I was once asked "How many times have you honestly heard someone say that their character was going to go crazy or be insane or go evil? I think you are exaggerating just how often this happens."
To answer that question, I would like to tell you all that I have heard it a ton of times. A TON OF TIMES. No joke or stretching of the truth, the single most common character plot I have heard goes like this "They will start out as a good guy then later go crazy/evil/insane and cause a bunch of trouble for plot reasons. Then they might come back to the good guys at the end." Now I am not here to criticize you all on your lack of originality because I understand the temptation to use this kind of story line. I just want to help you, you wanna be dark lords, be the best turncoat anti-hero you can be, and not a bag of skittles.
Who doesn't want to be Anakin Skywalker or Justin Law? Some of the greatest and most loved characters in anime and other media follow this kind of story line, but that doesn't work too well in RP. Why? Because in stories like that there is only one character who goes through this kind of story ark and it is done by a pro-author in a controlled medium. In Rp there are a large number of people trying to do this, we are all casual authors and RP is not a controlled medium.
So what can you do? It's not easy for sure to pull this character off in a RP but I have devised a system to help you pull it off well.
1. The setup. Get tough, a weak villain is worse then no villain. A or B rank are probably good times to turn on your guild. By then you have made friends so your betrayal actually hurts and you will have the power to kickass. I have worked out a solid system to get up to A-Rank will relative easy in not much time. If you are at d-rank drop the "3 c-ranks and done" approach it takes too long. Just solo 6 d-rank jobs, it won't take you more then a week. Now at c-rank you will want to form a team with 2 or 3 buddies and take on "The Hunter" job(b-rank). This job is great for several reasons, it requires 40 posts total. Not 40 posts per player, 40 total. Which means the job will take the same amount of time no matter how many friends you bring in. It also has great rewards, double exp, 10k jewels and a legendary item on the side. This double exp along with the team exp boost will get you to B-rank. Not to mention the job is tons of fun. Next is the A-Rank job "Shine like the Moon" this is a job similar to "The Hunter" in that is has some great rewards, it's a great RP scenario and it's got double exp. Counting the team bonus, this will get you A-rank. Just like that C-rank to A-rank in two jobs. Not that hard huh? Now you are ready to wreak havoc on Fiore.
2. The betrayal. This part is a lot easier and less time consuming. Now just take all the jewels you have accumulated from ranking up. Buy several metric tons of explosive lacrima. Bury them under your guild and ask for a chat with your guild master.
2. The madness. This part is probably the single hardest part, but fortunately it doesn't take too long. Before you betray all your friends and morals, you need to work out a good reason to turn on them. "I'll go insane!" "I've got a demon inside of me!" "I've got a dark side that will come out!" >.> you see those? Those are the three worst possible ways to go evil. Honestly "The pickle is telling me to be evil." is better. Why? Because you are letting a pickle be your moral compass, that is some honest to god insanity right there. Except completely ridiculous. We can do better.
2a. How to be insane. Insanity isn't just something you wake up with. It's triggered by something, something happens to make you go insane. For some people it's pulling over your car on a highway to fix a flat tire, then getting out just to watch a drunk driver ram into the car sending your wife and children over a cliff while you stand there helpless to do anything. For others it's hitting rock bottom, then trying to get back up on your feet just to get knocked down again and again and again to the point where they feel like god himself is pushing them down. Find that event that makes you go over the edge and actually rp it out, don't just go into your guild and say "I just came back from the most traumatic shit ever, I'm going to nuke everything." speaking of which, when you come up with that event it is very VERY important that somehow you can make a rational link to the problem to the people you want to betray. Other wise when you go on your psychotic rampage it won't make any sense as to why you are killing your friends.
2b. How to have a dark side. "I don't know why people have dark sides, I just make everything dark and destructive. Then it's all fun all the time." ~Temptress Midnight. o-o the trick with having a dark side is making it apparent from the get go and bringing it out properly. Now a dark side can be anything, a voice in your head, a demon in your heart, some lonely burden you bear, but it has to be trigger able and progressive. Meaning that little voice in your head has to have a point, it has to be a clever little devil who can make an off hand comment sound like a direct insult. To be honest don't have much experience in this kind of evil turn. The only solid advice I can give is start pretty evil, get more evil, become completely evil, hide it the entire time, be completely evil for a while, then turn on your guild in a destructive way.
