PDA

View Full Version : 101 Ways to get Evil characters into a Good party



Alvrick
2010-05-21, 03:13 PM
I've been looking at the way some DMs won't allow evil characters because they want the players to be heroic, and it got me thinking, why not? but that limitation in is a bit limiting as far as roleplay goes. as such, I've started this thread to see how people can incorprate evil characters into a good party without any (or much, anyways) negative consquences

1. The evil character is technically in the custody of another character, such as a paladin. He gets turned towards constructive uses for his destructive power (Belkar, anybody?)

2. He's intelligent enough to realize that joining up with a team of "Good" adventurers is the best way to get away with things.

3. The character actually had a good life before a certain point, and thus values friends and family highly, but a bad turn of events made him evil. he still will go out of his way to help those he considers friends, but everyone else is just bumps on the road to power.

hamishspence
2010-05-21, 03:17 PM
Sounds about right. The "heroic Evil guy" can be done, with a bit of work by the player.

In Champions of Valor, it mentions that sometimes even evil characters can be valorous.

Darcy
2010-05-21, 03:18 PM
4. The primary antagonist(s) of the campaign is a threat to factions to which both the Good and Evil PC's belong.

My girlfriend is playing for the first time and somewhat arbitrarily picked a NE Druid. This sits uneasily with our LG paladin, but we're fighting against some kind of cult or something which is just as abhorrent to any druid as it is to goodies like the rest of us.

Mastikator
2010-05-21, 03:19 PM
A sociopath with extremely high self control and pretends to be good. Though this would mean high int and wis and putting ranks into social skills.

Someone who's otherwise nice and sweet is also extremely sadistic and racist (not against someone in their party though).

Or maybe really REALLY powerful loyalty, but otherwise an evil douche. You know, "I'll follow you to hell and back I will, but I'll also burn down villages and kick puppies on the way to the extent I get away with it".

I don't think evil needs to mean counter productive.

Masaioh
2010-05-21, 03:19 PM
5. The evil character benefits from being in the party, or has a similar goal.

Greenish
2010-05-21, 03:20 PM
4. The primary antagonist(s) of the campaign is a threat to factions to which both the Good and Evil PC's belong.In broader sense, common goals may give a reason to band together, as well as it (joining the party) being the best way for the evil character to meet his own goals.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-21, 03:22 PM
Slightly off-topic, but an anecdote:

The last campaign I ran, I didn't set alignment restrictions, though I did say I'd prefer heroes/good-aligned PCs. All four players, independently, decided to make Evil PC's, and be the only Evil member of the 'all-Good' group.:smallmad:

I've learned my lesson.

Morty
2010-05-21, 03:27 PM
6(I think). The Evil character has the same long-term goals as the Good characters, but s/he's willing to do anything to achieve them, making him or her Evil.

gbprime
2010-05-21, 03:32 PM
The evil character can just lie. If being with the good guys fills some need (security, ego, prestige, loot, revenge...) then just play it nice for a while, become indispensable, and soon they'll have no real reason to get rid of you despite the occasional immoral tendency.

And if the party has a paladin, just carry a lead sheet, right? :smallamused:

hamishspence
2010-05-21, 03:37 PM
Or take that feat in Exemplars of Evil, that causes you to detect as Neutral regardless of your actual alignment.

It does require good Bluff, Disguise, and Charisma though (it doesn't require an evil alignment).

Alternatively, paladins might be only allowed to use Detect Evil with specific permission, under special circumstances. It might be considered an invasion of privacy.

Or, as in Cliffport in OoTS, equivalent to an "illegal search and seizure".

Reynard
2010-05-21, 03:39 PM
Slightly off-topic, but an anecdote:

The last campaign I ran, I didn't set alignment restrictions, though I did say I'd prefer heroes/good-aligned PCs. All four players, independently, decided to make Evil PC's, and be the only Evil member of the 'all-Good' group.:smallmad:

I've learned my lesson.

Did they know each other's alignment?

If not, it would have been great to allow it, but deliberately say that one of them had made an evil character.

Hilarity ensues as everyone tries to convince everyone else that they're not evil, and aren't on the look out for other evil characters, since they know there's only one, and they're it.

The Shadowmind
2010-05-21, 03:40 PM
The last campaign I ran, I didn't set alignment restrictions, though I did say I'd prefer heroes/good-aligned PCs. All four players, independently, decided to make Evil PC's, and be the only Evil member of the 'all-Good' group.:smallmad:
I've learned my lesson.
That could of been very funny if they didn't know the other PC's alignments.

Darn you ninja-san

Ravens_cry
2010-05-21, 03:46 PM
Your Evil, you just don't know it. You follow a Good Cause, but your more extreme about your methods. You're willing to go the extra step that others will back away from, because What Must Be Done Must Be Done.

Lord Vampyre
2010-05-21, 03:49 PM
One of things I do like about 4th edition is that they got rid of all the detect alignment and protection from alignment garbage. I've had too many players rely on detect evil, I almost always had to destroy its function to be able to build suspense in the storyline. Then they would complain that they were being hampered.

6. Make sure the player knows that it may be for only a limited time, then give him a certain purpose that keeps him with the group. He generally ends up turning on the party at the most inconvenient time. Its great. Its like an NPC that I don't have to do all of the dialogue for or worry about what he does or doesn't know. I just feed whatever information I want to the player, then let him react accordingly. Unfortunately, I've had a few players complain that the other character was too powerful, or they should have been able to detect his alignment, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I would caution that not all groups are ready to have evil amongst them. They may not be able to grasp the roleplay value. I would also caution that not all players are capable of pulling off the truly evil nature of some characters.

7. Give the good characters no choice, but to travel with the evil character. Make sure the evil character has all the information the good party needs to finish the quest. This way he can dole out the information a little at a time, keeping himself vital to the success of the party. The party also knows that if they let the evil character get away, he would probably thwart their plans. Its always touchy when the party knows the character is evil.

oxybe
2010-05-21, 04:00 PM
7, mayhaps? )

the easiest way to get an evil character into a party?

IMO the player(s) and the group need to discuss a few things: mostly that the evil character will work towards the goals of group and his goals will coincide with theirs, in other words, he'll be a team player.

this can be done in several ways, either like how a LE character enforcing a charter of rules (treasure division, group items, group funds, ect...) and being highly distrustful and oppressive on those who don't "play by the rules" to a CE character acting like a cold & ruthless homing missile on behalf of the party: locate target, unleash PC of mass destruction, make popcorn, watch bloodshed while making witty commentary and one-liners.

this also means no shenanigans that could put the party in trouble. random NPC murders, stealing from nobles without reason, killing other PCs in their sleep, being overly rude to other PCs/NPCs... are all "no go" stuff.

overall: play nice, just don't be nice about it.

hamishspence
2010-05-21, 04:03 PM
Your Evil, you just don't know it. You follow a Good Cause, but your more extreme about your methods. You're willing to go the extra step that others will back away from, because What Must Be Done Must Be Done.

