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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

It's about speaking to the soul.

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1. The Shades of 'Return of the Archwizards' more or less get everything they want except destroy all of Faerun. Everveska is utterly decimated while the Phaerimm (I know I didn't spell that right) have also been nearly destroyed....thus having two of their enemies nearly destroy one another. They also more or less have conquered the entirety of the great desert that is a massive piece of the country.

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2. Malik I mentioned before

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3. Death of the Dragon utterly decimates Cormyr, which was the entire goal of the villain. Azoun is dead at the end of the novel, the country is in shambles, the heir is also dead, and most of the dread armies is crushed. It's certainly as good as Thrawn is.

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4. Shandril is killed in book 3 of her trilogy, thus fulfilling the goal of Fzoul and the Red Wizards.

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5. King Obould wins at the end of the Orcs trilogy doesn't he? He may have lost some troops and been humiliated by Drizzt but he's conquered a vast swath of territory hasn't he?

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6. The War of the Spider Queen is again....victory for evil.

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

It's about speaking to the soul.

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Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers

1st Edition obviously didn't have a lot of the bells and whistles that came later, but I've played every edition of D&D and a number of other RPGs also, and it's my opinion that the balance of roleplaying vs. wargaming that emerges from any given campaign is always more a matter of the inclinations of the GM and players than of the rules.

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I could also see Halistra appearing again, Lolth's inquisitor, fun stuff...wonder how long she'd survive. In that regard Lolth proved truly chaotic, she didn't even give Halistra specific orders whom to kill and where, at least Cyric's inquisitors had an area to play in, Zhentil Keep, Halistra could show up anywhere where people despise Lolth and that might mean she's have to deal with Qilué. And her torment of knowing how majorly she screwed up... good stuff

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

[quote=Winterfox]It's about a crappy RPG device that overlooks anything remotely like realism, intellect, actual linguistics, and... you know. Those terribly trivial things.

I'm kinda glad now that I was never acquainted with the 1st edition.

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Originally posted by Mace Hammerhand

This so derails the topic, Charles, if you wanna discuss alignment languages please open a new thread, I will be very happy to join in

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Originally posted by Mace Hammerhand

And now for something completely different...

Villains

anyone any new input? What makes a villain tick, that's always been of interest to me. And I don't mean it in the way of all *insert random ethnic group* are evil and have to be *insert random method of ethic cleansing* evil...

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

Sauron in the LOTR is important because he represents pure evil without any admirable qualities whatsoever, same for Emperor Palpatine, or the Devil for example. If the Emperor had some redeeming quality he'd be a lesser villain.

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

Sauron in the LOTR is important because he represents pure evil without any admirable qualities whatsoever, same for Emperor Palpatine, or the Devil for example. If the Emperor had some redeeming quality he'd be a lesser villain.

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Even more structured villains like the Daleks from Doctor who and the Orcs from LOTR are essentially "pure" evil with Daleks being hate personified and racial purity, Orcs being savagery personified. They wouldn't be as threatening with their villainy 'diluted'

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If I had to choose between one, I'd probably choose villains over antagonists because they imply a stronger urgency to the victory of the hero.

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I've only read a few of the Star Wars novels, so I don't know if this has been revealed in more than just Outbound Flight. But in that novel (by Timothy Zahn, the guy that gave us Thrawn, who is also in this book), we do see a redeeming quality in Palpatine. I'll not offer any spoilers, but I will say that part of the reason he took over and formed the Empire is because of a reason that many people -- even within the Star Wars galaxy -- would have supported.

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"The Devil" from where? Earlier upthread, I brought up Milton's Satan, and that is anything but "pure evil," regardless of th poet's intention. And I agree with Wooly: Sauron bored me. He neither interested, intrigued, nor menaced. He was just there as a vague threat. Mind you, I've problems with Tolkien's characterization in general -- Middle-earth could have imploded and everyone could have died and I wouldn't give a damn. Palpatine didn't interest me much, either; Revan, Ulic Qel-Droma and the like piqued my curiosity far more.

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I disagree. I find villains that can be understood on a human level much scarier than "pure evil." Especially if I am shown that said villains have complex, intelligent, sentient reasons for what they do that are deeper than being evil just because.

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

Milton's Satan rebels against Paradise, destroys Adam and Eve, and attempts to marr creation solely for Pride and Vanity. He never displays any qualities that could remotely be considered positive other than his beauty and charisma.

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The problem is that this easily verges into nauseating attempts to justify the behavior of certain characters I find too often. I can understand the Master from Doctor Who on a human level. He's arrogant, greedy, vain, power hungry, and considers all other people around him utterly like insects more than he does consider them like people. He has many positive qualities like intelligence, civility, and a genteel manner. He's a throughly engaging character. Never once do I find the story attempting to say the Master isn't a monster for attempting to dominate the universe with a weapon that can destroy any planet in the universe instantly.

