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Xuincherguixe
2007-07-09, 06:36 AM
So, relating to some of my own plans and reading some of the threads I got to thinking.

There are some topics which are pretty uncomfortable ones. But it may be that you really want to include them in your game. It doesn't really matter what specific issue it is, just that you're uncomfortable with it.

With an evil party it becomes easier though. Now, you can have the players do these horrible things to a particular group of people because they're evil. It's basically saying in other words this is wrong because you people did it.

There can also be a sort of dark humor element about it, takes a bit of the edge off but you still get the message across. You can laugh and still be horrified at the same time.


Thoughts?

Elana
2007-07-09, 06:58 AM
There aren't many things I wouldn't allow in a game.

But Evil campaigns have the drawback of being a lot of work.
(And as a DM you still end up with a lot of improvising)

Also if you have a bunch of immature players you end up with a session of rape and slaughtering the innocent.
(And in party fighting)


But if you have some players who can stay sane at the possibilities now open to them, it can be un for a while.

(But make sure your campaign gives them a compelling reason to work together, unless you want to relax so the players can be challenges for each other :) )

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-09, 07:36 AM
There aren't many things I wouldn't allow in a game.

But Evil campaigns have the drawback of being a lot of work.
(And as a DM you still end up with a lot of improvising)

Also if you have a bunch of immature players you end up with a session of rape and slaughtering the innocent.
(And in party fighting)


I hate to say it, but my Monster Campaign is going to have pretty much all of that. The good news is, most of the rape is probably going to happen to one particular character. They know it's coming though, and the player accepts it.

And oh boy is this campaign a lot of work. Not just because there are a lot of evil characters (I'd like there to be some good ones, but evil works just so well in this), but because it's defying so many conventions. I'm pretty confident it's going to be extremely memorable though. How often does D&D get into existentialism?

There will be a massive, MASSIVE body count.



But if you have some players who can stay sane at the possibilities now open to them, it can be un for a while.

None of us are sane to begin with. Which is only going to make it even more awesome.




(But make sure your campaign gives them a compelling reason to work together, unless you want to relax so the players can be challenges for each other :) )
I certainly don't want the players murdering each other. I'm going to just outright not allow it. However, I will encourage a fair amount of inter party conflict. This is part of why I want some of the characters to be good. A major theme of the game is uniting despite differences, to accomplish great things. Even if you really don't like each other.


Even if you're absolutely horrible, horrible people. Deplorable people can do some good things. Infrequently as it may be.

I don't see it happening, knowing the people involved. But if it does I'll hold the game, and maybe retcon some stuff. They're insane and immature in the way that's sane and mature. It's very zen.


Plus, I think everyone wants to kill Paladins ^_^. (I'm looking at you Chaotic Good Rangers)

Lord_Kimboat
2007-07-09, 07:40 AM
Ah, alignment - the old chestnut that no one ever seems to get tired of talking about.

My problem with evil parties (or even evil characters) is why people want to play them. From what I've seen and heard (certainly not everything out there) the most common reason players want to go evil is for freedom. The argument, "our DM won't let us kill/torture/get out own way while being good, so why can't we be evil?"

They tend to see good alignments as restrictive and evil as liberating. I don't believe that this is true though. Shouldn't evil alignments should have the same sort of restrictions as good?

In my opinion, this is actually the DM's fault by wanting to restrict players and using alignment to do so.

For example, is torture evil? Probably yes, if the reason behind it is to get a discount at the local inn. But maybe not if it's to find the cure to the plague that is afflicting the city. These arguments can be made for just about every case.

So X of the unpronounceable (and pretty hard to spell) log in ID, I agree with you partially. The alignment problem (at least in my opinion) stems from DMs who want to restrict their PCs actions - but maybe not because it makes them feel uncomfortable. It could be for a host of other reasons.

[quote=Xuincherguixe]With an evil party it becomes easier though. Now, you can have the players do these horrible things to a particular group of people because they're evil. It's basically saying in other words this is wrong because you people did it.[\quote]

True, but you can't have them work for a good temple, or probably even an evil one, because evil people would demand high compensation - probably too high for the temple to provide (a good temple wouldn't be able to afford their extortionate price and an evil one wouldn't pay). Many patrons would have this same problem. Adventure hooks would often not make sense and you could often find the adventurers wanting to join the antagonists and betray their comrades. It just doesn't lead to a long lasting or fun game.

Elana
2007-07-09, 08:04 AM
Adventure hooks are out of the window with an evil party.

Evil characters act instead of reacting.

This means, they must come up with plans to get rich, powerfull or whatever and a way to deal with those pesky heroes that would show up :)



And I wouldn't restrict player with alignment. I just would adjust alignment according to the way they act.
(And yes torture is always evil, and rarely gets true results (Well, they certainly tell you whatever you want and confess everything))

The only time alignment matters at all is for certain spells and some magical items.
(Well and of course for some classes)

Tobaselly
2007-07-09, 08:11 AM
Adventure hooks are out of the window with an evil party.

Evil characters act instead of reacting.

This means, they must come up with plans to get rich, powerfull or whatever and a way to deal with those pesky heroes that would show up :)



Evil characters require more personal attention to draw them properly into the story. Plot hooks have to cater to individual character desires instead of the desires of the group.

Jayabalard
2007-07-09, 08:13 AM
For example, is torture evil? Probably yes, if the reason behind it is to get a discount at the local inn.Yup, evil
But maybe not if it's to find the cure to the plague that is afflicting the city. These arguments can be made for just about every case.Nope, still evil. I'm sure that it's possible to come up with an "ends justify these means" type argument for just about every case, those arguments are just false in every one of those cases.

Being a good guy is limiting, and being a bad guy is not. That's the appeal of the dark side.... quick, easier, more seductive.

Tengu
2007-07-09, 08:21 AM
I think that evil parties attract mostly very immature people - those that consider dark, cruel et cetera badass, and good boring and stupid. What a pity that it's become such a trend lately - each time someone says "evil will always win because good is dumb!", I wish I could hit people with a hammer via the internet.

Lord_Kimboat
2007-07-09, 08:24 AM
Nope, still evil. I'm sure that it's possible to come up with an "ends justify these means" type argument for just about every case, those arguments are just false in every one of those cases.

Being a good guy is limiting, and being a bad guy is not. That's the appeal of the dark side.... quick, easier, more seductive.

I disagree on both counts. Let's go to something like murder. Is a paladin allowed to kill an orc that it encounters in the wilderness? Sure, the paladin might use detect evil and say, "yep, that orc is evil." But it may not have committed any crimes, or is just being an orc punishable by death?

What about a farmer that happens to be plowing a field nearby? The paladin, using his detect on the orc, also finds that the farmer is evil. Should he be killed as well?

If you're going to use Jedi Knights as your guide (presumably as paladins) then they should not be able to fight in armies, or fight at all unless it is to protect someone's life (fairly hypocritical if you ask me - "Don't try to kill that person, if you do, I'll kill you instead?").

I've always felt that one has to look at the intention behind the act - the 'mens rea' or guilty mind/intent.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-09, 08:36 AM
Well, only, you see...evil often does win because good often is dumb.

Good, to still be good, has to be willing to sacrifice itself for certain things of no strategic value, and furthermore to want to do so. Evil can and should attempt to exploit this to draw good into unfavorable positions, and potentially to ultimately destroy them. The paladin will generally jump in front of the annihilation beam to save a couple commoner-1s. And if we're all lucky, the world won't be doomed as a result.

To avoid being 'dumb' in this way is both against the natural inclinations of good characters, and a path that risks falling into the neutrality of cold-blooded efficiency.

SolkaTruesilver
2007-07-09, 08:47 AM
I disagree on both counts. Let's go to something like murder. Is a paladin allowed to kill an orc that it encounters in the wilderness? Sure, the paladin might use detect evil and say, "yep, that orc is evil." But it may not have committed any crimes, or is just being an orc punishable by death?

Sadly, Detect Evil doesn't work like that. A simple orc won't generate an evil aura, except if they are quite high level. Outsiders, Undeads and clerics generate aura, as stated by their class descriptions.




What about a farmer that happens to be plowing a field nearby? The paladin, using his detect on the orc, also finds that the farmer is evil. Should he be killed as well?

Same as above. If the farmer DO register as evil, it means that he has a good reason to show on the radar. A simple evil NPC commoner won't, so no reason to kill him.


If you're going to use Jedi Knights as your guide (presumably as paladins) then they should not be able to fight in armies, or fight at all unless it is to protect someone's life (fairly hypocritical if you ask me - "Don't try to kill that person, if you do, I'll kill you instead?").

I've always felt that one has to look at the intention behind the act - the 'mens rea' or guilty mind/intent.

Jedi code means you avoid violence as necessary. You can fight in a war (the clone war being a good example) and kill a lot, because the circumstances are extenuating. But you don't attack if it's unnecessary.

And Paladin are NOT jedi, whatever you say. There are jackass paladins, and there are comprehensive paladin. the Miko/Hinko comparaison clearly shows it. It all comes up to the code your paladin is following. A paladin of St-Cuthbert =/= Paladin of Pelor =/= Paladin of Heironeous =/= Any other freaking God that allows paladin. They all have different code of conduct, and priority of morality. Even within a same order of Paladin, there can be different SECT of Pelor.

so no "paladin code of morality" is absolute to all paladin, but it should not be flexible. You should set with your DM the "Commandments" of your paladin order/sect, in order for you to never stray from it.

And indeed, NEVER will the end justify the mean. The BoED clearly states that is someone commit an evil act for the greater good, it's a clear victory for Evil, because the forces of good showed that they can't win. A paladin can't consider loosing his status of paladin as a "sacrifice" for the greater good, because it would mean that in the Great Order of Things, the forces of good would have lost one of their champion. And that is worse than having a city wiped out. Lives are less important than ONE soul.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-09, 09:26 AM
Sadly, Detect Evil doesn't work like that. A simple orc won't generate an evil aura, except if they are quite high level. Outsiders, Undeads and clerics generate aura, as stated by their class descriptions.
Cough (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/detectEvil.htm). Any evil being will generate at least a faint aura (despite some text in the books suggesting otherwise).

I also contest that the BoED is mindless tripe, but if you do follow it, how can you at the same time suggest that the paladin code written in the PHB is deity-dependent?

Jayabalard
2007-07-09, 09:32 AM
I disagree on both counts. Let's go to something like murder. Is a paladin allowed to kill an orc that it encounters in the wilderness? Sure, the paladin might use detect evil and say, "yep, that orc is evil." But it may not have committed any crimes, or is just being an orc punishable by death?Not all killing is murder. All murder is evil (by definition, murder is evil). If the paladin murders the orc, that's an evil act. If the paladin kills the orc in self defense, or in the active defense of others, or during a battle/war, that's not murder and isn't evil.


If you're going to use Jedi Knights as your guide (presumably as paladins) then they should not be able to fight in armies, or fight at all unless it is to protect someone's life (fairly hypocritical if you ask me - "Don't try to kill that person, if you do, I'll kill you instead?").I'm not sure where jedi comes into this... did someone else bring them up?

Not that I see anything hypocritical about "Don't try to kill murder that person; if you do, I'll kill you to prevent it."

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-09, 09:52 AM
"evil will always win because good is dumb!"

Good is dumb. It's entirely reactionary to Evil. Evil lets a party take initiative and go forward with their character's goals. Good, being reactionary, has to do things that the DM strings them along for. Maybe he'll let them deal with their personal goals. Maybe he won't? Who knows.

Winterwind
2007-07-09, 10:23 AM
I believe there are two reasons for, or rather two ways of playing evil characters, one I consider good and one I consider bad.

The good one is playing the evil character in order to explore his psychology - presumably, in the moment the character realises the evil of her/his ways. What will follow? Redemption? Desperation? Or satisfaction? Social commentary is also possible - is the world bad enough to fully accept and, possibly, even reward being evil, or are there still some borders left?

The bad one is simply playing the evil character for the sake of being evil. I think there are two causes for this, which have to come together in order for this to happen. The first one is, as Tengu said (who I absolutely agree with), the players thinking evil is badass. This is, it seems to me, partially caused by the evil guys in movies/books/whatever so often being much more interesting personalities than the heroes (for a good reason - the villain is often the active force in the conflict, the hero only counteracting), and partially by an immature spirit of being a rebel ("look, we're breaking the rules!"). The second one is the players not thinking far enough. They go "yay, my minions will conquer that kingdom!", but don't stop a second to picture the wounded woman, who is hiding in the straw and is going to survive the battle, who is watching, tears streaming, as her children are raped and slaughtered. If the players went as far as to imagine that scene and think about what must be going on in said woman's heart, I wonder whether they would still claim evil was "cool" somehow...

Tengu
2007-07-09, 10:35 AM
Good is dumb. It's entirely reactionary to Evil. Evil lets a party take initiative and go forward with their character's goals. Good, being reactionary, has to do things that the DM strings them along for. Maybe he'll let them deal with their personal goals. Maybe he won't? Who knows.