3. The betrayal. So now you have your evil character, all you need to do now is break free of your good guy buddies holding you back. "It's not about if I can kill Spock, it's how I kill Spock." Execution is everything, this is the defining moment of if you are a memorable evil bastard who fans back home will hate but love for years to come like Justin Law or just an asshole who lied to his friends like that one dude from Frozen.
3a. Set the stage. Don't just walk into your guild and yell "Imma blow you all up!" and light the place up with explosive lacrima. That's the easy way and you know what they say about the easy way. Well I would tell you what they say about the easy way but that would be taking the easy way. Anyway anything worth having is hard to get, so let's get creative with our setting. So you have been in the guild a while and you are pretty high ranked and you got your high rank along side your trusted teammate(assuming you followed step one) why don't you turn on THEM. Go out for a job for "old times sake" or to "continue climbing up the ranks" then towards the end... kick them off a cliff and say "see ya' in hell." Bam movie gold. Your ex-team-mate will naturally survive through plot armor, return to the guild and tell everyone how evil you were. You could also take your long time standing but undeveloped love interest out on a romantic boat ride, then say "Pardon me I've got a bit of heart burn." before setting the boat on fire and getting the hell out of there. Congrats you are now a bad guy.
Pro-tip: Come up with your own settings and catchy one liners. Reusing mine won't work very well.
3b. Rock their world. You are now your guilds public enemy number one and a damn good one too. So what do you do now? Take advantage of baddie celebration month and ambush those mofos. Break into their jobs like nobodies business, target their best guys and break their bones, target their weak guys and crush their hopes and dreams. Constantly get in the way. This should be pretty easy and fun assuming you have a well developed evil character and followed the steps properly. The only risk is if you constantly get your ass kicked and you become Team Rocket. >.> in which case you just need to stop being so rubbish at fighting and try harder.
4. Your ultimate plan. Now that you guild hates you and you are a great antagonist it's time to unleash your ultimate plan! By this stage you should be S or H-rank. o-o what you do here is completely up to you.
To answer that question, I would like to tell you all that I have heard it a ton of times. A TON OF TIMES. No joke or stretching of the truth, the single most common character plot I have heard goes like this "They will start out as a good guy then later go crazy/evil/insane and cause a bunch of trouble for plot reasons. Then they might come back to the good guys at the end." Now I am not here to criticize you all on your lack of originality because I understand the temptation to use this kind of story line. I just want to help you, you wanna be dark lords, be the best turncoat anti-hero you can be, and not a bag of skittles.
Who doesn't want to be Anakin Skywalker or Justin Law? Some of the greatest and most loved characters in anime and other media follow this kind of story line, but that doesn't work too well in RP. Why? Because in stories like that there is only one character who goes through this kind of story ark and it is done by a pro-author in a controlled medium. In Rp there are a large number of people trying to do this, we are all casual authors and RP is not a controlled medium.
So what can you do? It's not easy for sure to pull this character off in a RP but I have devised a system to help you pull it off well.
1. The setup. Get tough, a weak villain is worse then no villain. A or B rank are probably good times to turn on your guild. By then you have made friends so your betrayal actually hurts and you will have the power to kickass. I have worked out a solid system to get up to A-Rank will relative easy in not much time. If you are at d-rank drop the "3 c-ranks and done" approach it takes too long. Just solo 6 d-rank jobs, it won't take you more then a week. Now at c-rank you will want to form a team with 2 or 3 buddies and take on "The Hunter" job(b-rank). This job is great for several reasons, it requires 40 posts total. Not 40 posts per player, 40 total. Which means the job will take the same amount of time no matter how many friends you bring in. It also has great rewards, double exp, 10k jewels and a legendary item on the side. This double exp along with the team exp boost will get you to B-rank. Not to mention the job is tons of fun. Next is the A-Rank job "Shine like the Moon" this is a job similar to "The Hunter" in that is has some great rewards, it's a great RP scenario and it's got double exp. Counting the team bonus, this will get you A-rank. Just like that C-rank to A-rank in two jobs. Not that hard huh? Now you are ready to wreak havoc on Fiore.
