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View Full Version : Why are so many groups against token evil team mates?



MonkeySage
2016-07-08, 04:13 PM
I've been dying to play my halfling cleric in a non evil pathfinder group for a long time. I've only had the chance to play him once in short nerd club function at school.

Beleon is a smart, charismatic neutral evil cleric with aspirations toward lichdom and a god complex. He's extremely fun to play, especially when the other players don't know he's evil... and he's very good at hiding that fact.

I wanted to play him because clerics make better necromancers than wizards, and because I've always wanted to play as a lich, ever since I started playing.

According to the rules, raising undead is an evil act. No one I know wants to run a game with an evil party member, even one as subtle and intelligent as my character. He's not stupid evil, he won't just kill someone for no reason. And he's still protective of people that he likes (just not suicidally so). He is not senselessly disloyal; working with the party is generally convenient and helps him fund his research.

(Incidentally, why are the cool powers almost always evil? Jedi get mind tricks, sith get force lightning. Good clerics get to scare undead, evil clerics rule the undead....)

Segev
2016-07-08, 04:19 PM
Generally, people are reluctant for two reasons:

1) OOC, the concern is that the player will use the "I'm evil!" excuse to screw over the party, and then try to hide behind "no PvP" or somesuch so that he can engage in, well, PvP of varying sorts without reciprocation. Or he'll claim you can't know it was his PC, so you can't do anything. In short: too many people play evil PCs in non-evil parties with the intent to just ruin it for everybody.

2) A token evil teammate can be hard on party cohesion if there are PCs who are good, upstanding fellows who wouldn't willingly associate with vile monsters. As soon as they realize what the token evil teammate has done, they feel obligated to make it a "he leaves or I do" ultimatum, if not turn to flat-out PvP.


It thus has a number of hurdles to just playing well in the party, and the player must not only be up to the task, but the other players have to be on board AND confident that the evil PC's player is trustworthy with the role.

Coidzor
2016-07-08, 04:28 PM
Verisimilitude.

Concerns about getting backstabbed and making the game only fun for the dude griefing the rest of the players.

MonkeySage
2016-07-08, 04:31 PM
What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

Dire Roc
2016-07-08, 04:32 PM
I'd say it really comes down to being afraid of stupid evil. In my campaigns I need to have seen the person prove a competent and intelligent role player before I'll allow an evil character.

Shiva asori
2016-07-08, 04:33 PM
Most people can be squeamish about evil and depending on how evil you go, it can just get icky and disgust the other players. As it's hard for other people to know how evil you're gonna be, they tend to just err on the safe side.
It also help that you don't have to worry about much backstabbing from PCs if there isn't any evil PCs.

Segev
2016-07-08, 04:37 PM
What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

You still have to convince the other players that this is true.

And they have to be okay with playing characters who won't rebel at the idea of associating with evil people.

It takes work and negotiation, is all.

Slipperychicken
2016-07-08, 04:43 PM
I'm against them because I've both heard and participated in enough horror stories to convince me it's not worth the effort. Similarly, I have played with numerous evil PCs over the years, under many different players, GMs, settings, and systems. Even when it wasn't horror-story material, at no time did I feel like the game wouldn't be improved by having a different non-evil character instead.

Perhaps it's partly the impish, immature contrarianism of players who set out to be loner villains in games whose premise involves the players being a team of good guys, partly the conflict resulting from violating that basic assumption. But regardless of the cause, it simply does not work out well. I haven't seen it work out well in real games, and I have only rarely heard of it working in others' games. I think that trying again is a fool's errand, since decades of gaming experience across thousands of gaming groups has shown it to be so.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-08, 04:53 PM
What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

I guess the question is why do you think this cool concept can only be done as evil? What exactly makes your character evil? Exactly what sorts of evil ''cool and fun'' things do you see the character doing? Specifically what evil things will the character do and keep secret from the others?

It would seem that a big part of this character concept is keeping secrets from the other players or characters or both. And sure it's fun for the one person keeping secrets, but it's not as much fun for the rest of the group.

MonkeySage
2016-07-08, 04:57 PM
This character is a cleric with a focus on raising undead and becoming a lich. Both of which are considered evil acts.
He's also capable of getting his hands dirty in ways that good characters may not be comfortable with, but would prove useful to the group. For example, in his first run he was able to intimidate a goblin into becoming his servant. The methods he used were pretty harsh, but effective.

Arbane
2016-07-08, 05:08 PM
My first response when I saw the title was "Because most characters aren't as FUNNY as Belkar." And even he nearly got tossed out of the Order a few times.

Because the other PCs might not want to be in the blast radius when Edgy McEvil's misbehavior catches up with them.
Because the players don't want the out-of-game drama that occurs when PvP starts.

And in your case specifically: Because if the PCs ARE hero-types, they might not want to be remembered as 'the dupes who helped the Undead Lord ascend to power' in the history books.

Segev
2016-07-08, 05:11 PM
I guess the question is why do you think this cool concept can only be done as evil? What exactly makes your character evil? Exactly what sorts of evil ''cool and fun'' things do you see the character doing? Specifically what evil things will the character do and keep secret from the others?

It would seem that a big part of this character concept is keeping secrets from the other players or characters or both. And sure it's fun for the one person keeping secrets, but it's not as much fun for the rest of the group.


This character is a cleric with a focus on raising undead and becoming a lich. Both of which are considered evil acts.
He's also capable of getting his hands dirty in ways that good characters may not be comfortable with, but would prove useful to the group. For example, in his first run he was able to intimidate a goblin into becoming his servant. The methods he used were pretty harsh, but effective.

Yeah, there are indeed concepts that only work if they're evil. Even if they're not disruptive.

The "token evil teammate," done right, is an asset. He solves problems that are normally things which stymie a good-aligned party. If he's skilled, he does it without them even realizing. If he's not...well, that causes tension, sadly. But it can still be fun, if the group's up for it OOC.

My own signature evil character is a necromancer of a particularly pragmatic variety. He adores working with "good guys" because they are less likely to backstab you. They also tend to build up positive reputations and get GIVEN the things villains have to try to TAKE. The issues they have with his undead minions are sometimes a problem, but with the right argumentation, it usually can be dealt with. And woe betide somebody who hurts his allies; he is not a kind person, but values his compatriots and will make you pay dearly if you try to abuse them. He isn't very charismatic, but he also leaves the speaking to other, more socially apt members of the party most of the time.

He really doesn't work if you expect "good" in his alignment. At best, he might count as "neutral," but neutral has more qualms about killing those who become more trouble than they're worth. Or engaging in pragmatic solutions like killing somebody and then animating them as a kind of undead you can control to get them to do what you want.

Quertus
2016-07-08, 05:15 PM
I'd say it really comes down to being afraid of stupid evil. In my campaigns I need to have seen the person prove a competent and intelligent role player before I'll allow an evil character.


It also help that you don't have to worry about much backstabbing from PCs if there isn't any evil chaotic PCs.

FTFY. Evil us so misunderstood. :smallfrown:


I'm against them because I've both heard and participated in enough horror stories to convince me it's not worth the effort. Similarly, I have played with numerous evil PCs over the years, under many different players, GMs, settings, and systems. Even when it wasn't horror-story material, at no time did I feel like the game wouldn't be improved by having a different non-evil character instead.

Perhaps it's partly the impish, immature contrarianism of players who set out to be loner villains in games whose premise involves the players being a team of good guys, partly the conflict resulting from violating that basic assumption. But regardless of the cause, it simply does not work out well. I haven't seen it work out well in real games, and I have only rarely heard of it working in others' games. I think that trying again is a fool's errand, since decades of gaming experience across thousands of gaming groups has shown it to be so.

That's decades of experience across thousands of gaming groups that has shown that it can be done, right? Or are you claiming to have played in thousands of groups? :smallconfused:


It would seem that a big part of this character concept is keeping secrets from the other players or characters or both. And sure it's fun for the one person keeping secrets, but it's not as much fun for the rest of the group.

IME, role-playing is easier if you don't know, out of character, all the things your character doesn't know. Thus, IMO, it behooves a good role-playing group to also be good at secrets - or, more generally, good at minimalist communication of OOC information.

Tvtyrant
2016-07-08, 05:17 PM
I've been dying to play my halfling cleric in a non evil pathfinder group for a long time. I've only had the chance to play him once in short nerd club function at school.

Beleon is a smart, charismatic neutral evil cleric with aspirations toward lichdom and a god complex. He's extremely fun to play, especially when the other players don't know he's evil... and he's very good at hiding that fact.

I wanted to play him because clerics make better necromancers than wizards, and because I've always wanted to play as a lich, ever since I started playing.

According to the rules, raising undead is an evil act. No one I know wants to run a game with an evil party member, even one as subtle and intelligent as my character. He's not stupid evil, he won't just kill someone for no reason. And he's still protective of people that he likes (just not suicidally so). He is not senselessly disloyal; working with the party is generally convenient and helps him fund his research.

(Incidentally, why are the cool powers almost always evil? Jedi get mind tricks, sith get force lightning. Good clerics get to scare undead, evil clerics rule the undead....)
I have played in and been DM for many groups where this was the case, and usually it amounts to explaining why that player would participate in the group.

My first character was a lawful evil dwarf cleric who worshipped a god of undeath and wanted to become a lich. He was a typical healbot in battles and didn't act in particularly evil ways because he was terrified of dying before reaching immortality, but would do things like murder political rivals of the party if he thought it would keep the group safe. Nothing went wrong.

Second group we had a Drow who wanted to become a drider, and became increasingly evil as she transformed over the course of the campaign. Eventually she killed an important NPC, starting a war between the local mob and the party. When the party was attacked by demons and she was knocked out she was quietly ditched off on a dock.

There were negative emotions about that one, because both individuals felt the other one was being disruptive. That was when we agreed to no PVP and no more wildly out of place alignments, not that the player was overly evil but that the inevitable PVP was not where we wanted to go.

Slipperychicken
2016-07-08, 05:24 PM
That's decades of experience across thousands of gaming groups that has shown that it can be done, right? Or are you claiming to have played in thousands of groups? :smallconfused:

The former is what I meant.

I have my own experience, and it matches what lots of others have said about their experiences.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-08, 05:33 PM
He's also capable of getting his hands dirty in ways that good characters may not be comfortable with, but would prove useful to the group. For example, in his first run he was able to intimidate a goblin into becoming his servant. The methods he used were pretty harsh, but effective.

The thing is that this is a very fine line to walk. An evil character that is good 99% of the time and just has a tiny 1% of fun evil can work out for everyone.

But it's a very fine line to walk....and it's so, so easy to cross the line and fall down the slippery slope. And when the game becomes against the other players, it's no long fun for the other players.

NichG
2016-07-08, 05:55 PM
I'm curious, for players who say 'I want to play evil, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it' - would you accept a deal with the group like: 'you can do it, but if anyone says they're bothered OOC by anything you do even if they can't know about it IC and even if you don't think it was that bad, then they have the right of veto'?

icefractal
2016-07-08, 06:06 PM
There is the "stupid evil" thing - admittedly people can be jerks and dumb-asses with any character type, but evil has a higher concentration of that, with people wanting to be "edgy" or just burn everything down for the lolz.

But aside from that, there's another issue - what makes the character evil?

The example in the OP is necromancy, which in D&D is sort of a "theoretical evil" - it's marked that way, but with no reason provided, just generic evilness. There's other theoretical forms like totally being willing to kill people (but in practice not much different than who a 'neutral' person would have killed) or having world-conquering ambitions (which are left vague). Since this kind of evil is so unspecific, it's easier to fit into a non-evil party, although it that depends on how the character behaves in play.

However, with non-theoretical evil, where there's a reason for the evil-ness ... most people don't want to hang out with someone who'd do those things. If I think about IRL people I'd consider "evil", there's none of them I'd want to go on a road trip with. So why would my character either, if they're supposed to be a good person? When you get specific, evil sounds a lot less pleasant - "Zaxar the Dark Heretic" is one thing, but I don't really want to help out "Zaxar the Kidnapper and Exortionist".

Madbox
2016-07-08, 08:22 PM
I think it may be because a lot of groups have that one person who, if given the option to play an evil character, will do so immediately and do it badly. Even if YOU are mature enough to not go around being stupid, the other person might not be, and if an exception was made, then they'd go on to be a nutjob.

That being said, why not take a page out of the bad player's handbook, and play what you want and write down neutral on the sheet? If your evil is fairly low-key, then you can do the occasional evil act like raising the dead, and just be all like "Well, I find it distasteful, too, but it seemed like a quick way to get assistance to fight (insert villain name here). And explain to me who exactly I'm harming. They don't need that body anymore, they're dead!" Neutral is allowed to act shady from time to time, after all.

Cluedrew
2016-07-08, 09:38 PM
First: I would say avoid the 'token' idea, talk about the character and let the fact that the character is evil fallout from the rest of the character instead of being one of your fundamental concepts. Focusing on the evil part (even compared to the things that show that the character is evil) very much slants the image of the character toward griefer.

Second: Understand you are probably going to have prove yourself. If anyone asked me if they could/should play an evil character I would say no unless I knew them and knew they were capable of playing an evil character without it devolving into a homicidal maniac. Case in point, last week I was part of a game were an immoral character's player asked me if my character could turn a blind eye to immoral acts. I replied if it didn't interfere with the job and was nothing extreme, then yes.

So, apparently murdering people in the street is only a mildly immoral act.

Experiences like that will naturally make people wary.

On Jedi: I actually thought the Jedi mind-trick was cooler than Force Lightning. First off because "These aren't the droids we're looking for" was a better moment than... err... when the Emperor zapped Luke I guess? What is the panicle moment of force lightening? Secondly I liked the Jedi as mystics as opposed to superheroes and the Jedi mind-trick has that feel to it far more than force lightening.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-08, 10:47 PM
I think it may be because a lot of groups have that one person who, if given the option to play an evil character, will do so immediately and do it badly. Even if YOU are mature enough to not go around being stupid, the other person might not be, and if an exception was made, then they'd go on to be a nutjob.


I think the big problem is ultimately a evil character can't play well in a good group long term. Sure the evil character can pretend to be good or even more simply not do evil acts...but then they would not exactly be an evil character. Sooner or later the player will want to have the fun of playing evil, and that is where they have to walk the line. And, sure, they might be able to walk the line for a while. Eventually, though, they will have to cross the line to ''be evil'' though.

Cybren
2016-07-08, 11:23 PM
FTFY. Evil us so misunderstood. :smallfrown:



That's decades of experience across thousands of gaming groups that has shown that it can be done, right? Or are you claiming to have played in thousands of groups? :smallconfused:



IME, role-playing is easier if you don't know, out of character, all the things your character doesn't know. Thus, IMO, it behooves a good role-playing group to also be good at secrets - or, more generally, good at minimalist communication of OOC information.
I think metagame knowledge is more fun to have, because it allows the player to participate in contriving ways to set things up and advance the story from a metagame perspective outside their character. I don't think evil PCs are generally a good idea, but if everyone is on board one of the ways you make it work is to say, out of character "well, we're gonna have to figure out how to make it work"

Thrudd
2016-07-09, 12:28 AM
What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

If it's a cool concept that doesn't fit the campaign, then it's coolness and your intentions make no difference. You need to convince someone to run a neutrals/evils campaign.

zeek0
2016-07-09, 01:53 AM
If you have a fellowship of the best and bravest and wisest in the land, you had better not have anyone more evil in it than Boromir.

The problem is that in fantasy, largely, there is little room for an evil character in a party. A group wading into combat needs to trust each other. A good character, upon discovering the deception, is unlikely to forgive, or even forget.

Lastly, the stories we tell are about heroes. Not about shmucks that want to meet their own ends, evilly laugh behind others' backs, and eventually turn on the heroes.

Arbane
2016-07-09, 03:32 AM
If it's a cool concept that doesn't fit the campaign, then it's coolness and your intentions make no difference. You need to convince someone to run a neutrals/evils campaign.

....And then play a Paladin in it.

Âmesang
2016-07-09, 09:16 AM
Honestly I'd rather have an evil PC than a chaotic-neutral PC. :smalltongue: Odds are the evil PC will at least be honest about being a %&#$.

Segev
2016-07-09, 10:23 AM
If you have a fellowship of the best and bravest and wisest in the land, you had better not have anyone more evil in it than Boromir.

The problem is that in fantasy, largely, there is little room for an evil character in a party. A group wading into combat needs to trust each other. A good character, upon discovering the deception, is unlikely to forgive, or even forget.

Lastly, the stories we tell are about heroes. Not about shmucks that want to meet their own ends, evilly laugh behind others' backs, and eventually turn on the heroes.

Evil need not be untrustworthy, at least not to the party. They need not even be deceptive. There is absolutely no reason an evil PC must backstab his allies (the other PCs). An evil PC can be honest about thinking his buddies are too hung up on this "being nice" nonsense and make foolish choices for no good reason (why on earth are we letting that goblin live just because he's helpless? We know he's likely to get more buddies and bother us again!), and still work with them and even acquiesce to their morals...most of the time. When it's not too inconvenient. He can show his evil by finishing off that goblin after interrogating him. By being willing to simply take the idol from the religious cult rather than bargaining for it when they don't have time. By animating the dead. Etc.

All of this is perfectly doable without betraying the party. It might require going against the party's otherwise-unified will (because hey, they don't WANT to condone evil), but it is done in their best interests and with a minimum of sneaking around behind their backs. And, to the best of the player's knowledge and ability, it is done without undermining the party in any way. To the contrary, it is done to bolster them where their foolish morals would otherwise leave them vulnerable.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-09, 11:14 AM
This seems like a good thread for it. I have an evil party and need help dealing with the token good member.

We're all kind of ruthless and willing to destroy people in order to achieve our political goals. And then there's our servant. He tried to free our hostage that we needed to exchange in order for valuable information just because we were torturing him a little. He constantly blurts out the truth in front of other people whenever we're trying to lie to them. He's not intentionally malicious to the party, he's just headstrong and idealistic.

Looking for solutions that don't involve taking him out back into the woods and putting him down. Halp.

LibraryOgre
2016-07-09, 11:31 AM
I am reluctant to approve such concepts because I've so seldom seen it done well. For every "quietly hire bounty hunters to deal with a threat the party doesn't have time for", there's a dozen "collect fluid samples from dead hobgoblins and insist that you need to touch the player in order to heal the character." While it certainly CAN be done well, more often I see it done incredibly poorly, with "evil" being an excuse to be a creepy idiot in or out of game. It can work... but more often, someone who says "I've got an evil character I want to bring to your group of good characters" is out for their own jollies, and, tbh, is frequently someone I don't want in the group even if playing an ostensibly good character.

SirBellias
2016-07-09, 12:39 PM
I would allow one in my game if I knew that the player wouldn't be actively disruptive. Then again, for the game I am currently in, we don't bother with writing down alignments, because labels have too much power to influence our characters unduly. There's only one or two of us that may be considered good if it cam down to it.

I think the main issue I have here is "token" evil team mate. That makes it sound like you are trying to live up to a role that is defined as evil and nothing else. I can handle evil and chaotic characters, as long as they aren't doing it just to be blatantly evil or chaotic.

Your concept is pretty cool, and I'd let it into my game. If you described it as a "Token Evil Team Mate," however, I'd definitely be keeping a closer eye on reactions to it.

Takewo
2016-07-09, 12:48 PM
We're all kind of ruthless and willing to destroy people in order to achieve our political goals. And then there's our servant. He tried to free our hostage that we needed to exchange in order for valuable information just because we were torturing him a little. He constantly blurts out the truth in front of other people whenever we're trying to lie to them. He's not intentionally malicious to the party, he's just headstrong and idealistic.

That's exactly it. I don't like having evil characters because I don't want to deal with selfish characters who care only about themselves (and maybe a few other people). I like playing people who care about others and the world, for whom a moral victory is more important than a military victory. Dealing with evil characters in the party changes all that.

Satinavian
2016-07-09, 01:14 PM
Have had good experience with token evil party members.

Some of them have been the pillar of stability and common sense for a good aligned group that did (as a group) mostly good things.


Alignment is not everything. It's not even particularly important. Most systems don't even bother with it.

NomGarret
2016-07-09, 02:09 PM
It's a matter of player trust. How well does a group collectively trust that a particular player will do it well? Is it high enough that the reward of playing Concept Evil over Concept B is greater than the risk?

Beyond that, do you have enough trust in everyone in the group to allow any one of them to do it? If not, is the reward of playing Concept Evil over Concept B greater than the social cost of making an exception for one player.

Edited to add: This is somewhat different (or at least more transparent) in games like L5R, where its the Token Scorpion, whose job is to do evil for (plausibly) good ends. More or less.

Quertus
2016-07-09, 02:19 PM
I'm curious, for players who say 'I want to play evil, but I'm not going to be a jerk about it' - would you accept a deal with the group like: 'you can do it, but if anyone says they're bothered OOC by anything you do even if they can't know about it IC and even if you don't think it was that bad, then they have the right of veto'?

Hmmm... What if that same criteria - you need group permission to play it, and anyone can object at any time (based on IC or OOC reasons) - were applied to chaotic characters? Anything with religious fluff? Wizards? Humans? Non-pacifists ? Everything?


I think metagame knowledge is more fun to have, because it allows the player to participate in contriving ways to set things up and advance the story from a metagame perspective outside their character. I don't think evil PCs are generally a good idea, but if everyone is on board one of the ways you make it work is to say, out of character "well, we're gonna have to figure out how to make it work"

True, having knowledge feeds a different, perfectly valid play style. I suppose I should have said a "RP-focused group", as opposed to, say, a story-focused group, which would prefer OOC knowledge.


If you have a fellowship of the best and bravest and wisest in the land, you had better not have anyone more evil in it than Boromir.

The problem is that in fantasy, largely, there is little room for an evil character in a party. A group wading into combat needs to trust each other. A good character, upon discovering the deception, is unlikely to forgive, or even forget.

Lastly, the stories we tell are about heroes. Not about shmucks that want to meet their own ends, evilly laugh behind others' backs, and eventually turn on the heroes.

Trust... a chaotic character? Um... No. Trust a lawful evil character? Of course you should.

And, if good can't forgive, who can?


Honestly I'd rather have an evil PC than a chaotic-neutral PC. :smalltongue: Odds are the evil PC will at least be honest about being a %&#$.

Most of my bad experiences are with Cn.


Evil need not be untrustworthy, at least not to the party. They need not even be deceptive. There is absolutely no reason an evil PC must backstab his allies (the other PCs). An evil PC can be honest about thinking his buddies are too hung up on this "being nice" nonsense and make foolish choices for no good reason (why on earth are we letting that goblin live just because he's helpless? We know he's likely to get more buddies and bother us again!), and still work with them and even acquiesce to their morals...most of the time. When it's not too inconvenient. He can show his evil by finishing off that goblin after interrogating him. By being willing to simply take the idol from the religious cult rather than bargaining for it when they don't have time. By animating the dead. Etc.

All of this is perfectly doable without betraying the party. It might require going against the party's otherwise-unified will (because hey, they don't WANT to condone evil), but it is done in their best interests and with a minimum of sneaking around behind their backs. And, to the best of the player's knowledge and ability, it is done without undermining the party in any way. To the contrary, it is done to bolster them where their foolish morals would otherwise leave them vulnerable.

Agreed. Also, if the competitively evil character isn't not only contributing positively to the party, but likely striving to be the party MVP, something's wrong.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-09, 02:46 PM
All of this is perfectly doable without betraying the party.

It is possible sure, kinda like a monkey writing Shakespere possible, but still possible. An evil character can simply do no evil, for example, and the game will roll along fine. The character might even do ''a little'' evil, just fine.

But it is a hard line to walk and it's easy to step over the line....and a character will need to step over the line to do any really ''fun evil'', and that is where the problems will start....

Pex
2016-07-09, 02:56 PM
Generally, people are reluctant for two reasons:

1) OOC, the concern is that the player will use the "I'm evil!" excuse to screw over the party, and then try to hide behind "no PvP" or somesuch so that he can engage in, well, PvP of varying sorts without reciprocation. Or he'll claim you can't know it was his PC, so you can't do anything. In short: too many people play evil PCs in non-evil parties with the intent to just ruin it for everybody.

2) A token evil teammate can be hard on party cohesion if there are PCs who are good, upstanding fellows who wouldn't willingly associate with vile monsters. As soon as they realize what the token evil teammate has done, they feel obligated to make it a "he leaves or I do" ultimatum, if not turn to flat-out PvP.


It thus has a number of hurdles to just playing well in the party, and the player must not only be up to the task, but the other players have to be on board AND confident that the evil PC's player is trustworthy with the role.

There's a third. The PC can play well with the party but uses his Evil as an excuse to be a donkey cavity to NPCs. Sometimes the player will write CN on his character sheet to do the same thing. Negotiations, parleys, investigations, prisoner questioning, etc., get ruined because the PC does something disruptive like uncalled for threats, torture, and drawing of weapons. A non-combat encounter becomes a combat encounter and whatever roleplaying was supposed to be done for the fun of it or advancing the plot never happens.

dps
2016-07-09, 03:20 PM
On Jedi: I actually thought the Jedi mind-trick was cooler than Force Lightning. First off because "These aren't the droids we're looking for" was a better moment than... err... when the Emperor zapped Luke I guess? What is the panicle moment of force lightening? Secondly I liked the Jedi as mystics as opposed to superheroes and the Jedi mind-trick has that feel to it far more than force lightening.

Off topic, but I totally agree. The "these are not the droids you are looking for" scene might be the coolest Star Wars scene of 'em all.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-09, 03:55 PM
Weirdly, I find that a lot of these problems are fixed by throwing out alignment systems altogether.

I've been running non-d&d systems for the past several years and I've never had a problem with characters being evil douchenuggets and also being disruptive to play. When alignment is out the door, I've found that people naturally take more nuanced approaches to morality, and feel less attacked whem I as a GM put them in situations where these moral systems are questioned.

Let's say that Mr. Tsun, the mercenary, doesn't let anything get in the way of his job... well then what happens when doing his job puts people he cares about into direct danger? Does he still proceed or does this make him hesitate? I like to find the "always" and "never" statements and bring up moments that challenge them over the course of play.

I find that if I try to do it within alignment structures, there is a disconnect from "what my character values and prioritizes" to "what does my alignment tell me to do" which is not accurate to how people make morality decisions, and ends up making the idea of questioning the morals of various actions into an act of hostility from the GM instead of a nifty narrative tool. And that's no fun.

So yeah, throw alignment out the window and the idea of a good guy who also happens to be a necromancer stops being weird. Problem solved.

LibraryOgre
2016-07-09, 04:25 PM
I find that if I try to do it within alignment structures, there is a disconnect from "what my character values and prioritizes" to "what does my alignment tell me to do" which is not accurate to how people make morality decisions, and ends up making the idea of questioning the morals of various actions into an act of hostility from the GM instead of a nifty narrative tool. And that's no fun.


