Overlooked Villain Activities

 

There’s a common lament on MUSHes that tends to be true—playing a villain is hard work.  It can be fun, because you’re the guy or gal instigating all this great RP simply by virtue of being yourself.  On the other hand, sooner or later every self-proclaimed hero on the game is ganging up on you.  You run headlong into consent.  And you find yourself falling into the trap of Kidnap-Torture-Kill.  Kidnap-Torture-Kill.  Kidn…you get the idea.  You can only play Kidnapper Whose Victims Always Get Rescued so many times before you’re utterly frustrated by the whole process—villain or hero, nobody likes to look incompetent.

 

So I have prepared a list of Other Things Villains Do.  This is a list which could potentially spark a huge amount of RP, without you ever having to touch the Trifecta.  It’s also a list which players are more likely to consent to, and a list of more subtle actions that may keep you from being targeted every time your villain tries to pick up a cup of coffee.  They are presented in the order in which I thought them up.

 

Blackmail:  Heroes make mistakes.  They skirt or break the law.  They fall to temptation (sometimes helped along by your villain).  They’re gay and don’t want anyone to know it. They went too far and killed someone in the past, by accident or design, and would go to prison for it whether their intentions were good or not.  Your villain may be after money—greed is the most commonly overlooked motivation on MU*s for some reason—or something else, from securing the victim’s aid, to information, to a hot date.  Of course, this will require you to do some digging.  Possibly to earn someone’s trust so you can pull up all those secrets.  Maybe to masquerade yourself as a good guy for awhile.  Maybe…RP.

 

Theft:  While potentially difficult to coordinate, the truth is villains steal things.  They often do it without killing anyone, because murder has a tendency to bring a different level of attention.  The villain might be after diamonds, documents, or the latest magic item, but in the consent dance this is much more likely to happen than you getting to kill the hero.  The hero might, upon agreeing, even agree to GM or emit the challenges of getting the item for you…which again means more RP for you.

 

Surveillance:  It’s another way to gather blackmail material.  It’s a way to find out secrets that the villain needs to know, such as heroic plans or the location of that thing they want to steal.  If done openly, it’s a good way to spook your target without ever resorting to much of anything that the police are going to have time to worry about.   You may need to do some breaking and entering RP to plant some devices, or you may simply be following the other person.  Think about it though—if you suddenly realized someone was following you and you didn’t have any notion why, would you start to get nervous?  This can expand out into its close cousin, stalking.  Simply add nasty notes and pictures of the hero at vulnerable moments, stir well.

 

Destroy Credibility:  What you really need is more people on your side, whether they share your alignment or not.  People can be talked into things, duped, convinced.  Especially if you find a way to really trash the opposing team, making them look crazy, greedy, controlling, hypocritical, socialist, Communist, or any kind of –ist that you can think of.  If you can publically expose even just one major lie then you’ll have everyone around that person wondering what else they’ve lied about.  The other heroes may turn on your victim, chasing him instead of you.  Sure, in MUSH land these things are eventually cleared up, but you can have a lot of fun in the meantime…and some allies will remain no matter what.

 

Destroy Assets:  Does the hero have a massive account they’re using to bankroll efforts against you?  Find a way to make that account disappear.  What about their car or house, which aren’t easily replaced?  What about getting them fired from their job?  It’s hard to face down a villain when the bills are mounting and the problems are growing, because realistically you have to split your attention.  Even if the hero quickly finds friends who will let him move in or couch surf, you’ve still caused him some grief.

 

Hire Other People:  You need a lawyer, preferably one who doesn’t mind defending scum or sees it as his constitutional duty—either works as long as he’s good.  You could use an accountant, especially one who is adept at hiding assets and cooking books if you do that sort of thing.   You might need people with other superpowers if you have them, to fill gaps in your own capabilities.  If you’re no good at breaking and entering or hacking or the like yourself, then you’ll need people who can do these things.  It’s ok, even preferable, if they think they’re fighting a good fight for a heroic cause.  It’s okay if they’re in it for the money too, or if they just haven’t examined it that hard, or if they’re just as much of a scumbag as you—just hire them.  You have to RP with them to do that, and it gives your villain a circle to RP with.

