Current Events > How to Write the good Villains: interviews with some renowned RPG developers.

(+) Yeah! (+)

found this itneresting article and with the power of google translate, i read it and it's quite interesting

http://www.gamestar.de/artikel/der-perfekte-spieleschurke-das-sagen-die-macher-von-the-witcher-3-und-mehr,3316440.html

basically the whole article are short opinion by various RPG writer/director/producer, etc in the industry

(of course the main context are videogames, especially RPGs)

here is the google translated text (yes, it's google translate and tbh still a bit wonky)


Philipp Weber, Quest Designer, CD Project Red:
1. The developers run a Bible about him Heroes of RPG like the Witcher series often need a strong antagonist who is at the very end of the journey. A goal that you have to work on. The character of the player must be stronger and stronger, to have a chance at all. As we take our story very seriously, a lot of work flows into the development of our villains. Work, which often does not see the light of the day in the finished game , but is absolutely nothing important.

As with most characters, we often think about where this character comes from and what drives it. What is his story? And what has led him to commit acts that would lead a sorcerer like Geralt to fight this character? We think of all these things and write them down in our developmental book , but often tell the player only a few details, for a character who explains his sad past at the first meeting is very interesting.

But having such a thought-provoking background story ready for reference does not allow us to have any logical errors in the villain's story. Each Quest Designer and Author knows where this character comes from, so we can automatically imagine how it would behave in any situation. Since our story is created by many authors and quest designers, this consistency is incredibly important.




2. Patrick Weekes, senior author, BioWare: He is often frustrating

The villains I really appreciate are those whose motivation I can understand as a player. When I see that their goals and views are meaningful and I know above all where our opinions are going, I can develop a personal relationship with the villain. I can sympathize with him, because I might have been able to get on the wrong track in a very similar way. Or I am angry at him for the one fatal mistake that made him what he is now.

In the
for Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Viddasala, a spy of the Qunari, took the rogue role. We wanted to force the player to deal with the question of how the so popular Inquisition could appear from the perspective of other peoples. From the player's perspective, the Viddasala has sabotaged the Inquisition and plans to overthrow the world's governments and bring the Qunari into power.
But from the point of view of the Viddasala, governments had put the whole world at risk by not pushing magic, and their extreme actions were the only way to restore security. Likewise, the Inquistion had to be stopped because the Viddasala (correctly) felt that foreign agents had compromised them.

The players were naturally against the Viddasala, but were frustrated at the same time that they were so often right. A villain, which always triggers an emotion , quickly becomes boring, because the players get accustomed to feeling like wading into cold water. A villain with different aspects, all of which are true - angry, monstrous, defiant, and even sympathetic - keeps the players on their toes and stays longer in their memory.

[cont. on the next post]
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3. Chris Avellone, Narrative Designer: He has changed the world

Better authors than I have found that a hero is only as good as his opponent - if the antagonist is weak, it also degrades the hero's triumph. I consciously use the word "antagonist" because a rival is sometimes more exciting than a villain.

A good opponent consists of several parts - he has a strong background story (so he does not exist exclusively during the game, but has a past that stretches before the beginning of the game), he has already stamped the world (the player Can see in figures and environments in the game world what the villain has done - this is especially effective as a harbinger of how he will change them when he gets the chance) and, most importantly, the player can play an active role In the fate of the villain (what we tried at Pathfinder: Kingmaker with every villain in each chapter).

If the player does not just experience a fight or roll-out challenge, but can actively intervene in the course of his opponent's plans, this makes him a more important part of the story of the antagonist, thus reinforcing the bond between the two figures.

4. Brian Fargo, founder of InXile Entertainment: He is doing something horrible to the player


I think the most effective way to create a villain that you really want to defeat is to let the player do something negative in the course of the gameplay - or the companions who have the authors that he loves them. There must be individuals who are important to the player, not faceless masses.

An interim sequence, in which the antagonist rages under unknown characters , creates no emotional bond. In so many games, you are not even interacting with the enemy until the final, and very often no emotion is associated with it. If Darth Vader were to appear in Star Wars just before the end, the entire effect would be lost.

