How do you make a truly tragic and sympathetic BBEG?

Make the players evil.

>>50458253
Sympathy is usually derived from those who could relate. So find something tragic that normal people; especially heroes could relate too.

Take Mr.Freeze from DC for example. He's trying to bring back his wife, by anyway necessary. Everyone has lost a loved one, some more than others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EtHfr0eBA4

>>50458253
I don't think you know what a BBEG is, because a tragic and sympathetic one works against the core of the concept.

A sympathetic villain is one thing, but you undermine a setting if pull the rug out from a BBEG.

>>50458253
What's tragic is how hard Adventure Time went to shit

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He was right in the end

>>50459873
>tfw 20 minutes

He sacrifice too much for this cause of his. Giving up now would undermine his very character. His drive has burnt out only the end drive him forward.

Last one I ran was a hero. However he was a hero to the wrong people. He was trying to unite goblinoids, gnolls, giantkind and more against what he saw an oppressive control. To a degree he was right.

>>50461132
Too soon.

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>>50458253
Worlds runs on death but the party would never believe that considering how "full of life" the world looks. If there isn't enough death at any given time the world compensates on a large scale. BBGG compensates by starting wars and shit between nations or something.

>>50458253
Not like that.
We all hate that piece of shit show and fandom.

>>50459556
This is the sad reality of all long-running TV shows; they're putting it to rest in a season or two.

Still hasn't decayed as badly as some network darlings.

The tightest writing is always attached to limited series anyway.

>>50458424
I remember comming back from school in a good mood, turning TV for some funny kid cartoons, I stumbled upon BTAS and this was one of the first episodes I've ever seen. It made me cry, I did NOT expect it to hit me with that ammount of feels when I was like 10.

I miss BTAS badly. It was a perfect mix of relatable and well written characters, action, drama and a bit of goofiness not to make it over the top dark. I watch an episode or two occasionally. It still holds up.

>>50459556
Did it? I was wondering if I should try and get into it. What seasons should I watch?

>>50462861
>if I should try and get into it.
I'd say first four or five seasons are well worth watching. It's been ages since I watched it though. I remember the progression on the first four seasons being: first one is decent, second is great, third is just REALLY weird and has some really questionable episodes, fourth and I think fifth too were the peaks of the show.

But yeah, it does gradually go to shit. Not quite as aggressively as most similar long running shows had, there are still good episodes even in the later series, but it just somehow stops being appealing enough to keep coming back to. Which is a shame because at least SOME of the craziness and creativity and the strange mix of dark and lighthearted still remains in the show.

>>50462635

You know we didn't always, but damn did the show crash and burn when Penn left.

>>50462932
Penn left? Damn, I did not even know that. Explains a lot though. Shame, because a lot of what made the show great were promises and hints of things that were unresolved.

>>50462912
I essentially stopped watching after the lich shows up and it goes suuuuuuuuper dark out of fucking nowhere.

>>50462961
That is a shame because that I think is where the show actually shines most. And it never goes FULL dark, it kinda skittes on verge of something really dark, and the lighthearted tone. The tension between dark and fun is actually the best thing about the whole show.

I think that it starts to go really wrong around the time Fin's relationship drama emerges and you'll start to realize you are stopping to like the character.
In later seasons, I also started to realize that the balance is going off: having one dark or serious moment for every few light hearted is fine, but it felt like in the later seasons every second episode has some deeply melancholic or dark element and it becomes predictable and tiring eventually.
Also, there is a weird lack of commitment to the serious aspects in the later seasons. The show has a tendency of introducing some really interesting themes and then suddenly dropping them again for no reason.

>>50462853
I used to have Heart of Ice and the Manbat episodes on VHS. Eventually I watched it until the tape wore off and snapped during a viewing. Then I proceeded to watch the movie with Freeze in it and it was equally feels when
freeze is watching the TV of a research station in North Pole, if i remember correctly that is, without his suit with his polar bear pets and then news come up of Bruce Wayne starting research on curing Freeze's wife's disease and any other who suffer from it and Freeze popping the first smile in years and crying tears of happiness as he hobbles with a crutch into the frozen wastes for one last time

Evil old general bent on purging all nonhumans. Players later learn that the old man lost his only friend in an alien ambush decades ago and it utterly broke him and made him decide that all must die.

There is nothing more relatable than the loss of a friend/family member.

>>50463018
Are you me? I also had that VHS. I remember that I kept rewatching Heart of Ice since the transformation scene in the manbat episode was too much for me.

>>50463137
I can't be you because the transformation scene and the raid on batman scenes from Manbat were the highlights for me.

>>50459556
Admittedly, it feels like the Christmas episode revelation about OP pic was the big jumps-the-shark moment.

My last antagonist used to be a brave hero, sent to fight back the darkness that was threatening the peace of the realm, but he realised that he would never be strong enough to defeat it. He kept holding it back, doing things he knew were wrong knowing that one day a hero would rise up and defeat him, and if they could defeat him then they might have a chance at doing what he couldn't.

>>50463214
So Fantasy Revan?

