Villain archetypes: Who is your villain in your RPG?

[mchangin]

I kind of worry about the main antagonist in my story because it's just caused by a confused otherworldly entity which entered the world by a rift, and has no way of getting out or being understood.

But because the world has no way of comprehending this stranger with its own logic, the otherworldly being's presence in itself bewilders the wildlife and mutates its surroundings. As a cause of concern, the characters in my story set off to rectify the problem. It's a pretty light hearted story that's supposed to focus more on the cast of characters and their problems, maybe with a few alien quirks. I only worry about the lack of a conflict that might cause everything to become pretty underwhelming. I was thinking of implying that there's an organisation of people who were behind this series of events, a doomsday cult maybe. That sounds anything but light hearted though...

 

[punram]

@mchangin

You could always make the organisation like the ones from the Pokémon games, cheesy but sinister at the same time. They don't necessarily want to kill people, but maybe just to control them? Just an idea that popped into my head.

I'm opting for the big, scary, intimidating guy for my main villain that has a heartbreaking reason behind his acts. I think a good example of the kind of character I mean would be Davy Jones from the PotC movies. To me, the simpler villains are often the most effective ones.

 

[mchangin]

Haha, those teams in Pokemon... I kind of want to avoid the common complaint of ineffective villains plaguing those games. But after thinking a little in this thread, I think I managed to figure out the solution. The final boss doesn't necessarily have to be the lost entity, and I finally gave a pivotal reason for the party's alien to be in the story, which was also something I was struggling with.

I think the best villains are those who speak a lot, know that they're wrong but embrace themselves for it, if they're human. It's like, it's really easy for them to seem 2 dimensional because they seem so detached from humanity just so they can be evil, but sometimes we forget or don't know that there can be people who have a complete lack of empathy for others and yet still being able to manipulate people into working for them with charisma, or utilising guilt and other social pressures to just ruin their day and self-worth.

It doesn't even have to be about killing or being a horrible monster, just making the cast's life miserable in exchange for his own benefit works if the protagonists are genuinely troubled by what he or she has done.

 

[Sage]

Here's one of the main villains from our game Profit Motive

Mamasan

Mamasan is the cold, clever, and seductive regional manager of the Big Brand. She is a skillful business strategist, equal to the player in wit and ability, but is willing to go to extreme measures to ensure victory. She is the main villain in the game.

I think what makes her unique is that she's not out for world domination or anything of that sort, but really only out to resolve a painful relationship from her past that still haunts her to this day. In doing so, however, she ends up toss aside her own ethics and resorting to hurting and using others.

-Sage

 

[Clord]

Name: Deaux Excimus

Age: ??? (Immortal)

Title: Vampire Lord (or the vampire lord).

Class: ???

Weapon: Dark Edge.

Bio: She is a complete monster with the god complex. Master of the dark arts and more. I could tell a tons more about her but that would be a huge spoiler.

 

[Gomi Boy]

Sage, wow! So classy. I dig it. The design does a good job of informing the character herself.

Clord, why'd you even bother posting that? It's garbage. It says nothing that matters.

You gotta realize -- this is a thread about writing. No one cares about what your bad guy named her weapon, or what nonsense magic she has up her sleeve. Talk about her role in your story, your motivations for writing her that way, what you feel sets her apart as a character fit to drive the game's conflict. If viral marketing is all you care about, then come back when you have some beauty in your heart instead of, uh, absolutely nothing.

Anyway.

The game I'm working on right now doesn't really have a single antagonist in the usual sense. It's one of those "Character vs. Environment/Event" situations, where something really bad goes down and the majority of the game is based around how people are trying to get their footing again. Naturally, this'll set some people against each other, but I like working in a situation where even the "bad guys" aren't evil in the usual sense -- just scared and possibly mistaken. There's one thing down the road that I could call "the major antagonist" in the absence of anything more antagonistic, but even it's had the floor taken out from under it and is just acting in a way that makes sense to it.

