Our villain began his life as a well-intentioned marksman but rose to power as a politician who united several warrior clans to conquer the Western hemisphere due to neglect and a lack of support for his efforts of heroism. He seeks vengeance upon the heroes who once were his allies because they now seek what he once sought but now are gaining much more success than he once did, and this makes him envious.

I personally believe this will make for an interesting RPG, but being as this is my first RPG and thus my first villain, any input is appreciated because, I am quite the novice.

The solution:

Let the PCs beat the villain whenever they manage it. When the villain is dead or gone, have his replacement – brother/superior (the real architect of evil)/loyal servant, etc take his place.

When you design a villain have a plausible couple of more readily designed to take his place. In fact, design the campaign/adventure deliberately to take this into account.

I always liked the style of villain where the PCs know hes the bad guy but hes untouchable (out of reach, keeps getting away, is the king’s brother, etc) for some reason until later. The problem with this style is the PCs get fed up with it if hes untouchable too long or one of them comes up with a great idea to get him before you’re ready but you can’t reasonably say “no it won’t work”.

@Madbrew –longevity and resilience…I like what you’re thinking! Ping me when you’ve got that post up.

I think that longevity and resilience are hallmarks of memorable villains.

The best way to emphasize these is to keep the beyond the character’s reach for an extended length of as well as have more than one scheme in play.

Not getting enough enough sleep Quinn?

I think gamers haven did a show on villains a while back, might be an interesting listen and you could compare what they had to say with what you and the other have come up with.