Roleplaying Can somebody point me to Red Fel's masterpost on how to do evil *right*? [Archive]

Red Fel

2015-05-05, 07:20 AM

Red Fel

red fel

Red Fel

It's showtime (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO1x632BzSQ)!

Most of the posts that i've seen red fel write are usually pertaining to a specific scenario. "Doing evil right" takes more than a quick guide, it takes some serious thinking and molding of your mindset. It's honestly not something I'd suggest to look into unless you're really sure the party can handle it, because evil played right can quickly turn real life friends into real life not-so-friends, not to mention it might not be something your DM is interested in DMing. Based on your party, playing some amusing caricature evil character might be more fitting for your situation.

Remember kids, playing Red Fel evil means playing [Evil]. Not everyone is up for it.

Very much this. You are meddling with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, when you get me involved. Evil isn't a one-size-fits-all arrangement; it's a custom-tailored suit, a smooth, suave look on one fellow that looks absurd on the next. And I don't work on the cheap, either; when I get involved, Evil gets done right.

But if you're up for one heck of a ride, ask me your questions; I'll see what I can give you.

Oh, and as an aside, have some (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16498238&postcount=2) threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=16174270&postcount=3). Again, these are fairly specific - what worked for these posters might not work for you - but they'll give you a hint of what you can try.

Jack_Simth

2015-05-05, 07:32 AM

Well, I'm not Red Fel, however:

Evil characters don't think of themselves as the villians. For the most part, anyone who does will come off as either cartoonish or insane (and the two are not mutually exclusive). Every action has some form of justification behind it. "Evil" is not a justification. "That's just the way the world works", "He had it coming", "You think he wouldn't do it to me in a heartbeat if our roles were reversed?", "I need it more than he does", "He might get back up and come after me" and similar should be easy for you to say when you steal from a peasant, kill someone who insulted you, CdG a helpless opponent, or whatever. Everyone is justified in their own eyes.

Don't kick the puppy. You don't do evil just to do evil. You do evil to fill some need or another. Torture for fun? Nah. Torture for information? Sure. Torture to punish behavior? Sure. But not for fun. Animate the slain bodies of your foes? Sure. Set a wight loose on a village of commoners because you need the army to fight off some invaders? Sure. Set a wight loose on a village of commoners because you want an army to take over another city? Sure. Set a wight loose on a village of commoners just to kill them all? Not so much (unless they've done something, of course).

atemu1234

2015-05-05, 07:39 AM

I fear what this thread will become. Red Fel will bring glorious ruin.

Vhaidara

2015-05-05, 07:45 AM

Personally, my favorite evil character I've gotten to play is Markin Abrang, Black Thorn Knight. He is a LE Pathfinder Warlord, focusing on the Piercing Thunder and Black Seraph disciplines. This is in a GMs custom setting, so a bit of setup is needed.

Bastion is a city in the nation of Serinet. Serinet is known as the Dead Lands (or something like that). Thi is because of the Witching Weeks: For about 2 weeks of every month, the dead rise. All of them. Zombies. EVERYWHERE. And not just normal zombies, there are also plague zombies that explode when killed, and 70ft tall zombie titans.

Markin was an orphan from Bastion. No one knows who is parents were, but he was left on the temple steps, where he was found by the priest of Asmodeus (all Lawful gods had at least one priest there). The man, a member of the dreaded Black Thorn Knights, raised Markin as his own son. Markin was strong, and a capable leader, though he tended to act before he thought. However, he was fiercely protective of the city, going so far as to join the Guard at 14, two years after his father was called away to Capitas to ascend to being the head of the order. A year later, Markin was also called to Capitas, where he was initiated into both the Black Thorn Knights and the Reverants of the Lance, as a sign of alliance between the two factions.

All in all, Markin is a swell guy. Like, he is able to work with everyone. However, he is also a domineering individual with very strongly held opinions. Some examples of these
If you are a threat to my city, you are dead. This was showcased when they returned to Bastion to see a merchant being chased into the city by a pack of zombies. The man was wounded, and had tripped. Markin, being quite strong, could have carried him inside. But the man had been infected. So Markin beheaded him on the spot, promising to see to it that his widow was cared for.
The place of men is on the battlefield, or supporting those who are. If you cannot fight, or create things to help others do so, you are no man. You are worse than scum.
The place of women is to care for the house and produce children. For this reason, Markin refuses to fight women. This also stems from his loyalty to the fiend who was present at his initiation, an erinyes. Further, he is always courteous to women who are doing their job.

Now, this sounds like either a LN or a particularly brutal LG. However, Markin is LE. This is because of his motivations. He is protective because it is HIS city. He would gladly send a pack of zombies straight for another city if he needed to. And eventually, of course, the power is going to start corrupting his generally good intentions (he's only level 2 right now)

HammeredWharf

2015-05-05, 07:48 AM

In my opinion a good evil character has one important attribute: a goal. That goal could be as boring as "chaos and suffering everywhere" or "boom goes the world", but more personal motivation is often better and more sinister. Additionally, while in D&D an evil character most likely knows he's evil, he shouldn't do things for the sake of being evil. He should do them to further his goals. That could mean being nice and cooperative or brutal and hostile, but it should not mean being an idiot who thinks pissing absolutely everyone off is a great idea.

Even if you decide to make a CE psycho, invent a backstory, a code for him to follow and a reason why he should cooperate with the party, if it's not a PvP game. For example, once upon a time I played a guy who was a really devout worshiper of Lliira, a goddess of joy, freedom and festivals. He was also a complete nutcase and had very peculiar notions of what "joy" and "festivals" mean. One of his adventures was about dealing with a bunch of slavers who did what bandits do in D&D: hid in the forest and were pretty nasty. He found the slavers, knocked them out, dragged them to a nearby village and held a festival by skinning and burning them alive, thus bestowing joy upon the poor, mistreated peasants. So, he still completed the quest without stumbling upon the usual "I'm evil, so why do anything other than killing commoners" problem.

Crake

2015-05-05, 08:41 AM

I can't really speak much from a player's perspective, I've never really had a chance to play an evil character in any capacity whatsoever. I can, on the other hand, speak from a DM's perspective. I'm something of an evil enabler, in some cases perhaps even going too far in my enabling of evil characters. My previous post in this thread comes from experience, and while I was lucky to not make any permanent rifts between friends, it did create some trust issues that needed to be worked out.

