Good aligned Antagonists

[Yora]

Something I always liked is fighting against people you don't really want to come to harm. The heroes know their opponent is not a bad person and is not out to do horrible things, but their goals and views are so different, that they can't just sit down and work out a compromise. And both sides are willing to use force and fight to stop the other from interfering with their plans. There are lots of stories about generals throughout all of history who faught against each others armies for years, but then politely accepted their enemies surrender and spoke up for them against their own officers.

However, this is really difficult to set up, especially as our society no longer considers any soldier expandable. But it doesn't always have to be direct confrontation, you can still kidnap enemy leaders and keep them imprisoned until the whole thing is over, or destroy critical bridges, steal important artifacts, and so on.
But still the most difficult part is to come up with conflicts in which both sides have a viable point, but can't accept the other one to go through with their plan under any circumstances.
The only really good example that comes to my mind right now is in the Ghost in the Shell series, where both sides know they can't stop or slow down the outbreak of violence, but pick different sides to support to make the best of the situation. Or Princess Mononoke, where both sides are fighting for survival and protect their people, but only the destruction of the enemy can ensure that. (Sorry, but the Japanese are plain better at such ambiguities, than black and white hollywood writers.)

But how do you translate that into an RPG campaign? Having an enemy you want to defeat, but not harm?

[cheezewizz2000]

Chaotic good is a useful alignment for good antagonists; people who feel that the lawful good status quo is too restrictive and set up a resistance movement that does just that: interferes with supplies of armaments, sends false messages to higher-ups, never resorting to assassination, but causing enough hassle that they are a major obstacle to dealing with a larger threat - for example a necromancer that is gaining ground but that the LG authority has not revealed to the populous as a threat to keep society ticking over and avoid panic.

Bonus points if the CG freedomorists (or terror-fighters, whatever) refuse to believe in the existance of this external threat if it is revealed to them because it's all part of the LG conspiracy to oppress the freedoms of the proletariate.

[Morty]

I see no problem with that setup. You gave examples of such stories yourself and frankly, there's a lot of it outside manga and anime as well.
I don't think there are any problems with it in an RPG campaign either. The PCs would face the same dilemmas as heroes of novels or films where they're up against a fundametally good person. Sure, it makes mowing down mooks no longer viable but really, how is that a loss? Even when fighting Evil Lord Moustachetwirl there's a lot of ambiguity vis-a-vis killing his minions, even if it's frequently handwaved or ignored. It would even add a new twist to the story if the PCs had to put extra effort into not harming, or at least not killing, anyone.
As for the reasons behind the conflict - that all depends on the setting and the framework of the story. Perhaps the PCs are freedom fighters up against a general of the regime who is a good man but has to obey his orders. Or maybe it's the other way around and the PCs go against some rebels who mean well, but go too far. Another option still is an antagonist who is a good and well-meaning individual shackled by some harmful ideology. The ideology might not even be harmful but simply different from the one PCs submit themselves to. After all, who said the PCs are supposed to be the ones in the right?

[jidasfire]

In the superhero campaign I play in, our heroes were pretty much set up by the villains over and over to look like terrorists, even though we were mostly CG types. Eventually, a task force was put together to hunt us down, and it was led by a LG special agent. He was a completely just, honorable man who had sworn to hunt us down because he believed we were as evil as the news said we were. Naturally, we often had to run from him and his team of hand-picked, honest cops because we didn't want to hurt the good guys or make our public image even worse. We would try from time to time to reason with him, but his response was usually, "turn yourself in and we'll talk about it." Naturally, given the various threats we were facing, we couldn't do that, so it was an ongoing game of cat and mouse.

[flumphy]

If you're looking for a western RPG that does it well, look at Dragon Age II. The apostate mages are fighting to save their comrades from a life of captivity and potentially a fate worse than death if they get on the templars' bad side, and the templars are trying to protect the general populace from horrific disasters caused by dark magic.

The problem is keeping the PCs from switching sides and/or splitting the party. If both sides have a good point, it's reasonable that players will disagree about which side to aid. So, if party cohesion is at all important, you have to make the other side good but still wrong somehow. Or, as suggested in the paladin thread, make the other side rivals as opposed to enemies.

[Yora]

I think the strength of Dragon Age is that the entire setting is made up specifically to create lots of ideological conflicts. Mostly, there are lots of possible threats that all have solutions that are quite drastic. Almost all conflicts seem to arise from different estimations how big these threats are and how many bad things stopping them can be justified. Usually everyone knows about the dangers and the solutions, but conflicts break out when one faction considers another to be going to far and doing more harm than they they prevent.
It's particularly evident with the succession crisis in Ozamar where you have to chose between a progressive madman and a just ultra-conservative. And of course Loghains actions were all entirely justified when you follow his assesment of the situation with the darkspawn and the orlesians. And you can't really say he has the facts wrong, he's just coming to a different conclusion.

[Paseo H]

One thing that could be done is for good aligned misguided dupes of the real villains, who are misguided enough to not cede to the good guys fast enough to avoid a conflict.

After all, we might all be genre savvy enough to do what needs to be done when it comes to true evil minions, but what if they're misguided good guys standing in the way?

[claricorp]

Have the party framed for something, or make them prime suspects in some kind of crime. Then there is plenty of room for good aligned antagonists.

I did something similar when I had a Rakshasa frame the party for murdering a group of nobles. The local elven rangers did not take kindly to this and pursued viciously.

