The real redpill is playing all three at once ![:gun:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/gun.png?v=6" ":gun:")
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Yeah, this sums up my experiences on Alliance sadly, at the expense of cooperation and finding a solution that suits all parties involved.
As a matter of fact we had to deal with a witchhunt after we made it clear, OOC, that we aren’t interested in role-playing with some of the self-proclaimed heroes of the Grand Alliance.
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A small sidenote about Heroes, those who may think that… They play hero, and then they shouldn’t die, but to defeat all. (I myself have Heroic characters aswell.)
Remember something: Heroic Death.
Varian DIED a Hero, which to this day, most of us, if not all, love him and agree that he was a Hero.
To be honest your hero character can actually die a cool death, and that causing big impact with their death… You know, even they may be remembered as a Hero and others may afterwards fight in your name and memory, vowed to be avenged some day… Isn’t it cool? 
Just like how we vowed to Avenge Zul’jin…!!
That kind of death alone makes it very cool… And ORCS understand it WELL… TO DIE WITH HONOR, AND BE REMEMBERED AS A HERO!
FOR DOOMHAMMER!!!
For GROM HELLSCREAM!! (MU one totally.)
You can see how Grom died. 
A hero’s death.
Nothing wrong with being a Hero. But a Hero can have a really glorious death aswell!
…and one may not END with Death… Their Legacy may live on…!
…THE HALLS OF VALOR AWAITS…???
Tl;dr, a hero can have a cool, heroic death.
Also remember, power depends on the INDIVIDUAL, it isn’t like…:
“Oh okay you’re a warrior I’m a dk then i win because I’m a dk.”
A Warrior can be stronger than a Death Knight, depends on their power.
Something once Mion said, a Legendary quote which I will remember and apply to everything.
“Your character is a character before anything.”
She said about DKs, but anything really…
Power is subjective I’d say, really… Saying that a Monk WILL be defeated by a Demon Hunter depends on the partaking duo, not their class. And that isn’t -lore- , but part of character.
Of course some weaknesses and attributes can be lore, for example Paladins not being the fastest of soldiers, or rogues not bearing the most protective armor usually.
Villains and heroes can differ in their power, and anyone can lose really, in the end though? Of course… ALL BOW… TO DEATH…
But the struggles between a Hero and a Nemesis are what that makes it interesting, not some cartoon hero which just punches the villain, it dies and the hero flexes. The Hero being hero for the sake of heroism, and the villain for the sake of being evil.
Sorry it became a long text! And Sorry if i accidentally mentioned somethings wrong , possible with my current situation. 
Have fun!
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I remember one RP-PvP campaign where I think it was one of the Rotgarde died (again) and the rest of the campaign was like "Vengeance for ‘x’ " yells. Which isn’t exactly the same but can go to show that RPers often can and do fight for other RP characters and remember them. I’ve also been a part of plenty of funerals/memorial things for allies and friends that have died, some fighting villains, which is always nice to do too.
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The reason for being a ‘Villain’ doesn’t have to be fancy, it can be quite simple.
You like gold more than you like people.
You care deeply about a few people, but everyone else can go to fel.
The real world has plenty of villains who do not have fantastical or deep back stories, simply put all you need is the ability to say ‘screw’ other people, or to simply not notice or care for their pain as long as you get what you want.
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Interviewer: “Nar’zagh, why are you the Great Irritator?”
Nar’zagh: “Because I can.”
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To segway from this (cause its a really good point) Hero-Villain/Nemesis RP is only good when it comes to perspective. Sure it’s fun to play a villain or a hero, but its better when you have a character that FALLS into those roles over time.
Heroism and Villainy is all about perspective. Take for example Alryette. She’s a nice, curious person but she HATES Night Elves. She sees them as haughty, imperialistic and thinks they’ve perverted magical understanding. She thinks they’re tipping the scales of balance and could disrupt civilization.
Now in saying that she’s not a bad person. What MAKES her potentially villainous is how she acts on those fears and feelings. Her personal experience has been her people being antagonized by Night Elves, Night Elves acting superior than her. In her mind she is a Hero fighting against an oppressive force.
However, with her want to antagonize Night Elves and efface their culture, that makes her inherently villainous TO Kal’dorei. In fact she’s been a nemesis of several Kal’dorei toons and it’s given great development for both characters. The key is making long lasting plots that are impactful for BOTH characters.
