But Why
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@mietze I’d like to think I am one of the latter people you describe but who knows. Like I said I care about consent, and I don’t go around looking to clobber scenes and steal the spotlight, I’m not looking for special treatment and I see RP as a collective activity. I just like to take a position a few degrees off of the norm but still within theme and have enough rough edges or diverging opinions or whatnot that I can make something that I find interesting happen. I have a lot of thoughts on the topic but it’s quite a tangent from the thread.
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As someone who enjoys a good bit of IC conflict (and who also gets a bit queasy at the idea of perfectly charitable, kind nobles who wouldn’t hurt a fly and yet live an idle life off the work of their peasants), I’m another one who tends to play outside the usual box.
I try to make it very obvious that my characters are generally going to upset social norms and cause pearl-clutching for one reason or another, but I also try to stay within consent and within the themes of the game I’m on. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s less so, but I enjoy making people think and sparking reactions that aren’t ‘how lovely, more tea?’
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@shit-piss-love said in But Why:
@STD My experience was more that if you are playing a character whose goals run at odds with the norm, and you’re trying to do it in a way that respects the consent of others, your situation is that you will succeed at nothing unless those others consent to lose.
My take is that in a setting/theme where there’s a clear-ish line between villains and heroes, choosing to take a villain role means you consent to lose. The aggrievating bit for me hasn’t been losing but having ex machina stuff keep my long-simmering thoughtful villainous schemes to a low challenge-rating so heroes could thoughtlessly foil them between tea-parties. And that’s actually something I feel like a villain’s player consents to, just not every time.
More relevant to the thread is the disturbing experience of playing a nuanced villain and finding the heroes are all just as horrible, but the narrative never acknowledges it.
My experience with most “I’m the Villian” people (but certainly not all) was that they tended to be ready to accuse people oocly of being not as great/hardcore a RPer at them, not wanting good stories, ect when rolls or RP didn’t go their way. Just like a lot of people who aren’t villains, but there was a lot more just…personal attacks.
I associate that with the themes where everybody’s morally ambiguous at best, and players who don’t identify their PC as a villain, but want to play a ‘dark hero’ and are all cheesed off that people aren’t playing along with a fantasy of being both intimidating and admired.
