how dare you play evil!

[random role player]

*please note. The following is meant to be sarcastic*

Attention Role Players who play evil characters:

How dare you! You cannot play evil characters on WIZ! Your powers, abilities and concepts pale in the light of the rest of us who play Good characters. After all, since we are good, we are immune to your evil schemes, plans and powers. And, If we have the right friends, that makes us all the more powerful and resistant to whatever it is you are planning.

So give it up evil-doers. You cannot hope to succeed because we are good and you are bad.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it? That's because it is ridiculous. Sad to say however, that seems to be the mindset in the IC chats as of late. If you play good, or even neutral, your characters will be well received, and the role playing experience will be enjoyable and fun. Woe to those that play evil however. I have seen over the years that the good folk flaunt themselves as the mighty, similar to the sarcastic section above. And to make matters worse, The evil ones cannot retaliate. Why? simple. Because the good characters latch themselves on to Wizos and become immune to anything, as the wizos (at least some of them) are 'superior' to everyone else. This means there can not be any response to the good's taunts, comments, or actions for fear of OOC reprisals.

This means that playing evil no longer becomes fun and entertaining, it becomes instead, aggravating and annoying to play. I watch as mighty evil characters and mighty good characters square off verbally. The tension is obvious, the emotion is obvious. Both equally irrelevant. What fun is a population of good chars? There must be antagonists. Too bad the antagonists are prevented from antagonizing.


This is not an attack on the Role players that frequent the Chats, or an attack on the Wizos that moderate the chats. This is simply an observation from a player. I have no doubt that many will respond and tell me "so What?" or "you are wrong" or something similar, but I at least hope that some read it and think about it.

signed-----a random role player

 

[WizO_Pounamu]

Glad I am to see your comment that this is not an attack on the wizos, yet worried I am that it appears at least to some that we are being used as OOC shields. No player should have to be concerned of OOC repercussions from their IC actions so long as they play their IC actions with respect to the other players and Code of Conduct.

On that note, I should point out that yes, occasionally players report "evil doers" as OOC problems. These are usually to do with harassment not evil, as the player of evil is repetitively trying to attack or force their evil acts upon an unwilling player.

If you do know of a situation where there were repercussions OOC for an IC situation, and it's more than "I don't want to play, go away" type of thing, I'm certain that the ISRP Lead WizO Adele would like to hear of it. Feel free to email her at isrp@wizardsmoderator.com.

The flipside of this is of course, it's nice when "good" players keep a touch of realism in their game and let themselves get attacked, as well as both sides getting hurt. My own characters are open to attacks most of the time except Pounamu herself is protected somewhat due to her pregnancy. This doesn't actually mean that nothing can harm her - it means players have to think of a way around the protection, and I prefer not to get into too many situations where she may outright lose the child. I'd be heavily annoyed if I've spent the past 6 or 7 months playing a pregnant woman for nothing.

- Pounamu

 

[Chelyrra_Eredyn]

Bah! your whining is what I would expect of one who must be some surface dweller, most likely of elven blood.

I do not know what you call "wizos", but one must surely expect the marshals of Juxta to stop our games, no matter how amusing, and force us to the arena if blood is to be shed. And the views of the owner of that tavern on Oerth are well known concerning blood on her tavern's floors or too much annoyance of her other patrons.

But never have I seen one call upon either marshal or tavern staff openly for aid. Perhaps they do so in secret? If so, or if these you call "wizos" speak against us even without such appeal, then it is clear that one must be more careful in the types of amusements or pick a target of more worth than some sniveling coward who cannot defend themselves on their own.

More often it seems the problem is that all who visit these places, whether what most call good or what some call evil, have some strange protection so that blows of fist or blade or magic either do not hit or do no damage regardless of the skill of the attacker. Again, if such is so, and no way through their barriers can be found, one must find others to provide amusement and often such are not far away. A private word can oft tell those who may provide sport from those who are not the sporting kind.

Do you claim that nothing evil is truly done, only words? Yet what good is truly done as well? Both spend more time in talk than deeds, but such is the nature of this place. The greatest deeds for good or ill happen not in a tavern or marketplace, but in the caverns on other worlds or on the battlefields outside. More minor deeds are here: the hidden poison, the child kidnapped, the murder blamed on another, the demon released, the simple clash of blades that follows from a clash of words and wills.

I will not fault you if you think there is too much of good around, but know that not all are such, nor do they find their way too blocked to act out their true natures.

