Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?
'Disgusting' villains, true ones, are few and far between. It's becoming increasingly rare to see villains who are malign for malignancy's sake; vile beings who do vile things simply because they delight in doing them.
More often, you'll find that even villains who do atrocious things are (mis)guided by their desire to do something that they see as good. Among these you'll find those villains who are of the "ends justify the means" mentality, knowing they're doing wrong but hoping that the outcome will outweigh they things they'll do to reach it, or those who are so convinced in their ultimate goal that they don't view their actions as evil.
When it comes to creating villains, I always find that the latter are easier to layer; you can give them a rough motivation and start building upon it: "Why are they working towards this goal?" "What were the precipitating factors that lead them to want to do this?" "How far are they willing to go?" "How do they view themselves?" "How do they view those who are trying to oppose them?" And so on. You could say that these types of villains naturally lend themselves to having more depth of character.
Now, that's not to say that a 'disgusting' villain can't have depth, but it's going to look a lot different. Imagine, as a template, a villain that is completely base, someone that joys in doing awful things because he takes a wicked satisfaction from them. That's always going to be that villain's motivation; the question, "Why are they working towards this goal?" is always going to be "Because they enjoy it." And while you can flesh out from there, you can't stray too far from that core concept that they like doing evil things, because if you do you start falling into the other category. The more sympathetic the reason a 'disgusting' villain glories in doing awful things, the less they become 'disgusting.'
That being said I do enjoy playing around with these types of character concepts. While I enjoy writing villains that have some depth beneath the surface, I also like characters who simply are the way they are, just because. As an example, an idea for a villain I had spawned out of an idea for a piece of dialogue: "I don't need a reason. I just need conviction."
You think he looked at all of the competing factions, Nemesis, Arachnos, The Heroes of Paragon, Longbow, The Vangaurd, Malta, The Council, The 5th Column, The Circle of Thorns, The Carnival of Shadows, etc. would all set aside their differences and join forces with the Praetorians and help fight the Hamidon.
I think he looked at that chaotic mess and made the right decision, they can't even seem to sort their own affairs out in the face of enemies like the Rikti & Shivans. Why would they unite to help him?
C'mon, you can give a serious answer can't you?
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Oh, Sam, Sammy, Sam, Sam... I'm going to post a very long reply to this later... Because I am lacking the time to do so right now...
Quickly though...
I believe I understand that you're referring to the overall narrative of telling the tale/adventures of a villain and whether or not I prefer to be shown realistic repercussions of the villainous deeds or, instead, to see an epic looking (or seeming) villain who we all know does terrible things, but they happen more behind closed doors...
Do you want to feel like you've just trekked through utter darkness and seen things you didn't want to... Or would you rather skate along the surface with a sleek looking and powerful villain of cool?
I, personally, lean towards enjoying the disgusting villain experience a little more... However, I absolutely enjoy both.
Just a disclaimer... I actually do not enjoy gore movies or torture movies and things like that. That's different. (I mean, I love some Sam Raimi gore... And I love seeing Jason Vorhees (before the reboot) kill in fascinating ways... but that stuff is hilarious!! Not serious, torturous tragic gore fests!
I think I enjoy the deeper, darker stuff in reading and imagining... but far less so in film. Most likely just through the quality that it is portrayed/performed/delivered.
I did enjoy Titus... I did enjoy Silence Of The Lambs... I did enjoy American Psycho... I didn't enjoy the Friday The Thirteenth Reboot (it seemed a bit more like Saw and the like)... Hmm, can't think of other examples that I didn't like.
However, I also love Darth Vader... Willem DaFoe's Green Goblin...
Okay, running out of time!
My last comment before I run...
IF I had to choose only one way of writing villainous stories for an mmorpg (which, I don't think is necessary, given possible options and various content and all)...
I would likely choose a shadowy glamor and shove the consequences behind the doors and in-between scenes... That way the user/reader/player can fill in the gaps as they please!
One major gaming difference between you and I, Sam, is that I don't look for the game to deliver these stories to me. I prefer to pull them out of my own mind as I run through more generic content.
Neither is greater nor lesser, in my eyes... It's just something I was considering when reading through this thread (and based on past conversations).
This is also why I am completely fine with leaving greater detail behind closed doors.
Still... you can't hide all of it, as a writer, so some of it has to come out!
I think I am going to detail my roster of villains and their stories and my playing of them and see if that helps you, entertains you, frightens you or some such combination of all the above!!
