Poll: Would you play as a truly appalling person in a game?

[verdant monkai]

I'm not talking like GTA's Trevor Phillips level of evil, where they have no problem with torture and casually murder people. I'm talking about someone who is a literal piece of filth. Someone who:-

1.Is a sadist in every sense of the word
2.Will steal from the very poor
3.Rapes people
4.Kills children
5.Would prefer to leave an enemy to die broken and mutilated rather than finish them off.
6.Is manipulative and willing to exploit the earnest and unaware.

Basically would you be interested in playing as a person who is almost everything that is wrong with humanity? I'm sure some would like the "it depends" option, so lets say that the character does all six of those things. Would you still be able to play the game? I'm not saying you'd have to be comfortable whilst doing so.

Personally I'd be very interested to. Gaming is a good medium to explore such a dark theme. For example you wouldn't have to put any child actors through anything questionable to get footage. And actors wouldn't be reluctant to sign up to have their image used in an unpleasant way. But I can easily see why people would be offended by the idea.

What do you guys think?

 

[OneCatch]

Not really my thing. I can get behind the renegade, or the vengeful, or the righteous bastard, but I couldn't really get invested in a truly filthy character. Hell, I topped myself at the end of Spec Ops: The Line.

Why? I'd guess that the first three examples I gave are adequately 'reasonable and justified' power fantasies, whereas the latter has no redeeming qualities to temper it.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Is it likely that a character that does all of those things could even be taken seriously?

There's a point where it becomes cartoonishly evil, and not many people can do shocking imagery with dignity and poignancy. They're welcome to try, but it'll take more than the concept or the audacity of doing it to convince me.

 

[krazykidd]

Yes. Hell i wish there was a game where i could be truely evil. It would help my escapism. However, it would have to not be a sandbox , and be well written. Because cartoony evil is not evil.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Is it likely that a character that does all of those things could even be taken seriously?

There's a point where it becomes cartoonishly evil, and not many people can do shocking imagery with dignity and poignancy. They're welcome to try, but it'll take more than the concept or the audacity of doing it to convince me.

Hmm, hold on I have somebody you have to see...

Spoiler

The most serious final boss ever. Nobody fucks with Unlimited Hazama.

OT: I guess this will go towards a Spec Ops: The Line thread since that's pretty much the closest thing out there right now. Eh, it will all come down to how it's presented or what genre the game is in. Hazama mutilates child orphans, burns their house down then leaves them unconscious in the wreckage. Yet everyone who has played BlazBlue will tell you he's fucking awesome and have only good things to say about him.

I think a character's entertainment factor comes first over what sort of terrible shit they do.

 

[DoPo]

1.Is a sadist in every sense of the word

That, honestle, is a bit lame. We already have that - it's called the evil option in most games that have good/evil options.

2.Will steal from the very poor

I don't really mind - we also have that. It's called being the hero of many other games - you don't even have to be "evil" to do this.

3.Rapes people

No comment.

4.Kills children

Personally, I would be interested to see that. Let's see if it is "game evil" evil or not.

5.Would prefer to leave an enemy to die broken and mutilated rather than finish them off.

To be honest, that's what a lot of games with evil in them actually miss. Yes, I'd play that.

6.Is manipulative and willing to exploit the earnest and unaware.

And THAT is what "game evil" evil misses the most. I've tried to create such a character in several games - yet if I say I'd help somebody I apparently would be doing out of the goodness of my own heart and I would never ever be lying or even planning to exploit that favour afterwards. Normally choices mostly come down to enthusiastically helping because rainbows or just stabbing them in the face and missing the quest (and the neutral option when for when you can't stomach any of the other two). Or even worse is the "choice" of either being grumpy, happy or indifferent as you accept. If I would be playing an evil character, I would want them to be intelligent and do this sort of thing.

All in all, yes - I would be interested in playing a horrible person in a game. As long as they are not the cartoon villain sort of evil.

 

[Coakle]

No.

It's not because I would be offended by the idea. I'm going to latch on to the comment that says that the game should be made because an appalling character is an interesting theme to explore. So it would have to be a character focused game that tries to explore it's Main. I've played God of War, but that should not count in this discussion.


Do I want to read a book about an appalling person who is/does 1-6?

Or do I want to read a book about a person who is ruled by his fear of rejection because he feels that he is missing some important element that disqualifies himself from being human?

The reaction to this fear creates a desire to keep the important people around him happy, and an unwillingness to communicate his feelings which sets him down a self-destructive path. He lies, steals, and manipulates people. He is a truly irredeemably, appalling person. It's difficult to tell where he crossed that line in his lifetime.


