How do you play an antagonist?

[Dracul]

While I'm not looking for a definition of antagonist (of course I checked: a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary) I'm curious what you perceive as an ideal antagonist and how you try to play one?

Not looking for your combat strategy, but rather curious as I saw the word brought up again in a few of the recent conversations.

An antagonist could range from a pk focused murderhobo to a friendly rival hoping to have the crowd pick their mural over their competition?

[Lutagar]

Most important thing you can do is be wise about your victim selection.

Believe it or not; there are people who enjoy being antagonized. There are people who won't.

The former will make an OOC effort to protect you. The latter will gather a lynch mob and will hunt you to the ends of the earth. Unless you're playing a sorcerer or a maxed badass, there latter probably isn't a desirable outcome.

[BadSkeelz]

In short: you don't. You should have a character who has values and goals that may put you in conflict with other PCs. Having clear and sensible reasons for conflict will help keep your "antagonist" PC from coming across as a try-hard edgelord. I've seen a lot of PCs who seem to exist just to start shit and they're exhausting to deal with, particularly when they take more well-thought out ones down with them. They're the kind of PCs that encourage other players to just PK at the first sign of trouble, because why take the risk on someone?

[BadSkeelz]

And for the love of god don't app to be an antagonistic Templar. You'll be punching down 99% of the time and just further drive players out in to the literal wilderness to get away from your crimcode-wielding ass. But "what makes a good Templar?" is a whole other topic.

[Narf]

Antagonists that regularly pk their foes will run out of people pretty quick on a game this small.

If I were designing an antagonist I'd probably try for someone that could "defeat without killing."

Some ideas:

A favor seeking rumormonger
An extortionist that uses people's loved ones as leverage (maybe even VNPCs)
A compulsive liar that gets people into trouble for their own self-aggrandizement
A noble that hates another noble and wants to humiliate them.

Not that PK isn't an option, but people need to recognize there's a limit to how many times you can use it before it starts being bad for the game, and for your own enjoyment once people start to avoid you.

[dumbstruck]

Someone who is not 'being played as an antagonist to my story' but as 'a protagonist to their own story'. If there is not genuine, organic reasoning for our pcs to be at odds, making yours just 'be at odds' no matter how well played they are at odds adds nothing. I don't feel like 'a pk focused murderhobo' to use one side of your scale, adds anything to the game. The npcs are deadly already, the only thing you're adding is body count. Using the other end of your scale, I would hope it would be obvious, make the character that wants to make a mural while someone else does and pursue it.

[Lotion]

have specific values your pc holds sacred which are likely to conflict with others in an irreconcilable way

[RogueGunslinger]

Dont be antagonistic to everyone. Find a family or group to call your own and stay loyal.

[Riev]

Work through conflict without pressing "kill" or "backstab".

Take people's fingers.
Break their knees.
Steal their new spice pipe.
Plant a stolen item on their lover and call the cops.

"Kill someone before they become a problem" is a weak-minded, uncreative way out.

[Inks]

Completely changes every time depending on the PC. Have played an elven crime boss that barely needs to get their hands dirty since the goons do that sort of thing.

Have played inept HG raider who gives away his scant takings to "Shifty Jeb" his father type figure, as he is exploited.

Have played Hoge, even though he was a Recognised Bard after winning a competition at octillo festival, he would be considered an antagonist to some even though he was just trying to get by, and really was pressured by others into doing the bad things he did, as his alcoholism and spice addictions used as a coping mechanism spiralled out of control.

And I've played a cannibal dwarf raider that would kill and eat anyone who tried to run or fight (he had coded body harvesting), he also was extremely loyal to the friends he had within the Crimson Wind as he pursued his focus of finding the Most Succulent Flesh.

There is no one way to do antagonism I think, my main advice is always be IC about your PC's choices. And one person's antagonist is another's friend. Don't just play a cartoon villain, what is your motivation? Why are they doing what they do? What are their addictions, habits and personal convictions and beliefs?

The worst sort of antagonists just spawn in and target a specific PC by spreading rumors etc with no background. Lame af. Also ones that start with PK as the entire personality of the PC, killing should always  be weighted heavily on whether it is what your pc wants to do, and not the player wanting to ruin another player's day.

Killing is absolutely fine if IC, but please think of how it affects your PC and how they justify it to themselves. One dimensional psychopath PCs just show that you suck as a player and have the imagination of a wet rag.

Sorry about the book but it is something worth talking about. Great question OP!

[Narf]

The worst sort of antagonists just spawn in and target a specific PC by spreading rumors etc with no background. Lame af.

I've always thought aspects of rumor starting should be a skill (or even skill group). I wish it was a bigger part of the coded game.

[Veselka]

Talk crazy shit about everyone like you're superior. Works every time.

[MeTekillot]

Be emotionally volatile and unpredictable. Think about the most hateful thing you could do in a situation, even if it's reckless and risks your character. Dangle people's helplessness in front of them but leave them alive to sulk. Rub their faces in every one of your victories. Spread pointless vicious rumors about your rivals. If you spread 10 rumors and 9 get ignored, that's one successful attack on someone's reputation.

