Hum... I've played the "Villain" for a while with a PvP group in Rust, 7days2die, Ark, and a few other survival games. We didn't always become the "Chivalrous Villain". Some rules we did have though were as follows:
1. Never pick on fresh spawns or players so far below us that its just bullying
1a. Exception is a player that is trying to be a dick OR for some insane reason trying to fight us.
2. Its more fun for both us AND them if we raid their base when they are there to defend it. They don't feel "Cheated" by a "Early Morning Raid" and we get to feel accomplished.
2a. Exception is if we are REALLY in need of items we knew the player had. Or we wanted to make them think someone else did it (Playing the "Good Guy" and getting everyone to fight each other like a shadow emperor is kinda awesome btw)
2b. One other exception would be if they built so close to us, that it felt like they were utilizing our group space, or that they were eventually going to be a clear threat and we didn't feel like waiting for it to happen.
3. If someone surrendered (usually made them "Prove" surrender by giving us a small tribute every now and then and what ever items we were after at the time) we would not bother trying to attack them or raid their base. In fact, once we killed a guy that had surrendered to us before without knowing who he was. When we realized it, we brought his items back to him and even gave him a few things as an apology.
How conflicts started with us was normally someone taking a shot at us, OR we would target the biggest, most well off group on the server. We would also wreck people who we found tried to attack us. And once in a while we would just start some random fight cuz we were board.
In my experience, playing the villain goes much more smoothly when you have a few things.
a. A "Hero" type player or faction to oppose you. (On one server it was literally everyone. the server vs us.... was rather fun)
b. A RP reason to attack someone (We didn't really have these save for one or two occasions, but it made it more... engaging for both parties) When we had some silly reason why we hard a "Right" to be angry, and were "Out for blood", I found that players responded better to getting in a fight with us. They didn't like loosing, no one does, but they weren't angry at us for it. at least that's how it felt.
As a final note. No matter how hard your faction or group tries. You're always going to make someone cry when playing the villain. Because they just didn't want to deal with being attacked. So as long as you are pretty sure your not crossing any lines that you think shouldn't be crossed (Like spawn camping newbies or something) you should be prepared to steel your heart and press forward with your attacks.
P.S. Oh and don't break ANY server rules. Being the bad guys AUTOMATICALLY makes admins watch you closely and one member can get an entire group punished/banned.
[DOUBLEPOST=1453440484,1453440315][/DOUBLEPOST]OH one thing I forgot to touch on. Although I think villainy should stay in game for the most part. I do feel there are occasions when it can extend to forums. BUT It must only be in a case where your RPing a villain with very clear RP rules in place. And Everyone playing should be aware when you post that your doing it "In character". My group never really worried about RPing. We are just natural bad guys LOL.