If you do manage to find a DM willing to run an [Evil] game, a few tips I can think of are: Don't play stupid. Nothing irks me more than when a player plays an [Evil] character, but is horribly incompetent about it. Players have played in my games having heard of my leniancy toward evil thinking it was easy street. Those players quickly lost their characters in horrible ways. The prime example here I think is dealing with [Evil] outsiders. They may be literal incarnations of evil, but they are still people too, forgetting that and just throwing them around fodder, or not being able to gauge your place in the food chain is a good way to lead to a swift and horrible end. Other examples include not cleaning up after your messes which results in local authorities being able to catch you, flaunting your evil, causing everyone to hate and ostracise you, and doing evil for absolutely no reason.

All of the above can vary wildly between DMs of course, some may not think scenarios through to their logical conclusion and let you get away with things like murder in the streets because all the city guard in their town are actually incompetent fat mall cops. Other DMs may play outsiders as submissive creatures to be dominated and controlled, and so on, as such, take everything I say with a grain of salt.

You also need to prepare to get intimate with what you do. At least for me, I like to make sure to go through the more [Evil] acts in thorough and intricate detail. I'll give a player the option of skipping some material if it makes them particularly uncomfortable, but for the most part, I have them get really down and dirty with it. This serves two purposes for me: the first is that it really hammers home to the player just how evil their character is, if you just want to play on a macro scale (just saying "i torture the guy for information, *roll d20*") I'll not be having any of that, I get down and dirty ("how do you torture the guy?"). The second reason is that it gives me the little pieces of information to put together into my world to make it really feel alive. For example, if you cut off a guy's finger in an interrogation, that will remain the case, or if you make a mistake and leave behind something that can be tracked back to you, that, again, is something I can use. Doing the above, I've found, promotes a player in accordance with the "don't play stupid" rule I have.

Just some musings from a relatively new DM (just over 2 years of DMing under my wing so far), but both of my games so far have involved at least 1 [Evil] player who got it right (it was the same player across both games)

Telonius

2015-05-05, 09:03 AM

You don't have to be working directly for Asmodeus or Orcus to be Evil. You can simply be someone out for power, or vengeance. Maybe you just like watching the world burn, or enjoy the thrill of killing, or like the feeling of power that your authority gives you.

If you're trying to build an Evil character that works in a party, you would do well to remember Lex Luthor's most important superpower: the ability to marshal together a bunch of psychopaths who would probably be at each other's throats if it weren't for him, even if he would just as soon toss them into a volcano himself. Being Evil, even being Chaotic Evil, doesn't mean you treat everyone horribly. A successful Evil character will be a character who is able to work well with others, even (maybe especially) Good characters. Does this person help you achieve your goals? Then this person is your friend, and a resource to be nurtured and exploited for as long as they're helping you.

Nibbens

2015-05-05, 09:51 AM

Once played a NE character for 3 years who pretended to be good. His sole purpose was to wait until the party had accumulated sufficient wealth to pay for his massive debts that he owed (he also had different names, so if they party was every smart enough they would have realized there was a reason for this) then murder everyone.

The only problem was with more wealth came more power... whatever a NE halfling rogue to do...?

Simple solution - level 13, convince everyone to climb into a bag of holding so I could carry them through a tiny passageway that the larger guys couldn't squeeze through...

3 years of keeping my alignment hidden. 3 years of leaving in character hints for them to figure it out. 3 years wrecked by the small roleplay oriented, comic relief halfling that everyone had come to love. And I did it all with trust.

The best part about evil alignments is they can pretend to be good. Good alignments can't pretend to be evil. :)

Ettina

2015-05-05, 10:23 AM

Also keep in mind that evil characters can have good traits. Somewhere on this forum I posted a campaign story about a CE illithid I played who set up his own dungeon. He was a considerate and fair boss, especially to his sidekick - a fiercely loyal CE two-headed troll. Sure, he ate people on a regular basis, and was plotting to take over the nearby human towns, but if you swore loyalty to him and obeyed him, he'd treat you well.

It adds more character depth to give your evil character some good qualities. Especially ones that help them get along with their party.

Red Fel

2015-05-05, 10:56 AM

So my previous character in one of my Pathfinder games - a NG kobold sorc - just became an NPC (he may or may not have entirely in character snapped and potentially completely derailed the plot :smalleek:), and I'm whipping up a new one, probably a psion.

Now the party seems to be mostly amoral at best - the group is definitely into the "designated, informed hero" category. I always play good characters, but for this group, I just can't quite make it work. It's not that they're evil, but...

So, I'm looking to make a foray into an evil character, probably Neutral Evil, and I want to do it right. I remember Red Fel made a very good post on the subject and if anybody could link me to the thread, that'd be awesome; I can't seem to track it down.

And in general, any advice anyone can throw my way would be appreciated - hence why this is a thread and not a PM.

Alright. Now that my morning has calmed down and I can offer some more serious advice, and fewer Beetlejuice references, allow me to attack your issue more directly.

Others have already mentioned it, but you need to put aside notions of mustachioed Evil, puppy kicking, and general "for the evulz" Evil. With a team of designated heroes, you want pragmatic Evil. Let me explain.

Now, Jack Simth earlier suggested that Evil characters don't necessarily think of themselves as the villains. I'd like to clarify that point. An effectively pragmatic Evil character doesn't care that the cosmos sees him as a villain. He doesn't think about things in those terms. That's not to say he'll commit murder in the middle of town square - he's Evil, not stupid - but rather that he doesn't particularly give much regard to the fate of his soul or how history will judge him. He cares about results.

A results-oriented Evil character can get along with any party. Bunch of CE murderhobos? They love that you're good at killing. Bunch of morally ambiguous adventurers? They respect you for your talents. Band of goodie-Good guys? They'll dislike your methods, but they'll trust you to get a job done.

Look at David Xanatos. He's one of my favorite archetypes. And while he is closer to LE or LN than to NE, he's an excellent model. Here is a person who gets it. "Revenge is a sucker's game." "Nothing frightens me, because nothing is beyond my ability to change." This is a man whose pragmatism is manifest in everything he does. He allies with his enemies, because he knows their morals and sense of duty will require them to work with him against a greater threat. He manipulates friend and foe alike. Even when he feels love, he acknowledges it as a vulnerability. He is ruthless in pursuing his aims, and readily sacrifices pawns - enemy or ally - to get what he wants. But he never does it without good reason, and he's never cruel about it. Just ruthless. Just effective.

