Why play an Evil campaign?

[BrokenChord]

I guess I just wanted to get some perspective on this. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people who want to play Evil campaigns, and I understand some of the motivations, but I was wanting to get insight from other people into this. Ignoring jokes that are unfortunately all-too-often true (such as the common "most PCs are Evil because they kill sentient creatures and take their stuff solely because the creatures ping in one direction on a Detect Alignment or happen to have green skin and fangs"), I wonder what motivates people to play Evil campaigns.

My own personal stance is that being an astronomical monster that can make many peoples' lives significantly worse (though not quite the slaughter and enslavement of Evil campaigners) is something you can do in real life, though most people choose not to, while having the power to make a truly significant world difference in a good way is something that's basically impossible IRL. No, not even then. I like Good campaigns because I get a bit of escapism in the sense that I can make significant positive changes to the world.

Of course, I understand (though don't personally share the feels for) the logic on the other side of the equation too; playing an Evil character in an Evil party lets you do horrible things with no IRL consequences, something of an escape in that way, particularly for people who aren't totally evil in real life who might feel really guilty doing bad things to people IRL.

There's also the simple fact that it's much easier to do whatever the hell you feel like as Evil than as Good, though I would argue that Lawful Evils played straight are even more restrictive than Chaotic and Neutral Good.

tl;dr what motivates you guys on the playground to play in Evil campaigns? What do you enjoy about them?

[Malroth]

Because Good Is Dumb

[ArcturusV]

Depends. Some of it is cathartic. The same reason you list for liking Good aligned campaigns, is why some people like Evil campaigns as you touched upon. The excuse to act out your darker impulses in a healthy way that isn't going to cause long term harm in life. The equivalent emotionally of the typical therapist line about doing something like punching a pillow to help yourself through rage.

But there's also the flip side to things. Evil gets a lot more fun tools. Compare say, Ur-Priest with Apostle of Peace. Evil can also use good tools typically, as Evil is a very Everyone's Welcome sort of party. Even in the "never play evil" horror stories about campaigns, think about it... it's not the evil guy throwing down ultimatums and walking away from the adventure in a hissy fit. It's the Paladin, or the good aligned cleric, or their proxies like a Lawful Good Monk or a Chaotic Good Ranger, etc.

But to me, when I roll up an evil character it has two chief reasons:

A) I want to play with an "Evil Only" tool. Things like Disciple of Graz'zt, Thrall to Jubilex, whatever. I gotta be evil for it. No two ways around that. So I roll up evil.

B) I want to do a sort of plot that's hard to do with a Good, or even a Neutral character.

These exist. For example... what if I wanted to have a character take over the world? If I'm good aligned I"m more or less dependent on the DM thrusting world domination onto my chest. I COULD go after it in some Crusader fashion... but most DMs would make you fall. Even if I'm neutral? Neutral doesn't really have the cutthroat behavior, the willingness to orchestrate events, be a glorious bastard, etc, that is generally needed to be someone who knocks over kingdoms and empires.

You become dependent on DM fiat. Basically your character is out to do something else, has some personal blood vendetta against some badguy who happens to be the ruler of some evil empire... and when you kill the Emperor in front of all his generals and soldiers they decide to bend their knee and swear allegiance to you because you beat up their boss.

That's how Good/Neutral people really get into the World Domination racket. Unless your DM is willing to accept "I'm the imperial heir" as a character. Or you become one because you got knighted and through lucky circumstances kept getting 'promoted' until the old king/emperor kicks the bucket and people just look to you to be the leader. Again, up to the DM to feed you this stuff.

The evil guy though? World domination is in their wheelhouse. They don't need no DM feeding them convenient plot hooks. It's perfectly within morality and character for them to create these plot hooks.

[Elderand]

Because evil is pragmatic. With evil the end justify the means, all means, yes even those.

When you only have to worry about other peoples finding out what you did and reacting accordingly it's a lot less burdensome.

Better to have the option but hide the result from the world than not have the option at all.

[AgentofHellfire]

ArcturusV is pretty much exactly correct about the first and last points.

(Second one, I have no real opinion on, but...)

[Krobar]

Because Good Is Dumb

If I must, I must. Put 'er there!

[mabriss lethe]

I recently read an article by a musician who found better words than I ever could for this.


Bad guys are always more interesting. In any given situation there is usually one way of doing the right thing and infinite ways of doing the wrong one. Villains are complicated. They are easy to imagine yet hard to explain. They have forged their own immoral compass. Theirs is a dark perverted alchemy concocted from riddles and intrigue. Where good is transparent, its nemesis is opaque.

And the wonderful thing is that villains hardly ever really exist. They are just a trick of perspective; their horns and hooves typically being drawn on by the opposing side.

Which is why they are so much fun to play. They are the ultimate fantasy. If you imagine someone good you imagine someone static. Someone who is entirely good cannot become even more good – their character has nowhere to go. Someone bad, however, well… the possibilities for further corruption are almost endless. It’s amazing how far one can sink.

Full article is here (http://louisbarabbas.com/tag/villains/) Also, listen to their music. They're amazing... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshiHrqmd-c)

[ryu]

Because sometimes, just sometimes, I'm in the mood to be a horrible person. Not that silly, dark humor loving, terrible joke making horrible person that could be taken as a compliment in many circles either. Some days the human mind simply wants to be a jerk. The human mind has impulses on all ends of the spectrum. Engaging in satiating those impulses isn't suddenly something that isn't craved on occasion just because we've put up some semi-arbitrary connotation that evil can't feel pleasurable at times. Don't even get me started on the cultural fascination many people have with well done villains.

[Angelalex242]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbWOVfY-rxU

You don't know the POWAH of the Dark Side!

And if you will not turn, you will be destroyed...

[almightycoma]

For me playing evil lets me use simple solutions to problems. enemy hiding in a village/orphanage/wall of puppies? AoE and done. think someone is guilty or might turn on you? hitt'em with a save or lose then kill'em. NPC not being helpful use dominate (these do not apply to party members) It lets me achieve plot relevant things that much faster.(this desire may stem from my groups seeming need to do every side quest before main plot though)

[Angelalex242]

One other reason to play an evil campaign:

Perhaps the GM has two campaigns in mind. In the first, you're the Big Bad Evil Guys. It is your job to do as many terrible things to the world as you see fit. In short, you're Anakin Skywalker, and you get to screw up the universe as you see fit.

In the next game, same campaign world, normal game, you're Luke Skywalker. Guess what your job is? For added impact, the DM must resolutely use the character you played as evil exactly the way you did it, changing absolutely nothing on the sheet.

[tadkins]

It would just be interesting to explore the evil characters of a cast a bit more. Change things up a bit. Instead of fighting things like orcs, ogres, goblins, kobolds and fiends all day long, it would be cool to raid a dwarven stronghold, a paladin temple, or perhaps even Celestia itself.

That said, I've never played in an evil game, but it would be interesting to try one day.

[AMFV]

To have a character redemption arc you may have to start off as evil, that's one unmentioned possibility. Although it's rare to have that sort of plot in roleplay but it certainly could be a reason to play as something evil.

[LordBlades]

For me, the fun in playing evil it's mainly about two things:

First of all it's being proactive. Generally, good guys try to stop the bad guys, they generally react to what the bad guys are doing, and are not often the ones that set things in motion. With evil on the other hand, it's much easier to shape the story around you, and have NPC good guys be the ones reacting to you.

Secondly, it's depth of characters. As others have said, there's many more ways and reasons to be evil (or neutral) than to be good. By that I don't mean that an evil character is deeper than a good one, but that there are more ways IMO to build deep evil characters than deep good ones.

[CRtwenty]

From what I've seen it's cathartic for a lot of players. They play evil for the same reason people go on mass murdering sprees in Grand Theft Auto. It's a fun and harmless way to blow off steam.

[molten_dragon]

There are lots of reasons. Some people like it for the same reason they like playing Grand Theft Auto. It's fun to indulge in your darker impulses in a harmless way for awhile. Some people play an evil campaign so they can play a favorite movie character or something like it. Someone that they identify with and see as more of an anti-hero. And for some people, it's just a chance to play something different. If you've been playing D&D for a long time, you've probably played a lot of good characters. Most people don't get to play evil very often, because evil campaigns tend to be fairly rare in my experience.

[Ossian]

An evil campaign, with D&D's metrics, would be just about any military campaign that ever happened in real history. I would not go for a " I am a lich and I want to turn the world into racoon city", but only because it might get monotonous.

Evil campaigns can be perfectly fun, if you are ok with your charchters taking light heartedly morally objectionable decisions. It could be "I am using chemical warfare and won't lose a night's sleep" or "I am torching a bunch of farms just to prove a point" or just "I'm the new kingpin in town and some cops' wives are going to serve as messngers just fine" and, again, go home and kiss your kids without batting an eyelid.

Evil campaign, unlike "good" campaigns, need better writing, i think, to be intreresting. You need better opponents, people trying to stop you from achieving whatever it is you are after (world domination? revenge? lust?).

You might start off as a pure blood thirsty ravager, but even the most savage of barbarians, at some point, will either fall back into the folds of history, sated with the blood spilled and forgotten by all, or develop some longer term goals (bed that hot princess who just finds him that repugnant, convert the people of the adjacient nation to his faith etc...).

Besides, even properly "clichee" evil people (excluding, perhaps, the Sith) have friends, develop major crushes for this or that hottie, have moms and dads. That goes to say, whenever you can hit a character where it hurts, evil or not, you have good storytelling options.

Ossian.

[Helcack]

I am in an evil campaign and I thoroughly enjoy it. We play evil in my favourite sense of the word. When we kill someone, we harvest every useful body part so they don't go to waste. We lie often, we take what we want, we escape the authorities, we blow up the city for fun, rather than it blowing up because we suck at being heroes.

Being evil let's you actually be someone real, being good forces you to be the hero. An evil person can change, they can become good or neutral, they can gain a code or fall into the embrace of chaos. In a good campaign there are consequences for wasting time, there are choices that you have to make, and you feel bad when you mess up.

I also find most builds totally B.S. for good characters to follow. I like it making sense for characters to gain mechanical advantages in game rather than DM's breaking the immersion. An evil character seeking power and building to making themselves stronger makes perfect sense in game and requires little to no DM intervention. in a good campaign seeking power tends to only be in the pursuit of defeating whatever the evil thing is, and the DM has to hand you many things for your build to make sense most of the time.

Another thing that has been mentioned is the proactiveness of being evil, and with it comes the more sandboxy world. Being neutral allows for this as well, but in a lesser extent as you are still limited by some morals. Being good usually has you on a set path, a cool set path, but still a set path. I am running a more sandboxy good campaign and it is a lot harder to create an environment that allows for decisions that don't make the players feel like they failed while making it not a video game in that stuff only happens when they're around to stop it.

[Andreaz]

I make the character. Then I look at it and discover its alignment. Evil comes up often.

I am particularly fond of evil characters who happen to be sociable, reasonable and with a big loving family.

like 1/3 of the human population.

[CRtwenty]

Most people don't get to play evil very often, because evil campaigns tend to be fairly rare in my experience.

In my experience most evil campaigns tend to implode after just a few sessions due to party disfunction. My players at least don't see to understand that being evil shouldn't give you a reason to attack or steal from your party members for no reason. :smallsigh:

[SiuiS]

Good natured backstabbing, political drama and world conquest.

For the Roleplay challenge.



Those two are about it, I think.

[some guy]

First of all it's being proactive. Generally, good guys try to stop the bad guys, they generally react to what the bad guys are doing, and are not often the ones that set things in motion. With evil on the other hand, it's much easier to shape the story around you, and have NPC good guys be the ones reacting to you.