But playing a Villain is fun. Just don’t make them one-key. Make them CHARACTERS first, then add the perspective of them being villainous later.
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To add onto this: as a villain, you are ultimately going to end up with three choices (slight hyperbole). Fading into obscurity (retirement), a redemption arc or a permanent end. There simply comes a point when a villain has gone through a number of schemes that could’ve been successful or failed, but enough will be enough. This goes for all characters, but especially villains don’t — or shouldn’t — have an infinite life cycle. Sooner or later the story is simply better for it if you hang up your character, because keeping him or her around for too long can instead make them tired.
My point really is: don’t be afraid to quit if you think the time is right. You might end up regretting missing that perfect ”ending” otherwise, and getting a final conclusion will often make your character stick in people’s memories.
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The most fun way to RP is being outside good-evil spectrum altogether. You’d be amazed how many different reactions I encounter, from pure love to pure hate (you know its hate when Church sends several assassins after you). When your character raises moral dilemmas in everybody just by being near you know you RP it right. Is it good to earn gold by dancing? Is it bad to help poor Stormwind girl survive by employing her as dancer? When your character does not have to follow good or evil cliche you can be truly creative and free. This becomes even more fun when you set real challenging goal before you (for example, earn 100M gold or become prosperous business), instead of just pretending to have goal ( i.e. “throwing world into chaos” or “cleansing world with holy light” ). Goal that is supported by game mechanics. You know goal is real when you get real rivals that are actually motivated to stop you (i.e. rival Goldshire guilds), rather than pretending rivalry in separate cliche RP sessions (which sometimes even require OOC planning). This is where real immersion comes from.
It’s amusing how some ‘serious RP’ people ignore us hard to keep their cliche RP ‘follow the book’. They ignore real thing in favor of imaginary one. RP should be alive and flexible to any unexpected encounters, they just prevent themselves from additional fun because they are afraid.
I kinda want to make a guild which is basically just the Monarch’s Henchmen from The Venture Bros but also there’s no way I have the time or energy to put into running it.
The best villains are the ones you can relate to. I dislike drawing a lot of parallels to real life, but a good example would come from the Nurnberg Trials after the end of World War 2, where a lot of the convicted were actually average Joes who simply “followed orders”. Consider it for a moment: any one of the people around you could trip into such a pitfall in the right circumstances, making it all the scarier - and villains do need to be scary.
In terms of morality, I agree that solid “good versus evil” dichotomy can turn boring quickly. Why “throw the world into chaos” or other such bull? Again, an example: would an Alliance paladin be a hero, or a villain, if he were to slay a Horde champion? What if the Horde champion was buying time for women and children, perhaps from Quilboar or some other legitimate threat to them, when the Alliance fellow put an end to him? One side’s hero is another side’s villain.
You can find appealing reasons for all sorts of villains. A Cultist of the Damned could very well be having altruistic motives, such as believing that the world will be better off if it ascended above its mortal coils, be it for the sake of knowledge, order, or unlocking new powers to defeat a cosmic enemy; a Cultist of the Old Gods could very well be seeking to rid the world from the selfless tyranny of the Light and the endless eradication of the self in favour of the collective. The list can go on, and the less extreme the villain (unlike these two examples) the more ‘grey’ reasoning you can find, forcing potential heroes to stop and think for a moment.
Heroes are still important for villains however, and you need similar reasoning for heroes as well. Why is the specific hero pitched against the specific villain? What does he believe in? Who does he fight for? What is the real dichotomy that separates them from the bad guy? In answering these, you only reinforce the villain’s character all the more.
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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.
This is the painful truth.
Remember when we thought GoT would have a bittersweet ending, or that somehow, the villains, whoever they might’ve been, would end up wrecking the world?
Haha… ha… ha.
Spot on with the rest of your post imo. I’d say the most interesting way to have villain RP, is to be cunning and look good and righteous on the outside, or even have a villain whose motives remain completely unknown. Appear truthful, deceitful, caring, uncaring - whatever. Just don’t wear over the top armour with a thousand skulls, glow effects and an aura of pestilece alongside a weapon large enough to level a house.
In the end, it comes to execution.
Good vs Evil would actually be a much more interesting approach if well-executed, rather than the so-called “gray” morality that is represented these days by corrupt Alliance officers. Usually many of these concepts which people would like to see more of, just work as badly as the good va evil trope, if not worse.
