These are fine examples of what I am also trying to work out in the survival horror board game. Trying to come up with a new way of logic idea to make sence of the entire story that it doesnt come crashing down at the end. Meaning ending in a lame expression like old shooter games on the nes and other consoles that read " Congrats. Thank you for playing" type stuff. What an odd ending sequence.

This is not what I would like to see at the end of the story.
For the world locations is complete. But for each character which will in some way interweeve their stories of life situations and survive the story to find the truth on what happened to their city, family, relatives etc.

So for the main villain of the story i am trying to find a solution on why the villian or villains are acting the way they act.

I have many ways to go on but I don't want it to go in the direction of Resident Evil series and Dawn of the Dead series. Which a Evil corporation trying to destroy the world for their own business scemes for domination or greed for money. That is why its been taking me so long to come up with a good ending for the story. But when I see what I have completed so far since 2000 I am still amazed on how much work there is by one person.

Thinking it through helps me on which direction I should take. Making different decisions on how the main characters will react to the main villians of the story. During the story I will be adding life experiences to add visual effects. As you can see by now that the story is a survival horror concept.

So for now I will be hunting for that right style of ending for each character profile. There is so much going on its incredible.

Sorry for that boast. For story writing take your time, see the outcome to which direction you will take. Make it believeable for you and for the reader.
write what you feel or can describe the way you see it.

I will probably never see this game on store shelves, which is fine by me but designing it was sure hell of a lot of fun.

BullDog

I had this same problem not too long ago and I'm kind of still dealing with it. My villian is literally the embodiment of evil and darkness kind of, but I want to be able to create a game/story from his perspective too where everything he does seems like a logical solution to hold off the hero for enough time to accomplish his own goals.

Example: (Date 80B.C) Villain goes to Egypt to gain knowledge on arcane magics. He knows a band of heros are after him, so he sets his troops on a small unsuspecting village, hoping for the heros to stop and take the time to help. Now the attack on the village is a massacre but he also had enough time to make it to Egypt safely and whatnot.

But of course my game is really complicated since the heroes can join the *Dark* side or do things that effect the balance between the two, like not stopping the attack on the village to find the Villain.

Another jib I would like to add to his question, what would push a villain to killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people? Of course we have Hitler to look to and a couple others but none of them truely acted on their own. What would push someone to the edge where they could justify killing millions. Where it would actually hold up in court.
This question is for my story of course because I'm struggling to find a way to make my villian evil evil evil!!* but justified in most of his actions (even if most are a little extreme)

Quote: Original post by KidAero
Another jib I would like to add to his question, what would push a villain to killing hundreds of thousands or millions of people? Of course we have Hitler to look to and a couple others but none of them truely acted on their own. What would push someone to the edge where they could justify killing millions. Where it would actually hold up in court.
This question is for my story of course because I'm struggling to find a way to make my villian evil evil evil!!* but justified in most of his actions (even if most are a little extreme)

Occasionally, when a person is the victim of some great tradegy, they turn quite nasty. I believe that Hitler, for example, hated Jewish people in Germany because they refused to fight during WW1 (for religious reasons). Thus, Hitler blamed that fact that Germany lost WW1 on the Jewish. Note: This statement may be entirely incorrect; I never paid much attention in history.

Make your Villian the victim of some great injustice of society. Perhaps the government had the Villian's parents thrown in prison/hanged/tortured to death for a crime they didn't commit. Perhaps his hometown was ravaged by some war that they wanted no part of, which lead to years of famine and poverty. Perhaps he born in to this diplomatic country, in which year after year, elected terrible, corrupt officals, which lead him to believe that only a world ruled by him could have any chance of an honorable government. He goes on to take control of the world, to right these wrongs, no matter the cost.

Well, i dont know how ERSB handles it, cause im from Germanyand we have other and really hard violence ratings.

This isnt an ansower to how evil can one be but maybe it helps thinking about rating:
Remember Lord Voldemord in HP, is he evil? Yes! And the first movie was free to watch from 6 Years upward, because you dont actually see anything horrible.
Then on the other hand remember Blade, is he evil? No! But 'cause of his "work" the movie was rated 18+.

