Nobody wants to play John the Master of Endless FormsThat being said, not many people realize why people don't enjoy playing such characters. Some even go so far as to being the cause. That end, I've compiled this short list...
5. People Want to Be Heroes
This first reason is perhaps the simplest. People roleplay because they want to pretend to be something that they can not otherwise be in real life. Roleplaying is, after all, as much playing pretend as it is collaborative story telling. If someone is going to be, effectively, pretending to be someone else, they're going to have much more fun pretending to be whatever it is they've always wanted to be. Not many people's secret fantasies involve taking the role of maniacal villains. In fact, most people prefer to be knights in shining armor, or even heroes like Superman or Power Girl.
They can never be too big, Power Girl.
5. People Want to Be Heroes
This first reason is perhaps the simplest. People roleplay because they want to pretend to be something that they can not otherwise be in real life. Roleplaying is, after all, as much playing pretend as it is collaborative story telling. If someone is going to be, effectively, pretending to be someone else, they're going to have much more fun pretending to be whatever it is they've always wanted to be. Not many people's secret fantasies involve taking the role of maniacal villains. In fact, most people prefer to be knights in shining armor, or even heroes like Superman or Power Girl.
They can never be too big, Power Girl.So, basically, the reason that so few people roleplay villains is because so few people actually want to be villains. Weird, huh? It just isn't within most people to want to be evil, and so many don't know how. Meaning...
4. Being Evil is Hard
4. Being Evil is Hard
That's right. A lot of people don't play evil characters because being evil takes more effort than playing a good guy. Coming up with a nefarious scheme takes a hell of a lot more effort than it does to foil a nefarious scheme, and even if you are able to come up with a scheme that is almost unstoppable (likely one that adheres to this list) you may not have the resources to put it into action. And if you do have the resources, perhaps you need to spend so much time maintaining them that you can not realistically enact your scheme. Simply put, it's easier to play a good guy because heroes tend to be good at working alone with few resources, or in groups while funded by a secret government agency (or, y'know, some other manner of being funded). Even then, heroes don't exactly need to plan ahead, for the most part being good is reactive: Problem starts, stop problem. But the bad guys have got to be proactive: Start problem, find way to prevent problem from stopping, watch hero stop problem.
On top of this, many players don't want to find a reason for their villain to be villainous. It's far easier to make a sociopathic murderer than it is to make an evil mastermind with a full set of ideas, despite how rare sociopaths actually are (about 4% of the population). And if you're going to go through the trouble of giving someone a life that is so difficult that they need to become antisocial and evil, why not just make an antihero?
Seriously. Antiheroes are awesome.
On top of this, many players don't want to find a reason for their villain to be villainous. It's far easier to make a sociopathic murderer than it is to make an evil mastermind with a full set of ideas, despite how rare sociopaths actually are (about 4% of the population). And if you're going to go through the trouble of giving someone a life that is so difficult that they need to become antisocial and evil, why not just make an antihero?
Seriously. Antiheroes are awesome.Because, after all, antiheroes are far more bad ass. They've got all the moral ambiguity of a well made villain, they happen to be good guys, and they're just as likely to not have any friends.
3. Jerks Have No Friends
This one is actually pretty simple. Jerks, whether antiheroes or straight up villains, generally don't have many friends. It may come as a shock, but generally people just do not want to hang out with the emotionless dude that enjoys disemboweling puppies and devouring babies. There are instances when the jerk may have friends, such as a well-played manipulative character. But for the most part, these guys are alone. And, no, henchmen do not count as friends. Going back to numero cinco, most people want to play something that they will enjoy. Even if you have lots of friends in real life, you likely do not want to play a friendless freak when you roleplay. A lack of friends means a lack of fun, non-depressing scenes in roleplay (and, let's face it, sometimes you don't want to roleplay an insanely depressing scene every single time. Sometimes, that gets old).
Of course, sometimes a lack of friends is a good thing. It certainly works for White Wolf's Promethean Gameline. But even in Promethean, those inhuman monsters have a branded throng of other freaks to back them up. (Unless it's a solo game, of course, then they're screwed). Simply put, when you have no friends, you have nobody to help you when shit hits the fan.
2. Legions of Good
On the other hand, the good guys (and the neutralish sometimes-we're-good-but-we-definitely-are-not-evil guys) are very capable when it comes to rubbing shoulders and making friends. Even the antiheroes, in many cases. Most good guys are also pretty trigger happy, people love to roleplay fight scenes. This means that when your serial killer character is finally tracked down, or your manipulative chameleon-type is finally found out shit is going to get real. And it is going to get real very fast. And what might start as an evenly matched one on one fight will quickly become One Man Against an Army. And guess who that one man is? Not the good guy.
Most Roleplays do not have this.
3. Jerks Have No Friends
This one is actually pretty simple. Jerks, whether antiheroes or straight up villains, generally don't have many friends. It may come as a shock, but generally people just do not want to hang out with the emotionless dude that enjoys disemboweling puppies and devouring babies. There are instances when the jerk may have friends, such as a well-played manipulative character. But for the most part, these guys are alone. And, no, henchmen do not count as friends. Going back to numero cinco, most people want to play something that they will enjoy. Even if you have lots of friends in real life, you likely do not want to play a friendless freak when you roleplay. A lack of friends means a lack of fun, non-depressing scenes in roleplay (and, let's face it, sometimes you don't want to roleplay an insanely depressing scene every single time. Sometimes, that gets old).
Of course, sometimes a lack of friends is a good thing. It certainly works for White Wolf's Promethean Gameline. But even in Promethean, those inhuman monsters have a branded throng of other freaks to back them up. (Unless it's a solo game, of course, then they're screwed). Simply put, when you have no friends, you have nobody to help you when shit hits the fan.
2. Legions of Good
On the other hand, the good guys (and the neutralish sometimes-we're-good-but-we-definitely-are-not-evil guys) are very capable when it comes to rubbing shoulders and making friends. Even the antiheroes, in many cases. Most good guys are also pretty trigger happy, people love to roleplay fight scenes. This means that when your serial killer character is finally tracked down, or your manipulative chameleon-type is finally found out shit is going to get real. And it is going to get real very fast. And what might start as an evenly matched one on one fight will quickly become One Man Against an Army. And guess who that one man is? Not the good guy.
Most Roleplays do not have this.
Frankly, the Dark Knight could be a very powerful dude. But when heroes are literally coming out of the wood work as fast as someone can broadcast that their is a villain about (which is usually pretty damn fast), he isn't going to stand much of a chance for long. Especially since in most roleplayed fights, people can take a lot of hits before going down.
This guy isn't even started yet.
This guy isn't even started yet.
And even if you win, or avoid a fight altogether, there are still going to be quite a few issues, because...
1. Out of Character Whine-Bags
People are going to complain out of character. Quite honestly, this is unavoidable. Evil people do evil and malicious things, and this generally negatively effects other people. Generally. And, generally, the people being negatively effected are other player characters. People put a lot of effort into developing their characters, and because of that they really don't like it when something they can't control effects their characters.
For the most part, there is no way to deal with this. You could try warning them what your character is trying to do through an Out Of Character venue, but you never know whether someone will metagame (use out of character knowledge in-character), consciously or not. And metagame will ruin your experience as much as, or more-so, than your actions might ruin theirs. Even then, they may still complain about what goes down. And in most roleplaying societies, complaints tend to blacklist people, alienating said blacklisted people from the community as a whole. Frankly, people who whine incessantly (and there are quite a lot of them on the internet) ruin things for everyone, evil or not.
The fact that a person playing an evil character is likely to find themselves shunned is a big deterrent to playing evil characters, in and of itself. But the other reasons mentioned here are also major detriments as well. Conflict is necessary to a story, though, and so characters who are not necessary nice are, generally, also needed for a good story. So, next time you're about to go ballistic on someone who's playing a villain, take a moment to think things over. And, next time you're about to make a villainous character, please take a moment to make sure you'll do so properly, with motives in the like (I'll do an article about villainous motives some other time, for those who want to see my thoughts on that), and make sure you aren't simply doing it to grief your victims.
Have you played an evil character, seen an evil character played particularly well, disagree with me, want to complain about some sort of injustice, or otherwise have something to say? Tell me about it in the comment section below this post!
1. Out of Character Whine-Bags
People are going to complain out of character. Quite honestly, this is unavoidable. Evil people do evil and malicious things, and this generally negatively effects other people. Generally. And, generally, the people being negatively effected are other player characters. People put a lot of effort into developing their characters, and because of that they really don't like it when something they can't control effects their characters.
For the most part, there is no way to deal with this. You could try warning them what your character is trying to do through an Out Of Character venue, but you never know whether someone will metagame (use out of character knowledge in-character), consciously or not. And metagame will ruin your experience as much as, or more-so, than your actions might ruin theirs. Even then, they may still complain about what goes down. And in most roleplaying societies, complaints tend to blacklist people, alienating said blacklisted people from the community as a whole. Frankly, people who whine incessantly (and there are quite a lot of them on the internet) ruin things for everyone, evil or not.
The fact that a person playing an evil character is likely to find themselves shunned is a big deterrent to playing evil characters, in and of itself. But the other reasons mentioned here are also major detriments as well. Conflict is necessary to a story, though, and so characters who are not necessary nice are, generally, also needed for a good story. So, next time you're about to go ballistic on someone who's playing a villain, take a moment to think things over. And, next time you're about to make a villainous character, please take a moment to make sure you'll do so properly, with motives in the like (I'll do an article about villainous motives some other time, for those who want to see my thoughts on that), and make sure you aren't simply doing it to grief your victims.
Have you played an evil character, seen an evil character played particularly well, disagree with me, want to complain about some sort of injustice, or otherwise have something to say? Tell me about it in the comment section below this post!
More work could have been put into this. First of all, it is obvious you are experimenting with the Cracked format. Not necessarily a bad thing, but you didn't pull it off very well. The picture captions aren't funny, I get the feeling you only added pictures to fill up the page and give it that prettiness that Cracked articles have.
ReplyDeleteYour points were, for the most part, rather obvious. With a little thought, anyone could have seen those reasons. This isn't really a set of facts, but of ideas, so maybe the cracked format doesn't work with it?
#4 assumes that all "villains" would be playing a mastermind role. A villain could just be someone who, in the process of accomplishing a goal, ruins something for someone else. Not necessarily a leader of a group, or someone with a "nefarious scheme."
I recommend you try to spend more time writing these, though if this was just a sort of experiment with format, I guess I understand.
Yep, this actually was an experiment. From what I understand, readers respond better to lists and pictures break up the monotony found in walls of text.
ReplyDeleteI also intend to use this as a spring-board for other posts, in the future, though, so the fact that it presents simple facts that most people may already know is a good thing. When I start a post on creating evil characters and mention how difficult it can be to play someone who isn't-so-nice on a forum, I can link back here for anyone who's only roleplaying experience stems from tabletop RPGs and thus hasn't really run into these issues before.
I'll likely use lists again in the future, but now I know I'm not very good at being comedic about it. It's good to know my limits. :P