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Azureus Scipio · **03-15-2014, 07:27 PM**

So all the RP free company ads i see in shout are all "To protect Eorzea" "To defeat power foes" and "Help anyone in need" never have i seen "To seize power over the realm" and such, so I was wondering how many people would consider RP as a villain, it would give the good FC's more in the way of RP as they would be fighting villains IC'ly and not the riff-raff with the Garleans.

just wondering your thoughts

Ridegmuve · **03-15-2014, 08:13 PM**

It's a good idea certainly, as long as the rivalry and villainy doesn't escalate to OOC drama it's usually all fine. I personally prefer playing morally grey characters even if they appear to be good.

FaeLeon · **03-15-2014, 08:20 PM**

I agree, villains would be quite fun to see around!

However, I also must point out that a villainous organization probably wouldn't be shouting about breaking the law ICly!

Rythulian · **03-15-2014, 08:28 PM**

I would personally love to see some bad guys around. It would certainly spice things up a bit.
Problem with villains though is that you're bound to get a bunch of people doing the whole 'my character will always win over evil' thing. Which could lead to OOC drama.Â

I'm all for the idea but I would perhaps go forward with a degree of caution.

C'kayah Polaali · **03-15-2014, 09:20 PM**

There aren't a lot of villain RPers around, but there are some.

C'kayah is a villain who used to head an organization called the NHSC, which OOCly was there to provide villains for other people's arcs. The organization is still around, though I think the focus might have moved away from that. Contact Emelie Annel and see if she's interested in supplying you with a villain. Big Grin

Evie · **03-15-2014, 09:35 PM**

Equilibrium has an evil side. With quite a few characters in it. They are kind of a cult. If you want more you can look at the description on our Linkshell page here on the RPC. The cult side isn't my lore idea, it was created by another person in our company but if you have any questions feel free to ask and I can try and get the answers.

LandStander · **03-15-2014, 09:54 PM**

The Nightblades are still running a Garlean LS on the side. Things have quieted down quite a bit though as people left the game. I have a bandit character if you need them for any plots.

Edit: Speaking of bandits. If anyone is interested I have a small bandit group idea. They won't really be evil or heroes, but just be looking out for themselves and their group. I was thinking of giving it very humble reasons for doing what they do. Sort of Robin Hood-esque, except it would be a rob from everyone type thing.

Illira · **03-15-2014, 10:13 PM**

I play a lot of characters, and at least a couple of them are amoral/corrupt and easily fall into the antagonist role. I always enjoy playing them, as they add a nice spice and sense of variance in the world.

That aside, I've never had much interest in gathering a 'villain' guild for the sake of itself. I find that they tend to fall apart pretty fast because they often don't have a sustainable infrastructure/motivations. The reason being that they exist for the sole reason of gathering 'evil' characters under one roof so that 'good' guilds have somewhere to ask for antagonists to fight. Thats an entirely OOC reason for those characters to be connected. Not an IC one. And when the OOC needs dictate that the guild can fulfill most random 'evil' requests, its really hard create in-depth, meaningful roleplay for the antagonists; since essentially their being used for npc/bit roles. Its not really a sustainable model. Or at least, I've never seen it successfully pulled off.

Its another thing entirely to create a guild are ICly connected through their own nefarious needs. If they so happen to run afoul of some of the 'good' guilds, then, yay! But it needs to have a solid foundation that is fun, meaningful RP within itself. A solid self-identity, not one thats defined by the OOC need to have villains out in the world.

Part of the challenge is though, that 'evil' characters tend to be very self-serving, and don't often have a desire to work even amongst their own kind outside of what directly benefits them. They often don't trust each other as far they can throw each other, at least at first meeting. Its certainly not impossible to create villainous/antagonist guilds, but their inner-motivations/relationships are often different than their counterparts. I'm not counting Garleans in this particular discussion, as while they are antagonistic towards Eorzea, they are an entire foreign invasion force with somewhat murky lore motivations. As such, I don't really consider them villains, at least not in the classic sense of the word.

Faye · **03-15-2014, 10:28 PM**

It's a great idea, and we could certainly use some more bad guys! However, I've looked for an villainous themed FC for my alt in the past, and two of the only ones I found have disbanded. This is because there are a lot of issues with running a darker-aligned group.

1. Lack of villains. Most characters are good guys or rather neutral, and the ones who are anything close to villainous are more likely the stereotypical short-tempered and/or mysterious loner rather than a real villain.

2. Evil people are jerks. A group full of selfish people who are in it for themselves isn't going to last long with people betraying their own "allies" to get ahead. An evil-aligned FC would be very unstable.

3. Most dark-aligned guilds I've seen in games are a conglomeration of "evil" archetype characters with no direction. The group has no goal and no motives except being evil for the sake of evil.Â

4. There needs to be the right amount of secrecy. A lot of dark-aligned guilds I've seen are so blatantly, openly evil that I can't help but cringe. If a group is known to be a band of ne'er-do-well criminals, of course they're going to be taken down quickly. The only way to avoid that is to the make evil group very overpowered, which isn't a good solution. Evil guilds are usually temporary in that if they make any actual progress, they're usually discovered and thwarted.

But all that being said, I do have some less-than-good characters if anyone needs an antagonist or a fellow immoral friend! A couple of them also need good homes if there are any dark-aligned FC's out there.