This sometimes occurs in splatbooks (though the "what must be done" may not be as necessary as the character thinks it is).

Michael Ambrose, in Tome of Magic, is a good example of "Evil and doesn't know it" - has blackguard levels, is an ex-paladin, and still thinks the fact that he can no longer contact his god is not related to his actions.

Despite the fact that some posters insist that all characters choose their own alignment and know it, or don't choose their own alignment, but always recognize it.

Which is very disputable:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150347&highlight=characters+alignment

Which there is little evidence in Core for (nothing forbids a character not recognizing their own alignment) and large amounts of evidence in splatbooks, contradicting- BoVD and Champions of Ruin both point out that not all evil characters know they are evil.

Loxagn
2010-05-21, 04:18 PM
Even Evil has Standards.

An example from a book I'm writing myself:

The main heroes forge an alliance with a Chaotic Evil crime boss. She actively operates against the law, and is certainly not above doing horrible things to get what she wants, but there's much greater things at stake, and so the character lends resources and even a sword arm. She's not an unpleasant person personality-wise, but she's certainly not anywhere near lawful or good, by any stretch of the word.

Ravens_cry
2010-05-21, 04:21 PM
This sometimes occurs in splatbooks (though the "what must be done" may not be as necessary as the character thinks it is).

Yeah, that is the fun part, riding headlong into the abyss.

*rest*
Wow, at first I was surprised this sparked that much debate. Then I realized that this is an Alignment Question. Those are like a hypergolic reactions for flame wars.

J.Gellert
2010-05-21, 04:28 PM
This one is a classic: Spy or mole for the BBEG who, after so much fighting alongside the party, ends up owing his live to them (numerous times) or at least likes them enough because they have his back.

Bonus points if that's the first time he has felt he can trust anyone with his life. Imagine when the paladin says "I'll take first watch." and the paranoid ninja knows he can sleep at peace. For the first time in his life, no one will stab him while he rests - at least not without getting over the paladin first.

hamishspence
2010-05-21, 04:30 PM
Or possibly a case of people insisting their interpretation of Core is right- and all splatbooks that directly contradict it, wrong "because splatbooks are optional"- rather than considering that the interpretation "All NPCs know their alignment" might have been wrong.

Either way- not all alignment questions devolve into flamewars- sometimes they can be quite civil.

Exarch
2010-05-21, 04:35 PM
Just an example, but I'm currently playing a NE ranger with Preferred Enemy: Undead and Evil Outsiders. How I play him is that his methods are simply extreme. Is there an evil cult? Gather information suddenly goes past intimidation. Vampires? They're worse than scum and get treated so, even if they're sentient. If a cultist absolutely HAS to be delivered alive? Well, Heal is maxed out so that tourniquet holds!

Just because you're evil doesn't mean you're not a team player. All G-N-E is is what your character is willing to do to achieve results, as far as the party is concerned. Now what really annoys me are players (like in my current group) who slaughter a manor and loot the stuff, then say they're only neutral because that's what their character sheet says.

demidracolich
2010-05-21, 04:37 PM
My firend has played multiple evil dragonborn fighters in 4e. The way he joins good partys is that the fighter is chaotic stupid and doesn;t care who it kills. The analogy he gives is that the fighter is like a feral bobcat and will maul the face off off anything when its releases, the good pcs can control it and only let it attack evil creatures.

Drakevarg
2010-05-21, 04:46 PM
Me, I generally just don't bother to tell the party my alignment. Might be a problem if I have to put up with a paladin (actually did once, when both the DM and the Paladin forgot the "can't knowingly associate with evil" rule), but apart from that it usually works out fine, especially if you can snap any member of your party in half like a dry twig, like I can.

hamishspence
2010-05-21, 05:03 PM
Defenders of the Faith suggests that while they "don't associate on a continuing basis with evil characters"- temporary cooperation is OK- especially if the paladin thinks there is a chance of redeeming the evil character.

the Paladin Handbook in Dragon Magazine (a summary of the paladin rules, and the code) also suggests that association for the purpose of redemption, is OK.

aivanther
2010-05-21, 05:09 PM
Helm of Opposite Alignment

Lord Vampyre
2010-05-21, 06:16 PM
What most people need to remember, is that the alignment is merely a roleplay mechanism for the player. It should simply give the player an idea of how he might act in a given situation. If you don't tell everyone your playing with that your character is evil. They will probably assume your either neutral or good to begin with.

Then only through the careful observation of how your character reacts to certain situations realize your actually evil. Then again, depending on the circumstances they may just give you the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, if I'm playing evil, I will probably lie out of game. Just so the rest of the party doesn't metagame the fact that my character is actually evil.

Evil is the spice to life.

ThunderCat
2010-05-21, 06:24 PM
6(I think). The Evil character has the same long-term goals as the Good characters, but s/he's willing to do anything to achieve them, making him or her Evil.This.

The way I interpret it, is that the lowest/most evil you're willing to do says more about your alignment than the highest/most noble thing you're willing to do. So you can't be good unless you consistently show some general concern for the well being and dignity of sentient beings, but you can easily be evil without consistently (or even frequently) doing horrible things to others.

Granted, I'm often the odd one out in my group. I've had a NG character who ended up developing a greater fondness for a LE outsider than for the party's paladin (the LE outsider was fair, honest, and loyal, the paladin was intolerant, self-righteous, uncooperative, and eager to slaughter everyone he could get away with without losing his alignment). I've also also played a CE character whom others believed was among the most good, if not the best, in the party (mostly because they thought only people who did evil for evil's sake could be evil, and anyone doing a single good thing or being even remotely sympathetic must be good).

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-21, 06:44 PM
Why do so many people want to play evil characters? I fail to see what's cool or romantic about being a selfish, nasty, cowardly, ignorant person. There are enough evil people in the real world.

Playing an all-evil game every now and then just for the novelty is a fun distraction, but trying to weasel evil characters into otherwise normal parties just seems pointless. You can be an unpleasant, violent, dark and brooding neutral character just as easily.

Shademan
2010-05-21, 06:46 PM
the best way to play evil is as a smiling, charismatic, nice guy that you wanna befirend.
The greatest evil is subtle....

Nidogg
2010-05-21, 06:47 PM
8?
Hes incompotent. all his efforts at sabotaging the Pc end up helping them, does requrire low dex/ int though.

Greenish
2010-05-21, 06:47 PM
the best way to play evil is as a smiling, charismatic, nice guy that you wanna befirend.
The greatest evil is subtle....Subtle as a freudian slip.

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-21, 06:48 PM
One I like, the evil PC disagrees with the good guys' views but respects them separately from that. The CE Barbarian despises the LG Fighter's sentimentality, but respects him as a warrior so much he'll follow him through hell and back.

Optimystik
2010-05-21, 06:52 PM
My favorite is Hellbred - all the fun of being evil (dressing in sexy evil threads, animating dead, etc.) but you can fit into even an Exalted party.