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
More often, you'll find that even villains who do atrocious things are (mis)guided by their desire to do something that they see as good. Among these you'll find those villains who are of the "ends justify the means" mentality, knowing they're doing wrong but hoping that the outcome will outweigh they things they'll do to reach it, or those who are so convinced in their ultimate goal that they don't view their actions as evil.
When it comes to creating villains, I always find that the latter are easier to layer; you can give them a rough motivation and start building upon it: "Why are they working towards this goal?" "What were the precipitating factors that lead them to want to do this?" "How far are they willing to go?" "How do they view themselves?" "How do they view those who are trying to oppose them?" And so on. You could say that these types of villains naturally lend themselves to having more depth of character. |
Regarding the section quoted above, I too tend to start characters in a similar fashion. They get their gimmick that connect the name, costume and powers together. This is often tied to some sense of motivation. If not at the start, by the end of a couple run & gun RP teaming sessions, this basic motivation has emerged.
The difference when I'm on a villain is that I'll tend to grow and groom them into something nastier than merely misunderstood. One example would be a brute I have called Goldrush. After a failed lab experiment, the human he once was got transformed into a heavy solid gold man. Soon after he was picked up and experimented upon by Midas (partially out of jealousy? partially out of curiosity?). The experiments amounted to torture.
This character feels outcast, tormented and traumatized. To top it all off, he has an appetite for solid gold that he is able to liquify with a touch and then absorbs into his being (something like the mercurial boundary the T2000 displayed). Absorbing new gold gives him a high. So there's the gimmick, the look and the basic motivation, part monster, part misunderstood antihero.
His first 20 levels or so, the character that came out was one weighted down with self loathing. RPing through teamed mayhems (or any vault heist) was the highpoint, with getting those few gold bars in the cash vault representing the payoff moment of the character. Eventually though, perhaps out of my own boredom with this schtick, I started seeking more depth with the character. For months I'd been playing him as someone who didn't like feeding his addiction and definitely wasn't proud of the bad things he was doing to feed it. But as he did more bad things, I let him come to enjoy them more and more. Somewhere along the way in one particular RP session, it felt like the character finally blossomed into full blown villain when he espoused the attitude "If I'm going to be treated like an outlaw and be hated by everyone for what I am and what I've already done, I might as well enjoy myself. F*** it."
This doesn't mean he turned into a raving homicidal maniac. But he quit with the self-loathing and dropped any pretense of still regretting what he had become. He went from outlaw to gangsta.
Had he been some other alignment, I might have not made that course correction in his development. But since I wanted him to be bad, when the opportunity (in terms of RP and my own conception of him) appeared, I deliberately steered him in that direction.
That being said I do enjoy playing around with these types of character concepts. While I enjoy writing villains that have some depth beneath the surface, I also like characters who simply are the way they are, just because. As an example, an idea for a villain I had spawned out of an idea for a piece of dialogue: "I don't need a reason. I just need conviction."
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This is something of a clash between reality and pretendy-fun time. In real life, there's very rarely a real, tangible reason why people suffer. To cite house again - that one infamous suicide is deliberately left with no explanation just so as to show house that he cannot figure everything out and needs to let go sometimes. Which is fine in real life - we face situations and we deal with them. But entertainment (and entertainment I pay for in particular) doesn't have to be like this. In fiction, we can know EXACTLY why an evil person is evil, we can know EXACTLY why good people suffer, because whoever wrote that did it for a reason.
I guess where things break down for me and cause me to find another game/movie/book are that if the author doesn't give me a good explanation, then I already have one - "because the script said so." And if that's the only explanation I have, I don't like the story. ESPECIALLY when it's the only explanation I have for why something I really, really don't like happened.
Many moons ago, I asked if games should take us out of our comfort zone, and the response was mixed. I, however, walked away with the conviction that so long as I pay for my entertainment, I don't want it to do that to me. What this means is that if I pay to experience a story and that story attempts to "hurt" me, I always have the option to rebuff that, which is precisely the safety margin that exists with fiction which isn't there in real life. Story too hard? Stop reading! Problem solved. It's not quite as easy to go "You're broke? Stop living! Problem solved!" now is it?
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Again, I'm not dissing that approach to writing. It's all a matter of taste, preference and opinion. But bringing it up makes me realise how vital it is to me that a reason exist for why villains are villains. Note that I don't specifically have to be TOLD what this reason is, as long as I'm reasonably sure it exists, that someone sat down and thought about it.