TheLastCandle · **03-15-2014, 10:54 PM**

(03-15-2014, 08:28 PM)Rythulian Wrote: I would personally love to see some bad guys around. It would certainly spice things up a bit.
Problem with villains though is that you're bound to get a bunch of people doing the whole 'my character will always win over evil' thing. Which could lead to OOC drama.Â

I'm all for the idea but I would perhaps go forward with a degree of caution.

The opposite is also commonly true, often with the justification "good is dumb" therefore, to be "realistic," evil must win. Rolleyes

Elisea Renyven · **03-15-2014, 11:29 PM**

I myself and a few others tend to roleplay bad-guys but we do it on a different level. Unfortunately, most of the time I've seen over the decades of Roleplay, guilds of evil guys do tend to be unstable and they dissolve quickly, it almost becomes a pecking order and you deal with the good versus evil complex. It can create drama.

So what I've utilized for the most part is playing villains as secondary characters, building story-arcs that can go different directions through a free-formed roleplay by the way of villains and of course, the good guys actions and decisions. It can be difficult, but we've had quite a bit of good versus evil conflict. It's been interesting to watch the good guys make mistakes that cost them important information or change the course of a story. We tend to oddly do quite a bit with it. Leveling an actual PC for it is much more difficult, because you may want to change the character's name or appearance later on -- or you don't feel like grinding out more alts for it. So it takes a lil imagination and immersion sometimes.

UltraFennec · **03-16-2014, 01:53 AM**

(03-15-2014, 10:13 PM)Illira Wrote: Part of the challenge is though, that 'evil' characters tend to be very self-serving, and don't often have a desire to work even amongst their own kind outside of what directly benefits them. They often don't trust each other as far they can throw each other, at least at first meeting.Â

I feel this is a kind of comic-book-ish, stereotypical vision of evil that Final Fantasy uses often, but doesn't really lend itself to good roleplay. People who are 'evil' are often just so in the eyes of their society, and even when they are legitimately terrible people willing to do terrible things...I really doubt the people who succeed at it are going to do this kind of backstabbing if they actually want to make good on their aims.

You only get to be a total dick when you're at the top of the power structure, and safe from most reprisal.

Illira · **03-16-2014, 02:25 AM**

(03-16-2014, 01:53 AM)UltraFennec Wrote:
(03-15-2014, 10:13 PM)Illira Wrote: Part of the challenge is though, that 'evil' characters tend to be very self-serving, and don't often have a desire to work even amongst their own kind outside of what directly benefits them. They often don't trust each other as far they can throw each other, at least at first meeting.Â

I feel this is a kind of comic-book-ish, stereotypical vision of evil that Final Fantasy uses often, but doesn't really lend itself to good roleplay. People who are 'evil' are often just so in the eyes of their society, and even when they are legitimately terrible people willing to do terrible things...I really doubt the people who succeed at it are going to do this kind of backstabbing if they actually want to make good on their aims.

You only get to be a total dick when you're at the top of the power structure, and safe from most reprisal.

Hence the 'evil'. I roleplay antagonist characters as characters, not a means to an end. Which is unfortunately what many of these amalgam 'evil' guilds are. They aren't self-sustaining because they don't have a real, motivating reason to work together. They try to hard to say, "ALL THE EVIL THINGS" and don't move outside of that box. Sure, there are arcs, but they often don't make much sense in the larger picture of things.

The point of what I was trying to say is that, antagonistic, unlawful characters work with each other in a different manner by necessity, and yet still need a mutual goal to work towards like any other guild. Those are challenges that have to be addressed when creating an 'evil' aligned guild.

--------
As an example, one of my characters is a corrupt Brass Blade captain. While I only have one friend whose RPed as a Blade in that office, there are interesting dynamics of my captain working hard to keep the machine oiled so that the bribes roll in un-noticed by the higher ups. He gets frustrated and has to discipline an unruly member of the 'family' who isn't careful enough to pay attention to who is around when she is talking about things that she shouldn't. Her doing that is not only a threat to her, but to him, and his whole office. That's not the sort of thing that a 'good' aligned group has to deal with. Its a completely different dynamic to explore.

Faye · **03-16-2014, 02:38 AM**

(03-16-2014, 02:25 AM)Illira Wrote: Hence the 'evil'. I roleplay antagonist characters as characters, not a means to an end. Which is unfortunately what many of these amalgam 'evil' guilds are. They aren't self-sustaining because they don't have a real, motivating reason to work together. They try to hard to say, "ALL THE EVIL THINGS" and don't move outside of that box. Sure, there are arcs, but they often don't make much sense in the larger picture of things.

The point of what I was trying to say is that, antagonistic, unlawful characters work with each other in a different manner by necessity, and yet still need a mutual goal to work towards like any other guild. Those are challenges that have to be addressed when creating an 'evil' aligned guild.

This this this ^ Times a million. ;A;

Val · **03-16-2014, 03:37 AM**

Like Miss Covington and others have stated, I also have an evil-aligned character and would be more than willing to jump in and do some things with people on him. I just require a group of people to do things WITH. Most of the things I've seen just don't work out or, as others have already said, disbanded due to lack of direction.
I agree with all stated, though. The server needs more evil-aligned individuals or some antagonists to work against so that things can be kept interesting. If any of you want a pal, hit me up via PM or on here or in game or whatever, I'll be glad to help.

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Role Play as badguys?

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