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And this is why I play Villains

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Greyhawk
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And this is why I play Villains

I thought Superman was pretty cool until I got to be about ten years old. Then the whole, "alien here to save us from ourselves" became very annoying.
I switched to Batman and that lasted until I was about twelve, then I realized he was nothing but a bored rich guy who made himself feel important by beating up poor people in a city where poor people had no chance at all of improving their lives through honest means.

I started reading Spiderman when I was about ten, maybe eleven, and stayed with him until I left home at 18. I enjoyed several things. Most important, he was just an average nerd like me who enjoyed science and his enjoyment of science resulted in getting bit by a radioactive spider, thus the new powers. I enjoyed that even as a hero he lost fights as often as he won them, frequently crossed paths with villains who were morally ambivalent (i.e., Green Goblin was his best friend's father, then it was his best friend, both were staunch philanthropists who saw themselves as Robin Hood figures and Spiderman as the bad guy), and never did get the girl.

Green Arrow I read once and never even finished. The Shakespearean drama was too drawn out and elaborate. Boring. Beside, he was just another rich guy beating up on poor people who had no honest way to improve their lives. A really easy way to get me to hate a hero is make him rich, all of the villains poor, and put the whole shebang in a city so corrupt poor people have zero chance of ever being anything other than poor. I really, really hate elitism. Deeply and profoundly. Over the past three hundred years my family has fought, bled, and died in a dozen wars because one bunch of elitists or another decided they knew how the rest of the world should live.

Maybe that's a bit too revealing, but there it is.

Captain America wasn't too bad, but he seemed so pointless. And his neverending love of his own self (a patriot who can't pass a mirror without adjusting his hair? Not what I consider "love of country") became very annoying very quickly. He's not righteous. He's self-righteous, self-centered, and narcissistic. If they weren't on opposite sides of the Atlantic he and Hitler could have easily wound up frat brothers.

I read G.I. Combat for the Haunted Tank. I bought every Haunted Tank issue I could get my hands on. Sgt. Rock, the main comic in G.I. Combat, never once appealed to me. That idiot got more people killed through sheer incompetence than any dozen of the idiot officers he worked for.

I guess, in the long run, there was really only one superhero that appealed to me: Spiderman.

So which heroes do I love to hate? Pretty much all of'em.

And now you know why the Blueside never really caught my interest.

Too many times the only difference between comic heroes and comic book villains is the company they keep.

I'd much rather hang with Harley Quinn and Cat Woman than Batman and Robin. At least they know how to laugh.

And that's why I prefer to play villains.

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I can certainly agree with

I can certainly agree with that. I never really understood the appeal of Superman. Batman was....okay I guess but I found his Rouges Gallery more interesting then him then anything else (And the only Robin I liked was Jason Todd as he provided a legitimate point to Batman in the case of the Joker). I always favored villains, vigilantes (the ones whom kill there opponents), flawed heroes, or anti-heroes.

I think all of my characters will be in the gray. The only one even close to a hero is a necromancer (Gravemire) with a very bad backstory and a few flaws.

Formerly known as Bleddyn

Do you want to be a hero?

My characters

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Somehow, THIS would seem to

Somehow, THIS would seem to be appropriate for this thread.


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I find the appeal in Superman

I find the appeal in Superman, and have done rather recently. I suppose it's kind of the fault of DC, focussing more on a hero's mechanics and powers rather than the character itself, with the basis of a good personality and dynamic but not much build on top of it. There are select stories, of course, and this rule usually applies to a lot of folks from any publishing company.

I suppose Superman's appeal for me can be summarised quite nicely in Superman vs The Elite, as it shows a character with his somewhat aged moral code go up against the definition of heroes and characters most would associate with the heroes of today: morally ambiguous and willing to take things to the next level. Superman's steadfast nature when it comes to even the thought of changing this is something that provides an admirable flaw.

There's also this kind of fridge logic in which one character trait Superman might just have, but never seems to show, would be a sense of crushing lonliness. In this instance, he might just well be ready to become the world's next supervillain, but his act of saving lives, while mainly influenced by his adoptive parents, also comes from a desire to be accepted by his new home. It's kind of why he needs the Justice League, to be surrounded by people of his level so that he doesn't feel as lonely.

There's also this thread which probably does a better job than I do: http://www.comicvine.com/profile/mbecks14/blog/why-superman-is-the-best-superhero/84311/

I started reading Ultimate Spiderman recently, as a form of inspiration for book writing, and out of all the characters, I think Doc Ock is my favourite. Not sure how to explain it, but his inherent insanity seems to be very well written here. Other than that, the web slinger never had that much appeal to me. Sure, he was in a position similar to myself, though I could never wrap my head around science. I was more of a magic guy. That, and I couldn't get passed a lot of marvel stories where, on the surface at least, everyone complains about having super powers. "Woe is me, I can fly." "These powers are a curse." I know there's a much deeper level beyond that, but it's kind of the first thing that comes up for me when I see Marvel, can't quite shake it.

My favourite hero of all time, at least until very recently, was Nightwing. He seemed like the kind of character that grew up with the audience, in a way. There was that deep seeded pain of being an orphan, but the way he does his job, he actively enjoys it all. He treats it as a passion, and despite the many, many traumatic and saddening moments in his life time, he buckles down and keeps going. Then the New 52 happened, and he seems to have become DC's whipping boy. It's kinda sad, really.

As for villains... I have an odd dynamic with them. A good villain played well is great, and I won't dispute that. For me, the problem comes that I'm a bit of a method actor, and I can't seem to play villains without feeling somewhat guilty afterwards. I've been told I play bad guys well, I just don't do it often because of that.

So... yeah. I'll always choose blue side if forced to.

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Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

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Hmmm...I don't know. I would

Hmmm...I don't know. I would think the honest poor people who were trying to make it in a corrupt city without killing people were probably happy to be rescued by the rich guy when they were about to be shot by someone else.

I'm not even a fan of Batman.

Spider-Man I like much more and you may have liked him much more, because he wasn't in a city so corrupt like Batman is.

Though what I would like to see, is something I RP my own hero doing...taking on corrupt officials. Not just criminals who felt they were to poor so had to start killing people for their money, but corrupt DA's and cops who thought the best course of action was go after the person they knew was innocent, but kept going after them because there were no other leads or because it was an easy win.

She'd go after those who'd setup an innocent person for a crime they didn't commit and make sure they paid for it instead a typical wrist slap the government would give them.

Then she'd actually deliver the pain to criminals without killing them. Blown off leg there, removing a ulna and using it as a dagger there...typical violent hero stuff. Of course the level of violence would depend on the level of criminal...but the above went highly for violent criminals who liked to kill innocents or worse.

Batman has a no killing rule, but you'd think he could give the Joker a few permanent injuries to stop his criminal lifestyle.

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Yay, it worked!

Yay, it worked!

My main intent here was to provide a working thread for all those "the hero/villain/artist/writer/game/whatever you love to hate. "Love to hate" in the title screws up the forum software for some reason, probably as a way to filter out advertising for adult sites. But why we love what love and hate what we hate is certainly a valid topic and it's good to have a place to stand tall and be heard.

So everyone who wanted to add to the "love to hate" threads but was blocked by the forum software, ascend your podium and sound off here!

And just for the record, it's true, most comic book heroes never did appeal to me.

The Incredible Hulk, Spiderman, Werewolf by Night, The Haunted Tank, those four account for the vast majority of comics I've read.

Well, I've read The Sandman series, and recently bought an omnibus edition of a comic called, "Saga", but neither of those count as "superhero" comics.

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ArticulateT wrote:
ArticulateT wrote:

I find the appeal in Superman

It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does ... the World Of Cardboard SPEECH is by definition ... EPIC.


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

ArticulateT wrote:
I find the appeal in Superman
It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does ... the World Of Cardboard SPEECH is by definition ... EPIC.