Cards on the table, I actually had a few characters whose motivations I described as being "unknown" or "unclear," and they were unknown and unclear even to ME... And I wrote them. The reason I did this was I liked a costume, I liked a powerset, I liked a general concept but never quite got around to finalising the concept and writing out a full biography. Most of those characters are either gone, rerolled or re-written these days, and the ones that I still have which are unexplained still exist because I move through my roster very, very slowly and can only really work on about a dozen characters per year with any seriousness.
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Oh, right, topic! Um... How that relates to glamorous villains vs. disgusting villains is actually pretty simple. If a villain is fairly glamorous, I'll be less likely to demand a reason for why he's a villain, since I'm less likely to question the things I actually enjoy. As such, a cool villain can typically get away with being mysterious. On the flip side, a disgusting villain I'll almost always want a reason for, just because I tend to need a VERY strong reason as to why I should be sticking with said story.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Evil - Going the D&D route here; I prefer to be LE although moments of CE may creep up from time to time.
I am not an anarchist by nature but sometimes a little anarchy is needed to readjust the order of things.
I may do atrociously evil things out of provocation; things that would normally escape my day to day routine - even if there is no loftier goal than to knock someone or something down a notch or just to make me 'feel' better. - Lashing out.
Play-wise, I like to keep my evil structured... sticking it to the man and opening the eyes of the world beyond the 'black-and-white' picture... unless its PvP; then it's horror movie evil time.
AE-wise, I like to mix it up; mainly organized evil... because it presents better storytelling opportunities. Although a little 'Smash TV' can be good from time to time.
[and somehow, I doubt that we have gotten either glamorous or disgusting villainy as appropriate terms to describe the bad guys in CoX - some disgusting crimes are things we'll never see villains commit in City of Heroes and even our most notorious baddies redside still hang out in cave, sewers and abandoned warehouses... no statues, no bling, no luxury cars or jets; always under the thumb of a despot that also likes living in a slate prison styled fortress]
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
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I don't understand why one should think that EVERY villain should be "disgusting" or EVERY villain should be "glamorous." Redside is way more fun to play when you've got different types/levels of evil in your stable.
Just to go through a few of my characters:
I have 2 Freakshow-themed villains. My Elec/Shield Brute is very much in the camp of "let the world burn, I just want to have fun." The SS/Invuln Brute is out to prove that he's better than the other Tank Smashers and should have a place at directly at Dreck's side (or possibly in his throne).
My main villain is very much the "glamorous" villain, though. In fact, he's very much a rogue by the game's definition. He isn't in it for the money--he wants the infamy and to be seen as truly strong, and will skirt the line of the law for a chance to make headlines. And the only reason he's evil at all is because he hates my main hero and wants him disgraced and/or dead.
Then I have another villain, who has effectively gone insane from hatred. He hates everything, including himself, and his body won't let him die. He kills indiscriminately because he sees no value in any life, and he's convinced that the only way to end his own pain is to destroy the entire universe.
They're all fun to play at times: the anarchist, the guy who wants to prove his worth, the show-off and the "DEATH DEATH DEATH EVIL EVIL!" guy.
(That's barely scratching the surface... I've also got a terrorist sympathizer, a crippled woman who made a pact with a demon to become mobile again, an immortal six-gun for hire, a bullied nerd out for revenge on the world... and those are just the characters I can think of off the top of my head.)
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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I have a non-answer response to the question: more than glamorous or disgusting, I think villains need to be entertaining. This is also where I break with a number of other posters in terms of the importance of realism in story lines. Super-heroic stories almost never present the realistic consequences of violence, so any hope of presenting realistic violent people is lost. I don't consider this entirely a loss. IMO it is possible to "characterize" without necessarily being "realistic," in the same way it's possible to cartoonize a person rather than produce an exact portrait. Actual evil actions are less important than the idea that the villain is up to no good. This is what allows Universal Studios theme park to build a Dr Doom slingshot ride without having to apologize to victims of actual crimes. The character is a "fun" representation of the concepts of fear and destruction, not a literal example.
Like I wrote in the other thread, to me comic villains (and City of Heroes characters) are child-like. Villains plot to destroy the city/world less because a real person would actually do that (though some would, because notoriety itself is sometimes its own motivation) than it is it provide a vehicle of conflict and entertainment. I guess that puts me on the side of "glamorous," but the term I'd use would be more like "childish flamboyance." Villains perpetrate images of evil rather than actual evil.
