what personality, or appearences do you think make a good villian 1. A cool low voice 2. A very charismatic personality 3. Very treachorous 4. A phantom like character who always disapears or appears out of no where 5. A huge armored behemoth 6. a group leader 7. one of the main characters turned evil Edited by - z-soft on December 19, 2001 9:30:55 AM

no, no, no, no, no

If you want to make a good villain you might wanna look up a few storytelling books. The point of a good villain is not a certain cliché, it´s about power and character. A good villain is believable, has goals the player can relate to. No single trait will make a good villain. Here´s what I would say makes a good villain:

1) Motivation: your villain needs to be motivated, simply portraying a "Dr. Evil" who does things simply because he is evil will not do. Your villain needs reasons for his doings, and reasons for him being where he is now. The player should be able to relate to all this, the player should be able to see things from the villains point of view.

2) Goal: the villain needs to have a goal, something he works towards. Usually this is the easiest part of creating a villain. From this goal you work out the motivation.

3) Means: The villain has to have the abilites and resources to be able to reach that goal, he has to be able to actively influence the playing field. Be sure to explain those resources, not just "because the villain always has an army of doom".

4) Character: Make the villain believable, maybe even likeable. There´s nothing better than a tragic villain, who is not a bad person at heart, but someone who got twisted and turned by the circumstances.

One of the classical villain-figures is Darth Vader in Star Wars, he has all those traits, which make him a really cool character. Only when you have worked out this stuff you can start thinking about looks and appearance.

well, my villian already has those. I''m looking for a cliché for him. That was the point of this post.

I think the coolest villians are those that are just evil, even if they think they''re doing the best for the world. Most of the really cool villians I know come from anime. Examples: Shi-Shi-O and Sojiro (sp?) from Kenshin, Legato and Knives from Trigun (Legato mostly ) etc. Something that always makes a villian really cool is when they have a power and they really know how to exploit it in a cruel and evil fashion.

Example: The main character in Trigun (Vash) is a goodie goodie who doesn''t want anyone to die. Legato uses mind control to basically put people in as much danger as possible so that Vash has to repeatedly run to save them. It''s just really cool.

Something else that''s cool is a total lack of emotion. Sojiro from Kenshin. Not only that, he''s also an amazing sword fighter. He actually limits himself fighting, cause if he went all out it wouldn''t be a challenge That''s not only cool, it''s evil.

I think you just have to pull from what you like in villians from other series and incorporate that.

It has little to do with qualities you mention.

If you want your audience to ''buy into'' a character as a villian, you must show that character doing something ''villianous''.

Anything else is gravy.

A great example is the Wicked Witch of the West. What kind of person takes away a little dog from the hands of a crying girl? From the moment the witch stuffs Toto into the little basket, we LOATHE her, we FEAR her, and we remember her for the rest of our lives.

You can make a character mean looking, with a spooky voice, etc all the ding dong day, he doesn''t become a card carrying VILLIAN until he does some gawd awful villianous bad deed.

One thing that all villians have in common is that the audience needs to see them LYING without remorse.

Again, consider the example of the Wicked Witch of the West ... the scene where she is trying to convince Dorothy to take off her Ruby slippers ... her "my pretty" speech is chilling to the bone ... specfically because we all KNOW for a fact that she is lying ...

Those are the easiest two ways to establish a good villian ... show us the character doing a villianous deed ... and then show us the character lying.

I agree with that last post.

Sephiroth was still a cool guy in my mind until... I won''t spoil it... until he... did something... very evil...

I say that some of the best villains are the ones that you don''t realize are villains until it''s too late. Like if you play through the half the game with another NPC, and he/she turn evil on you right when you least expect.

Pope Zera from Grandia 2 is a perfect example of a really nasty villain. I also agree with Omega in that Sephiroth was a really good villain, especially when he KILLED AERIS.

If I spoiled FF7 for you, you should''ve played it sooner.

Did your file get a virus or is your coding always this bad?

The villain shouldn''t commit petty crime like the Wicked witch of the West. Did Hannibal ever go around stealing little kids'' dogs?

Well, there are different types of villains. Some villains are good because they are so annoying or vile that you make the player want to kill them. Some villains are charismatic and "cool" and appeal to the player''s "dark side". Sephiroth is an example of the latter. First, he''s bishounen (sp?), one of those anime words for a pretty-boy -- he''s hot, he wears all black, he has a bigger sword than Cloud, and he''s every RPG-ers repressed fantasy. He''s also not annoying or vile, you actually think he''s an ok guy, and when he finally does some evil things, you don''t think "Man, that was awful. What a meanie", you think "Whoaaaaaaa... that was soooo... COOL! I mean, EVIL!"
From what you posted above, it seems like you''re also going more for the cool anti-hero type of villain, not the make-the-player-hate-him type of villain. So, i''d say, use Sephiroth as a base: Make him attractive, always keep his cool except sometimes when he goes nuts and does something really evil (but still cool), and have him always be one step ahead of the player. For the things you listed, I''d say #1-4 are all good, #5 probably not (he should be attractive and clever, not a big jock, unless you want to have him annoy the player), probably not #6 (the best villains are loners, it makes them look much more powerful if they can take over the world without help), and maybe #7, though most RPGers will expect that by now, so don''t assume it''s going to be even mildly surprising.

Also look at Kefka in FF3(6) who was a joke through half the game, ie you didn''t take him seriously, then he destroyed half the world...oops... thats when you REALLY took him seriously.