RYAREISENDER'S PROFILE

Basically there are a lot of different approaches possible. Depends on if your system is based on preservation or "each battle is a challenge".

Bad:
- Making potions a limited resource and then still require them for boss battles, so you can effectively get stuck
- Making potions worse than healing spells, in that case they will simply never be used and seem pointless
- Making MP so limited that you are never using spells other than to heal and during boss battles -> makes battle boring (even if you can recover a few MP by guarding, if you have to guard every second turn, it's just as boring)

Interesting approaches:
- Healing spells are very weak, often it's better to just stay offensive in combat rather than healing up, potions heal much more but are a limited resource
- Put a very low item limit (like 5-20) but make it possible to always replenish them at a certain point
- Full or partial auto-recovery after combat (HP and MP)

Don't be stuck in the old RPG ways, try something new.


Random idea:

Imagine a world where everybody who runs out of potions will automatically be teleported back to town (make a reason like... your guardian angel appears and transports you back). In that world, you also have to drink a potion after every battle, no choice. The potion fully recovers your HP and about as much MP you need for a normal random encounter, let's say 20%. You can get a certain amount of potions in town, the limit you get in town increases as you level up. There are treasure chests that contain potions too. If you ever run out of potions and the guardian angel gets you, these treasure chests are filled with potions again. In combat you have healing spells but they only heal a little HP. You can use a potion in combat too to fully recover, but that means you will lose 2 potions for that combat (the one used in combat and the one used after combat), meaning you can't venture as far. There are doors in the world that only open if you have enough potions on you (they are not used up). This way you can control that players only enter places they could actually clear. Build the whole lore around it.

In normal RPGs I actually like it when there are only so many playable characters as can participate in battle. I don't like having to put characters "out of battle" even though there are in the party.

There can still be more playable characters at different times. FFIV for example solved that really nice. You never had more than 5 characters in your party, but there are actually around 15 playable ones.

For strategy RPGs I like larger parties but prefer if they are without permadeath and the ability to grind. With those two features it's nice being able to swap out parties to keep the battles interesting.

Seems like I got you guys talking, mission accomplished.

And yeah, even though the villains I listed have "reasons", that's not the reason why they are great villains.

(FFVI, FFVII, Star Ocean 2, Valkyrie Profile spoiler warnings.)

Kekfa is great because he just makes it so blatantly obvious that he really doesn't care about innocent people dying. Or maybe he just really enjoys killing. He really just seems like a side character for a while but then suddenly he manages to become super powerful so he can make everyone suffer. And you kind of admire him that he went through with his pure evil personality up to the point where is almost a god.

Sephiroth isn't great because of the mother/father issues. Nobody even cares about that (well, I don't). He is great because he leaves a trail of blood behind him very early on already and feels like the "super scary being that could just kill you in a second, hope I don't make him my enemy" over the whole adventure. And then he summons a meteor that is about to destroy the whole planet and you are like "Welp, guess we have to kill this omnipotent being after all!"
Fighting him at the end makes you so scared of dying.

Cyril is great because he isn't just another side boss, but also goes all like "Now I just have to kill the final boss and then I can destroy everyone all by myself!" and he has very cool battle quotes too like "Well, guess I buy a one-way ticket to hell for your lives.", "What's wrong? Weren't you coming to get me?", "I hope you let me enjoy it some more." and "Try a little harder, before you die."
Not to mention he's the only boss than can render himself completely invincible if he just wants to.

Lezard Valeth is great because his determination is so great, that he accomplished even surviving Ragnarok and becoming an actual god, just so he can date one!

All these villains weren't great because they had a good reasons or a lot of background story to them, they were great because of the way they are shown to the player and due to their unique personalities.

But in any case, my main point was that good reasons are not what make villains great. That doesn't mean there aren't great villains with reasons, though. It just means they were great out of other reasons.

@Sailerius
That's exactly the point I'm disagreeing with. You don't need to give the villain a reason to make him interesting. You also don't have to think of a mental illness he is having either.

Maybe he just likes to kill people and hear the screaming of their children when they see their blood-covered parents. If you can show their evilness to the players properly the villains automatically become interesting without ever finding out any reason simply because they are going to such extremes.

The same works if you do a more comedic "everyone should just die" approach. They are so evil that when they go to hell, they enslave satan. Or the demon they are possessed by says "What, even the children? Oh man, I mean, I'm evil, but you take it to a different level."

The villains I remember best even today, weren't those normal humans that had their weaknesses or political goals. The villains I still clearly remember today are Kefka, Sephiroth, Lezard Valeth, Cyril (Star Ocean 2), Dark Force and the main character from Soul Nomad & The World Eaters if you chose to be the evil guy. And the most memorable villain on TV is probably Cartman from South Park.

Yeah, the whole "villain had a bad childhood" thing is getting boring too. Giving a villain a good reason for why he is a villain does not necessarily make him a good villain.

A villain without who is just crazy can be fun too if well written. Of course he you never meet the villain until the final encounter and then he's like "I just like to kill everyone", then that's not very interesting. But if you have the player encounter him many times and he's always so over the top evil, that even the demons are scared of his evilness, then that can be pretty interesting too.

Interesting is probably the keyword in any case. Player need to find the villain interesting in one way or another. Whether that's because he's extreme in any way or because the players can identify themselves with his problems or because it's a mysterious natural disaster that needs to be unraveled, does not matter. It can be interesting in all three cases.