Should villains be glamorous or disgusting?

I tend to go for "lovable rogue" types for Villains, who will invariably have nice shiny stuff - cars, clothing, gear - because being bad, for them, is all about fun. Where their idea of fun usually stops is mass murder (which also makes cleaning that nice new slinky burgling outfit all kinds of hell) or where doing good becomes more fun/profitable.

So they'll often end up on the side of good, getting more credit than the workaday-Joe Heroes whose actual job it is to save the day, and looking hotter as well.

It's kinda having your cake and eating it, true... well, somebody's cake. It was just lying there looking all sorta delicious. Think they'll mind?

I apologise for the double post, but there's something else I thought of on the way home that I've only touched on but not really said much about, and ironically enough, it's another question: Do you prefer villains you can like or villains you can hate?

It transpires that much of I6's CoV content is written by someone who appears to believe that villains should ultimately be hated and reviled, and so the content that comes with them ends up being depressing, dark and unpleasant. In any good story, the good guys win and the bad guys lose, so villains couldn't and indeed wouldn't be allowed to win over the heroes, in the rare instances when they did, it was always a hollow, Pyrrhic victory. In essence, villains almost always lost, and even when they won, they still lost. Kind of like an inverse Nemesis, come to think of it

Content these days is a little more diverse and, say what you will about its quality or direction, does actually lend itself to villains we can like and be proud of. Villains who can be awesome, or failing that, meaningful threats at the very least. However, looking back even into the most evil of arcs like that of Westin Phipps, a lot of villain content still seems to be written by someone who disliked villains and wanted us to dislike our own creations, as well. I forget who it was that said this recently, but back when CoV went live, there was never the feeling like the writers felt that playing villains was a legitimate choice. On the contrary, it felt writers believed that playing villains was the WRONG choice and were doing everything they could to demonstrate just how wrong it was to be evil.

This sort of brings that original very pertinent question to the forefront: Should we really be allowed to actually and literally LIKE our own villains? What about those of other people or those canon to the game? I know some will say "no," because no-one really sees himself as evil and no-one really wants to root for the bad guy all the time, but when we're having to play these guys and gals for hundreds of hours... Shouldn't we kind of want to like them and enjoy playing them?

When I say "glamorous" or "disgusting," what I'm realising I really mean is "villains I can like" and "villains that disgust me." And, more than just who and what a villain is, how that villain is written really defines that. And you can often tell if a writer really likes or really hates his villain. If the writer likes the villain, typically he'll let his readers enjoy the villain, as well. On the flip side, if the writer hates his villain, then he'll make sure to do everything in his power to make the audience hate that villain's guts and rub all of his horrors, dirt and unpleasantries in our faces. An, honestly, a lot of CoV content is written exactly like that.

I look back across my villains and I realise that, rich or poor, high-brow or low-brow, honourable or vile... I like all of them. I mean, it makes sense in practice - I made these people, OBVIOUSLY I'm going to like them - but it's not quite as obvious when you stop to think about it. Quite a few people make villains that they expressly hate just to serve as an antagonist and intentionally so that they can serve as an object of hatred. It should be obvious that we should like what we make, but not all that rarely, we make things specifically because we hate them.

In simple terms, I know that I'd never make and play a villain if I didn't like said villain AS a villain FOR being a villain, not in spite of it. How about you?

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

Glamorous vs. disgusting?

This seems incredibly binding - variety is so much broader; Vader, Joker, . Or maybe it is an issue of definition of the terms glamorous and disgusting that is the issue. Scanning the discussion, I see that there is some agreement with my reaction.

I would agree with the comment I read that said a villain must be entertaining. And the paths to (and outcomes from) that are many, and varied.

But maybe I'm misunderstanding the thrust of the question...

In terms of CoH, my most "evil" villain has no glamor, and I wouldn't describe as disgusting. He was blended genetic material for the Paragon Protector program, stolen by Arachnos from Crey and then raised within the ranks of Arachnos. He has been, and remains, devotedly loyal to defending the Isles from all "meddling do-gooders". He considers himself a merciless soldier/officer in the service of Recluse. He has developed a strong desire for personal achievement, and certainly that may be at the cost of others but never at risk to Arachnos.

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Originally Posted by rsclark 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.

Evil?

Jayne is probably the definitive Chaotic Neutral.

Probably a double post incoming, for which I apologise, but there's something I want to talk about before I forget what it was:

In this thread, quite a few people have said that they enjoy all kinds of villains, from the cleanest to the most revolting and that it just depends on the concept. Instinctively, I've agreed with these opinions as I want to respect everyone's right to preference. But thinking about this just now, I have to say... No, not ALL kinds of villains work. And I'm not speaking about opinions here, or about likes and dislikes. There's a very real "upper limit" as it were about what the game's rules will actually allow you to make. I may or may not talk about my train of thought behind this, but think back on the things we've actually seen here in City of Heroes.

Once upon a time, a player complained that his character - something along the lines of "Daddy Wifebeater," called this because of the tank top he wore, supposedly - had been made generic. The player's conduct made it apparent that he was using the double meaning as an excuse, and a GM had apparently seen it the same way. Years after this, SkunkWerks had one of his characters called "Die Fuchs" - according to him, German for "The Fox," though I don't speak German to verify - made generic, with a GM explaining to him that it sounded too close to the phrase "Die *****," which will most likely get censored but you know what I mean.