So good people aren't allowed to take initiative and pursue their own goals? That's absurd.

Oh, and I agree with Winterwind. He hits the spot. While ZeroNumerous gets hit by a hammer.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-09, 10:42 AM
Sorry to the people above, was looking at other threads too.

Alright, let's do this in order...



My problem with evil parties (or even evil characters) is why people want to play them. From what I've seen and heard (certainly not everything out there) the most common reason players want to go evil is for freedom. The argument, "our DM won't let us kill/torture/get out own way while being good, so why can't we be evil?"

Alright, here's why I like evil characters. They're FUN. Now there's something to be said for characters who are evil with character. But sometimes you just feel like casting a fireball on that village. Now don't get me wrong, I've made some good guys too. If I get a chance I'd like to give a Paladin a shot. But most of my characters have been very dark. They are however by in large still heroic.

Making social commentary in your own actions seems to be another possibility, but it doesn't happen often. It seems like it's going to happen with one of the players in my upcoming game. But yeah. Evil is fun is really the only reasonable argument. Well, fun for some people.

The fact that it is just a game makes for a healthy way of expressing some of the really twisted ideas one might have. And most artists are going to say that there's value in the things most people would consider ugly.



They tend to see good alignments as restrictive and evil as liberating. I don't believe that this is true though. Shouldn't evil alignments should have the same sort of restrictions as good?

It kind of is, and it kind of isn't. Chaotic Evil by it's nature is pretty free. Lawful Evil not so much. The latter also tend to work MUCH easier in parties. If you're trying to run a serious game, it's best if it doesn't turn into a game of kill the other players. That can be fun too, but this is best in games that aren't very serious, with characters that people aren't very attached too.



So X of the unpronounceable (and pretty hard to spell) log in ID, I agree with you partially. The alignment problem (at least in my opinion) stems from DMs who want to restrict their PCs actions - but maybe not because it makes them feel uncomfortable. It could be for a host of other reasons.

Well I have issues with the alignment system, but that's not really what the thread is about. The name I came up with by the way was a Shadowrun character I created (I've got a lot more experience with that game than D&D). I cannot describe to you the sort of things this guy did without breaking forum rules. (I make Book of Vile Darkness look like a bunch of kittens. But many would say being a scale above that one isn't much of an accomplishment) Even if it wasn't for forum rules I wouldn't copy them. The guy was supposed to be very unsettling even to people like me. In a game where everything was very grey, this character was pitch black. Incidently, he came up with the name himself. Dude was insane, he should give himself an insane name.



True, but you can't have them work for a good temple, or probably even an evil one, because evil people would demand high compensation - probably too high for the temple to provide (a good temple wouldn't be able to afford their extortionate price and an evil one wouldn't pay).

I don't really think I can have a problem motivating an evil party really. If it's the group that just likes random acts of violence? All I need to do is put something pure and wonderful there. The party will come up with the rest on their own. If it's a serious game with evil characters, it's about going with what motivates them. I design games right from the start based on what the players are.

For my upcoming game, there are at least two evil characters so far, and one that's getting close. None should be hard to motivate. Again, I hope I get some good characters but even if it does get pulled in a strong evil direction, everything still works.

For what it's worth in this game? Demons and the like aren't necessarily about evil. They're about power, and all more often than not an unending desire for it without a care as to what the consequences are and who you have to step on to get it. It's not that they're evil because they're demons, it's that they're evil because they crave power.



Many patrons would have this same problem. Adventure hooks would often not make sense and you could often find the adventurers wanting to join the antagonists and betray their comrades. It just doesn't lead to a long lasting or fun game.

That sounds like the definition of to me. I would have already assumed they would want to join the antagonists, and have several directions planed based on how exactly it happens. Most likely? Betray the people who they're doing the quest for. Join bad guys. When time comes to split the loot, kill them take it from them.
You can hardly plan an evil campaign the same way as a good one :P

Next poster!



Adventure hooks are out of the window with an evil party.

Not entirely true, but in most cases probably. Yeah.

You need to make the adventure hooks more of, "There is a ceremony the priests of sunshine fluffykins, Kitten God of everything soft and cuddly in which they plan to bring the sacred gold ball of yarn. Just thinking about the disgustingly cuteness of it makes you want to vomit. You can't wait to murder them all and take the stupid, but valuable relic." (Okay, the forcing character emotion isn't appropriate, but hey it's just an example)



Evil characters act instead of reacting.

Almost always true. An evil campaign must be very flexible.



This means, they must come up with plans to get rich, powerfull or whatever and a way to deal with those pesky heroes that would show up :)

*cackles* You'll want to make sure the group has at least one, if not several creative players. And, do not rail road them. I detest linear game play, but it especially is not appropriate in an evil game.



I think that evil parties attract mostly very immature people - those that consider dark, cruel et cetera badass, and good boring and stupid. What a pity that it's become such a trend lately - each time someone says "evil will always win because good is dumb!", I wish I could hit people with a hammer via the internet.

I haven't been in too many evil games myself actually, at least not D&D ones. There are a number of compound problems. The first is that D&D is itself pretty stupid at times (it's why I like to change a lot of the things, good mechanics, good archetypes, poorly implemented plot). Good in D&D largely IS stupid, boring, and dull. It can drive a person up the wall. You need to murder some of those freak'n pixies so you don't have to put up with all their signing and dancing and prancing and AUGH! *stab*

Ahem.

As far as trends go, it's not exactly a new thing? I wasn't even playing D&D and I heard about evil parties and these same issues.

I also think there's a big difference between Immature Silly, and Immature whine. Any of you people played Dungeon Keeper? Yeah, that's what the standard evil campaign should be like.

D&D is neither a very mature game, and it attracts a lot of immature players (chances are that playing the game might help them mature a bit though actually, if they also do not treat the books as gospel). Evil gives them free licence to do very stupid things, which they aren't ready yet for. They will however start to see what happens when all rules break down. In this sense, that very immature game also may be a step in the right direction.


Now, all that being said? There is no reason that you can't have compelling characters that are good. It's a lot easier too. It gets a lot harder with D&Ds alignment the way it is but you can make your character then decide which fits best. People have said that Book of Exalted Deeds sets the bar too high, but coming from the guy who came up with the idea of a spell that alters space and forces someone to eat their own brain I think I could pull it off. The only hard parts about vow of non violence and vow of peace is how do you get past encounters? D&D is a very murderific game and often the only real difference between a good and an evil campaign is who you're killing.

And as far as "good is dumb" goes. If one is really to do a game about good, you should first cripple it. The good gods do not have this overwhelming power. Good does not have legal sanctification. In fact, evil really should. Police, Courts all have the backing and twisting of Evil. Good wins not because it's Gods can beat up Evil's gods. Good wins because the adventurers are smarter. They suffer, keep getting back up when things look down, and frankly outsmart evil. When all you see is yourself, you tend to become very short sighted.



This did take rather a turn from my original intent though. Ah well.

Knight_Of_Twilight
2007-07-09, 11:05 AM
I think that evil parties attract mostly very immature people - those that consider dark, cruel et cetera badass, and good boring and stupid. What a pity that it's become such a trend lately - each time someone says "evil will always win because good is dumb!", I wish I could hit people with a hammer via the internet.

This is sadly true in my expereince. I tried to run an earnestly evil campaign, my idea being that these people would make characters who would become serious villains in thier own right, to use in other campaigns. What I got were melo-dramatic idiots that would have gotten slaughtered by several adventuring parties at once for the overt displays of evil they pulled off. ( For gods' sake, they built an ampithetre in the middle of a major city to torture people on.)

Its dangerous, you need to have the right group to do it. Evil characters are nornally fine, in a normal game, but make the campaign "evil" and you probably will hit a speed-bump.

Tengu
2007-07-09, 11:12 AM
Be it normal or online gaming, I've yet to see a well-played and non-annoying evil character who would play well with others, apart from slightly bad Jayne types.

Morty
2007-07-09, 11:27 AM
What I don't understand is why people tend to treat evil characters as bloodthirsty, soulless villians. It doesn't have to work that way. There are movie-like villians, but there are also "commonly" evil people who are just egoistical, ruthless, two-faced, etc. My current campaign could be in fact defined as evil- or at least more evil than good. But we're doing fine.

elliott20
2007-07-09, 11:57 AM
that's why I would never run a game that is explicitly an "evil" campaign. people tend to take that as license to act like morons.

DeathQuaker
2007-07-09, 12:11 PM
There are some topics which are pretty uncomfortable ones. But it may be that you really want to include them in your game. It doesn't really matter what specific issue it is, just that you're uncomfortable with it.

With an evil party it becomes easier though. Now, you can have the players do these horrible things to a particular group of people because they're evil. It's basically saying in other words this is wrong because you people did it.


The only potential problem may be that eventually, some player will have his character do something really reprehensible and appear to enjoy it, which may offend the sensibilities of another player (especially if the other player's character suffers from it). It may well be "in character" but the problem is that it becomes very easy for players to start taking personally what other peoples' characters do, and soon you have players arguing, not player characters arguing. This can end up really ruining a game session, if not a campaign.

This is of course only hypothetical and largely depends on the players and any number of situations that might occur. It is still something worth being concerned about. If a GM wanted to try running a "no holds barred, no-PC PCs" campaign, he can go for it, but he should be prepared for players having a lot of opportunities to get out of hand.

Of course, even completely good parties can have tons of conflict within them. Just there are more opportunities for evil parties to do things--which may ultimately leave a player feeling upset or uncomfortable.

Saph
2007-07-09, 12:33 PM
The only potential problem may be that eventually, some player will have his character do something really reprehensible and appear to enjoy it, which may offend the sensibilities of another player (especially if the other player's character suffers from it). It may well be "in character" but the problem is that it becomes very easy for players to start taking personally what other peoples' characters do, and soon you have players arguing, not player characters arguing. This can end up really ruining a game session, if not a campaign.

Yup. This is my problem with evil campaigns, and the reason I've never tried playing in one, because I know very well that within a few sessions I'll be trying my best to get the rest of the party killed just because I find them so revolting. Case in point:


I hate to say it, but my Monster Campaign is going to have pretty much all of that. The good news is, most of the rape is probably going to happen to one particular character. They know it's coming though, and the player accepts it.

If that was my character, then I can guarantee that within one session, two at the most, either I'd be dead or they would be. Understand that the gameworld can be an ugly place, and that kind of thing is a danger to avoid? Yes. Accept it happening to me and then co-operate with the party member afterwards? Like hell.

- Saph

elliott20
2007-07-09, 12:43 PM
well, I think to make an "evil" campaign convincing, a GM would have to introduce a moral framework where being evil has it's reasons to be and has it's... god forbid... "merits". i.e. slavery in a society where people kind of accept the fact that slavery will happen and it's part of how people run their economy.

The problem is, a lot of people run "evil" campaigns akin to a complete moral vacuum like in a Grand Theft Auto game where your crimes have almost no consequences. and in that context, evil just becomes silly, stupid, and very short sited.

In fact, I dare say that an evil campaign takes MORE work because you now have to find a compelling enough reason for the players who are playing evil characters to work together despite their selfish tendencies.

Counterspin
2007-07-09, 12:54 PM
I've been in two "evil" campaigns, and I've run one strongly neutral one. IThe key to such campaigns is that, most of the time, the characters have to be able to rely on each other. I've dealt with this by requiring a certain level of party cohesion, and haven't had any trouble with it degrading into something negative.

elliott20
2007-07-09, 01:06 PM
that kind of cohesion is possible, I think. But it's very difficult to do. It requires that the players can play evil characters in a fashion that makes them sound like... well... REAL characters who just happened to be evil, as opposed to characters who sole existence is to JUST be evil.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-09, 02:31 PM
If that was my character, then I can guarantee that within one session, two at the most, either I'd be dead or they would be. Understand that the gameworld can be an ugly place, and that kind of thing is a danger to avoid? Yes. Accept it happening to me and then co-operate with the party member afterwards? Like hell.
- Saph

Completely fair. And also this is exactly why one needs to clear up issues like this before hand. I wouldn't pull something like this on anyone that had a problem with it.

Talya
2007-07-09, 02:43 PM
Evil parties can be hooked into adventure just as well as good ones...you just have to make sure that the apparent results of embarking on said adventure appeals to their character motives.

horseboy
2007-07-09, 03:15 PM
If you're going to do "evil" campaign, the easiest thing to do is just completely remove alignments. Don't tell them it's good, don't tell them they've got to be "evil". Just let them be the character they want. You've been in Shadowrun, you know how easy it is just to say: "Slot this, let's just blow up his restaurant while he's there."

LotharBot
2007-07-09, 03:31 PM
So good people aren't allowed to take initiative and pursue their own goals? That's absurd.

Absurd, but often true in certain forms of literature, and often the way it plays out in RPG's. The evil characters have an agenda, and the good characters are entirely defined by reacting to and interrupting the evil agenda. I've read a lot of stories and played a lot of RPG's like that, wherein at the end of the story, the only thing you could say about the protagonist is that he stopped the bad guy's diabolical plan.

