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An rpg where you play the villain.

StrangeCase

Educated
Joined
Apr 9, 2010
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A trite metaphor near you
It's pretty hard to write interesting morality in a video game, so most writers don't really try. Stock black-and-white characters and situations are the norm, since they're easy to make and easy for a player to decide what to do. From the short time I played Fallout 3, it was one of the most black-and-white morality games I'd ever played, and I have no idea how the public let Bethesda get away with saying otherwise. But then, the public lets Bethesda say all kinds of things, so feh.
 

Wikipenis

Novice
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
33
I want an rpg where you play a random bystander who is totally uninvolved in the story.
 
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There's a lot of possibilities for this, none of which we'll ever see of course.

You could be a top lieutenant of the main villain, and it'd be up to you if you were a scheming usurper or a really trustworthy right-hand man.

You could be a scholar motivated by the fear of death to delve into necromantic lore, become more and more twisted as your magic warps you while you experiment in your very own dungeon, and finally become certain that undeath is the best thing ever, for everyone.

You could be a fallen from grace champion of the gods, become the leader of some barbarian tribes as you bitterly plot revenge upon civilization.

You could be a leader of a society where backstabbing and assassination are so common that you must seek some incredible power or thing to stabilize your position so that you could effectively lead your civilization to final victory.

But you will not find these things in CRPG's, better to play PnP or strategy games.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
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Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
There are evil endings on various japonese console games, and on arcanum.

In no order: Der Langrisser, tactics ogre, ogre battle, probably some shit i forgot.

You're pretty evil for a avatar in ultima 8 i guess, even if it is never really spelled out
(i guess making a literal rain of fire can't be good).
 

DakaSha

Arcane
Joined
Dec 4, 2010
Messages
4,792
Stabwound said:
commie said:
Rather than just play an 'evil' character, why not also have in a game an examination of why 'Necros the Necromancer' became so butthurt as to want to take over and/or destroy the world? I'd love to see decent motivation for the big bad in games.

The game could trace the rise to power of the evil hero from fallen good guy or lowly minion until his eventual victory over his/her enemies.

This... would be an awesome game if done correctly. There's a huge difference between that, and Dragon Age style "evil" where you either choose to do the "good" or "bad" thing. Being "evil" in most games is more like being an asshole, not being evil. Commander Shephard punches a bitch in the face. That's not evil, it's just being an asshole.

I loled
 

Joentjuh

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Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
1
Stabwound said:
commie said:
Rather than just play an 'evil' character, why not also have in a game an examination of why 'Necros the Necromancer' became so butthurt as to want to take over and/or destroy the world? I'd love to see decent motivation for the big bad in games.

The game could trace the rise to power of the evil hero from fallen good guy or lowly minion until his eventual victory over his/her enemies.

This... would be an awesome game if done correctly. There's a huge difference between that, and Dragon Age style "evil" where you either choose to do the "good" or "bad" thing. Being "evil" in most games is more like being an asshole, not being evil. Commander Shephard punches a bitch in the face. That's not evil, it's just being an asshole.

I want to play a game that shows the progression of the main character into the ultimate evil guy. Maybe a terrible example for this forum, but Voldemort from the Harry Potter books comes to mind. You read about him being a "normal" kid and his eventual progression to getting into the dark magic and eventually becoming pure evil. You eventually understand exactly how and why it all happened.

A game where you play a character like that could be awesome. I'm really surprised there hasn't at least been an indie game like this. If I were a game developer I'd start working on this right now.

Well actually in the Mass Effect there is no good/evil (well maybe the 'reapers' can be considered evil, but not enough information is given about them). There is paragon/renegade, or in laymans terms lawfull and chaotic. Neither are evil... I do disagree with the game at some points about what's what though (I consider chaotic as the 'more' good).

And herein lies the problem does it not, what is 'evil'. Doesn't this depend on your viewpoint and the reason why. What's good for one group might be bad for another.
Realistically (and historically) looking it's the victor that decides what goes into the history books... I believe that people like Pol Pot or Emp. Hirohito didn't wake up one morning and decided to do some 'evil' acts that day.
Intentionally hurting other people is not evil, it's just being an asshole (as said before), I imagine most extreme terrorists/dictators/rulers/etc. don't consider that what they are doing is evil, more likely they though that they were doing good.
No matter how good the intentions, if the majority (of those with actual say) doesn't like it it's automatically considered bad.

Luckily there is fiction and imagination. Here we can make things simple and define our own rules.
Yes I like playing an 'evil' character in games (not the asshole kind), and would love to see more of this.

There are countless possibilities for this kind of genre:
- Simply being misunderstood (i.e. Dark Elf/Orc wanting to do good, but is feared, shunned and often attacked -> slowly starts hating and ultimately gives in and becomes evil)... Maybe potentially the most boring of story arcs.

- Being evil from the start, but pretending to be one of the good guys to gain trust and slowly aligning the elements needed to corrupt/destroy some enemy (which should be considered good).

- You're a bystander (maybe some villager) and your country is under pressure from some common enemy (LotR style), you have the option of aligning yourself with the forces of good or those of 'evil'. Though to make this sufficiently entertaining as a single-player game you'd need to have some higher-ranking position (or being able to earn higher ranks)... Maybe spy or general. Many possibilities with this one, maybe too many to make this interesting for developers (loads and loads of work).

- Out of romance, maybe currently the most used (from a NPC point of view). You're aligned good yet your lover dies and you slowly become more desperate and 'evil' learning the arts of ?necromancy? to try and resurrect him/her (and maybe become a Lich or some evil god's avatar?)

Hmmz, I'd really love to be able to play that last one :D

Of course, It would help if developers treated the existing 'evil' endings of many games as real and proper endings and not some sort of bad ending (where you die most of the times).

I also disagree with the whole 'breaking down of morals' and 'playing an evil character makes it easier to do 'bad' things in real life' thing. I occasionally play a shooter, does this make me want to go out and want to shoot people? I think not.
In fact, maybe playing some evil mastermind that tries to achieve something would actually make you smarter, instead of playing some (often stupid) hero that tries to solve everything by sheer force and does all the pointless fetch&kill-quests.


So yes, it's hard (but doable). And even harder to make something that caters to the majority of the casual gamers. What's funny is that writing a good hero story is fairly simple, yet writing a good villain story is pretty hard (suddenly motivation becomes important).
Trying to combine those two is even harder, in JK3 you could decide to align with the darkside... yet it didn't really change anything in the story (you just had more to kill and a somewhat different feeling whilst doing so), sadly most developers simply make some asshole option so that you can pretend to be evil whilst doing good :S
Writing a game that has both a good and an evil campaign would be like writing two separate games set in the same universe that could maybe share the majority of the characters but definitely not the story and dialogue.
 

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