- Chelyrra Eredyn

 

[Andion Isurand]

I notice this problem as well, when watching the forementioned "wizo-huggers".

I listen to registered chat users when they speak of PMs they recieve from wizos concerning problems a character (or player) is having with them. Too often, the person who reports, never tries sending a PM to the other asking them to kindly let down - before hitting the "whine to a wizo" button.

While I can't give every newbie my occasional half-hour introduction to ISRP, I think many players should be made aware that what their characters are, what they do and how they act, may very well be responded to by other characters in a manner appropriate to their respective personalities and natures.

While specific characters can be very personal to the people that play them, it disappoints me how easily some players let their groove skip a beat when things aren't happening just right for them.

I wish people could learn to play things out more often, even when they look grim, instead of pressing it on the nearest wizo when their picture doesn't look rosey enough.

 

[WizO_Pounamu]

Umm... Chelyrra, you do realise this forum is OOC, don't you?

I do think that the source of this (and other) issues is basic communication between players. Because while there are some players that just let any old thing happen to their characters there are many that don't, or that then take it personally.

 

[Tharivious_Meliamne]

:whatsthis A rant? :smirk:

I'm not going to add too much to this, I'll stick to my two cents for once. There are and have been flaws in playing evil on this site. That's an automatic thing when it comes down to it; this site is full of extremes on all sides, and when opposing extremes clash, they cause problems.

There are those who want to avoid confrontations, to play out their storylines revolving around their personalities rather than their surroundings. I've witnessed this many times, and I'm fine with that.

Then there are those who take it the wrong way when their villains get shoved aside or disregarded when they try to attack someone. I've witnessed this many times, and they have a right to be upset.

Long story short, a middle ground is what is needed here, there is absolutely a way to compromise on this, and the key is to find it. Simply put, and this isn't an attack on anybody, just a general fact that I think most will even agree with, there are players that need to come down from their high horses and realize that others have a right to be dealt with as equals. Just because someone's RP style doesn't mesh with yours does not mean that they need to be ignored and shoved away, but that also means that players need to respect others wishes. Easier said than done, I know.

At any rate, evil is just as viable an option as good if it's played well and placed well. Just like you won't get a plant to grow by tossing a seed onto a sheet of metal without soil food and water, you won't get an evil character to be a success without opposing characters to deal with. It's all a matter of setting things up in a way that they can succeed, that's where many things around here fail; a set up goes wrong, it's human, which we all are, and it's a natural thing. Learn from it and take it in mind on the next shot.

As someone who plays the gamut of morals and ethics in his characters (hell, I have lawful good devas and chaotic evil demons among my characters), I know that it's possible to run any character type. It's just a matter of finding people with similar preferences to yours to interact with primarily without disregarding others in the process.

Eh, guess that's three cents.

~ Brandon/Tharivious

 

[Ssussunriyh]

...evil is just as viable an option as good if it's played well and placed well.

This, I think, is the crux of the problem.

In my not-so-humble opinion, some of the most visible evil characters are played badly. We've all seen the newbies and/or younger players loudly proclaim their new character to be His Royal Unholy Badness and then proceed to go on a rampage of mindless destruction, for no other reason than the inadequate justification "I'm evil, so there!" This is flatly annoying and disruptive to others trying to play out their own carefully-planned storylines.

They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. However, it's equally true that if the wheel continues its irritating squeal even after being greased, it gets removed, discarded, and replaced with one that does its thing quietly.

Evil doesn't automatically mean Megalomaniacal Chaotic Stupid. An evil character can like certain people and behave in a friendly and courteous manner towards them. Evil isn't always raging and ravaging, or being malevolent purely for shock value. Sometimes it's quietly plotting and manipulating while masquerading as good. And sometimes evil is just cold, callous, and indifferent, with no agenda whatsoever.

 

[Jardel_Karabella]

Anonymous rants... a new trend in the making?

Anyway, to redundantly resay what others have put forth, the problem with playing "evil" on this site is not that the site is anti-evil, it is the two folk problem of:

(1) Most people (and therefore most characters) object to having evil acts performed up on them... which is part of what makes it evil.

(2) Most "evil" people on the site think being evil means you should add as many evil affiliations to your character as you can fit into your description then act like a parody of Batman villian.

Since both settings are in relatively law abiding areas it is in the best interests of all patrons to at least appear to be law abiding and reasonably benign. That still leaves plenty of room for antagonists and general badness without going into cartoony meladrama.

