Suggestions: Complex Characters, Villains and Npc's

[Drak]

Creating complex and intriguing characters is always a challenging task. However, when it succeeds such characters can become an intricate part of the people who experienced them and be a sole reason to revisit a game. What kind of interesting characters would you like to meet in the game?

 

Personally, I like it when there is more to a villain than “buahahah im evil”. Often writers try to give villains a certain amount of debt, but many times this is done through having something evil done to the villain back in the days to justify his pure evelness now.

 

What I would like to see was a “villain” with good intentions. A character who you might get a few chances to fight together with in the beginning, a man you could come to respect – he might even save your party once. Then in the later game to have an event where you find yourself on opposing sides. Not because your old friend has turned evil, but because you have different goals and agendas, neither which can be perceived as good or evil – just different. I’d like to see an ending scene with such a character, where he and his men are beaten and he looks your character in the eyes and tell hims that unless he kills him, he will continue to oppose what you are doing, because it in his wiews is the just thing to do. Would you kill an old friend who has noble intentions or would let him god in the knowledge he might end up costing you finishing your end goal?

[Monte Carlo]

Am bored of sensitive nuanced villains, in fact sympathetic 'explained' villains are a dominant paradigm.

 

Let's have some good, old fashioned nasty bastards. Criminals, dictators, sadists to put to the sword.

[Rosveen]

I don't care if villains are "good" or "evil" as long as they're believable. Give them an agenda - a reason for their decisions - think about their personality. Don't mirror Alduin's "hohoho I'm so evil and this is my only line in the entire game"; show us that the villain is a real person and I'll be happy.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Rosveen

[quechn1tlan]

For me all the villain needs to be successfull is to do something that makes me hate him\her.

 

Let's take DA's Loghain for example. As one dimensional and improbable as he was, the fact that he betrayed me and sent me to die made me furious. The moment when I told Alistair to cut him where he stood was a single most satisfying moment in the whole game(too bad you couldn't do the same to his daughter cause I really hated how she sold me to the guards and the ensuing fight with the guard captain woman is the hardest battle in the whole game imo).

 

Same goes for Irenicus. He may have been in the right there and in his place I might have done the same but the fact that he kidnapped me and killed some of my friends made payback on top of the elven tree so much more gratifying.

[ArkhanTheBlack]

Oh no! Please not another retarded idiot who wants to destroy the world just because he's 'Evil' with a bunch of Beavis and Butthead minions who are too stupid to recognize that they gain absolutely nothing from following him. If I have to run the whole game after a big villain he should be better worth it and not another brain-dead low life that makes me regret to have played the game. I've seen that far too often.

Edited November 2, 2012 by ArkhanTheBlack

[Aldereth]

Said it somewhere else before. Forget about good, bad and neutral. Give NPCs thier personal motivation and agendas. Outline the extent and means each NPC pursuit these agendas.

 

If their goals conflict with the PC, then they are the antagonist. And when their goals matches that of the PC then they are allies. Let the players interpret their methodology as good, bad or neutral.

 

If there is anything to go for in characterization is depth. Give the NPCs more layers.

[GhostofAnakin]

Villains who have depth, and whose motive goes beyond simply wanting to have unlimited power.

[nikolokolus]

Tragic and or complex is fine, but mopey, emo, "misunderstood" douches, who love to hear themselves talk can go straight to hell.

[Dagnabbit]

Would like to see depth but would like to see more than "one" villian. Have multiple villians , some with depth but some simple minded in their reasoning, and who the head villian is be somewhat decided by the choices we make in the game if that is not to difficult to implement.

[CaptainVanguard]

I did actually bring up a topic of this before a good while ago.

 

Villians arent the only important aspect of an RPG but as an antagonistic force they should feel like a true obsticle to you, not just something that seems over done and cliche without any depth or reason behind their actions.

 

Now, Emoish villians that people have talked about, I totally agree, they need to go, misunderstood villians are fine as long as they dont act like the world did them some kind of wrong. Sometimes unshead tears and a silent monotone voice of void hatred can be just as effective as "WOE BE ME PITY MY VOICE ACTING" if done well.

 

what matters to me though is who or "what" the villian is, and ultimatley the villian is the antagonist. Heres the thing:

 

In an RPG with morality defined not by good or evil but by what ever I want to be, the antagonist should not necessarily be a bad guy at all. Why should the villian be a steriotypical evil dark lord or some metaphoric blight that covers the land when it can just as effectivly be the king of the nationt rying to stop me from destroying it.