So long as you refrain from true depravity, anyway... but in a party that's generally Stupid Evil. (coughBelkarcough)

Talon Sky
2010-05-21, 07:12 PM
3. The character actually had a good life before a certain point, and thus values friends and family highly, but a bad turn of events made him evil. he still will go out of his way to help those he considers friends, but everyone else is just bumps on the road to power.

I would almost say that's Neutral: I help you if I like you or there's profit in it for me, but if you're in my way you'd better move. Evil is complete selfishness, not goal-objectivity.

Anyways,

9) The evil PC actually saves/acquires debts from the more good-inclined PC's. In my latest campaign, the two good PC's were captured by the enemy government and held in prison, and the NE Gnome Rogue (lol) set them free, thus saving them from torture and a painful execution. As one is a Samurai and the other is a dwarf, they owe her life-debts.

It was very nice of her to eventually release them, but she did so when she knew they'd stick by her side for her leadership qualities and connections anyways ;p Lose two slaves, gain two loyal meat-shield 'friends'.

oxybe
2010-05-21, 07:13 PM
Why do so many people want to play evil characters? I fail to see what's cool or romantic about being a selfish, nasty, cowardly, ignorant person. There are enough evil people in the real world.

Playing an all-evil game every now and then just for the novelty is a fun distraction, but trying to weasel evil characters into otherwise normal parties just seems pointless. You can be an unpleasant, violent, dark and brooding neutral character just as easily.

because not everyone wants to be the good guy. we live in a society that stresses certain norms, that wants us to be the good guy... or at least not the bad guy.

D&D is escapism. you're a magical elven princess that shoots rainbows at tentacle poop monsters while riding a unicorn, i don't care if your setting is "Pseudo-Medieval Europe... with magic!!" or how it stresses verisimilitude and other buzzwords, D&D is escapism.

for the same reason people want to play games like GTA, Saint's Row, ect... it's sometimes fun to be the "bad guy". the guy working against the law... against society for whatever reasons, be they noble, vile, just or not.

and sometimes, just sometimes, you want to play the role of a homicidal magical hobo because it's fun and that there are orcs that need a good solid killin'.

Lycar
2010-05-21, 07:14 PM
This one is a classic: Spy or mole for the BBEG ...

This one worked very well in a PbP game on these boards once. My guy, a NE (in his case: Selfish and 'practical') Bard had been assigned by his archmage overlord to infiltrate an adventuring party, sent out by a rivaling archmage to fetch some artifact or other.

Since, for back story reasons, clerics were almost non-existent, the Cure spells on the Bard's spell list made him a very valuable party member. While he wasn't much of a fighter, he still did his darndest to support the party's goal of acquiring the plot item. Even thwarting an attempt by an evil cultist to infiltrate the party.

Of course he was giving daily reports back to his spymaster via Animal Messenger...
Bottom line: As long as the evil party member has overlapping goals with the rest, cooperation is possible. And an intelligent evil person will happily 'wear the sheepskin'/'eat the chalk' to not put off his more scrupulous allies.

Lycar

Shademan
2010-05-21, 07:15 PM
Subtle as a freudian slip.

well, seeing as how you are still EVIL you'll prolly have to befire them in the end anyways.

oxybe
2010-05-21, 07:17 PM
well, seeing as how you are still EVIL you'll prolly have to befire them in the end anyways.

dude, this is D&D. fire is always an option. usually on the list twice, on the top and the bottom. maybe also sneaked somewhere in the middle too.

Shademan
2010-05-21, 07:40 PM
dude, this is D&D. fire is always an option. usually on the list twice, on the top and the bottom. maybe also sneaked somewhere in the middle too.

thats what I said...befire them...apply fire... if that does not work: more fire!
...EVIL fire!

NeoVid
2010-05-21, 08:34 PM
Slightly off-topic, but an anecdote:

The last campaign I ran, I didn't set alignment restrictions, though I did say I'd prefer heroes/good-aligned PCs. All four players, independently, decided to make Evil PC's, and be the only Evil member of the 'all-Good' group.:smallmad:


This sounds like the setup for one of the greatest campaigns ever. I hope the players never discussed their alignments OOC, so every one of them spent the first part of the game thinking the rest of the party was Good.

SilverClawShift
2010-05-21, 08:34 PM
I don't think there's necessarily anything precluding an evil character from associating with good characters, as long as everyone's operating on the (fairly reasonable) basis that "What you do is nothing to do with what I'm doing".

Unless your a paladin (and possibly even then) you don't HAVE to necessarily go out of your way to prevent an evil character from being evil. You might feel obligated to on over the top issues, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "I can't stop you from being a jerk, but I'm gonna be nice".

Then there's the issue of friendship and association, but on that same page, I don't think you necessarily HAVE to be worried about a friends moral state. A lot of people are, and justifiably so, but if you stand in front of a mirror, look at yourself, and say "Darrel is a bad person. I'm a good person. We've still been through a lot together and it's not fair for either of us to pretend the other one doesn't exist.".
Ultimately it comes down to inter-party relationships and group cohesion. Unless the evil character is actively opposed to the goals of the good characters, there's no reason to ban an evil character from accompanying a good party. If my neighbor steals from goodwill, but together we can take down hitler, than it's not really morally questionable for us to team up.

That's a lot of verbal wheel spinning to get to my real thought on the subject: Sometimes being evil is a fun distraction from reality. The odds of three (or more) people all feeling evil at the same time is not necessarily good (and thank god for that, societies integrity kinda depends on it). So trying to do good while a violent misanthrope accompanies you is, in a perverse way, kind of the JOB of a gaming group.

We all have sadistic streaks. When we pick up a game controller and realize we're allowed to kill strangers, the first thing we usually do is figure out how to kill the largest number of them in the fastest way possible (flamethrower, by the way).
When our friends are going through a patch where they want to slit the badguys throat instead of interrogating, AS there friend, we're SUPPOSED to nod and say that we've been there, we understand, we don't necessarily approve, but we can all see from that perspective.
Past that it becomes an issue of roleplaying. Sometimes the bad guy will get there way, sometimes the party will stop them and say "scale it back before we kick you out". And as sane reasonable players of what is MEANT to be an entertaining philosophical and mental distraction from our boring real world, we should be embracing such challenges and working them out in character, with one hand full of dice and the other hand full of pizza.

Sorry for ranting.

Drakevarg
2010-05-21, 08:35 PM
I fail to see what's cool or romantic about being a selfish, nasty, cowardly, ignorant person.

With the exception of "nasty", my primary evil character is none of these. But it's hardly his fault on that one. 6 CHA. This is portrayed by him having all of the social tact of an erupting volcano. Also, he might kill you over quasi-imagined slights.