>>50463220
Maybe? Never played Kotor

>>50463304
You pretty much explained Revan as a character in the SWTOR MMO.

>>50458253
Make him cool. If they like his looks and style it will be easier for the characters to relate and empathize with him, because first impressions matter.

>>50458253

How about something like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjvnawR-cqk

>>50462528
Reminds me of the villains guild concept. The villains organize together because they've learned that the god's watch humanity for entertainment. So they take on the mantel of villains to give heroes something to fight against. If they didn't, the gods would grow bored and let the 'play' end.

>>50464081
Except Ace is more a victim of circumstance than a villain. Antagonist yes, but antagonist necessarily doesn't need to be a villain.

>>50458253
I finally found out how, at least for my group. For the last six months they've been learning about the party that wrecked a major demon they've been working to stop back when he first started messing with the mortal plane two generations ago. It's very Order of the Phoenix. I've been dropping hints about the absent leader of them for awhile in folktales and references when they research topics but the surviving members of the old party only recently came clean that the badass they've been reading was tortured till he turned traitor in madness. Now he's returned to end the survivors of the old party and the players are seriously freaking out that their favorite background character is not only just as badass as they heard but completely ruthlessly evil

>>50462318
That's the issue at hand, anon.

>>50464081
Holy crap I need to rewatch this show.

>>50462132
Ooh I've done that. So the secondary villain was a disgruntled hobgoblin captain who started fighting for the big bad to save his people from a society where the heads of his people were worth gold. The crazy part is this major demon prince had convinced one of the players that their god gave him a sacred mission to exterminate goblinoids. When the reveal was made it was almost too late for them to work together to defeat the big bad. Made for a cool twist

>Step one
The end justify the means
>Step 2
Make that end legitimately noble and something everyone else could get behind if not for those means.
>Step 3
Those ends better be within sight. And not just the baddie's.
>Step 4
Deep down everyone knows they won't truly achieve their goal.
>Step 5
Have the villain be a person and not just solely the be. A great way for this to shine through from time to time is hesitation. Perhaps they don't need to be killed, they're clearly still human, they can be reasoned with (though we all know it's too late for that).
>Step 6
Give them flaws. They don't even have to be big ones. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. Even mecha satan.
>Step 7
Don't fucking steal screen time for any of this. Know what ruins the fun of overcoming a baddie and triumph? Fucking wah wah abloo bloo bloo I'm sad. Let this shit emerge. It's just there. It has always been there.

>>50459873
He had the greatest villain motivation ever. You could not fault his motive and method. And then that moment he realises he fucked up, that he was never going to see his family again and that he had killed thousands of people for nothing

>>50464081
Here eyes close once.

>>50463203
The problem from then on was the typical having your cake and eating it too
>let's do it anthology style, but let's also have continuity
>let's play it loose with the worldbuilding, but let's also stablish a hard lore
>let's have character development, but let's reset back to status quo
>let's have our main character age in real time, but let's keep his design exactly the same
>let's have long story arcs that conclude at the season finale, but let"s reset back to status quo
>let's have big events that change the world and the way characters interact with each other, but let'd reset back to status quo

So what you get is a schizophrenic show that doesn't know what it wants to be and never commits to anything.

>>50458253
Make it a noble goal that will ultimately hurt a whole hell of a lot of people but bring good into the world. IE: The world is an industrial smoggy wasteland where you pretty much gotta pay to breathe. BBEG uses eldritch super magic to turn all of the inhabitants in a continent into trees. Something like that.

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Basically pic related. Not making him evil, but just having goals that bring him into opposition with the heroes and said goals are in fact noble and in some cases, more good than the PC goals. In addition, give him a background that makes him more human instead of "that guy we need to defeat" whether it is a keepsake from a dead loved one that set him on his path or a pet dog or anything really.

>>50465236
For example, my planned BBEG is a mage who after a great war, is planning on starting a revolution to topple the aristocracy and institute a democratic rule of the people because he sees the monarchies as the reason why the world is mired in as much conflict as it is. He's lost his family in terrorist attacks caused in part by the royal family scheming to take some land to the north and it backfiring horribly and then being conscripted into a genocide that broke him as a person. The problem here is that the PCs work as explorers and mercenaries for the royal family and some of them have become nobles in their own right. Also the PCs have worked with him before so they would see this as him betraying them. So the PCs have already interacted with him a lot and he's a character they know rather than a far off evil bad guy that they need to get to and kill eventually.

>>50465236
Except Funny was evil, he was charismatic and understandable evil.He sent people into other dimensions wantonly, he viewed people below him and generally used evil tactics and people to aid in his endeavors. He is a true Lawful Evil if any.

>>50465343
He just wanted to Make America Great Again and keep it great at any cause. Ultimately a noble goal. His patriotism was genuine.

>>50465378
*at any cost

>>50465236
Valentine was evil as fuck and his goals weren't even noble, what are you on about?

>>50465436
See >>50465378

>>50465447
He wanted to make the nation powerful at the expense of it's people, for which he didn't care. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone out of his way to kill and otherwise hurt anybody who was not himself.

He wanted to make America great again, not it's people or even the government, just his idea of America.

