RETHINKING ANTAGONISTS

Posts

Dragnfly
Beta testers!? No, this game needs a goddamn exorcist!
1809
author=RyaReisender
Nobody finishes all games or even just a large amount of games he gets, so not knowing all final villains in existence would be an issue for literally everyone.


No, I've definitely finished the vast majority of games that I've played. If I found I wasn't finishing games I'd reconsider the games I was playing or gaming in general. If I ever don't finish a game it's usually because the writing is just so absolutely godawful. FF13 for example, I dropped. If there's a story I'm interested in but the gameplay is horrible (like A Witch's Tale) then I can cheat to get around it but nothing can save terrible writing.

author=Sooz
A battle-based gameplay with no final boss makes the game feel like there's no climax to gameplay, unless things have been planned to lead the player in that direction from the start. (I'm not really sure how one would do that, which is why I'm so interested in this discussion in general: it feels like a cool way to explore different gameplay.)

Back around to how Resistance had a great climax and no final boss despite being an FPS, I realise that FPS' and Strategy games really do lend themselves well to having no specific final boss while still retaining climax and combat. An RPG would be much tougher.
@Dragnfly
It's really funny how exactly opposite we are. FF13 is one of the only games I actually finished in the past years because I really liked it (not because of the story, though, I just liked the music and the battle system).

If I found I wasn't finishing games I'd reconsider the games I was playing or gaming in general.

Doesn't that depend on the reason why you don't finish them?

I finish around 10% of the games I buy. Of the rest a third I don't finish because they have some annoying mechanism I can't stand but which I couldn't anticipate beforehand, the second third I don't finish because they get boring after 10-20 hours in (most RPGs are simply too stretched out for their own good) and the remaining ones I liked a lot and simply couldn't finish because they were too hard.

I don't see why I should reconsider buying them, because I can't predict before playing if they are too annoying or hard and still enjoy the second type for 10-20 hours which makes them worth their money.
author=Rys
I finish around 10% of the games I buy.


Good lord, no. I don't have that kind of time or money. I finish almost all of the games that I buy. If I had a hobby where I only got a 10% return of investment I wouldn't even pursue it anymore.
"No time to not finish the games I buy"? :p

If you have a job, you usually have enough money and just no time. So you care less about wasting money and more about getting the maximum enjoyment out of the little time you have. Consequently "Only play the game as long as it's fun" seems the optimal choice.

The issue is that I only like a very small amount of games and only for a limited amount of time.

On-topic: Not actually finishing most of the games you play actually supports "games need no villains".
author=Rys
200
11/24/2016 12:49 PM
"No time to not finish the games I buy"? :p

If you have a job, you usually have enough money and just no time. So you care less about wasting money and more about getting the maximum enjoyment out of the little time you have. Consequently "Only play the game as long as it's fun" seems the optimal choice.

What I mean is, is that I don't have the time to go to a store (physical or otherwise) to purchase something I only have a 10% chance of enjoying enough to finish. I also don't have the time to pursue a hobby with a 1/10th return of investment.

I'm pretty good at predicting what I'll enjoy and finish, and if I have a hobby where 90% of the time I don't finish it, then yes, that is a waste of my time and money. The time you spend doing something and not liking it is still time.

My hobbies are things I invest time and money in that I KNOW I'll enjoy, at least most of the time.
You only enjoy finishing a game but don't enjoy playing it? I think finishing a game is not needed to enjoy it.

I was like that when I was younger. Always thought I needed to finish every game because I paid a lot of money for it. But eventually I got into a crisis not really enjoying games anymore. Then a person told me to "Play a game only as long as you enjoy it" so I did that and the result was that I enjoy the hobby a lot more again, I just don't finish games anymore.
Hey uh, do you, man.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=RyaReisender
Seems like you are fixed on that thought that Kefka and Sephiroth are not actually the best villains ever, so you want to talk with people who are more into "political" villains. What's wrong with coming in and pointing out that Kefka and Sephiroth really are the best villains? What is a discussion without different viewpoints.


Because this isn't a topic about who is your favorite villain, what is the "best villain ever," or even about whether villain type X is better than villain type Y. It's about exploring new roles the antagonist plays in the story. This has been said numerous times now.

