Has anyone on Veeky Forums ever played against or faced a villain who is nihilistic?
I am thinking about making a nihilist my bbeg. A former hero who lives in a grimdark world. As time went on, he realized that for all his efforts, he ultimately didn't change anything. The virtuous suffer all their lives and the wicked spend years, decades, sometimes even centuries prospering from their misdeeds. All he could manage was making their last 5 minutes suck but someone else would replace them in a decade, year, month or even week. When his emotional crutch turned to evil and he was forced to kill him he gave up on it all and went into seclusion.
Fastforward decades later and he was approached by an entity claiming to be an angel that will fix the world. He saw through the ruse immediately and knew that he was talking to an eldritch abomination that would tear up the world just for amusement but by now he believed that it would be the better option than the worlds continued existence.
I mean it's going to all depend on presentation obviously but I've always found villains who actually care about stuff are way more fun.
Lucas Williams
It's a good option as a secondary villain, but I prefer to have the main villain be a little more relatable.
Evan Anderson
Like and said, you need to really think about presentation and relatability here. Think about how he would respond if the party asked him to explain his actions. Would he try to convince them to see his point of view with reason? Would he be able to draw on previous events in the campaign to do this?
What sort of rhetoric would he use? Would he appeal to feelings of hopelessness or smallness that the party feels? Would he attack their existing beliefs?
What would his tone be? Would he be accusing? Resigned? Wild-eyed and crazed? Would he seem like he actually fully bought in to his new plan?
Would he seem like he was crying out for help? Like he couldn't find any way to convince himself not to support the eldritch abomination, and needs the party to help?
It would also help if he really bought into nihilism and not just extreme *pessimism*. Your plot for him makes this difficult, because believing that the world should be destroyed implies that he sees meaning in the destruction. Consider his eldritch abomination master's long-term goals or next steps, and think about what someone who holds that there's no meaning or greater value in anything would want in exchange for his cooperation.
Nihilists are hard to write for without being cringeworthy partly because it's difficult to give them convincing motivation. Another part is that it's rare to have a writer convey that a character is nihilistic without having them go on a long, apropos-of-nothing monologue explaining their philosophy. Think about a situation where a belief in meaningfulness (or lack thereof) is made evident.
Hudson Gray
Don't . Nihilism is a kid's first philosophy for a reason. It's laughable and stupid every time it goes beyond the usual "the guy just doesn't care anymore". Don't try to present him as a sane person, because it won't work. Don't make him explain his motives beyond of "fuck this world", because your players WILL laugh at you. No, you're not the first who tries to make a nihilistic villian work, and you won't be the one to actually achive it. So at best- rewrite the BBEG, at worst- just make him insane.
Hunter Torres
Nah. It's possible to do one well when you realize that nihilism isn't so much a philosophy in and of itself as it is a response to philosophy. Denying that there's such a thing as meaning is a way out of the challenges and responsibilities brought on by believing in something. This makes it best presented as a weakness or vice.
OP, have your guy talk big about how the world's better off destroyed and how he's "saving" everyone from themselves. Make him look like he thinks he's got the moral highground. Then, reveal that the bbeg doesn't actually believe what he's saying and is only following the world-destroying eldritch abomination because he's too emotionally exhausted to really act on his own, and has found it easiest to obey the strongest thing around. The PCs could then use this against him somehow.
Just present nihilism as what it is, and don't pretend it's something enlightened.
Justin White
>good way to make a nihilist BBEG >just don't make him a nihilist I agree with you on that one.
Justin Reed
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Jacob Cook
>Nihilism is a kid's first philosophy for a reason.
SHIT, ARMCHAIR FAGGET PHILOLOSPHERS JUST WOKE UP! POST SPOOKS!
Ryder Campbell
Fuck dude...
Make BBBGaEG (Big Bad Beyond Good and Evil Guy) an existentionalist not nihilist.
Fucking bitches left and right, playing soccer and enjoying a good theatre. Charming his way up the social mountain, happily of course i imagine, with his Ubermensh smile. His lazy eyed sidekick throwing snappy commentary.
Make him likeable and relatable and just tad bit off the rockers about his moral compass so you and your players don't agree with him on everything and bam! instant conflict of interests.
Carter Ross
Here are a few ways to make it work:
>villain realizes this life is all meaningless, but the afterlife is eternal, so he wants to end this existence to prevent anyone ever getting put through it again
>he doesn't care about this world because he knows it's just a cycle of good and bad that will never end no matter what happens, and the players can try to convince him that he's probably right but it's him that's the good right now and they need him to help them
>he's immortal and sick of the world, now just doing bad things to get heroes who might eventually be able to end his misery for him
>he thinks his actions are giving meaning to other people to become heroes and to see the good, because there's no good without bad, regardless of whether he gets to enjoy it
Noah Hughes
That last bit about the angel is horrible. It completely devalues the nihilistic components.
