are Villains | Villains in RPGs 

Who is the most *iconic* D&D villain? Thanks so much to WorldAnvil for sponsoring this video! Visit www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike and use the promo code SUPERGEEK to get 40% off any annual membership! www.worldanvil.com/supergeekmike

Another reason big D&D villains can be iconic where other NPCs (heroes or not) can't is because the most well known D&D villains are functionally immortal. You can't permanently fix Barovia because it's Strahd's domain, but also in a way his personal hell. So he'll always be back. Vecna is either the most powerful lich in existence or a literal god, depending on the adventure. Tiamat is a god. Asmodeus and friends are all archdevils who respawn in Hell and are at their most powerful there (which might be the only place they can be killed) and it might actually be fully impossible to permanently kill a demon prince. You can keep writing adventures with these characters because like a horror movie monster it doesn't matter that they're defeated today. They'll be back

I'm running Wild Beyond the Witchlight for a group of teens at the library where I work. These teens love the hags. OH BOY do they love the hags. There is a non-zero chance they're not going to save the imprisoned queen and just all become warlocks of the coven.

I have a minor problem with my players not taking notes and not remembering npc names but the moment an npc is described as "sexy" or if they have a big weapon they can recollect the number of jewels they had on them when they first met 😂. neuron activation I guess

Szass Tam's creepy scene, and the fat dragon chasing everybody around (even though I wish he would have said something!) were the two most memorable scenes to me.

Elminster is pretty iconic because he is also more or less a "stand-in" for the Realm's creator Ed Greenwood. And you could argue he had a "cameo" in the D&D movie (name dropped at least). Also the characters who have their names attached to spells, Bigby, Mordenkainen, Melf, Tasha, those characters fit your description of iconic too. I know these examples don't fit the theme of your video, but I did just want to be the devil's avocado. ;)

I read something interesting about why people are so drawn to villain characters. In most scifi/fantasy/superhero media the villain is the one with a goal. Most of the time that goal is bad, but they are at least motivated to do something while the heroes functionally just want to return things to the status quo.

Everybody loves a well written villain, especially when there is plenty of buildup to the final encounter

Interestingly, Pathfinder has managed to make their Iconics (the example PCs) actually iconic to a fair amount of the fanbase, at least more so than some of their villains (maybe Tar-Baphon is up there?). Maybe this has something to do with PF being a bit more niche than DnD ergo leading to a more disproportionally hardcore fanbase, but maybe it has something to do with the Iconics being all over the artwork (including the adventure paths/modules) and them creating fiction starring them. They also regularly pop up in blog posts on the Paizo website (e.g. the one where Kyra and Merisiel got married). So they have managed to get heroes to be the icons.

Thanks for being that RU-vidr who I learned about Drizzt from.

The most iconic npc from my campaigns would actually probably be Pavel the tavern owner from my longest running campaign

What about Mordenkainen, Bigby, or Tasha? Authors of the iconic spells, Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Bigby's Hand, and Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

14:32 “Matt Mercer is a series of unnamed NPCs that have horrible things happen to them” I love this. In the intros Matt is an epic mystery figure, but in the actual show… not so much. Love it.

Just started DMing Curse of Strahd and the party met two important good NPCs. I made one hot and funny and one a badass competent warrior and that was all it took for my players to love them.

The main reason the villains are the well known icons, and not the heroes is simple: The players are the heroes. There may be iconic good guys here and there, but at the end of the day, the only constant you can see, time and again, is the villains. You don't want to make Iconic heroes that overshadow the players because then there's no point in them being there. If the players were to get all the way to the end of the adventure just in time for Elminster and Drizzt to jump in and finish them off, they'd be justifiably angry. When writing the adventures, the heroes are a blank space to be filled in by your players, but the villains need to be memorable.

I'm literally just watching the ad but getting excited about the video. Cause that's a great question, and I'm so in love with your content that I KNOW it's going to be a good video.

Okay, but when are we gonna see Large Luigi immortalized in visual media?

Villains, monstly in any form of literature, are usually well received and loved because they oppose the heroes and do memorable stuff. I see that kind of reaction a lot in comic fans.

Because they can GET it!

LOL, I'm not thirsty for Strahd. My character (female human swashbuckler) in that campaign has a thing for Ireena!

The only thing I look forward to on Mondays ♥️

I got to say, the most iconic character in my campaigns have not been the villains, but a truly badarse mercenary. More iconic than even my favorite villains, my players love and hate (and desire) him.

I think the problem actually as far as WotC products is concerned is that there are iconic DnD characters, they just are owned by other people. If you ask your average DnD player, particularly anyone who's picked up the hobby in the last 10 years, who their favourite Dnd character is, the names that you are going to be hearing aren't Drizzt or Raistlin or Elminster; they're going to be Scanlan or Jester or Ferne or Fig Faeth or Kristen Applebees. The newest generation of DnD heroes are from online actual plays, not from books 20 years out of print.

My having been in the hobby for years and yet I can name very few heroes and even the least well known are well known to people of a certain age, only 5 are from Critical roll (Scanlan, Jester, Percy, Nott, and Caduceus), outsdide that Volothamp Gendarm, Mordenkainen, Tenser, M. Elf, Eliminster, Kelben "Blackstaff" Arensun, The Simbul, and deep cuts for Dr. Rudolph Van Richten, Alias, Dragonbait, and Olive Ruskettle. Meanwhile I can cut EXTREMELY deep in obscure villains like Iyachthu Xvim (Bane's demigod son who he used to be reborn), Fzoul Chembryl (High Priest of Bane, the person that took over the Zhentarim from Manshoon - another deep cut--and eventually became an Exarch of Bane), or Tchazzar (Red dragon who was revered as a deity among the Chessententians and became an actual deity for a while and still rules a city there), so yeah the whole villain angle is probably the way to go as far as iconics go, they're more memorable and truthfully have more force on the world than even the big names up there.

