In one of my D&D mega-cities (a sort of fantasy Constantinople), the city guards are hobgoblins in part to drive home how the organizations and rituals of justice in this place are not human.
I said this in the comments for the poll, but henchmen exist on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, you have clown like minions. All character and no real menace. On the other end of the spectrum, you have voiceless and faceless lieutenants hunting the main characters throughout the story. All menace and almost no character. What happens when you try to make the goons have the max amounts of both character and menace? Well then you get main villains like Darth Vader or Kylo Ren and suddenly you have to either kill off your evil overlord villain, or tone down their impact on the story until they are nothing more than an evil lamp. See Snoke, Sauron, and Palpatine.
I always try to make my villian/ antoginist less pure evil but more like having a reason to be against the protagonist. I like the foil type antagonist. I would potray them as efficient, roofless and brutial when doing their antoginist thing, but would also potray them as being funny, likeable and a family man/woman when not. I may even show them being protective of their underlings, sometimes choosing to fight the protaginist them self rather than sending hordes of minions to die pointlessly. An opposing view or belief rather than evil for evil sake. A victim of the old " you either die as the hero or live long enough to become the villian?"
My D&D setting has otherwise bog-standard necromancers as the main henchmen of the BBEG. They act as frontline officers for the legions of undead, and are themselves a kind of grim inverse of their sworn enemies: a citystate of meritocratic mages. The mages wear robes, indulge in fine wines and comforts, carry themselves haughtily, and are charitable for the purpose of keeping up appearances. The necromancers, meanwhile, also wear robes (but darker, with armor underneath), indulge in plundered goods, carry themselves arrogantly, and are sadistic and cruel for the purpose of establishing dominance. The difference between these two groups is norms. Both have incredibly powerful magic and think themselves above the common people, but only one is willing to throw all the rules out to get to the top. The mages and their institutions are largely useless in protecting the common folk (being too slow to understand and accept the threat), except for the few who have been radicalized into getting their hands dirty.
I started writing notes for a "noble house takes the throne" campaign, influenced by "A Song of Ice and Fire" and the "Kingmaker" adventure path in Pathfinder. So far, I have two houses. One has a Roman Legionary aesthetic. The other has a Teutonic Order aesthetic. The Legionary-style house is who my players would start as retainers to. The Teutonic-style house, I would introduce as antagonists. I have yet to come up with central figures in either. As of this video, I am thinking about who would serve my antagonist.
It depends on what the conflict is about besides just noble houses. Loyalties in these situations stem from long running traditions, realpolitik, and direct benefit.
A very good point. That is something I need to figure out at some point during writing for it. Also, you do very good work with this channel. I will watch your other videos for more advice on how to write this campaign.
Idk, I'm just a hack and I play those tabletop rpgs, but challenges are different than placing a protagonist in danger. Then there is sacrifice; what does he or she want and what will they sacrifice to get it? I think there is a bit of variation there in that what is love but sacrifice? In kung fu movies the hero comes up against the boss and his superior powers and being defeated, must mutate and change. The asdorted grades of minions are worth examinations because beats like flipping/side change benefits from nuance and dimensionality. You provided the example of Mercenaries; do they have a desire for reputation among their peers, or do tjey merely have a childlike and simplistic desire for cash? One does not risk getting shot for some petty distinction, a ribon and a few dollars. Only a moronic half wit follows a "leader" into the jaws of death when tjat "leader" only wants cash. Thus we have more to work with and the audience faces a situation where they can respect or at least understand that the antagonists show some virtue or trait of personality that they can relate to and that should the protagonist win through, they lose a compelling villain. Humans have a need and drive for the spiritual and divine; remove this and they invent ideology. I think ideology gets a simplistic representation much of the time. You end up selling the audience (or players) cheap, two bit minions and villains with equally cheap and thin motivation. Of course I'm a nobody so thats what that score is. As an aside, we can say what we wish about the Small Mustache Man and the mid-century Germans, but their uniforms were immaculate. Thanks for the interesting video production, cheers!
ive always been a sucker for those what i call the villians Liuetenats like those recurring villinas with like 5 mins screen time but are the most compentent like the wolf leader in kun fu panda 2, boba fett
The 1990 Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles movie did a surprisingly good job of explaining where the henchmen come from and giving one of them a mini arc.
In one of my D&D mega-cities (a sort of fantasy Constantinople), the city guards are hobgoblins in part to drive home how the organizations and rituals of justice in this place are not human.