If, on the other hand, Vader appears in the first level,

And lastly, we like to make sure that the villain follows a world vision, according to which he does the right thing, and even if only in his own distorted logic.



Josh Sawyer, Senior Designer, Obsidian: He is a product of his world


Everyone expects something different from a good villain. Some people prefer their opponents to be brutal, sadistic and incomprehensible. They want the completely strange evil, perhaps because they want to hate the character without any restraint.

But I prefer rogues who may be an antagonist, but the players can understand and perhaps even like them. Because I tend to postmodern thinking, I would also like to make the player understand that even villains are a product of their world.

From the story that the player creates through his fight against the villain, a new world emerges. And this, for its part, will create a new generation of "heroes", "rogues" and all others around them.


5. Trent Oster, co-founder of BioWare and Beamdog:
He has a higher goal

I have had the experience that it is very difficult to create a good villain. Above all, the player needs time with the villain, in which he can establish a relationship with him. I think, therefore, many video game players are former mentors, colleagues or team members, because this is how this relationship serves as a starting point.

I also think that we can identify with a great villain - in the sense that their motivation and what they do in the context of this motivation is comprehensible. Personally, I like tragic villains who have left their old principles and duties behind them and become those they have fought before. The despair it takes to crush a belief and drive someone away from something that is dear and dear to him is a very powerful thought for me.
[cont. on the next post]
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Another characteristic of a good rogue is a multi-layered personality, so the player reveals new facets in their common moments. Jon Irenicus from

is a fantastic villain. He spends a lot of time with the player and appears mysterious, but in the course of the story it becomes clear that he is a broken man and in the end the player understands his tragic story and his motivations.

I also believe that a good villain is not just a matter of personal interest . Many of the antagonists that I like most are pursuing a higher goal and trying to solve a massive problem in their eyes. The best villains always keep me a little out of balance, while I think about how even the best intentions can completely derail.



6. Colin McComb, Creative Lead, InXile Entertainment: He is the dark reflection of the hero


An antagonist should be powerful, smart, and the player character must always be one or two steps ahead. It must challenge the player so that the player always dances on the edge of futility when fighting the villain - other, better heroes have already tried to conquer him and failed, and the villain has only grown stronger. Show the strength of the villain as early as possible and make him appear invincible.

Personally, I believe that a villain should be a reflection of the player's character. A dark reflection, but with recognizable and comprehensible properties. The rogue could in another time be the logical next step on the path of the hero - driven to success at any cost, without regard for the lives of others, always making sure that their own decisions are the right one for all. In other circumstances, the hero and the villain could even find some similarities. The path to the side of the antagonist should be a constant temptation.



7. Nicolas Lietzau, author, THQ Nordic: Even in the madness he remains comprehensible

For me, the first thing is the traceability. Apart from a few exceptions, "villains" rarely understand themselves as being evil in real life. So if you want to write a believable, exciting antagonist, you should at least pay as much attention to your motives as the protagonist. Only then does it look authentic and arouse the interest of the players. These motifs do not have to spring from necessarily irreversible idealism, but can also be attributed to a cranky emotional world. A good example of this is Vaas from

: His deeds are abominable, but he makes perfect sense from his perspective.

The second "core corpuscle" emerges from the first: complexity. Of course, nothing is against a typical "I'm angry and would smash you!" - Obermotz, but just nowadays this black / white model seems quickly outdated. Characters like Cersei from Game of Thrones are so exciting, because they are more than a decal - they have complex personalities.

In other words, a real villain may be cruel, but rarely is this cruelty all that makes him - Cersei is, for example, powerful, but equally driven by love for her children. Video games in particular have much to learn in this respect - often antagonists are there only one-dimensional means to the purpose.

If these two core aspects (traceability and complexity) are retained in the back of the head, one can also omit the tropes or archetypes in the design process, because as a consumer of pop culture, they are subconsciously self-employed. In the design process it helps to remember the following: A good rogue is supposed to trigger emotions in the player - and if you do not feel this as a writer while writing, why should the players do it?

