I recently returned to dragonrealms after a 10 year or so hiatus, and wanted to share my thoughts on this topic. I have always adored villains in movies, television, books, etc and I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

One of the biggest mistakes you could make as "role playing evil" is just go for a black cloak and run around picking fights and shooting innocents with a crossbow. That isn't role playing evil, that is roleplaying psychotic. There are basically two camps of evil villains and I will give examples of both.

Firstly, you have the megalomaniacs. The sociopaths who crave power, fear, domination, and attention over anything else. The villains who don't care about the money, the cost, or the position. They care about the power. They get off on feeling all powerful and feeling a position of domination and superiority over others. Cobra commander from the GI joe's, The Governor from 'The Walking Dead', Joffrey Baratheon from 'Game of Thrones', and Marlo Stanfield from 'The Wire'. These are the villains who will spend all their money, kill all their soldiers all in the name of their goal and for power's sake. The care only about their name, and the fear that others have of them. As Marlo Stanfield said once in 'The Wire'..... "My name is my name!". These villains tend to be pretty straight forward, maybe having alterior motives at times but more or less you know they are just bad news.

Secondly, you have the other hand of villains. The men or women who may be wrong, and doing evil things.. but for the right reasons. Think of Ed Harris as General Hummel in the movie 'The Rock', or Dexter from the show named after him, or Magneto of the X-men comics as good examples. These are the better villains that are usually more in depth characters. These are the villains who we can relate to in some respect and understand why they do what they do. Magneto for instance watched his family burned in the holocaust, grew up to find he was gifted and now lives in a world that prosecutes him and his children for being born. I know if I had superpowers and lived through one genecide of my people, I wouldn't stand idly by as it happened again either. That's what makes Magneto a great villain and others like him. These tend to be the more human villains who we can see why they did what they did, and often times these can find redemption for themselves in the end because they aren't as one dimensional as the first class of villains. They often are not pure evil or malevolant. These villains may do awful things at times for their causes, but the point is they believe with conviction that what they are doing is right. The first class of villain knows they are the bad guys, but don't care because they are just sociopaths like that. The second class believe what they are doing is right, even if they are terrible things.

If you are going to roleplay evil correctly in my humble opinion, I personally prefer the second class of villain roleplay. You may do evil things, but you do it for what you perceive as a good cause. If you believe what you are doing is right in your mind and for a good cause, and believe with enough conviction, you can convince others that what you are doing isn't so bad. Whether it's bootlegging liquor, selling drugs, theft, murder or necromancy. What is perceived as evil is all about perception. Convince yourself that what you do is just and roleplay it as that, and you will find it more rewarding. The first class of villain tends to bring down too much attention and heat down upon themselves anyway, these tend to be the villains that townfolks gather together with pitchforks and hunt down.

I think there is ample room for the maiden snatching, child shooting, puppy killing, lunatic 'evil' person, assuming they can do it without griefing and/or just randomly one-shotting noobs and people who pose not a remote challenge, etc.

It's a flavor of evil, and not everyone has to be nuanced and complicated.

I don't disagree that the more complicated systems of playing an evil character are just as good, I'm just saying, psycopathy works, and if someone wants to RP one, go for it.

---

Pants.

Makes me glad I am a good guy, its less complicated apperantly.

"Burn him! Burn him!" You hear the cries echo around you as everyone in the vicinity suddenly moves away, giving you a wide berth! It goes without saying you'll be wanted for forbidden practices in The Rakash Village.

Although she's not my all-time favorite player, Reene did pen a superb white paper on character development. It outlined a number of elements that are worth considering when constructing a backstory, as well as some suggestions and admonishments for how to play the "character" of your character out in game.

Should be pastied on the boards somewhere.

Some people simply view DR as a shoot-'em-up. They think they're badguys, but they're just kids, often in adult bodies, who should be playing another game where everyone is on the same page as them. They're kids, because they just could give a <insert> about everyone else's experience.

There is no reason to experience frustration once you know that that population exists. Just die, no crying, no complaining about how the person is a jerk, and it's not cool - nothing like that is necessary or useful. Simply whisper, "Good kill. One thing, though: DR isn't just a shoot-'em-up for me - you totally win - I won't challenge your authoriteh, so do me a solid and take me out of the equation. I PvP but not an instant kill target if I can avoid it. Thanks!"

Life is a lot easier, and they will invariable...invariably...allow you to live in peace.

>Not as easy as it looks. Playing good can have some depth and frustrations.

C'mon Seb I was joking!

>There have been some bad guys that have appeared with a thin veneer of RP in order to simply engage in CvC that they were pretty certain to win.

There have been some good guys that show up to mass gank the little bad guy as well, I can specifically remember a time when 10 people showed up for Khiol and his wife in Therengia and both of us had 3+ engaged to us at the same time. So the same kinda logic can be used on the other end as well. I have yet to come to Therengia and kill a single person myself. Why? because I am at the engagement cap with Therengians if I RP with you all. This kinda stuff could make the badguy wanna train his arse off just to come smash you all. So I think some of the problem if your having this issue at all still is something you may have indirectly contributed too.