[Kronibas]

What Metek said, and also, RE: Riev... I think pressing "kill" is good sometimes, especially if "mercy on" is pressed first. Because if you *are* pressing kill, it shouldn't be because that was like, the first thing you wanted to do, anyway, I mean, literally kill the other player... you pressed it because, maybe during a raid, they said No, or were belligerent, or started giving the "do you know who I am" speech.

There are definitely some types of villains who, if they *are* trying to codedly kill you, then it's because, somewhere along the way, you made a big whoopsie.

It's very easy to play a "villain" in this game who really isn't like a cartoon caricature Mwuahahah sort of dude, because the city states — and others — give plenty of regular ole folks, like ones simply unlucky enough to have been born a slave, for instance (and that encompasses a /large/ amount of people), the rationale to set them at odds against... pretty much the entire "civilized" world. You know, right out of the box.

In fact, if we were playing tabletop Dark Sun, it's likely that a LOT of /all/ PCs would automatically enter the game as "bad guys," in that, you know, templars and their defiling masters and such are the ones being worked *against.* People dig the whole "a bunch of boisterous scoundrels pitted against a huge evil" type of thing, and sorcerer kings fit that genre of evil WAY better than does a ragtag group of degenerates struggling to stay alive in the desert. 

Playing an Arm of the Dragon recruit seems more "objectively" evil, to me and in the grand scheme of things, than playing a freed slave gleaning what can be had from those who once oppressed them.

[Kronibas]

Fun and effective stuff to do as an antagonist without just being an edgelord murderhobo:

1. Turn your enemy's minions and underlings against them. Do it repeatedly, and throw it in their faces when you're successful. Every time you're successful about anything, feel free to throw it in people's faces, even if you feel like it's turning into a WWE smacktalking session. It's still fun and, a lot of times, fucking pricelessly hilarious.

2. Find out where your enemy's from and use the IC fear of going after their family/tribe against them. Sure, you're just threatening NPCs, but if they don't react, that's on them.

3. Threaten their families, friends, and vulnerable associates. For a lot of people, it's scary knowing that you've potentially provoked a possible response against dependents or underlings.

4. Take chances with people you can't entirely trust. It's what IRL criminals do on a daily basis when they're emergent... and... it's what gets a lot of people caught, but dealing with shitloads of scumbags and coming out on top is the meat and potatoes of grunt-level organized crime. ICly recruit people... who you don't know OOCly. IRL, nobody walks up and promotes you to leader of a criminal gang... it just sort of happens, accidentally a lot of times I'm sure, once you've survived enough attempts of others trying to steal from you, smear you, get you tangled up with authorities, etc.

5. Collect enough information and be credible about enough other stuff to be able to sew mistrust about their surroundings, mainly the people they're around, to your opponent.

6. Make your enemies feel nervous about going around X area even you know if there's a slim chance anything will actually come of it. If your opponents are inside the gates and they're totally confident in being able to leave without the least bit of anxiety, well, you probably fell short somewhere.

7. Have other people fling bad information around while counting on spies.

8. Straight up lie about your capabilities, but only if you can manage for it to be halfway convincing. If you lie about killing a gaj with a weapon in five hits and it gets nerfed within a week, even though you didn't do that, it's possible that you were successful, heh!

9. Even though you're the "bad guy," it's perhaps possible for you to have as many friends or loose alliances as you do actual enemies, if not moreso.

10. Don't be afraid to OOCly avoid situations that would put you just at a sheer win because... when you finally do win after resorting to any means necessary, it can often be lackluster, maybe not just to you, but to other people around, too... because at the end of the day,

this should be about the stories we're making with one another, and not just winning by killing X dude or Y group.

11. If you're playing the type of bad guy who has a posse, then IMO, inclusion should sometimes take precedence over winning. But for sure, there are levels to the shit. One of the best things you can do in this game, is rope other people into fun. Balancing this whole idea vs. doing so in a way that doesn't leave you just sitting wide open to be murked, is maybe one of the hardest parts, TO ME, of playing an antagonist. It's stressful as shit but I feel like that's the way you /should/ feel if you're trying to max out inclusion and badiness simultaneously:  you're in the fucking hot seat, 100%.

[Armaddict]

There is a waxing and waning that is required.

You are not required to kill people.  Not -required-.  But it's incredibly difficult to not do so, because as an antagonist, you -will- have to defend yourself.  If you're a broad spectrum antagonist, you will have to defend yourself often.  This works out, because you need this so that you're not playing a one-dimensional killer.  You will end up being a hero in your own mind, pulling your strings to get your goals done, and coming out on top when people try to stifle your dreams.  Your dreams are just a lot less cooperative than most people's.

You will have to seek out alliances, temporary or otherwise.  These will be based purely off of 'enemy-of-my-enemy' scenarios.  This is good.  This is content.