There are several things that should be discussed when it comes to evil RP. I don’t feel like prolonging the discussion, but I liked Clovus’ point: villains have to know when their time is over, and their character fades to black.
It’s more interesting and dynamic to RP an antagonist than a villain. I rarely find the latter to have many layers beyond being evil, but an antagonist has an agenda and goals, probably their own moral compass.
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I’ve seen this repeated in so many threads by a lot of people, but frankly, I disagree entirely. My own character has worn plenty of sets like these (his most iconic is the skull-helmet you see in his profile, which I deliberately made a point of not removing for the first year I played him) and never had any issues with deceiving people. It’s fine if your preference is more grounded outfits, but to say antagonists are somehow exempt from wearing over-the-top armour when heroes sometimes look like lightshows on legs is rather strange.
In my own experience, the vast majority care more about what you do as a supposed villain than what you look like. If your character is as one-note as your grim outfit suggests, then yes, steering clear of such armour and wearing something more plain can make your schemes more successful. If your character is more than just their attire, however, wear anything you want — it basically only matters if you spend your time in a city like Stormwind.
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Absolutely agree with Windflayer. Villain RP feels utterly dull to me, as you usually will be very secluded as your villain (to a group of evildoers or at least away from the good guys) and it feels like development is completely disproportional to that of the hero. I’d much prefer an antagonist, too, because it plainly offers way more interactions imo.
I roleplayed a villain once (and I had so much fun doing it, btw. Villain rp doesn’t have to be dull at all), and we had a whole plot created around these villains (there were several) who were making life difficult for the guild I was in at the time.
The ‘good guys’ lost a few times in that the villains did manage to escape a couple times - but we all knew eventually they’d be defeated, and that was fine.
There was a whole build-up around these villains. They were powerful villains, villains to fear. And then when it came down to it, the big grand finale, despite us already knowing our villains’d likely meet their demise, we were godmoted to sh*t. There was no actual grand finale. It was the good guys showing up in full force and literally godmoting us villains into the ground. We as villains already knew we’d lose… and the good guys also already knew they’d win and somehow that justified them to act as if these villains were nothing at all. No match for the good guys whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve ever been that disappointed with the ending of a campaign we all worked pretty hard for to set up in the first place.
I guess what I’m trying to illustrate is that yes, even if you as a player know your villain will meet his demise at some point you can still as good guys acknowledge these villains might also have been strong, conniving, intelligent and powerful and act accordingly. It’s far more rewarding for everyone involved that way, including the person who played the villain (even if said villain gets defeated). Often it’s not so much about the fact the villain is defeated (I can’t speak for everyone obviously but I think most people who play a villain know their character is likely to meet his/her demise at some point), it’s about how this villain meets his maker.
… I might have gone a bit off-topic and described what I think is a bit of problem with villain rp (or, to be more precise, with good guys who face villains in rp). Short answer to the initial question is yes. Yes I think villains are a good thing for AD. Without ‘evil’, how can you determine what is ‘good’? (and without ‘good’, how can you define ‘evil’?)
Good needs evil and vice versa.
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Role-playing a villain is difficult, there’s no doubt about it.
Gotta make sure you know why your villain is doing what they’re doing.
The good guys do NOT always win. That’s just plot narrative. Real life tells us otherwise, and even though we’re role-playing in a fantasy land with unicorns and stuff, it doesn’t mean that everything will be flower and roses.
You see the good guys win in WoW (and in the lore that’s not always the case) because they need to make a new expansion every two years. The keyword here is BITTERSWEET.
Make your villains bittersweet and your heroes bittersweet. Don’t pretend like you’re better than the other, stitch an interesting ( one that doesn’t always point to one side only) narrative together and you’ll see what I mean.
Also skulls are great, don’t let people tell you that in order to be a GOOD villain you need to look normal and act normal until you enact your master plan. Do what you have to do, be edgy if you like, be funny or crazy if you want to.
The Joker is always cracking jokes and laughing, but he’s also edgy as hell and will make you fear for your life if you meet him in person. There’s a balance, exploit it.
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Don’t gatekeep how to be a villain. There are many types, from over the top zealots to quiet unassuming snakes. Your opinion that one method is less valid because you don’t like jungian archetypes isn’t going to dissuade people from playing the kind of villain they have been exposed to the most in pop culture.
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I love u…