Real life villainy is nothing like what is represented in comics or movies; it is both too depraved and too boring. In real life, you are considered a villain if you intentionally murder an innocent person one time. In comics and movies, entire cities can be bloodlessly wiped out by the villains and the story still end happily because a single father rides a cropduster into the responsible spacecraft. Even horror movies, crime dramas, and police serials rarely linger significantly on the victims of murder, unless the victim is special in some way, even when the word Victim appears in the title of the show.
Some should be glamorous. Some should be disgusting. Some should be misguided. Some should be mad. Some should be filthy gorgeous. Some should be doing the wrong things for the right reason. Some should be loyal to Arachnos. Some should be disloyal to Arachnos. Some should be loyal to only themselves, or a small band of others. Some should act on behalf of a higher calling. Some should act on behalf of ascending to that higher calling.
There's no, or shouldn't be, one path of villainy. |
I think Sam is presenting a very narrow false dichotomy here.
I'm stealing this for an aspect in my Spirit of the Century game
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http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes#
More often, you'll find that even villains who do atrocious things are (mis)guided by their desire to do something that they see as good. Among these you'll find those villains who are of the "ends justify the means" mentality, knowing they're doing wrong but hoping that the outcome will outweigh they things they'll do to reach it, or those who are so convinced in their ultimate goal that they don't view their actions as evil.
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Not to mention I find the 'misguided' type of villain a cliche change of heart just waiting to happen. You know it's coming, so why even bother belabouring the point. Building a character with a built in 'escape hatch' just seems kind of lame.
I would go deeper into it, but I'm kind of busy arresting Polar Shift at the moment, and I've never been particularly good at either arguing or debating my point of view.
Edit: I suppose that means I prefer the 'disgusting' villain.
This will be a double-answer. The question, it seems, should be broken into two branches.
"What do you play?"
I tend to gravitate towards the realistic. So, I play the entire spectrum of villains. Some are mindless drones (Arachnos Unit 99BTF), some are in it only for the cash (Geist Dieb), still more are verifiabley' insane (Geiger Killer) and still more are in it for the sport and pomp (Stone Mistress).
My robot is given tasks and does them, mercilessly. So I play him like that. The thief is a former Longbow Spec Op that came into contact with the DESTINY Portal and realized the future is a disaster. She has morals about killing civilians, but not if they directly impede her desires. The deranged scientist is a schizophrenic madman that arbitrarily switches between a pleasant physicist to a genocidal maniac. And the earth Dom? Well, she just really likes messing things up. Sheer anarchy. If I could target allies in missions, she would always kill them.
"What do you like to play?"
Honestly? The robot. He's mindless. There are no thoughts except: "Directive- achieve." The robot isn't evil, terrible, or dreadful. He just is. A force of technology that follows orders. Period.
I like the question, but it feels to me like comparing apples to oranges. Specifically, you're asking about two of three different axes: glamorous vs gritty, altruistic vs selfish, and tries-to-be-harmless vs callously cruel. That I see them as three different axes makes it hard for me to answer your question as asked.
I have tried to play villains on the glamorous side of the glamorous to gritty scale ... and I just can't "wear the clothes." I grew up working class; yeah, I graduated a private college, but on the other hand, as a mentally ill PTSD sufferer, I've also been occasionally homeless. As much as I envy the life of the rich and glamorous, I can't portray it convincingly, and I feel fake and phony trying. (The closest I've ever come was my mafia-lawyer character, and even he came off as more Bronx/Secaucus than Manhattan/Hamptons.) I know my limitations as a roleplayer. So most of my villains, and not a few of my heroes, come across as pretty gritty.
I have tried playing characters on the gratuitously callous and cruel side of the harm axis, and have the same problems: I just can't sustain even the appearance of the necessary anger. It's a limitation as a roleplayer. So, given two ways to pull off a caper, if my character picks the route that hurts the heck out of someone, it's got to be someone that character really personally loathes, not just J. Random Bystander.
