Evil Parties - and Evil PC's - A Discussion

[Endur]

There was a Paladin in the party, and he understood and sympathized with many of her views, but she never went out of her way to be mean to him. He was old fashioned, but well intentioned. She thought he was naive, but not mean spirited, and always treated him well. I dont understand why this sort of thing wouldnt work in a campaign run by others. It was a great source of rp opportunities beyond, I kill X! I kill Y! If all you do is kill, whats the difference if its beholders or level 19 clerics of Pelor?

Poorly run characters of evil running about to kill and rape is ugly, but that smacks of immaturity, not evils fault. Discuss?

I agree with Seetan. BUT ... I will point out that Seeten's character was lawful evil. Its also possible to have a chaotic evil Vlad the Impaler type, who not only does the rule with an iron fist, but also does it in a whimsical and out of control way.

The real problem with evil is that it is selfish. Lawful evil is selfish within limits. Chaotic Evil is selfish with no limits. Neutral evil is selfish within some limits. Evil is selfish whereas good is altruistic. The conflicts caused by having numerous evil members in a party can cause a party to fall apart.

So long as the conflicts don't reach the point of ruining other people's fun, I don't have a problem with evil characters.

The point of the "no evil PCs" rule, was not to avoid raping of fields, but rather to avoid party conflicts and to make it easier to motivate the party, although the avoiding of the raping of fields was a happy side benefit.

 

[Andre La Roche]

Currently I'm running a game where three of the PCs are definitely evil, the initially LG cleric's also pretty close to falling from grace, and one character seems comfortably settled into neutrality. I've found running an evil game to be a much greater challenge, and one that I find myself welcoming completely. The quests and plots have been more personalized. When you're running heroic games, you simply throw out the fact that some sort of wrong is occurring, and with little in the way of personal motivation the PCs tend to bite and show up to save the day.

I've found I really can't rely on this at all. That's not to say that I've discarded "larger picture" quests. In fact I haven't at all. It just takes a more personal reason for the PCs to get drawn into the issue. Currently there are two powerful characters in the main city location who are vying for control of the country's government, and the PCs have only found motivation to get drawn into it after the cousin of one of the competing nobles had their gear stolen. So they're more likely to ally with the necromancer. They're also pretty heavily into piracy, and all it takes is a competing ego to challenge the dwarf swashbuckler (with extremely high tumble, jump, and use rope values, creating an amusingly nimble dwarf) to whatever potential contest awaits.

So far they haven't been stupidly evil, as in randomly walking into a place and killing the first person they see. They tend to be violently aggressive, and will react in a volatile fashion towards any perceived wrong, no matter how slight, but generally require that initial provocation (no matter how slight). Overall it's been a fun challenge figuring out how to keep them engaged, and how to design adventures that would appeal to their characters' values and goals.

 

[Kradlo]

Relative Evil

Personally, I play all sorts of characters, from shining heroes and to blackest villains, skulking cowards, and everything in between. I find that this helps me roleplay NPCs when I GM, as I have more insight into different mindsets and personality types.

One of my favorite characters is Mistress Varta, a priestess of Loviatar. She's Lawful Evil, with the accent on "Lawful." Part of her character concept came from a passage regarding the goddess Loviatar herself, when she returned to the realm of the living, "to resume her just punishment of Mankind." That's what made it click for me.

Mistress Varta believes that her purpose is to punish the guilty... and everyone's guilty of something. Those that transgress the law must suffer the consequences. Is she evil? Yes, because she enjoys her work too much, and knows herself to be deserving of punishment from her superiors (Sadomasochistic tendencies).

She's a fun sort of antihero to play. On the one hand, she's a capable combatant in melee, a powerful spellcaster, and a capable healer. On the other hand, she tends to give the other players the willies. She tends to her party's wounded with tender loving care. "Oh this should scar up nicely," she smiles as she sews up a fighter's wound. Her healing salves burn like the dickens, "Or else you wouldn't know it was working." And there isn't a better choice when it comes to interrogating the prisoners, though some may be squeamish about her actions.

In her mind, she's not about spreading evil, she's about maintaining order, by whatever means necessary. Her methods are certainly evil, but not her aims.

Not every adventuring group will accept someone like Mistress Varta, but she's an interesting addition to any that will.

 

[Elf Witch]

I played in one forgotten realms campaign with evil PCs and we got along better than the group of good PCs in another campaign. :\

The Dm had some rules going in first of all no CN or CE and have a good backstory of why your character was like this. It worked too. First of all none of us thought of ourselves as evil we were just doing what we had to do to get by.

We didn't go about doing blatently evil things and we tried to stay under the radar so to speak of the town's goody two shoes were we lived. If any of our party had gone on a killing spree and left a trail of bodies that led back to us we would have taken them out before hte law ever caught them.