It sounds like you disagree with exploring this field, especially when you said there aren't enough Kefka-like villains in games these days. That's fine, but is there any reason why you feel this way other than "I like this villain type?" Unless I missed something, there was not a single person in this topic that said Kefka-like villains need to go away forever.

author=RyaReisender
On-topic: Not actually finishing most of the games you play actually supports "games need no villains".


That... needs some elaboration. How does a player's choice to drop the game have anything to do with the game's narrative design?
author=Red_Nova
You could potentially ease the blow of not having a final battle if, near the end of the game, your party members get picked off one by one by the enemy. And not in the, "I didn't actually see them die so they could come back in a grand hype moment," but actually KILL them. If you had five party members for most of the game, but arrive in final stage with only one, I doubt many players are going to be certain that a huge, epic boss fight awaits them.


That sounds interesting! Like a hybrid of JRPG & slasher horror. Or at least that what it looks like in my head.

CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
Ok... now that I've finally understood what this topic's actually about (I think), I'd like to posit a couple ideas for conflict that aren't totally centred around a huge, hulking, evil antagonist.

Time
The obstacle to your intention can be time. You have to race against time, the enemy that eventually erodes all things, to try and make sure your life doesn't get completely pwned by it.

seemingly well-intentioned family members that make tragic decisions that affect you adversely
Sometimes scarier than a Big Bad is a Big Bad bunch of relatives.

The Man
F@$k the Man!

A tiny pebble
Strangely, everything you experience in the game is due to the existence of a small rounded stone. His name is Dwayne "the pebble" Johnson.

Love
All I ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.

Society and its sociability... loneliness
Perhaps one of the greatest enemies of modern Western society, is the idea of social alienation that happens when you feel like you're missing out on exciting activities that people around you are experiencing. The enemy is defeated when you realize that there are some people out there feeling exactly the same as you and that makes you happy.

Anyway, I probably derailed this wonderful topic by digressing and ultimately not understanding why this should be an issue in the first place... I've never liked villains for their cruelty but rather the drama that they create, positive or negative. Drama makes me feel connected with humanity. So in place of a villain... try to create conflicts that resonate. Or don't. Creativity is your metaphorical oyster and whatever works, quirks.

Boom box 3000.
...topic brings to mind Pandora's Tower (for the Wii?)
The heroine suffers from a curse that is turning her into a monster. The hero must advance through dungeons to kill other monsters and get pieces of their flesh for the girl to eat to stop her from transforming. There's a time limit imposed on the player. Not having played this game, I'm not sure if there is a villain as such, but the disease + time are obviously antagonistic, to the characters and player respectively.

As for how to not have a final boss, maybe your characters have been competing with another party over the course of the game, and they defeat the boss instead. You would be playing as that *other* party that, in other JRPGs, you typically come across - the ones who abdicate glory and triumph to the main characters when they realize they don't have the strength or purity or whatever to truly defeat the dark wizard/nihilistic tree. This time, however, these dudes don't have the humility perceive their own shortcomings and are rather humiliated when the heroes snatch victory from underneath their noses.
author=Red_Nova
It sounds like you disagree with exploring this field, especially when you said there aren't enough Kefka-like villains in games these days. That's fine, but is there any reason why you feel this way other than "I like this villain type?" Unless I missed something, there was not a single person in this topic that said Kefka-like villains need to go away forever.

I brought this up, because the whole thread started on the premise that we need to explore new fields of villains because Kefka-like villains are overused and I think that premise is already wrong.

author=RyaReisender
On-topic: Not actually finishing most of the games you play actually supports "games need no villains".
That... needs some elaboration. How does a player's choice to drop the game have anything to do with the game's narrative design?

Sure!

You see when a game is build around a villain, it introduces him, develops him and ends with a final showdown. Due to the presence of such a villain the game's quality is shifted a lot towards the end of the game, like e.g. the super cool final boss battle.
In such games, not finishing them makes you lose out on a lot of game quality and enjoyment.

However if the games weren't designed around villains and focused more on being enjoyable from the first moment on without working towards any particular ending, then it gets a lot less important to finish them and the "Play it as long as you enjoy it" playstyle benefits strongly from that.

