Let's talk power dynamics.
As a person in a roleplaying community, my expectations are to tell my own interlocking story in the greater world. I'll have my character meet people. I might get to appear in their storylines. They might appear in mine. We'll collaborate to put together a story that pleases the parties involved.
Playing a villain looks exactly the same on paper, but it's sort of the not the same. When you establish yourself as a villain, you are intentionally looking to derail (or just complicate) the "we're a large community telling stories" stuff. If I'm writing a detective story and someone else is roleplaying a murderer and wants to get involved, the story would be unfun if I'm suddenly unable to catch my man. This can make for good stories - is the villain a criminal mastermind who is legitimately ahead of the hero? It can also make for bad, bad stories: The villain appear in broad daylight, murders someone in the Quicksand and then magically escapes because the plot states so. That's basically railroading and or godmoding a result because the villain is unable to out-play the hero, or is just unable to "properly" play a villain.
That sounds a bit heavy handed. When roleplay because competitive instead of cooperative - when we're no longer hunting down dragons together because it fulfills us both but you're a heretical mastermind summoning them and I'm trying to stop you - you run the risk of simply being outplayed. Dramatic scenes are fantastic, but undoing a player's hard-thought or just spur-of-the-moment traps is unfun. Yes, the plot requires the villain to escape after the bomb goes off. No, that's not satisfying when there's a strike team barring all of the exits and a crack archer watching the scene from a vantage point. It basically says "Your roleplay doesn't matter until the last session."
I guess what I'm saying is, if you're roleplaying a villain and you lose? Lose. Don't just handwave and go "nuh-uh!" because that will make you lose your heroes. Difficult-to-capture isn't the same as impossible-until-convenient-plot-lull.
As a person in a roleplaying community, my expectations are to tell my own interlocking story in the greater world. I'll have my character meet people. I might get to appear in their storylines. They might appear in mine. We'll collaborate to put together a story that pleases the parties involved.
Playing a villain looks exactly the same on paper, but it's sort of the not the same. When you establish yourself as a villain, you are intentionally looking to derail (or just complicate) the "we're a large community telling stories" stuff. If I'm writing a detective story and someone else is roleplaying a murderer and wants to get involved, the story would be unfun if I'm suddenly unable to catch my man. This can make for good stories - is the villain a criminal mastermind who is legitimately ahead of the hero? It can also make for bad, bad stories: The villain appear in broad daylight, murders someone in the Quicksand and then magically escapes because the plot states so. That's basically railroading and or godmoding a result because the villain is unable to out-play the hero, or is just unable to "properly" play a villain.
That sounds a bit heavy handed. When roleplay because competitive instead of cooperative - when we're no longer hunting down dragons together because it fulfills us both but you're a heretical mastermind summoning them and I'm trying to stop you - you run the risk of simply being outplayed. Dramatic scenes are fantastic, but undoing a player's hard-thought or just spur-of-the-moment traps is unfun. Yes, the plot requires the villain to escape after the bomb goes off. No, that's not satisfying when there's a strike team barring all of the exits and a crack archer watching the scene from a vantage point. It basically says "Your roleplay doesn't matter until the last session."
I guess what I'm saying is, if you're roleplaying a villain and you lose? Lose. Don't just handwave and go "nuh-uh!" because that will make you lose your heroes. Difficult-to-capture isn't the same as impossible-until-convenient-plot-lull.