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I play heroes because I enjoy it. Finding ways to creatively use your powers and equipment to creatively foil villainous plots is just fun. Of course, since I often run, I get kind of tired of always doing the villains too.

I've always been a fan of heroes and doing the "right thing". I don't think I could really play a villain unless it was a very conflicted one. My mind just doesn't bend that way.

it's all about the motivations, but i generally prefer the struggle of a hero.

An anti-hero, Ya i know thats so over done, but i like the emotional gauntlet it lets you role play. I mean i do like the challenge of playing the straight four colored hero. Always trying to do the right thing, and playing a real complex, intelligent, and motivated villain a has been a hoot. But the anti-hero let's me play more to my own personality.

Leon Kennedy wrote:It's all good and fine to play the villain every once in a while, but in an RPG setting playing a villain is too easy. All you have to do is walk up to something, smash it, and then continue. There's really no sense of challenge to play a villain - you just get to do anything you wish.

That depends on what sort of villain you are. Sure roleplaying Doomsday would be so easy an ABC sitcom writer could do it. But some villains face special challenges. Like in JLU when Lex Luthor had to hold his legion together. Or the villain who wants to steal the unobtainium from MegaCorp's secure building. He may very well have to plot things out a lot like how the heroes would have to plot things out to steal it from his secure base.
Villains may have big foes that they struggle against. Look at Ultimate Spidey and the bad guys going up against Roxxon (something superheroes could just as easy be fighting).
Being a villain is as challenging as the goals you set (and the complications that the GM throws your way).

edit: of course, villains would be harder to GM, as they tend to be more pro-active. Whereas heroes are reactive.

When I'm G.M.ing I love to play villains, when I'm a player I love being a hero. Which
do I enjoy more? Probably characters who seem like villains to some, but heroes to
others. I guess I really can't decide .

Villains. Theyre always easier to relate to than heroes, and thats often why they have power over us in movies and books.

Personally, I dont get the helping people and not asking for a reward. If im gonna help your ass, theres definitely something in there for me.

/heartless
//slashies

Starmage21 wrote:Personally, I dont get the helping people and not asking for a reward. If im gonna help your ass, theres definitely something in there for me.

Poop?

villan campains are hard
heros have the support of their
comunitys, the police, the milatary
the populace and their companinions.
A villian stands alone.

Overlord Rikonius wrote:

Starmage21 wrote:Personally, I dont get the helping people and not asking for a reward. If im gonna help your ass, theres definitely something in there for me.

Poop?

lol I deserve that.

Prince Cherico wrote:villan campains are hard
heros have the support of their
comunitys, the police, the milatary
the populace and their companinions.
A villian stands alone.

I suppose thats true, but I guess if youre going to GM such a game, than you need to ask your group what motivates them to make this easier.

I'll play a hero over villian any day!

Hero. Preferably an "I'm not even supposed to be here today" guy who'd really rather be doing something esle.

I played in one Villain RP before and even though we were part of a 'Legion of Doom' and were supposed to act as a team there were the usual ego fights that happen in a Hero group, but magnified since people didn't feel constrained to settle them in a less violent/possibly permanent fashion. It was fun, and thankfully we had 'secondary' characters rolled up just in case, but one of the players really got a bug up his butt about being the leader and tried to take out the NPC leader and didn't like it when he got smacked down hard... through the floor, the floor beneath the one we were on, and 2 more besides that.

So while it was doable, heroes have always worked out much better for me.


Daniel Stoker

I ran a villain game PbP once, but they only basrely escaped the jail before it fell apart. Some creative villians (and one mixed up hero).

I've played both, but usually, if I'm playing a superheroes game I enjoy good guys (maybe slightly bad good guys)