And that, quite simply, is the best part. A result-oriented Evil character is frighteningly easy to play. In many ways, it's exactly like playing any other character. Allow me to give you a step-by-step instruction guide. Build an optimized character who can do the jobs he has to do. Play him well, and remain useful. Don't be a jerk. Be nice to the party. Be friends. Affably Evil is a thing. Do Evil. But not needlessly. Let your every act be deliberate. Every innocent you kill, every prisoner you torture, you'd better have a very good reason for it. Have reasons that are so ironclad that not only will your party trust you to know what you're doing, they may eventually offer to help. Congratulations. Your Evil pragmatism is contagious.
And that's it. When I play Evil, I play the devil the party will trust to have their back. You don't need to be Lawful for that; you just have to be self-interested. It's enough that the party knows that as long as it's in your interest to do something, you will, and that it is in your interest to help the party. Being a friend is a plus - friendship transcends alignment. You trust your friends, you can work with your friends, even if one is an LG Cleric and one is a CE Warlock.

Don't be greedy. Don't be backstabbing. Don't be stupid. Be smart. Be right. Be effective. Be just crooked enough to get the job done, but not so crooked that the party looks askance at you. Don't apologize; you were right all along. Don't justify; you're good at what you do, and that should be enough. In every encounter, in every mission, define an objective, and do whatever it takes to succeed. Be invaluable.

Be Evil.

Ediwir

2015-05-05, 08:53 PM

i... um... i think i'm in love.

goto124

2015-05-06, 02:03 AM

So erm, just be very very very pragmatic?

Don't care whether or not you and your actions are 'Good' or 'Evil'? Treat such morality as meaningless labels?

Focus purely on whatever works?

AmberVael

2015-05-06, 02:23 AM

You don't need to be Lawful for that; you just have to be self-interested.

Enlightened self interest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest) has definitely helped me shape and play my evil characters. You don't have to be an upstanding moral person to realize that being friendly, helpful, even generous and charitable can be a good idea, even more beneficial than short sighted selfishness.

SinsI

2015-05-06, 02:54 AM

Good is limited in ways it can act; Evil is free to do as it wishes.
Thus, there is no guidances on how to "do evil".

If you want, you can even play the most evil guy possible EXACTLY the way you played your most kind and good-natured character. The only difference is inner motivation. "Let's help that elderly lady pass over the road, so that people in this settlement think of me as a kind person and trust me easily", "Let's donate a hefty sum of money to this orphanage. A good public face can help me get away Scot-free from some of the shady things I plan to do, and it'll be a good place to recruit henchmen in the future" - things like that.

Troacctid

2015-05-06, 02:57 AM

So erm, just be very very very pragmatic?

Don't care whether or not you and your actions are 'Good' or 'Evil'? Treat such morality as meaningless labels?

Focus purely on whatever works?

You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done as efficiently as possible without unnecessarily handcuffing yourself with made-up rules. Understand your goal and pursue it relentlessly without regard for the concerns of others. The only person you're looking out for is yourself, and you only consider other people in terms of how they can benefit you.

An example. Say your enemy takes a hostage. Is the hostage some random innocent bystander? If so, you don't care--Fireball them both and let the gods sort it out. The extra casualty is inconsequential. Is it the mayor's daughter? A more difficult decision--rescuing her would be worth political capital. Still, it's a secondary concern--if saving her isn't a viable plan, defeating the enemy takes precedence, and you can Fireball them both. Tell the mayor there was nothing you could do. Is it the key MacGuffin that you need to complete your quest? Now that's a hostage you need to respect. They have you in check; you may be forced to bow to their demands. Hopefully you can establish a more favorable position later.

Ediwir

2015-05-06, 03:46 AM

Is it the key MacGuffin that you need to complete your quest? Now that's a hostage you need to respect. They have you in check; you may be forced to bow to their demands. Hopefully you can establish a more favorable position later.

Incapacitate the hostage enough that it cannot be used as a moving shield?
Now they have an hostage that pins them to a location, and you can work on that.
Magical healing is cheaper than throwing away an entire plan. And hey, you might even be able to claim you saved him.

ofc there will be plenty of occasions in which moving shields are not the point - but it changes little, the point is you're not concerned with the hostage's well-being, but with its usefulness.

(i'd also add - pragmatic evil, or smart evil, depends in part by your mental scores)

goto124

2015-05-06, 04:05 AM

I'm wondering why I couldn't have used a more focused spell/attack with the mayor's daughter- imagine her father screaming 'Are you sure you tried to save her, when you used a freaking Fireball? Seriously?' - but yea I get the point.

Red Fel

2015-05-06, 08:34 AM

i... um... i think i'm in love.

I have that effect on people. It means you failed a Will save.

So erm, just be very very very pragmatic?

You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done as efficiently as possible without unnecessarily handcuffing yourself with made-up rules. Understand your goal and pursue it relentlessly without regard for the concerns of others. The only person you're looking out for is yourself, and you only consider other people in terms of how they can benefit you.

This. But being pragmatic isn't enough. You also have to be effective. You have to be good at what you do, or what's the point? Pragmatism is, well...

Enlightened self interest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest) has definitely helped me shape and play my evil characters. You don't have to be an upstanding moral person to realize that being friendly, helpful, even generous and charitable can be a good idea, even more beneficial than short sighted selfishness.

This. You operate within a simple hierarchy. Will it help me directly? Will it help me indirectly? Will it hinder my enemies?
It's that simple, and can most charitably be described as complete amorality.

Sometimes, being nice can help with that. It can help a lot. Some of the best villains are able to garner support because they can be nice when it's needed. Some of the most terrifying villains are scary specifically because they are, apart from the villainy, genuinely nice people. Look at the Mayor of Sunnydale. Heck, look at Hannibal Lecter - one of the things that makes him so terrifying is the fact that there are certain things he won't do because they'd be inappropriate. Like when Clarice believes that he wouldn't come after her, because "he would consider that rude." That's right, the guy who tears off faces has rules on rudeness.

Which leads us to...

Good is limited in ways it can act; Evil is free to do as it wishes.
Thus, there is no guidances on how to "do evil".

A world of this. Evil is so intensely personal that it defies universal categorization. Any labels I could come up with, I could just as easily come up with exceptions that fall outside of those labels.

I once considered making a "Guide to Being Evil" thread, did you know that? I scrapped the idea. Not because it wouldn't be awesome - it totally would - but because there is no way to make a single guide to the finer arts of villainy that could be applied universally. It would be easier for me to hold a series of one-on-one master class-type sessions where people present concepts and I help them flesh them out.

I could still do that, I suppose. Perhaps. If I decide to stop being lazy.

