I've gone the recurring villain route many times. Sometimes, your king of awesome just doesn't interest the players "Oh, not him again!" or his appearance heralds cries of, "Oh shit, we're hosed!" or even, "I wish he'd just die.". It can get old, fast.

It's nice to have a nemesis, someone to pin all of your frustrations and misfortune onto. Most campaign worlds are pretty big and the sense of continuity that a recurring villain (or villainous organisation) can bring to the table shouldn't be underestimated. As pointed out above though, not every swing is a hit. Sometimes it's just boring.

I've noticed that my gaming group are more concerned with rival adventurers. Nothing like having your glory nicked by another group of wannabes or find that the quest for the Golden Chalice ends with an empty pedestal 'cos Big Hair St. Handsome got there first. Then seeing them swanning about town and getting acclaim. They don't even have to be villianous.

Of course, that's really stepping on the players toes. That is their job...so there's nothing more likely to generate hate towards an NPC than that.

My last campaign saw the PC group run across an NPC party led by the 'Grey Knight' and compete with them in capturing an artifact known as the Mask of Death. Although the PCs successfully gained the Mask, a lot of animosity existed between the groups. There was a bardic song war, where each group's bard made up insulting songs about the others and sang them in pubs. There was a duel between the PC cleric and a warrior from the other group. When the Grey Knight lost his hand in battle, the PCs laughed their heads off and posted insulting drawings about him around town. In the end, they started stealing stuff from each other and the grudge was finally put aside when one of the NPC group tried to assassinate the PC thief due to a 'horrific' character assassination on him.

They hated that NPC group big-time. Steal even a small amount of your groups glory and you'll earn hatred for the perpetrators. But don't go too far and don't do it often or the campaign will be too negative in tone and the players will get the idea that you want them to fail. Just a little here and there to annoy the fuck out of them and you're set!

Quote from: David RSo of course they clashed, but he managed to escape -  with a hostage. They discovered the hostage unharmed but he was long gone by then.

They have no doubt, he will appear again. He will.

Okay, this is a good thing to keep in mind as another technique to make your villains recurring: give them a strong enough sense of self-preservation that they start looking for an escape route early enough to have a chance to get way. Or even have a plan B or secret passage ready at all times.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOkay, though thinking about this...didn't Champions or some other superhero game have a rule that you'd lose XP for killing? It's hard to know exactly how things went down in Dev's campaigns.

Not Champions, that was [/i]Marvel Super-Heroes[/i].  
And yes, you'd lose Karma if you killed (which was effectively your sum total of action/hero points and that you typically gained through your actions much like XP is gained, but you gained it like 1-4 pts. at a pop.  So if you had 50 Karma and you just popped and snapped The Osprey's neck because he was too dumb to live, who known how much playtime worth of actions you just flushed down the toilet in karma?
Either way, if you have to beg and bribe your group not to kill a villian, your villian has gone way past ever having their respect or fear, and is thus a completely worthless recurring villian/foe.

This is one of those things that works better elsewhere, because players are smarter than that; they know that the only good villain is a permanently dead one.

Quote from: Bradford C. WalkerThis is one of those things that works better elsewhere, because players are smarter than that; they know that the only good villain is a permanently dead one.

There is the rub. A successful recuring villain is more inconvient to kill than to suffer his presence.  That is why the OMFG-Fear-His-Sword-And-Lightning-Bolt-And-His-Fists-Of-Steel-And-His-Big-Black-Hat-Of-100%-Evil-All-The-Time type of villian usually doesn't make a very good recuring villian. Because he ends up dead before he can reoccur.  EDIT: ....or everyone else dies trying to kill him.

Quote from: Elliot WilenOkay, this is a good thing to keep in mind as another technique to make your villains recurring: give them a strong enough sense of self-preservation that they start looking for an escape route early enough to have a chance to get way. Or even have a plan B or secret passage ready at all times.

I think it is also important to remember that you can't give the recurring villain any breaks. By this I mean no fudging (something I did not do, even when I was fudging) and no convenient GM intervention. The pcs should be given an opportunity to dispose of the villain just as they would any other villainous npc.

This is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, you don't want the pcs to think, that the villain is there solely for the amusement of the GM and his/her continued existence is secure regardless of what the pcs do.

And the second. The fact is, that the best kind of villains are the ones, who the pcs love to hate. As a GM, you never really know when this will happen. IME after a while, you get kind of a sixth sense about this. The pcs are not going to like a plot device villian. They will however dig, a villain who escapes/reccurs despites their best efforts.

Regards,
David R