RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes

Jomoru · **10-18-2013, 06:48 PM**

(10-18-2013, 01:59 PM)IncubusManatee Wrote: How many times have you met an exceptionally well played Paladin?Â

How many times have you met an exceptionally well played Rogue?

Ask yourself these questions.Â

You can mess up on either. You can play either. But one is vastly more chosen over the other-and done bad. (In the RP sense, not the game-mechanics sense. Coming from a D&D/NWN background)

Most of the poorly played Paladins I'd out and out say were bad guys. Every Paladin I met in Wow I'd straight up say was Lawful Evil at best and More like Neutral Evil with Lawful tendencies. In D&D I've never had more arguments over alignment than stuff based on the actions of a Paladin. Â Its to the point I will not allow someone to play a Paladin unless I see a solid character outline(and this has worked out wonderfully I had a Orc penetant warrior who was shown mercy and thus took up the whole chivalric code it was pretty damned awesome.).

On the other hand.. how do you play a Rogue wrong? The Gentleman thief is well within his perview. Robinhood as well. The only "Wrong" concepts I'd ever seen for a rogue were ones who caused inter party conflict in D&D and even that wasn't so much playing the concept wrong as a concept that just didn't work with that particular group. So ultimately I'd say your question is fundimentally flawed its rather easy to fail at playing a paladin but nearly impossible to play a Rogue wrong.

Sigyn Shieldbreaker · **10-18-2013, 06:50 PM**

I can't say on having a bad guy character as it's been some time since I played a legitimate bad guy. I can say the reason for it: Often, whereever I go, there are just. too. many. of them. Apparently this isn't the case on Gilgamesh!

On Balmung, and mind I mostly see the who come to the Grindstone (and Horace Rook is probably the scariest of them), the majority of them seem to be neutral. Not -really- evil but not -really- good either. More inclined to be self-concerned and while they have tendencies to -be- good to others or at least protective, just as often they have tendencies to freak out and punch others in the face for not-a-whole-lot-of-reason.

I enjoy seeing black and white good/bad guys once in a while. Without them everyone feels too neutral. I can't say Siobhain is a 'white knight', honestly, I don't think anyone assumes she is when they first meet her. But personality wise she's about as good and honorable as they come. -Yes- it's mixed in with a solid blend of 'I'll destroy you if you touch that woman, even if she asks me not to' but otherwise pretty wholly good. She's a fairly altruistic character as well, despite how brusque she can be and I personally very much enjoy playing her. I get the feeling she's an original and memorable character. She's a 'traditional Paladin' by my view.

1. A paragon of chivalry; a heroic champion.
2. A strong supporter or defender of a cause.

She's a religious knight who aimed to become a Sultansworn but didn't want to lock herself down to Ul'dah where she'd always be forced to keep shadow politics in the back of her mind. Just didn't fly with her. So she left. Not totally in line with being Lawful Good, I suppose. I'm looking forward to meeting plenty of bad guys but thus far-- way more neutrals. Waaaay more neutrals.

Val · **10-18-2013, 07:01 PM**

(10-18-2013, 06:50 PM)Siobhain Wrote: More inclined to be self-concerned and while they have tendencies to -be- good to others or at least protective, just as often they have tendencies to freak out and punch others in the face for not-a-whole-lot-of-reason.

Stop talking about me =p

I've already mentioned before how very one-sided it is. People that I've had the pleasure of encountering are either neutral or super good. There's nothin WRONG with that, mind you. It'd just be nice to have someone or something to spice things up a bit!

I do have a character that is meant to be evil, I just haven't rolled him out due to being too busy with my main. If I have to, I suppose I can.

Sigyn Shieldbreaker · **10-18-2013, 07:31 PM**

(10-18-2013, 07:01 PM)Val Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 06:50 PM)Siobhain Wrote: More inclined to be self-concerned and while they have tendencies to -be- good to others or at least protective, just as often they have tendencies to freak out and punch others in the face for not-a-whole-lot-of-reason.

