Opinion - Playing the Villain in RPGs

A short editorial at implayin discusses playing the villain in RPGs.

Thanks, Couch!

I love a good RPG. Give me a game where my actions can shape the world around me, where they can change how NPCs perceive and react to me, and (most importantly) let me customise my character’s appearance – and I’m putty in your hands. But, whilst playing through Fallout 4, something struck me. I’m always the good guy. I’m always the guy you can call on to run a casual errand. I’m the guy who will waive a fee if there’s someone in need. I’m the guy who will make the morally correct decision, even if it’s to the detriment of my character. Why? Because I’m emotionally incapable of playing the baddie.

Trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to be the guy that refuses to do a job without being paid. I’ve tried to side with the people who will be of the most benefit to me, rather than the side that’s in the ‘right’. Heck, I’ve even thought about killing people in the game that bug me – I’m looking at you, Preston. Yet, eventually, I always end up conceding. I’ll do a job for free, I’ll side with the underdog and I’ll listen to Preston jabbering on about settlements that need my help. All because doing the wrong thing feels, well, wrong.

Recently, I tried to play through KOTOR II as the bad guy. I was unnecessarily mean to people, I was selfish, I was petty… I was downright evil. But I only managed to do it for a few hours. Eventually, I just felt like a dick. Even though the characters weren’t real. That my actions have no impact on the real world, or the people that I love. Or that it’s no real reflection on me, as a person. I still felt all icky inside. It still felt wrong. Man, I’m such a pansy that I accidentally killed a community on Fallout 3 by mistakenly activating a nuke, and I actually reloaded a previous save (resulting in a lot of lost XP and gear) to right the wrong.

I think that it shows the emotional connection that we can have with video-games. In movies, we can connect with the characters, with the emotions they’re portraying and in the moments on screen. In video-games, we are the characters. We create and act out those moments and we’re often the source of those powerful emotions. We’re the vessel, rather than the observer – and this is especially true with RPGs.

Click to expand...

More information.

Problem with KOTOR was, that there simply was no good "villain" option: You had good, neutral and assholy-in-a-stupid-way-evil. Not a "villain", just a selfish thug with as much finesse as a club, sort of "in your face"-evil - in other words, stupid. I normally play "good", but without a suitable evil option that's even more easier. If there was a Palpatine-long-term-planning-kind-of-evil, then that might be a little bit more interesting.

Games with a good/evil choice don't seem to do evil in a way I could relate to. Evil in a game seems to always include being verbally uncooperative but in real life that could lead to fewer accomplishments and less glory, which is against how I would want to be evil in a game.

It's a complicated issue and not surprising that games don't do it well in my view. I would want to see a character who appears to say that they will do the right thing but when the time comes the actions they take would be completely selfish with no regard for the ultimate consequences of others.

Hmm, IMHO a good example was/is the Breath of Fire IV and Final Fantasy IV games.
Interestingly, both are the fourth in a series, both are jRPGs.

I think its because jRPGs usually more story-oriented, hence the villain part is not about juvenile destruction and teen angst (I'm gonna git ya all, har-har-har!), but more about a personality change.

BoF IV is a brave attempt, because you play BOTH the good guy and the the bad guy - so the motives are crystal clear.

FF IV is more traditional. You start as the bad guy, and slowly turn into a paladin of sorts, in a typically emotional Japanese fashion.

I agree, evil is usually some absurd cartoon evil, and not something that can be related to. It would be a lot easier to play "evil" if it was simply related to being selfish or greedy, and I don't mean in the usual "slightly higher reward" kind of sense. I mean in the sense that if you're evil in a game, you practically get to own the world as a corporate big shot type, selling slaves or whatever to afford a bigass castle and all that comes with it, whereas the good guys have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to afford a "longsword +1" and a room at an inn.

Getting a 10% higher reward for murdering children just isn't a proper "choice"; it's mainly something people would do in order to see what actually happen, not because it feels like an actual choice.

I think mass effect series handled this pretty well. Replaying the series with a renegade character felt almost equally satisfying as choosing the obvious paragon options. Ofcourse few of the choises fell into the domain of stupid evil, but often the renegade path made sense.

And on the contrary to the article, I think Kotor 2 was also a game where I felt that playing evil wasn't just an afterthought. In kotor 2 Kreia often questions your choise of doing good. Like in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLEBtObYxU

Also in general, I think the choises are often too binary. Either you have to be the most noble person or the most selfish prick.