That sounds like a misapplication of alignment, not a problem with it. "What my character values and prioritizes" is a big part of their alignment, as is how they go about resolving conflicts between those. Alignment is not prescriptive, after all; it's descriptive of one's actions and motivations. Being LG doesn't FORCE you do to do things... you are LG because, as an aggregate of your actions, you tend towards Law and Good.



Let's say that Mr. Tsun, the mercenary, doesn't let anything get in the way of his job... well then what happens when doing his job puts people he cares about into direct danger? Does he still proceed or does this make him hesitate? I like to find the "always" and "never" statements and bring up moments that challenge them over the course of play.

So, he's more than likely LE. He is very devoted to his work and personal code of ethics; once he's bought, he stays bought, and "doesn't let anything get in the way of his job". But he encounters a situation where the job he has taken puts those he loves in danger. Choosing those he loves doesn't make him less evil, necessarily, though it might make him a smidge less lawful.

IME, not having an alignment system still results in the type of people who will play evil douchenuggets being evil douchenuggets... they just don't put E down on their sheets.

Pex
2016-07-09, 05:01 PM
Off topic, but I totally agree. The "these are not the droids you are looking for" scene might be the coolest Star Wars scene of 'em all.

Everyone quotes this, but it's not the first moment of the trick. The trick starts with "You don't need to see his identification." However, it's the droids line that resonates.

Slipperychicken
2016-07-09, 05:11 PM
That sounds like a misapplication of alignment, not a problem with it. "What my character values and prioritizes" is a big part of their alignment, as is how they go about resolving conflicts between those. Alignment is not prescriptive, after all; it's descriptive of one's actions and motivations. Being LG doesn't FORCE you do to do things... you are LG because, as an aggregate of your actions, you tend towards Law and Good.

I hear this so often, it sounds like a broken record. Attempting to use alignment systems causes so many more problems than it solves, whether because of misapplication or not.

If alignment is so difficult to properly interpret and use, and causes such extreme problems when misused, and so little benefit when it is used properly, then I don't see the point in advocating for it at all.

Thrudd
2016-07-09, 05:21 PM
That sounds like a misapplication of alignment, not a problem with it. "What my character values and prioritizes" is a big part of their alignment, as is how they go about resolving conflicts between those. Alignment is not prescriptive, after all; it's descriptive of one's actions and motivations. Being LG doesn't FORCE you do to do things... you are LG because, as an aggregate of your actions, you tend towards Law and Good.



So, he's more than likely LE. He is very devoted to his work and personal code of ethics; once he's bought, he stays bought, and "doesn't let anything get in the way of his job". But he encounters a situation where the job he has taken puts those he loves in danger. Choosing those he loves doesn't make him less evil, necessarily, though it might make him a smidge less lawful.

IME, not having an alignment system still results in the type of people who will play evil douchenuggets being evil douchenuggets... they just don't put E down on their sheets.

Too true. The only thing the D&D alignment system does is allow the douchnugget to point at the "E" on their sheet and say "See? I HAVE to be a douchnugget!"

But like you said, that's the wrong way to apply the alignment system. What you write on your sheet is the way you intend to role play the character. If your role playing does not conform to what is on the sheet, then the DM would tell you to change what is on the sheet to reflect the way you've been playing. If you write E on the sheet, you are likely intending to be a douchnugget. If you stop being a douchnugget, that 'E' should probably change into an 'N' or a 'G'.

The only thing about D&D that gets weird is the place where the mechanics interact with the alignment. Creating undead and a couple other spells are 'E', no matter how your character acts otherwise. So people who want to be necromancers are told they must be 'E' (which I think is reasonable, despite all arguments otherwise). It doesn't make a lot of sense, to me, that someone who is dedicated to creating evil creatures that will murder and/or consume all living beings if left to their own natures could not be evil themselves. So a necromancer who doesn't want to act like a total douchenugget could exist, they could be totally pleasant and a team player, but the 'E' stays on the sheet because they insist on bringing dangerous monsters into the world, for whatever reason.

Cybren
2016-07-09, 05:22 PM
I hear this so often, it sounds like a broken record. Attempting to use alignment systems causes so many more problems than it solves, whether because of misapplication or not.

If alignment is so difficult to properly interpret and use, and causes such extreme problems when misused, and so little benefit when it is used properly, then I don't see the point in advocating for it at all.

I think alignment requires some buy-in that either A) objective moral truth exists in the world, or B) alignment is a subjective measure from the frame of reference of settled agrarian human communities and not objective at all. One or the other, but not both.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-09, 05:47 PM
I'll also point out that even ignoring the evil aspect - having permanent pets via Animate Dead is inherently disruptive. It means that you are basically controlling multiple characters, which is not only very powerful, but it also makes your turn in combat take far longer.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-09, 05:49 PM
Everyone quotes this, but it's not the first moment of the trick. The trick starts with "You don't need to see his identification." However, it's the droids line that resonates.

I think it's because 'droids' gives the line inherent context, while 'identification' could be from nearly any movie/book etc.

It's not as bad as "Play it again Sam" from Casablanca. That exact line never even occurs in the movie at all, just "Play it again", people have just added "Sam" for context since the character it was said to repeatedly was named Sam.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-09, 06:41 PM
So yeah, throw alignment out the window and the idea of a good guy who also happens to be a necromancer stops being weird. Problem solved.

Ok, so you throw alignment out the window. So now any character can do anything they want or feel like and nothing matters. So, sure, it's great for role playing as the poor characters are not ''forced'' to do anything.

But how does this fix the problems? So the ''not evil'' character ''not steals'' something that another character has. So with no alignment that player does not have their character get mad? They just say ''oh well"?

The ''not evil'' character kills an NPC, for fun. So the other PC's, with no alignment, just ignore it?

The ''non-evil'' character loots bodies in a fight and does not share. And so with no alignment everyone just ignores that act?

So how does no alignment make it ok for a character to ''act in a way that would be evil in a game with alignments'' without any problems?

Tiktakkat
2016-07-09, 07:22 PM
So yeah, throw alignment out the window and the idea of a good guy who also happens to be a necromancer stops being weird. Problem solved.

No it doesn't.

The guy is STILL a necromancer, who STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, who STILL has a goal of being a lich by consuming yet other souls.

Further, since you have thrown out alignment, you must find another term to describe him other than being a "good guy".
He might be a "fine fellow", or a "solid chap", or a "reliable friend", but "good" isn't a functionally valid descriptor because of the alignment connotations.

The thing is . . . that fine fellow, solid chap, and reliable friend?
STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, and want to become immortal by consuming yet other souls!
How exactly can you be sure he won't default to enslaving your soul should anything happen to you rather than having you restored to life?
Can you really trust him no to consume your soul should it become necessary for his immortality?

And of course that is before we get to the other elements of the concept:
cleric - sure HE likes you; but what happens when his deity decides you look like a delicious sacrifice?
deity complex - what's a little megalomania between friends, amirite?
"alignment" unknown to the party - and friends ALWAYS lie to each other about such things.
won't kill for "no" reason - just watch out if he conceives of one, what with his complex and secret keeping.
won't be "senselessly" disloyal - merely sensibly treacherous.
works with the party when it is "generally" convenient - see above for when killing and disloyalty become options.
cooperation helps to fund his research - what, you object to questing to pay for vivisection labs? That's mighty unmutual of you there fella! You sure you don't want to be friends anymore?

"My character is scum, but he is your scum" is going to be a problem whether you have an alignment system or not, particularly when, well . . . he isn't actually your scum, just his own.

Never mind alignment, if the basic character description isn't someone you would have your character work for, perhaps it isn't best to expect others to be eager to work with him, no matter what alignment the character has, doesn't have, or even doesn't need.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-09, 07:25 PM
That sounds like a misapplication of alignment, not a problem with it. "What my character values and prioritizes" is a big part of their alignment, as is how they go about resolving conflicts between those. Alignment is not prescriptive, after all; it's descriptive of one's actions and motivations. Being LG doesn't FORCE you do to do things... you are LG because, as an aggregate of your actions, you tend towards Law and Good.
Misuse or no, it's what people actually do when presented with alignments. I'm not talking out of my buttocks here, this is a thing people do. By removing the system, I don't deal with the problem at all. *shrug*




So, he's more than likely LE. He is very devoted to his work and personal code of ethics; once he's bought, he stays bought, and "doesn't let anything get in the way of his job". But he encounters a situation where the job he has taken puts those he loves in danger. Choosing those he loves doesn't make him less evil, necessarily, though it might make him a smidge less lawful.

Why would that be Lawful Evil? He does his job. I never mentioned that he is explicitly killing people or accepts jobs that mean he has to kill people. Only that he doesn't let things get in the way of the jobs he has. See how the idea of an alignment means that you automatically resort to putting this character into a neat little box? But that box may or may not apply. I don't have any additional information beyond what I wrote down since I made it up on the fly as an example. But this behavior is indicative of the problem I'm talking about.


IME, not having an alignment system still results in the type of people who will play evil douchenuggets being evil douchenuggets... they just don't put E down on their sheets.
And there's no consequence for those who then kick them out of the group because in this case there is 0 chance that the goodie-two-shoes will be punished in some way (which having your alignment changed is often viewed as) for beating the dickens out of the moron. That, and people being ***** is not an in-game problem if it's so chronic that they simply desire to screw with everyone's good time, then alignment systems and lack thereof will not affect anything. But if one player who has a good track record wants to be a bit more questionable, ethically, then they can and no one has to feel like they need to get the evil dude out of the group because he's not evil... he's just scummy. I can run campaigns of a bunch of a-holes who also happen to save the world just fine. I have not had issues with one evil character ever since I just ignored alignment systems and/or played games without them. :D


Too true. The only thing the D&D alignment system does is allow the douchnugget to point at the "E" on their sheet and say "See? I HAVE to be a douchnugget!"
Take that away and suddenly they need a better excuse. :D



But like you said, that's the wrong way to apply the alignment system. What you write on your sheet is the way you intend to role play the character. If your role playing does not conform to what is on the sheet, then the DM would tell you to change what is on the sheet to reflect the way you've been playing. If you write E on the sheet, you are likely intending to be a douchnugget. If you stop being a douchnugget, that 'E' should probably change into an 'N' or a 'G'.
The problem is that people view having their alignment changed as a punishment for "not doing it right," and this makes me have to do more work. So why would I bother?



The only thing about D&D that gets weird is the place where the mechanics interact with the alignment. Creating undead and a couple other spells are 'E', no matter how your character acts otherwise. So people who want to be necromancers are told they must be 'E' (which I think is reasonable, despite all arguments otherwise). It doesn't make a lot of sense, to me, that someone who is dedicated to creating evil creatures that will murder and/or consume all living beings if left to their own natures could not be evil themselves. So a necromancer who doesn't want to act like a total douchenugget could exist, they could be totally pleasant and a team player, but the 'E' stays on the sheet because they insist on bringing dangerous monsters into the world, for whatever reason.
And yet I made a campaign setting where there's a church of necromancers that care for the dead, and when their resting places are threatened they raise the dead so that they can contribute to the defense of their resting places from beyond. And when the danger has passed, they are put right back in their graves and return to their eternal slumber. You could make an argument that this is, at best, sketchy, but it's hard to argue that it's straight-up evil. The intention is good, their use of them is only for defense, it done with a great deal of respect, and etc.
Remember: Zombies and Skeletons are mindless by default and only do what they're ordered to do. Don't order them to do anything evil and there you go. Non-evil zombos and skeltos.


Ok, so you throw alignment out the window. So now any character can do anything they want or feel like and nothing matters. So, sure, it's great for role playing as the poor characters are not ''forced'' to do anything.

But how does this fix the problems? So the ''not evil'' character ''not steals'' something that another character has. So with no alignment that player does not have their character get mad? They just say ''oh well"?

The ''not evil'' character kills an NPC, for fun. So the other PC's, with no alignment, just ignore it?

The ''non-evil'' character loots bodies in a fight and does not share. And so with no alignment everyone just ignores that act?

So how does no alignment make it ok for a character to ''act in a way that would be evil in a game with alignments'' without any problems?
Wow, you make a lot of really really terrible logical jumps here. Olympic-level logical jumps. Good job.

Why does alignment determine how other characters react to behavior? Do you need an alignment to dislike having your stuff taken? This doesn't follow.

Do you need an alignment to recognize that killing a potentially-important NPC for no good reason is an idiotic decision and go against it?

Do you need an alignment to recognize someone not sharing the loot?

My point isn't that these things still happen and are suddenly not problems. My point is that these things happen less. It's a lot easier to be a scumbag when you know the Goodie-goodies feel vaguely obligated to put up with you to prevent themselves from doing evil.

It's a very different thing when they other players have no reason to not pop a bullet in your head if you take their stuff. Which I as a GM allow and make very clear from session one. Usually with the following: "If you do something to screw over your fellow characters, expect backlash. Backlash from which I will not save you. I allow PVP. We're all friends here, but sometimes our characters will come into conflict. We'll take a break before engaging in any PVP to make sure we're still friendly about it and if yes, we'll proceed. If no, we'll take some time to chill out and then reassess the situation."

It takes me maybe 30 seconds and I only have to say it once. Then all the problems you stated are pretty much dealt with.

Illven
2016-07-09, 07:40 PM
No it doesn't.

The guy is STILL a necromancer, who STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, who STILL has a goal of being a lich by consuming yet other souls.

Further, since you have thrown out alignment, you must find another term to describe him other than being a "good guy".
He might be a "fine fellow", or a "solid chap", or a "reliable friend", but "good" isn't a functionally valid descriptor because of the alignment connotations.

The thing is . . . that fine fellow, solid chap, and reliable friend?
STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, and want to become immortal by consuming yet other souls!
How exactly can you be sure he won't default to enslaving your soul should anything happen to you rather than having you restored to life?
Can you really trust him no to consume your soul should it become necessary for his immortality?

And of course that is before we get to the other elements of the concept:
cleric - sure HE likes you; but what happens when his deity decides you look like a delicious sacrifice?
deity complex - what's a little megalomania between friends, amirite?
"alignment" unknown to the party - and friends ALWAYS lie to each other about such things.
won't kill for "no" reason - just watch out if he conceives of one, what with his complex and secret keeping.
won't be "senselessly" disloyal - merely sensibly treacherous.
works with the party when it is "generally" convenient - see above for when killing and disloyalty become options.
cooperation helps to fund his research - what, you object to questing to pay for vivisection labs? That's mighty unmutual of you there fella! You sure you don't want to be friends anymore?

"My character is scum, but he is your scum" is going to be a problem whether you have an alignment system or not, particularly when, well . . . he isn't actually your scum, just his own.

Never mind alignment, if the basic character description isn't someone you would have your character work for, perhaps it isn't best to expect others to be eager to work with him, no matter what alignment the character has, doesn't have, or even doesn't need.

That's crap. The animation of dead flesh through necromancy usually does no harm to the soul. If it takes the soul, then a simple yes or no about wanting undeadification answers any question. Positive energy isn't inherently good (As evidenced by the dozens of always evil living creatures.) it makes no sense for negative energy to be evil. It's rather victim blamey to make Vampire always evil as well.

As for backstabbing I far more expect the cleric of Mishakal to be doing that. The necromancer might decide to betray me, if it's convenient, or I screw up. The cleric of Mishakal might decide to kill me, along with tens of thousands of innocent lives because someone completely unrelated to me and that I never heard of screwed up. AREN'T THEY THE BEST GOOD GUYS! :smallannoyed:

Cybren
2016-07-09, 07:45 PM
That's crap. The animation of dead flesh through necromancy usually does no harm to the soul. If it takes the soul, then a simple yes or no about wanting undeadification answers any question. Positive energy isn't inherently good (As evidenced by the dozens of always evil living creatures.) it makes no sense for negative energy to be evil. It's rather victim blamey to make Vampire always evil as well.

As for backstabbing I far more expect the cleric of Mishakal to be doing that. The necromancer might decide to betray me, if it's convenient, or I screw up. The cleric of Mishakal might decide to kill me, along with tens of thousands of innocent lives because someone completely unrelated to me and that I never heard of screwed up. AREN'T THEY THE BEST GOOD GUYS! :smallannoyed:

A lot of editions of D&D have rules prohibiting creatures turned into undead from being raised with raise dead, implying that it has some cost to the soul.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-09, 07:58 PM
No it doesn't.

The guy is STILL a necromancer, who STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, who STILL has a goal of being a lich by consuming yet other souls.

Further, since you have thrown out alignment, you must find another term to describe him other than being a "good guy".
He might be a "fine fellow", or a "solid chap", or a "reliable friend", but "good" isn't a functionally valid descriptor because of the alignment connotations.

The thing is . . . that fine fellow, solid chap, and reliable friend?
STILL runs around enslaving the souls of the dead, and want to become immortal by consuming yet other souls!
How exactly can you be sure he won't default to enslaving your soul should anything happen to you rather than having you restored to life?
Can you really trust him no to consume your soul should it become necessary for his immortality?

And of course that is before we get to the other elements of the concept:
cleric - sure HE likes you; but what happens when his deity decides you look like a delicious sacrifice?
deity complex - what's a little megalomania between friends, amirite?
"alignment" unknown to the party - and friends ALWAYS lie to each other about such things.
won't kill for "no" reason - just watch out if he conceives of one, what with his complex and secret keeping.
won't be "senselessly" disloyal - merely sensibly treacherous.
works with the party when it is "generally" convenient - see above for when killing and disloyalty become options.
cooperation helps to fund his research - what, you object to questing to pay for vivisection labs? That's mighty unmutual of you there fella! You sure you don't want to be friends anymore?

"My character is scum, but he is your scum" is going to be a problem whether you have an alignment system or not, particularly when, well . . . he isn't actually your scum, just his own.

Never mind alignment, if the basic character description isn't someone you would have your character work for, perhaps it isn't best to expect others to be eager to work with him, no matter what alignment the character has, doesn't have, or even doesn't need.

Wow. People get real testy if you say that alignment systems aren't positive. Have I struck a nerve?

As I said earlier, I'm personally fine with PvP so long as everyone knows ahead of time and you take strides to keep it friendly. Knowing that PvP allowed is usually a good way to make sure that people don't backstab. (Unless you're optimized to all hell and no one else is, no one wants to take on the entire rest of their party in a fight. It's just not gonna end well.) And if they do backstab, everyone knows ahead of time that it is a possibility, and so everyone gets to go "you bastard!" and throw popcorn at him and laugh at his sudden but inevitable betrayal, because we knew from the start that this was probably gonna happen. Also the guy was raising zombies. Probably a good hint that he had other goals in mind.

Seriously, if it's a problem for you to have a necromancer in the party, request no necromancers. But alignments aren't going to solve your problem and tend to make more problems than they solve in the first place. More often than not, they're used as justifications for behavior rather than the cause of that behavior. The paladin will attack the cleric the first time his Detect Evil pings because being Lawful Good and a Paladin is all the reason that player needs to start some PvP. (Or a LG cleric of a Good God, for that matter)

Instead of possibilities like "I want to be a lich because I'm afraid of dying more than I'm afraid of what it will do to me" where the morality is a little bit more nuanced than "I wanna be a lich because I'm playing a necromancer and I have to do evil stuff, so lichdom seems about right."

In my personal experience, systems without alignment have fewer problems with evil characters ruining the fun. Systems with it tend to have that problem a lot more frequently. By putting it into terms of "good" and "evil," two diametrically opposed factions that cannot coexist, you can't have parties where a noble knight makes use of a scummy rogue who is a bit of a ne'er do well, but is acceptable so long as he behaves himself and is useful. It also means that the evil cleric can be an evil cleric without needing to constantly worry about the "detect evil" alarms all around the city that have proven to reduce crime like crazy. (Seriously, any D&D town would be really well off setting up magical traps of detect evil that set off some kind of alarm, and then just haul the evil people to jail because they're definitely evil and really that should be enough to put them in jail until they stop setting off the alarms.)


A lot of editions of D&D have rules prohibiting creatures turned into undead from being raised with raise dead, implying that it has some cost to the soul.

Or making a zombie-vampire double-undead would cause weird rules problems and so they just said "nope, can't do it."
Or a thing that was already undead can't be undead a second time. There's no implication about the soul unless they wrote one down. :P

Cybren
2016-07-09, 08:04 PM
Or making a zombie-vampire double-undead would cause weird rules problems and so they just said "nope, can't do it."
Or a thing that was already undead can't be undead a second time. There's no implication about the soul unless they wrote one down. :P

The restriction applies even if the undead is destroyed, however. Someone that gets poisoned to death in 3.5 can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets stabbed to death can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets poisoned to death, turned into a zombie, then the zombie gets stabbed to death, still can't be raised by raise dead. So there is some metaphysical quality to becoming an undead that makes lesser resurrection magic unable to help you. Even if that has nothing to do with the soul, it would almost certainly create a cultural taboo against making zombies willy nilly. Maybe you could have a culture that hands out punishments where people sentenced to serious crimes are turned into undead for some reason, but the general D&D aversion towards raising undead is not arbitrary, it has a basis in how the rules model the game world, at the very least.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-09, 08:09 PM
Alignment adds nothing, at best, and is actively harmful at worst. I don't understand why anyone would want to keep it in.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-09, 08:21 PM
The restriction applies even if the undead is destroyed, however. Someone that gets poisoned to death in 3.5 can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets stabbed to death can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets poisoned to death, turned into a zombie, then the zombie gets stabbed to death, still can't be raised by raise dead. So there is some metaphysical quality to becoming an undead that makes lesser resurrection magic unable to help you. Even if that has nothing to do with the soul, it would almost certainly create a cultural taboo agen ainst making zombies willy nilly. Maybe you could have a culture that hands out punishments where people sentenced to serious crimes are turned into undead for some reason, but the general D&D aversion towards raising undead is not arbitrary, it has a basis in how the rules model the game world, at the very least.

That only implies that a body can only be raised from the dead once for SOME REASON, that may or may not have to do with the soul.

It could also be that bodies that have operated on negative energy are no longer fitting hosts for positive-energy souls (hence they can't be resurrected into their same body because it's no longer a good place for them) and has nothing to do with the soul itself.

Like I said, we can't infer into qualities beyond what we're given if they aren't given.

And that last thing sounds a lot like Servitors in 40k, which makes a kind of sense to me. I mean, if a serial killer isn't helpful in life then you can just make his dead body operate this mill for eternity. Then he IS useful. :D (I mean, they're just gonna execute him anyways, so why waste perfectly good ground on him when he can at least be USEFUL meat.)

Cybren
2016-07-09, 08:22 PM
That only implies that a body can only be raised from the dead once for SOME REASON, that may or may not have to do with the soul.

It could also be that bodies that have operated on negative energy are no longer fitting hosts for positive-energy souls (hence they can't be resurrected into their same body because it's no longer a good place for them) and has nothing to do with the soul itself.

Like I said, we can't infer into qualities beyond what we're given if they aren't given.

And that last thing sounds a lot like Servitors in 40k, which makes a kind of sense to me. I mean, if a serial killer isn't helpful in life then you can just make his dead body operate this mill for eternity. Then he IS useful. :D

Listen, if you lived in a world where you can get brought back to life, except that, if your body gets turned into a zombie you can't, you would be against turning people into zombies too.

Illven
2016-07-09, 08:23 PM
The restriction applies even if the undead is destroyed, however. Someone that gets poisoned to death in 3.5 can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets stabbed to death can be raised or turned into a zombie, but not both. Someone that gets poisoned to death, turned into a zombie, then the zombie gets stabbed to death, still can't be raised by raise dead. So there is some metaphysical quality to becoming an undead that makes lesser resurrection magic unable to help you. Even if that has nothing to do with the soul, it would almost certainly create a cultural taboo against making zombies willy nilly. Maybe you could have a culture that hands out punishments where people sentenced to serious crimes are turned into undead for some reason, but the general D&D aversion towards raising undead is not arbitrary, it has a basis in how the rules model the game world, at the very least.

And yet the cleric of Mishakal the cleric that at the very least supports mass murder because someone unrelated to the bodies being butchered screwed up doesn't form a cultural taboo?

And it's my job for me to justify bringing my necromancers into game, and not Baron von cheerleader for the great butchers to justify why we should allow them.


Listen, if you lived in a world where you can get brought back to life, except that, if your body gets turned into a zombie you can't, you would be against turning people into zombies too.

You're making a false equivalency. (Also assuming that we'd do something that we might not do.)

Becoming an undead doesn't make it impossible to come back to life it makes it harder. And it can be far easier to bring someone to undeath, then someone back to life.

Frankly if you lived in a world where undead was the cheaper easier option you'd be all for that. (:smallwink:)

The Insanity
2016-07-09, 09:08 PM
Alignment adds nothing, at best, and is actively harmful at worst. I don't understand why anyone would want to keep it in.
Their opinion and experience might differ from your own.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-09, 09:12 PM
That's crap. The animation of dead flesh through necromancy usually does no harm to the soul.

Which means it does.
Which means your charge is what is crap.


If it takes the soul, then a simple yes or no about wanting undeadification answers any question.

Answers the question for who - the necromancer who wants undead minions and doesn't care about their souls because he evil, or the other PCs who do care because they aren't evil?


Positive energy isn't inherently good (As evidenced by the dozens of always evil living creatures.) it makes no sense for negative energy to be evil. It's rather victim blamey to make Vampire always evil as well.

Which is . . . thoroughly irrelevant.


As for backstabbing I far more expect the cleric of Mishakal to be doing that. The necromancer might decide to betray me, if it's convenient, or I screw up. The cleric of Mishakal might decide to kill me, along with tens of thousands of innocent lives because someone completely unrelated to me and that I never heard of screwed up. AREN'T THEY THE BEST GOOD GUYS! :smallannoyed:

Which . . . is a reason not to adventure with a cleric of Mishakal, not a reason to adventure with an evil necromancer cleric.
(Note: I am not a DL player, so I don't know whether that scenario is valid in the first place.)


Wow. People get real testy if you say that alignment systems aren't positive. Have I struck a nerve?

I don't know, have you?
Or are you getting testy because people disagree with your declaration that removing alignment is a panacea and can provide examples showing why?


As I said earlier, I'm personally fine with PvP so long as everyone knows ahead of time and you take strides to keep it friendly.

So . . . jump through hoops so one guy can hose over everyone else but don't allow retaliation?
Of course if your strides to keep it friendly fail you will need another group and another campaign.


Instead of possibilities like "I want to be a lich because I'm afraid of dying more than I'm afraid of what it will do to me" where the morality is a little bit more nuanced than "I wanna be a lich because I'm playing a necromancer and I have to do evil stuff, so lichdom seems about right."

