On "Bad Guys"

[Asche]

First time poster, been playing on and off for a few months, and was pondering something while I wait for my account notes. I have a really, really difficult time playing 'bad' characters. I don't consider myself a horrid roleplayer, and I absolutely HATE cliched characters. But, that said, in this world, the norm is to be racist (even if its justified to be suspicious around elves), self-centered (which is vital for survival) and rarely trust anyone. Whenever I play tabletop games, my 'villains' tend to take the form of well-intentioned extremists, or good people with nothing left to lose. If I'm GMing, I'm fond of taking a character my party screwed over, or left for dead, and having him come back as the final villain, an evil they created. Point is, even my 'evil' characters have strands of good in them. Its what makes them human. But I have a huge amount of difficulty just playing the objectively terrible person. The thug. The thief who DOESN'T have a family to feed or gives his proceeds to the poor. I feel genuinely bad when my Arm recruit is told to practice her unarmed skills on random breeds. Even though I know my character would feel just fine about that, because in her view, they probably deserve it. Don't get me wrong though. I love this world and its lore, and the people who kick my half-elf out of the tavern make it worth playing. But, when I see that beggar, I want to wish all and have it animated so I can give it my waterskin. I couldn't play a thief, because I couldn't bring myself to steal from the hard-working merchant as easily as the corrupt noble. Its the one aspect of roleplay I have trouble separating from myself. Anyone else have that problem?

[InsertCleverNameHere]

Simply, yes.

[Valincio]

I have a feeling like that as well. But, them, Armageddon is Dark Fantasy. We can be as good as we want. It just won't change anything.

[Wastrel]

Nope.

[X-D]

Nope, bad guys are easy for me...good guys only slightly harder.

[James de Monet]

The key to playing bad guys is remembering that they don't (generally) think of themselves that way. They have reasons to do what they do that seem justified to them. Choose to think bad thoughts about breeds and beggars and abusing them will come much more naturally.

[Harmless]

RPing "bad" comes naturally to me.

[Qzzrbl]

I remember there was a huge thread about this a while back....

Anyhow, it would probably help to re-define your personal idea of what a"bad guy" is; especially when you're coming from tabletops to a world like Zalanthas, where putting the boots to a breed just because the opportunity is there is pretty much the norm.

I tend to replace the word "villain" entirely with "shithead" when it comes to Armageddon and archetypes. The defiler that wants to burn Tuluk to the ground, that's a villain. The guy that knocks you out and steals your boots because he likes the way they shine is just an asshole.

I guess you just have to harden yourself and get greedy, if you wanna play a shithead. :p

[Fujikoma]

Just isn't a bad guy in me, except the one that keeps thinking throw dung templar east sounds like it'd be fun. That said, on other games, non-RP enforced, I have made a pretty decent villain it seems, although I didn't think of myself as one at the time, mauling people with a pickaxe because my boss said "Go get that fucker!" might have been slightly villainous I guess, but once I left a particular group, often after murdering someone I'd get a page like: "How do I join?" from the victim shortly afterwards.

Maybe it helped that I started returning the loot.

Before I invested a lot of time in getting to know people, however, I would often encounter roving gank-squads looking specifically for me, and why they thought two wasn't enough to take down an abomination in high heels and a stinky loincloth carrying a big hammer is beyond me, but while it caused me to rage it was also kind of flattering.

Here, I just can't relate to many of the other characters.

[Barzalene]

My villians all fail. I made an assassin once. Found a mentor and a sponsor. They set me up with a position where I could keep an eye on someone. My assassin spent their life as a merchant. I even had a hard time killing npcs without good cause.

[AreteX]

I have always had this problem.

I have never really played the extreme racists, or the "bad" guy.  I have sought revenge, murdered because it was the best option, stolen because I had too, or piled on the racism because it was the right way to act around the group I was with to be accepted, but I've never gone out of my way to do these things.  I think this is perfectly fine in the scope of things because we have all types of people.  Some are going to be more hateful towards elves, and others are going to dislike them and not trust them, but not openly try to kill/beat their faces in every time they see one.  We're going to have murdering thugs who could care less about someone's life and we're going to have people who are more lenient to forgive and value other lives as much as their own.

I have come to the conclusion that my next character is going to be a dwarf(YOLO!).  This dwarf is going to have a specific backstory, and a focus that makes it so I will be forced to play a certain way and lean towards the "bad" side of things.  The dwarf won't think it as being bad.  They are just following their destined path in life and achieving their goal.  I feel like this will be a great opportunity to force myself to jump headfirst into a different type of character and not really have the option to be nice.

It is much easier with humans to fall into the nice category since they have less restrictions on their role play.

[Fujikoma]

It is much easier with humans to fall into the nice category since they have less restrictions on their role play.

