Tips on playing EVIL
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I was looking for a thread on this and couldn't find anything specific. Basically, I'm interested in compiling some tips on how to play successful villians and just as importantly, fun and interesting evil minions. I'm hoping to hear from players of successful villians of the days of yore, so please chime in guys.
Some things we should cover;
How to make allies
The balance between being subtle and being -too- subtle
How to play obvious evil
How to make PvP fun for the people you're picking on
How to play a good minion, that isn't -just- a minionAlso, what made some of the well known villians so interesting?
DISCUSS!
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One thing that the successful Evil characters on CoA seem to display to the average adventurer is a massive perceived threat of evil rather than much direct visible Evil. A case of knowing someone who knew someone who knew someone who was murdered by Dr Evil. You fear them despite their level, because you think you know that they are capable of pulling off your demise, whether by them selves or through their network. You fear their capability to bring about your death from an OOC point of view, so your character fears them IC.
Few players seem to carry off fear IC without an equivalent OOC fear, so the Evil needs to put that across somehow. Risk of Loss is key, but actual Loss in any public way leads to the rapid demise of the Evil. Those characters who have waded in with murder and mayhem in a way that is open and public do not seem to last very long. The server turns vigilante and the character is caught, killed, executed or becomes unviable due to the huge attention given it from Good players.
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I would also like to know how to find evil allies. It seems almost impossible to me, because first you have to find them, then make sure that they won't turn you in to the law or even kill you. And if you manage that, you still have to figure out a working relationship.
I've always wanted to be part of some big evil gang, like those highwaymen that showed up on the way to a quest and beat you down and robbed you. I can't remember their names, but it was a lot of fun.
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How to make allies
That's always the most difficult part. Sometimes standing factions might approach you themselves, even if it's not necessarily with an invitation to join them immediately. Allies are usually best made through coincidences, especially when it comes to subtle characters when niether's normally willing to make the first step, and in the end both have to at the same time when push comes to shove. If you're looking to be a minion-type character then do research on what's available. Chances are it will only help your case if one of your researched factions does approach you and you can say more than "Why me?".The balance between being subtle and being -too- subtle
Just act naturally for your character. If you're trying to OOCly set yourself up to a certain standard of notoriety you'll have trouble, chances are, doing it with a character whose every action is about avoiding attention, whilst another type of character might be entirely suited to spreading and exaggerating tales of their own misdeeds and not make sense to try and play on the quiet side.How to play obvious evil
If you're an evil cleric, or other devout servant of a diety, it's surprising what kind of evil thoughts you can get away with quite blatently. While one person trying to sacrifice another would lead to serious ruckus normally, if it's your cleric of Garagos doing it to ensure victory for the city's armies, it's suddenly not so bad.How to make PvP fun for the people you're picking on
Don't aim to kill if you can help it. With regards to "being subtle/too subtle", beating someone up but not killing them can mean a huge rise in notoriety. Obviously sometimes there's nothing for it and there's people out to kill you.
Also, try and avoid turning it into a server-mob-'em-up moment, whichever side of the fence you're on, I would suggest. While you might have a long rivalry going, maybe even a kind of chivalric code of battles unofficially hashed out, Joe-Blogg-the-Crusader/Murderer might not and only serve to end the PvP on a sour note. Make it personal if it's appropriate to do so; it's a bit of a risk to pursue your rival yourself, but that only makes the eventual result all the more badass, a story people will want to hear.How to play a good minion, that isn't -just- a minion
Very first thing is to define why they're a minion in the first place if they have the potential to be much more. Once you've got their agenda down, it's usually easier to act naturally. -
Just stick your neck out and don't be afraid to take chances!
It's a game at the end of the day, if you lose then you lose (you're playing evil, you will lose at the end of the day regardless)
Sitting around brooding and scheming and sneering for the time you spend online doesn't mean anything if you don't actually do anything
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Dont be too secretive. Cake is right in that you need to take chances. Big chances. If you find succes, well, Great succes! If you die horribly, then, well, it is more fun than just sitting in the broken bottle.