And i dont think "grey" stories dont sell. The most japanese rpgs have "grey" characters, like sepiroth or the witch in ff8. In my opinion a good story needs shades.

I really dislike the term evil. Maybe it's because in order to be considered acceptable for an audience, you really can't make an evil character. This includes movies, games, and books. I've seen people in real life who are much worse than any non NC17 movie I've ever seen.

And evil doesn't necessarily have to be a villain as mentioned, and doesn't necessarily have to be explained in detail. Who's evil? Big Brother from 1984.

The world isn't black and white. The biggest evils in the world are caused by people trying to do the greatest good. Few see themselves as evil. They see themselves as trying to better the world. Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't necessarily agree with their viewpoint.

Horror movie villains? They're just evil to be evil. And even then, it only comes down to killing people in creative ways. Kefka in FF6? He's just a little looney. Comic book archvillains? They always have bumbling idiot helpers. I can probably name off on one hand trully sadistic characters that have appeared in text or film.

Let's face it. Grey doesn't sell. And if you want to get anything other than an NC17 rating, you can't make a trully evil character. Take Ultima 2. There was a room in a dungeon, where you were attacked, and had to kill little children. Granted, it was completely hidden, and most people would never have found out about it, and this is back in the day of 8x8 sprites with 4 colours, but people complained badly when they found out about it. Take Heroes, which is on NBC yesterday. The cheerleader, knowing that she's indestructable, smashed her car into a wall with the guy who tried to take advantage of her, and other girls. Had she killed him, it would have given her a cruel, yet more human, and interesting side to her. Instead, being NBC, the guy survives, and she regrets her decision. Real life is much worse than any media. A few years ago, I read about a guy who shot and killed another person because he wouldn't loan the guy a pen. Killed over a freaking pen. You want evil? Someone who will do horrible acts for absolutely no reason. But it won't sell. Imagine a villain who gives no explanation for his acts. People wouldn't like it. They want a story behind it.

Would you have honestly like if Sephiroth had killed Aeris just because he could (and not because there was any real reason)?

What is evil? Can evil be defined?

To keep it simple I believe we live in a nice world of grey. The word 'evil' is an extreme negative reaction of perspective to another perspective. Its all relative, there is no good, no evil, just reactions to actions and interpretations.

On the nature of evil in games (a personal favourite) I will point to the DnD way of categorising people with the nine stage good/evil law/chaos board. Pretty much anyone falls somewhere into this range, forgive me for the poorly constructed explination following.

-Chaotic Good: The person cherishes the idea of the greater good and is prepared to go to any means to see it accomplished, often over zealous. eg. running from the law to take down the bigger bad guy. Think the sugar coated Robin Hood character. Usually the protagonist.

-Lawful Good: Person believes law must be upheld to maintain a balanced society. Think the chivilrous knight bound by honor and duty to maintain the laws of his society.

-Neutral Good: Person takes a pretty relaxed sense on morality but will do the nice thing when the time comes eg. Offering assistance if someone house burned down. Think ideal local townsfolk.

-True Neutral: Can be a self absorbed person, the world revolved around them and they really dont care about much else. Or a person who sees the merits of both good and evil and prefers a balance, viewing the dominance of one or the other as a dangerous extreme. However any person of neutral status will intrinsicly swing towards good in a pure good/evil confrontation, after all it will benefit them more in the long run to have nice neighbours then raping sociopaths. Most linear npc's fall around here.

-Chaotic Neutral: The random crazy people that will do things for little reason such as jumping off a bridge as opposed to just walking over it. A lot of artists fit here.

-Neutral Evil: Your self absorbed character that will do anything to get ahead, including murder etc. as long as they profit in the long run. Sociopaths fall here as well as your generic evil goon. Saurumon

-Lawful Evil: One of the two most common forms of antagonist. A scheming, calculating character who manipulates the laws of society to promote themselves eg. The evil baron who taxes his kingdom heavily in the kings name while keeping the bulk of the profit for himself. For these people laws are a shield to be manipulated to suit them. Eg. Emperor Palpatine.