Stop talking about me =p

I've already mentioned before how very one-sided it is. People that I've had the pleasure of encountering are either neutral or super good. There's nothin WRONG with that, mind you. It'd just be nice to have someone or something to spice things up a bit!

I do have a character that is meant to be evil, I just haven't rolled him out due to being too busy with my main. If I have to, I suppose I can.

I'll talk about chu if I want! Joo ain't teh boss o' me! D:<

I don't know. I don't feel like people should feel obligated to roll bad guys just for the sake of having them around. Can't that be left to people who want to play them full time? I know they're out there. They're everywhere...

Gotta stop throwin' them monkey wrenches in the potential bad-guy characters' plans. The monkey wrench of kindness.

Val · **10-18-2013, 07:35 PM**

(10-18-2013, 07:31 PM)Siobhain Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 07:01 PM)Val Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 06:50 PM)Siobhain Wrote: More inclined to be self-concerned and while they have tendencies to -be- good to others or at least protective, just as often they have tendencies to freak out and punch others in the face for not-a-whole-lot-of-reason.

Stop talking about me =p

I've already mentioned before how very one-sided it is. People that I've had the pleasure of encountering are either neutral or super good. There's nothin WRONG with that, mind you. It'd just be nice to have someone or something to spice things up a bit!

I do have a character that is meant to be evil, I just haven't rolled him out due to being too busy with my main. If I have to, I suppose I can.

I'll talk about chu if I want! Joo ain't teh boss o' me! D:<

I don't know. I don't feel like people should feel obligated to roll bad guys just for the sake of having them around. Can't that be left to people who want to play them full time? I know they're out there. They're everywhere...

Gotta stop throwin' them monkey wrenches in the potential bad-guy characters' plans. The monkey wrench of kindness.

Oh, I agree. Full-time baddies would be glorious, but I've always had this character and the intention to play him. I've just been caught up in so much other stuff Sad

P.S. Sio I want to RP with you sometime. I miss it.

Nnejo · **10-18-2013, 07:56 PM**

Come out baddies. Come out and play! My character is the Head Mistress of a burlesque lounge for crying out loud. I had half expected more "undesireables" to show up than what I've seen so far. Oh well a girl can dream I suppose.

C'kayah Polaali · **10-18-2013, 08:04 PM**

I'm comin', I'm comin, keep yer pants on!Â Big Grin

I used to play a baddie in EQ2: a dark elf Chekist-style agent for Freeport, and this was a ton of fun to play. I haven't done a lot of fleshing out of C'kayah yet (hell, I haven't even had a chance to RP him), but I might have him swing to the dark side. Part of my problem is I don't really grok the FF backstory well enough to really have a feeling about the landscape, but I'd love to talk about possibilities.

I'm a big fan of subterfuge and the like. How much room is there in the backstory for that sort of thing?

K'nahli · **10-18-2013, 08:06 PM**

(10-18-2013, 07:56 PM)Isis Wrote: Come out baddies. Come out and play! My character is the Head Mistress of a burlesque lounge for crying out loud. I had half expected more "undesireables" to show up than what I've seen so far. Oh well a girl can dream I suppose.

*Amused* My character frequents such places but frankly I have no intention of RP'ing it.

Nnejo · **10-18-2013, 08:15 PM**

(10-18-2013, 08:04 PM)C Wrote: I'm comin', I'm comin, keep yer pants on!Â

I used to play a baddie in EQ2: a dark elf Chekist-style agent for Freeport, and this was a ton of fun to play. I haven't done a lot of fleshing out of C'kayah yet (hell, I haven't even had a chance to RP him), but I might have him swing to the dark side. Part of my problem is I don't really grok the FF backstory well enough to really have a feeling about the landscape, but I'd love to talk about possibilities.

