Discussion: Villain RP

Argent Dawn
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Lovely for the people at Goldshire, I’m sure.

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Every night I dream to bomb again the C.C.

Ps: Blumë sorry for I have killed you lmao.

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chillin like a villain

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Villain RP huh. I’ll stop lurking for this one, hope this long old ramble will help give some insights. (Whether on villain RP or thinking I’m a longwinded idiot…It’s up in the air!)

I played a villainous character for a year or two, stretching from the latter part of TBC to the start of Wrath. This was back on the Earthen Ring server when it was still alive and well. During that time I learned that what made the story interesting was not “Mwahaha, look at me being evil, OP and killing innocents!” but instead a sort of “unholy trinity” of the following:

  1. Establish your character and their accomplices. This can mean several things, but to use my own character as an example, she wasn’t a villain to begin with so I had to show and play out her descend into evil, dragging her apprentice along with it. This can take as long as is needed though I do recommend you don’t pull an Anakin.

  2. Establish your character/guild’s goals. Can be as simple as “The same thing we do every night, Pinky! We try and take over the world!”. As long as everyone involved on your side is clear on the purpose of all the schemes and plottings on an OOC level at least.

  3. Establish the conclusion of your story. This in particular is something I don’t see many people do. As has been stated multiple times in this topic already, most of the time the bad guys will lose. To circumvent the whole “Getting godmoted to death” debacle me and my accomplice planned out how my character would die and his character would escape(only to die much later in his own chapter of the tale) at the end of the story. Yes, it meant her death was scripted, but for us it was a price well worth it.

(4. Bonus point! On the subject of failures. No, our campaign back then wasn’t without hitches. Two flaws come to mind. Bad communication being the first. We had some big slip-ups there and it cost some people their enjoyment of events. It’s a balancing act - You don’t want to spoil too much of what you’ve got planned, but you also don’t want to drag people into a situation they won’t enjoy.

Secondly: To my shame I admit I couldn’t resist the tired old resurrection plot point and brought my character back. She was never the same since then. The takeaway there is that once you decide your villain’s got to die, stick with it or go for a redemption arc. And if you absolutely have to do both, best to start with redemption, then death.)

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Personally when it comes to story-telling, I never like to imagine it as so black and white.

A good person might have different views on certain situations. For example, what bad things might a good person do to save/protect their family?

My Priest is a devout, rather compassionate individual who tries to help everyone he comes across, especially the poor/criminals.

But you can only imagine what horrible things this good person might do if he’s left alone in the Cathedral crypts with a shadow user.

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As someone who RP’s a Villain better than anyone. :sunglasses:

The golden rule is:

Rule 1. The good guy ALWAYS wins.

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Careful there, I’m not sure some Horde folk would appreciate being called the “bad guys.”

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Well, we are the villains and the Alliance are the good guys, but since neither faction can ever win, I guess that means that the good guys don’t always win?

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Open communication between both parties on boundaries, what is and isn’t acceptable, rules of engagement, outcomes, and an air of civility is a very important and often overlooked part of RP where two players or more are opposed. Too often one side will just presume the other is obstinate and unwilling to compromise, and will just go ahead with whatever they’ve planned. Leading to our favourite scenarios:

  • I bombed the Command Centre, what do you mean you didn’t react?
  • Our guild of 25 cultists attacked your town, at 4am.
  • We destroyed your secret villainous base, sorry, you were on holiday? Too bad.

Communication is important! And if someone isn’t willing to engage with you in RP, you shouldn’t force the issue, it’s going to end in an argument!

