VILLIANS: HOW DO YOU MAKE THEM UNIQUE?

They don't really have to be unique, they just have to be well written.

This goes for most things, really. I'll expand on this later in the topic.

1: What is the most cliche, stereotypical or just boring backstory for a villain you can think of? I'd like to start from what not to do and work my way on up.

The best way to identify a lacking villain is to start by asking yourself "why are they doing this?" If the answer is "because they're crazy/evil" or "because they hate people" or "because they think the world should be destroyed" or something like that, then you've got a boring villain.

An interesting antagonist inspires internal conflict within the protagonist and reveals some aspect about themselves or human nature.

If you already have a protagonist designed, then think what kind of person most strongly challenges their worldview. If your character is a strong advocate of freedom, then maybe the antagonist embodies the dark side of freedom (using one's freedom to limit the freedom of other people). This forces the protagonist to question and evaluate what it is they believe and why.

A common adage is that the villain should make sense as the hero of their own story. They should always believe strongly in what they're doing, because real people don't think of themselves as evil. This goes doubly if your villain has lackeys. After all, who would follow someone who they didn't agree with, like, or respect?

If you're looking for inspiration, two works with outstanding villains that I would recommend are Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Metal Gear Solid 2. In MGS2 in particular, you have multiple factions of characters all competing with each other, and everyone is acting in pursuit of their own personal goal. It has a lot of antagonists, and most of them stand out as very memorable.

I like it when there's an evil empire that is secretly controlled by space demons

In a typical RPG storyline where there's a powerful group threatening the future of the country/world, I always have trouble developing the villainous leader. I don't have as much of a problem with the lesser villains, maybe because I don't have as much of a mental block against making them actually have conversations, get in arguments, have goals and friends and romances, struggle to get what they want, and generally be likable three-dimensional characters. But then I end up liking them so much that I make them join the party. Whoops. Which means there needs to be some Great Evil, big enough and evil enough to make the heroes and the likable villains work together. Which I can't ever seem to make more interesting than Exdeath.

I'm increasingly keen on villains that aren't antagonists so much as environmental or natural forces. The two major examples from my childhood are Phantasy Star IV's Dark Force, which had a lot of sub-villains but in itself was just a deity thing trying to get into reality because it wanted to be there, and Crusader of Centy/Soleil's* Five Senses/Spirit Force, which... IDEK, they were just there and fucking everything up so you had to destroy them. Also one of them was a creepy nose slug.

In terms of antagonists who are people, it depends greatly on what kind of story you want to tell. A lot of people will recommend a humanized villain, which I'm a fan of, but if you're making a traditional heroic fantasy, there's nothing wrong with a villain who's just plain evil, though of course they should have their own philosophy and motivation to their behavior. (I want to be in control is usually the go-to, and it works fine.)

A lot of things like villain motivation and characterization flow from the central ideas of the story itself. What kind of story is it? What's the real point- developing the protag's personal growth? Showing the futility of war? Straight up power fantasy?

In a character piece, I'd suggest an antagonist who functions as a foil for the protag, whether as a dark mirror of what they could become, or something to force them to question themself and their philosophy/goals. For the "futility of war" story, the villain should be heavily humanized, even a hero in their own right, maybe someone who was created by the suffering brought with war. In a power fantasy, the villain just needs to be hateable, so the player gets to revel in the joy of grinding their asshole face into the dirt; humanizing this character would have the wrong effect.

In any case, the most important aspect to any character, protag, antag, or otherwise, is their goal: What do they want, why do they want it, and what will they do to achieve it? In most RPGs, the villain's goal is the most important, because they're basically supplying the reason for the hero to do anything. In a way, these games could be considered the story of the villain, since they're (usually) the proactive character. If, at any time, you're not able to articulate why a villain is doing something, how it gets them toward their goal, you need to do some serious revising.

That's my thoughts as a narrative nerd. I can rattle off some more villains, or expand on what I think works in this or that, if anyone wants. I am always happy to ramble forever about story elements!

*This is a very interesting, but very poorly executed (at least in translation) story, so if you want to check it out, be warned that a lot of the time it don't make no goddamn sense. It is hella fun and cute, tho.

author=RyaReisender
Yeah, the whole "villain had a bad childhood" thing is getting boring too.

No one suggested that.

author=RyaReisender
Giving a villain a good reason for why he is a villain does not necessarily make him a good villain.

Not automatically, but it is a requirement.

author=RyaReisender
A villain without who is just crazy can be fun too if well written.

Can we please move on from villifying people with mental illnesses? Seriously. Not only is it a boring, lazy way to abdicate your responsibility as a writer to deliver a cohesive narrative, but it immediately projects to your players that you have no creativity.