>>50462528
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9dNrmGD7mU

three notes are all it takes for the feels to start

>>50465473
No, he wanted to make America and it's people great at the cost of the rest of the world. Did you not pay attention? We would use the corpse parts and Love Train to deflect all the bad things that would have happened to America to other countries.

>>50464451
The saddest part is you realize that even after that he kills one more person

>>50465494
*He would

>>50458253
Reasonable goal, unreasonable means for accomplishing that goal. That last part is a hard balancing act, especially given your average party whose solution to everything is murder. Have them go too reasonable, and the players might switch sides; have them go too unreasonable, and the players will lose any sympathy they might have.

>>50465579
I think I nicely hit on this myself; world is being torn apart by war. Main villain wants to foster unity to prevent this. Unfortunately, goes for religious unity of the "become the only god and everyone worships me" variety. Murdering all the current gods is a very, very bad idea, since the villain would have to take over their jobs and has little idea how. The trial and error of learning would be catastrophic to the world, but not fatal, and maybe even the original goal would be achieved. For the surviving population, anyway.

>>50465494
That's still pretty evil.

>>50459873
Explain.

>>50465656
But it's ultimately a more noble and selfless goal than the heroes (money and fixing their legs).

>>50465688
Go watch Wakfu

>>50459873
No he wasn't. He killed thousands of people and exterminated an entire species for 20 minutes of time travel, and those 20 minutes of forcing the clock back damaged local spacetime. If he actually had succeeded, he'd have shattered the entire planet.

>>50459873
This was my first thought.

Nox is a broken man after his plan fails. I like to think he feels true remorse for all he has done in the moments before his death.

>>50464936
Finn's arm regrowing was the shark for me.
Scars don't heal. They fade, but they don't heal. None of the character drama or development or, hell, anything matters if every scar gets healed with no problems.

>>50466536
He didn't even get that sweet mechanical arm they used to always allude to early on, just some stupid plant thing.

>>50466663
I know, right?
I fucking love characters with robot arms.
And it could have been symbolic and shit, of what he's lost and how he's grown.
But nope, gotta have a bee fuck him and a new arm ejaculate from his stump or something.
What does it mean? I dunno, puberty?
What does it entail in the narrative? STATUS QUO IS GOD.

>>50466040
>He killed thousands of people and exterminated an entire species for 20 minutes of time travel
He was trying to go back years in time, he had no idea that the life energy of that many people could only power the cube long enough to go back 20 minutes.
If it had worked the way he thought it would, he could have saved his family and thus he would never need to kill all those people and everyone would have been fine.

>Shows that went to shit over time
What are they, /tg/?

Code Lyoko
The Avatar series, with the start of Korra

>>50466730
The worst part about all of this was the way they alluded to a very dark unhappy future in setting for pretty much everyone earlier on.

Can't even possibly see that happening now with how much everything just stays the same, shit they literally had a song that was essentially "nothing has changed, except minor details"

>>50466753
>Code Lyoko
I remember catching bits and pieces of 5 head when I was younger. That was good at one point?

>>50466800
Early on I felt it was fairly good; really went to shit once the submarine arc started.

>>50466445
He genuinely held onto that belife that he could travel back in time with enough. And once he did all the harm and damage he did could be undone. It would have never happened in the first place. When that last hope is shattered and he learns that everything he did is perminent, he breaks under the weight of sins he cannot escape, the despaire of knowing all he did was less then worthless and his goals failed before he even started

>>50466794
The arm thing came up in the latest season ender, big cliffhanger where the grass arm just ups and leaves his body and takes his Finn Sword with it, leaving him with his stump again

>>50466817
I'll be honest the bulk of my memory can be summed up as cyber bugs getting shot in cgi land. A hatch in the woods by a school that lead to all the cyber jacking in things, and maybe an ai or something.

And that cafeteria episode.

>>50466800
First season is alright, second season is pretty amazing.

>>50466794
Yeah the show gives me the impression of long term ideas being vetoed by higher ups, so they have to squeeze what they can in the subtle details and try to make this small things feel importaint

>>50466878
>And that cafeteria episode.
Which one? The collapse, the electrocution, or the zombie one?

>>50466845
Yeah and I'm sure another bee will come and grow him another arm or something stupid instead of it actually meaning anything.

>>50466907
Zombie one. Glad my brain wasn't just making that up. Used to watch it on the small crt my gram kept in the blue room after school. Bout the same time I watched the bulk of tng. Nice jog down memory lane, this.

>>50466911
The show isn't being renewed after its next season, maybe the writers will get bold again and try some more perminent stuff this time

>>50467008
Maybe, though I doubt it.

My only hope is the Lich returns to fuck shit up and actually do something.

>>50465656
As long as it deflects the bad shit to france it's fine

>>50466745
Yes, exactly. If he was right - but he wasn't. Rather than accepting that turning back time was a feat beyond Xelor himself, he pressed forward hoping he was right and the rest of the universe was wrong. But he wasn't. He was completely wrong about the metaphysics of the universe, and slaughtered countless people for what turned out to be no reason at all.

