*Intro music*
Now for part two.
You'll recall that last week we talked about mechanics villains:
characters created to drive play.
Characters like Bowser and Dr Wiley.
But there's another type of villain:
the narrative villain,
and they have vastly different requirements.
They aren't just there to be an end boss, or to throw an army at you.
In most cases, they have to sell us on this virtual world we're inhabiting,
and create the drama and conflict of the story by standing as an opposing force to our hero.
And this is where a lot of games stumble, because we have a tendency to use mechanics villains
even when our games really need a narrative villain.
It hamstrings a story-driven experience when the antagonist turns out to be a simple
capital B Bad guy out to destroy the world...because...evil.
So how do we get away from that?
By asking ourselves a few simple questions as we craft the villain, and plot their actions in the game.
The first question is cliché-sounding, but it's important:
what is this character's motivation?
What drives them?
We have to ask this, because no one does things simply because "they're evil people".
Even the worst dictators and criminals have reasons for what they do.
They aren't just doing things with the intention of making the world worse.
When you start looking at your character, ask yourself: "What motivates them?"
And then every time you write a scenario that includes them, make sure that their actions in the scenario align with that motivation.
They can be driven by something as simple and venial as greed,
or as high-minded and complicated as ideology, or philosophy.
But without a cohesive, believable motivation, your villain can never become a real character.
I can't stress enough how important it is to check the character's motivation every time you create a scene for them in the game.
Know why they're doing what they're doing, and make sure it aligns with their goals.
You can't just tell the player early on what the villain's motives are supposed to be,
but then have the villain act in ways that don't seem to relate to that motivation in any way from scene to scene.
Simply stating your villains motives is not enough.
That character has to live them.
This raises the next question:
How do you communicate your villain's motives?
Well if you've done it right, your antagonist's actions should speak volumes about who they are,
and what they want.
The more you can communicate through action, and character interaction within the context of your scenario, the better.
Your antagonist shouldn't have to give a forced supervillain monologue in order for the player to understand what they want.
Of course, that's not to say that you can't have the villain talk about their goals, or try to explain themselves through dialogue,
but those conversations should happen organically.
Remember: rarely do people see their own actions as being evil.
Nobody sees themselves as the villain in somebody else's story.
Even the terrorist, the dictator, or the gang leader usually see their actions as more than just self-serving.
Which means, you can probably find an occasion where your villain will want to explain their point of view to somebody.
If you have to have your villain come right out and state their motivation,
make a character moment out of it.
Give them an occasion when they need to rally a potential ally to their cause,
or a moment when they think that if the hero could just understand why they do these things,
surely they would embrace the villain's cause.
The best narrative villains tend to be somewhat sympathetic.
If we can sympathize with a villain, even if what they're doing is wrong or misguided,
then that villain becomes a whole person: a human with depth and complexity
that's otherwise hard to attain.
It allows the storyteller to put the player in the position of having to question whether or not they themselves are completely in the right,
thus, getting them to think more deeply about the story and it's meaning.
Is it right to arrest this hacker, who only steals from the wealthy and the corrupt?
Should you kill this freedom fighter who attacked your people, even though you as a player actually believe in his cause?
Do you take down the vigilante who's been successfully fighting crime in your city just because she's acting outside the bounds of the law?
One handy character building tactic to make your villain more sympathetic is to give them some fatal flaw,
something that makes their seemingly evil actions less a product of cold calculated decisions,
and more the result of some critical misunderstanding,
or an aspect of their life that has spiralled out of control.
It's the rebel leader who never really meant to hurt anybody, but her actions have put her in a cycle of violence that she can no longer reign in.
It's the religious zealot who truly believes that sacrificing himself will save the world, rather than releasing some ancient horror upon it.
It's the doctor who's been performing unethical experiments on her patients in a desperate attempt
to find a cure for her daughter's life-threatening disease.
This type of flaw in your villain keeps them from just serving as a simple plot device,
and helps to lend depth not only to their character, but to the world they inhabit, and the story you're telling.
Next, you must consider your protagonist when creating the villain who will oppose them.
Does the juxtaposition of these two characters strengthen the story you're telling?
Do they push up against each other's ideals, and force the other to question themselves?
Does the way they interact with each other enhance our understanding of both characters?
If not, it's time to dig in and reexamine them,
to ask yourself if you've built an antagonist who's right for the story you want to tell.
This has all been pretty grounded in storytelling 101 so far, so let's take a minute to also address the realities of game production.
First, with games, it's more important than ever that you try to find ways to communicate who your villain is,
and what they want, through actions rather than words.
I know that "Show, don't tell" applies to a lot of media, but even in large RPGs,
games have a slim ratio of words per minute compared to a movie or a TV show.
Dialogue and text are precious resources, so storytelling efficiency is key.
What sort of scenarios will highlight the motivations and sympathetic flaws in your antagonist?
How can you distill the essence of that major internal conflict they're wrestling with
into a single level, or a set piece moment in a way that is clear, but not spoon-fed?
Delita from Final Fantasy Tactics,
Arthas from Warcraft,
and Kain from Final Fantasy 4
have some great moments in this regard.
Second, know that a lot of your work is probably gonna be cut.
This isn't film or TV.
Anyone who's worked on crafting a narrative for a game knows that we usually end up producing about 30% of what we originally script out.
Make sure that you know how your scenes tie together: which ones are essential to the plot, and which ones are essential for characterisation.
Now, if less than half the scenes which are essential for characterisation are also essential for the plot,
you need to go back and see if you can better intermingle the two.
It's unfortunate, but at least in the triple A world, when push comes to shove, plot gets prioritised over character pretty much every time.
Lastly, it's important to know that not every game, not even every narrative-focused game needs a clear antagonist.
A story's drama comes from conflict, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be the "good guy vs bad guy" kind of conflict.
Games like Journey and Shadow of the Colossus manage superbly without one.
Maybe your story doesn't have a villain, but your hero still has some massive obstacle to overcome.
Maybe your story features two protagonists, who each want something different and get in each other's way trying to attain it.
Maybe your story features a character who, in their desperation to achieve their goal, arguably becomes the true villain of the story.
Or, maybe the whole point of your story is for the player to decide who they think is really in the right.
There are all kinds of great stories you can tell,
and many of them don't require an antagonist character at all.
Just know, that if you're making a narrative-driven game,
especially if it's a drama,
and you do choose to use an antagonist,
then this is the kind of antagonist you need to make for it.
You can't just plop in the kind of shallow, end-boss villain we use to push mechanics in other kinds of games and call it a day.
We'll probably dive into this in more depth at some point, because this is a very, very surface level view
of a massive topic, but I hope that gives you all some place to jump off from when creating or critiquing game villains.
I'll see you next week!
*End credits music*