How Has Chaotic Evil Worked For You?

[SowZ]

The question above. I present an example,

I remember this guy I used to game with. He always played Chaotic Evil aligned characters. Usually, they despised authority and would sometimes kill officials and guards/police types on sight if they were alone and he could get away with it and that towns law had ever imprisoned him or something of the like. He would gladly offer up his soul/someone else's for more power and loved finding dark artifacts or making deals with fiendish/demonic forces. He would delight in causing painful deaths, sometimes even a few minutes of torture, to those that wronged him.

And yet... He was reasonable. He wasn't a bad party member and was actually fairly friendly to party members that were friendly to him. He would offer his help in solving problems and I remember once I was playing a LN party leader type whose goals aligned with the CE guy and he would usually follow orders. If there was an order he didn't intend to follow, he would let me know he didn't think it was a good idea or that it hurt him somehow and we would have to plan something else.

He was occasional vindictive but don't get on his bad side and he will play a betting game and have nice conversations on the road and watch your back when things got rough. Sometimes he even had motivations for wanting ultimate power at any cost, like once he had a terrible evil thing that was oppressing his whole elven village deep in the woods and he left to learn where the things power came from and how to use it against it so his motivations were not 'pillage loot kill.'

Is this your image of CE? Would you consider this NE? What have been your experiences/frustrations with CE in the past?

[Soranar]

Having played a CE character in the past, what I found the most useful (to aim him in the right direction) is how petty CE characters can be.

-you want to be the BBEG ? Well I'm going to oppose you, just because I can (add a "ha ha" whenever appropriate). You want to dominate my party? No one gets to do that but me!

-Basically, much like an OOTS character I won't mention directly, finding motivations for a CE character to do something "good" is pretty easy. + you get to do all your normal evil stuff without having to justify it (looting dead bodies, robbing people, attacking the helpless for gold or xp, robbing your fellow team members..._)

As long as you're powerful enough, they'll never have the guts to call you out on it (which is handy since a lot of evil only PrC are pretty powerful). All in all, I find being evil makes for interesting gameplay (especially if you can keep it from your team members).

[Little Brother]

Chaotic doesn't mean stupid, or even anarchic. It can mean anything from slightly headstrong to absentminded and strange, or even Elan-esque. Evil means a lack of empathy, or even antipathy, towards people. It can mean putting yourself above others, to the point of crushing those trying to catch up, so only you have the power. It doesn't mean psycho-nutjob. Evil tends to be sociopathic, generally, at least well-done. Look at Roose Bolton. He's Chaotic Evil when you look at him, but smart. He doesn't show it most of the time, because people just don't like chaotic OR evil, much less both. He is Roose Bolton first, clever bastard second, Chaotic Evil fifth or sixth. He's really a sociopath. Not outright psycho, but definitely quite chaotic and quite evil. The character should define the alignment, not the other way around. When you look at it, humans(Especially modern culture) is fairly lawful. Most people, I'd say are lawful neutral, or at least lawful-leaning neutral.
/alignmentrant

More directly on-topic: I have had problems with evil players, both as a player and as a DM. However, my group is mature and reasonable enough that any evil characters we have aren't scenery-chewing mass-murdering psychopaths who will butcher masses in broad daylight for irritating them. They were never evil "For teh ebilz," they were goal-focused and didn't really care much for collateral damage, so long as they could avoid responsibility. Overall, I like evil campaigns and evil characters, on occasion.

Your character was very chaotic, and very evil.

Notable character: Friend of mine ran and evil fighter-ish(I think a warblade/something), whose goal was to set himself up as a charismatic leader. When he had to, he had no qualms about butchering people, innocent or not(Such as when he was conspiring to kill some official, and some villager overheard him). He made a point to never, ever get caught, and he really didn't do it without reason. Good reason. Murder has risks and all. All actions total, he ended solidly in lawful evil. Pragmatic evil. Not scenery-chew evil. One of the most interesting characters to be around.

/my 2 cp

[Jeff the Green]

The party has just fought the warriors of a clan of goblinoids, who have retreated to join the noncombatants, and are now discussing strategy
CE Ranger: I'll go in and start sniping; the rest of you block the tunnel.
LG Cleric: :smallconfused: Please tell me you mean you'll snipe at the ones we just fought, and not at their wives and grandparents.
CE Ranger: *Pats cleric on head* Of course, silly. I don't have enough arrows left.
LG Cleric: :smalleek:
And this just after the cleric had created a fair number of arrows for the ranger out of shapesand.

So yes, CE can come in lots of flavors, though most of them are creepy.