Wanted: Bad Guys

As a gamer, I've discovered something recently. Roleplaying games need bad guys.

I should have come to this conclusion awhile ago--I probably did and forgot. It's frustrating when everything is in shades of grey. You want your character to be able to dole out some justice, whether in a fight, or in an argument, or whatever. It's nice to be right--even if your character isn't good.

I got to hear about a former character of mine recently, and how a new gamemaster was playing him. It was severely disappointing. Fortunately and unfortunately, I was forced to take a step back from that character, and the distance has helped me not get into a large argument with the gamemaster in question. This isn't even in the game I'm playing, not really--same continuity, but different actual game. It's not really in my face. But he's being played quite differently. Instead of an agreeable guy who wants to work with others to make things work, he's a mustache-twirler--nearly a caricature villain. And, if I heard correctly tonight, he's dead now.

But sometimes that's very much what a game needs. He wasn't a nice guy, believe me. He was about power--specifically, how much he could gain. His methods weren't too bad, comparatively...until his "revision." There -are- other villains in the game, but they're played/portrayed as nigh-untouchable. My old character's defeat brings a confidence boost, and sense of a job well done, and a sense of being good guys.

It's a problem in the game I run, I think. I've tried to make most of my characters in the game more-or-less believable human beings (when they are, in fact, human). That doesn't really give my players anyone to strive against righteously, and may cause them to be unhappy with the game for having no option but to strive against (mostly) good guys. It's not fun to constantly sacrifice and concede to non-player characters, to compromise over and over. Sometimes you just want to win, and you want to be right--and the player characters usually want to be -in- the right, too.

I'm not suggesting everything should be easy, or everything should be black-and-white. Certain things should be easy. Maybe, though, it's better story for the players' characters to lose. Maybe they should question whether they should be striving against some situations and/or some characters. But without the clear win here and there, and the clear villain once in a while, games can feel alot like you're playing Real Life--only you're forced to roll dice to see when you need to pay rent.

Yeah, Ick.

Also, I know I threw around alot of gaming lingo in this post. Sorry. I tried to keep it all in plain speech for the unwashed masses, but sometimes terms are confusing. I'm a gamer. If you read this, you're probably know that, and may have had some chance to familiarize yourself with the aforementioned lingo. I'm probably not going to stop after this post, so look it up!

~j