I don't think this is necessarily the case... There seems to be a lot of pressure on humans to be jerkwads and a lot of the time they cave in and do it. Then you see them behind closed doors or away from prying eyes and it's a complete 180. I guess they're nice on the inside, but in their desire to one-up one another to fit in, things can get out of hand quite quickly, and it's difficult to work your way out of that if you're on the receiving end. Not that I'm complaining mind you, I just couldn't play that way.

My characters routinely find themselves thinking, there's no way that character meant that, it's just a vicious cycle they enforce in groups, and the longer it sticks around the worse it seems to get... To stay alive you practically have to leave a place for a while and come back when everyone is done fistbumping over how they showed that guy, and try again... Maybe you're getting somewhere with people this time, maybe they're interested in a story you're telling or something... Maybe they laughed at a joke you made... Then that one extremist comes back in and it's back to the crazy stuff again. Granted, sometimes you can even win those over, too, it's just hard when their interaction consists of (see non-human, make nasty comment, walk away) or (see non-human, escalate things, try to get non-human murdered), and the best option is to just isolate yourself again.

If I made a human, everyone would call him an elf-stump-breed-gick lover (whether it's true or not, one kind act, speaking politely in defense of, or even just talking to any one of these groups I have seen turn into all kinds of wild accusations) and eventually try to kill him. I feel more comfortable playing a character who is NOT human, because they are not necessarily obligated to be jerks and can find ways to excuse their characters (choose a focus that excuses it, breeds just want to be accepted (but then you have to react oddly to it) elves are only nice when they're looking to fleece you or stab you and they're ALWAYS trying to do this). This is likely not the case with elves, from what I've read, but I don't see many of them where my characters spend most of their time, and when I do they don't usually show up again, so I have no example to go by.

[musashi]

I'm comfortable with villainy.

[spicemustflow]

First time poster, been playing on and off for a few months, and was pondering something while I wait for my account notes. I have a really, really difficult time playing 'bad' characters. I don't consider myself a horrid roleplayer, and I absolutely HATE cliched characters. But, that said, in this world, the norm is to be racist (even if its justified to be suspicious around elves), self-centered (which is vital for survival) and rarely trust anyone. Whenever I play tabletop games, my 'villains' tend to take the form of well-intentioned extremists, or good people with nothing left to lose. If I'm GMing, I'm fond of taking a character my party screwed over, or left for dead, and having him come back as the final villain, an evil they created. Point is, even my 'evil' characters have strands of good in them. Its what makes them human. But I have a huge amount of difficulty just playing the objectively terrible person. The thug. The thief who DOESN'T have a family to feed or gives his proceeds to the poor. I feel genuinely bad when my Arm recruit is told to practice her unarmed skills on random breeds. Even though I know my character would feel just fine about that, because in her view, they probably deserve it. Don't get me wrong though. I love this world and its lore, and the people who kick my half-elf out of the tavern make it worth playing. But, when I see that beggar, I want to wish all and have it animated so I can give it my waterskin. I couldn't play a thief, because I couldn't bring myself to steal from the hard-working merchant as easily as the corrupt noble. Its the one aspect of roleplay I have trouble separating from myself. Anyone else have that problem?

hate to say it, but you seem to actually like the cliched characters. Well-intentioned extremists, good people with nothing left to lose, thieves who feed their families. None of those are particularly original. What you have problem with is value dissonance. Samurai used to test their new blades on random peasants (unless I'm totally wrong). I don't see why wouldn't your recruit kill a breed to show his superior that he can handle a blade. Or think of elves, they would totally fuck you over in any possible way because they don't consider you a being with any rights or feelings. Even humans in our world are capable of displaying incredible stupidity and malice, imagine what they're like in a place like Zalanthas. Everyone has a "family to feed", that shit don't fly anymore. Good people, or people with a shred of morality that isn't based on fear of their god king or their tribal traditions should be extreemely rare.

that said, I also have trouble doing 'what needs to be done', but I'm working on that. But that is why we are the PCs, the ends of the bell curve of Zalanthas. We can share water with the horde of beggars :3

[BuNutzCola]

I find morality to be pretty relative on Armageddon.


A pc I've considered to be a "good guy" is a horrendous villian from other perspectives.

[Cutthroat]

I don't think there is a lot of opportunity for most characters to be villains in the sense that they are 100% "evil". In a world like Zalanthas, singling yourself out as needing killing ASAP by randomly and unscrupulously victimizing people seems contrary to the whole survival aspect of the game. I suppose a character could be very evil if they cannot be punished easily (re. templars, nobles, and such) or if they do not care about survival (they are insane or have other priorities that take precedence).

What seems more common in this MUD are characters that are anti-heroes (not necessarily in the classical sense, where the anti-hero is a protagonist without "heroic qualities", but just someone with good intentions for themselves or others, and is willing to do things that are not good to get them). These characters can sometimes be cliches but cliches are not necessarily bad if we put our own original twist on them.  I think that is what people are talking about when they say that the best way to play a bad character is to play a character that can always justify what he or she does. Pragmatism is that large grey area between villainy and altruism that can sometimes seem like either one of those things.

