Fun Motivations for Evil PCs

[StoryKeeper]

There has been discussion among my gaming group of late of playing an evil PC adventure path our GM found. I'm a huge fan of playing evil characters with understandable motivations, but I'm having trouble thinking of options this time 'round. Could I persuade you fine fellows into helping me get my creative juices flowing?

The premise of the campaign is something to the effect that Asmodeus was recently removed from the national pantheon despite holding a place within it for centuries. Now, the PCs are trying to arrange for him to reclaim his place within the pantheon.

I want to play a character who, despite being a genuinely bad guy, isn't just twirling his moustache for the heck of it. Pure greed is sort of a boring motivation, and being a psychotic murderer or someone who loves evil just because it's evil is probably just going to be a tad silly. I'm looking for the villain who manipulates his allies and enemies to serve a normally noble goal, someone who places more emphasis on duties and other beliefs than morality, or otherwise has some reason for being as evil as he is. Thoughts?

[Grinner]

An ecoterrorist Druid?

[ArcturusV]

Well, I ran a Lawful Evil character like that not too long ago. His goal was to bring what he considered proper civilization to the heathen land he was in. He also ended up falling in love with a Princess who had dreams of "Peace" for the continent. So his goal ended up being establishing a continent spanning Empire of Peace... by means that seemed good, but were done evilly... for the greater good... evil.

But the standard method I do for making evil characters is establishing a Good Goal... and keep cranking up the Intensity Dial on it until you hit CRAZY.

I want to make an orphanage for all the children to be cared for and happy. ... so I'm going to go around kidnapping children, so they have a place to be happy... and kill their parents for not making them happy... and stealing their stuff to pay for the orphanage...

[Yukitsu]

I made a tremendously evil, hypocritical chaotic character once whose primary motivation for doing evil was her hatred for slavers. She herself was an experimental state soldier that seriously warped her personality, so she views her liberation of slaves as a form of revenge. She doesn't actually care if the people she saves are free or not, she just wants the slave drivers to be dead.

I view her as full blown evil mostly because of the extremes that she went to to get at these guys. If a slave trader was too well protected to get at directly, she wasn't the heroic sort to devise a secret plan to sneak into the fort and ambush the guy, instead she'd send him his wife's hand in a box and tell him if he didn't show when and where she wanted she'd send his wife's intestines coiled neatly in a sack instead. And then his children's after that.

She worked with the neutral good party largely because they were the sort who would try to do the work in the system which helped her become aware of a lot of these situations, and, sometimes resolve it without the aforementioned horribleness, and from an in character point of view, sometimes when the bigwigs were getting in our way with rules or whatever, they were surprised when the situation "resolved itself."

[Rhynn]

1. Pick something for the character to want (money, power, love, respect, control).
1b. Decide why.
1c. Make both short- and long-term goals.
2. Give the character personality flaws serious enough that his pursuit of this will involve doing evil acts.

Good flaws involve being willing to go to any lengths for a goal, having a giant sense of entitlement and no empathy, having a mean streak, having a horrible temper, having no respect for other people (to the point of being willing to do most anything to them), being way too tribal/clannish ("everyone who's not part of my cohort is worth nothing and can be treated like nothnig")...


For instance, a mercenary might just want to make a fortune, and enjoys the thrill of fighting. He doesn't like to do things the hard way, and feels that others should respect (or at least fear) him. So he bullies, kills, takes vengeance, steals, and betrays (possibly with an exception for a subset, like "my company") to get what he wants - money, respect/fear, petty vengeance, whatever. Push comes to shove, he won't balk from torturing people to get what the wants, or just to put the fear in others so they won't resist.

Evil doesn't always have to be twisted or epic; evil can even be banal. And, frankly, such "everyday evil" characters will probably fit a party better.

For a D&D literary example, Raistlin Majere wants power and control (generally in the form of magical power) because he had a horrible childhood, and he's selfish, untrusting, and single-minded. (Quite aside from being unpleasant.) This means he's willing to go to any lengths (including killing his brother) to get what he wants. Being a wizard, he eventually goes all-out and tries to become an evil god.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Let me tell you the story of Zephyr, the Druid. I asked his player to give me a plot hook for an evil-adventure featuring a team of assassins living in a major Greco-Roman-style metropolis.

Spoiler

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He decided that he was Neutral Good (ha!). He also decided that he only worked for the Assassins because they alone had the resources to help keep his sister alive. She'd been injured in a raid on their tribe by the Empire, and fell into a coma. So, he was driven by doing right by his family, and no small amount of hatred for the Empire and its associates (the inter-racial politics of that campaign made things very tense since he ended up working with Imperials and Elves from time to time, the two groups he hated most).