[cont. in next post]
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8. Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, senior author, inXile Entertainment: He deserved to win


A villain must be better than the hero. If the hero is smart, the villain must be smarter. If the hero is tough, the rogue must be almost bulletproof. After every encounter with the villain, the hero should be surprised that he has survived at all.

And yet the villain is not just for the hero. Rogues are by definition success stories. They have suffered terrible losses and have set themselves the task of putting things back in order - at any cost. They have been working on this for years, while the hero has kept sheep in his remote mountain village.

In other words, villains are characters who deserve to win. Even if their goals are terrible and the hero has only a tiny chance to stop them.



9. Björn Pankratz, Game Director, Piranha Bytes: The player wants to convert him

illains threaten the world and want to put everything in ruins. The hero saves the world with his iridescent armor in front of the antagonist.

Is this really so easy ...? Not quite. A lot more is needed to design a good villain and make it interesting for the player.

Nobody is just evil. Good villains have very clear intentions, far from pure power or greed. The player must understand the action and the intentions of the rogue and, in the best case, be able to comprehend well. Some event in the rogue's past should clarify his character. As soon as one sees the rogue acts or talks, the player must be clear why the villain says these things and why he has become so bitter.
The more I learn about the rogue in the course of history, the more sympathy I develop for him. It is really good if the player develops the feeling to convert the bad guy. At some point, you start to like him and do not want him to be so bored with the player and his world around him. It is also good to present to the player many possibilities in the course of the story, how a conversion of the upper churps could fold.

Not every one of them has to work, but they are supposed to encourage the player to think about how he would like to wash his head. An unsuccessful attempt at conversion must then also always be clear and logical on the part of the villain. Otherwise a villain sinks in insignificance and the emotional bond to the player tears.
A common past shared by the villain with the hero is also very beneficial. As a player, it is the most important to always know why you do the things that a game demands. This is how the fun of the game develops and the story told.

The hate for the boss is then greatest if all attempts to lay the craft to this rogue and you want to end up at the end of this Mistkerl just want. If there is still an alternative way to go after all the hustle and bustle, so that you could still make it to the upper churren, it is almost perfect. Especially if you know in the end, you could have let him live if you had wanted.



10. Jan Theysen, founder of King Art Games: He is the hero of his own story

From the point of view of history, there is no more important sentence in the case of villains than "The villain is the hero of his own story". I mean, a villain is not there because the hero needs a villain. He is there because he has his own goals and has good reasons for this. If the player is able to understand the motivation of the villain, and maybe even be a part of it, it is extremely exciting.

[cont. in next post]
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Think of Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones. At the beginning of the story he is an arrogant snob with a bad reputation who sleeps with his sister and tries to kill a child. A real bad guy. But then you get to know him better and at some point you get caught as you stand on his side .

The second quality that a really good villain needs: he must at least be equal to the hero, perhaps even superior. He must be able to exploit the weaknesses of the hero to meet him in his core. The Joker is a great villain because no one else can get Batman to betray his ideals. He knows what buttons he must press and is the perfect bad guy for the bat.



11. Robin Henkys, Game Director, Sandbox Interactive: It is not enough if he is only in the story

or a good boss, story, game mechanics and staging have to work together. It is not enough to have an opponent in the story especially cooperate, without a challenging final battle the villain is quickly forgotten. The course of the final fight should test the skills learned by the player in the game and challenge him to use them in a new way .

If the player is accustomed, for example, to reliable cover, the boss could destroy this cover regularly! However, it is always important for such a change to be clearly recognizable to the player. It is important that the boss fight is based on already learned mechanics, because nothing is more frustrating than to fail at a Bossgegner, because one does not understand.

The aim of the design of a final fight should be to make the opponent appear absolutely overpowering. This will support the character of the final opponent in the story and provide the required pitch, which is particularly satisfying in the event of a victory by the player. An important styling is the increase: the final battle should not only be an increase compared to the normal gameplay, it should increase itself in itself regularly, for example, the boss fight divided into phases and in each phase new, even tougher challenges.




