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View Full Version : Gamer Tales Did I go too far? Is my charater too evil? (slight Skulls and Shackles spoilers)



Calthropstu
2018-11-22, 11:16 AM
I am posting this here rather than the 3.5 category because the rules itself are irrelevant.

I am playing in the PF adventure path Skulls and Shackles, a pirate campaign module. In the first book, you must convince numerous other people on your ship that you are on to ally with you. Eventually, the captain's lackeys notice your influence and start taking steps to counter you.

My character is a Neutral Evil sorcerer. After an attempt on my life, I decided to take countermeasures. I lured one of the opposing faction's people using charm person into an ambush, handing her over to an evil vicious psychopath giving him an hour of alone time with her. I come back, use prestidigitation to clean up the mess, have him help cut her into small pieces and toss the chunks overboard piecemeal.

The only people who know this are me and the psychopath.

Unfortunately, one of the members of our group was severely disturbed by this. He has never seen me play an evil character before... in fact, I doubt he's ever seen anyone play evil characters and, up until now, has generally played paladins. (This time he's playing a chaotic good archery specialist. Forget his class at the moment)

My question is, should I tone down evil acts such as this for his benefit? I'd really rather not chase him away especially since we recently lost one group member already for entirely different reasons.

Hand_of_Vecna
2018-11-22, 11:32 AM
Why did you waste all that perfectly good meat by throwing it overboard?*

If there is a universal line of "too evil for any table" you didn't cross it. However each table has its own social contract that determines the boundaries and you may have crossed the boundaries for your table. As is often the case the best solution is OOC conversation about what the boundaries of your table are, if this crossed your table's boundaries you may want to suggest future curration of adventures to lean more towards traditional BDHs smashing dungeons.

* On mobile can't apply a color to text.

Honest Tiefling
2018-11-22, 11:41 AM
My question is, should I tone down evil acts such as this for his benefit? I'd really rather not chase him away especially since we recently lost one group member already for entirely different reasons.

Maybe? I would check with the group as a whole. There may have been a difference of expectations, and I would check with everyone to make sure that this player isn't the only one. A conversation that doesn't seem like singling out the new guy might also be beneficial.

I think the real question is, could you enjoy the game while toning it down? Can the new player enjoy the game if you don't? if you can say yes to the form and no to the latter...Well, it's something to consider.

The Jack
2018-11-22, 11:46 AM
Unless you went into the most explicit details, you should be totally fine, and such an offended player should have specified beforehand that he wants the pirate game , where you're all criminals in line for a grissly execution by default ,to be pg.

If i was the gm, I'd likely side with you, unless you really got into messed up details. I know the 'paladin only' type and i dont think they belong with a lot of scenarios.

Florian
2018-11-22, 01:40 PM
Ah, well, SnS is a pirate campaign, not explicitly an evil campaign (that would be Hells Vengeance). You can play it as light-heartedly as your typical Pirates of the Caribbean movie, a bit more CN-gritty and realistic or go fully Black Beard sadistic evil, but neither is prescribed by the AP itself.

So I guess your group didn't have a session zero to talk about it, your gm just announced the AP and you all bought characters that you wanted to play, right? Well, serious error when it comes to long campaign, Stu, as you should know by now. I guess you all should sit down and have a talk about your shared expectations, as NE Sorcerer and CG Archer .... don´t really fit.

Calthropstu
2018-11-22, 02:52 PM
Ah, well, SnS is a pirate campaign, not explicitly an evil campaign (that would be Hells Vengeance). You can play it as light-heartedly as your typical Pirates of the Caribbean movie, a bit more CN-gritty and realistic or go fully Black Beard sadistic evil, but neither is prescribed by the AP itself.

So I guess your group didn't have a session zero to talk about it, your gm just announced the AP and you all bought characters that you wanted to play, right? Well, serious error when it comes to long campaign, Stu, as you should know by now. I guess you all should sit down and have a talk about your shared expectations, as NE Sorcerer and CG Archer .... don´t really fit.

