My Opinion About Playing Evil PC In D&D 3.5

[Zombimode]

You do realize that Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a satire, right? He hated the person he was giving the advice to.

Even if that would be true, the intent of the author is entirely irrelevant to the mertits of the content of a text. If Frege would have ended his Begriffsschrift with "Lol, it's just a meme" should we throw out modern formal logic?

[atemu1234]

Even if that would be true, the intent of the author is entirely irrelevant to the mertits of the content of a text. If Frege would have ended his Begriffsschrift with "Lol, it's just a meme" should we throw out modern formal logic?

That'd make since if The Prince was actually sound advice. While a couple bits will stand on their own, the things about being a iron-fisted ruler were a direct attempt to get the person he was giving the advice to killed or overthrown.

[hamishspence]

In the foreword to the Penguin edition of The Discourses, the writer suggests that nothing said in The Prince is not also said in The Discourses - with an implication that, in general, the advice in both is meant seriously.

[Segev]

It is, overall, filled with useful advice. Not all of it good, and certainly not all of it applicable to all governmental structures, but it is useful for manipulating people who are, themselves, unscrupulous. Ultimately, The Prince is good advice if it is not held as a Bible meant to stand on its own. Taken in context with other classics of governing philosophy (not the least of which include Sun Tzu's Art of War), it can help form a sound means of securing personal power and influence.

Just don't be an idiot about it, and be ready to recognize that it, being written by a man from a particular time and place, is not going to be perfect advice all the time. It may well have errors in its judgments.

[Calthropstu]

I would classify that as alignment independent.

1)The villian and their pawns are stronger than the sum of their parts. This is why the villian often loses when separated from their pawns (wasteful use of pawns, inspiring disloyalty, or the enemy killing them). Thus the smart villian will accept some risk in the preservation of their pawns.

2)Never create an enemy without reason. If you abandon your pawns to their doom, and the pawns survive, you just gained some strong enemies. So do not abandon your pawns unless you know they will die.

As a result even the most vile of villians has rational reasons to only abandon the party in the case of a TPK. And if you only flee TPKs, there is no "out of the frying pan and into the fire" effect.

Also good characters might care about each other in the general sense that they care about the villagers in a village on another continent. However good does not mean serving Bob over serving Good. A Good character might decide that while risking their life to save Bob is noble, their duty is to go risk their life to save another village instead.

So even good characters might flee their companions and risk "out of the frying pan and into the fire".

(Of course the character possibility space for a group is only a subset of the total possibility space, conclusions that I draw about characters in general do not refute conclusions drawn about characters in your group in particular)

There is also flat out cowardice. You can be th most good person in the world. Saving orphans from lives on the street, tending the sick, delivering food to the homeless... and run screaming like a scared little girl at the first sign of danger.