The key is to remember what the setting is and who else is around. Obviously if you walk into say... a tavern owned by a semi-retired adventurer who is known for being goodly (which is what CRT is) one cannot expect a good reception if they wander is as an evil cambion slaver ranting about how he's going off to burn and pillage. It's only common sense.

Infact, there is really no setting where such people would be welcome that wouldn't be some sort of pretty much "evil only" setting. Such is the price for megamanical villiany.

There are however plenty of avenues of roleplaying for conmen, blackmailers, poisoners, instigators, pickpockets, crooked duelists and even top notch villians who keep their profiles low and their behaviour under control, or even better, learn to work the system to their advantage.

Jardel for example, is a retired asssasin with huge string of murders to his name, rewards posted for him on his homeworld and in some places of Faerun, has commited most crimes they have laws against in one place or another and has an aura evil enough you could mistake him for a fiend in dark room. Yet welcome in the tavern and Juxta because he's never provided them a reason not to (crimes commited elsewhere they can't trace to him arean't their problem).

No crimes he's commited since visiting have both been reported and/or traced back to him. He doesn't rant about his less than legal activities in public and he certainly doesn't go out of his way to anoy do-gooders who might want to run him through. He gets along fine.

Likewise I know of at least one villianious character who's been visiting both for years conning people into selling their souls, instigating battles, doing illicit deals etc. He's had it come back and bite him more than once and there are many folk who don't like him, but he's still a welcome patron of both establishments.

Part of being evil is getting away with it. That means if you're going to be evil you have to have a means of avoiding the penalties that would normally result in your exile/arrest/execution and you have to be willing to deal with the detail that society in general will not take kindly to you doing evil stuff to them and good folks won't take kindly to you doing evil to others (indeed, many neutral and evil folks might not either).

Yes, it's sometimes hard. Yes, sometimes the best laid plans of men and mice go astray and evil gets caught. That's part of the challenge and the fun! Believe me in the long run it's much more satisfying to have an evil character who gets away with it because they're smart/cunning/well prepared than to have one who gets away with it because the setting lets tem.

As for "hitting the whine to a wizo button" or reporting infractions... I personally think there should be more of it and while folks should PM the person first, if they're not comfortable doing so then there's no reason not to just report it straight away. If the person in question isn't doing anything wrong then they shouldn't get punished (and should be able to challenge it if they do).

That way the settings would be more inclined to feel like the settings all the time not just when people know there's a Wizo on duty. Which would be good for those of us who tend to RP in frequently unattended timeslots.

 

[Ssussunriyh]

Hmm... I never realized that Jardel was evil, or a wanted criminal. But then, my character(s) never interacted with him enough to find out. So rest assured that they will remain blissfully ignorant of the fact. Then again, this might have been your intention all along, to remain covert...

See, many of those who play blatantly evil characters are looking for instant gratification. Little do they realize that shock value only goes so far, and the novelty quickly wears off, especially to those who have been around the site for any length of time. We become jaded and hardened to such antics.

 

[Dontella]

Jardel reminds me of someone...

Kyra actually. Now Kyra will never detect as evil, in fact her alignement on paper, tabletop, and in play, has always been a happy path of Chaotic Neutral.

And yet.. her idea of helping the wounded, is killing them to ease pain. The same for her concept of aiding the weak and less fortunate... after all there is no suffering in death.

She thwarts authority when she thinks it wrong and misplaced, especially against what she wishes to do.

ABd as for a sordid past of deeds, let's just say it was best to change her identity when travelling, for some people still have not yet forgiven the deeds of the past.

And yet, Kyra is still by far and wide, a rather infamous elf. She is still played, and still wreaks havoc, and at the same time moves within varying social circles and among odd friends.

SHe's not in your face evil, but she is still wicked enough to throw off a happy vision of the world.

.................................................................

I bring this up, as example. I also bring this up, to contradict the argument posed by this thread.

Have I ever mentioned, I find rants to be entirely ridiculous? It is always one anonymous soul, too brave to post under a name we all know and either love or hate..

It is that one anonymous soul, whining about how other people play their characters.

FreeForm.. and Freedom of Destiny, means each person, chooses for his or her self how to run their characters. Each person, chooses for his or her self how their characters will interact with others, if they will not interact with others, and have their own choices behind those decisions.

Rants, are an attempt to force upon others the singular viewpoint of the one anonymous soul.. and try to make everyone play the same way..

But we do not play the same. And I shall always play my characters, as I see fit.. and as I alone see fit.