I think this absurd notion stems from a naive view of "good" in our culture. Our view of evil is pretty reasonable -- selfishly seeking your own power, pleasure, etc. at the expense of others. But we turn around and define good as "not evil" or "interfering with evil". We don't recognize good as active for its own goals; we recognize it as passive for its own sake and active only when there's evil to be countered. We don't recognize good as actively seeking to uphold and enhance positive values (like justice, liberty, love, compassion, peace, and kindness). We build "good" characters who spend the whole campaign stopping the evil guy from doing evil things, but never take a moment out of their day to show kindness to a stranger or to help some friends settle their differences.

Often, our spectrum of actual characters runs from "evil" to "neutral with slight good tendencies and DM restrictions against doing evil things". We forget that we can play actually GOOD characters who make a lifestyle and a habit out of doing good and not merely smiting evil.

Tengu
2007-07-09, 03:38 PM
That's, as you said, mostly due to a bad image of goodness in our culture. Sometimes it's opposite though (and the works of fiction where it is are usually very good): for example, in the manga/anime Full Metal Alchemist, the protagonists Edward and Alphonse Elric are surely good, yet they spend most of the series pursuing their goal - trying to find the philosopher's stone, and not to save the world, but for rather selfish reasons.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-09, 04:19 PM
Yeah, I gotta say I agree with you here. Ed I think being a better example of a good guy done right. But either way this is definitely not good being 'lame'.

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-09, 04:20 PM
So good people aren't allowed to take initiative and pursue their own goals? That's absurd.

If you could possibly point out a group of "Good" characters who strike out on their own for no reason beyond an attempt to make the world better, I'd gladly say you're right. Unfortunately, you cannot do this. No group, regardless of how "good" they are, travels simply to make the world better. They travel for their own reasons, but all of their reasons hinge from an "Evil" source.

FMA: Actually, they spent the first half looking for the Philospher's stone. The spent the last 3/4ths trying to stop other people from getting it/using it. Their ultimate goal was to fix their stupid mistake, which they were ultimately unable to do.

Ultimately, "Good" is reactionary. Because without the intervention of "Evil" then "Good" would be Neutral.

Jayabalard
2007-07-09, 04:20 PM
That's, as you said, mostly due to a bad image of goodness in our culture. Sometimes it's opposite though (and the works of fiction where it is are usually very good): for example, in the manga/anime Full Metal Alchemist, the protagonists Edward and Alphonse Elric are surely good, yet they spend most of the series pursuing their goal - trying to find the philosopher's stone, and not to save the world, but for rather selfish reasons.As I recall, while the are a little more personal than "save the world", Ed's motives for finding the philosopher's stone are far from selfish...


We forget that we can play actually GOOD characters who make a lifestyle and a habit out of doing good and not merely smiting evil.Hear Hear!

LotharBot
2007-07-09, 04:33 PM
Ultimately, "Good" is reactionary. Because without the intervention of "Evil" then "Good" would be Neutral.

That's naive, but understandable. Far too many people understand "good" that way, which is why our "good" characters end up so often being boring or feeling restricted.

In reality, there's a lot more to "good" than merely opposing evil. Good can, and should, be pursuing certain goals. Good can, and should, be constructive. It's just that we so often hold the attitude you gave above -- that good is nothing without evil, that good is entirely reactionary -- that we forget about good as a thing unto itself.

Tengu
2007-07-09, 05:34 PM
As I recall, while the are a little more personal than "save the world", Ed's motives for finding the philosopher's stone are far from selfish...


Yes, personal rather than selfish, a better word used. I didn't want to get into the details to avoid spoilers.


Yeah, I gotta say I agree with you here. Ed I think being a better example of a good guy done right. But either way this is definitely not good being 'lame'.

Well, while Al is kinda lame most of the time in the anime, he's much cooler in the manga.

SilverClawShift
2007-07-09, 06:03 PM
is why people want to play them.

I think it's because Super VILLAINS are just as interesting and engaging as super HEROES.

You're not just playing a game. You're playing a game that tells a story. And the bad guys are just as much a focus of that story as the good guys are. Making an interesting villainous character can be just as fun as making an interesting heroic character.

I need a motivational poster of an elf necromancer sitting on a tombstone and watching uninterred skeletons dancing for his amusement.
"Evil
Because sometimes you just want to defile some corpses"


For example, is torture evil? Probably yes, if the reason behind it is to get a discount at the local inn. But maybe not if it's to find the cure to the plague that is afflicting the city.

Yes it is. A lot of media likes to throw the good guy in a position of torturing a bad guy to extract information. For some reason, recently, that's been portrayed in a GLAMOROUS light.

Torturing someone (inflicting excessive mental and physical trauma on them while deliberately keeping them alive and concious to prolong their suffering) is EVIL. It's an evil action, even if you're doing it to someone bad. Even if you're doing it for reasons you feel are justified.

Would I do it to save a village? I like to think so. I also think I'd lose a good chunk of my sleep for the rest of my life over it.

The interesting storytelling feature of putting a hero in a situation where they have to decide between letting something bad happen, and doing something bad themselves, is supposed to be about the internal conflict of the character facing what amounts to one of the hardest decisions they can possibly face.
"Can I bring myself to be evil, even for a night, if it means saving innocents?"
It's not supposed to be "Haha, the evil guy deserved it". It's just more trauma being inflicted on the hero by the dark forces against them.

Paladins are a good example. A paladinbeing true to their paladinhood wouldn't walk up to a sleeping bad guy and slit their throat. That's not a paladin action.

If, for some weird reason, said sleeping villain waking up would cause the death of the paladins friends? (insert some semi-plausible psionic/magic reason here). The paladin faces a choice. let my friends die, or brutally murder someone in their sleep.
That's not an easy call. Or it SHOULDN'T be. Your conclusion is probably "Save my friends", and it's a good conclusion. But it shouldn't be an easy course of action, it should cause some mental stress to a good person forced into that situation.

RedScholarGypsy
2007-07-09, 06:23 PM
I'm not going to get into specific arguements, but here's a few points I'd like to make:

1) Good seems restrictive because, more often than not, good is defined but what is good, not isn't, and thus there's going to be a lot more isn't than is, and thus a lot more choices. Also, just because you're Evil, doesn't mean you can't commit Good acts, you just usually have no reason to. The opposite isn't true.

2) The reason Good often seems reactive because the societies are often good ones, and thus they just need to defend it, not try to alter it for the sake of morality. If they were in an Evil society, then they would be more proactive, and the people benefiting from the Evil society would be reactively defending it.

3) Playing an evil character can be therapeutic, and can relieve all those nasty little impulses we sometimes have :belkar:. I'm lucky in that my group's fairly mature, but we've never really done the evil campaign, so I can't say one way or the other. I'll just refer to the Black Dog intro I think is a pretty good summery of the issue: If a player starts enjoying this too much, get professional help or slap the player in the face, depending on level of maturity.

psychoticbarber
2007-07-09, 06:23 PM
My party is worse than an evil party: It's a half-evil party. Four characters, alignments are CG, CN, LE, LE.

It'll be an interesting party, to say the least. I think that whoever said something about playing to evil characters motivations is dead on. (I apologize for not looking for it and quoting it, but I am acknowledging it).

One of the adventure hooks in my campaign city is the city being beset by a Necromancer's disease, created to weaken the city for capture by the hordes of the undead. It's fatal, and all that fun jazz. While searching for a cure won't be on the top of my Lawful Evil Characters' lists at first, I'm quite certain that when they come down with the disease, and are expected to live for only another week unless a cure is found, the Evil characters will be rather motivated.

I guess the only thing I'm trying to illustrate is that you can use different motivations to get to the same goal, and don't be afraid to railroad a LITTLE BIT. There is good railroading and bad railroading, and as the prayer goes:

Oh Gods, grant me the courage to resist bad railroading, the strength to railroad well, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Or something like that. :smallbiggrin:

SurlySeraph
2007-07-09, 10:25 PM
I think it's because Super VILLAINS are just as interesting and engaging as super HEROES.

You're not just playing a game. You're playing a game that tells a story. And the bad guys are just as much a focus of that story as the good guys are. Making an interesting villainous character can be just as fun as making an interesting heroic character.

I need a motivational poster of an elf necromancer sitting on a tombstone and watching uninterred skeletons dancing for his amusement.
"Evil
Because sometimes you just want to defile some corpses"



Yes it is. A lot of media likes to throw the good guy in a position of torturing a bad guy to extract information. For some reason, recently, that's been portrayed in a GLAMOROUS light.

Torturing someone (inflicting excessive mental and physical trauma on them while deliberately keeping them alive and concious to prolong their suffering) is EVIL. It's an evil action, even if you're doing it to someone bad. Even if you're doing it for reasons you feel are justified.

Would I do it to save a village? I like to think so. I also think I'd lose a good chunk of my sleep for the rest of my life over it.

The interesting storytelling feature of putting a hero in a situation where they have to decide between letting something bad happen, and doing something bad themselves, is supposed to be about the internal conflict of the character facing what amounts to one of the hardest decisions they can possibly face.
"Can I bring myself to be evil, even for a night, if it means saving innocents?"
It's not supposed to be "Haha, the evil guy deserved it". It's just more trauma being inflicted on the hero by the dark forces against them.

Paladins are a good example. A paladinbeing true to their paladinhood wouldn't walk up to a sleeping bad guy and slit their throat. That's not a paladin action.

If, for some weird reason, said sleeping villain waking up would cause the death of the paladins friends? (insert some semi-plausible psionic/magic reason here). The paladin faces a choice. let my friends die, or brutally murder someone in their sleep.
That's not an easy call. Or it SHOULDN'T be. Your conclusion is probably "Save my friends", and it's a good conclusion. But it shouldn't be an easy course of action, it should cause some mental stress to a good person forced into that situation.

You hit the nail on the head. Good people CAN do evil acts for the greater good (Greyguard FTW!) - but if they're truly good, they WILL regret it, and it will not be an easy choice to make.

I've played 4 evil characters, 3 of whom I put a lot of effort into. Well-done evil characters usually aren't evil just for the sake of evil; they act like they do for a reason. One of them (CE gnome necromancer) was evil basically just because he had virtually no capacity for empathy and thought that murder and desecration were highly amusing. That's a fairly typical poorly-done evil character. Well-done evil characters make the choices they do for understandable reasons. Probably the best evil character I made was a LE tiefling. He grew up in the Nine Hells and had the message that not being a full devil made him worthless drummed into his mind since birth. His motivation was partly a desire to be appreciated and partly that he'd completely internalized LE principles to try to fit in better.

Dervag
2007-07-10, 12:32 AM
Good is dumb. It's entirely reactionary to Evil. Evil lets a party take initiative and go forward with their character's goals. Good, being reactionary, has to do things that the DM strings them along for. Maybe he'll let them deal with their personal goals. Maybe he won't? Who knows.I don't know where you get "good is reactionary to evil" from; it makes very little sense to me. It is entirely reasonable for good people to be active and to do things for reasons other than reaction. So how is good inherently reactionary?


What I don't understand is why people tend to treat evil characters as bloodthirsty, soulless villians. It doesn't have to work that way.But it usually does.

The problem is that most of the people who are going to enjoy pretending to be an evil person are the ones who wish they could get away with doing evil things. Which means that they tend to use the evil alter ego as an excuse to do all the terrible things that they wish they could do in real life. To make matters worse, multiple evil alter egos of multiple people will tend to egg each other on. So you end up with a party of disturbed players acting out horrors in their game world in the name of wish-fulfillment.

It doesn't have to go that way, but it seems to do so frequently.


Absurd, but often true in certain forms of literature, and often the way it plays out in RPG's. The evil characters have an agenda, and the good characters are entirely defined by reacting to and interrupting the evil agenda. I've read a lot of stories and played a lot of RPG's like that, wherein at the end of the story, the only thing you could say about the protagonist is that he stopped the bad guy's diabolical plan.That comes from the nature of storytelling, not the nature of good or evil.

Stories (such as the plot of an RPG or novel) have to justify why the protagonist does what he does. Since the protagonist is usually overcoming monsters or defeating an enemy of some kind, you have to introduce the enemy before you can introduce the hero's struggle against that enemy. Which means the hero will always seem to be reacting against the enemy.


If you could possibly point out a group of "Good" characters who strike out on their own for no reason beyond an attempt to make the world better, I'd gladly say you're right. Unfortunately, you cannot do this. No group, regardless of how "good" they are, travels simply to make the world better. They travel for their own reasons, but all of their reasons hinge from an "Evil" source.Well, I could cite all sorts of real people who go out into the world for the sake of doing good things; such as much of the staff of virtually every charitable organization that's ever existed. Is that good enough for you?

Matthew
2007-07-10, 05:12 PM
I will never understand this line of reasoning. Good Characters have as much potential to be interesting as Evil Characters and Evil Characetrs have just as much potential to be boring.

