Unanimous Good

[Talakeal]

NichG, you seem to be describing the Abilene Paradox, or something close to it, at work.

To wit, this paradox is why I dislike consensus play, and why I'm more willing to promote honest-to-God PvP over forced party play.

Thank you for that.

[NichG]

NichG, you seem to be describing the Abilene Paradox, or something close to it, at work.

To wit, this paradox is why I dislike consensus play, and why I'm more willing to promote honest-to-God PvP over forced party play.

The specific example yes. The 'slide to evil' thing would come from when the different members of the group don't have an equal understanding of where the soft lines are, so that one member of the group tends to consistently give way and another member of the group tends to consistently get their way, which seems distinct from Abilene but of the same family of things.

[King of Nowhere]

NichG, you seem to be describing the Abilene Paradox, or something close to it, at work.

To wit, this paradox is why I dislike consensus play, and why I'm more willing to promote honest-to-God PvP over forced party play.

the abilene paradox is why I promote direct, honest discussion over inferences and social clues and "going along to avoid hurt feelings".

[Quertus]

The thing is though, unless you are playing someone who is very detached and neutral, that sort of thing waters down your character to an incredible degree.

Exactly? Not at all?

If you can’t play a character who won’t force their moral values on others, and that’s a problem, then, yes, you need to run a character so feckless as to not have any moral values to begin with.

But, again, it’s not just moral values. It’s about having *goals* that are compatible with the party, and accepting different *means* towards those goals.

My Troll swung an axe. That was their means. But their goal was “protect others”, which was perfectly compatible with the mirror shades “stealth” means. Just as their goals of “make money” or “get revenge” were perfectly compatible with my troll’s means of “swing an axe”

If that group were in situations that called for such, could they accept “selling diseased blankets to their enemies before the big fight”, “killing the villagers, eating the meat and animating the bones”, “killing the surrendered foes”, or “letting surrendered foes go”? Probably, if it didn’t conflict with their goals, although they would likely suggest alternatives more in line with both goals and means.

More importantly, they couldn’t accept either the first or last pair of actions together, as they are functionally mutually exclusive. Nobody wants to eat the diseased flesh of their enemies, and freeing their captive doesn’t mean freeing their heads from their bodies, Thranduil.

Means and goals can be in opposition - even ones you otherwise accept. The ability to pick and choose along acceptable options? The ability to have a reasonable discussion with others about what options are reasonable, and what ones aren’t? About the costs, advantages, and disadvantages each option has? These are required skills.

But, even before that, you need to build a party that accepts one another’s goals and means. Whether that’s “swing an axe to protect people”, “hack computers to make money”, or “Animate the dead to take over the world”.

If you can’t work together as a group to align such things in session 0, to give and take and choose characters who can work together, then how could you ever expect to align such things mid session when you’ve got a captured/surrendered prisoner to free/execute, or a village to eat and Animate / whatever the “stick in the mud” Paladin wants to do with these natural resources.

And this is true of even the simplest, morality-free choices, like getting a chocolate or strawberry cake for a party, ordering pizza or Chinese, going to the mall or the zoo, burning down your enemies’ houses they live in and the stores they work in & killing people that owe them money or throwing them in a pit filled with dementors, or choosing between any other set of perfectly valid choices. There’s interpersonal “soft” skills, and a certain baseline of maturity, that are required to have such conversations / to make them productive.

And if you want to run a character who is allergic to chocolate, you need both to realize how big an “ask” that is of the group in choosing characters to work with your conditions, and to actually make that ask in season 0.

[Talakeal]

You know, I think maybe I need to develop a worksheet akin to Monte Cook's consent in RPGs form where everyone states their moral preferences and lines. It might prevent the Abeline paradox, or at least allow people to see their own hypocrisy.

One problem I have is that everyone seems to have a moral line at the gaming table. It is invisible and never spoken of, and is really wavy so that in certain areas it extends really far and in other areas is really narrow. I can't count how many times we have had an RPG situation akin to "I Spit on Your Grave" where the DM will gleefully have my character or their loved ones be the victims of sexual assault, but then get mad and threaten to kick me out of the game where I capture the perpetrator and paralyze them before sticking their head in a microwave.




So, the DM of the current campaign has complicated things by saying we can play evil characters but not crazy characters. Anyone have any idea how to actually do this? My current character has severe borderline personality and Bob is a textbook narcissist. I legit don't know how to remove those things and still be evil. Any advice on what a non-crazy evil character looks like?

Exactly? Not at all?

If you can’t play a character who won’t force their moral values on others, and that’s a problem, then, yes, you need to run a character so feckless as to not have any moral values to begin with.

But, again, it’s not just moral values. It’s about having *goals* that are compatible with the party, and accepting different *means* towards those goals.

My Troll swung an axe. That was their means. But their goal was “protect others”, which was perfectly compatible with the mirror shades “stealth” means. Just as their goals of “make money” or “get revenge” were perfectly compatible with my troll’s means of “swing an axe”

If that group were in situations that called for such, could they accept “selling diseased blankets to their enemies before the big fight”, “killing the villagers, eating the meat and animating the bones”, “killing the surrendered foes”, or “letting surrendered foes go”? Probably, if it didn’t conflict with their goals, although they would likely suggest alternatives more in line with both goals and means.

More importantly, they couldn’t accept either the first or last pair of actions together, as they are functionally mutually exclusive. Nobody wants to eat the diseased flesh of their enemies, and freeing their captive doesn’t mean freeing their heads from their bodies, Thranduil.

Means and goals can be in opposition - even ones you otherwise accept. The ability to pick and choose along acceptable options? The ability to have a reasonable discussion with others about what options are reasonable, and what ones aren’t? About the costs, advantages, and disadvantages each option has? These are required skills.

But, even before that, you need to build a party that accepts one another’s goals and means. Whether that’s “swing an axe to protect people”, “hack computers to make money”, or “Animate the dead to take over the world”.

If you can’t work together as a group to align such things in session 0, to give and take and choose characters who can work together, then how could you ever expect to align such things mid session when you’ve got a captured/surrendered prisoner to free/execute, or a village to eat and Animate / whatever the “stick in the mud” Paladin wants to do with these natural resources.

And this is true of even the simplest, morality-free choices, like getting a chocolate or strawberry cake for a party, ordering pizza or Chinese, going to the mall or the zoo, burning down your enemies’ houses they live in and the stores they work in & killing people that owe them money or throwing them in a pit filled with dementors, or choosing between any other set of perfectly valid choices. There’s interpersonal “soft” skills, and a certain baseline of maturity, that are required to have such conversations / to make them productive.

And if you want to run a character who is allergic to chocolate, you need both to realize how big an “ask” that is of the group in choosing characters to work with your conditions, and to actually make that ask in season 0.

Can you please give some examples of such goals?