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Honestly it's just about adding emotion to the character. As long as the character isn't dastardly for the sake of it you can make the villain sympathetic. Barring a few cases where the emotional leap is retarded like "an elf killed my brother, so obviously genecide" or "you guys thought, perfectly reasonabley that I was dead, but the fact that you failed to find me means I'm gonna kill an entire space city". The whole justified villain thing is bs and needs to stop. Tragedy can be a trigger but shouldn't be used as justification (pic related).

>>50467583
Supprime ça

>>50465688
Basically he used to be a struggling inventor with a loving wife and kids, then he stumbles on a powerful artifact called the Eliacube and becomes obsessed with studying it. His wife eventually leaves him and takes the kids with her, and Nox later finds out that they were killed in a flood, he goes kind of insane from the grief and vows to find a way to undo his mistake. For around 200 years, Nox went around draining every scrap of wakfu (basically lifeforce energy) he could find and eventually sets his sights on the Tree of Life (which would kill an entire race of people if destroyed) justifying it with "If I reverse time, none of the harm I cause will have happened." He eventually is successful in stealing the tree's energy and reverses time...by about 20 minutes, after which he pretty much just gives up and disappears.

>>50466753
Korra's first season was alright, the show wasn't comfirmed garbage until
>muh dark avatar

>>50469136
I think part of the blame goes to the network for constantly making them write each season as if it were the last, ruined coherency

>>50462528
If the world compensates on a large scale anyway, why bother doing the work yourself?

>>50466040
not to mention it was his OWN fault that his family died, blinded by power he pushed them to the brink of starvation so his wife had to escape to her family to survive. Then a disaster happened.

This villain is overrated as fuck.

>>50458424
I know those feels mate. btas wasn't afraid to treat kids like people. To be able to handle some of the heaver elements. It was a level of respect that I took to heart. And made me question a lot about motivation, and whether 'it's because he's evil' is really true. No one wakes up and decides to just be the bad guy. Everyone is the protag of their own story.

Even when the motivation was just greed or pride, at least those had a real start. Hate is cheap.

>>50465302
Doing it right

>>50466040
None of that would have mattered if it had worked, he could destroy the world and it wouldn't have mattered.

The trick wasn't that he was evil, it was that he was wrong.

>>50469986
Hubris of man stick

>>50469738
It's why the Joker is such a lame villain now, all he's got is trying to outdo himself in how depraved he can be

>>50469628
>>50469986
That's kind of the point. He puts so much time and energy into this project he becomes blinded as to how he's becoming a supervillain, because none of his actions will have consequences if everything goes right. If the time travel had worked, the heroes would have been more villains, as they would have ensured that the dead remained just that, while that was never Nox's intentions. This doesn't make him a good person, but it affirms that he doesn't see himself as a bad person, he has very legitimate reasons for doing what he's doing, and if it worked the ends may have justified the means.
But it didn't work, where he thought he would go back in time 200 years he only time travelled 20 minutes. It was enough to reverse the single largest of his war crimes, but he's still a mass murderer. He only realises this after he calms down, that every one of the people he killed weren't just temporary speed bumps, but atrocities. The only thing he can bring himself to do after realising that he's a horrible waste of a human is to go and die on his wife's grave.
It's not "Lol Nox dindu nuffin wrong", it's that he's a three-dimensional character who's the opposite of a moustache-twirling villain. He sees himself as totally morally justified and one could imagine themselves in his place if you went batshit crazy and were handed a time machine powered by blood.

>>50470348
Pretty much though I would point out that while he believes he will undo his evil acts. He does at one point state something to the effect of "if I'm wrong than I don't really care about the world, it's not worth living in".

>>50470348
I mean, I liked to think he was like that before watching his origins story, in there he clearly is just blinded by power, almost tortures his family to death and he didn't know shit about time travel before that, so it really is just his fault. And I can't relate at all to someone the had a perfect family in every sense of the word, and throws it away because of a shiny thing.

For me he will remain the most despicable bad guy in that series, someone I would never be able to relate and if a villain someone I would smite without hesitating.

>>50470125
You only get away with the villian is so mysterious before it becomes bothersome. when you have little substance you use shock

For what it's worth The Dark Knight had an interesting take with it's implied Joker is scared veteran idea.

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>>50458253
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Start out with a good man who genuinely wants to bring about positive reform. Introduce opponents, highly dangerous opponents. Have the would-be BBEG deal with them in neccessary but less than savory ways. Have this create opposition. Create a vicious cycle of risk and elimination because the now-BBEG simply sticks to his convictions, which are at heart noble.

>>50471533
That motherfucker really went off the deep end, didn't he?

>>50471758
I guess that kind of depends. We all hear the death toll in absolute numbers, but what I have yet to see is the average number of executions in the Ancien Regime countries. For example, England at the time had laws (commonly referred to as the Bloody Code) that assigned the death penalty to the following 'crimes', among others:
>Hanging out with gypsies for over a month
>Strong evidence of 'malice' (whatever that may mean) in a child aged 7-14
>Blackening the face to commit a crime (not the crime itself mind you, just the act of blackening the face)
And that was the most liberal Ancien Regime country! Imagine what crazy shit could get you killed in Austria or Russia.