In the early sessions, his was the voice of reason. He was the party member who argued for treating pickpockets with mercy, who argued for avoiding pitched combat in the street, and he was the only member of the party who didn't particularly care for lighting people on fire.

And then he...fell. See, this city was the sort of festering scum-hole that made Mos Eisely look like Pleasantville. Anyone who entertained thoughts of nobility and honor did not last long. And so it was that Zephyr got his purse swiped once too many, forced to pay bribes to the city guard once too often. It...didn't sit well with him.

And by that I mean he snapped. Got his purse snatched once. Ended up chasing the thief three blocks along the rooftops, and when he caught the starving thief, he threw him off the three-story building and Produce-Flame'd the corpse in the middle of rush hour. He felt bad about it, at least. He'd only meant to wound the guy, and throwing him off the building could almost have been an accident. But later that day he purchased several vials of highly combustible liquid, and at the first sign of trouble with a band of pirates on the docks he nuked the whole ship. He actually laughed a little when he noticed they were elves.

He wasn't totally gone. He still had his sister, his morality pet. Until I had the BBEG kidnap her as payback for the party looting his temple (Immortal Body-Hopping Wizard). Then Zephyr lost it.

To cut a long, loooong story short, he said "**** it!" and rigged the whole city to blow by crafting gunpowder by the tonnes and leaving it in barrels in the city catacombs and sewers. He also booby-trapped the BBEG's artifacts that he wanted, and then blew it all to hell. Including his sister, who he now saw as collateral damage in his war against the Empire.

He's gonna be the next BBEG when my group uses that setting again.

tl;dr. Moral of the story? No one starts evil. Write a normal character with normal motivations, and then break him.

[Scow2]

You could be like Bateman's Count from Another Gaming Comic! A brooding antihero who goes to questionable means to further goals formed out of desperation.

[Radar]

To quote a solid example:
This world is rotten, and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me? Even if it means sacrificing my own mind and soul it's worth it. Because the world... can't go on like this. I wonder... what if someone else had picked up this notebook? Is there anyone out there other than me who'd be willing to eliminate the vermin from the world? If I don't do it, then who will? That's just it there's no one. But I can do it, in fact I'm the only one who can, I'll do it, using the death note I'll change the world.

Not sure, where it came from? It's Death Note.

[Chilingsworth]

There has been discussion among my gaming group of late of playing an evil PC adventure path our GM found. I'm a huge fan of playing evil characters with understandable motivations, but I'm having trouble thinking of options this time 'round. Could I persuade you fine fellows into helping me get my creative juices flowing?

The premise of the campaign is something to the effect that Asmodeus was recently removed from the national pantheon despite holding a place within it for centuries. Now, the PCs are trying to arrange for him to reclaim his place within the pantheon.

Way of the Wicked aventure path?

If so, how about "being royally pissed at the current government for torturing you and sentencing you to grisly execution (iirc immolation and drawing and quartering are two of their favorite methods.) Basically, what the government did/tried to do to you should be more than enough to give you motivation to do horrifically evil things to them.

Basically, a reaction to the discovery that the so called "good and peaceful
nation" is actually a crapsaccharine world and having a desire to change it. Wheather it's changed to an actually good nation, or one that's just honest about its evil, it's still an improvement.

[GnomeFighter]

It seems to me you guys arn't realy talking about being evil, and more than a lawful stupid paladin is evil. Is doing bad things for what you think is right evil? Do the means justify the ends? IMO these are just forms of good. If someone is going bad things for the ultimate good then this is a form of lawful good. They belive that what they are doing is the right thing because of the goal.

For me the best evil PCs are not ones that are moustache twirling, crazy eyed loons, but those who only think about themselfs. The fighter who wants to rescue the princess so he can "get the girl", or be rich and famous, and thinks only of this and how to acheve this is far more evil than the ranger who kills anyone who would endanger the forest by choping down trees for firewood, as long as he wants to protect the forest for more than just himself.

Evil PCs have to be out for themselfs. Personaly I think many people actualy play evil charicters whatever it says on on there alignment. The problem with "out" evil PCs though is the party tends to brake down without very strong RP as everyone drops in to Evil Stupid thinking not of "what will get me what I want in the end" but "What do I want right now". With Evil PCs you need to work far more on the party as a group than a good party. Work out why you are together, why you trust each other not to wake up and find one of the party has run off with all the loot (Or perhaps you don't :) ), and work out a hierarchy for the party first, and why there is that hierarchy, and make sure noone is going to be upset when the leader enforces this. A "good" leader may work to consensus and what the party wants. An evil leader will just threaten to stab anyone who disagrees.