This. When playing good characters you're looking to the GM for options, when you're playing an evil character it's easy to create your own adventuring options.

Good guys maintain the status quo; if they win, the world remains in it's old state. Evil characters change the world.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Evil does not necessarily equal bad.

An 'Evil Campaign' does not have to be a campaign where everyone's goal is the corruption or destruction of everything. I have played campaigns where, on the 'on a scale of 1-10, that act was -16' was a semi-regular occurrence - because good people have to 'get the job done' in relatively restricted ways. If you're good and you capture the bad guy - knocked him out, he surrenders, or whatever - you kind of have to bring him up before the law (if you're Lawful) or take him out into the middle of nowhere and let him just TRY to survive (if you're Chaotic - or maybe give him a sword and a fighting chance to escape). Point being, you really can't just kill the bad guy.

If you're neutral, well, that's a slippery slope, because the act of killing a helpless or surrendered foe - in a pure good/evil/law/chaos scale setup - is definitely evil, and maybe chaotic to boot, and doing it knowingly is morally even worse than doing it accidentally.

If you're evil, well, hell - you're just doing what has to be done.

Some of the most fun I've ever had involved a technically 'Evil Campaign'. We served a Neutral-with-Lawful-Tendencies Good (non-Paladin, thank god, cough cough) king. We were the black-bag jobbers, the problem solvers, the SEAL Team 6, the Lord Reeve's Men, the guys who didn't really have problems breaking fingers, legs, and other assorted bones to get the information we needed to get things done. And it wasn't (well, okay, sometimes it WAS, but still) 'oh, the evil king of Kingdom Y is against us'. We broke and entered into the houses of 'our own nobles', slit guards' throats, pilfered, raided, arsoned, and generally had a jolly old time - For King And Country. We were the guys who said 'My ass he's gonna get away with that!!' and then went out and made sure that he DIDN'T.

Maybe the society wasn't exactly realistic, but just a hint of magic like alter self will do wonders when you're willing to back things up with murder and a soul jar to keep your identity secret. ;)

[Yahzi]

what motivates you guys on the playground to play in Evil campaigns? What do you enjoy about them?
The same thing that motivates people to read Game of Thrones. :smallwink:

One of the most fun campaigns I ever ran in was evil. Each player had 2 characters, and took turns DMing (while you were DM your characters sat out the adventure). Of course the primary challenge soon became surviving the machinations and plots of the other player characters. It all ended in savage treachery, of course, with exactly one PC still alive and holding all the treasure. But we knew it would end that way: the point was the journey. And it was a blast.

[The Insanity]

Good becomes boring after the nth game.
Evil is "easier".
Evil allows to play unusual (always Evil) races without going for the cliché "I'm a renegade outcast" type of character.

[Morithias]

Because I can get my hero fix in videogames.

Videogames that let you play methodical, smart evil are rare. If you're ever given a chance to play an 'evil' character in any game with a karma meter, you're going to be playing a baby strangling petty maniac.

Tabletop RPG is the ONLY place you can get smart, rational, evil. Everywhere else is confirmed by the rules of what the programmer put it, and it is VERY hard to program in evil acts that are sly and cunning into a videogame.

I can get my petty evil, and my good fix in videogames.

Tabletop is where I come for evil.

[ArcturusV]

Granted most of the "Heroes are Reactive" bits are true. Though occasionally you will also have a taste of more proactive heroes. But it's a rare thing. Examples being... oh... Enlightenment plots. The cleric/monk/etc who adventures not to smite evil and right wrongs, but seeks to attain a path and philosophy that brings forth greater good and helps hone and perfect himself and his faith. You can be very proactive in a quest like that. But that tends to be a pretty rare campaign compared to "There's Darth Evil McBadguy making a mess of things, go smite it".

Rarely do you see reactive villains though. The only one that comes to mind for a reactive evil campaign is some Paizo Adventure I heard of, Way of the Wicked I think where basically the whole plot sounds like, "We were chilling with our demon lords when these asshat good guys kicked our skulls in and took our land. Are we bad enough to save the kingdom from Good?"

I mean, it's very possible to run Evil as reactive just in that vein. Things were going fine then some asshat adventurer ruined your day. Go get revenge and fix that which was ruined.

Just people don't tend to do it that way, and only introduce the "heroes" long after the campaign has gotten rolling.

[Malroth]

Try playing Evil Genius, It also satisfies that urge quite nicely.

[Morithias]

The main problem with playing villains that are reactive is that you have no control over your objectives, which I think is what attracts people to villains. Villains do what they want, they MAKE the plot.

It's also why I will basically abandon any evil campaign that revolves around fighting any kind of 'greater evil'. If I want to fight evil, I'll play a paladin.

[Amphetryon]

Here's one potential reason to play an Evil campaign:

As "simplistic" as it may be to some folks to play a Good Character, "Good" is easy to screw up. The road paved with good intentions, and all that, can create situations where Characters slide into Evil without ever intending it to be so. This, in turn, results in a campaign of Evil Characters who might believe they are still Good, or who fight (perhaps inappropriately) to regain their lost moral compass, or who embrace the "freedom" that they find comes from no longer having to do the "Good" thing.

[Red Fel]

Think of your favorite villains.

Strike that. Think of my favorite villains.

They have style, they have swagger, they're quick-witted, quick-drawing, sinister, sweet-talking, cunning, crafty, wicked SoBs. And snappy dressers.

When I play a hero, I play someone with a kind heart and a noble soul. I play someone who wants to try, wants to help, wants everyone to be all they can be, and is willing to give up his life to achieve that dream.

But sometimes I don't want to play that. Sometimes - particularly this time of year - I want to smile, say something cruel, and skewer someone. I want to be the villain everyone loves to hate. I want to be so dang interesting that the heroes of the world just want me dead. And I want to revel in it in ways heroes can't revel in acts of heroism.

Every now and then, as Eartha Kitt sang, "I wanna be evil."

And that is why I play in an evil campaign. For the evulz.

[Kurald Galain]

I wonder what motivates people to play Evil campaigns.

Actually I wonder at that too. In my experience, at least, most evil campaigns I've seen have broken down because (gasp) the party members had their own conflicting agendas which led to intra-group conflict and the players couldn't handle that.

[soban]

TLDR; Good = Stupid and boring like everyone else has said.

I'd like to add another point of view to this. I've played a fair number of games, but I've never played what I would consider a 'good' campaign. For me the default is this ugly gray of 'evil' campaigns. For example, I've never played a paladin because of that stupid line about not associating with evil characters. If I did it, my character would be the only one on the Good end of the alignment spectrum (others being neutral or evil) and one of the few on the lawful end of the spectrum.

So why so many 'evil' games? so many gray characters? In my experience it's because they see a good alignment getting in the way. For example, we were fighting these redcaps who had attacked us (and incidentally killed my character, so I was thinking about what to come back as) they had some captives. One of our wizards missed with a spell and accidentally hit the captives. The GM said that it was a evil act and if I had been playing a Paladin I would have to disassociate myself from the group or lose my paladin powers. They seem to think that Good = Stupid and Lawful = Inspector Javert.

I've found that ironically, the power of plot and being a PC is what holds most 'evil' adventuring groups together. If they were left to their own devices for more then five minutes, they would be blown to the four corners of the world.

[ArcturusV]

Out of that story Soban, I have to wonder how anything "Accidental" can really be labeled as evil?

I mean even the example in the books mentions something like... it doesn't matter if say your Fighter is climbing up a cliff, accidentally triggers a landslide that wipes out a village. It matters if you knew that it would trigger a landslide and said "Eh..." and do it anyways to save yourself.

So... yeah. There isn't by RAW any real "Accidental" Evil act. At worse just being tricked or compelled, which is only really referenced as making you "evil" in Atonement terms.

[soban]

It's because Paladins (and by extension good characters) care about the captives and would want to rescue them. Them getting nuked is not good and therefore not something that a Paladin can be around.

No, I don't follow it either.

My point however is that evil campaigns often come from a misunderstanding of what good is. It's happened in almost every 'evil' game I've been in. Or alternatively an excuse not to care about alignment at all. A Paladin forces them to care.

[Red Fel]

Actually I wonder at that too. In my experience, at least, most evil campaigns I've seen have broken down because (gasp) the party members had their own conflicting agendas which led to intra-group conflict and the players couldn't handle that.

Actually, I was in an evil campaign which gave a perfectly good reason for the characters to cooperate - a common employer. Each of the characters had his or her own agenda, of course, but all of those involved getting into the good graces of the Red Wizards of Thay, so we were following instructions, at least nominally.

No, that campaign didn't disintegrate due to conflicting goals. It disintegrated because one player was playing evil, one player was playing neutral/selfish, one player was playing crazy, two players were playing non-evil but thought they were playing evil, and the DM basically discovered he had no talent at running an evil campaign whatsoever.

ProTip: Evil campaigns are fun when everyone is on the same page as to what exactly an evil campaign is.

[Talya]

tl;dr what motivates you guys on the playground to play in Evil campaigns? What do you enjoy about them?

Because it's hard to play good or even neutral pirates. And yet pirates are awesome!

[AgentofHellfire]

Good natured backstabbing, political drama and world conquest.

For the Roleplay challenge.



Those two are about it, I think.


Blah @Evil=Backstabbing idea.

I'm not a huge fan of it.

[PraxisVetli]

Because, deep down and it's really not so deep), I am evil. I like hurting, I am Sadistic, and quite frankly, I DO just want to watch it all burn. Going out of my way to ruin someone's already bad day, to kick them when they're down It appeals to me. Even passively, instead of doing something, specifically not doing something, just because I know the complications it will have on others. I AM Lawful Evil, I will corrupt and manipulate and inflict. I enjoy watching people suffer, I take pride inknowing that I did the least amount of effort to cause the most amount of destruction.
But you know what? It's annoying. Not being evil. That, I like. The whine, the consequences, the....nuisance of everyones around me morality.
I have, for example, a little brother. Now, he goes to Private School. I did not. And so when he gets picked and bullied till he cries,my family and I have very different solutions. The say, "Report it to the teachers, they'll handle it."
And we all know they never do, do they?
I say, "Hit them. Find the few, the leaders, and BEAT THEM. Beat them until they cannot move. But not just physically, thats not enough. You must excel. At everything. Beat them at EVERYTHING. Get better grades. Do better in Gym. Sing Better, Play harder, override their every action with the glory of your own. Then, when they come, and they WILL come, trying to put you down because its all they have left, then hurt them. Crush them, untill there is nothing left. For EVERYONE to see. And when they break, when everything they have is dust, parade them. Let everyone see. And make sure they know. Because now, now they will contest, they will not question. And it will be done. None of them will bother you again.
But again, it doesn't work like that. Someone will step in; as the DMG says, "There is always someone bigger." And that someone will come, claiming their rightousness in stopping you (whe were they when YOU wanted them to stop?). And that's the end.
But not here. Here, here I am king. Here I rule, without question. My authority is solid, backed with magics that will just simply remove whatever obstacle was foolish enough to stand between me and my goal. I am without question, without revolt, I am SUPREME, and nothing less.

and that, that is why I play in evil campaigns.

[Hyena]

Because my usual associates always play as evil characters. Why? Well, because evil is easy, quick, seductive and seems fun. Why bother do a quest to get the reward if you can murder the quest giver and take everything he has?

[Red Fel]

As has been mentioned, another temptation of playing evil - even in a campaign that's not explicitly an evil campaign - is to do those things which the good characters can't do.

I'm reminded of a certain scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in which Giles explains the sentiment succinctly:


Buffy even knows that ... and still she couldn't take a human life. She's a hero, you see. She's not like us.