Talya
2007-07-10, 06:06 PM
The reason good is reactionary while evil is proactive is simple:

Non-intervention is the best policy. If everyone left everybody else alone, and didn't step on anyone else's toes, the world would already be a perfect place. In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, "Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don't hold to that." Proactively working to change people is typically viewed as an evil, in and of itself.

However, when evil already exists, and is stepping on the toes of others and making life difficult for them, that's when "good" must become active.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-10, 06:12 PM
Non-intervention is the best policy. If everyone left everybody else alone, and didn't step on anyone else's toes, the world would already be a perfect place. In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, "Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don't hold to that." Proactively working to change people is typically viewed as an evil, in and of itself.
Um, what? That's a jump. There are things in the world other than people that you can change. Plenty of bad things (and more suboptimal things) happen without any villain involved. Or is it still reactive when the things you're reacting to are inanimate, and possibly can only be regarded as 'things' by philosophical construction? (and, in particular, cannot be evil because they are neither capable of moral volition nor undead:smalltongue: )

That aside from not actually agreeing that you can't make people better, with the right tools...

....
2007-07-10, 06:22 PM
If you could possibly point out a group of "Good" characters who strike out on their own for no reason beyond an attempt to make the world better, I'd gladly say you're right. Unfortunately, you cannot do this. No group, regardless of how "good" they are, travels simply to make the world better. They travel for their own reasons, but all of their reasons hinge from an "Evil" source.

Vash the Stampede walked around the planet with the intention of helping everyone he met:

"What are you gonna do with that gun?"

"I INTEND TO USE IT TO CREATE PEACE AND EQUALITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!"

He also never, ever killed anyone (well, eventually he did, but then he cried for a few weeks). Vash is my default model for good-guys. People who love and care about the world, who see things wrong with it and decide to fix them. Not some dark anti-hero or zealot, just a decent guy who wants to help.

Maglor_Grubb
2007-07-10, 06:27 PM
The reason good is reactionary while evil is proactive is simple:

Non-intervention is the best policy. If everyone left everybody else alone, and didn't step on anyone else's toes, the world would already be a perfect place. In the words of Malcolm Reynolds, "Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don't hold to that." Proactively working to change people is typically viewed as an evil, in and of itself.

However, when evil already exists, and is stepping on the toes of others and making life difficult for them, that's when "good" must become active.

Nonsense. There is suffering in the world even wthout evil. Good feels sorry for those suffering and will try to help them. There is violence inherent to a system, not because the system is evil, but because times have changed and this system has not. Good will try to change this. Most of the conflict is not between good and evil, but between two goods or neutrals that simply havn't found a way to co-exist yet without damaging the other. Good will try to stabalize this. And this is just on the large scale. Life exists on a smaller scale.

There is being friendly to other people, so they enjoy life more. There is helping an old lady cross the street. There is a mother giving her children food even though this means she wont be able to eat. There are strangers giving part of what they have to those who need it more. There is a saint, giving away half his cloak to a begger, because it's cold. This is all good and these are just the cliched things. Good is also reducing the friction life makes, caring for the collateral damage life makes. It is not fighting evil. It is about loving the world and all people and caring for them, even if it doesn't help you personally. People need eachother.

LotharBot
2007-07-10, 06:30 PM
If everyone left everybody else alone, and didn't step on anyone else's toes....

Involvement in other people's lives does not mean you're "stepping on their toes".

I have a wife. I have friends. I'm involved in their lives, even when there are no evil villains to oppose. I can do good in their lives, even when there's no particular evil to fight against.

"Proactively working to change people" is a bad thing if you're working against them to do it... if you're doing it against their will. But it's a good thing to help a friend break out of a bad pattern of behavior, if they want to break out of it. It's even a good thing to show them they need to break out of the bad pattern of behavior, so long as you don't force it on them.

Good can be every bit as active as evil. There are BBEG's aplenty, and there are people like Martin Luther King who act to oppose evil and bring about change that way... but there are also people like Mother Teresa, who aren't particularly opposing specific "forces of evil" but are definitely acting to bring about good.

Skyserpent
2007-07-10, 08:05 PM
I was in an evil party for the first time not long ago...We actually got to burn down a village! Yay Evil!

Callix
2007-07-10, 08:43 PM
I was in an evil party for the first time not long ago...We actually got to burn down a village! Yay Evil!

Precisely the anti-evil point here. Evil characters should not be people who go around burning down villages. Those people get lynched. A 3.0 supplement I once read said it thus: "Chaotic evil is the bikie gang that breaks down your door, steals your TV, deep-fries your puppy dog and burns down your house.
"Lawful evil is the beauraucracy that knocks on your door with a search warrant, confiscates your TV as incompatible with safety regulations, has your puppy dog put to sleep because it wasn't registered, and repossesses your house because you're behind on your rates."

Rubbing their sadistic little hands with glee. Lawful evil is petty. But in that pettiness, there is a beauty, of efficient demolition of others' assets, rights and spirit. Lawful evil parties can do horrible things, and cite the regulation that allows them to do it. And neutral evil does whatever is best for them. They think, and choose the course of action that works best. If that's giving to an orphanage so the paladin inquisition doesn't think he's evil, he does it.

Xuincherguixe
2007-07-10, 09:18 PM
... Well yeah, but what if you want to be in a game where you get to burn villages?

idioscosmos
2007-07-10, 09:40 PM
OK, here's my attempt to win the Special Olympics*.

Can someone explain to me what's so "liberating" about evil. Looking at the history of our race there're no shortage of evil people. None, IMO, are appealing in the least. From Jeffery Dahmer (Chaotic Evil? Disregards laws of nation and does what he wants - in his case kidnapping, *editing for content*, and eating little boys.), to Aldolph Hitler (Neutral Evil? The Nazi Empire was really a bunch of different little interal power structures fighting it out for resources - that's why you got things like Luftwaffe Field Divisions), to Joseph Stalin (killed everyone everywhere who could conceivably be a threat even if they were actually loyal, set up the most centralized police state in history, had the biggest head count of the 20th Century) they're all pitiful little turds - Dahmer cowering in his cell 'till he's beaten to death by another inmate, Hitler cowering in a bunker muttering how Germany failed him before blownig his head off so the Soviets wouldn't get him and Stalin cowerin in a bed muttering how the JOOS WERE OUT TO GET HIM!!!1onety-oneone!1

While I'm usually the first to shout "correlation does not imply causation" I do recognize it generally means there's something there - and it seems to be "evil is a pitiful little chicken-spit that cannot do anything heroic because while it might profess a grand vision it cannot see anything beyond the self".



/Two pages and no-one's yet even tried to define evil - the basis of the argument.
//In my experience the only people who profess to enjoy playing evil characters are sexually frustrated young men.
///Not bashin' people - I'm just sayin'.

Talya
2007-07-10, 10:30 PM
Nonsense. There is suffering in the world even wthout evil. Good feels sorry for those suffering and will try to help them. There is violence inherent to a system, not because the system is evil, but because times have changed and this system has not. Good will try to change this. Most of the conflict is not between good and evil, but between two goods or neutrals that simply havn't found a way to co-exist yet without damaging the other. Good will try to stabalize this. And this is just on the large scale. Life exists on a smaller scale.

All reactionary. If everyone is left to themselves, and not interfered with by an outside force, there will be no suffering that can be alleviated, nothing beyond the natural cycle of life.



There is being friendly to other people, so they enjoy life more. There is helping an old lady cross the street. There is a mother giving her children food even though this means she wont be able to eat. There are strangers giving part of what they have to those who need it more. There is a saint, giving away half his cloak to a begger, because it's cold. This is all good and these are just the cliched things. Good is also reducing the friction life makes, caring for the collateral damage life makes. It is not fighting evil. It is about loving the world and all people and caring for them, even if it doesn't help you personally. People need eachother.


In a system where there was no evil, there would be no poverty, and no beggars, because those things are caused by evil.

Stephen_E
2007-07-10, 10:31 PM
I play Good, Neutral and Evil characters (I'm not great at Lawful).

I play the alignment for the type of character I wish to play. I don'y play Evil because it's more fun than good, I play evil because that's the character concept I want to play in a particular campaign.

I have two characters I'm playing at the moment.
1) DnD. A atheist NE Halfling Druid whose spent a significant part of his early years with a Dire Wolf Pack. He'll happily turn any non-halfling/wolf into rations, but that's simply been predator practical. He's currently helping the party destroy an evil organisation, killing many people in the process. Why? He's getting paid to do so, he's getting a 1/4 share of any loot, and the 2nd in charge cheated him. The evil boss asked me if I wanted to change sides. I asked if she'd give me her 2nd-in-charge/lover's head. She refused so I turned her down. As we left the lair somone remembered that we'd left a mook tied up. As I was the fastest (mounted on young Dire Wolf) I offered to go loosen his ropes so that he wouldn't starve to death. I loosened his ropes and cut his throat (I prefer not to lie to my sort-of-pack). He isn't interested in world domination or burning villages, but cross him or get in his way on something he cares about, and he'll happily cut your throat and eat you. If you really piss him off he might skip the throat cutting part. He's evil but he's perfectly capable of fuctioning in a party, or a "good" campaign. The Evil is in his approach and his limits (or lack thereof).

My other character is a Vampire in World of Darkness who by DnD standards would be either NG or LG. He's a nice caring guy (albeit with Aspergers syndrome he has trouble emotionally interacting with others). He's not out to shake the world but is trying to make a better life for his friends and family without screwing others over. Aside from the minimum required by having been made a vampire he'd rather have nothing much to do with the vampire world, but unfortunately someone in the world is railroading him. This something he's less than happy about, but we'll have to see where it goes.

Note that either campaign could happily fucntion with my characters been any particular alignment. I'm playing those characters in those campaigns because that's what I decided to roleplay on the day. I guess that's why it's called roleplaying.

Stephen

Mike_G
2007-07-10, 10:37 PM
All reactionary. If everyone is left to themselves, and not interfered with by an outside force, there will be no suffering that can be alleviated, nothing beyond the natural cycle of life.





In a system where there was no evil, there would be no poverty, and no beggars, because those things are caused by evil.

OK, not to get into a huge philosophical discussion, but I'm a Paramedic, and spend a lot of my time patching up the homeless, the drug addicted, and so on, and a lot of them are not where they are because of "evil."

Because nobody was willing to shoulder the huge burden to help them through
their mental illness and addiction isn't "evil." Maybe it's not "good," but you try adopting a heroin addict. That's a bigger sacrifice than most people are willing to make.

And some beggars are where they are because of blind bad luck, or even their own bad choices.

In a world with no overt malice, I think poverty would still exist. Not on as large a scale, perhaps, but it would exist.

Dhavaer
2007-07-10, 10:40 PM
1) DnD. A atheist NE Halfling Druid whose spent a significant part of his early years with a Dire Wolf Pack.

Buh wha? How do you get an atheist in a D&D world? Was this in Eberron, or something?

Stephen_E
2007-07-10, 10:41 PM
In a system where there was no evil, there would be no poverty, and no beggars, because those things are caused by evil.

Ummm. There's a famine, Hurricane, Earthquake (choose your natural disaster) and you'll have poverty. You're not telling me natural disasters are "evil".

Aside from that you seem to be falling into the balck/white trap. If someone with no living family is crippled, such that he can no longer work, he becomes a beggar unless others freely take him in and provide for him. Not helping him isn't "evil". Helping him is "good" if you can afford it and won't cause your own family to starve. So you can have a non-evil society where no one takes on the permanent burden of supporting the cripple, and have a beggar.

Stephen

Mike_G
2007-07-10, 10:43 PM
Buh wha? How do you get an atheist in a D&D world? Was this in Eberron, or something?


The same way you get people who don't believe in the Holocaust or who think Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Evidence can't force your eyes open. It can only convince those who can see it.

Stephen_E
2007-07-10, 10:46 PM
Buh wha? How do you get an atheist in a D&D world? Was this in Eberron, or something?

It's Greyhawk.

He simply doesn't beleive there are actual gods. They're just powerful entities who're pulling a con. He doesn't make a big thing of it, afterall what does he care if a bunch of suckers are getting rooked, but he isn't falling for the scam.

Stephen

edit - Mike G - Thanks for providing good generic examples.

Dhavaer
2007-07-10, 10:46 PM
The same way you get people who don't believe in the Holocaust or who think Earth is only 6,000 years old.

Evidence can't force your eyes open. It can only convince those who can see it.

True, but those are events that happened, rather than people who you can go and have a chat with if you have planeswalking magic.


It's Greyhawk.

He simply doesn't beleive there are actual gods. They're just powerful entities who're pulling a con. He doesn't make a big thing of it, afterall what does he care if a bunch of suckers are getting rooked, but he isn't falling for the scam.

Stephen

D&D gods are just powerful entities, who are in some cases (Olidammara) pulling cons a great deal of the time. Why does he have a different definition of gods to the rest of the world (by your description of him, he doesn't sound like much of a philosopher)?