I think the party motivation is far more complex than the PC motivation with evil partys. An evil PC it can be as simple as "I want to be rich and famous and I don't care how I manage it".

[hamishspence]

It seems to me you guys arn't realy talking about being evil, and more than a lawful stupid paladin is evil. Is doing bad things for what you think is right evil? Do the means justify the ends? IMO these are just forms of good. If someone is going bad things for the ultimate good then this is a form of lawful good. They belive that what they are doing is the right thing because of the goal.

For me the best evil PCs are not ones that are moustache twirling, crazy eyed loons, but those who only think about themselfs. The fighter who wants to rescue the princess so he can "get the girl", or be rich and famous, and thinks only of this and how to acheve this is far more evil than the ranger who kills anyone who would endanger the forest by choping down trees for firewood, as long as he wants to protect the forest for more than just himself.

Evil PCs have to be out for themselfs.

The rules don't actually require this. "Evil means toward a Good end" might get you as far as Neutral (Heroes of Horror) but it generally won't get you as far as Good.

There's plenty of room for characters whose means are so Evil that their alignment is Evil- despite them not being especially selfish.

[Rhynn]

It seems to me you guys arn't realy talking about being evil, and more than a lawful stupid paladin is evil. Is doing bad things for what you think is right evil? Do the means justify the ends? IMO these are just forms of good. If someone is going bad things for the ultimate good then this is a form of lawful good. They belive that what they are doing is the right thing because of the goal.

At the risk of getting philosophical, yes, doing evil that you've convinced yourself is right/good is what real evil is all about (unless you limit "real evil" to the Dahmers, Bundys, and Mansons). Most people who commit atrocities in war, for instance, don't think they were doing evil as such, and may think they were doing good.

Why would selfishness be the one thing not to get a pass, anyway? Most people are pretty convinced their selfishness is right/good.

[ArcturusV]

Eh. I never liked the theory that somehow "Evil" also meant "Have to be dragooned into teamwork". There's this thought process out there, and I've run into it quite a bit, that somehow if a character is Evil, I need a legally binding contract signed in Devil Blood with some All Powerful Godling going to come down and smite me if I dare break the least of it's clauses... and even then I'll still push the boundaries to betray the team as much as possible.

I mean look at even the examples of Cackling Blatant Evil listed above. Even they managed to work together as a group (For Evil) without actually having to resort to threats of violence and the like. Particularly if you're Lawful Evil you're not going to betray your teammates "just because" or for some fleeting advantage. Even if you were Chaotic you'd probably realize that things are more fun with others, or you can pull off even greater acts of anarchy with accomplices than you ever could alone.

I dunno. I mean if the idea is that Willing Teamwork (Not forced) is not an "Evil" act, this means it's a Good Act. Which also means that Neutrals wouldn't normally go for it. Meaning a neutral party might need as much legalize, threats, and power structure not to go throat slitting and loot stealing as Evil Characters (Sometimes)... but no one worries about this. So somehow it's an Evil trait, but not a Neutral Trait at all.

Which seems weird. And suggests the betrayal is Evil thing, all Evil Betrays, is more of an arbitrary thing than an Alignment thing.

[Jack of Spades]

A good way to make an evil PC work is to make sure that they have, somewhere in their psychology, this phrase:

"Well, if [doing something] is evil, then yeah, I guess I'm evil."

This is important because an evil character shouldn't necessarily think they are doing good, but they should definitely not understand why what they are doing is evil. Some of the rules shouldn't make sense to them. If they had a spot-on knowledge of what's "good" and what's "evil" then they wouldn't be Evil. An evil character who understands that what they are doing is evil has no place in a party of adventurers (evil or not). An evil character should think of themselves as neutral at worst.

That being said, justifying one's actions to oneself is not as hard as justifying them to others. Half the time "Goddamnit, I killed him because he was pissing me off! What!?" is good enough for the person who did the killing, even though it probably won't be good enough for anyone around them. However, that doesn't mean an evil character can function by killing everyone who crosses their path. The evil character knows that they killed the person because the person had been an annoyance. But they also have a reason, whatever it is, that killing was the only solution. Is it a sane reason? Possibly not. But there was a line, and the dead man crossed it. That line needs to exist. Otherwise your evil character won't survive, and it definitely won't be a character won't be worth playing.

[Synovia]

At the risk of getting philosophical, yes, doing evil that you've convinced yourself is right/good is what real evil is all about (unless you limit "real evil" to the Dahmers, Bundys, and Mansons). Most people who commit atrocities in war, for instance, don't think they were doing evil as such, and may think they were doing good.