Our party is LN monk, CG archer and NE sorc. I expect problems. We did have a session zero, but what was discussed was more along the lines of character creation rules and guidelines, expectations of the party as far as combat abilities (I was pretty much told flat out I had to take burning hands as a spell choice due to something later in the book)

The rest of the table, including myself, are all LONG veterans who have played for decades. The outlier is definitely the archer. To be honest, I doubt any of us even THOUGHT about it being an issue as we can pretty much make it work regardless.

I can enjoy the game while toning it down. We can discuss it before starting the next session of that campaign. I just wanted to get some others' thoughts on the matter.

Florian
2018-11-22, 03:07 PM
Eh? Ok, let me ask you a simple question: Who of you has max ranks in Profession: Sailor?

Calthropstu
2018-11-22, 03:16 PM
Eh? Ok, let me ask you a simple question: Who of you has max ranks in Profession: Sailor?
We're level 1, so all of us.

The Jack
2018-11-22, 05:41 PM
So the paladin is new? I cant help but think he's the problem, but maybe im bias because ive been in your shoes.

Some people cant seperate player from character, and they struggle when they vere away from ideal-self characters. 'If you can play a bad character then you must be bad' kinda mentality applies, that or they're just oversensitive types that are weak to discriptions.



They're fine for all-good campaigns, but you best leave them out when you've got deviance or complexity. If they actually try an evil character, it'll be a shallow charicature that betrays the team for the reasons of evil. your dm should have picked up on it and dicussed it during session 0.

Friv
2018-11-22, 06:39 PM
I think the best bet is the following:

Talk to the guy who was disturbed. Say, "Hey, I'm playing evil, but if this sort of thing squicks you out, it's cool and I can tone it down." Include the fact that if the player is okay with it for now, you can keep playing it like this and tone it down later if it's still a problem. See if the player in question has a long-term fun-problem here, or if they were just caught off-guard by the situation.

In this case, you're putting an offer on the table, letting the player in question know that you aren't interested in harshing their fun, and leaving them the ability to try and stick with it for a while before making a final decision. It gives them more of an ability to see if they can handle it.

If they affirm that this is creeping them out too much, and it's not a huge bother to you, yeah, go ahead and tone it down. It's never bad to be nice when the cost is minimal, and playing with a more toned-down villain might get them used to the idea so that a more evil PC down the road is less of a shock.

The Jack
2018-11-22, 06:42 PM
What did the other players/gm at your table think?

Quertus
2018-11-22, 09:12 PM
So, it sounds like this is a comfort zones issue. It's good to hear that you would still enjoy the game if you toned it down, because, if your actions are outside your fellow player(s)'s comfort zones, that's what you should do.

So, if you think that you may have crossed that line, bring it up OOC, or even outside the session. If the other player is fine with it, and was just surprised, no harm no foul, have fun. If they aren't, then discuss how you can tone it down - and, if the GM wasn't involved in the conversation, bring them up to speed.

Seto
2018-11-22, 09:13 PM
There's no way to tell objectively if you're being "too evil" or if he's being sensitive, because it ain't objective; but that's not the question.
It's simple either way: if it makes that player uncomfortable on a regular basis, it's a problem for the game. You got the impression it was uncomfortable for him. So, first, ask him if that impression is correct. If it is, tone it down a bit.

By the way, there doesn't seem to be an in-character problem (yet), so it's not a case of incompatible alignments, although it might soon be if his character learns about that. If what you're doing makes the player uncomfortable, it's a problem no matter what alignment his character has.

Calthropstu
2018-11-25, 09:41 PM
We talked it over and it seems he's ok with it. In his words "just make sure my character doesn't see you doing something that evil because she will take exception, and you will be getting a crossbow bolt to the chest."

How it went down was not descriptive, I just cast charm person had her meet me in the bilge pump room, we started moving some damaged crates I told her I'd be back with more people to help and then locked her in with the guy. Came back an hour later, she was dead we chopped her up threw her piecemeal into the sea and that was it.

I think he'd never seen someone play an evil character before and it just kinda shocked him. He says he's over it. I think I'll tone it down a little bit just in case, but if it becomes an issue I'll just jump the character overboard and make another character.

Rynjin
2018-11-25, 09:47 PM
That character is going to have some severe issues with the rest of the AP. Take it from someone who's been running it since 2013.