Then he kills the crap out of the incapacitated, helpless human host of an evil demigoddess.
Some situations merit actions that are decidedly non-good. The above example, in some cases, might not be evil, but certainly, killing a helpless human victim isn't terribly heroic.

Sometimes, a little evil gets the job done.

Plus, and I cannot emphasize this enough, evil gets the best one-liners.

[Novawurmson]

First: I had not heard of Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six, but I love them. They remind me a lot of Murder by Death.

Second: Try turning the question around: Why would anyone want to play in a "Good" campaign? Most everyone is probably neutral in their everyday lives - we obey some laws and ignore some authorities, we hurt some people and help some people, but few people really live their lives solely or even mostly for the betterment of other. Playing in a "good" campaign is a fantasy that a person could consistently live that positive of a life.

[molten_dragon]

In my experience most evil campaigns tend to implode after just a few sessions due to party disfunction. My players at least don't see to understand that being evil shouldn't give you a reason to attack or steal from your party members for no reason. :smallsigh:

Yeah, that's a very good point, and the biggest reason why evil campaigns run off the rails.

It helps a lot I think to outline expectations ahead of time, and restrict people who lawful evil and neutral evil.

Chaotic evil seems to be too much of a temptation for most players.

[hamishspence]

I could see CE working for a campaign where the party are rebels against an Evil Empire- but in this case, very ruthless rebels.

They're all loyal to each other- but will do almost anything, vile as what they're doing might be, to win.

[Talya]

Yeah, that's a very good point, and the biggest reason why evil campaigns run off the rails.

It helps a lot I think to outline expectations ahead of time, and restrict people who lawful evil and neutral evil.

Chaotic evil seems to be too much of a temptation for most players.

Much like too many people think Lawful Good is Miko's "Lawful Stupid", too many people think Chaotic Evil is Stupid Evil.

Criminals work together all the time. Successful criminals are very very good at it.

[urkthegurk]

Full article is here (http://louisbarabbas.com/tag/villains/) Also, listen to their music. They're amazing... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshiHrqmd-c)

I second that! I've heard them before, they're one of my favourite bands.

[Frosty]

Y'all need to check out the "Path of the Wicked" adventure path by Paizo. It is so frickin' amazing, in part because of how it is an evil campaign where you can't backstab each other without horrendous consequences. Plus the plot and your backgrounds make you WANT to work together anyways.

[Morithias]

Much like too many people think Lawful Good is Miko's "Lawful Stupid", too many people think Chaotic Evil is Stupid Evil.

Criminals work together all the time. Successful criminals are very very good at it.

Ironically a friend once argued that Chaotic Evil could be the most likeable evil.

Imagine you have someone who has no moral problems with murder, rape, etc....

...but values their personal freedom too much to do most of that kind of stuff without cause.

Seems lawful. After all following the rules of society is lawful, however she's mostly doing it because, hey I got a decent apartment, good job, hot boyfriend, what do I need to kill someone for?

Basically this CE person has the wisdom to realize that by following the rules of society she keeps her enjoyable life.

Aka she's not a stupid "Will kick a puppy for the evulz" that you get most fantasy villains being.

Of course that brings up an interesting question...when does being wise about such things cross the alignment lines?

When you stop doing evil for the sheer laughs of it...at what point does following the laws make you lawful?

If you realize that diplomacy and respect are more practical than fear and intimidation, (no rebels coming for you head, no mook face turns, etc), at what point do you turn good?


Y'all need to check out the "Path of the Wicked" adventure path by Paizo. It is so frickin' amazing, in part because of how it is an evil campaign where you can't backstab each other without horrendous consequences. Plus the plot and your backgrounds make you WANT to work together anyways.

From what I've read in those books, it's a horrible railroading campaign, that pretty much goes against the "the PCs should make the plot in an evil campaign" mindset that me and my group has.

The idea of having an evil aligned module is a joke in my skype group, because evil does not follow rails. Evil does what evil wants. Put them on rails fighting some greater evil or something like that, and you'll just get the three of us asking "why aren't we just playing good-aligned heroes"?

Heaven forbid someone ever try to write a module that would work with a villain like the one I just described, or with Alexis Stratos, and Artemis Heterodyne, who were villains in campaigns we ran that were basically "pragmatic" to the core, and realized that doing the stereotypical "running the dungeon" thing doesn't work against a truly great holy empire.

[Spore]

Because evil is pragmatic. With evil the end justify the means, all means, yes even those.

Then call me evil. :)

[Frosty]

Ironically a friend once argued that Chaotic Evil could be the most likeable evil.

Imagine you have someone who has no moral problems with murder, rape, etc....

...but values their personal freedom too much to do most of that kind of stuff without cause.

Seems lawful. After all following the rules of society is lawful, however she's mostly doing it because, hey I got a decent apartment, good job, hot boyfriend, what do I need to kill someone for?

Basically this CE person has the wisdom to realize that by following the rules of society she keeps her enjoyable life.

Aka she's not a stupid "Will kick a puppy for the evulz" that you get most fantasy villains being.

Of course that brings up an interesting question...when does being wise about such things cross the alignment lines?

When you stop doing evil for the sheer laughs of it...at what point does following the laws make you lawful?

If you realize that diplomacy and respect are more practical than fear and intimidation, (no rebels coming for you head, no mook face turns, etc), at what point do you turn good?



From what I've read in those books, it's a horrible railroading campaign, that pretty much goes against the "the PCs should make the plot in an evil campaign" mindset that me and my group has.

The idea of having an evil aligned module is a joke in my skype group, because evil does not follow rails. Evil does what evil wants. Put them on rails fighting some greater evil or something like that, and you'll just get the three of us asking "why aren't we just playing good-aligned heroes"?

Heaven forbid someone ever try to write a module that would work with a villain like the one I just described, or with Alexis Stratos, and Artemis Heterodyne, who were villains in campaigns we ran that were basically "pragmatic" to the core, and realized that doing the stereotypical "running the dungeon" thing doesn't work against a truly great holy empire.It is no more railroading than your average adventure path.

[urkthegurk]

They seem to think that Good = Stupid and Lawful = Inspector Javert.


No WAY Javert was LG

[Talya]

No WAY Javert was LG

Javert was an extreme version of LN.

[Red Fel]

Javert was an extreme version of LN.

Agreed. Javert was definitively not LG. But I don't think the above poster was saying that. I think he was saying that "Good = Stupid" and "Lawful = Javert" are oversimplifications.

[JaronK]

I know the last evil character I played (game on hiatus, I may play it again) actually did more good than any good character I ever made. He was vaguely Dr Doom-esc, creating a perfect utopia where everyone loved him and no one could oppose him. Of course, that love was somewhat magically enforced, but still... it worked. And he could still go after adventure hooks. After all, if a lich wanted to destroy the world, that was his world, and he'd kill that lich without a second thought.

He even built his own orphanage so as to look better, and so as to raise a new generation of powerful worshipers. He staffed the orphanage with Angels (thanks to a particular BoED spell). Not bad for a "bad" guy.

JaronK

[jidasfire]

Personally, I roll my eyes at the sort of evil most people play in D&D campaigns. It's utterly divorced from any sense of reality or sanity. Someone looks at you funny, you kill them. Your friend has something you want, you steal it out from under them. Forced to suffer consequences of your actions, you commit war crimes. This is less like a believable person who does bad things and more like someone going kill crazy while playing Grand Theft Auto. Evil people can be interesting and compelling because they take us places we dare not go in real life (even the supposed sociopaths on the internet who brag about their evil while almost certainly being nothing of the sort), yet still retaining something within them that is like us.

Darth Vader isn't compelling because he chokes his underlings, he's compelling because he was once a good man who made terrible decisions to protect the people he loved. Don Corleone isn't compelling because he's a gangster, he's compelling because he's a gangster who uses his crooked influence to help the people he takes under his wing. Magneto isn't interesting because he runs the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He's compelling because he fights in his way for his kind, and because his greatest rival is his best friend. It's their humanity that makes evil characters interesting, and those sorts I can understand and want to play.

I don't judge people who use gaming as a pressure valve and just want to stab. It harms no one. That said, I find it ironic that the sort of people who say that heroes are "boring" usually play characters every bit as one-dimensional in their need to stab and steal beyond any sense of reason.

[Red Fel]

I know the last evil character I played (game on hiatus, I may play it again) actually did more good than any good character I ever made. He was vaguely Dr Doom-esc, creating a perfect utopia where everyone loved him and no one could oppose him. Of course, that love was somewhat magically enforced, but still... it worked. And he could still go after adventure hooks. After all, if a lich wanted to destroy the world, that was his world, and he'd kill that lich without a second thought.

He even built his own orphanage so as to look better, and so as to raise a new generation of powerful worshipers. He staffed the orphanage with Angels (thanks to a particular BoED spell). Not bad for a "bad" guy.

JaronK

Ironically, in many ways, it can be easier for an evil character to adventure with a good party (sans Paladin) than with an evil party. With an evil party, you have diverging agendas, backstabbing, conniving, betrayal and general hostility and self-interest. But a good party? From an evil perspective, heroes are predictable and useful. They won't betray you unless you give them a reason. And as Jaron's example above shows, a villain may have motivation to protect what they perceive to be theirs from a greater threat, and may even be willing to team up with do-gooders to accomplish it.

I just find it funny that it plays out that way.

[Talya]

Ironically, in many ways, it can be easier for an evil character to adventure with a good party (sans Paladin) than with an evil party. With an evil party, you have diverging agendas, backstabbing, conniving, betrayal and general hostility and self-interest.

That's the thing, why do you have diverging agendas, backstabing, conniving, betrayal, and general hostility and self-interest?

Terrorist organizations don't generally disintegrate based on any of those things. They can be very cohesive. Similarly, well planned heists don't go awry because suddenly someone decides they want to to go after a different target. The evil empire doesn't always collapse due to disloyalty.

In real life, humans invented the entire concept of good and evil, and yet we're generally very social beings, even the most evil of us.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Darth Vader isn't compelling because he chokes his underlings, he's compelling because he was once a good man who made terrible decisions to protect the people he loved. Don Corleone isn't compelling because he's a gangster, he's compelling because he's a gangster who uses his crooked influence to help the people he takes under his wing. Magneto isn't interesting because he runs the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. He's compelling because he fights in his way for his kind, and because his greatest rival is his best friend. It's their humanity that makes evil characters interesting, and those sorts I can understand and want to play

This. This so hard. When I play my (rare) evil PCs (and most of my villains tend up to end like this as well, I must admit), they're not just evil for the sake of kicking puppies. I find that I barely play one-dimensional evil.

[Elderand]

That's the thing, why do you have diverging agendas, backstabing, conniving, betrayal, and general hostility and self-interest?

Terrorist organizations don't generally disintegrate based on any of those things. They can be very cohesive. Similarly, well planned heists don't go awry because suddenly someone decides they want to to go after a different target. The evil empire doesn't always collapse due to disloyalty.

In real life, humans invented the entire concept of good and evil, and yet we're generally very social beings, even the most evil of us.

Because in roleplaying games no one want to play grunt number 6, everyone wants to play the hero (hero used in the ancient greek understanding of the word). Everyobody wants to be top dog and do his own thing.

And this allow me to transition into one of the difficulty of some evil campaigns. Too much liberty is a bad thing when groups are concerned.

Railroad, for all that peoples rail against them (pun very much intended) make it very easy to keep a group as one cohesive unit. You have a clear objective, a clear mean to achieve such objective. Everyone is homed in on it.

A more open world evil campaign on the other hand is more problematic because you make your own goal (take over the world) and everyone will have different ideas how to do it.

