Villains make the game fun

[Jim]

I still don't understand why everyone gets so heated on the forums.    I also don't understand why propaganda is spread on here, it all seems a bit pointless and against the spirit of the game. Your debates and propaganda should be in game, I think we would all have more fun that way.

[Norrel]

I still don't understand why everyone gets so heated on the forums.    I also don't understand why propaganda is spread on here, it all seems a bit pointless and against the spirit of the game. Your debates and propaganda should be in game, I think we would all have more fun that way.

This a thousand times. Who gives a crap if you're justified OOC? Villains make the game better.

[Anaris]

This a thousand times. Who gives a crap if you're justified OOC? Villains make the game better.

This is absolutely true. I've enjoyed playing villainous characters from time to time.

But a lot of people seem to feel not only that their characters are heroic, rather than villainous, but that it's very important for everyone else to see that, too.

After all, what's the point of playing a shining hero in an online game if no one adores him?

(Full disclosure: I fall victim to this myself from time to time. I've defended various of Alanna's actions that, when I step back and look at them, are pretty questionable. I do, however, take extreme exception to Dominic's view that Delvin was always a cold, calculating mastermind carefully manipulating Riombara and everyone else around. )

[Jim]

Villains make the game better.

Couldn't agree more with you. My most beloved memories of this game involved some of the nastiest most vile tyrants and cutthroats.

[Lanyon]

This is absolutely true. I've enjoyed playing villainous characters from time to time.

But a lot of people seem to feel not only that their characters are heroic, rather than villainous, but that it's very important for everyone else to see that, too.

After all, what's the point of playing a shining hero in an online game if no one adores him?

(Full disclosure: I fall victim to this myself from time to time. I've defended various of Alanna's actions that, when I step back and look at them, are pretty questionable. I do, however, take extreme exception to Dominic's view that Delvin was always a cold, calculating mastermind carefully manipulating Riombara and everyone else around. )

The point is their are actually people that think of themselves like that IRL. I think that intentionally playing a villianous character is not very dynamic or interesting. Doing bad things because they are bad is much less boring than doing bad things because you think they are good things. Hitler viewed himself in a good light I'm sure and thought what he was doing was good for his people.

[Anaris]

Villian or Hero is only a matter of perspective.

It's a nice sentiment, and it is often true, but not always.

For one thing, among the BattleMaster community, it has (whether for good or ill) become more or less accepted that a realm that attacks another realm without a clear provocation, purely for gain of whatever sort, is a villain. You can try to justify your attack all you want, but if there's no obvious reason for you to have attacked besides "we wants their lands, precious", you will be labeled as a villain.

This is part of what has led to so much argumentation and word-twisting on the forums. People want to believe their characters, and their realms, are Good and True, but quite often, they do things that no one else can really accept are anything but Wrong. They can't accept this characterization of their own characters, because it conflicts with their own view of them (and of their own selves, from whom most characters are drawn), and so they try, over and over again, to explain why it really was Right and Good and Necessary for Keplerstan to take half the regions from Victimlund.

[Anaris]

The point is their are actually people that think of themselves like that IRL. I think that intentionally playing a villianous character is not very dynamic or interesting. Doing bad things because they are bad is much less boring than doing bad things because you think they are good things. Hitler viewed himself in a good light I'm sure and thought what he was doing was good for his people.

Whoa, whoa. Who said anything about doing bad things because they're bad?

That's a very small subclass of villain. There are many, many more who do what they perceive as "necessary evil", or just honestly are consumed with a lust for power, land, gold, recognition, or whatever other elephant is their particular tormentor.

(Note: For reference on "elephant", please see Memory, by Lois Bujold. The motivators of men...money, sex, power...and elephants.)

[Lanyon]

Definition of VILLAIN
1
: villein
2
: an uncouth person : boor
3
: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal
4
: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero
5
: one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

Because the word villain implies that it is bad for the sake of bad. At least to me it does. You could make an argument that 4 does not mean it is evil but it still means that they do not serve the right and proper sid eof things.

[Anaris]

Because the word villain implies that it is bad for the sake of bad. At least to me it does. You could make an argument that 4 does not mean it is evil but it still means that they do not serve the right and proper sid eof things.

You're trying to argue semantics here, when the point is the feel of the thing.

If you don't like the word "villain", then you can substitute it with "bad guy", or, in many BM cases, just "aggressor".

The point is that most people want to believe that their characters do everything for reasons that are just, and upright, not purely for the sake of gain or other selfish reasons.

[Woelfy]

Emphasis: most people. Some characters are neutral on the good-evil scale. Just overly militant.

[Norrel]

Definition of VILLAIN
1
: villein
2
: an uncouth person : boor
3
: a deliberate scoundrel or criminal
4
: a character in a story or play who opposes the hero
5
: one blamed for a particular evil or difficulty

Because the word villain implies that it is bad for the sake of bad. At least to me it does. You could make an argument that 4 does not mean it is evil but it still means that they do not serve the right and proper sid eof things.

A villain in any good fiction has reasons for doing stuff either more complex or more morally justifiable than"lol I'm evil". See: Ozymandias, the Joker, the Templars in the assassin's creed series, etc.

Heck, even your character is, by definition, a villain. He's a ruthless tyrant who upholds one of the worst, most oppressive systems of government ever devised and doesn't even think of alternatives. So really, everything in BM is grey vs black at best.

[Anaris]

Emphasis: most people. Some characters are neutral on the good-evil scale. Just overly militant.

Well, sure. Like I said, I've enjoyed playing characters on the darker side, too (and Alanna was one of them, for a time; by now, I like to think of her as being merely ruthlessly pragmatic). It's not that this is the universal view—just the most common one I've come across.

[Lanyon]

You're trying to argue semantics here, when the point is the feel of the thing.

If you don't like the word "villain", then you can substitute it with "bad guy", or, in many BM cases, just "aggressor".

The point is that most people want to believe that their characters do everything for reasons that are just, and upright, not purely for the sake of gain or other selfish reasons.

That's what I was trying to argue in the first place lol. Guess I should present myself in a clearer fashion.

@ slapsticks you realize I am a knight right? how can I be a tyrant when I don't even control a region.

[Norrel]

@ slapsticks you realize I am a knight right? how can I be a tyrant when I don't even control a region.

So you're the guy running around having your goons shake down starving peasants for a few coppers while you party and play your war games. Yeah, a medieval knight was surely a force of benevolence.

[Woelfy]

Well, sure. Like I said, I've enjoyed playing characters on the darker side, too (and Alanna was one of them, for a time; by now, I like to think of her as being merely ruthlessly pragmatic). It's not that this is the universal view—just the most common one I've come across.

Ruthlessly pragmatic, you should trademark that term. Before Sevastian steals it.