12. Lena Falkenhagen, freelance author: He is at the beginning of all game designs


The design of the opponent is always at the beginning (and thus the design of all other components of a game or game update). So you start from the end. This is how the basic motivation and the basic conflict look and can derive all other components of the story from it.

A boss monster (a final boss) usually provides the reason for the player character in the narration to act at all. Therefore it should fit seamlessly into the narrative and its logical
While in Hack'n'Slays bad guys work best, whose goals and characteristics are diametrically opposed to those of the game character, a more sophisticated game needs a personal level between the boss and player character.

The nature of the boss monster should match the themes that were previously prepared in the world. It is important for a closed narration to provide a clear and comprehensible motivation for the player. A hack'n'slay without dialogs must be graphically clear, but needs a simpler approach than an RPG with many lines of text, where a deeper development with a clear background is important.
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Aaand it's done. which one do you agree with the most? what do you think makes good villains in videogames?
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i like this a lot, thanks for posting it

i particularly find the writing of fargo and avellone interesting because it is a light into thier philosophy of antagonists like The Master/the enclave (fallout 1/2) and weekes' if he was part of the writing of irenicus

of all the games i've played, Jonaleth Irenicus was probably my favorite villain. he embodied a great many of the ideas listed here, and it was the only time in the BGII series where his ambition to become a god didn't seem cheesy

Fyhrie's point is probably the most clearly defined in Irenicus, if you ask me. His plan is fucking smart, and he basically accomplishes everything he sets out to do; the player just happens to have a trump card that lets him stay in play.
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Good article.

Personally, I think villains like Paulie Franchetti from the Darkness are the best. The ones who have a significant impact on the story. The ones that make you hate them just like the protagonists do.
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Yeah the point about how a villain "rarely understands themselves as being evil" is a good point.

I doubt Kim Jung or Putin considers themselves evil. ISIS are basically Saturday morning cartoon villains but with their evil deeds being actually shown and uncensored except one key difference. They don't just think of themselves as not evil they consider themselves as holy crusaders.

The easiest way to make a shallow one dimensional villain is for him to go on about how much he loves being evil. Don't do that.
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apolloooo posted...

what do you think makes good villains in videogames?

Actually doing something. imo the top villains in RPGs are to the tune of Luca Blight and Kefka, best known for both casual genocide and internal betrayal. Sephiroth, on the other hand, doesn't really DO much. Kills a couple people but dies before meteor comes to fruition. Rufus is more a villain that Seph, imo.

But then again I'm perfectly fine with a cartoony, moustache-twirling villain a la Fire Emblem. Sometimes they're just vehicles for gameplay; which is fine, genre permitting.

What makes a crappy villain -- not really the final boss and converts to your side at like 95% game completion. Fuck you, Magus.
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...who did Kefka betray? He was pretty much a baddie from the start.
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philsov posted...

Actually doing something

added note: it's important that each evil deed be building upon the last and towards a goal

this is precisely why I love Irenicus. he's responsible for a chain of chaos, with each link in it designed to empower the next step
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I like josh's sawyer opinion too, aside from chris avellone.

Like he said a villain (or anyone really) partly is a product of their world. Some situations one way or another lead them to that point.

Nobody is born a killer. While nature aka genetics is an important part of shaping someone, nurture is half the persona too. People can absorb the atmosphere around them, subconsciously or consciously, it shaped them.

Also i agree that interesting villains should be successful. Sympathetic or not, tragic backstory or detailed motivation or not a villain wont be menacing if the hero always foil their plan. They must be steps ahead of the hero to make them menacing. They will make the hero he succeeded, but all they did is doing exactly what the villain want.

Example of the bad one is[s] corypheus[/s] from dragon age inquisition

Every stage of game we always foil his plan, and always come back like some saturday morning cartoon villain. Doesnt work that way. In the end, players will just think he is a joke.

