Topic
So what makes a real villian character?
|
I'm not talking being a cultist. I aim to RP someone capable of independant thought an being incredibly rutheless and evil. What do you really think makes a good Villian character to RP?
I am looking to turn Viyal into an evil character far beyond what the cultist guilds do and if I can become what I aim for then I am looking to the community for inspiration in what they want from an arch fiend! |
The character is believable and not OP and doesn't do stuff that would get them killed in broad daylight and miraculously lives. Same as with a good guy, though unlike a good guy they can't do things solely because 'oh its a bad thing to do and I am a bad-alligned person'. Are they after money? Power? Something else? They don't have to believe they're in the right but they need a believable motive for why they've gone this path. If you plan on them becoming a serious business horrible antagonist for the community to play with you may have to be comfortable with them dying or at least suffering something permanent in the end, else its like "Oh Bob dodged us again".
Do you mean in terms of notoriety or terms of horribly unspeakable explicit stuff done? If the latter then I probably wouldn't bother, some people have set the mark far enough already and in my eyes villains that drink liquefied babies just come off as trying too hard and corny though might just be me. If you want your character to be super duper notorious then you'll probably have to work in a group somehow. Starting an evil guild or a community, holding events, etc. I wouldn't recommend starting a guild as criminal guilds seem to die out as of late. |
|
Well I fail at playing evil characters so I can't give advice on what to do, but I've RP'd with enough of them to be able to tell you what -not- to do:
- Don't just be 'evil', not even with a good reason. A lot of dangerous criminals are often perfectly normal for the most part, but have an inexplicable logical flaw, or don't have the 'mechanism' that stops most people from doing bad things when they're angry, or simply have a completely twisted view on morals. - As Cecil said, be careful in public. Unless your character is so powerful that the guards wouldn't attempt to take them down without carefully planning an ambush first (I know only one, maybe two of those, the others can't pull off playing such a powerful char), don't go strolling through Stormwind if you're wanted. - Getting out of bad situations. Very few people want their character killed, but nobody likes it when you've worked yourself into a nasty situation and the only way out is some sort of prison break (unless it's properly RP'd with distractions and everything), or teleporting out, or worst of all having to OOCly say that you don't want your char killed when you're defeated. You have to be more or less accountable for what you do. - Teleports. A lot of people hate these, so use them carefully (probably doesn't apply to Viyal). - Don't be OP, but that's obvious. Hiding and ambushing is better than going terminator on everyone.I might think of more later! |
On that note I'd suggest not rolling a villain that is so uuber powerful that the guards can't do anything when they smugly walk around. It'd be very OP and annoying, keep to disguises.
This one is...Tricky if you want to be a notorious villain as it will involve doing stuff that gets at least someone killed. Plan some kind of failsafe if things go south but try not to have them come out totally unscathed all the time either. |
|
Edited by Ameratsu on 29/04/12 01:19 (BST)
I've played, written and even acted evil characters myself off and on for more than five years. Heck, Ameratsu here was once a lead-cultist of the Twilights Hammer (guild didn't get far but still :P)
First: How "evil" is your character? Evil doesn't depend on the means but the ends. A pyscho who strangles kittens is far less evil than a nobleman/woman who uses the law to evict poor tenants out of greed or hatred, if you get my drift. It might help if this is a number, or if you're into maths think of it being the "X-Axis" and the following being the Y: Second: Why is your character evil? Generally, I like to use: "Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic" to generally plot their mindset. A good question to ask is does your character know/think they are "evil"? Good example of a very evil character that thinks he's good is Claudius from Hamlet (along with a lot of self-hating for what he "had" to do) Ok, you're saying you want to RP a criminal mastermind (if I understood correctly, have a hard time understanding people's motives on forums). If you can, read up on Professor James Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, he's the best example of despicable mastermind who has an adorable public face (which I'll get to next). Always have a reason, a motive and an opportunity for whatever you do, IC ingame or in written stories. Third: Presentation. It's often important to portray an evil character with menace, so there is something to fear, but in an RP game like WoW you can only do this with an isolated character (which are NOT fun to RP 99% of the time). Have a public and a private persona. Actually, have a public face, a face you show to underlings and a third layer which is her actual thoughts, might help to understand her motives and how