The first option is the most infantile way to create an appalling person whose purpose is to reveal a human truth. He's not an actual character, just a amalgamation of everything wrong with humanity. It's completely unappealing and alien because it so far divorced from human experience that the character would blunt any point a character focused game is trying to make.

The second option takes a human experience, fear of rejection, and depicts how this experience shapes and motivates a person. Everyone understands, at some level, that desire to lie, or put on a show to gain acceptance. It allows the reader to connect to the Main.

 

[Mikejames]

If it was stressing to go beyond the screwing around in a game like GTA? Like, some kind of twisted power play going through the one-sided actions of a sadist, played completely straight with no reasoning behind it? I can't imagine being a fan.

I'm a fan Spec Ops: The Line, which sets you on the course of dealing with the horror of inadvertently perpetuating war crime and trying to justify immoral actions, but that's not driven forward for the pure sake of being cruel.

 

[Maximum Bert]

As long as I find a character interesting I will play them it dosent bother me what they are they or what they do. Come to think about it looking back over that list Mario fulfills a lot of the criteria I knew that dood was evil.

 

[verdant monkai]

Is it likely that a character that does all of those things could even be taken seriously?

Depends. There are men in the more lawless places on the African continent who have done and still do such things. Would you take one of them seriously?

Hmm, hold on I have somebody you have to see...

Come on Hazama is the loveable kind of evil. Anything he does can be forgiven due to him being such a cutey. Sure he is evil but you can't loathe him.

3.Rapes people

No comment.

Come on Raep is pretty evil.


Everyone one who is saying that they consider those six things cartoonish evil, please send me some links because I have never seen a cartoon that has all of them in one character.

I know you mean that you think those six things would add up to an unrealistic character but I hate to break it to you but people like that exist. People who did most if not all of these things, have existed in history like the Roman emperor Domitian in his reign of Terror. And there are warlords in Africa right now who rape people, extort money from locals, send children to their deaths as child soldiers, and cut people's fucking arms off.

It's hard to imagine someone with the necessary magnitude of foulness, but I mean someone who is a devil in the true sense of the word.

 

[MysticSlayer]

The first option is the most infantile way to create an appalling person whose purpose is to reveal a human truth. He's not an actual character, just a amalgamation of everything wrong with humanity. It's completely unappealing and alien because it so far divorced from human experience that the character would blunt any point a character focused game is trying to make.

While I think the OP's description makes it seem infantile, it doesn't have to be. Of course, the writer would have to give the person reasonable motivation for why they do the appalling stuff they do. In other words, they don't just steal from the poor because that's who they are, but perhaps they're poor themselves and don't know what else to do, or perhaps they're driven by some ideology that believes the poor steal from people through the government (and yes, I know people that honestly believe that). I agree that making a character evil for evil's sake just goes into cartoonish territory. On the other hand, fleshing out that character so we recognize that they are still a human we can see a bit of ourselves in goes from making their appalling character laughably evil to horrifyingly real.

If a game manages to pull off playing that evil character, then I'd certainly play it. Until then, I'll just laugh as many other games make all that appalling stuff a thrill ride.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

No. I don't like Kratos at all, and thus I have stayed far away from the God of War series. After hearing that he grabs some innocent person and shoves them in a gear just to get it to stop, I'm glad I stayed away. And I've never touched a GTA game either.

My conscience would not let me play a character like that. I would feel terrible about the things I was doing. Playing Spec Ops: The Line was rough for me. Playing someone who is knowingly evil and the scum of the Earth is not something I would enjoy.

 

[Megawat22]

We have games where you can play these kinds of characters already don't we? Generally they're the RPGs with dialogue choices but they still exist to an extent (not the child raping though, I doubt any AAA dev would touch that subject with a 20ft pole).
I mean in TellTale's Walking Dead I brutally murdered several people, stole, left others for dead and I'm sure I even used people for my own purposes at points. Hell I even checked the sadistic box when I gloated about killing a man's family after beating him to a pulp.
When I write it out like that it makes my Lee seem like some kind of psychopath, but when I was playing I had a reason for doing all those actions and generally felt justified in doing them. When I was playing I wasn't playing as a psycho who kills for fun, I was playing as a survivalist, who knew that the world had changed and you had to do some grim stuff to survive.
So as I said, we have these kinds of games already, it's just that they tend to be written in ways that allow us to justify our actions and make them seem realistic, or they're done poorly and come off as comedically bad (or just distasteful).

 

[Aerosteam]

Hell no.

