Puppet Villains

[Nekohime1989]

Basically its where the villain in the game is just a puppet. But I'm not sure how to go about it? Anyone have any advice?

Basically, if the true villain was a puppet master in a more general sense. how would you handle it.

 

[TheoAllen]

Is this asking for advice?
Implementation help?
"What do you think" kind of question?
Ultimately, what is this all about?

 

[Nekohime1989]

Everything above.
More like how would you go about it, Would like to hear other people's thoughts on it.

 

[TheoAllen]

It still too vague and has no context. Can't give a thought if there is no context.
This can be about a story, a mechanic, an implementation, an idea about skill, etc.

But anyway,

Everything above.

fine...

Is this asking for advice?

What kind of advice do you want? If there is nothing to evaluate, no advice can be given.

Implementation help?

What kind of implementation do you want to know? Probably this is not in the right forum.

"What do you think" kind of question?

No context, so can't give an opinion.

Ultimately, what is this all about?

I still have no idea what is this all about.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Puppet as in a real puppet, or puppet as in someone controlled by somebody else?

 

[Nekohime1989]

Puppet as in someone controlled by someone else.

@TheoAllen
I edited my post.
If your villain was a puppet master and had a backstage role. How would you handle it is basically. Trying to make this topic more in a general sense and less game specific.

(sorry for the communication dificulty btw)

 

[Shaz]

Make it seem like the puppet is the villain, then at the appropriate time have him revealed as a puppet and have the real villain identified.

This is not a mechanic. It's plot.

 

[gstv87]

upon the question, by either the characters or the player, of "What is this guy's game?"/"Why is he doing this?", have the answer be vague, BY the villain.
upon any action by the characters that would seem to undermine or hamper the villain's plan, have the villain not react to it.

with that, the question of "what's his game?" goes unanswered, and with the expected reaction of "we must change our plan" to the action of "we just screwed up you planning" not appearing, that sets the scene for the assumption of "this situation is NOT this guy's actual plan"
around that, drop subtle actions by the villain that could only come out as a result of the interaction of the characters with the actual mastermind, and have the villain give the impression that he's gaining the upper hand, when in reality it's the characters undermining themselves by speaking with the actual mastermind.


can you tell I watched a lot of Game Of Thrones lately?

 

[VisitorsFromDreams]

You mean like Zant in Twilight Princess? Dont, they always suck and dissapoint people. I cant think of a single piece of media that had a puppet villian that was satisfying or added anything of value to narrative.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I cant think of a single piece of media that had a puppet villian that was satisfying or added anything of value to narrative.

Spoiler: Chrono Trigger & FF6 spoilers

The only one I can think of that even technically falls under this is Queen Zeal, but then the party and player aren't set up to think she's the big bad. But then she could be a "prophet of the big bad" too, so it's a little unclear. Kefka possibly counts, but using the real villain as the face for the puppet villain kind of undermines that since the game is set up to make us hate Kefka and not directly the empire.

If I were to do it myself... I don't know. RPGs are often made by the villain and are usually the crux of the conflict. You'd either have to do a "disc 1 reveal" for it to work narratively, or make it possible to understand and see the real villain and villainy plan without knowing it. Making the puppet a legitimate villain seems important, too. I might take a note from Death Note where seeing how the villain uses puppets is part of the story.

You mean like Zant in Twilight Princess?

"Ganondorf, with the dark magical power of plagiarism!"

 

[VisitorsFromDreams]

I think the big issue with puppet villians is that your getting invested in someone who is in the end going to be tossed aside, usually towards the end, which generally leaves you with no time to build any hatred of the "actual" villian.

I can kind of see why they did it with Twilight Princess because people already know who Ganandorf is and have opinions on him, but if your making an original game and suddenly introduce the "real" villian into your game then people arent going to have time to actually form an opinion of them.

I think the game that suffered most from this was Far Cry 3, Vaas was an absolutely fantastic villian with a lot of personality and then he dies and you spend the last quater of the game fighting boring generic bad guy. Just awful.

 

[Nekohime1989]

Yeah and that's a problem, Im always vague as hell when it comes to these things. In my plot their's no inkling what so ever he's the villain. Cause he's that good at being the true villain. Puppet masters should be good at hiding in the shadows is what I think. From what I've read so far. It's TOO damn vague it won't work at all.

 

[Kupotepo]

I write this mastermind plot too in the general discussion. I am struggling too to build a Puppet master or a high function psychopath. In the cliches of RPG games are display the big bad boss in the final battle. You can use foreshadow like a black shadow of a final evil giving an order. I have high expectations for my mastermind villains, so the villains are unpredictable. You can do cutscene of the craziness of a puppet master.

Modern puppet villains do not lurk on shadows but stay the building with bodyguards.

