I think part of the reason you don't see a lot of the dark types of characters is that it's difficult to play them well. A lot of villainous characters in popular media are over the top caricatures for the heroes to overcome. We can tell right away that they've been thrown into the story so the heroes have someone to fight against, and we don't learn much more than that about the bad guys. Take Supernatural, for example. We learn tons about the different good guys, their histories and relationships. Crowley's been a major antagonist for several seasons now, but all we know about him is that he's a demon and does demonic things because he's a demon. Surely there's more to Crowley than just plotting and scheming, but revealing his history would make him easier to relate with and less villainous.
It takes a fair amount of maturity, experience, and roleplaying confidence to create a three-dimensional bad guy and play it as a PC (not just an occasional NPC for a storyline). I started roleplaying when I was fifteen, and I'd say I didn't really pull off my first memorable evil player character (one with depth and characterization) until I was almost thirty. The bar for playing a fantastic, realistic bad guy is much higher than the bar for playing a similarly interesting good guy. At the very least people are going to scrutinize your roleplay more critically if you're playing an antagonistic character.
Though anti-heroes are even tougher. Still don't think I've ever pulled off an anti-hero. Maybe I'll try that for my upcoming Dresden Files game.
It takes a fair amount of maturity, experience, and roleplaying confidence to create a three-dimensional bad guy and play it as a PC (not just an occasional NPC for a storyline). I started roleplaying when I was fifteen, and I'd say I didn't really pull off my first memorable evil player character (one with depth and characterization) until I was almost thirty. The bar for playing a fantastic, realistic bad guy is much higher than the bar for playing a similarly interesting good guy. At the very least people are going to scrutinize your roleplay more critically if you're playing an antagonistic character.
Though anti-heroes are even tougher. Still don't think I've ever pulled off an anti-hero. Maybe I'll try that for my upcoming Dresden Files game.
I'm a tinker! Tinkerer? Hrm.... I'm an artificer! - Myxie Tryxle | Impressions and Memories