So by the end of the game the scumbag will be victorious? I never want that, especially if I'm the one which allowed that to happen.

 

[tippy2k2]

Hell no.

So by the end of the game the scumbag will be victorious? I never want that, especially if I'm the one which allowed that to happen.

Not necessarily. What always tickles me is the hero worship that people give to Tony Montana (of Scarface fame). "He's such a bad-ass!" "That's what I want my life to be!" "Awesome!" "Say alo to ma lil friend!" And so fourth...

Spoiler Alert; Tony Montana pushes every person away that he cares for before eventually dying in a drug fueled firefight that ends with him face-down in the water with a shotgun blast to the back.

A game that rolls with it can do it. It would likely take an incredibly talented group of people with the correct frame of mind to pull it off but like comedy, I don't think anything is untouchable in the right hands.

The closest I think we currently have it Trevor of GTA V (PLEASE! I haven't finished it so be nice to me and don't tell me what happens or I will be sad). He does some very very very bad things and goes off at the slightest thing. Frankly, he can be a very uncomfortable character to play as. I am a big fan of Trevor because we just don't see that kind of character in games and it's fascinating to get to do so.

 

[Evil Moo]

Yes. Also give it oculus rift levels of immersion. Make me experience the truly sickening, first hand, from the eyes of the perpetrator. I feel that could be a very powerful experience if handled correctly.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Yes because its a game. Its not like im going to be infected by the bad character in a game. Same as we watch movies or read books with negatives characters. Its about living a life that isnt yours. Its what games are about. Most of us here are good guys and girls, no killing or whatever in our normal lives. Its why in games we can go crazy. Its why people can be interested in serial killers without being killers themselves. Doesnt matter if you dont like the character, just experiencing that person is fun.

 

[Comocat]

IMO most evil options in video games tend to fall on the petty side. If I could truly play an "above the law" character like a Fortune 500 CEO or maybe a President I might be interested. But since that is never the case, generally I side as a "good" character because, for me, those are generally the most pragmatic options. It's hard for me to justify playing as a hero that doesnt care or sacrifice for others.

For example, I tried playing a profiteering (dark side) smuggler in SWTOR, but selling out the good guys generally netted me a couple hundred more credits than if I just killed a few more mobs on my way back to the checkpoint. If I'm going to sell out the fate of entire planet, I want some serious galactic credits, not just some cute dialogue options and a new hat.

I want to be a Wall Street-esque villain, not a petty sociopath.

 

[Fox12]

If it's handled incredibly well, and the story is powerful and has something to say, then yes. I've always been of the opinion that anything can potentially be done well, with the right creative mind behind it.

That said, this sounds like it's entering "dark and edgy just to be dark and edgy" territory. Can you tell an incredibly dark story with all of these things, and still be good? Sure, but you better have a damn good reason for why it's all in there. If it's only there for shock value, then no. There has to be a theme. Theme and intellect is what separates a work like Berserk from a work like Serbian Film. Sure, they both have grotesque violence and rape, but one is a beautiful and tragic work of art, and the other one is a filthy piece of trash fiction with no redeeming value.

Interestingly, the work of art actually manages to get away with more than the trash fiction.

No.

It's not because I would be offended by the idea. I'm going to latch on to the comment that says that the game should be made because an appalling character is an interesting theme to explore. So it would have to be a character focused game that tries to explore it's Main. I've played God of War, but that should not count in this discussion.


Do I want to read a book about an appalling person who is/does 1-6?

Or do I want to read a book about a person who is ruled by his fear of rejection because he feels that he is missing some important element that disqualifies himself from being human?

The reaction to this fear creates a desire to keep the important people around him happy, and an unwillingness to communicate his feelings which sets him down a self-destructive path. He lies, steals, and manipulates people. He is a truly irredeemably, appalling person. It's difficult to tell where he crossed that line in his lifetime.


The first option is the most infantile way to create an appalling person whose purpose is to reveal a human truth. He's not an actual character, just a amalgamation of everything wrong with humanity. It's completely unappealing and alien because it so far divorced from human experience that the character would blunt any point a character focused game is trying to make.

The second option takes a human experience, fear of rejection, and depicts how this experience shapes and motivates a person. Everyone understands, at some level, that desire to lie, or put on a show to gain acceptance. It allows the reader to connect to the Main.

Also, this. Frankly, such a pointlessly evil character, on top of being appalling, would be rather boring. He/she would be like the evil version of a Mary Sue. Again, I won't say it can't be done, but I don't think that level of talent currently exists in video games. Remember everyone's response to Hotline Miami 2?