It's pretty hard (read: impossible unless the GM rewrites large swathes of the campaign) to play S&S as unequivocal good guys, which is what a Paladin requires. He'll end up Fallen by the time you get halfway through Book 2 by any reasonable GM's metric, since being a pirate involves, you know, PIRACY.

Moreover, Plugg's gang of chuckleheads deserve pretty much anything that comes to them, so it's not like you're murdering some innocent, here.

Edit: He's not actually playing a Paladin here (someone else' post confused me), but the major point still stands. Good Guy and Pirate are generally mutually exclusive terms unless your GM is running a One piece style campaign, which is NOT what S&S is set up for by default.

Mr Beer
2018-11-25, 09:52 PM
Seems extremely reasonable for an Evil character to respond to attempted murder with actual murder.

The issue here is more mixing Good and Evil characters in a party.

PastorofMuppets
2018-11-25, 10:02 PM
Since you seem to have fast forwarded past any details I’d say there wasn’t a too evil issue. My last evil game involved a soylent green type component but we also glossed over details. It was a ordeal to get a warehouse and set up everything but we skipped the Saw Movie type play by plays and I think as long as you skip over that kind of stuff too not many players will take issue.

My only question here is whether you consider the guy you used to be like a minion or just a roaming danger. Was giving him a new toy a price for hiring him?

Pauly
2018-11-25, 10:36 PM
Seems extremely reasonable for an Evil character to respond to attempted murder with actual murder.

The issue here is more mixing Good and Evil characters in a party.

Yeah, that seems the real problem here. Neutral and Good alignments can get along, but Evil is very difficult to play except in an Evil party. The possible exception is Lawful Evil because other players know there are lines that will not be crossed.

Characters who are not evil aligned would be vary wary about adventuring with someone who would rob them while they slept or might sell them into slavery at any time was in the interests of the evil character to do so. It can create irreconcilable inter party differences.

A good fictional example of how Laful Evil can exist in an overall Good aligned party is Jane in Firefly (Avon from Blake’s 7 is better but he’s an older reference). One instance from the series is when Captain Mal ends up with a wife that he doesn’t want. Jane doesn’t try to steal her, he tries to trade his best rifle for her. Mal is offended by Jane’s worldview however since Jane has followed the rules the group can continue adventuring together. But think how that would have played if Jane just stole Saffron (I think she was Saffron in that episode, the browncoats will correct me if I’m wrong). Mal would have have kicked him off the ship.

As others have said piracy and S&S do not lend themselves to good characters. Probably the best thing is for the CG character re-align to NG before it starts disrupting the campaign. CG alignment would work in an Errol Flynn/PotC campaign setting. Anything involving piracy with NPCs based of historical pirates (e.g. this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_l%27Olonnais) then any Good alignment will be incompatible with the campaign.

The Jack
2018-11-26, 12:17 AM
Yeah, that seems the real problem here. Neutral and Good alignments can get along, but Evil is very difficult to play except in an Evil party. The possible exception is Lawful Evil because other players know there are lines that will not be crossed.

Characters who are not evil aligned would be vary wary about adventuring with someone who would rob them while they slept or might sell them into slavery at any time was in the interests of the evil character to do so. It can create irreconcilable inter party differences.


You're playing 'evil' wrong. Nuetral characters work well with evil unless the evil character is mustach twirling evil, or stupid-evil, a relative of lawful-stupid and stupid good, and just bad rollplaying in general if done without party consideration and self awareness. The point is that an 'evil' character can be well done and very functional in a party of nuetral and even good players, if your idea of evil is a bit beyond raping,enslaving, killing and reanimating everyone whilst wearing tattered black robes and skulls, then it should work.

Actual bad people in real life really try to fit in ànd mold society to better accomadate their vices. They're greedy but they'll convince you they earned it, they're sadistic but you'll never know... Do that right and you can work with paladins.
Most evil DnD characters are societal rejections where people have fun inverting and flouting social norms, or they're imitating characters that exist in a morality play. That kind of silly evil doesnt play well with others, because that's the point.

A dude who let a serial killer loose on someone is the realistic evil, the best kind of evil.