Is armageddon safe and cozy?

[BleakOne]

The sheer volume of wet work I've done keeping others' secrets and covering up their mistakes would chill you to your bones.

The only characters to ever betray me did so at the behest of, "new acquaintances."

So you want to be a villain?  Here's my advice : make friends.

Friends you'd die for.  Friends you'd kill for.

Truth. Many of my PCs have done some pretty nasty things to protect those important to them. Also convinced a few to help in their own schemes.

[Reiteration]

Needs troublemaker guild, like the assassin guild but the good stuff such as traps come early.

Maybe toss in a few magick spells.

maybe a couple of OP psionic abilities.

[janeshephard]

Rivals and Villains are a necessary component to a good story. If you out and kill your rival/villain you are making the game world a whole lot more boring for yourself and everyone else.

I remember one character of mine eventually removed a very annoying villian, after a month or two of play. And you're right. There was a sudden period of "calm"

In regards to what you said, though, Yam, I doubt the pbase really is clamoring for yet another half giant raider that can't be tricked, or a mul with nothing better to do than pkill you for your boots. So you're probably right. Winning AND losing are more fun when the playing field is vaguely level.

I like how Muls and Giants are especially singled out Race is such a powerful thing on Zalanthas.

[spacewars]

if armageddon is safe and cozy you are doing something horribly wrong.

[Bast]

If you have trouble being a villain, then apprentice to someone. Someone with vision. Someone who offers your poor, illiterate character something to believe in.

Becoming a villain is a lot like becoming the manager of a Kwik-e-mart. Get in there, survive, and you will eventually be promoted.

One of the great challenges of being a villain is a lack of henchmen who are looking to be led.  In the movies, henchmen are incompetent, overly greedy, and prone to mistakes that let the hero win.

Forget all that.

Whether you are the faithful lackey or the power-behind-the-throne (not literally), these are the people who do well in life. Wealth. Power. Excitement. Leadership.

A defiler? No biggie. Locate, dog-pile, behead.

A handsome/beautiful, well-spoken defiler with:

• an aide who is actually loyal
• a lieutenant who has few henchmen who are willing to kill at a moment's notice (including maybe an ex-byn and a few independents who have seen the whole world)
• a spymaster with a network of spies who are getting themselves promoted because they are known for results (may double with aide)

Now we are talking power.  

But what that takes is someone willing to be the defiler's aide/spymaster. And someone else willing to be the defiler's lieutenant. With that, we do not have the mad, evil wizard twirling his mustache...we have Duke Paul Atredies.

P.S. Necessary reading: Vanth's Guide to playing a Noble, stickied in the RP Discussion area.

Agreed support your local villains

[HavokBlue]

Guys. Becoming a villain isn't a problem.



Becoming a villain who survives the subsequent Gemmed SEAL Team 6 air strikes every time they log in is.

[titansfan]

I approve HavokBlue's message.

[Delirium]

Sounds like somebody forgot to strike a deal with his/her local authority figures, and/or made the mistake of shitting where they eat...

[BleakOne]

Sounds like somebody forgot to strike a deal with his/her local authority figures, and/or made the mistake of shitting where they eat...

[HavokBlue]

That's not applicable in a lot of the "villain" roles I can think of.

Besides that, "Gemmed SEAL Team 6" is interchangeable with "Badass 60 dorf ranger party" or "combined unit of Bynners, Salarr, and Insertnoblehouse/militiahere".

The biggest thing we can do as players to support an antagonistic gameworld and allow "villain" characters to crop-up and create fun is to refrain from organizing a skillmax NATO strike force to absolutely obliterate them the first time they cause trouble.

[Yam]

Yeah... if you attract that much attention without being able to deal with it, you've fucked up and deserve it.

[Is Friday]

I think for the most part it boils down to "How bored is everyone?" I've had PCs that should not have attracted a lot of attention get hunted like they were a defiler just because there was apparently nothing better to do.

[Jeshin]

Solution: Have so many villians that there's no cohesive response.

[BleakOne]

Maybe we should all make the effort to be stealthier villains and less hair-triggered good guys?