Getting players to come up with goals is super hard in my experience. Normally, goals are more or less synonymous with alignment and boil down to thinks like protect the innocent or crush all who oppose me. More often, they are something forced on the party by the DM that nobody really has a personal stake in but go along with it because it is compatible with their alignment and provides money and power along the way.

I have trouble actually imagining a good or evil person who doesn't enforce their morality on others. If I see something evil going down, I can't imagine not trying to stop it in some way, either by intervening directly or by calling the cops. In real life, as a hypothetical, if my friends decided to go, say, torturing stray dogs or homeless people and I can't talk them out of it, I am going to do something to stop it, or imo, I am not really a good person.

Most people who play RPGs want to go beyond being just good, they want to be a hero, and part of being a hero is protecting the innocent and stopping evil-doers. I am really struggling to imagine how the goals of a hero and an evil doer don't come head-to-head if they are in the same party.

Like, I can't imagine a typical good hero protagonist like Aragorn, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk, or Green Arrow going along with murder, rape, torture, slavery, or biological warfare even if it does align with their larger goals. At best I can think of them giving an agonized speech about how there must be another way.

[Batcathat]

Most people who play RPGs want to go beyond being just good, they want to be a hero, and part of being a hero is protecting the innocent and stopping evil-doers. I am really struggling to imagine how the goals of a hero and an evil doer don't come head-to-head if they are in the same party.

Like, I can't imagine a typical good hero protagonist like Aragorn, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk, or Green Arrow going along with murder, rape, torture, slavery, or biological warfare even if it does align with their larger goals. At best I can think of them giving an agonized speech about how there must be another way.

I think it depends on why the Evil party members are suggesting whatever morally questionable thing it is they want to do. Is it because they're the kind of cartoonish villains that delights in kicking dogs and burning orphanages? Then yes, your typical hero probably wouldn't go along with it. But if they have some sort of greater reason for their actions, the heroes might at least be willing to consider it.

[Vahnavoi]

So, the DM of the current campaign has complicated things by saying we can play evil characters but not crazy characters. Anyone have any idea how to actually do this? My current character has severe borderline personality and Bob is a textbook narcissist. I legit don't know how to remove those things and still be evil. Any advice on what a non-crazy evil character looks like?

There is no standard for this expect your game master's, because "crazy" is not a term with firm meaning. In the real world, it also isn't some completely non-overlapping concept from immoral behaviour. There's a pretty good chance that any description of "non-crazy evil" anyone here could give you, would still be rejected as "crazy" by your game master.

In more detail: "crazy" in common speech can mean any of:

1.
a. Mentally deranged.
b. Informal Odd or eccentric in behavior.

2. Informal Departing from proportion or moderation, especially:
a. Possessed by enthusiasm or excitement: The crowd at the game went crazy.
b. Immoderately fond; infatuated: was crazy about boys.
c. Intensely involved or preoccupied: is crazy about cars and racing.
d. Foolish or impractical; senseless: a crazy scheme for making quick money.
e. Intensely annoyed or irritated: It makes me crazy when you don't tell me you're going to be late.

3. Disorderly or askew: One of the old window shutters hung at a crazy angle

Under 1., your task would seem easiest: just make a new character who is evil but not mentally deranged. Except, who is or isn't considered "mentally deranged" is often based on relative cultural mores. In a culture where there is a strong taboo towards, say, killing another person, any murderer can be argued to be mentally deranged, because that is the only way that culture can conceive of a murder happening, completely regardless of whether the murderer is objectively mentally atypical.

But fine, let's say you manage to convince that evil can arise from simple self-interest. That doesn't help you dodge 2 in the slightest. Plenty of things considered immoral in real life are immoderate, reckless, foolish, born of intense annoyance etc.. It would not be at all odd to say common evil things happen because of people crazy with hate, rage, lust, greed, etc..

So, if you can't get your game master to specify what they really mean, the sanest recourse is to tell them they are speaking nonsense and saddling you with an impossible task.

[NichG]

The easiest form of 'stable' evil is selective apathy. Other people have moral norms about certain things - your character just doesn't get it at a gut level. There's a quote somewhere about how, regardless of fancy words and arguments, immoral things have a stench to them - you experience it viscerally, and even if you spin some complicated justification its always just that and doesn't change the base experience. So make a character who is missing that, and you've got a stable, evil character.

Its not that they're torture-positive, its just that they see everyone in the category 'enemy' or even 'not friends' as being about the same as the lobster you might boil alive to get a nicer color and taste out of the resulting meal. Non-friends are non-persons. If a friend says 'hey, don't break my toys' its not like its a huge burden or imposition to respect that. If a friend says 'I don't want to see you torture people, it really bothers me' then its not outside of the mindset to be like 'oh, shoot! I didn't mean to hurt you by doing this, fine, I'll stop' (and then maybe torture someone when the party isn't looking, sure, because the character only considers it wrong because it bothers their friend not because they've internalized that torture is wrong).

Take that very far and its basically high functioning sociopathy or psychopathy. But a milder, even in some contexts socially acceptable version can still lead to quite evil behaviors. A businessman who treats the conflicts of companies as a game and is basically blind or uncaring to consider the livelihood of employees, to the point where in big enough companies people end up 'dying of bureaucracy' - evil, but not driven by evil.

[gbaji]

I mean, to voice my agreement with Talakeal on this issue, there is also an easy counter-example. Imagine a power-hungry, evil necromancer flying on the Enterprise as part of the crew. It would just as much ruin the overall vibe of the story, and make the heroes come across as silent enablers of his villainy.

Ok. And if the power hungry, evil necromancer was not violating any of the rules while on the ship, what would happen? Nothing, right? Having good and evil folks in the same room/area/ship/whatever doesn't cause problems unless the two are in conflict over something. It's possible to be evil without automatically having to be directly in conflict with everyone else around you. Evil does not mean "insane person who can't help by do horrific things to everyone". To take a more borderline example, and one more in keeping with the "play the kind of evil character that *can* interact with good characters", maybe don't go all the way to the psychopathic range and pick a character from the series itself: Vash was an on again, off again romantic interest with Picard. She was a thief. She stole stuff. She faked documents. She wormed her way into various positions in the archeology world, to find stuff and sell it to "interested parties". She would clearly fall at least neutral, if not evil on the alignment scale (kinda depends on what sort of stuff she did when not interacting with the crew). Yet, she managed to work with Picard and the crew on a few occassions.

And I'll also note that you're basically using an example of an entire crew of more or less paladins anyway. They don't allow anyone to do things that don't fit their own morality, and are honestly pretty heavy handed with it (well, on their ship, or when dealing with others). That was somewhat part of the theme of the TNG show. There are lots of other sci-fi shows with ship crews who aren't nearly so morally absolute. You went right to the extremes (ST-TNG crew vs necromancer guy). Er. How about the crew from Farscape? Or Firefly? Or Crusade (What alignment is Galan? Or Dureena?).

