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Would You Play A Villain?

One thing I've noticed about superhero games is that heroes always seem to be playing a reactive role. In contrast, in a typical Dungeons & Dragons adventure, the characters meet in a tavern, then go invade a dungeon, kick open some doors, slay all who stand before them, and steal all their stuff.
Superheroes get to sit around and wait for some lunatic to do something horrible, so they can track him to his lair, and beat the stuffing out of him. Clap the cuffs on him, deliver him to the authorities, blah, and then it's back the the clubhouse and, well, wait.
Sure, they to feel all righteous and stuff, but where's the fun in that? Supervillains get to come up with crazy, stupid, convoluted plans to dominate the world. Now that sounds like fun! (Or maybe it doesn't, to you. Maybe I'm just weird. I have no right to impose my values on you.)
So, how does one create a game system that allows and/or encourages players to invent crazy, stupid, convoluted plans to dominate the world? (Come to think of it, why do evil people deserve to have a monopoly on creativity? Why can't there be crazy, stupid, convoluted plans to do good things? Now I'm imagining a group called "The Meddlers", who fight global warming and predatory lending practices. That's probably a terrible idea. Feel free to run with it.)
Anyway, I hope this gave you something fun to think about, because thinking is fun, and games should be, too.

Villain Play Would

I haven't thought about that but I don't see why not. It depends on how bad the villain is because some can be soft while others are on the side of grotesque.

Would You Play A Villain? Reviews RPG & Card Board

I've never been a fan of playing the villain or running campaigns and adventures in which the characters are evil. I don't like running games where the characters are evil either for the most part; certainly not murder hobos that go around killing everything they meet. It could be interesting though if the villain was a villain with good intentions.

When you mentioned the Meddlers and global warming my thoughts went to a villain who doesn't really see himself as a villain but a champion of the environment with an end justifies the means philosophy, willing to do some harm in order to accomplish what he sees as a greater good. Some people may have to die, but its for a good cause, the environment as a whole must be protected right? Maybe he doesn't want to wipe out all of humanity but he sees the industrialized nations as a cancer; it's a shame they have to be destroyed but they wont listen to reason and they are slowly killing the planet. In the villains eyes he is the good guy and the industrialized nations of the world are the villains.

Villain Play Would

Ah, you beat me to it. I was planning to riff on the idea of the 'Noble Villain', who is actually a hero in his own terms. (The example that comes most readily to mind is Magneto. He crushes people like bugs, but he sees himself as a defender of mutantkind.)

Villain Play Would

Even as a GM the villains that I present to the party are rarely pure evil for evil's sake; they have motivations that drive them to do harm to others. I will be honest though, it is a struggle for me to truly get into the mindset of a villain at times. Even when I try to play a video game like Dragon Age or something where the player has the option of basically being a jerk, I have a hard time doing it. I have tried to go through these games as the "bad guy" But I have a hard time actually following through on it in the end.

As a player in D&D I tend to favor the Paladin or similar character concepts despite efforts to move out of my comfort zone. I've told myself in the past I've told myself that one of these days I was going to try and get away from my comfort zone and perhaps play an evil rogue or spellcaster, but that day has yet to come. The best I could do was playing a "war weary" Soldier who has committed atrocities in the past but who now seeks redemption and penance (That would be my character Alexi in Zudguards 5E game).

Would You Play A Villain?

I actually prefer to play the villain. My favorite ever was Diarmadhim Moresby. He started off as a LN red robe on a Dragonlance Neverwinter Nights persistent world server called Dragonlance: Realm of Heroes. He wound up becoming the Head of the Red Robes and then was sent to the Abyss by a god (Actually - I was banned by a lady that was upset I killed everything she threw at me without breaking a sweat). After contacting the owner of the server I got back in and roleplayed it though as if he was banished to the Abyss and when he came back he had to start over again. Some upstart wizardling had tried to summon him and make him teach him all of his magic, but I took over his body instead and swore off Lunitari, dedicating myself to Nuitari as a black robe. From there I plotted and schemed my way to the Head of the Black Robes. Eventually things on the server got too boring so I decided to spice things up. I disguised myself and created the Renegades, taught them how to duel, and had them target all three orders of mages. It was a blast

Would Play Villain

Okay, now I know to watch out for you. Seriously, somebody who gets banished to the Abyss and comes back is somebody I don't want to mess with.

It occurs to me that what I'm proposing here would require a GM who's willing to allow the players to make sweeping changes to the game world. And that might be difficult, emotionally. Who wants to go to all the effort of building a sandbox, only to have the neighbors come over an kick it apart?

Would Play Villain Board Card & RPG Reviews

My experience has been that it's actually quite difficult to get players to actively make changes to the gaming world. Most I think are skittish about doing so; to some extent this may come from the way the systems are structured in the first place with the GM having most of the creative control and final say players often feel the need to get permission before making any significant changes or adding any narrative that isn't the result of the characters direct interaction.

I think it's usually assumed that, while the player should have pretty much exclusive control over the actions and responses of their characters, the GM is responsible for controlling the npcs and the environment around the characters. I've found that if I want players to have more input on the game world I need to be fairly direct in this approach.

For example, I have done this by telling the players that their characters enter a dive tavern located in the rough part of town and give them a general feel for the place but then I ask them to tell me one or two things about the tavern (Tell me about something in the tavern, or something that is happening in the tavern; you give me some details) and then I work from that and often their descriptions work its way into the story.

It's sort of a balancing act because while I think many GMs would like to see their players getting more involved and putting more input into the game, they are not always satisfied with the results especially when a player alters the world around them to either benefit their character or introduce something that throws off the entire campaign.

In the end it's not just difficult for the GM emotionally it creates a game that has a feeling of being unstructured and scattershot. Players may not know where to go next, or what to do unless they have a good amount of direction from the GM. I'm not sayings its impossible to pull off, but it definitely presents some challenges.