I will admit I have no straight numbers on hand, but I believe that in context it wasn't *that* bad, just like how the Spanish Inquisition wasn't all that bloody compared to secular courts (and actually was one of the first institutions to codify what we now call inquisitory investigation... I wonder why). It was just a very convenient Black Legend for the Ancien Regime to scare their peasants out of trying their hand at liberalism (and let's conveniently not mention the White Terror that happend almost instantly after Robespierre died, which also coincided with both a British and Austrian invasion. Almost as if the Republican Terror was supposed to suppress something).

Not defending the excesses of the Terror (most notably a lack of fair trial), but I have to wonder to what degree its sheer death toll was out of the ordinary.

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Kinda related.

I'm not sure where I read this, it might just be some bad fanfiction's excuse to make Link and him make googoo eyes at eachother for all I know, but I read somewhere that Gannon just wanted the Triforce to wish to live in a world where Moblins and Hyrulians lived in peace, all his evil deeds being reversed in the process. I think it was Wind Waker that implied this.

>>50471877
I also found it interesting that Robespierre is also viewed as a hero in Haiti, because while he was queuing up guillotines in France, he also outlawed Slavery and essentially legitimized Haiti in the process.

>>50472249
>Haiti
Don't open up that can of worms. I don't want to be accused of being /pol/ but that country disgusts me like no other country on the planet does.

>>50472274
Oh yeah, it's a clusterfuck, just an interesting series of events.

>>50458253
>Sympathy is usually derived from those who could relate.

this

>>50469363
My guess is, the way the world compensates is a lot more scary and arbitrary and huge.

Better to have 5 small wars where everyone at least knows what they're dying for, compared to a sudden sinkhole opening up and eating an entire country for no reason.

>>50471918
Also you know, remove the whole flooding of the world thing.

I mesn it apparently eventually did, but still. Living in the movie waterworld must suck.

>>50471918
I don't know if his motivation had anything to do with Moblins, dude's a Gerudo after all, but as far as I know his intentions were to give his people a home that wasn't a blasted-ass desert where nothing can grow. Pretty noble goal, if you ask me.

>>50470467
That was the other thing, he wasn't a good person because there was also the possibility that trying to turn back time would just straight up break reality.

Which basically amounted to "Yeah I'd rather die than not be right"

So he gets to be right, in the worst way.

>>50467631

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnjQ62pAJWQ

Stalin's case was actually much smoother transition than most would imagine. First he was kicked out of the Church for having an interest in communism, then his wife dies, that's when he forsakes God and becomes a bandit, and THEN he manages to climb through the ranks in the Chaos that is post-Tsarist Russia and become the Uncle Joe we all know and love, culminating into the major religious purges which were his way of sticking it to the Heavens for taking everything away from him.

A feature film could be made on the man, but like Hitler he'll probably never leave stock-villain status.

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>>50473529
>>50471918
This. I thought it was always that he cared about his people who were shit on by the Jews (Hylians). Hylians also tricked the other races into helping the Hylians (such as trading worthless shiny currency for shit) and then outbreeding and taking over large parts of the surface.

He is the real hero.

>>50474747
I wish google image search wasnt shit now

>>50465236
>approval rating of 93% when he died
President Valentine dindu NUFFIN wrong. The terrorist duo of angry paraplegic and stinky Italian were the true villains. Hot Pants best girl.

>>50474779
see that arrow by his post number? Pretty sure that's on the inline extension.

Use that.

The image is ok.

>>50466890
This is way too idealistic. This isn't a case of artists vs corporate overlords, this is a case of storyboarded cartoon run by Pendleton Ward.

>>50471918
I know the story you're talking about. Its from Hyrule Total War where Ganon, who is the pigdog boss and not Gannondorf who is a different character, wants the triforce is killed off by EVERYONE and reveals himself to be an innocent cinnamon roll the hwole time as he dies.

This one was fueled by a combination of desire to help his people not live in a fucking blasted ass haunted to shit deathworld level desert as well as jealousy of the Hylains who took for granted having that fuck off huge Field that they did NOTHING WITH.
And then the Demise Curse opf HAte thing happened and he went full MWAUAHAHAH for a while.

>>50470488

What series is this? I kinda wanna go watch it now.

>>50474958

Used inline extension. It failed. Somebody help an anon out.

>>50475164
And yet it worked for me.

>>50475111
Wakfu's first season.

>>50475164
TinEye was the winner when I tried. Source is on this blog:
svenspronfest.tumblr.com/

And here's the full image: http://i.imgur.com/Xn9vkbL.png

Now go forth. Not posting the picture directly because this a blue board.

A lot of folks like to give their villain a sob story, or some kinda utopian end that somehow "Justifies" their genocidal means, but that can only go so far and often ends up hilariously disproportionate ("My wife and daughter were killed by [country] so all of them must die!").

A better solution, IMO, would be to have a "Villain" whose goals aren't inherantly bad and whose methods aren't necessarily questionable, but whose success would noneheless be a bad thing for a lot of people.