But evil does not automatically mean of the card-carrying variety. Vorin (my LE dude) is unrepentantly a murdering psychopath who considers near-death experiences the highest form of entertainment (ergo not coward). However, he'll also go out of his way to help those in need and if he meets someone he respects enough to call "master", that literally means he would die for that person in a heartbeat (ergo not selfish). And he's got 13 INT and 15 WIS (ergo not ignorant).

NeoVid
2010-05-21, 09:03 PM
I fail to see what's cool or romantic about being a selfish, nasty, cowardly, ignorant person.


Huh... a friend of mine is wanting to run an evil game, and this got me thinking of what a generous, charming, valorous, educated evil guy would be like.

He'd be working his way up to Evil Overlord pretty fast, wouldn't he? This has possibilities.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-21, 09:18 PM
Why do so many people want to play evil characters?

I fail to see what's cool or romantic about being a selfish, nasty, cowardly, ignorant person.

Because some people prefer playing characters similar to themselves in at least a few basic ways (I play Evil characters for this reason). On the other hand some people like characters very different from themselves.

I fail to see how Evil is any more ignorant, cowardly, nasty or selfish than Good. I don't pretend that I am good, or righteous, or just. I do not understand why such qualities are valued. I still don't insult people who are good and I'd thank you not to insult those who are not.

Whatever number we're on now: The character "vents" at times when the other PCs are not there. Can lead to interesting cases if the party is hired to, say, find the murderer of a nobleman, when the murderer was actually the Evil PC "going shopping".

KnightOfV
2010-05-21, 09:21 PM
Easiest way-

As much as the Evil character hates the party... he hates the Big Bad worse. Evil character works with the party because it is the best way to kill the BBEG, party works with evil character because they need all the help they can get.

The enemy of the enemy is my friend, and all that.

CockroachTeaParty
2010-05-22, 01:44 AM
Because some people prefer playing characters similar to themselves in at least a few basic ways (I play Evil characters for this reason). On the other hand some people like characters very different from themselves.

I fail to see how Evil is any more ignorant, cowardly, nasty or selfish than Good. I don't pretend that I am good, or righteous, or just. I do not understand why such qualities are valued. I still don't insult people who are good and I'd thank you not to insult those who are not.

So you'd rather surround yourself with people who can't be trusted? Who don't care about you, or even consider you a human being? You'd like to second-guess every sentence uttered to you? You like to be around people who steal from you, who take advantage of any perceived weakness? And by your own admission, you do the same to others?

Evil is very real. It means more than being a spooky person. It means submitting to the base desires and instincts that barely separate human beings from animals. It means contributing more needless pain, sorrow, and despair to a world already overflowing with problems, for no other reason than it is easier than trying to be a decent person.

I sincerely hope you're joking. You might want to look up some definitions. Or brush up on your history.

...

At any rate, considering a lot of what has been said previously:

Yes, it's fun to run over pedestrians with a tank in some video game, or blow up a town full of hapless peasants. But that kind of fun lasts for about 30 minutes before you move on to more interesting, enriching things.

At any rate, a lot of these games are sophomoric or juvenile ultimately in their execution.

In my experiences, evil characters in D&D become silly and nonsensical. Good for a one-shot, or something short lived. But rarely do they form the foundation for an interesting, compelling, long-lasting character that I would want to play alongside for a serious campaign.

It's almost like the decision to be evil during character creation stagnates organic character growth. I'd much rather see a neutral character fall into evil over time, or perhaps take up the mantle of good, based on actual experiences in the game. I can see, and have seen, good characters shift to neutral, neutral characters shift to good, and the same sort of shifts on the Law and Chaos axis. But every evil character I've ever seen has stayed solidly, stagnantly, and boringly in the evil camp their entire career.

Perhaps this is a problem with the alignment system in general. And I've seen well-played evil characters (that is, one well played evil character, and even then, he was rather disappointing). However, in the vast majority of my experiences, most players' ideas of an evil character are at best (worst?) a particularly unscrupulous neutral. Few people have what it takes to really go that extra mile, and it is precisely that sort of depravity that so easily disrupts party cohesion.

There's a good reason so many NPCs are evil. Evil is good at stealing the spotlight, but the reason it is so intriguing in the first place is because to most of us it has an element of mystery. Dwell too long on what it means to be truly evil, and that novelty is quickly lost.

It is for this reason I often prefer to start my characters as some shade of neutral, than see where their personality and the events of the game takes them. Barring alignment-restrictive classes, I heartily encourage such a process. By the end of the campaign, your cold, heartless mercenary may become a devoted friend who cares for a cause greater than himself. Maybe your optimistic, happy-go-lucky character becomes a more sober, bitter, realistic person after a harrowing series of adventure.

Bluh... I'm just beating my head against a wall here. I'll shut up now.

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-22, 02:19 AM
So you'd rather surround yourself with people who can't be trusted? Who don't care about you, or even consider you a human being? You'd like to second-guess every sentence uttered to you? You like to be around people who steal from you, who take advantage of any perceived weakness? And by your own admission, you do the same to others?

wtf dude, it's a game

Arbane
2010-05-22, 02:43 AM
The last campaign I ran, I didn't set alignment restrictions, though I did say I'd prefer heroes/good-aligned PCs. All four players, independently, decided to make Evil PC's, and be the only Evil member of the 'all-Good' group.:smallmad:

I've learned my lesson.

This could've been pure comedy gold if you'd played it right!

I can't help thinking the correct thing to do at this point would be to take each player aside, and tell them to try and keep their evil alignment hidden from the others.

D&D, Paranoia style. :smallbiggrin:

(Blargh, massively ninja'ed.)

Arbane
2010-05-22, 02:55 AM
Huh... a friend of mine is wanting to run an evil game, and this got me thinking of what a generous, charming, valorous, educated evil guy would be like.

He'd be working his way up to Evil Overlord pretty fast, wouldn't he? This has possibilities.

Make sure you have a long-term Plan.

There's a quote from one of the Over the Edge books about how nice it would be to see a character who screws over others for long-term gain, as it's so rare.

Kami2awa
2010-05-22, 04:00 AM
10) Mr Evil is a member of an evil secret society. What he doesn't realise is, all the other PCs are members of other evil secret societies with conflicting goals. Everyone is just acting good to maintain their secret.

PS: They are also mutants. And Commies.

On a more serious note:

11) The Evil PC is a shapeshifter or similar and has replaced a former good party member.

On an even less serious note:

12) Mr Evil thinks the rest of the party are evil. After all, they do regularly break into other sentient beings' homes, murder them and steal their belongings.

Narmoth
2010-05-22, 04:02 AM
number ?

I had an evil blackguard in a game with good and neutral players. He was in the group because he was a close friend of the groups caster, who tried to pull him back to normal. The fun part was that none of the other players knew his alignment or class, and though he still was a paladin.

Going by honor in stead of good he managed to mostly look good, although the group should have questioned his willingness to assassinate an orc leader on behalf of another tribe.