Or . . . a player decides to go renegade mastermaker in order to live forever as a construct because he doesn't want to be a necromancer and lich.
Wait . . . a mechanical option empowering an alternative roleplaying option?
Hmmm . . .


In my personal experience, systems without alignment have fewer problems with evil characters ruining the fun. Systems with it tend to have that problem a lot more frequently.

And in mine, the problems are equally present no matter the system.

Taking one of the examples Darth Ultron presented, I was in a Champions game where the one player without a code against killing offed a nemesis-in-training in complete cold blood, and the other players were outraged both in-character with their codes against killing, and out of character at the circumstances.

I've played and run other Champions games where players avoided code against killing and felt it gave them free reign to destroy anything and everything they encountered, much as they did in AD&D claiming an Evil or Chaotic Neutral alignment and declaring it gave the same license to rampage.

And "oddly", those same players seemed to feel free to treat their other Psych Limits as excuses to act like jerks, essentially free character points since that's how they wanted to act anyway, and were shocked if they were ever held against them.
You know, like acting within an alignment.

Overall, it was the players, not the presence or absence of an alignment system that caused problems.


Like I said, we can't infer into qualities beyond what we're given if they aren't given.

Indeed, let's not infer into qualities aspects of alignment systems or the lack thereof.
Otherwise it is quite easy to come up with reasons either method will fail, and even easier to ignore when the problem is shifted to questioning certain character concepts without issues of alignment.

Cluedrew
2016-07-09, 09:28 PM
Everyone quotes this, but it's not the first moment of the trick. The trick starts with "You don't need to see his identification." However, it's the droids line that resonates.Yes, and there was a 'move along' right after. I use it because it is the most iconic one. My favourite one is actually the Deathsticks one from the Clone Wars. Possibly because I had a book of maps of Star Wars locations and the one for that bar had a label on a guy walking away from the bar: "[Deathsticks dealer] goes home to rethink his life."


I think it's because 'droids' gives the line inherent context, while 'identification' could be from nearly any movie/book etc.That might be it. Can't say for sure but it makes sense.


Alignment adds nothing, at best, and is actively harmful at worst. I don't understand why anyone would want to keep it in.I find them useful for describing characters. The 9 alignments are (broad) archetypes in their own right and can be used to describe characters that fix into them. And even when the character doesn't fit into one of them, describing how they don't fit into the alignment chart can be useful. At least for me.

The cosmic but real (in setting) side of it can get a little bit weird and probably doesn't belong in a generic game. I mean you can make some of it work by flavouring to angelic/demonic. The paladin would need some tweaks, but it could be done.

Illven
2016-07-09, 09:41 PM
Which means it does.
Which means your charge is what is crap.



Answers the question for who - the necromancer who wants undead minions and doesn't care about their souls because he evil, or the other PCs who do care because they aren't evil?



Which is . . . thoroughly irrelevant.



Which . . . is a reason not to adventure with a cleric of Mishakal, not a reason to adventure with an evil necromancer cleric.
(Note: I am not a DL player, so I don't know whether that scenario is valid in the first place.)


No it means, that because sometimes it can isn't a good reason to block all necromancers. Or is the fact that Fireball Could napalm a group of orphans reason to ban evokers. I mean it could happen right.

The necromancer who cares very much about the souls right and is willing to re-destroy the undead in question if the undead didn't wish to be reanimated.

It is thoroughly relevant to the discussion. There is a assumption that a necromancer should have to prove their right to join a group far more then any other class. That assumption is flawed.

But the necromancer gets far more judgmental looks then the player who wants to play a cleric ever does. It's assumed that a cleric of a neutral or good aligned deity won't harm any group. Why is that?

RickAllison
2016-07-09, 09:54 PM
In my current gaming group, we have had two players who have treated the line of evil. We had the stereotypical evil player as one: his two characters so far have been a paladin of vengeance who would try to kill anyone we were interrogating, and a GOOlock cultist who didn't last two sessions because he decided it was a great idea to attack anyone who questioned Cthulhu and happened to attack a shapeshifted Ancient Silver Dragon who one-shot him with a breath attack. Not the best experience. The other had a NG swashbuckler with severe PTSD (and probably should have dropped to TN at best) and a LN monk who ruthlessly enforced the covenant of a land and its denizens, but held no care for any but the almost-universally recognized laws for outsiders. Both were fiercely protective and loyal to the party, but the scarred veteran was disruptive due to the unreliability of his triggers while the monk was appreciated for always having a few potions of healing nearby (though the other monk tried to get him away from stealing).

The Stupid Evil characters were incredibly disruptive, and the veteran was as well despite being an overall good person. The monk who probably should have been LE worked completely fine because he was played maturely, he contributed to the group, and he listened to IC concerns. Once, he attempted to blow up an airship to free some captured air elementals powering it (he was an aarakocra, so they were close allies), but he left them be when other party members expressed their misgivings with his plan. This didn't change his outlook on the situation, but an intelligent Evil PC would certainly consider his friendship and alliance with the other PCs far more important than any but the most crucial steps in evil plans.

Essentially, people who are going to screw with the party as an evil character would do that regardless of the alignment restrictions. That same person in my group was in a different group and created a series of disruptive, Good PCs who delivered McGuffins to the Evil Empire because they considered the organization it brought critical to social stability, had erotic tendencies that disturbed both PCs and players, had to be institutionalized by the other players for being insane, and tried to program another PC to save the Galaxy. It didn't matter whether there was an alignment system, or what his alignment was, all of his PCs were disruptive.

When deciding whether a player should be allowed to make an evil PC, just consider how they have already run good PCs. If they contributed to RP and weren't disruptive then, they probably won't afterward.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-09, 10:01 PM
No it means, that because sometimes it can isn't a good reason to block all necromancers. Or is the fact that Fireball Could napalm a group of orphans reason to ban evokers. I mean it could happen right.

The necromancer who cares very much about the souls right and is willing to re-destroy the undead in question if the undead didn't wish to be reanimated.

Which of course is why I provided additional reasons based on the character background.
Or did you not read that part?


It is thoroughly relevant to the discussion.

No, it isn't.
The quality of other elements is irrelevant to the qualities of a necromancer when considering the necromancer for inclusion in a party.
By your assertion, noting that the assassin class exists is justification for refusing all characters because they could possible become assassins at some point.


There is a assumption that a necromancer should have to prove their right to join a group far more then any other class. That assumption is flawed.

Why?
Because you don't like it?


But the necromancer gets far more judgmental looks then the player who wants to play a cleric ever does. It's assumed that a cleric of a neutral or good aligned deity won't harm any group. Why is that?

Because . . . of the other elements inherent in the nature of the alignments and deities of such clerics?
You know, elements of role-playing and backstory and flavor.

Not every class is as group friendly as every other class.
More, not every character concept is as group friendly as every other character concept.

And in case you've never encountered it, the "Awful Good" stereotype exists.
Not everyone is thrilled with every traditional "heroic" archetype either.

AvatarVecna
2016-07-09, 10:05 PM
Does necromancy trap the soul of the deceased within the animated corpse? If not, then who's being harmed? I mean sure, one could argue that it dishonors the memory of the person, but as long as the cadavar is treated with respect while its animated, and it's being put to work for a good cause, it's hardly dishonoring the person's memory worse than IRL organ donation. Hell, I could imagine a government setting that kind of thing up similar to the organ donation thing, like "are you okay with your body being used for labor and combat post-mortem?

On the other hand, if it does trap their soul in their body, what if you only animated the corpses of evil doers, or of people whose permission you collected prior to their death? Surely spending an eternity as a shambling corpse is a better existence than whatever Evil Afterlife was in store for them (my vague recollection is that most Evil Afterlifes are rather unpleasant, but I suppose I could be remember incorrectly) right? And surely the wishes of those non-evil people are important, right?

But maybe you think that two wrongs don't make a right; committing an evil act on an evil creature doesn't make it a good act, you say. Sure, that's fair I suppose. Hey by the way, since we agree that being evil to evil creatures doesn't make you good, you make sure to knock your Good players down to at least Neutral when they start slaughtering sentient creatures, right? You do that, right? Surely you don't just say "eh, they're just goblins, the gods don't care if you slaughter this sentient species because they're evil", right?

Of course, even after all that, it's possible to be a non-evil Necromancer. Just use the existing method for victim-less corpse creation and animate away, knowing that nobody is being harmed.

goto124
2016-07-09, 10:11 PM
The idea that "undeath tortures souls" sounds like an excuse to make undead evil. It's as if a player said "Since this evil guy tried to killed us, and we killed him in self-defense, let's raise his corpse to aid us in our quest to save the world!", but the GM twitched at the idea of good people creating undead, and went on to say "You can't! Because... er... raising dead traps the soul in a painful eternity! Yeah!"

Undead are made into evil because it gives a visceral reaction (being inherently creepy), and good heroes can have no qualms killing them because they're supposed to be dead anyway. Easy to brand necromancers evil-on-sight like that, marketing and all that.

JNAProductions
2016-07-09, 10:12 PM
I thought "traps the soul" means you're endlessly torturing the person who's supposed to have a nice restful sleep.

That aside, the idea that "undeath tortures souls" sounds like an excuse to make undead evil. It's as if a player said "Since this evil guy tried to killed us, and we killed him in self-defense, let's raise his corpse to aid us in our quest to save the world!", but the GM twitched at the idea of good people creating undead, and went on to say "You can't! Because... er... raising dead traps the soul in a painful eternity! Yeah!"

Undead are made into evil because it gives a visceral reaction (being inherently creepy), and good heroes can have no qualms killing them because they're supposed to be dead anyway.

None of which makes them actually evil. Or the people who raise them evil.

goto124
2016-07-09, 10:15 PM
None of which makes them actually evil. Or the people who raise them evil.

Exactly my point.


Does necromancy trap the soul of the deceased within the animated corpse? If not, then who's being harmed? I mean sure, one could argue that it dishonors the memory of the person, but as long as the cadavar is treated with respect while its animated, and it's being put to work for a good cause, it's hardly dishonoring the person's memory worse than IRL organ donation. Hell, I could imagine a government setting that kind of thing up similar to the organ donation thing, like "are you okay with your body being used for labor and combat post-mortem?

Already done! IRL, Many people do donate their dead bodies for scientific causes. It's not too far off to have similar cultures in a fantasy setting. Heck, players have come up with settings where being animated after death is the respectful thing to do.

RickAllison
2016-07-09, 10:21 PM
Does necromancy trap the soul of the deceased within the animated corpse? If not, then who's being harmed? I mean sure, one could argue that it dishonors the memory of the person, but as long as the cadavar is treated with respect while its animated, and it's being put to work for a good cause, it's hardly dishonoring the person's memory worse than IRL organ donation. Hell, I could imagine a government setting that kind of thing up similar to the organ donation thing, like "are you okay with your body being used for labor and combat post-mortem?

On the other hand, if it does trap their soul in their body, what if you only animated the corpses of evil doers, or of people whose permission you collected prior to their death? Surely spending an eternity as a shambling corpse is a better existence than whatever Evil Afterlife was in store for them (my vague recollection is that most Evil Afterlifes are rather unpleasant, but I suppose I could be remember incorrectly) right? And surely the wishes of those non-evil people are important, right?

But maybe you think that two wrongs don't make a right; committing an evil act on an evil creature doesn't make it a good act, you say. Sure, that's fair I suppose. Hey by the way, since we agree that being evil to evil creatures doesn't make you good, you make sure to knock your Good players down to at least Neutral when they start slaughtering sentient creatures, right? You do that, right? Surely you don't just say "eh, they're just goblins, the gods don't care if you slaughter this sentient species because they're evil", right?

Of course, even after all that, it's possible to be a non-evil Necromancer. Just use the existing method for victim-less corpse creation and animate away, knowing that nobody is being harmed.

This is a point I've always thought depended on the DM. Mine differentiates between the mindless undead like skeletons and zombies and the intelligent ones like wights. Basically, the mindless are driven by negative energy and their only instinct is the destruction (or when I DM, absorption) of positive energy. The intelligent become so due to the previous soul being used as soil for the seed of the undead' animus, giving it rudimentary aspects of personality (who it hates, who it might care for, how quickly it is angered, etc.) and the potential to develop that personality.

For this reason, my LG cleric/wizard has the outlook that mindless undead are only an issue if the dead are disturbed, while he is passionately opposed to intelligent undead. So long as he returns the bones to rest, creating a squadron of skeleton archers harms no one but evildoers, while creating a wight has the potential to scar someone's soul while also depriving the Raven Queen of her new arrivals until the soul is freed.

Illven
2016-07-09, 10:21 PM
Which of course is why I provided additional reasons based on the character background.
Or did you not read that part?



No, it isn't.
The quality of other elements is irrelevant to the qualities of a necromancer when considering the necromancer for inclusion in a party.
By your assertion, noting that the assassin class exists is justification for refusing all characters because they could possible become assassins at some point.



Why?
Because you don't like it?



Because . . . of the other elements inherent in the nature of the alignments and deities of such clerics?
You know, elements of role-playing and backstory and flavor.

Not every class is as group friendly as every other class.
More, not every character concept is as group friendly as every other character concept.

And in case you've never encountered it, the "Awful Good" stereotype exists.
Not everyone is thrilled with every traditional "heroic" archetype either.

Honestly no, my apologies I only read the part that was quoting me.

No, because it's not true.

It is relevant because the two arguments I see against undead that don't boil down to "Oh maybe it harms the soul." And blatant "Undead are icky" are
1 Negative energy is the opposite of Positive energy and therefore evil. But that's a flawed assumption because so many creatures with positive energy are always evil aligned.
2 Negative energy is inherently harmful to mortals. Therefore evil. But I don't see anyone suggesting we make fire elementals always evil.

No, because I've yet to see a good justification for it. Just because there isn't don't pretend the blame is on me for not agreeing with you.

Right not every class is as group friendly as other classes. We call them Paladins.

AvatarVecna
2016-07-09, 10:27 PM
Already done! IRL, Many people do donate their dead bodies for scientific causes. It's not too far off to have similar cultures in a fantasy setting. Heck, players have come up with settings where being animated after death is the respectful thing to do.

Exactly. Hell, one of the points against animating undead I saw earlier was that undead can't be Resurrected, but not only is that only true if the corpse is undead at the time of the spell being cast (who's gonna drop a small fortune in diamonds when they don't know if they body is being used?), but even in a world where high level clerics are common, Raise Dead isn't exactly cheap: a Human Commoner 6 with full ranks in Profession and Wis 18 makes about 600 gp a year, meaning that this veteran farmer has to either save up 9 years worth of pay on the off-chance his wife or one of his children snuffs it, or he has to find a way to make 9 years worth of pay in the maximum three weeks it'll take for little Timmy to have been dead too long for Raise Dead to work. I don't know about you, but if there was an IRL service that would resurrect my dead child if I could provide them with $135000 worth of diamonds, my little Timmy would be staying dead.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-09, 10:53 PM
It takes me maybe 30 seconds and I only have to say it once. Then all the problems you stated are pretty much dealt with.

So your answer is to run an evil campaign with PVP. And sure, this works great. When everyone is evil and the game is on a cutthroat edge, then that does cut down on most evil acts vs the other PCs. After all the ''big part'' of being evil is you need to be evil in a good world. Being evil in an evil world can still be a little fun, but nothing is like the rush of being evil in a good world.

And sure, you'd say your game is not evil, and you'd just use another word to mean ''evil to anyone else but me'', but it's all the same.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-09, 11:18 PM
Already done! IRL, Many people do donate their dead bodies for scientific causes. It's not too far off to have similar cultures in a fantasy setting. Heck, players have come up with settings where being animated after death is the respectful thing to do.

Also already done in real life is to treat desecration of the dead as a horrific crime.
Indeed already done in real life is to treat the dissection of the dead for scientific purposes as an abominable crime.
Further already done in real life is to treat undeath as horrific.
And done even more in real life is to treat the undead as utterly evil.

Hey wait!

Maybe . . . just maybe . . . the game treating undead as evil isn't that outrageous.
Maybe . . . the game treating necromancers as irredeemably evil isn't unusual.

Why, gee . . .
That would make the whole concept just a standard trope, and not some abominable plot to ruin the fun of anyone who wants to play a necromancer.

Of course that would undermine the basis for most complaints, so of course it should be dismissed out of hand in favor of recent revisionism turning monsters into misunderstood victims at worst, happy friends at best.

Hmmm . . .


Honestly no, my apologies I only read the part that was quoting me.

And yet still no acknowledgement of any of those points.


No, because it's not true.

Then neither is your complaint below:


It is relevant because the two arguments I see against undead that don't boil down to "Oh maybe it harms the soul." And blatant "Undead are icky" are
1 Negative energy is the opposite of Positive energy and therefore evil. But that's a flawed assumption because so many creatures with positive energy are always evil aligned.
2 Negative energy is inherently harmful to mortals. Therefore evil. But I don't see anyone suggesting we make fire elementals always evil.

Since you've dismissed this as valid I don't have to bother.


No, because I've yet to see a good justification for it. Just because there isn't don't pretend the blame is on me for not agreeing with you.

Well actually, the blame is on you - for refusing to read, and address, the other issues involved, and for playing the subjective "good justification" card as if that constitutes proof of your position.


Right not every class is as group friendly as other classes. We call them Paladins.

So again you demand your bias be accepted as perfectly valid with no actual evidence, no "good justification for it", and insist others are to blame because they don't just agree with you.

The topic of the thread is:
"Why are so many groups against token evil team mates?"
That has been answered.
If you refuse to acknowledge the reasons people have for objecting you have little ground to be upset when people object to your reasons for wanting to play such characters.

Hiro Protagonest
2016-07-09, 11:33 PM
Also already done in real life is to treat desecration of the dead as a horrific crime.
Indeed already done in real life is to treat the dissection of the dead for scientific purposes as an abominable crime.
Further already done in real life is to treat undeath as horrific.
And done even more in real life is to treat the undead as utterly evil.

Hey wait!

Maybe . . . just maybe . . . the game treating undead as evil isn't that outrageous.
Maybe . . . the game treating necromancers as irredeemably evil isn't unusual.

Why, gee . . .
That would make the whole concept just a standard trope, and not some abominable plot to ruin the fun of anyone who wants to play a necromancer.

Of course that would undermine the basis for most complaints, so of course it should be dismissed out of hand in favor of recent revisionism turning monsters into misunderstood victims at worst, happy friends at best.

For better or worse, I cannot get into a debate about real-world religion here, but I think I can say at least this much: none of that is based in science. It's all religion. Religion has been a completely human force throughout history, and is thus practically impossible to pin down to any side of the alignment chart, good or evil. And the iteration of D&D which we look to for the definitive alignment system was created in the early 21st century, and the game itself has been persecuted by real-world religion.

Illven
2016-07-09, 11:47 PM
Also already done in real life is to treat desecration of the dead as a horrific crime.
Indeed already done in real life is to treat the dissection of the dead for scientific purposes as an abominable crime.
Further already done in real life is to treat undeath as horrific.
And done even more in real life is to treat the undead as utterly evil.

Hey wait!

Maybe . . . just maybe . . . the game treating undead as evil isn't that outrageous.
Maybe . . . the game treating necromancers as irredeemably evil isn't unusual.

Why, gee . . .
That would make the whole concept just a standard trope, and not some abominable plot to ruin the fun of anyone who wants to play a necromancer.

Of course that would undermine the basis for most complaints, so of course it should be dismissed out of hand in favor of recent revisionism turning monsters into misunderstood victims at worst, happy friends at best.

Hmmm . . .



And yet still no acknowledgement of any of those points.



Then neither is your complaint below:



Since you've dismissed this as valid I don't have to bother.



Well actually, the blame is on you - for refusing to read, and address, the other issues involved, and for playing the subjective "good justification" card as if that constitutes proof of your position.



So again you demand your bias be accepted as perfectly valid with no actual evidence, no "good justification for it", and insist others are to blame because they don't just agree with you.

The topic of the thread is:
"Why are so many groups against token evil team mates?"
That has been answered.
If you refuse to acknowledge the reasons people have for objecting you have little ground to be upset when people object to your reasons for wanting to play such characters.

As you have brought real world religion into this, I must respectfully bow out.

Enixon
2016-07-09, 11:51 PM
The way I see it if you're playing what D&D would consider a Good or Evil character in a game that doesn't have mechanical alignments they're still a good or evil character just because Jim's heroic knight Sir Guy the Goodly dosn't have "Good" written in a box on the top of his Rune Quest character sheet dosn't mean he now going to let Sam's villianous sorcerer Murdermus the Homicidal fireball a bunch of bystanders in order to get the bad guy hiding in their midsts or whatever other evil acts he as a evil character would do, despite not having "Evil" written in a box on the top of his character sheet.

I might be missing something but far as I can tell the baggage is all still all there, the only difference being that in D&D (or other game with alignments) is that the GM follows "Ya know Jim, you're not playing Sir Guy the Goodly very goodly" with "change your alignment from good to neutral"

Segev
2016-07-09, 11:59 PM
This seems like a good thread for it. I have an evil party and need help dealing with the token good member.

We're all kind of ruthless and willing to destroy people in order to achieve our political goals. And then there's our servant. He tried to free our hostage that we needed to exchange in order for valuable information just because we were torturing him a little. He constantly blurts out the truth in front of other people whenever we're trying to lie to them. He's not intentionally malicious to the party, he's just headstrong and idealistic.

Looking for solutions that don't involve taking him out back into the woods and putting him down. Halp.

Why does this "token good teammate" hang out with your evil party? If he's not deliberately malicious, then perhaps treat his "goodness" as a peccadillo. A weakness he has that the party of evil people is surprisingly okay with, but has to work around. So they just treat him like he has a disability that has to be dealt with. Come up with euphemisms he understands but can gloss over, and use those t to tell him when he should turn away or not be present. Don't let him be around when talking to people you need to keep secrets from. Recognize situations where he'll be a liability, and keep him out of them.

At the same time, help build his reputation for trustworthiness and nobility. Let him do things and even work with him to achieve his moral ends at times when it costs the party little, and then capitalize on the potential for good PR. Then you can put him forth with truths you want spread, and expect people to trust him. And by extension, the rest of you low-life scumbags.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-10, 12:03 AM
The way I see it if you're playing what D&D would consider a Good or Evil character in a game that doesn't have mechanical alignments they're still a good or evil character just because Jim's heroic knight Sir Guy the Goodly dosn't have "Good" written in a box on the top of his Rune Quest character sheet dosn't mean he now going to let Sam's villianous sorcerer Murdermus the Homicidal fireball a bunch of bystanders in order to get the bad guy hiding in their midsts or whatever other evil acts he as a evil character would do, despite not having "Evil" written in a box on the top of his character sheet.

I might be missing something but far as I can tell the baggage is all still all there, the only difference being that in D&D (or other game with alignments) is that the GM follows "Ya know Jim, you're not playing Sir Guy the Goodly very goodly" with "change your alignment from good to neutral"

No alignments allows people to more easily make nuanced characters and doesn't pressure them to fit neatly into an alignment box. It's certainly possible to do that with alignments anyway, but it's an extra headache.

Hiro Protagonest
2016-07-10, 12:04 AM
I might be missing something but far as I can tell the baggage is all still all there, the only difference being that in D&D (or other game with alignments) is that the GM follows "Ya know Jim, you're not playing Sir Guy the Goodly very goodly" with "change your alignment from good to neutral"

And that right there is why alignment is bad. It may help beginning roleplayers get into the idea of being a specific character, but if it has gameplay effect, then they'll get worried about acting in ways that "aren't this alignment" even if it would be a logical part of a personality, and if it doesn't have any gameplay effect, then it's just a psychological trap that can have the same effect on the player.

Segev
2016-07-10, 12:05 AM
It is possible sure, kinda like a monkey writing Shakespere possible, but still possible. An evil character can simply do no evil, for example, and the game will roll along fine. The character might even do ''a little'' evil, just fine.

But it is a hard line to walk and it's easy to step over the line....and a character will need to step over the line to do any really ''fun evil'', and that is where the problems will start....Nonsense. Though I suppose you can define "fun evil" as "only stuff that's over the line" to make it a true statement, but then it's a trivially true statement, and is akin to moving goalposts.


There's a third. The PC can play well with the party but uses his Evil as an excuse to be a donkey cavity to NPCs. Sometimes the player will write CN on his character sheet to do the same thing. Negotiations, parleys, investigations, prisoner questioning, etc., get ruined because the PC does something disruptive like uncalled for threats, torture, and drawing of weapons. A non-combat encounter becomes a combat encounter and whatever roleplaying was supposed to be done for the fun of it or advancing the plot never happens.
That's part of number 2, actually: the good-aligned PCs see him being a monster to NPCs and don't want to associate with that. Disruptive behavior is the hallmark of the poorly-played PC, regardless of alignment, but players who engage in it are more likely to do so if they can use evil/chaotic alignment as an excuse.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-07-10, 12:09 AM
Why does this "token good teammate" hang out with your evil party?

He's the elderly caretaker of the family's children and he's very fond of them. Probably equal parts loyalty to the family, a desire to be a good influence on the children, and the fact that he's broke and would probably starve on the streets if we stopped paying him.

Temperjoke
2016-07-10, 12:30 AM
I think it comes down to the difference between being evil for the sake of being evil, versus a nuanced character that can be defined as evil. Same sort of difference between a villain who actively seeks out puppies to kick versus one willing to kick one for more power or reward. Too many people seem to want to play the former, instead of the second, which has burnt out a lot of players on "evil" party members.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 12:50 AM
The way I see it if you're playing what D&D would consider a Good or Evil character in a game that doesn't have mechanical alignments they're still a good or evil character just because Jim's heroic knight Sir Guy the Goodly dosn't have "Good" written in a box on the top of his Rune Quest character sheet dosn't mean he now going to let Sam's villianous sorcerer Murdermus the Homicidal fireball a bunch of bystanders in order to get the bad guy hiding in their midsts or whatever other evil acts he as a evil character would do, despite not having "Evil" written in a box on the top of his character sheet.

I might be missing something but far as I can tell the baggage is all still all there, the only difference being that in D&D (or other game with alignments) is that the GM follows "Ya know Jim, you're not playing Sir Guy the Goodly very goodly" with "change your alignment from good to neutral"

I would definitely watch webisodes/campaign videos between Sir Guy the Goodly and Murdermus the Homicidal. Seems like quite the Odd Couple.


I think it comes down to the difference between being evil for the sake of being evil, versus a nuanced character that can be defined as evil. Same sort of difference between a villain who actively seeks out puppies to kick versus one willing to kick one for more power or reward. Too many people seem to want to play the former, instead of the second, which has burnt out a lot of players on "evil" party members.

I can't be the only one who enjoys the idea of a class that becomes more powerful by kicking adorable animals. Maybe the Poodle Punt special maneuver, or the Dachsund Drop Kick...

goto124
2016-07-10, 12:51 AM
Those can be done if the group agrees to do an evil campaign.

