Interest Check: The Black Archives!

Hello again, people of Defias,
With my recent coming back to this lovely server, and its exceptional atmosphere for Roleplaying, I will now adress a matter that I have long wanted to adress, in the fashion of checking for interest and lack of interest, in an idea of a concept that has long been festering at the back of my skull; that of Evil RP, and the ups and downs that come with it, more specifically the odds in the ever continuous struggle between good and evil in Roleplaying.

With my coming back, I cannot but help to notice, how invisible the evil (player-based evil) and, to my experience, the threat of evil seems these Days. I am given the indication that people are less liable to make evil characters due to the overwhelming odds they face in front of the 'good guys'. As I do agree with this train of thought, I am one personally to wish to do something about it.

The idea I would wish to present is a larger concept, to which would demand initiative and dedication from various places. I will call this vague idea :

The Black Archives

To the level of In-Charcter: this would be a secretive and rather illegal institution dedicated to Scholarship of the Dark Arts (The idea is indeed heavily inspired from the Scholomance.) This dark Library would be open to any practicing Wizard of villainous intent, should they be able to find it in whatever dark corner of the World the Archives advertise their hidiousness. This ties a greater network of fellow schemers and scholars in the forbidden.

To the level of Out-of-Character: There are a few vital Points to which I must make clear :


- the Black Archives is -NOT- a Guild in the essence of its organization, but a non-Guild affiliation made for the means of Communication in which to devlop RP. The "Guild" that would go by such a name, would be refering to the Librarians which are vital for the managing of a Library. Its role would be that of an Academical one of writ and lecture.

- It is not an organization made to be controlled by any sole mind. This is due to the urgings that we are all fellow conspirators, and not the slaves to one prominent evil RPer's desperate ego crying out for attention as the Supreme Lord of Darkess.
However, as there would be indeed need for a leadership of -some- kind in terms of organizing this great structure, It is my idea that a "Council" of a kind could be made with which to controll this network, that we discuss what the Archives should do when, where, and why.

- For the continuance and finalization of this concept, that is, actually making it into a thing, there would be a great need of various dedicated individuals to organize. As the affiliation would, if successful, feature many people, it is my idea to have many people have a part in deciding what to do.


Some of these Points, or all of them, can very well be discussed, and should be, to advance this idea into a thing, or, if it is lousy, to throw it away altogether.

If You are interested in organizing this well-intentioned concept with me, please /whisp me in-game.

A cool project, and I'd be happy to help if possible. Not to derail the topic too much, but...

Eldiros wrote:With my coming back, I cannot but help to notice, how invisible the evil (player-based evil) and, to my experience, the threat of evil seems these Days. I am given the indication that people are less liable to make evil characters due to the overwhelming odds they face in front of the 'good guys'. As I do agree with this train of thought, I am one personally to wish to do something about it.

There's a lot to this. As the "standards" of RP increased, I think it'd be hard for a new evil doer to get away with some of the things guilds such as The Dark Sphere did in the past. A good example of this would be the Black Hand. So the only real evil guild concept that would work is the more restrained, subtle concepts that aren't very open in their misdeeds. This in turn can be very hard to make attractive and fun, which leads onto my second point.

Evil guilds have sort of been made redundant due to things such as DM events and the more guild-focused RP. The entire function that an evil guild can provide for a "good guy" or guard guild can be done within a DM event hosted by the guild. There's a lot less drama to this, much easier to organize and there are less attachments to the evil characters as they only exist as needed by the event's plot. This is also exacerbated by the problem that people aren't necessarily interested in character development when making evil characters. They make evil alt characters to join an evil guild to do evil stuff. When they're done with this, people will log onto to their main characters to actually roleplay for character development's sake. This leads back to the point that there is just less interest in the more subtle, restrained concepts.

Which sort of brings me back to the topic itself. What purpose would these archives serve to "reinvigorate" (there are probably a lot of active evil guilds anyway) the evil RP? It's a cool idea, and worth pursuing for that alone, but yeah.

I like to see it as something to add to the flavour of playing an evil character, that your character might easier find likeminded inividuals in this particularily dark meeting-place, that your character might find a larger pillar of safety in this vile organization.


The usual procedure that people /Yell Guards!!! across the city in circumstances where you commit unsublte acts of arocities, only to have you surrounded and having you spend your Days in the cells without moving can be incredibly dull if repetitiveness ensues.
The way I see it, it is due to the villains not having much more to lean on than themselves while the side of good is unified, which in itself is not a bad thing, yet it is to my understanding, that the means by which the villain could turn to a much larger pillar for assistance in his evil-doing is an intriguing concept and would certainly add a more imposingly dangerous role of evil in the fight between good and evil. That is, atleast to me, reinvigorating when it comes to evil RP.

The trouble with "evil" RP is that watching people being over the top with evilness or acting like a comic book villian is very off putting to some. Some people may just avoid interaction with the guild all together, and if you've no one to interact with, your misdeeds have no one to validate them.

Zaraj made some very excellent points, to which I agree to every single one of them.

But just to add on top of his points.

Zaraj wrote:This is also exacerbated by the problem that people aren't necessarily interested in character development when making evil characters. They make evil alt characters to join an evil guild to do evil stuff.

This is the main thing that will put people off. Overly "evil" and I use the word evil lightly because I personally hate the word and it's connotations, just contain shallow characters. Don't get me wrong, there have been a LOT of great evil guilds like The Dark Sphere, The Black hand and heck, even The Church of Holy Antheion were a hoot.
But what they all had in common was good characterisation. They weren't shallow and had a lot of depth to them. Be mindful of this.