On the motivational axis, I can and do play characters almost anywhere along that axis. Probably my single most malevolently dangerous villains are my Arachnos archetype characters, both of whom consider themselves to be world-savers; they're each, in separate ways, patriotic citizens of the Rogue Isles who are willing to do anything, however awful, to anyone, however innocent, if that's what it takes to defend Arachnos political science as an ideology (Operative McCool) or the island's almost completely unregulated, dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all lasseiz fair economic system (Mary Sue Birnbaum). In fact, if there is any across-the-board bias in my characters, hero or villain, it's that I'm most comfortable playing characters who know what they stand for personally, and fight for that, whether it's to keep the corrupt and powerful from using their power to make things worse (Infamous Brad), law and order and honest government (Detective McCool), psychic privacy (Where Amy), the needs of the future survivors of the Arachnos Civil War (Earl and Key Bergey), anti-imperialism (Iblis al-Ifriti), or even just personal honor and self-respect (Kalila al-Ifriti).
Once I know what the character is fighting for, and once I decide who they're willing to hurt to get that, I know how I play them; I mostly dress them and have them talk the way I, as someone whose life experience stretches from severe deprivation up to briefly upper middle class but no higher, knows how to convincingly dress and talk.
Having said that about the glamorous-to-gritty axis, I have to say: City of Villains really sucks at offering you chances to play glamorous characters. Just about the only opportunity to play someone convincingly wealthy, glamorous, and popular as a villain comes in Mr. G's loyalist Power arc in Praetoria. In pretty much the entire rest of the game, if you're a villain, you came out of Darwin's Landing (or, now, Galaxy City) and you never get to live that down.
I really feel like the Crey Corporation side of supervillainy goes under-developed in City of Heroes and City of Villains. If you want to play a character who's more like Lex Luthor than the Joker, if you want to play a character who's more like Dick Jones than Clarence Boddicker, this is not a game that will let you scratch that itch -- not without extensive use of Mission Architect, anyway.
I miss the inherent class bias of 70s and 80s era Marvel, where rich people, politicians, and government officials are usually villains and the heroes mostly grew up in slums or working class neighborhoods. But, then, i would, wouldn't I? But yeah, no, that's not how it works in City of Villains, and there isn't even very much of it in City of Heroes.
I have a non-answer response to the question: more than glamorous or disgusting, I think villains need to be entertaining. This is also where I break with a number of other posters in terms of the importance of realism in story lines. Super-heroic stories almost never present the realistic consequences of violence, so any hope of presenting realistic violent people is lost. I don't consider this entirely a loss. IMO it is possible to "characterize" without necessarily being "realistic," in the same way it's possible to cartoonize a person rather than produce an exact portrait. Actual evil actions are less important than the idea that the villain is up to no good. This is what allows Universal Studios theme park to build a Dr Doom slingshot ride without having to apologize to victims of actual crimes. The character is a "fun" representation of the concepts of fear and destruction, not a literal example.
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But you said it very well, and I agree with you there: To me, it's much more important to convey how much of a threat a villain is without necessarily doing so with the realistic portrayal of tasteless violence.
I find the 'misguided' type of villain a cliche change of heart just waiting to happen. You know it's coming, so why even bother belabouring the point. Building a character with a built in 'escape hatch' just seems kind of lame.
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Something I may not have quoted but which also applies: Responsibility. I have a problem with "crazy" and "deluded" villains because they never take responsibility for their actions, and this is a big problem I have with building decent villains. Now, that's not to say that all villains should realise that they're evil and accept it, but to me, a decent villain should at least know that what he's doing is bad, but have a reason for why bad things need to be done.
Take, for instance, one of my more irrational villains. Keen Tyler believes that all humans need to die to make room for the next step in evolution - thinking, intelligent machines. He realises that killing people in itself is not a good thing, but has weighed his options and is convinced that it is the only way for humanity to evolve, as our physical forms have reached their limit, according to his understanding. He is actually assuming far more responsibility than he deserves, deeming himself the only person intelligent and progressive enough to do what must be done for the future of humanity.
Let's try and use a simpler illustrative example. A villain is about to kill you. If he takes responsibility, he may say something like: "I know you don't want to die, but your death is necessary." If he doesn't take responsibility, however, he may say something like: "You don't want to die? By Jove! What a novel concept!"
Villains who don't comprehend the consequences of their actions are being given a convenient excuse that they don't deserve. Villains who do comprehend the consequences of their actions and choose to do them anyway, though, are rotten bastards that need to be taken down. These are the guys who deserve to be called "villain by choice."