Some will want to rule the galaxy as father and son
Some will play a diminutive race and ask each other if someone else is pondering what they are pondering.
Others will try to find a mathematical way to control the universe.

[PaucaTerrorem]

ProTip: Evil campaigns are fun when everyone is on the same page as to what exactly an evil campaign is.

I second that. In an evil game right now and I'm trying the 'Cheney' style of evil. Not killing everyone we meet, instead setting up an infrastructure for us to take over. Being told every week that "making deals with people isn't evil".

[Frosty]

Personally, I roll my eyes at the sort of evil most people play in D&D campaigns. It's utterly divorced from any sense of reality or sanity. Someone looks at you funny, you kill them. Your friend has something you want, you steal it out from under them. Forced to suffer consequences of your actions, you commit war crimes.Then you (or they) are doing evil campaigns wrong. Again, I point you to Way of the Wicked. Evil campaign isn't about roleplaying Grant Theft Auto: Maximum Edition.

[Hangwind]

ProTip: Evil campaigns are fun when everyone is on the same page as to what exactly an evil campaign is.

This right here is what it comes down to. D and D has so defined "good" that it is nearly impossible to play without falling into archetypes.

Evil though? Is nearly everything else.

On a different point, having read the posts from other players, I feel a bit of confusion. Are we talking about playing an Evil campaign or an Evil character?

They are very different things. To be specific, an evil character can be part of a good campaign with little difficulty, also known as Belkar.

An Evil campaign, on the other hand, is to have a campaign where the end goal is evil, and it is not necessary that all characters be Evil. Case in point, I played a campaign where the party was Good or Nuetral, but we, in ignorance, were actually breaching the veil between the Demon Realm and the normal world. (It probably should have been a hint that the NPC paladin that started us on the campaign had fallen and was trying to figure out what had caused him to fall.)

The summary? Evil characters are cathartic and easier to play, while Evil campaigns are just a form of storytelling.

On a different but related note, I have heard a lot of people saying that it is hard to be a proactive Good character.

This is only true in settings with a GOOD default. In a universe with an Evil default, that all changes. For instance, if you are in the Warhammer 40K universe, taking over empires (Eldar and Human), burning worlds (Dark Eldar and Chaos), and committing genocide (Tyranids and Orks{maybe}) would all be good things, even by D and D RAW.

Just my two cents on the subject

[Talya]

Because in roleplaying games no one want to play grunt number 6, everyone wants to play the hero (hero used in the ancient greek understanding of the word). Everyobody wants to be top dog and do his own thing.


I think you're missing the point.

If you have no cohesiveness as a party (assuming that isn't the intent - pvp oriented games certainly can exist,) the failure was during character creation at the start of the campaign. You should have had all the players work together to develop character concepts that would be loyal and have few issues working together right from the start. This isn't hard for evil to do...

[Elderand]

I think you're missing the point.

If you have no cohesiveness as a party (assuming that isn't the intent - pvp oriented games certainly can exist,) the failure was during character creation at the start of the campaign. You should have had all the players work together to develop character concepts that would be loyal and have few issues working together right from the start. This isn't hard for evil to do...

No, I didn't miss the point. What I mean is that it's easier to have a cohesive group of good aligned character than evil. There are only so many ways to save the world from the same threat after all.

You can afford to do the minimum for group cohesion within a good campaign. The risks there tend to be more along the lines of unbalanced parties. The issues tend to creep up if someone plays a paladin.

Evil aligned you need to do more than the bare minimum because people rarely make a character saying that s/he is going to be evil but follow the lead of someone else. (IE be a minion).

I wasn't saying you were wrong, just elaborating on your point.

[Frosty]

Eh, team rocket takes orders from the higher ups, but they have a lot of leeway on how to accomplish their missions.

Or most Legends of the 5 Rings RPG games, where you are in a VERY lawful society. You have lords, and you're GOING TO FOLLOW ORDERS. (it is my opinion that Rokugan is a very Lawful Evil place)

Good does NOT mean lawful. Evil does NOT mean chaotic.

[Berenger]

"Being an astronomical monster that can make many peoples lives significantly worse" is most certainly not something I can do in real life. There are laws in my country and I possess a slightly battered but halfway working moral compass that prevent me from doing so.

Besides, I have neither dark magicks nor hordes of mercenaries nor billions of dollars nor nuclear weapons at my disposal in real life. Have you tried going mad on power without power? It is boring. Nobody listens to you.

A large part of roleplaying is an exercise in finding solutions for various problems. Your "toolbox" for this job consists of the things your character is a) able and b) willing to do. Switching to an alternate alignment is like switching to an alternate class in that it swaps out some of your tools for other tools, so this can be new & refreshing after playing the good guy over and over for multiple campaigns.

[mabriss lethe]

Have you tried going mad on power without power? It is boring. Nobody listens to you.



That may be one of the best lines I've seen today. Thanks for the chuckles. And one day I may have to use this argument.

[hamishspence]

That may be one of the best lines I've seen today. Thanks for the chuckles. And one day I may have to use this argument.I recall it being in The Simpsons Movie - or something along those lines.

[Berenger]

I recall it being in The Simpsons Movie - or something along those lines.

Thats right:


EPA Official: S-sir, I'm afraid you've gone mad with power...
Russ Cargill: Of course I have. You ever tried going mad without power? It's boring. No one listens to you!

:smallsmile:

[Angelalex242]

Well, there's also the sort of evil character who goes, "Oh, crap, I haven't murdered any children today" and runs off to do precisely that. I guess this goes in with GTA Evil. It is notable, however, that some sanity to evil produces more evil results then GTA evil. Adolf Hitler was not GTA evil, yet he was far more evil then GTA Evil could ever hope to be, for example. (Seriously, that dude had Vile feats, several of them.)

(It probably should have been a hint that the NPC paladin that started us on the campaign had fallen and was trying to figure out what had caused him to fall.)

Hmmm. Personally I wouldn't do it that way. In Final Fantasy XIII, a l'Cie who fails their Focus and becomes a ci'eth can think of nothing but their Focus for the rest of their life. Thus, if a Paladin fall on my watch, he'd be like a ci'eth, thinking of nothing but his fall (and knowing the whys and wherefores in great detail.) No Paladin, not even an NPC, should ever fall and not know why.

[Malroth]

Because my usual associates always play as evil characters. Why? Well, because evil is easy, quick, seductive and seems fun. Why bother do a quest to get the reward if you can murder the quest giver and take everything he has?

Then afterwords do the quest anyway for the xp.

[BrokenChord]

First: I had not heard of Louis Barabbas & The Bedlam Six, but I love them. They remind me a lot of Murder by Death.

Second: Try turning the question around: Why would anyone want to play in a "Good" campaign? Most everyone is probably neutral in their everyday lives - we obey some laws and ignore some authorities, we hurt some people and help some people, but few people really live their lives solely or even mostly for the betterment of other. Playing in a "good" campaign is a fantasy that a person could consistently live that positive of a life.

Um... Yeah, it's true that it's a fantasy about living a consistently good (and, more importantly, world-affecting) life. Seriously, I think there would be a lot more "good" in the real world, except that at the end of the day, the "bad" guys are the ones who don't listen to anything the "good" people say or move for. In other words, being good IRL yields no positive effect whatsoever.

Now, to be fair, most people nowadays would be instantly arrested for trying to eat babies and enslave weaker people, or indeed even do the things many "sane" evil campaigners do, so it's just as much a fantasy as Good campaigns.

I personally play in Good campaigns for the very reasons many people avoid them. It's hard to come up with interesting Good characters and campaign ideas that aren't part of heavily overused archetypes, and it's even harder to come up with unique ways of doing things while still within Good boundaries. (To be fair, having a good DM helps this significantly, because I've literally met several DMs who consider creativity to be a sign of Neutrality :smallannoyed: ) I enjoy the challenge of making interesting, different Good characters. Also, I don't think the simple act of being able to "do what you want because you want to, you're Evil" suddenly makes your character or your campaign deeper or more interesting.

And yeah, in terms of Good campaigns, in a similar vein, you can probably technically have more goals available for evil parties, but I think you can get much more interesting with Good characters, especially when you come up with proactive ways for them to be Good and break the fold.


Because it's hard to play good or even neutral pirates. And yet pirates are awesome!
So much this. I mean, I actually do like Good pirates, but yes, pirates are so awesome. Or really, anything seafaring... But that's besides the point, I guess.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, you've all been giving great answers! This has been a very good learning experience for me. Keep it up!

[Angelalex242]

Depends on the pirate.

You've got the Jack Sparrow types, who are chaotic neutral with good tendencies. Then you've got flat out chaotic evil, Barbossa.

[ArcturusV]

Because in roleplaying games no one want to play grunt number 6, everyone wants to play the hero (hero used in the ancient greek understanding of the word). Everyobody wants to be top dog and do his own thing.

And this allow me to transition into one of the difficulty of some evil campaigns. Too much liberty is a bad thing when groups are concerned.

Railroad, for all that peoples rail against them (pun very much intended) make it very easy to keep a group as one cohesive unit. You have a clear objective, a clear mean to achieve such objective. Everyone is homed in on it.

A more open world evil campaign on the other hand is more problematic because you make your own goal (take over the world) and everyone will have different ideas how to do it.

Some will want to rule the galaxy as father and son
Some will play a diminutive race and ask each other if someone else is pondering what they are pondering.
Others will try to find a mathematical way to control the universe.

Quoting because I like the point you brought up, and had an example.

One of my more "Successful" evil campaigns, in that it actually came to a satisfying conclusion, had this problem. We started out pretty damned railroaded. We started out basically naked and level 1 in a prison cell, that's about as railroady as you can get as far as plot hooks. There was one other player in the game who was "Good", and very Mary Sueish character wise (Heir to a throne that was stolen from him, master summoner, despite being in prison somehow had a ton of riches on him that his personal familiar seemingly pulled out of hammerspace for him when he needed it, chosen of his goddess, etc). By contrast my character was a Fighter/Bard mix, a wanderer, a performer, a warrior, with some minor magic, and very Lawful Evil.

We broke out of prison together, and my Lawful Evil type person never really thought of "betraying" my teammate at all, even if the plot railroad wasn't there, because it was basically the only person he knew in this land (He had been kidnapped to another continent, didn't know anyone there), and you don't turn your back on effective, loyal allies.

As the game went on my character found out the "Good" guy I was adventuring with was a lot more Evil than him, mostly due to his rockstar "I'm the hero, the world should bend over for me" attitude (Note: He claimed to be Lawful Good aligned). And his disgust at various actions he took including: Using enchantment magic to 'seduce' women. Summoning celestial creatures and then betraying the terms of his deals with the celestial creatures. Throwing away allies on suicide attacks that had no chance of working "just as a distraction" for himself. Trying to steal a holy relic so he alone could control it's power. Trying to claim an evil relic we were charged to destroy just because it'd be a waste to not. When we had a third person join, beating up and leaving her character for dead because she didn't want him to go off alone half cocked on some "My magic is strongest" suicide mission against an entire enemy fort.

So eventually my Lawful Evil character, who had not been intending to do this at all from the start, did break ranks with him. We split the DM's time into two solo campaigns as I lied to his face and said we had two different clues to follow up, and he should take one path, I'll take the other, and we'll meet back later.

... and then my Bard did his Bardic thing, well, things he had been working on since day one really. Managed to con his way into becoming some chosen prophet of the other player's goddess (By the horrible trick of actually working towards her goals and appeasing her instead of just demanding boons and doing what I wanted with it). United most of the warring nations of the world in an alliance. And gathered an army with one express purpose. To wipe out the "Great Evil" in the land. ... an evil which resulted in my one time ally going off to "reclaim his throne"... by summoning demons to kill all the usurpers. And when the demons were no longer under his control (Big shock, the level 7 wizard can't control a demon horde), decided to wake up this badass ancient dragon that everyone was screaming at him NOT to do, in order to try to enchant it into being his slave and kill off the demons. Didn't work. So he decided to call forth the demon prince of indiscriminate slaughter and mayhem to kill the dragon... didn't work. So my army went marching to kill him, and clean up his mess.