I never understood those who would decline bad (or good things!) to happen to their evil chars. Character development in either direction is always interesting, and can create so much rp! I've had chars start off as evil, then after 2 or so years of RP, end up as a more neutral good person. It had been a ton of great experiance in all directions.

I am interested in the Black Archives idea. I got a few evil\semi evil chars who would like some secret organisations he can lean on.

Evil and good will always find challenge. If bad has been slightly discovered doesn't mean all Is over, it means you could outsmart good in othe means to cover your backside .


I had an evil character that completely turned all around even enine changing sides over the years

I have a char that would be interested in a place like that.

She's not evil!
<_<
>_>

Arabella Greene wrote:Don't get me wrong, there have been a LOT of great evil guilds like The Dark Sphere, The Black hand and heck, even The Church of Holy Antheion were a hoot.
But what they all had in common was good characterisation. They weren't shallow and had a lot of depth to them. Be mindful of this.

I'd have to disagree, at least to a point. From the beginning, guilds like The Dark Sphere and Hand of Nightmares for instance were pretty much simple concepts about the Shadow. It wasn't to the degree of "do bad shit for the sake of bad", sure, but the concepts for the guilds weren't really deep. They had interesting characters, which is another thing, but the guild concepts weren't necessarily that interesting.

Speaking from my experience, you'd have a "core membership" as I'd call it that are darker characters interested in character development, and more or less have these characters as their RP main. These would be active in casual RP, attend most events and would be the amount of people you could rely on to turn up to events. Then you'd have the rest of the guild, which would be "evil character alts". The people who create an evil character and join an evil guild to solely do evil stuff.

Slightly repeating myself, but the active "core membership" was always too small for it to sustain a guild based around evil RP. You'd always be outnumbered in any events where you'd be antagonists, and any RP that focused on internal RP or creating some form of hub isn't what interests the players outside of "the core membership". Those things aren't what makes people join evil guilds. Because of this, an evil RP guild can't really sustain its own RP. They become dependent on actually being antagonists to other guilds, which is problematic in later days because of the new standards of RP, whereas in the early TDS days it wasn't as much as an issue.

The solution is just to place these evil characters who'd normally belong in the "core membership" and just insert them in guilds where they can provide opposition, and for them to have RP that doesn't depend on any other guilds or events to get their RP. Or better yet, just have a guild with many differing opinions, from the lawful good to the chaotic evil, and see what kind of RP comes?

Pretty much everything Zaraj said, he's pretty spot on.

I like the concept, and it has potential, especially as an un-guilded organisation. As I'm sure people have characters they are already playing that they could see joining the Black Archive, rather then making new character alts for it.

But I digress, best of luck with this Eldrios.

It reminds me a bit of the Super Villain's Pub, which in itself reminded me a bit of Caritas in the show Angel. Here's a clip of the pub if you don't know what I'm on about.



Of course the concept of a library is a bit more high brow than a pub. I like the idea that a bunch of evil people sit in a dark place, reading ancient magical tomes and plotting the end of the universe, ascending to horrific power or manipulating the next election. People who would normally never meet, or publically condemn eachother having some light talk about how they hate puppies. Francis J. Underwood and Voldemort sharing a cup of EVIL tea while they bemoan the do-gooders.

That sounds like a fun idea. Don't narrow it down to just evil wizards though. Keep it open to the sophisticated class of villains, be they corporate, councilmen , witches or wizards. I don't think a thug would fit in. As for organisation, keep it light. Perhaps a mysterious librarian that looks upon the world and those with 'promise' and then gives them an invite to this dark place. It's just a set up, I reckon- doesn't require tons of councilling. Councils are often daft and dull.

I like all the posts here.

Just wanted that to be said.

Zaraj makes some great points.

In our current age; would we allow an evil guild to actually occupy SW and throw the good guy out? - I doubt it.

In our current age would we accept when the evil character escapes every other day with the help of an invisible potion? I doubt it.

Or just let a guild preach the shadow openly in the streets and try to recruit people...

Welcome Back, Eldiros, good to see you. Sounds like a good concept, I have a warlock who may be interested.

By any chance is the name inspired by the Black Library of Warhammer 40k?

An interesting concept I'll pop my head into. I'm not sure the usual concerns of how a villainous sect will for into the server are valid here, seeing as this concept is fairly passive. The only real issue is to garner enough interest to get it off the ground.

I really enjoyed RPing an 'evil' char as a semi-main. There was a lot of social, a lot of potential for development, and as he did it in 'hiding,' a lot of wit and cunning involved. I even ran a couple server-wide "nobleman-hosted" events with ulterior motives, since he was a noble who was secretly a warlock (this was a Black Hand char). That's the best kind for sustained activity, imo: subtle evil organized with like-minded individuals, each with real backstories, motives, goals, etc. A friend calls it, "gay evil," since it's super refined and classy. No offense, anyone. Gay evil is best evil, though.

What you're talking about setting up sounds similar and I think it would work well, so long as you can find a good IC location for it. My only worry would be that you might have a couple of the more blatantly evil "I want to be supervillain" types give away your location, and get it stormed or something (mind you, the "good guy guilds" seem to be pretty good at not doing that randomly, giving fair warning and time to escape etc). So I'd suggest being prepared for that, and having a good event or something planned around it JUST in case as well as a good backup location or three.