The point is, before I can tell a person what they can do to improve their character's Evil quotient, I have to know about the character. More importantly, before I can tell a person what they can do, I have to know more about the person. Let me be clear, because it's something to which Crake gave a nod way upthread, "Not everyone is up for it." Believe it or not, there have been times that I played an Evil character whose actions disgusted me. It's true. I ended up having to change the character, because I couldn't handle it.

I know. I can hear your shocked gasps from across the internet, and across time, as I have not yet posted the thread as I type this. I'm that good.

Before anyone can give you advice on how to play Evil, you have to know your limits. If you can't bring yourself to play a concept, it doesn't matter how good the concept is. So that's just as major a consideration, if not moreso, as how to play that particular character in an Evil way.

An example. Say your enemy takes a hostage.

Ooh, a hypothetical! These are fun!

Incapacitate the hostage enough that it cannot be used as a moving shield?

This is a very smart point. A hostage is only valuable as long as it's alive and can be kept with the hostage-taker. Shoot the hostage in the leg so it can't walk, or turn it to stone, and that value diminishes.

I'm wondering why I couldn't have used a more focused spell/attack with the mayor's daughter

Sometimes you have two agendas running at once. For example, maybe the hostage is somebody you wanted out of the way eventually. You have to be ready to balance the merits - kill hostage taker and hostage, get some flak but save the day and literally kill two birds with one stone, or kill hostage taker and spare hostage, save the day but have to deal with the hostage in a potentially more incriminating way later. Or, if you're smart, kill the hostage taker and terrify the hostage. Make the hostage realize that you could have killed him/her, and that you chose not to in a rare moment of charity, but that the debt could be called in at any time. Save the body, but break the mind. You've saved the day, saved the hostage, and gotten rid of the enemy you planned to be rid of.

As mentioned, D&D gives us the ability to be a bit more ruthless, thanks to the presence of magic. Have you ever read or seen the anime Hellsing? One of the first events involves the monstrous protagonist Alucard coming upon a vampire who has killed a bunch of people and is about to kill a police girl. Alucard stops the vampire by shooting directly through the hostage's chest into the vampire's. For reasons, he then saves the police girl, who is at that point bleeding out. Magic means you can pretty much do that all day long.

And let me tell you, hostage-takers become a lot less prevalent once they realize that human shields won't stop you.

Telonius

2015-05-06, 08:50 AM

And let me tell you, hostage-takers become a lot less prevalent once they realize that human shields won't stop you.

Any hostage-taker has to be able to threaten the people he's extorting. The presence of Regeneration, Resurrection, and similar spells can also cut down on traditional hostage-taking and ransoms, at least for the richer, higher-level targets. But that also means that hostage-takers have to get a bit more creative. Life and limb can be replaced, so you have to find something that can't, like time or trust. Instead of, "Send us one million gold pieces, or we'll kill her," it would be something more like, "Send us one million gold pieces, or we send her to a plane that advances twenty years for each of our minutes." Or, "...we'll tell her the dark secret that you don't want her to know."

Segev

2015-05-06, 11:18 AM

The only time I've come across something I wanted to have done in a game for particular evil and squick, but couldn't go through with it, was as DM. I may try to run that campaign again at some point; it's the one and only one I have that works in Eberron, and it uses that region that is abandoned after having been torn apart by war some generation or so ago. The PCs are settling in it and...well, the valley they get trapped in is lovely, until the horror begins.

Red Fel, I'm curious, if you're willing to share: what was it you had to change a character to shy away from because you couldn't handle it? What standards does your evil have?

Red Fel

2015-05-06, 12:10 PM

Red Fel, I'm curious, if you're willing to share: what was it you had to change a character to shy away from because you couldn't handle it? What standards does your evil have?

There are a number of things. Some specific acts are beyond my moral event horizon. For example, I can't play a character who commits rape, or hurts children. In my very early days of RP, I had a character who once threatened rape, purely as an intimidation tactic, and even that made me sick to my stomach; I never did that again. (Younger me was kind of a total **** moron.)

Other times, it's not so much the acts themselves, but the monotony of repeating them that wears me down. For example, I've played one or two characters who have proven comfortable committing torture. One or two isolated uses of such techniques are within my abilities as a player. However, doing so on a regular basis wears away at me.

Similarly, senseless violence - not just regular combat, but truly barbaric, brutal violence - slowly wears me down, unless I can take it to an irrational extreme and make it almost cartoonishly savage. By way of example, I played a character in GURPS who had a number of melee advantages that basically allowed him to kill two mooks, remove their spines intact, and tie them into a pair of nunchucks. It was over-the-top enough that I was able to bring it back around to funny, for certain (dark) definitions of funny. ("Skull-chucks. I have them.")

Mostly, though, I like my Evil to be lovable. Or at least likeable. I play to be entertained, and to entertain others. I don't play Evil to satisfy some kind of twisted, dark fantasy or vent my rage. So I don't need to be mustache-twirlingly villainous or horrifically monstrous. Since I'm playing a collaborative game, I like playing Evil that the other players will like; someone that makes them say, "Dude, that was awesome, but you kind of scare me sometimes." Or, alternatively, "Dude, that was kind of scary. But awesome." Or ideally, avoid using the word "Dude" at all. What is this, the 90s?

Point is, when playing Evil, I'm happiest when the other players are happy. And if I go to The Dark Place of Madness and Whispers, chances are that they won't stay happy. Which means I won't be happy. So I prefer to avoid that when possible.

atemu1234

2015-05-06, 12:14 PM

There are a number of things. Some specific acts are beyond my moral event horizon. For example, I can't play a character who commits rape, or hurts children. In my very early days of RP, I had a character who once threatened rape, purely as an intimidation tactic, and even that made me sick to my stomach; I never did that again. (Younger me was kind of a total **** moron.)

Other times, it's not so much the acts themselves, but the monotony of repeating them that wears me down. For example, I've played one or two characters who have proven comfortable committing torture. One or two isolated uses of such techniques are within my abilities as a player. However, doing so on a regular basis wears away at me.

Similarly, senseless violence - not just regular combat, but truly barbaric, brutal violence - slowly wears me down, unless I can take it to an irrational extreme and make it almost cartoonishly savage. By way of example, I played a character in GURPS who had a number of melee advantages that basically allowed him to kill two mooks, remove their spines intact, and tie them into a pair of nunchucks. It was over-the-top enough that I was able to bring it back around to funny, for certain (dark) definitions of funny. ("Skull-chucks. I have them.")