You're also assuming absolutes here. There's a whole range within the "evil" alignment, including people who are self centered by default, willing to harm others to get their way by default, but who aren't just random psychopathic killers who like to bath in people's blood and eat their livers with fava beans and a nice chianti. It's quite possible for a player to play an evil alignment character who can manage to engage in their evil stuff, only in ways that don't negatively impact the party and their larger goals. Or even use those evil methods in ways that help the party, but maybe don't tell them the details.

So, the DM of the current campaign has complicated things by saying we can play evil characters but not crazy characters. Anyone have any idea how to actually do this? My current character has severe borderline personality and Bob is a textbook narcissist. I legit don't know how to remove those things and still be evil. Any advice on what a non-crazy evil character looks like?

Are you playing evil characters, or chaotic characters? That's a key difference.

Can you please give some examples of such goals?

Getting players to come up with goals is super hard in my experience. Normally, goals are more or less synonymous with alignment and boil down to thinks like protect the innocent or crush all who oppose me. More often, they are something forced on the party by the DM that nobody really has a personal stake in but go along with it because it is compatible with their alignment and provides money and power along the way.

Ok. Maybe I'm seeing where the problem is. Yeah. Alignment conflicts are going to be more of a problem in free form play style games (where the players decide what to do all the time). Your statement that goals are synonymous with alignment is key. In games where the GM creates NPCs and conflicts and "adventures" for the party to deal with, the "goals" are to resolve/overcome those conflicts. Alignment in that case, at most defines maybe the motivations for the character, and most of the time only how the character maybe responds to events and problems that the GM presents to the players.

A good player may decide to stop the folks who kidnapped the princess because it's the right thing to do and they want to build a rep as heroes. An neutral player may decide to do the exact same thing for the reward and perhaps some notoriety and maybe just because it'll be fun. An evil chararacter may also decide to help out, also for the reward, but also to maybe find out who is behind such plots in the area, make contacts, and build up their own powerbase (and provide cover for their actions). They do not need to be in conflict on the core "goal" of rescuing the princess. And yes, along the way, said evil character may be inclined to let some minions escape as long as they understand that they "owe me, and I'll be calling in this favor" sort of thing. But again, would be stupid to actually sabotage the main mission, because that would jeapordize their position in the group and their "cover".
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There are lots of ways to rationalize an evil character in an otherwise good group, without it causing conflict. You almost have to intentionally choose to play directly disruptive personality types, or characer goals in order to make conflict happen. Again, in a game setting where the GM is creating the "adventure". If it's just the players deciding what they do in the area, and then creating results from that, then yeah, I can see how the evil guy going around building power and setting up a protection racket among the local merchants might just intersect and conflict with the good guy going around trying to free said local merchants from being under the thumb of whomever is shaking them down. Or whatever other stuff the players choose to do, I suppose.

I have trouble actually imagining a good or evil person who doesn't enforce their morality on others. If I see something evil going down, I can't imagine not trying to stop it in some way, either by intervening directly or by calling the cops. In real life, as a hypothetical, if my friends decided to go, say, torturing stray dogs or homeless people and I can't talk them out of it, I am going to do something to stop it, or imo, I am not really a good person.

Again though, you're going immediately to "evil==psychopath". You can't imagine a good person having a friend or relative who is in trouble with the law semi-regularly, maybe uses/sells drugs, occasionaly steals stuff, does check cashing scams, etc? And these are just "real life" examples of actual situations a lot of "good people" find themselves in. Do those good people go out of their way to look into the behavior of those other people, actively try to catch them doing something wrong, and make a citizens arrest or something? No. They don't. They hope those people will turn their lives around, and not get themselves killed along the way. But they don't force themselves on the other people. That just pushes them away entirely.

And that's an example of a known person with known criminal behavior. The most common scenario of an evil character in an otherwise good party, is the evil person doesn't advertise the illegal stuff they do on the side. It's that simple. And maybe they get caught occasionally, and we have a RP bit where the good guys try to reform their wayward friend, and maybe he goes along with the saps, while just getting better at concealing his actions. Kinda setting and theme dependent on how to play this out, but there are a ton of ways to do this.

Most people who play RPGs want to go beyond being just good, they want to be a hero, and part of being a hero is protecting the innocent and stopping evil-doers. I am really struggling to imagine how the goals of a hero and an evil doer don't come head-to-head if they are in the same party.

Again. The good guy doesn't know the evil guy is evil. Why is that difficult?

Like, I can't imagine a typical good hero protagonist like Aragorn, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk, or Green Arrow going along with murder, rape, torture, slavery, or biological warfare even if it does align with their larger goals. At best I can think of them giving an agonized speech about how there must be another way.

Again with the extreme examples. How about just not knowing that one of their team members runs books on the side, maybe enjoys putting the beat down on "bad guys" a little too much, pockets a bit of cash for himself in the midst of any crisis. Or heck, is an international jewel/art thief on the side or something. There's a whole range of grey morality to play with here. You might argue that some of that is more neutral maybe, and yeah, some is. But the idea that you can only be of evil alignment if you are randomly killing people for fun would narrow "evil" down to such a small degree as to be unusable as an alignment in the first place.

On the whole "superhero" standard, there are a ton of folks who fall well into that range as well. This is also where I pop up with my patented "alignments are dumb" position anyway. Is the Punisher "evil"? Hard to say, right? Any vigilante type character falls well into the grey areas of morality. And heck. In a lot of settings, the party is going to themselves be more or less vigilantes anyway. Your group of adventures basicaly runs around killing people who are doing things you don't like, taking their stuff, and calling yourself heroes for it. Where's the due process?

Some might argue that the only difference between good and evil is who they target. And one can also argue that evil characters are far less likely to actually kill their targets than good ones. They aren't moral absolutists. A good person will be like "You must die for the greater good, or for your crimes against <whatever>, etc". An evil person will be like "Let's make a deal", or "maybe you should come work for me", or "Hey. I'm going to kill you, but steal your evil idea and save it for a rainy day".

Most evil bad guys don't actually have an evil plan of "kill everyone in the world" (CoC cultists excepted of course). They usually have some evil scheme that gives them power and position, which isn't worth a whole lot of there aren't other peopple around for them to hold that stuff over anyway, right? It's the good guys who are like charging into locations, killing all the guards, killing the scientists just working on building <whatever>, then causing massive property damage, and finally thwarting if not outright executing the "evil guy" just because he wanted to make the world bettter via his new mind control ray or something. Gee. How full of themselves are the good guys?

Tongue in cheek, of course, but still. I think these conflicts only really occur when players play only the most absurd versions of good and evil possible.

[King of Nowhere]

So, the DM of the current campaign has complicated things by saying we can play evil characters but not crazy characters. Anyone have any idea how to actually do this? My current character has severe borderline personality and Bob is a textbook narcissist. I legit don't know how to remove those things and still be evil. Any advice on what a non-crazy evil character looks like?