to hide them from the public and untrusting underlings (and no Inception jokes about layers). Fourth: Actual RP: The usual rules apply. Don't Godmod, don't overact, (FOR THE LOVE OF HARBINGER, don't quote ANYTHING villains from RL stories say. Trust me, even with best of intentions quotes can sometimes just pull people away from RP. For example, Amers used to quote Palpatine, it just got tacky in the end.). Think of how people see the character through their own eyes. Also, of note, only put in an MRP what's common knowledge, or the common view of your character. Fifth: I think Darkmind (Warpmind?) was the name of the "best" villain this server has held (I heard by way of word of mouth). Can't remember who the RPer was who did him, but he had to have some ability to be that well accepted. In general, be confident in RP, always remember that ANYthing anyone says in RP will be biased by coming out of the character's mouth (as it should be), reputations have to be built, not found, and from what Freeth said about "generally good but with problems", tbh, watching films with villains with psychoses can be VERY helpful if you want to go down this road.. Most helpful I think is the Joker from the Killing Joke but that's an extreme end of the crazy scale. EDIT: Wow, that was a wall-o'-text. Wouldn't surprise me if all I said was tauren-plop so disregard if needed xD |
Just watch you don't step into psychophobic stereotyping though. A character doesn't have to be mentally ill to be an antagonist or require a motivation. |
Oh true true. Tbh, I was just talking randomly without thinking properly, based on what Freeth said (and of course my love of the Joker biased me >.>). It can be used as a motivation but far from necessary or even useful unless you know where to go. Oh and just thought, it's hard to get a server to all define what an "arch-fiend" for them are. I know it's just hyperbole, but try to set out to be a great villain and you'll get the recognition you want. :) |
[...] drink liquefied babies [...] [...] (Warpmind?) [...] Wasn't that the same guy.
It's called The Killing Joke. Ad topic: Don't copy paste an existing villain character from a different medium and try to fit it into the WoW universe. A starting ground could be writing stories, just for yourself, to get a feel for the character, how you want that character to be, ponder a lot of things about the character, do silly stuff like finding some questionnaire to answer IC for that character, I'm sure there's tons of that on the RP forums (introduce your character, what would your character do ... etc. threads). You don't necessary need to post on any of those threads, mind you, just do some research work for yourself. Now, that is of course, rather generic advice. But a villain is just as much a 'normal' character as all the others. The more you know about them, the better you can portray them, and the more three dimensional it will appear to the other people you RP with. |
|
Edited by Damien on 29/04/12 12:57 (BST)
I had written a long !@# post that I put a lot effort into, that my browser then decided to eat instead of preview, I cannot be bothered to try to recreate it now and I'm having second thoughts about it anyway.
I will say this though, since your question was what we think makes a great villain: I personally think that the best villains aren't the ones who are entirely loathsome. It's the ones who are not, the ones that I can, if only for a single redeeming quality, a single reason, sympathize with or respect on some level. The best villains are the ones that make me go, Damn, and as much as I want to, I can't even really hate that person. Also this: Do you mean in terms of notoriety or terms of horribly unspeakable explicit stuff done? If the latter then I probably wouldn't bother, some people have set the mark far enough already and in my eyes villains that drink liquefied babies just come off as trying too hard and corny though might just be me. So so true. Also made me lol IRL. On that topic, I find that the devil is, as they say, in the details. Subtly horrible things often feel much more evil than the very graphically horrible ones. It's for the same reason that people watch splatter movies and aren't actually horrified, but to the contrary laugh about them: The evil act is so overdone that it becomes an, if unintentional, parody of itself. |
|
From an IC standpoint, the main thing a villain needs is a real cause. Something they're fighting for that has forced them to become what they are. Whether it be greed, revenge (although that's a bit stereotypical these days) or just a good old dose of insanity (Twisted morals come under here.)
When it comes down to it - you can be as vile and evil as you like. But if you don't have a cause to back you up, people will just look at you and ask "Why do you even exist?" |
|
Step 1: Don't be a death knight.
Step 2: if you manage to accomplish step 1 then the world is your oyester :) |
|
|
I take offence to that.
|
|
Don't be the Saturday Morning cartoon villain that is evil simply because the are. (e.g Skeletor or Shredder)
Have a minion? (a real RPer that is, not a pet AI imp) Have a clear goal more than general chaos, unless you're Mark Hamill. Trail & Error otherwise. |
|
Make sure to give your character a flaw that is obvious. Don't make her a perfect mary sue who is excelent at everything.