Mostly, though, I like my Evil to be lovable. Or at least likeable. I play to be entertained, and to entertain others. I don't play Evil to satisfy some kind of twisted, dark fantasy or vent my rage. So I don't need to be mustache-twirlingly villainous or horrifically monstrous. Since I'm playing a collaborative game, I like playing Evil that the other players will like; someone that makes them say, "Dude, that was awesome, but you kind of scare me sometimes." Or, alternatively, "Dude, that was kind of scary. But awesome." Or ideally, avoid using the word "Dude" at all. What is this, the 90s?

Point is, when playing Evil, I'm happiest when the other players are happy. And if I go to The Dark Place of Madness and Whispers, chances are that they won't stay happy. Which means I won't be happy. So I prefer to avoid that when possible.

So, Even Evil Has Standards?

Red Fel

2015-05-06, 12:21 PM

So, Even Evil Has Standards?

*sigh* Yes, Atemu. Even Evil Has Standards. I am occasionally subject to trope invocation.

Sith_Happens

2015-05-06, 12:26 PM

*sigh* Yes, Atemu. Even Evil Has Standards. I am occasionally subject to trope invocation.

Ooh, are those like warlock invocations?:smallsmile:

atemu1234

2015-05-06, 12:43 PM

*sigh* Yes, Atemu. Even Evil Has Standards. I am occasionally subject to trope invocation.

Dear Diary

I made Red Fel sigh today. It was a good day.

Red Fel

2015-05-06, 12:55 PM

Ooh, are those like warlock invocations?:smallsmile:

Yes. Both are at-will invocations that draw their power from dark, inscrutable forces and slowly corrupt and ruin all that you hold dear.

Seriously, though, when it comes to starting out, you could do worse than to read a list of Evil Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilTropes). Or Villain Tropes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Villains). (Standard TVTropes warnings apply.) Yes, they are archetypes, but they're archetypes for a reason, and they're a great source of inspiration or a springing-off point when dealing with an Evil character concept.

ZamielVanWeber

2015-05-06, 01:06 PM

*sigh* Yes, Atemu. Even Evil Has Standards. I am occasionally subject to trope invocation.

This is the critical difference between Red Fel's evil and when I play evil (and why Red Fel is a diety in my setting). I always somehow end up deep into vile territory with a pile of deformity feats and an attitude to match. Red Fel's evil is classy. He would make a fantastic duke/Archduke of Hell.

Segev

2015-05-06, 01:16 PM

Of particular note, if you're being inspired by tropes, should be Poisonous Friend (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoisonousFriend) and Token Evil Teammate. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TokenEvilTeammate) They encompass ways to play evil that is party friendly and even often acceptable to the rest of the party (if only by virtue of how their tendencies are constrained or hidden).

Telonius

2015-05-06, 01:21 PM

ZamielVanWeber

2015-05-06, 01:27 PM

He's a boogeyman, not an interesting character. And he's certainly no fun for most people to play or interact with.

Being a boogeyman can be fun. You just need to make sure that OOC people know you are no threat to their characters. Evil can be nasty, cruel, even monstrous, but even the deep end of evil need not be dumb.

Red Fel

2015-05-06, 01:27 PM

It does kind of go back to the, "plays well with others" issue, both in and out of character. If your evil character is so morally revolting that nobody sane would ever work with him, he's going to have no support structure. No support structure, means an easier time of finding, catching, and killing him. He's a boogeyman, not an interesting character. And he's certainly no fun for most people to play or interact with.

This. And it's why the Red Fel brand of Evil - "classy" or "likeable" Evil - works. Look, adventuerers are murderhobos, and Evil campaigns are a thing. The problem boils down to a simple question: Why should the party keep you around? If this was real life, and you had a friend who acted that way, (minus the actual crimes, because holy crap, adventurers do a lot of crime) would you keep this guy around?

That's why I like understated Evil. Subtle Evil. Suave Evil. Necessary Evil. Justifiable Evil. Evil you can trust. Evil you can understand. Evil you can appreciate.

Vote for Red Fel for Evil Emperor for Life: Evil You Can Wrap Your Brain Around!

But that's the point. Evil that makes sense, Evil that doesn't inconvenience the party but rather helps it, Evil that can be controlled and utilized - these take Evil and allow the rest of your party to see it as an asset instead of a liability. They keep you around because they like you, because they trust you, because they know you won't screw them over, because they know you'll get the job done. My kind of Evil is often more reliable than some non-Evil PCs, and that's why it works.

It boils down to being a good team player, which is something which ought to be a part of every character.

dascarletm

2015-05-06, 01:42 PM

My favorite flavor of evil is the apathetic villain. This character understands the world, knows himself, and is totally capable of removing his consciousness from his person, and seeing everything he is doing in full context. This includes the repercussions on himself and everyone/thing around him. He fully understands everything he is doing is wrong, it brings travesty to those who don't deserve it, it may not even be beneficial to him in the long run.

Why does he do what he does despite his understanding of how horrible it is?

He doesn't care. That's it. The world is how it is, people can be subject to horrible lies and atrocities, and none of it matters.

Why does he do it though? If nothing matters why do anything at all?

"Because that's my position in this world. I'm the one who burns down your house and kills everyone you loved. Why? My life has brought me here and that's all there is to it. This is the way things are, this is humanity."

Segev

2015-05-06, 01:44 PM

Calvinist nihilism?

dascarletm

2015-05-06, 01:54 PM

Calvinist nihilism?

Yes. That's the term I was looking for, though less predestination, more like The Comedian than anything else.

It doesn't necessarily help or hinder playing well with others. This works best if you already have a party that dabbles in the evil a little already.

Telonius

2015-05-06, 02:06 PM

Yes. That's the term I was looking for, though less predestination, more like The Comedian than anything else.

It doesn't necessarily help or hinder playing well with others. This works best if you already have a party that dabbles in the evil a little already.

I prefer Hobbesian nihilism. :smallbiggrin:
http://rynomi.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/calvin.jpg?w=600&h=423

dascarletm

2015-05-06, 02:13 PM

I prefer Hobbesian nihilism. :smallbiggrin:
http://rynomi.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/calvin.jpg?w=600&h=423

Whelp, now I have to go re-read all my Calvin and Hobbes books in the attic.

Telonius

2015-05-06, 02:17 PM

Being a boogeyman can be fun. You just need to make sure that OOC people know you are no threat to their characters. Evil can be nasty, cruel, even monstrous, but even the deep end of evil need not be dumb.

Yeah, as long as it's handled OOC and everybody's in on it, then yeah, that's fine. What I'm thinking of is something more along the lines of Dr. Destiny in Sandman.

Ediwir

2015-05-06, 06:06 PM

I have that effect on people. It means you failed a Will save.