Evil is not the deranged individual who murders on a whim. ok, that's evil, but it's far from the only evil; indeed, it's a pretty rare form.
evil is the corrupt executive coldly sacrificing lives to increase his profit.
evil is the mobster who threatens and beats up anyone who stands up to him.
evil is the manipulator who tricks other people into doing his will.
evil is the suprematist with the belief that certain categories should be eradicated or enslaved.
but ultimately, evil is everyone who puts their own interest first with no regards for others. you don't have to be a screaming madman; you just have to not care about the consequences on others that your actions have.

in practical d&d practice, if you are willing to do anything for your goal - be it power, immortality, treasure, or whatever - you are evil. all you need to do is not stop your fellow party member who is destroying the town to animate some zombies. why would you? your goal requires the party to win, and your fellow necromancer is doing something that helps the party, and if it's unlikely to create you problems with authorities (I mean, in my campaign world you can be 20th level, but if you murder an entire village you are not going to get away with it easily. but other campaigns assume that you move on and nobody is going to investigate or anything), then you're cool with it.
literally, to be evil you don't have to put any effort into it. you just have to look at all the stuff that your fellows are doing and say "meh, it's not my problem".

Can you please give some examples of such goals?

Getting players to come up with goals is super hard in my experience. Normally, goals are more or less synonymous with alignment and boil down to thinks like protect the innocent or crush all who oppose me. More often, they are something forced on the party by the DM that nobody really has a personal stake in but go along with it because it is compatible with their alignment and provides money and power along the way.

not really. well, the dm may force a goal as the campaign objective - that people have to accept as buy-in for the campaign - but character goals are not difficult. more difficult is coming up with some that can be both good or evil, and thus adaptable. a few examples
- my monk was emotionally scarred as a child, and deep within, he's insecure. he focused his efforts on learning to fight, and whenever he wins a fight, whenever he survives something that should have killed him, his insecurity recedes. so he picks up challenges because overcoming challenges make him feel better. and he seeks to becomes stronger because he'll be able to overcome more challenges.
this goal can work both on a good or evil character, though my monk is mostly on the good side, meting vigilante justice as an excuse to beat up people and get his adrenaline rush.
- the wizard player in my party generally wants to become a god, or at least as close as possible. not terribly original, especially for a wizard, but works very well in motivating him to pick up adventures.
- another of my players was the scion of an abusive noble family. he wants to travel the world and escape the shadow of his scheming father. he's also a gambler, picking up adventures mostly for a sense of adventure, to see what happens - and because he's kinda a naive pushover who can be persuaded easily.
- the party rogue was the scion of another noble family. another noble family outcompeted and threw them out of business, and he wants revenge, in whatever shape it takes.

I have many more examples of character goals, but they are mostly campaign-specific; I limited myself to those that can work in any campaign and with any alignment.

But, again, it’s not just moral values. It’s about having *goals* that are compatible with the party, and accepting different *means* towards those goals.

I have trouble actually imagining a good or evil person who doesn't enforce their morality on others. If I see something evil going down, I can't imagine not trying to stop it in some way, either by intervening directly or by calling the cops. In real life, as a hypothetical, if my friends decided to go, say, torturing stray dogs or homeless people and I can't talk them out of it, I am going to do something to stop it, or imo, I am not really a good person.

I am with Talekeal here. It's not about having goals and accepting different means. if you are not a completely callous murderer yourself, then you are NOT going to accept your party necromancer killing civilians to have more bodies to animate. Sure, you can compromise a bit on how you achieve your goals, but there are limits.

Most people who play RPGs want to go beyond being just good, they want to be a hero, and part of being a hero is protecting the innocent and stopping evil-doers. I am really struggling to imagine how the goals of a hero and an evil doer don't come head-to-head if they are in the same party.

however, here I disagree. Here you are limiting yourself because, as you said earlier in your post, you can only imagine an evil person as an ax-crazy mass murderer with a short temper.
Again, an evil person does not need to have evil goals - indeed, very few have. most evil goals are perfectly compatible with being good.
if you are good you cannot accept your necromancer killing civilians to get bodies, nope. But you can point him to the local graveyard, which has many good corpses that nobody will complain about. You can try to persuade the necromancer to pay some compensation to the families for agreeing to let their late grandfather be turned into a machine, on the ground that this way no hero will be called to stop the dreaded necromancer.
You can try to persuade the necromancer of the value of having good public relations.
and if the necromancer uses his zombies to fight evil, well, you compromised a little but you are satisfied with the outcome. As for the necromancer, he got to have his undead army and he got to loot the boss enemy, so he's happy too. I can totally see a paladin making his mission that of keeping in check such a necromancer, pushing him towards a responsible use of his undead - though only if both players consented to it.
My monk was abused by an evil wizard, and the party had an evil wizard, but the two characters got along very well. the monk closed his eyes on some edgy stuff and the party wizard never crossed any major moral boundary.
Other times more tricks are required - by player consensus. We had an evil rogue in the party who was secretly trying to release an ancient evil, and while some of the less scrupolous party members went along for the reward, I agreed to let my monk be swindled by the rogue - persuaded that we were doing something else.

[Satinavian]

So, the DM of the current campaign has complicated things by saying we can play evil characters but not crazy characters. Anyone have any idea how to actually do this? My current character has severe borderline personality and Bob is a textbook narcissist. I legit don't know how to remove those things and still be evil. Any advice on what a non-crazy evil character looks like?

Some classical example villains, who are pretty evil but not particularly cracy:

Cardinal Richeleu from the musketeer novels
Cesare Borgia as characterized in Machiavellis Il principe
Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood (most versions work)
Most named characters from Godfather

I mean, to voice my agreement with Talakeal on this issue, there is also an easy counter-example. Imagine a power-hungry, evil necromancer flying on the Enterprise as part of the crew. It would just as much ruin the overall vibe of the story, and make the heroes come across as silent enablers of his villainy.

You mean like have the Terran mirror universe emporer as part of the crew in ST: Discovery, which is exactly what they did ? Or putting a spy/assassin, a terrorist and a greedy and abusive barkeeper into DS9s main cast ?

[gbaji]

You mean like have the Terran mirror universe emporer as part of the crew in ST: Discovery, which is exactly what they did ? Or putting a spy/assassin, a terrorist and a greedy and abusive barkeeper into DS9s main cast ?

Ah. But those characters didn't randomly kill puppies and torture people, so they weren't actually "evil". I guess... ?

[Talakeal]

Most of these examples I see people using are just neutral, not actually what I would consider evil.

Like, here is the kind of thing that actually comes up which I consider baseline evil:

You are traveling through the wilderness and come upon another traveler. Do you murder him in his sleep and steal his stuff?

[gbaji]

Like, here is the kind of thing that actually comes up which I consider baseline evil:

You are traveling through the wilderness and come upon another traveler. Do you murder him in his sleep and steal his stuff?

And I think this is the problem. You are equating evil with what most people see as the extreme end of the range. What if you steal his stuff and not murder him? That would be "evil" in most people's eyes.