Good guys need flaws, and with villains it's even more important as the entire point of a villain is their complete abundance of personality problems and traits. |
|
Step 1: Don't be a death knight. The reputation of death knights are bad, I agree, but it is because there have been so many of them and very few of them have actually been decent. Ontopic, I've not much experience with RP'ing as a hardcore evil-guy who is realm-widely wanted and such nonsense, but I've seen quite a few. Can only agree to what has been earlier stated in the above replies, and add that I think it has an element of time, too. It's not an overnight thing. |
|
You need -ALOT- of Patience, understandings, basic and heavy communication with people oocly. but mostly of all, the most important thing, is you seem like a true villain. you don't just say "I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"
No, you take something, make people fear/respect you, icly. perhaps looking at you with awe. And another interesting thing, remember, its a game, must be fun for everyone, and reputation is nothing that is taken, it is earned through hard work, sweat and perhaps blood. |
|
My character, Sweeney Rasmussen, isn't evil for the sake of being evil -exactly-. He's evil because he has no good inside him: the only need he has is the need to be content. He usually gets this through entertainment - which comes in sadism to Sweeney.
When Sweeney does something, say, kill the family of an innocent girl, he'll do it as an interesting social experiment to see what the girl will do. It keeps him entertained. So, villains generally, have no empathy. But what I find is more interesting than zero empathy for others, is large empathy for a -select few-. That should be the basic outlook on other people: tools, social experiments, dolls that can be toyed with for your own entertainment. Sweeney also has a twisted, eccentric moral compass. He finds that people like him are a special breed of people. He believes that one of the great ways of finding contentment is through being as logical as possible - the only purpose a person should have, to him, is to survive and enjoy itself. Thus, he believes that taking control of the world in a totalitarian manner and efficiently, into an empire, is a worthy goal just to make people as cold as he is. Empathy is weakness to Sweeney. Logic is his moral. To sum it up, create a blend of a psychopath and a person of strong will and twisted/interesting morals - going beyond Sweeney, which is what I wish I did. Mail this character with the accent on the e in game if you're interested in RPing to perhaps develop your character, Viyal :) |
|
|
Edited by Viyal on 30/04/12 20:44 (BST)
Mostly excellent responses and alot to think about but the obvious is always there.
I don't like RP fights, never have but I do like scripted scenarios in which something can happen in exchange for another and the outcome is final. Kind of like reading the script of a play then acting it out. As to why Viyal is evil? *twiddles false moustache* She is a woman with loose morals for a start. She takes no pain or pleasure in what she does. She will trade/smuggle and profit from near enough anything without a second thought. However she has a particular fondness for selling off Human Female Priestess's and Paladins to whomever may be interest.. The forsaken are particularly good customers. She does it for her own sake, slavery and smuggling is profitable. I've been talking with the Kingdom of Lordaeron and I have been thinking about running a slave drive through Silverpine of Scarlet Priests and Paladins who've been captured. KoL notice this and stop a shipment and from then the cat is out of the bag. They inform Stormwind, Viyal couldn't really go there anymore, not IC'ly at least. Viyal is a woman, not a god so I wouldn't expect to get away scot free either.. Alot to flesh out but it can work aslong as I can confine to things. I just won't get into any spontaneous RP fights as they only cause OOC drama and headaches for me. if something is to happen it is scripted.. greater effect for what I am trying to acheive that way. Edit: KoL seem to have a policy of shoot first and expect people to play by their rules. I need a law abiding guild I can liase with about scripted events, much more fun than effing stupid OOC drama. |
|
Edit: KoL seem to have a policy of shoot first and expect people to play by their rules. Necessary? Not quite. People really don't quite understand a villain in this thread. A villain can be one of the guards, could be one of these Lordaeron Liberation fellows. People perceive villains. Take a corrupt guard captain. Himself, his guards and the nobility might think he's doing a stellar job. When in reality, he's oppressing the people, and only creating hatred for the kingdom. Depending on what side of the fence your character is on, this imaginary captain could be a villain. Villains are the bad guys we perceive. Villains can be the Horde, humans, the Argent Crusade. A villain need not be evil and be a warlock. A villain is a man or woman who is dedicated to their cause and the goals of that cause and not afraid to stand up for it on their way to it. He isn't the villain for this, he becomes the villain when the people who are in his ay to achieving that are targeted or hurt and name him evil and villainous. |
