This thread is pretty much just sharing ideas on what makes a character good and memorable. Ill start I guess.
Over the years I have played a good few characters, but none have really been the same as Zaheer I'l Lasha. This is kinda weird because I originally made him as just some cheap throw-away character that would die soon.
But surprisingly people really enjoyed the character, which was rather odd because id made him purposefully rude and violent so that someone would axe him. Instead everyone was telling me how much they liked having encounters with Zaheer mostly because of one thing: humor.
This was back when hoodie vampires and sneering mages made up the majority of the baddies. I think what people liked about Zaheer is that I treated the character like a person. He had personality traits that werent just being evil.
On so many character applications they pretty much just describe their character as an unfeeling rock of a person that only takes pleasure in murder. That might be cool in movies or video games where the villian is a tool to move the plot along, but in roleplay thats not the case. (Exceptions being made for things like the Lo Arch in which there really is a sort of plot.)
Having an understandable, conflicted, funny, or easily intimidated bad guy is much more fun then the copy paste villian that gets hard from the sight of blood.
And if you want to have a purely evil villian just do it right. Have proper motivation for them, I find simpler things like money and power make more sense then the whole 'wronged by the world' thing people love to do. Last I checked being an orphan doesnt make you a horrible person.
But thats just my thoughts, curious as to what you guys feel.
Over the years I have played a good few characters, but none have really been the same as Zaheer I'l Lasha. This is kinda weird because I originally made him as just some cheap throw-away character that would die soon.
But surprisingly people really enjoyed the character, which was rather odd because id made him purposefully rude and violent so that someone would axe him. Instead everyone was telling me how much they liked having encounters with Zaheer mostly because of one thing: humor.
This was back when hoodie vampires and sneering mages made up the majority of the baddies. I think what people liked about Zaheer is that I treated the character like a person. He had personality traits that werent just being evil.
On so many character applications they pretty much just describe their character as an unfeeling rock of a person that only takes pleasure in murder. That might be cool in movies or video games where the villian is a tool to move the plot along, but in roleplay thats not the case. (Exceptions being made for things like the Lo Arch in which there really is a sort of plot.)
Having an understandable, conflicted, funny, or easily intimidated bad guy is much more fun then the copy paste villian that gets hard from the sight of blood.
And if you want to have a purely evil villian just do it right. Have proper motivation for them, I find simpler things like money and power make more sense then the whole 'wronged by the world' thing people love to do. Last I checked being an orphan doesnt make you a horrible person.
But thats just my thoughts, curious as to what you guys feel.