Our goals were power and wealth and if you were in our way that was unlucky for you. We blackmailed, murdered, forged, bribed our way into what we wanted.

But we stuck together we had a code and we took care of our own. We were very much like a fantasy mafia.

 

[S'mon]

I'm happy to run games with evil PCs; anything from The Sopranos to Natural Born Killers. Only thing I won't do is shield evil PCs from the likely consequences of their actions - so my version of NBK would be unlikely to have a happy ending for the serial killers. I've run some enjoyable Star Wars games set inside the Imperial military, full of political backstabbing & literal asassination. If my D&D players want to play evil outlaws hunted by the forces of civilised society, seeking to destroy that society, I'm happy to go with that. Maybe they'll win, maybe they'll lose. I'd never tell a player any action was off-limits, though I may refuse to go into it. They can rape the captured princess if they want, but I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow description.
Generally speaking, I do prefer GMing for good-guy PCs, though. But I find that not railroading their behaviour makes being good a genuine choice & thus more rewarding for all concerned. I often try to present vulnerable NPCs as sympathetic 'real people' worth protecting, rather than just a macguffin.

 

[Mallus]

If you want to play Villians, there are better systems for that sort of thing.... snip ....This is supported mechanically, where it is not in D&D.

"I strike the orphan girl selling flowers --who didn't get out of my way fast enough, I might add-- with my greatsword. I put 5 points into power attack. I rolled a 19... ooh, that's a threat..."

What about playing evil isn't supported by the d20 system?

 

[hong]

I am going to go with an example of a character I played ages ago, a lawful evil fighter, and I am not trying for an "I rp better than yall" feel here, but more of a "I consider this both evil, fun to rp, and not disruptive to a group" feel. The character was female, a victim of rape, and carrying a lot of anger.
[...]

Change the label on your character's forehead from "evil" to "neutral" and chances are you'll run into a lot fewer problems.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

The thing I frown upon as a DM is inter-party conflict. If you are going to be in the group (and by that I mean players and characters) you have to be able to get along with the them. The occasional squabble over morality, ehtics etc are fine but if it becomes 'personal' to the point where you want your character to attack another party member - well I haven't had it reach that point yet but it just wouldn't be fun.

Alignment, honestly, is secondary if it is even considered at all. In my current group alignment runs from CN to LE but they are all united by a desire for the group to succeed. One CN is actually friends with the LE. The CN's see the group as a means to an ends (wealth & power) whiel the LE sees the group as his. He leads from the front and will do everything to keep the group alive. The good characters are the moral concinous of the group and make sure that they make a positive difference in the world. It works out wonderfully, imo, and everyone has fun.

 

[broghammerj]

Whenever this subject comes up I always have the same answer. Drop the alignment system and see what happens. Everyone has different opinions regarding what is good and evil. I find that people tend to be more reasonable in their approach to things.

For instance with no alignment my group's characters are likely to rescue the princess because it's the right thing to do or battle the forces of humanoids mounting at their country's border. They're also likely behead a bandit and place his body on a pike at the side of the road to warn off other bandits. Is the beheading a good act? Not in my opinion and it is far from heroic. No alignment avoids the butchering of the bar tender because he wouldn't give you free ale that sometimes exists in evil campaigns. Yes, I agree with others and chalk most of that up to immaturity. Of course those that want to play paladins or clerics of certain gods have to adjust things a bit.

Not to get into a political discussion, but I know very devout religious people who come down on both sides of capital punishment. How do we expect such a complex moral, ethical, social, political dilemmas that face humanity daily to be simplified in such a simple moral system as DND alignment. I don't think they can so we've done away with it.

 

[Taloras]

Im currently playing in an Epic(24th level) campaign....we have at least 3-4 of the up to 10 players(depending on who shows up) are evil and usually undead. The only problem with this is this: One of the evil characters is a ghost. His continuing mission? Exterminate ALL life. So even if we destroy him, he just comes back....and kills the party members. this is a PC whos sole purpose is to create party conflict....unfortunately, this is also the only D*D game ive found in town. And as i really dont want to run (I have tried several times, and just dont get -any- fun out of it) and noone but Joe will run at the moment....its all i can play. and Playing is my escape from reality, which i need.

Sorry to go off on a tangent.

I really dont like parties with evil characters because of the party conflicts we always end up with....the few times I ran, only once did i allow evil, and it was an all evil, drow run game(only 2 sessions, and it was gonna go into City of the Spider Queen, but then everyone decided they didnt like it). Usually, i dont allow evil characters. But then again, the group im in could use a LOT of maturity and a LOT less powergaming/munchkining