That is a good speech, I kinda like this one too:



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I hate it when people accuse

I hate it when people accuse Captain America of being "self Righteous".
I hear it all of the time and I've never heard any evidence to back up the accusation.

I don't resent Batman for being rich because he puts his money to work helping people
and the claim that the poor people of Gotham have no honest way to improve their lives is just a lie.

Villains are just criminals, and whatever problems they might have they don't have any excuses.

And Seriously? You said I was a villain because I wouldn't support a bunch of rebels who were fighting against a government that in many ways was better than mine? (I wouldn't fight against mine NOW so why would I support them?)

Dude I think your compass is broken.

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And I consider the compass

And I consider the compass thing to be a personal attack on greyhawk.

Check the forum policies that you agreed to abide by. That's a no-no.

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Well it wasn't it was a joke

Well it wasn't it was a joke and I think Greyhawk is a big boy.
Plus I'm not sure just how serious to take his comments that I was replying to,
but I suspect that not very seriously at all is going in the right direction.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

ArticulateT wrote:
I find the appeal in Superman
It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does ... the World Of Cardboard SPEECH is by definition ... EPIC.

He doesn't even blink about the ONE BILLION DOLLARS of property damage that fight caused

"Oh, yeah. Bruce will pick up the tab for that"

Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high

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CoV had one, and only one,

CoV had one, and only one, advantage over CoH: Occasionally better quest givers and more interesting story lines. Taking missions from a car (Golden Roller), a television (Obvious), and a Slot Machine! Beautiful. But most of CoV was simply you working as Arachnos' super powered vigilante squad.

Unless you went super deep into your subconscious for roll playing purposes, it was mostly just CoH with slums everywhere and gray skies

Honestly, I couldn't stand Grandville. Didn't care about beating Lord Recluse up. I'd go back and alt to a new toon concept

Lay your hands on me
While I'm bleeding dry
Break on through blue skies
And take it high

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HornetsNest wrote:
HornetsNest wrote:

He doesn't even blink about the ONE BILLION DOLLARS of property damage that fight caused
"Oh, yeah. Bruce will pick up the tab for that"

He got scared he would loose (Kyptonian Soldiers be Scary), so things like that take a Back Seat! ;D

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HornetsNest wrote:
HornetsNest wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
ArticulateT wrote:
I find the appeal in Superman

It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does ... the World Of Cardboard SPEECH is by definition ... EPIC.

He doesn't even blink about the ONE BILLION DOLLARS of property damage that fight caused
"Oh, yeah. Bruce will pick up the tab for that"

No reason to blink. Besides the idea of Bruce picking up the tab, it goes back to the same crap they did in Avengers.

"The heroes destroyed the city!"

"Would you have rather been enslaved or killed by the alien invansion?"

"This wasn't our war!"

"They didn't want the war. They just tried to stop AN ALIEN INVANSION!"

If Superman didn't put a stop to Darkseid, there wouldn't have been anything left to repair :p

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I fully realize that the

I fully realize that the Avengers movie left an even bigger mess, including thousands of alien bodies of varying sizes to cart off before they make NYC completely unlivable

But there wasn't a film clip of that for me to make a wise-crack about...

Humor got lost somewhere in the process of communication

Lay your hands on me
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Hmm...where to start?

Hmm...where to start?

Fascism.

There is a technical definition, an academic definition, an economic definition, and a popular definition. I don't really like any of them. The core of fascism is the same as the core of communism: if we could just create the right society then we could perfect the human animal.

Well, the problem with that idea is that in order to perfect society, and through that perfection perfect humanity, something must be done about all of the imperfect humans currently running around. The historically validated but ethically denied solution that is consistently applied to solve this dichotomy is genocide. As soon as someone takes over who believes they have the knowledge and vision to perfect society their first chore is always the permanent elimination of the opposition.

Genocide is always the direct result of one group of elitists attempting to remove the "cancer" that prevents them from bringing in their utopia. Always. I personally have not found even a single exception to this fundamental law of human behavior.

Captain America, like most of us, is absolutely convinced of the righteousness of whatever battle the current comic finds him involved in. The writers go to great lengths to confirm the righteousness of his crusades. That is what makes him self-righteous. He never questions his own moral code and he seeks through force to impose that moral code on the villains. The writers make this easy for him by only presenting him with villains who seek the destruction of the social authority that gives Captain America his life purpose.

Now. I am not saying I hate America. Nor am I saying America is inherently fascist. Nonetheless, I cannot honestly say that every war we have fought has been righteous and every enemy we have pursued has been evil. This is neither the time nor place to have that particular debate. The challenge presented by The Mighty Paladin is to demonstrate that my moral compass points north.

Sorry. My moral compass broke a long time ago so I threw it out. Absolutes of any kind make me nervous. There is no absolute good, nor is there an absolute evil. None that I can see anyway. Absolutes, intentionally or not, lead down one road and at the end of that road is yet another genocide.

And that concludes my "World of Cardboard Speech" for today.

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The Absolute that Captain

The Absolute that Captain America fights for is Human Freedom.
and THAT invalidates what you said.
While I don't personally accept Freedom as an absolute, I do consider it it a great value
It's true that to create the kind of society we want, we do have to find a way to deal with those who don't or wont fit in.
Even the freest societies have prisons
you're claim that this always leads to genocide is wrong
but it is a possibility and we do have to guard against that threat
you know what they say about the cost of freedom

also believing in an absolute good doesn't make us self righteous
I believe in an absolute good
but the good I believe in doesn't come from me but from God and the Church
And sometimes that good requires me to set aside the things I want
because I'm not the absolute good.
I think Captain America is like that too.
He sacrifices for the good he believes in.

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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

Absolutes, intentionally or not, lead down one road and at the end of that road is yet another genocide.

It is interesting how there are always cries to end a Tyranny Of Evil ... and how those same voices tend to fall silent against a Tyranny Of Good.

The problem is that Tyranny is Tyranny ... whether it is brought by Stephan Richter/Lord Recluse or by Marcus Cole/Tyrant. After all, the path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions ...


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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

And this is why I play Villains

I thought Superman was pretty cool until I got to be about ten years old. Then the whole, "alien here to save us from ourselves" became very annoying.

Why does that seem annoying? I explained in another thread why I like Superman and how the character is, to me, an everyman rather than an ubermensch. He is a tirelessly optimistic character, IMO.

Greyhawk wrote:

I switched to Batman and that lasted until I was about twelve, then I realized he was nothing but a bored rich guy who made himself feel important by beating up poor people in a city where poor people had no chance at all of improving their lives through honest means

I recommend you try again, post-puberty. Through teenage angst, ALL superheroes can seem like that. ;) I didn't use to like Superman very much until I was in my 20s and started really thinking the character through. I got to superheroes kind of late, when I was a kid I read 2000AD, Hellblazer, Preacher and Sandman, mostly. Seems like the reverse of most people's comic experience.
I admit that Batman does seem like a self-centred character at times, given that his war on crime is more like a masochistic self-indulgence compared to what he could with his money to help more people a lot better for a lot longer. His crusade seems petty in comparison.
It's odd to me that you look at it in such class-conscious terms, though. I see nothing to indicate Gotham is full of widespread poverty, or that Batman's enemies represent the working class. His rogues gallery are all intelligent enough to have legitimate incomes without needing to rob banks, and you're not playing Devil's advocate for organized crime due to financial hardship, surely? I don't care how bleak some hoodlums' career options are, if they burglarize strangers or rob old ladies they can rot in jail.

Greyhawk wrote:

I started reading Spiderman when I was about ten, maybe eleven, and stayed with him until I left home at 18. I enjoyed several things. Most important, he was just an average nerd like me who enjoyed science and his enjoyment of science resulted in getting bit by a radioactive spider, thus the new powers. I enjoyed that even as a hero he lost fights as often as he won them, frequently crossed paths with villains who were morally ambivalent (i.e., Green Goblin was his best friend's father, then it was his best friend, both were staunch philanthropists who saw themselves as Robin Hood figures and Spiderman as the bad guy), and never did get the girl.

