>Villain completely disconnected from the main story
>Party keeps going on after defeating it
>Villain keeps coming back, defying death or being revived in a different form alltogether
>Villain starts suave and confident
>Slowly becomes seething with rage and revenge as the party continues to defeat him
>Villain that constantly loses to the party but only needs to win once to completely wreck everyone and everything
>killing the villain just makes things worse
My favorite has to be Manshoon, because when he got killed, all his stasis clones simultaneously awoke and started to wage war on each other.
I'm a really big fan of villains that think they're in the right and that they're doing stuff for the right reasons, despite clearly being fucked up.
Alternatively it's fun to just play someone who's utterly evil and revels in it.
I'm a fan of what I call the Ambitious Nostalgic Mourning Immortal. A character, usually immortal, that has suffered a loss and will do ANYTHING to bring it back. Often they'll do anything to bring Them back.
>wizard turned lich to bring back a loved one
>the inventor and their clockwork child
>vampire pining for a bygone era
>intelligent golem with no master
>former human wants to be human
The part that separates them from heroes is the "anything" bit, with a side order of obsession and delusion. Everything will be okay again. It has to be.
>villain is a slut
Never fails to rustle the jimmies of the virgins at my table.
It's not that interesting unless it's scaled up.
20 minutes
>play session 0 as hijinks-filled bar encounter or similar
>session 1 takes place years later
>villain is a random dude from session 0 who either has a bone to pick with the party or is legitimately trying to improve society after seeing what the party has done, but by questionable means
In short, I love it when the party is responsible for creating their own villains.
Villains shares details of life with a hero, and thinks if the hero was a more virtuous man or if they had experienced a specific moment of revelation they'd be more like villain. Maybe this only increases their rage at the hero, or maybe this makes them kinder to them and try to get the hero to change their side.
As either an npc or secondary villain I'm a fan of guy who lost control of something he created or manipulated. They can either be in denial, remorseful, or enraged by the thing they were the master of.
Mostly heroic character serves villain due to something they care about being held hostage, or due to a strange code of honour.
They can either plead to the heroes to just run away, or be silent and stoic.
Or mostly heroic character who is actually planning to betray the villain, but still needs to keep the act up for now.
Good shit right here
That's very broad.
There's 4 main categories of villains I think.
Guy who's an evil motherfucker. Loves things like death and torture for their own sake.
Wild animal / non-sentient machine
Guy who has a reasonable goal, but their method of achieving it is too extreme. (first thing you mentioned)
Guy who's actually entirely in the right. Either it's always known they're the good guy, or it's a reveal later on.