Wanted: Thieves, rogues, grifters, undesirables, and other lying, villainous dogs! Reward: The castle; the home planet; immortality; the hand in marriage of one very revolted but lovely princess. Whatever. (Heroic do-gooders need not apply.) If you were the badguy in a computer game, how would you go about getting to your goals? How would you express your "evil-ness?" How would you stop the stupid hero from fouling up your plans? What would your plans be? In short, what is it that we need to know and need to do in order to design good villains that plot and scheme ? For starters, our hypothetical badguy needs a good goal. Preferablly this should be something hurtful, meanspirited, or selfish. They should have something that they like to do (like murder the weak, or steal), and whatever it is should be somehow detrimental in an important way. Then they need to get past everything that stands between them and what they like to do; or between them and what they ultimately want. But this is easier said than done, and the devil is in the details, right? Thoughts? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

I suggest you read this

The Top 100 Things I''d Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

that is the funniest shit i have ever read
i cant help but laugh

I visited that evil overlord site a long time ago, pretty funny. Sadly, he must be really bored to sit around and watch the idiot box all day to note all the problems in medievil tv shows and movies. But, even more sadly, I can relate to everything he said...damn idiot box.

shotokan

*lol* That guy is one serious evil overlord !


The greatest single design flaw that makes evil characters lame is that they always seem to have everything easy. THEY have the huge army of undead, THEY have the mighty fortress, THEY always have an undefeatable masterplan, THEIR magic is always more powerfull etc. The hero gets to do all the unbelievable tricks, and all the EO does is the stupid mistake that means his doom.

I'd reverse this completely. One good game that did this was ADOM. The good quest was to shut close the gate of chaos. The evil quest was to get a lot of artifacts, go past the gate of chaos and defeat whatever impossible creatures lay behind, AND kill the Chaos God himself. So, the evil guys risked so much more, but would win so much more, and were so much cooler.

Notice how all the true Evil Overlords, like Napoleon or Paul Muad'dib face impossible odds.

Edited by - Diodor on May 8, 2001 11:45:19 PM

At first I thought that the concept of this thread was -how can the player be an evil character (and have an appropriate evil end goal)-, which is a very different question to how can we design an evil Nemesis.

I think that if you were designing an evil nemesis character (in the context of a game where the player has lots of freedom of action). The character needs to be able to grow -in power and influence-, in relation to the players actions.

The player may be unawares at first. But when they realise that an "evil" plot is afoot, the villain should always be two steps ahead of the player. Until the fatal flaw is discovered. Then the player has the ability to destroy / confine / take over from the arch overlord character.

What techniques could be used to do this? (dramatic supremacy?)

- Multiple plans? -> Ie. If the player is in Orroyo then the plot will happen in Broken Hills. AND VICE VERSA !

- Henchmen carrying out the work?

- An inacessible island of evil? -where the evil one lives?

back to topic

i´d do everything i have wanted to do for a long time but never could because i was the good guy.

THis includes, but is not limited to: murder, stealing, beating someone nice up for no reason, blackmail, fraud, setting houses on fire (preferably of nice villagers who just helped the hero), using devious not always lethal traps (just for the fun of it), cutting out the tongues of those who gave directions to the hero, bribe, stalk, poison wells, kidnap and ransom (or kill anyway), and a lot of other unmentionable things considered nasty, evil or crimes against humanity.

Goal? To be the master of the known universe and beyond of course.... or just steal the princess....