Note that to this day he thinks his character was still Lawful Good, and that I was pure evil and "pulled a Watchmen" on him, as my army of righteousness, channeling the blessings of his goddess, laid the smackdown on the dragon, the demons, and him... but in an odd twist of mercy decided to exile him rather than execute him. And my character took over his role as Emperor, legitimatized by his marriage to the heir of one of the larger kingdoms, and my role in basically bringing peace to the land under my iron fist. And the purge of all psychics from the land as he was really paranoid about people "reading his mind" even if all psychics didn't do that.

[ArqArturo]

Quoting because I like the point you brought up, and had an example...

That. Was. Awesome.

As a player, I can't play evil character, they always end up good, or at least not that evil, because the players around me are the ones doing atrocities, and I usually prefer to instal Iron-Fist meritocracies in which rules must be respected, regardless of all (I'm a tyrant kind of bad guy).

However, I have played the bad guy in games. In, probably my last game in town, the players were chasing after a rock troll that had been snaking on dwarves. The troll's lair was magically dark, so even the new player -a dwarf cleric- couldn't see. The players could only hear the troll's crunching and munching as they walked in, and hear the shuffling of his feet as he was hiding, moving towards the stalactites and stalagmites, and taunting them. Mostly, of how the players were 'in their lair'.

The new guy, kind of with sort of bravado and full of 'we're OP badass murder-hobos, we can take him!' called out that the troll was attacking her home, and that he had no right to call this place his, because he had no idea.

The troll, amused, responded "Yes, I have never known what home is like, but I have eaten plenty to know how home tastes".

The players shut up for a second, until the cleric just said "Oh, let's just kill this bastard!".

[elonin]

We did see the downfall of Vader, but even in the episodes 4-6 we saw his humanity. That is a sign of good writing. If your villain is portrayed as a flat wholly evil person that is poor writing.

On another front I have noticed that evil in a LARP I played in were better team players, as it was their only survival strategy. The good and neutrals were divided in political squabbles (many of which not caring about the .vs evil part).

[AgentofHellfire]

I personally play in Good campaigns for the very reasons many people avoid them. It's hard to come up with interesting Good characters and campaign ideas that aren't part of heavily overused archetypes, and it's even harder to come up with unique ways of doing things while still within Good boundaries. (To be fair, having a good DM helps this significantly, because I've literally met several DMs who consider creativity to be a sign of Neutrality :smallannoyed: ) I enjoy the challenge of making interesting, different Good characters. Also, I don't think the simple act of being able to "do what you want because you want to, you're Evil" suddenly makes your character or your campaign deeper or more interesting.

And yeah, in terms of Good campaigns, in a similar vein, you can probably technically have more goals available for evil parties, but I think you can get much more interesting with Good characters, especially when you come up with proactive ways for them to be Good and break the fold.

Believe it or not, I actually am an evil fan and I still agree with you about all of this.

If you can make an interesting Good-Aligned char, you can have some serious fun with it. :smallsmile:

[AgentofHellfire]

That. Was. Awesome.

As a player, I can't play evil character, they always end up good, or at least not that evil, because the players around me are the ones doing atrocities, and I usually prefer to instal Iron-Fist meritocracies in which rules must be respected, regardless of all (I'm a tyrant kind of bad guy).

Whenever I end up playing Evil, I actually tend not to go for tyrants, for whatever reason. I usually end up playing either moral nihilists or characters whose prejudice and/or hypocrisy prevents them from feeling empathy towards certain groups of people. Sometimes even combinations!

[ArcturusV]

ArqArturo:

That was probably the most wonderful part about the story, is that despite me blatantly telling the DM, and the other player right at the start that I was playing a Lawful Evil alignment, a guy who was heavy on code, honor, etc, but also willing to do evil things...

... everyone forgot he was evil. Seriously, it wasn't until I started springing my trap the DM went "... my gods, that's so evil! You want to fall to evil?!" and I just pointed at my sheet where it said "Alignment: Lawful Evil" and pointed out I was always there.

I mean he fought the bad guys, he cleansed evil artifacts and turned them holy by channeling the power of a celestial. He fought against the incompetent "Duke Fatass" who ran the country they were in at the time, taught his daughter and heir (And his future wife) how to fight, how to rule, and even used his bardic knack to spread the legend that everything he did to end the siege of Tristram, cleanse the Artifact, defeat the purple armored douchebag who was using it, etc, was actually done by the "Princess of Light, Hope of Celez". He was a diplomat who tried to cut away the BS and incompetent rulers of the land to get people who were goal oriented in position to make peace, etc.

... but he all approached it from the perspective of "... man this nation sucks, look at their elite guards, I can take them with no sweat. I bet in a year I can be ruling this dump and turning it into a real Empire".

And no one remembered he was evil. Hell, by the epilogue to the campaign he was this heroic, legendary figure that would be remembered as a great warrior, peace maker, and architect of the future, disposing of the corrupt petty clans, etc.

Only person who thought he was evil, in character, was my former teammate that I exiled.

[BrokenChord]

Please oh please tell me this friend of yours was completely new to the game? Like, seriously, that seems like one of those people who's playing for the first time and just wants to try everything out without thinking and thinks beating the bad guys makes everything else okay. Which is actually perfectly valid... As a totally new player who hasn't received any guidance to the contrary. Now, if that person has not since grown up or, worse, was an experienced player and still thought he was in the right... Gosh. I'm glad your campaign seemed to be much more fun than his.

Wonderful story, Arcturus. Welcome to Stupid Evil, everyone else @_@

[ArcturusV]

Nah, he at least claimed to have several years of RPing under his belt. He had enough system mastery (And the fact that he took the time to badly load some dice so he always critted). He just was a narcissist in real life it seems. When we pulled him aside to talk about how, well, it wasn't cool that he attacked, knocked out, and left a fellow player helpless in enemy territory just so he could run off and get solo XP/bragging rights, he just didn't understand it. Because he was the hero, and everyone else was there as his sidekicks. And you don't let the sidekick stop heroics from going on. And if they get in the way or can't handle it the "hero" puts them in the corner and does it himself.

Basically he thought he was Batman and we were various incarnations of Robin.

When he refused to take hints about his badly loaded dice not being cool (He seriously rolled nothing but crits for 3 sessions straight and tried to play it off like he was just lucky. Not a single roll wasn't a crit), and his behavior being... yeah... well... the rest of us were still having fun so I just made the plan to take him down some point and mostly ignore how bad he was when I could.

[Andreaz]

Wonderful story, Arcturus. Welcome to Stupid Evil, everyone else @_@People do forget evil doesn't mean "bigoted fanatic moron" after all.
My favorite evil game had all 4 evil. One was the clerico f hte god of war, and did actively advance his cause (causing strife. It's almost like Good Omens' War and the trail she leaves, just on a much saner scale)

Other than that? We're all just a bunch of friends living the good life, making money and fame, discovering fantastic mysteries and fighting enemies worth of their efforts.


Most of the time there wasn't even a scheme behind it all, they just didn't give a damn to people "just because", like Good and Neutral characters do.

[BrokenChord]

People do forget evil doesn't mean "bigoted fanatic moron" after all.
My favorite evil game had all 4 evil. One was the clerico f hte god of war, and did actively advance his cause (causing strife. It's almost like Good Omens' War and the trail she leaves, just on a much saner scale)

Other than that? We're all just a bunch of friends living the good life, making money and fame, discovering fantastic mysteries and fighting enemies worth of their efforts.


Most of the time there wasn't even a scheme behind it all, they just didn't give a damn to people "just because", like Good and Neutral characters do.

I'm pretty sure one of the biggest selling points on Neutral is they're allowed to not care. At least from my reading of the alignment rules (though this is a subject of debate that spans decades) you generally have to actively pursue something on the wrong side of the alignment street to be Evil (though active pursuit of Evil can be disguised to the doer as a pursuit of Good...). Although I suppose Evil is still possible in your story, since it sounds like you had at least a few murders of people who didn't deserve it *shrug*

[Andreaz]

I'm pretty sure one of the biggest selling points on Neutral is they're allowed to not care. At least from my reading of the alignment rules (though this is a subject of debate that spans decades) you generally have to actively pursue something on the wrong side of the alignment street to be Evil (though active pursuit of Evil can be disguised to the doer as a pursuit of Good...). Although I suppose Evil is still possible in your story, since it sounds like you had at least a few murders of people who didn't deserve it *shrug*Yeah, at their best they'd seem neutral. I surmise that's the case with most people, when you look at the demographics of alignment.

But at their worst... the comic examples were sweeping a manor, silently killing the guards in it and then reenacting The Shining with the owner just for the lulz; and clearing a cultist's base, finding a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge gelatinous cube inside and urging it to devour all the cultists while we watched from the outside and then plundered the now-sanitized house.
The non-comic example was most places we went where our cleric's (indeed invaluable) advice on tactics and strategy wasn't needed. Then gang wars broke, and broke bad.

[ryu]

Yeah, at their best they'd seem neutral. I surmise that's the case with most people, when you look at the demographics of alignment.

But at their worst... the comic examples were sweeping a manor, silently killing the guards in it and then reenacting The Shining with the owner just for the lulz; and clearing a cultist's base, finding a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge gelatinous cube inside and urging it to devour all the cultists while we watched from the outside and then plundered the now-sanitized house.
The non-comic example was most places we went where our cleric's (indeed invaluable) advice on tactics and strategy wasn't needed. Then gang wars broke, and broke bad.

Now see this OP? Stuff like THIS is argument enough for evil campaigns in itself. That stuff is pure gold. If I didn't think people would ruin it by missing the point I'd want a shown based on an evil D&D campaign.

[BrokenChord]

Now see this OP? Stuff like THIS is argument enough for evil campaigns in itself. That stuff is pure gold. If I didn't think people would ruin it by missing the point I'd want a shown based on an evil D&D campaign.

Well, yeah, I figure most half-comedy campaigns SHOULD star Evil characters. I suppose I should have specified that I'm not really factoring "for the lulz" ^_^'

[ryu]

Well, yeah, I figure most half-comedy campaigns SHOULD star Evil characters. I suppose I should have specified that I'm not really factoring "for the lulz" ^_^'

Well yeah you have the comedy campaign. Then of course you have all the other reasons. My favorite way is to just have everyone start the campaign true neutral and have alignment shift and change to best suit what people are actually doing. Also no mechanical shenanigans or other such silliness for changing even it's not the first time. This usually results in characters that can flow between the different alignments throughout the campaign. My current record for hitting every single on of them in a given time window is one in game week. Most of that due to the DM not knowing how the hell to rule on things I was doing alignment wise from day to day.

[Andreaz]

(the The Shining reenactment was a spur of the moment thing, we just needed the money from the valuables inside)

[BrokenChord]

Well yeah you have the comedy campaign. Then of course you have all the other reasons. My favorite way is to just have everyone start the campaign true neutral and have alignment shift and change to best suit what people are actually doing. Also no mechanical shenanigans or other such silliness for changing even it's not the first time. This usually results in characters that can flow between the different alignments throughout the campaign. My current record for hitting every single on of them in a given time window is one in game week. Most of that due to the DM not knowing how the hell to rule on things I was doing alignment wise from day to day.