Nah, i think i intentionally gave up my save. After all, it's a free Int bonus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18780831&postcount=61), and that's always good for casting/scheming, right?

I once considered making a "Guide to Being Evil" thread, did you know that? I scrapped the idea. Not because it wouldn't be awesome - it totally would - but because there is no way to make a single guide to the finer arts of villainy that could be applied universally.

I SO get what you mean. I'm in sort of a similar pinch - have to make a short introduction to evil for an online game, and i'm stuck >.> can't really find the words to give an idea of "decent evil" that's not 600 pages long.

This is a very smart point.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/b73eeaf6e8cddc58384f3ae493781884/tumblr_mlotn7RYsH1snl885o2_250.png

The problem boils down to a simple question: Why should the party keep you around? If this was real life, and you had a friend who acted that way, (minus the actual crimes, because holy crap, adventurers do a lot of crime) would you keep this guy around?

It boils down to being a good team player, which is something which ought to be a part of every character.

Uhm... and now this kinda makes me think of that time "evil that makes sense" actually screwed a fellow player so irreparably that his soul was done for.

Been years, but... Ok, so, there's this friend of mine, right? Old-time friend who i got into RPGs myself. He brought me into a game (ongoing multiplayer campaign) and made me make a character for it. We rolled sheets together and made intertwined backgrounds. Like, bro gaming. A cleric (him) and a wizard (me), brothers, both with a tendency towards evil. Ok, maybe it wasn't a tendency.
Only, his evil was a little more... unrefined. You know, the undead master kind of cleric, played in a sort of messy way. The two characters being both of very low social status, mine was more goal-oriented: specifically, he wanted a higher social status (by recognition, by becoming necessary, by whatever means necessary). This gets important later on.

So we're in this city for a while and start getting noticed a little, with me nudging the news slightly trough either Enchantments or Diplomacy/Bluff. High Charisma helped the fact that they were cross-class. After a few months of gameplay, one relatively big organization starts showing interests in us (or better: one of their mid-rank guys does, and brings up the topic with the leaders) and starts showing signs of being opened to a sort of minor affiliation. It's a start. My character sees the light at the end of the tunnel, and gets hooked.
Problem.
My brother is messing up.

Some random acts of violence, some excessive stirring the waters, some non-appreciated preachings, and our standing in the eyes of the organization is compromised. A week after, with me unable to change his ways, i get the news - association with us, and therefore with me, is impossible as long as his behaviour stays unacceptable, and even then, they'll hardly trust him to stay quiet.
So, we had an OOC chat. I knew what the logical choice was IC, but i didn't really want to go for it unless he was cool with it. I'm still not sure he was, not 100%, but he knew it was a logical consequence and it made no sense to play otherwise, he saw it coming for a while and gave me the go-for-it.

It took some changes to our usual dinner, a few less spells to guard the doors, a nice-written letter, a couple mercenaries and a few counterspells, but eventually the next evening my character was in first line at the temple, assisting to his own brother's sacrifice to an evil god and the signing of a very promising alliance. It was a very nice ceremony, too.

To this day, the character claims he never had a brother (as he wants to avoid association with his actions), and the player is one of my best friends, with which i still often play together (online, since i moved country), so i guess i didn't screw him too hard :P

Playing nice with the party doesn't mean "play nice with the Good characters". It means, play nice with any character. An evil character can dismiss your messy evil faster (and more definitively) than a paladin.

Chronikoce

2015-05-06, 10:16 PM

I think LE might be my favorite alignment to play. I rarely get the chance to play it though. The advice given here is awesome and similar to my thoughts as well.

Ideally my characters have a set code that they will follow and it really bothers them if they have to violate it for any reason. However, if it doesn't violate their code then they will be as ruthless as necessary to achieve their ends. Going out of the way to be ruthless though is inefficient and can lead to long term plans being disrupted so it is easier to temper ones actions if you keep a firm goal in mind that you must work towards.

Ediwir

2015-05-06, 10:30 PM

I think if i had to explain Good vs Evil in other words, i'd explain morality vs ambition. Everyone has a mixture of both, some have more morality than ambition, some more ambition than morality, but they're both part of a character's way of seeing the world.
Murder is neither. It's just something you do or do not, the reason can change.

After all, an hypothetical guy who slaughters several families in a day without remorse might just be a paladin cleansing an orc village, right?
And the one who never hurt a soul (in public) might just be trying to win approval.

Chronikoce

2015-05-06, 11:07 PM

After all, an hypothetical guy who slaughters several families in a day without remorse might just be a paladin cleansing an orc village, right?
And the one who never hurt a soul (in public) might just be trying to win approval.

Nice comparison. A lot of people confuse 'friendly' with 'good' and 'evil' with 'unfriendly'.

goto124

2015-05-06, 11:31 PM

Campaigns often ban evil alignments because evil is rarely done 'right' as we've discussed, I heard?

If we follow the advice here, could evil be less disruptive to the game than good?

Ediwir

2015-05-06, 11:36 PM

I think Evil, if done right, might even be more beneficial to the campaign than Good played wrong. Which i often see, even when Evil is an option.

I mean, the amount of murdering, kleptomaniac, violent and (sometimes) sexually inappropriate "good" adventurers is high enough that anyone who claims to be an adventurer is often sent into what everyone considers suicide missions, am i wrong?

tadkins

2015-05-06, 11:40 PM

Good alignments can't pretend to be evil. :)

I dunno. Had an idea the other day of a Malconvoker wizard who makes his living infiltrating fiendish cults to weaken and eventually destroy them from the inside. He'd win the cultists over with impressive displays of fiendish summoning, implement policies which seem beneficial but gradually weaken them over time, and secretly undermine their efforts in certain ways. Like releasing prisoners intended for sacrifice through various applications of illusion magic.

He'd take Spell Thematics to make his spells appear all the more sinister, and his ability to summon and command armies of fiends would speak for itself. Good can certainly pretend to be evil. xD

Sith_Happens

2015-05-07, 02:27 AM

Malconvoker... Good can certainly pretend to be evil. xD

Not just "can," the class in question revolves around doing so.

tadkins

2015-05-07, 03:39 AM

Not just "can," the class in question revolves around doing so.

Fair point. But yep, it's possible, and quite fun!

Red Fel

2015-05-07, 09:39 AM

Campaigns often ban evil alignments because evil is rarely done 'right' as we've discussed, I heard?

If we follow the advice here, could evil be less disruptive to the game than good?

Frankly, yes.