For a good example, I'd prop up Odin Sphere - though not any of the villains, in this case, but the heroes. One of the characters, Gwendolyn, after trying and failing to win her father's affection her whole life, finally finds some measure of acceptance with her new husband Oswald (whom at first she rejects, but grows closer to over time). Unfortunately, Oswald is taken to the Netherworld (for plot reasons) and so she braves the stagnant darkness of of the abyss to save his soul. But the Empress Odette, who rules over the dead, refuses to let her new toy be taken from her, so she battles Gwendolyn. Gwen wins and kills the queen of the dead and reunites with her husband and everything's happy...except that the destruction of the arbitor of death just kickstarted the twilight of the gods and now the world's starting to end and oops.

Gwendolyn's a good person, and her actions ultimately do bear out over the course of the story as a net good for the world, but it would be easy to take something like that as a base and make Gwendolyn or someone like her your BBEG.

>>50466753
Take it to /mtv/, or make your own thread.

>>50458253
>The Ice King is a mutated version of Santa Clause, and the penguins are his elves.

IT ALL MAKES SO MUCH SENSE NOW!!!

Simply make it so they arent a villain but people with conflicting but just as righteous goals as you.

Have the BBEG be a warlord waging massive invasions but with the goal of uniting the disorderly and depraved land into being a great civilization. Or even have the BBEG be the leader of an independent state in that land and stand in the way of unification and order but does it for the well being of their citizens

No one in this situation is evil, no one is good. Not very tragic, but I feel as if tragedy is best developed through events in the story rather than trying to have it be there from the beginning else it feels like a forced sob story

>>50474747
>>50474747
>tall, honorable blonde haired blue eyed people
>jews
>dark skinned, hook nosed desert dwelling conquerer
>not a jew

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>>50464936
I admit I'm biased but AT died for me when they killed their relationship just because, it's been a shambling zombie ever since.

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>started off good
>fueled Albion's industrial revolution as a just ruler
>eventually becomes a tyrant
>shuts down schools and education systems
>forced the people to work long hours with low wages due to monstrous taxes
>eventually allows slavery and child labor
>has his secret police slay unruly mobs
>horrified by his actions, you leave the kingdom on a quest to reclaim the throne.
>toward the end you stumble across a horror that is responsible for most ancient civilizations being wiped out
>it's coming for Albion next
>eventually usurp the King
>His final or not so final, if you spare himwords are that he discovered the ancient evil years ago while traveling
>he only did what he did to prepare for it's coming, which a blind seer predicted would be around 5 years after he became king
>the tyrant usurped, the people are celebrating their valiant hero
>as you're inaugurated to the position of king, advisors come to you with propositions to end the oppression
>all of the good choices cost vast amounts of gold and severely weaken Albion
>you have but a year to prepare for the beast's coming
>suddenly you find yourself in a very awkward situation

Fable 3 was pretty terrible, but Logan was a damn good villain

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>>50458253
-By making the heroes assume the enemy is evil
-By making the heroes don't know the enemy motivations or goal
-By the heroes thinking: "hey, I am the good guy here"

>>50459873

One of the few example where the villain win only to lose, and where his solution was the better ending for all.
The sad part for me is that the world thinks of him only as a power hungry guy

>>50477764
>All of that doesn't really matter because you are already a billionaire because you cornered the real-estate market and can easily make the kingdom great again with your personal dragon's hoard of gold

>>50469136

I still get pissed off when I think about how the avatar is supposed to bring balance but instead of taking in vaatu and becoming a real source of balance between all forces she banishes him by destroying his form.
So after awhile he'll be back again up to the same shit causing the same imbalance.
FAIL

>>50466753
Nearly every one that didn't get canceled while they were still good

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
-some movie guy.

>>50469136
first season was great, until the last 2 episodes fucked it all up. suckkks

>>50477046
The woman that created Steven Universe was the one that made them a couple and went to bat for them, a popular theory in the fandom says that they broke them up and shat on them as a way to get back at her for quitting to make her own show.

>>50477046
>Implying the series hadn't gone to shit once they started actually having the characters get into romantic relationships

>>50471533
>Start out with a good man who genuinely wants to bring about positive reform. Introduce opponents, highly dangerous opponents

>>50464209
Ace is a villain and a victim of villains

It's BBEG's all the way down

>>50476254
One of the previous ice kings actually was santa

>>50466845
I watched that shit two days ago and barely remember what happened.
Susan got really swole and then died, right?

>>50483131
She's KOd as much as I can tell, but grass arm wanted to finish her off, the moment Finn resisted it just took his Finn sword and detatched, forming into a grass Finn, cut to black right there

>>50467608
But he wasn't wrong.

HE WAS RIGHT.

He turned back time. He was just wrong about the scale.