Sounds like that character would've been extremely True Neutral, by the game's term of one type of true neutral who has no decided alignment in any direction and does some of everything.

Anyway, the discussion has gotten a bit off-topic. Are there any other things that haven't already been said that people would like to come forward with as to why they enjoy or actively play in Evil campaigns and, more generally, Evil characters?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Sounds like that character would've been extremely True Neutral, by the game's term of one type of true neutral who has no decided alignment in any direction.

Anyway, the discussion has gotten a bit off-topic. Are there any other things that haven't already been said that people would like to come forward with as to why they enjoy or actively play in Evil campaigns and, more generally, Evil characters?

My usual reason is: why not play an Evil campaign/character? Sometimes it's fun to play the villain. Hell, most of the time it's fun to play the villain; that's the only reason I ever DM. I'll stop short of anything I consider disgusting, usually, but playing a character without restriction or compunction (or at least, different ones from normal) leads to a lot of entertaining things to do in the story.

[Elderand]

Sounds like that character would've been extremely True Neutral, by the game's term of one type of true neutral who has no decided alignment in any direction and does some of everything.

Anyway, the discussion has gotten a bit off-topic. Are there any other things that haven't already been said that people would like to come forward with as to why they enjoy or actively play in Evil campaigns and, more generally, Evil characters?

Except it's not how true neutral works in 3.5. It's actually been commented that a person who does a little on every alignement is actually extremely chaotic

[Scow2]

Except it's not how true neutral works in 3.5. It's actually been commented that a person who does a little on every alignement is actually extremely chaoticNot really. It's still True Neutral, because their chaotic actions are negated by their lawful leanings.

[ryu]

Not really. It's still True Neutral, because their chaotic actions are negated by their lawful leanings.

I don't think you're understanding the severity of the situation. I just did what I felt like at the time with no goal alignment wise, and apparently every single alignment was displayed in such such a short time frame that the DM thought each individual shift was justified. What this says about the innermost desires of my subconscious mind I have no idea. It's probably kinda all over the place though.

[Frosty]

Nah, he at least claimed to have several years of RPing under his belt. He had enough system mastery (And the fact that he took the time to badly load some dice so he always critted). He just was a narcissist in real life it seems. When we pulled him aside to talk about how, well, it wasn't cool that he attacked, knocked out, and left a fellow player helpless in enemy territory just so he could run off and get solo XP/bragging rights, he just didn't understand it. Because he was the hero, and everyone else was there as his sidekicks. And you don't let the sidekick stop heroics from going on. And if they get in the way or can't handle it the "hero" puts them in the corner and does it himself.

Basically he thought he was Batman and we were various incarnations of Robin.

When he refused to take hints about his badly loaded dice not being cool (He seriously rolled nothing but crits for 3 sessions straight and tried to play it off like he was just lucky. Not a single roll wasn't a crit), and his behavior being... yeah... well... the rest of us were still having fun so I just made the plan to take him down some point and mostly ignore how bad he was when I could.Why the heck did your group continue to play with this cheating asshat? Just kick his sorry ass to the curb and continue on your merry way man. He's not a friend to anyone except himself.

[BrokenChord]

Why the heck did your group continue to play with this cheating asshat? Just kick his sorry ass to the curb and continue on your merry way man. He's not a friend to anyone except himself.

Hey, I've been kicked out of groups before, and I have *some* friends! I think... :smallfrown:

Granted, I still usually think I was justified in some of these situations; for example, in a long-term game that started with some adventuring buddies but took a turn for PvP as each character gained their own several-plane-spanning kingdoms and engaged in a huge war, I had a both in-character and IRL change of heart, getting help from some Good deities to save the other characters and promptly destroy several planes of existence to wipe their kingdoms off the map. The DM didn't want me out of the group because I was just acting in-character (and being the only one aside from the DM to remember that we had started the campaign on the premise of no PvP...), but all of the players were very pissed (and still haven't forgiven me to this day) and the entire group was ready to disband if I didn't leave. So yeah, there was that.

Anyway, for the most part I agree anyway. Bad sports make worse players, and the worst players make the least fun. Let them find other cheatergroups, because cheating, sheer unwillingness to try to understand things, and trying to actively disrupt the party in games that were meant to be cohesive are the only three things that make me truly
dislike a DnD player :smallmad:

[ArcturusV]

Because honestly the DM was looking forward to me doing something to him. He said the reason he didn't burn out on DMing was because of my character, what I was doing, and wanting to see how I'd pull it all together. And I almost always am stuck DMing rather than playing so I wasn't going to walk away from a chance to play.

[SassyQuatch]

Because I like to play real people, and alignment is a blight on the game. If I am in a group that uses alignment then I will create the person I want to play and if that is Evil then so be it. If it is with a group of fellow adventurers who are also Evil then so be it. If our goals take us into paths that are deemed Evil then that is the way it will be, because I refuse to play as a caricature, I play characters.

[PowerLemon]

Imagine this. You're at a party in a mansion. There are a lot of rich people there and for whatever reason you are too. They are there for the unveiling of a painting by the master in town. What nobody knows is that this master has held a grudge toward the owner of said mansion and learned some dark tricks. At the moment of the unveiling demons and bad things sprout from the painting. What do you do?

For the good guy the only option is to try to save everyone by taking up arms against the foul things to buy them time. Hopefully you survive.

For the evil character the possibilities are endless.
1)Maybe you have a disguise kit and can look like one of them in the hurry?
2)Run outside and bar the door from the so that no one else can get out? Fat loot.
3)Actively push the rich people you have envied your whole life towards the dark beings while rolling a diplomacy check?
4)Take up arms against the beings, save everyone and now they owe you their life?

The list goes on. After playing good for a long time you will want to try the things you could never do before. That's why I play evil.

[Yawgmoth]

I play evil because of a number of reasons.

1. Evil in D&D is not evil. It's more like "not doing what would benefit someone/everyone else", which is what people with an angle towards self-preservation will do. If I lie (because the truth gets me killed), cheat (because I'm playing against cheaters in an already stacked game), and steal (because I can't afford food and housing at the same time), this makes me evil in D&D's eyes.

2. Good is boring. Good always does the "right thing". It's bland, it's predictable, it doesn't interest me at all. Good is the blank white canvas - it's a great starting point, now add some color. Maybe some shades of grey, or even a little black. Now you have something I might look at, but it's no longer Good as alignment is portrayed as generally understood.

3. As seen here (http://louisbarabbas.com/tag/villains/) and posted on page 1, evil is just more interesting. I can make a lot more characters with compelling answers to "why is s/he evil?", "what are his/her methods?" and "what does s/he hope to accomplish with said methods?" who are considered evil than I can with someone who has to also fit in the boundaries of good.

4. I have to play a decent person in real life. I wanna bust out and do what I'd really like to do when indulging in fantasy.

[Raezeman]

I'm playing a dragonfire adept in an evil campaign. On the grand scheme, it's not that different from the good campaigns i play: we always have a goal in mind and need to solve problems to get there and fight those who try to prevent us, or are just hungry and want to eat us. The mean difference is the small things and the atmosphere of playing that gives it the evil aura. For example, due to a deal we made with Demogorgon, we have to sacrifice a number of innocent souls every week. So, we have to kill innocent people without the authorities finding out because they still don't like mass massacres. We also join evil organisations and stuff like that, while still trying to keep our true intentions secret from the good guys, or there will be hell to pay.

[Andreaz]

"Because good is boring" doesn't do it for me. One can be interesting and good-aligned at the same time. the character itself doesn't even have to like it, it's just how he does what he thinks right.

Try this very site's comic's O-Chul or Roy.

[ArcturusV]

I find it kinda interesting, because today I was reading one of my Odd Thomas books, and the author kind of touched on the complete opposite for Good and Evil. Evil... likes to think it's edgy and such. But it is also very repetitive. Particularly when you're talking about the 'legions of hell' level evil. Always going to the same atrocities, repeating the same acts, fairly predictable. Whereas good will come at you in ways you never expect, is full of quirks and eccentricities that make them deeper, etc. The act of growth, healing, and creation being more "good" aligned allowing for that depth compared to people who revel in destruction.

It's just an odd thing to read compared to having read this topic earlier and it's stance on "Good is one dimensional, evil is deep". Just kinda interesting to think about.

Kind of makes me want to roll out a Paladin. Or some Exalted character. It's just kinda funny when I think about it more. I suppose it's because I so seldom get to play an Evil PC that I never really considered it. Take say, book of vile darkness. Look at it's PrCs. They basically come in three flavors, Randomly Destructive Power Mad types, Liars who enjoy twisting people around their fingers, and Thrill Killers. More or less. Or I can look at Exalted Deeds, with a lot of Righteous Crusader types, obviously. Undead on their final tasks, prophets, peacebringers and diplomats, assassins, protectors. A bit more variance. Least on the mechanical side of life.

Makes me wonder if I'd make as many evil characters as I do if they were the rule, rather than the exception. If every campaign I ran into was all about the blackest evil I'd probably be the guy rebelling and making Good characters.

[LordBlades]

"Because good is boring" doesn't do it for me. One can be interesting and good-aligned at the same time. the character itself doesn't even have to like it, it's just how he does what he thinks right.

Try this very site's comic's O-Chul or Roy.

I think 'good is boring' in this thread has a slightly different meaning. Not 'you can't build an interesting good character' but rather 'there's less ways to build interesting and different good characters than evil ones'.

[hamishspence]

If I lie (because the truth gets me killed), cheat (because I'm playing against cheaters in an already stacked game), and steal (because I can't afford food and housing at the same time), this makes me evil in D&D's eyes.
If the character does little or no good, and some small amounts of Evil, then yes.

That's exactly why The Forces of Darkness seek to warp societies to the point where this sort of behaviour becomes commonplace.

At least, according to Fiendish Codex 2.

[Bulhakov]

It's been mentioned by some of the previous posters, that in good campaigns you have a limit as to what goals you can strive for, and what means you can use to reach them. In evil campaigns you have much more freedom - you can choose any goal you want (even a good one), and use any means you want to reach it.

[Craft (Cheese)]

My reason? Subversion. My instinct as a roleplayer (and as a creator in general) is to take the premise I'm expected to work within and immediately try to break out of it, or at the very least push against the boundaries of it.

The Sims? Screw getting a job and making friends, I'm gonna set things on fire.

Skyrim? Screw going around slaughtering things, I'm gonna sit here and drink tea with Lydia.

D&D by default expects the PCs to be Lawful Good, so Chaotic Evil characters have an instinctive appeal to me. Unless we're playing Way Of The Wicked or something that expects you to be evil, in which case that appeal goes away.

(I'm told this makes me difficult to DM for.)


I recently read an article by a musician who found better words than I ever could for this.

Full article is here (http://louisbarabbas.com/tag/villains/) Also, listen to their music. They're amazing... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshiHrqmd-c)

I'd argue they aren't really describing villains here, they're just describing complex characters. There's nothing that prevents you from doing any of that with purer motivations.

[Lorsa]

Why isn't this thread in the general roleplaying games section? It seems this thread isn't really D&D 3e specific?

What counts as an "Evil campaign"? Is it one where the ultimate goals of the group are similar to those that are most often villains in "Good campaigns" or is it one where the characters simply are evil aligned? Those will yield two different results I believe.

When I am the DM I usually have trouble with evil campaigns simply because it is much harder to come up with adventures. With good characters you simply need to have problems related to people in trouble and the players will jump at the chance of doing something. With evil characters it is much more difficult as their motivation is completely self-centred. Thus it means they have to create their own adventures in a way or describe very clear to me what motivates their characters. Even so, it will simply be harder for me to come up with interesting side-quests. Personally I find evil to be rather restricting in adventure options.

