In novels, it is often done, and too good effect, to portray the bad guys as unabashedly evil. Sometimes you can humanize them a bit, like make them nice to dogs before they kick in the door and start machinegunning down innocents, but often that gesture is not even made.
When Anakin goes to the Dark Side, he heads off to the nursery for Jedi, and not just kids, but kids who LIKE him, he then slaughters. Its hard to muster much sympathy after that point for him as he gets burnt and maimed and then loses the love of his life.
In a lot of action adventure films, the baddies do something so horrible and vicious to the hero, that the audience then cheers as he proceeds to mow through the baddies on the way to the ultimate scumbag.
This is an important and useful technique. When your pc is hunting vampires, make sure to drop in an occasional pretty girl on the way to the market or convenience store aka innocently doing her duty in a pleasant way, but then add with her throat ripped out. It helps to make the reader hate your villains. The reader or player is then more emotionally involved.
One thing to keep in mind when creating evil is to be relevant. Everyone likes Nazis as villains, and that includes me, as I've just used them as such. But the Nazis are pretty much a dead threat. The membership rolls of the Aryan Nations probably have more FBI infiltrators than actual racist scumbags.
This was one of the problems with the movie Avatar....oh no, the Villain is...a megacorporation using the USMC (sorta) to plunder peaceful natives....oh the surprise, the shock, I never, ever could have seen that coming....if this was 1951 (well, it probably wouldn't have been a total surprise even then, but at least it would not have been so threadbare a couch in the mental furniture of writers that you can see the floor through the couch.)
So for our Villains we want 1)Those we can hate. 2)Relevant to the Modern World and 3)Not so threadbare from overuse as to be predictable.
I'm writing this in part because I need to come up with the villains for Torchthrower so that my TP cryo marines can have someone to maim and slaughter with their plasma cannons.
Now there are a lot of evils in the modern world. We're quite burdened with them, and a lot don't make it to the stories.
1. Machete chopping off arms.
2. Muslims in Uganda?? going after the Christians and the Animists with extreme prejudgice.
3. Hussein's Iraq had 20% of a religious minority oppressing th eother 80% in large and small ways. And oh, yeah, they were Nazi descendants in politics.
4. There was supposed to be at least one African nation that is Nazi. But people only see Naziism when its blonde haired and blue eyed. But really, there's nothing that says you can't be Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer if you're black or Asian or Hispanic (La Raza is headed that way with its all for the race, nothing for outside the race).
5. One Child Policy in China sounds like something out of a 70's era SF short story. And its going to have the 'happy' effect of unleashing a bunch of twenty year old guys (and by a bunch I mean a BUNCH) who can't get a date with a girl because their neigbours aborted the daughter to have a son. And you can just imagine how cranky fifty thousand guys are going to be when they find theirs only five hundred girls for them.
6. Embyronic Stem Cell research for longetivity....or 'Dark Lord, we sacrifice this infant to your dark majesty in exchange for another decade of life'.
7. MLPHD Syndrome....People like Ward Churchill who opined that the jumpers on 9/11 were 'little Eichmanns' (a Nazi scumbag) and one guesses deserved their fate would make excellent villainous lieutenants....they're not smart enough or tuned in enough to be the actual villainous leader.
8. People like 'Freezer Cash' Johnson??, the representative who stowed 80k in his freezer make excellent examples of hapless minions.
9. The SEIU goons who beat up that black guy selling the 'Don't Tread on Me' flags are also helpful as goons.
10. The reward receiving scientist who longed for a virus to wipe out 90% of the human race would make an excellent master villain.
11. We've also seen a fair number of scientists in recent years claim great things which turned out to be not so much...Cold Fusion.
Now these offer some frames for mental furniture, and then we turn to metaphor to put the upholstery on.
And remember, Freezer Cash Guy might be just a stupid greedy man, but in stories, its fine to add characteristics and make him a true spawn of evil.