Satinavian
2016-07-10, 01:10 AM
Also already done in real life is to treat desecration of the dead as a horrific crime.
Indeed already done in real life is to treat the dissection of the dead for scientific purposes as an abominable crime.
Further already done in real life is to treat undeath as horrific.
And done even more in real life is to treat the undead as utterly evil.That is why in real life professions that need corpses for some reason have a lot of problems and had even more so in the past.

Like anatomists and surgeons. Horrible people those, right ? Could never work in an adventuring party without betrayinging the rest or being undilomatic and disruptive everywhere. And no good party member would ever forgive them the horrible mutilation of corpses only to learn what is inside or for getting experience in handling human organs.

icefractal
2016-07-10, 01:45 AM
First off, "Is Necromancy really evil?" is an entirely different question than "Do evil characters generally work in non-evil groups?" If I was running and someone wanted to play evil, it would depend on the rest of the party and the campaign. If they wanted to play a neutral-aligned Necromancer - allowed with no hesitation, and casting [Evil] spells has no effect on that unless they do evil things with them. D&D just doesn't do enough to justify undead=evil for my taste.

On the former, this is a big part of it:
There's a third. The PC can play well with the party but uses his Evil as an excuse to be a donkey cavity to NPCs.If I'm playing someone who's supposed to be a decent person, then I don't want to hang out with Hannibal Lector. No, not even if he has useful skills. No, not even if he's very discrete about his 'meals' and it never gets connected to us. No, not even if he's absolutely trustworthy about not eating me personally.

"Evil can be trustworthy to their friends" gets brought up like it's the only factor that matters, but that's only the case if we're playing a style where character personality is unimportant. Or where the other characters are evil / evil-leaning too - in that case a Paladin would be the inappropriate one.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 02:01 AM
First off, "Is Necromancy really evil?" is an entirely different question than "Do evil characters generally work in non-evil groups?" If I was running and someone wanted to play evil, it would depend on the rest of the party and the campaign. If they wanted to play a neutral-aligned Necromancer - allowed with no hesitation, and casting [Evil] spells has no effect on that unless they do evil things with them. D&D just doesn't do enough to justify undead=evil for my taste.

On the former, this is a big part of it:If I'm playing someone who's supposed to be a decent person, then I don't want to hang out with Hannibal Lector. No, not even if he has useful skills. No, not even if he's very discrete about his 'meals' and it never gets connected to us. No, not even if he's absolutely trustworthy about not eating me personally.

"Evil can be trustworthy to their friends" gets brought up like it's the only factor that matters, but that's only the case if we're playing a style where character personality is unimportant. Or where the other characters are evil / evil-leaning too - in that case a Paladin would be the inappropriate one.

Hannibal Lecter is a rather disturbing example. How about instead we have Captain Cold from DC. Someone who is definitely evil, has a code that keeps him from going too far off the deep end (won't kill women or children, wants to gain money and power rather than destroy civilization), and is more than willing to team up with heroes when it is advantageous. Basically, as long as teaming up with good guys gets him money and/or women, Captain Cold could be indistinguishable from his more moral friends. He is just willing to do a few more disreputable things if it gets him more.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-10, 02:43 AM
I don't know, have you?
Or are you getting testy because people disagree with your declaration that removing alignment is a panacea and can provide examples showing why?

I don't know how you read irritation out of anything I said...



So . . . jump through hoops so one guy can hose over everyone else but don't allow retaliation?
Of course if your strides to keep it friendly fail you will need another group and another campaign.

PvP is doable if everyone is willing to act like a grown-up. Maybe I have an unusual amount of maturity in my gaming groups?

Also, how is the ability for your fellow PCs to attack you after discovering your betrayal NOT retaliation? Methinks you need to think this through more.

[QUOTW)
Or . . . a player decides to go renegade mastermaker in order to live forever as a construct because he doesn't want to be a necromancer and lich.
Wait . . . a mechanical option empowering an alternative roleplaying option?
Hmmm . . .
[/QUOTE)
Sure. Alignment has nothing to do with that, though. :P



And in mine, the problems are equally present no matter the system.

Then you have a maturity problem, which no system can solve.



Taking one of the examples Darth Ultron presented, I was in a Champions game where the one player without a code against killing offed a nemesis-in-training in complete cold blood, and the other players were outraged both in-character with their codes against killing, and out of character at the circumstances.

I've played and run other Champions games where players avoided code against killing and felt it gave them free reign to destroy anything and everything they encountered, much as they did in AD&D claiming an Evil or Chaotic Neutral alignment and declaring it gave the same license to rampage.

And "oddly", those same players seemed to feel free to treat their other Psych Limits as excuses to act like jerks, essentially free character points since that's how they wanted to act anyway, and were shocked if they were ever held against them.
You know, like acting within an alignment.

Overall, it was the players, not the presence or absence of an alignment system that caused problems.

That sounds like a system with an especially stupid alignment system, not a system without one.



You're applying a thing I said about an entirely different topic to this one, and it's a severe stretch. Come on, now.


[QUOTE=Darth Ultron;20982539]So your answer is to run an evil campaign with PVP. And sure, this works great. When everyone is evil and the game is on a cutthroat edge, then that does cut down on most evil acts vs the other PCs. After all the ''big part'' of being evil is you need to be evil in a good world. Being evil in an evil world can still be a little fun, but nothing is like the rush of being evil in a good world.

And sure, you'd say your game is not evil, and you'd just use another word to mean ''evil to anyone else but me'', but it's all the same.
More olympic logical jumps. Going for goldn are we?

Allow me to describe a few characters who I've had in "no alignment" games:
A post-cryofreeze soldier trying to bring peace and order back to the wasteland. (Was a genuinely good guy in pretty much every way.)

A former merc turned rogue after she refused to participate in unethical deals, trying to bring the misdeeds of her former employers to light.

A hacker with a heart of gold who raised an AI like it was his child.

A wasteland wanderer who managed to rehab a drug addict and save an entire town from destruction.

A junker who sacrificed his own life to ensure a tyrant didn't rise to power.

So evil, right? And these are the best examples only: Most fall into pretty solid "neutral" territory.

No alignment just meants we don't put their moral systems into convenient boxes. We still talk about the kind of game we want to have, and when the order of the day is heroism, people will gravitate towards heroics.

If the order of the day is Antiheroesn that's what they do.

If they want Scum and Villainy, they play as that.

Bear in mind that even with the ability to play as Jedi and Rebel Soldiers, the star wars games by Fantasy Flight don't feature alignments.

Even though shadowrunners are often portrayed as underdog rebels, Shadowrun has no alignments.

FATE has no formal alignments.

OD&D doesn't have Good and Evil at all, just Law and Chaos (which meant you actively fought in service of those forces) and most OD&D groups managed cohesion.

The whole idea that having no alignment leads directly to evil behavior without fail is so fallacious as to be laughable.

Renen
2016-07-10, 02:44 AM
An evil character shouldn't be the one that does evil things because they are evil things. It should be a character that views rules to be more like guidelines, and doesn't mind making the touch choices. This might be someone who kills some prisoner that the actual BBEG tortured half to death, a d who was asking to be put out of their misery. This might be someone who has no problems throwing an NPC to the wolves, because otherwise the wolves would get 2 or more other NPCs. Or this might be someone who has no problem using lethal force on the city guards who are doing their job, because doing otherwise would take too long, and the bad guy would get away and cause even more deaths.

Kami2awa
2016-07-10, 03:08 AM
Necromancy is largely considered evil for historical reasons. Belief in the sanctity of the body, or even that the body had to stay intact or at least undisturbed in order for the soul to rest, was pretty widespread. Summoning the soul was also interfering with the "natural order" set out by god(s).

It's not inconceivable, however, that there would be a fantasy world where the sanctity of the body is ignored, for whatever reason, so some forms of necromancy would not be seen as evil. I don't see this disrupting the game too much! So if the GM is OK with it, a good necromancer doesn't seem to present a problem.

However, if the GM says "in my world, necromancy is evil" then that's their choice, and perfectly valid given the historical inspirations of D&D. A typical fantasy world runs off mysticism, not pragmatism, and so some things will just not make sense from a pragmatic viewpoint.

Balmas
2016-07-10, 03:50 AM
I'm really not sure that discussing whether necromancy is inherently evil is relevant to the discussion at hand. The initial post established that they're playing 3.5 D&D, where necromancy is evil, full stop. Going off on tangents about no-alignment systems and whether or not it's evil to raise the dead serves no purpose.

RE: Why people are against evil teammates?
I think that it mainly comes down to disruption. It is assumed that most characters are neutral or good in D&D. When someone comes in and says, "I want to be evil," they are disrupting the accepted dynamics of the majority of D&D groups. Evil characters are disruptive, both to the dynamics of the players and to the group of player characters.

There's the element of trust involved. Player characters need to be able to know that somebody in the group will have their back, no matter the circumstances. When somebody at the table is playing an evil character, this is difficult at best. If a shadowy figure comes in and offers a bribe for someone to betray the party, you know who everyone at the table is going to look at. When something goes missing, the evil person will always be the first person to be accused.

I should note that this trust applies both in and out of character. I know that OP says that he plans to hide his evil, and that he's really good at hiding it in character. This is a TERRIBLE plan. I cannot emphasize this enough. It's not enough to say, "Well, I just won't tell them," because the first time you raise something from the grave, anyone with even a modicum of system knowledge is going to point at you and say, "You're evil!" And then the player doesn't trust you, and then the PC doesn't trust you. It's metagaming, I know, but very few players will willingly accept that "We are playing with an evil person" without trying to out you in game. And eventually you'll fail a bluff check, or be caught without your magic doodad of false alignment, and then everyone at the table and in the game doesn't trust you.

Keep in mind that I've actually played a few evil characters. Gabriel was a merc who the party contracted. Greedy, and with a tendency to view people as either things he needed to protect or obstacles to be eliminated, the only reason he was staying with the idiots in the party was because they'd already paid him to bring them to the Empire and his honor demanded he follow through. In retrospect, I was kind of an ******* when I played him, and I wouldn't want to see him face play again, because he just wasn't good for group dynamics. The only reason he worked as a character was because the group knew that while he was a douchebag, he was their douchebag, and would willingly die for them if the job required it.

My advice? Talk to your DM. Talk to your group. See about making it so that necromancy is not an evil act, as from what I understand, that's the main reason you want to be evil. If anyone objects to you being evil, then don't be evil. File it back into the list of character concepts that are cool, but aren't acceptable at the table. It sucks, but it's better to play an alternate character concept than destroy the trust your table has for you by playing it against their will, or worse, trying to hide what you're doing.

Murk
2016-07-10, 04:00 AM
I think it isn't so much the necromancy on its own that would get this "token evil character" into trouble here.

OP gave the example of forcing a captured goblin into servitude by not really nice means. I'm not exactly sure what happened to the poor goblin, but let's imagine there was some coercion and semi-torture.

The real question here is: can you, OOC, guarantee that the other players, IC, will never find out?
To which the answer is: no, you can not. No matter how good your skills are or how cunning your character, something could happen that makes the other players find out.

And then we have the following scenario: good character finds out that his team mate (repeatedly) tortures captives.
Well, no matter how useful it was, or how cunning, there's no way a good character can condone that. In the best case, they hand you over to the nearest constable.


So it's not really about the character directly hurting its party members, or about being stupid evil, or about being subtle with it. It's about good characters never being able to forgive evil deeds: that's what they are good characters for. You are what they fight.
Sure, you can work together with them, but can they work together with you? No. Unless they never find out, and that's not something you can promise.

NichG
2016-07-10, 04:21 AM
Hmmm... What if that same criteria - you need group permission to play it, and anyone can object at any time (based on IC or OOC reasons) - were applied to chaotic characters? Anything with religious fluff? Wizards? Humans? Non-pacifists ? Everything?

Well, it kind of does, depending on the group. Some groups hate having Kender, or Tinker Gnomes, or Drizzt clones, or T1 classes, ... The group decides the social contract.

The reason I ask is that this is a case where the group has decided 'we don't want evil characters, because we believe players will use it to be a jerk'. A player is now coming in and saying 'but, trust me, I won't be a jerk' - asking for a special exemption from what the group had decided. So it's actually asymmetric - the new player is asking for trust, but isn't giving any trust in return.

So my question comes down to, what if that player had to trust the others just as much as they're trusting him? Would they still want to play the evil character, or does being told explicitly that they can't use being evil to justify being a jerk to even one other player and that trying to do so will get their rights rescinded turn them off from the idea?

Frozen_Feet
2016-07-10, 04:30 AM
I have nothing against evil characters, as long as few things are understood:

1) Reciprocity is a thing. If your character acts ****ty towards other characters, don't be surprised if they act ****ty towards you.
2) There is NO PC-NPC-asymmetry in this regard. If you commit evil acts, pulling out "but I'm a (fellow) PC" does not help in any shape or form.
2b) If other player characters put up with your character's ****ty behaviour because they don't want to "split the party", that's on them and their players. I, as a GM, do not require characters to act as one group. I, as a GM, are not obligated to solve in-character relationship problems.

The reason why evil characters can be such a nuisance is because, in terms of Kohlberg's stages of moral development, they (and occasionally their players) operate on level 1, at best on level 2, where as group functionality requires level 3, and Lawful Good and Paladin-like characters are meant to operate on levels 4 or 5.

If characters and players operating on higher levels don't acknowledge this and fail to engage in altruistic punishment towards defectors, oppurtunistic defecting on part of lower level character will never stop.

What is altruistic punishment, you ask? It means punishing defectors even when there's no immediate benefit to the punisher, and the punisher may even incur costs. It mean throwing out the party Rogue even it means stopping the adventure and returning to town.

This is not different, in principle, from throwing out a disruptive player. The point is that if you want to have evil characters, you cannot punish players for actions of their characters. IC penalties (=character gets kicked out) for IC actions (=murdering other characters, stealing their stuff etc.), OOC penalties (=player gets kicked put) for OOC actions (=breaking rules of the game, showing up late, stealing another player's stuff).

Satinavian
2016-07-10, 05:25 AM
And then we have the following scenario: good character finds out that his team mate (repeatedly) tortures captives.
Well, no matter how useful it was, or how cunning, there's no way a good character can condone that. In the best case, they hand you over to the nearest constable. That would actually require "torture captured goblins" to be a crime instead of only something evil. More likely is that the party parts ways as one of the more drastic outcomes.



So it's not really about the character directly hurting its party members, or about being stupid evil, or about being subtle with it. It's about good characters never being able to forgive evil deeds: that's what they are good characters for. You are what they fight.That is not what good characters are.

Good characters don't to evil deeds (in any meaningful way that could trigger alignment shift). Good characters do good deeds. That is all. "Fighting Evil" is not included and most good characters don't do it. And "never being able to forgive" is decidedly a not particularly good mindset.



I have nothing against evil characters, as long as few things are understood:

1) Reciprocity is a thing. If your character acts ****ty towards other characters, don't be surprised if they act ****ty towards you.
2) There is NO PC-NPC-asymmetry in this regard. If you commit evil acts, pulling out "but I'm a (fellow) PC" does not help in any shape or form.
2b) If other player characters put up with your character's ****ty behaviour because they don't want to "split the party", that's on them and their players. I, as a GM, do not require characters to act as one group. I, as a GM, are not obligated to solve in-character relationship problems.I agree. Of course i would try to help as GM in such situations but not force anything. Onlly the players can really solve it.


The reason why evil characters can be such a nuisance is because, in terms of Kohlberg's stages of moral development, they (and occasionally their players) operate on level 1, at best on level 2, where as group functionality requires level 3, and Lawful Good and Paladin-like characters are meant to operate on levels 4 or 5.I really don't agree here. Someone like the fictional ideal "Prince" from Machiavelli (not talking about the Borgia guy) or both the real life and the literaric version of Cardinal Richelieu are clearly evil but would probably fit on stages 4 or 5 themself, as would quite a lot of evil PCs. And good aligned or Paladin characters can work pretty well on stages 2-3.

If characters and players operating on higher levels don't acknowledge this and fail to engage in altruistic punishment towards defectors, oppurtunistic defecting on part of lower level character will never stop.Raising the issue of punishment always raises the question of authority and power, which makes it difficult. PCs are usually on equal footing here.

Frozen_Feet
2016-07-10, 06:05 AM
Evil characters operating on level 3 or above typically are not disruptive, because they tend to either have or coerce co-operation of their ingroup - namely, other PCs.

As for punishment and authority, who has authority to punish who, for what, and how, is something every small group has to work out among themselves and it's downright sad how little thought is often spend on this. In a real-life situation, failure to do this leads to dysfunctionality. Of course a single player and their character can run roughshod over N other players and their characters if those N other players and their characters are incapable of showing backbone and resisting. PCs are only equal if they demonstrate equality. The corollary to that is that if you choose to play a character who cannot or will not resist, you have already surrendered authority.

Satinavian
2016-07-10, 06:13 AM
I among of those argueing against a ban of all evil characters. Of course i talk more about the non disruptive types.

As for authority, there are tons of stories about paladins and other good characters whose players try to police other characters because they somehow assume that is both their duty and right for being good aligned. I don't know, where this idea comes from, but it usually creates problems. And not just with evil PCs.

Necroticplague
2016-07-10, 06:33 AM
I don't see why an Evil party member is any more of a problem than a Good or Neutral one. Their are quiet a many philosophies that can be taken are Evil rationalization, but still encourage cooperation. Enlightened self interest ("I help you because I beleive it helps me") is one of the easiest to grasp. So you still have a character who does things for purely self-serving reasons, but still cooperates, because it serves their interests. Depending on the campaign, this can range from anything like "sticking around with these people makes way more money than I could ever make with more mainstream work", to "Hey, I can't let some demon destroy the world, I hope to rule it some time in the future!".

Theoboldi
2016-07-10, 07:54 AM
For me, it's not at all about evil party members being disruptive. Sure, often they are, but to me the bigger issue is that I would simply be uncomfortable with it. When I play a roleplaying game, I want to be in a party of, if not heroic, then at least somewhat decent people.

I'm not comfortable having happy-go-lucky heroic adventures alongside a torturing, extorting, kidnapping, and otherwise awful person, even if they are not directly targeting me. And I certainly can't feel like the good guy if the person who's with me is doing the exact same or even worse things than the person we're fighting against.

Of course, that dynamic changes if I sign up for a game where being evil is part of the premise, but those are not the games I usually join. Signing up with an evil character for your average campaign without checking with the other players whether they are comfortable with it can easily cross boundaries, more so than many other qualities a character can have. And honestly, I've never seen a player who wanted to play an evil character discuss it with the other players. They only ever talked with the DM themselves.


And before anyone asks 'but do you have to check whether others are okay with playing religious characters or violent characters or non-humans', the answer to that is no, since most of those things tend to be already baked into the very premise of the game itself, and more importantly just do not have the potential to as easily cause as many people distress as playing an evil character.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 08:47 AM
To Theoboldi: You know I was going to mention that because I was thinking no one has gotten to it, then suddenly here it is. But yeah, if you are the evil I signed up to destroy there are going to be issues.

It reminds me of a theory I had about evil as a "just beat them up and move on" flag, that is a not that this is the combat side of the game, not the role-playing side. There is an element of it there and it doesn't mix very well with evil PCs.

My main point is just, yes sometimes I just want to sit down and play the big heroes and an evil PC has no place in that game. Conversely I have no place among evil PCs, I dropped from a group because they were switching to an "evil" campaign. (And most of the characters were of the less disruptive type given here, or that is what I have gathered.)

Keltest
2016-07-10, 09:11 AM
For better or worse, I cannot get into a debate about real-world religion here, but I think I can say at least this much: none of that is based in science. It's all religion. Religion has been a completely human force throughout history, and is thus practically impossible to pin down to any side of the alignment chart, good or evil. And the iteration of D&D which we look to for the definitive alignment system was created in the early 21st century, and the game itself has been persecuted by real-world religion.

Actually, theres a fairly practical reason not to go messing around with corpses and at least treat them with a modicum of respect: Disease. Decaying corpses, even animated ones, are great breeding grounds for various unpleasant diseases, and going around digging them up or leaving them just lying around is a pretty definite threat to your community.

I would absolutely not want a team of zombies working my fields no matter how well intentioned the necromancer, because theyre going to infect the village with all sorts of nasty crap. Skeletons are better about this, but barring a specific magical effect that strips the skeletons of all flesh and doesn't leave decaying matter around out in the open, its still quite unsafe.

Odessa333
2016-07-10, 09:52 AM
As others have said, too often the evil player sacrifices the fun of the other players to 'play my character.' It often leads to in party fights which lead to out of character fights, and it can spiral into more drama than anyone wants to deal with at the table.

Personally, I like the IDEA of a mixed alignment party, but it needs to be handled well, with everyone going in knowing 'hey, this is a mixed party, and we're all here to have fun.' Pretty simple in theory, but this gets ignored too often, especially with online groups.

As an example, I played the one evil character in a good aligned party on roll20. It worked well for a while, as my character did the 'dirty jobs' the rest of the party would not (or could not) do, such as dealings with the thieves guild, or making a coup de grace on a helpless enemy. I tended to do this stuff behind the scenes, so the party didn't know I was slitting the throats of our mutual enemies after they let them go in an honorable fashion. Eventually, the group caught on to what was going, and it forced a fight in the party, the good aligned heroes demanding my rogue stop being evil and 'commit to the light of justice' or something. We reached an impasse, where the good aligned party no longer trusted my evil character, watching her every move to make sure she didn't do something evil. Which frankly, ruined any fun I had with her. I ended up retiring the character, having her leave the party to go back to thieving without their morals getting in her way, so everyone could have fun. I rolled up a LG dwarf cleric, and the issue was solved. I feel if I hadn't retired her, if I kept insisting 'hey, I know you're all good guys, but turn a blind eye to me killing some folks, ok?" it would have ruined their fun. Compromise is key in such a scenario, and too many people are not willing to compromise.

Just my thoughts.

Segev
2016-07-10, 09:56 AM
For me, it's not at all about evil party members being disruptive. Sure, often they are, but to me the bigger issue is that I would simply be uncomfortable with it. When I play a roleplaying game, I want to be in a party of, if not heroic, then at least somewhat decent people.

I'm not comfortable having happy-go-lucky heroic adventures alongside a torturing, extorting, kidnapping, and otherwise awful person, even if they are not directly targeting me. And I certainly can't feel like the good guy if the person who's with me is doing the exact same or even worse things than the person we're fighting against.

And that is a perfectly valid reason, as well. But it isn't the most common reason. (Also, it can be answered by a "token evil teammate" who keeps his "evil" to off-screen...pragmatism. It may wind up that the "evil" teammate is more reputedly evil than actually evil, but that can also be enough to get some of those concepts across, too.)

CharonsHelper
2016-07-10, 10:03 AM
As an example, I played the one evil character in a good aligned party on roll20. It worked well for a while, as my character did the 'dirty jobs' the rest of the party would not (or could not) do, such as dealings with the thieves guild, or making a coup de grace on a helpless enemy. I tended to do this stuff behind the scenes, so the party didn't know I was slitting the throats of our mutual enemies after they let them go in an honorable fashion.

Frankly - at least some of that just seems to be cleaning up after their good stupid messes. I've actually have a LG character who uses mostly nonlethal damage. After he has allies check to make sure that they weren't enchanted to attack us (backstory issues) he generally has no problems with finishing them off.

Frozen_Feet
2016-07-10, 11:00 AM
I among of those argueing against a ban of all evil characters. Of course i talk more about the non disruptive types.

As for authority, there are tons of stories about paladins and other good characters whose players try to police other characters because they somehow assume that is both their duty and right for being good aligned. I don't know, where this idea comes from, but it usually creates problems. And not just with evil PCs.

Where that idea comes from? It's baked into the very premise of paladin-like characters and becomes glaringly obvious if you're familiar with the archetype's history. Paladins etc. are military or nobility. The basic archetype assumes fealty to some entity, whether that is religion, a mortal lord, or a specific code of honor. They assume it's their right and duty to police other character BECAUSE IT IS.

If, in a game set in contemporary times, one player chose to play a police officer or a security guard (etc.), would you fault the player for playing the role and, say, arresting another character for illegal behaviour, or preventing entry to a building they're supposed to guard? It's not at all different in principle.

The actual "problem" is having mutually opposed character archetypes in a party and not accepting this will inevitably lead to conflict.

Satinavian
2016-07-10, 11:21 AM
It may be an archetype but it is nowhere in the character class and usually not really the case for PCs. The paladin char is as likely to be nobility as the fighter wizard or even rogue. The only class that gets something like that baked into it is aristocrat. As for leage lords, usually the whole group has one ore none has one. That is why that analogy does not hold very well.

Jay R
2016-07-10, 11:32 AM
It's pretty straightforward, really.

I, personally, do not want to take an unrepentant murderer or thief as a business partner. Any Good or Neutral character I play would not want an Evil business partner either.

Keltest
2016-07-10, 11:42 AM
It's pretty straightforward, really.

I, personally, do not want to take an unrepentant murderer or thief as a business partner. Any Good or Neutral character I play would not want an Evil business partner either.

From a "business partner" standpoint, The only thing I care about is reliability. Can I trust Joe McEvilpants to recognize that random murder in the streets is detrimental to his person and the team? If yes, theyre in. Evil people might be willing to burn down a building with people in it, but theyre also capable of figuring out that there will be consequences for doing so (like getting killed by the good party members) and act accordingly.

basically, stupid evil is to be avoided, smart evil is acceptable.

Theoboldi
2016-07-10, 12:12 PM
And that is a perfectly valid reason, as well. But it isn't the most common reason. (Also, it can be answered by a "token evil teammate" who keeps his "evil" to off-screen...pragmatism. It may wind up that the "evil" teammate is more reputedly evil than actually evil, but that can also be enough to get some of those concepts across, too.)

I don't think it can be answered like that. If the evil characters keeps their evil off-screen, then he is still evil. He's still a horrible person who does horrible things, and it's up to me to accept this and have my otherwise good character overlook them, even if they don't do them around me.

Besides, I don't think this is a good solution for the player of the evil character either. What's the point of playing an evil character if they've got to go along with what the good guys says at every turn, and the only evil things about them are the alignment written on their sheet and some far-off goal that's mentioned once or twice but never actually accomplished because that'd be disruptive? You might as well be playing a very grumpy neutral, and it wouldn't make a difference.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-10, 12:21 PM
And that right there is why alignment is bad. It may help beginning roleplayers get into the idea of being a specific character, but if it has gameplay effect, then they'll get worried about acting in ways that "aren't this alignment" even if it would be a logical part of a personality, and if it doesn't have any gameplay effect, then it's just a psychological trap that can have the same effect on the player.

Sounds more like players just had the wrong alignments.