Acerak's logo definetly is based off from him. It's a tiefling face, he is tiefling originally.

Since I have predominantly run campaigns in my own setting, there are certain Iconic villains that will almost certainly never appear. That doesn't render your points invalid. Speaking of memorable crits/fumbles, ask me about the time my cavalier fumbled an attack roll with a *Sword of Sharpness*.

I feel this would be hard for them since the PC’s are the main characters

I have one module. When I read through it, something felt weird about the NPCs. When I found out that it was filled of cameos that I didn't know, it made sense but was even less appealing for me to run. I don't want to mess up someone's favourite character from a book that I never heard of.

Hot take: Driz'zt is not only not the most interesting drow character in D&D canon, he's not even the most interesting R.A. Salvatore character.

Did I spot a Jayexci cameo? Love her stuff. Big shout out.

On D&D art not depicting PCs - Fighting Fantasy worked out you don't want to decades ago, hence all the illustrations in those books being from a first-person perspective - They show what your character sees, rather than depicting your character, and it's interesting to me that none of the D&D covers you showed don't seem to attempt to do that - The starter sets show the back of an adventurer, for the most part. The others are art designed to showcase a monster or a villain rather than feeling like there's a character where the picture's PoV is from.

Just tickling the algorithm

"Quasiromantic"? Are you kinkshaming me for my lust for the Hunchback of Notre Dame?

The short answer is that the villains are the most iconic because they have a huge impact on the story and the heroes can't be universally iconic because those are the PC's.

Also, if you create powerful NPC, the only way you could add it to the game is for it to compete with players for a spotlight. Even worse, s/he can not be too powerful or ... why s/he doesn't save the day? Is s/he just a powerful jerk? Or trapped? That doesn't sound like s/he is in control. There is a saying that in order for any story to happen, authority must fail in its role to prevent it. Mother goat has to leave her home, mother of Red Riding Hood must not leave her house and Hunter must not attack the Wolf before Wolf eats grandma, or in SW ... Empire is evil, that is quite a fail of an authority. For that reason you must play around, like Mother Goat can exist, but only for the story to end, Hunter can exist, but again only for the story to end.

Elminster?

Personally, I'm on board with the hood, but what the art lacks is a mask. I am the DM, I am noone and everyone, I am the Yuan-Ti you're killing with your magical sword, and the shopkeeper you bought the sword from, and the bad guy who sent the Yuan-Ti there, and the beggar you passed on your journey a day ago, and the noble that sent you in this direction in the fist place. My face can't show, because then I'm doing my job wrong. Which may be why I am on board with the hood - I can pull it into my face Assassin's Creed style and be something that doesn't have a face, like the taste of the soup you're having or the exploding volcano off in the distance.

Honestly, I feel like the best BBEGs are the ones that get the players to root for their demise from Session 1.

Was that HBomberguy?

Also, let's be real. The real heroes are the players DM's guide along the way 🙂.

The real hero of the game is the ampersand...

Content warning (4:23) surprise HBomberGuy. May result in binging all of his videos… again.

16:10 You know in previous editions, characters had official stat blocks, right? Everyone from "D'errr" to Elminster to even Mordenkeinen; to the Heroes of the Lance... But WotC has this thing...I like to think of it as "Laziness", or "the bare minimum"... See, since WotC took over, they started the changes, and one of the changes was less focus on Hero NPC's for the lore, and more focus on Villians... I mean, think about it, was is Mordenkeinen, Bigsby, Tasha, Otto and all the others so "distant past" now, when in 2E they were Legendary Heroes you could seek out? Its because WotC changed the formula of D&D... WotC D&D is now an Adventure that does everything it can to make the Heroes...Super. TSR D&D was an adventure where odds were against you, but if you survived long enough, you could barter help from legends. To put it another way... If WotC D&D is the superhero genre... then TSR D&D was Arthurian Tales (Or Finn Tales, or Beowulf tales...you get the idea). Take a famous fantasy series... The adventures have set up camp, when they are attacked and captured by Trolls. Its very suspensful; but then the Thief starts up about how its best to cook them to the trolls. This lasts awhile, until, unbeknownst to the other party members and the trolls; a thunderous voice bellows out "The Dawn Shall Take You!", as a Legendary Wizard suddenly appears and causes the Dawn's Sun rays to turn the trolls to stone. I know The-Matt-Of-Fabulous-Hair on his channel would say that might take away from the players... but, it also makes the world feel like its bigger, and that there's more lore to be found. In my Homegame, I set the events some 200 years after the game my friends and I played in High School; Some of those characters are still alive, and they have a Legendary Status to them; even if the myth has outgrown the reality of the characters...because it adds depth to the world, to have OTHER heroes in it. Thats what WotC has screwed up in storytelling... Thats why WotC's Forgettable Realms is a joke, and why they seem to have only token acceptance of the other Settings (like Eberron, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, etc)... they dont care...

I’m just putting it out there… I think Drizzt is the most over rated boring and lame character possible. I never understood why anyone likes him 🤷🏻‍♂️ it just doesn’t compute with me haha he’s basically Superman with extra steps