2. The madness. This part is probably the single hardest part, but fortunately it doesn't take too long. Before you betray all your friends and morals, you need to work out a good reason to turn on them. "I'll go insane!" "I've got a demon inside of me!" "I've got a dark side that will come out!" >.> you see those? Those are the three worst possible ways to go evil. Honestly "The pickle is telling me to be evil." is better. Why? Because you are letting a pickle be your moral compass, that is some honest to god insanity right there. Except completely ridiculous. We can do better.
2a. How to be insane. Insanity isn't just something you wake up with. It's triggered by something, something happens to make you go insane. For some people it's pulling over your car on a highway to fix a flat tire, then getting out just to watch a drunk driver ram into the car sending your wife and children over a cliff while you stand there helpless to do anything. For others it's hitting rock bottom, then trying to get back up on your feet just to get knocked down again and again and again to the point where they feel like god himself is pushing them down. Find that event that makes you go over the edge and actually rp it out, don't just go into your guild and say "I just came back from the most traumatic shit ever, I'm going to nuke everything." speaking of which, when you come up with that event it is very VERY important that somehow you can make a rational link to the problem to the people you want to betray. Other wise when you go on your psychotic rampage it won't make any sense as to why you are killing your friends.
2b. How to have a dark side. "I don't know why people have dark sides, I just make everything dark and destructive. Then it's all fun all the time." ~Temptress Midnight. o-o the trick with having a dark side is making it apparent from the get go and bringing it out properly. Now a dark side can be anything, a voice in your head, a demon in your heart, some lonely burden you bear, but it has to be trigger able and progressive. Meaning that little voice in your head has to have a point, it has to be a clever little devil who can make an off hand comment sound like a direct insult. To be honest don't have much experience in this kind of evil turn. The only solid advice I can give is start pretty evil, get more evil, become completely evil, hide it the entire time, be completely evil for a while, then turn on your guild in a destructive way.
3. The betrayal. So now you have your evil character, all you need to do now is break free of your good guy buddies holding you back. "It's not about if I can kill Spock, it's how I kill Spock." Execution is everything, this is the defining moment of if you are a memorable evil bastard who fans back home will hate but love for years to come like Justin Law or just an asshole who lied to his friends like that one dude from Frozen.
3a. Set the stage. Don't just walk into your guild and yell "Imma blow you all up!" and light the place up with explosive lacrima. That's the easy way and you know what they say about the easy way. Well I would tell you what they say about the easy way but that would be taking the easy way. Anyway anything worth having is hard to get, so let's get creative with our setting. So you have been in the guild a while and you are pretty high ranked and you got your high rank along side your trusted teammate(assuming you followed step one) why don't you turn on THEM. Go out for a job for "old times sake" or to "continue climbing up the ranks" then towards the end... kick them off a cliff and say "see ya' in hell." Bam movie gold. Your ex-team-mate will naturally survive through plot armor, return to the guild and tell everyone how evil you were. You could also take your long time standing but undeveloped love interest out on a romantic boat ride, then say "Pardon me I've got a bit of heart burn." before setting the boat on fire and getting the hell out of there. Congrats you are now a bad guy.
Pro-tip: Come up with your own settings and catchy one liners. Reusing mine won't work very well.
3b. Rock their world. You are now your guilds public enemy number one and a damn good one too. So what do you do now? Take advantage of baddie celebration month and ambush those mofos. Break into their jobs like nobodies business, target their best guys and break their bones, target their weak guys and crush their hopes and dreams. Constantly get in the way. This should be pretty easy and fun assuming you have a well developed evil character and followed the steps properly. The only risk is if you constantly get your ass kicked and you become Team Rocket. >.> in which case you just need to stop being so rubbish at fighting and try harder.
4. Your ultimate plan. Now that you guild hates you and you are a great antagonist it's time to unleash your ultimate plan! By this stage you should be S or H-rank. o-o what you do here is completely up to you.