Nonsense. Though I suppose you can define "fun evil" as "only stuff that's over the line" to make it a true statement, but then it's a trivially true statement, and is akin to moving goalposts.


What art is nonsense? If an evil character does nothing evil then they won't disrupt the party? That evil is a slippery slope? That the more ''dark and evil'' something is the ''more fun'' it is to play for a player that likes evil?




More olympic logical jumps. Going for goldn are we?

Allow me to describe a few characters who I've had in "no alignment" games:

So evil, right? And these are the best examples only: Most fall into pretty solid "neutral" territory. .

Your character examples all sound like good guys. And sure, if you play in a game with good and evil and morals and just say ''there is no alignment, but everyone act like they are good anyway'', sure you have no problems.



No alignment just meants we don't put their moral systems into convenient boxes. We still talk about the kind of game we want to have, and when the order of the day is heroism, people will gravitate towards heroics.

So ''no'' alignments, but everyone acts good?




Bear in mind that even with the ability to play as Jedi and Rebel Soldiers, the star wars games by Fantasy Flight don't feature alignments.

Um...Star Wars Rebels are good guys...



The whole idea that having no alignment leads directly to evil behavior without fail is so fallacious as to be laughable.

If, as in your examples, you have no alignment, but everyone acts good anyway, I'm sure it works out great. And your way works only with the right mind set of players. And as anyone else can tell you, most games have ''that guy'' who is not of the same mind set.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-10, 01:24 PM
That is why in real life professions that need corpses for some reason have a lot of problems and had even more so in the past.

Like anatomists and surgeons. Horrible people those, right ? Could never work in an adventuring party without betrayinging the rest or being undilomatic and disruptive everywhere. And no good party member would ever forgive them the horrible mutilation of corpses only to learn what is inside or for getting experience in handling human organs.

Allow me to introduce you to Burke and Hare:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders

Rather unpleasant fellows.
Yet those upright and honorable anatomists and surgeons were all too willing to do business with them.
Hmmm . . .


It's not inconceivable, however, that there would be a fantasy world where the sanctity of the body is ignored, for whatever reason, so some forms of necromancy would not be seen as evil. I don't see this disrupting the game too much! So if the GM is OK with it, a good necromancer doesn't seem to present a problem.

You mean likes the Elves in Eberron?
Contrasted with the Blood of Vol in Eberron.

Or perhaps the Charonti in Jakandor contrasted with the Knorr in Jakandor, where the radically different views on necromancy formed a core element of the campaign conflict.


I'm really not sure that discussing whether necromancy is inherently evil is relevant to the discussion at hand. The initial post established that they're playing 3.5 D&D, where necromancy is evil, full stop. Going off on tangents about no-alignment systems and whether or not it's evil to raise the dead serves no purpose.

See above for Eberron and necromancy not having to be evil in a 3.5 D&D setting.

However, I agree, as the initial post was clear that the character was evil, and not some variant version of necromancy.


I don't know how you read irritation out of anything I said...

The same way you read testiness out of anything I said.


PvP is doable if everyone is willing to act like a grown-up. Maybe I have an unusual amount of maturity in my gaming groups?

Maybe your group is less willing to act like grown-ups for their desire to wallow in gratuitous depravity and betrayal rather than being able to focus on cooperation.
Maybe your group has an unusual lack of maturity for being unable to play within an alignment system.
Or perhaps we avoid judgments of "maturity" for game style preferences as cheap ad hominems.


Also, how is the ability for your fellow PCs to attack you after discovering your betrayal NOT retaliation? Methinks you need to think this through more.

Limited retaliation.
If you prohibit superior retaliation, you encourage cheap shots.
If you permit it, you encourage overwhelming first strikes.


Sure. Alignment has nothing to do with that, though. :P

Does it?
How?
No alignment is required or prohibited for the prestige class.
None is required or prohibited for the base class.
There was only the role-playing choice of the player.


That sounds like a system with an especially stupid alignment system, not a system without one.

Except it isn't.
There is no requirement to take any such limitations, or even any particular limitations.
You are free to declare your character won't kill like Spider-Man, or that he freely kills like the Punisher.
You are free to declare your character honorable like Captain American, or that he is overconfident and arrogant like Dr. Doom.
Or you can choose none of the above.
It is in fact a system without alignment just as you encourage, yet it cannot change the nature of players as you suggest.


You're applying a thing I said about an entirely different topic to this one, and it's a severe stretch. Come on, now.

You are the one who jumped to calling people who have a different view of alignment systems "testy".


So evil, right? And these are the best examples only: Most fall into pretty solid "neutral" territory.

Why would they be evil?
Is being a soldier inherently evil to you?
Is being a soldier for hire inherently evil to you?
Is being a hacker inherently evil to you?
Is being a vagabond inherently evil to you?
Is being a . . . Prussian nobleman? a guy who works in a junkyard? . . . inherently evil to you?
Maybe the problem is your base judgments of what is good and evil rather than the judgments any particular alignment system is making.


If they want Scum and Villainy, they play as that.

Which in no ways is invalidated by having alignments as well.


OD&D doesn't have Good and Evil at all, just Law and Chaos (which meant you actively fought in service of those forces) and most OD&D groups managed cohesion.

OD&D did note that Law was usually Good and Chaos was usually Evil.


The whole idea that having no alignment leads directly to evil behavior without fail is so fallacious as to be laughable.

As opposed to your handwaving away that the reason people don't want evil team mates is because they want heroics and not anti-heroics?

Satinavian
2016-07-10, 02:00 PM
Allow me to introduce you to Burke and Hare:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders

Rather unpleasant fellows.
Yet those upright and honorable anatomists and surgeons were all too willing to do business with them.
Hmmm . . .Exactly one of them. And the evil thing here was killing for the sake of making corpses, which a necromancer shouldn't do either.


You mean likes the Elves in Eberron?
Contrasted with the Blood of Vol in Eberron.

See above for Eberron and necromancy not having to be evil in a 3.5 D&D setting.

However, I agree, as the initial post was clear that the character was evil, and not some variant version of necromancy.So more something like Karnathi state necromancers during the war ?

Those totally-not-undead deathless are a cheap way out of having the elfs raise their dead and still not calling them evil while still maintain the raising-undead-is-evil dogma.

Aeson
2016-07-10, 02:43 PM
Actually, theres a fairly practical reason not to go messing around with corpses and at least treat them with a modicum of respect: Disease. Decaying corpses, even animated ones, are great breeding grounds for various unpleasant diseases, and going around digging them up or leaving them just lying around is a pretty definite threat to your community.
If you're going to reanimate a corpse, it makes good sense to do something to preserve that corpse and prevent it from decaying, unless you just don't care that your zombie or whatever is going to fall apart in the relatively near future. Also, if 'negative energy' is antithetical to life and the bodies of the undead have high concentrations of 'negative energy,' then chances are that the bodies of the undead are at best poor places for diseases to breed.


As far as the thread topic goes:
It's likely a consequence of 'evil' being interpreted as a character who is excessively self-serving and inclined to overtly evil acts which are not infrequently detrimental to the goals of the party. A reasonable evil team mate may well behave in a manner reasonably similar to a neutral or good team mate - why you go out and kill the brigands hiding in the cave is logically at least as important for your alignment as that you do so; "I can kill these guys and take their stuff without getting in trouble" and "these guys must be neutralized to make the countryside safe for travelers" are both valid reasons to go out and kill brigands, but the former is more appropriate for an evil character than a good one and the latter is more appropriate for a good character than an evil one, and characters with either motivation need not come into conflict with one another over the difference in motivation unless the difference in motivation and outlook leads to a difference in what methods they're willing to use. Instead of reasonable evil like that, you get stories about people who play evil characters so that they can burn down the town or murder some random NPCs or do other stupid, overtly-evil acts which are detrimental to achieving the goals that they (notionally) have in common with the rest of the party.

Also, I'd point out that if you take the time to think about the logical implications of being struck by many of the nonevil spells, there's a lot of room to be an evil spellcaster without doing anything which is labelled evil. For instance, direct-damage fire magic is used to burn people alive, direct-damage acid spells aren't any better, and cold and lightning spells are also iffy. Knowingly teleporting an opponent into a highly-dangerous situation that they're unlikely to survive and which is likely to kill them in a rather horrible way (e.g. you sent them to the Plane of Water to drown or to the Plane of Fire to burn, or dropped them in the middle of a desert or an ocean to starve or die by dehydration) is not something which is appropriate for a "Good" or possibly even a "Neutral" character, but it's also not something which is too likely to draw comment, raise eyebrows, or cause intraparty conflict as long as it's just treated as a convenient way to end an encounter without running counter to any of the party's goals.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 02:53 PM
If you're going to reanimate a corpse, it makes good sense to do something to preserve that corpse and prevent it from decaying, unless you just don't care that your zombie or whatever is going to fall apart in the relatively near future. Also, if 'negative energy' is antithetical to life and the bodies of the undead have high concentrations of 'negative energy,' then chances are that the bodies of the undead are at best poor places for diseases to breed.


As far as the thread topic goes:
It's likely a consequence of 'evil' being interpreted as a character who is excessively self-serving and inclined to overtly evil acts which are not infrequently detrimental to the goals of the party. A reasonable evil team mate may well behave in a manner reasonably similar to a neutral or good team mate - why you go out and kill the brigands hiding in the cave is logically at least as important for your alignment as that you do so; "I can kill these guys and take their stuff without getting in trouble" and "these guys must be neutralized to make the countryside safe for travelers" are both valid reasons to go out and kill brigands, but the former is more appropriate for an evil character than a good one and the latter is more appropriate for a good character than an evil one, and characters with either motivation need not come into conflict with one another over the difference in motivation unless the difference in motivation and outlook leads to a difference in what methods they're willing to use. Instead of reasonable evil like that, you get stories about people who play evil characters so that they can burn down the town or murder some random NPCs or do other stupid, overtly-evil acts which are detrimental to achieving the goals that they (notionally) have in common with the rest of the party.

Also, I'd point out that if you take the time to think about the logical implications of being struck by many of the nonevil spells, there's a lot of room to be an evil spellcaster without doing anything which is labelled evil. For instance, direct-damage fire magic is used to burn people alive, direct-damage acid spells aren't any better, and cold and lightning spells are also iffy. Knowingly teleporting an opponent into a highly-dangerous situation that they're unlikely to survive and which is likely to kill them in a rather horrible way (e.g. you sent them to the Plane of Water to drown or to the Plane of Fire to burn, or dropped them in the middle of a desert or an ocean to starve or die by dehydration) is not something which is appropriate for a "Good" or possibly even a "Neutral" character, but it's also not something which is too likely to draw comment, raise eyebrows, or cause intraparty conflict as long as it's just treated as a convenient way to end an encounter without running counter to any of the party's goals.

"I'm Good! I stopped the thief from stealing the lady's ring!"
"You burned him alive. He died from smoke inhalation from his own flesh burning."
"He was a criminal."
"He was trying to feed his family!"

Sometimes, the so-called Good solutions are awful. Recently, the party I'm in captured a Lycanthrope that we wanted to cure, so we tried to inprison him until we got to town. We finally got him to talk because we nearly killed him by asphyxiation in his Secret Chest prison. That's pretty messed up.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 03:43 PM
basically, stupid evil is to be avoided, smart evil is acceptable.If you are actually trying to play the good and noble hero... neither stupid nor smart evil is acceptable. They can be at best, not the current priority. Take Order of the Stick, does the Order "tolerate" Belkar's evil actions and turn a blind eye? No, as far as I can remember they never do, they keep him focused on channeling his violent tendencies towards... perhaps good is too strong a word... greater-good/neutrality.

Of course there are always exceptions and if you want to set a situation up so it is an exception (or explore the moral gray area of exactly what counts) than you may try, but in the end "good" will always try to reduce the amount of evil in the world.


Sometimes, the so-called Good solutions are awful.Which is what makes them so-called. The Good solutions are good.

Lvl 2 Expert
2016-07-10, 03:46 PM
Part of it might be that it's just plain harder to get good and evil teammates on the same page. Nobody wants to spend ten minutes convincing the evil fellow that the dragon has to be fought when there's a dragon to fight. it gets old.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 03:57 PM
If you are actually trying to play the good and noble hero... neither stupid nor smart evil is acceptable. They can be at best, not the current priority. Take Order of the Stick, does the Order "tolerate" Belkar's evil actions and turn a blind eye? No, as far as I can remember they never do, they keep him focused on channeling his violent tendencies towards... perhaps good is too strong a word... greater-good/neutrality.

Of course there are always exceptions and if you want to set a situation up so it is an exception (or explore the moral gray area of exactly what counts) than you may try, but in the end "good" will always try to reduce the amount of evil in the world.

Which is what makes them so-called. The Good solutions are good.

So is a Good person prohibited from using spells like Fireball? Because I see few situations where anyone would say lighting someone on fire is Good, even if they are Evil. Going around setting enemies on fire is Neutral at best, but the awful pain of the burns inflicted should dissuade anyone who claims to be Good from using such spells. In some ways, a Rogue insta-killing enemies seems like the most Good, because they are taking them out with the least pain rather than torture that has been (for good reason) associated with hellish afterlives.

Honestly, evocation wizards should be far more generally evil than necromancers. Necros just run around with creepy minions that may not be negatively impacting anyone else, while evokers are committing crimes against humanity with their spells :smalltongue:

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 03:59 PM
And of course that is before we get to the other elements of the concept:
cleric - sure HE likes you; but what happens when his deity decides you look like a delicious sacrifice?
deity complex - what's a little megalomania between friends, amirite?


Heh, funny thing is, that god complex in this case is pretty literal. He believes himself to be a latent deity, and seeks to usurp the existing god of the dead. He's convinced that the current god of the dead is corrupt and needs to be overthrown in favor of someone better. In fact, this belief is even where he gets his spells. He's just that convinced of his own divinity.



"alignment" unknown to the party - and friends ALWAYS lie to each other about such things.
won't kill for "no" reason - just watch out if he conceives of one, what with his complex and secret keeping.
won't be "senselessly" disloyal - merely sensibly treacherous.
works with the party when it is "generally" convenient - see above for when killing and disloyalty become options.
cooperation helps to fund his research - what, you object to questing to pay for vivisection labs? That's mighty unmutual of you there fella! You sure you don't want to be friends anymore?

He isn't wasteful, and he really does value those he likes. He doesn't so much hide his alignment as fail to mention it; because people don't consider themselves evil, generally speaking. He doesn't consider himself evil; his necromancy is what defines him as such.

He isn't actively looking for ways to exploit his friends; as far as he is concerned, they're all interested in the wealth as well, else they wouldn't go risking their lives for it. The way he sees it, how they spend that wealth is no more his concern than how he spends his. So he won't betray the party unless he's given a very good reason to; like if the paladin makes an attempt on his life. And he'll remind the group that his cut of the loot is his own to do with as he pleases. He'll continue to make himself useful to the group, remaining very polite and otherwise very friendly. But the best way that I can put it is this: This character was heavily inspired by Mayor Richard Wilkins, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every time, before the game would start, I would put myself in the Mayor's shoes.


Now, as far as the point of "Just find an evil party"... well, actually I have. It was literally forced on me by the dm, who actively railroaded me into an alignment shift. He railroaded all of us after one player made a choice early on, and then when I confronted him about it, he claimed that it was our decision to play an evil campaign. We had a cleric of Heironeus, a chaotic neutral wizard(me) who mostly valued freedom above all else, a true neutral rogue, and one neutral good ranger who for one instant decided to make a deal with a devil, acting out of alignment and dragging all of us down with him. But yeah, still our choice apparently. I fought at every turn, but eventually decided to bail. I wasn't having any fun, the dm put us on a tardis cart and literally drove our "adventures" for us.. Half the time I didn't know where the hell we were going, and we'd spend months of real time and game time not doing anything at all, despite meeting up every week.


No, if I'm to play an evil character, I want it to be my own choice. I'd prefer it if the rest of the group were non evil characters, though they don't necessarily have to be good.

Now, it's not like I want to play evil just for the sake of being evil. It's just that the concept would generally be considered evil by the rules of the game and the mores of most people.


Now, you wouldn't have any trouble convincing this character to fight a dragon with the rest of the group. Cause dragons are rich.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-10, 04:02 PM
Exactly one of them. And the evil thing here was killing for the sake of making corpses, which a necromancer shouldn't do either.

It wasn't buying corpses in a manner that encouraged graverobbing and ultimately murder?

Meanwhile, given that adventurers make corpses, and that part of the specific character description included support for "research" . . .


So more something like Karnathi state necromancers during the war ?

No, they fall under the Blood of Vol - check the alignment on Karrnathi skeletons and zombies - Always Lawful Evil.


Those totally-not-undead deathless are a cheap way out of having the elfs raise their dead and still not calling them evil while still maintain the raising-undead-is-evil dogma.

That's why I also mentioned Jakandor (a 3-product setting from late AD&D 2nd edition), as another way to have no-innately-evil necromancers running around, even if most undead are still evil.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-10, 04:04 PM
No, if I'm to play an evil character, I want it to be my own choice. I'd prefer it if the rest of the group were non evil characters, though they don't necessarily have to be good.

Now, it's not like I want to play evil just for the sake of being evil. It's just that the concept would generally be considered evil by the rules of the game and the mores of most people.

Why does the alignment of the other PC's even matter? Why does anything they do effect your character concept? Why can't your character be evil in an evil group?

Hiro Protagonest
2016-07-10, 04:06 PM
Allow me to introduce you to Burke and Hare:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare_murders

Rather unpleasant fellows.
Yet those upright and honorable anatomists and surgeons were all too willing to do business with them.
Hmmm . . .

You're grasping at straws.

The guy who mentioned disease? Solid argument. You wouldn't even really use zombies and skeletons for warfare, since large armies aren't very useful in D&D's world. But now you're trying to question the morality of an entire profession which has done the majority of its research for the purpose of saving lives. We're not saying "all necromancers are good and do their job for the ease of civilization." That would be stupid, just like saying "there are no surgeons who are ruthlessly scientific and curious." But saying "surgery is inherently evil because of a couple infamous surgeons" is wrong.

Balmas
2016-07-10, 04:13 PM
He isn't wasteful, and he really does value those he likes. He doesn't so much hide his alignment as fail to mention it; because people don't consider themselves evil, generally speaking. He doesn't consider himself evil; his necromancy is what defines him as such.

He isn't actively looking for ways to exploit his friends; as far as he is concerned, they're all interested in the wealth as well, else they wouldn't go risking their lives for it. The way he sees it, how they spend that wealth is no more his concern than how he spends his. So he won't betray the party unless he's given a very good reason to; like if the paladin makes an attempt on his life. And he'll remind the group that his cut of the loot is his own to do with as he pleases. He'll continue to make himself useful to the group, remaining very polite and otherwise very friendly. But the best way that I can put it is this: This character was heavily inspired by Mayor Richard Wilkins, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Every time, before the game would start, I would put myself in the Mayor's shoes.


Now, it's not like I want to play evil just for the sake of being evil. It's just that the concept would generally be considered evil by the rules of the game and the mores of most people.


Here's the thing. I'm still hearing, "I just won't tell the people at the table that my character is evil." At this point, I'm not talking about the character or his motivations or why he's a beneficial evil. I'm talking about you, the player, and the other people at the table. If anyone at the table is not cool with it, playing an evil character is bad. It's disruptive, it destroys trust, and the instant you start screwing around with the people you play with, it ceases to be an issue of a problem character and becomes an issue of a problem player.

Seriously. Don't be that guy. Talk to your group. Tell them what you want to play, tell them why you want to play it, and if they don't like it, then don't play it. This is true for pretty much any character, but especially so for evil characters. Make them know that you--not the player, YOU--will never betray them, that there's nothing and no-one who can convince your character will betray the group. Swear on everything that you find holy that you're part o fthe group.

I'll let Spoony do the rest of the talking.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrhZPLpgWbg

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 04:27 PM
Telling the group would be a massive spoiler. I don't like spoilers; I like surprises. That's why I the player would want to conceal it from the other players.

I want the reveal, if and when it comes, to come as a surprise, to evoke at least a little bit of shock even. Where's the fun in carrying that around when the whole group already knows what's going on? When Wilkins was first revealed to be an evil sorcerer with ambitions on becoming a giant snake demon, the scoobies were a little shocked because Wilkins is one of the least offensive characters in the show. He's like the Mr. Rogers of villains.

NichG
2016-07-10, 04:39 PM
Telling the group would be a massive spoiler. I don't like spoilers; I like surprises. That's why I the player would want to conceal it from the other players.

I want the reveal, if and when it comes, to come as a surprise, to evoke at least a little bit of shock even. Where's the fun in carrying that around when the whole group already knows what's going on? When Wilkins was first revealed to be an evil sorcerer with ambitions on becoming a giant snake demon, the scoobies were a little shocked because Wilkins is one of the least offensive characters in the show. He's like the Mr. Rogers of villains.

Yeah, this kind of attitude would put me off and make me less likely to trust you to play an evil character in a way that's fun for everyone. Ultimately what this comes down to is that you're saying 'I want to mess with the other players', not 'I just have this character concept that the game system is pigeonholing as evil, but I'm not actually going to play a bad guy'.

Frozen_Feet
2016-07-10, 04:41 PM
It may be an archetype but it is nowhere in the character class and usually not really the case for PCs. The paladin char is as likely to be nobility as the fighter wizard or even rogue. The only class that gets something like that baked into it is aristocrat. As for leage lords, usually the whole group has one ore none has one. That is why that analogy does not hold very well.

The Paladin's fealty to their honor code and to their church has been explicit part of the class in D&D from the start. Different editions have different versions, but they all oblige the Paladin to act in a certain way, which obviously limits how much a Paladin can turn a blind eye to other characters.

But really, whether the rules require such attitude is secondary to a player choosing to play that role. Even if the rules don't define an honor code or alignment, if the player has their character act like they have one it has the exact same effect. If a player decides their Lawful Good fighter buys hard into sanctity of life, it should not surprise anyone if they try to stop the Neutral Evil rogue from murdering people. It's not a mystery where such "policing" attitudes come from.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 04:55 PM
So is a Good person prohibited from using spells like Fireball? Because I see few situations where anyone would say lighting someone on fire is Good, even if they are Evil. Going around setting enemies on fire is Neutral at best, but the awful pain of the burns inflicted should dissuade anyone who claims to be Good from using such spells. [...]

Honestly, evocation wizards should be far more generally evil than necromancers. Necros just run around with creepy minions that may not be negatively impacting anyone else, while evokers are committing crimes against humanity with their spells :smalltongue:Considering how napalm is viewed as a weapon of war... maybe. Maybe a good aligned evocation wizard should use frost magic, frost bite can still be nasty but it is (or could be, I have a decided lack of experience of being the target of such spells) better than electrocution and burns. Although I don't think that would qualify as a crime against humanity, but I'm not an expert.


Telling the group would be a massive spoiler. I don't like spoilers; I like surprises.Not telling the group would be a massive betrayal. I don't like betrayal; I like honesty.

OK, I wanted to mimic your line for the literary effect, so I should clarify a bit: Is your group going to be OK with that? Will they be OK with you saying "I was evil the whole time" or will they feel as betrayed as their characters? I don't know your group so I can't judge, but tread softly.

(Also my sympathies on the forced evil campaign.)

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 05:05 PM
I come to the table with the assumption that the gm, and all the players there, are trying to tell a story. I bring my own story in as part of that. His nighttime activities are all part of the story that I'm trying to tell; just telling the other players that my character has a particular nightlife will not only ruin the story out of game, but it will inform how their players interact with him in game, even if they should have no way of knowing in game.

Case in point; the first time I used this character, the only person who knew his real ambitious was the gm. So the interactions with other PCs was a natural part of his personal story. But at some point it slipped ooc that my character was an evil cleric, not just a businessman. From that point on, even though the other pcs had no way of knowing that he was an evil cleric, they were played as if they at least had some clue into this. Player knowledge informs how we play, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.

If they find out naturally, they can decide for themselves if the character's actions are something they can handle. But if they know the character is evil before hand, they will not be able to appreciate what may be a well written character, and the story will never get a chance to be told.

It's not about trying to mess with the other players; it's about trying to tell a story. Think back; think of a well written character that turned out to be a villain, who before you had no way of knowing(spoilers aside) that he was in fact a villain. Did that make you upset? Did that make you feel betrayed? Why?

And how is trying to tell a story a betrayal, if that's what we're all trying to do in the first place? Unless you just come in to kill a bunch of kobolds, in which case why would a difference of alignment be a problem?

Balmas
2016-07-10, 05:08 PM
Telling the group would be a massive spoiler. I don't like spoilers; I like surprises. That's why I the player would want to conceal it from the other players.

I want the reveal, if and when it comes, to come as a surprise, to evoke at least a little bit of shock even. Where's the fun in carrying that around when the whole group already knows what's going on? When Wilkins was first revealed to be an evil sorcerer with ambitions on becoming a giant snake demon, the scoobies were a little shocked because Wilkins is one of the least offensive characters in the show. He's like the Mr. Rogers of villains.

http://i.makeagif.com/media/8-11-2015/ytSJap.gif

I... did you read a word I typed? Effectively, I'm saying, "Don't be an douchebag to your fellow players" and you're responding, "But I want to be a douchebag!"

And concealing it? There's no way to conceal it, because the first time your character raises a skeleton or zombie, someone's going to point at you and say, "You're a necromancer, you're evil, why the hell are you evil?" And then the group's trust in you as a player is gone.


Yeah, this kind of attitude would put me off and make me less likely to trust you to play an evil character in a way that's fun for everyone. Ultimately what this comes down to is that you're saying 'I want to mess with the other players', not 'I just have this character concept that the game system is pigeonholing as evil, but I'm not actually going to play a bad guy'.

Agreed. I'm trying not to break any forum rules, but behavior like this strikes me as one of the reasons that evil characters are generally not allowed; the behavior of both the player character and the player themselves is not conducive to a good environment.

Segev
2016-07-10, 05:09 PM
What art is nonsense? If an evil character does nothing evil then they won't disrupt the party? That evil is a slippery slope? That the more ''dark and evil'' something is the ''more fun'' it is to play for a player that likes evil?If you define "evil" as "disrupting the party," then you're right. Don't play evil characters.

If you define it as it's defined in, say, D&D, or even in common parlance, then "disrupting the party" and "being evil" are not synonymous. In fact, you can have LG characters disrupt the party.





As to not wanting to play with an evil PC in the party, that's valid. You don't want to have to figure out why your heroic PC would tolerate it. That's one of the reasons I listed why people wouldn't want the token evil teammate.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 05:14 PM
I... did you read a word I typed? Effectively, I'm saying, "Don't be an douchebag to your fellow players" and you're responding, "But I want to be a douchebag!"