Stephen_E
2007-07-10, 11:02 PM
D&D gods are just powerful entities, who are in some cases (Olidammara) pulling cons a great deal of the time. Why does he have a different definition of gods to the rest of the world (by your description of him, he doesn't sound like much of a philosopher)?

To be honest I'm not sure he has a concept of "god". You could say he worships "nature" but nature isn't a person, it just is.

Think of as like me saying to you "do you beleive in Cxksi", you, having no idea what "cxksi" is, say "no" I describe what "cxksi" is and you say "that's a President". I say "No, no, Presidents are different. I'm talking about Cxksi". At which point you walk away shaking your head about the nice person who's been conned by some president into thinking the president is some nonsense creature called a "Cxksi".

Stephen

Dhavaer
2007-07-10, 11:11 PM
Think of as like me saying to you "do you beleive in Cxksi", you, having no idea what "cxksi" is, say "no" I describe what "cxksi" is and you say "that's a President". I say "No, no, Presidents are different. I'm talking about Cxksi". At which point you walk away shaking your head about the nice person who's been conned by some president into thinking the president is some nonsense creature called a "Cxksi".

In the case of your character, though, after you describe what a cxksi is, he would say he's never heard of anything like that before, and walk away shaking his head. And then, when he finds out about a President, he'd think 'Oh, I guess cxksis are real, after all'.

Raum
2007-07-10, 11:39 PM
I suspect most playing "Evil" characters are reacting against the alignment straitjacket rather than "acting out" some kind of hidden tendency or desire. And, just as playing good characters can get old & stale, so can playing evil characters. In many ways I wish WotC would simply drop alignment. But I digress.

I've seen and played characters / games that run the spectrum. Anything from sacrificing his life to save another party member to stabbing some one in the back merely because they irritated me (in character). Embarrassingly enough I've even played the "slaughter every thing because I'm Evil with a capital E" character in the past. Luckily we grow up eventually. :) But even today, I'll play either alignment...as long as it's new.

Games need to change to stay interesting. You can only sacrifice yourself to save the town so many times before you simply want to slaughter the pissants who refuse to save themselves...or simply cheer them to their fate, loot the bodies, and go find something more interesting to do.

To put it simply, when Good becomes a cliche I'd rather play evil and when Evil becomes cliche I'd rather play good. Needless to say, the group of friends I usually play with generally throws out alignment. We don't need it to describe our characters.

SurlySeraph
2007-07-11, 12:47 AM
OK, here's my attempt to win the Special Olympics*.

Can someone explain to me what's so "liberating" about evil. Looking at the history of our race there're no shortage of evil people. None, IMO, are appealing in the least. From Jeffery Dahmer (Chaotic Evil? Disregards laws of nation and does what he wants - in his case kidnapping, *editing for content*, and eating little boys.), to Aldolph Hitler (Neutral Evil? The Nazi Empire was really a bunch of different little interal power structures fighting it out for resources - that's why you got things like Luftwaffe Field Divisions), to Joseph Stalin (killed everyone everywhere who could conceivably be a threat even if they were actually loyal, set up the most centralized police state in history, had the biggest head count of the 20th Century) they're all pitiful little turds - Dahmer cowering in his cell 'till he's beaten to death by another inmate, Hitler cowering in a bunker muttering how Germany failed him before blownig his head off so the Soviets wouldn't get him and Stalin cowerin in a bed muttering how the JOOS WERE OUT TO GET HIM!!!1onety-oneone!1

While I'm usually the first to shout "correlation does not imply causation" I do recognize it generally means there's something there - and it seems to be "evil is a pitiful little chicken-spit that cannot do anything heroic because while it might profess a grand vision it cannot see anything beyond the self".



/Two pages and no-one's yet even tried to define evil - the basis of the argument.
//In my experience the only people who profess to enjoy playing evil characters are sexually frustrated young men.
///Not bashin' people - I'm just sayin'.

1) Yes, evil people are evil. Evil is not admirable. No one consciously wants to be evil. No one plays evil because they actually want to be evil, they play evil because it's fun to look at things from a warped perspective.
2) Evil is liberating if you've been playing a lot of strictly good campaigns. It can be fun to reverse everything; it's liberating because evil characters are allowed to do things that good characters would get killed by DM fiat for. Not being allowed to make any choices gets boring; being allowed to either save or burn down the orphanage, depending on how you feel, is liberating.
3) Hitler was very appealing to many, many people until he lost. Same with Stalin. No one likes evil people after they've been defeated; no one admires failure. Good people who fail don't get fanclubs either. Besides, the entire point of an evil campaign is that the bad guys prevail; the examples you gave are of evil people who failed.
4) Everything depends on your definition of heroic and on your definition of evil. Alexander the Great's army murdered thousands of people essentially just because he wanted to kill people; he had no reason to fight his wars, and therefore is arguably evil. However, it is incontestable that Alexander the Great was heroic. For every evil dictator who ends up dying alone in a cell, there are two who die surrounded by their adoring followers and are hailed as heroes by their successors.
5) Evil people can too see beyond themselves. Hitler saw his actions as good and on behalf of humanity as a whole, because he believed humanity would benefit if all the "inferior" humans were killed. Evil people are willing to die for their causes. What makes evil people human (and interesting) is that they aren't just mindless drones who spend all their time doing evil for its own sake. People do evil things for reasons, and a lot of the appeal of creating an evil character is thinking of a reason for that character to do evil other than "He's just a bad person."
6) Defining evil is like defining good. There is no dictionary definition because the concepts are too complex and too situational. Cannibalism is generally considered evil, but not if you're starving to death. It's impossible to define evil, because a) it depends on the situation and b) every single person on Earth would have a different definition.
7) Well, about 75% of gamers ARE sexually frustrated young men. This says more about the kind of people who are able to play evil campaigns because they play RPGs than about the kind of people who are genuinely attracted to evil.

Dervag
2007-07-11, 01:04 AM
Proactively working to change people is typically viewed as an evil, in and of itself.I think that's pushing the argument a little too far.

What's wrong is coercing people and trying to force them into being something that they are, on some fundamental level, just not. It's possible to try to change people without being that manipulative or forceful, and to have more respect for them as individuals rather than as a collective 'people'.


All reactionary. If everyone is left to themselves, and not interfered with by an outside force, there will be no suffering that can be alleviated, nothing beyond the natural cycle of life.So why are we supposed to ignore the sufferings that you would consider part of the "natural cycle", such as disease?


In a system where there was no evil, there would be no poverty, and no beggars, because those things are caused by evil.That is not true.

Any economy of meaningful scale set up by human beings ends up distributing goods so that some have more than others. Beggars exist because there are people who either can't function within the society (such as as schizophrenic who keeps forgetting to take his pills), or who simply got unlucky (they lost their job and their house burned down at the same time and they just gave up).

That can happen even when nobody is doing anything that's actually evil. Firing a worker isn't necessarily evil, and houses burn down due to natural causes even without human intervention.

Poverty and misfortune will occur even in the absence of evil, because Mother Nature doesn't care whether or not you're having fun.

TranquilRage
2007-07-11, 02:48 AM
I also have a problem with typical definitions of "evil" creatures. Orks and goblins are evil are they? They arnt just reacting to the kill-on-site mentality humans have? Do they rob and steal because some self righteous adventurer has a tendency of stealing everything that isn't nailed down whilst butchering everyone who tries to defend their home?

The whole good/evil alignment bar should be scrapped. Its to easy to commit an "Evil" act by stupidity or fear and to easy to classify beings as evil because you don't understand them.

On the other hand. Kill it if...
Its got more limbs than you.
Its easy XP.
Its got less limbs than you.
Its not humanoid.
It gives you a funny look.
You suspect it of giving you a funny look when you wern't watching.
It doesnt speak common.

Ulzgoroth
2007-07-11, 03:55 AM
I also have a problem with typical definitions of "evil" creatures. Orks and goblins are evil are they? They arnt just reacting to the kill-on-site mentality humans have? Do they rob and steal because some self righteous adventurer has a tendency of stealing everything that isn't nailed down whilst butchering everyone who tries to defend their home?
Well, you could make it so. It's been done many times. I really don't think it's any more interesting than the standard, anymore.

By default, no...their society is based on brutal rule by strength internally, and if anything less qualms about abusing outsiders. They're 'usually evil' because, if you have an orc settlement near a human settlement and the humans do nothing offensive, the orcs will raid or conquer them. Probably right away. In fact, their god demands such behavior and acts against anyone trying to civilize them.

Individual orcs may not be any more inherently evil than humans, or may have a genetic predisposition to it...I'm not sure which, or whether it's specified. But when you meet a random orc in Greyhawk, chances are it is an evil one who would rob&rape given an opportunity.

...though that doesn't mean it's a good deed to lop it's head off. Despite what some 'paladins' would have you think.

Irreverent Fool
2007-07-11, 04:17 AM
Ah, alignment - the old chestnut that no one ever seems to get tired of talking about.

My problem with evil parties (or even evil characters) is why people want to play them. From what I've seen and heard (certainly not everything out there) the most common reason players want to go evil is for freedom. The argument, "our DM won't let us kill/torture/get out own way while being good, so why can't we be evil?"

They tend to see good alignments as restrictive and evil as liberating. I don't believe that this is true though. Shouldn't evil alignments should have the same sort of restrictions as good?

In my opinion, this is actually the DM's fault by wanting to restrict players and using alignment to do so.

For example, is torture evil? Probably yes, if the reason behind it is to get a discount at the local inn. But maybe not if it's to find the cure to the plague that is afflicting the city. These arguments can be made for just about every case.

I disagree. Torture IS evil, there is no way around it. Whether or not you have the greater good in mind, it's an evil act. The ends may justify the means, but that doesn't mean it was the right thing to do.

Secondly, being good IS a restriction. If I'm evil, nobody says I can't do something nice for a friend, or trust my advisor, or bake a cake, or rip the arms off this little girl here when I catch her picking her nose in public. Now if I'm good, I can't really do one of those things and truly remain good. I may have had a good reason, I may have had the world's best interests in mind, but I was still doing something evil.

Some of the most notorious villains in history thought they were doing something ultimately good by performing evil acts. IE: By acting outside of the normal boundaries of alignment, these evil people were able to envision and employ vile methods to further their goals.

Stephen_E
2007-07-11, 06:53 AM
In DnD doing a single evil act doesn't make one evil.
Therefore a Good character can do evil acts without becoming evil.
I also debate the concept that torture is automatically evil. It is definitely "non-good" but that is different from been evil.

People often say that DnD morality doesn't crossover into the RW, but to be honest in my cynical moments I more and more think it does.
At heart, in DnD, the purpose of the "Evil" label is so that you can injure, kill and loot the creatures, and still feel that you're a "Good" person.
In RL one of the most common purposes for the "Evil" label is so that you can injure, kill and loot the "Evil" people, and still feel that you're a "Good" person, or on the "Good" side. Maybe I've just been visiting political forums to much.:smallfrown:

Stephen

Lord_Kimboat
2007-07-11, 07:41 AM
Alright, maybe I used a bad example and maybe my choice of words were not the best. I said torture, which is maybe too strong.

Is it evil however to slap someone a few times to demonstrate that you are serious about what you say?

I also used the word murder. It was pointed out that not all killing is murder. Well, is killing an orc, that is sitting in hiding by a road side (maybe in ambush, maybe not) murder? What about 20 orcs? Alerting them and asking them politely to move along may not be a viable option. What about 20 Humans with weapons and armor? Would attacking them from surprise be evil?

Tengu
2007-07-11, 08:47 AM
Vash the Stampede walked around the planet with the intention of helping everyone he met:

"What are you gonna do with that gun?"

"I INTEND TO USE IT TO CREATE PEACE AND EQUALITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!"

He also never, ever killed anyone (well, eventually he did, but then he cried for a few weeks). Vash is my default model for good-guys. People who love and care about the world, who see things wrong with it and decide to fix them. Not some dark anti-hero or zealot, just a decent guy who wants to help.

Because I propagate giving examples from good anime/manga as points:

You, sir, couldn't have been more right.

Well, Vash is actually some sort of alien or angelic creature with abilities above human norm, but that's not the point here. He could've done everything he did as well as an ordinary human.

SITB
2007-07-11, 09:29 AM
Well, Vash is actually some sort of alien or angelic creature with abilities above human norm, but that's not the point here. He could've done everything he did as well as an ordinary human.

Yes, and then he would die; because a normal human couldn't pull all the stuff that Vash does and live.

I'd throw ny vote with the opinion that playing as "evil" characters is liberating becasue you can pull all the stunts that good does and evil does without caring about "right" and "wrong".

Sure, people can have fun playing the chivalrous and honorable type that helps the needy. But once in a while I'd think I would like to play a character that throws morality to the winds and does what benefits him the most at the moment(or at the long run).