So, lets take La Raza and illegal immigrants. Instead of reality which is 1. A lot of lawbreakers, some wannabe Nazis, and some criminal scumbags, and drug cartels we go to 2.. At 2. we make them really nasty. The ordinary folk are more like locusts, and they don't just disrespect one law or two, but almost all of them. The Wannabees are Actual. They keep the ordinary folk in line with the Movement by Terror. The criminal scumbags are worse....all the serial killers, pschyo war vets, and everyone else inclined to disturb the peace is given a choice Exile or a Bullet. The Drug Cartels are plenty evil enough already with their tendency to kidnap judges and kill reporters, but we can make them more effective. Make them Warlords.
Now, we got to put on another layer of Metaphor.
They're in space, on a planet, and we call them....oh, Tarkans. Why Tarkans...it sounds cool, but not overly nice, and its easy to remember, and its got sharp edges in the sound and the letters as written.
The Tarkan Dynasty is massively corrupt. Typically, the passing of the king is followed by a sort of bidding in the Council where various contenders offer favors and money and stuff (that they may not own but intend to steal once they get the crown) to the council members in exchange for their vote.
If the Tarkanite Kingdom did not have access to large amounts of hydrothermal energy which it can tap, it would be a very poor country and probably better run. But as it is, the Tarkanite leadership can buy weapons and sometimes mercs from overseas to help them suppress anyone of their people who gets too upset.
Most of the people live in sheds on the sides of semi-active volcanoes where they are able to have easy access to the geothermal power taps. Now, other nations on this planet of Wanderjahr are able to do this as well, and they provide their people with twenty mile long railroad commutes to the power tap sites. That way, only the workers on one shift, and not all the workers, their wives, and their kids, bare the danger of a volcano erupting. And in the most advanced countries, the workers on a shift have just enough volcano shelters to help them ride out an eruption.
The Tarkanites on the other hand, just slap up sheds and shovel in more people after an eruption. The usual technique is to cordon off a neighborhood in an overpopulated city, grab everyone, and bus them to the new site where they will now live. Then one of the Tarkanite princes buys the old neighborhood at a tenth of its value, and razes the cheap houses, and builds himself a new sports stadium.
Now, sometimes energy prices dip, and then the Dynasty is in trouble. It has to do some minimum of food supply to the poor to hold off starvation. And everyone in gov't takes their cut. And when th epie shrinks, people get restive.
So the Tarkanite Dynasty grabs some, busses them up near the border and says 'Bullet or Border, your choice.' They have a machine gun on a jeep ready for anyone who tries to escape back home.
To make it properly SF, change the machine gun to a pulse laser mounted on a hovercraft. And change the drug warlords to illegal pleasure wire tappers who can insert a wire into your brain and tap the pleasure center with a little jolt of electricity.
At which point, the TP marines arrive,a nd decide to try to fix things.
Its one way of doing things.
We'd need to have some acts of horror by the La Raza counterpart so that the reader can justifiably hate them.
You can have the La Raza like Ishtar and the first Hulk movie :P
I mean it depends how far you want to go, I have a lot of suggestions, but how dark do you want it to be?
Probably have the first group, the Lawless, be not so bad. They're more taking the path of least resistance than actively seeking evil although sometimes they do.
I'd want the reader to be convinced these folk deserve to be smashed, but not have the reader be grossed out at the same time.
I am reminded of a John Wick article from a decade ago, Hit 'em Where It Hurts, that might be of some interest. I admit that I remember it because it has become something of a lightning rod for comments in the past couple of years--someone cited it in an off-site article, and gamers have since flocked to it praising and condemning Wick's proposed highly adversarial referee style. In any case, it suggests ways to make a very insidious and successful villain in a superheroes game. A lot of it hangs on the concept of betrayal: you thought this guy was someone you could trust, and all the time he was carefully collecting your secrets and weaknesses to use against you.
