J
Jardel_Karabella
Guest
The passion factor
Below is a long speil that assumes you want an evil character as part of a plot that is primarily good against evil, rather than just a character who happens to be alignment evil:
Another aspect frequently overlooked by so many people who become frustrated trying to run plots and play evil characters is... who will want their characters to stand up and confront this evil? What will be the result when this evil is confronted?
One of the biggest flaws with many evil plots I've witnessed is people often fail to give thought as to why people should care if you're evil. Up until a few years ago Jardel was the head of an assassin's guild in his homeland that engaged in murder, theft, drug trade, extortion, price fixing and numerous other crimes.
Nobody cared, because he never brought it into the tavern. Good adds are that if he had mentioned it then only a few aspiring hero types would care. Most people would have bigger worries than "someone... somewhere... is doing bad stuff.".
A common plot idea seems to be "well, this new group will turn up and start attacking/killing people"... often with no apparent reason for singling out the tavern or the emporium. But how's that interesting?
The best villians of film and literature always have a very personal involvement in their villiany and with the heroes. They are driven to evil not by an alignment, an ancient curse, racial tendancies or the need for an antagonist, but by a deep an overriding passion that overrules all else.
In each of the Hannibal Lecter trilogy Hannibal has a deep and personal reason to be toying with the people that he manipulates. In Red Dragon he's matching wits with the man who put him in prison, in Silence of the Lambs he's working to exasperate his cruel (and in Hannibal's mind, completely unworthy) captor Dr Chitlin. Finally in Hannibal his opponents become anyone who endangers or moves to harm his beloved Clarice (who he developed a relationship with as part of his agenda to amuse himself and anoy his captors in Silence).
Hence the reason for his working and sacrificing to spite his enemies is powered a purely personal and emotional agenda. He risks his life, liberty and few personal comforts without fear or hesitation simply because in his mind a life where he didn't do these things would be infinitely more unbearable. Whether it's to test whether the man who captured him was worthy, to exact vengence upon the unworthy or protect his unrequited love Hannibal will risk, anything, everything, such is his passion for these things.
To create a great good versus evil plot you need to do something that seems, irrational. You need to transcend the entire concepts of good and evil, set them aside as wall paper, and instead go for that passion factor on both sides.
Let's face it, there's always another vampire, another drow, another fiend, another evil warlord, etc out there somewhere in the world. The average paladin will smite many, many evils in his career, if you want yours to be notable you have to reach past them being just a paladin. In order to make yours unique and special, you need to make them a special person to the people involved.
Because people have the inherant right in ISRP to refuse to participate in anything that they want to (and rightly so, despite how many may erroneously attempt to lablel it childish or foolish) it's actually harder to make good enemies than to make good friends. People have to trust you and believe that your plot will be fair, will go somewhere and will ultimately expand on their character. Before you can get you've got to give, as illogical as that seems playing evil.
All this said, if someone asked me to create an evil villian and bring them in tomorrow. I couldn't do it. I'd need time to shop, time to plan, potentially time to negotiate (if he was to be an antagonist to people outside the circle of people I'm comfortable assuming the wants of) and time to build them up before the villian truly manifests themself and gets full enemy status. To ensure the potential for full plot closure, I would also feel obligated to ensure the "villian" was indeed able to be utterly destroyed by the "heroes" as part of my thanking them for participating and ensuring everyone leaves feeling happy and like they've really accomplished something in character and out.
Well, that's enough for one rant... I think I'll leave this alone for a while and come back later to see if I have anything left to say.
Below is a long speil that assumes you want an evil character as part of a plot that is primarily good against evil, rather than just a character who happens to be alignment evil:
Another aspect frequently overlooked by so many people who become frustrated trying to run plots and play evil characters is... who will want their characters to stand up and confront this evil? What will be the result when this evil is confronted?
One of the biggest flaws with many evil plots I've witnessed is people often fail to give thought as to why people should care if you're evil. Up until a few years ago Jardel was the head of an assassin's guild in his homeland that engaged in murder, theft, drug trade, extortion, price fixing and numerous other crimes.
Nobody cared, because he never brought it into the tavern. Good adds are that if he had mentioned it then only a few aspiring hero types would care. Most people would have bigger worries than "someone... somewhere... is doing bad stuff.".
A common plot idea seems to be "well, this new group will turn up and start attacking/killing people"... often with no apparent reason for singling out the tavern or the emporium. But how's that interesting?
The best villians of film and literature always have a very personal involvement in their villiany and with the heroes. They are driven to evil not by an alignment, an ancient curse, racial tendancies or the need for an antagonist, but by a deep an overriding passion that overrules all else.
In each of the Hannibal Lecter trilogy Hannibal has a deep and personal reason to be toying with the people that he manipulates. In Red Dragon he's matching wits with the man who put him in prison, in Silence of the Lambs he's working to exasperate his cruel (and in Hannibal's mind, completely unworthy) captor Dr Chitlin. Finally in Hannibal his opponents become anyone who endangers or moves to harm his beloved Clarice (who he developed a relationship with as part of his agenda to amuse himself and anoy his captors in Silence).
Hence the reason for his working and sacrificing to spite his enemies is powered a purely personal and emotional agenda. He risks his life, liberty and few personal comforts without fear or hesitation simply because in his mind a life where he didn't do these things would be infinitely more unbearable. Whether it's to test whether the man who captured him was worthy, to exact vengence upon the unworthy or protect his unrequited love Hannibal will risk, anything, everything, such is his passion for these things.
To create a great good versus evil plot you need to do something that seems, irrational. You need to transcend the entire concepts of good and evil, set them aside as wall paper, and instead go for that passion factor on both sides.
Let's face it, there's always another vampire, another drow, another fiend, another evil warlord, etc out there somewhere in the world. The average paladin will smite many, many evils in his career, if you want yours to be notable you have to reach past them being just a paladin. In order to make yours unique and special, you need to make them a special person to the people involved.
Because people have the inherant right in ISRP to refuse to participate in anything that they want to (and rightly so, despite how many may erroneously attempt to lablel it childish or foolish) it's actually harder to make good enemies than to make good friends. People have to trust you and believe that your plot will be fair, will go somewhere and will ultimately expand on their character. Before you can get you've got to give, as illogical as that seems playing evil.
All this said, if someone asked me to create an evil villian and bring them in tomorrow. I couldn't do it. I'd need time to shop, time to plan, potentially time to negotiate (if he was to be an antagonist to people outside the circle of people I'm comfortable assuming the wants of) and time to build them up before the villian truly manifests themself and gets full enemy status. To ensure the potential for full plot closure, I would also feel obligated to ensure the "villian" was indeed able to be utterly destroyed by the "heroes" as part of my thanking them for participating and ensuring everyone leaves feeling happy and like they've really accomplished something in character and out.
Well, that's enough for one rant... I think I'll leave this alone for a while and come back later to see if I have anything left to say.
