Roger Clifford

"Why are you in such a hurry, Tim? She's filled me in on what you're doing. I understand that you've captured Keith...and now you've managed to wreck my machine. That's quite an accomplishment. Listen up. Open the valves on both sides of the machine and start it up!"

- Roger to Tim after capturing Emilia.

Roger Clifford, better known as simply Roger, or The Mastermind, is the main antagonist of the 2018 video game Detective Pikachu, a spin-off of the Pokémon franchise. He is the seemingly friendly producer of the TV network GNN, who is later revealed to be the one behind all the Pokémon-related incidents affecting the city.

He is voiced by Xander Mobus in English, and by Hiroki Tōchi in Japanese.

Past
Roger was the producer of the GNN TV station, and was highly successful at his job due to his charisma, friendly nature and good ideas. At some point prior to the game, he discovered Pokémon Comprehensive Laboratory's failed miracle drug called R, which, due to being derived from Mewtwo's cells, would cause any Pokémon that consumed it to become incredibly powerful, as well as incredibly hostile and violent. Deciding to use R to gain power, he had Simon Yen, the only person other than Dr. Waals who knew how to make R, kidnapped and forced to produce the chemical inside a laboratory at Ryme Wharf, while he built GNN up as the most influential TV station in the city, so he could control any and all information that went through it. Then, he had R dispersed on various instances in order to make Pokémon go berserk (primarily in front of GNN cameras or reporters, so the company could profit off of the chaos). He did this through his main henchman Keith Norman (who was unaware of his boss' identity), whom he also sent to attack Harry Goodman when he and his Pikachu began to investigate the incidents. Eventually, through someone working for Carlos Hernando, Roger had Harry's car tampered with, resulting in an accident that caused Harry to disappear and Pikachu to lose the ability to use attacks, while gaining the ability to speak. Two months later, Harry's son Tim comes to Ryme City to search for his father, and teams up with Pikachu to do so.

Meeting Tim Goodman
Roger is first seen in Chapter 5, "Fine Park", where he, Emilia and Meiko stop and the Hi-Hat Café to get coffee. When they arrive, they meet Tim and Pikachu, and Roger introduces himself, remarking that Emilia and Meiko cannot stop talking about him and his detective skills. When Tim states that he and Pikachu are headed to Fine Park to investigate the incident that happened there a year before, Roger invites him to come to GNN to watch the coverage Emilia and Meiko had done on it.