Hi! I haven't read through all the responses for anything I said yet, so I apologize if I'm being redundant here. Villains are tricky to play for a lot of reasons, so it takes a lot of careful planning, and really a lot of it depends on how understanding and accepting your RP partners are. That being said, I recommend generally playing villains with only people you know well. It's often difficult to play a villainous character as anything but an alt to be the antagonist of a single story arc, but there are ways!
Secretly be a villain! Of course, all secret villains should eventually be found out otherwise all the fun of playing a secret villain is void, but if your character's actions are subtle you can drag out the charade for quite a long time.
Alternatively, you can play a character that is obviously up to no good, yet the "heroes" can't do anything about it. Your character can simply be in a place of superiority over the heroes and have a hostage, or blackmail, or just have more power, be physical, political, social, or otherwise. Also, keep in mind Eorzea has laws and rules--ones that you can skirt along and hide behind! If your character doesn't commit any actual crimes, or if they cannot tie your character to the crimes, even if everyone knows he's up to no good, there's not much the heroes can do about it. Sure, they can take things into their hands and try to capture or kill your character, but logically that would land them in some trouble themselves. Vigilante justice isn't necessarily legal itself!
And if it comes down to the problem of your villain being found out before you're done playing him (which is sadly very likely with the common black and white mentality that "good always prevails over evil," and others won't hesitate to stop your character--even before he's actually done anything nefarious, especially if they have access to meta-knowledge)... remember that, though some consider it a stretch, many many people use Fantasia potions IC. And the game has shown us on a few occasions that you can slap a mask on and look shady as all get out, and no one will question it or demand you remove your mask.
 It's apparently quite easy to go into hiding, either permanently or until the storm has passed.
Essentially, though, the most important things are to A) Find level-headed people who don't always have to win, won't metagame, and will take some punches for the sake of letting you RP a villain and B) Don't make a character who is stupidly, blatantly evil if you want him to last long. There's no way anyone could or would let a known mass murderer just run around freely and hang out at the tavern chatting with people, for example.
Secretly be a villain! Of course, all secret villains should eventually be found out otherwise all the fun of playing a secret villain is void, but if your character's actions are subtle you can drag out the charade for quite a long time.
Alternatively, you can play a character that is obviously up to no good, yet the "heroes" can't do anything about it. Your character can simply be in a place of superiority over the heroes and have a hostage, or blackmail, or just have more power, be physical, political, social, or otherwise. Also, keep in mind Eorzea has laws and rules--ones that you can skirt along and hide behind! If your character doesn't commit any actual crimes, or if they cannot tie your character to the crimes, even if everyone knows he's up to no good, there's not much the heroes can do about it. Sure, they can take things into their hands and try to capture or kill your character, but logically that would land them in some trouble themselves. Vigilante justice isn't necessarily legal itself!
And if it comes down to the problem of your villain being found out before you're done playing him (which is sadly very likely with the common black and white mentality that "good always prevails over evil," and others won't hesitate to stop your character--even before he's actually done anything nefarious, especially if they have access to meta-knowledge)... remember that, though some consider it a stretch, many many people use Fantasia potions IC. And the game has shown us on a few occasions that you can slap a mask on and look shady as all get out, and no one will question it or demand you remove your mask.
 It's apparently quite easy to go into hiding, either permanently or until the storm has passed.Essentially, though, the most important things are to A) Find level-headed people who don't always have to win, won't metagame, and will take some punches for the sake of letting you RP a villain and B) Don't make a character who is stupidly, blatantly evil if you want him to last long. There's no way anyone could or would let a known mass murderer just run around freely and hang out at the tavern chatting with people, for example.
![[Image: NCtCate.png]](http://i.imgur.com/NCtCate.png)