I tried the whole evil thing once, and while my plans never really succeeded, i had alot of fun. Mostly because i didnt try to hide too much. I did my best to attempt to make a believable evil char, that actually made sense.
Dont hide. Hiding is dull. If you hide too well, no one will try to stop you.
I think it was cake who once said, you know you are doing well with an evil char when the whole server is out searching for you with torches and pitchforks.
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Ive had the pleasure of playing for and against some very well played evil characters and basicly it's what cake said.
Take a chance if you go out and do all that cool ebol stuff that you wanted to do you will get tons of help from the dm's.
If all you do is sit around talking about doing it you will never get anywhere.Also this.
Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 6:45 am Post subject:
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One thing that the successful Evil characters on CoA seem to display to the average adventurer is a massive perceived threat of evil rather than much direct visible Evil. A case of knowing someone who knew someone who knew someone who was murdered by Dr Evil. You fear them despite their level, because you think you know that they are capable of pulling off your demise, whether by them selves or through their network. You fear their capability to bring about your death from an OOC point of view, so your character fears them IC.
This is what you need beating peaple up is all well and good but lets face it they lose nothing and as all hero's are stupidly brave you achive nothing.
Do not be afraid to kill another players character if it is deserved…This is where most evil characters fall down the player dosent want to be hated by the victims player as peaple get very attached to characters but if it is warrented by group actions and rp then killing is what you should do.Im not saying kill characters at random,but if your threats go unheeded then kill the victims friends and allies then if that dosent work kill them also.
And don't fear the powerbuilt gank squad of justice you get lots of dm help if you are creating fun. -
It is also by far not -that- difficult to pvp and kill while not being hated by others. Just dont be a jerk. Hells, this is all in all the way to live. You can do what you need to do, and as long as you are a person and not an asshole, well usually things will work themselves out.
My old Bhaliiran retainer killed… Lizardman may help me out on this one, but i think we managed to kill 8 or 9 people. And not ONCE did i get hate mails afterwards. Hells, most of the time i got a pad on the back.
I usually pvp like this:
Build up conflict. Killing off someone you have never met, or someone you just met on the road, and full looting them is sick, and is being a jerk.If there isnt any conflict, then beat them up. Scare them. Show them that YOU are in control of their destiny. That causes fear.
If you caught your target and there are more people, say allies. Use the Shrek approach. "This is the part where you run away." in a tell, offers the people who were simple at the wrong place at the wrong time a chance to survive. Also helps to spread word of your deeds, rumors, all good.
Now, in 95% of my kills, i offered a way out. If you are killing someone, it is because said someone is doing something you dont want. Give him a choice. Doesnt always have to be the easy one. But if at all possible, offer them a way out. That way, the player will also feel that the whole mess isnt forced down upon him.
Finally, dont rush it. Respect that your opponent spend time and energy on his character. Respect that he or she is here to have fun. if it is a player whom you respect alot, and know plays fair, dont be affraid to spill your master plan.
Always remember to tell them WHY they are being killed ig. "What did you expect Harold, that you could kill off five Bhaliiran guards without consequences?"
Finally, i always did my best to leave them with a chance to return to life. I am not a dm, i cannot enforce Perma Death on another. I usually chopped off my victims heads and threw them into the sewers. That way, should the victim want to return, his allies could find his head and raise him.
Remember, this is just guidelines. But they worked for me.
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theres two types of evil;
blatant evil, which tends to be more Lawful in nature, in which case just take it as you seeing what you are doing as right.
Secretive evil, which is where the balancing act between to subtle and just right on subtleness comes in. Taking chances is good, but jumping the gun is bad, with these characters. Just understand that this type of character is going to take time to develop, and be patient. In the begining, focus your chance taking on reaching out to allies. Once you have a few, then you as a group can go out and take chances that actually effect teh server.
Both types of evil can thrive on coa right now, though i think secretive evil best fits as a politically motivated character as opposed to the old three bars thug crowd.
