D&D 5E Evil characters material not going to be in the PHB

[Sword of Spirit]

Just jumping in here without having read the discussion.

I see no need to separate out the options. I mean, how many DMs say, "no evil PCs" for most of their campaign? Probably more of them than not, and I've never heard of any great player rebellion over it because the options were right there in front of them in the PHB. I think this is one area where few players have a problem with feeling "player entitlement" just because the rules are there. The 3e PHB had all the materials, but said that evil alignments were for monsters and villains and presented it that way. I'm sure if they are simply trying to discourage new players from going evil that would get the job done.

I almost never allow (or play) evil PCs, but I'd really prefer it if all my content was compiled in the same place.

Given, if there really is some worthwhile reason, I'd support it. I'm just not seeing it.

 

[The Human Target]

Evil campaigns are fun, but they are certainly a niche within the game as a whole. I don't have a problem with the "Big Book of Evil Badness" being a separate book, and considered highly non-core. Let them put more effort into, make very tailored, highly evil aspects for all the classes, I think that is a fine way.

I'd rather not fill up space with "evil" stuff in the PHB. If you want to play a darker class, roll up a warlock. Otherwise, "evil" is more a matter of RP than rules by my reckoning.

Yup.

 

[Nellisir]

My campaign rules have always been that my campaigns are about heroic fantasy, and that the characters should all be able to and willing to get along. I've seen few evil characters that would conform to both strictures.

That said, I find the "evil" element in the PHB to be pretty slight. Many reversed spells aren't "evil", and I don't recall the anti-paladin ever appearing in a PHB. So I'm not totally sure what's going to be left out. I will also admit that I've found the support for explicitly evil characters in earlier editions to be much more diverse and appealing than the support for explicitly good characters, which has almost totally revolved around a "good=holy" paradigm, and ends up boring and disappointing. Do better, WotC. I'd like characters to have MORE "Good" options, and if shifting "Evil" to another book does that, hurrah.

 

[barasawa]

I've been in many campaigns that either allowed evil characters, or were evil campaigns specifically.
It can work very well, but more often than not it doesn't.
When if fails, it tends to go freaking nuclear meltdown.

Evil campaigns have many become slaughter the town frenzies as the players begin to kill everyone not in the group. If it happened once or twice, it could be shrugged off, but once it starts, it seems to only get worse. It's rather hard to have any real campaign or storyline when the pcs response to most things is kill everyone, and talk to dead later, but only if we have to.

Worse is having the evil pcs. By itself, it can be a great story enhancer. I was even in a group where a CG wizard and a LE wizard were best friends, that were always risking their lives to aid the other. Unfortunately though, in my experience, most of those playing evils are just doing it so they can screw over anyone, especially the party, whenever they feel like it using the excuse of "I'm evil...". That's almost a guarantee when they wanted to play chaotic evil. (Same with chaotic neutral if evil is banned by GM.)
Causing party dissent or otherwise screwing up the group is not story building, nor is it usually fun for the other people. If you are really intent on that kind of antisocial behavior, you should be playing solo adventures.

There is a tendency in fantasy for the adventurers to be heroes, and those are almost never evil. As I've stated, in my experiences, it also doesn't work for keeping a game going, except in rare circumstances.
You also have to take into account publicity. RPGs don't seem to be under attack at this time like has happened in the past, but these things come in waves, it will happen again. Being able to say that evil characters is an optional thing in a separate book for the GM to base his villains on (every hero needs bad guys to defeat) is a good way to deflect a nice chunk of that criticism.

So it should be available for the GM, who can then make it available to the players if deemed necessary. For the most part, it would be really redundant. After all, what's the difference between an evil warrior, and a good on. Same with that mage? For almost all things, there is virtually no difference between them other than how they act. Sure, there are some mechanical differences, but for the most part, they are so simple to figure out, one paragraph in the DMG should deal with 90% of it. For example, the spell Protection from Good. Let's see, to figure out the effects of the Protection from Evil spell, swap all instances of the words 'good' and 'evil' with each other. There, that was simple. Does the Protection from Good spell need any other changes to it's mechanics? No. Even the antipaladin can be treated in a similar fashion, since after all, it's merely the evil mirror of it's good twin. (Yes, there is a tendency for designers to try and out-cool the old stuff, but that tends to overpower the new stuff, and isn't really an opposite anymore, now is it.)