And concealing it? There's no way to conceal it, because the first time your character raises a skeleton or zombie, someone's going to point at you and say, "You're a necromancer, you're evil, why the hell are you evil?" And then the group's trust in you as a player is gone.





Beleon is intended to be played as an antihero. He as a character is hiding his activities because they might not be tolerated by others. As a player, I'm hiding it in order to tell a good story, or at least trying to.

And I'm not seeing how trying to tell a good story as a player makes me untrustworthy.

Segev
2016-07-10, 05:23 PM
Here's the thing. I'm still hearing, "I just won't tell the people at the table that my character is evil." At this point, I'm not talking about the character or his motivations or why he's a beneficial evil. I'm talking about you, the player, and the other people at the table. If anyone at the table is not cool with it, playing an evil character is bad. It's disruptive, it destroys trust, and the instant you start screwing around with the people you play with, it ceases to be an issue of a problem character and becomes an issue of a problem player.

Seriously. Don't be that guy. Talk to your group. Tell them what you want to play, tell them why you want to play it, and if they don't like it, then don't play it. This is true for pretty much any character, but especially so for evil characters. Make them know that you--not the player, YOU--will never betray them, that there's nothing and no-one who can convince your character will betray the group. Swear on everything that you find holy that you're part o fthe group.

I'll let Spoony do the rest of the talking.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrhZPLpgWbg

He's focusing a lot on party betrayal. The key to a "token evil teammate" is that betraying the party isn't even really a consideration. The "token evil teammate" is just the guy who's...willing to do things the dirty way. To some degree, you could argue the Neutral teammate is as close as you want to allow it to go. And honestly, most people who want to play an "evil" character for legitimate reasons will be fine with that.

The biggest trouble I see with Spoony's dissertation, here, is that he's assuming that it's something that should impact trustworthiness inherently. That the "evil" character is a player's excuse to mess with the party. I have seen more "TN" and "CG" characters who will behave in the manners Spoony describes than "Evil" ones.

But he's right: if your definition of "evil PC" is "screws with the party," don't play it.

Personally, if I wanted to play my necromancer and the party was "no evil PCs," I'd pitch him without naming his alignment. I think he's NE, myself, but the "fun" aspects of him don't rely on that. They rely on a sense of snarky pragmatism and the fact that he's a minionmancer. That last part will push him to registering as "evil." As I do'nt particularly care to argue over whether minionmancy is evil or not, I am happy to let others determine what alignment they think he is. His characterization will be quite loyal to the party; he can't expect them to have his back if he doesn't have theirs.


An interesting side-thought, though: Spoony spends a bit talking about how you have to swear up and down your evil PC won't turn on the party, no matter what. Does that include when another PC turns on him for no reason other than "you have 'evil' on your stat page and I decided this action was unacceptable?" Especially if a non-evil member of the party doing the same thing would get no PvP actions at all?

Alignment tells you things about a character. But if you're getting hung up on "he's evil, so he's untrustworthy," then write him as a Neutral character. If you find that you can't, examine what about him is "non-neutral," and then ask yourself if it will in any way cause trouble for the party. If any part of it revolves around screwing over the party or doing random nasty stuff for the lols...do'nt do it. Puppy-kicking evil just...isn't really worth putting up with.

A successful token evil teammate is USEFUL and HELPFUL. In fact, his moral flexibility is an ASSET to the party. If, at any time, it is a detriment to the party, you're probably doing it wrong.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-10, 05:25 PM
You're grasping at straws.

No, I'm directly addressing the point of why there is a history of treating those who deal with corpses as less than pleasant.

You don't like this because some of the people who deal with corpses have "good" intentions, and have even managed to achieve some good.

Your error is that in demanding people not condemn the good for the evil, you insist on excusing the evil for the good.

And of course with that you err further in that the particular character concept being used as an example is predicated on the actions of the ones that are evil.

Just as you err further still in not accepting that pretty much every D&D setting includes massive armies, with a few specifically including massive armies of zombies and skeletons, thus reducing your objection below that of grasping at straws to just plain wrong.

Keltest
2016-07-10, 05:27 PM
Beleon is intended to be played as an antihero. He as a character is hiding his activities because they might not be tolerated by others. As a player, I'm hiding it in order to tell a good story, or at least trying to.

And I'm not seeing how trying to tell a good story as a player makes me untrustworthy.

"Telling a good story" does not excuse you from disrespectful actions taken towards fellow players. By hiding your characters actions from the beginning, youre coming into the game being deceitful and untrustworthy. Furthermore, what counts as a "good story" is subjective; ok, betrayal is dramatic, but its also hurtful, which is where the drama comes from. Youre doing that deliberately to your fellow players, and then getting confused why people would be hurt and offended.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 05:35 PM
"Telling a good story" does not excuse you from disrespectful actions taken towards fellow players. By hiding your characters actions from the beginning, youre coming into the game being deceitful and untrustworthy. Furthermore, what counts as a "good story" is subjective; ok, betrayal is dramatic, but its also hurtful, which is where the drama comes from. Youre doing that deliberately to your fellow players, and then getting confused why people would be hurt and offended.

Your argument depends on the premise that hiding alignment is in fact disrespectful, and you assume that this is a given, therefore your argument holds up. But I have to disagree with the premise of your argument; it's all in intent. Am I hiding the alignment to screw with the players? No, as I've said numerous times, I'm just trying to tell a story.

And you keep bringing up betrayal, but you're the one claiming that such betrayal is taking place. I have continually explained that I'm not trying to betray the party.

This character can be very useful to the party, in ways that they can't comprehend as characters. He's also loyal to those he considers friends, which might include the party.

In my own games, I allow my players to play as whatever alignment they can roleplay properly. If they want to play a character that happens to be evil, then I make sure they know I'm allowing antiheros, not true villains.

As to whether or not the story is good, you're right that that is subjective. But how will anyone know the story is any good until it gets a chance to be told? By banning the character simply on the basis that he is evil, or by refusing to allow this alignment to be kept under wraps, you're restricting the stories that can be told.

Thrudd
2016-07-10, 05:48 PM
The undead/necromancer thing is entirely dependent on setting. 1e explicitly stated in the MM that zombies and skeletons are evil, and when not being controlled will revert to attacking any living thing nearby. They aren't blank-slate automatons made out of corpses that only respond to programmed orders. They are creatures powered by negative energy, and negative energy is inimical to life, by its nature. They will obey orders programmed by their creators or clerics that manipulate negative energy, but when given any leeway, they will try to kill people. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

For hiding your evil character from the party: I understand the desire to do this, and it isn't always wrong to play this way. It just needs to be a certain kind of game and the GM needs to agree to it. The big problem with one character having dramatically different ideals and goals from the rest is that it will likely lead to a long-term split party. Splitting the group short term is fine, but when every session needs to be split in two it is an issue. Especially when one of the groups consists of a lone player, and while I follow their exploits, everyone else is sitting around doing nothing. This has happened to me in Star Wars before, where the Jedi character insists on going off to find a Jedi master while everyone else is interested in smuggling and merc work. The player wanted a story where his character explores their jedi destiny and struggles with the dark side and has a story arc like Luke. Everyone else was playing a gang of smuggler/space pirates/bounty hunters with goals mostly involving making money and avoiding the authorities. I should have seen the conflict with this in the beginning, but I was young and didn't have the foresight. So the sessions ended up quite boring for the jedi player most of the time, and when I focused on him I had to leave everyone else idle. He wasn't wrong to want this type of story and character, but it just didn't fit the type of game that I was running.

In a sandbox game based mainly on exploration and treasure hunting, I'm fine with the party having mixed alignments. Any intra party conflict that happens is up to them to resolve. The only caveat is that I'm not running multiple adventures at the same time, so if one character can't get along with the others, or wants to go off on their own for a significant amount of time, the player needs to bring in a new character to join the group. The other character can be retired into an NPC, or we can briefly check in with them occasionally to see what the player wants them to be doing. I like having multiple characters for each player which can be swapped out on different expeditions if they want, so it's possible that the group could break into different parties with different moral outlooks and goals, and sometimes we run one and sometimes we run the other.

In a game with a more controlled narrative or that has an objective more dependent on the values of the characters involved, it is completely reasonable to reject characters that will conflict with the values necessary to engage in the narrative. Also, the GM may not be wanting to run a "there's a secret spy/saboteur/enemy in the group" type game, which is not always easy to pull off. Just accept it and make a character for the game that's being offered.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 05:55 PM
Considering how napalm is viewed as a weapon of war... maybe. Maybe a good aligned evocation wizard should use frost magic, frost bite can still be nasty but it is (or could be, I have a decided lack of experience of being the target of such spells) better than electrocution and burns. Although I don't think that would qualify as a crime against humanity, but I'm not an expert.

I agree that napalm and flamethrower a are probably the two best comparisons to real life, and both are rather frowned upon or considered outright bad.

Freezing is probably a better option, which solidifies the point I was (badly) trying to make: just because a class is suited for evil purposes (like an evoker wizard) does not mean each member should be lumped in as evil, and so why Good PCs should give them a chance.

I see it kind of like in the Elder Scrolls. In Oblivion, necromancy was a forbidden art because people like Mannimarco were using it for evil. This resulted in even Good practitioners of the art being hunted down, and actually being forced down the path of Evil just to survive. By the time Skyrim rolled around, it had progressed so that while others were fearful and mistrustful of necromancy, it was not considered an Evil magic on its own (in contrast to something like the creation of Black Soul Gems; anything which is specifically created to siphon the energy from sentient souls is pretty dang Evil! It gets even worse when you see the Soul Cairn...).

As for hiding stuff from the party, I am fine with that. Whether my person is CG, LE, or anywhere in between, I consider it bad form to tell others that information. It should be run through the DM to get his permission, but letting the players find out about his questionable morals through play is much more dynamic and cinematic. If the PCs ever find out, the players should have worked out ahead of time that retribution could be brutal.

Betrayal is where things become interesting. When he betrays the party, he is by definition no longer one of them. That is not the time to gripe at a PC for creating inter-party conflict, that is the time to fear and celebrate the birth of a great NPC! The Face-Heel Turn is a respected trope, and becomes far more engaging and surprising when it is the working of a PC rather than an NPC. The New Warriors in Civil War are a great example, where one outed the rest to cover his own back. The player then has to roll up a new PC, but he has contributed to the story by creating tragedy and a new arc as the PCs deal with betrayal and trust issues with the new PC.

Naturally, this is far more impactful if you have a PC who seemed on-board the entire time, but suddenly turns. The Stupid Evil PC who has been trying to steal or murder PCs during his tenure has disrupted the flow, but probably not in a constructive way. Not like a Dragonborn Paladin who gives Tiamat the McGuffin at a critical time, or the Bard who tries to seal in the party with a cave-in so he can be the great hero while "outing" them as monsters.

Try not to think of an evil PC as a murderhobo, but as an NPC-in-making. It creates a much more interesting story than "The heroic company fights Evil, again."

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 06:02 PM
It's not about trying to mess with the other players; it's about trying to tell a story. Think back; think of a well written character that turned out to be a villain, who before you had no way of knowing(spoilers aside) that he was in fact a villain. Did that make you upset? Did that make you feel betrayed? Why?Out of the cases where I couldn't see it coming... which is one I can think of the top of my head... not so much as betrayed as disappointed. It didn't really work and came out kind of forced. Weakest point in that entire story. Actually I can remember one more where it was well done, so it is going 50-50? Most of the time though you see it coming and it doesn't really matter.


Beleon is intended to be played as an antihero.He would fit the "villain protagonist" meaning but if you want to call him a dark hero, what about him makes him heroic in the slightest? So far I have only seen a villain character.


it's all in intent. [...]

And you keep bringing up betrayal, but you're the one claiming that such betrayal is taking place. I have continually explained that I'm not trying to betray the party.No, it is not about the intent, it is about the reception. Even if you are not trying to you may leave the rest of the players feeling hurt and betrayed. Yes playing with the lines of morality can result in some very interesting stories, but is this the right setting for it? If your fellows don't like it are you OK if they first thing they do after the reveal is turn on and execute your character?


In my own games, I allow my players to play as whatever alignment they can roleplay properly. If they want to play a character that happens to be evil, then I make sure they know I'm allowing antiheros, not true villains.So if they are not true villains why are they evil? That is generally what the word (and this goes beyond the alignment system) means. Of course if you are using the literary meaning of anti-hero than this question is meaningless as is my second paragraph.

Balmas
2016-07-10, 06:02 PM
Beleon is intended to be played as an antihero. He as a character is hiding his activities because they might not be tolerated by others. As a player, I'm hiding it in order to tell a good story, or at least trying to.

And I'm not seeing how trying to tell a good story as a player makes me untrustworthy.

Your argument depends on the premise that hiding alignment is in fact disrespectful, and you assume that this is a given, therefore your argument holds up. But I have to disagree with the premise of your argument; it's all in intent. Am I hiding the alignment to screw with the players? No, as I've said numerous times, I'm just trying to tell a story.

And you keep bringing up betrayal, but you're the one claiming that such betrayal is taking place. I have continually explained that I'm not trying to betray the party.

I would say it's self-evident that lying to your fellow players represents a betrayal of trust. Regardless of whether you're trying to tell a story, you're still destroying their trust in you as a player. The character may not intend to betray the party, but the instant that you, as a player, decide to start concealing things from your group, you have betrayed them and the trust they put in you.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 06:15 PM
Freezing is probably a better option, which solidifies the point I was (badly) trying to make: just because a class is suited for evil purposes (like an evoker wizard) does not mean each member should be lumped in as evil, and so why Good PCs should give them a chance.Yes, I agree. That being said I feel the intent was to make necromancy actually evil in its nature (as in torture or the Black Soul Gems) but the designers didn't do a good job of conveying that.


The Face-Heel Turn is a respected trope, and becomes far more engaging and surprising when it is the working of a PC rather than an NPC.Not very well respect by me. Even the best instances of that I have seen* still seem to have come out of plot necessity rather than a natural progression.

* Such as the well done one I mentioned in my last post.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 06:22 PM
He would fit the "villain protagonist" meaning but if you want to call him a dark hero, what about him makes him heroic in the slightest? So far I have only seen a villain character.
One person's hero is another person's villain. Is not Doctor Doom seen as a hero by his own people? I'd call him an anti hero, just as I'd call Beleon an anti hero; He wants to become the new god of the dead, because of perceived corruption in the current one. He genuinely believes that he's doing the right thing, even if his methods are technically evil.



No, it is not about the intent, it is about the reception. Even if you are not trying to you may leave the rest of the players feeling hurt and betrayed. Yes playing with the lines of morality can result in some very interesting stories, but is this the right setting for it? If your fellows don't like it are you OK if they first thing they do after the reveal is turn on and execute your character?
You've failed to explain why the players should have hurt feelings of betrayal. Ultimately, this is just a game. If the player is taking in game actions personally, when they aren't intended to be so, that is something that they need to work out.


So if they are not true villains why are they evil? That is generally what the word (and this goes beyond the alignment system) means. Of course if you are using the literary meaning of anti-hero than this question is meaningless as is my second paragraph.

Again, one person's hero is another person's villain. There's a certain epic poem, one of the greatest english literary works of all time. The protagonist of the story could be interpretted either as a hero to his followers, or as a villain protagonist from the perspective of the other characters. Ultimately, he wears the label of Evil with pride, but even he seems to recognize that this is a perspective. He basically says that if he should be labeled as evil, then evil he will be.

I consider him to be the anti hero of his story.

NichG
2016-07-10, 06:24 PM
I come to the table with the assumption that the gm, and all the players there, are trying to tell a story. I bring my own story in as part of that. His nighttime activities are all part of the story that I'm trying to tell; just telling the other players that my character has a particular nightlife will not only ruin the story out of game, but it will inform how their players interact with him in game, even if they should have no way of knowing in game.

This assumption is part of the problem. You're assuming you can speak for the other players as to what they will enjoy participating in, but actually you're just thinking of this purely from your own point of view.

The situation is, here's a type of character that can be disruptive if not handled well. You're asking to be permitted to play that type of character, on the basis of 'I claim that what I will do with it will not upset other people'. But your ability to do that is contingent on your ability to take the needs of others at the table into consideration, not just your own needs in making your story cooler. Part of that is recognizing that your own assumptions are not more valid than the rest of the table. If people are telling you 'I would feel betrayed by this', you need to listen to that, not argue that they shouldn't feel betrayed. Otherwise, even if you don't think it would be, the character you play will end up being disruptive.

Thrudd
2016-07-10, 06:27 PM
I come to the table with the assumption that the gm, and all the players there, are trying to tell a story. I bring my own story in as part of that. His nighttime activities are all part of the story that I'm trying to tell; just telling the other players that my character has a particular nightlife will not only ruin the story out of game, but it will inform how their players interact with him in game, even if they should have no way of knowing in game.

Case in point; the first time I used this character, the only person who knew his real ambitious was the gm. So the interactions with other PCs was a natural part of his personal story. But at some point it slipped ooc that my character was an evil cleric, not just a businessman. From that point on, even though the other pcs had no way of knowing that he was an evil cleric, they were played as if they at least had some clue into this. Player knowledge informs how we play, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.

If they find out naturally, they can decide for themselves if the character's actions are something they can handle. But if they know the character is evil before hand, they will not be able to appreciate what may be a well written character, and the story will never get a chance to be told.

It's not about trying to mess with the other players; it's about trying to tell a story. Think back; think of a well written character that turned out to be a villain, who before you had no way of knowing(spoilers aside) that he was in fact a villain. Did that make you upset? Did that make you feel betrayed? Why?

And how is trying to tell a story a betrayal, if that's what we're all trying to do in the first place? Unless you just come in to kill a bunch of kobolds, in which case why would a difference of alignment be a problem?

It can cause a conflict when you bring in your own story that has nothing to do with the story the GM and the other players are telling. It is a group game, so your desires for an individual story sometimes need to be sacrificed. It isn't impossible for it to work out, that the personal story arc you anticipate could fit into the group without disruption. But telling a story is secondary to playing the game with the other players, this isn't like writing. Your character needs to work with the group, and with the format the GM is presenting. Are you willing to give up control of the character if the rest of the party decides to banish him or incapacitate him because of his evil ways? Or would the character give up on his evil goals out of loyalty to his friends in the party? You have to be willing to accept that the story might not go the way you envision, and your character might not be received the way you hope.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 06:35 PM
I'm playing the character with the intent that he remains squarely in anti hero territory. His evil actions will help him and the group, or they'll help him and have no effect on the group. The moment he becomes a villain in their eyes, yes, i'd be willing to defer control of the character over to the dm.

The story I'm trying to tell is simply that of a lone character in a greater setting and a greater story. We're all the protagonists of our own stories, and all of us are characters in the stories of others. We all have our own stories to tell, even if they're only part of a bigger story.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-10, 06:44 PM
Telling the group would be a massive spoiler. I don't like spoilers; I like surprises. That's why I the player would want to conceal it from the other players.

I want the reveal, if and when it comes, to come as a surprise, to evoke at least a little bit of shock even. Where's the fun in carrying that around when the whole group already knows what's going on? When Wilkins was first revealed to be an evil sorcerer with ambitions on becoming a giant snake demon, the scoobies were a little shocked because Wilkins is one of the least offensive characters in the show. He's like the Mr. Rogers of villains.

This is exactly what is wrong with playing an evil character: You want to play against the group, not with the group. You want surprise and shock when they find out the truth about your character. And as I said, this is the bottom of the slippery slope. What you want to do is cruel, but it sure is good ''evil fun'' for you only. It's exactly on the level of a piratical joke, and they are funny if you are not the target right?


Yeah, this kind of attitude would put me off and make me less likely to trust you to play an evil character in a way that's fun for everyone. Ultimately what this comes down to is that you're saying 'I want to mess with the other players', not 'I just have this character concept that the game system is pigeonholing as evil, but I'm not actually going to play a bad guy'.

Yup. The easy test would be: are you ok with all the other players ''doing stuff'' to get a ''surprise'' reaction out of you? Would you think it would be fun to have the ''haha, fooled you! You though one thing and it was wrong! hahaha!"?

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 06:47 PM
You've failed to explain why the players should have hurt feelings of betrayal. Ultimately, this is just a game. If the player is taking in game actions personally, when they aren't intended to be so, that is something that they need to work out.I'm saying they should. I'm saying it is a possibility you should very seriously consider. After the last time I played a campaign with an evil PC (which was not well handled and so I will try not to consider representative*) I would probably remove the evil PC from the campaign as quickly as possible (execution, jailed, what have you). You may be telling an interesting story but is anyone else going to see it? Well if you are worried about spoilers it seems not. So all they get is the reveal and the fallout from that. Is that fun or interesting for them? By itself probably not.

I'm saying you can't make it work. But consider the possibility of it not and the problems it could cause before trying. An in-character betrayal (or what-ever you want to call it) can be separated from an out-of-character one, but it doesn't happen every time.

* That was being said that was just last week. You may consider this a source of bias, but it is also a source of experience on this matter.


Again, one person's hero is another person's villain. There's a certain epic poem, one of the greatest english literary works of all time.I don't doubt it and I don't even know which one we are talking about. I would guess Beowulf but I'm far from sure. I'm not even sure if the one I'm thinking of is called that.

Also, you keep using the word anti-hero. Could you define exactly what you mean, I know two different definitions for it and neither seems to quite match what you are saying.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 06:53 PM
This is exactly what is wrong with playing an evil character: You want to play against the group, not with the group. You want surprise and shock when they find out the truth about your character. And as I said, this is the bottom of the slippery slope. What you want to do is cruel, but it sure is good ''evil fun'' for you only. It's exactly on the level of a piratical joke, and they are funny if you are not the target right?
Where on earth did you get the idea that I want to play against the group? I keep on saying that he's using his abilities to help the group, perhaps in ways that they as characters can't comprehend and wouldn't understand. The reveal would be part of the fun, ideally for all involved. Why should they take it personally? It's a story; this happens in stories. It happens in reality too.



There are dozens of different types of anti hero, and I wasn't thinking about any one type. What I do know is that there are plenty of anti heroes that we'd consider evil, just for the methods they use. For them the ends justify the means.

NichG
2016-07-10, 06:55 PM
Where on earth did you get the idea that I want to play against the group? I keep on saying that he's using his abilities to help the group, perhaps in ways that they as characters can't comprehend and wouldn't understand. The reveal would be part of the fun, ideally for all involved. Why should they take it personally? It's a story; this happens in stories. It happens in reality too.

I take things that happen to me in reality personally too.

Lets imagine you play this character, but you slip up a bit, the party cleric finds out that he's a necromancer in game 2, and executes him before you had a chance to develop his story. That might make perfect sense in that other character's story - found an evil necromancer hiding his dastardly deeds, cleaned up the world a bit by removing him. If that were the NPC villain of the week, no one would bat an eye. Good fun, right?

Or would you say that maybe the player of the cleric should find a reason to stay his hand, out of consideration to you as a fellow player? Even if it goes against the story he wants to tell.

And in that case, even if 'shocking reveal' sounds cool to you as to the story you want to tell, shouldn't you actually listen when people are telling you 'I would hate that and feel betrayed OOC' - out of consideration to them as fellow players?

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 07:03 PM
If they're taking it personally, then I ask them why. Because to me, it's just a game, it's just a story. It has no bearing on reality, nor has it anything to do with my relations to the other players. It makes absolutely no sense for them to take my character as a personal attack.

And if that is how they react, then so be it. I'm not going to take it personally.

Hiro Protagonest
2016-07-10, 07:17 PM
No, I'm directly addressing the point of why there is a history of treating those who deal with corpses as less than pleasant.

You don't like this because some of the people who deal with corpses have "good" intentions, and have even managed to achieve some good.

Your error is that in demanding people not condemn the good for the evil, you insist on excusing the evil for the good.
Your error is in suggesting that just because people may find it unpleasant to deal with things that are decaying or somesuch, it is evil. There are many people who find a butcher's job unpleasant as well, yet eating meat is a part of all human cultures and has been celebrated for much of civilization.

Just as you err further still in not accepting that pretty much every D&D setting includes massive armies, with a few specifically including massive armies of zombies and skeletons, thus reducing your objection below that of grasping at straws to just plain wrong.

That's because most people only put war in the background of D&D and don't think it through. So no, I'm not wrong.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 07:21 PM
Where on earth did you get the idea that I want to play against the group?You sort of are. If the party is playing heroes that go out by being and doing evil you are playing against them.


The reveal would be part of the fun, ideally for all involved.How so?


There are dozens of different types of anti hero, and I wasn't thinking about any one type. What I do know is that there are plenty of anti heroes that we'd consider evil, just for the methods they use. For them the ends justify the means.But what makes them an anti-hero? What does that term mean?


It has no bearing on reality, nor has it anything to do with my relations to the other players.Also this does bare on reality, you are damaging (or can be damaging) things they put time and energy into. The last game I was went really badly. The player who's fault it was (primarily) apologized and asked why I was upset. Now I bit my tong and gave my best constructive criticism on why the messed up but internally I went "...but you have done far worse than that. You have wasted my time." Which when that time is the only major break I allowed myself as a bunch of deadlines were rolling in, that is kind of a big deal.

Will I do my best to forgive and move on. Yes I will. Was I incredibly disappointed and a little bit angry about how that turned out. Yeah, I was. Am.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 07:31 PM
You sort of are. If the party is playing heroes that go out by being and doing evil you are playing against them.


And by helping them accomplish the task of, say, vanquishing the red dragon terrorizing the kingdom, I have in no way gone against them. First of all, that dragon was destroying the kingdom and senselessly slaughtering my future subjects. Second of all, that dragon's horde is more than enough for all of us to achieve our goals.

How so? Well unless they're going to take it personally, that reveal might represent a turning point in the story. If they allow him to keep working with them, then now they know they've got someone around who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty on their behalf. Or maybe they think they can change him, which will again make for another interesting story. Perhaps they reject him, and if he survives now the gm has a new ready made npc, a new villain to integrate into his story in whatever way he sees fit. I write a new character, no harm no foul.



But what makes them an anti-hero? What does that term mean? The use of villainous methods to heroic ends.



Also this does bare on reality, you are damaging (or can be damaging) things they put time and energy into. The last game I was went really badly. The player who's fault it was (primarily) apologized and asked why I was upset. Now I bit my tong and gave my best constructive criticism on why the messed up but internally I went "...but you have done far worse than that. You have wasted my time." Which when that time is the only major break I allowed myself as a bunch of deadlines were rolling in, that is kind of a big deal.

Will I do my best to forgive and move on. Yes I will. Was I incredibly disappointed and a little bit angry about how that turned out. Yeah, I was. Am.