Why would selfishness be the one thing not to get a pass, anyway? Most people are pretty convinced their selfishness is right/good.

This is part of it... except for a couple rare occasions, almost nobody sits down and says "I'm going to commit atrocities" The Dahmers/etc are Psychopaths.

I've always said that D&D made a big mistake using the words good and evil. They're too charged. It should be Altruistic and Selfish, or Inward and Outward.

[ReaderAt2046]

One idea would be a sort of "Tsukiko" character who was raised by evil mages and so thinks using evil magic like necromancy and demon-summponing is perfectly justified, then the rejection of others turns her ever more evil.

Also, one useful principle is "If life is forbidden, the forbidden is life", which is a saying I created to describe how banning something harmless inevitably results in the acceptance of the harmful. For example, if you say that beer is as bad as heroin, what people actually take away from that is that heroin is no worse than beer (the goodness of beer being obvious to anyone with common sense). So you could easily have a character who turned to evil because a Lawful Stupid government has convinced him that evil is actually good.

[Amaril]

As I understand it, the most important thing to remember when designing evil characters is that none of them ever believe that they're evil. They either believe that what they do is good (or possibly just don't realize it's evil) or they believe that good and evil don't exist. Possibly the most generally applicable definition of evil is "whatever our enemies are doing". Nobody who commits evil acts thinks "this is evil" while they do so, and characters who do always seem to me to come across as either unrealistic or downright comical (not that this is universally a bad thing, as in the case of Xykon, but it may not be the best idea for a PC).

[hamishspence]

That said, the occasional Card Carrying Villain can be fun- Mad Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone springs to mind.

[Rhynn]

I've always said that D&D made a big mistake using the words good and evil. They're too charged. It should be Altruistic and Selfish, or Inward and Outward.

Funnily enough, D&D originally didn't - it was just Law and Chaos. Law was the "gods of man" (and elf, and dwarves, etc.), and Chaos was the gods of... well, anti-man, sort of. Undead, monsters, etc. Clerics had to become either Lawful or Chaotic (called anti-clerics!) by a certain level. This was more based on Poul Anderson (Three Hearts and Three Lions) than Michael Moorcock (the Eternal Champion series).

Making Law and Chaos the central conflict is IMO more interesting (Planescape did it too, pretty much), and making it the only alignment factor you even record leaves characters free to just be human (or whatever else) with motivations and foibles.

[hamishspence]

They dropped it pretty fast though- by 1st ed, all nine alignments were in place, and even before that there were allusions to genies being chaotic yet good.

[Rhynn]

They dropped it pretty fast though- by 1st ed, all nine alignments were in place, and even before that there were allusions to genies being chaotic yet good.

Well, that was the point - it wasn't really "Lawful = Good, Chaotic = Evil" (although B/X definitely pulled it in that direction, partly because it was intended for "ages 12 and up").

[Pokonic]

I once played a evil scholary sort of necromancer in training. He pretty much stuck around with the party to be safe as he tests out theories of his like, say, how many necrotic cysts can a human have before popping.

[A Tad Insane]

I made a LE character before. He had a habit of mercilessly and methodically destroying anyone who pissed him off a little. His reaon for being with the half good aligned party? Adventuring is a fun way to print money and get power. I don't think that just because a Pc is evil then need a special part of their life and pyschology devoted to why they don't kill the party

[Rhynn]

I don't think that just because a Pc is evil then need a special part of their life and pyschology devoted to why they don't kill the party

Absolutely. Evil alignment isn't necessarily about what you do every time, all the time, constantly; it's about what you'll be willing to do when you feel it's "necessary" or "warranted."

[Scow2]

I've always said that D&D made a big mistake using the words good and evil. They're too charged. It should be Altruistic and Selfish, or Inward and Outward.

Those are personality traits, not Alignments. Alignment does not dictate personality, though behaviors can influence alignment through their effects on the world.

Alignments are cosmic forces - The forces of Good vs. the Forces of Evil. Positive vs. Negative Energy. Angels vs. Demons. Someone who is "Good" furthers the cause and spread of goodness in the world, making the world a better place for everyone else. Someone who is Evil is someone who furthers the spread and cause of Evil, making the world a worse place for everyone else.

Absolutely. Evil alignment isn't necessarily about what you do every time, all the time, constantly; it's about what you'll be willing to do when you feel it's "necessary" or "warranted."

Not necessarily. Evil and Pragmatism aren't related. Some people just like kicking puppies and strangling kittens for the feel of it, and revel in the meaningless bloodshed of innocents. Others care on;y for themselves and a select few friends, putting them over the whims of everyone else. Evil can still be loyal (Like Malack and Tarquin in OOTS).