[Schrodingers Cat]

But I thought everyone else were villains pretending to be good guys?

[Lutagar]

i dunno guys

playing independent assholes that pick fights with every powerful clan/PC have been some of the more fun characters i've played

being hunted and chased is cool

[Potaje]

I recall a time when I had someone I was plotting to kill at my mercy, sick, half crazed and unable to way for help, in a room where I could do anything and get away with it. But then I considered the advantage of the kill versus what I might gain to save them and the political position I would gain from it. So I opted to help them, got my favors then later aided in their death at another's hand.

[HavokBlue]

Yeah... if you attract that much attention without being able to deal with it, you've fucked up and deserve it.

How do you, as a mundane antagonist, deal with four simultaneous mon un invisible scud launcher?

[Lizzie]

Dealing with the cliche "independent assholes that pick fights with every powerful clan/PC" might seem like a great way to create conflict, but I think it's pretty cliche. It is -a- way to create conflict. But it gets kind of frustrating when everyone who's creating conflict, is playing independent assholes that pick fights with every powerful clan/PC. Sometimes, you just wanna sit down and relax with an ale with friends. You really don't WANT to have to deal with independent asshole #47.

[Yam]

No offense, but that's a stupid hypothetical question. If you're doing something to get that kind of attention, you fucked up. If you don't think you fucked up enough to warrant that kind of attention, file a player complaint to get the staff to look into it. But you probably fucked up. Even if you don't think you did.

Dealing with the cliche "independent assholes that pick fights with every powerful clan/PC" might seem like a great way to create conflict, but I think it's pretty cliche. It is -a- way to create conflict. But it gets kind of frustrating when everyone who's creating conflict, is playing independent assholes that pick fights with every powerful clan/PC. Sometimes, you just wanna sit down and relax with an ale with friends. You really don't WANT to have to deal with independent asshole #47.

Yeah. Independent assholes and assholes without any sort of protection or status are just begging to get killed.

[Armaddict]

The gemmed seal team is often a rogue gemmed seal team.  You don't have to fuck up at all, just be in a position or carry a title that they decide they don't like you having.  And this happens often.

Insinuating bad things only happen if you do bad things or mess up is very narrow.

[Yam]

That just means you got out-villained.

[Karieith]

BRB building legion of doom in the silt sea.

[Fathi]

It seemed for a time to be almost a game of how to survive more than anything else, if you stayed in the city states you risked incurring the wrath of a templar or being noticed by a criminal org. If you went into the wild you were almost certainly going to run into either slavers, magickers, mantiss, gith, halflings, organized raiders, or mul outlaws. The road between the city states were litteraly littered with corpses, there was a while there I had a ranger that pretty much made a fortune simply off traveling between the city states and looting corpses/collecting mounts.

Since I returned it looks like all the 'nasty' organizations are either dead, cut back considerably, or outright closed down

Is this a friendlier more cuddly armageddon?

I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but in this post you seem to be wistfully reminiscing about the good old days, but this post...

I'm jealous now, I only ever got raided by the:

"an arrow flies in from the west and hits you in the neck"


or the

3 characters ride in, with no emote chop chop death splash...

There was this one defiler that was absolutely crazy though. I was never sure if it was an NPC or a PC. He caught me on my first character sleeping in the desert. Woke me up long enough to make a scary magickal emote, and then knocked me out again. Only to have himself sapped by my mullish friend that was collecting plants the next room over I guess he didn't notice...

Ran into him 3 more times... can't remember if we killed him I know we killed one that tried to raid us but I don't think it was the same one.

definately ran into him several more times though and it became one of those "does this guy ever give up?" kind of things.

... also sounds pretty negative.

So basically, you're saying that in the good old days, the game was more dangerous... but at the same time, you never got raided by anyone cool. All that ever happened to you was you got shot or no-emote splashed by a bunch of dudes. Except for this one defiler who was awesome, who you ran into a few more times.

Was that actually any better?

I guess I'm just not sure if it's a bad thing that the game seems "softer" and you feel safer outside the walls if you think all the deaths you got out there were lame in the first place.

[WaNoBe]

That just means just got out-villained.