Chaotic Evil: The obvious manifestation of evil. A character that does whatever they want without a care for the repercussions. Usually very overt characters (they dont care what others think after all ) Eg. Sauron.

Quote: Original post by Averous
On the nature of evil in games (a personal favourite) I will point to the DnD way of categorising people with the nine stage good/evil law/chaos board. Pretty much anyone falls somewhere into this range, forgive me for the poorly constructed explination following.

The problem with the G,N,E / C,N,L distinction is that a given character may fall into different categories in different conditions. Consider, for instance, an assassin:

• An assassin honors a contract, he accepts a mission that he agrees not to fail. Some (ninjas) will take their own lives if they fail. In this aspect, the assassin is Lawful.


• An assassin, by its very profession, is an outlaw in almost any society. He willingly challenges any law against murder, ownership of poison or other exotic weapons. In this aspect, the assassin is Chaotic.


• An assassin is, above all, efficient. If getting his point across requires using the traditional "stiletto between the ribs in a marketplace" approach, he will use it. If it would work best using a very innovative crossbow trap that no sane person would try to use, he will use it. When executing a mission, an assassin is concerned above all by efficiency, and not a petty convention/anticonformism dualism: he is Neutral.


• Since he willingly agrees to kill innocent people, he is an Evil character.


• However, he never kills a human being unless paid for it. He will go out of his way to protect the poor, the homeless, the vulnerable and the innocent, when not on a mission. This qualifies him as a Good character.


• However, being a human assassin, he has neither compassion nor animosity towards litorians: while he will never step out to protect one of them, neither will he be a source of problems for them. In that regard, he is Neutral.

I believe that, rather than using such restrictive scales, a character is best defined by his psychology: his motivations and goals (money? fame? welfare of others?), his principles (steal? kill? discriminate? hate? forgive?), his charisma (overt? quiet? shy? born leader?) and his emotions (honor? love? hatred? fear? happiness?).

Quote: Original post by Averous
Chaotic Neutral: The random crazy people that will do things for little reason such as jumping off a bridge as opposed to just walking over it.

Are you sure you might not be stereotyping the alignments a little bit?

Chaotic neutral is not only restricted to random crazy people. An innovative gnome tinkerer would be a good example of chaotic character: instead of following traditional approaches to problems blindly, he will often go out of his way to experiment new ideas — for cooking vegetables, cleaning socks, pushing carts, refining ore, lighting tunnels without fire... make his objectives independent of good or evil, and you have a sane and useful chaotic neutral member of society.

Quote: Original post by Averous
The obvious manifestation of evil. A character that does whatever they want without a care for the repercussions. Usually very overt characters (they dont care what others think after all )

Do they? A chaotic evil character is not necessarily stupid or shortsighted: he will not go into a bar and slice everyone to death just because he would like to — he knows enough not to be killed. Neither does this mean that it cannot be made to obey under threat of death or mutilation. And the "do whatever you want" trait is actually a Neutral trait, not Chaotic (the chaotic equivalent would be "go out of your way to do unconventional things"). By all means, Sauron falls more into the Lawful Evil category (he tempts Numenorians with power, plans over thousands of years for the fall of middle earth, and he is a maia after all).

A better example of a chaotic evil character would be, in my opinion, a pirate or a street thug, furthering his own goals at the expense of law, safety and the welfare of others.

For a lesson in good vs evil read George Martin's, A Song of Ice and Fire. Maybe then you'll see not everything has to be broken down and divided into those two generic containers.

Quote: Original post by Nytegard
You want evil? Someone who will do horrible acts for absolutely no reason. But it won't sell. Imagine a villain who gives no explanation for his acts. People wouldn't like it.

Kefka did evil things for no apparent reason, and everyone likes him.

Quote: Original post by GairenKarrandeas

Quote: Original post by Nytegard
You want evil? Someone who will do horrible acts for absolutely no reason. But it won't sell. Imagine a villain who gives no explanation for his acts. People wouldn't like it.

Kefka did evil things for no apparent reason, and everyone likes him.

I didn't like him [smile]. Actually I don't see what people like about Kefka; to me I thought he was a thematically weak main villain. Admittedly I'm not a big Final Fantasy fan so I might be missing something.