(09-08-2015, 06:57 PM)That Guy Wrote: This is a discussion my friends and I have often. Because I'm still avoiding productivity, I figured I'd try bringing it here.
How hard is it for rpers to rp 'bad guys?' I see a lot of Robin Hoods but very, very few 'true' criminal characters. At first I couldn't figure out why until a friend tried rping one.
People do NOT like their characters being tricked. I didn't realize how much till a friend of my tried rping a 'villain' character. Even though Icly no one had any reason to be wary of him, oocly they saw that he was a criminal via his character tag.
You could see the change in their rp when it was noticed. Suddenly the character would become wary of my friend, even though they had no reason to be so. Even the most naive PC's would get a 'dark vibe' from him and instantly be on alert. Occasionally he'd even get harassed by bounty hunter rpers even though he specifically put down that his bounty was based off a false aliases and to please whisper him for more information. It was ridiculous and he eventually quit the character because no one was able to separate ooc knowledge from ic.
So I guess my question is, what do you do? I am really interested in playing a darker character but now I'm terrified because I don't want every hero in Eorzea treating them like some spam-able mob that's just there for their 'good-guy' to kick around. I don't mind them loosing every now and then. No one is so awesome they win forever. However I also don't want my character to be pariah because people can't keep OOC knowledge out of IC.
Did my friend just have bad luck? Are their guilds out there designed specifically for this? Or will I just have to be careful about who I let know about my character's more darker aspects?
Hey, my specialist subject!
A lot of people think playing a villain is too much work for no gain, but ONLY if you think of a villain as a "bad guy". Â And that's not the case. Â Playing a character villain and playing one in the long-term (not just playing someone's story bad guy) means doing a different set of character work. Â I'll explain...
When you think of villains in stories, long running villains, they have a few things in common. Â First, they prioritize survival. Â They are cunning before they're brutish. Â Most of all, though, they have genuine reasons for why they are what they are and why they do what they do. Â At this point, I'm going to recommend you queue up all five seasons of The Wire and watch them. Â David Simon knows how to write villains, for sure, so that you relate to them.
Then you get into the actual character work. Â Your character is going to need a reason to be around. Â Hero characters will go and inform the authorities of your existence, so you absolutely NEED a reason for the government to want you around. Â You need contacts, deep contacts, ones that penetrate the heart of poor society and the government alike. Â You need to be able to keep your activities quiet enough that people can't protect your character anymore.
What you're aiming for is to become a figure of the landscape, someone that paragon-style characters go to when they need something morally ambiguous done. Â You want to become that series-after-series villain, the one that becomes the lesser-of-two-evils, the devil-they-know. Â That takes a lot of subtlety, but that's alright, because that's how it's done in real life!
Just remember the simple rules: Â don't kill anyone's player character unless you can, for absolutely sure, get away with it. Â People will stretch the bounds of reality to know IC what they know OOC if you kill a player character. Â Make sure they know, though, that you WILL kill them, so they know not to mess with you. Â Make sure you have a crew around to talk to and DEFINITELY make connections with the other criminal elements, no matter how small, in your scene.
Leave your twirly mustache at home. Â Running that kind of villain doesn't work unless you have a sympathetic part of OOC players who will take your safety as the gospel. Â Instead, make sure you fit into the fabric of RP society somehow. Â You can be a lalafel-eating monster and still get a permanent chair at the RP table if you can fit your character into a niche in society. Â If you're playing a demon-infused serial killer, you're a Power Rangers clay doll, not Stringer Bell.
Just watch how you play. Â If you want instruction on how to do all this on Gilgamesh, let me know. Â I'm getting Orleans off the ground here as a criminal kingpin, and he's definitely not a nice guy.
