(05-26-2015, 01:23 AM)Verad Wrote:(05-26-2015, 01:14 AM)Nero Wrote: Depth is absolutely critical if you plan on roleplaying any kind of morally depraved character outside of a Disney villain or the Big Bad Evil Guy of a D&D campaign. In the latter settings, it's perfectly fine to be flat in their evilness because in those cases the villains aren't characters, they're simply plot devices disguised as characters used solely to encourage the growth of the hero and thus their depth is unessential.
In RP, however, you want your villainous character to be seen as a person. You want them to be as interesting as they are unlikeable, you want other players to be fascinated by this huge douchebag, you want to give them reasons to continually involve their characters with yours.
And to do that, your character needs to have depth.
Depth is death - especially, ironically, if the character is not meant to be killed off. Having that redeemable quality, even if you do not capitalize on it, will cause players to expect that the character will show growth in that direction. Failure to do so can and will lead to angry players because they will feel like they are not having an impact on your own character's behavior.
This is a rather deplorable state of affairs we've found ourselves in then, isn't it? A collaborative writing community wherein a villain with depth is potentially seen as a detriment because of players who seek gratification in conflict resolution as opposed to seeking narrative complexity. In all fairness that's something of a false dichotomy, but I personally have never been frustrated by a lack of impact so long as it was justified as to why a character didn't or doesn't change.
Certain players will expect growth, true, but growth and the expectation thereof is heavily dependent on context and on whom you are roleplaying with and what kind of story it's intended to be. In that vein, the concept of depth is not applicable to all situations.
