“If the heroes always win. And the good guys can never die. Where is the threat? Where is the risk?” - Francys
'ello Argent Dawn!
Following up with our good friend Uruk’s discussion thread talking about the controversial subjects floating around Duskwood RP, I thought I’d create one more over on the evil side of RP. That being the players who roleplay the villains.
Roleplaying a necromancer comes naturally to Villain RP and I find it an exciting new take of things rather than RPing the Heroes / Good Guys. Just wanted to hear your guys’ opinions on the subjects of villains, whether they’re a good thing for AD, their roles in events and how well they’re executed.
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Villains should always die the moment they are first seen doing anything remotely bad. Doesn’t matter if the only evidence is that the villain pickpocketed someone, at that point he has to die, so the GoodGuys can have their celebratory afterparty.
Memes aside, villains an important part of RP, else all you got is RP-PvP with horde or just mana-bombing 8 million raid markers easily. Respect your villains, but don’t let them off the hook entirely. If a villain gets to ridiculous amounts of 'just a setback’s, that’s the point where you accept that he had enough setbacks and his plot can not possibly come to fruition now.
Firstly I will begin by saying this. The good guy always wins. This isn’t to say that it should discourage someone from roleplaying a Villain but rather than its an inevitable occurrence. No matter how long or short, the good guys shall eventually win.
With that short warning out of the way I will state that this. RP has many breeds of ‘the big bad guy’ ranging from that Necromancer you catch in the Duskwood Crypt to the fellow in your guild who has a less than generous plan for you and your friends. Really it depends on the setup to a bad guy that makes them not only memorable but formidable.
A good theme i’ve seen in that regard is the heroic RPer who eventually falls from grace, this not only generates an emotional dilemma but begs the question ‘why did they fall, is there something we don’t know?’ so on, so forth.
Motivation is also another key aspect. A Villain and their roleplay is the total sum of its parts but the core aspect is ‘WHY’ is this person antagonising someone else? Is it merely a desire to inflict harm on others? Is it a bad guy wanting to bring about athousand years of darkness OR is it the fact that they want a good goal but are carrying it out with bad means.
WITH all that being stated Bad Guys are all in all a mixed blessing to the RP community - love or hate them - they can be both a blessing or a curse to a storyline!
To all you wannabe bad guys out there! Remember this, communications key but always keep a secret or three in the bleachers for that special occasion!.. And for the love of god, don’t wear edgy armour, or do. I’m not your dad.
Not really. In stories yes. But this is RP. Doesn’t mean the good guys have to win all the time. Villains can exists for millenia in some form if they don’t do dumb things.
Edit: Example: Murderers IRL who get away with it.
Having both played hero, antihero and villian, its in my experience that Players being both heroes and villians sometimes ends up in a strange split. Sure the villian is still the villian but more often i see the people playing the hero dont really act the part…
Its like any games you see people people fight eachother, and sadly too often when one goes down, the winners (heroes and villians) dive in for the kill, often disregarding the players wanting to keep their characters alive. Its like a hungry wolfpack.
Apart from this, storywise there always needs to be heroes and villians, yes? And when heroes dont have any villians to fight, wont they just turn to villians themselves eventually? As for a solution to avoid drama,meta or forced killings; Talk, discuss with your counterpart piece by piece of how you want this to go down. I know the heroes often do win because they fight for whats right, and if the villians wins it will just cause death and suffering.
But does this mean the heroes are always entilted to win because of this moral? I’d say if the villian players can come up with such a grand plan that the players playing the good cant figure it out or dont know how to deal with it but still demand to win?
Very true. The villain must have some sort of good motivation as to why they are bad and why they do what they do. If your character is bad because you wish to be “different” from the majority, then I believe it’s just bad character design. I also believe if either hero or villain is put in harm’s way of one-another, then they should prepare for the worst.
To reclarify this point. A Villain shouldn’t be without setbacks or defeats of their own. To have the scales be completely one sided in either sides favour can really suck up all the fun someone has in engaging with another party.