The meaning of TRUE nihilism is when a religious person from (typically) a monotheist faith like judaism, christianity or islam loses faith in God. Because they believed in a monotheist religion where ALL is derived from God, all purpose, all reason and all morality, the loss of faith in God creates a total void of EVERYTHING. All of reality has now lost it's context. This is the meaning of nihilism. All values in the world are reduced to nil through the loss of faith in God.
The archetypical example of a nihilistic fantasy villain would be a Paladin discovering there are no Gods, or that the cosmos is just an eternal field of Lovecraftian universal hate and uncaring - and wanting it all to end.
Jason Jenkins
>Has anyone on Veeky Forums ever played against or faced a villain who is nihilistic?
u wot.
Levi Gomez
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Isaac Stewart
I once had a one shot serial killer villain whose whole schtick was he believed in a sort of Circle of Death. Life is an aberation - particularly sentient life. The vast majority of the universe is dark, empty. There is only the churning forces of the cosmos, stars flaring into existence and burning out, rocks colliding and breaking apart. Human life is almost obscene, really - a fungus clinging to the galaxys toe. A disgusting little speck of filfth that disrupts the natural order of things. Not only is is better for reality that we die, it's better for us - life is a miserable temporal pile of shit. 'We all deserve to die, tell you why Missus Lovitt tell you why' sort of thing.
It didn't make much sense, but it wasn't supposed to because he was crazy and up his own ass. My friends all said they thought it was a great interpretation of Cletus Kasady
Colton Wilson
>Nihilism is a kid's first philosophy Correction, misunderstood Nihilism is a kid's first philosophy, actual Nihilism in the original context is pretty cool. Its a philosophy that says that just because there isn't any inherent meaning in anything, doesn't mean we can't create our own meaning, we define what we care about and though it may all one day be just dust and ashes, now and here we are free, we have a choice, we are alive. >If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed. Or to put it another way youtube.com/watch?v=AnaQXJmpwM4
Tyler Ramirez
That's just Sargeras and many other "corrupted good guys" you have in literature, film and games. Hardly original.
Camden Foster
>Its a philosophy that says that just because there isn't any inherent meaning in anything, doesn't mean we can't create our own meaning, we define what we care about and though it may all one day be just dust and ashes, now and here we are free, we have a choice, we are alive. That's not nihilism.
That's existentialism.
Nihilism is fucking garbage, it's anti-philosophy, it's the retarded rotten leftovers of monotheist religion.
Nathan Bell
See that quote I posted directly below that line? That's directly from Nietzsche himself, 'If even a single moment in your life is happy then that validates all', does that sound like the argumental position of someone who would be BFFs with every two bit 'Nihilist' villain ever shat out? Git gud and read your classic literature before throwing down over what you think it is son.
Charles Nguyen
Sargeras isn't a nihilist though. He just does what's best for the galaxy (or what he considers best). In his mind, he's saving everyone and everything. Not his problem the PCs can fucking use Spiral Energy.
Aaron Mitchell
Nihilism is not depressed.
"Nothing matters, so be happy. See to your own. Live life, because this is it. No God, no judgment, just one go-round."
Matthew Hall
Nietzsche wasn't a fucking nihilist, you fucking mongoloid. Read his FUCKING WORKS! Nietzsche spoke AGAINST nihilism, not in favour for it.
Xavier Bailey
Nihilism is depressed shite. It's a bunch of christian cucks sitting around in a corner going all emo about how nothing has value because God doesn't exist.
Aiden Nelson
>Are these the Nazi's Walter? >No Donnie these men are nihilists, nothing to be afraid of.
Jayden Perez
First of all, that's not really nihilism.
Second, you're recounting the motivation of pretty much every Final Fantasy villain, as well as the big bads from a lot of other terrible fantasy fiction, like the Warcraft universe.
>the world is so full of pain and hate, I guess the solution is to painfully hate-fuck it out of existence. Just like how I put out that fire by throwing fire bombs into it, and stopped feeling hungry by never eating again
It's an irrational and asinine motivation, which has never been presented as anything but illogical nonsense. The only people who consider this sort of storytelling good are edgy teenagers. Unless your players are a bunch of high school weeaboos who like to cut themselves and talk about how meaningless their lives are, I recommend you come up with an actual believable villain with a motivation that makes sense and is something an actual human being would do. In all of human history, no person of any account has set out to destroy the world to end its suffering, because that is a totally insane perspective that you only see in small time cult leaders. Even the craziest and most evil motherfuckers in history had more rational motivation than this.
Connor Foster
I was thinking he is resigned considering that right before he was approached by the eldritch abomination he had pretty much given up.