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Alot of this is in the player resources forum.. No one ever uses our awesome posts in the player resources forum :(
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Alot of this is in the player resources forum.. No one ever uses our awesome posts in the player resources forum
I think it's due to a disparity between the phrase ("be subtle", as an example) the feeling/mode of action it evokes in the one reading it ("I'm going to hide my intent to all but a few people and be very mysterious", for example), and the means to effectively turn it into a project. Some of the plots that people try to emulate didn't involve that many people, but were complex and had an impact; that's the difference 4 years of business school makes. Alas, the key to learning to forge those plots is not in the Player Resources but in real life.
That's not to say a simpler story can't be fun; but if a person wants a certain end but doesn't know how to get there, it can be frustrating. I've been there many times. Instead of letting the imprint you want to leave be the motive, find a character whose personality/angle itself is something you like.
Back on topic, though, I can't offer any advice on evil because I never did it very well.
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There is some good advice in the player resources forum Comazotz, particularly this thread, but I was hoping for some advice from a variety of people who have had previous success with playing evil.
Some good advice in here so far too. One thing I did notice was that its really quite easy to pick out which characters when you meet them. If you think someone is evil, try to let them know you might be of similar mind in whatever fashion and they'll usually be -very- happy to ally with you, or at least deal with you in some way if its profitable. Since many evil characters are in the same boat, looking for allies, it should be really easy to make 'friends' with them.
Anyone else got other advice on playing evil? Howabout what to do when you did that big, evil thing and now have the so called 'gank squad' after you. How do you stay alive long enough to keep the story going? Make new allies if you need to? How to continue your characters progress while avoiding your imminent death?
Also, what are some things other then planning that you can do without a DM being on to assist you? Ruling out PvP and interacting with NPCs, what kind of proactive things can you do that'll increase your villianry? Blackmail, threats, backstabbing, leading evil rituals all come to mind… any others (feel free to elaborate on ways to make these things more fun as well)?
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Anyone else got other advice on playing evil? Howabout what to do when you did that big, evil thing and now have the so called 'gank squad' after you. How do you stay alive long enough to keep the story going? Make new allies if you need to? How to continue your characters progress while avoiding your imminent death?
It's been said before you need to be thick skinned if you're going to play a character who may get to this level of notoriety. You will be hunted, you will be ganked, you will have people grouping together who wouldn't normally do so (it's amazing how IC conflicts go out the window when there is Joe Evil to hunt down)
Lots of time you'll find that if there is a big Joe Evil kicking about people will make characters to join up with you, especially if they see you getting involved, becoming famous and having DM attention - this helps with staying alive as suddenly you'll have loads more friends that appear from no-where!
Do your groundwork, too. BEFORE you get to the point where you are hunted by The Server give yourself options as to how to get away. Try and get that hideout, strike a deal with a faction so they will hide you. Obviously that's not always easy, but it's damn fun giving it a try.
Also, what are some things other then planning that you can do without a DM being on to assist you? Ruling out PvP and interacting with NPCs, what kind of proactive things can you do that'll increase your villianry? Blackmail, threats, backstabbing, leading evil rituals all come to mind… any others (feel free to elaborate on ways to make these things more fun as well)?
Lots of the stuff above is good. Don't be afraid to make enemies, they are as important to your story as making allies. One thing that springs to mind (which did involve a DM admitidly) that I did myself was dress like a Militiaman in some stolen Guard chainmail and stole the body of Bradley Larks before his funeral and used it as a hostage tool ''If you don't write off all my crimes I will animate your hero into a zombie for the lolz''
It does all depend on what sort of evil you are playing, though.
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Beat someone down in an inn in front of a DM and try to escape. Great way to get attention.
Especially if your going with petty thug.
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Beat someone down in an inn in front of a DM and try to escape. Great way to get attention.
Especially if your going with petty thug.
Sure, it'll get you attention. The kind of attention you get depends on if you told the DM that you were going to do it prior to the beat down or after the beatdown. One is the "good" kind of attention that will have the server running after you because a possessed NPC is barking orders….the other will land you with a good old character drubbing OOC -style.
The best way to learn your style of evil is to give it a go for a few characters. Be a minion first, then try your own concept and plot, or two...it can be exploratory learning but its fun.