I'm a big fan of subterfuge and the like. How much room is there in the backstory for that sort of thing?

Pants? Hmph! I wear skirts sir! Or ma'am...for that matter. There is always room for such things. I feel like they can only add to a story.

(10-18-2013, 08:06 PM)K Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 07:56 PM)Isis Wrote: Come out baddies. Come out and play! My character is the Head Mistress of a burlesque lounge for crying out loud. I had half expected more "undesireables" to show up than what I've seen so far. Oh well a girl can dream I suppose.

*Amused* My character frequents such places but frankly I have no intention of RP'ing it.

So...what are you refering to? There is more than on thing that can happen in a burlesque lounge.

K'nahli · **10-18-2013, 08:17 PM**

(10-18-2013, 08:15 PM)Isis Wrote: So...what are you refering to? There is more than on thing that can happen in a burlesque lounge.

Oh I know that, but I don't see any potential RP coming from it from his perspective.

Nnejo · **10-18-2013, 08:37 PM**

(10-18-2013, 08:17 PM)K Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 08:15 PM)Isis Wrote: So...what are you refering to? There is more than on thing that can happen in a burlesque lounge.

Oh I know that, but I don't see any potential RP coming from it from his perspective.

Like I always say, to each his/her own.

Faye · **10-18-2013, 08:40 PM**

(10-18-2013, 01:03 PM)Isis Wrote: What is the hesitation with playing a criminal mind, or any "baddy" for that matter?

The hesitance is that (1) some people just feel bad playing baddies! Real life morals come into play and make people go soft. (2) The (often justified) fear that people will blur IC with OOC. It's hard to be a dick to people IC when you sometimes get screamed at and outcast for it OOC even though any bad blood was only intended to be IC. (3) Bad guys are short-lived. Everyone wants to see them killed or imprisoned for their crimes. Eventually, your character will be thwarted. A lot of the white knights you mention have the mentality that the good guys should always win, and thus the villains are stopped long before they should be because the "heroes" will get upset OOC if the villain has the upperhand, will sometimes stoop to powerplaying and godmodding because they don't think the villains should ever win, etc. Villains don't last long before being forced to change, being killed, or being imprisoned.

Quote:Are there any with characters like the one described in theÂ secondÂ observation? If so what inspired you to go that route as opposed to the other?

I play/have played both, so I'll answer for both. First off, I simply like variety, hence why I play characters on both sides of the spectrum. The character Faye, who was first played in a forum, was actually meant to be a villain. However, when I started RPing in MMO's and made Fae in TERA, I quickly realized that it's hard to have your main character be a villain in an MMO. It goes back to what I said about villains being short-lived. In RP forums, you can easily have several characters, and no character must be your main. In MMO's, however, people tend to focus on a fewer number of characters, and one character usually gets significantly more playtime than the rest. In an MMO, if your character is killed or thrown into prison for life, you're left with the question of, "Do I delete this character, do I just stop role-playing him/her, or do I fork over the money for a race/appearance/name/gender change to make a new character?" In forums, however, you can have a ton of characters, there's no gameplay aspect so your character won't have a level and equipment bound to him or her, etc. It's not a detrimental loss when you must stop playing a character.Â Good guys (or at least, not villainous characters) are easier to main in MMO's. It's for that reason that I don't main villains in MMO's, and good guys are also just fun to play!

Quote:Are there any with characters like the one described in theÂ firstÂ observation? If so what inspired you to go that route as opposed to the other?

Because villains are just as fun to play, if not more fun, than heroes! Also, antagonists are necessary for an interesting RP community and a shortage of people are willing to play them, so I'm happy to step up since I enjoy it anyway.Â I do have an alt who's somewhat of an antagonist (not a major villain--she doesn't haven't any huge goals and is not inherently evil, she's mostly just a menace to the people around her). Unfortunately, I haven't had time to RP or even level her yet, but I hope to soon since I've noticed a severe lack of antagonists and villains.Â

Quote:Do you agree or disagree that there needs to be some sort of balance struck?

