(08-05-2013, 06:22 PM)Koren Wrote: If for some reason the authorities don't work as a solution in a story... due to incompetence, not believing the PC, etc. That's now established in that story. That means in all further stories the authorities are incompetent.
Only if you want to. You could play it as that, in the new story (or, heck, even during the course of the same history), the authorities changed somewhat. To give a very silly but obvious example: the sheriff in town was changed and the one in charge now is competent. It's something you have to decide OOCly with the 'full-time' villain, though. Unless you want to make the authorities into alts, in which case you have to talk with the villain anyway to let him know that there'll be a group of semi-competent NPCs helping the good guys.
(08-05-2013, 06:22 PM)Koren Wrote: (...) My character is not going to trust X to know what they're doing upon seeing that unfold.
Maybe the villain is smart and knows where to strike has a corollary: the opposing PC is requested to not react to certain things in this story. Again, that's fine if the thing is all worked out and this isn't a villain who's around very much so again the option to just go around the corner, knock on their door and ask about their villainy isn't realistic... but, the problem with a LOT of PC villains is that they kind of require... well... railroading. Which is fine if you've signed up for it -- no one minds travelling a railroad if the scenery is nice.... but as someone who's been that player of "No, you can't do that... or that.... or that! Just wait until I'm done as a villain and watch how much horror I can cause!"
I'm not sure what you mean with knocking on their door and asking about their villainy. I guess you are refering how I said you have to ask the villain player about it. You do that in Out-Of-Character mode: you ask the player, not the character. Communication is important in this cases, so you have to go OOC when discussing details about the plot or planning the story. Otherwise, crap will happen.
About the railroading and the corollary: You are assuming villains have to railroad to work properly. I have the feeling the villains you have roleplayed with were just terrible. Which is, I admit, a problem I have run with full-time villainous groups. But in those cases, you just discuss the railroading (OOCly, of course), hoping they'll get better...or you just drop the storyline, if you are sufficiently fed off and you don't think there's any chance of salvaging it.
I'm, however, a bit unsure of what you mean by railroading. I know the technical roleplayer term: it's when the Dungeon Master forces the players to follow a very narrow path to move forward in the plot. I'm unsure of what you mean, though, because, for what you said, it seems to me you are calling 'railroading' to certain story details that are there to make the villain work as such. For example, in the example of the necromancer, that he's avoiding guarded graveyards. This isn't railroading: it's the character reacting. What would be railroading would be if he told you 'you can't put a guard there', or him going 'I still managed to dig out another body!'. Though the second is more godmodding than railroading.
(08-05-2013, 06:22 PM)Koren Wrote: It's all your style of play, of course, but villiainy is something that has more consequences than a lot of people realize. How and what happens goes BEYOND play. I've seen people be upset that THE DAY AFTER the guild ran a storyline wherien someone was tortured the character tortured was sullen, surly and withdrawn instead of participatory in a guild event to introduce and meet new people because "The day wasn't supposed to be about them". I've seen people frustrated because they wanted their plot to go in one direction to resolve unaware they had literally TAUGHT the people in their plot that this method wouldn't work because it failed two times before and now everyone was frustrated. It's just... a very careful thing is all.
This is all stuff you have to solve OOCly. Nobody's a telepath on the internet. We cannot fully communicate with our fellow roleplayers purely by in-character means. That's just asking situations like the ones you have described to happen.
You have to drop character for a moment and whisper them, form a party and discuss things in chat, use private messages or a forum. Whatever. But communication is the key. Otherwise, things will start falling apart and nobody will be able to hold the thing together.
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