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WHITE TO BLACK: DOWNFALL OF THE HERO (PLOT IDEA)
Posts
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Corfaisus
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Closeauthor=Feldschlacht IV
I don't mean someone who does bad things. I don't even mean a bad person. Of course those people exist. I'm talking about someone who does evil things for the sake of being evil.
Nobody does this. Nobody in the whole wide world does shit just because. All good and evil can't be narrowed down to a binary "just because".
Coincidentally, I wrote an article about this.
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
Yeah, if you chose to be an evil unrepentant bastard in Fallout, killing every man, woman and child you come across, you would be left with an even more desolate and depressing world (and no one to trade with...). There's some novelty in that, I guess. Although if you just killed everybody and took their stuff... you'd have a wealth of crap. No trading necessary.
author=Corfaisusauthor=Feldschlacht IVNobody does this. Nobody in the whole wide world does shit just because. All good and evil can't be narrowed down to a binary "just because".
I don't mean someone who does bad things. I don't even mean a bad person. Of course those people exist. I'm talking about someone who does evil things for the sake of being evil.
Coincidentally, I wrote an article about this.
Some people do???? We usually catagorize those people as having some sort of antisocial mental disorder, but people who do shit 'for the gigs' actually do exist.
It's less about those sort of people being believable or not and more about someone like that being playable.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Feldschlacht IVauthor=CorfaisusSome people do???? We usually catagorize those people as having some sort of antisocial mental disorder, but people who do shit 'for the gigs' actually do exist.author=Feldschlacht IVNobody does this. Nobody in the whole wide world does shit just because. All good and evil can't be narrowed down to a binary "just because".
I don't mean someone who does bad things. I don't even mean a bad person. Of course those people exist. I'm talking about someone who does evil things for the sake of being evil.
Coincidentally, I wrote an article about this.
It's less about those sort of people being believable or not and more about someone like that being playable.
They have to have a reason to target someone; the thing is, they just can't find an equally plausible reason not to follow through with it, like "perhaps this person has as much right to live as I do/has family/friends that love them deeply and would be irreparably hurt if they were gone".
To limit it to "that dude's mentally ill, he'll kill us all" is kind of missing the point.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Isrieri
Sooo....Macbeth & Othello? Julius Caeser?
Yeah, it sounds a lot like Othello in game form, though with a wider scope.
Thinking about the implied story structure from the OP, I'm not sure it'd be easy to work out in game form; most tragedies are really small and personal in scope, rather than the epics found in RPGs, both because the human element is the most important and because it becomes a little more believable.
The OP, however, seems to be working from the idea of an inverted Plucky Hero tale. In the normal setup, there's a preexisting Evil Empire to be overthrown, generally one that's unpopular and not systematically entrenched, usually a relatively recent takeover. This works with a Hero story, because although it's a pitifully small group of people, there's the implication that you're removing a single outlier from an overall OK system, allowing things to return to How They Should Be. The only thing the Evil Empire has on its side is force via numbers.
One can't really chronicle the rise of an Evil Emperor using a structure built on the Plucky Hero narrative, because it doesn't invert well. In order for things to work out without a preexisting force of minions (to ensure the entrenched local system doesn't just continue with a new Boss to replace the one you just killed), there'd have to be an overall sentiment of people agreeing with the protag and his efforts, which with most Bad Guy sentiments would be antithetical to most usual societies.
Really, the "Rise of the Evil Emperor" storyline wouldn't work great as a standard RPG, but might do better with a RTS setup or similar nation-building system.
The RPG format COULD work if the end goal weren't "become the Evil Emperor," but rather "Destroy the World," since that'd require less micromanagement and building. In that case, it's basically the same thing as the Plucky Hero, only instead of destroying an unjust outside influence, you're destroying everything in general.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Charles Manson nailed it. And even if you're not Charles Manson, a bad-enough gun is all you need.
So...there's a different between doing actions you know to be evil knowingly and consciously because you think it is justified by the ends you are trying to achieve (Sigmus the Fallen, the Deuteragonist/Antihero of my old Iron Gaia series, is an excellent example of this: he knows that the ends he pursues are making him a monster but he believes that they are necessary enough to justify that), and doing actions you know to be evil knowingly just cause like...for fun.