 

Why should there be one antagonist? The antagonists role is to hinder the protagonist, the protagonist doesnt "have" to be good to be the protagonist, the entire point of being the protagonist is that you are the "leading" character.

 

How many video games let you actually conquer the noble kingdom of humanity? How many actually let you be the villian of your own story?

 

Few if any, to my knowladge.

 

Havent you got tired of the DnD DM campaign when your DM tells you "Your here to save the kingdom" why not just take it for granted, loot it, or usurp the king or make him owe you a favour taht demands a price heavier than he can pay.

 

Why play nice?

 

Well even then, being nice has its own downside. Its overdone, and its predictable to play a char that only ever does one dimensional roles of saving the world from great tyranny.

 

Tyrants need to be believable, and it needs to be reasonable that your going to kill the bad guy if there is one because the bad guy can sometimes be unrealistic. The best key to this, as I have said in my own topic, is to make the more villianous antagonists reprisent your hinderance, your personal antithesis.

 

This means they will hurt your companions, this means they will destroy friends and family, they will turn towns, cities, nations into ash just to see you beg for mercy. But you wont beg, because this creats a compulsion to aspire to bring justice to these fiends, because those people, that nation, they were your people, your nation. If you care so much then only then will you truley find it such an affront that you will seek to anihilate this foe before worse tyranny can be inflicted, or oblivion.

 

...Or maybe... just maybe, you will seek to join them... after all that pain and suffering, maybe they break you down and finally you join their ranks... only, unawareley, they dont realise the slow but subtle plan for revenge you are building, infiltrating their forces, drawing knife in the dark, taking their army and using it to ruin their homeland.

 

One act of vengance deserves another after all.

 

The real key is to make the player feel like you can be the hero or the villian, and that the antagonist, regardless of morality, is effectivly an obsticle to your personal progress.

 

By the sounds of the games premise of being a victim of circumstance, you can work alot with this, creating many scenerios a player tdoesnt necessarily have to ncounter in other fantasy games.

 

Its simply a matter of how to impliament it, how to make the player feel in control of the world, and how to avoid making consequences feel too unrewarding.

 

Consequences for decisions can be fine, but if you railroad them into option A/B it instantly kills the mood or the enjoyment of the player. Theres a reason so many RPG's today do it wrong when old rpgs did it right, because they had multiple, many options to the scenerio ahead.

 

I would take new vegas as a good example of non linear endings and a good way to impliament them. There must be about 16-17 different versions fo the ending, depending on morality, alignment and faction. Thats the kind of thing that PE should be regarding its morality and its story antagonists, it shouldnt be clear, it should never be that obvious, because it can be increadably anticlimactic to find the villian is nothing more than a typical dark lord, an evil cooperate business man or some predtably obvious wizard who has comical messups all the time. This is an overdone, unambitious and uninspired way to create bad guys, and if im honest?

 

I want it to die in a fire.

[Orogun01]

Am bored of sensitive nuanced villains, in fact sympathetic 'explained' villains are a dominant paradigm.

 

Let's have some good, old fashioned nasty bastards. Criminals, dictators, sadists to put to the sword.

Thank you! I never liked heroes because they were boring, stupid and only won because they were the good guys. So give me villains that are fun and fun to hate.

[Monte Carlo]

Was Tony Montana a great villain? Yes. Anomie theory aside, he was just a coke-snorting PoS armed with a M-16 with an Underslung Grenade Launcher.

 

Was Alan Rickman's German terrorist dude in Die Hard a great villain? Yes, he was just a bank-robber masquerading as a Commie revolutionary.

 

Was Ivan Drago in Rocky-whatever-it-was a great vllain? Yes, because he was a totally 2D killing machine bred by a totalitarian state and equipped with a homo-erotic crew-cut.

 

Was The Predator a great villain? Hell yeah, he was just a big game hunter with an adventure holiday complex gone badly wrong.

 

Was Sauron a great villain? Definitely, and he's just this scary, inchoate floating flammable eye. He isn't seeking vengeance for his dead lover. He's just badass.

 

Was Doctor No a great villain? God yes. He has a power-hand, a cat, an insatiable appetite for torture and world domination. Plus, he has a squadron of boiler-suited henchmen driving golf buggies.

 

Was Al Capone in The Untouchables a great villain. Yep. Motivation? Money, power, broads, respect.

 

Seriously, most villains are about Money, power, broads and respect. The rest is usually emo-posturing. Give us raw, evil, ball-wrenchingly hateful villains. When they beg for their lives as you gut them, and they cry for their mothers (they all do, btw, when it comes on top) it makes it all the more satisfying.