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I consider it a failure when Authors essentially become so enamoured of their characters that they become a second protagionist. There's plenty of good antagonist leads (like Char Anzable for anyone who knows anime) but you have the potential to drain a character of all menace by justifying him (Anne Rice and Lestat).

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps


For me, the problem with Ulic is that the work attempts to make me sympathize with him. There's something vaguely offensive to me about works that think I should honestly care about the 'tragic' circumstances that lead a man to scour the galaxy and enslave it. Exar Kun was a figure that I have sympathy for as much as Ulic. He ends up punished horrendously for 4000 years before his destruction while Ulic goes off to brood.

I accept Ulics and Darth Vader's redemptions but give me an honest villain whom will go unrepetently into the night.

*and snnnipppp*

The problem is that this easily verges into nauseating attempts to justify the behavior of certain characters I find too often. I can understand the Master from Doctor Who on a human level. He's arrogant, greedy, vain, power hungry, and considers all other people around him utterly like insects more than he does consider them like people. He has many positive qualities like intelligence, civility, and a genteel manner. He's a throughly engaging character. Never once do I find the story attempting to say the Master isn't a monster for attempting to dominate the universe with a weapon that can destroy any planet in the universe instantly.

I consider it a failure when Authors essentially become so enamoured of their characters that they become a second protagionist. There's plenty of good antagonist leads (like Char Anzable for anyone who knows anime) but you have the potential to drain a character of all menace by justifying him (Anne Rice and Lestat).

A villain also that is 'thoroughly evil' and 'inhuman' also has to represent something. The Daleks are effective because they don't have to be human to appeal to the human fears about tyranny, racism, Nazism , and the like. No, you aren't going to have much in the way of a story about why its a good thing for Daleks to butcher all other races but you have plenty of fire to explore the story through characters reactions to these individuals.

For a character to fight a 'monster' you don't necessarily have to have the monster just be a video game target.

(Monsters are different from villains in that Monsters are inhuman on some level)

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

I'm a professional writer too as my job (even if my novels have only been released on Amazon.com last week) so I speak from what I know. It's really a question of what kind of story you're looking for rather than any inherent superiority of one over the other.

*snipping*

On the other hand, there's reasons that people like the Red Baron stick with us and villains with softer qualities.

If I had to choose between one, I'd probably choose villains over antagonists because they imply a stronger urgency to the victory of the hero.

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

Err Mace, I'll respond when you realize that I used The "Red Baron" as an Example of a Good Antagionist and a representative of a character who is not evil.

Given you didn't get that, I don't know if you really can be responded to for anything else (admittedly, the wording could be clearer but I mentioned it earlier as an antagonist).

As for Lestat, I didn't like the second book since the transformation of him from "the avatar of evil" From Louis' books to misunderstood rock god really sent the series spiralling down hill for me.

Honestly, your entire argument is built around the implications that "pure evil" villains are going to be cartoon cutouts when frankly there's no implications they are.

Your aforementioned 'priest of Tyr who forces every other sentient being to accept his faith or die' is evil. Frankly, he actually is one of the character types I would avoid because card carrying fanatics frankly aren't that interesting to right about. There's something fundamentally stupid about such characters and I hate writing about them, though I admit people who want to "save the world" do tend to become constant villains in my stories.

I just have no sympathy for them whatsoever.

In my books, against what I have said here; I usually keep a mixture of villains, antagonists, and irredeemable avatars of evil. Since my writing cred is somewhat on the line an example would be the 'High Priest' character in my first book (specifics like names are irrevelent to the discussion since I doubt anyone has read the work). The character in question cares nothing for what his 'God' is going to do to the rest of the world but he's utterly terrified of death. Likewise, in the sequel, the villain is motivated by his love of his wife and a desire to end death so that he goes to abominable lengths.

Hell, even the "Avatar of Evil" solely wishes to undo creation because its existence is a nightmarish torment so long as it happens. Only when the universe is Chaos again can it be free of its diminished nature and be one with all things again.

There's a place for characters that have admirable qualities as well as villains and certainly its the obligation of a good writer to explain how Villain A got to Point Z where he's a lunatic but give me a character that cannot be reasoned with, dissauded, is a threat to everything the hero loves, and if he triumphs will plunge the galaxy/world/land into darkness.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590921798/sr=8-2/qid=1142952136/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-1335224-2639920?%5Fencoding=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590920848/sr=8-1/qid=1142952169/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1335224-2639920?%5Fencoding=UTF8

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Originally posted by Charles Phipps

Emperor Palpatine seems to have no human qualities whatsoever.

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We don't know WHY Palpatine became such a thorough evil doer but he is.

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