Role Play as badguys?

[Azureus Scipio]

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]

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.

[Aeryn]

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]

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. 

 

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

[C'kayah Polaali]

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.

[Evie]

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]

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]

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]

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. 

 

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]

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. 

 

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. :roll:

[Elisea Renyven]

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]

 

 

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. 

 

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]

 

 

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. 

 

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]

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]

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.

[Seriphyn]

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;

 

Yeah, being outright 'evil' is a bit flat and two-dimensional, really. In the real world, who sets out with the intent "I'm going to be super evil for a living, muahahaha"?

 

Instead, the closest things in real life to what can be described as 'evil' is driven by a much more simple sense of self-interest. As people have already alluded to, a group of those seeking pure self-gain would be a realistically done 'evil' group IMO...in fact the only thing that would say it's evil is our RL moralities.

[Ignacius]

Two observations I can make here:

 

One, the D&D style order/alignment scale is great for beginning roleplayers who need a grasp of the basics.  You should discard it at your earliest possible convenience; nobody thinks like that.  Essentially, the D&D morality scale is built as a summation of two basic character traits, selfishness v. selflessness and discipline v. capriciousness.  Not only is this a very limited scope of morality, but it's also somewhat inaccurate.  Many people are willing to be selfless to a point, and sometimes they're willing to do something incredibly selfless on the spur of the moment, but are otherwise selfish pricks.  Real morality, and realistic characters, have distinct personalities made essentially from a set of stock beliefs modified by their histories.

 

In short, heroes and villains are decent concepts in the early string of things, but they're really not something you should aim for.  For instance, Orleans Ignacius is a criminal, a mercenary, a murderer, and all sorts of terrible things.  He's essentially a thug for hire.  I wouldn't necessarily call him a villain, though.  He himself is capable of incredible acts of kindness and selflessness; he simply doesn't see the world the same way many of people do.  He's something of a ronin, someone roaming haphazardly through life while trying to maintain some semblance of discipline in his life, earning money for himself but ultimately looking out for his partners and organization.  It's hard to say he's a villain when he's just as likely to look out for the little guy out of a sense of justice as he is to kill him for crossing the wrong people.

 

The second point is that, based on point one, don't play a hero or a villain.  Play a concept a bit less nebulous.  Everyone's doing what they think is best; there aren't many people out there saying, "I'm screwing people over and it's absolutely fine to screw people over because being evil is kewl."  If you want to play someone of questionable morality, you have to give them a reason to be that way and set out ways in which their behavior manifests.  Are they crusaders for what they think is right by doing wrong, Robin Hood style?  Do they just believe everyone would do terrible things if they had a chance and so they indulge in nihilism?  Are they sick of society and inflicting their vengeance on it and everyone in it for the cruel life they led?  Are they simply certifiably batshit-insane and think their local tailor is a plant for the demon-worshipping cult of Scions that must be eliminated and disposed of?

 

All of those "villain" archetypes are also capable of doing things that are positive for society.  "Heroes" are also VERY capable of doing wrong by society, thinking they are doing what is right and only screwing the system up.  Maybe they're too strict, too fascist, maybe they have a tendency to be too lenient to terrible people or not forgiving enough to people that stand a chance of redemption.

 

Really, the best you can do is play a character, not a concept.  Focus less on heroism and villainy, more on consistency.  Make sure people are doing things for a reason, not simply to fill a role.

[cuideag]

 

All of those "villain" archetypes are also capable of doing things that are positive for society.  "Heroes" are also VERY capable of doing wrong by society, thinking they are doing what is right and only screwing the system up.  Maybe they're too strict, too fascist, maybe they have a tendency to be too lenient to terrible people or not forgiving enough to people that stand a chance of redemption.

 

Really, the best you can do is play a character, not a concept.  Focus less on heroism and villainy, more on consistency.  Make sure people are doing things for a reason, not simply to fill a role.

^ This, 100% this.

 

One of my favorite roleplayers once said that though her character might be villanous in the stories of other characters, in her own story she is a hero because she is doing what she feels is right. She isn't an antagonist for the sake of being an antagonist and that is a key thing to keep in mind.

 

My own 'villanous' alt has goals that could be considered quite noble (help end the conflicts in Ala Mhigo and ultimately save lives) but she goes about it in very shady ways because she feels it's most effective. Plus somebody's got to do the dirty work.