They didn't catch on to him being evil before he, 5 lvls after, mutilated a kobold corpse as a warning to other Tucker's kobolds
By that time he had:
Abused verbally his guide
Negotiated with orcs and agreed to assassinate a competing tribes leader
Raised the guide after he was killed
Been to every brothel in every town they stopped
Insulted the king of his country
Desecrated his gods temple by bringing his horse inside
Almost killed a kid for trying to pickpocket him
Paid someone to take care of the kid
Raised undead to fight other undead
Kicked a good NPC druid into a pond with some giant monster to see the reaction of the monster
Run away when the druid was able to befriend the monster
Negotiated with and hit on a Vashar sorceress
Disarmed paladins trying to arrest him
Bought hookers to the groups thief in a country he didn't speak the language in
Animated corpses of seals just for fun
Insulted that country's king
Killed the kings queen (who was an evil dragon)

pingcode20
2010-05-22, 04:38 AM
This could've been pure comedy gold if you'd played it right!

I can't help thinking the correct thing to do at this point would be to take each player aside, and tell them to try and keep their evil alignment hidden from the others.

D&D, Paranoia style. :smallbiggrin:

(Blargh, massively ninja'ed.)

Better yet, turn it on its head:

An 'evil' party, completely made up of various members of good organisations, all believing that they're infiltrating a party of horrific sociopaths with the intelligence to hide their own no doubt telling alignments.

Nobody's sharing notes.

Hilarity ensues as kind, caring people trip over themselves trying to prove to one another that they're sufficiently evil while simultaneously trying to avoid committing actual evil.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-05-22, 04:50 AM
I had a character with a bbeg-style master plan involving rituals and macguffins that would, incidentally, improve the world quite a bit; sure, he was utterly ruthless (and a bit crazy) in how he got there, but once the party members figured out his scheme they didn't even mind. The funny thing is he generally acted less overtly evil than some of the neutral party members, simply out of prudence.

I guess having a gray party to begin with helps in hosting an evil party member. I also sometimes play a Jayne-style jerkass, while making sure he doesn't grate on the group OOC.

Wings of Peace
2010-05-22, 04:52 AM
By making them-self a necessary evil. :smallcool:

AstralFire
2010-05-22, 05:00 AM
So you'd rather surround yourself with people who can't be trusted? Who don't care about you, or even consider you a human being? You'd like to second-guess every sentence uttered to you? You like to be around people who steal from you, who take advantage of any perceived weakness? And by your own admission, you do the same to others?

Evil is very real. It means more than being a spooky person. It means submitting to the base desires and instincts that barely separate human beings from animals. It means contributing more needless pain, sorrow, and despair to a world already overflowing with problems, for no other reason than it is easier than trying to be a decent person.

I sincerely hope you're joking. You might want to look up some definitions. Or brush up on your history.

...

At any rate, considering a lot of what has been said previously:

Yes, it's fun to run over pedestrians with a tank in some video game, or blow up a town full of hapless peasants. But that kind of fun lasts for about 30 minutes before you move on to more interesting, enriching things.

At any rate, a lot of these games are sophomoric or juvenile ultimately in their execution.

In my experiences, evil characters in D&D become silly and nonsensical. Good for a one-shot, or something short lived. But rarely do they form the foundation for an interesting, compelling, long-lasting character that I would want to play alongside for a serious campaign.

It's almost like the decision to be evil during character creation stagnates organic character growth. I'd much rather see a neutral character fall into evil over time, or perhaps take up the mantle of good, based on actual experiences in the game. I can see, and have seen, good characters shift to neutral, neutral characters shift to good, and the same sort of shifts on the Law and Chaos axis. But every evil character I've ever seen has stayed solidly, stagnantly, and boringly in the evil camp their entire career.

Perhaps this is a problem with the alignment system in general. And I've seen well-played evil characters (that is, one well played evil character, and even then, he was rather disappointing). However, in the vast majority of my experiences, most players' ideas of an evil character are at best (worst?) a particularly unscrupulous neutral. Few people have what it takes to really go that extra mile, and it is precisely that sort of depravity that so easily disrupts party cohesion.

There's a good reason so many NPCs are evil. Evil is good at stealing the spotlight, but the reason it is so intriguing in the first place is because to most of us it has an element of mystery. Dwell too long on what it means to be truly evil, and that novelty is quickly lost.

It is for this reason I often prefer to start my characters as some shade of neutral, than see where their personality and the events of the game takes them. Barring alignment-restrictive classes, I heartily encourage such a process. By the end of the campaign, your cold, heartless mercenary may become a devoted friend who cares for a cause greater than himself. Maybe your optimistic, happy-go-lucky character becomes a more sober, bitter, realistic person after a harrowing series of adventure.

Bluh... I'm just beating my head against a wall here. I'll shut up now.

No, seriously, I agree with you 100%.

Saph
2010-05-22, 05:29 AM
A very simple and effective way to play an Evil character in a Good party is to make a character who behaves decently to what he considers the "civilised" races, and acts in a wholly Evil way towards the rest.

So he works with the rest of the party, and doesn't cause any trouble in towns, but happily kills on sight anything that isn't one of the PHB races, because hey, killing sentient beings and taking their stuff is fun.

Note that this is extremely realistic (it's exactly the kind of person who'd be attracted to an adventuring lifestyle) and furthermore, it's close enough to what many adventuring parties do anyway that you'd have little trouble getting away with it. Actually, I've known more than a few supposedly "good" characters who would have difficulty even grasping why the character was Evil in the first place.

Narmoth
2010-05-22, 05:44 AM
Yeah, that's the problem. Most good characters already do that.
Like in my example: the group didn't mind my LE characters questioning methods, but reacted when he mutilated a corpse

Saph
2010-05-22, 05:48 AM
Yeah, that's the problem. Most good characters already do that.

I'd say it's more that lots of characters who call themselves Good already do that. Or Neutral.

My favourite example's the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. Bob, Dave, and Brian all play characters who are supposedly "Chaotic Neutral" but act like serial killers.

Shademan
2010-05-22, 05:50 AM
in my current campaign all but the elven cleric is evil, in a reasonbly evil land, in a wholly evil metropolis.
it works!

Volthawk
2010-05-22, 10:52 AM
thats what I said...befire them...apply fire... if that does not work: more fire!
...EVIL fire!

Hellfire Warlock?

Hzurr
2010-05-22, 11:54 AM
Best way to play Chaotic Evil: Jane Cobb. Remember, Even evil characters can be wise enough to recognize the value in allies, or the earning potential about working with the party.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 12:01 PM
Jayne Cobb is a possibility.

Riddick from Pitch Black, is a Chaotic Evil character according to Complete Scoundrel.

But then, it also says so is Carl Denham in Peter Jackson's King Kong.

So CE can vary a great deal.

balistafreak
2010-05-22, 12:19 PM
wtf dude, it's a game

And that makes it excusable for sadism how? :smallconfused:

Excuse me if the following sounds Lawful Good.

While I believe that games can provide "escapism", I've always understood "escapism" as "imagining doing things in ways that would normally never be possible". Not "imagining doing things that would normally never be possible".