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Some thoughts on this.
If you decide to ‘make a villain character’, you already failed. If you see your character as evil, you are doing it wrong. Why? Because then your OOC self will never truly support IC self, and your character will be fake, weak and pathetic, and the only way to enjoy playing him for you will be mocking and inevitably losing to “good” in the end. Because “good” and “evil” aren’t objective criteria, it’s just labels assigned by people using their moral code, ethics and other ideas about what is right and what is wrong. And, yes, in most cases “good” = “right” and “bad” = “wrong”. So if you decide your character to be evil, it means you decide it to be wrong and due for elimination by good. Yes you can realistically make him resist good for a while, but with mindset of him being evil you will subconsciously want him to fail, and the longer he won’t fail the more uncomfortable and unpleasant it will be for you to play him. I tried hard many, many times in many games to roleplay lawful evils, neutral evils and chaotic evils, and could not bear it for long, always ending up in chaotic neutral or chaotic good alignments. Perhaps it depends on person and if you are evil OOC then maybe this will work. Although I think OOC evil people also don’t label themselves as evil, they rationalise their evil deeds or at least think of themselves like “being strong” or “being efficient”, instead of being evil. So, yeah, if you label your character as evil, then you don’t really support him and will just mock him and make him fail. That’s why self-proclaimed ‘villains’ are so pathetic, and the only legit villains I met ( Stormwind Cathedral priests, Daviano guys, various “noble paladins” ) don’t see themselves as evil and that’s exactly the reason they succeed.

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Good post but I can’t say i agree with it.

Too much mixing IC and OOC there for my liking such as saying you have to disagree with things you do IC. It’s just fiction so… yea.

And it’s pretty much saying if you make a bad guy you’ve ‘failed’, which is wrong. There’s a need for bad guys and if you decide to make one, great! It depends more on how you do it rather than the whole “if you make a bad guy you’ve failed”.

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Didn’t I see you offering “a good time” to a level one newbie outside of Northshire?

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Wow not even I get offered that.

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Still, the purpose of any roleplaying is to have fun. If you are good OOC and will try to immerse into evil character, you will feel discomfort, so you will have to either not immerse much (resulting in sloppy and pathetic “villain”), or feel discomfort unbearable and try to ‘finish’ this character soon or just stop playing it.

Yes, see, that’s the issue - people make bad guys just to fill ‘a need’, ultimately to make good win again and feel happy about it. While ‘villain’ character is alive and keeps doing ‘evil deeds’ it builds up a certain ‘tension’, and the more of it was built the more will be the pleasure when the good finally stops him. This resembles a certain process of sorts winks but let’s not talk about that now.

Not sure about “good time” and if character with TRP, title and heirlooms can be considered a newbie, but I think we recruit dancers there sometimes. But, yeah, those who joined are quite happy now.

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Just one suggestion: don’t fall for the obvious bait. The one above just wants attention.

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Isn’t attention the reason of any post by anyone?

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Being a villain and being evil can be mutually exclusive things is all that really needs to be said really :smiley:

Sometimes the Villain is the right one but through a process of propaganda or other circumstances is the Villain, nothing stops this person from being good or bad.

Still, as to your immersion comment I will counter-argue this point. IRL I am not in fact a Necromancer, nor am I capable of grand feats of warping the fabric of reality… or have a dapper robe if I do say so myself.

RP in general is a means by which someone can ‘become’ something they aren’t. I’ve sat around the DnD table with people who can go from kind and sweet people to sacrificing an entire orphanage for giggles! At the end of the day its just a game! Our characters really don’t define who we are and vice versa.

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I’d say “Antagonist” would be more suitable term here (“Villain” still implies evil, i.e. “a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot”) , but yeah, it’s just like that. And, to be honest, playing antagonist is so much fun, everybody should try it. winks

But at least something that they would like to be, or to try, or at least that it won’t disgust them

Well, “for giggles” isn’t serious RP and immersion, that’s why they were okay with that. And I’m sure the good guys saved the day once again in the end.

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Well there you go!

If you decide to ‘make a villain character’ you haven’t already failed! After all, redemption-arcs exist!

This, as you’ve taken the liberty of deconstructing my comment I think its fair I return the favour;

Glad you agree!

What if the person would like to be the villain? Or evil? Or any number of things. I am certain most DK or Forsaken RPers don’t mind the fact they are in fact rotting away. Do you find maggot infested corpses with jaws and bones that fall off disgusting from behind the computer screen?

I fear Lilynore that this isn’t for you to decide. That is a subjective opinion. There are moments, rare as they are, in which the bad guy wins or someone does a ‘spur-the-moment’ action without any exact rhythm or reason, good guys and bad guys alike.

Now then, I think that satisfies my end of this exchange, I am going to make some tea! Thanks for reading.

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You go make that tea brother.