Look, have you ever bought a car? Can you define the most essential elements? Very simply, it has to (1) have wheels, and (2) move when you turn it on, in the direction in which you turn it. That's all you need for a functional car. A good car requires more than that (windows, doors, intact floor and roof, perhaps GPS or CD player), but everything beyond those basics is ultimately window dressing.

An Evil PC works the same way. But here's the thing. An Evil PC is a car - it has to have the wheels and move when you turn it on, or in this context, it has to play well with others. A non-Evil PC is a bicycle - it has to have wheels. That it moves is assumed. In this context, it is assumed that a non-Evil PC will play well with others.

Ask anybody who has seen PvP or a campaign implosion, and they'll laugh at that. But it's true. Non-Evil PCs are assumed to be able to play well with others; Evil PCs have to have that skill as a baseline.

End result is that if you have a well-designed Evil PC, it will play well with others. If you have a well-designed non-Evil PC, it might. So, yeah; an Evil PC who follows these guidelines may very well be less disruptive than a non-Evil PC who doesn't.

I think Evil, if done right, might even be more beneficial to the campaign than Good played wrong. Which i often see, even when Evil is an option.

A world of this. In D&D and games like it, absolute morality says that certain actions are Evil. As such, a Good PC would not do them. Yet nobody can deny that they work. They get the job done. Killing the captive Wizard is the only way to be sure he hasn't memorized Freedom of Movement and won't wriggle away and whammy you all when your backs are turned. Slaying an entire Drow village will protect the surface from their attacks, even if the cost is terrible. Evil PCs can do the jobs the Good PCs could never do, even while contributing to the overall mission.

One of my favorite illustrations of this is Rupert Giles, in Buffy.

In the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "The Gift," Buffy beats the crap out of an immortal evil goddess named Glory, who inhabits the body of a mortal named Ben. Glory retreats, and the battered Ben collapses. Buffy, exhausted and not wanting to kill a human, rushes away to attend to the gaping hole in reality that recently appeared. Ben is left behind with Buffy's Watcher, Giles. The following dialogue occurs.

Giles: Can you move?

Ben: Need a … a minute. She could’ve killed me.

Giles: No she couldn’t. Never. And sooner or later Glory will re-emerge, and … make Buffy pay for that mercy. And the world with her. Buffy even knows that… and still she couldn’t take a human life.

Giles: She’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.

Ben: Us?
Then Giles kills him.
This was, under D&D morality, an arguably Evil act. Ben was an innocent, for the most part, possessed by an Evil being. He was helpless and defenseless. The Evil entity in question had (for the time being) fled to within Ben to recover from her injuries.

Giles did a naughty thing for all the right reasons. He kept the campaign moving forward and benefited the party.

By contrast, a Good PC can utterly muck things up, even while trying to maintain Good alignment. I won't get into all of the horrible Paladin stereotypes, but even absent those, a person can put a G on his character sheet and still be a jerk to the party. He can bog the party down with needless moralizing, pontificating, or posturing. He can get distracted and go off on a tangent.

Evil tends to be goal-oriented. Evil wants. And when Evil wants, Evil takes steps in that direction. Even if all Evil wants is to kill everybody, and I mean everybody, Evil is likely to want to pursue a means to that end, rather than stabbing randomly. And that means that Evil doesn't want to waste time. It wants to do what it wants to do. That keeps a campaign in motion. If the Good hero is wringing his hands trying to figure out what to do about the child who has become the phylactery for the lich, the Evil character will kill the child. (And shame on the DM for using that cliche.)

A token Evil character, played well, keeps the plates spinning and the ball in play. The campaign moves forward, loose ends get tied up, and the PCs win their fame and glory.

Side note: If my use of that Buffy quote looks familiar, it's because I cited it previously, in another villain thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?359137-A-recovering-villain). I'll post more links to some of my masterpieces as I find them. (Ironically, this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395149-Why-Good) also had some gems.)

Segev

2015-05-07, 10:49 AM

More precisely, evil provides the easy way out. It lets you cut the Gordian Knot.

The fact of the matter is, if the DM wants to play with consequences of PC actions, he is going to. Leave the lich-phylactery-child alive because killing the innocent is non-good? The lich revives and more evil ensues.

Kill the child? The child will turn out to be the kidnapped crown prince, or the lich set it up so that somebody who meant well would sacrifice an innocent and trigger the unsealing of an artifact of doom, or it turns out the child was prophesied to be the only one who could slay the lich's divine master, or..., or....

But it does let you solve problems "easily." The good party puts a lot more effort into the same net result, it can seem. (In practice, the good party will make fewer mistakes at hte cost of all that extra work, but from the purely selfish, medium-term point of view, those mistakes may not really...matter.)

goto124

2015-05-07, 10:52 AM

I guess there's another reason for Good-only:

Easier on the DM.

Need to make sure the party doesn't take out the BBEG so easily? Let the BBEG possess a child!

Or something.

Nah, I'll believe that the MAIN reason is that 'evil' makes people think 'eats babies and kick puppies and disrupts the campaign for no good (eheheh) reason', as opposed to the kind of evil that makes things go faster.

Red Fel

2015-05-07, 10:57 AM

More precisely, evil provides the easy way out. It lets you cut the Gordian Knot.

Precisely. It's hard to have a moral dilemma when you don't have morals.

Nah, I'll believe that the MAIN reason is that 'evil' makes people think 'eats babies and kick puppies and disrupts the campaign for no good (eheheh) reason', as opposed to the kind of evil that makes things go faster.

Sad but true. That's why I, for one, make it my mission on these boards to end discrimination against Evil.

Not all Evil is created equal. Don't judge a villain by the bad publicity of others. All that I'm saying is give scum a chance.

Andreaz

2015-05-07, 12:00 PM

But it does let you solve problems "easily." The good party puts a lot more effort into the same net result, it can seem. (In practice, the good party will make fewer mistakes at hte cost of all that extra work, but from the purely selfish, medium-term point of view, those mistakes may not really...matter.)All that effort is wasted if you are in a rush. Doom Clock will not stop to let you do the three months quest to prove the prince has been framed that would give you obth royal support and popular support.

Segev

2015-05-07, 12:53 PM

All that effort is wasted if you are in a rush. Doom Clock will not stop to let you do the three months quest to prove the prince has been framed that would give you obth royal support and popular support.

And that's why, to Good, these are Hard Choices.

Why it is not ALWAYS optimal to be Evil, however, lies in the fact that, sometimes, making a judgment call based on calculated self-interest can wind up miscalculating. Good will be more likely to make the optimal choice in the long run, even if it's not so in the short run. (There's a reason Enlightened Self Interest behavior on an Evil person looks a LOT like Good behavior on a Good person.)