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Balance is the key, I would suppose.
Walk that line wherein everyone knows you're evil and doing no good but you're a lot better than what would happen if they mob-hunt you down and kill you. You may be a bastard but at least you won't do XYZ which is what whoever replaces you in the resulting power vacuum would do.
One of the most successful evil PCs in the server history was a character named Kinaru (who, technically, is still alive somewhere).
She had deals/understandings with the War Wizards and Purple Dragons of the time which meant both sides were better off. She had a deal with a certain major Noble House of the time for sanctuary should things go bad for her.Deals such as "I'll offer you sanctuary if you really need it but in return your lot don't attack my group's assets and people" is a good trade off for both sides.
"We won't try to arrest you as long as you keep feed us information on certain matters and keep your people under control" is another great line to take to keep criminal and law elements interacting beyond chase/arrest/fight scenarios.
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Someone suggested this earlier in the thread and I really like the idea of getting feedback about playing evil from players who have done so and failed; get to know what went wrong and learn from their mistakes. Evil is hard to play to play on CoA. I honestly don't think a blatant evil will go far without a proper NPC faction instrument supporting them. (Note that NPC faction support isn't a guarantee though, the Zhents of 2009 are a good example.)
So I’m going to write a simple case-study on my previous char. Alessandra Allegand, a cleric of Gargauth disguised as a Cleric of the Red Knight. This was back in 2009. CoA at that exact point in time had almost no Team-Evil in place (Zhents were around but they weren’t doing much and I’m not sure why the 3-4 Zhent PCs stopped playing at the same time).
I remember while planning for this concept I was reading everyone on CoA forums about Gargauth Clerics and couldn’t find much. So I hope this could be some interesting read for a Gargauthite or Evil wannabe. I do apologise for the long writing style.Disclaimer: This post is about the point of view a single player on CoA which others may or may not share. Others may disagree but the post is based on the author’s realistic experiences on CoA.
QuestingQuesting is essential to the Evil because she will need levels to gain skillpoints (such as intimidate, bluff, persuade…) and gold because it makes the world go round. Here comes the problem. Being blatant Evil, Goods will detest you and it is highly unlikely they will bring you on their quests or join yours (unless they are desperate or bored or in an exceptional mood). Subtle Evils will also attempt to disassociate from you for obvious reasons. Neutrals would be more willing to accept you provided they aren’t any Goods on the team and they aren’t on close terms with any Good that is against your Blatant Evil character.
Most often, you will have to form your own parties. Never feel frustrated at the difficulty of joining a questing group and do refrain from forcing yourself to do quests with the less-than-substantial group you might have scratched together. The best solution is to form a band of fellow Evils to quest with.My experience: Aless was subtle Evil, so I did not have this problem. Even after being exposed, there was a small faction formed so getting a questing party was not so difficult. Getting others (especially Goods or certain Neutrals) to join you could be rather challenging though. I tried putting up posters to gather fellow evils into questing together but very few people responded. I don’t blame them, it’d just gather too much heat.
Alignment Problem
I decided to play an Evil and actually pick an Evil alignment rather than a Neutral alignment to avoid heat from the Paladins cos I think it’s lame. As such, I needed to find a way to deal with the Paladins. What I did was to camouflage Aless as a Cleric of the Red Knight (which can be Evil aligned). When questioned about her Evil alignment, she would bluff and answer that she was just one of the Clerics of the Red Knight whom believed in using evil-typed battle tactics if they had to. It’s a more tolerable excuse and at most resulted in ‘counsel’ sessions from Goods hoping to convince her that good-typed tactics are good enough. They completely missed the point, which is good for the subtle Evil.
Followers/Minions
I started recruiting early before character creation in the midst of character planning. I basically approached OOC buddies on CoA whom I’ve got to known from my previous chars. I considered public OOC recruitment a bad idea and damaging for the subtlety of the character concept so I avoided that. For subtle Evil concepts, I find that approaching people OOC one by one is generally the way to go for OOC recruitment. IC recruitment was pretty straight forward, I had posters up to gather fellow gargauthites; as well as keep an eye out for useful individuals I want drawn into my group and start pulling them closer and closer to me.