Escapism is throwing fireballs to accomplish whatever you would like to, whether that's burninating the countryside or saving the princess. Escapism is not burninating the countryside because normally society would punish you for it and it's morally reprehensible anyways.

Whether or not your basic desire is to burn or save is a question that has nothing to do with escapism in the first place.

When I'm tired and I imagine getting all my homework done by waving my hands and saying magic words, that's escapism, because I'm doing the work anyways. When I'm mortally pissed off and I imagine killing someone with lightning bolts that are on fire, the only escapism is that I'm thinking of using lightning bolts in the first place. I have an actual homicidal urge, and that needs to be looked at.

(Incidentally, this is probably why I am Neutral and not Good, but that's another topic that really has nothing to do with the alignment question at large.)

/moralrant

Moral arguments aside, I'll draw up a template of an Evil character who can coexist with a Good party now...

A character that requires some sort of morally reprehensible act to exist; a vampire is a classic example, as much as I'm tired of them. Make the act have no middle ground - there's no polite agreements with the local blood bank, the blood has to be from a living victim who dies in the process.

Now, give the character a goal in line with the Good party. Perhaps it's slaying some evil overlord.

Make it clear to the party that while the Evil character is willing to limit his or her methods to something bordering on Neutral (eating convicted felons on death row, eating those that are already dying, etc.) while he or she travels wth the party, he or she has absolutely no interest in maintaining such activities and makes it obviously clear that he or she would like to return to indiscriminate methods for convenience.

But the presence of such a powerful party member far outweighs the want/need to reform his or her ways, so they get along. For now.

I have a character that has an "evil option" along these lines. As an Undead who constantly channeled negative energy into the world and thus disrupted the balance of life on the plane, his mere existence would eventually cause the end of all life on the plane. As such, he had gotten slapped with a divine geas to channel postive energy on a regular basis as a Cleric to rebalance the scales, so to speak, or risk being hunted down by divine forces as a aberration. What the character physically was had nothing to do with alignment, but the character's mindset determined everything.

When I wanted him to be Good, he constantly angsted about the topic, once contemplated suicide to end the process, and literally wandered the countryside as a sort of Zombie Jesus, taking the geas to its farthest possible extreme to help as many people as possible. His personal interest of study (when you live forever and have an infalliable memory, suddenly learning things is fun again) fell by the wayside as he dedicated himself to helping people.

When I wanted him to be Neutral, he accepted the geas without complaint but would not actively go out of his way to fulfill it, sitting in his study most of the time and only helping those in dire need or those who sought him out.

When I wanted him to be Evil (which was most of the time, because I like confronting my players with moral conundrums), he constantly chafed against it, much preferring to sit in his ample library and study for his own personal pleasure, only going out and fulfilling his geas when the divine forces made it clear that he had to do so or be hunted down. Yes, that's right, a character can help people out and still be evil at heart.

Good lords, that was a long rant. Well, I guess spewing on internet forums is one way to clarify your own belief system to yourself. :smallredface:

Drakevarg
2010-05-22, 12:23 PM
Which is interesting, since CE is probably the most Flanderized (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization) alignment on the chart. Comparatively, I can think of ways to RP the other alignments in such away that you can barely tell that they're the same alignment.

Also, what makes you think Evil is always untrustworthy? An evil character's source of evilness isn't always Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChronicBackstabbingDisorder). Sometimes it's the fact that they enjoy "interrogations" a little too much. Or the fact that his solution to every problem he encounters is "kill everything in sight." He could be an entirely honest, trustworthy person... just one who will happily tear a questgiving NPC's throat out if they stiff him on the bill.

balistafreak
2010-05-22, 12:35 PM
Also, what makes you think Evil is always untrustworthy? An evil character's source of evilness isn't always Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChronicBackstabbingDisorder). Sometimes it's the fact that they enjoy "interrogations" a little too much. Or the fact that his solution to every problem he encounters is "kill everything in sight." He could be an entirely honest, trustworthy person... just one who will happily tear a questgiving NPC's throat out if they stiff him on the bill.

If we define Good as altruism and Evil as selfishness, then an Evil character is inherently untrustworthy. He might screw you over if it benefits him.

Whether or not it benefits him is the question. Evil characters with lots of connections probably wouldn't benefit from betrayal much, as doing so would ruin their reputation and destroy their network. The classic Lawful Evil king has no real reason to betray his underlings, for example, because if he did chances are his kingdom would rapidly rebel and collapse. Evil characters who don't keep many friends, such as the classic Chaotic Evil psychopath, who are well renowned for not keeping connections, would stab you in the face when it became beneficial.

And that's not even getting into the emotional side of things.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 12:39 PM
If we define Good as altruism and Evil as selfishness, then an Evil character is inherently untrustworthy. He might screw you over if it benefits him.

Which is a big if.

While altruism and selfishness are strongly associated with Good and Evil in the PHB, there are always exceptions to the general rule.

Such as a character who murders, and/or tortures- for altruistic reasons "The Good of Society" "The Needs of the Many" are the character's usual reasons.

Ozymandias from Watchmen, or the Operative from Firefly, are possible examples of this.

Similarly, in 2nd ed, Chaotic Good was defined as "selfish but goodhearted" in the PHB.

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-22, 12:45 PM
And that makes it excusable for sadism how? :smallconfused:

You aren't good for pretending to rescue princesses and you aren't evil for pretending to Jesus Christ you are like the definition of srs bznz

ED: Also nobody is any alignment IRL, fyi

Narmoth
2010-05-22, 12:48 PM
Things get even more complicated when you think of that psychology tries to explain altruism as a form of selfishness.

I think it's better to see good and evil as what you are willing to do to attain a goal.
That is also much easier to use in a game setting, as it judges what the character is doing to attain the goal, in stead of just judging the goal. Especially since most real world "evil" persons actually viewed their goal as something good.

balistafreak
2010-05-22, 12:51 PM
Which is a big if.

If I sounded righteous in that post, I apologize. I concur with this statement of the "big if" completely.


You aren't good for pretending to rescue princesses and you aren't evil for pretending to Jesus Christ you are like the definition of srs bznz

ED: Also nobody is any alignment IRL, fyi

... excuse me, but whaaaa? :smallconfused: I don't understand what "srs bznz" is supposed to mean, nor if "you" is referring to me personally or a hypothetical.

... on an unrelated note, I think D&D has done far more to advance modern philosophy than any other institution. :smalltongue:

Piedmon_Sama
2010-05-22, 12:53 PM
Read more or join a sports team.

Octopus Jack
2010-05-22, 12:56 PM
... on an unrelated note, I think D&D has done far more to advance modern philosophy than any other institution. :smalltongue:

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4396/alignmenti.jpg (http://img52.imageshack.us/i/alignmenti.jpg/) Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

:smallbiggrin:

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 01:05 PM
... excuse me, but whaaaa? :smallconfused: I don't understand what "srs bznz" is supposed to mean, nor if "you" is referring to me personally or a hypothetical.

