NPC antagonists in dystopian RPs

[Quilboarian]

I haven't seen very many dystopian roleplays where the players are up against (or forced to kill) people who are just normal foot-soldiers and police officers, rather than faceless agents of pure evil. The military can't be outright "Helghast" and the police can't be "Civil Protection," either.


They might still be indoctrinated, though. They might still do horrible things and kill dissidents without much second thought. But they aren't drones, or robots, and they aren't doing it for no reason, or because it's fun.


I'm not sure if this works out all that well, though. People don't like protagonists killing individuals unless they seem completely justified in doing so. You need to make the "goons" seem less human, and/or play them off as being irredeemably evil, lest the "good guys" look like mass murderers.


But to me, that's hypocritical. Dehumanizing people and portraying them as pure evil, as a justification to kill them? That sounds like the same goddamn thing the dictatorship would be doing.

 

[The Fuzzy Pixel]

That's a thoughtful observation, and I agree.


As you mentioned, no one wants their white knight or token hero to be smeared by the blood of the innocent, so (unconsciously or otherwise) everyone who they have to kill is made out to be a bad guy, or is just not explored in much detail so no one really cares. It's rarely ever "that guy was just doing his job and was in the wrong place at the wrong time" so to speak. Also, if there's no incentive to not leave a trail of bodies most people will just shrug it off.


However, this might also be a case of people never really thinking about such things because they themselves are not in the relevant situation, and thus don't have to think about moral dilemmas like:


"Do I kill this sod and continue on, or does he have a family to go home to?"


Given the situation you describe regarding dystopian settings; if players or characters are directly told or reminded that possibly hostile NPCs aren't inherently bad people I'm sure (most of) the characters would approach things differently. Maybe they'll just knock the poor sap unconscious, or find another path? Y'know, actually make an effort in the IC to uphold their character's moral ground, and portray an inner emotional struggle. Personally I think adding this element in would help strengthen or further develop a character. It forces another layer of depth that might also help make characters feel more real since it's hard to get behind a revolutionary fighting the power when they kill more innocent people in a day than the dictator does.

 

[bobgod]

You know what, you are a bad guy sympathizer. Idiots like you are what is destroying the dystopian "kill them all" RP genre. And for that, you get a big "YOU ARE MEAN" award.

 

[The Fuzzy Pixel]

Quite a refreshing rebuttal with ironclad points to underline your position.

 

[bobgod]

I'm doing my part, and this kid is also, as for the rest of you, you're all sympathizers!

 

[Archie]

[QUOTE="The Fuzzy Pixel]That's a thoughtful observation, and I agree.
As you mentioned, no one wants their white knight or token hero to be smeared by the blood of the innocent, so (unconsciously or otherwise) everyone who they have to kill is made out to be a bad guy, or is just not explored in much detail so no one really cares. It's rarely ever "that guy was just doing his job and was in the wrong place at the wrong time" so to speak. Also, if there's no incentive to not leave a trail of bodies most people will just shrug it off.


However, this might also be a case of people never really thinking about such things because they themselves are not in the relevant situation, and thus don't have to think about moral dilemmas like:


"Do I kill this sod and continue on, or does he have a family to go home to?"


Given the situation you describe regarding dystopian settings; if players or characters are directly told or reminded that possibly hostile NPCs aren't inherently bad people I'm sure (most of) the characters would approach things differently. Maybe they'll just knock the poor sap unconscious, or find another path? Y'know, actually make an effort in the IC to uphold their character's moral ground, and portray an inner emotional struggle. Personally I think adding this element in would help strengthen or further develop a character. It forces another layer of depth that might also help make characters feel more real since it's hard to get behind a revolutionary fighting the power when they kill more innocent people in a day than the dictator does.

[/QUOTE]
The first thing i thought of was Code Geass where if you took a poll i'd bet you about 80% of people would support Lelouch even though he's just as murderous if not more than all his enemies.


But the way they went around this dilemma is just by making you hate, hate hate his opposition, and OP is totally right about it being the same tactics dictators would use. I mean, people loved stalin too as long as he was killing Nazis, because look at how bad they are!


Spoiler half-alert! In Code Geass one of the first scenes, that recurs, is brutal oppression of a spoiled prince blowing up a ghetto filled with innocent Japanese people who can't ever climb up the ladder, because even if they join the imperialists they're thought of as dogs. The massacre is shown out in the most vivid detail ever, and the first thing youre thinking is you just want that (im gonna stop here to be clean) prince to die, but not necessarily a bad, twisted death. It's more like you want every single one of the imperialists to die, somehow.


So this gets to how you say the NPCs aren't inherently bad and protagonists find a way around it: definitely the best I've seen do... but it's strange, because the ones that don't we're still okay with and sometimes rooting for, just because they don't do it sadistically.


It's like that old line the death of one man is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. We're perfectly fine if dystopian heroes in RPs murder thousands of people, even their own people, for political purpose, because it's not vivid, but the crimes of the oppressors are. As for normal, indoctrinated people, some of them are super sweet in dystopias but are shut off from the reality and dehumanized like they're just unthinking robots chirping at the beat of people who are downright sadistic.


So it makes no logical sense, but we tend to hate antagonists more if they commit vivid crimes that make our gut wrench instead of numerous crimes we don't see on screen. For sure there were thousands of consumers dying a year from the dirty meatpacking industry in the 1800s, but it wasn't until Upton Sinclair published the sensational book The Jungle that people caught on. Big ty to OP for posting, never thought about this.