That said you know how I play Khiol, I don't care to come up and die for the sake of some RP. But I come up knowing I'll just get ganked by 5+ people and stand no chance whatsoever IF I do his whole RP thing. If I come up and specifically target someone with little RP I might at least get one dead before the swarm. Or maybe a champion could step forth and take it upon his heroic arse to handle the issue himself? I dunno its all a grey area as I see it with no clear way to handle.

Not complaining just musing...

"Burn him! Burn him!" You hear the cries echo around you as everyone in the vicinity suddenly moves away, giving you a wide berth! It goes without saying you'll be wanted for forbidden practices in The Rakash Village.

Its just hard to find a good medium in this type of conflict. Not even sure with the current playerbase that thier IS one :(

"Burn him! Burn him!" You hear the cries echo around you as everyone in the vicinity suddenly moves away, giving you a wide berth! It goes without saying you'll be wanted for forbidden practices in The Rakash Village.

I go along with what Osus is putting out there. The problem is you are working with a playerbase that largly does not work well together. The sheer amount of people that cry out about things not being fair is hard to swallow sometimes.

Leucius

Never argue with an idiot, they bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

We haven't even gotten to the point that PCs can wear a straight Lord or Lady title, let alone be a mayor or monarch, but it would be fascinating to see and could be a lot of fun, I agree. I still think there should be a place where evil actually rules so that those that wish to RP evil can have a place to call home and the good guys are treading on dangerous ground to go into.

===
My spathas at hand,
From the ashes I rise,
With resolve in my heart,
And fire in my eyes.

>I still think there should be a place where evil actually rules so that those that wish to RP evil can have a place to call home and the good guys are treading on dangerous ground to go into.
>Failing that, perhaps some villainous towns or areas for the scum to congregate and plot or whatever.

This is one of those times where I'm not quite in the position to disclose certain things, but I'll leave it at this: Yeah, that really would be neat! :D


>Stuff from several people about higher ranking player positions.

Interestingly enough, this has sort of happened multiple times in the past, though not at a province-running level. For instance, there was a PC-run council that governed Leth in some fashion, and one in Dirge for awhile. Arthe Dale had the Thain (Mayor) position as a PC multiple times over the years, and I know that one in the very least was given GM-side recognition. There have been, and are, various Court and other provincial positions that players can hold. In certain guilds, relatively high ranking official positions have been held by different PCs at different times.

Now, none of this is constant, or a given. Sometimes positions that players can hold will go away/be refilled by a GMNPC for various reasons, sometimes the PCs holding those positions leave the game/decide they don't want that position anymore and for whatever reason, a suitable PC candidate isn't immediately available (or found for such a long time that people forget that it was ever held by a player). And, while I can't speak for all of the staff and can't predict the future, I imagine that NEW positions of various levels of import may pop up from time to time in the future, just as they have in the past, as the need arises and/or as the PC shows itself to be really dedicated to a certain line of RP that would make such a position something that us on the GM-end can officially recognize.

Most importantly, none of this is to say you can't form your OWN little shadow governments or other groups, especially in out of the way areas. This has been done before, sometimes to great effect. You can't always expect the Provincial sorts to recognize these positions, but with enough player support, you could certainly make a go of things, keeping in mind that the wrong kind of over advertizement could lead to the actual rulers taking offense, or deeming you insane/a threat. Stuff like this could work particularly well for shady or semi-underground groups, though, especially. That said, if a group like this (shady or not, depending) was willing to make the proper concessions to the GM/lore-supported governments, who knows? Maybe they could get some sort of semi-official or official backing too, eventually.

What I will say is that, on our end, we can't put players into ANY sort of 'official' positions lightly at all, and that becomes exponentially more true the 'higher up' the position is perceived to be. Favoritism, even the perception of it, can make what should be an awesome rp thing turn sour fast. There's also plenty of other ways this sort of stuff can go sideways, even when everyone involved has the best of intentions. While my PERSONAL philosophy is one of just playing through whatever happens, larger game-health considerations are always, ALWAYS, going to be at the forefront of these matters, no matter what else.

-Persida

I love this idea, even if it was just something that was rp'd amongst a smaller group of us to start. What a fantastic suggestion

Lets also be honest for a second. Lets say some PC is anointed king or baron or whatever.... How many people are going to follow that person? How many people are going to kill that person on site? How many people are going to do what that PC orders? How many people will RP complete scorn and ridicule to that person?

I think this type of thing is best left to the NPCs.

<<The only difference is GMNPCs can then throw you in jail or banish you (Not that either has ever been a great motivator and due to the fact we can't just ruin a character even if logically that's what would happen).>>

GMNPCs won't cry to the GMs when things don't go their way causing more work and issues.

>>Very inhospitable to good guys but a little dangerous to the bad guys as well because the ruling powers wouldn't want serious competition.

I think we call that the MM guild?

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>>Long live the King beyond the Ice Road! Long live Mad King Uthgaar!

you forgot the part about waffles

>you forgot the part about waffles

Oh my! How could I have forgotten! I'll present myself for punishment promptly.

Long live the King beyond the Ice Road! Long Live Mad King Uthgaar! May waffles abound within his lands!
May the enemies waffle stores rot and sicken them!

"Burn him! Burn him!" You hear the cries echo around you as everyone in the vicinity suddenly moves away, giving you a wide berth! It goes without saying you'll be wanted for forbidden practices in The Rakash Village.