[Rhynn]

Not necessarily. Evil and Pragmatism aren't related. Some people just like kicking puppies and strangling kittens for the feel of it, and revel in the meaningless bloodshed of innocents. Others care on;y for themselves and a select few friends, putting them over the whims of everyone else. Evil can still be loyal (Like Malack and Tarquin in OOTS).

Sure, I mentioned Dahmer, Bundy, etc. upthread. But that's a tiny, tiny subset of "people who do evil." Evil and insanity (e.g. mental issues that make you incapable of normal everyday life, like getting your jollies from murder) aren't necessarily correlated.

I wasn't talking about pragmatism, though - I was saying that evil alignment doesn't necessarily describe what you do all the time. I'd argue that in most cases, it describes what you do either 1. when the opportunity presents itself or 2. when you feel you must.

A truly good-aligned character, when pushed (say, "we've tried everything but torturing his children to make him crack!"), will still act good. A lot of apparently good-aligned characters will buckle or falter, because they're neutral. Evil characters will act evil.

I make this sound pretty strict, but I don't meant to. Good-aligned characters aren't necessarily heroes - good people can be powerless and give up, too, without ceasing to be good. Failure - either on a personal level (not taking action at all) or in an attempt to do something - doesn't change alignment. I think all alignments include gradients, often related to how much agency the character perceives themselves to have (you can be good-aligned but feel powerless and fail to act).

I am of the opinion, though, that most people would probably be neutral.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I haven't read the entire thread (it's late...) so I'm sorry if I'm repeating anything anyone else said.

Evil isn't about motivations and goals, it's about personality. You can have the exact same goals and motivations as the good guys, just be less particular about your means. The good guys don't want to go over bodies if they don't have to, the evil character doesn't mind doing so if that's the easiest way to do things at the time. A Good character might work within the system (or at least not deviate from it enough to be considered a despicable lowlife of a criminal), an evil character will try to take advantage of the system or change it to work for him (or deviate from it to the point were he's considered a despicable lowlife of a criminal).

But you do what's best for YOU and your goals at the time. If playing nice and following the law works best for you and your long term goals right now then that's what you do. If it's beneficial to you and your goals that the captain of the guard dies, well one day he's found oddly missing from his office... And so on. It doesn't mean your goals aren't noble, it just means you're not (the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that).

Seriously read through this webpage, it gives some pretty good ideas for running an evil character without being Mr McStabbity Crazy-person.-> http://easydamus.com/alignment.html

[Mastikator]

There has been discussion among my gaming group of late of playing an evil PC adventure path our GM found. I'm a huge fan of playing evil characters with understandable motivations, but I'm having trouble thinking of options this time 'round. Could I persuade you fine fellows into helping me get my creative juices flowing?

The premise of the campaign is something to the effect that Asmodeus was recently removed from the national pantheon despite holding a place within it for centuries. Now, the PCs are trying to arrange for him to reclaim his place within the pantheon.

I want to play a character who, despite being a genuinely bad guy, isn't just twirling his moustache for the heck of it. Pure greed is sort of a boring motivation, and being a psychotic murderer or someone who loves evil just because it's evil is probably just going to be a tad silly. I'm looking for the villain who manipulates his allies and enemies to serve a normally noble goal, someone who places more emphasis on duties and other beliefs than morality, or otherwise has some reason for being as evil as he is. Thoughts?

Loyalty and sincere religious conviction.
Loyalty to Asmodeus drives him to place Asmodeus at the national pantheon by any means necessary for the greater good.
I'll be easy to justify any heinous act because you are after all, completely selfless, this isn't about personal gain, it's about serving the great Asmodeus.

[Synovia]

Those are personality traits, not Alignments. Alignment does not dictate personality, though behaviors can influence alignment through their effects on the world.

Alignments are cosmic forces - The forces of Good vs. the Forces of Evil. Positive vs. Negative Energy. Angels vs. Demons. Someone who is "Good" furthers the cause and spread of goodness in the world, making the world a better place for everyone else. Someone who is Evil is someone who furthers the spread and cause of Evil, making the world a worse place for everyone else.

The PHB and DMG disagree.

"Good" implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

None of these say anything about spreading the cause of evil. They're intrinsically internal.

[Mastikator]

The PHB and DMG disagree.





None of these say anything about spreading the cause of evil. They're intrinsically internal.

Depends on if you're going 3.5e D&D or 4e D&D. In 4e he's right, in 3.5e you're right. AFAIK the OP didn't specify which edition, or even if it's D&D.