[mucat]

Depending on the tone of the campaign, this can easily be the default -- not that the antagonists are necessarily good, but that neither side is out to kill. The PCs and their antagonists have conflicting agendas, they try to outmaneuver each other, and sometimes they come to direct blows. But it would take some serious escalation before they would intentionally try to kill one another.

I like this kind of dynamic, both because it paints everyone as more realistic figures -- neither side may be saints, or even necessarily good people, but they're not two-dimensional sociopaths either -- and because it offers lots of potential for dramatic escalation. The outlaw PCs have clashed with the town guard a dozen times before...but this time they killed a cop, and the retribution will be like nothing they've never seen. Or on the other side, that cabal of necromancers aren't just flouting the authority of the legitimate Mage Guild (and PCs' valued patrons) anymore; they just tried to murder us.

Either way, **** just got real, in a much more visceral sense than if fights to the death were the accepted defaut.

[Cieyrin]

Another good example of such is the Sly Cooper trilogy, CG protagonists making a living despite one of their constant antagonists, Carmalita Fox, being a LG cop trying to arrest them for the laws they're breaking. You can come at it from another angle, with the PCs working for the law to take care of a group of outlaws, a band of Robin Hood types, who're just trying to help the common people get by. Basically, getting conflict between beings of the same moral bent generally has to occur on a different alignment axis or some other factor has to be there, such as devotions to different countries, religions, creeds, etc.

[Dr.Epic]

But how do you translate that into an RPG campaign? Having an enemy you want to defeat, but not harm?

Just force the PCs to be saints and tell them with their training and backstory they know killing is wrong. That, or they were specifically given orders to bring back prisoners alive and make them lawful so they'd have to follow this order.

[Tengu_temp]

Just force the PCs to be saints and tell them with their training and backstory they know killing is wrong. That, or they were specifically given orders to bring back prisoners alive and make them lawful so they'd have to follow this order.

Technically this works, but it completely misses the OP's point. Yora's asking how to make an antagonist who will still be a good guy and as such the players will not want to kill him, just defeat him.

Which is not that difficult, honestly. The easiest way to do it is to have someone who is good but serves the bad guy out of a sense of obligation, because he's not aware of the BBEG's evilness or because they share similar goals, if not methods. Another approach, already mentioned, is to make it a law vs chaos fight: one of the sides is not opposed to breaking the law and maybe even causing some collateral and body damage (nothing lethal of course) as long as the end result is good, another side is very lawful and maybe even works for the government and chooses the route of doing good AND working within the law at the same time. And finally, there is the war example: just because someone is fighting on the opposite side doesn't mean they're a bad guy. Wars, despite what Hollywood tries to tell us, rarely are an unambigious good vs evil conflict.

That's just a few examples. I successfully used all of them in my campaigns. In fact, I don't recall running any long-term campaigns where the players didn't face at least one not-so-evil antagonist.

[AMFV]

Technically this works, but it completely misses the OP's point. Yora's asking how to make an antagonist who will still be a good guy and as such the players will not want to kill him, just defeat him.

Which is not that difficult, honestly. The easiest way to do it is to have someone who is good but serves the bad guy out of a sense of obligation, because he's not aware of the BBEG's evilness or because they share similar goals, if not methods. Another approach, already mentioned, is to make it a law vs chaos fight: one of the sides is not opposed to breaking the law and maybe even causing some collateral and body damage (nothing lethal of course) as long as the end result is good, another side is very lawful and maybe even works for the government and chooses the route of doing good AND working within the law at the same time. And finally, there is the war example: just because someone is fighting on the opposite side doesn't mean they're a bad guy. Wars, despite what Hollywood tries to tell us, rarely are an unambigious good vs evil conflict.

That's just a few examples. I successfully used all of them in my campaigns. In fact, I don't recall running any long-term campaigns where the players didn't face at least one not-so-evil antagonist.

One could simply be friends with the badguys, friendship is very powerful. Or one could owe the BBEG something and be repaying this. If you want the good guy to be the BBEG (BGGG?) then you need differences of ideology or simply have him on the other side. Wars are very rarely ''good'' vs. ''evil'' even in D&D. After all Robert. E. Lee wouldn't draw his blade against the land he loved, despite not being completely ideologically in line with the south (the degree of his ideological difference is pretty hotly debated), but in any case he was willing to fight for a side he didn't 100 percent agree with, because it was his home. My country right or wrong, is a very powerful motivator. Family is also a powerful motivator, if an antagonist feels that his family or his nation is threatened by the players he could fight them in defence of others which is pretty much a defining tactic of good. In any case I apologize for my rambling, hopefully it helped.

[DaragosKitsune]

Another good example of such is the Sly Cooper trilogy, CG protagonists making a living despite one of their constant antagonists, Carmalita Fox, being a LG cop trying to arrest them for the laws they're breaking.

Also, you have to remember that not only are both sides in this equation willing to work together against a greater evil, they don't necessarily even dislike each other. One of the big points of the series is the mutual attraction between Sly and Carmelita. It creates dynamic social tension, which is good if you and your antagonist would rather not fight.

[comicshorse]

Most Shadowruns I've been in the P.C.s have regarded Corporate security or others in the business ( Aztechnology security aside) as fellow professionals. This meant treating them as they'd expect to be treated in return. Don't kill them if you can injure them, don't injure them if you can stun/sleep them. If they surrender, accept it.
If someone does get killed, well you all knew the risks when you choose this life, don't go after the opposition for revenge.
And never, NEVER, target their family or contacts