I might criticize your villains for being too parochial. As far as I can tell, they're cruel to the poor who live in their land, but disinterested in anyone beyond their borders and quite content to drive the poor into other places. They want to hold a monopoly on energy, but they don't actually have it--they have a major share, but not great enough that the other countries couldn't meet their needs without relying on the villains. They certainly aren't a threat to anyone beyond their planetary boundaries; they're barely a threat to anyone outside their national boundaries.
Yeah, we don't like them and would object to their violation of human rights; but I think John Cross would say there's no reason for outsiders to become involved in this, as it's an internal matter.
I would only disagree if I were versed into a position that put me in the middle of the problem, I think.
--M. J. Young
For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of the concept of people who follow evil for the sake of evil. C. S. Lewis observed that it was possible to do good solely for the sake of doing good, but that those who do evil generally do so in the hope of obtaining something good from it. It might be a distortion of good--Hermonicet in The Cloak of Night and Daggers wants immortality, and life is good and death bad, so what she wants is good; she has decided to pay the cost of destroying all other elves and their kingdom to get it, which is the bad part. The point, though, is that she is doing something horribly bad in order to obtain for herself something that is good.
Villains who do bad things for the sake of something bad are not really credible villains. At some point you have to be able to see the good that the villain desires--justice distorted into vengeance, peace and safety distorted into destruction of enemies, comfort at the cost of others. What then makes the enemy truly despicable is not what the enemy wants for himself but the selfishness of what he's willing to sacrifice (which is not his to sacrifice) in order to obtain it.
Even the Satan-worshiping warlock doesn't worship Satan because he likes evil. He does so because power enables him to do that which for himself is good, and this is the price he must pay to get that power. We don't sacrifice virgins because we like to sacrifice virgins. We sacrifice virgins because it gives us the power to make ourselves healthy, wealthy, and wise.
--M. J. Young
I once did a scenario in which the villains would torture their victims to death, and then resurrect them so they could do it again. My players thought it the most heinous wickedness they had ever encountered. I don't think I ever topped that one.
--M. J. Young
Wick's ideas are not the sort of thing you want to make a general rule of, but they might work as an exception.
Too parochial...good point. However, they're destabilizing their neighbour as well.
Its one of the things about traditional dictators...they just want to be rich and powerful, often enough, and they don't need to change the world in bad ways. They just want their corner of it to lord over other people. It tends to take an ideology like Communism to really mess things up.
Then again, you could say the Tarkan are just exporting all their troubles to their neighbours, and this is escalating tensions between the various regional powers in the area as some powers try to help the Tarkan to mess over their enemies, and the ones under siege by the Tarkan warlords and Razian terror brigades and the Lawless hordes get seriously bent at the Tarkan and the Tarkan's enablers.
The Tarkan don't follow evil for the sake of evil. Most novels that have evil scum don't neccessarily have them as doing it because they love evil. Its understood that the Mafia does its thing because they want cash and power.
And yeah, most people who are massively evil think they're doing something good. Although I have less faith in the desire for good than you do. I think some people think of the concept of doing good as an evil.
As to the wickedness thought...imagine sending Lauren into a dungeon run by vampires for some devious plan of hers...
Yeah, we don't like them and would object to their violation of human rights; but I think John Cross would say there's no reason for outsiders to become involved in this, as it's an internal matter.
And you would be correct. Pearl Harbor. A few hundred Americans died heroes, The United States came out of The Great Depression and became a superpower. I can live with that. I wouldn't kill Hitler if I had the chance. Six million people went to meet God, Germany was defeated, I can live with that too. God only knows what would have happened if Hitler had been killed as a child.
I guess what I'm saying is "What is evil"?