Like other people said, irenicus is the good example. He is always steps ahead of you until the end, andcthe pay off when you defeat him is greater than killing an incompetent villain.

It's really stark contrast between old bioware crew vs new bioware crew
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8. Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, senior author, inXile Entertainment: He deserved to win

ROFL I never thought of it this way but this is so true.

And so brilliant. No wonder the villain gets so pissed off at the hero.
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PostCrisisJ2 posted...

...who did Kefka betray? He was pretty much a baddie from the start.

Gestahl
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PostCrisisJ2 posted...

..who did Kefka betray?

The emperor up on the floating continent.

Yeah, he's always been a baddie from the start -- but he wasn't number 1 so he fixed that.
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apolloooo posted...

Like other people said, irenicus is the good example. He is always steps ahead of you until the end, andcthe pay off when you defeat him is greater than killing an incompetent villain.

what i think is neat about him is he is not a victim of his world, but he thinks he is.
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Yeah, kefka was cool, sometimes you dont really need a comolex detailed backstory or motivation, you just have to make the players scared as shit to them and hate them so much.

It's the delivery. It works better in videogames because it is interactive and you know you will fight them someday. The tense and fear o the fact you will have to overcome this complete monster in battle can be a part of storytelling. i guess this gameplay focused PoV is more aligned with lena's view
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bump
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Great topic, btw.
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some other thoughts:

i very much enjoyed the antagonist buildup in wasteland 2. having actually played 1 I understood the threat posed by the cochise AI and the cyborg's willingness to do anything to bring it back was pretty horrific.

the whole game was basically us cleaning up the mess he created in his pursuit of his master, and I loved that the second the master returned...all slave systems were subverted and replaced with it.

the fact that in so doing, rose was instantly killed was heartbreaking. she was my favorite character.
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Ay papi
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Another thing that I like about Irenicus is that he is literally a soulless monster, but still remains an interesting and memorable character.

Also, the whole of Baldur's Gate can be summed up as people trying to kill you to become a god.
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synth_real posted...

Another thing that I like about Irenicus is that he is literally a soulless monster, but still remains an interesting and memorable character.

Also, the whole of Baldur's Gate can be summed up as people trying to kill you to become a god.

Yeah, definitely oen of the more interesting chosen one story in games
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DuranOfForcena posted...

this is a great article, thanks for posting this TC. i definitely identify mostly with the interviewees who make the point that the antagonist has to be well written in order for the protagonist to be well written. a good narrative starts with character motivation, and good character motivation starts with a conflict, either physical or emotional/mental. i've been slowly working on an epic fantasy novel series and/or game series for years now, and i have pages and pages of notes fleshing out the main villains, their backgrounds, motivations, etc., more than i have for any of the main protagonists lol. it is important to fill in all of that i think, because the antagonists and their actions are ultimately what shape the narrative the most, and in order to have a good handle on what their actions would be, you have to start with what kind of person they are and what they've experienced in their lives.

i would also like to add that i think it is good in most cases to have more than one antagonist, and to have each of them fill a distinct archetype. a prevalent example of this would be the physical antagonist and the mental antagonist, where one presents a brutish and physical but superficial challenge, and where the other presents the real underlying struggle that maybe wasn't immediately apparent. in my series the first antagonist encountered ends up largely being a patsy for the main antagonist, and although he is not fully without culpability himself, he eventually becomes a tenuous ally. the second is the physical antagonist, and somewhat of a loose cannon or mad dog that needs to be put down. the third and real antagonist is calculated and cunning, playing the long game and flying under everyone's radar while he is doing it. ultimately though, his goal is knowledge, and societal order, nothing traditionally "villanous". there will be a lot of Machiavellian and Utilitarian undertones in his method, with a good dose of Adam Smith economic theory, and a lot of it would be objectionable to most people if they knew about, but the case still can be made that it is for a greater good. the big question would be whether that greater good is worth the sacrifices that have been made for it.

Interesting. I actually remember you talking about starting writing on CE some time ago.
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