[Vwest]

I don't think I've ever played a character that wasn't a good gal at heart, but I have played some monstrously horrible characters over the years.

I find it is a lot easier to start a balanced, generally good-natured character earlier in life and just let them evolve based on how life treats them - sometimes they stay good, balanced people, sometimes they become heroic souls who go out of their way to do the right thing (right being subject to point of view, of course!) but most of the time they become terrible people.  All of the above are a lot easier to maintain when you have in-game history to reinforce it.

You didn't just pen it out and app it, you aren't a canned story as an excuse to be a dick and shout 'nya-ha-ha!' as you flee out the tavern door.

When you have that personal investment of being there for those wonderful and horrible moments in the characters life and have a tangible feel for why they are generous and tolerant or straight up rat bastards, it is a lot easier to behave in ways that are alien to who you as a person in the real world.

It works for me, anyway.

[Scarecrow]

A truly nice and open-minded character will not last long on Armageddon. Why? Kindness and niceness is like a perfume to predators. These nice people get lured in and eventually are destroyed by more savage elements. Time after time, I see a really sweet-natured PC, and oocly I am thinking "that poor girl/boy, she's too sweet to survive long" and I have rarely been wrong.
Everyone has to have a little bad, or at least willingness to bend the moral code, to survive in Zalanthas. I tend to think the best sort of character to survive in Zalanthas, are people like the character Shane from The Walking Dead. Ruthless, self-assured, but still with that small part that is human and cares (even if just for a small circle of people).
A good core, surrounded by the rough ruthlessness needed to survive, will keep you alive in Armageddon. Someone totally good will be exploited and used. Someone totally evil will be hunted down and killed. Balance is the key.

As for the original question, I don't have a problem being a villain. I tend to think of my chars sometimes being anti-heroes, rather than straight up villains.

[musashi]

Samurai used to test their new blades on random peasants (unless I'm totally wrong).

You would be wrong. Yes.

[spicemustflow]

Samurai used to test their new blades on random peasants (unless I'm totally wrong).

You would be wrong. Yes.

Shit. I knew I probably bought into a dramatic internet weeaboo tale.

[Delirium]

Shiny. Let's be bad guys.

[TimTembo]

Good idea in choosing to play a dwarf for a taste of villainy.

Dwarves with the right focus can be traitorous monsters capable of killing their best friends in cold blood, and launching long term reigns of sociopathy few humans would be able to keep up.

The focus frees you from the temptation of choosing a "good" (and often less realistic) option because you are uncomfortable being evil. You don't have to worry about taking your own psyche into places you aren't comfortable, because this is not a human mind you're piloting, and it shouldn't resemble yours.

Don't think the path is always obvious, or that your dwarf's choices are made for you, however. If you're playing your dwarf correctly, you should constantly be examining every person and event through the lens of your focus - giving you plenty of opportunity for thinks and feels and analysis.

Dwarves get a bad rap and it's a shame. I think a likely cause is not taking foci to the extreme they should be taken. I'd bet a lot of dwarf PCs take the focus of "be the best hunter", for example, but only fulfill that through skilling up their hunting skills, and otherwise act like a human who really enjoys hunting.

What that dwarf could be doing instead - analyze all the hunters he works with. Incessantly talk to the best of them to learn their secrets. Gain their trust, to better get those secrets. If the dwarf still can't surpass them in hunting skill? Cripple or kill them, no matter how many times they may have saved your life. Maybe your dwarf decides that to be the best hunter, he has to have the best crew. So he recruits good people, trains them, gains their trust...then someone wants to leave. But if my hunters leave my crew, I can't be the best hunter! So they can't leave. Your dwarf hires someone to make them believe they're in danger, so they stay in the safety of your group. Or your dwarf destroys their reputation so they can't be hired anywhere else. If that fails, your dwarf kills them so the hunting secrets you've taught them don't get out.

When I played my dwarf I often thought of certain cartoons - the ones where the enemies are robots because the heroes would never kill a human. The Foot Clan in TMNT were robots, so that Leonardo could chop through fifty without any moral qualms. Dwarves should be the same way - to them, other people are only robots that should be used or destroyed when appropriate. More people need to play dwarves with this kind of ruthlessness, and less like strong humans who really like a certain clan. Dwarves can be intelligent and manipulative, and often should be, because in their minds they are always right.

And thinking you're always justified is a good recipe for a villain...

Now I wan to write up a long thread about dwarves.

[Patuk]

Play more elves. Myeah.

They're the second most populous race on Zalanthas, the fact that PC breeds and dwarves are more common than elves nonwithstanding. It is also -very- hard to play a proper elf and not be a bad guy in your own right.

[spicemustflow]

what patuk says. if you play a genuinely kind hearted elf you're doing it wrong.

[Kalai]

Well, that's a matter of perspective, with perspective being whether you're part of my tribe or not.