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 12:16 PM
I don't understand how people can say Evil, as an alignment, is liberating in itself. Evil has its own guidelines it has to follow, just like Good does. Evil HAS to hurt, injure, oppress, kill others. If it doesn't, then it's dipping into neutral territory. Being evil pretty much means you have a different 'scripted' response to the world. C/E isn't liberating, because if you just act carefree, you're playing C/N. Being evil does NOT mean that you can do anything you want, wherever you want.

If you find that not being able to commit wanton acts of carnage and wholesale slaughter of innocent population is too restricting, then I suppose evil is for you, but why RP that when you can just check out CNN? If you want a real change from everyday life, play a good campaign.

As for people who say good characters NEVER do anything on their own... how does that work? The D&D world isn't full of sleeper Good characters just waiting to pounce on evil... A typical good character should have his own ajenda beyond: 'I'll sit around until Drakovile decides to destroy the world again'. If not, it's not a problem with the alignment system, it's a problem with the DM or the players, or both...

Tengu
2007-07-11, 12:47 PM
Yes, and then he would die; because a normal human couldn't pull all the stuff that Vash does and live.


I disagree.
Vash and Knives are the only non-human characters in Trigun, but you can see all the others pull out crazy stunts, including dodging bullets, as well. An ordinary human in Vash's skin would just have to be a bit more careful.

SITB
2007-07-11, 02:07 PM
I don't understand how people can say Evil, as an alignment, is liberating in itself. Evil has its own guidelines it has to follow, just like Good does. Evil HAS to hurt, injure, oppress, kill others. If it doesn't, then it's dipping into neutral territory. Being evil pretty much means you have a different 'scripted' response to the world. C/E isn't liberating, because if you just act carefree, you're playing C/N. Being evil does NOT mean that you can do anything you want, wherever you want.

Look at this this way, an evil character indulging himself in genociding or some other 'Evil' activity will remain apparently 'Evil' even if he does donate most of his funds for the betterment of his people, even more so if he does it out of a calculated invest/profit assessment. Because 'Evil' means getting your goals with only the limits you set to yourself.

A good character indulging himself with a 'Evil' behaviour is a lot more prone to fall from grace, even if he does think that "the end justifies the means" because "good does not work this way".

So yeah, as I see it as an evil character you get to benefit from both sides.


If you find that not being able to commit wanton acts of carnage and wholesale slaughter of innocent population is too restricting, then I suppose evil is for you, but why RP that when you can just check out CNN? If you want a real change from everyday life, play a good campaign.

'Evil' does not necessarily mean "arrrgh SMASH!!11", you can try being a mastermind villain that manipulates kingdoms to fight against each other while later swiping with your army from another kingdom to conquer them both after they have weakend themselves, or blame the stupidity of the ruling power and organize a rebellion to set you as the supreme ruler. Etc etc...


As for people who say good characters NEVER do anything on their own... how does that work? The D&D world isn't full of sleeper Good characters just waiting to pounce on evil... A typical good character should have his own ajenda beyond: 'I'll sit around until Drakovile decides to destroy the world again'. If not, it's not a problem with the alignment system, it's a problem with the DM or the players, or both...

So, what can you do as a good active character? As a villain you always have plan to accomplish [I]something but what are you gonna do as a good one? Randomly stroll through the planes killing demons and devils?

....
2007-07-11, 02:14 PM
1) DnD. A atheist NE Halfling

Uh... how can you be an atheist in D&D world?

The gods would throw bricks through your windows.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 02:40 PM
Look at this this way, an evil character indulging himself in genociding or some other 'Evil' activity will remain apparently 'Evil' even if he does donate most of his funds for the betterment of his people, even more so if he does it out of a calculated invest/profit assessment.

Evil means getting your goals using what the RAW defines as evil. If accomplishing your goals means donating funds to the betterment of his people, he's accomplishing a good act. If he does it out of investment/profit assessment, then that's more on the Law VS. Chaos axis than good or evil. The fact of the matter is, the character did an act that spread goodness through charity, and also gave the character some kind of indeterminate boost. If that boost is destroy the cosmos, then it's evil. If that boost is 'I can afford a +1 weapon all the sooner', then it's not evil.


Because 'Evil' means getting your goals with only the limits you set to yourself.

That's not evil, that's determining an alignment. If my own 'self' limits includes not killing, I'm not evil. If it includes muder and slaughter of innocents, then I am evil. If neither, I'm neutral.



A good character indulging himself with a 'Evil' behaviour is a lot more prone to fall from grace, even if he does think that "the end justifies the means" because "good does not work this way".

'Ends justify the means' only comes into conflict when the means are non-good. Otherwise, ends justify the means is legit, so long as the means are legit. An evil character who's doing nothing but good in the world so that he can eventually become a lich is a very odd character.


So yeah, as I see it as an evil character you get to benefit from both sides.

To be an evil character, you have to use evil means to get your benefits. If not, then you're neutral.




'Evil' does not necessarily mean "arrrgh SMASH!!11", you can try being a mastermind villain that manipulates kingdoms to fight against each other while later swiping with your army from another kingdom to conquer them both after they have weakend themselves, or blame the stupidity of the ruling power and organize a rebellion to set you as the supreme ruler. Etc etc...

From what the majority of 'Evil campaigns ROCK!!!' posters on this thread have said, yes, evil DOES mean 'ARRRRGH! LETS TORCH HOUSES! WE CAN 'cUZ WE'RE EVIL!!!!'




So, what can you do as a good active character? As a villain you always have plan to accomplish [I]something but what are you gonna do as a good one? Randomly stroll through the planes killing demons and devils?

Help the community, donate to the less fortunate, start a family, search for lost holy relics, etc... It's up to the imagination of the player and DM to help make a PC more than just a 2D 'Is there evil afoot? No? Then I wait at the tavern 'till goblins invade...'.

Full Metal Alchemist is a perfect example. The 'good' main characters have a goal other than 'smite the wicked wizard when he finally unleashes his plan', and also help the cause of good along the way.

Querzis
2007-07-11, 03:09 PM
Well, only, you see...evil often does win because good often is dumb.

Uh good pretty much always won untill now, even if evil usually has much more servant. Wanna know why? Because evil destroy itself. While all the good guys, no matter the race, no matter if they are chaotic or lawfull stick together against evil, the bad guys keep backstabbing or killing each other, sometime just for fun. I would say thats a lot dumber then a level 10 paladin who die to save the little child (who might become another level 10 paladin one day anyway). Hell, just look at the number of minions Xykon and Redcloak killed for their own personal amusement. Or look at the number of evil creatures Belkar killed. The three evil characters I played until now all killed one party member at some point and one got killed after that by another party member.

Lets talk about the last one, my multiclass fighter-ranger who killed a party member and then got killed. There was two party of 7 peoples, one good and one evil. The good was supposed to guard a relic from the evil party. It wasnt supposed to be a long game but, with one cleric in each teams and lots of diamond, it was actually pretty long. But the good guys were finally losing, their cleric was down and they were just two left. They managed to escape with the relics but we tracked them down (our barbarian was killed but everyone else was still ok). But the two last good guys had a plan (and of course we didnt knew that plan). I tracked them to a house, when we entered, the relic was right in front of us with nobody to guard it. We searched the house but the two good guys were not here. So we finally had the relic...but, as the good guys knew, we all wanted the relic for ourselves or for our master so we didnt want to give it to the other party members...

We killed each other, the cleric survived and claimed the relic only to be killed by the two good guys who were waiting outside. Party of adventurers are most of the time people who have nothing in common but share the same goal, stick together to survive or are together more by chance then anything else. I rarely heard of a party where everyone are lovers, childhood friend or family. That why the greatest threat in an evil party is not the monster in front of you but the guy at your side. Just look at the Linear guild, except Thog who would follow Nale everywhere, everyone betray each others, kill or dont care if the others are killed. Leeky, Yik-Yik and Yok-Yok were nothing but meat shield for Nale, Hilgya was planning to betray them, Pompey already did, nobody tried to find or save the drow and even Sabine is planning to betray Nale for her masters. Belkar would also kill everyone else in the party to steal their items and get XP if he has the occasion and Redcloak will betray Xykon for the Dark One anyday.

You might say good is dumb because they are ready to sacrifice themselves but I say evil is much dumber because they are ready to sacrifice everything and everyone to achieve their goals. Even your NE halfing Stephen would have betrayed his party if she would have agreed to his term. If you wanna live long though, do like V, be neutral and cast invisibility.

karmuno
2007-07-11, 04:07 PM
The way I see it, there are two types of great evil characters in fiction (I'm not going to talk about RL evil because D&D isn't RL, it's fiction). On one end of the spectrum, there are the evil characters who simply desire power, and are not concerned with the means to get it. Examples include Morgoth and Sauron from Tolkien's mythology, Voldemort from the Harry Potter books, Darth Vader in Star Wars, and Xykon in OotS. These types are usually arch-villains, and often simply a plot device for the protagonists to react against.

On the other hand, there are the anti-heroes, the decidedly evil characters who the audience is meant to sympathize with while still abhoring their actions. These characters include Erik from The Phantom of the Opera and Frankenstein's monster from (you guessed it) Frankenstein. These characters have reasons beyond "I want power" for being evil. Often they kill and mistreat others because they themselves were mistreated. This type of evil character would be ideal for an evil campaign, because it is closer to the standard set by good characters. In fact, multiple characters can be created with different alignments even if they had similar backstories (for example, in the monster's case, instead of seeking revenge he could have reacted differently to several situations and ended up a semi-productive, albeit negatively judged, member of society).

Also, on the topic of pro-active versus reactive good characters, I once created a character who had been possessed by a demon. The demon had since moved on to another host, but there was a way to destroy the demon (simply killing the host or banishing/turning it would not work), which involved killing a group of dragons. These dragons themselves weren't really hurting anybody, simply sitting atop their massive hoards. My character thus made it his quest to destroy these dragons and thus rid the world of the demon (whose name was Harutho). This was proactive: Harutho himself was not a major antagonist, simply a presence. The fact that he could only possess one body at a time severely limited his strength, along with the fact that if his host did not have a high enough willpower he would be destroyed. The main campaign did not revolve around this quest, it was mainly in the background, but good characters can indeed have proactive tendencies. The reason they don't typically is because most of the goals that real good people strive towards are boring to roleplay. Sure, the paladin can open an orphanage to help the city, but will this be fun for the player, or reasonable given any other threats? Of course there are a great deal of proactive good characters in any given world, most likely more than there are proactive evil characters, but only rarely (in the game world) is there going to be another party reacting against somebody feeding the hungry.

Then again, there are always cases such as those of Gray Wolf, in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I can go on for hours, so I think I'll stop before I do.

SITB
2007-07-11, 04:36 PM
Evil means getting your goals using what the RAW defines as evil. If accomplishing your goals means donating funds to the betterment of his people, he's accomplishing a good act. If he does it out of investment/profit assessment, then that's more on the Law VS. Chaos axis than good or evil. The fact of the matter is, the character did an act that spread goodness through charity, and also gave the character some kind of indeterminate boost. If that boost is destroy the cosmos, then it's evil. If that boost is 'I can afford a +1 weapon all the sooner', then it's not evil.

I meant a character that is, for example, hell bent on destroying all of the Elves; donating money to human settlements so that thay can prosper. It was ment as an example on how an 'Evil' character may do 'Good' acts yet still be 'Evil'.


That's not evil, that's determining an alignment. If my own 'self' limits includes not killing, I'm not evil. If it includes muder and slaughter of innocents, then I am evil. If neither, I'm neutral.

A villain can have a moral code, hell it's used to make them more interesting/having more personality (See Rich "Villain Workshop" and the villain he created) it does not define Good/Evil (Though it does define Chaotic/Lawful).



'Ends justify the means' only comes into conflict when the means are non-good. Otherwise, ends justify the means is legit, so long as the means are legit. An evil character who's doing nothing but good in the world so that he can eventually become a lich is a very odd character.

That's the whole point. You can't be(or remain for long anyway) a good character in D&D morality that does bad things for "the greater good".


To be an evil character, you have to use evil means to get your benefits. If not, then you're neutral.

Not necessarily, you might have simply total disregard to other people lives, or not acknowledge that other beings are people, or simply a frivolous attitude about other people emotions. There's a reason why being 'Good' is called "walking on the straight and narrow".


From what the majority of 'Evil campaigns ROCK!!!' posters on this thread have said, yes, evil DOES mean 'ARRRRGH! LETS TORCH HOUSES! WE CAN 'cUZ WE'RE EVIL!!!!'

I thought most posters went on the lines of:"Huzzah! we can do any action that we want, let's go do stuff that otherwise we shouldn't do because of Divine/DM-ic punishment (or because we are supposed to play a goody two shoe character)"


Help the community, donate to the less fortunate, start a family, search for lost holy relics, etc... It's up to the imagination of the player and DM to help make a PC more than just a 2D 'Is there evil afoot? No? Then I wait at the tavern 'till goblins invade...'.

Except from the first example, will someone really model a D&D session on those examples? And yes you can search for holy relics but at the end what will it exactly do?


