Evil PC's

[GreyWanderer]

Group:

I've never played an evil PC - I don't feel such characters really belong in a game about heros.
But I was wondering what others who have actually played such charcters had to say.

Grey.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Had an evil group of PCs that struggled and fought to save the world from complete destruction, out of self-interest mind you...but they still did it!

Even villains can be heroic from time to time! One of my favorite books on "evil" heroes: Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward, which I based my campaign idea around!

Also called dark heroes; we see them portrayed in John Woo movies (my favs) and other films. Heck Darth Vader, by the end of his story, is a prime example of a dark hero. Dark heroes definately have a place in both storytelling and epic stories in particular! Nothing is quite as stirring than watching a hero fall tragically into darkness or watching a dark hero redeem all their wickedness through a final decision of self-sacrifice.

Though I recommend sticking firmly (as a DM) to the traditional themes for the dark hero (to retain a heroic style of story-telling), a dark hero's fate only ends in one of three ways: redemption through actions and life, redemption through actions and death, or the full embrace of evil, resulting death by good as the evil character tries to take as many down with them as they can (ultimately no matter how you look at it the "good" guys still win). Thus, you can still have heroic stories and have plenty of room for evil characters, as long as everyone in the game realizes that there is still only one of three ways a story can end for a dark hero and that's the way you stick to running these stories - running dark heroes can be a blast and remain entirely heroic!

No one wants to watch a movie where evil characters run around and do evil things all the time and nothing ever changes. Stick to the three fates of the dark hero and any good campaign can accomodate a band of dark heroes!

 

[MerakSpielman]

I've played in an evil party. It's a difficult role-playing challange. Also, the DM needs to be more firm in establishing a reason for the party members to be working together.

However, a lot of the quests still work. Just because an adventure was originally designed around a group of good guys going in and killing things, evil characters will often do exactly the same thing. They'll even do it for the same reasons - gold, glory, etc... Evil parties will even fight to save the world from destruction - after all, what good is all your gold and glory if some dumbass blows up the planet and you don't have anywhere to enjoy it?

I've also played in a campaign where only one character was evil - a Lawful Evil monk. The character concept was that he had decided that he was the most capable and beneficial person to be in charge, so he would attempt to rule the world. If this meant deposing good, fair rulers, as well as the deaths of a few million innocents, so be it. The rest of us put up with him because a) he was useful to have around and b) it seemed pretty unlikely that he'd ever actually get anywhere on the world domination track.

I even played a Chaotic Evil character once. The campaign premise was, at that point, that we were an elite group of assassins (the profession, not the PrC) and each adventure was centered around us attempting to kill a particular person. So when a character died and it came time to create a new one, I made a CE sniper. His specialty was one-shot kills from afar with his suped-up bow. He killed entirely for the personal pleasure he recieved from doing so, and the assassin group was the perfect place for him to both do what he loved and get paid for it.

After a while, playing the role of the hero gets kind of dull. I think playing the bad guy is tremendous fun and a nice change of pace. I also love computer games like Evil Genius and Hitman, where you as the player are pitted against the good guys.

 

[robberbaron]

My favourite characters were evil. Very evil. Not necessarily nasty, but definitely from the Dark Side.

Evil characters not heroic? Bollocks! Open your mind and give it a go. Or are you scared you'll like it?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think it makes an interesting role playing challenge. You can be evil without being psychopathic (I have played one psychopathic character in a Cyberpunk game... after a while I found that a little disturbing).

Robberbaron is currently running an "evil party" game in which I'm a member. There isn't much more intra-party conflict than with nominally good parties in my experience (although when someone is disabled there is sometimes a bit of discussion about whether it is worth saving them or leaving them...)

In one sense, in a D&D game where it is basically about killing things and taking their stuff, evil PCs are just more honest about their intentions than good PCs </devils advocate>

Cheers

 

[BigAlzBub]

As long as you aren't looking to backstab the other PCs, or do something monumentally stupid, like betraying your party just before the "final" encounter, evil PCs can make a refreshing change. I had an evil mage, he didn't want to take over the world, he was extremely reliable, and he would even put himself in danger (occasionally) when it was necessary. The other players didn't even realise that he was evil.

IMO, the best evil PCs are either someone on the borderline of evil and could swing either way depending on how he/she is treated, or someone who is firmly dark but on a quest (possibly vengeance) and ultimately must deal with the emptiness when they finally are successful. Betrayers and Psychopaths are a quick way to the campaign graveyard.

 

[Darkness]

Not a Rules question. Moved to GD.

 

[Seeten]

We had a discussion on this the other day, and its my belief that lawful evil characters can comingle in a group with good and neutral characters with a minimum of effort. Neutral Evil and CHaotic Evil are more difficult, but evil doesnt mean psychotic or sociopathic, just evil.

If played as psychopaths or sociopaths, they wont work, but if they are played as real people with real motivations, it certainly will. My group of friends, if translated to D&D, would include a neutral goood, a neutral, a chaotic neutral, and me, lawful evil. My friends like me because I am charismatic, funny, and only occasionally a complete jerk. I think most of them are hopelessly naive, but mostly fun to hang around with. Really, these are motivations to spend time together. An evil character can be motivated solely to spend time with friends, and it isnt out of character for his friends to really be the other PC's.

 

[iwatt]

If played as psychopaths or sociopaths, they wont work, but if they are played as real people with real motivations, it certainly will.

Actually, you can have psycopathic behavior as well. As has been mentioned, what you need is a reason for the group to be together. An it's not even about alignment...you could have a pure LE group that'll go straight to hell because more than one of the guys wants " to rule them all." It's all about creating a good party dynamic. The most succesful evil party (2e) I ever played in consisted in:

NE Cleric (high Wis/Cha) he was the spiritual leader. Very charismatic and good at exploiting weakness.
CE Fighter (Low Int) : psychopath. He liked to collect the ears of those he slayed. DM gave him a frenzy variant when he saw a particularly nice set. Followed the Cleric because he believed in him (also, the cleric realized good + Loyal muscle is hard to find, and pampered him)
LE Wizard (Low Cha High Int) He knew his best chance was too become the power behind the throne. As long as he supported the Cleric, he'd always get enough subjects for his experiments.
CE Thief (high Dex and Int) A hedonist with very unsavory tastes. Cleric kept him happy by "providing" the adequate entertainment and acces to the right drugs as well.

In shear power, the Wizard could have brought down the party, but he really knew thta he was better off with the group. The other two psycopaths were always on the verge of freaking out, so the wiz and cleric carefully kept their baser instincts sated (sp?)

By the way, we didn't go into much detail about the dark-side of the characters (not our cup of tea). The whole point of playing these characters was to take a break from our other game were all the PCs were goody two-shoes. It was fun for a while to be able to poison, steal, slay, torture and intimidate to our hearts content. The brutal approach sometime is very satisfying .

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Being a hero does not equal being good (unless you define good in a very black and white way). As long as you're just evil and not EVIL you can probably fit in. Your character could be evil because he'll do what ever it takes to defend and serve his country -right or wrong- such a PC may commit dispicable and horrorific acts but in the eyes of his country he is heroic.

Just look at Greek mythological heroes or heroes from many other mythologies.

As others have said lunatic mad men pyschopath characters will not work.

I guess my point is nothing is Black or White (very few things in any case) and it depends upon how you define evil.