Makeing my players characters evil. Should I?

[shaga]

The story of my campaign is that during a festival the PCs souls are bound with an Evil divine energy. The PCs then begin a journey to discover what that evil energy is, how it will affect them and how to remove it or master it.
The PCs started the first session as commoners with all their stats 10s and after the event that gave them the divine evil energy the transformed, over a night to the characters they had created (psion, sorcerer, fighter, rogue lvl 3).

During our sessions I kept pushing players to be evil by out of game comments like "Oh come on you are going to let this -insert name of NPC- talk to you like that? cut his throat!", and other off game comments like that. One had started good and despite my comments remained good, the other three started neutral and became evil.

I was quickly confronted by one of my players for the out of game comments that pushed towards evil and I immediately told him their is a reason I say what I say, but he didn't gave it too much of a thought and blamed me for railroading them to unnecessary fights.

After a while the same player (btw he was one of the evil characters NOT the good one) kept blaming me for railroading them into unnecessary fights, until I had enough and explained to all of them the reason why I kept say out of game comments that pushed them towards evil.

"Yes I do try to push you towards evil, but I don't do that because I like evil groups, but because you all have an EVIL divine energy bound to your soul that is slowly corrupting you"

Since then the same player accuses me of metagameing, saying that I should have RPed the corruption of the evil energy with story and NPCs RP. I argued that I did put temptations in the story, were the PCs had to choose between the good action (save innocent lives) and evil action (kill innocents for profit/power), and that I simple pushed them with out of game comments towards the evil action because I was RPing the evil energy inside them that kept pushing them towards the evil side.

So what do you think? did I metagame (or otherwise was wrong) when I baited them into evil action with out of game (during the session) comments?? OR was it a briliant way to RP something that slowly creeps inside you and corrupts your point of view?

PS: I will like to also say that 30% of the time I made those comments through an in-game way. Either the sorcerers familiar or the psions psicrystal.

[Righteous Doggy]

Hard to tell you how you did if I wasn't there, hehe. However... as long as you let them realize you were in character when you told them what was going on directly and they knew they had an issue with an eldritch power nomming their souls, I'd say you did well! It was their choice for doing it anyway, they could have said no. The blood is on their hands since they were never forced to do anything. There were many more options than the sadistic ones you gave them.

[SamBurke]

I'm using this idea. I like it quite a bit.

[The Crash Man]

That actually sounds pretty cool! I think it would've helped to let them know what kind of campaign they were getting into, though, because not everybody might be comfortable with handling that route.

Biased narration isn't too common a DMing niche, I must say, and it can seem kind of railroad-y if you keep pushing for the dark and sinister options. Maybe keeping the comments IC rather than OOC could help keep those misconceptions away next time?

[Ranting Fool]

Biased narration isn't too common a DMing niche, I must say, and it can seem kind of railroad-y if you keep pushing for the dark and sinister options. Maybe keeping the comments IC rather than OOC could help keep those misconceptions away next time?

A little Imp pops up and wispers things to them, a high CR one who is rather hard to catch/see. :smallbiggrin::smalltongue: Then he can be the evil voice of evil. (Evil Intelligent magic items could also work)

I do try and keep my "Voice" a NPC voice when talking to the PC's, giving the opinions of an NPC or something.

[Particle_Man]

Get a "little devil" handpuppet. Have the puppet on and move it around when you are doing the IC voice of pushing them to evil. Make it clear OOC (puppet off) that they still have the choice over what to do, it is just that they have these "awful thoughts" come up in their heads, as voiced by the puppet IC.

[shaga]

They did know about the evil divine energy after the 2nd session when a group of clerics tried to imprison them as potentially dangerous. The retained their freedom by proving that even though they did have an evil energy bound on their souls, they hadn't done anything evil or criminal yet. After that they also did a bunch of things to learn as much about the mysterious energy they had. So its not like they weren't warned.

I also think that at list two of the three players that turned evil, actually wanted to play evil characters and I just gave them a good excuse to do so.

[Righteous Doggy]

I should probably point out that the more obvious you are the less likely they are to listen unless they're really wanting to go for it. If I had a little hand puppet and the dm whispering in my ear I would be more bothered than any bad roleplaying :P.

[shaga]

Maybe keeping the comments IC rather than OOC could help keep those misconceptions away next time?

I did make some comments through the sorcerers familiar (a quasit he actually choose) and the psions psicrystal, but I also did a lot OOC comments. The reason I did the comments OOC is because even if you know you have an evil energy inside you that is corrupting you, the actual corruption is subtle and you don't really realize it until one day you turn around and see what a monster you have become.

In the ends its their character and their chose to act on those impulses/comments or not and I made that clear.

[Toliudar]

This can be cleared up in a fairly straightforward manner. Ask the players if they like the idea of the slow descent into evil.

If they do, great. You're providing them with lots of opportunities to get their hands dirty (perhaps very dirty), and plenty of encouragement to do so.

If they aren't interested in playing evil, then this is a lovely concept for a game that just isn't a good fit with the group. The personality and choices of the PC's are the one thing that the players get to control. Let them. If they seem reluctant to go down this road - and it seems from your posts that they are - then maybe it's time to reshape the game concept a bit. Maybe, instead of the evil energy changing their personalities, it causes them pain whenever they ignore the impulses. It becomes a kind of Vampire the Masquerade thing, in which the PC's are racing to find a cure/counter/exorcism/etc.