I guess I should like Spider-Man more than I do, but he's never really done it for me. He's just not interesting enough as a character, and his humour is often more annoying than funny. I'm more into DC, anyway.

Greyhawk wrote:

Green Arrow I read once and never even finished. The Shakespearean drama was too drawn out and elaborate. Boring. Beside, he was just another rich guy beating up on poor people who had no honest way to improve their lives. A really easy way to get me to hate a hero is make him rich, all of the villains poor, and put the whole shebang in a city so corrupt poor people have zero chance of ever being anything other than poor.

Again, why do you say that? Most criminals come from poor background, it's true, so why should superhero comics not reflect reality in that sense?
I haven't read much Green Arrow, though.

Greyhawk wrote:

I really, really hate elitism. Deeply and profoundly. Over the past three hundred years my family has fought, bled, and died in a dozen wars because one bunch of elitists or another decided they knew how the rest of the world should live.

Maybe that's a bit too revealing, but there it is.

From what you say, US Congress and the POTUS could be classed amongst those "elitists". It sounds like you don't like authority much in general. Does this conflict with your apparent regard for patriotism as a virtue?

Greyhawk wrote:

Captain America wasn't too bad, but he seemed so pointless. And his neverending love of his own self (a patriot who can't pass a mirror without adjusting his hair? Not what I consider "love of country")

Lol, you can't love your hair and your country at the same time. Why not? You don't believe in vain or self-obsessed patriots? Many of the self-proclaimed patriots of my experience are extremely conscious and particular about their personal image and what it says about them, they have a very specific idea of how they wish to present themselves. Then there is the fact that, if you consider your nationality a part of your personal identity, which most patriots obviously do, then being in love with your nationality becomes one of the most ego-centric character traits in human behaviour.
I don't have a problem with patriotism as a concept, but I find it superficial, and I detest nationalism. I like British culture and do get annoyed when people bash the English over some historical event they know nothing about, but I know the landmass I was born on did not form my personality in any way that could not have happened if I'd been born elsewhere, and while I come from England and not America, no-one can say I'm not capable of understanding American culture or history as well as they can, and vice versa. Same for any other country. If you had to be born into something in order to truly appreciate it, then no-one would be able to understand the past, would they?

Greyhawk wrote:

became very annoying very quickly. He's not righteous. He's self-righteous, self-centered, and narcissistic. If they weren't on opposite sides of the Atlantic he and Hitler could have easily wound up frat brothers.

Ouch. I also thought you said he was a patriot and an everyman in another thread?

Greyhawk wrote:

I read G.I. Combat for the Haunted Tank. I bought every Haunted Tank issue I could get my hands on. Sgt. Rock, the main comic in G.I. Combat, never once appealed to me. That idiot got more people killed through sheer incompetence than any dozen of the idiot officers he worked for.

I guess, in the long run, there was really only one superhero that appealed to me: Spiderman.

You also mention you've read a lot of The Incredible Hulk. What do you like about him? And do you have any recommendations for good story arcs of his?

Greyhawk wrote:

So which heroes do I love to hate? Pretty much all of'em.

Have you ever read The Boys by Garth Ennis? The humour is pretty vulgar, even by his standards, and if that doesn't offend you then you might like it.

Greyhawk wrote:

And now you know why the Blueside never really caught my interest.

Too many times the only difference between comic heroes and comic book villains is the company they keep.

I'd much rather hang with Harley Quinn and Cat Woman than Batman and Robin. At least they know how to laugh.

And that's why I prefer to play villains.

Who is your favourite villain?
I mostly played redside simply because being evil is so fun. I also found the villain characters more interesting than the good guys in CoH.

"TRUST ME."

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Personally, I've never been

Personally, I've never been able to understand the egotism without empathy inherent in the villainous mindset. I can sometimes respect the 'honorable enemy' and see them as a 'hero from a different perspective', but I have no sense of how the true villain can operate. It was one of my failings as a Game Master in RPGs, that I could craft a difficult situation, but not a believable 'evil' enemy. I suppose that's a flaw in my own sense of empathy.

So, I don't have a favorite villain. All of my red-side characters were trying to escape from that horrid desolation filled with manipulative, rude assholes and get back to blue-side.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Personally, I've never been able to understand the egotism without empathy inherent in the villainous mindset. I can sometimes respect the 'honorable enemy' and see them as a 'hero from a different perspective', but I have no sense of how the true villain can operate. It was one of my failings as a Game Master in RPGs, that I could craft a difficult situation, but not a believable 'evil' enemy. I suppose that's a flaw in my own sense of empathy.
So, I don't have a favorite villain. All of my red-side characters were trying to escape from that horrid desolation filled with manipulative, rude assholes and get back to blue-side.
Be Well!
Fireheart

It's true that many villains can be one-dimensionally categorized as being "egotistical without empathy" for anyone else. But I think that only represents one kind of villain on a spectrum of motivations that drive their actions.

Turns out most villains actually display a certain amount of empathy, even if it's only reserved for certain individuals and/or otherwise deranged. Many villains are motivated by revenge, which means they are at least empathetic towards the victims of the event they are seeking revenge for. Some villains could be considered "freedom fighters" who may blindly hate one group in favor of being hyper devoted/dedicated towards another group. Still other villains simply have the twisted idea that if they ruled the world they could "save" everyone from a supposed greater evil so in a sense they technically have empathy towards all those they think they're trying to save.

Perhaps the best way to tell the difference between a hero and a villain is that heroes usually possess unreserved empathy for everyone whereas the villain usually only has empathy for certain groups or individuals. The next time you create a villain try to come up with one that focuses on a "conditional/limited" sense of empathy - perhaps that will help you visualize their motivations.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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I agree with Lothic, that's

I agree with Lothic, that's probably the best thing you can go for in that scenario.

An alternative is to take an abstract concept or ideal and exaggerate it, possibly to the Nth degree. I've had villains based on religious traditionalism, the concept of free will (and the flaws inherent in it), madness, freedom, etc. When crafting main villains for my tabletop games, I usually start with the character and their end goal, and keep asking myself 'Why' or 'How' until I have a satisfactory amount of detail.

I do a DnD Podcast, which can be listened to here.

Additionally, I write up my sessions of a Teen Heroes game here.

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

All of my red-side characters were trying to escape from that horrid desolation filled with manipulative, rude assholes and get back to blue-side.

all my redside folks were either trying to 'escape' or they were there working "undercover". heh

I am inherently a good guy and while I can understand the basis behind villians and what is motivating them...I personally can't get into that mindset. kudo's to folks who can, but being a villain...just aint my style. closest I would get is an anti-hero/vigilante...which, one could consider a villain depending on what he does and how he does things to achieve his goals.

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I had a few red-side

I had a few red-side characters, but mostly had blue-side or converted over some of my red to blue. I just can't get into being a villain. It's not that I don't understand it or sympathize with some of them, it's just I'm a hero at heart. I may not be an ultimate good hero, sometimes I might be a vigilante or anti-hero, but still a hero at heart.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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I lost respect for redside,

I lost respect for redside, when redsiders thought a puppy kicking, kitten killing, bunny boiling, 4ft 10in ankle kick then run away demon was just too evil for the groups of psychopathic mercs/rapists/assassins/sex traders/drug dealers. :p

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

I lost respect for redside, when redsiders thought a puppy kicking, kitten killing, bunny boiling, 4ft 10in ankle kick then run away demon was just too evil for the groups of psychopathic mercs/rapists/assassins/sex traders/drug dealers. :p

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like a perfect Rogue Isles villain to me!

Redlynne wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
Absolutes, intentionally or not, lead down one road and at the end of that road is yet another genocide.
It is interesting how there are always cries to end a Tyranny Of Evil ... and how those same voices tend to fall silent against a Tyranny Of Good.
The problem is that Tyranny is Tyranny ... whether it is brought by Stephan Richter/Lord Recluse or by Marcus Cole/Tyrant. After all, the path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions ...

So very true.

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

Been offline for a couple days. Work. More work the next few days, so I thought I'd drop in real quick and see what's new.

Nothing official, but oh, wow have the forums been busy!

A word or two on villains.

In order to understand the villainous mindset the first step is to understand that in real life most criminals either have no empathy, do not understand the consequences of their actions, are delusional, or suffer some combination of the three. The reason some crimes go unsolved is mostly due to dumb luck that removes or damages evidence, poor training of the investigators involved, or a combination of the two. If weather, passersby, or incompetent investigators don't destroy the evidence, and a reasonably well-trained investigator is on the case, then putting criminals behind bars is just a matter of time. Despite the hype of news programs, reality programs, and crime dramas, identifying who is responsible for a crime and bringing them to justice is generally not particularly difficult in today's world. Most of the time if someone is arrested and then released without being prosecuted it's because they turned in a criminal of greater value then they are. Criminals ratting out other criminals is a pretty common occurrence.

Creating a fictional villain is much more difficult. The first step is to understand your own darkside. Everybody has one. Everyone has a price, a breaking point, a limit to their ability to be moral, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, some of us have very low limits and fall into destructive patterns very easily. Others are harder to push into extreme action. If you know where your limits are then you gain two strengths: the ability to recognize when you are approaching that limit so you can change course and a greater ability to understand the villainous mind.

Fictional villains are mostly shallow. They are just "evil" because the story needs someone evil to make the protagonist more heroic. I don't like those kind of stories regardless of the medium used to tell them. Penguin is a very well done comic book villain. He has clear limits to his ability to succeed in normal society, limits that society itself has imposed on him. He suffers from abandonment and rejection, giving him a believable martyrdom complex. He is intelligent enough to command the respect of thugs, but not intelligent enough to overcome the resources and resourcefulness of Batman. The Riddler is almost as well done. Harley Quinn does not get enough story time in my opinion. I'm not sure if she is brilliant and manipulative or just plain old passive aggressive. Poison Ivy, betrayed by those she trusted and forced to survive horrific experimental treatments, chose to make herself a self-appointed guardian of those who could not defend themselves. This makes her a very well-rounded character on a mission that naturally pits her in opposition to Batman.

I'm not an admirer of Joker. Especially not the movie version. Ordinary psychotic just does not appeal to me in a fictional villain. It's too shallow. I don't know what Harley sees in him.

In CoV I primarily had two kinds of villains: the delusional and the misplaced. My villains either could not distinguish between reality and imagination or they landed in Paragon/Rogue Isles by accident either through banishment from an alternate reality or being pulled into the game's reality as a result of portal experiments that went horribly wrong. Divine Retribution, my second level 50 villain, a Fire/Fire Dominator, tried to become a hero when her magic manifested but killed several people instead of arresting them, which earned her a trip to the Zigg where she joined in on the prison break uninvited, which landed her in the Rogue Isles.

The key for me, is for a character to clearly possess a full personality, but their downside cannot be simple narcissism. Simple narcissism is too unreliable and untrustworthy, in both heroes and villains.

Blueside in CoH was too shallow and limited. The way I read them most of the stories were too pompous. We're the good guys, therefore anyone not part of us is a bad guy. The villain groups were mostly thugs seeking power or the already powerful seeking immortality. Again, much too shallow for my taste. Many of the Redside stories were similar, but it never failed that just as I started to grow tired of the ordinary I'd stumble across a cursed love story, a failed hero wannabe, a corrupt charity, or a brilliant megalomaniac who could not see the damage they were doing.

The Rikti were just the Rikti. The Hero One story I never saw completed so I can't really say if that helped or hurt. The two factions within the Rikti was a nice touch, it gave them a fuller life than the vast majority of stock enemy groups. The differences between the emissaries on the Redside and Blueside perked my interest greatly but never really got developed as far as I would have liked.

Oh, my. I'm rambling. It's way past time to end this. ;-)

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Heh ... and then there was ..

Heh ... and then there was ... Leggs ... my Hunts(wo)man.

Leggs was originally conceived to be a "joke" character so I'd have a Villain I could play on redside. Her bio was essentially something of an inside joke to read. She was an underwear fashion model of the Victoria's Secret variety who got kidnapped and "reprogrammed" by a lab assistant of Dr. Aeon who overheard a bit of drunken conversation between his employer and Lord Recluse during a "social" evening and thought it would be a great idea for creating the ultimate Soldier of Arachnos. So the lab assistant did a bit of freelancing, procured Leggs, got the statuesque "leggy" former fashion model through the Soldier program (without killing her) and presented their results to Dr. Aeon expecting to be rewarded. Unfortunately, Dr. Aeon wasn't drunk when the lab assistant delivered the results of their sideline experiments ... and consequently got made An Example Of so that no other lab assistants would ever feel like they could do freelance "work" on Dr. Aeon's INF without clearing it with him first. Needless to say, that lab assistant was never seen again and is presumed to either be dead or "participating" in experimental research somewhere (including, possibly multiple organ research projects).

This still left the "problem" of what to do with Leggs herself, who was now a fully indoctrinated Soldier of Arachnos. The problem essentially "solved itself" when a Hero Raid captured her and sent her to the Zig ... which she subsequently broke out of and returned to the Rogue Isles. Leggs never wound up "breaking" her reprogramming and steadfastly remained a Villain, but she also never received an assignment to join the other Soldiers of Arachnos and thus operated as a freelance Villain instead, building up her reputation and infamy the hard way ... from scratch. Although she eventually chose to become a Crab Soldier, giving her a backpack of an additional four legs!(!) forever, her preferred weapon wasn't the energy blasting legs on her back (although she could use them via an alternate build) but rather the Arachnos Rifle she'd received upon her return to the Rogue Isles due to a bureaucratic snafu. One of her secret pleasures was being able to stand ankle deep in spent brass shell casings amid the aroma of burned gunpowder.

I even had a macro for her so she could say in chat (baseball game stands vendor style):

"Hot lead! Get your hot lead! All you can eat! Get it while supplies last!"

Naturally her avatar design required legs "a mile long" as well as micro skirts and high heels, so as to show off the fashion model legs she'd been famous for before she became Leggs. Her color scheme was darkest purple (primary) and hot pink (accents), which actually worked a lot better than it sounds in text, and I won a few costume contests with her, even though above the hemline and below the neck she bared hardly any skin. She was a statuesque 6 ft tall, even before adding in the legs on the Crab Backpack which gave her an overall height of almost 9 ft tall ... and most of it was legs ... lots and lots of leggy Leggs. ^_^

Even though her bio was essentially a joke, I always played Leggs "straight" as a Villain, who was gung ho and trigger happy (which earned me a LOT of plaudits from the teams I played on!) but didn't go in for either the mustache twirling or femme fatale cliches of villainy. Instead, she was more a victim of circumstances beyond her control and was simply making the best of the lot that had befallen her. Life handed her lemons, so she knocked over a lemonade stand and took their lunch money. It was a lot of fun to play Leggs in the Rogue Isles. *^_^*


Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.
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Greyhawk wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:

Brand X wrote:
I lost respect for redside, when redsiders thought a puppy kicking, kitten killing, bunny boiling, 4ft 10in ankle kick then run away demon was just too evil for the groups of psychopathic mercs/rapists/assassins/sex traders/drug dealers. :p

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like a perfect Rogue Isles villain to me!
Redlynne wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:
Absolutes, intentionally or not, lead down one road and at the end of that road is yet another genocide.

It is interesting how there are always cries to end a Tyranny Of Evil ... and how those same voices tend to fall silent against a Tyranny Of Good.
The problem is that Tyranny is Tyranny ... whether it is brought by Stephan Richter/Lord Recluse or by Marcus Cole/Tyrant. After all, the path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions ...

So very true.
-----------------------
Been offline for a couple days. Work. More work the next few days, so I thought I'd drop in real quick and see what's new.
Nothing official, but oh, wow have the forums been busy!
A word or two on villains.
In order to understand the villainous mindset the first step is to understand that in real life most criminals either have no empathy, do not understand the consequences of their actions, are delusional, or suffer some combination of the three. The reason some crimes go unsolved is mostly due to dumb luck that removes or damages evidence, poor training of the investigators involved, or a combination of the two. If weather, passersby, or incompetent investigators don't destroy the evidence, and a reasonably well-trained investigator is on the case, then putting criminals behind bars is just a matter of time. Despite the hype of news programs, reality programs, and crime dramas, identifying who is responsible for a crime and bringing them to justice is generally not particularly difficult in today's world. Most of the time if someone is arrested and then released without being prosecuted it's because they turned in a criminal of greater value then they are. Criminals ratting out other criminals is a pretty common occurrence.
Creating a fictional villain is much more difficult. The first step is to understand your own darkside. Everybody has one. Everyone has a price, a breaking point, a limit to their ability to be moral, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, some of us have very low limits and fall into destructive patterns very easily. Others are harder to push into extreme action. If you know where your limits are then you gain two strengths: the ability to recognize when you are approaching that limit so you can change course and a greater ability to understand the villainous mind.
Fictional villains are mostly shallow. They are just "evil" because the story needs someone evil to make the protagonist more heroic. I don't like those kind of stories regardless of the medium used to tell them. Penguin is a very well done comic book villain. He has clear limits to his ability to succeed in normal society, limits that society itself has imposed on him. He suffers from abandonment and rejection, giving him a believable martyrdom complex. He is intelligent enough to command the respect of thugs, but not intelligent enough to overcome the resources and resourcefulness of Batman. The Riddler is almost as well done. Harley Quinn does not get enough story time in my opinion. I'm not sure if she is brilliant and manipulative or just plain old passive aggressive. Poison Ivy, betrayed by those she trusted and forced to survive horrific experimental treatments, chose to make herself a self-appointed guardian of those who could not defend themselves. This makes her a very well-rounded character on a mission that naturally pits her in opposition to Batman.
I'm not an admirer of Joker. Especially not the movie version. Ordinary psychotic just does not appeal to me in a fictional villain. It's too shallow. I don't know what Harley sees in him.
In CoV I primarily had two kinds of villains: the delusional and the misplaced. My villains either could not distinguish between reality and imagination or they landed in Paragon/Rogue Isles by accident either through banishment from an alternate reality or being pulled into the game's reality as a result of portal experiments that went horribly wrong. Divine Retribution, my second level 50 villain, a Fire/Fire Dominator, tried to become a hero when her magic manifested but killed several people instead of arresting them, which earned her a trip to the Zigg where she joined in on the prison break uninvited, which landed her in the Rogue Isles.
The key for me, is for a character to clearly possess a full personality, but their downside cannot be simple narcissism. Simple narcissism is too unreliable and untrustworthy, in both heroes and villains.
Blueside in CoH was too shallow and limited. The way I read them most of the stories were too pompous. We're the good guys, therefore anyone not part of us is a bad guy. The villain groups were mostly thugs seeking power or the already powerful seeking immortality. Again, much too shallow for my taste. Many of the Redside stories were similar, but it never failed that just as I started to grow tired of the ordinary I'd stumble across a cursed love story, a failed hero wannabe, a corrupt charity, or a brilliant megalomaniac who could not see the damage they were doing.
The Rikti were just the Rikti. The Hero One story I never saw completed so I can't really say if that helped or hurt. The two factions within the Rikti was a nice touch, it gave them a fuller life than the vast majority of stock enemy groups. The differences between the emissaries on the Redside and Blueside perked my interest greatly but never really got developed as far as I would have liked.
Oh, my. I'm rambling. It's way past time to end this. ;-)

Now see, typical hero background is that accidental killing at first, so the idea that they went to the zig for it, when I saw backgrounds like that, always made me eyeroll.

Worse yet is when it was mutant who just happened to have very damaging powers and they just manifested. You can get into the debate of free to live or enslaved to register, but that sort of accident, I just wouldn't see them sending anyone to the zig for an accident.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Greyhawk wrote:
Brand X wrote:
I lost respect for redside, when redsiders thought a puppy kicking, kitten killing, bunny boiling, 4ft 10in ankle kick then run away demon was just too evil for the groups of psychopathic mercs/rapists/assassins/sex traders/drug dealers. :p

I have no idea what that means, but it sounds like a perfect Rogue Isles villain to me!
Redlynne wrote:
Greyhawk wrote:
Absolutes, intentionally or not, lead down one road and at the end of that road is yet another genocide.

It is interesting how there are always cries to end a Tyranny Of Evil ... and how those same voices tend to fall silent against a Tyranny Of Good.
The problem is that Tyranny is Tyranny ... whether it is brought by Stephan Richter/Lord Recluse or by Marcus Cole/Tyrant. After all, the path to Hell is paved with Good Intentions ...

So very true.
-----------------------
Been offline for a couple days. Work. More work the next few days, so I thought I'd drop in real quick and see what's new.
Nothing official, but oh, wow have the forums been busy!
A word or two on villains.
In order to understand the villainous mindset the first step is to understand that in real life most criminals either have no empathy, do not understand the consequences of their actions, are delusional, or suffer some combination of the three. The reason some crimes go unsolved is mostly due to dumb luck that removes or damages evidence, poor training of the investigators involved, or a combination of the two. If weather, passersby, or incompetent investigators don't destroy the evidence, and a reasonably well-trained investigator is on the case, then putting criminals behind bars is just a matter of time. Despite the hype of news programs, reality programs, and crime dramas, identifying who is responsible for a crime and bringing them to justice is generally not particularly difficult in today's world. Most of the time if someone is arrested and then released without being prosecuted it's because they turned in a criminal of greater value then they are. Criminals ratting out other criminals is a pretty common occurrence.
Creating a fictional villain is much more difficult. The first step is to understand your own darkside. Everybody has one. Everyone has a price, a breaking point, a limit to their ability to be moral, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, some of us have very low limits and fall into destructive patterns very easily. Others are harder to push into extreme action. If you know where your limits are then you gain two strengths: the ability to recognize when you are approaching that limit so you can change course and a greater ability to understand the villainous mind.
Fictional villains are mostly shallow. They are just "evil" because the story needs someone evil to make the protagonist more heroic. I don't like those kind of stories regardless of the medium used to tell them. Penguin is a very well done comic book villain. He has clear limits to his ability to succeed in normal society, limits that society itself has imposed on him. He suffers from abandonment and rejection, giving him a believable martyrdom complex. He is intelligent enough to command the respect of thugs, but not intelligent enough to overcome the resources and resourcefulness of Batman. The Riddler is almost as well done. Harley Quinn does not get enough story time in my opinion. I'm not sure if she is brilliant and manipulative or just plain old passive aggressive. Poison Ivy, betrayed by those she trusted and forced to survive horrific experimental treatments, chose to make herself a self-appointed guardian of those who could not defend themselves. This makes her a very well-rounded character on a mission that naturally pits her in opposition to Batman.
I'm not an admirer of Joker. Especially not the movie version. Ordinary psychotic just does not appeal to me in a fictional villain. It's too shallow. I don't know what Harley sees in him.
In CoV I primarily had two kinds of villains: the delusional and the misplaced. My villains either could not distinguish between reality and imagination or they landed in Paragon/Rogue Isles by accident either through banishment from an alternate reality or being pulled into the game's reality as a result of portal experiments that went horribly wrong. Divine Retribution, my second level 50 villain, a Fire/Fire Dominator, tried to become a hero when her magic manifested but killed several people instead of arresting them, which earned her a trip to the Zigg where she joined in on the prison break uninvited, which landed her in the Rogue Isles.
The key for me, is for a character to clearly possess a full personality, but their downside cannot be simple narcissism. Simple narcissism is too unreliable and untrustworthy, in both heroes and villains.
Blueside in CoH was too shallow and limited. The way I read them most of the stories were too pompous. We're the good guys, therefore anyone not part of us is a bad guy. The villain groups were mostly thugs seeking power or the already powerful seeking immortality. Again, much too shallow for my taste. Many of the Redside stories were similar, but it never failed that just as I started to grow tired of the ordinary I'd stumble across a cursed love story, a failed hero wannabe, a corrupt charity, or a brilliant megalomaniac who could not see the damage they were doing.
The Rikti were just the Rikti. The Hero One story I never saw completed so I can't really say if that helped or hurt. The two factions within the Rikti was a nice touch, it gave them a fuller life than the vast majority of stock enemy groups. The differences between the emissaries on the Redside and Blueside perked my interest greatly but never really got developed as far as I would have liked.
Oh, my. I'm rambling. It's way past time to end this. ;-)

Now see, typical hero background is that accidental killing at first, so the idea that they went to the zig for it, when I saw backgrounds like that, always made me eyeroll.
Worse yet is when it was mutant who just happened to have very damaging powers and they just manifested. You can get into the debate of free to live or enslaved to register, but that sort of accident, I just wouldn't see them sending anyone to the zig for an accident.

Hmmm....I think I would spin that to be where another supposed ''hero'' (he/she really would be an manipulative gloryhog that likes to take out competition via ruining reputation of other heroes rising in popularity) frames the unfortunate now former hero to get them thrown into prison.

Since I imagine that prisons would likely not be a good place in multiple ways (other inmates beat them down, both corrupt guards and inmates take advantage of there newness to the system in some....unsavory ways) even in superhero verses. I can imagine this former hero getting changed over time into a rather screwed up individual and eventually they would become a flat out villain. So yeah...essentially the prison system would make them into a villain.....

They would probably end up in a superjail like the Zig for trying to escape the previous jail they were in and failing, killing some fellow inmates in a fight or several guards that tried to detain them, cause a prison break out....the list goes on.

Although in that case the prospective villain would only be out to survive after they escaped the superjail and would only humilate or kill heroes and villains that they identified as serious gloryhogs out of hatred.

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It could just be it's a bit

It could just be it's a bit cliche. Saw it so often, when if you're going to have the lore be (and I really wish it wasnt) world filled with so many supers we have one for every ten citizens of the world...then accident happened when powers came about just doesnt seem "go to zig worthy" and would seem to have to have a hero who was really out to get the new metas and have the connections to do that.

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I doubt the lore will do that

I doubt the lore will do that. The presence of that many supers would likely introduce a whole slew issues in-universe. And yeah the ''power manifests and ends up killing an innocent'' is indeed a bit cliche and boring for a bad backstory.

The one example I already written (as you can see in my last post) of a hopefully not so cliche backstory (that I might use now I think about for a villain basically just involved someone like Flamebeau (That was her name right? All I remember was that she was a ''hero'' with a ego the size of the Eiffel Tower) taking out other prospective hero's that she/he viewed as competitors in popularity and reliability via framing them of a bad crime (that she/he committed him/herself). Thus they get taken into a few conventional prisons first....which changes and harms the former hero's mental state badly to the point that they completely change there view from ''fight for what's right'' too ''fight to survive''.

The former hero snaps at a few asshole inmates or corrupt guards of some kind, kills them. Get's sent to a superjail...they get jailbreaked and now he/she is back on the streets with no good future of any kind for simply being sent into that many prisons for a crime they did not commit.

Thus they are forced to be a villain (or anti-hero at the very least) and then they specifically target egomaniacs of any kind

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Bleddyn wrote:
Bleddyn wrote:

I doubt the lore will do that. The presence of that many supers would likely introduce a whole slew issues in-universe....

If we have enough supers in the world to be regular citizens who use powers to light a building, I'm not so sure they don't plan on their being that many heroes.

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Yes but metahumans will

Yes but metahumans will likely not be well-liked to even get to that point considering basic human nature.There would probably be a few small companies in-universe that would allow it but it definitely would have to be a huge minority.

Supers of any kind should be a minority really

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"Negligent Homicide" is

"Negligent Homicide" is accidentally killing someone or allowing them to die through deliberate neglect. In a world of super-powered people, I would imagine prisons would be overflowing with negligent homicide convictions, rather like "possession with intent to sell" in contemporary American prisons. Therefore, even though it is often used to explain how a morally neutral character winds up a villain, it is less cliché than it might seem. It's actually quite a realistic scenario. If society already has a strong prejudice against super-powered people, then it would probably be common to find that super-powered people convicted of Negligent Homicide were routinely given much harsher penalties than ordinary people.

Prisons in our world run the gambit from country-club living without the freedom to leave to maximum security broom closet sized cells with sadistic guards and corrupt prison officials. It is not hard at all to imagine how miserable conditions would be in a facility like Ziggursky where male and female prisoners were both confined in special conditions designed to limit the ability of super-powered villains to escape or injure other inmates. It is reasonable to assume that a prison for super-powered villains would also be a draw for super-powered guards looking for an excuse to inflict pain and corrupt officials looking for ways to siphon off the much higher than normal budget such a facility would require. It would not be a place dedicated to reform, but rather, a means for society to exact revenge. I would expect such a prison in such a world to have more in common with a gulag than a reformatory.

So, in short, I don't find the idea of a super-powered person who accidentally (or maliciously but professed to be accidentally) killed someone to be thrown into a prison that provided such a damaging social environment they would come out of it dedicated to ignoring social norms of all kinds. It is quite a realistic scenario, I think, and not at all an empty cliché.

After all, if we presuppose that their society already assumes such people are dangerous, the fact they actually killed someone would only serve to reinforce those prejudices.

To assume "villain" means someone born to sadism and psychopathy is a form of prejudice all on its own. True, some criminals in our world are simply vicious people who cannot be trusted to live among us, but many others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and overreacted, making things worse and crossing the line into destruction of private property, murder, or some other illegal act. A super-powered world would be no different, only exaggerated.

My father is a retired police officer who made detective and worked private security investigations after his retirement. He has now retired from that, as well. I grew up around cops. My brother-in-law is an active FBI agent who has worked terrorism, bank robbery, and interstate serial criminal investigations. I have an rather jaded view of both criminals and law enforcement. Most people who work in law enforcement are honest, moral, ethical individuals with a high regard for human life and natural rights. A few of them are even worse than Hollywood portrayals of a bad cop. Some criminals are violent, unredeemable malcontents who do not deserve to be called "human", but some are just average sociopaths with badly impaired judgment, (no different than some of the people right here in this forum, actually). Again, a super-powered world would be nothing more than an exaggeration of our own in terms of who commits crime, what kinds of crimes they commit, how many of them get caught, and how many of them never spend a day of their lives behind bars.

CoT, like CoX, is only based on superhero comics. It is not derived from them. It is inspired by them. These are two completely different ideas. This allows for a great deal of flexibility in both how the developers create the world and in how we interact with it. Comic books are just the starting point, not the end-all, be-all definition of the game. If it is done well, there is no reason CoT could not eventually include map zones with the same feel and mood as a good medieval fantasy, a wild west cow town, a burgeoning steampunk inspired space colony, or anything at all, really. Cross-cultural, cross-dimensional, or even interplanetary characters and storylines are all possible. It just depends on how the story is told.

That's one of the things I felt CoX was just beginning to touch the surface on. They had ventured into gothic horror, there were rumors of a lunar base, and Matt Miller often mentioned in the forums how he wanted to expand to different locales with different ambiences. Given the fact that the game engine was already beginning to crack under the strain, I'm not sure how well he could have pulled it off, so perhaps in some small way it is better that CoX was shut down at the peak of its creative power. By shutting it down when and how they did, NC Soft laid the foundation for the genre to launch into any direction imaginable.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have a very expansive imagination!

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Someone just developing

Someone just developing powers for the first time, wouldn't be negligent homicide, because one doesn't have deliberate neglect.

And what prison would hold the supers easily? The idea of the all encompassing power stopping collar is lame. :p Though it's quite possible most supers doesn't need a special collar to keep them inline.

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

Someone just developing powers for the first time, wouldn't be negligent homicide, because one doesn't have deliberate neglect.
And what prison would hold the supers easily? The idea of the all encompassing power stopping collar is lame. :p Though it's quite possible most supers doesn't need a special collar to keep them inline.

Pocket Dimension prisons could probably be used in a variety of ways....

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A bit better than the power

A bit better than the power dampeners. Which I just don't think would really be able to be effective with different sources of powers, but to extreme. How are all those villains going to escape easily?

Cold rooms, shackles, warmer rooms, thick metal walls...etc.

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I reject the notion of

I reject the notion of viewing superhero universes through a cold, cynical, realistic lens. I meet this genre halfway. I buy into the conceit that superheroes can truly intend to do good for the sake of goodness, or justice, or law & order, and that there are menaces worthy of being fought. I like superheroes.

I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed the occasional dark heroes story (heck, I've probably read a hundred of these if I've read one), or that I don't enjoy playing the occasional villain, but I think if we only view a superhero universe through that lens and never take it the way it is generally intended to be taken, I don't think we're fully engaging the full scope of the genre. Maybe that's not for everyone. As for me, I'm all in.

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We get to smack around

We get to smack around insubordinates and laugh maniacally. What's not to love?

Revenge is motivation enough. At least it's honest...

Roleplayer; Esteemed Villain

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meh... on the terms of dark

meh... on the terms of dark vs light I like to sit in middle... I don't like my heroes killing and torturing every criminal they meet... but I do think that batman should have atleast gone by SWAT rules which is what I try to do when playing heroes.... If the joker is about to blow half of gotham up batman should have thrown a sharp batarang at him, and if he lived taken him to jail... I don't want my heroes torturing people to death who are pleading for their lives sure.... but I also don't want them trying to find a way to save both the victim and the villain instead of firing a gun at the villain if that's the only way to save the victim....

not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

meh... on the terms of dark vs light I like to sit in middle... I don't like my heroes killing and torturing every criminal they meet... but I do think that batman should have atleast gone by SWAT rules which is what I try to do when playing heroes.... If the joker is about to blow half of gotham up batman should have thrown a sharp batarang at him, and if he lived taken him to jail... I don't want my heroes torturing people to death who are pleading for their lives sure.... but I also don't want them trying to find a way to save both the victim and the villain instead of firing a gun at the villain if that's the only way to save the victim....

I don't think you have to worry to much about that. I haven't really seem any evidence of heroes killing villains or criminals in the Titan-Verse when given the chance to. What your thinking about is rogues that will probably do that. They sit in the far end of the grey and are borderline villains while vigilantes can be borderline heroes.

Hmmm now I think about in regards to the prison thing. I am curious if City of Titans might show villains and criminals being rehabilitated.....

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notears wrote:
notears wrote:

meh... on the terms of dark vs light I like to sit in middle... I don't like my heroes killing and torturing every criminal they meet... but I do think that batman should have atleast gone by SWAT rules which is what I try to do when playing heroes.... If the joker is about to blow half of gotham up batman should have thrown a sharp batarang at him, and if he lived taken him to jail... I don't want my heroes torturing people to death who are pleading for their lives sure.... but I also don't want them trying to find a way to save both the victim and the villain instead of firing a gun at the villain if that's the only way to save the victim....

I completely agree. As a writer, the story HAS to make sense somehow or it rings badly to me. In a world that has had Supers around for a generation or more allowances would be made. However, there HAS to be an understanding between the independent hero and the lawful authority. The authorities agree not to insist that the hero do anything that would jeopardize their life (like revealing their secret ID). However, the hero also HAS to obey the spirit of the law if not the letter. Nobody is going to charge Spider-Man with trespassing if he's going into a building to save people from a fire. The minute they do, they set up a completely unnecessary confrontation between the authorities and the hero. However the hero also has to understand that, regardless of his personal moral conviction, if a madman needs to be taken down to save innocent lives then it's part of his DUTY to do so or to help the authorities do so.

As to villains, I was all over the place. I had the cybered-up thug who LIKED doing violent things but who was also doped up on painkillers all the time. I had the Necromancer who comitted crimes to gather what he needed to save his wife. The minute she was saved he turned himself in and became a hero via the Rogue Program. I had everything from psychopaths to maligned or wronged heroes on the run because using the same old tropes all the time is boring.

Comic books (and their movie descendants) suffer from a HUGE train of baggage dragging behind them. I would not want to write for Superman these days because the 70 years of junk in his history would tie my hands so bad I would scream. Villains can be the same way but since they're not the main character it's easier to change them without breaking canon. The best villains are the ones with deep psychological and emotional drives. The classic example is Dr. Doom.

DD is a REAL villain. He's tried to take over the world more times than you've drawn breath. At one point he possessed (briefly) the power of Galactus. He literally had the ability to do anything he wanted. What was his first act? He warned the heroes (Secret Wars) not to try and stop him. The second they chose to oppose him he struck them stone dead. No pity, no remorse, no negotiation at all. But what was his motivation? WHY did he do the things he does? DD honestly felt that he was the most qualified person to rule the world. He wanted to conquer the world to rule it WELL and keep it SAFE. The last time the people of Latvia rose up against him he refused to attack them because they were his people and he did not want to harm them. Granted, he regarded them as sheep for the most part, but their safety was still in his hands.

On the flip side we have Norman Osborn who is simply crazy. Every hero needs a few crazy villains because it's easy to write them as unpredictable. Too many and it gets old though.

Every story needs a variety of characters to keep it interesting. You don't want all of the heroes, villains and NPCs to be one-dimensional cutouts but every once in a while there should be someone who is just that simple to understand.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

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I play Villains because IRL I

I play Villains because IRL I'm a reasonable nice guy... except for a certain level of snarkiness to keep my sanity.
I'm honest, polite, nice to children, hard working and have enough empathy that I need to shut myself off from the world if I don't want to be depressed the whole day.
I still have a bit of a temper, but that mostly boiled down to resignation... and I wouldn't hurt a fly anyway*.

And. I. Hate. It.
It's escapism, pure and simple.
I just want to wreck sh!t... also, heroes are boring.
All they do is react, they'd be nothing without a Villain to oppose.

*Bees on the other hand trigger a fight-or-flight response in me... so tough luck for any that get into my place.

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Oh how many villains are in

Oh how many villains are in my closet of characters... Um... I lost count at 74.

Alright I played the wide range of villains. Not just in CoH (or other such games) but Roleplaying, in text, forums and table. I played a woman-hating rapist (really hard to play for me was glad he died.) To the other extreme a brutalized rape victim who went bonkers. More than one really right now in these forums I have the character Sunstroke who is a Pyrokinetic. Her powers activated when she was being gang raped and now she only feels safe when she burning the world. It don't matter if you are innocent or villain only when she ablaze does she feel safe. That so ingrained in her she will start singing as she burns people alive.

Often I just have mercs who may or may not care. Flux is the latest version of this she a good person she has a line she won't cross. At the same time she's willing to rob armor trucks and do property damage.

The most fun Villain I play is a character called the Sandman. He a drug dealer who plays with alchamy (drugs and magic the way to really get a high!). If his designer drugs happen to kill someone oh well. His only flaw is he really has no empathy.

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Sometimes I just like to play

Sometimes I just like to play villains because "good is dumb". ;)

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Sometimes I just like to play villains because "good is dumb". ;)

I see your schwartz is as big as mine...

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Lothic wrote:
Mendicant wrote:

I see your schwartz is as big as mine...

As long as you're not my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate everything will be just fine...

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

Personally, I've never been able to understand the egotism without empathy inherent in the villainous mindset. I can sometimes respect the 'honorable enemy' and see them as a 'hero from a different perspective', but I have no sense of how the true villain can operate. It was one of my failings as a Game Master in RPGs, that I could craft a difficult situation, but not a believable 'evil' enemy. I suppose that's a flaw in my own sense of empathy.
So, I don't have a favorite villain. All of my red-side characters were trying to escape from that horrid desolation filled with manipulative, rude assholes and get back to blue-side.
Be Well!
Fireheart

Just saw this old comment... and had to answer it, because I have such a Good Answer! :D So... It's easy Fireheart! Not all portrayed villains have to be dark and cruel. You've already got genius... So all you have to do to be in character is pretend you want to take over the world! An insane sidekick helps, but if you go around speaking to someone who isn't even there, you'll even have that covered! ;) You can even have a theme song!....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBkT19uH2RQ

:D

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
I see your schwartz is as big as mine...
As long as you're not my father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate everything will be just fine...

One of the things I always liked about that line is that it condenses down to 'cousin's former roommate'.

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Mendicant wrote:
Mendicant wrote:

One of the things I always liked about that line is that it condenses down to 'cousin's former roommate'.

There was a similar convoluted line from "Conan the Destroyer" when Malak said, "My cousin's sister's brother never said anything about bars." Unless I'm missing something I'm pretty sure that would simplify down (using basic family relationship algebra) to "my cousin".

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Maybe it's convoluted half

Maybe it's convoluted half siblings. His cousin has a half sister that Malak isn't related to. The sister has a half brother that the cousin isn't related to. Now my brain feels over contorted.

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Nyxz wrote:
Nyxz wrote:

Maybe it's convoluted half siblings. His cousin has a half sister that Malak isn't related to. The sister has a half brother that the cousin isn't related to. Now my brain feels over contorted.

Yeah I've never really thought about it too far beyond Malak being the "comic relief" for that movie and it sounded like something goofy he'd say in a moment of panic regardless.

Still you have to wonder if Spaceballs didn't steal the "convoluted family relationship" joke from the Conan movie or if Mel Brooks just independently came up with that bit of humor on his own. I'd assume the latter but it's still interesting to think one might have borrowed from the other.

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I suspect the 'complicated

I suspect the 'complicated relationship' is a meme, of sorts, and may go back to Thespis and beyond.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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Fireheart wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

I suspect the 'complicated relationship' is a meme, of sorts, and may go back to Thespis and beyond.

Oh I'm sure that kind of joke's been told in various forms for centuries...
Still fun to think that Spaceballs might have had a tenuous connection to a Conan movie. ;)

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Shakti-Maia wrote:
Shakti-Maia wrote:
Fireheart wrote:

snip

Just saw this old comment... and had to answer it, because I have such a Good Answer! :D So... It's easy Fireheart! Not all portrayed villains have to be dark and cruel. You've already got genius... So all you have to do to be in character is pretend you want to take over the world! An insane sidekick helps, but if you go around speaking to someone who isn't even there, you'll even have that covered! ;) You can even have a theme song!....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBkT19uH2RQ
:D

No...just no.
Brain is only motivated by his megalomania (and maybe revenge for being put in a cage). But that makes for a boring Villain. And it is mostly his interaction with Pinky that makes him interesting (not to mention funny).
Even Luthor and Doom act because in their mind (only) they could usher in a golden age for humanity, so it's only fair they should be on top of it. And you know what they say about making an omelette...
Of course there's nothing wrong with wanting power/money/destruction for it's own sake, but your Villain will be rather two dimensional. The same goes for Insane or For The Evulz characters... although they can be fun to play. Go on, kick a puppy if you feel like it. We won't judge.
But the best Villains imho are those who work for more than their own gain... as the saying goes:
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
You don't have to be evil to act evil. I sincerely doubt many Villains see themself as such, but more like the hero of their own stories. While those who oppose them are obviously evil, corrupt and/or misguided.
You don't even have to be dark or cruel. But You know what's best, if those self-righteous, self proclaimed, oh so clean and shiny heroes can't see that... *shrug* well, too bad for them.
It's truly a pity, but they won't be around to see your plans come to fruition. Shouldn't have stood in the way of progress.
And with that, let me give you a better song.

Kind of an afterthought... there are Card Carrying Villains who do what they do simply so the heroes have a reason to exist, or because it's all they can do.

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

Fireheart wrote:
I suspect the 'complicated relationship' is a meme, of sorts, and may go back to Thespis and beyond.
Oh I'm sure that kind of joke's been told in various forms for centuries...
Still fun to think that Spaceballs might have had a tenuous connection to a Conan movie. ;)

The line from Spaceballs always takes me back about twenty years to my time as a paramedic.
There are several communities in the woods of south Alabama which my partner and I referred to collectively as 'Darwin's Playground'.
We picked up a guy one time who got shot by a man he swore was both his uncle and brother. He tried to explain it to me on the way to the hospital. I wish I had taken notes but it involved multiple children by multiple partners over a couple of generations getting divorced and married.
Sadly, this does nothing to dispell some of the rumors about southern rednecks.

"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."

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Rigel wrote:
Rigel wrote:

Sadly, this does nothing to dispell some of the rumors about southern rednecks.

I did a quick google on this just because...

Apparently there are some "acceptable" relationship terms in India (that may still sound odd to Americans) for referring to cousins who are from the same generation as you. These cousins are called "cousin-brothers" or "cousin-sisters".

But Urban Dictionary defines a "brothercousin" as a brother who, due to an incestuous relationship between one's parents, is also a male first cousin. This sounds more like your stereotypical Alabama experience.

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Oh, there was absolutely

Oh, there was absolutely nothing "acceptable" about it!
It gave me the wheebies trying to wrap my brain around it while he actually seemed rather pleased by his convoluted family... "tree" doesn't sound the right metaphor to me; maybe "family web".

I concede that there could be a (slim) chance that he was just having a bit of fun at my expense. The gunshot wound wasn't that serious.

"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation."

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Rigel wrote:
Rigel wrote:

Oh, there was absolutely nothing "acceptable" about it!
It gave me the wheebies trying to wrap my brain around it while he actually seemed rather pleased by his convoluted family... "tree" doesn't sound the right metaphor to me; maybe "family web".

I once watched a documentary that explained how sea coral tends to "interbreed" back and forth in that kind of circular/web generational pattern. Apparently that's why it's relatively hard to nail down exact distinct species of coral because they're all sort of one, big happy family. I admit it does sound rather creepy when that concept is applied to human beings...

Rigel wrote:

I concede that there could be a (slim) chance that he was just having a bit of fun at my expense. The gunshot wound wasn't that serious.

It wasn't likely based on a "family" dispute based on how close they'd all have to be to each other. ;)

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Lothic wrote:
Lothic wrote:

It wasn't likely based on a "family" dispute based on how close they'd all have to be to each other. ;)

If memory serves... it was over a girl. :)

...or it might have been the Alabama / Auburn game.
That usually leads to a few of shooting incidents around here each year.

Roll Tide

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Rigel wrote:
Rigel wrote:

If memory serves... it was over a girl. :)

Their sister?

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Nos482 wrote:
Nos482 wrote:

Rigel wrote:
If memory serves... it was over a girl. :)
Their sister?

Or cousin...

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I have somewhat changed my

I have somewhat changed my tune comparably to my older first post. I don't mind making heroes as much now.

I still won't make ''Paragon of Justice'' types though. Atleast without a proper twist to that.

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We all play what we enjoy

We all play what we enjoy Nyktos. Me I'm not the "Paragon of Justice" type either. I'm more along the lines of Wolverine, Punisher, and even Ghost Rider. The Heroes who don't really care about law but can be trusted to do the right thing. Though I'm not into the whole Anti-hero way either. Rotten Luck refuses to kill but he more than happy break into someplace if it's to stop a villain. He also puts criminals and Villains into different groups. A criminal brakes the law, a Villain laughs about it.

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2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP

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I think I might make a

I think I might make a deconstruction of a ''Paragon of Justice'' type a hero. Those type of heroes are held up to very large standards and I imagine hypothetically some of them would breakdown from the sheer amount of pressure.

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