Full Metal Alchemist is a perfect example. The 'good' main characters have a goal other than 'smite the wicked wizard when he finally unleashes his plan', and also help the cause of good along the way.

I'd only comment about this from my knowledge about the Anime:

Yeah, it's "Lets get something that will let us undo our past mistakes" that degenerated into "F*ck, those evil mofos control our country and will kill a whole damn town if we let them run amok, we have to stop them!"

They can be viewed as a stereotypical D&D troupe. That is:

1)Wander aimlessly searching for tresasure.
2)Fall upon the BBEG nefarious(TM) plans
3)Decide to stop him.

Only instead of searching for treausre they search for the mystical MacGuffain.

My point was that, yes they were 'Good' characters. But until the main villain came they weren't focused on doing good deeds.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 05:18 PM
I meant a character that is, for example, hell bent on destroying all of the Elves; donating money to human settlements so that thay can prosper. It was ment as an example on how an 'Evil' character may do 'Good' acts yet still be 'Evil'.

- That's fine. I guess it's mostly relative at that point. Though I'd argue that if this character is continuously helping needy human settlements, he'd probably start leaning towards neutral or good. At that point, the human world sees him as a good character, but the elves see him as the devil. Kind of a gray area.



A villain can have a moral code, hell it's used to make them more interesting/having more personality (See Rich "Villain Workshop" and the villain he created) it does not define Good/Evil (Though it does define Chaotic/Lawful).

- Haven't read it, probably should. An evil character with a moral code is typically L/E (according to the RAW examples). That's not to say that all villains with a moral code are automatically more interesting, though. It's possible to make a C/E villain who's just as memorable as a L/E one.



That's the whole point. You can't be(or remain for long anyway) a good character in D&D morality that does bad things for "the greater good".

- Not really, but they may occasionally be forced to choose between lesser or greater goods. Take the reverse: you can't remain an evil character in D&D morality that consistently does good things for the greater evil, unless the greater evil is at the height of evil (like world ending events that are beyond the scope of any Evil campaign I've ever been in... then again, that could easily be DM or PC fault, not the system's fault).



Not necessarily, you might have simply total disregard to other people lives, or not acknowledge that other beings are people, or simply a frivolous attitude about other people emotions. There's a reason why being 'Good' is called "walking on the straight and narrow".

- Bold part: That's not necessarily an evil character. An evil character will go out of his way to harm/mutilate/torture/kill. You're correct, though, that playing a good character can be more difficult (and lead to gray areas). A C/N character is probably the best example of a frivolous 'don't give a care' attitude. The difference is that the evil dude has to actively do evil acts to keep his alignment. I probably shouldn't be arguing from a RAW perspective, though....



I thought most posters went on the lines of:"Huzzah! we can do any action that we want, let's go do stuff that otherwise we shouldn't do because of Divine/DM-ic punishment (or because we are supposed to play a goody two shoe character)"

- Both ideas go hand in hand. Like the poster who mentioned the party was gang-raping the one PC, and the PC had to accept it. That's playing an evil character to indulge in forbidden acts, not because 'good is too restrictive'. There's a HUGE difference between an evil party planing world domination/destruction, and an evil party running around burning orphanages. Neither methods are wrong or right (hey, if the players are having fun, let them), but (to me anyways) the former offers a better playing opportunity.


Except from the first example, will someone really model a D&D session on those examples? And yes you can search for holy relics but at the end what will it exactly do?

I was just giving random examples. Maybe it has sentimental value? It can be pursued without necessarily being 'the right thing to do for the good of the world'. Not every plot in D&D has to revolve around destroying some random evil BBEG. Heck, maybe a neutral PC has something they need to do and the good PC wants to help his friend out.




I'd only comment about this from my knowledge about the Anime:

Yeah, it's "Lets get something that will let us undo our past mistakes" that degenerated into "F*ck, those evil mofos control our country and will kill a whole damn town if we let them run amok, we have to stop them!"

They can be viewed as a stereotypical D&D troupe. That is:

1)Wander aimlessly searching for tresasure.
2)Fall upon the BBEG nefarious(TM) plans
3)Decide to stop him.

Only instead of searching for treausre they search for the mystical MacGuffain.

My point was that, yes they were 'Good' characters. But until the main villain came they weren't focused on doing good deeds.


- They weren't focused, no, but they did good deeds along the way, and sometimes killed people along the way. Nix the last episodes of the series and 'take it for granted' that they find the stone and end the anime there. Now we have a good group that pursued a goal that didn't revolve around reactively stopping the BBEG. Also, the 'evil' characters in the anime were often re-actionary as well.

horseboy
2007-07-11, 05:47 PM
You know, I'm kinda surprised nobody has brought up that list of things never to do when you become a supervillian.

My personal favorite has to be the one about having your granddaughter nearby, so when the hero bursts in he has to explain to the child how her poor, doting grandfather is deserving of being dragged away and the basic concepts of moral delimas. While he's thus distracted you flip the switch that sends him screaming into the pit full of alligators. Because it's important to spend time with the grandkids, and hey, everybody loves pits full of alligators.

But no, competent evil NEVER jumps out of the bushes and shouts BOOGAH BOOGAH! If they do that, they should get smacked down quick.

its_all_ogre
2007-07-11, 05:49 PM
okay this has gone on for some time now so i may ramble back and forth over certain points.
my view is that good vs evil is decided largely by the fact that good people co-operate and work together well while evil does not. as someone else noted; evil fights evil as often as good. generally evil creatures/people have their own goals they want to achieve and they normally revolve around power.
therefore other evil creatures are actually more of a threat than good creatures! amusingly when we played an evil campaign we actually faced more opposition from evil than good. my character was the youngest of three children, his elder brother was a paladin and sister was a priestess, he always felt that he was not living up to their standards, firstly by not following his studies on religion, pelor, secondly because he did not want to spend his life helping others. he had few friends as a child and was referred to as so-and-so's brother not as himself. he grew bitter and angry and followed wizardry as a means to rebel. eventually, as he lost the few friends he had left and moved himself further away from the family traditions he found necromancy. finally a chance to prove to them that he was capable, worthy and did not need their 'limitations'. he did not believe in sticking to their moral codes, good and evil? he would say, words and no more. he became a necromancer primarily to gain power but also to ruin the reputation of his siblings and gain their respect (which he actually had anyway, just did not realise).
as to the good doing evil deeds. yes a good person can do them. he/she will not remain good for long and should always feel great guilt for the actions committed. as soon as the character justifies them they have fallen into neutrality. when he chooses those actions to start with to save time he is bordering evil. soon as they are the preferred way he is evil.
evil acts to work towards good remain evil acts.

finally a good person who wins by using evil weapons has not won a real victory, he was forced to concede that good was weaker and had to use the weapons of the enemy, he will slowly slide towards evil using the excuse that it is quicker and easier to do that and therefore more economical.

my favourite author for this kind of debate is David Gemmell, who sadly passed away last year. he also has a few paladin-like characters in his books, he is a fairly low-fantasy, gritty writer when compared to dnd, but very good for these debates.

SITB
2007-07-11, 06:15 PM
- That's fine. I guess it's mostly relative at that point. Though I'd argue that if this character is continuously helping needy human settlements, he'd probably start leaning towards neutral or good. At that point, the human world sees him as a good character, but the elves see him as the devil. Kind of a gray area.

I argue that D&D morality does not work that way. To be 'Good' you need to be even handed, to be 'Evil' you can just target one particular group.

It also makes since in real life, because otherwise you could choose to only help a certain group while being cruel to all the others and proclaiming yourself 'Good'. And when asked about it, replay:"They are not the true human beings and as such they are exempt from my philosophy"(Altough probably more veiled).


- Haven't read it, probably should. An evil character with a moral code is typically L/E (according to the RAW examples). That's not to say that all villains with a moral code are automatically more interesting, though. It's possible to make a C/E villain who's just as memorable as a L/E one.

I said it's used to make villains more interesting, not that this is the only way to make them as such. And allow me to add, it does not always work.


- Not really, but they may occasionally be forced to choose between lesser or greater goods. Take the reverse: you can't remain an evil character in D&D morality that consistently does good things for the greater evil, unless the greater evil is at the height of evil (like world ending events that are beyond the scope of any Evil campaign I've ever been in... then again, that could easily be DM or PC fault, not the system's fault).

Why doing 'Good' for greater 'Evil'? The character is doing 'Good' because it serves him thus making it an non 'Good' act, or at least a diminished 'Good' act.


- Bold part: That's not necessarily an evil character. An evil character will go out of his way to harm/mutilate/torture/kill. You're correct, though, that playing a good character can be more difficult (and lead to gray areas). A C/N character is probably the best example of a frivolous 'don't give a care' attitude. The difference is that the evil dude has to actively do evil acts to keep his alignment. I probably shouldn't be arguing from a RAW perspective, though....

An 'Evil' character does not need to (as you said): "go out of his way to harm/mutilate/torture/kill"; it's an example of one of the behaviours you can indulge yourself as an evil character (and I might add the example you said was more boring).

I challange you to make a character that think a whole sentient species is not really human and deserves everything that he can do to it while remaining 'Good'.


- Both ideas go hand in hand. Like the poster who mentioned the party was gang-raping the one PC, and the PC had to accept it. That's playing an evil character to indulge in forbidden acts, not because 'good is too restrictive'. There's a HUGE difference between an evil party planing world domination/destruction, and an evil party running around burning orphanages. Neither methods are wrong or right (hey, if the players are having fun, let them), but (to me anyways) the former offers a better playing opportunity.

No real comment here.


I was just giving random examples. Maybe it has sentimental value? It can be pursued without necessarily being 'the right thing to do for the good of the world'. Not every plot in D&D has to revolve around destroying some random evil BBEG. Heck, maybe a neutral PC has something they need to do and the good PC wants to help his friend out.

But is it 'Good'? Doing a favour to a friend is not something I would list as one of the acts of 'Good'. It's true that not every plot revolves around an BBEG but I'd wager that most 'Good' campaigns revolve on thwarting something 'Evil'(For example war, natural disasters etc...).


- They weren't focused, no, but they did good deeds along the way, and sometimes killed people along the way. Nix the last episodes of the series and 'take it for granted' that they find the stone and end the anime there. Now we have a good group that pursued a goal that didn't revolve around reactively stopping the BBEG. Also, the 'evil' characters in the anime were often re-actionary as well.

They were driven by a selfish quest which during it do some good deeds. Yeah, they did some 'Good'. But were they an active 'Good' heroes?

The evil characters in the anime were using Xanatos Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit?from=Main.TheXanatosGambit) to make the heroes make the MacGuffin. Why the villain didn't do it themselves is beyond me.

SpikeFightwicky
2007-07-11, 07:04 PM
I argue that D&D morality does not work that way. To be 'Good' you need to be even handed, to be 'Evil' you can just target one particular group.

- So you're saying that someone who devotes his entire life to good, but has a hatred of elves is an evil to the core character?


It also makes since in real life, because otherwise you could choose to only help a certain group while being cruel to all the others and proclaiming yourself 'Good'. And when asked about it, replay:"They are not the true human beings and as such they are exempt from my philosophy"(Altough probably more veiled).

- I don't think real life applies to the alignment system of D&D... According to D&D, I'm part lawful/chaotic.


I said it's used to make villains more interesting, not that this is the only way to make them as such. And allow me to add, it does not always work.

- It 'can' make them more interesting (emphasis on 'CAN'), but, like you said, it doesn't always work. Big difference between 'it can be used to make fun villains' and 'it's used to make fun villains'.



Why doing 'Good' for greater 'Evil'? The character is doing 'Good' because it serves him thus making it an non 'Good' act, or at least a diminished 'Good' act.

- Doing good for selfish reasons and nothing else isn't evil.



An 'Evil' character does not need to (as you said): "go out of his way to harm/mutilate/torture/kill"; it's an example of one of the behaviours you can indulge yourself as an evil character (and I might add the example you said was more boring).

If a character doesn't doesn't do as I said, he's not evil (by RAW standards). Having the option to indulge doesn't mean you're evil. Actually indulging on a regular basis does.

What example did I give, BTW? Chaotic Neutral? The very definition of the alignment is 'Free Spirit'... If you play the game to be able to kill innocents, then OBVIOUSLY C/N is going to be a boring alignment.


I challange you to make a character that think a whole sentient species is not really human and deserves everything that he can do to it while remaining 'Good'.

- A character who kills an entire race while being a saint to all other races is a very odd and unique character. I probably can't make one up, since it doesn't make sense. If a character's evil, he's likely not going to devote his life to doing good deeds for 'humans'.



No real comment here.


- Ok....


But is it 'Good'? Doing a favour to a friend is not something I would list as one of the acts of 'Good'. It's true that not every plot revolves around an BBEG but I'd wager that most 'Good' campaigns revolve on thwarting something 'Evil'(For example war, natural disasters etc...).

