Death is not necessarily the only purpose of a villain, it is just the very likely ultimate outcome of playing someone who has 'evil' intentions. (Usually because the entire galaxy dogpiles them once and they die.) Villains are good at shaking things up, they don't necessarily die, certainly not immediately like throw-aways, but those who choose to play them should be aware that their death is a very likely end-result.
Metagaming and vigilante "justice" ruin a good deal of the fun out of being a villain who is actually subtle. And honestly, the bulk of the server is basicly bad guys already, there is just nothing to put them in line with anything other then personal standards.
This is accurate... Everyone's either a.) just-barely-'good' vigilantes, the overwhelmed police force of any given settlement, or your standard militant anarchists/cultists/psychopaths.
I guess the staff could make little PSAs and stuff to teach new players to avoid the play to win mentality. I personally think that is the biggest issue in any RP group. So teaching new players to ditch ingrained habits of playing to win will help the community a lot, I'd like to think.
First of all I think the concept of villain characters, especially super villain characters to be shallow. Characters that are bad just for the sake of being bad are not relatable and prone to main character syndrome, or rather the inverse. They end up as flat characters that are defeated and then forgotten. Much better than a villain would be an antagonist. An antagonist being a character that has a set of goals and values that clash against other characters (But not all characters). These goals and values may be selfish or selfless but are still understandable and logical given the characters background. The distinction between villain and antagonist may just be me nitpicking, but I feel not everyone around here understands what makes a good "bad" guy. I find that antagonists fall into 3 categories which I will describe in order of least to most compelling character-wise. First there are the characters that do things that are "wrong" which neither the character or the player actually feel are wrong. These characters are antagonistic on accident and can ignite OOC drama when they fail to understand why their character is considered a bad guy. This can be the result of real world cultural differences or immaturity on the part of the player. Then there are the characters that do things that are "wrong" which player believes are wrong but the character does not. The characters might know what they are doing is considered wrong by others but feel no remorse. These are those super villian, "It feels good to be bad," characters. Or the character might just have different values. This is how most floran characters should be played. A floran considered brutal and savage by other races might be considered loyal, and honorable in floran culture. Lastly there are the character that do things that are "wrong" and struggle to cope with this fact. These characters privately (and sometimes publicly) question if their ends really does justify the means. They don't want to do the things they do, but because of some cruel twist of fate, they find that being "bad" may be the only way to reach their goal. So if you create an antagonist that is really compelling why would you want to resign it to a fate of guaranteed death? Maybe they should succeed. Heck, the universe might even become a better place if they do, they just have to get their hands dirty first. Like many have said before, the real problem is not a lack of "villains" but poor villains and players that refuse to consent. (In other news, OmegaMatt has returned with another wall of text. Threads beware.)
Oh I get that. When I say supervillain, I mean that there's a staff approved antagonist, to give all the bounty hunters and heroes something to do, provided they understand there is a risk of death. To be honest, I'd prefer combat to be handled via DnD style stats and rolls, but obviously that won't happen. Anyways, yeah, the motivations need to be interesting and all, and need to make sense. I just mean supervillain in that they have some trait that puts them on another level, for example, the guy with power armor. He's basically a boss battle. You couldn't just go in guns blazing, you'd have to think about it and be smart. His ideals could be anything you said, naturally. I'm just trying to figure out the logistics of it.
This makes me want to play as a villain, someone pm me and I'd be happy to start a evil chain of events.
It has just occurred to me that a DM of sorts would be very helpful for events like this. It would need to be someone turstworthy and experienced though.
'DM'? The term seems very vague in this sort of scenario, being that its more the villain who organises and executes the events. Do you mean a referee for combat scenarios, or a literal 'DM' who oversees the mercenary warlords heroes as they delve deeper into the elaborate schemes of said mastermind? Or both, I guess with the latter option.
Yeah, the latter option is more what I had in mind. I suppose he could to combat too. Maybe both parties could agree to some sort of dice system? It seems the fairest, to me at least. I could be wrong.
I'm guessing it would be their terms on how they do combat. My opinion? Never trust RNG. And for the 'DM' idea, It would work for such an event which had puzzles or traps laid out, or maybe triggered events as part of the main event, such as "Turrets deploy from ceiling". However, from then on its easily viable to do these encounters without the need of a proper 'DM' - it would just complicate the more simply activities if you understand.
Ok, that seems to make sense. i was just brainstorming. but what did you mean by "never trust RNG"? I've never heard that before.
RNG = Random Number Generators. Mostly screw you over during XCOM or something that also uses percent chances. Or dice rolls, even.
Director mode will allow for Events, and different NPC characthers ( several, many etc) to be controlled by directors. Am most certainly hope to be able to use the director mode to make the old classic dnd quests and events possible for people.
I've been there and done that with the evil villainy. I must say one of the most difficult parts is that I find very few people get invested into the character. A few people do, but the majority simply tried to blow my head off at the first sign of conflict. Or they incinerated a perma killed the character, and bitched when I did something about not getting murdered. If you were going to do it and do it right, you would have to have a lot of preplanning, and I'd imagine your eventual failure and fault in your plan would be very scripted. Still though, send me a message if you want any advice or help. I would love to see an actual big bad on the server.
I think the nature of your villain was more to blame for a great many issues you mentioned. While I enjoyed him, it was a constant flip flop between Saturday morning bumbling villain out of the power rangers, and "I am now dangerous take me seriously". It got to the point where one could here the collective groans anytime overseer showed up someplace.
If anyone decides to do something like that and needs a "henchman/hired gun" character. Send me a PM. I don't have any problem with losing battles and enjoy participating in more RP than typical barRP.
I've actually played a couple of single bandit characters just with the intent of being murdered. It's quite fun actually: watching as your little character clings onto dear life despite the impending doom that lingers over their head like a little black raincloud. Honestly, I'm much better at writing evil characters than I am good, and would love a chance to join a collective of people who are okay with their character dying. In my personal opinion, it's worth it to kill off your character, so long as you do it in a way that all parties involved will remember. We're here to write stories, not to constantly OOC babysit our favorite characters. So, if you'd like to create some sort of anarchist commune, feel free to PM me and we can get started on writing.