Evil people will do what is best for them, even if that causes harm to other people. That doesn't mean that they must cause harm just for the fun of it though. In your example, unless there is some gain to be had in murdering the sleeping traveler, an evil person doesn't have any reason to kill them. Taking their stuff is evil enough. The diference is that, if there was a value to be gained by killing that traveller, the evil person would do it, while a neutral person would not.

In the same scenario, the neutral person would not kill the traveller at all (even if there was gain to be had, they would likely seek some sort of arrest or capture first, with killing being a last resort). They might steal their stuff though, if there was a really good reason to do so. The neutral person is considering the harm to the victim against the gain/benefit of the action, and not just from their own perspective. Stealing money to pay for medicine for a sick friend is something a neutral person might do. An evil person would do it just because they want the money.

A good person would never do either action. They might even hang out in the area to make sure the sleeping traveler is not harmed by other brigands and whatnot as well, but again aren't required to do so.

The point is that the alignments are a range of behavior options, not one specific "you must do this" choice. And "evil" doesn't mean "always do harm to everyone else". Evil generally means "what's best for me". And a heck of a lot of the time, what is best for an evil PC is to *not* incur the wrath of the other party members, or the law, by engaging in random stupid acts of violence. You'd kill that person only if there was a benefit to yourself *and* you were certain that you could not be caught. Same deal with stealing, though it's a lot easier to lift a few coins from someone's purse without being caught than killing them in cold blood, so that's part of the decision making process here.

But yeah. If there's zero benefit to killing someone, why on earth would an evil person do it? That's not an assumption I've ever made about that alignment (maybe chaotic evil, perhaps). Now, if I happen to worship some evil deity and can gain something by sacrificing this random person to that deity, and I can figure out how to get them to my sacrificial altar for the ceremony without being caught? Sure. My evil priest/whatever would wrangle to do that. But just slitting his throat on the side of the road? What's the benefit to that?

[KorvinStarmast]

The easiest form of 'stable' evil is selective apathy.

That is not correct. The old adage about evil prospering when good men do nothing does not cast good men as evil, but as not doing what they ought to. (which is to resist evil actively). The form of that argument is "but you Should do this...." and should is subjective.

[Talakeal]

And I think this is the problem. You are equating evil with what most people see as the extreme end of the range. What if you steal his stuff and not murder him? That would be "evil" in most people's eyes.

Evil people will do what is best for them, even if that causes harm to other people. That doesn't mean that they must cause harm just for the fun of it though. In your example, unless there is some gain to be had in murdering the sleeping traveler, an evil person doesn't have any reason to kill them. Taking their stuff is evil enough. The diference is that, if there was a value to be gained by killing that traveller, the evil person would do it, while a neutral person would not.

In the same scenario, the neutral person would not kill the traveller at all (even if there was gain to be had, they would likely seek some sort of arrest or capture first, with killing being a last resort). They might steal their stuff though, if there was a really good reason to do so. The neutral person is considering the harm to the victim against the gain/benefit of the action, and not just from their own perspective. Stealing money to pay for medicine for a sick friend is something a neutral person might do. An evil person would do it just because they want the money.

A good person would never do either action. They might even hang out in the area to make sure the sleeping traveler is not harmed by other brigands and whatnot as well, but again aren't required to do so.

The point is that the alignments are a range of behavior options, not one specific "you must do this" choice. And "evil" doesn't mean "always do harm to everyone else". Evil generally means "what's best for me". And a heck of a lot of the time, what is best for an evil PC is to *not* incur the wrath of the other party members, or the law, by engaging in random stupid acts of violence. You'd kill that person only if there was a benefit to yourself *and* you were certain that you could not be caught. Same deal with stealing, though it's a lot easier to lift a few coins from someone's purse without being caught than killing them in cold blood, so that's part of the decision making process here.

But yeah. If there's zero benefit to killing someone, why on earth would an evil person do it? That's not an assumption I've ever made about that alignment (maybe chaotic evil, perhaps). Now, if I happen to worship some evil deity and can gain something by sacrificing this random person to that deity, and I can figure out how to get them to my sacrificial altar for the ceremony without being caught? Sure. My evil priest/whatever would wrangle to do that. But just slitting his throat on the side of the road? What's the benefit to that?

As I said before, your threshold for evil is a lot lower than mine, and most of what you consider evil I consider neutral.

Personally I think the idea of stealing money to buy medicine is more an issue of lawful vs. chaotic than good vs. evil, its almost a classic Robin Hood situation.


As for why you would kill someone instead of just robbing them; its safer and easier. They can't decide to fight back, they can't come back for revenge, they can't alert the authorities, and if you are a necromancer or cultist the body itself is a valuable commodity.

[NichG]

That is not correct. The old adage about evil prospering when good men do nothing does not cast good men as evil, but as not doing what they ought to. (which is to resist evil actively). The form of that argument is "but you Should do this...." and should is subjective.

It wasn't an argument from aphorism.

Take a character with lots of power. Make them simply not care about the consequences of their usage of power on others - not actively wish harm, but simply not consider harm to others as anything whose avoidance has any inherent value. An excess of harm relative to benefit to others will invariably result from such a person just going around and making day to day decisions, even if there is no active malice at play. Just like sticking your arm in the works of rapidly moving heavy industrial machinery may lead to you being seriously injured or not harmed at all, but its never going to result in you spontaneously getting your arm healed or strengthened or any other beneficial side-effect.

That particular character may land in different spots in different moral philosophies, but practically speaking they're not someone you want to exist in a society with you unless you're somehow registering as important to them.

[animorte]

Each alignment block could have a reason to kill the traveler and steal their things. At first glance, it seems fairly simple, but at any point in time there could be other contributing factors.

[Quertus]

Normally, goals are more or less synonymous with alignment and boil down to thinks like protect the innocent or crush all who oppose me.

Just gonna poke at this for the moment, and say that both are just shadows of the real concept of “personality”. A Character should have a personality, but that’s difficult to describe. But a quick way to sum up a few important concepts, like a character’s drives and methods can be helpful to 80/20 party cohesion.

Can you please give some examples of such goals?

Getting players to come up with goals is super hard in my experience.

“Swing an axe to protect people”, “use magic to bring joy to the world”, “post on the Playground to stave off ennui”, “hack to make money”, “steal from the rich and give to the poor to destabilize the unjust government”, “Animate the dead to take over the world”, “copy and improve the toys of others to have the most fun”, “slay the gods to set right what’s wrong with the world”, “act as scout to protect others from truths that would destroy them”. If the character has a personality, it’s really not that hard to answer in a general sense what they do, and why. These simple statements serve as conversation starters, a skeletal framework off which to build a cohesive whole, the party.

So, based on their stated goals/motivations and methods, which of these characters could you stand behind their goals, act as though they were your own? How will your methods facilitate those goals? Which of these methods are compatible with your own goals? Come to the table understanding your character well enough to answer those questions, and with every tool in your toolkit to make the party work.