 

[VisitorsFromDreams]

Id take a villian that cackles at all the bad stuff they do because they are having a great time being evil over someone lurking in the shadows any day.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I think the big issue with puppet villians is that your getting invested in someone who is in the end going to be tossed aside, usually towards the end, which generally leaves you with no time to build any hatred of the "actual" villian.

Now that I think about it, FFT does puppet villains in an odd way. And I still don't think it counts.

Spoiler: Spoilers for a 20 year old game

The game is full of unique baddies with their own goals under the umbrella of BBEG. Chjaracters like Elmdor and Dycedarg are shoved into your face and make you instantly hate them, but the game builds up the unknown villain well enough that by the time you see him you already know what he's up to, why, and have plenty of reason to hate him. The game even nicely shows throughout it how the villain is clearly manipulating things to his end. Mind, it's not just the major villain, the man under him is the hands and actually making things happen, but everything is nicely interconnected.

Id take a villian that cackles at all the bad stuff they do because they are having a great time being evil

I just rewatched Aladdin recently and there's a part where Jafar and Iago basically bond over being evil and it's almost adorable. I actually like how some stories use blatantly evil villains in interesting ways.

Cause he's that good at being the true villain.

I don't think it works well in a single story. In an old series I had, the puppet master was hinted at throughout nine books worth of story, and even in the last one is basically a footnote in the finale. I believe it worked because the point wasn't the villain but the overarching "single" action the villain did and the ramifications of it. Each story was stand alone enough, but the way they connected was the hidden villain and finding him made later rereads more interesting (it's like "replayability" but for books!). Even then, I'm not certain I like it. I far prefer the "similar" villain I made who was entirely known, and his vague goals were known, but the mystery was trying to figure out the exact plan and how all the seemingly unconnected acts actually worked together for the grand plan.

 

[Nekohime1989]

Well I got no problems adding subtle references to him being the true villain. He doesn't take an active role. But it would make sense if your on the true route that you find our half way that he's the villain and it's obvious. And in the other routes it's hinted at. You know subtle hints every once and a while.

Some I liked in corpse party was the the little notes lying around. I could do something around. Cause the villain has been pulling this crap for centuries.

 

[Kes]

This is not a mechanic, but a plot device. As such it should be in Ideas and Prototypes.

[move]Game Ideas and Prototypes[/move]

 

[Paz]

I think there is one possible way you could go with this

You childhood/best friend or Family member or wtv (someone you trust) turns evil. Becames the antagonist.

If this antagonist was relationed with the main character in a good way in the past, the the player knows there is good in him, despite his evilness. You could use that.

The player will have some doubts along the gameplay, and if you can control the plot twist well enough, then voilá, you present the puppet master behind the scenes. You could control the player's emotion towards the characters which is always good.

 

[kirbwarrior]

You childhood/best friend or Family member or wtv (someone you trust) turns evil. Becames the antagonist.

That's a great point. I might have to use this myself. Now that I think about it, one of my friends has something similar, where a character that's in your starting party but leaves it early on ends up being the main villain, but you see him plenty to learn who he is, care about him, and maybe realize he isn't the hero everyone thinks he is...

 

[atoms]

@Rachnera

My opinion's in this post was formed after reading everyone's valid opinions on this thread, to try and add onto what's been said with my thoughts. At the end is a link to a game that did this, but with few villains.

If you're going to do a puppet villain and then a second main villain, the second being behind the puppet villain, then I'd recommend still introducing this main villain and change the plot to focus on them sometime during the second half of the game. Maybe a little sooner/later, but do it before getting to the end. Since, even if you met that villain before, or seen them a lot of times as another major character during the game, you won't have much time to do a sudden build up to that villain goals and motives and ture character if you leave it too late.

Same with a single puppet villain. Now they can be seen as the villain at the end of the game, if there actions until then are all revealed and truly exist as making them fit the puppet villain. Since we see there actions, there character can automatically build from there. But it has to be done well to be pulled of successfully.

Doing this successfully though, that would be good. I wish you luck, since I can't think of a true long-extended example right now from any of the many video games I use to play when I was younger.

Edit: Hang on, in a way I'd say Clouded Hearts has an example. It's a very liner example however, because there are only about 4 villains in total. I'd say both last two villians are puppet villians. Technically you could say there was an extra 5th villain for a while, but I don't count her. Yet story-wise she does fit as being controlled by the puppet villain and the real puppet villain too.

Link:
https://rpgmaker.net/games/6055/

It's an RPG Maker game if the link wasn't obvious, but done quite well. I played it a looong time ago. You can also find a more recent but still a few years old LP of it on youtube. I do recommend the game to anyone, but it should be of use for a good example of two puppet villains too.