 

Perspective is a heck of a tool.

[Val]

Well then! I would say those of us with like-minded interests should get together to discuss some things. We could end up with, at the very least, an FC of individuals and a nice group of people to finally RP with/get some things rolling IC for our less than savory characters =)

[Azureus Scipio]

See, I was Originally planning to gather a lot of people with alts they needed an RP story with, As did I, and I thought what if "A Family or Clan, made up of the different races, but called a clan/family because of their similar intrests have been a clan/family for a while, but since the calamity they had to do what they thought best for the clan, and therefore had to do anything in their power, even resorting to crime and underhandedness to insure their clans survival" Ofcourse, it is still just an Idea, and I would love people to help me build on it, I might start a separate topic if people agree to helping me and joining. because of their views of "Doing whatever we can, even resort to badness" policy they would be viewed as villains and those who knew would view them as bad, where as in retrospect would be more along the lines of Chaotic Neutral,

 

Since its going to be mainly alts, we can also level together through the game and not have to worry about group finding for dungeons, nor buying stuff off the market if there are people willing to gather and craft items for each other.

[TheWizard]

I've always fancied the idea of playing a sort of anti-villain or something of the sort that would be like lawful-evil or neutral-evil. Someone with a goal and purpose that isn't just evil for evil's sake. Evil needs to be smart, cunning, and planning forward, otherwise it all just falls apart.

 

Evil groups/societies are typically secretive: you don't find them, THEY find YOU. There are ears which listen in the darkest hours of the night and mouths which whisper promises of more to the desperate.

 

In a space where there is no room, in a structure that was never built, meets the guild that doesn't exist.

[Sophia_Grave]

I have a villain. I've had some of my best RP of FFXIV on her, but actually getting steady sessions is nigh impossible. And this is coming from a character that appears good, but is actually evil. A lot of the times I have to turn down ideas because she simply wouldn't realistically participate in 'good' arcs and the others aren't comfortable with a saboteur mucking up their plans.

[Braddock]

Hmn.  Perhaps knowing a bit more of what type of focus you would want the 'evil' character or FC to be is a good start.

 

In LoTRO, I played a villian character.  A guard caught in the midst of a scandal, but instead of turning himself in, he ran.  He got caught up in the 'evil' of the land, though inherently he wasn't evil.  But he felt there was no way back, so he joined an evil guild etc.

 

But playing a villian can also burn a person out.  So many stories I can tell you that RP was ruined because the 'good' side EXPECTED the 'evil' side to just give up and lose.  How much fun is that?  Not very much I will tell you.  History even shows that 'evil' has and can win over 'good'.

 

So finding that middle ground is very important.

 

I think if one were to create an 'evil' guild, you would need a cover.  GW2 has such a guild I was in, where their cover was a well run and established inn/tavern.  But under it all was a well oiled machine of assassination plots, planned robberies, and more.  People were put through rigorous applications and looked at closely ICly to make sure they could handle being there and were a good fit.

 

Even their website reflected this as certain areas opened only when you were of the right rank.

 

I wish you luck!  Gilgamesh could use more 'evil' types, even if it is to meddle in the affairs of the 'good' people of Eorzea.

[Dat Oni]

My favorite example of perspective is the "steal from the rich, give to the poor" ideology.

 

Basically, you're doing a good thing from your perspective, making the poor, well, not quite as such, but to everyone else, you're freaking stealing. Theft. It's the perfect example of how an act of good can be interpreted as evil, and vice verse.

[Magellan]

, 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

I think the major problem with this, with creating villains with the purpose of working against some of the heroes guild, is that major OOC communication must be used. There have been a number of threads on this site bemoaning criminals who seem to get away with whatever they want to, and lawmen who try to arrest people at the drop of a hat. Player vs player interactions of this type are a fertile breeding ground for the type of IC drama that bleeds into OOC.

 

Consider for instance; a robin hoodesque thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. If 'Hood' is only stealing from npcs, then there is no problem, because the player behind 'Hood' is in complete control of how successful he is and whether or not he gets away.

 

If Hood tries to steal from other players, however, that decision has been removed. You cannot expect to get away lightly, or you may upset their rp sense of justice. Their desire to catch Hood in the act may be as strong as Hoods desire to get away with the deed.

 

So... OOC communication. Use lots of it, to ensure both sides get an end result they are satisfied with. Otherwise drama will occur.