Antagonists and RPGS, and why Antagonists are important

[Starglider]

Malcolm (the insane jester-mage) from the first Legend of Kyrandia game was an interesting villain. He got a bit of pathos in the third game in the series.

[JayDGee]

A good antagonist can make a franchise, that villain who you just have to stop.

 

Irenicus from Baldurs Gate 2 is one of my all time favourites. I despised him I needed to stop him, even in the end when you fully understood his motivations and why he was doing it I had to stop him.

[Kilroy_Was_Here]

You know, I agree with you, and I've seen a really good take on this in the comic, the Order of the Stick. There's the main antagonist, a lich who's trying to gain power and couldn't care less about the main party. Then there's also "the Linear Guild" which is another party of adventurers that are really out to get the party for personal reasons. It makes for an interesting dynamic.

 

There are 3 donors who came up with $5,000 to design an enemy adventuring company. Assuming that anyone willing to put up that kind of cash also had an idea in mind when they did it, hopefully there will be (at least) 3 rival parties as creative as the Linear Guild to menace everything you do.

[Kuroiryuu]

It's funny you should mention the Transcendent One (TTO). Torment was very much about a personal journey, TTO wasn't revealed till the endgame IIRC and the game didn't suffer from that at all.n In fact I would argue that having an antagonist at all is kinda cliche. Of course Kotor 2 had several and that worked out pretty awesome as well..

 

Considering that a good portion of Torment you were battling against past lives of yourself and their actions, the argument could be made that you were both the hero and the villian w/ personal reason to hate.

 

One of the countless reasons I dearly loved that game. Considering that we have many of the same people on board with PE, I don't think we need to fear not having interesting villains.

[Mrakvampire]

Irenicus from BG2 is the best antagonist. Ever. Period.

 

I'm really quite... worried about antagonist part. As, let me talk frankly, I'm a bit not happy with antagonists from previous Obsidian games (except Planescape Torment and... okkkay, IWD2 had pretty normal, not good, but normal antagonists.)

 

Obsidian, please give us epic story. And epic enemy to fight.

[TrashMan]

Your list of what does and doesnt' work is purely subjective, and I tend to not agree wit it.

 

Pretty much anything can work for a villain if done properly.

 

 

And note that pushing too much in any direction create chiches. You might say that a moustache-twirling villain holding evil speaches is chiche, and therefore deman a more moraly gray, tragic villain. Guess what - those are a cliche too. As are simply crazy ones. And forces of nature. And demons. And everything else.

 

Everything has been done.

There is no "original great enemy". There is only "the type of enemy I'm not fed up with...yet"

 

 

EDIT:

Also, how is the Blight not your problem? The Darkspawn try to kill you. They will kill everything. They are everyones problem.

Edited October 17, 2012 by TrashMan

[ozymandiasza]

In my opinion, I would prefer to face the villian and the beginning and lose horribly no matter how "good" you are. Then face him again at the end and win. In a way this would show you how much you've grown. Just my humble opinion.

[Bos_hybrid]

In my opinion, I would prefer to face the villian and the beginning and lose horribly no matter how "good" you are. Then face him again at the end and win. In a way this would show you how much you've grown. Just my humble opinion.

 

Only if it's optional and you die in the attempt, otherwise it just make the antagonist look incompetent or useless.

[Chabneruk]

My personal favorite is still the Transcendent One from Planescape Torment. But he only worked well, because the whole game was a deeply philosophical journey into the depts of the human soul. His true nature was the most interesting solution of the "BigBad"-Dilemma I have ever seen. And when I got the "good" ending on my second playthrough it felt complete and utterly satisfying.

 

If PE can combine the sense of exploration and fantasy of BG with the unique approach of Planescape, we will have a villain to fear. Because the game defines the villain.

[JFSOCC]

 

EDIT:

Also, how is the Blight not your problem? The Darkspawn try to kill you. They will kill everything. They are everyones problem.

and yet, that didn't come across during the entire game. I was off doing something else and the darkspawn were nothing but an annoying inconvenience as a random encounter during map travel. I had all these anti-darkspawn runes at the end of the game, that I hadn't used because I didn't even come across them that often.

they completely failed as antagonist. I didn't care. we weren't removing them, we were stemming the flow, at best (in what I assume was a half-hearted attempt at grimdark)

so the whole heroic notion fell flat as well.