City Guards as evil henchmen. Like in real life.
I said this in the comments for the poll, but henchmen exist on a spectrum.
On one end of the spectrum, you have clown like minions. All character and no real menace.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have voiceless and faceless lieutenants hunting the main characters throughout the story. All menace and almost no character.
What happens when you try to make the goons have the max amounts of both character and menace? Well then you get main villains like Darth Vader or Kylo Ren and suddenly you have to either kill off your evil overlord villain, or tone down their impact on the story until they are nothing more than an evil lamp. See Snoke, Sauron, and Palpatine.
I always try to make my villian/ antoginist less pure evil but more like having a reason to be against the protagonist. I like the foil type antagonist.
I would potray them as efficient, roofless and brutial when doing their antoginist thing, but would also potray them as being funny, likeable and a family man/woman when not. I may even show them being protective of their underlings, sometimes choosing to fight the protaginist them self rather than sending hordes of minions to die pointlessly.
An opposing view or belief rather than evil for evil sake.
A victim of the old " you either die as the hero or live long enough to become the villian?"
My D&D setting has otherwise bog-standard necromancers as the main henchmen of the BBEG. They act as frontline officers for the legions of undead, and are themselves a kind of grim inverse of their sworn enemies: a citystate of meritocratic mages. The mages wear robes, indulge in fine wines and comforts, carry themselves haughtily, and are charitable for the purpose of keeping up appearances. The necromancers, meanwhile, also wear robes (but darker, with armor underneath), indulge in plundered goods, carry themselves arrogantly, and are sadistic and cruel for the purpose of establishing dominance.
The difference between these two groups is norms. Both have incredibly powerful magic and think themselves above the common people, but only one is willing to throw all the rules out to get to the top. The mages and their institutions are largely useless in protecting the common folk (being too slow to understand and accept the threat), except for the few who have been radicalized into getting their hands dirty.
I started writing notes for a "noble house takes the throne" campaign, influenced by "A Song of Ice and Fire" and the "Kingmaker" adventure path in Pathfinder. So far, I have two houses. One has a Roman Legionary aesthetic. The other has a Teutonic Order aesthetic. The Legionary-style house is who my players would start as retainers to. The Teutonic-style house, I would introduce as antagonists. I have yet to come up with central figures in either. As of this video, I am thinking about who would serve my antagonist.
It depends on what the conflict is about besides just noble houses. Loyalties in these situations stem from long running traditions, realpolitik, and direct benefit.
A very good point. That is something I need to figure out at some point during writing for it.
Also, you do very good work with this channel. I will watch your other videos for more advice on how to write this campaign.
Well i am writing about undead, Beastmen and Dark elf
Could be nice on how they work together
2:20 Well in the end Donald and the boys are yjust contracted minios of Scrooge
Idk, I'm just a hack and I play those tabletop rpgs, but challenges are different than placing a protagonist in danger. Then there is sacrifice; what does he or she want and what will they sacrifice to get it? I think there is a bit of variation there in that what is love but sacrifice?
In kung fu movies the hero comes up against the boss and his superior powers and being defeated, must mutate and change.
The asdorted grades of minions are worth examinations because beats like flipping/side change benefits from nuance and dimensionality. You provided the example of Mercenaries; do they have a desire for reputation among their peers, or do tjey merely have a childlike and simplistic desire for cash? One does not risk getting shot for some petty distinction, a ribon and a few dollars. Only a moronic half wit follows a "leader" into the jaws of death when tjat "leader" only wants cash. Thus we have more to work with and the audience faces a situation where they can respect or at least understand that the antagonists show some virtue or trait of personality that they can relate to and that should the protagonist win through, they lose a compelling villain.
Humans have a need and drive for the spiritual and divine; remove this and they invent ideology. I think ideology gets a simplistic representation much of the time. You end up selling the audience (or players) cheap, two bit minions and villains with equally cheap and thin motivation.
Of course I'm a nobody so thats what that score is.
As an aside, we can say what we wish about the Small Mustache Man and the mid-century Germans, but their uniforms were immaculate.
Thanks for the interesting video production, cheers!
I don't know why you mentioned fascists. This is supposed to be a video about bad guys.
Yeah, true. They're giving even goons a bad name.
ive always been a sucker for those what i call the villians Liuetenats like those recurring villinas with like 5 mins screen time but are the most compentent like the wolf leader in kun fu panda 2, boba fett
Yep, often times even more interesting than the main antagonist.