As a player I tend to be good even when I'm not playing a Good character. I have no idea why people think good is stupid, that concept seems pretty far fetched to me. I generally like to view myself as a good person and that will most often show itself in my characters.

There are exceptions of course, and I have definitely played a lot of characters with questionable morals and low conscience even though their end goal would be considered Good. The most interesting perhaps, was the character who started out good, realized the world was really awful and decided that the best way to change it was to put herself in charge of it all. To do so she made some questionable alliances, found herself caring less and less for other people's lives and generally went through the whole classic road to damnation. All while keeping the belief that at some point she was going to "fix the world".

[ChaoticDitz]

My reason? Subversion. My instinct as a roleplayer (and as a creator in general) is to take the premise I'm expected to work within and immediately try to break out of it, or at the very least push against the boundaries of it.

The Sims? Screw getting a job and making friends, I'm gonna set things on fire.

Skyrim? Screw going around slaughtering things, I'm gonna sit here and drink tea with Lydia.

D&D by default expects the PCs to be Lawful Good, so Chaotic Evil characters have an instinctive appeal to me. Unless we're playing Way Of The Wicked or something that expects you to be evil, in which case that appeal goes away.

(I'm told this makes me difficult to DM for.)



I'd argue they aren't really describing villains here, they're just describing complex characters. There's nothing that prevents you from doing any of that with purer motivations.

Oh gods above, you aren't one of those jerkass players that sits there doing nothing if there isn't a map, and if there is one, charges towards the edges of said map, are you? Those people piss me off more than any design flaw inherent in DnD.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Oh gods above, you aren't one of those jerkass players that sits there doing nothing if there isn't a map, and if there is one, charges towards the edges of said map, are you? Those people piss me off more than any design flaw inherent in DnD.

I don't consider that to be subverting the game. That's deliberately refusing to participate in the game. So is doing stuff like refusing to do what the rest of the party is doing and going off on your own/throwing a tantrum until they go along with your idea instead. What I meant when I said "subverting the game" is stuff like trying to be an Apostle of Peace in a party of murderhobos, or playing an Orc living in a highly-racist human city.

[DigoDragon]

tl;dr what motivates you guys on the playground to play in Evil campaigns? What do you enjoy about them?

I have yet to play in an evil campaign, but a friend of mine was kicking around the idea of an evil campaign based losely on "Dispicable Me 2". The PCs would all be retired villains that gave up the evil to settle down and live normal lives. Then, some new Big Bad enters the scene and copies a lot of the ideas that the retired villains used in the past. A top secret "good" organization hires the retired villains to help stop the new BBEG, because who knows this BBEG's M.O. better than the retired folks he's copying the ideas from? :smallbiggrin:

It also had the additional interest of offering a chance for the PCs to play older characters. Characters who are a bit past their prime, but still capable in some ways sounds like fun to me and full of RP opportunity to ham it up.

[Red Fel]

I don't consider that to be subverting the game. That's deliberately refusing to participate in the game. So is doing stuff like refusing to do what the rest of the party is doing and going off on your own/throwing a tantrum until they go along with your idea instead. What I meant when I said "subverting the game" is stuff like trying to be an Apostle of Peace in a party of murderhobos, or playing an Orc living in a highly-racist human city.

I think there is a fine line between going beyond the expectations and objectives of a game, and throwing the game so far off the rails (and I don't refer to railroading here, just the usual meaning of the idiom) that it becomes irrecoverable.

I happen to like, as a player or as a DM, throwing something into the game that goes beyond expectations. Have a harrowing dungeon crawl, and at the festering core of the place, instead of a monstrous boss, have a noble spiritual being resting peacefully there. Have a character, amongst a team of great and mighty heroes, who is in it solely for profit, and unlike a certain space smuggler, will absolutely and under no circumstances discover the merits of selflessness. Be informed of the quest, decide that it is not sufficiently noble or that the questgiver is a conniving backstabber, and convince the party to set out for a different venue altogether.

Small subversions like these keep things interesting.

Large subversions, like playing an irredeemably, gleefully, senselessly evil character in a good campaign, or convincing the entire party to sit around in the tavern and do nothing until the DM comes up with something you personally like, or spending your entire WBL on unstable explosives that will go off if anyone in the room so much as sneezes simply to dare the DM to try, or playing the Apostle of Peace almost ever, take away from the fun of the other players and the DM. And that's not cool.

Good campaign or evil campaign, D&D is a cooperative game. Even when there is PvP. If the group, as a whole, is not having fun, somewhere along the line something has gone wrong. No individual player should be forced to play a role he doesn't want to, but he should be willing to compromise in small ways in order to benefit the overall satisfaction at the table.

Even if that means a very slight reduction in evil. (But only very slight.)

[Karoht]

I'll tell you why my party went evil.
We started off good. Seriously, all of us.
And we would often try to talk before using violence. And that was fine, for about the first 3 encounters. We fed some people and shared our fire with them, managed to get useful information and avoid some combat.
And then no one after that was even remotely reasonable. No one. Oh, here's someone who looks nice and helpful. Lets talk and do business. Oh snap, she's trying to kill us in our sleep, or dominate us. Now we're dealing with surprise rounds and making saves because we were nice. Awesome.
I let a fairy out of a bottle, gave him food and his valuable equipment. He tried to kill me within 5 minutes, because he's a fairy and I'm not? Or some such nonsense.

After going through 3 books of this nonsense in the Reign of Winter campaign, the standard operating proceedure is to assume pretty much everything and everyone is an enemy. If they want our help or have something to offer us they can raise a white flag or surrender. And if we accidentally kill someone in that first round of combat before they can surrender, well maybe that person should have made a better effort to appear non-hostile. Because every time we've ever tried to appear friendly or non-hostile, we've been kicked in the balls for it, often paying for it with someone's life. Every. Single. Time.

As a result of such jaded/pragmatic experiences, no one really cares about using violence, or using evil spells, or summoning evil things. Mostly, we just want to survive, and finish saving the world so we can survive and go back to our own lives again. Heck, in the Reign of Winter campaign, so far it appears that saving the world is really little more than selecting the lesser of two evils. As such the party slipped from good to neutral, some shifted to evil, some shifted chaotic, etc.

So yeah. I'm more than willing to do bad to do good. I'm completely willing to shoot first and ask questions later, because so is everyone else. I'm absolutely willing to deny someone the benefit of the doubt and assume the worst about them, because every time I've given the benefit of the doubt it has done nothing but bite me in the ass. It's a sick, sad world, people do bad things.

[Talderas]

Evil gets a lot more fun tools.

I would argue that good and neutral are far more constrained in what they're permitted to do compared to evil.

[Yawgmoth]

Take say, book of vile darkness. Look at it's PrCs. They basically come in three flavors, Randomly Destructive Power Mad types, Liars who enjoy twisting people around their fingers, and Thrill Killers. More or less. Or I can look at Exalted Deeds, with a lot of Righteous Crusader types, obviously. Undead on their final tasks, prophets, peacebringers and diplomats, assassins, protectors. A bit more variance. Least on the mechanical side of life. That's because Monte Cook has a very myopic understanding of what makes anything interesting and is essentially the high priest of cargo cult game design. BoED doesn't have a tremendous lot of variance either, and if you look closely you'll find a disturbing lot of "as per (evil thing) except good because we say it's good" schlock. BoED's message is not "how to play a really Good character"; it's "here's a handful of ways for your PCs to be Actual Hitler but let the paladin keep his class features." Unless you want to argue that imprisoning someone's soul for a year and then magically shifting their alignment against their will is somehow a "good act", or being so racist that you actually get supernatural powers from it is on the same side as compassion and altruism.

So yeah, you could roll up an exalted/paladin and have an interesting character through the BoED, but that's because it's fairly easy to make an evil character who thinks he's doing the right thing/fighting the good fight compelling.

[Zombulian]

I guess I just wanted to get some perspective on this. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people who want to play Evil campaigns, and I understand some of the motivations, but I was wanting to get insight from other people into this. Ignoring jokes that are unfortunately all-too-often true (such as the common "most PCs are Evil because they kill sentient creatures and take their stuff solely because the creatures ping in one direction on a Detect Alignment or happen to have green skin and fangs"), I wonder what motivates people to play Evil campaigns.

My own personal stance is that being an astronomical monster that can make many peoples' lives significantly worse (though not quite the slaughter and enslavement of Evil campaigners) is something you can do in real life, though most people choose not to, while having the power to make a truly significant world difference in a good way is something that's basically impossible IRL. No, not even then. I like Good campaigns because I get a bit of escapism in the sense that I can make significant positive changes to the world.

Of course, I understand (though don't personally share the feels for) the logic on the other side of the equation too; playing an Evil character in an Evil party lets you do horrible things with no IRL consequences, something of an escape in that way, particularly for people who aren't totally evil in real life who might feel really guilty doing bad things to people IRL.

There's also the simple fact that it's much easier to do whatever the hell you feel like as Evil than as Good, though I would argue that Lawful Evils played straight are even more restrictive than Chaotic and Neutral Good.

tl;dr what motivates you guys on the playground to play in Evil campaigns? What do you enjoy about them?

Specifically for me at this moment, I've been talking to my friends about a "Take Over the World" campaign. Which, while evil, is definitely more about tactical challenge than causing strife.

Though the escapism aspect does definitely affect the way people play. I have a friend who's a really good guy, but in game he seems to be incapable of having fun unless on a destructive rampage of pain and fire.

[Forrestfire]

The closest I generally get to playing Evil is playing someone as generally pragmatic and trying to figure out how they'd react to a situation. I do it because it's fun to play someone like that, especially when my goal is to put myself in their "head," so to speak, and try to understand the motivations of someone who is driven by X goals and Y past choices.

At some point, I'd like to play someone who is intentionally evil for some reason or other, with the OoC goal of being a card-carrying villain (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CardCarryingVillain)/magnificent bastard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard) type of character when possible, and manipulating events to end up so that I can afford to do so.

This hypothetical character would have a wide range of tools, and would likely end up being an insane character much like Tarquin of OotS, with things in his arsenal specifically designed to evoke this feel. The Book of Vile Darkness has fun options for that (see my sig), and so do other books.

The reason for playing such a character would most likely be to be able to homage great villains in media, and to have an opportunity to ham it up in a deliciously evil way.

[Ghost Nappa]

I've found that in D&D, as a general rule of thumb, new players stick to NG, CG, or TN

The game is new, so it's better to focus on learning the gameplay before the roleplaying. Your job is to be the hero, and that doesn't require nearly as much characterization or thinking. You're given a plot hook, you take it, and you stop whoever was going to make a mess.

After awhile, you mix it up: either you embrace some part of the Order Vs. Chaos aspect and throw it in, or you switch to Evil. Evil, is very much a heavy roleplaying alignment aspect. You're not taking plot hooks (unless you're such a low level that you don't have a choice). You're making them, or at least shaking things up. You're the judge, jury, and executioner...until you meet the "real" ones.

[The Fury]

Yeah, I've made no secret that I like playing as one of the good guys so I'll freely admit that what I have to say about playing a villain will probably come off as hypocritical.
I have made villainous PCs before, when I do I generally try to come up with a character that would be really satisfying to stop. That's why I'd like to have my villains get a second appearance-- some small, perverse part of me wants to see them stopped after they've become a legitimate threat to the campaign world. Generally, I think of heroes as the ones that build things up and villains as the one that tear things down. In roleplaying it's fun to have the opportunity to do both.
Most recently I made a PC that started off as a good guy, but as the campaign went on it just became harder and harder to do the right thing and she lost her good alignment. Now she seems to be on the path to becoming a principled but somewhat myopic bad guy who's convinced that she's doing the right thing. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist) So far she's my favorite character that I've ever played.