I made a move I regretted though. I was focusing on recruiting people into a Gargauth based faction, so to join Aless, they first had to become Gargauthites (I thought it was the natural order of things since she is a cleric). On hind sight, I should have made it all about Aless, so she would recruit people and make them loyal to her instead, regardless of her cause. I think any subtle evil should consider this approach. It’s easier to have someone choose to follow you and do whatever you do than to actively decide to be Evil (even though they both are actually the same thing).Overall, I managed to gather quite a number. A total of 10-11, though not everyone was online at the same time. I managed to recruit people across different time zones back then as I was playing really often lol. There are a surprising number of Gargauthites around, though at that time they were mostly scattered and lacked a central figure to band them. Aless came at a good time.
Allies
Being Gargauthite, allies are difficult to find. So what Aless did was to use her guise as a Cleric of the Red Knight and find allies from there.
Hideouts
With minions, you’ll need hideouts. What we used was an ‘abandoned’ house inside the City which I thought was really neat and apt for a Gargauth worshiping squad. We were very concerned about anyone else finding the location so everyone was required to enter and leave in stealth or invisibility.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t abandoned. We had meetings always everyday back then (we were really active) and we’d run into hostile NPCs like once every 2 weeks. We ran into them a total of three times I think with increasing degrees of difficulty. On the third occasion, they had a high level mage in tow and we just got defeated. So we got thrown out of the house.
After that, we used a cave that was while outside the city, was really near to it. Again we played things really safe. We had our rogue place traps near the entrance so anything entering would alert us to their presence. I would true-sight and scout the place with the rogue to make sure no one was hiding inside to spy on us. Things got pretty interesting in this cave, we met a certain really important NPC and got some plot hooks there. However, things got bad pretty soon. A bunch of good guys conducted a raid on the area (for entirely separate reasons). We were just in a bad place. Granted, a DM possessed an NPC and tried to warn us but I didn’t expect the warning of ‘you are in a dangerous situation’ to be so literal. Within minutes of that, 15 odd good guys would come marching in. We left the cave barely 10 seconds before they reached. They caught us outside. Our rogue was still on the inside, but they missed him as he was in stealth. As our Evil cover was not blown yet, they let us off. But suspicion on us was increasing.
After that we moved to another hiding spot in the Wailing Caverns. This was pretty pitiful, there was no lighting and the place was leaky. Anyway, it involved a door which our rogue had to pick for us to enter, and lock to keep away intruders. It went well for a few days until one meeting where our rogue had to log off half-way into the meeting. As neither of us could pick lock, we asked him to unlock the door first before logging. So we continued the meeting with the door unlocked. And by Basheba's black breasts, someone was spying on us as the door was unlocked. We never found out the identity of the person, but we had a feeling it was someone associated with the Red Harts.
Hideouts are really a problem for Evil.
Hedge Magic Reagents
While searching for them, the group experienced a lot of deaths. Frustration grew and people started to discontinue their characters. I honestly think that if I were to replay Aless then, I would have not bothered searching for Hedge Magic Reagents and instead focus on snatching them instead. We found a few, like 2-3 after a few deaths; only to have them stolen when the person we tasked with carrying it died while questing when a char he was questing with offered to help carry his items while he respawned and stole the hedge magic reagents and gave it to the Red Harts. And poof, they were gone just like that. In case you’re wondering why I even bothered with Hedge Magic Reagents to begin with, back then Aless needed Hedge Magic Reagents to divine the location of the Seeing Stones.
Disguises
CoA does not enforced disguises. That was the biggest mistake I made resulting in the exposing of my Char - I didn't know that! Anyway my Cleric with maximum skill-points in bluff for her level and trickery domain failed all the rolls. So she ended up jumping the gun, being revealed earlier than I would have liked.