On binary choices: I think the German Schwarze Auge RPG ruleset is a great example to counter this.
In this system, each character has both positive and negative traits.
Therefore NO ONE is a pristine clear personality, eg. your front line warrior might be an excellent swordsman, but alas, he is a greedy bastard, who STEALS money from the loot!

This makes for some very interesting party dynamics, waaaay beyond the cheesy David Gaider-style inter-party romancing ( Ooooh, Iron Bull, your ... horns... are sooo big! This means you are ... horny? <awwww> ).

Unfortunately, this can be pulled off to full effect only in pen-and-paper sessions (with a capable DM of course), as neither computer game versions handles his aspect well (Star Trail manages to get a distant second though)

Playing a villain, hell yes, I want to try that. What game would that be?

With some actual villain. The one who does deeds not just to be a common bully but to change the world by deliberate leaving corpses behind? A character notorious for being ruthless who's enemies are government, police, maybe even army for actual proper reason, not because of some false accusations or conspiracy? Keep also in mind that villains are not lone wolves, they have friends, they have family, they're also not stupid.
I don't remember seeing such videogame out there. Playing a character who doesn't belong to do_gooder sect is the best videogames have.

Please, don't mention carmageddon, it's roadkill porn in phone resolutions without a proper story/character, not villain.

Few, few, Few managed to do this well. You really need to set up player's motivation for this role, over the course of the game, instead of "throwing it in" right away as extra dialogue options.
I disagree about ME...it had couple of moments, but for the most part, you were gaining points for being an ass.
Good example: Mask of the Betrayer, where "fall" made sense as result of protagonist's resentment of his situation.
BG II always felt that it wasted opportunity of not allowing the player to let Suldanesselar fall for the same.

I think that it shows the emotional connection that we can have with video-games. In movies, we can connect with the characters, with the emotions they’re portraying and in the moments on screen. In video-games, we are the characters. We create and act out those moments and we’re often the source of those powerful emotions. We’re the vessel, rather than the observer – and this is especially true with RPGs.

Click to expand...

That is an essential point. It must be stressed that is, in certain video products, players desire to be the characters. In Pong games, players do not desire to be the racket. They desire to enjoy the gameplay.

The trend is set though, players desire to associate themselves in video products, to be the characters.
Hence all the issues in representation as they can not associate to that character of a certain gender, sex, race, age etc and the impossibility to address the issue. Players are limited to a number of representations they can bear and likely to provide the much desired feeling of association.

Gameplay is vanishing, it is all about the story and the representation going with it.

I enjoyed playing the renegade in ME as well, but I never really felt like the renegade path was an evil/villain path. It was more about whether you were nice and diplomatic, or whether you got into people's faces and told them what to do. There were a very small number of renegade options that were actually kind of nasty, but for the most part it was very easy to play a renegade who only did good things.

Dez said:

I think mass effect series handled this pretty well. Replaying the series with a renegade character felt almost equally satisfying as choosing the obvious paragon options. Ofcourse few of the choises fell into the domain of stupid evil, but often the renegade path made sense.

Click to expand...

Don't feel bad. Many people cannot into roleplaying.

The problem with a lot of RPGs portrayal of evil path / characters is they come off as very one dimensional- psychopaths or people who lie, cheat, and steal always. Being "evil" is more interesting when you still have a code to follow; like say devotion to a guild. Age of Decadence offers some pretty good options for role-playing a character who is "evil". Certain backgrounds like assassin and merchant in particular.

I never had a problem playing an evil character. I think the author projects too much of his identity on the characters. Role-playing means you can roleplay someone else, with a personality different from your own.

I think it's important to create a coherent personality portrait for an evil character. We all have traits that can be considered evil, we just suppress them. Who doesn't want to be immortal or have power, etc.?

If you try to identify with an evil character without understanding motivations that drive them, it will indeed feel wrong.

daveyd said:

The problem with a lot of RPGs portrayal of evil path / characters is they come off as very one dimensional- psychopaths or people who lie, cheat, and steal always. Being "evil" is more interesting when you still have a code to follow; like say devotion to a guild. Age of Decadence offers some pretty good options for role-playing a character who is "evil". Certain backgrounds like assassin and merchant in particular.

Click to expand...

Um, yeah, except "good" quests don't make any sense either. Except if you find taking a detour for several days to get some farmer's old hat back from a legion of hellspawn for 20 karma points and a halo over your head makes any sense.

I generally play some version of myself, which is to say, not entirely evil. I make the choices I generally would in life, except for the fact that when the ratbags give me any nonsense, I get to twat them with a broadsword.

Elel said:

I never had a problem playing an evil character. I think the author projects too much of his identity on the characters. Role-playing means you can roleplay someone else, with a personality different from your own.