The former totally exists in the real world. I really generally have not thought the latter does for most of my life, but if you've seen my KILLER COPS thread, I'm having my doubts.
The former totally exists in the real world. I really generally have not thought the latter does for most of my life, but if you've seen my KILLER COPS thread, I'm having my doubts.
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
I see the point of inverting the good for the sake of it hero thing into an evil for the sake of it villain. But unless it was some sort of satire or a black comedy - something to give some sort of depth to it, otherwise what character development does the villain, the player character, have if he honestly is just doing horrible things for fun? The people around him would have to be the ones who show development, I guess.
UPRC
5516
author=Isrieri
Sooo....Macbeth & Othello? Julius Caeser?
Those are good examples in fiction, but the topic is aimed towards RPGs. Specifically, our RPGs.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Corfaisus
Charles Manson nailed it. And even if you're not Charles Manson, a bad-enough gun is all you need.
What was this in response to?
Davenport
5200
I don't think the concept of "evil" applies to any dysfunctional
element in society. Imagine a artificially made robot going on
a rampage beating up people or destroying entire cities.
element in society. Imagine a artificially made robot going on
a rampage beating up people or destroying entire cities.
I'm actually going for something just like this in my upcoming game!
I haven't quite figured out how to go about it, but I'm definitely going to go through with it. I love protagonist-to-villain stories, as they can be very fascinating if told well. As far as plot goes, it's probably going to be my most ambitious project yet.
I haven't quite figured out how to go about it, but I'm definitely going to go through with it. I love protagonist-to-villain stories, as they can be very fascinating if told well. As far as plot goes, it's probably going to be my most ambitious project yet.
nurvuss
958
UPRC, have you played Suikoden 2? (If not, now's the time, it was just re-released on PSN yesterday)
Spoilers below, so...
Also, Tactics Ogre takes a similar approach:
Spoilers below, so...
Suikoden 2 follows the story of two best friends who are conscripted into the army and are then caught in the middle of a false-flag attack in which their government slaughters its own soldiers. The two friends survive and escape, but eventually they become separated, with the protagonist joining the resistance, and his best friend joining the original army in an attempt to change its corruption from within. The best friend, though well-intentioned, finds that he must embroil himself in dodgy politics to rise through the ranks, becoming the central antagonist of the game.
We only get to see brief snatches of this friend's journey and growth into a formidable general. It would be interesting to see a game set from a similar character's perspective.
We only get to see brief snatches of this friend's journey and growth into a formidable general. It would be interesting to see a game set from a similar character's perspective.
Also, Tactics Ogre takes a similar approach:
At the end of the game's first chapter, the protagonist is given the choice of obeying his commanding officer's order to slaughter an entire village of unarmed civilians, or to rebel against his own country. This is not a 'but thou must' choice, and changes the trajectory of the game's narrative completely, allowing for a 'lawful evil' protagonist if the player desires to see that story play out.
There are other ways to make a character potentially go down a dark path than steady minor-to-major questionable acts.
Suppose a character is decent, and tries their best to make the townsfolk happy, but instead of managing to please them, they ignore it and concentrate on some other hero? Jealousy as an angle.
Or maybe, you could do something like Pain/Obito in Naruto, where they started out wanting to make a difference in the world and do good, but isolation or rejection or other issues happened, and they got bitter. Deep down, they are still the same idealist, but they are sad or thwarted, so they lash out at people they care about and act poorly towards the world in general.
Suppose a character is decent, and tries their best to make the townsfolk happy, but instead of managing to please them, they ignore it and concentrate on some other hero? Jealousy as an angle.
Or maybe, you could do something like Pain/Obito in Naruto, where they started out wanting to make a difference in the world and do good, but isolation or rejection or other issues happened, and they got bitter. Deep down, they are still the same idealist, but they are sad or thwarted, so they lash out at people they care about and act poorly towards the world in general.