Granted, these are just name disputes, but think about it a bit more broadly. Or better yet, think about it hypothetically - consider you wanted to make a character based around racial hatred or **** or some other kind of universally unacceptable behaviour. Now try and imagine how long this character will last before someone reports it and a GM axes the name, costume and bio without a second thought. I wouldn't want to suggest actually trying that (please don't), but I'd have my money rolling on "not very."

What I'm trying to get at is that even if we want to argue that really, it's all about story and all about what that character calls for, there are still certain boundaries that even the most liberal-minded big business isn't going to cross for the sake of "art," and I say this as a supporter of the arts. If PlayNC and Paragon Studios and Cryptic before them are willing to draw a line in the sand as to just how... "Offensive," let's say, a character can be, then I'd say we could technically draw our own lines, and possibly much lower down.

This is where I cross over into personal opinion, because what level of tolerance each of us has for things that disturb and disgust us is really very individual and, ultimately, a matter of opinion. All I'm really saying is I don't think we should be discussing "villain disgust" on quite as open-ended a scale, because even at the best of times, we're still being constrained by outside forces.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

I should note that a lot of the things I don't quote I actually agree with, but just have not much to add or expand on.

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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction Honestly, I wish Westin Phipps would stop being held up as an example of the ultimate "despicable" villain. When he was a kid he was a wannabe bully who wasn't big enough to take anyone's lunch money so he blackmailed the bigger kids into doing it for him. He's pathetic. If he lost his cushy job he'd be huddling in a corner going "not in the face, not in the face." Peter Themari is a better villain, IMO.

That's the point, though. When people asked - nay, demanded - that City of Villains have a more "villainous" option, Westin Phipps was the response. And I agree with you completely: Westin is pathetic. He is weak, slimy, ugly and his whole life is a hollow lie. He is the epitome of the hateful, failed villain that we're all supposed to be disgusted by... And he's our example of "evil?" And, yeah, he is, since Westing more than any other contact leaves a lasting impression on people.

I mostly bring Phipps up to illustrate that the original City of Villains writers really did see villains as repugnant and made their stories accordingly. I6-I7 City of Villains IS Westin Phipps, because it's just one giant depressing, dirty, repulsive, unpleasant experience as though purposely designed to make people regret ever choosing to play it. It's like the authors wanted to tell is "Evil is bad! Don't be evil! Don't support evil! See how unpleasant it is!" but it ends up sinking the entire gaming experience because to get the point across, they had to make all of CoV unpleasant.

Contrast this to City of Heroes, where even in the lowest of points - the death of Sefu Tendaji, the transformation of Terra, the ruined life of Melvin - the game is still positive and satisfying. Even at its darkest, City of Heroes is still more positive than almost all of City of Villains at its brightest. Save for a small handful of stories, that is: D-Mac/Leonard, Time After Time, Vincent Ross and I'm out of ideas. Pretty much everything else is, if not intentionally designed, then unintentionally made to depress us and make us regret playing though content.

And that's precisely what I DON'T want to get out of playing a villain.

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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction I don't want to give Ghost Widow her body back so we can do our nails and talk about boys, I want to do it to see what she'll do next.

Sorry, I just wanted to quote that because that mental image is at once hilarious and awesome! Thanks

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Originally Posted by Eva Destruction Yeah, those are cool for a bit, but in the long run? Nah. In a simplistic sense, sure, the Rikti as evil alien invaders are fun to beat the tar out of, but their story would get really boring really fast if there wasn't a C'Kelkah among them to show that there's more to the race (and before the RWZ "the Rikti" as a group was the villain) than just "destroy all humans."

Yeah, that's kind of what I was saying in terms of my own preferences. Even so, I'd swap that out for a bit: Truly monstrous, unpleasant villains are often good as antagonists where the audience is not intended to be invested in all characters. I can, for instance, watch a slasher flick and want to see the slasher set on fire, shot, impaled, crushed and run over in the end, before having to be dropped of a cliff anyway and not really be that much appalled at how unpleasant that antagonist is. That's kind of the point.

However, these are NOT something I want to play as, especially for long periods of time. That, really, is the fine line I'm trying to trod: What I'd accept as someone else's antagonist and what I'd actually make as my own player-controlled character.

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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect See, the addition of Going Rogue to the game now allows for the ability to redeem a villain in the course of the game.

And I honestly respect that option. I simply choose to not use it. This is purely me talking here, purely personal opinion, but I keep my writing and my gameplay separate. When I write for my characters, I typically do that once, either before I make said character or soon thereafter, and I tend to stick to what I've written. If this sounds limiting, it's because it is, but we all choose how we play, after all. I paid for GR, and I simply choose to not use all of it. Like Incarnates

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

The great thing about reflexive idealism is that it leaves the majority of your brain delightfully relaxed. And I'm being trolled again...

On topic, I tilt strongly toward the glamorous, or perhaps theatrical, end of villainy. My two most villainous villains are, respectively, a demonic marketing agent whose corporate mission is to make the world so terrible that people will sell their souls for the least bit of relief, and a James-Bond-antagonist mustache twirler who deliberately chose to use his family fortune to make himself the most infamous criminal in history. Both of them would readily describe themselves as evil, and both of them were created deliberately to be fun antagonists - the kind who never stop coming up with devious plans to be foiled. My greedy or merely self-motivated types tend to be Rogues, and my extremists are Vigilantes.