A simple question, John; the popular definition and the one to which I most relate is that evil is self-interest. If you save a boatload of people because they are people, that is good; if you save a boatload of people because your close friends are among them, that is evil. If you yourself die to save many, that is good; if you kill many people to save yourself, that is evil. If you do something distasteful for the benefit of all, that is good; If you do something because you "like the feeling" in spite of what it does to someone else, that is evil. Many situations could have a character do the same thing for very different reasons; part of running a great game is to discover how the PC acts in a given situation to drop them an appropriate hook for your scenario. This leads to my question: How does one defend Reim (a sadistic pedophile who enters childrens' dreams to control their fear utterly, and rapes and murders them solely for his own pleasure) as one who does not do evil for evil's sake? (I know, you don't have to say it, "Kyler, you come up with some of the most disturbing characters I've ever seen," or as my therapist put it, "You could do something great if you channeled all that creative energy into a positive outlet," or, as someone, I think it was John 1 put it, "Playing in your game is like watching a train wreck in slow motion.")
How does one defend Reim (a sadistic pedophile who enters childrens' dreams to control their fear utterly, and rapes and murders them solely for his own pleasure) as one who does not do evil for evil's sake?
What would those children have grown up into? Let's not forget, Ted Bundy, Albert Fish and Jeffery Dahmer were all once children. I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't have a problem with entering 10 year old Hitler's dreams to control his fear, rape him and murder him.
For clarity's sake, he rapes and murders them outside of their dreams. Whether or not plenty of people would do it is irrelevant; it is still an evil action. I, as well as many other people, would rather save my child than ten other people; this is a selfish thus evil thing that many others would agree with. Is it good to kill knowing that the consequences will be good for humanity? No. Is it good to kill knowing that the consequences will be good for the entire universe? Yes. Is humanity good for the entire universe? This question cannot be answered as yes at this time when we look to history and witness humanity's effect on the planet on which we live; as evil is selfish and good is selfless, looking at humanity as a part of your "self" makes it blatantly obvious that most whose actions are considered "selfless" and therefore "good" as far as the furtherance of humanity goes are in truth evil; and we're right back where we started again. Good and evil are concepts relative to one's perception of the world. Two "good" factions -- selfless to the furtherance of their own cause, and therefore selfish and "evil" -- could easily become rivals in a long-standing war over territory, resources, perceived insult, aggressive defense of one side; no side in any war in our world ever considers their cause evil, but the ideals of evil are almost always the root; they are tempation to all. Therefore, when talking about relatable evil characters being difficult to create, I would say that, truly, the relatable good characters are more difficult. (Also, worthy of note to add, John; you've just defended a serial child rapist/murderder by saying "the kid might have grown up to do something terrible." Awesome. You should work for the FBI and tell the victims' families.)
(Also, worthy of note to add, John; you've just defended a serial child rapist/murderder by saying "the kid might have grown up to do something terrible." Awesome. You should work for the FBI and tell the victims' families.)
You asked me to defend him.
MJ recently explained to me that Mother Teresa was in fact a selfish and evil person, at least by your definition. Why did she perform all of her wondrous deeds? In the hope of securing a better place in Heaven, right? So, everything she did was self-serving and therefore evil, by your definition.
Two
Here's one for you Kyler. There's a runaway freight train about to plow into 10 children playing on the train tracks. You are the switch track operator. You can do nothing, or you can reroute the train so that it only plows into 1 child playing on a different set of tracks. What do you do? You're thinking "That's easy. Reroute the train so that it only kills the one child. One killed is better than 10." WRONG!!! Believe it or not, the right thing to do is to do nothing and let the train plow into the 10 children. If you reroute the train, YOU are deciding who lives and who dies. You are playing God, and you are a murderer. If you do nothing, it's completely out of your hands, you are in no way responsible, and what happens next is in God's hands, not in your own.
Reim is a clear cut case of must be dealt with, unfortunately with him being effectively immortal, Jhiaxus determined the best course of action was to eliminate the problem when it came up for as long as he could.
I do not think that any man can go to the length of what mother Theresa went through just for a place in heaven. Have you any idea what she went through and for how long? She sacrificed very, very much, not to earn anything, but out of love. It was her that said: "Love until it hurts, then love more", or something like that.
And as to your other post: JOHN, THAT IS JUST SICK!