I think it's a shortening of "Serious Business"

On "evil implies untrustworthiness" this can be true up to a point, however, in the PHB "Law implies trustworthiness"

So a Lawful Evil character will be a lot more trustworthy, in general, than another Evil character who is not Lawful- though ones which are only mildly Lawful might lie, break promises, etc, even if they are not keen on doing so.

Lord Raziere
2010-05-22, 01:10 PM
the best way to have an evil character in a good party?

simply make only ONE part of him evil.

being evil doesn't mean that you commit evil all the time, and often evil stems from good intentions.

for example: its the late 1800's. guy wants a job to feed his family. immigrants are coming in and working for less money than that guy, he doesn't like that cause that means less money to feed his family.
guy in effect, hates immigrants, eventually becoming racist against immigrants and saying that immigrants should be kept from coming into the country so that wages will go up again and he can feed his family....not caring if said immigrants have an even worse life than him where they come from. he just wants to feed his family, and he is perfectly willing to shut out all immigrants from finding a better lifer in another country. hes evil.

evil isn't "I'm killing people cause I can" its "oh these goblin mothers and children are alone because I killed their fathers that attacked a village. I better kill them to so that they won't grow up and do more evil stuff like them."
humanity has done a lot of evil on the basis that it is necessary- we just come up with justifications most of the time to soften the blow, just look at all the bad things done in the World Wars....and now look at all the justifications and excuses everyone used after they done them.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 01:15 PM
the best way to have an evil character in a good party?

simply make only ONE part of him evil.

being evil doesn't mean that you commit evil all the time, and often evil stems from good intentions.

This is mentioned in Champions of Ruin as one type of evil character- the guy who believes his goals are good (with good reason), but is excessively ruthless in his pursuit of them.


evil isn't "I'm killing people cause I can" its "oh these goblin mothers and children are alone because I killed their fathers that attacked a village. I better kill them to so that they won't grow up and do more evil stuff like them."

Sounds about right. Champions of Valor does give the same example- killing beings because they might grow up to be evil- rather than dealing with them some other way.

Wonton
2010-05-22, 01:25 PM
The Evil character in the Good party 'works' about as well as a Boeing 747 that's lost engine power 'works'.

A skilled pilot can handle it, but after a while, you KNOW the whole thing is going to crash into the ground at 400 mph. :smallbiggrin:

Narmoth
2010-05-22, 01:28 PM
Yes, for an evil character not to be disruptive, he has to treat the other members as equals and not block other peoples role playing by bossing them around.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 01:30 PM
And a character who is Chaotic Evil and of this nondisruptive type, is probably a rarity.

BarbarianNina
2010-05-22, 01:35 PM
I know this one is far-fetched, but 1) it's D&D and 2) I'm trying to use something that hasn't been mentioned yet.

The Evil character wants to be Good (for neutral reasons, such as deciding it's more safe, pleasant, or fulfilling to be Good) but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he hasn't seen many examples of it. So, naturally, he finds some experienced Good characters and latches onto them. This could lead to a redemptive story arc, or a descent back into villainy... or to him liking the characters enough to cooperate with them despite remaining otherwise Evil.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 01:39 PM
Manual of the Planes mentions that one of the inhabitants of Celestia is this-

"a Chaotic evil wizard committed to learning the paths of goodness"

and

"While he's sincerely trying to reform, he's got a long way to go, and retains many instincts and notions of his former lifestyle"

So "evil- but wants to become Good" certainly has precedent.

The infamous "succubus paladin" also started out this way.

Delcan
2010-05-22, 01:41 PM
On the subject of RPing an evil character being bad, I'd like to gently and civilly call BS on that. I'd like to also call BS on the idea of RPing evil being escapism. (For most people. I mean, if you RP an evil person to get out your less-than-socially-acceptable urges, then I guess it's escapism.)

Gamers will roleplay evil characters for the same reasons that authors will write villains, or actors will play villain roles: because it's a role that can be played. Art throughout history has been filled with characters who have been anti-heroes (like Dr. Faustus) or heroes that just go too far in their pursuit of what they think is right (like the Punisher) or even characters that are only protagonists because they're depicted in the protagonist role (like Satan himself in Paradise Lost). There is drama and value in the portrayal of an evil character. Since this is fiction we're talking about, morality doesn't really enter into it, except as a plot point - what matters is whether or not an evil role is a role that services the story that's to be told.

Calling people morally reprehensible for playing evil characters in a game is a pretty extreme claim to make. Is an actress immoral for playing Lady Macbeth on stage, or is an actor immoral for playing Caliban? Should we scorn Zachary Quinto for playing Sylar? The parallels are clear - people roleplay villainous and often monstrous characters on stage and on screen all the time, for the purpose of entertainment. The only real difference between an actor on stage and a person with a character sheet in front of them, as far as morality goes, is that the actor is better at it.

(A logical follow-up at this point would be "But the actor doesn't determine the things his character does - his role is written for him by someone else." But then you have to lay the blame of immorality on the writer who created that role and its actions - is the writer immoral for creating a villain?)

It's easy to try to call people out for playing something evil in a fictional setting, but it's just that - playing. Laying importance on the things a person writes into a fictional world throws the entire idea of fiction into turmoil. And while it could be argued that fiction is a reflection of the writer's inner mind, it can also be argued that most creators of fiction - like most human beings - aren't sick and twisted people. If they were, I can assure you that real life would be a lot more interesting than it is.

Delcan
2010-05-22, 01:52 PM
Sorry about that, tl;dr. Another way to get an evil character into a good party:

Restraining Bolts! (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RestrainingBolt)

Nasty McKideater is a horrible, no good mage of phenomenal power. But he got caught. Now, we'd love to execute this sicko for what he did to those five villages... but you know, he IS a pretty powerful person. Why can't we try to harness that power for a good cause?

Nasty joins the party either under the control of one of the party members, or control of him is handed over to the entire party. He's got a fun little collar locked around his neck, that makes an ominous sound whenever Nasty has serious thoughts about doing something bad. If he ever actually DOES something bad, it shocks him. If he does something really, REALLY bad, his head will magically disappear. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/disintegrate.htm) Effectively, he has to follow party orders and be a cooperative and helpful member of the group.

Nasty, of course, thinks this is completely ridiculous, and wants to get out of the collar as soon as humanly possible - but while he's trying to figure out a way to do that, he has to cooperate with the party.

The best thing about this is that there's two ways you can play it - for drama or for comedy. Drama is easy - this guy is one macguffin away from breaking his leash and getting seriously scary again. You could just as easily play it up for laughs, too - a sadistic villain, converted into a henchman, now vulnerable to every stupid trick a person could play on them and being unable to retaliate. At least, retaliate in the way he WANTS to.