It hasn't been explored in RPGs much, but for example Bullet Hell Shooters where the final showdown gets less and less important and how well you do during the whole game gets a major meaning.

The concept could probably also be carried to RPGs. Like giving the player a limited time frame and when it ends, the game ends. Then he gets a score based on how many good deeds he did (or how many people were saved, etc.) and can try again.

(Some games like Gradius and Parodius go even so far and make the final boss completely helpless.)
author=RyaReisender
author=Red_Nova
It sounds like you disagree with exploring this field, especially when you said there aren't enough Kefka-like villains in games these days. That's fine, but is there any reason why you feel this way other than "I like this villain type?" Unless I missed something, there was not a single person in this topic that said Kefka-like villains need to go away forever.
I brought this up, because the whole thread started on the premise that we need to explore new fields of villains because Kefka-like villains are overused and I think that premise is already wrong.

(snip)


I agree the better approach is "what else is there other than the mwahahaha villainery?" And I feel this is what this is actually about.
You can argue about whether or not you should use one, or if you think they are overused or not, but exploring what else is there and how to do it is still useful if ever you have an idea where that may do better.
Many pointed out that it feels easier (or more fun to write, too) the standard mwahahaha villain, so it'd be nice if other approaches could be made easier by starting to think about it a bit and pointing out the general guidelines~
Turns out it's not that rare or strange, really.

Anyway, thanks for elaborating Rya

@Cashi / Suzy
Kool ideas : ) Love that. Especially the loneliness thing (I am a sucker for those things), but having a heroic win snatching sounds so satisfying too if you need to set it up and just do it.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Which part of the OP stated that the premise is that Kefka villains are overused?
Basically:
So recently I was thinking about those old, classic debates on 'who's the better villain' all across the gamingsphere, and how they generally boil down to Kefka/Sephiroth, more or less.

But thinking on it a little...aren't we putting ourselves into a hole by constantly narrowing what an antagonist is supposed to be and what their role is in narratives?
My first thought here was "That's not true, there's definitely a high variety of different villains even today, nobody is narrowing down what an antagonist is supposed to be."

The reason Kefka and Sephiroth are popular is not because people are narrowing down their view, but rather because they work best.
Well as I understood it... this topic is about expanding the definition of game antagonist from a single villain to any number of other things for the player/characters within game to confront. So the topic is like outside of what you're saying. Whether or not Sephiroth/Kefka are the best villains is irrelevant. Antagonist does not strictly mean villain, after all.
Yes, I wasn't against exploring that though, I even gave some ideas (natural disasters, no villains).

For me it's still relevant that I'd rather want more villains like Kefka, because you just because you could do something else doesn't mean it's better. :p
No, it's not better, and it's not worse. It's all completely neutral. You liking something that I don't like and vice versa is neutral because those are just opinions. Exploring ideas about a particular topic is neutral because the point is to be imaginative and to examine from all angles.

While favouring Kefka is relevant to YOU I don't feel it's relevant specifically to the topic.

All I mean is that you are asking "why can't I say how great Kefka/Seph are" and I'm saying in reply, from my understanding of the OP, that that is not really the point of this topic (although it's obviously no crime to mention it here). "Who is the best villain" in general is not the point... I think Feldschlacht was using Kefka & Sephiroth as an example because they will predictably always appear in a discussion about RPG villains.

I took "narrowing down" to mean confining the concept of antagonism to a single, dominating character, not narrowing down that character's traits to emulate those of Kefka and Sephiroth.

Well actually, it could be relevant, I don't know. That is just how I read the first post.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=RyaReisender
For me it's still relevant that I'd rather want more villains like Kefka, because you just because you could do something else doesn't mean it's better. :p


OK so make a thread saying, "Hey, let's make more Kefka style villains!" instead of shitting this one up with a tiresome and off-topic argument.

Like it's OK if you like a certain character type, but that doesn't mean that every discussion needs to be about that fact. The OP was very clearly "Hey, let's explore this less-explored idea!" and you come in all "No, I think we need to listen to my ideas about how great the already-explored stuff is!"
Yeah but Kefka destroyed the whole world