I just think it would be neat if there was a system for playing as a villain. But not just a common criminal, a real supervillain. Essentially, people could RP as a level boss, designed in order to provide players with a real enemy to face. The most important thing is for the player to know is that the villain character has no shield of consent (they're supposed to die at the end, obviously. If they do live and end up a normal character, the player should find some way to remove the more overpowered portions.), and the focus should be more on the players trying to stop him, rather than his own deeds. Who ever plays these characters must not have a play to win mentality The issue of colony consent can be avoided by constructing small lairs for the villains to reside in, waiting for our daring heroes to put a stop to their dastardly plans. Or a colony could agree to host a mini-event or something. I'm going to throw out some basic ideas to hopefully inspire people -A muscular guy in *gasp* power armor. Dumb and tough. Armor is Rubium or something and resistant to small arms fire. But there's plenty of ways to kill someone besides guns, try and think outside the box. I'd imagine he'd be found in some rough bar far from the established colonies. -Rich man who uses the pixel as a weapon. Fail to kill him and expect hired thugs to be sent after you. He has no combat skills himself but if you try to get in his mansion, expect the place to be crawling with hired guns. Make sure he doesn't talk his way out of this one. -A crazy scientist fond of genetic experiments. Who knows what to expect in his laboratory. Lots of varied opponents, I'm sure. I'd recommend fire. -A power hungry rogue colonel and his squad. They live in a commandeered village, taxing the locals into starvation. He'd be a pretty generic villain, right up until his soldiers use the townsfolk as human shields. -An avian pirate captain raiding a nearby star system. hard to find, and hard to get to. The most difficult challenge would probably be trying to get on the ship. So yeah that's all I have at the moment. I probably worded this whole thing awkwardly, sorry about that, I'm a little out of it. Anyway what do you guys think? Should this be a thing?
It sounds like you want people to play villians meant to lose for the sake of boosting the egos of shitty hero characters.
I thought this was obvious but maybe I should clarify. People who fight them have a risk of dying as well. They're not invulnerable. I just think it would be useful to have stuff for the "good" characters to do, and villains who won't complain OOCly when (if) they are killed. It's just an idea to cut down on the baRP.
As I am not an nonconstructive dick, I'll consider the idea. I think supervilllainy can work, but it can work in two ways: It can work poorly and be forgotten/cause a bunch of OOC drama. Or it can work well and provide a reason for characters to CARE(acter). For this to work well you need a few things: Support from at least a portion of the community (physical and spiritual). A willingness throughout the community to interact without an objective 'I must win' mindset. Communications, specifically with community leaders, moderators and faction/colony leaders. A way to keep from powergaming. [Either A.) have moderator oversight to ensure that you are granted the assets to play a villain, but aren't going overboard. or B.) the ability to follow faction and player rules, including restrictions on resources.) And finally, a clear, conscious acknowledgment that you are going to lose, but the organization and/or individuals themselves aren't necessarily throw-aways. Be aware the Conflict RP tends to go south fast. Supervillainy, or villainy in general, can work. But it is an... interesting process. Most supervillains in media have minions, so you'd need people to support you without a play-to-win attitude. I.E. a juggernaut needs goons, a scientist needs flunkies and a corporate powerhouse needs peons. Without these peons, you are just a single man and thus an easy target. Thus, a true super villain would have an organized network of agents, henchmen or what-have-you beneath him. Otherwise, he will be a short lived villain. [One who will likely kidnap Vivian throughout five or six incarnations, and each time be struck down with the same, orbital bombarding force as before.] Two: A supervillain is usually made to lose, but not lose immediately. So both the community and you must be aware that the end-goal is for the villain organization and/or individual to get taken down, but not immediately. As such, a villain and his henchmen must be willing to lose 7/10 times, including in a big finale. And the community has to be willing to let that villain have his wins so that dramatic tension can be built and ultimately lead to a climactic ending. People shouldn't try to force death on anyone (avoid pushing the rules of consent into the gray), and if consent is offered through defacto means or even vocal acceptance, death is not an assured thing. It seems that as soon as consent is given by anyone, that means that automatically, they HAVE to die. The end goal should never be to just wipe people out, but to leave other lasting statements. Destroy a building, steal an object, etc. Killing tends to leave a bad taste in people's mouths and, as such, making the end goal of your faction: "Kill all of everyone" will likely result in you being rather hated, and thus the lines of communication break down. Three: Communication is key. I know I've never been an outspoken supporter of planning, as part of roleplaying is being able to adapt to unplanned situations. But in a situation like this, communication is key. If you are going to actively be attacking colonies, individuals and organizations, you need to be in touch with the people that that kind of thing pertains to. This is mostly to prevent 'Voiding Sickness', or that thing people tend to do when they demand that this be voided. Right! Now! Voiding is bad, and can be... aVOIDED. (Heh). Just stay in touch, and make sure that things are clear. You don't have to spoil everything, but make sure colony leaders know there's going to be an attack, and they're okay with the particular object of the attack being targeted. Four: You HAVE to be on the same page as the mods. For a supervillain or villainous organization to work at supervillain levels, you're going to need to pull some strings as far as the resource rules are concerned. It's essentially going to be you against the galaxy, if you're going for the whole 'pure evil for evil's sake' 'galactic domination!' 