In my setting the closest thing to a BBEG is the pre-vampire (a large monster, not a vampire himself) who gifted prolonged life to humans with a clear risk, hoping that they could resist temptation and be benevolent vampires. For the most part, they were, and they came together in one underground city along with hundreds of consensual human servants who would give their blood in exchange for riches and protection. His goal was to advance science and society. After a while, sun worshippers sacked the vampire city and scattered the population into clans, where blood slaves became widespread and many vampires began outright killing people for blood. These clans established an empire that ruled over humans and taxed blood from them in exchange for protection, but then that empire was overthrown and everything got even worse, with the majority of vampires then becoming murderers to get blood. Basically vampires became progressively more and more corrupted due to human aggression.

The BBEG couldn't understand the human flaws since he was really naive, and he didn't really do anything wrong directly. He was murdered because some humans anticipated that he would do some evil stuff.

I wouldn't really call him truly tragic, but it seems like an uncommon style of archvillain.

>>50463220
>implying star wars isn't fantasy in space

>>50458253
I don't know if he counts, but there's an evil character in my setting who's stuck around for five thousand years because he was on the wrong side of a world-spanning conflict and he hasn't been able to convince his side or the rest of the world to accept one another. For five thousand years.
He gained immortality to ensure he would be there when everything paid off, and despite his willpower being pretty much impregnable, he's facing the effects of age simply because his mind isn't naturally capable of holding five thousand years of memories.
So somehow along the way, he forgot what he was working for, and decided that he was going to make a new world just for the people 'on his side', so that he wouldn't have to watch a world filled with conflict and could finally die in peace.
Basically, he was a guy who picked the wrong side a long time ago and whose attempts to fix what he saw was wrong with the world turned into a complex where he feels responsible for the woes of anyone in on the 'us'-side of his personal 'us versus them'.

>>50474213
I mean, if you really consider Hitler, he's pretty fucking pathetic. A guy who got turned away from art school and went to a war his side lost, getting deliriously sick during said war and coming home with a broken mind in a depressed nation.
He rode the tide of a bunch of disenfranchised people looking for something to believe in and from that came one of the biggest tragedies in human history when all that power got used to lash out at the people he blamed for Germany's problems. I mean, at some point you have to wonder if it was only his delusions and hate keeping him going.
It doesn't excuse anything he or the Nazis did by any means, but it explains it.

>>50480869
It was fine with FP since up to that point all romamce Finn ever got was being led around by the dick by the pink one. It was a welcome change and it promised to be interesting and fun, but no they had to nuke it and restore status quo.

>>50480785
>The woman that created Steven Universe was the one that made them a couple
>heroic blonde dudebro getting together with a chubby girl with anger issues
Makes perfect sense

>>50469628
>his OWN fault
Ancient evil artifact fucked up his brain, bro

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>>50472274
At least you don't share a border with them

>>50474747
>triforce pubes

>>50478510
nier was fucking great, really good music too

>>50476472
Nah gerudos are clearly desert gypsies, you need to be smart and crafty to be a jew

He turns out to be Santa Claus at the end, and all his bad stuff was to fund his gift-delivery enterprise

>>50463304
At least he is spared the shit that was kotor 2

>>50458253
I don't, I like rational and reasonable BBEG's that are just operation under different assumptions. Clashes shouldn't have reasonable compromises to them.

For example. The Elf King has to do what's best for the Elves, the Human King has to do what's best for the humans. When helping the elves means hurting the humans, there's no real way around that conflict.

>>50458253
You write him like a PC. Only one who had to make one hard choice. A hard choice that any other PC in the party would perhaps see themselves answering, and occasionally answering the same way.

Note: Does not work with murderhobos.

>>50472274
Call me a faggot, but what's wrong with Haiti? Aside from being as poor as fuck and having had a slave revolution once.

>>50458253
Know your audience well enough to understand what they fear, what they respect, what they can't live without. Then get past their defenses and force them to confront the part of themselves they were forgot, or pretended to forget, wasn't there.

>>50491347
One Word
>Niggers
>inb4 /pol/

>>50491314
This happened in my setting once.
>Presented a deal by a devil after being betrayed by an ally:
>"Now, since you're under my domain because your blood was used in a sacrifice to me, I can easily let you die."
>"But I have a job for you, should you choose to accept it, that will let you return to your wife and lead your nation to glory in war."
>"But you know as well as I do that even if you were willing to let go of your wife, that I'm just going to find someone much more desperate and much less moral than you to lead my war."
>"Can you really trust a complete stranger to you with that much responsibility? With your whole nation?"

>>50491347
everything horrible about black people, the caribbean and france all rolled up into one

>>50483647
That's fucking awesome man! I'm totally stealing that for one of my campaigns.

>>50471877
>Blackening the face to commit a crime (not the crime itself mind you, just the act of blackening the face)
That's actully still illegal in a lot of places. Wearing masks and the like is a criminal offense in itself in some countries during public gatherings, and often an additional charge levied at people who commit other crimes.

>>50492588
>>50492334
>>50489944

Didnt expect to get called out in this board of all places

>>50496439
They're agreeing with you, Haiti is garbage and should be WP'd

>>50458253
Good intentions gone horribly wrong, as I'm sure has been said.

>>50465505
Oh fuck

Did he kill himself? I don't remember that.

>>50496134
Blackface will soon be illegal due to PC culture

>>50502565
It was already frowned upon and out of favor for a while.