I must be doing something right, I do that all the time Nikolaj :P
Very good Adam! :)
And as to your other post: JOHN, THAT IS JUST SICK!
So Nikolaj, leaving something in God's hands is sick? I never would have thought I'd see you say that.
Yes, John, Mother Theresa was under the logic you provided in it for herself, and therefore evil. // Anyway, I am the switch track operator, and if I saw and did nothing, I am leaving myself vulnerable in criminal neglect and will face ten charges of manslaughter instead of one. I'm evil for switching the tracks. // I am a father, and when I see all these children playing, I think how I would feel if my own child died, and this is forefront in my decision to change the tracks, therefore I am evil. // I choose not to change the tracks and leave this in God's hands, because I do not want to live with the burden of even one life's blood on my conscience. I am evil.
When religion stops people from helping others just so everything is in gods hands religion has gone astray or has been perverted into something different.
What Glantri says.
Also, God specifically said that WE ARE HIS HANDS.
As to Kyler, there is a difference to wanting something and egoism. God put desires in our hearts by design, so he wants us to long for thing. Having a longing, especially a longing for God (by definition a love for God and the other people) is not evil.
My definition of evil is selfishness. Yours clearly does not coincide with mine, so what is yours? edit: Ok, so since you didn't answer quickly my assumption is that you see no issue with my line of reasoning, but in your opinion I take it too far. I would say, we are all in sin and do things that are good and selfless for selfish, evil reasons, except One of us who did not, so we killed Him for evil, selfish reasons (and by doing that, did something selfless and good).
So Nikolaj, you would rather be responsible for one death than not be responsible for any? If you do nothing and let the train kill the 10 kids, it wasn't your fault. If you reroute it and let it kill the one, that one IS your fault. You're saying you would rather be responsible for one death than not be responsible for any.
When it comes down to it, doing what some might be considered selfish, for the greater good, you need to weigh both sides. I do things in games that I'm not proud of (latest example taking money from gangsters to make sure I have a place to come home to, equip myself and end up fighting more bad guys. It's a selfish move, but the greater good is those gangsters are out of circulation, and likely more will be from making sure I am in a position to. There are many grey areas of good and evil, in my book, if it comes out ahead one one side or the other, you can classify it is a generally good or evil act.
John -- take a moment to review this camera footage; see, right there, you looked right at them! how can you say you didn't know? it was in God's hands??? you are fired and we will see you in the criminal negligence trial for the homicides of these children.
you are fired and we will see you in the criminal negligence trial for the homicides of these children.
Letting the train hit the 10 kids:
"Your honor, if I had rerouted the train, it would have killed one child. Then I would certainly be guilty of murder. And what were those kids doing playing on the tracks in the first place?"
Judge "Case dismissed"
Rerouting it so that it only hits one kid
"I intentionally rerouted the train so that it would only kill one child instead of 10."
Judge: "You just admitted to committing a premeditated murder. I sentence you to life without the possibility of parole."
John your last post shows a complete and utter lack of understanding of the legal system along with all understanding of humanity.
I'm posting this primarily in disgust and withdraw myself from reading this thread, as I find it so distasteful some of what you have said, and while this forum as a whole has made me reconsider the worth of religion your comments have made me revert to disliking the idea of religion as a crutch for those who wish to make no decision.
Glantri, my views on religion and games are pretty transparent ((Readers digest, while I respect others, a constant asking or preying for help in a game where you the player needs to make a decision is offputting.)), I can attest I do not think John's views represent um, any of the people on this board, religious or not.
The Judge would not dismiss the case, John, but I'll leave it to our resident Juris Doctore to tell you why that is.
I want to talk about using Evil in stories to make the stories more fun for the Player/Reader.
You have two Evil guys, both assasins.
A. Jonas (a nice scary name for some reason) lined up the sniper rifle on the grandfather in the back yard as he played with his grandchildren. The assasin had expensive tastes, and if someone else had to die, someone who had offended the Powers That Be with his rugged insistence of investigating voter intimidation by the Black Panthers, and substandard concrete by the unions controlled by the Chicago Machine, and just being too popular with the ordinary schmuck, then too bad for him. He should have known better.