One bad experience doesn't color the whole thing. just because your game was ruined doesn't mean that such characters can never work. such characters HAVE worked on plenty of occasions.

jindra34
2016-07-10, 07:33 PM
At a basic fundemental level, its that having a token evil teammate in a good, noble party has a lot of potential to go to places that will affect future games in a negative way, and significantly less potential to build the story interesting. And that gets worse with how you want to play it. For one, Evil, even if its relatively nice about being evil isn't going to make you an anti-hero, most of those firmly land in neutral (at least by D&D standards). Two your putting this fancy story that you feel is great ahead of what your fellow players might want by keeping it a secret in this case (though that is also a tick against something else), and it might not even fit in. If your doing it for the toys of the [Evil] spells you can still use those and end up as neutral but its tough.

End suggestion on what to do if you really want to is discuss it with the GM (who in NO WAY are you keeping this secret from) about it, because they should know the game, metaphysics and implications included, and the players well enough to decide if this is a risk worth taking. And if they say no, drop it and come up with something more fitting.

goto124
2016-07-10, 07:48 PM
Besides, I don't think this is a good solution for the player of the evil character either. What's the point of playing an evil character if they've got to go along with what the good guys says at every turn, and the only evil things about them are the alignment written on their sheet and some far-off goal that's mentioned once or twice but never actually accomplished because that'd be disruptive? You might as well be playing a very grumpy neutral, and it wouldn't make a difference.

I've been wondering about this myself.

Actually, replace "an evil character" with "a character who actually has a personality and makes meaningful decisions", and "the good guys" with "other party members", to get a question that's been bugging me since ever.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-10, 07:50 PM
Your argument depends on the premise that hiding alignment is in fact disrespectful, and you assume that this is a given, therefore your argument holds up. But I have to disagree with the premise of your argument; it's all in intent. Am I hiding the alignment to screw with the players? No, as I've said numerous times, I'm just trying to tell a story.

Hiding alignment usually isn't an issue.
Of course when the party comes to an alignment warded area and you are unable to pass, suddenly it is an issue, whether you intended it to be or not.
Or when someone in the party unleashes holy word or equivalent and you go down as hard as the bad guys and are unable to do anything for the rest of the combat.


And you keep bringing up betrayal, but you're the one claiming that such betrayal is taking place. I have continually explained that I'm not trying to betray the party.

Not "trying".
But according to the background in your original post you will if you have to.


This character can be very useful to the party, in ways that they can't comprehend as characters. He's also loyal to those he considers friends, which might include the party.

He can also be very harmful to the party. What if they get blamed for some of the acts you commit.
As for your loyalty to friends, you admit again that those might not include the party, and we are back to you betraying them even though weren't trying to.


In my own games, I allow my players to play as whatever alignment they can roleplay properly. If they want to play a character that happens to be evil, then I make sure they know I'm allowing antiheros, not true villains.

That is your game.
This is someone else's game.


As to whether or not the story is good, you're right that that is subjective. But how will anyone know the story is any good until it gets a chance to be told? By banning the character simply on the basis that he is evil, or by refusing to allow this alignment to be kept under wraps, you're restricting the stories that can be told.

How many hours go into playing a campaign?
What happens if the story you want to tell is horrible because of his alignment and goals and that winds up wrecking things for the other players?
By allowing the character simply on the basis that it might be interesting you are risking wrecking the entire campaign for everyone else involved just to indulge one person.


I consider him to be the anti hero of his story.

Yet by everything you claim above, it is quite possible for everyone else to consider him the villain of the story.


If they're taking it personally, then I ask them why. Because to me, it's just a game, it's just a story. It has no bearing on reality, nor has it anything to do with my relations to the other players. It makes absolutely no sense for them to take my character as a personal attack.

And if that is how they react, then so be it. I'm not going to take it personally.

Really?
You seem to be taking it quite personally that people won't let you play this character.
Why is it something personally against you not to allow it but somehow not personally against them to allow you to potentially wreck hundreds of hours of game time?


It's not about trying to mess with the other players; it's about trying to tell a story. Think back; think of a well written character that turned out to be a villain, who before you had no way of knowing(spoilers aside) that he was in fact a villain. Did that make you upset? Did that make you feel betrayed? Why?

People don't have the same time investment in the story of someone else's character that they do in the story of their character, making betrayals in books less significant.

As for betrayals in game, most fell into the category of basic "Is there a reason you had to screw my character over for pretty much nothing? Is there a reason I can't enjoy playing my character?"

I think the only one I ever saw that nobody minded was because the "betrayal" technically took place off-camera, after the primary resolution of the organized play event, the DM decided to grant rewards to the rest of the party as if the "betrayal" had not taken place while giving the "treacherous" player the rewards of the "betrayal", and because the "betrayal" involved an insanely convoluted plan worthy of a movie plot that the player pulled off with a couple of "secret" notes, and with none of us having even a clue about what he was doing even as he did it right in "front" of our faces.

So . . . once.
Ever.
Not particularly good odds there.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 07:52 PM
And by helping them accomplish the task of, say, vanquishing the red dragon terrorizing the kingdom, I have in no way gone against them. First of all, that dragon was destroying the kingdom and senselessly slaughtering my future subjects. Second of all, that dragon's horde is more than enough for all of us to achieve our goals.I was referring more to the evil you do offscreen, not the good you do on it.


Well unless they're going to take it personally, that reveal might represent a turning point in the story.Oh, either way it will be a turning point. The issue is (and this is more important than any other point in this post): can you ensure it is fun for everyone involved? What is fun about a friend suddenly becoming an enemy? About being hoodwinked and lied to? Will they be OK with you saying "I was evil the whole time" or will they feel as betrayed as their characters?


The use of villainous methods to heroic ends.OK, you are not being entirely consistent on your description of the character. By that definition an anti-hero is still a hero and is not a villain. A villain may think themselves an anti-hero, but ultimately that is just a delution and they are using villainous methods to villainous ends.

(And note: some things can change with perspective, but I am speaking of the single perspective that is as close as I can get to the other players view. I feel that is the important one.)


One bad experience doesn't color the whole thing. just because your game was ruined doesn't mean that such characters can never work. such characters HAVE worked on plenty of occasions.Yes, I know, I have said so myself:
(which was not well handled and so I will try not to consider representative*)
[...]
* That was being said that was just last week. You may consider this a source of bias, but it is also a source of experience on this matter.But you asked for how it could it effect reality. In this case (which did involve a not very well done character) it made the game not fun and ruined my day.

Jay R
2016-07-10, 07:54 PM
It's not about trying to mess with the other players; it's about trying to tell a story.
... by messing with the other players. They would rather that you try to tell a story that doesn't require messing with them.


Think back; think of a well written character that turned out to be a villain, who before you had no way of knowing(spoilers aside) that he was in fact a villain. Did that make you upset? Did that make you feel betrayed? Why?
No, I did not feel upset when Quirrel, or Pettigrew, or Barty Jr. turned out to be working for the Dark Lord. That's because I'm not Harry Potter; I'm just reading about Harry Potter.

The analogy is not analogous. When a character played by my supposed friend betrays mine, that's much more personal.


And how is trying to tell a story a betrayal, if that's what we're all trying to do in the first place? Unless you just come in to kill a bunch of kobolds, in which case why would a difference of alignment be a problem?
Trying to tell the story we've all agreed to tell together is not a betrayal. Trying to tell a story that disrupts the one we've all agreed to tell together is a betrayal.

Even if we're telling a story, being dishonest to my character is a betrayal, and being honest with my character is not a betrayal.


And I'm not seeing how trying to tell a good story as a player makes me untrustworthy.
It doesn't, and you know it doesn't. This is a deliberately unfair characterization.

Trying to tell a good story in a trustworthy way makes you trustworthy. Trying to tell a good story in an untrustworthy way makes you untrustworthy.

But that's not because you're trying to tell a good story. It's because you're trying to tell a story that is not the story we've all agreed to tell.

goto124
2016-07-10, 08:13 PM
No, I did not feel upset when Quirrel, or Pettigrew, or Barty Jr. turned out to be working for the Dark Lord. That's because I'm not Harry Potter; I'm just reading about Harry Potter.

Indeed, very different set of assumptions. Not only do the readers expect twists and turns, the readers are not the ones writing the story or actively playing out the characters. The readers are just enjoying the view as the story takes them out for a ride, they don't have to actually deal with the betrayal themselves. They don't have to figure out a solution themselves, they don't have to find a reason for their characters to continue playing in the story.


Trying to tell the story we've all agreed to tell together is not a betrayal. Trying to tell a story that disrupts the one we've all agreed to tell together is a betrayal.

Exactly. It's one thing if you tell the players "I want to play [actually honest and accurate description of PC], is this okay to all of you?" The other players may be okay with 'greater good' PCs. They may not even think your PC is evil.

However, they need to plan THEIR PCs around your PC long before you show your PC's true colors eventually. If one player creates an undead-hating priest of an undead-hating god, and you create a necromancer, being upfront means the player has at least a chance to speak up about what could be done. You may not even need to throw away your character - the player could agree to set up a character arc where the undead-hating priest tolerates the necromancer, with the occasional squabble, but there's an OOC understanding to not let such squabbles get out of hand. There you have it - an interesting subplot!

But let's say you hide the fact your necromancer is a necromancer. The other player creates an undead-hating priest of an undead-hating god, without knowing there'll be a necromancer in the party to deal with. Mid-campaign, it's suddenly revealed - that wizard is actually a necromancer! The priest player is not going to take this well. "Why did I not know this? This campaign wasn't pitched as PvP or anything related to players hiding info from one another! Now my priest has no reason to stick in this campaign. If I knew my character concept was going to get tossed out of the window, I would've gone with something different!" That player is NOT going to just go along with your 'clever' plan. There will be a lot of drama and OOC screaming. No one will actually like your story.

OOCly hiding info from the players (not PCs) is not cool, especially if the players don't know it's that kind of campaign. In a game of Paranoia, players expect all sorts of shenanigans to happen, including plenty of backstabbing and OOC hiding. The players know there will be betrayal, even if they don't know exactly how. But that's Paranoia, hardly the most common form of campaign.

Cluedrew
2016-07-10, 08:35 PM
Expanding on what goto124 said there is a very thin line between mealy not telling someone something or actually lying to them through omission. Which one this is... well a lot of people here feel that it falls on the lying side here. And unless your group [B]MonkeySage[B] can role with the craziest of twists I would say it is quite likely your group will feel the same way. But then you know them better than I.

I mean stories like this can work, but will it work when the other main players are both real people and unaware of what is going on? I've got at least one treasured story that is in a large part defined by how the protagonists span the morality chart. Although they are aware of the dichotomy so it is not exactly the same.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 08:54 PM
... by messing with the other players. They would rather that you try to tell a story that doesn't require messing with them.


No, I did not feel upset when Quirrel, or Pettigrew, or Barty Jr. turned out to be working for the Dark Lord. That's because I'm not Harry Potter; I'm just reading about Harry Potter.

The analogy is not analogous. When a character played by my supposed friend betrays mine, that's much more personal.

So rather than feeling the disconnect of the page or the screen, this story has progressed to the point where you are feeling what your character does. That is a problem????? Seriously????? If a Face-Heel Turn is performed well enough that you are feeling what your character does, that is an indication of a great campaign.

I'm sure not everyone likes when bad things happen to characters, but conflict, betrayal, misfortune, these are the components of fiction. They are the catalysts of change, allegiances, and character development. If bad things can't happen to the characters, how will you get stories like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or numerous other great stories?


Trying to tell the story we've all agreed to tell together is not a betrayal. Trying to tell a story that disrupts the one we've all agreed to tell together is a betrayal.

Even if we're telling a story, being dishonest to my character is a betrayal, and being honest with my character is not a betrayal.

Maybe this is where the disconnect is. I have never gone into a campaign where we have agreed what kind of story we were going to tell. Instead, we agreed to tell a story. What kind of story that is isn't decided by some contract at the beginning, it is decided by the actions we take and the decisions we make.

It sounds like your approach is making decisions to further a determined story (presumably that changes in minor ways), whereas the stories with evil PCs have to be stories that are created by the characters organically.

There is some virtue to this. I'm sure there are people who enjoy having a roadmap and then seeing how they react in-character when the time comes. That just doesn't appeal to me.

Temperjoke
2016-07-10, 09:04 PM
The anti-hero lead character in your story is very easily the out-right villain in someone else's story.

Darth Ultron
2016-07-10, 09:19 PM
Where on earth did you get the idea that I want to play against the group? I keep on saying that he's using his abilities to help the group, perhaps in ways that they as characters can't comprehend and wouldn't understand. The reveal would be part of the fun, ideally for all involved. Why should they take it personally? It's a story; this happens in stories. It happens in reality too.

So at best your saying ''haha I fooled them as I tricked and lied to them'' and at worst your saying ''haha they are all so dumb and I fooled them to fuel my power trip''.

It does happen in stories, but you might note not everyone likes it. Think of any story with a twist at the end, how does it make you feel? You think the story is A, then they go and say ''nope it's K, haha, fooled you''.




There are dozens of different types of anti hero, and I wasn't thinking about any one type. What I do know is that there are plenty of anti heroes that we'd consider evil, just for the methods they use. For them the ends justify the means.

A hero, any hero does not need to lie and deceive his companions purely for his own selfish needs. That is what a villain does.




And if that is how they react, then so be it. I'm not going to take it personally.

So you'd be fine if another player did this to you. But you do have a limit, right? You would not say anyone can just do anything at all in the game and to you in the game and you'd be fine with it, right?

The Insanity
2016-07-10, 09:20 PM
Story? I thought I was playing a game.

goto124
2016-07-10, 09:34 PM
Maybe this is where the disconnect is. I have never gone into a campaign where we have agreed what kind of story we were going to tell. Instead, we agreed to tell a story. What kind of story that is isn't decided by some contract at the beginning, it is decided by the actions we take and the decisions we make.

Bad things can happen to the PCs. Not the players.

You don't even know what kind of game you will play, what kind of story you have? Is it normal for one player to enter the game thinking it's a cosmic good vs evil battle (and designs a goody two shoes paladin) but for another player to enter the same game thinking it's a poopsack world with lots of grey morality(and creates a thief who does 'what is needed')? They want to play entirely different games. There's been a severe breakdown in communciation between players and GM, and between player and player.

Do you go in fully blind as to what your characters would have to react to, or how they would have reasons to play along with the party without severely cutting back on their character concepts?

You do? Others don't. They want to know what your character is like, and adjust their own characters to fit the group as a whole. They don't know what exactly will happen, but theg want things to be within their ballpark. Have that courtsey for others.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 09:46 PM
And when did all the players get together and agree on what story they were going to tell? A player can't have hidden motives? Can't have surprises? Apparently I've been playing the wrong game; cause hidden motives and surprises have been integral to the story for every game i've ever run or participated in. Dark pasts, the whole thing.

I've always thought that such things made the game better. It's boring to know everything about everyone.

My players do not know each others alignments until they found out in game, naturally.

I encourage them to keep it to themselves, because player knowledge will inform character behavior, like it or not.
And their reactions won't be real if they already know everything worth knowing. If everyone knew that the Tiefling was Descended from the Pale Rider, then it wouldn't be a genuine reveal when the characters find out later.

D&D, and Pathfinder, are roleplaying games; you're playing the role of a character in a story... So yes, there is a story there. It's not just Devil May Cry 2 where there's practically no story, just pounding the crap out of a bunch of monsters... Or at least, it hasn't been that way in any game I've ever played.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-10, 09:52 PM
.
The same way you read testiness out of anything I said.

Fair enough.



Maybe your group is less willing to act like grown-ups for their desire to wallow in gratuitous depravity and betrayal rather than being able to focus on cooperation.
Maybe your group has an unusual lack of maturity for being unable to play within an alignment system.
Or perhaps we avoid judgments of "maturity" for game style preferences as cheap ad hominems.

What of my examples was depraved?
This is the "no alignment system means instant depravity" argument again.

And the maturity comment was on being able to have PvP without a massive meltdown. Which requires some level of maturity and separation between game world and real world. So it's actually pretty valid.



Limited retaliation.
If you prohibit superior retaliation, you encourage cheap shots.
If you permit it, you encourage overwhelming first strikes.

I don't know where the superior/inferior retaliation is coming from, but it looks red and herring-shaped.



Does it?
How?
No alignment is required or prohibited for the prestige class.
None is required or prohibited for the base class.
There was only the role-playing choice of the player.

I literally said here that alignment has nothing to do with the choice. The guy in the OP wanted to be a Cleric. There is no (as far as I'm aware) rule stating that all Liches are evil. *shrug*



Except it isn't.
There is no requirement to take any such limitations, or even any particular limitations.
You are free to declare your character won't kill like Spider-Man, or that he freely kills like the Punisher.
You are free to declare your character honorable like Captain American, or that he is overconfident and arrogant like Dr. Doom.
Or you can choose none of the above.
It is in fact a system without alignment just as you encourage, yet it cannot change the nature of players as you suggest.

I'm not familiar with the system and the initial description was worded to make such declarations seem mandatory. And of course, this is a part of the social contract that needs to be established with such games.



You are the one who jumped to calling people who have a different view of alignment systems "testy".

I did have 4 people respond to my initial comment in rapid succession using rather terse, aggressive wording. It struck me as very "circle the wagons" behavior.



Why would they be evil?
Is being a soldier inherently evil to you?
Is being a soldier for hire inherently evil to you?
Is being a hacker inherently evil to you?
Is being a vagabond inherently evil to you?
Is being a . . . Prussian nobleman? a guy who works in a junkyard? . . . inherently evil to you?
Maybe the problem is your base judgments of what is good and evil rather than the judgments any particular alignment system is making.

Wow. I thought the sarcasm was obvious.
But let me reiterate:
None of those people was evil, despite having no alignment system.



Which in no ways is invalidated by having alignments as well.

Sure. But I don't have to give an approved set of alignments. It doesn't affect their build choices. It doesn't affect anything mechanical in the game in any way. There's no mechanical difference between a bounty hunter who shoots kittens and a bounty hunter who only chases the vilest of criminals



OD&D did note that Law was usually Good and Chaos was usually Evil.

"Usually" being the key word.



As opposed to your handwaving away that the reason people don't want evil team mates is because they want heroics and not anti-heroics?
Thats not fallacious, and not what I said at any point. In fact, I made it quite clear that establishing the desired mood is important. Some people want to explore being individuals who are good people forced into a life of crime for survival. Good people trying to hold on to their last bastion and forced by the brutality of their situation to walk the line between man and monster.

Some just wanna be good guys who save the day.

Some wanna be bad guys struggling to find redemption.

I have an easier time running all but the Heroes Being Heroes concept in alignment-free systems because they impose no limits and demand no boxes. The grays and the slow transfers from one side to another can be tracked through character decisions, not by what letter they were upgraded to for good behavior.

The Heroes being Heroes is exactly as easy to run regardless of the presence or lack of alignment systems. So is the Villains being Villains. The others are far less graceful in alignment-bearing systems. There is a reason why alignment is in a minority of systems.
Not in FATE.
Not in Savage Worlds.
Not in any of the Fantasy Flight games.
Not in any of the WH40K games.
Not in Engine Heart
Not in any PbtA system
Not in Traveller.
Not in RISUS
Not in....
The list goes on and on and on.
So the question is this:
If alignments are necessary and the best way to do things, why are very successful games Not using them at all? And why are there so many?
(Hint: because having alignments can cause problems, and doesn't solve any. Not having an alignment doesn't solve any problems but also doesn't cause any.)


And when did all the players get together and agree on what story they were going to tell?
First Session. And it's what KIND of story.
"Bandits turned heroes" is a kind of story. But not the entire story. See?


A player can't have hidden motives? Can't have surprises?
If everyone else in the group wants to have a pretty straightforward "we're the good guys, lets all team up and kill the bad guys" story, then this is a bit dickish to pull. If they want something where betrayal is a possibility, then go for it. Because they are ok with it. It's about consent. Imagine if you went to a restaurant and your whole group had to order one kind of pizza. Everyone has decided and the pizza arrives when suddenly Joe throws (insert everyone's most hated topping) all over the pizza because that's what he wanted all along.
See how that makes Joe a ********?
Same thing.



Apparently I've been playing the wrong game; cause hidden motives and surprises have been integral to the story for every game i've ever run or participated in. Dark pasts, the whole thing.
Then your group likes dark pasts and gray moralities.
Not every member of every group likes this.
(Fascinating how not everyone likes the same thing.)

Liquor Box
2016-07-10, 09:57 PM
I agree with Monkeysage.

I don't think that there is anything strange or inconsistent about an evil party member working together with other aligned party members to achieve their goals. I also think most good party members (paladins excluded, they may present a problem) would tolerate the evil party member even if they knew he was evil.

It is accepted that, according to DnD rules, a fair proportion of the human population is evil - the threshold for evil is not that high. Not every evil person is a loner who antagonises or betrays his or her team mates - just like in real life there are a lot of nasty people who work in ordinary jobs alongside very nice (good) people. Typically, the good people don't resign from their jobs because of the presence of the evil people, unless the evil people are actively doing things that require such intervention.

To be honest, I'm not sure where the idea that evil people are less good at working well together than good people comes from. In real life and in DnD there are successful criminal gangs. Some criminal organisations are more loyal to each other than many ordinary good people are to their own friends and colleagues. Betrayal is only one aspect of evil - not everyone who is evil is more prone to betrayal than most good people.

In addition to real life, this is reflected in fiction. Look at Roy and Belkar or Varsuvius. Or Caramon and Raistlin. Or any computer role laying game where you could have companions.

It is not at all a stretch requiring a justification that an evil character and good characters would have aligning goals. Accumulating wealth and experience is a perfectly reasonable goal that would attract most evil characters (and many good or neutral ones).

Of course some evil characters might be annoying. Those whose evil manifests itself in constant and unwarrented violence might require some justification when run with good characters. But that is not the character Monkeysage is suggesting. He is suggesting a character that works well in a group, confirms to societal norms most of the time, but has a goal that is overall evil (although not an evil directed at the rest of his party) and is willing to (discretely) go further than his pure-hearted colleagues as an means to an end.

The proposed character sounds more like Varsuvius (without the vengeful streak) than Belkar to me.

I don't see a problem. I think the halfling cleric would be a good addition to a group.

Temperjoke
2016-07-10, 10:04 PM
I agree with Monkeysage.

I don't think that there is anything strange or inconsistent about an evil party member working together with other aligned party members to achieve their goals. I also think most good party members (paladins excluded, they may present a problem) would tolerate the evil party member even if they knew he was evil.

It is accepted that, according to DnD rules, a fair proportion of the human population is evil - the threshold for evil is not that high. Not every evil person is a loner who antagonises or betrays his or her team mates - just like in real life there are a lot of nasty people who work in ordinary jobs alongside very nice (good) people. Typically, the good people don't resign from their jobs because of the presence of the evil people, unless the evil people are actively doing things that require such intervention.

To be honest, I'm not sure where the idea that evil people are less good at working well together than good people comes from. In real life and in DnD there are successful criminal gangs. Some criminal organisations are more loyal to each other than many ordinary good people are to their own friends and colleagues. Betrayal is only one aspect of evil - not everyone who is evil is more prone to betrayal than most good people.

In addition to real life, this is reflected in fiction. Look at Roy and Belkar or Varsuvius. Or Caramon and Raistlin. Or any computer role laying game where you could have companions.

It is not at all a stretch requiring a justification that an evil character and good characters would have aligning goals. Accumulating wealth and experience is a perfectly reasonable goal that would attract most evil characters (and many good or neutral ones).

Of course some evil characters might be annoying. Those whose evil manifests itself in constant and unwarrented violence might require some justification when run with good characters. But that is not the character Monkeysage is suggesting. He is suggesting a character that works well in a group, confirms to societal norms most of the time, but has a goal that is overall evil (although not an evil directed at the rest of his party) and is willing to (discretely) go further than his pure-hearted colleagues as an means to an end.

The proposed character sounds more like Varsuvius (without the vengeful streak) than Belkar to me.

I don't see a problem. I think the halfling cleric would be a good addition to a group.

The main argument didn't start with that it was impossible to happen, it centers around the idea that people's experience made it unlikely, and usually unpleasant when it occurred. Then the argument shifted to not telling them you're evil so they don't automatically reject your character without giving him/her a chance, with a lot of people feeling that this is lying/betraying your group and is just as bad as being a flat out stupid evil character; versus a few people who don't think this is a bad thing and would work.

EDIT: Oh, and I think we're at the point where the same arguments keep circling around and no one is going to change their position, and we should probably all agree to disagree and make sure we never play with each other, regardless of the system chosen.

goto124
2016-07-10, 10:11 PM
And when did all the players get together and agree on what story they were going to tell? A player can't have hidden motives? Can't have surprises? Apparently I've been playing the wrong game; cause hidden motives and surprises have been integral to the story for every game i've ever run

To your first question: When the game was pitched by the GM. During Session 0, character creation. Throughout the entire campaign where players and GMs constantly provide feedback on how they felt about the game and how things turned out.

Did the players know the other players have OOC surprises for them, in the very least? Such as a Paranoia style game.

Also, there's a huge gap in between 'hack and slash' and ''genuine' and 'real' roleplaying'. Don't insult every playstyle that isn't yours.

Don't insult every playstyle that isn't yours.Don't insult people for being different.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 10:26 PM
To your first question: When the game was pitched by the GM. During Session 0, character creation. Throughout the entire campaign where players and GMs constantly provide feedback on how they felt about the game and how things turned out.

Did the players know the other players have OOC surprises for them, in the very least? Such as a Paranoia style game.

Also, there's a huge gap in between 'hack and slash' and ''genuine' and 'real' roleplaying'. Don't insult every playstyle that isn't yours.

Don't insult every playstyle that isn't yours.Don't insult people for being different.

It's never been my intention to insult anyone, though I feel as if an entire playstyle is being dismissed out of hand without being given a chance. Maybe I communicated a tone I didn't mean to send out? I'm not good with that sort of thing.

Quertus
2016-07-10, 10:33 PM
I would say it's self-evident that lying to your fellow players represents a betrayal of trust. Regardless of whether you're trying to tell a story, you're still destroying their trust in you as a player. The character may not intend to betray the party, but the instant that you, as a player, decide to start concealing things from your group, you have betrayed them and the trust they put in you.



OOCly hiding info from the players (not PCs) is not cool

As has been brought up earlier in this thread, knowing things OOC that your characters do not know IC can affect your role-playing. So, to me, telling me things that I do not know IC is a violation of trust, something that can remove the fun from the game, especially if it ruins a mystery or a surprise. No spoilers! Spoilers = betrayal; concealing information is what friends do.

Also, does the DM destroy your trust in him/her by not revealing all their campaign notes before the start of the game? I seriously hope that the answer to that question is "no".


However, they need to plan THEIR PCs around your PC long before you show your PC's true colors eventually. If one player creates an undead-hating priest of an undead-hating god, and you create a necromancer, being upfront means the player has at least a chance to speak up about what could be done. You may not even need to throw away your character - the player could agree to set up a character arc where the undead-hating priest tolerates the necromancer, with the occasional squabble, but there's an OOC understanding to not let such squabbles get out of hand. There you have it - an interesting subplot!