AvatarVecna

2015-05-07, 04:43 PM

On the subject of evil characters being the ones who can do the wrong thing for the right reason, have you read Worm by Wildbow? That first sentence is almost word for word the series motto, and the main character is complex enough and pragmatic enough that you could make a legitimate argument for her being literally any alignment.

And the best part is, her actions are only completely, undefendably EVIL in the last 6 chapters or so, where she...

...mind rapes every superpowered individual in the world so that she can bully a god into committing suicide to keep said god from destroying the world.

It's a wonderfully written story describing the slippery slope that flirting with villainy can lead to.

EDIT:

Now, if you haven't read it, it's pretty long (like 1.5 million words) and is pretty darkthe whole way through.

But yeah, Skitter fits certain gamer stereotypes almost too well: there's even this fanfic I've read where the Undersiders are the PCs and Skitter's player is the group's token murderhobo/munchkin. It makes certain thing s make too much sense.

Segev

2015-05-07, 05:01 PM

But yeah, Skitter fits certain gamer stereotypes almost too well: there's even this fanfic I've read where the Undersiders are the PCs and Skitter's player is the group's token murderhobo/munchkin. It makes certain thing s make too much sense.

Mildly off-topic, but I actually think that a fuller telling of her adventures when she goes by Weaver would be a fascinating read. (It's mostly glossed over after a certain point due to not being integral to the main overarching plot, but would be a valuable and valid story in its own right. Maybe even as an animated series or something.)

AvatarVecna

2015-05-07, 05:13 PM

Mildly off-topic, but I actually think that a fuller telling of her adventures when she goes by ________ would be a fascinating read. (It's mostly glossed over after a certain point due to not being integral to the main overarching plot, but would be a valuable and valid story in its own right. Maybe even as an animated series or something.)

I mostly agree, but not an animated series, perhaps. Her tactics throughout the story, being bug-based, can be pretty...visually creepy. I know people who have problems with watching Spiderman just because of his symbol, and his mask doesn't have mandibles. And that's not even getting into her preferred takedown method...

Segev

2015-05-07, 05:16 PM

I mostly agree, but not an animated series, perhaps. Her tactics throughout the story, being bug-based, can be pretty...visually creepy. I know people who have problems with watching Spiderman just because of his symbol, and his mask doesn't have mandibles. And that's not even getting into her preferredtakedown method...

Eh, so it's aimed more at the ancillary audience that watched Avatar and Gravity Falls, rather than the "obvious" audiences for those. "Animated series" doesn't have to mean "for kids," after all. And it doesn't have to be as graphic as the original work, given her motif for that timeframe and that no particularly gruesome things are described during the parts of that time we do get to see.

Remember what she did with butterflies, honest!

TrollCapAmerica

2015-05-07, 05:20 PM

This is how I do evil characters

http://earnthis.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/President_David_Xanatos.jpg

Segev

2015-05-07, 05:26 PM

This is how I do evil characters

http://earnthis.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/President_David_Xanatos.jpg

While I am a huge fan of villains in general, and he's one of my favorites, it's when that is how you do GOOD characters that I am most impressed.

Red Fel

2015-05-07, 05:41 PM

Look at David Xanatos. He's one of my favorite archetypes.

This is how I do evil characters

We'll be such good friends.

While I am a huge fan of villains in general, and he's one of my favorites, it's when that is how you do GOOD characters that I am most impressed.

So much this. One of the things I try to emphasize is that what makes Evil characters great, compelling, effective, and sympathetic, works just as well for Good characters. People have often commented that, but for the actions they take which could be considered "obviously Evil," my Evil characters read like fantastic Good characters.

A character - any character - needs depth. It needs conflict, nuance, and complexity. It needs virtues and vices. It needs sharpness and softness, an exercise in contrasts. Xanatos is cunning and severe, but surprisingly amiable. He is ambitious, but can be relied upon to act in his own interest. And he's hardly incapable of love, as shown with Fox. None of these traits apply solely to villains. He's so deliciously complex, so wonderfully ambiguous, that he could just as easily be the hero. There's a reason he's one of my favorites.

... On the other hand, Dr. Lecter is, too, so your mileage, and all of that.

goto124

2015-05-07, 11:29 PM

Sad but true. That's why I, for one, make it my mission on these boards to end discrimination against Evil.

Not all Evil is created equal. Don't judge a villain by the bad publicity of others. All that I'm saying is give scum a chance.

What I meant was, a lot of people play evil as 'burns orphanages'. As if evil can't have depth, because evil.

To be fair, there are plenty of fleshed-out evil PCs as well.

And the good-only restriction usually applies in games where strangers are involved, for the car-bicycle reason you mentioned.

If I played a game, I'll write down True Neutral on my character sheet, then ignore it totally and just play in a way that's easiest for me and the group.

I would've written Chaotic Neutral, but that one gets bad reptutation as a guise for Chaotic Evil in campaigns where Evil is banned.

tadkins

2015-05-08, 02:42 AM

Characters are just hard to flesh out and make complex in general. Alignments are just what people (myself included) tend to fall back on when they're not sure what to do. We're not all Machiavellian genius minds, able to craft overreaching devious machinations that span years, after all. xD

Personally, I think I'd be just as likely to mess up good as I would messing up evil. Has nothing to do with the alignment itself, really.

Segev

2015-05-08, 08:28 AM

Unless my class or other mechanics rely on a certain alignment, I will usually tell a DM that what is on my character sheet is my best guess, and to feel free to change my character's official alignment to whatevere he thinks it is based on my character's behavior as the game goes on. If my mechanics do rely on a certain alignment, I will ask the DM to discuss with me if he thinks my character is acting out of accord with what is written on my character sheet.

It's usually a lot easier than arguing over the meaning of "Neutral Evil."

(My signature necromancer, Segev Stormlord - whose name I appropriate for my online monicker - is what I consider NE. In general, I suspect he and Red Fel's evil characters would get along swimmingly.)

I suppose, however, it's worth noting that "burns orphanages" evil is a thing. There are psychopaths and monsters out there who just really LIKE inflicting pain and suffering. They are not, generally, party-friendly. If you want to play THAT kind of evil...you'd best have a good, solid restraining bolt on them. Something that makes them unwilling or unable to perpetrate their preferred acts on the party and on things the party would very much rather they didn't (at least insofar as the party's reasons for this preference are rooted in something self-interested, as opposed to "nobody deserves that.")

It's not something you should play very often, because it takes a great deal of trust and behaving with trustworthiness on the part of the players in order to make it not a game-wrecking experience.