[BrokenChord]

I've found that in D&D, as a general rule of thumb, new players stick to NG, CG, or TN

The game is new, so it's better to focus on learning the gameplay before the roleplaying. Your job is to be the hero, and that doesn't require nearly as much characterization or thinking. You're given a plot hook, you take it, and you stop whoever was going to make a mess.

After awhile, you mix it up: either you embrace some part of the Order Vs. Chaos aspect and throw it in, or you switch to Evil. Evil, is very much a heavy roleplaying alignment aspect. You're not taking plot hooks (unless you're such a low level that you don't have a choice). You're making them, or at least shaking things up. You're the judge, jury, and executioner...until you meet the "real" ones.

Hey, be fair about it, you can definitely do heavy roleplay with good guys. But I see your point.

[Andreaz]

The reason for playing such a character would most likely be to be able to homage great villains in media, and to have an opportunity to ham it up in a deliciously evil way.


Evil is always having reasons! Reasons for world..not being like in head. (http://diggercomic.com/?p=314)

[Pickford]

some_guy:

Good guys maintain the status quo; if they win, the world remains in it's old state. Evil characters change the world.

A common misconception (based off the responses thus far), Good characters actually seek to make the world a better place than they found it. It's the neutral characters who likely just don't care.

ArcturusV:

Rarely do you see reactive villains though. The only one that comes to mind for a reactive evil campaign is some Paizo Adventure I heard of, Way of the Wicked I think where basically the whole plot sounds like, "We were chilling with our demon lords when these asshat good guys kicked our skulls in and took our land. Are we bad enough to save the kingdom from Good?"

This reminded me of the plot to Dragon's Age: Origins. Basically the initial bad guy is (in his mind) just doing what he has to in order to save the kingdom from the naive King.

I have found most intra-party conflict comes from competing desires (i.e. one person wants to be greedy, or murder someone, wheras another wants to help the villagers and bring the target to justice)

Red_Fel:

Some situations merit actions that are decidedly non-good. The above example, in some cases, might not be evil, but certainly, killing a helpless human victim isn't terribly heroic.

Sometimes, a little evil gets the job done.

Plus, and I cannot emphasize this enough, evil gets the best one-liners.

Not if you want to be exalted :)

Yawgmoth:

1. Evil in D&D is not evil. It's more like "not doing what would benefit someone/everyone else", which is what people with an angle towards self-preservation will do. If I lie (because the truth gets me killed), cheat (because I'm playing against cheaters in an already stacked game), and steal (because I can't afford food and housing at the same time), this makes me evil in D&D's eyes.

Strictly speaking lying, cheating, and stealing are not evil. Evil, as defined in D&D is "hurting, oppressing, and killing others". Even killing, if done in self-defense or to protect others, is not evil.

[Zombulian]

Strictly speaking lying, cheating, and stealing are not evil. Evil, as defined in D&D is "hurting, oppressing, and killing others". Even killing, if done in self-defense or to protect others, is not evil.

True. By D&D standards, self preservation is neutral. Which seems reasonable actually.

[ArcturusV]

I wouldn't say neutral so much as "null". Only because Neutral isn't necessarily defined as absence of good and evil (Which it is in part) but also a philosophical desire to avoid good and evil. Good, evil, neutral, can all kill in self defense with no real impact. Not like an evil guy killing people who are out for his head moves him towards Neutrality.

[hamishspence]

Strictly speaking lying, cheating, and stealing are not evil. Evil, as defined in D&D is "hurting, oppressing, and killing others". Even killing, if done in self-defense or to protect others, is not evil.

BoVD says otherwise (though it makes an exception for lying, as "not always Evil").

Most forms of theft or fraud, hurt the victim of it to some degree- even if it may be more emotional, than physical (physical would be being in direct discomfort because of loss of wealth).

A person who knows that they've been robbed/defrauded by a crook, could certainly feel as oppressed as a person who's been mistreated by a tyrant.

[The Insanity]

There's a difference between killing, stealing or lying for your own selfish benefit or because you like it and because you have to.

[hamishspence]

True. A "defending self and/or others against a malevolent aggressor situation" (rather than "normal survival situation") could easily make some otherwise Evil acts into Neutral ones.

[Talya]

BoVD says otherwise (though it makes an exception for lying, as "not always Evil").

Most forms of theft or fraud, hurt the victim of it to some degree- even if it may be more emotional, than physical (physical would be being in direct discomfort because of loss of wealth).

A person who knows that they've been robbed/defrauded by a crook, could certainly feel as oppressed as a person who's been mistreated by a tyrant.

The difference between an police undercover op and fraud is only what side of the law you are on.

[Zombulian]

The difference between an police undercover op and fraud is only what side of the law you are on.

Oh man. 3edgy5me

[Spore]

Playing even two sessions of evil campaigns without restrictions makes me afraid of myself and the caged psychopaths on the table around me. This isn't that cartoony villainy, this is borderline insane. In our pirate game, the cook does cook crew members who weren't following orders, my elf druid was just a snotty individual, while one played an insane monster of a synthesist summoner (wearing his eidolon 24/7) and the other a sorcerer like the kid from the ring. In our drow adventure, the matron was the most sane person watching an orc butcher two giants to death, my character just having sex with whom she wanted, and my friend buying slaves and using their skin to paint something.

[Talya]

Oh man. 3edgy5me


I don't get the reference, but it's true. They are the same action... it's dishonesty -- pretending to be something you are not in order to trick someone else into beating themselves.

It's the purpose and intent that make them "good" or "evil." Fraud is unacceptable because you are breaking the law and victimizing innocent people. An undercover sting is acceptable because you are upholding the law and preventing people from victimizing innocent people. But the actions taken in doing so are essentially the same.

[hamishspence]

The different between "fraud" and "undercover sting" is like the difference between Murder and Justifiable Homicide.

At least, that's how I'd rule it in D&D.

[Talya]

The different between "fraud" and "undercover sting" is like the difference between Murder and Justifiable Homicide.

At least, that's how I'd rule it in D&D.

Absolutely!

Which brings out the point perfectly - it's not the killing itself that's wrong. Much like in a case of fraud, it's not the dishonesty that's the problem.

[hamishspence]

No - it's the fact that there is an innocent victim.

That said- some acts can qualify as Evil even when done to the not-innocent.

The "minimum standard" to qualify as Evil-aligned, can vary considerably from DM to DM, and from setting to setting.

Eberron seems to have a fairly low minimum (the least Evil such characters are more Git than Monster, one might expect 3/10 of commoners met to be Evil, and so forth).

Other settings might have a slightly higher one.

[Elderand]

The true point of view for an evil character is this : It's not a crime if you don't get caught.

[Talya]

The true point of view for an evil character is this : It's not a crime if you don't get caught.

As a point of order, I'd call that more closely related to the law/chaos axis than the good/evil axis. Not all laws have anything to do with good/evil.

In real life, there are some laws I consider ridiculous. I, therefore, would have no issues with ignoring them, but I would still need to be careful not to be caught doing so.

Evil, on the other hand, may be the law. In the Robin Hood vs. Prince John scenario, the law is never on the side of the hero.

[ChaoticDitz]

The true point of view for an evil character is this : It's not a crime if you don't get caught.

That's an extreme overgeneralization. And not "true" at all, though *some* Evil characters think that way. That's like saying every Good person thinks a lawful, orderly society is best. In fact, no, it's really more like saying every Good character has a paladin code. There's way more variance than you're suggesting.

[Pickford]

BoVD says otherwise (though it makes an exception for lying, as "not always Evil").

Most forms of theft or fraud, hurt the victim of it to some degree- even if it may be more emotional, than physical (physical would be being in direct discomfort because of loss of wealth).

A person who knows that they've been robbed/defrauded by a crook, could certainly feel as oppressed as a person who's been mistreated by a tyrant.

Where BoVD (3.0) and BoED (3.5) butt heads, BoED clearly must trump being both a later source and a 3.5 source.

At any rate, BoVD says murder is evil, which isn't the same thing as just killing.

killing in the defense of others would be a good act under the following 4 (BoED) limits: just cause, good intentions, discriminate, good means

So not just neutral, but potentially good.

[hamishspence]

Where BoVD (3.0) and BoED (3.5) butt heads, BoED clearly must trump being both a later source and a 3.5 source.

And nowhere does BoED contradict the theme that cheating, stealing, and lying, are in general evil.

So in this case, there's no butting of heads.

As to how much in the way of Evil deeds it takes to gain an Evil alignment- this is much more up to the DM.

[lytokk]

Here's an example of a evil character I played

Ninja Assasin, was part of a ninja clan who specialized in assassination (duh). He was betrayed by his clan and set up to complete a mission that was impossible. The heroes of the party stumbled across my guy while breaking out of jail, and my guy distracted the guards, which convinced the party to break me out. Now, my guy didn't have anything better to do, his clan thought him dead, and he had to lay low. The party was going to be travelling a lot, and that was good for him. Now, none of the party (IC) knew why he was with them. They were on a mission to save the world, and for the time being, that was a better idea for my guy than going solo or trying to take down the clan. In the end he helped the party save the world a few times over.

Evil exploits while with the party, a lot of poison use, torture, cold blooded murder.

The torture was to get information out of some creature allied with one of the BBEGs. I had flat out told the party to leave the room while I took care of this. Thanks to an amazing bluff and some really low sense motives, I got them out of the room (IC, OOC they were still there), and got the information. Our prisoner unfortunately died while trying to escape.

The murder came along when the DM decided we needed cohorts. NPC comes knocking on my door in the middle of the night, apparently knowing everything about me, including my real name which only me and the DM knew, and wanting to train under me. Due to my backstory, the NPC got a dagger in his back after a momentary distraction. I got looks from the rest of the players, at which point I reminded them of my alignment and story, at which point the DM realized he picked the worst way possible to try and get me a cohort. Because I got information out of the NPC first, my guy ended up travelling to places where the NPC got his info on me, and dispatched all of them too. Again, all in character. If a nameless NPC could figure it out, so could his old clan, and we weren't in that part of the story yet.

Another time more involved me chucking the party's Halfling wizard down a corridor in a dungeon after he made some snide remark due to me setting off a trap while attempting to disable it. The DM liked to put multiple traps in places. The exchange went something like this:

Halfling: "You knew the hallway wasn't trapped right?"
Me: "Yeah, sure" (again, high bluff check)

Being evil basically gave me the RP freedom to do what I wanted to do, and things that actually fit my characters backstory. So what if I helped save the world a few times? My guy was evil in a party with good characters, and I wasn't even secretly evil. It was right out there in my actions. But it never actually caused any inner party conflict.

I guess my point is, evil is freedom.

[Angelmaker]

Neither being good nor evil compells you to your actions.

I find the argument "evil" is more deep not convincing. I can appreciate the alternative approach it takes, but how Are situateions more interesting with ebing inclined in the one or the other direction?

Example? Apprehending a murderer a good aligned character can either turn the murderer in or deciding that for the good of the society he should kill him. (non exclusive list ). He can even chose to let the murderer go free, if the murderer can prove to him, that he did it for "moral" reasons as in slaying a tyrant, a child molester, or whatever.

Apprehending a murderer the evil characters can decide to turn him in for the bounty, slay him outright to protect their own families living in the area or recruiting him for the party, maybe even, if wanton slaughter is their goal.

While the approaches may differ, I find both approaches valuable, emaningful and interesting and even with either evil or good as your moral guidelines, choices weigh, matter and are deep and further Our character's development.

As long as moral guidelines don't become dogmatic, and this seems to be the biggest quarrel with being good, then you are golden.