- I don't care if it's good or not, I'm just saying that good characters have a life outside of adventuring that don't always have to involve slavishly doing good. Campaigns revolve around good deeds because it's the easiest motivating factor for a good party. If you don't like adventuring to do good deeds, then by all means play an evil campaign, but don't tell me that the overall goal of that campaign will not be evil...



They were driven by a selfish quest which during it do some good deeds. Yeah, they did some 'Good'. But were they an active 'Good' heroes?

The evil characters in the anime were using Xanatos Gambit (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit?from=Main.TheXanatosGambit) to make the heroes make the MacGuffin. Why the villain didn't do it themselves is beyond me.

- Ok, Ed and Al were evil because their 'macguffin' was evil and they were working for the bad guys...

I'm not really sure what you're arguing about, but if they weren't good people, a lot of the subplots might have ended differently.

I'm pretty much done. I'm not even sure what I'm arguing about anymore. My main points are:

- By RAW, an evil character commits evil acts, whereas a good character commits good acts. Someone who does 90% good and 10% evil isn't a hopelessly evil character.

- Good characters have the capacity to do something that isn't evil, but isn't good.

SITB
2007-07-11, 08:07 PM
- So you're saying that someone who devotes his entire life to good, but has a hatred of elves is an evil to the core character?

He obviously can't be 'Good' and if his hatred is strong enough then I'd say that yes, he is evil (not to the core, but rather to the core rules).


- I don't think real life applies to the alignment system of D&D... According to D&D, I'm part lawful/chaotic.

The alignment in D&D tends to be wonky, but lawful/chaotic are more like ways to organize your mind.


- Doing good for selfish reasons and nothing else isn't evil.

But it isn't 'Good' which was my point.


If a character doesn't doesn't do as I said, he's not evil (by RAW standards). Having the option to indulge doesn't mean you're evil. Actually indulging on a regular basis does.

What about the obligatory mastermind/manipulator? You don't need to be destructive to be 'Evil', you just need a goal that you want to accomplish while having less or none restricting 'morals'.


What example did I give, BTW? Chaotic Neutral? The very definition of the alignment is 'Free Spirit'... If you play the game to be able to kill innocents, then OBVIOUSLY C/N is going to be a boring alignment.

Can a chaotic netural character really transcend morals? But not just simply saying that he does not have them but outright acting in a manner corresponding to this? A CN character does not have "no laws" but simply view them frivolously, butis still bound by them to a certain degree.


- A character who kills an entire race while being a saint to all other races is a very odd and unique character. I probably can't make one up, since it doesn't make sense. If a character's evil, he's likely not going to devote his life to doing good deeds for 'humans'.

He views his race as the only true race, all the others are slaves to the might of 'the true human beings' he is an utilitarian that helps his own race because he believes that the only worthy thing in life is the continuation of his species.

Granted, he wouldn't be good. But that's an 'Evil' character that does devote his life to an greater ideal.

See also Fortuna Saga:
Where the 'Villain', Lucian, engages in war and murder to conquer the only place which could be utilised to combat the Tower that controls the whole world while simultaneously destroying it.

He isn't good, but he works for a good purpose.



- I don't care if it's good or not, I'm just saying that good characters have a life outside of adventuring that don't always have to involve slavishly doing good. Campaigns revolve around good deeds because it's the easiest motivating factor for a good party. If you don't like adventuring to do good deeds, then by all means play an evil campaign, but don't tell me that the overall goal of that campaign will not be evil...

I simply said that I think that good is primarily reactionary. Ergo, while being able to go on their lives 'Good' characters will commit good acts only to stop bad acts.


- Ok, Ed and Al were evil because their 'macguffin' was evil and they were working for the bad guys...

I'm not really sure what you're arguing about, but if they weren't good people, a lot of the subplots might have ended differently.

They could have been 'Good', but they didn't go on a 'Good' quest. My point was that yes, they did some 'Good' actions; but only because they happened to travel to that particular area, not because of some selfless 'Good' drive that propelled them to go and help people.

Though while they did walk around the world doing 'Good' deeds, they were reactionary.


I'm pretty much done. I'm not even sure what I'm arguing about anymore. My main points are:

- By RAW, an evil character commits evil acts, whereas a good character commits good acts. Someone who does 90% good and 10% evil isn't a hopelessly evil character.

- Good characters have the capacity to do something that isn't evil, but isn't good.

1)No, but he will probably fall from grace to neutral quick enough, and if they don't repent their misgivings to 'Evil'. Because "You can't do bad guy things and call yourself good guys, you know where that road leads."

P.S

I would appreciate the actual Vimes quote, it's in Nightwatch.

2)Yes, but if the repeatedly engage in 'Evil' acts, no matter how much good do they do they will still fall.

Stephen_E
2007-07-11, 08:16 PM
You might say good is dumb because they are ready to sacrifice themselves but I say evil is much dumber because they are ready to sacrifice everything and everyone to achieve their goals. Even your NE halfing Stephen would have betrayed his party if she would have agreed to his term. If you wanna live long though, do like V, be neutral and cast invisibility.

Re: My NE halfling wouldn't have been betraying the party. We were actually contracted to retrieve the Lieutentants head I was asking for. Everything else was bonus fun.....

Other than that I'd broadly agree with the point that Evil doesn't win because Good is stupid. Evil tends to be stupider than Good, both in RL and in game worlds. Note I say "tends to", there is no flat absolute on this. My personal suspicion is that this is because evil gives you more choices, with less restrictions. This means you tend to take the easist choice. Study the course work or bribe the lecturer? Lets just do the bribe. But of course this leaves you weaker if you ever actually need the knowledge/skills. Evil also tends to make enemies faster. I'd also note that "Good" has a lot of guidelines on how to live that actually have significant longterm advantages. Most people simply don't think long-term, but the short-term "good" person by been good is gaining those long-term advantages. The short-term "Evil" person operates on purely want seems good for them NOW.

Re: Evil = KILL/BURN/DESTROY whatevers handy.
I disagree that this represents the majority view of this thread as to how people play their evil characters. This is the dumb/foolish way to play evil, and if you have a low Int/Wis evil PC this is just what you should do (then again low Int/Wis adventurers tend to be more destructive regardless of alignment IME). For the smarter evil PC's, evil is, as many have pointed out, simply a opportunity to roleplay a different perspective.

Re: Good = reactive, opposing evil.
You're Good and have no BBEG to fight. Work at improving the lives of those around you. Find new better crops and crop animals for the nearby villages. Sponser and set up new trade routes (lots of adventuring in this). End pointless local or national feuds (this one could be tough and drive the PCs into deciding Evil has it right. Kill the stupid dipsticks). In game playing "good" parties can be easier for both players and GM because it is easier for the players to just follow the plothooks thrown out by the GM. "Hey, a BBEG is trying to overthrow the kingdom. Lets go off and stop him. This doesn't mean that this is the only way to play "good", but it is reasonably fun, and it's easy. Humans are lazy.

In game evil parties tend to be more work because the standard response to the plothook "Person "X" is trying to overthrow the Kingdom ecetre" is "does this make any real difference to me? No! <shrug> Who cares". But more work can be more fun. Playing a campaign where the players are deciding the plot and the GM has to react to their decisions is a real change for most players and GMs. You can do this as a "Neutral" campaign, but IME if just one person play "Good", even if everyone else is neutral, the campaign will start sliding into the standard heroic quest pattern.

The most important thing to note when discussing good/evil campaigns. Outside of Paladins, nothing is absolute. Evil tends toward this, Good tends towards that, but they don't have to behave/operate in those ways.

Stephen

its_all_ogre
2007-07-12, 03:58 AM
yes for the evil=short road to achievement!

this is in fact a very accurate observation. thanks for that!

Tiki Snakes
2007-07-12, 03:27 PM
actually mostly evil doesn't win because the author/DM/Etc really can't afford for evil to win, narratively speaking.

90% of all Heroes win because they are imbued with the mighty power of Plot, the cosmic boon of Narrative Imperative.

A lot could be learned from Marvel's idea of Evil, actually.

In reply to a couple of the above examples;
Re: Evil PC's wouldn't care when someone invades and threatens their country.
See: Doctor Doom. Evil, slightly silly-looking son of a gun. I'm pretty sure that even in circumstances when he didn't have Latveria (or whatever it was called) as his own private domain, he would step up to defend his country's borders against hostile invaders. Admittedly, he does tend towards the more lawful scale of things.

Re: Evil PC's would and do devolve into inevitable PC vs PC combat and team cohesion is only possible via outside threats and DM scowling.
See: The Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants, and/or Magneto and his various gatherings of other mutants, such as the whole Avalon/Asteroid M affair.

Admittedly, Magneto at his best is more neutral than evil, but he's usually depicted as Evil except in those rare cases where he's joined the X-Men, lost his mind, or some mixture of the above. He is often rabidly intent on the extermination or at least subjugation of the human race. He does this in order to protect Homo Supirior, mutants, from the same fate his jewish parents/countrymen suffered at the hands of the nazi's. And because he is a bit of a nutball, sometimes. Mostly the former.

Most of the time, Magneto and his various groups are held together by a shared goal, such as in the case of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, or by actual reverence, let alone comradery, such as in the case of his acolytes.

No one ever said that Evil couldn't have friends, let alone genuine allies and team-mates. It doesn't say anywhere that even Chaotic Evil *must* betray and desert. Chaotic Evil is the ultimate rejection of others opinions, you bow to neither Law nor morality. You will do whatever you want exclusively to please yourself, be it personal vices or advancing your station/power.

It's a complete rejection of all rules. So who says Chaotic Evil can't fall in love, save a child from a burning house merely because they do not wish to see the child harmed, form a long lasting and meaningful friendship with even a disparate group of people, even, in theory, lawful-good aligned clerics!
He does what he wants, and if that makes him feel good, who in the nine layers of hell dares tell him otherwise?

Sure, he may start detecting as Chaotic Neutral. That doesn't mean he's changed. Not really.

Or, rather, that's how I look at things. :)

Tengu
2007-07-13, 09:00 AM
actually mostly evil doesn't win because the author/DM/Etc really can't afford for evil to win, narratively speaking.

90% of all Heroes win because they are imbued with the mighty power of Plot, the cosmic boon of Narrative Imperative.


Yeah, but 90% of everything is crap. In those 10% of stories, which are more often than not those that are widely considered good, the white hats win with their own skills or wit, not by some deus ex machina.

Stephen_E
2007-07-13, 10:16 AM
Yeah, but 90% of everything is crap. In those 10% of stories, which are more often than not those that are widely considered good, the white hats win with their own skills or wit, not by some deus ex machina.

I just finished rereading the "Tales of Enarinn" series, by Juliet McKenna, and I couldn't help thinking about it in relation to this thread.

The 2 main characters are a CG Rogue and her LG Fighter boyfriend.
They are fighting the BBEG, but one of her best friends is a CE Fighter/Rogue type. There's a passage which sums up how a CG person can hang around with a CE -
"I loved 'Gren like a brother but that didn't blind me to his blithe lack of conscience. Then there was the uncomplicated delight he took in bedding any girl willing and fighting any man fool enough to think 'Gren wouldn't kill him just for the excitement of proving his prowess and filling his purse by way of bonus."

And his feelings are quite clearly as strong back.

I'd also note they beat the enemy more by wits and skill than luck, with a decent chunk of help from the enemies arrogance. But then in RL arrogance is probably the trait most in common amongst those I've personally known that I'd consider "evil" by DnD standards. They know they're better than everyone else, and even the smart ones think they're even smarter than they are. They beleive the views that some have put forward by some post here that "Evil" is stronger, more fleible and will of course win, and that "good" is weak and limited. (This doesn't mean that I think those who put those views are evil. It's simply that IME "evil" people consistently latch on to them).

Stephen

SurlySeraph
2007-07-13, 06:38 PM
That's the whole point. You can't be(or remain for long anyway) a good character in D&D morality that does bad things for "the greater good".

I realize this is late... but...

The Greyguard doesn't think so!!!!

CyberWyld
2007-07-13, 08:14 PM
I don't see Evil characters being an issue as long as they have a "reason" to be the way that they are...rather then just because.

When I started with the group I'm playing with now, we were a very young group. Some 1st timers to D&D period. After about 3 sessions I went to the DM because the lack of RP was alarming. No one was really utilizing any type of RP at all. I decided with the permission of the DM and a very in depth back story to change my monk's alignment from LN to LE. The LG Cleric traveling with us was tricky. It wasn't an over night thing. It took several sessions before my alignment had shifted, and for a few sessions after that (we play 2x's a month) everytime there was a decision that required a "morality" check I had to roll a % die to see which side of my personality won out. After so many failed checks to the evil side, it eventually won out.

We traveled together for a long time, but in the end the cleric and the dwarven fighter (CG) had had their full and it was an inevitable battle. My monk emerged with his life and went to attain epic lvl status and start his own monestary. :) But that 1st campaign was amazingly fun, and the evil character didn't hinder it at all. As a matter of fact, I think it helped.



Hasta