What is YOUR idea of true villainy?

To be honest my idea of villainy is a floating concept. And entirely just depends on the character I am plyaing for what kind of measures or mindset or how I respond the contacts plays out.

If Im on my MM her story is she's a hell goddess daughter of Ares and a vicious underworld demon queen. So she's got power lots of it, she knows she's got power and she is just here on Earth purely for her own entertainment and amusement. The mortals are like attractions to her and it amuses her to cooperate with them purely for her own end amusement, but she really doesn't care what happens to these mortals, if they die, well, too bad. What makes her villainous is that she's using her powers for her own good, she's here for her own kicks and nothing else. She doesn't mind working with other villains to acheive their aims either as long as she gets to destroy and maim she's happy. Really her only goal is just to enjoy herself, and causing destruction and ruining peoples lives to her are how she does that, because with her background, she's all about the eternal torment. She simply wants to take pride in her 'work'.

If I am on my Tanker, then that's different. He's a clone of my hero Tanker an ex Warden, the clone, is an ex Crusader who was created because the resistance missed the help of the original, but, they also decided the original was too soft, and tweaked the clone. So the clone of the hero Tanker is more brutal, more aggressive and ready to kill if need be. He wasn't a Crusader for the sheer hell of it, he really did want to oust Cole from Praetoria and of course given his "tweaks" to his mind, and the fact he's rather disfigured and ugly compared to the original, these are all things that haunt him and drive him. He hates do-gooders and despises the influence of hereos as he sees them as weak and unable to do whats necessary for the greater good. If he is sent for example to make a wireless transaction and leave Protean crippled fiscally, he won't rob the bank after the transaction as he doesn't care about money and wealth these are pointless to him. But he will crush anybody he sees as a bleeding heart do gooder and he HATES Marcus Cole, in ANY reality which is why he will work with Arachnos.

My Stalker is different again. He's a mutant, and a proficient killer, he is a professional and he doesn't really have objections to who he kills really, its never personal, its just business. Heroes don't seem to like that, so they try to arrest him and stop him. So really as being stopped and locked up isn't an option, then they have to be destroyed too. Its all cold, its all about the money and the reputation. He works with anybody as long as they remember to bring their chequebook, and speak with the proper respect.

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So in game, it depends on my character for the reasoning, behind any mission I do.

Lets say its to kidnap and ransom a wealthy business man that's what you get as a mish.

My MM would do it, purely because it'll be fun to scare the bejesus out of the business man, and even more fun to lay the smack down on some heroes. The entertainment value of that would be epic.

My Tanker would do it just to highlight to everybody how pathetic and useless the heroes are. And would make an example of them. But he wouldn't be interested in ransom money, nor harming the victim.

The Stalker would do it too for the money, and the reputation, but its not his style per se, if he got to assassinate one of them heroes that would help his reputation and would ultimately lead to more work... networking.

Do you want true villainy, or fun villainy?

Fun villainy: threaten global capitals with doom laser.

True villainy: get up, go to work, look the other way, collect paycheck, don't think about it too hard.

Fun villainy is grand and dramatic and ludicrous and doesn't exist.
True villainy is small and mean and dreary and happens every day.

Ok, so it seems I can easily write a story that portrays you as a villain, but I seem hard-pressed to figure out a way to let you BE the villain you want to be and role-play things out in your own manner. So how much freedom do you want me to give you?

Would you prefer a lot of optional objectives that you can complete at your own whim? Or strictly story-driven objectives like currently exist?

Do you want me to tell you what you're seeing and hearing ala tip/morality missions? Or would you rather it be dialog and you pretend to hear and see what you want?