[Rink]

If there is an antagonist at all, then I am on the side that agrees with the OP.

I don't like "evil" villains without any motivation than "kill, kill, KILL" (or plain egoism) for me it is not good storytelling. In Switzerland we say that only americans write such stories, because there everything is seen a bit more black and white (I think it is not entirely true though).

I personally would plan it differently though, for example in the beginning you think the villain is exactly that "evil monster" that I don't like to play against and in the story you find out that he is somehow related to you, has quite similar goals or that you are the antagonist that killed all his family and friends during the campaign after all. Okay that is a bit simple, but I am not writing the story. It is easier in the beginning if you build up hate as an instrument to give you a drive to fight against something, but it is also important to show that an antagonist has a drive that usually is not "I want to do evil things" but maybe he thinks he helps the world with what he is doing. Many people think they are right and do something good by their actions even if we then classify their actions as "evil" from our point of view.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Rink

[Monte Carlo]

In Switzerland we say that only americans write such stories

 

You want to hear what they say about the Swiss.

 

I personally would plan it differently though, for example in the beginning you think the villain is exactly that "evil monster" that I don't like to play against and in the story you find out that he is somehow related to you.

 

Congratulations, you have won International Cliche of the Year Award.

 

Many people think they are right and do something good by their actions even if we then classify their actions as "evil" from our point of view.

 

Yes, epic fantasy is often based on an objective view of moral relativism, viewed through the eyes of a Sociology junior.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Monte Carlo

[Rink]

Yea, write me in PM what they think of people here please (they usually don't know Switzerland and think about Sweden with blond girls - that is better since the bank scandals though :D)

 

Yes, epic fantasy is often based on an objective view of moral relativism, viewed through the eyes of a Sociology junior.

 

I prefer this to the view of black and white/good and evil with nothing in between Especially if a game wants to be "well written" like P:E seems to be.

I think there are a lot of fantasy RPGs where there is just black and white and villains are just sadistic, egocentric maniacs without more depth to them. There are tons of RPGs were I made genocide after genocide to some clearly intelligent "animal"-races just because they were bad and colored red to start with so had to be killed. For me that just isn't fun. But maybe I am getting old and weak... :D

Edited November 2, 2012 by Rink

[Grand_Commander13]

Two words for a good villain: Jade Empire. The best villain in any cRPG I can think of at the moment, and used very well by the writers.

 

To clarify in a non-spoilery way: he's, if not evil then certainly doing things for his own selfish ambition; he does plenty to get the main character mad, above and beyond the "he must be stopped" (which was, itself, pretty bad) by making it personal (and in a way that again reflects how he thinks of no one but himself); and he is definitely a credible threat with some powerful minions who you face before fighting him.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Grand_Commander13

[Orogun01]

Two words for a good villain: Jade Empire. The best villain in any cRPG I can think of at the moment, and used very well by the writers.

 

To clarify in a non-spoilery way: he's, if not evil then certainly doing things for his own selfish ambition; he does plenty to get the main character mad, above and beyond the "he must be stopped" (which was, itself, pretty bad) by making it personal (and in a way that again reflects how he thinks of no one but himself); and he is definitely a credible threat with some powerful minions who you face before fighting him.

"He" had a shining moment of brilliance and it was all downhill from there.

He went from methodical calculated brilliance, your typical "whoa haha" evil mastermind.Sad really.

[Avantre]

I'm not sure why there's even a thread on this. I can see how people could worry and discuss about the combat system or the armour system or the classes or the lore or the races, but the one thing most people agree to on Obsidian, even their detractors, is their ability to write good characters. If there's one section they don't need tips on, it's how to make interesting antagonists.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Avantre

[Nonek]

Kreia.

[Solviulnir the Soulbinder]

One thing I hate about many villains up to date is that player character usually meets/sees them them within 5 minutes from the beginning of the game.

I'd much rather prefer at least one key villain in PE to be kind of a more mysterious figure, power behind the throne, who is for the large part of the quest known only through his/her evil yet extremely intelligent deeds/actions. And he/she doesn't even need to be 10 feet high monster with Sarevok looks, it very well could be an ordinary looking person with an extraordinary (evil) mind.