'Muahahaha!' aspect of things. Even if you're not, and it's some kind of corporate takeover, that 'corporate' part has to be in place first. And so, you need to be in touch with the mods to ensure that nothing you do crosses a line. If you're staying in touch with players in the community, chances are this shouldn't be too much an issue, since there shouldn't be too many complaints. Five: Be aware that you are made to lose, but that doesn't make you a throw-away. This goes two ways. It should be possible for people to stop you, but they shouldn't be bombarding your lair from orbit with 'supah space nukahs!' The point of a roleplay server is to tell a community story, to build characters. If a villain wipes the floor with everyone, that builds character. If he kills everyone, that... doesn't. And if he is immediately and inconsequentially defeated EVERY. SINGLE. TIME, that also doesn't. So remember, chances are by the end of things, you are going to get beat, but you should also have the opportunity to build up that dramatic tension there. Six: Conflict RP tends to suck. Sorry, I said it. Conflict RP usually turns into people bickering about how someone broke x, y or z rule, and the other person bickering about how the ONLY conclusion is for ALL OF Z PEOPLE NEED TO DIE! And it tends to take forever, because that OOC bickering blots out IC messages, jumbles up trains of thought and otherwise muddies the water of suspension of disbelief. It's a tedious process usually, and as a villain you'll be doing a lot of it. Whether it's planting a bomb, shooting a crowd of civilians, executing a colony official or stealing precious technology, chances are almost all of it will end in conflict. So... This probably isn't comprehensive but it's getting long. I'll just post it here and let you guys tear it to shreds as you are want to do. Addendum: Remember that villains should be made with an ultimate goal, both IC and OOC. The goal OC should be something along the lines as: "Acting as a catalyst for interactive events." "Providing something for many people to do." or "Uniting the people of the server against a common enemy/providing people with a reason to care about the server and other people in it." IC, whatever ya want. Money, Corporate takeover, Political Power, Ancient technology, etc.
This is actually very helpful, thanks. And yes, the hardest part would be making sure the conflict went smoothly. I'd like to think that if the community really pulled itself together they could make some really cool conflict RP but I guess only time will tell.
I don't know if this is the majority consensus but I always thought of Plasma as having blunt and fire damage, basically. It won't drill into you, and dissipates, but anything directly in contact with it is gone, along with a layer or two of skin. I think it's meant for heavy armor. EDIT: Please don't let this turn into a debate about plasma stuff. I just want to talk about the super villain concept. I just got a bit off topic.
Oh come on, Sen. He's just trying to introduce some excitement. I think it's a good idea, if done correctly. Of course, that's the hard part.
It probably will need more than one person in order to accomplish this because of "goons", and with the new Character Subscription thing coming to a role-play server near you it will probably mean that for these we could probably manage 3-5 people in this one organisation without siphoning the servers population or being stupidly large. And then we have the fun to contend with time issues, but that is technically not relevant. Otherwise, if we can get this to work I think it would be decent as long as we avoid all the chaos that usually revolves around being a "villain".
Wasn't there that boss battle with the apex scientist that created the ''ape-flu'' disease that was going round?
No, but we should. The 'Ape-Flu' was a good example of a poorly done villain. It took a vague element of the lore, and tried to solidify it without input from the community. It was mostly ignored by players. It had a fatality count of... two? Three? And it died long before completion, not that living out to a big boss fight with a roided out Apex was a particularly good way to complete such a pandemic event. Effectively, the Ape-Flu pandemic was the annoying little brother of the Agaran spore outbreak back in the day (that was forever ago, those of you who don't remember it. I'm rather fuzzy on the details myself.) There was zero communication with the community (I can post the conversation in which I was threatened for asking too many questions about the pandemic), there was zero communication with the staff. And the event seemed to be improvised as it went on. There was no set out track, it simply started one day as 'let's have a bunch of people get sick and... we'll think of the rest on the fly.' It could have been a good event. But... It just didn't work out that way. Now, there is something else to address about the OTHER side of the 'Ape-flu' event. Part of the reason, I assume, that the runners of the event were not forthcoming with details, is because the feared the ever present, apathetic, sometimes-hateful criticisms of certain elements in the community. The elements that tend to shoot down any idea that is ever brought up. Call it me being 'hugboxy' if you will, but this community does tend to have an issue with accepting ideas. Period. Hilariously, it's usually the people all about 'good RP' and 'proper conflict' and '"Good" characters', etcetera, that are the most hostile and hateful toward new ideas. So, chances are that having a villain like this is going to end poorly, because about half of the community will just ignore it and/or shoot it down every chance they get. That tends to turn an idea into a null point, even if the other half of the community is open to it. That communication-is-key thing again. If the veterans are saying 'lol shit' then everyone else is pressured to say it too. Tends to put a premature end to a lot of ideas on the 'Roleplay Planning' and 'Suggestions' boards.
I mean things like symptom progression. Symptom progression was only added tier by tier, as the two or three people sick got sicker. Essentially: Pre-planning was minimal. AND there wasn't a lot of divergence either. Any interruption to the event holders and they shut you down hard. (A la voiding)
Weeeeell that just means we can learn from those mistakes and make the next event much better. Progress!
