A professional big bad wolf, Rudolf (also called The Big Bad Wolf, Rudie, or simply Wolfie) is just enough of a villain to move the plot forward.

He tends to be very greedy, easily tempted by food or wealth and often scheming to acquire it from the protagonist of the day. He lives in the forest, only entering the nearby town briefly when his plans require it. He has no home of his own and is content to sleep under any tree in the woods, though he sometimes takes shelter in houses he can find out there, typically without the resident's permission. He is, however, not always a villain; he has a soft spot for especially sympathetic protagonists and can turn heroic in the face of a greater threat.

Like most big bad wolves, Rudolf is prone to defying realism in an almost cartoon fashion. Just about anything can happen around him, as long as it would help the story, but he rarely invokes this on purpose and it can backfire on him just as easily. A side effect of this quirk is that he also lacks the ability to succeed at most things that would break the story.