>>50502565
Good, it should be against the law for white people to make fun of minorities

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>>50504647
BAIT BAIT
I TOOK IT SO YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO.

>>50464414
>they can be reasoned with
>(though we all know it's too late for that).

The second part of this really does it for me. Make it a point that they started out as a reasonable person, with hopes and dreams, but they have long since passed the point of no return, and are now beyond saving.
The death of the person they could've been should be tragic.

>>50462853
BTAS is one of the best things DC has ever produced.

>ctrl+f Griffith
>No results

Inb4 a stupid flame war, having a character that has personally wronged the PCs or a group that they care about to ultimately bring about a result that benefits the 'greater good' is a pretty great way to make them stop and consider whether or not to pursue revenge.

>>50458424

This show had a lot of great Tragic villains. The Two Face two-parter was also great, if only for how much they had built up Harvey Dent to that point. His Silicon Soul was another good one. And Feet of Clay.

That was just a damn good show.

>>50458424
Didn't they completely ruin that whole thing in the comics with a while back, making it so Mr. Freeze was just crazy and obsessed with a co-worker?

I remember a friend geeking out about it at me, going off like it was some great twist. He didn't seem to follow when I said that this is the worst thing they could have done, and completely destroys everything that made Freeze more than just some saturday morning ice-themed villain like every other fucking superhero has.

>>50463018

Kinda sucks that when the art style change, freeze came back and was pissed about Being a head in a jar.

>>50477764
>has every opportunity to say "I'm doing this to prepare us for the arrival of a LITERAL ELDRITCH HORROR THAT WILL KILL US ALL"
>doesn't
>You don't either when people get pissy at you for making tough decisions.

This game was shit.

>>50474747

The Hylians were more analogous to Western European Christians than anything else. Like in the middle ages, after Rome fell. The Gerudo were desert people and probably more closely resemble Jews/Muslims/Other Desert Peoples.

Then there are the Zoras, who are fish people, and are basically highly advanced Dolphins who have moved beyond being roving rape gangs.

>>50507522
And Gorons are a bunch of rock eating nimrods who live in the mountains.

>>50468051
>after which he pretty much just gives up and crumbles to dust
FTFY

>>50470467
No, he said that whether he's wrong or right it doesn't matter, because either his sins disappear or all is lost to him anyways

>>50507702
Gorons sit around all day doing nothing at all but roll about with a dopey grin plastered on their face.

They're stoners

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My go to strategy for creating tragic characters is to put them in positions where duty lies perpendicular to happiness, wherein avoiding the negative consequences of their actions would require them to sacrifice who they are.

Hamlet can't stop moping and tell people what's wrong. Oedipus can't listen to Tiresias or ask who his true parents are. Anakin Skywalker can't check Padmé into a hospital under a fake name. Alexander Hamilton can't shut the fuck up for five goddamn seconds.

The BBEG for my current campaign is an immortal spirit of justice who's pursuing the party. As a spirit of justice, he has to hunt lawbreakers (kinslayers, oathbreakers and the like, as well as anyone who gets in his way) and ritually execute them -- but, in true asshole fashion, the party has created too many targets for him and his army to realistically hunt, driving him insane.

This exchange happens when the spirit tries to follow the party and is confronted by his younger sister, an ancient witch.

> "Sister. Look how frail you've become."
>> "Immortality has not treated me as well as it has you."
> "Speak not that word."
>> "Dissatisfied with unending life so soon, are you?"
> "I do not live. I persist. I… I cannot rest. I have not slept since… Since before the theft. All else fades before the Hunt. Your love. Our father. Peace, and sleep. The curse, and immortality, have taken these from me. All that is left is the law. And I shall. Not. Break. It."
>> "You shall not reach them but through me, Balaur. I hope you understand this."
> "I do, Mara. But duty commands me. When all else grows dim in the twilight of the gods, I pray I shall remember this day. And if I do... I shall weep for your loss."
>> "I will do what I must, brother."
> "We both will."

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>>50463126

>There is nothing more relatable than the loss of a friend/family member.

Is this why people keep cutting Garithos some slack in spite of the fact he's an utter twat in his only game appearance?

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I think one of the best ways is betrayal, especially if you - you being the protagonist - know that you are partially or even totally to blame for what happened.

A lot of these posts are focusing on BBEGs being tragic in general, but the constant argument is relatablity - and what is more relatable than something actually tied to the party, or hero? Someone they abandoned, or let go astray, or lied to.

It doesn't have to be something malicious, and the BBEG doesn't even have to be legitimate in his hatred. It just has to tie personally to the protagonist and their sense of guilt. If you've played Spec Ops: the Line, you could count Lugo. Dante's Inferno, Francesco.

>>50458253
Make him the good guy in the end. While the party kills and maims their way to victory, BBEG pulls out if there's little gain and a lot of harm to innocents. Reasons for his actions are also pure and good, personal - saving little daughter for example - and his supposed evil acts are portrayed that by nobles and people living off rumours, or maybe they are evil but necessary for his goal of just making his little girl healthy and happy again.

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>>50464180

>>50459873
Is that Atomic Robo?