But I'll play ball to be fair. If you're absolutely set on having a boring villain who's just "crazy," then do some research into mental illnesses. What is "crazy?" What specific mental illness do they suffer from? Why does it drive them to do evil things? And consider exploring the ethical ramifications of the protagonists trying to murder someone whose judgment is impaired by a disability. You're implicitly condoning killing people because of their disability, so at least try to raise an argument why you think that's okay.

^
That.


My brother is crazy sometimes. Doesn't mean he has a mental illness of any kind, he's just that kind of person. :/

You have to be careful with that, too. Even villains who may seem simple to the consumer are still usually pretty well thought out with fascinating themes.

For example, the Joker from Batman to a casual observer may seem to be a simple "lol i'm a murderous clown who got jokes lol", but he's considered one of the greatest fictional characters ever written for a reason; he's the culmination of literal decades of a narrative dichotomy to Batman's entire character. Someone knowledgeable on the character/canon could quite easily write a graduate level thesis paper on the Joker, but that's because you can't make that shit up; he's just that interesting of a character, even if he seems "lol i'm nutz" to someone who doesn't know much about him/comics/Batman.

Basically, even simple seeming villains can be quite deep.

Also, here's a thought; interesting, well written, and memorable are three different things. For example, you mentioned Cyril, but at most he's interesting to you and relatively memorable to some because he's the 2nd to last boss, but he gets almost no characterization next to a line or two about wanting to usurp the main bad guy. His memorable traits are rather a fluke because he looks cool and has some cool battle music, but other than that, he's in the game for like, 5 minutes and serves very little narrative purpose. But he's cool (?).

Is that something you want to shoot for in your main villain?

Lastly, keep in mind the demographic you're shooting for; someone who's enthralled by Edward Sallow (Caesar) from Fallout: New Vegas may be less impressed by like, Golbez. It's possible to have an overlap, but in general you want to narrow it down if you can.

author=Liberty
I don't even remember who Cyril is and I've played SO2 plenty of times.

author=Liberty
Pretty sure the whole dealio with Sephiroth was the dichotomy of his relations between his father, his mother and his 'mother'. Like, that was the whole deal that set him off on the path of crazy god-attempt - the fact that he found out he wasn't who he thought and snapped.

Yeah, I remember the character reasons for Sephiroth's madness (which is really; "I found out I had a fucked up origin, I'm gonna take over the planet"), but that's different than a narrative reason. As in, what is the narrative trying to 'teach' us with Sephiroth and his conflict? What's the moral? What's Sephiroth's narrative function in the plot other than villain?

The thing with Batman and the Joker for example is how they're mirrors, foils, and complements of each other and 'need' each other, and that's their narrative schtick. A narrative reasoning is thematic and different from a stated, character reasoning.

Kefka, for example, is a very shallow villain as a person, but if you wanted to argue that he's supposed to be more of a narrative tool and a force of nature rather than a person, then yeah, you can have that conversation.

Think out of the box and stop thinking of villains as straight up characters that is a collection of a bio and tropes, and start thinking of villains (and all of your characters, really) of more of narrative tools, themes, and the 'moral of the story'. What statement are you trying to get across to the audience? Why does your villain exist in the plot, as you wrote it, other than a final dude to fight? Think back to your high school/college English/Lit/Writing classes, because they were on to something.

I don't think stories need to have a moral. A theme, yeah, but a moral - not really. That said, a lot of FF7 was tied up in personal identities. Both Cloud and Sephiroth were not who they thought they were - Sephiroth decided to change who he was instead of learning to deal with the truth, whilst Cloud learned to accept his real self eventually. They mirrored and contrasted each other in a lot of ways through the course of the game. There was a femininity vs masculinity angle in the battle between Sephiroth and Cloud. A 'dreams vs reality' moral as well. And don't forget the whole environmental angle.

FF7 had quite a bit of depth that was lost in translation, but it did manage to at least touch on the themes it meant to convey, even if only in the abstract.

Sephiroth as a villain works with Cloud as the hero because they are very alike and also very different, but he is a compelling character who does not fall under the 'evil with no background, but awesome after all' descriptor that Rya was trying to pin him as. (I should get Nessy in here - she'll give a goddamn dissertation on the messages of FF7 and Cloud and Sephiroth's whole dealio. XD )

Lol, sorry, I did the 'add more to post' thing. >.<;

The, uh, environmental angle was a whole game thing, not really a Sephiroth thing (that was more the issue with ShinRa as villains, not Sephiroth). The point I was making is that he doesn't fall into the 'shallow and evil but cool and memorable' set that Rya pinned him as because he does have a history, motivations and isn't just evil for the sake of evil - he has a reason for why he does what he does. And all of that is shown during the game.



...is it bad that I still don't remember Cyril even after that video, though I remember the wise men? Because he's, uh, quite forgotten to me and I've finished that game at least twice. ^.^; I mean, of course I remember him after the video but I don't really think of him as... well, anything a good villain should be. He's quite bland (sorry! >.<; )