Villainy is not or should not imho be only about black armour, red glowing eyes or electronically modulated voice. Though, I'm sure, there's plenty of place in PE for this kind of evil as well. Which is also qood, I guess.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Solviulnir the Soulbinder

[C2B]

I don't like "evil" villains without any motivation than "kill, kill, KILL" (or plain egoism) for me it is not good storytelling. In Switzerland we say that only americans write such stories, because there everything is seen a bit more black and white (I think it is not entirely true though)

 

That's a wrong post.

 

First off, nobody in switzerland says this. Secondly, it's an ignorant statemnt. Third, this statement doesn't represent swiss lit at all.

 

 

Dürrenmatt is a number 1 priority in teaching lit in switzerland. He was a big advocator of the worst possible ending. Von Zahnd is exactly such a villian.

 

(Reason: Zeitgeist (explained at several points, especially in regards to the physicists), and other factors, including giving contrast with the absurdity and paradox)

 

Also, such villians are no indicator of bad writing itself depending on how they were written or justified and work in regardes to the themes/narrative. In modern literature, yes. But that's the result of various other factors.

Edited November 3, 2012 by C2B

[C2B]

Reading your post again, it's not exactly as bad as I took it. So, I apologize. Still, what you stated goes against swiss literature in general (Ofc Suter for example does it differently, but that's not the point) Dürrenmatt did it over most of his work and his importance is. Well, you know that yourself (I hope).

Edited November 3, 2012 by C2B

[JayDGee]

I always like villains who doesn't, without them the hero is nothing. There a definitely a few good roads to go down with them.

 

I always enjoy the scenario where I can say "Yes he is a bastard but in his position I would probably have done the same thing".

Some of the greatest villains are villains of necessity, they are not by their nature evil but are forced to do despicable acts for what they perceive to be the greater good. This is where we can get the misunderstood villain as opposed to the plain evil one.

 

Don't get me wrong I love me a good old fashioned, moustache twirling, black hat wearing, voiced by Tim Curry Sociopath. The great unrepentant villain bathing in the blood of the innocent. Please if you are going to go in that direction, go all in. Have zero redeemable traits don't let history say he loved dogs or kept the trains running on time. Have even the most neutral historian refer to them as a monster.

 

There is also the truly misunderstood hero, who every perceives as the villain. The one performing acts that are criminal even monstrous but if they don't do it something much worse will happen. A tragic figure who hates what he has to do but understands the consequences if he doesn't.

This is a for the greater good type hero and until the end of the story you wont understand the actions. Once you stop them you'll probably regret it.

 

A favourite of mine is the heroic villain. This is the bad guy doing the right things for the wrong reasons. My favourite example of this is Lex Luthor in Mark Millar's Red Son (aka the only Superman comic I will ever recommend) In this Luthor is as evil as ever his only true motivation is destroying Superman. To achieve his goals he becomes president and brings in an era of economic plenty improving the lives of all his citizens drastically. His great economic model spreads across the globe defeating communism. His only reason for doing this to weaken Superman's resolve as he leads the soviet union.

 

Then we have the Fallen Hero the once truly noble champion who has become everything he once fought against. There are a number of ways the great one can fall ranging from the truly tragic to the petty. Whether they fell due to envy, boredom, prophecy or a curse (to name a few) they are always a sad character especially when seen from the eyes of the people who once loved but now fear them.

 

These are just a few of my favourite villain archetypes. What I would love to see most is something different something I cant predict. If they do that then the game will have a treasured place in my heart forever.

[Sacred_Path]

I want to see fewer villains and more antagonists. Let my characters act on motivations like greed, self-preservation or lust for adventure. Let me take a small part in a war where both factions have good reasons (excuses) for waging war. I don't always need to be on the side of good (or the other way around).

[Osvir]

Haitani from Zetman. I still can't figure out this guys agenda and purpose is, so condescendingly brilliant as if the protagonist is a mere fly that he could swat but he is "too-busy-polishing-his nails-to-even-bother" type of character. Plotting and always appearing when the hero at least expect it. They never fight, there are attempts by our hero of course by the heroic dash, but Haitani simply appears elsewhere surprising our hero and ourselves yet again. How much we grow in strength this omnipotent being just comes and fiddles and annoys us with its "omnipresence". A Devil tempting the character perhaps... maybe something similar to Darksiders just less predictable and optional in the form of a quest tree *shrug*

 

A secret pesky evil annoyance that you just can't defeat but the game lures you that you can xD so this "omnipresent" figure simply toys with you, over several playthroughs and sending you off into dangerous adventures each time just to be rewarded fruitless haha. The importance lies in the story, in a case of an event like this, something that pulls you into the story rather than the epic loot you can get at the end of it.