I think it's important to create a coherent personality portrait for an evil character. We all have traits that can be considered evil, we just suppress them. Who doesn't want to be immortal or have power, etc.?

If you try to identify with an evil character without understanding motivations that drive them, it will indeed feel wrong.

Click to expand...

Probably just seems odd but I am curious so figured I would ask. Why do you think wanting power or being immortal makes someone evil? I would view those as neutral. Good or evil might be how you go about seeking those things and what price is paid. But on their own I don't think power or immortality is for evil players only.

Also I think role-playing isn't as black and white as some think. Role playing is playing a role (hows that for circular logic). That role can be very different to yourself or fairly close.

For example - someone may play an orc shaman while also playing as themselves - i.e. see their character as themselves. Yet in real life its doubtful they are an orc shaman living in some fantasy world. So right off the bat they may be playing themselves but they are also playing themselves in a different role. In addition there are many aspects of taking on a role - people have their ideal self, true self, shadow self, etc. So perhaps someone may role play some of their shadow aspects (i.e. Carl Jung) or maybe they want to be the knight in shining armor they always wanted to be in real life but never quite achieved - so they play that extra good guy in the game - themselves but in an idealized manner.

People can inject a lot of their own selves into a character while also taking on a role. For example maybe someone plays a rogue Dunmer from TES. They might still play their own basic morals, personality and the like but adjust it to say "well if I suddenly found myself transported from my sales clerk job in real life to a rogue elf in Tamriel … what would I do? How would I react?"

In some ways it is a role playing how my might adapt to being in a new situation, a new role, in the game.

This is different then sitting down and going "Okay I want to be a dwarf. He is afraid of spiders. He has a weakness for older women and pie. His personality traits are X, Y, and Z. His behavior is A, B, C." This is a case of simply creating a character with no relation to yourself (other than what your subconscious brings into it).

Anyhow the point being both are roles and I think its too limiting to assume that the only "role playing" is when you create a specific designed character unrelated to yourself. Creating a role where you see yourself adapting to a new situation is also role playing - since you can't actually do it you have to pretend (role play) how you might behave in those situations. I am not a cop, for example, but I can role play I am one without also having to change my entire personality as well. I can role play how I might behave and act as a cop in certain situations while still staying myself in other ways.

I think playing villain in RPG is extremely difficult because the concept *evil* varies from person to person, whereas *good* is fairly standard.

For me, evil person would be someone who loves playing with people's emotion for their amusement. I think Kreia fits the role perfectly for me. Manipulating others for her benefit, that's something I cannot stand. Another would be *emotionless* selfish who cannot fathom others suffering, all they care for is their pleasure.

That is pretty complicated thing to implement in game, especially for Player character - imagine all the complex NPC & world outcome for such actions. It is definitely a lot easier to implement a single evil NPC where response of others can be done in much controlled environment.

I never play a villain either and afaik there is no ambiguity about the definition of evil. It's causing harm to another/others for 'personal want' (not need) gain. Another way to look at it is personal ego profit. Now maybe it's difficulty to write for game and maybe that's a good thing.

One way to know something is true, is by knowing evidence it's not true. So is there an example of evil, where there is no personal gain for the person committing the act. Personal gain, the perpetrator didn't need to survive. If there is no example, then it is accurate measure. Even if there was an example, it would need some validity and/or the existence could be an anomaly.

wolfgrimdark said:

Why do you think wanting power or being immortal makes someone evil? I would view those as neutral. Good or evil might be how you go about seeking those things and what price is paid.

Click to expand...

I too view them as neutral, that's why they work as a motivation for an "evil" character. In games you'll usually be portrayed evil if you want to achieve such things. Imho, the key to role-playing an evil character is not to consider your character evil, even if the game does. I don't believe that people who commit wrongs in real life ever consider themselves in the wrong, they simply have their own personal morality different from that of others, their own priorities, etc. It's quite possible to play such a character. And it's considerably more difficult to play someone who just bullies everyone around and kills for no reason. Because real people don't behave this way, everything has a reason.

Anyhow the point being both are roles and I think its too limiting to assume that the only "role playing" is when you create a specific designed character unrelated to yourself.

Click to expand...

I agree and I would even say that it's impossible to role-play a character who is completely unrelated to yourself. There is always parts that you interject into a character, traits that you want to have or maybe even deny in normal life. That's what makes you feel like that character is you, although a very different you.

However, I heard from a few people that they're able to play without identification with a character completely, just perceiving a character as entirely someone else. I find that hard to believe, but experiences may differ, so probably that's possible. I certainly don't think they were lying.