Why are so many groups against token evil team mates?

[MonkeySage]

I've been dying to play my halfling cleric in a non evil pathfinder group for a long time. I've only had the chance to play him once in short nerd club function at school.

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

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

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

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

[Segev]

Generally, people are reluctant for two reasons:

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

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


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

[Coidzor]

Verisimilitude.

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

[MonkeySage]

What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

[Dire Roc]

I'd say it really comes down to being afraid of stupid evil. In my campaigns I need to have seen the person prove a competent and intelligent role player before I'll allow an evil character.

[Shiva asori]

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

[Segev]

What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

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

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

It takes work and negotiation, is all.

[Slipperychicken]

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

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

[Darth Ultron]

What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

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

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

[MonkeySage]

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

[Arbane]

My first response when I saw the title was "Because most characters aren't as FUNNY as Belkar." And even he nearly got tossed out of the Order a few times.

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

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

[Segev]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Quertus]

I'd say it really comes down to being afraid of stupid evil. In my campaigns I need to have seen the person prove a competent and intelligent role player before I'll allow an evil character.

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

FTFY. Evil us so misunderstood.

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

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

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

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

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

[Tvtyrant]

I've been dying to play my halfling cleric in a non evil pathfinder group for a long time. I've only had the chance to play him once in short nerd club function at school.

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

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

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

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

I have played in and been DM for many groups where this was the case, and usually it amounts to explaining why that player would participate in the group.

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

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

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

[Slipperychicken]

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

The former is what I meant.

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

[Darth Ultron]

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

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

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

[NichG]

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

[icefractal]

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

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

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

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

[Madbox]

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

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

[Cluedrew]

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

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

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

Experiences like that will naturally make people wary.

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

[Darth Ultron]

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

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

[Cybren]

FTFY. Evil us so misunderstood.



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



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

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

[Thrudd]

What if the player has no intention of griefing, and just wants to run a cool concept?

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

[zeek0]

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

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

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

[Arbane]

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

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

[Âmesang]

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

[Segev]

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

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

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

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

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

[Koo Rehtorb]

This seems like a good thread for it. I have an evil party and need help dealing with the token good member.

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

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

[LibraryOgre]

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

[SirBellias]

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

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

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