[FearlessGnome]

A Quasit Familiar, you say? Well, have it steal useful things off screen and give them to its master. A healing potion here, a scroll of something useful there... It would be very much in character for the Quasit to try to corrupt its master and his party by letting them benefit from stolen goods. And it's not like they know that that particular healing potion would have made the difference between some random commoner dying or not... As for the Good character, try something subtle. Make them choose between doing what is 'right' according to their character and the Greater Good. Catch a villain? Villain will give the party critical information, IFF they let him go. If they let him go, the Law has been set aside. If they trick him, they trick a defenseless man into giving up the only thing he had to barter with to avoid his execution at the hands of City X. Won't make the Good person Evil, but confusing them and making them pick between shades of gray can make them a little bitter (IC) and cold, which is a start, is it not?

The guy who complains about railroading (from what you have told us) is a whiner. He was happy to do evil but tries to pin the blame on someone else. He could have been Good like his friend, but he chose to pretend he wasn't responsible. He has very little ground to stand on.

[Soulean]

Unless the character is a paladin or some other class that loses abilities from being evil or committing evil acts then the complaining PC needs to calm down and not have such a negative view of the game.

Of course if all the evilish comments that come from the group I play with turned their characters evil half the party would be chaotic evil within half a session. :smallbiggrin:

[Siosilvar]

Yes, you metagamed. You deliberately manipulated the players and not the characters.

However, that's not to say what you did was poor DMing. It might have been (I wasn't at the session), but it sounds like it was executed at least fairly well, and you did manage to get the players going a bit more towards the Evil side of the street, so I'd say it was generally a success. It sounds like a game I'd have fun playing in, at least.

...until you get to the part where it seems like your players (at least one) didn't like it, in which case you've got a pretty good idea here which just won't work if that player's involved. *shrug* Can't win them all.

[Telonius]

I'd suggest that you let the players know what you're doing, but you have to tempt them over to the Dark Side and think it's their own idea. Right now, it sounds like you're going with the "anvil to the face" approach. Nobody wants to be the moustache-twirling villain. It's too obvious, and when evil's obvious it's easy to resist. Don't say, "Why don't you steal that guy's wallet?" Instead, call for a spot check and let them know that the guy left his wallet unattended. Make situations where the evil course of action is easy, relatively anonymous, carries little risk of being caught, and high reward for the character. Don't start right out with mass murder, work up to it.

[Thomasinx]

I like the idea for the campaign, although I think you might be a bit too blatant with the 'temptation'.

Instead of "Are you gonna let this guy talk to you like that", try statements like "wow, this guy looks wealthy", or "they keep looking at you suspiciously, like they might attack you at any moment". Ask for spot checks, and notice that the beggar is probably faking it, and has accrued quite a bit of money. Introduce quests where the people hiring them are rude and irritating, so they want to betray their employers. Introduce a really really nasty lawful good paladin who is a bit too strong for them to kill in a stand-up fight, but they could probably take out if they stabbed her in the back when sleeping.

Metagaming is fine. You can't just tempt the characters, or the players will just play however they want. You have to tempt the players as well.

Just be careful not to railroad them. If the players feel like they have no choice but to become evil, (ie they had no say in it) they'll feel frustrated. Just make them want to be evil.

[shaga]

If they aren't interested in playing evil, then this is a lovely concept for a game that just isn't a good fit with the group. The personality and choices of the PC's are the one thing that the players get to control. Let them. If they seem reluctant to go down this road - and it seems from your posts that they are - then maybe it's time to reshape the game concept a bit. Maybe, instead of the evil energy changing their personalities, it causes them pain whenever they ignore the impulses. It becomes a kind of Vampire the Masquerade thing, in which the PC's are racing to find a cure/counter/exorcism/etc.

But the personality and choices of the PC`s are still on the players control. I just add comments that give them a push towards evil, its still their choice to act on those impulses or even realize them as evil acts (they are pretty obvious to realize) and act completely opposite and do the good act. In fact one of the good characters has done exactly that. Whenever I commented something evil for him to do, he would brush me off and do the good thing. Eventually I even stopped making comments to the good PC, because I realized it was more time consuming and was annoying him, than pushing him towards evil. I still kept making comments to the other players though.

[meemaas]

Who says the comments had to be out of character? Corrupted good guys tend to have this voice in their head trying to push them to evil...your comments could just as easily be that voice.

[shaga]

Yes, you metagamed. You deliberately manipulated the players and not the characters.

However, that's not to say what you did was poor DMing. It might have been (I wasn't at the session), but it sounds like it was executed at least fairly well, and you did manage to get the players going a bit more towards the Evil side of the street, so I'd say it was generally a success. It sounds like a game I'd have fun playing in, at least.

...until you get to the part where it seems like your players (at least one) didn't like it, in which case you've got a pretty good idea here which just won't work if that player's involved. *shrug* Can't win them all.

But the players control the characters, no matter what I say or do to the characters, if the players want to do (or not do) something, they will do it (or not do it), unless I use some kind of magic. Only by manipulating the players to do something they didn't intent to, you can truly RP an esoteric influence that has no face or voice.

And the moment I told them their is an ingame reason I make the comments, shouldn't they focus their efforts to find that reason? And once the find the reason, find an ingame way to stop those influences from the evil energy inside them? Instead of asking the DM to stop the comments?

[Roguenewb]

I use bias-narration (thanks to whoever first used that term in this thread, I lacked a word for it), all the time. I use it to represent mind-affecting spells and abilities I want to be secret, and to force my players to feel like they're fighting reality/themselves. If the players have a problem with it, its probably because they really want to be playing a campaign where everything works exactly as *they* designed. Now, thats a play-style, but story developments are the DM's purview, not the players'.