Gotham Nights: Thinking About Villains

Was reading some comics and of course the Joker was involved. So it had me thinking a bit about him as a villain. 

The Batman Role-Playing Game says this:

“The Joker takes a perverse delight in matching wits with the Batman, who always manages to foil the Clown Prince of Crime's schemes and return him to Arkham Asylum.”

He’s not just a villain. He’s a pattern. Whole adventures orbit him because he drags the story into a different kind of tension. His crimes aren’t about loot or power. They’re about attention. About theater. About pulling Batman into a story he didn’t choose.  

When I read the GM section many moons ago, it clicked. Villains aren’t obstacles. 

They’re frameworks. 

The book even tells you to think about “Level of Opposition” and “Critical Points” when building an adventure. That’s the Joker in practice. He’s both the Level and all the Critical Points. He writes the script for trouble. I started imagining swapping him out. What happens if you run his schemes with a street-level mob boss instead? 

It just doesn't work. That bank robbery, is just another bank robbery, it won have that jazz and weird psychopathic feelings the Joker gives you as he's running around tossing knives at the hero while laughing his head off.

Then I think about campaign rhythm. You can’t run Joker every time. The book even warns that heroes need variety. If they always chase the same pattern, it goes stale. So maybe the trick is using him as punctuation. Break the rhythm of thugs and mob bosses with one of his “games.” Let him design your Critical Points for you.  
I jot this down like advice to myself: don’t just pick a villain. Pick the shape of the adventure. Some villains are blunt instruments. 

 
And yeah, the next time I’m running, I kind of hope the players get a little cocky. Because the first time that paper airplane drifts through the window, it’s going to set the tone.  

Boom!