Obviously, things won't be much fun if one side is too prevalent. There will be less variety among characters, and less conflict if one side can easily defeat the other. But on the other hand, we can't force people to play characters they don't want to play and both sides don't need to be perfectly even.

Sigyn Shieldbreaker · **10-18-2013, 08:59 PM**

Faye raises a ton of good points. Bad guys -are- usually short lived-- but the thing about bad guys, or good guys for that matter, is that they usually aren't one-dimensional characters. What we consider to be good or bad varies greatly. If you have a criminal type character who works for malicious reasons and hurts a lot of people to get his way, chances are he's got to be charismatic enough to have people working with him. Leovold, I think the guy's name was, from the Gladiator storyline is a perfect example.

Most of them aren't truly bad people underneath it all, they just know what they want or what they need to do and people have to be sacrificed or harmed to accomplish that goal. If you're just a bad guy for the sake of being bad and you have one love interest or a little sister or something that's supposed to be the counterbalance, that's -something- but it's not everything. Part of being evil is having a force of convinced, loyal people behind you to help you achieve those goals.

Another issue is-- antagonists really would have a hard time successfully playing bad guys if there aren't any real good guys cast to create a stark difference between them. USUALLY, these days, good guys are construed as being naive, close-minded, short-sighted, and just plain annoying. Bad guys are usually the ones with depth and in a small way we sort of wish they'd win sometimes. Dr Horrible anyone? Yeah.

This is roleplay so you might want an 'evil' character but consider the potential that you don't have to go around swiping kids' lunch money and beating up innocent women in order to accomplish that image. Be subtle? Doesn't hurt at all. If enough people like your character ICly despite how evil they may be, it'll only increase the longevity.

Problem also with bad guys is that force behind them. One bad guy shows up to a party of good guys and tries to crash it? You'll get twenty white knights in your face ready to put you down for anything. I find it hard to see characters as being intimidating most of the time. Thus far, I honestly don't know OOCly (and don't want to know because it's amazing...) whether Horace Rook is a bad guy or not. All I know is when he is somewhere he scares the poop out of me and Siobhain ends up unsettled and it's magnificent.

Likewise Lost River is a great antagonist character. I OOCly know her background and the depth within the character but ICly the fact that she can show up and just be... creepy... is wonderful! Siobhain usually beats a swift retreat from either of these characters because while she's good and while they might be a bit scary, they haven't -really- given her any reason to think they're evil. Without that proof she's still open to being convinced to ally with them and essentially being twisted to their purpose -if- they have otherwise nefarious intentions under everything.

There's a different between a legitimately -evil- person and a thug. Thug-type characters are generally (no offense) kind of mindless brutes who just come in swinging and making people angry for no reason other than trying to get a rise out of them. It's -very- easy to mistake this as trolling, and honestly, sometimes it is.

I'm ready for some purely evil characters and I will help however I can. If I can. Even if it means all I can do is lend a little credit to your character and passing the word around that they're villains.

Katanyae · **10-18-2013, 09:34 PM**

Good...bad...i'm the guy with the gun. Smile

K'nahli · **10-18-2013, 09:34 PM**

(10-18-2013, 08:37 PM)Isis Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 08:17 PM)K Wrote:
(10-18-2013, 08:15 PM)Isis Wrote: So...what are you refering to? There is more than on thing that can happen in a burlesque lounge.

Oh I know that, but I don't see any potential RP coming from it from his perspective.

Like I always say, to each his/her own.

Um... I hope I didn't offend you somehow. I was not implying that such a setting seemed lackluster or pointless. Rather I meant that, for my character's particular personality, nothing could possibly come from it character development-wise and it is highly unlikely that he would create any ties either ;;

« Next Oldest \| Next Newest »
Pages (5): « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next »

Balance

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes