Villain Involvement in RPs

[Delnoir]

So one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is villains in RPs, and I can't help but think a lot of villains take too much of a back seat role. I sit here wondering whatever happened to the days when the hero and his friends in an RP got the tar kicked out of them before they've so much as heard of some super weapon capable of taking him down?

Personally I think that villains need to be more active. There are RPs where a villain is that much better for being a passive mastermind, but at the same time I'm sick of all these villains with the power to utterly crush the heroes and not taking advantage of it. I enjoy a good beatdown of the main hero if they're getting too cocky, are hyper-aggresive trash talkers, or are just accomplishing too many things too fast.

I think an example I could use would be Hazama/Yuuki Terumi in Blazblue. When you play through arcade mode no matter how badly you beat the hell out of him, no matter what attacks you pounded him with, the outcome is the same.

"Hey, thanks for the warm up. Really gets the blood flowing."

So my question is where's the line? At what point is a villain too passive or out of touch with the plot, and when does having them beat the heroes within an inch of their life become a case of "There's no fun allowed in this RP"? Do you prefer passive of aggressive villains?

 

[Iliana]

I actually enjoy a good villain. They make the best debaters.

Hero:"This isn't over..."

Villian:"No, it's over."

Hero:"...I'm not through with you yet..."

Villian: "On the contrary, it has already ended."

Hero: "I...won't lose."

Villian:"....Neither...will....I."

:/ Yes. But you also have to see that there is no limit to how much a villain kicks the hero's ass. It'd be no fun if they do everything right. I like my villains to be straight forward: Whatever they are fighting for, get it by all costs. Don't stand there debating with me for 5 hours. Kick me in the ovaries. Make me bleed. That way I can actually take you seriously.

Antagonists these days do have different ways of settling their problems. They can be "*cacklecackle* All according to my plan..." and still be dangerously evil. But personally, I like a villain with as much bite as his/her bark.

 

[Diana]

I LOVE villain involvement. >:D The more times a villain harasses and fucks with the characters, the better. It's supposed to be a STRUGGLE to save the day. Makes the end much more meaningful and satisfying.


The trouble with getting a villain more involved, is that some players have a bad habit of being "psychic players". Because the player knows which PC is a villain, somehow their character magically knows. >< And then they wanna attack/kill right away and the whole roleplay is solved too soon.

Not to mention, villains don't get a lot of scene time compared to regular characters. So a player playing a villain could get bored waiting for their moment to get involved. Even when they DO get more scenes than the typical NPC villain. D:

 

[Karsikan the Berzerker]

As has always been said, your villain has to be written ten times better than your hero, personally I just hate the ones where their ego gets in the way of common fucking sense. This dude took over the fucking world for a reason, and it wasn't because he thinks he looks good in a mirror.

 

[Raiu]

Your talking to the person who LIKES to play the villain you know...

 

[Vay]

Your talking to the one of the many many people on this forum who LIKES to play the villain you know...

FTFY

 

[redblood]

The story is more fun if the villain is really active xD but they also need to be a bit human and rest sometimes x) (Even if they're not human they need to rest and think up plans xD haha)
I think it's different from rp to rp, or movie to movie. In some they should be more active to get the story going while in others they will mostly be a nuisance if they show up all the time.
But I always fall in love with the villain so I always want them to show up a looooot xD I get bored when they aren't there if it's a good villain xD

 

[Zen]

The issue with a villain not having a huge spotlight in roleplays can be resolved by slowly seeing them transform into the bad guy. That way they have a presence in the roleplay, and the transformation plus the character's actions has a bigger impact on everyone. I know that this technique can't always be used, but it's a solution.

But I would like to love see more villains in roleplays, active ones that is. I think they're one of the most intriguing people in both roleplays and real life because you often wonder how the hell did they end up so fucked up? However for me, the reason I haven't seen a lot of villains in rps is simply because people want to play the hero. Granted a lot of my rp experience has been outside of Iwaku, but villains normally don't get the chance to be bad because the real players get butt hurt over their chars being beat down.