 

Make Friends:  Even the Godfather had people he hugged and was happy to see.  Too often villain RP consists of gathering at the local villain hideout and snarling at the other villains about who is on top of the pecking order.  Meanwhile, the one who treats these people like friends and does things like friends do: defending them, working with them, bringing them presents, talking to them—tend to end up in charge by default, because everyone likes them.  Imagine how much more you’d play your villain character if you could log on and get a social scene, light scene, or character development scene with a friend, just like everyone else? 

 

Lie:  Lie by degrees.  Lie a lot.  Lie with a smile.  Lie with a straight face.  Misdirect.  Lie by omission, lie with just enough kernels of truth to poison it.  Send the heroes in the wrong direction.  Deflect attention from yourself.  Conceal your activities from your SO, who might otherwise be heroic if she weren’t dating you.  Come off as a charming nice guy who believes in a reasonable cause.  Talk a good talk, write a good speech, conceal your true activities, but lie.  Lying can provide lots and lots of great RP, because it adds a whole new undercurrent to a social activity.  Just lie well—getting caught in your own web of lies sucks.  Keep your stories straight.  Lie about your motivations.  Help the heroes take down some rival villain or threat sometime so they think of you like a hero too.  Learn to act, walk, and talk like a hero—avoid the faux mysterious or smugness thing that a lot of the villains do.

 

Fraud:  Closely related to lying is fraud.  Your villain may get his house burned down just to collect the insurance money.  He may forge checks.  He may be running some sort of fly by night get rich quick thing.  He may be a scammer who plays on people’s greed and then leaves them with nowhere to go because they were trying to do something illegal too.  Steal other player’s identities with their consent and use them to take out massive loans.  You get the cash, they get the bills and the headache and you both get RP.  This also covers things like insider trading, cheating on your taxes, and embezzlement.

 

Sharklike Lending:  Sooner or later someone will need a lot of money, fast.  You may have even caused the problem through another scheme, or they just ran up a gambling debt somewhere.  Maybe their mother’s medical bills need paying.  Lend them all the money they want, at 50% interest, and then send Guido to break their legs when they don’t pay, so they can go scrambling for money AGAIN. 

 

Arson:  Arson’s great for insurance money, destroying evidence, destroying assets, and threatening your players.  Even if nobody’s in the building at all, if you can obtain consent to burn something down, you’ll provide RP all over the grid and will have done something massively effective from the shadows.  Bonus mastermind points if you can get someone you hired, or one of your friends, to do it for you.

 

Intimidation:  Perhaps that pesky kid really is getting too close to blowing your operations wide open.  Maybe that detective needs to understand just how good your lawyers are and just what you’ll be doing to his family when he’s done annoying you.  You can do this through smooth, calm confrontations with the heroic factor, or through notes, through arson, through slamming them into a wall and getting into their face, through showing up at their kid’s bus stop and simply standing there talking amiably to the trusting young soul—then smiling real big at Dad or Mom when they come to pick him up and making some pointed statement.  Really, the more subtle this is the more RP is in it for you.  Open threats can get you arrested.  Subtle threats can’t, because they can be reasonably explained away and nobody can prove them in court.

 

Crapkicking:  Sometimes all you need to get your point across is a well deserved beating.  You can either do it on the spot or somewhere really scary, followed up by kicking the unfortunate out of the car on the side of the road sometime later and driving away.  This can drive home a point to the hero, either by doing this to one of the heroes’ friends or relatives or by doing it to the hero himself.  You’re saying, essentially, that you’re tougher than him, smarter than him, can get away with this and consider him to be so little of a threat that you can’t be bothered with killing him or torturing him.  It’s also useful for getting people who owe you money to pay you.  It can further be useful for letting people who have left your organization know that you are watching them and watching close—kind of like a warning shot to keep their mouths shut before you have to resort to the ICC of killing them. (And since they want their family and friends safe, they probably lie about it—joy!)

 

Bribery:  You need the judge to look the other way.  You need evidence to mysteriously disappear.  You need to look at something you shouldn’t be seeing.  Never underestimate the power of a well placed bribe.  Always put the money on the counter and say something innocuous, like, “This should cover the costs of copying that for me,” as if copies really did cost $150.  They’ll either take it and keep their mouth shut or get offended.  If it’s the latter apologize, wide-eyed, for the misunderstanding, take your money, and leave immediately.  If they take it, you now know who you can pay to do stuff for you.