 

[King Misanthrope]

Yes. Good.


If I may add my own input to this, I feel like this problem goes beyond just NPCs in dystopian societies, however. NPCs, unless they're significant enough to earn a spot in the role play's lore, are generally not fleshed out very well. The reason for this is obvious - they're disposable, only meant to be used for a couple of posts. This leads to many one-dimensional NPCs overall, and who can blame people? Even if they do think things through, it would be something hard or unrealistic to showcase many different traits in such a short amount of time.


NPCs go beyond that, in that sense. The environment in a room can change drastically depending on the cast of characters. If someone is throwing judgey looks around, then unless everyone in the room has some wild rebellious streak, people will be more liable to speak softer. Perhaps someone frequents a restaurant and has a favorite waiter. When that waiter is murdered right in front of them, that person and all others who were familiar with the waiter will push for salience regarding that in their local news. Needless to say, developing NPCs is not an instant gratification sort of thing, but it really has the potential to add so much more to the plot. Me, personally, I would love for my characters to get some innocent blood accidentally on their hands.


Beyond that, I have a problem with how people generally portray perceived antagonists. It seems like one half of writers will make their character act cruel with "evil" as an excuse, while the other half will make their character act cruel with a tragic backstory as an excuse. Granted, I've seen my share of excellently portrayed antagonists with incredible depth to their characters, but all too often do I see people fail to rationalize their way through their character's actions, and I have fallen into that trap in the past, myself. Perhaps these are just my own philosophies and not everyone will agree, but I believe everyone's tendency is to think that their current choice of actions are justified. It takes some try-too-hard-to-be-edgy preteen to consciously be "evil," if you ask me. It may just take a certain level of writing maturity to move away from just thinking of things in a black-and-white sort of way.

 

[bobgod]

>mrw half of you commie bastards http://2new3.fjcdn.com/movies/f7/82/f78210_5591576.webm (this is a joke, if you get offended refer to the video)

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Friend Computer is very pleased at Troubleshooter B0b's enthusiasm, but he appears to be using hyperlink technology above his security clearance.

 

[TurtleGod]

I haven't seen very many dystopian roleplays where the players are up against (or forced to kill) people who are just normal foot-soldiers and police officers, rather than faceless agents of pure evil. The military can't be outright "Helghast" and the police can't be "Civil Protection," either.
They might still be indoctrinated, though. They might still do horrible things and kill dissidents without much second thought. But they aren't drones, or robots, and they aren't doing it for no reason, or because it's fun.


I'm not sure if this works out all that well, though. People don't like protagonists killing individuals unless they seem completely justified in doing so. You need to make the "goons" seem less human, and/or play them off as being irredeemably evil, lest the "good guys" look like mass murderers.


But to me, that's hypocritical. Dehumanizing people and portraying them as pure evil, as a justification to kill them? That sounds like the same goddamn thing the dictatorship would be doing.

If someone realizes that they killed a truckload of people for no reason, they'd stop and think about it, and probably be ashamed of themselves. If they realize this late in a roleplay, then they might have an emotional breakdown. But I find that most of the time (since I'm usually not in a dystopian roleplay) the person killing is someone that has little if any emotion. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's how assassins work. No emotion means no regret means killing with no real thought about a background. And if there was thought about a background, it had no emotional effect.

 

[Protagonist]

In my "Xeria" Roleplay setting, it averts having the goons be 1-dimensional evil by having them all be conscripts. It's actually the good guys who use things like robot drones, faceless militarized police, and seemingly emotionless secret agents. The bad guys use barely-armed infantry and child soldiers.


This makes sense when you think about it: A just ruler would prefer having a few non-expendable soldiers, backed by a robot army. An evil dictator would go for "zerg rush" and kamikazee tactics. Specifically, their tactics are based on Soviet Russia and Japan during WWII. They have a bunch of conscripted soldiers who are forced to fight by "Loyalty Enforcement Officers" who shoot them on sight if they show any hesitation.

 

[Quilboarian]

In my "Xeria" Roleplay setting, it averts having the goons be 1-dimensional evil by having them all be conscripts. It's actually the good guys who use things like robot drones, faceless militarized police, and seemingly emotionless secret agents. The bad guys use barely-armed infantry and child soldiers.
This makes sense when you think about it: A just ruler would prefer having a few non-expendable soldiers, backed by a robot army. An evil dictator would go for "zerg rush" and kamikazee tactics. Specifically, their tactics are based on Soviet Russia and Japan during WWII. They have a bunch of conscripted soldiers who are forced to fight by "Loyalty Enforcement Officers" who shoot them on sight if they show any hesitation.

Yeah, it does make sense- machines taking over the roles of human soldiers. Though, I wonder if it's just easier to maintain good rep by using machines to kill hordes of enemy conscripts, as opposed to sending better-equipped human soldiers, lest they witness the slaughter. If the military is almost completely separate from the regular populace, then the state is more free to attack whoever it wants, without opposition from the public.


For my "To the Dregs" universe, there's a few categories of antagonist "government henchmen," I guess. There's the agents and fanatical loyalists, who act as secret police and political intimidation squads, respectively. The regular police don't really concern themselves with political crimes, although you can still be arrested and simply transferred to the worser-police. The regular military has a mixture of professional soldiers and conscripts, although they are generally spirited and determined troops. There are a lot of eccentric and glory-seeking commanders that use advanced technology mixed with outdated "traditional" tactics. The army is ruthless, but you can generally expect them to be honest- and they'll usually just shoot you, rather than torture you and kill your family like the secret police.