 

[Solistra]

The game I'm working on right now doesn't really have a single antagonist in the usual sense. It's one of those "Character vs. Environment/Event" situations, where something really bad goes down and the majority of the game is based around how people are trying to get their footing again. Naturally, this'll set some people against each other, but I like working in a situation where even the "bad guys" aren't evil in the usual sense -- just scared and possibly mistaken. There's one thing down the road that I could call "the major antagonist" in the absence of anything more antagonistic, but even it's had the floor taken out from under it and is just acting in a way that makes sense to it.

The general idea of this sounds exactly like what I'm working on at the moment. Exactly. I love it, particularly the idea of survival as the ultimate goal -- in that context, the lines between what is "right" and what isn't become extremely undefined. In the context of what I'm working on, I also like playing with the idea of whether the player is doing something they would consider morally repugnant or not, and having the player rationalize their own actions as much as possible in a game scenario.

What I mean by that is... well, obviously, the actions that are taken by the player on characters within the game have no real consequence. It's much easier to make morally repulsive actions in a game world where the actions of your character have no actual negative effect on another living person. In the context of the game that I'm working on, though, I want the player to question if what they are doing could be seen as "right" or "wrong," and which one would give them more of an advantage. Placing someone in a situation in which their survival is the ultimate goal can make for some extraordinarily powerful moments, and can be a great catalyst for exploring your own decisions and why you made them (if, of course, the player is adequately immersed in the experience).

I just hope that I'm able to pull that off without being ludicrous -- that's a hard beam to balance on.

Edit to stay on topic: Considering all of this, I'm not sure that I could say that the concept I'm working on actually has a villain. Yes, there are people who are going to work against the player, but just like in Runaway Bro's circumstances, that doesn't necessarily make them bad or evil -- it just makes them concerned for themselves more than they're concerned for you.

 

[Helladen]

Introduction

My villain was inspired by Sephiroth and Kefka from the Final Fantasy series. I always look for characters that stand out in games. I want my villain to be interesting, unique, and something that most players want to see in a game.

I always found Kefka a joke character that turns into something serious, and Sephiroth is awesome, but has a few character flaws that make him really less interesting and favorable as a villain. One of my inspirations from Kefka was to make the character gradually become powerful, but make the character deep down in their roots concealed with jealous, hate, and anger. Some interesting things I obtained from Sephiroth was to make the villain bad ass and someone you want to know more about, but don't spoil it with flaws in the character.

I decided to merge both of these characters into an even more favorable character in my opinion, and take it a step further to make the villain cloaked - somewhat hard to detect.

About

She is cunning, seductive, manipulative, two-faced, and has many other similar traits. She has such a huge obsession for power, and it drives her insane gradually as the story progresses. There's something dark inside of her, that gets tapped into and eventually takes over.



This is still a work in progress, so it may change at any given time beyond the writing of this.

 

[Clord]

Introduction

My villain was inspired by Sephiroth and Kefka from the Final Fantasy series. I always look for characters that stand out in games. I want my villain to be interesting, unique, and something that most players want to see in a game.

I always found Kefka a joke character that turns into something serious, and Sephiroth is awesome, but has a few character flaws that make him really less interesting and favorable as a villain. One of my inspirations from Kefka was to make the character gradually become powerful, but make the character deep down in their roots concealed with jealous, hate, and anger. Some interesting things I obtained from Sephiroth was to make the villain bad ass and someone you want to know more about, but don't spoil it with flaws in the character.

I decided to merge both of these characters into an even more favorable character in my opinion, and take it a step further to make the villain cloaked - somewhat hard to detect.

About

She is cunning, seductive, manipulative, two-faced, and has many other similar traits. She has such a huge obsession for power, and it drives her insane gradually as the story progresses. There's something dark inside of her, that gets tapped into and eventually takes over.



This is still a work in progress, so it may change at any given time beyond the writing of this.

I hope you manage to find some direction for that as it stands indeed, it sounds just like if Sephiroth and Kefka had babies. You could try amd mix Magus to it (Chrono Trigger obviously.) or anything. Then again you could go to unique route and not make villain to look human at all but like some kind of lizard, wolf, whatever, but it would probably make it harder to interact to the overall story you are making. Then again I'm one to talk with my designs.

 

[Miltix]

While not the main villain, one of my villains is a traveling merchant named Gillie Maes who would sell promising items to the heroes but they're just cheap knockoffs and they don't even work. If you reject his offer three times, he'll fight you.