*Slight aside* I have a very hard time making villains who could be redeemed, since if they CAN be, they WILL be, and that will have happened before I even make the villain at all, so said "villain" will just end up being a hero with a past of tragedy and redemption. I very rarely tell character's stories in real time. Their stories are ALWAYS done by the time they set foot in City of Heroes.
I like the question, but it feels to me like comparing apples to oranges. Specifically, you're asking about two of three different axes: glamorous vs gritty, altruistic vs selfish, and tries-to-be-harmless vs callously cruel. That I see them as three different axes makes it hard for me to answer your question as asked.
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I edited the below quotes slightly.
City of Villains really sucks at offering you chances to play glamorous characters. If you're a villain, you came out of Darwin's Landing (or, now, Galaxy City) and you never get to live that down. I really feel like the Crey Corporation side of supervillainy goes under-developed in City of Heroes and City of Villains. If you want to play a character who's more like Lex Luthor than the Joker, if you want to play a character who's more like Dick Jones than Clarence Boddicker, this is not a game that will let you scratch that itch -- not without extensive use of Mission Architect, anyway.
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I think Dean McArthur's arc is the only one in the Rogue Isles with any dignity, though Vincent Ross does come close. Neither of the two is particularly EEEVIL or even all that repulsive, but they are both quite a bit glamorous, because they give our villains reason to have at least a shred of dignity and self-respect. Most of CoV is specifically designed to humiliate and demean our villains, like they are the pathetic, hollow garbage of the planet and we SHOULD feel sick for playing them. How do you play a "glamorous" villain when he has to live in a slum and pancake himself out for lunch money, sucking up to his much more influential contacts?
Crey, honestly, have the right idea. Or had, at least, before they were flanderised into moustache-twirling obvious villains who no longer even seem to hide behind lawyers and the media. As an example for a glamorous villain, Countess Crey probably trumps even the Nemesis. She's rich, she's pretty, she lives a life of luxury and comfort, she has tremendous personal, political and financial power and she's nigh-on untochable. Oh, sure, her company murders people, clones corpses, destroys the environment, controls minds and breaks the law in numerous other ways, but DAMN if Clarissa Von Dorn isn't awesome!
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I miss the inherent class bias of 70s and 80s era Marvel, where rich people, politicians, and government officials are usually villains and the heroes mostly grew up in slums or working class neighborhoods. But, then, i would, wouldn't I? But yeah, no, that's not how it works in City of Villains, and there isn't even very much of it in City of Heroes.
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I actually do remember a time when villains always had it easy - they had the money, power and authority, and were essentially cheating. By contrast, heroes always had it hard - no-one listened to them, they never had enough evidence, they never had enough money or power and they always had to juggle job, rent, bills and crime-fighting. Villainy was the easy way, heroism was hard. In City of Heroes, these seem to have been inverted. Heroes have it easy because non-profit organisation jostle for position to be the ones to help them, while villains are living a hard life because everyone hates them.
This, I think, is a pretty good example of where glamorous villains give way to... Shall we say "unglamorous" ones. Rather than having a secret lair, a super scientist and an army of faceless goons, they have to live in a shed without plumbing and kowtow to slimy, self-absorbed contacts. Even in the absence of actual disgusting violent crime and gore, that's still about as unglamorous as villains get, sleeping with the rats and the stray dogs.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Interesting that you should mention that, as it seems like City of Heroes is the exact opposite of that. The heroes are all provided for, cared for nice guys who live comfortable, easy lives and have wide-ranging support from both government and private businesses.
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I guess by going hero, I'm expected to be pampered and never be tempted to steal that car.
That may explain why I can't really play my hero/rogue - a basically heroic person who isn't above a little monetary self-benefit. to run the rogue missions you need to be limited to only having the option to run your own villain missions - which are pretty negative. And if you go hero, you can't take the rogue missions. The only option for gray morality is to edge towards violent sociopath...I mean vigilante.
I guess by going hero, I'm expected to be pampered and never be tempted to steal that car. |
Villains
Vigilantes
Rogues
Heroes
I'm not sure why this leapfrogging of morality occurs, but I've seen it in Praetoria, as well. Almost all of the Praetorian morality missions actually make staying in your current alignment the less appealing choice, so that either characters end up flip-flopping between factions, or they are forced to make difficult choices.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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It depends on what you want to play.
I know someone who plays a smooth talking villain all the ladies fall for.
That same person also plays a villainous mad scientist who utterly tortures his subjects, a wizard that wants to kill all Mu, and a sympathetic anti-villain who is still a total jackass.
