/tg/ - Traditional Games » Thread #43310045

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 04:55:27 No.43310045 View Reply Report Delete

How do you make a villain whose primary themes are death and darkness WITHOUT that villain being horribly chuunibyou/edgelord?

Darkness is, in fact, their ally.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 04:57:34 No.43310057 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310064 >>43310373 >>43310407

>>43310045
Express yourself fully and don't be held back by limits like "chuunibyou/edgelord"

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 04:59:24 No.43310064 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310407

In addition to what >>43310057 said:

Just be natural. Don't try to frame what you are doing and what you are associated with in a melodramatic fashion. Keep monologuing in front of the heroes to a minimum. You are what you are, and you do what you do.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:02:33 No.43310082 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
Write a villain dedicated to light instead, than replace all the light with darkness.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:14:32 No.43310150 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310296

>>43310045
Do as the dreadlords do
>Phone rings
>Hello? Oh, Darkness, how are you doing?

But more seriously, WHICH aspects of death? Gentle repose? A sleep that never ends?

If you're the anon who's deliberately not elaborating, you won't get more out of me.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:39:15 No.43310296 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310381

>>43310150
Straight-up shanking and killing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:42:46 No.43310312 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Make him straight up edgelord.

People will think whatever.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:51:18 No.43310356 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
What setting?

It´s easy to do in a futuristic one (or a fantasy but we´re actually the future after the great ancient cyber era civilization fell thousands of years ago typical topic). Things that are supposed to prevent something from happening, usually to protect humanity itself, but it goes haywire and/or there´s something weird around and extermination is actually the only way. See something like Homeworld, where humanity develops, discovers hyperspace jumps, and then the whole planet gets nuked by super advanced aliens who are pissed off because we had agreed long long ago never to research hyperspace. I remember also a similar plot from an old manga, the Abandoned Princess or something like that. Looks like medieval fantasy, some weird machinery shit is trying to exterminate humans, turns out they´re just doing their job, which is to protect humanity as a whole by keeping it from growing/developing too much so the aliens that we fought (and lost miserably against) a long time ago don´t feel like they should come back and finish the job.

On a more "clean" fantasy scenario we can always go the good idea bad execution way. Everyone can/could potentially use magic? A mage who discovers emotions are somehow directly linked to magic find out that he could make everyone forever happy by doing some weird shit to people´s natural connection with magic. Thing is, doing it hard as hell and he´s only achieved a mild grade of success. "Fixed" people are pretty much like on a permanent pot high. Thing is, most of his attempts fail and end up with the death of the subject. He keeps kidnapping/subjugating whole settlements to experiment on, convinced that the price will be worth it.

Old easy way, the BBEG has found a way to extend his own life by stealing that of others. There´s no plot twist, it´s just an old wizard who fears death and wants to extend his life as long as possible while he desperately searches for a way to make it permanent.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:55:34 No.43310373 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310057
Fuck yeah.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 05:56:27 No.43310381 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310407

>>43310296
Don't make grand speeches. Kill and hide. Kill quickly, unexpectedly, leave no room to think leisurely.

Intimidate, but only through the unknown. Shut down lights/electricity, obfuscate patterns, and for every lapse, every opening, a civilian dies.

Don't run from the light, but run from them finding the truth. Darkness must remain something that they're never sure exists separately until the very last moment.

Make the heroes desperate, but in a way, the villain was desperate from the very beginning, fragile once the truth is known.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:01:52 No.43310407 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310381
This
>>43310064
This
Aaaaand
>>43310057
This.

Also, Palps before going UNLIMITED POWAAAAAH and Dooku for most of his life, i.e evil and dark but very casual and affable about it. Perhaps even spiritual, which lets you work off of the Priest archetype.

Not
>THE VOICES SPEEEEAAK TO MEEEE
Rather
>"Come, Friends. Would you not miss the completion of words older than memory?"

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:07:58 No.43310426 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
No.

TIME FOR DARKNESS.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:09:40 No.43310433 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
You can't! Go full cheesy!

TIME FOR DARKNESS!

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:13:44 No.43310457 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43310480

>>43310045
Hello darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:17:56 No.43310480 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
>>43310457
In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words, like silent raindrops fell

And echoed

In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls"

And whispered in the sounds of silence

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:18:55 No.43310489 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
They sound like they would be a rather large gentleman. After they secure darkness and death however, what would be the next step, in their master plan?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 06:56:47 No.43310739 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
dumb animeposter

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 08:34:03 No.43311396 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43311554

>>43310045
Yes!

Just make him a fucking idiot who thinks death and darkness is a good thing/have been misled by lies from the death and darkness.

"Oh you say that you light is good but did you know that too much power of light gives you tumors!" basically play the good necromancer argument.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 08:41:50 No.43311457 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43311478

>>43310045
By being Mexican.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 08:43:43 No.43311478 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43311457
Go home Voltaire, you're not drunk enough.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 08:51:03 No.43311554 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43311607

>>43311396
Alternatively, have too much light actually give you cancer.

The greatest paladins and priests always decay in a horrible manner and everybody assumes it´s because of darkness´ bullshit, but no, it´s just that they have too much positive energy and that´s not healthy.

As light´s supremacy gets more and more clear, more people start suffering the effects of the excess of light. At first it was only the holiest, but now almost anyone who´s not an asshole can potentially suffer some decay.

Darkness people are also suffering similar problems, but of course light people don´t really know about it because, after all, who´s going to ask the orc how´s his family doing instead of trying to stab it on sight, just as they always do with any human?

Turns out some god of neutrality is pissed off because people are always rambling about light and darkness and no one pays attention to him, so he´s just poisoning everyone who gets too radical on one direction.

The campaign is about finding the reason why everybody´s getting cancer.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 08:56:32 No.43311607 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43311554
Yes, yes. That is exactly the kinda dumb resoning you should bring up. Someone who is so idiotically blind that he cannot stand in the middle but has to assume if one says the other is bad for you in some way, even if it is an extreme exposure then he would join that side. Even if that side has been villified by everyone but maglomaniacs, powerhungry assholes and necromancers, which also get a bad rep for a reason.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:13:38 No.43311764 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43311806

The Light is empircally good and the Darkness is not absolutely evil.

Truth can be blinded by the light of ideals and schemes can be devised in the shroud of darkness.

I am the Arbiter of Balance and such I have taken the Aspect of Dark to correct the overabundence of this blinding light and when the time comes I shall wear the mantle of light and put the Dark in it's place.

Similarly, without the magical aspect thrown in you could have some kind of revolutionary who takes the Darkness as a symbol of his cause.

The Dark heralds the end of an era that has gone on for too long where the institutions of man are now but rotting diseased corpses that allow the greedy and the power hungry to sit fat and content. The cycle will ultimately repeat itself and there will be another like me to herald it's end.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:17:33 No.43311806 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43311868

>>43311764

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:19:03 No.43311823 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43316318

Make him/she like Kenny from South Park

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:23:39 No.43311868 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43311806

Ideally this doesn't involve turning Humanity into OJ but sure.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:26:53 No.43311903 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43312009

>>43310045

You could have the villain just not talk ever.

The villain is always seen in events involving death, be it ritual killings, murder, etc., and there's always a hint of something off about it. If you must justify it somehow, maybe have an oath of silence of a literal trade of his or her voice for certain powers.

If the villain never talks, it forces you to be creative in how you describe events. You have to focus on what the villain does, the visceral theme of it. Without humanizing elements, the party will gradually consider the villain more akin to a monster or animal than a person.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:37:24 No.43312009 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43312175

>>43311903
>Without humanizing elements, the party will gradually consider the villain more akin to a monster or animal than a person.
>not doing this automatically for the things which are your enemies
Why?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:39:26 No.43312026 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
If you make them enjoy it, that's edgy.

If you make them hate it, or saddened by it, that's edgy.

If you make them ambivalent towards it, that's edgy.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:54:02 No.43312164 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
>a villain
How about not making them a villain? Maybe just an antagonist. Just because people fear death and darkness, doesn't make those things innately evil.
The setup would need some creativity, but if you're trying to stay away from hard cliche then it's an option.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:55:58 No.43312175 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43312009
Were talking about standard fare players, idiots without a sense of sense in them to be drawn along exactly as the Dm intends.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 09:56:26 No.43312183 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43312352

I make him a happy-go-lucky guy that has just come to the realization that death is inevitable, and is confused thinking that killing people will just make them reach their destination faster.

He's not TRULY evil. Just kind of confused on how the world works. Probably mentally disturbed, but a generally nice guy aside from the killing.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:13:11 No.43312330 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43325924

>>43310045
Grue from Worm is officially a "villain" but despite the edgelord costume he's about as good-aligned as you can get while remaining a villain. Power is enchanced version of Rumia's from Touhou, also blocks sound and wireless comms.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:14:22 No.43312346 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43315934

>>43310045
Don't make darkness be just another word for evil. Make it work like in Dark Souls, not Kingdom Hearts.

Really all you gotta do. Don't make a setting with visual tags for absolute evil.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:15:25 No.43312352 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43312183
Actually posting this gave me an idea. Haven't thrown a morality curve-ball at my players for a while. I better start writing it up.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:21:58 No.43312407 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43313094

>>43310045
Make him an immortal that is obsesed to death, and his desperate search for a way to die has lead him to a plan... However it requires the destruction of the universe.
He doesn't take joy in taking others' lives at all.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:32:48 No.43312523 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
Just because you specialize in a certain type of magic or lifestyle doesn't mean you have to have the most stereotypical personality for that kind of person.
You don't have to copy Magic: The Gathering when designing characters. It's actually funner to create characters whose personality and class are juxtaposed.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:41:02 No.43312604 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43313516

>>43310045
Have these powers not be defining traits of the character, only part of it. Make him visit restaurants, and eat all the best food, while people in the background are are eaten away by their shadows. Or whatever You mean by and darkness. Have him walk away taught shadows before anyone can get to him, or if they get to him they eater get invited to eat some of the towns specialty, or if they attack they get eaten.
Also prepare some plot twist about why he is killing tings. Maybe he is not doing it. His presence just lets you remember that the shadows are eating people. When he is not around you don't remember it. Maybe he has to fulfill some quota or something happens, or is working for someone.
I recommend you watch Supernaturals horseman of death. They handled this pretty well.
As long as you avoid monologues of "Haha my darkness will devour you!" or "The darkness brings nothing but pain! " you should be pretty much fine.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 10:54:40 No.43312753 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Have you read God Emperor of Dune? Like that, but less disappointing and obtuse.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 11:24:40 No.43313094 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43312407
> PC: "Just die already!"
> "I'm on it."

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 11:31:55 No.43313188 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
A good way to do this is have him know what is after the death of all. The end of all.

Death right now is just a temporary thing, the afterlife is just a waiting room compared to what comes next.
But it won't happen until everything is dead and gone.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 11:32:24 No.43313196 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
Of the two main villans in my current campaign i am running one is a litch lord meh. but he is actually very sociable and friendly. He came to necromancy and lichdom, because he and his former allies foresaw the destruction of their world and each in their own way sought immortality to gain the time to save it. Lichdom has corrupted his morals slightly but he still stays true to his goals. It just with the corruption of undeath and the living distaste for the unliving he is the "bad guy" in the worlds eye.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 11:33:17 No.43313205 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43315988

>>43310045
This guy.
Obscene, wise cracking, smoking, drinking, and partying like the world, and every soul in it, are his playthings.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 11:58:43 No.43313516 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43315918

>>43312604
Darkness is just a giant monster that follows him around. He wants to be a normal person and d normal things but darkness just destroys everything around him. He's too scared to be alone to send it away though and he traps himself with it and destroys everything around him.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 14:52:27 No.43315918 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43313516
That's pretty darn edgy.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 14:53:23 No.43315934 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43316235

>>43312346
How does Dark Souls do it?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 14:55:08 No.43315966 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43316432

>Darkness is, in fact, their ally
That's where you went wrong. To make a true Big Bad Evil Guy, he must be born in the darkness, molded by it.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 14:56:35 No.43315988 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43313205
this nigga look like he got the crystal treatment

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:06:06 No.43316142 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Check out Battle Angel Alita: Last Order.

Methuselazation has made biological immortality cheap and easy. You will live forever unless killed by violent trauma. Because of this, children have no rights or protection, intentionally raised as disposable soldiers as the immortal current generation fears nothing more than the next. Breeding is looked down upon/illegal.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:11:27 No.43316235 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43318876

>>43315934
Darkness in Dark Souls is pretty much the human soul and is kind of a different dimension called the Abyss.
The Light banishes the Dark, but without the Dark, everyone turns into spooky zombies. But too much Dark pretty much turns everyone into monsters too, so there's no real way to win.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:16:03 No.43316318 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43311823
I've only watched up until the season with cthulu, do you mean when he's mysterion or the whole being born constantly due to his parents being satanists or did something change

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:22:47 No.43316432 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43315966
FOR YOU

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:32:09 No.43316598 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43316610

>>43310045
Simply, make the land of the dead just another world with people and stuff in it, where the night is nice and the day is full of horrible spooky burning shit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:33:10 No.43316610 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43316598
> I will kill the sun to bring peace to my land (of the dead)!

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 15:58:22 No.43316964 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 17:54:33 No.43318876 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43316235
Why does everyone do that when there's too much light?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 17:56:36 No.43318922 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
just doing his/her job

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 21:01:36 No.43322396 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
Darkness is just a natural state of the universe, it is attracted and molded by those strong of will, not necessitating the need for the ability to command magic.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 27 Oct 2015 21:11:52 No.43322554 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43327874

>>43310045
Light is harsh, even burning in its intensity. Darkness is gentle, cool and welcoming. Much like the grave, tbh.

If you position darkness as the natural/default state of things, light seems awful by comparison.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 00:37:24 No.43325924 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43312330
Also has a big black cock and dies a lot.

Bonesaw is probably a better example of the death part: take 'em apart, see how they tick, put 'em back together.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 03:44:50 No.43327874 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43327887

>>43322554
That sounds a tiny bit edgy. It doesn't have to be, but my first impression just from reading that would be that this is going to be some edgy emo shit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 03:46:30 No.43327887 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43327874

It is always going to be a little edgy, because western culture associates light with good (as do most cultures)

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 05:17:25 No.43328437 Report Delete

Quoted By:

I always liked the idea of darkness having a warm aspect to it. You know, that feeling of cuddling with someone on a cold night under the covers, or wrapping up in a blanket with the heater running.
I always felt whether darkness was evil or not, it should appear harsh and cold to outsiders. However, to the people that use/are in it, it feels like the safest, most comfy thing in the world.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 05:23:26 No.43328471 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
The person does not personify these elements, but mere use them.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 05:33:00 No.43328548 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045
Darth nihilus, Void from Berserk, any villain that's more of a literal avatar of entropy than a person with understandable mortal motivations fits the bill.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 05:59:39 No.43328701 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43310045

Staying classy.

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