If played for drama, you want to be as menacing and subtlely frightening as possible. Excessive force in combat, mild-mannered suggestions of terrific brutality, that sort of thing. Make it clear that you're on that leash for a reason.

If played for comedy, however, get snarky and pouty. Remember, life has been egregiously unfair to you, and everyone around you should know it. Also, once you get out of this collar, you are SO going to get your revenge. For now, though, you'll have to make do with being the universe's butt-monkey.

Either way, good times.

Quincunx
2010-05-22, 03:05 PM
The Evil character is the enforcer of another moral axis to the rest of the party's disrespect of that axis. In the usual axes, that would imply a Lawful Evil character as responsible for a chaotic party in a very lawful area.

@V re: disturbance: Now, see, that's an excellent illustration of the principle. Goodies just don't understand that dibs on the corpsies means first dibs on the corpsies an' no interfering!

Ormur
2010-05-22, 03:33 PM
A party I'm a DM for has a nominally NE assassin spy government operative but he has hardly behaved much differently from the CN party members, he's far closer to them in actions than they are to the NG exalted member. So far it's just killing enemies mercilessly and less patience for negotiations that are the outwardly signs and he shares them with the CN party members. Of course the evil descriptor might be from prior actions and a readiness to kill innocent strangers but as long as he doesn't do it in front of the good guy (or manages to bluff himself out of it) it shouldn't hurt.

He has the same goals as the rest of the party and it helps that the NG party member doesn't have much in sense motive. The only problem is that the cohort healer just got a celestial unicorn mount with detect evil as a free action.

As for roleplaying evil people it doesn't have to have anything to do with a suppressed urge to kill and main. I find it very interesting to read about all the horrible things humans do to each other and poignant descriptions of fictional villains and atrocities even though it's horrible. Playing evil characters can be a sort of study in the motivations for evil acts, troubled, delusional and mistaken characters. On a less serious note I can also see why someone would like to play them for some dark humour in a more light-hearted game, such as the jovial necromancer who complains when the party members disturb his human sacrifices.

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 03:36 PM
On a less serious note I can also see why someone would like to play them for some dark humour in a more light-hearted game, such as the jovial necromancer who complains when the party members disturb his human sacrifices.

Sounds a bit like Richard in Looking for Group. He generally comes across as both jovial, and very Evil.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-05-22, 04:00 PM
So you'd rather surround yourself with people who can't be trusted? Who don't care about you, or even consider you a human being? You'd like to second-guess every sentence uttered to you? You like to be around people who steal from you, who take advantage of any perceived weakness? And by your own admission, you do the same to others?

Evil is very real. It means more than being a spooky person. It means submitting to the base desires and instincts that barely separate human beings from animals. It means contributing more needless pain, sorrow, and despair to a world already overflowing with problems, for no other reason than it is easier than trying to be a decent person.

I sincerely hope you're joking. You might want to look up some definitions. Or brush up on your history.

I don't trust other people, even if they are trustworthy. I doubt anyone really cares about me, and I don't think everyone thinks of me as a human being. I do second-guess every sentence uttered to me. People do steal from me on occasion, and I would be bored if noone attempted to take advantage of my flaws. I may not like some of these things happening, but I'd rather have this life than a sickly-sweet "lets all work together and be good and happy" nightmare. That may seem exaggerated, but your example was as well.

I deliberately upset and agitate people for no other reason than that I find it fun to watch. I can and do use people as means to an end if it is the easiest means. I contribute to sorrow and suffering for amusement and because it is more efficient, sometimes both. I am still human. I still have limits to what I will do, they are just not limits that would be considered morally good to most modern people (as far as I am aware, I do not declare my views on morality in person unless asked about them).

I am not joking, I rarely do. Evil has just as much place in this world as good (capitalised or otherwise), in my opinion. What do you mean by the suggestions? I probably won't deliberately look up anything on history (I consider recalling the past a waste of time and effort for most purposes) but I would like to hear the explanation regardless.


I wish the rest of the thread luck in finding more methods of having an Evil party member be succesful in an otherwise Good party. There are many really effective ones (including at least one that has happened to one of my characters).

hamishspence
2010-05-22, 04:17 PM
I don't trust other people, even if they are trustworthy. I doubt anyone really cares about me, and I don't think everyone thinks of me as a human being. I do second-guess every sentence uttered to me. People do steal from me on occasion, and I would be bored if noone attempted to take advantage of my flaws. I may not like some of these things happening, but I'd rather have this life than a sickly-sweet "lets all work together and be good and happy" nightmare. That may seem exaggerated, but your example was as well.

I deliberately upset and agitate people for no other reason than that I find it fun to watch. I can and do use people as means to an end if it is the easiest means. I contribute to sorrow and suffering for amusement and because it is more efficient, sometimes both. I am still human. I still have limits to what I will do, they are just not limits that would be considered morally good to most modern people (as far as I am aware, I do not declare my views on morality in person unless asked about them).

Sounds about right as the credo for "only mildly evil" characters- in settings which take the assumption that about 1/3 of the world human population are evil-aligned.

Eberron takes this approach- with the strong theme that just because a character is evil aligned- doesn't mean the paladin can promptly attack them and not Fall.

In Quintessenial Paladin 2- this is called "Evil Everywhere"

If the game defines the evil aligned as this mild, and this common, then there aren't that many problems to a party that includes such a character.

Stabber
2010-05-22, 08:54 PM
thanks for all the advice! My current character is a choatic Evil Drow rouge, and my Dms been absaloute about not letting him into the campiagn. Hopefully this advice will change his mind!
- Stabber

balistafreak
2010-05-22, 09:51 PM
I understand what Serious Business is. I just don't understand how it applies to me, unless that was just a throwaway insult of some kind, which is the only real application of it I know. :smallconfused:

@Octopus Jack:

Isn't that a Warhammer 40,000 symbol of Chaos? If it is, I chuckle at the subtle joke. :smallamused:

Responding to Delcan:

Well said, mate. I find myself agreeing with you completely, despite what I've said before.

Perhaps I should clarify. Playing the evil role because it's there isn't something aberrant, because someone has to play it. Writing an evil role isn't aberrant, because there can be no heroes without villians, and writing it out to see what villiany truly is in context is nothing if not progressive.

It's when someone writes and plays an evil role as an extension of himself that I begin to fret. We all know the kind of character I'm talking about - the Platonic ideal of what kind of person you want to be. While many skilled writers out there are able to write full contingents of heroes and villains without becoming personally attached and identifying oneself with any of them (I believe Shakespeare is an excellent example of this), many of us D&D players write characters as people we would like to be. I know that many of the characters sleeping in the bowels of my computer are facets of my own personality.

And when I see these kinds of characters that are decidedly evil, I frown in consternation. While not all villains are written for vicarious pleasure, that doesn't change the fact that some are. And the person taking vicarious pleasure in such acts needs to seriously reconsider his or her worldview.

(Yes, this includes me. I force myself to actively become a better person all the time. The easy way out is for losers. :smalltongue:)