My only villain is actually a Rogue, a Rikti who enjoys messing with people's heads and is generally comic relief.
I think Praetoria has a good model, as it offers multiple paths through the two sides.
This is another point I agree with, and this was also an argument I kind of didn't want to make as it can come across as accusatory. But... Yeah, I agree with it. A misguided villain is just a face turn waiting to happen, because the villain isn't really a villain, but actually a good guy forced to be a villain. Remove the compulsion and he'll return to his natural state of not being evil.
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*Slight aside* I have a very hard time making villains who could be redeemed, since if they CAN be, they WILL be, and that will have happened before I even make the villain at all, so said "villain" will just end up being a hero with a past of tragedy and redemption. I very rarely tell character's stories in real time. Their stories are ALWAYS done by the time they set foot in City of Heroes. |
Vigilantes are portrayed as trigger-happy morons, for the most part.
Eva Destruction AR/Fire/Munitions Blaster
Darkfire Avenger DM/SD/Body Scrapper
Arc ID#161629 Freaks, Geeks, and Men in Black
Arc ID#431270 Until the End of the World
I think D&D alignments don't really match the difference here. Jayne from Firefly is arguably Chaotic Evil, but he's never needlessly cruel and certainly has style.
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If you're referring to the difference between 'glamorous' and 'disgusting' as applies to CoX; then, as already stated, I don't feel those terms are adequate when speaking of CoX, IMO.
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
The new tutorial is way more flexible for Villains than the current one - the intro comic just says that you were in Galaxy City "on business of your own" when the trouble started - so that's like a totally blank slate.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
That's actually a very real problem I've had pretty much since I6, 2005, though it's one I don't really want to spend too much time on since it has the tendency to derail. I'll just say that I agree with your concern - City of Villains really doesn't lend itself to glamour. The whole place is a giant dump, a ghetto for the scum of the planet where you go if you couldn't cut it as a hero. Everyone's a primal thug, everyone's a monster, everyone's just a no-name nobody looking for a big break and never getting it. The whole of City of Villains is a misunderstanding of why people actually LIKE some villains, because it's a giant monument to all the ways in which villains fail in life. And while that may be realistic, it doesn't make me want to play a villain more. In fact, it makes me feel like the developers actually disliked villains and intentionally wanted me to dislike them, too. Like I should feel guilty for playing City of Villains.
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I think Dean McArthur's arc is the only one in the Rogue Isles with any dignity, though Vincent Ross does come close. Neither of the two is particularly EEEVIL or even all that repulsive, but they are both quite a bit glamorous, because they give our villains reason to have at least a shred of dignity and self-respect. Most of CoV is specifically designed to humiliate and demean our villains, like they are the pathetic, hollow garbage of the planet and we SHOULD feel sick for playing them. How do you play a "glamorous" villain when he has to live in a slum and pancake himself out for lunch money, sucking up to his much more influential contacts? |
Leonard did a great job of making the player feel like they were actually progressing towards something tangible (before it all came crashing down into nothing, lol)
Paper missions allow more free range activity (and glamor; to an extent) than arc play.
Interesting that you should mention that, as it seems like City of Heroes is the exact opposite of that. The heroes are all provided for, cared for nice guys who live comfortable, easy lives and have wide-ranging support from both government and private businesses. Villains, by contrast, are homeless reviled scum who are eternally indebted to Arachnos of having broken them out of jail with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, forced to claw their way up by tooth and nail into greatness, and even then the only greatness is serving people in Arachnos that are slightly higher up the chain of command. |
I actually do remember a time when villains always had it easy - they had the money, power and authority, and were essentially cheating. By contrast, heroes always had it hard - no-one listened to them, they never had enough evidence, they never had enough money or power and they always had to juggle job, rent, bills and crime-fighting. Villainy was the easy way, heroism was hard. In City of Heroes, these seem to have been inverted. Heroes have it easy because non-profit organisation jostle for position to be the ones to help them, while villains are living a hard life because everyone hates them. |
Apparently, I play "City of Shakespeare"
*Arc #95278-Gathering the Four Winds -3 step arc; challenging - 5 Ratings/3 Stars (still working out the kinks)
*Arc #177826-Lights, Camera, Scream! - 3 step arc, camp horror; try out in 1st person POV - 35 Ratings/4 Stars
![Big Grin](images/smilies/biggrin.gif)
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork