Evil Character Roleplay Tutorial (CONTINUED PART 2)
Evil Characters Aren't That Simple
And with that we look at the next big thing. Evil characters (and good and neutral and any other character type) should have a motive. In fact, part of what I think makes evil characters so hard for people to RP is because that motive needs to be strong, desirable, and worth the potential consequences in order to achieve it. (Your character is not an all powerful badass, or at least he shouldn’t be. If he is, you’re barking up the wrong tree already!) Motives are considerably difficult to come up and I highly recommend AGAINST using the following cliché motives below. They are terrible and overdone.
World domination: Why not world domination? Its never going to happen and any villain with a realistic mindset will start small. Perhaps an attempt to manipulate one’s way up the group he’s in will suite better as a start. Afterall, if he can’t control just a few people, what makes him think he can take over the world? Exactly. Most villains are happy with a small, slightly unfair crop of power anyway.
My parents/family/significant other was killed!: Why not the death of parents/family/significant other? People don’t just take their rage out on everyone else and suddenly “enjoy it” just because something bad happened to them. If that was the case, our real world would have twice as many criminals in it as it does now. It just does not realistically happen and you can't dominate the RP world. Sorry.
Because I’m evil: Why not this? Because evil in itself and by itself is NOT a motive. It’s a broad explanation for a character type. Not a motive. You don’t just do harm to another individual “just because you can.” Why not? Because as I mentioned before, a motive must be strong, desirable, and worth the potential consequences. Doing harm to someone else often has major league consequences (be it somebody else hunting the perpetrator down in vengeance or even simply getting their ass kicked when they attempt to harm said someone else). Its not a motive. End of story.
And now we look at the biggest offenders…the “insane.” All I can really say about this one is DO YOUR RESEARCH. Don’t try to portray an actual disorder, condition, or thought process without researching it first even IF you think you know something about it already. Even if you know [or think you know] someone who has it, RESEARCH IT ANYWAY. For one thing not only will you prevent offending someone with said disorder but you also will prevent yourself from looking like a total fool for getting wrong. Trying to do a schizophrenic character and instead portraying them to be a hypochondriac is like claiming to have cancer yet you only have a scraped knee. Completely irrelevant and incorrect. ALSO realize that some people who might be classed as “insane” do NOT look the Hollywood movie part. In fact, they may just appear to be everyday contributors to society.
Which brings me to the next topic, appearances.
If you’re planning on making your evil character red and black, or all red, or all black, STOP RIGHT THERE. You’re already heading into a massive cliché fest. Don’t do black with red scars, or black with red markings (or vice versa) or solid red or solid black. DON’T. DO. IT. Why? It’s been done TOO many times to the point I can’t regard 99% of characters who look like this as frightening. In fact, when I see this type of look on a supposedly “evil” character, my expectations plummet drastically. This ESPECIALLY goes for demonic characters. I HIGHLY recommend staying away from these colorations or in the very least only use one or the other to accent (LIGHTLY) completely different colors. For example, Mikey who I mentioned further up in the tutorial is in the roleplays considered evil yet hes solid silver in coloration. His eyes are red, but that’s about it. December, another evil character of mine is a dingey brown/green that’s rather unpleasant to look at but has an intimidating look to it and her eyes are, surprisingly, just brown. Yep. Brown. But it fits with everything else and the intimidating atmosphere around her in combination with her behavior/motive is maintained.
Lastly we have supplementary traits. These can be added after a character’s initial categories have been “picked” and you may have to actually RP the character to figure it out/see which ones work for you and which ones don’t and let someone /else/ be the judge of how good you are at it. If you’re straining and struggling, it will be more than obvious to everyone else and it will take away from the effect. These traits do NOT standalone and are intended to accentuate the other categories.
Withdrawn/Hermit: Aggressive and/or Dark. The very reason for a character’s aggression or darkness may be other people and consequently, desirable to avoid. The reason I did not list it for “evil” characters is because most (although not always) of the time, in order to be considered evil, you have to purposefully and maliciously commit harm toward another being and that’s pretty hard to do if they never come into contact with another being. It doesn’t mean an evil character can’t be anti-social but these are just general traits/suggestions
Sadistic: (All three) Believe it or not, even a benevolent character can be sadistic. If that good-hearted knight takes a little too much joy in seeing his enemy gag and suffer in his death on the end of his sword…well, we might consider him sadistic. That said, while being sadistic is /primarily/ associated with the evil characters it can blend with the aggressive or dark categories
Outgoing: (Primarily evil or aggressive) WHOA. How did this get here? Allow me to explain. Your aggressive character, as I said may not fall into the evil category, giving them a chance for some more “natural” personality traits and behaviors. On the other hand an evil character may like to appear to be outgoing for the sake of gaining trust and power (only to break said trust and abuse said power later)
Hypocrite: (All three categories although it often conflicts with the evil category. I don’t recommend using this for an evil char unless you REALLY know what you’re doing.): Says one thing that goes against one’s own actions, being, words, etc.
These are just a FEW examples of things you can accent your character’s personality with and I highly recommend finding other traits and using many of them instead of just basing your character on the solid categories themselves. (Which as I said can be combined or stand alone)
In conclusion, I’ll just give a description of some of my characters who may fit some categories, and not others.
Mismatch. (Aggressive only. From previously in the tutorial.): She’s been compared by others to “that one crazy aunt” or “somebody’s grandma” given that she’s very old fashioned, very blunt , she does not sugar coat or censor her words (except around small children and even that is hit or miss), prone to demand respect from others when she herself hasn’t earned it yet, unaware of how rash she can be, etc. Notice NOWHERE did I say that she is malicious, frequently deceitful, or has darker ambitions. As a matter of fact, despite her flaws (and every character needs flaws, NOT just physical weaknesses but actual character flaws), she is at least /trying/ to have other’s best interests at heart. That is why she’s a herbalist/medic. She likes to help other people despite her outward aggressive tendencies.
Candela (Aggressive, Dark, but not evil): Like Mismatch, Candela has some rather moody tendencies, often calling out and insulting others simply from the lack of desire to censor herself and cover words up in unnecessary sugar. She’s blunt, like Mismatch but she’s also rather sadistic in nature. Though she doesn’t wish to do the world in, she does enjoy watching her enemies suffer and just /barely/ stays out of the evil category. Being prone to make more unorthodox decisions and solutions puts her in the dark category.
Reign (Evil, aggressive, but not dark.): Reign has done some rather malicious things in terms of both his history and role-play. He’s also prone to aggressive outbursts. However, despite being a demon, he cannot be classed as dark? Why not? Well, to be truthful, there’s nothing really “dark” about him. He doesn’t just /consider/ the most harmful option, in fact, if it’s not part of his plan or his orders, he goes for what is simplest regardless of whether or not it harms someone or not. On top of that, he’s rather strange for an evil character as he is beneath average in strength (although not in size) and he’s a big wuss. Yet because his actions are aggressive and malicious, he remains in the evil and aggressive category regardless. The fact he is easily frightened does NOT warrant his removal.
Caylx and Traveler (Both are dark only. From previously in the tutorial): My character, Traveler who after circumstances I won’t go through the effort of explaining right now, had her soul stolen and soon after she realized that her chances of salvation (in her mind at least) went out the window. This gave her some rather unhealthy thoughts and behaviors such as traveling to a forest filled with hallucinogenic ashes so that it might make her hallucinate and see her deceased loved ones, such as her previous mate. That’s….rather dark, no? And it lacks the long black hair and sobbing drama that is so often clichéd with a dark character. Similarly, Calyx sought out the little missing daughter of her former master. Only when she grows very old does she find that the girl died early on in her search and that her ghost was trying to lead Calyx away from the very thing that had killed her in the first place. So in other words, she’s tracking what she thinks is a live person who in the end turns out to have been dead/fooling her all along. That’s a little dark too.
At the end of the day the best thing to do is to figure it out for yourself. It’s alright to look at villain characters other people have made but try to figure which ones are suitable for roleplaying and which ones should remain “just in the movies” before you imitate them. More importantly, don’t follow the cliches. Put your own spin on it!
SECTION 2: Reputations don’t come lightly.When you first create a character with an evil alignment do NOT expect ANYONE to take you or them seriously. What do I mean by this? If you JUST made a new character, don’t heavily hint at your character’s “big bad history” through dialogue. Why? No one cares. While it may not make sense on the surface, your attempts to heavily hint your character’s “bloody history” are actually counterproductive.
This is where things become very complicated. Even though your character is entirely fictional and the difference between you just making up the character’s history or actually waiting and adding history to their bio as it is role-played out is so incredibly small, there IS a value to having some of it roleplayed out. Allow me to explain.
As I have mentioned before (either here or in previous conversations), any character’s reputation be it good or bad is not up to you at all. It is up to the people around you and this includes how intimidating a character comes across to someone else. That said, the more you try to push an impression of fear on someone, the less likely it is to have an effect. Effective evil-type characters don’t publically boast to total strangers that they killed, cannibalized, tortured, whatever somebody. They don’t. Realistically this is…well not realistic at all. Why would anyone boast something that could potentially earn them unwanted attention? An evil character does not openly brag to random people because that would foil their plans and they do NOT want other characters to foil their plans. Still following?
What I’m saying is, USUALLY the only time this sort of “bragging” is used by an evil character is to piss someone else off and it has to be of some reasonable significance. Yes, my character May is benevolent. But if you tell her out of the blue, as a new character and total stranger that you murdered someone a few hours ago that she knows NOTHING about, I’m sorry but she’s not going to suddenly jump into the fray and fight you. In fact, from my own personal view I find it almost laughable. Now, an example of this being used EFFECTIVELY [as that last example was of it being used poorly], would be a villain who tells or otherwise provides some frightening evidence (like a severed tail or head or something) the other character that they’ve killed someone close to them.
And even with that said, villain characters do NOT just kill people for the sake of killing people. They don’t kill people for the sake of JUST scaring other characters either. There HAS to be an underlying motive. I cannot stress this enough.
Your evil character does NOT have to physically assault, argue with, or otherwise “misbehave” in the first roleplay with someone. Second, realize one incident won’t earn a reputation with every other character in the game. If your character attacks Johnny and then turns around and runs into Janey the next day but Janey doesn’t know nor care about stranger Johnny, guess what? You’re back at square one. Your villain character will return to square one a LOT. Get used to it.
Now with all of THAT said, how does a villain character build a reputation? This is much harder. Now first, I will say that…. You have to be good at playing a villain character. If you’re not good at it, people will NOT want to RP with you playing that villain character after the first time and that basically seals the end of it right there. You want your character to build [albeit poor] relationships with other characters. [And perhaps a few good ones if they share the same motives and can actually work with another villain. If you can pull this off, it is often very interesting.] You WANT them to run into the same characters again and again but not SO frequently that it becomes a common thing. Maybe once every few weeks if your friends and you RP actively. Maybe do it once every few months if you don’t actively RP. Just don’t bring your villain character out to the same set of your friend’s characters every other day. Bad idea.
Ok. Example time so, I will use what is easily my most developed villain character. Now while I admit his initial history to start with the world of RP is already littered with some bloodiness, it is OK as long as it is not flaunted. He was part of a massive take over and slaughter of a lot of people. Does he flaunt it? No. He’s proud of it sure, for reasons relevant to his motive. But even so, when he started out, he had ZERO in terms of a reputation. Now he has one. So what happened?
The RP in which I first put him, I allowed him to come into contact with a frequent same-set of characters. No, not everyone was present at the same time and people would switch around all the time BUT the point being, he came into contact with SOME of them on multiple occasions. Word spreads between characters and their players, and if you’ve RP’d fairly and actually managed to make your character come across as intimidating, boom, reputation.
So this entire section in a nutshell is, DON’T let your villain characters boast what’s in a written history, and preferably, don’t even boast what happened in a roleplayed out history unless its highly significant [and more often than not, it won’t be and you won’t be able to use it.] If you want a villain character with a reputation in a roleplay, you’re going to have to work a little. I know that sounds weird considering RP is just fun and all but lets face it, going “RAWR. I R EVIL. ANGRY. INTIMIDATING. FEAR ME. I KILLED PEOPLE” even in the best written form…………is just going to get you laughed at. Lastly, some characters will not take your villain character seriously based on their own reputation or personality, deal with it and get used to it.