But let's say you hide the fact your necromancer is a necromancer. The other player creates an undead-hating priest of an undead-hating god, without knowing there'll be a necromancer in the party to deal with. Mid-campaign, it's suddenly revealed - that wizard is actually a necromancer! The priest player is not going to take this well. "Why did I not know this? This campaign wasn't pitched as PvP or anything related to players hiding info from one another! Now my priest has no reason to stick in this campaign. If I knew my character concept was going to get tossed out of the window, I would've gone with something different!" That player is NOT going to just go along with your 'clever' plan. There will be a lot of drama and OOC screaming. No one will actually like your story.

This is big. Another player building an undead hunter without knowledge of your story would almost guarantee your story to "fail" (ie, to not be fun).

At a minimum, I would recommend bringing 2 characters to the table; if the DM tells you that the necromancer won't work because someone brought an undead hunter, well, run the second character instead, and save this concept for later.

Perhaps this is the Law vs Chaos axis approach, but I prefer for characters to be built independently if at all possible. This maximizes the diversity of the RP experience

Mind you, I was in the party where the DM set the guidelines, and 5 players went their own way to build characters. They came back with a paladin, an assassin, an undead hunter, an undead master, and my character. I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that this party had issues.

Don't be like that party. If the character won't work, bring someone else.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 10:44 PM
This is big. Another player building an undead hunter without knowledge of your story would almost guarantee your story to "fail" (ie, to not be fun).

At a minimum, I would recommend bringing 2 characters to the table; if the DM tells you that the necromancer won't work because someone brought an undead hunter, well, run the second character instead, and save this concept for later.

Perhaps this is the Law vs Chaos axis approach, but I prefer for characters to be built independently if at all possible. This maximizes the diversity of the RP experience

Mind you, I was in the party where the DM set the guidelines, and 5 players went their own way to build characters. They came back with a paladin, an assassin, an undead hunter, an undead master, and my character. I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that this party had issues.

Don't be like that party. If the character won't work, bring someone else.

Reasonable; in the school function, our group was split in two(not because of alignment differences, but simply because there were a lot of players involved). One group got a paladin, the other got me. I was actually the CoDM in that campaign, and suggested that paring me up with a paladin would be a bad idea.

Our group ended up being a very bizarre gnome monk (LN), a rogue(CE), a halfling cleric (NE), and a druid (NG). About the most conflict we had was between my cleric and the druid, but out of character we got on great even after the reveal.

Liquor Box
2016-07-10, 10:57 PM
The main argument didn't start with that it was impossible to happen, it centers around the idea that people's experience made it unlikely, and usually unpleasant when it occurred. Then the argument shifted to not telling them you're evil so they don't automatically reject your character without giving him/her a chance, with a lot of people feeling that this is lying/betraying your group and is just as bad as being a flat out stupid evil character; versus a few people who don't think this is a bad thing and would work.

EDIT: Oh, and I think we're at the point where the same arguments keep circling around and no one is going to change their position, and we should probably all agree to disagree and make sure we never play with each other, regardless of the system chosen.

I must admit, when I read lots of people complaining about lying to his fellow party members, I leaped to the conclusion that they were referring to his character lying to the other characters.

Not so sure about him not telling people out of character that his character is evil. I suppose it depends whether his group would usually fill each other in on their characters. He would kind of have to tell him DM though.

MonkeySage
2016-07-10, 11:01 PM
Oh the DM of course would know.

RickAllison
2016-07-10, 11:15 PM
As has been brought up earlier in this thread, knowing things OOC that your characters do not know IC can affect your role-playing. So, to me, telling me things that I do not know IC is a violation of trust, something that can remove the fun from the game, especially if it ruins a mystery or a surprise. No spoilers! Spoilers = betrayal; concealing information is what friends do.

Also, does the DM destroy your trust in him/her by not revealing all their campaign notes before the start of the game? I seriously hope that the answer to that question is "no".



This is big. Another player building an undead hunter without knowledge of your story would almost guarantee your story to "fail" (ie, to not be fun).

At a minimum, I would recommend bringing 2 characters to the table; if the DM tells you that the necromancer won't work because someone brought an undead hunter, well, run the second character instead, and save this concept for later.

Perhaps this is the Law vs Chaos axis approach, but I prefer for characters to be built independently if at all possible. This maximizes the diversity of the RP experience

Mind you, I was in the party where the DM set the guidelines, and 5 players went their own way to build characters. They came back with a paladin, an assassin, an undead hunter, an undead master, and my character. I'm sure it comes as no surprise when I say that this party had issues.

Don't be like that party. If the character won't work, bring someone else.

While that party of 5 seems extremely dysfunctional, a necromancer hiding his true colors from an undead Hunter seems like an interesting story, especially if they were both Good. Think of Final Fantasy X, where we had one character who was incredibly racist toward the Al Bhed, which led to two characters having to hide who they really were from him. Eventually, their heritage was revealed and he had to deal with his mixed emotions of how he felt about the characters versus how he felt about their heritage.

How does an undead Hunter, who has been on numerous adventurers, facing death side-by-side with the secret necromancer, deal when the caster summons the undead to protect a pregnant woman in danger? He knows how Good his ally is, he is seeing him use his powers for Good, but he hates the concept of what he is doing. It makes for a charged story, the kind that separates playing a character from just playing an oath. One requires considering the PC's bonds and experiences while the other is a checklist of what the character doesn't tolerate.

Aeson
2016-07-10, 11:26 PM
Maybe a good aligned evocation wizard should use frost magic, frost bite can still be nasty but it is (or could be, I have a decided lack of experience of being the target of such spells) better than electrocution and burns.

Freezing is probably a better option, which solidifies the point I was (badly) trying to make: just because a class is suited for evil purposes (like an evoker wizard) does not mean each member should be lumped in as evil, and so why Good PCs should give them a chance.
Spell-inflicted frostbite is likely to be extremely painful; you're not freezing body parts which have been numbed by prolonged exposure to low temperatures, you're freezing body parts which were at entirely normal temperatures and which were perfectly functional only moments before you hit them with the spell. It'd be like sticking your arm up to your shoulder into a vat of liquid nitrogen, or like a larger-scale version of freezing a wart off your foot; you're going to feel the cells freezing, at least for a little while, and it is going to be rather painful. Cold magic isn't likely to be all that much better, as far as pain inflicted goes, than fire magic.


I agree that napalm and flamethrower a are probably the two best comparisons to real life, and both are rather frowned upon or considered outright bad.
The interesting thing about incendiaries and incendiary weapons is that they're an example of a situation where morality and pragmatism conflict. Incendiaries are (regarded as being) too useful for certain tasks like destruction of materiel, short-term area denial, and driving people out of fortified positions which might otherwise be very costly to storm, and so get a pass despite the rather horrific nature of the injuries inflicted, whereas certain types of bullets which cause injuries which are not really any worse are banned. A large part of the difference is in the available alternatives; legal varieties of bullets are not significantly less effective than the banned varieties, but a lot of the alternatives to incendiaries are already banned, are less effective (whether due to the ease with which countermeasures can be found or employed or by virtue of the nature of the attack), are less controllable, have undesirable long-term effects on the area targeted, or have some combination of the above flaws.

With magic, though, the pragmatic argument for allowing these kinds of things can start to lose ground and may fall apart completely. If you can cast either Painlessly Kill Everything Within 20' of Targeted Point or Kill Everything Within 20' of Targeted Point by Burning it to Death, well, choosing to cast the latter is a lot darker than choosing to cast the former. If you have AoE damage spells which kill relatively quickly and painlessly (or at least relatively painlessly) and AoE fear spells, and neither of these are any more limited by fortifications than real-world incendiary weapons or their magical equivalents are, then that puts the magical equivalents of real-world incendiary weapons into a position where the use of the magical equivalents starts to become very morally questionable, especially if the fear and relatively painless damage spells are about as effective. If your setting has the appropriate type of magic for it, you also get into issues like whether or not saving 20 animated statues that don't feel anything anyways is worth risking inflicting the kinds of injuries that fire and acid can inflict on any living being unfortunate enough to be struck, and may have further issues because the magical equivalents to flamethrowers probably are not going to be as effective against animated statues that would obey an order to jump into an incinerator as readily as they'd obey an order to march down the road as the real-world weapons are against humans.


Circumstances and what other actions you could reasonably have taken in those circumstances matter, at least to some degree; killing a goblin by turning it into a living torch is a lot darker than killing it with a quick and relatively painless instant-kill spell or paralyzing it and letting the party fighter give it a quick and clean death (if your party fighter's a jerk and makes the goblin suffer or draws out the goblin's death, then that's another story, but if that's the case, well, I don't know that your spellcaster is the token evil party member, and even if your spellcaster is the token evil party member, your spellcaster isn't alone in being evil or, at the very least, having evil tendencies), if that was an available alternative to burning the goblin alive. On the other hand, if your choices are between incinerating a score of goblins with a fireball and killing one in a quick and painless way while the other 19 overwhelm the party and kill all of you, well, burning 20 goblins alive isn't going to polish your halo, but if you really didn't have any reasonable alternatives, it's also not going to tarnish it too badly.

Basically, the slower and more painful the chosen method of killing or inflicting harm is, the darker it is, but what other options you have also matter. Maybe the entire School of Necromancy is evil (because it's about manipulation of negative energy and negative energy is evil for some reason) and so, therefore, is Slay Living, but if Slay Living kills quickly and painlessly then it's a lot less dark in my book than a spell which burns someone to death, and while people who kill using Slay Living may well be evil, they're not as far into the deep end as people who kill by repeated application of Scorching Rays or similar spells, at least not in my book.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-11, 12:29 AM
It's never been my intention to insult anyone, though I feel as if an entire playstyle is being dismissed out of hand without being given a chance. Maybe I communicated a tone I didn't mean to send out? I'm not good with that sort of thing.

You asked a question.
You've been given multiple variations on essentially the same answer, with varying levels of explanation as to the hows and whys the various responders would not accept an evil teammate, token or otherwise.
Your response has been to whip out a lead sheet like Belkar and declaring: "Stop oppressing my culture!"
That is insulting in both refusing to acknowledge that reasons have been given, and in dismissing those reasons as being a legitimate choice for play. You may not intend it that way, but that is the message the words you choose are sending.



What of my examples was depraved?

None.
And that's the problem - you presented them as if they could be evil.


This is the "no alignment system means instant depravity" argument again.

No, it is the problem of you have poor examples to support your position.
Which apparently you did deliberately.


And the maturity comment was on being able to have PvP without a massive meltdown. Which requires some level of maturity and separation between game world and real world. So it's actually pretty valid.

Yes, I'm aware of the source.
You are unaware that it is pretentious, and thus both not particularly valid, and thoroughly ad hominem.
You may as well just tell everyone else to grow up.


I don't know where the superior/inferior retaliation is coming from, but it looks red and herring-shaped.

It comes from you declaring the PvP would be "strictly" controlled.


I literally said here that alignment has nothing to do with the choice. The guy in the OP wanted to be a Cleric. There is no (as far as I'm aware) rule stating that all Liches are evil. *shrug*

Then you are literally not reading the OP, where it is clearly stated that he wanted to be a neutral evil cleric.


I'm not familiar with the system and the initial description was worded to make such declarations seem mandatory. And of course, this is a part of the social contract that needs to be established with such games.

So you spoke from ignorance.
And now you want to shift it to something else.


I did have 4 people respond to my initial comment in rapid succession using rather terse, aggressive wording. It struck me as very "circle the wagons" behavior.

Have you noticed how many posts are in the thread?
Indeed have you noticed how many times I've included replies to multiple people in one post so as not to multi-post?


Wow. I thought the sarcasm was obvious.
But let me reiterate:
None of those people was evil, despite having no alignment system.

So then . . . you deliberately used poor examples to not prove your point and to try and "trap" people?
Did you notice that you did it so poorly that nobody did call them evil?


Sure. But I don't have to give an approved set of alignments. It doesn't affect their build choices. It doesn't affect anything mechanical in the game in any way. There's no mechanical difference between a bounty hunter who shoots kittens and a bounty hunter who only chases the vilest of criminals

Which still doesn't invalidate having alignments.


"Usually" being the key word.

Yes it is, but in the opposite way than what you think.


Thats not fallacious, and not what I said at any point.

It is inherent in what you said.


In fact, I made it quite clear that establishing the desired mood is important.

In which case there is nothing wrong with having an alignment system, or using it to exclude certain choices.

Oh wait . . .


There is a reason why alignment is in a minority of systems.

Yes, and once again, not for the reason you think.


Not in Traveller.

Funny you should list Traveller.
I once did a breakdown of the adventures and patron options in the canon material.
I believe it was over 66% were actively criminal, around 33% being felony level, and 5% being capital offenses.
But "heroes" or something without an alignment system.


If alignments are necessary and the best way to do things, why are very successful games Not using them at all? And why are there so many?

Are you sure that is the question?
Are positive it isn't:
"If the first RPG ever, and the most successful one, has an alignment system, is that why other games have never displaced it?


(Hint: because having alignments can cause problems, and doesn't solve any. Not having an alignment doesn't solve any problems but also doesn't cause any.)

Or maybe it is:
"Hint: because having an alignment system gives an overarching thematic structure to the game, which enables greater use of certain archetypes that other systems need heavy handed kludges to deal, if they can address them at all."

jindra34
2016-07-11, 12:42 AM
The basic issue with how you've phrased what you want to do actually comes down very little on actually being a 'token evil teammate' and more on wanting to have a specific story to tell, that needs a special exemption (if it didn't then were not at the token evil teammate stage) to play, and has a high chance to effect other people stories (or the direction they would like it to go) from the outset WITHOUT giving them either a say or similar option to effect yours back. If you were asking me as the GM about this, I'd expect you to have much stronger reasons than presented. And ones that don't involve (subtle or not) warping of the focus of the story onto you.

Let me add the first question I would ask in that situation: What about the path you intend to take the story on REQUIRES you to start as evil rather than neutral with evil leanings?

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-11, 03:45 AM
None.
And that's the problem - you presented them as if they could be evil.

No I didnt. Darth Ultron caught my meaning just fine, and he usually seems to go out of his way to misinterpret.



No, it is the problem of you have poor examples to support your position.
Which apparently you did deliberately.

Lol. Just.
Lol.



Yes, I'm aware of the source.
You are unaware that it is pretentious, and thus both not particularly valid, and thoroughly ad hominem.
You may as well just tell everyone else to grow up.

Making sure everyone participating in a roleplaying game has the same level of maturity is probably a very good idea.
And if your group can't separate game world and real world, you really ought not to do PvP. Am I wrong?
And if they can separate Game World and Real World, and can have PvP in a mature manner that doesn't cause real world strife, then you can do PvP just fine. Am I wrong on either count?
I'm not.



It comes from you declaring the PvP would be "strictly" controlled.

I never said PvP would be strictly controlled. You may be mixing me with someone else, or I had a typo of some sort. I genuinely don't stop my players from having PvP, though I do stop before it goes ahead to make sure everyone is chill with what's happening. As I've already stated before.



Then you are literally not reading the OP, where it is clearly stated that he wanted to be a neutral evil cleric.

I knew that. And it still doesn't really figure. Again, you're grasping at straws.



So you spoke from ignorance.
And now you want to shift it to something else.

Did I declare that it IS a terrible alignment system or that it Sounded like one?
(It was the latter. I was admitting my ignorance there and making a speculative statement, not making a declarative statement of fact.)



Have you noticed how many posts are in the thread?
Indeed have you noticed how many times I've included replies to multiple people in one post so as not to multi-post?

I did. Good job. Totally irrelevant to what I meant, but good job.



So then . . . you deliberately used poor examples to not prove your point and to try and "trap" people?
Did you notice that you did it so poorly that nobody did call them evil?

I was implying exactly the opposite since Darth Ultron was implying that No Alignment automatically leads to pure evil behavior. I was arguing against an entirely different point. One that I'm sure you can see is plainly fallacious.



Which still doesn't invalidate having alignments.

And does even less to validate having them. :D



Yes it is, but in the opposite way than what you think.
"This wording shows that the alignments were more flexible back then, and were generally background information with minimal in-game application outside of a free code language."
"HA! GOTCHA! Alignments have always been important! You've proven me right!"
Ok.




It is inherent in what you said.

How so, exactly? This seems like you'd have to do some pretty serious between-lines reading to reach this conclusion.



In which case there is nothing wrong with having an alignment system, or using it to exclude certain choices.
Sure. But you don't need one to do that, either. In fact it can be easier without one.



Yes, and once again, not for the reason you think.

I sure hope you got some great game development reasons why those games are choosing to be wrong, then. :D



Funny you should list Traveller.
I once did a breakdown of the adventures and patron options in the canon material.
I believe it was over 66% were actively criminal, around 33% being felony level, and 5% being capital offenses.
But "heroes" or something without an alignment system.

"Ha! This one system has you do a lot of criminal activities! By this singular example, all is proven right!"
Ok.



Are you sure that is the question?
Are positive it isn't:
"If the first RPG ever, and the most successful one, has an alignment system, is that why other games have never displaced it?

D&D has been displaced on top-selling charts multiple times through the years. (And not just by Pathfinder.) Being the first and drawing controversy makes it the most well-known, so attributing its success to the alignment system is.... a massive stretch. And definitely wrong for the same reason Base Attack Bonuses aren't the reason why it's so popular.



Or maybe it is:
"Hint: because having an alignment system gives an overarching thematic structure to the game, which enables greater use of certain archetypes that other systems need heavy handed kludges to deal, if they can address them at all."
What heavy-handed kludge?
"Hey guys. I'm thinking of doing an epic hero-types save the day campaign. You in?"
"Sure. You mind if I play a bit of a scoundrel?"
"Are you gonna be a pain in everyone's butt?"
"Nah."
"Alrighty then. I trust you."

(BEGIN SARCASM)
Wow. That's such a kludgey thing. So heavy handed to have to talk to your players instead of emailing them a list of no-no alignments.
(END SARCASM)

Is having a brief conversation about the kind of game everyone wants to play really so awful that we call it heavy-handed and kludgey?

And is it really so bad to go into PvP after stopping to go.
"Alright. Looks like a fight is about to happen. You chill with this, Brian?"
"Yeah."
"How about you, Kevin. You seem miffed."
"I'd really like to not lose this character."
"Cool. Let's take a 5 minute break and come back with clear heads, and Brian, try to keep Dastardly Dave alive, alright?"
"Ok."
I would like for my friends to still be friends at the end of the night. And so I have a reason to make sure everything is ok before I carry on. And the one guy in my group who wanted to betray everyone knew for a fact that he would probably lose his character and wanted to do it anyways. (Other arrangements ended up being arranged, but it was a great "you bloody bastard!" moment.)

Frozen_Feet
2016-07-11, 04:02 AM
When was the last time people here played Bluff? Or any other card game where the whole point is to cheat and deceive other players, even those you're nominally allied with?

In the wider world of tabletop games, player-versus-player is the norm. Having to deal with defeat and being betrayed is the norm. It has always boggled my mind how quick roleplayers are to assume co-operation is the default and then get upset when people don't.

Here's the thing: I play regularly with people completely new to the hobby, and spontaneous backstabbing for minor gains is more common than any form of co-operation. And it tends to end in roaring laughter, not broken friendships. PvP is the natural assumption people have when engaging in a tabletop game. The next most natural is Team-versus-team, either one set of players against another, or players versus the GM.

The idea that all people on the table should co-operate to "create a story", fighting purely imaginary opponents, is an incredibly far cry for a game.

NichG
2016-07-11, 04:14 AM
The main argument didn't start with that it was impossible to happen, it centers around the idea that people's experience made it unlikely, and usually unpleasant when it occurred. Then the argument shifted to not telling them you're evil so they don't automatically reject your character without giving him/her a chance, with a lot of people feeling that this is lying/betraying your group and is just as bad as being a flat out stupid evil character; versus a few people who don't think this is a bad thing and would work.

Yeah. There are players I know who I would implicitly trust to play evil characters in a neutral/good group, even who I would trust to have hidden agendas that might end up in opposition to the rest of the party. These players have one thing in common - they have actively demonstrated an awareness and concern for the fun of the other players at the table even at the cost of their own enjoyment.

If someone like that plays an evil character in a neutral/good group, I believe it can absolutely work and be a total blast.

But if someone is putting 'the story they want to tell' or their views about how players should or shouldn't take things personally before consideration of the fun of the other people at the table, well, then I wouldn't trust them to play evil responsibly. That's my issue, not the character concept itself.

Theoboldi
2016-07-11, 05:07 AM
I've been wondering about this myself.

Actually, replace "an evil character" with "a character who actually has a personality and makes meaningful decisions", and "the good guys" with "other party members", to get a question that's been bugging me since ever.

I'd say that, just as with an evil character, it's all a matter of making sure your character has a personality and goals that fit within the campaign and party he is apart of. If these things are cleared up beforehand, it's very easy to play a character who has goals and wishes that not everyone else in the party shares, but still make it so they're able to follow them with the help of their party members. The rest comes down to convincing the other characters IC via either promises of profit or plain old-fashioned friendship. :smallwink:

Of course, this also requires a DM who does give his players that amount of agency. Further, a personality that runs directly contrary to the other members of the party works really only in specific games. Namely one-shots, where you don't have to worry about the party working together for extended periods of times, and big forum-spanning RPGs like what we have on the freeform forums here, where parties are built pertty much only by circumstance and necessity, and can easily change over time due to the sheer amount of people and narrative freedom.

But this is kinda getting off-topic, so I think I'll leave it at that.

Satinavian
2016-07-11, 05:25 AM
I once played an evil necromantic cleric in a good(ish) group for a very long time and i would call it pretty successful. But i choose a character with goals that did not contradict the rest of the group. No end goal of ruling over them or becoming their god rubbish like that. I also was very honest. My character to the other character and i as a player to the other players. And i think that helps.

A character having ssuch secrets from the other characters is difficult. You will have to play a lot of things alone with the dm. And there are many many instances where you simply can't use your powers (or minions) severely making you weaker and blurring the concept. And when it finally gets out your character will have a lot of problems with the rest. I generally advise against such secret characters, except if the player knows that the cover story will be what he actually plays all the time and is also invested in that role.

As for keeping it secret not only from the characters but also from the players, i really think that is not a good idea. Now you can't even play it out when other players are in the room. Instead of the other players being able to at least enjoy your scenes as spectators you are just basically playing your own game with the GM. Also it is really hard to keep secrets like that from players who know the rules and are genre savvy.

goto124
2016-07-11, 07:25 AM
When was the last time people here played Bluff? Or any other card game where the whole point is to cheat and deceive other players, even those you're nominally allied with?

Again, it's part of the expectations of the game that betrayal will happen, much like how you would expect backstabbing in a game of Paranoia. DnD and many other games built on the assumption of cooperation and no-betrayal, not so much.

CharonsHelper
2016-07-11, 07:45 AM
Frankly, the more I read, the more this screams SSS. (Special Snowflake Syndrome.)

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-11, 08:05 AM
Again, it's part of the expectations of the game that betrayal will happen, much like how you would expect backstabbing in a game of Paranoia. DnD and many other games built on the assumption of cooperation and no-betrayal, not so much.

Like I said before, this may vary by group. But as in all games that can be played in a variety of ways, it is a really good idea to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Tbh, it sounds to me like OP is not on the same page as the rest of his group and rather than getting onto THAT page, is trying to find ways to convince them to hastily staple his page to theirs. (Not a good call, imo.) Or to cover his rear when things go south.

Segev
2016-07-11, 08:09 AM
Frankly, the more I read, the more this screams SSS. (Special Snowflake Syndrome.)

Eh, it can manifest that way, but there really isn't all that much correlation.

Cluedrew
2016-07-11, 08:47 AM
Here's the thing: I play regularly with people completely new to the hobby, and spontaneous backstabbing for minor gains is more common than any form of co-operation. And it tends to end in roaring laughter, not broken friendships.Than you are probably in a group where you make it work. They do exist. I'm not saying they don't (I don't think anyone is). What I am saying is that groups where this will not work do exist and MonkeySage should make sure he isn't playing in one of those before rolling out this character.

I'm just a little worried that he isn't taking that possibility seriously. Rather he just seems to insist that there is no really reason it wouldn't work. There really are, but maybe the reason for the insistence is that none of those reasons apply to his group. In which case it should be fine. But if they do apply then this could end badly.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-11, 11:41 AM
{{scrubbed}}

2D8HP
2016-07-11, 12:18 PM
Um, because their afraid of this?

Player: My PC hits Bob's PC over the back of the head with a chair!

DM: Why would Laszlo Erudite, professor of Near eastern languages do that?

Player: He stole my Vorpol sword!

DM: Those were your D&D PC's, this is Call of Cthullu!

Player: Don't you railroad me!

:wink:

Temperjoke
2016-07-11, 01:01 PM
Um, because their afraid of this?

Player: My PC hits Bob's PC over the back of the head with a chair!

DM: Why would Laszlo Erudite, professor of Near eastern languages do that?

Player: He stole my Vorpol sword!

DM: Those were your D&D PC's, this is Call of Cthullu!

Player: Don't you railroad me!

:wink:

In fairness, inter-planar silliness is not out of place in Call of Cthullu.

RickAllison
2016-07-11, 01:01 PM
Um, because their afraid of this?

Player: My PC hits Bob's PC over the back of the head with a chair!

DM: Why would Laszlo Erudite, professor of Near eastern languages do that?

Player: He stole my Vorpol sword!

DM: Those were your D&D PC's, this is Call of Cthullu!

Player: Don't you railroad me!

:wink:


Obviously his PC was driven insane by an Old One, and the events of the D&D game are his perception within CoC!

Enixon
2016-07-11, 04:28 PM
Don't insult every playstyle that isn't yours.Don't insult people for being different.


Just playing devil's advocate here, but where was this while Monkeysage was the one being insulted for his playstyle?

yawndareray
2016-07-11, 04:38 PM
Just from my own DM experience, it's often hard to reconcile an evil character's motivations/desires with that of the larger good-aligned party. It might just be that I've had some especially uncooperative players, though.

The Insanity
2016-07-11, 04:53 PM
I play with my friends, so it was never a problem that couldn't be resolved to everyones satisfaction.

ImNotTrevor
2016-07-11, 06:39 PM
{{Scrubbed}}

Arbane
2016-07-11, 07:27 PM
Well, I think the original question has been answered quite thoroughly at this point.

Tiktakkat
2016-07-11, 07:46 PM
{{scrubbed}}

LibraryOgre
2016-07-11, 08:00 PM
The Mod Wonder: Hey, look, I come back and we're in a flame war! Fun!