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Roleplaying As Catharsis?
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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7852793" data-attributes="member: 177"><p>There is one time when I enjoy portraying such characters - when I am in an NPC role. When I am behind the screen, or playing an NPC in a live-action game, I am playing the role for the purpose of giving the PCs and interesting antagonist.</p><p></p><p>I play NPCs in a future dystopia game, one of which I enjoy that is a form of classic evil. The world is falling apart due to environmental collapse, and he's in charge of a corporation that has the option to do something - his people could probably down behind their previously garnered wealth and survive, allowing billions to die in the resulting wastelands, or he has the power to essentially remove a chunk of the free will of about 2/3rds of humanity, and thereby get them to act in the collective good and fix what's wrong.</p><p></p><p>He's choosing the latter. He really believes that this is the best that can be done for humanity. He thoroughly understands the arguments against his position, but every other plan to deal with the situation stacks up several billion corpses, and when he does the moral calculus, the loss of free will is worth those lives.</p><p></p><p>This makes him an awesome villain, because he can perfectly kind and reasonable to the PCs. He can and will act to reduce the amount of harm to them, just so long as they don't get in his way. He is psychologically complex, and it is hard to fault his general motivations. Which means dealing with him is always a difficult ethical choice for the PCs. Since the players <em>want</em> their chains yanked in these ways, I get a lot of satisfaction out of giving them what they desire.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7852793, member: 177"] There is one time when I enjoy portraying such characters - when I am in an NPC role. When I am behind the screen, or playing an NPC in a live-action game, I am playing the role for the purpose of giving the PCs and interesting antagonist. I play NPCs in a future dystopia game, one of which I enjoy that is a form of classic evil. The world is falling apart due to environmental collapse, and he's in charge of a corporation that has the option to do something - his people could probably down behind their previously garnered wealth and survive, allowing billions to die in the resulting wastelands, or he has the power to essentially remove a chunk of the free will of about 2/3rds of humanity, and thereby get them to act in the collective good and fix what's wrong. He's choosing the latter. He really believes that this is the best that can be done for humanity. He thoroughly understands the arguments against his position, but every other plan to deal with the situation stacks up several billion corpses, and when he does the moral calculus, the loss of free will is worth those lives. This makes him an awesome villain, because he can perfectly kind and reasonable to the PCs. He can and will act to reduce the amount of harm to them, just so long as they don't get in his way. He is psychologically complex, and it is hard to fault his general motivations. Which means dealing with him is always a difficult ethical choice for the PCs. Since the players [I]want[/I] their chains yanked in these ways, I get a lot of satisfaction out of giving them what they desire. [/QUOTE]
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