Venerable Villains is a series of posts that delve into different aspects of playing a bad guy in roleplay. Villains and bad guys come in a vast range of shapes and formats, but they are rather rare, and to find them done well is even rarer still. They are also essential to any good story-line or plot for breeding conflicts and tensions. We are going to talk about all kinds of villains and how to make them work. If you want to catch up with any of the other sections of this series you can find the index here: Venerable Villains Index Page.
Within World of Wacraft, you can happily and easily content yourself with Blizzard’s pre-made Bad Guys in the form of the Legion, the Scourge, the various cults, and so on. But some folk look for and desire something on a more close and personal basis. Something that can develop and grow, change and adapt to suit their story and within their time frame. This leaves a desire and/or a need for player character (PC) villains; for that personalised and touch and the ability to adapt with a story-line.
As such occasionally people will create a character to stand in as a bad guy for various plots and stories for themselves, their friends or their guilds. And some people will just be drawn by the idea of playing a bad guy even if they don’t have a pre-set need and slot for the character. We are going to talk about all kinds of bad guys here so buckle up and stay tuned.