 

Research:  The heroes need to know about the Book of Wonder and where to find it.  So do you!  You might have plans for that thing.  You don’t even have to be the main opposition.  The main opposition might be the Demon of Rhuul, but you can see just how great it would be to own the Book of Wonder so you set your mind to outsmarting both sides.  Maybe you even go ahead and take out the Demon of Rhuul yourself.  He counts as a rival, and that will help you look surprisingly like a hero, which makes it harder for the real heroes to prove you’re a massive scumball later.

 

Public Relations:  You’re not trying to stomp on the little guy, you’re trying to control costs so you can maintain jobs.  You’re not trying to starve the little children in Africa with your sweat shop, you are providing jobs to hungry families.  You’re not running a brothel, you’re simply running a club (that provides jobs).   You’re not after the Book of Wonder for your own selfish purposes, you simply have the resources to keep it very safe.  You’re not hurting anyone by destroying this thing, it’s a big threat they should be scared of and you are protecting them.  The better you are at this the harder it is for the heroes to leap all over you.  Make some big public charitable donations too.  .  Open a few children’s hospitals or something with your largesse and stand proudly at the ribbon cutting with a great big smile on your face.  Be invaluable to the good guys from time to time.  It confuses them.   Someone will always be on to you, but in that case, this will piss them off a great deal, and that’s always fun.

 

Seduction:  Good hearted people want to believe the best about everyone, especially about people they love.  Mr. or Miss Hero is getting in your face?  Try to get them to fall in love with you.  Maybe they’re trying to “save” you, or maybe they’ll convince themselves, and everyone around them, that you’re not that bad.  Or maybe they’ll commit an indiscretion that can be used to blackmail or keep them under control later.  Seduction does not have to be about sex.  If you’ve got Mr. Hero convinced that you’re his best buddy with only the public interest at heart, then he’s less likely to attack you.  Bonus points if you can get Mr. or Miss Hero to get pissed every time someone speaks ill of you and goes about alienating all of their family and friends on your behalf.  This is also known as recruitment.

 

Destroy Evidence:  So someone finally got your activities on video tape.  Better hunt that sucker down and get rid of it.  Whether you have to break and enter, stalk, intimidate, commit arson or crapkick, evidence control and cover-ups should be a number one priority for you as a villain.  After all, if the good right hand discovers what your shadowy left hand is doing your life might get a lot less cushy fast, and all of your efforts will be for nothing.

 

Take All The Credit:  Yes, you pilots did a good job.  But truly, you wouldn’t have been able to do it if Mr. Villain here hadn’t provided us with his experimental doom helicopters, which is why we’re giving him a grant and helping him keep his warmongering weapons plant open.  (Bonus points if you can get all the heroes to admit it was the experimental doom helicopter, too).  If you’re the person that made something good happen then it’s harder to target you.

 

Double Cross At A Crucial Moment:  A favorite scene I was in involved anther player’s villain.  He’d spent months befriending my cop character and her husband, also a cop.  These were not easy people to befriend.  Paranoid and with a dim view of humanity in general, they tended to stick to cop friends only.  But he kept asking for help, and giving them good tips, and inviting them over to dinner with gracious invitations they could hardly refuse.  They started to like him.  A lot.  Which is why it hurt twice as much when he lured them to the top of a snowy mountain with another request for help.  They didn’t even realize the attackers were his as they got pinned down by enemy fire.  He revealed it at the final moment, as the male half of team Cop was holding on to the cliff face for dear life and yelling for the villain to help him while my cop remained pinned down by the fire.  Villain smiled at him, punched him in the throat, said, “I’ll take good care of your wife,” and tossed him off the cliff.   Then, as she was running up in a panic, he knocked her out and took off with her.  Beautiful (even if it does involve a kidnapping).  (And potential killing, but it was only an attempted murder.   Male cop lived because of a timely magical rescue).  The sting of that betrayal haunts them even now that that villain is six feet under.  It can be done so many ways too.  There’s something really cool about the expression on heroic faces when, after you’ve spent months hunting down the Book of Wonder with them you suddenly pull out your gun and tell them to hand it over.

 

Use Manners:  I’ve touched on this before, of course, but the villain who doesn’t walk around acting like a prick to everyone he meets is going to last long.  The more you can masquerade as a genuinely nice guy the less time you’re going to be spending on the receiving end of a keystone cops scene.  It also gets less frustrating for you—how fun can it really be to be in a pissing match constantly?

 

Variations:  Sometimes your normal guy or hero will be drawn to do some of that too, just as your villain might someday take an actually heroic action.  The motives may be all that differ—and that leads to some richer RP as well!