Anyhow, I hope I've explained my viewpoint clearly (probably as clear as mud), but what it really boils down to is that there are plenty of reasons to have the 'evil' specific stuff be in the GMs books, as the rest of it is superficial anyways.

 

[Sunseeker]

My campaign rules have always been that my campaigns are about heroic fantasy, and that the characters should all be able to and willing to get along. I've seen few evil characters that would conform to both strictures.

I agree with this, though I have had less trouble with "evil" characters and more trouble with selfish characters. Plenty of "evil" people are great at pretending to be friends until they STAB YOU IN THE BACK! Selfish characters are just jerks every excuse they get.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I should probably read the rest of the thread so as not to be regurgitating already covered material, but I just don't feel like 9 pages worth of reading, so here are some more probably already discussed thoughts.

What exactly are we talking about when we talk about putting evil character options in the PHB? Are we talking about having a blackguard/anti-paladin subclass with powers along the same lines as the current subclasses? Are we thinking of the assassin subclass we already have seen?

Or are we talking about blood sacrifice class features, feats like "Master Torturer," or role-playing guidelines for "playing evil"?

I think subclasses are best put together. Otherwise it's too much of a judgment call as to what is necessarily evil and what is not. I liked how one of the older playtest packets allowed LN blackguards, for instance, and the justifying fluff was brilliant. Are we talking about listing the evil alignments along with the others? I think that all belongs in the book, personally. The 3e PHB handled it perfectly in my opinion (blackguard and assassin were in the DMG because they were prestige classes). Evil stuff was presented alongside the good, but the game assumed you weren't playing evil characters.

If we are talking about blood sacrifice class features, torture feats, and guidelines for how to role-play evil, I don't think that belongs in the core rulebooks at all.

 

[I'm A Banana]

True, and if it's all in the PH then it's all gravy.

I think that there's a thing I want to pry apart, here.

What is the purpose of the PH?

Because in 5e, what with all the modularity, it's purpose cannot be "to provide all the rules you want to use in your game."

And if its purpose is just to provide the most basic D&D experience, you'll take out evil and you'll take out every class except the Big Four and every race except the Big Four, and you'll bring those in as "DM options" (which, yeah, everything above Basic is pretty much a DM option).

And if it's somewhere in the middle? I dunno.

I imagine what goes in and what comes out will depend on what the designers think is "essential" to playing the game. And Evil PC's definitely are not. You can have mercenaries and amoral antiheroes and Hans Who Shoot First without ever straying south of the Neutral/Unaligned territory. What you can't have (and what's more difficult in some ways to DM for) is folks who go around doing absolutely horrible things to the innocent folks.

I think it's legit to put games with evil PC's behind a clear "opt-in" barrier. I honestly feel the same way about, I dunno, paladins, assassins, monks, psionics, dragonborn, gnomes....maybe NONE of that is going in the PH. Maybe the PH is a 24-page booklet that comes in a box with dice and a map and an adventure.

That's what I'm trying to pry apart here. I'm not convinced that I can determine what "should" be PH material and what "shouldn't," because I don't know what the intent really is for the PH. Evil makes sense as a DM option. So do thieves. *shrug*

 

[Madmage]

Personally, I took the middle road. I like to keep some of the stuff available to villains/antagonists to be a secret to surprise players and keep them on their toes. When everything is available to players, the metagame creep is high.

Best example was the inclusion of secret or "evil" prestige classes mixed in to regular options in several player-aimed books or sections in 3E.

That said, the "generic" stuff like protection from good spells and such should be in the PHB.

To the poster that suggested having everything in 1 book instead of the DMG/PHB split... I'll have to disagree. While it's great if you're looking things up from an electronic medium, looking through a book that's 600+ pages long, or sharing the very same book between a full table of people, or what have you is inconvenient.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I just wonder if WotC is trying to figure out how to up the DMG page count and reduce the PH.

 

[Mistwell]

I just wonder if WotC is trying to figure out how to up the DMG page count and reduce the PH.

I don't think they're hurting for DMG content, given the design philosophy of moving more authority to the DM for this version of D&D.