You will start mild.  You will start with touch and go.  You still start as, for example, a raider who can't kill with arrows, who still shoots arrows.  A thief who is not confident enough to steal that often.  A meddler who doesn't have a lot of reach and can only interrupt the most minor of deals.  You will need to plot, and plot hard, during this phase.  Not because you OOCly love killing, and not because it's necessity, but because you need to amplify your antagonist presence; right now, the content you provide the game is minor.  Right now, no one fears or even respects your antagonist.  Right now everyone is still in friends sitcom land around you.

You will be in a constant see-saw or balance of passively antagonizing, and actively plotting death and disruption around you because that is providing antagonist content.  You will not be free of your own character-fear during this time, and it will even drive a lot of this antagonist content; protagonists become your antagonists, other antagonists still antagonize you.

At this point is where you really need to disassociate with the precious feelings of your fellow players.  If you do not, you will often struggle to continue to provide -meaningful- antagonist content in the game.  You cannot hesitate to play the antagonist even knowing that it will make another player upset that their accomplishment just got stomped on.  You kicked their sand castle.  You prevented expanding that sand castle.  That is not you being an asshole, that is you providing the adversarial content to their progress that makes it less boring and more earned.  Dissociating in this way is actually -very challenging-, so what I generally say is that when you are in defensive mode from your antagonism, when you have earned the reaction of your fellow players seeking to destroy your antagonist for their misdeeds...DO NOT SHY AWAY from killing characters.  This is one of the few times that you, yourself, or are not pissing in cheerios.  This is their offensive, your defensive, and a time to feel completely justified.

Basically, run antagonism until you create enough content to create aggressive enemies.  Defend yourself.  Rinse and repeat.

Do NOT listen when other people are griping about your actions.  Staff will let you know if you're out of line.  Everyone else is going to complain about things that they disagree with, the same way they do over every single other element of the game.  They will often complain about things, but that's because you're doing your job as an antagonist.  You are interfering with goals and creating barriers for other people, and that is the reason why you provide so much content.  Their gameplay is 10x more boring without you.

[adri]

Stuff!

Amazingly well said.

[Veselka]

Stuff!

Amazingly well said.

Armaddict knows what's up. And the lack of OOC communication/community is integral to playing an antagonist properly. Don't go on Discord. Don't go on the GDB unless you need to. Just play the game. Play your character. Do what they would do.

[Yelinak]

In my experience, the most important thing is to have reason and opportunity for antagonism without depending on the actions of others. If you make a character whose outlet for antagonism relies on some trigger event that others are responsible for, you're likely to get stuck with nothing to do for long periods of time, and then your impact on the game is minimal. Simplified example to illustrate the point:

Good idea: a character who mugs people who walk down Theyak's Walk in nice clothes.

Bad idea: an assassin looking for assassination contracts targeting nobles.

In the former case, the barrier of opportunity is very low. All it takes for you to carry out the concept is for someone to walk down a particular street, and that'll happen from time to time no matter what. In the latter case, your concept is completely absent anytime nobody is looking for a professional assassin. There could literally be a six month period where nobody has need for you, so you'll either burn out or just be an inconsequential character.

When coming up with character concepts, it's easy to fool ourselves into imagining that there's all sorts of constant intrigue and political cloak-and-dagger stuff going on in the game, and shape concepts around that expectation. Most of the time, it doesn't match up with reality. Relying too much on specific events and paradigms is a trap because most of the time, they exist only in the documentation and the imagination.

Doesn't mean you can't take assassination contracts, or be a mage-hunter, or make a point of protect your tribe's lands from foreign intruders... but don't make it the core of your character concept or you'll usually find yourself with a make-believe husk of a role that has no actual outlet for your intentions. This can at times be a game where absolutely nothing happens, and it sucks to be stuck with a character whose background says they specifically prey on merchant house members or something like that.

[MeTekillot]

At this point is where you really need to disassociate with the precious feelings of your fellow players.  If you do not, you will often struggle to continue to provide -meaningful- antagonist content in the game.  You cannot hesitate to play the antagonist even knowing that it will make another player upset that their accomplishment just got stomped on.  You kicked their sand castle.  You prevented expanding that sand castle.  That is not you being an asshole, that is you providing the adversarial content to their progress that makes it less boring and more earned.  Dissociating in this way is actually -very challenging-, so what I generally say is that when you are in defensive mode from your antagonism, when you have earned the reaction of your fellow players seeking to destroy your antagonist for their misdeeds...DO NOT SHY AWAY from killing characters.  This is one of the few times that you, yourself, or are not pissing in cheerios.  This is their offensive, your defensive, and a time to feel completely justified.

There is also much to be said for allowing yourself to feel schadenfreude at suffering you yourself have sown. It can be a lot of fun to decide "fuck this particular guy" when it comes to another character.

Why are you doing this to us?

[Inks]

Stuff!

Amazingly well said.

Armaddict knows what's up. And the lack of OOC communication/community is integral to playing an antagonist properly. Don't go on Discord. Don't go on the GDB unless you need to. Just play the game. Play your character. Do what they would do.

I agree completely on all of this.