[gbaji]

As I said before, your threshold for evil is a lot lower than mine, and most of what you consider evil I consider neutral.

I gave very specific criteria for where the range of good/neutral/evil lies. Can you do the same?

I get that you do view those actions as neutral, but why? To me, evil is about selfishness. If one causes harm to others (and yes, theft is harm) purely for one's own benefit, that is evil. If one causes harm to others, but not purely for their own benefit (possible benefit to others, or some "greater good"), then are probably neutral. If one causes harm only when absolutely necessary and then only for some very significant greater good, and only when those being harmed clearly deserve it, you are probably good.

It's about a sliding scale of harm/help with some modifications based on selfish/selfless motivations. And using that scale and methodlogy a lot more people fall into the "evil" alignment than just crazed killers who run around doing nothing but killing people randomly for fun. Again, if that's the requirement to be evil, then literally no one in the OotS strip is actually evil except for Xykon (and early Belkar).

Personally I think the idea of stealing money to buy medicine is more an issue of lawful vs. chaotic than good vs. evil, its almost a classic Robin Hood situation.

At the risk of getting drawn into yet another alignment thread...

Yeah. I disagree 100% You are confusing law/chaos with good/evil. I suspect because in modern societies most evil acts are illegal, and if they are illegal, then they are "against the law", which I guess makes them chaotic or something. That's not correct though.

The law/chaos axis is about methodology, not objective or the outcome of one's actions. Law is about organization and planning. Chaos is about randomness and disorganized acts. Robin Hood is not chaotic because he breaks the law while engaged in his crime. He may be chaotic if he does things in an erratic or carefree manner maybe? What makes him good or evil is *why* he does things, not how. If he's causing harm (theft) only when necessary, and for a greater good, and only to those who really deserve it, he may be good. If he's doing it to pretty much anyone, and mostly for a greater good, but maybe also to help him build his power base in the forest, maybe he's neutral. Note, that both good and neutral still avoid killing people as much as possible. If he's stealing from anyone, just to fill his pockets and gain power, and he doesn't really care about the Sherrif (except maybe he's in the way of his own power ambitions), and doesn't care at all if people die during his attacks? That makes him evil.

Again. Nothing to do with law/chaos there.

Redcloak is LE. He's evil because he has no qualms about causing harm, including death, to other people for his own purposes and benefits (although, I suppose he's is also working towards a "greater good" in his own mind as well though, so whatever). The point is that he doesn't avoid causing harm to others just because "harm is bad". He's perfectly ok with killing people to achieve his ends. That makes him "evil". He's lawful because he does things in an organized manner. He has color coded battle plans draw up, and continues his torture session because he already has it penciled into his schedule, in ink.

Xykon is CE. He's evil for the same reasons Redcloak is. He's chaos because unlike Redcloak, he will cause harm (including death) just because he feels like it. There is no greater plan involved. He regularly does things in non-productive or even counterproductive ways, just because it's more amusing to him. That's chaos.

As for why you would kill someone instead of just robbing them; its safer and easier. They can't decide to fight back, they can't come back for revenge, they can't alert the authorities, and if you are a necromancer or cultist the body itself is a valuable commodity.

Sure. If you actualy live in murderhoboworld where kiling someone makes it less likely to suffer consequences then just stealing from them, then yes, anyone "evil" would kill the person instead of just stealing from them. Maybe design your game settings to be a bit more realistic, and this will be different though. In most settings, an evil person will (should) avoid actions that will draw attention from the law or adventuring parties seeking revenge or bounty, and thus will avoid things like capital crimes unless they really have to.

Again. What makes them "evil", isn't whether they will kill or not, but whether that decision is most heavily based on them feeling bad about killing, or whether it's more of a utilitarian decision. Changing the setting to make killing be the utilitarian answer somewhat avoids the distinction I'm making here. Again. it's about whether killing is purely based on a utilitarian choice that makes one evil.

And most of the time, that should not result in all evil people killing everyone they meet. It's normally not the practical decision to make. And how about if we not add in additional variables, like "I'm a necromancer and want parts" or something. You're just a person wanding by, and there's a sleeping traveller. I still maintain that if you rob them, but do not kill them, that is still an evil act, if your reason for robbing them was purely selfish (he has something and I want it). It only becomes anything other than evil if we add additional conditions that may make the theft necessary for some other good or need that is present there.

I find it odd that you don't think stealing just because you want someone else's stuff isn't evil.

[Talakeal]

I gave very specific criteria for where the range of good/neutral/evil lies. Can you do the same?

I get that you do view those actions as neutral, but why? To me, evil is about selfishness. If one causes harm to others (and yes, theft is harm) purely for one's own benefit, that is evil. If one causes harm to others, but not purely for their own benefit (possible benefit to others, or some "greater good"), then are probably neutral. If one causes harm only when absolutely necessary and then only for some very significant greater good, and only when those being harmed clearly deserve it, you are probably good.

It's about a sliding scale of harm/help with some modifications based on selfish/selfless motivations. And using that scale and methodlogy a lot more people fall into the "evil" alignment than just crazed killers who run around doing nothing but killing people randomly for fun. Again, if that's the requirement to be evil, then literally no one in the OotS strip is actually evil except for Xykon (and early Belkar).

At the risk of getting drawn into yet another alignment thread...

Yeah. I disagree 100% You are confusing law/chaos with good/evil. I suspect because in modern societies most evil acts are illegal, and if they are illegal, then they are "against the law", which I guess makes them chaotic or something. That's not correct though.

The law/chaos axis is about methodology, not objective or the outcome of one's actions. Law is about organization and planning. Chaos is about randomness and disorganized acts. Robin Hood is not chaotic because he breaks the law while engaged in his crime. He may be chaotic if he does things in an erratic or carefree manner maybe? What makes him good or evil is *why* he does things, not how. If he's causing harm (theft) only when necessary, and for a greater good, and only to those who really deserve it, he may be good. If he's doing it to pretty much anyone, and mostly for a greater good, but maybe also to help him build his power base in the forest, maybe he's neutral. Note, that both good and neutral still avoid killing people as much as possible. If he's stealing from anyone, just to fill his pockets and gain power, and he doesn't really care about the Sherrif (except maybe he's in the way of his own power ambitions), and doesn't care at all if people die during his attacks? That makes him evil.

Again. Nothing to do with law/chaos there.

Redcloak is LE. He's evil because he has no qualms about causing harm, including death, to other people for his own purposes and benefits (although, I suppose he's is also working towards a "greater good" in his own mind as well though, so whatever). The point is that he doesn't avoid causing harm to others just because "harm is bad". He's perfectly ok with killing people to achieve his ends. That makes him "evil". He's lawful because he does things in an organized manner. He has color coded battle plans draw up, and continues his torture session because he already has it penciled into his schedule, in ink.