Sadly this can sometimes be difficult to implement if you are contending with roleplayers who simply don’t catch hints you place or lack certain skills and vice versa, if as Blackscar says “dive in for the kill” without regard for a potentially longer term RP.
This is however coming from someone who’s Villain has only been active truly for a year so I imagine there’s someone out there with more experience on the topic!
There is good and there is evil. By any analysis, evil should always win. Good is not a practical survival strategy - it requires loyalty, self-sacrifice and love. And so, why does good prevail? What keeps the balance between good and evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic? Some mysterious force?
If you are a forsaken / funny goblin / any type of troll / perhaps even orc then go cray with skulls and edgy outfits. Especially as forsaken and troll.
Time for some bonding time over pizza. Bond with me Jimmy.
The pizza is aggressive.
I just felt like we leave the obvious races that could do some evil things out. Since we do have an over population on Alliance side. It often feels like the threads about “muh evil empire” are about what races are on Alliance instead of Horde or even both.
Having roleplayed villain for the last year…
“Heroes” will never ever accept the slightest blowback against them. They want nothing but complete victories and you’ll suffer defeats after defeats.
You don’t know a guy ? Bet he’ll be writing to you about “consequences bro, time to die” as he tries to poweremote your death ten times in a minute.
People are so entitled to have them be the one to deal with you it’s discouraging to play villain.
Cersei is hateable cause she does bad things and goes away with it. IF she died first episode, she’d have been quaint. Stop being “heroes” and accept defeat from time to time.
Some people consider myself to be a villain, though would probably not be able to name a single villainous thing I’ve done because witnesses are few and far between.()
The important thing about villain RP to me is keeping it entertaining. I find ‘edgy’ characters to be very difficult to execute well and that’s quite unfortunately the downfall of many good ‘Villain’ characters. It gets quite close to unbearable when I watch that kind of RP and I find myself cringing a lot.
If you’ve ever been around Big Chung for more than about thirty seconds you’ll be able to tell he’s a very light-hearted, fun character. But I wouldn’t say that makes him any less dangerous. I like to play him in a way that both cheers myself up and gets a few laughs out of other people and it’s great to know that I’m able to do that.
Of course not everyone is as cool or funny as me () but I think the key to good Villain RP, as I suppose all RP, is keeping it enjoyable for all parties. A lot of ‘edgy’ or ‘violent’ villains seem to forget that the other person is also very important and focus on just letting out their angst through the medium of roleplaying. The RP has to be balanced, enjoyable. Else it seems like you’re just forcing someone to listen to your monologue (I don’t see evil monologues done enough though on that point.)
A lot of people are saying that the good guys can never lose, but you’ve clearly never seen a Death Knight emote fight 17* people at once and then escape.
Another issue I find is that if you’re the bad guy, you’re going to be hunted. Perhaps don’t get too attached to your character but work it out so there are failsafes. A letter, an heir, A deadmans timer idk. Something that allows your concept of RP to continue without the previous character. I feel I’d struggle to let Chung die now but if he’s imprisoned or captured, I have a classic relative (but weaker due to being new) character that’d be ready to kind of take his place from a less developed stand point.
I got distracted a couple times writing this out and I guess I kinda rambled but TL;DR
Make sure your villainous deeds and general RP are fun for everyone to be involved in and don’t let your bad guy character be immune to severe consequences for being the bad guy. Villains are ultimately there to be beaten and fought, as much as you don’t want it to be.
This is painfully true. Bad guys are to lose in the end.
Biggest issue is that most good guys don’t see themselves lose. Ever.
Because they think it’s their role to bring you to your consequences. And that is a serious problem. Villains have no bearing if they keep losing all the time.
Defintely agree with what the other guys have said thus far about some Heroes going. “Consequences bro” on you at every step and turn. I want to put my own two cents on the whole point of communication on the basis that often times these villains appear in campaigns created BY THE VILLAIN. So as the otherwise ‘noble’ hero drives in to get the glory of slaying the big baddy and adding their 19th* flair title on their TRP might actually realise that “Hey I worked hard on setting up not only this character but also the campaign that spawned these ‘Consequences bro’ that you are sprouting.” Because acting like that honestly is what makes most people either make really cringy, copy paste Comicbook villains or not go down the route at all. When engaging a villain PC at least consider “This person ALSO worked hard on their character.”
I’ve done a number of campaigns in the past both in WoW and in other games. Often times I spend an entire campaign setting up the villain. Something that I cannot stress the importance of enough. Setting up your villain. If it’s a Demon employed by the Burning Legion to set fire to your specific ant hill it is of course another story. But as far as the Necromancer or such goes. Always consider HOW & WHY, how did your villain get to where they are. And why did it go like this?
And better yet, include your heroes in the Journey if at all possible. Get them emotionally invested. Make them feel it’s their responsibility. That has created some of the most fun RP I’ve had.
I always put my emotes on the level of someone trying to fight my characters.
This usually ends up well since the scaling of my own chars is open and trading blows is a good idea.
The issue comes more in when the opponent is trying to defeat and poweremote by all means. Which is not a good move. This is an issue of both evil and good doers though.
It is honestly incredible difficult to find a good balance in emote fights that don’t end up “too powerful” and neither “too weak” but in the same time we have the huge lore issue.
Can a warlock beat a monk? Dunno.
Is a death knight stronger than a demon hunter? Dunno.
Can a shaman just cause an earthquake and swallow everyone? Dunno.
Can a troll deathspeaker just come back endlessly? Dunno.
We have so many lore gaps in regards of powerlevel that every paladin thinks they are the greatest. While the gnome at the end of the street with some bombs can do the same damage as a trained paladin.
I believe that alot of misscommunication and misinterpretation of how strong your opponent is comes into play too.
Example:
X guy roleplays a troll berserker. Y guy roleplays a human paladin.
Both are fighting. Who is stronger? Lore wise we have no idea.
The paladin player is all about “this troll is about to get rekt” while the troll player is all about “this paladin is gonna get rekt”. Because they might have a different interpretation of lore who might be stronger.
This plays a huge part into villain vs. good doer rp too. You honestly would have to determine before each fight who is going to win.
This is why my only “villain” character is a troll deathspeaker-type. Some good guy attacks, my character summons a few spirits and undead, let them fight, “you beat me this time but next time harhar!” and then there’s that. I know it’s cartoonish but I am not too fond of OOC drama when it comes to this. Rather have my character intact and my characters plans ruined than dead and OOC crying by people.
That’s also quite true. Personally, the way I do it, is that when I start a character, I obviously have no connections, no allies etc. So I play it as fairly easy to foil my plans if someone were to suspect me, I guess. But the more and more successful ‘schemes’ I pull off, the more powerful and harder to stop the character I like to try and make it.
Though there can be issues when a paladin or similar decides that the light has decided that the naaru have decided that the titans deem it is my time to be punished for my RP.
Which I suppose takes me to this:
Well yes but actually no.
In my opinion, it pays to build them up gradually. Figure out your backstory, motives, end goal but little else. Play the rest by the situation you’re in. For me certainly, it makes the RP more fluid and also enjoyable. The journey is most of the fun for me and makes reaching or getting close to your end goal all that more rewarding. I suppose it’d depend on what kind of end goal your Villain would have though.
You shouldn’t have to sit down and plan your character arc for hours just in the hopes that someone MIGHT think its cool and let you live, which is as much their problem as it is ours but the best way to do it I feel is to just develop through the RP you get and focus on the fun of doing so, rather than pursuing fully the end goal of your character.
I know this won’t work for everyone but I certainly know that it’s what has worked best overall in my time playing Villain-esc characters but I guess it’s also the reason I’ve had quite a few.
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) but I think the key to good Villain RP, as I suppose all RP, is keeping it enjoyable for all parties. A lot of ‘edgy’ or ‘violent’ villains seem to forget that the other person is also very important and focus on just letting out their angst through the medium of roleplaying. The RP has to be balanced, enjoyable. Else it seems like you’re just forcing someone to listen to your monologue (I don’t see evil monologues done enough though on that point.)