Long story short, It was a rather spontaneous DM event where Aless experienced what she thought was a divine message from her god to be at starwater gorge to kill a paladin. She went there in disguise, big battle erupted and her cover was blown. (Some screenies were taken, Aless is somewhere in the background in the screenie with the Hammer of Gods) She did try to use word-play to try to make the paladin believe he was mistaken that the hooded lady who tried to kill him as her but the paladin bought none of that. Everything fell apart from that point on. After that, the Red Harts started turning hostile to Aless and basically all the Goods followed in the Red Harts steps.
Looking back, I think my plan should have been to never reveal Aless. And that doesn’t mean just sitting around and playing a Red Knight Cleric instead. It just means that she should have stayed in the shadows and pulled strings. Giving instruction and have others do the dirty work. Of course, it’d take a lot of control and patience.
PvP
When I played Aless, my stance was to avoid PvP. I admit, it’s an ooc move. But then again, how is it ooc to avoid PCs? IC-ly, Aless can’t tell the diff. Anyway, PvP which almost always involves you either losing or beating someone down draws heat on you. It’s okay if you’re doing it to a nobody or 2-week old character. I was forced to have Aless do PvP in the starwater gorge event and look where it got her.
Final Demise.Aless died fighting Zxhoo. Now you may wonder what’s a Cleric of Gargauth fighting an Evil dragon for? This was at the point where Aless was known as Evil and people soon started finding out she worshiped Gargauth. I was playing her Lawful card. The point being, as long as I don’t do anything unlawful, I may be Evil, but you can’t touch me. So basically Aless was trying to ingratiate herself to the Sheriffs. She would do them a favour by contributing herself and loyal sidekick Draed to the cause and in return they’d be perhaps somewhat obliged to help protect them against Good vigilantes so long they don’t do anything really bad.
Perhaps I ended up focusing on the wrong things in the end, which resulted in her death.My last advice for playing Evil
You might love to play Evil. But on CoA, you should play what the CoA setting wants. If the setting is too Evil hostile, and you're the only one who's actively playing Evil, you need to have other players join you on the Evil bandwagon soon or you're gonna be thinking of a new concept in no time. Lawful Evil is more viable than chaotic Evil, play the lawful side of the Character's nature. -
It's a game at the end of the day, if you lose then you lose (you're playing evil, you will lose at the end of the day regardless)
Cake is right, except for this small little thing here in the end. Check this to see why: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0763.html
Back on topic.
While it is possible to play an evil mastermind/overlord from the beginning, it is hard to achieve and requires constant effort (and some OOC cooperation, for example, agreeing on a concept and then creating it with 3-5 people helps a lot), it's a lot more easier to start off as minion.
Yes. Whatever you do, you should start off as a minion, and recognize this as an acceptable aspect of the character.
I've played... Three pretty evil characters, all of which I consider really succesfull (not in the "I got a statue/grave/npc'd!" succesfull, but in other regards). Two of them started small, one with the support of a DM faction.
Really, "finding allies" should not be forced. If you deliberately hang out in "evil people meet here" spots, you'll meet other evil people, true... But it's so much harder to force loyalty on another through that kind of meetings, than it is to earn it by randombly joining paths. Let friendship, loyalty and trust form on their own weight, join established groups and people, grow in ranks/esteem/evilness/power and slowly replace the leader or splinter off the group. That dreaded infamy will form through your affiliations (in addition to your actions).
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Need allies? Quest more and RP during the quest. Other evil characters pick up on it. It's a little like trying to find, umm, this isn't appropriate, but imagine you were, uh, different from others in a way, and, umm, you are trying to find someone who is also, uh, different, so when you talk, you drop hints that only someone like that would understand.
Got it? No? Good.
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Villains need to take risks, much more so than heroes. Sticking to the shadows acting villainous without doing villainy is just not what DMs want to see.
Take the risk that your character will be defeated, the risks is what makes it fun to play a villain. If your villain is someone who is so boring DMs forget they exist, you're not playing a villain. You're playing an adventurer with an evil alignment.
A villain is far more than having "Evil" somewhere on your character sheet. It is an attitude, it is a diabolical plan, it is the willingness to stick your neck out to achieve a dastardly goal.