Jonas stroked the trigger just like he planned to touch the face of a high-priced hooker later that evening.
B. Jake stood in the shadows, with his hand on the pistol in his belt. Tears were in his eyes as he looked at the bunks filled with sleeping children. They needed the money, otherwise they'd be sent to the cold unfeeling Child Protective Services instead of the Ladies of Mercy.
A nun stepped into the room.
"Jake, are you okay."
"Not really, sister." He said, and handed her the envelope. He nodded to her, and walked out to find the man who had been using his office given to him by the voters to enrich himself. One businessman, afraid he would be getting hit up for 'campaign contributions' for the rest of time in order to stave off laws that favored his inferior competitors had decided to solve the problem once and for all.
Jake intended to find the congressman in his office, when he was alone, late at night, and kill him. He didn't like it, but if someone had to die to protect the orphans, it might as well be an extortionate congressman who went about calling his political rivals Nazis and teabaggers.
Now...both these guys are assasins. Both are evil. But Jonas is very unsympathetic whereas Jake is actually someone we kinda like.
What Eric is saying I have boiled down to one statement: The power of positive evil. I had a Ninja, LE, he eventually got to Neutral, but he would do the things others wouldn't to do the right thing. He forged documentation to stop wars, killed people others wouldn't and would let get away. He was a Priest, he raised undead of the enemy to fight the enemy. He would have no problem poisoning the water or food supply of en enemy camp, if it saved thousands on both sides. Sometimes being evil is making the decision to be evil for good to prevail.
I read it on Snopes.com, about allowing the train to hit the 10 kids, as opposed to rerouting it so that it only hit one. I can't find it right now. If anyone else wants to try to find it, be my guest.
I'd really like for someone to explain to me how intentionally killing one child (Clearly your fault) to save 10 others from an accident (No one's fault) would get you into less trouble.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm not sure some of that is evil, Jhiaxus. Other people have that 'do evil sometimes', but I have the do evil never, but some things others consider evil I don't.
But what I'm saying is that I'm less interested in a philosophical debate about the nature of evil, than evil as a story technique.
Sigh the constant posting errors on this board is getting annoying. I have ideas, either cliche or done before. If you still want em let me know, I might be able to work them to original ideas.
I'm not sure some of that is evil, Jhiaxus. Other people have that 'do evil sometimes', but I have the do evil never, but some things others consider evil I don't.
But what I'm saying is that I'm less interested in a philosophical debate about the nature of evil, than evil as a story technique.
Mistake
(Doing Therapy)
Sure, toss me a few.
so then your interested in antagonism? as the second of five boys, I have at least a professional SAL in my atagonize skill.
My eldest has told me its fun to tease older kids because you can run away from them.
If you wanted to make a bad guy group for a SF setting based on bad guys in today's world, and not using the same old, same old, how would you do it?
But what I'm saying is that I'm less interested in a philosophical debate about the nature of evil, than evil as a story technique.
Well, the philosophical debate can be part of story technique.
I saw a movie (Late show or something) years ago. A guy went back in time to kill Hitler as a child. The Holocaust never happens, and the world is a better place, right? Nope. One of the Jews killed in The Holocaust grew up to become a dictator far worse than Hitler. The time traveler had to go back and stop himself from killing Hitler, because The Holocaust timeline was, by far, the lesser of the two evils. That's what I mean when I say "What is evil?" Six million people not killed in The Holocaust. There's at least a 1 in six million chance that one of them will do something worthy of note. Or their descendants. So, where does the story go in regard to those six million people? I gave an extreme example, but I'm positive that imagination of yours can do something with it.
Historical worlds would be terrible for me. No matter what it was, even if I could prevent The Black Plague, it's an established history, and the end result was OK. I can live with that. God only knows what would have happened otherwise.
(Doing Therapy)