Xykon is CE. He's evil for the same reasons Redcloak is. He's chaos because unlike Redcloak, he will cause harm (including death) just because he feels like it. There is no greater plan involved. He regularly does things in non-productive or even counterproductive ways, just because it's more amusing to him. That's chaos.

It's impossible to have a comprehensive guide to morality in a forum post, but I will try and be brief.

In my opinion, good and evil is about how causing or alleviating suffering.

The desire to alleviate suffering is good. The desire to cause suffering is evil.

You then balance it with one's own needs.

In my game system, I label morality as:
Martys who will sacrifice their own needs to alleviate suffering.
Alrtuits who try and alleviate suffering but put their own needs first.
Indifferent folk who don't care about causing or alleviating suffering.
Mercenaries who try and alleviate suffering, but put their own needs first and will cause suffering if the reward is big enough.
Villains who care nothing for others and will cause suffering as needed to achieve their own goals.
Sadists who enjoy causing suffering but will put their own needs first.
And diabolical folk who will sacrifice their own needs out to hurt others.

IMO, the first two are good, the middle two are neutral, and the last three are evil. BUT of course their is the matter of scale, and a mercenary could conceivably fall to evil pretty easilly. Its mostly about having limits and balancing out harm with good intentions.

And of course, then we get into issues of different people counting for different amounts, friends and family vs stranger, in group vs. out group, different species, etc. but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

So yeah, stealing by itself is not necessarily evil IF you do it with the goal of alleviating more suffering than you cause; stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, or stealing food and medicine. Heck, I would argue that stealing out of necessity isn't evil either, even if you are the one benefiting. I don't see anything wrong with someone who is starving stealing food from someone who is well off, and even the act of stealing from someone else who is starving is something I would have trouble labelling as evil, even though it is certainly not good.

IMO law and chaos is more about being willing to break the rules. These might be laws, but they might also be religious prohibitions, codes of honor, or even the rules of a game. Lying, cheating, and stealing are not necessarily evil, they are chaotic, and they can easily be good actions if they alleviate more suffering than they cause. For the record, I also put necromancy and other forms of "black magic" into this category, despite D&D labelling them "objectively evil" but I am not sure if that discussion is really relevant to the topic at hand or how far we can go into it without devolving into religious discussions not appropriate for this board.

Sure. If you actually live in murderhoboworld where killing someone makes it less likely to suffer consequences then just stealing from them, then yes, anyone "evil" would kill the person instead of just stealing from them. Maybe design your game settings to be a bit more realistic, and this will be different though. In most settings, an evil person will (should) avoid actions that will draw attention from the law or adventuring parties seeking revenge or bounty, and thus will avoid things like capital crimes unless they really have to.

Is it really unrealistic?

The idea of large nation states is a pretty modern one. Most fantasy games take place on the frontiers in a world that, imo, most closely resembles bronze age city states.

The idea that if two travelers meet in the middle of the wilderness and one of them murders the other that it will face any sort of organized retribution from the powers that be strains my credulity.

Honestly, I would probably think that in a situation like that the GM was trying to ham-fistedly punish us unless the other person was really important.

But yeah, for the purposes of my definition coming into this thread I am putting utilitarian murder as the threshold for evil, with rape, torture, slavery, and war crimes that are likely to cause lots of collateral damage beyond it.

I find it odd that you don't think stealing just because you want someone else's stuff isn't evil.

Yeah, I can see that.

But pop culture seems to think that the "scoundrel" archetype is more of a CN sort. Cat Woman, Han Solo, Jack Sparrow, etc. are typically listed as neutral, and they frequently engage in larcenous acts for purely selfish reasons. More strait-laced hero types typically have no problems working alongside them, the same is not true for out and out villains.

And no, I really don't have a problem with letting people play them alongside an otherwise heroic party.

Just gonna poke at this for the moment, and say that both are just shadows of the real concept of “personality”. A Character should have a personality, but that’s difficult to describe. But a quick way to sum up a few important concepts, like a character’s drives and methods can be helpful to 80/20 party cohesion.



“Swing an axe to protect people”, “use magic to bring joy to the world”, “post on the Playground to stave off ennui”, “hack to make money”, “steal from the rich and give to the poor to destabilize the unjust government”, “Animate the dead to take over the world”, “copy and improve the toys of others to have the most fun”, “slay the gods to set right what’s wrong with the world”, “act as scout to protect others from truths that would destroy them”. If the character has a personality, it’s really not that hard to answer in a general sense what they do, and why. These simple statements serve as conversation starters, a skeletal framework off which to build a cohesive whole, the party.

So, based on their stated goals/motivations and methods, which of these characters could you stand behind their goals, act as though they were your own? How will your methods facilitate those goals? Which of these methods are compatible with your own goals? Come to the table understanding your character well enough to answer those questions, and with every tool in your toolkit to make the party work.

Woah.

The idea that coming to the table with a fleshed out personality is a good way to AVOID conflicts with the rest of the group is imo, completely ass backwards.

[Satinavian]

Most of these examples I see people using are just neutral, not actually what I would consider evil.

Well, if you actually feel that way, you should not play any evil characters under a GM who only allows not crazy evil.

Simple, isn't it ?


There is not really much need to debate who has he right idea of what evil means. Instead you should try to understand what your GM meant with this restriction and follow it. And as most others in this thread seem to not disagree with those examples for "not crazy evil", there is probably a good chance that the GM had something similar in mind.

If you really want to make sure, ask your GM about examples for "not crazy evil" and use those as guideline.

Is it really unrealistic?

The idea of large nation states is a pretty modern one. Most fantasy games take place on the frontiers in a world that, imo, most closely resembles bronze age city states.

The idea that if two travelers meet in the middle of the wilderness and one of them murders the other that it will face any sort of organized retribution from the powers that be strains my credulity.

I very much disagree with "most fantasy games" here. While (culturally) bronze age city states is somewhat popular, it is still somewhat niche, at least outside of Sword&Sorcery.

But even if it was such a setting, people have family and clans and elaborate traditions about retaliation and revenge. Additionally those in power are expected to protect their subjects and possibly retaliate for them. Not having a powerful nation state does not mean crimes goes unpunished. It mostly only means you can forget about the idea of fair trials.

Sure, would they find you if you murder a stranger in the wilderness ? Questionable. But not really harder than finding you if you were just a thief. You still have stolen the belongings which would be the traditional trace. And if magic is in the setting, especially divination, it could be deployed as well.

The main difference is that the resources a clan will invest to hunt a thief will always be negligible compared to those for avenging an additional murder.

And bronze age blood feuds also tend to make your family acceptable targets if people don't find you. (Though some bronze age law codes tried to limit it to the perpetrator).

[Talakeal]

Well, if you actually feel that way, you should not play any evil characters under a GM who only allows not crazy evil.

Simple, isn't it ?