Before the party actually meets him I was thinking of having events happen similar to what happened to him, take down the leader of a crime ring/horrid cult just to find that they were manipulated by a subordinate who now isn't so easy to get to, get betrayed by a mentor-like NPC and making most of the higher class villains rich, affluent or famous in some way.
Since he saw through the eldritch abominations ruse immediately, what the eldritch abomination offers is that while it is tearing up the world for fun, the wicked of the world will for once, suffer a lot because there is now something in the world that is magnitudes stronger than any of them.
In the case of when the party does meet him, he could be fighting the previous main villain for an artifact and after beating the villain, he spares him. When this causes the villain to become confused, he states "When what I have planned is complete, you'll wish I killed you where you stand". If the party wishes to investigate, they can find his dossier that explains his history up until the point where he gave up. He also runs a cult that has two sub-cults in it. One is full of ordinary people who aren't aware of its workings, the other are full of bad people who think they'll profit from the eldritch abomination being summoned. Before the final stage, he purges the former so that they don't have to live in the hellscape.
I think that during the fight with him, he engages in boss banter with the party. He talks about the nature of the world, outlines his pessimistic outlook about villains profiting all their life and virtuous suffering all their life and asks if they know how that feels yet. If they fail to stop the abominations release, he still tries to kill them telling them that they don't want to live through what happens next.
John Reed
A lot of that points to this character not really being nihilistic. That he still complains about the virtuous suffering and the bad people profiting shows that he still believes there is meaning in being virtuous. His desire for the wicked to suffer is also not nihilistic.
Do you want to make an actually nihilistic big bad, or do you want make a very angsty big bad that matches what said? There's nothing particularly wrong with the second option, if it's fun. It's just not what I thought you were asking.
What I would do, if trying to make him actually nihilistic, would again be to have him *claim* that he's doing this for greater justice or something like that. He would *actually* have become indifferent to right or wrong or justice, and is unwittingly putting up a facade. To show this, I'd have the corrupt members of his cult be treated and rewarded the same as the good members. When the PC's call him out on this, I'd make him get really preachy, but give conflicting answers - first "Those who commit evil must be punished without mercy!" then he'd say "It doesn't matter if one acts a scoundrel, so long as one is in the service of the greater good." shortly after. If this contradiction is pointed out, he gets violent. To get to the artifact he was fighting the rival bbeg for, I'd have him defile or destroy an important site in a Gordian knot approach. This would contrast with the rival bbeg, who would have been using careful schemes and machinations to get to the artifact while preserving the important stuff around it.
Finally, to hammer this home, I'd have a god or something tell the players something like "Don't listen to his lies. He believes in nothing, and holds all things in contempt, even though he thinks otherwise." Also, you need to show that he only came to each his immediate plans after long periods of indecisiveness. He cares about nothing, and would thus have trouble weighing his decisions, including tactical ones.
William Price
Honestly, I think the only non-edgy way to do a nihilist villain would be to play up the "nothing matters so I'll do what I like" angle. Maybe not technically nihilism, but makes for a better motivation.
Alternatively, look up "Heralds of the Immaculate Dawn" Your idea kinda reminds me of it, but it's more gnostic I guess
Jeremiah Campbell
dont forget to give him a wicked sense of humor
Wyatt Richardson
Well, he thinks that being virtuous doesn't have a point anymore because evil is so ingrained into the world that it's impossible to remove. I give you the point about him wanting the wicked to suffer though I'd like to add that releasing the abomination will also surely cause virtuous to suffer as well. He justifies it in his mind with thinking that virtuous people are suffering anyway so it won't change their situation though he does kill good people who are in his way while sparing bad people. His real reason is that he cares more about punishing bad people than protecting good people by now. That being said he does realize that he is one of the wicked for trying to bring suffering into the world so he does want to survive until the abomination brings hell to earth.
I suppose the villain might be more angsty than outright nihilistic and I suppose there is nothing really wrong with that. From this thread, I'm getting that a nihilistic Big Bad is a guy who considers everything meaningless so he is only interested in profiting for himself.
Christopher Jones
What about this: what if he doesn't see through the eldritch abomination's motivations? Or perhaps he's so broken by a life trying to impose morality on an amoral world that he comes to believe the morality is, itself, just as much an eldritch abomination as your Cthulhu's and Nyarlathoteps?
Maybe he's so desperate to finally encounter something Good that meeting the angel was enough for him, he buys into its illusion and succumbs to its lies.
Oliver Garcia
If you're going to make a nihilist bbeg, at least make them absurdist nihilist, not a fucking existential crisis faggot. >I have fully accepted my death, but in the meantime I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want and anyone can stop me. >haha jk time to accept your death too fuck you cunt
Henry Gonzalez
I'll say it again as I did yesterday: that's not nihilism, that's called being a cynical douche.