There is not really much need to debate who has the right idea of what evil means. Instead you should try to understand what your GM meant with this restriction and follow it. And as most others in this thread seem to not disagree with those examples for "not crazy evil", there is probably a good chance that the GM had something similar in mind.

If you really want to make sure, ask your GM about examples for "not crazy evil" and use those as guideline.

No. Because that is no fun for me.

That means that while everyone else in the party gets to play a hero or a villain, I am limited to playing a milquetoast wall-flower who goes along with the group rather than actually taking any initiative or having goals of my own.


Also, you seem to be mixing up the crazy part and the evil part. I am saying that the above examples of smugglers and scoundrels are more CN than outright evil. I didn't say anything about the list of evil people who aren't crazy, mostly because I am not terribly familiar with them and would need to do more research, although I suspect most of them would certainly qualify for a cluster B personality disorder.

[Batcathat]

That means that while everyone else in the party gets to play a hero or a villain, I am limited to playing a milquetoast wall-flower who goes along with the group rather than actually taking any initiative or having goals of my own.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how are "play crazy evil" and "play milquetoast wall-flower" the only options?

[Talakeal]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how are "play crazy evil" and "play milquetoast wall-flower" the only options?

Well, I have trouble imagining someone who is actually evil but doesn't suffer from some sort of mental illness.

And the rest of the party is evil. Actual, capital E evil, at a minimum of not having seconds thoughts about utilitarian murder.

Trying to play a "good" character in such a situation is just not going to happen, a good person is not going to travel with and assist evil people.

If I am barred from playing evil myself, the best I can hope for is to play a neutral character who lacks conviction and goes along with their evil plans rather than actually taking initiative and coming up with plans of my own.

I suppose it might be possible to play some sort of mastermind who manipulates and directs them into doing what I want, maybe like some sort of Amanda Waller type, but that's not really a character or group dynamic I think anyone is really interested in.

[Satinavian]

No. Because that is no fun for me.

That means that while everyone else in the party gets to play a hero or a villain, I am limited to playing a milquetoast wall-flower who goes along with the group rather than actually taking any initiative or having goals of my own.

If (some of) the other players manage to create PCs you recognize as villains (not milquetoast) that the GM thinks are ok, why can't you ?

If (some of) the other players manage to create PCs you recognize as heroes (not milquetoast) that can coexist with said villains, why can't you ?

If it basically boils down to "You can't imagine characters that are not disruptive and against the GMs wishes and still not boring to play", well, you shouldn't play in this group.

Also, you seem to be mixing up the crazy part and the evil part. I am saying that the above examples of smugglers and scoundrels are more CN than outright evil. I didn't say anything about the list of evil people who aren't crazy, mostly because I am not terribly familiar with them and would need to do more research, although I suspect most of them would certainly qualify for a cluster B personality disorder.

Only a really small minority of examples from me or King of Nowhere or gbaji fit the "smugglers and scoundrels" category. How glorified by pop culture or actually evil those are is not really important here.

Neither is important whether you think you can find some disorder they might have (which is generally futile with fictional characters anyway).

Again, only important is that you try to understand what your GM means with evil not crazy and follow this intent. All the rules lawyering about "evil" and questioning of "crazy" is utterly unnecessary unless you eventually plan to argue with your GM about your character fitting those criteria or not. If you are preparing for such an argument you already are set on not following your GMs intent. Don't do that.

If you are really uncertain, ask your GM for clarification. Don't stay intentionally uncertain to later use it as a shield in the way of "I really didn't understand what you meant".




Originally you opened the thread to ask if others have similar problems to you. The overwhelming majority says they don't.

[Batcathat]

Trying to play a "good" character in such a situation is just not going to happen, a good person is not going to travel with and assist evil people.

If I am barred from playing evil myself, the best I can hope for is to play a neutral character who lacks conviction and goes along with their evil plans rather than actually taking initiative and coming up with plans of my own.

At this point I'm probably just repeating myself, but I don't understand why your character – whether good, neutral or just a different flavour of evil – would just default to going along with whatever the party was doing.

[Satinavian]

Most people who play RPGs want to go beyond being just good, they want to be a hero, and part of being a hero is protecting the innocent and stopping evil-doers. I am really struggling to imagine how the goals of a hero and an evil doer don't come head-to-head if they are in the same party.

And after many hints about how to play group compatible evil characters, an advice about good characters, even heroes :

Make them about protecting innocents, but not about punishing evildoers. There will be many more groups they will fit in and they will be no less heroic for it. And "not hurting innocents" is something most evil characters can accept as a price to get a powerfull ally.

[Ignimortis]

I have several groups I play with, and with one of them, I am pretty much always stuck playing the good guy (or at least a neutral guy who isn't willing to do a lot of things). For instance, my current party includes:
1) Amoral and self-serving alchemist who has no qualms about capturing souls or dissolving enemy brains to learn what they know, further broken by several key actors in her life forcing her to eschew morality.
2) A previously good divine descendant who, over time, has fallen so deep into hubris and self-aggrandizement as to believe herself to be above any laws and morals of the mortals. Has recently killed and brought back a person just to show them fear of death.
3) An eldritch researcher obsessed with the setting's equivalent of Far Planes to the extent he's half-ooze and his summons are all aberrations. Generally jovial and genial, but has no moral boundaries to speak of.

So they do not cause suffering just to make people suffer, but they also do not restrict themselves from it. Let's just say that my plans to play a Neutral character have only worked to the extent that I can't always find a way to resolve situations with as little "evil" as possible. So I have to go along with some things that I can't provide a less gruesome alternative to.

I'm not sure I've ever played in a "good" campaign. Even the one that ended the most heroically was, at several points, hinging on me butting in and going "no, we are not going to make a deal with mindflayers, whatever they promise in exchange for feeding on the city above" and attacking, or making sure that the divine power we obtained wasn't used solely on selfish stuff (I spent my part on throwing evil outsiders out of the world and sealing the easiest way for them to come in, three other party members became demigods (two became god-kings, one lost it all by being really dumb), one more got his part stolen by a dubious artefact he made a deal with). It's always been more of a "alliance of necessity and some mutual respect" rather than "Fellowship of the Ring".

So you can play a Good character with an Evil party, but it takes doing (both to remain Good and to actually achieve something) - and maybe party members not being high-note Evil and more utilitarian Evil? Not sure how playing a single Evil character in a Good party would go.

[Theoboldi]

You mean like have the Terran mirror universe emporer as part of the crew in ST: Discovery, which is exactly what they did ? Or putting a spy/assassin, a terrorist and a greedy and abusive barkeeper into DS9s main cast ?

Ah. But those characters didn't randomly kill puppies and torture people, so they weren't actually "evil". I guess... ?

I was about to clarify myself and describe why I gave the example that I did, but I will not talk to people who respond to me attempting to explain my opinions in good faith with such pompous, passive-aggressive mockery.

Nothing I have said calls for that kind of response. Genuinely am disappointed in the kind of behavior I'm seeing here.