Piracy And Other Malfeasance

[Micah Sweet]

I can certainly say I saw an awful lot of people who either banned evil characters or were extremely conservative with which types they permitted in the 70's, and this was far from ones just from one group or locale. So, basically I'm going by the (not small) pool of data points I have.

Fair enough. So am I.

 

[Lanefan]

All that means is the same people didn't bother to permit Assassins.

In the first big 1e-adjacent campaign I ran, the longest-serving PC by both adventure count and sessions played was an Assassin.

Since then, I've homebrewed and introduced a second Evil-trending PC class: Necromancer. The longest-serving character in my current campaign is one of these.

 

[MGibster]

Even when the PCs aren't the pirates, thieves, cutthroats, or used care salespersons, there are often terrible things going on in any given game. Even a more lighthearted fantasy game like D&D typically revolve around killing people. I'm contemplating running a published Call of Cthulhu scenario at my local game store where the Investigators run into the descendants of slaves and slavers who were forced to breed and their descendants have lived underground for more than a century. Pretty damned dark.

 

[Reynard]

An interesting thing about Drake: he began his career as a slavery-- or, at least, a pirate who hit slave ships and resold the "cargo." But he soured on the practice and actively fought against it. He made alliances with former slaves and even had one serve as his own private secretary (aside and all). At the same time, he continued to pirate.

When talking about protagonists as varying degrees of good vs evil, what do we do with things like that?

 

[Thomas Shey]

In the first big 1e-adjacent campaign I ran, the longest-serving PC by both adventure count and sessions played was an Assassin.

Since then, I've homebrewed and introduced a second Evil-trending PC class: Necromancer. The longest-serving character in my current campaign is one of these.

Uhm, not to put to fine a point on it but--so? We already know how you feel about it, the question was how did a lot of people feel about it, even back then.

 

[payn]

An interesting thing about Drake: he began his career as a slavery-- or, at least, a pirate who hit slave ships and resold the "cargo." But he soured on the practice and actively fought against it. He made alliances with former slaves and even had one serve as his own private secretary (aside and all). At the same time, he continued to pirate.

When talking about protagonists as varying degrees of good vs evil, what do we do with things like that?

Yeesh, gonna steer clear of this topic directly. I’ll never know why some folks find slavery in their RPGs so irresistible.

Sometimes a character comes around to their awful takes and change course. Sometimes opportunity makes strange bedfellows. However these types of situations arise in my games these folks are never looked at as heroes. Sometimes you have to deal with the devil and sometimes you just sink his ship instead.

As for good vs evil that’s typically tangible stuff in my D&D games like angels and devils from other planes up to no good. One thing that’s convenient about D&D is being able to have awful stuff that isn’t directly awful stuff from our own history.

In my sci-fi games I’ve had psionics on the run and mega corps making indentured employees out of people but I stop well short of slavery as I have found it never improves the game experience to include it.

 

[aramis erak]

It's worth noting that many who run multiple games have one version of Good for D&D/Pathfinder, and a wholly different one for other games...

Partly because some games define evil quire differently. Or, such as palladium, several different kinds of evil differently. Many others lack a clear game definition but have setting definitions. Or a few have no definition of evil.

And partly because some use their own personal definitions even when running D&D, but use the book or the GM's call when playing in someone else's game.

I'm fond of Pendragon's approach...
Evil is typified by the following 5 Traits: Vengeful, Selfish, Deceitful, Cruel, Suspicious.
If they're all 16+, you're playing a thoroughly evil bad person... and not for long, because if they stay that way over winter, the character gains the evil religious bonus, but you also lose control over the character, who is now an NPC. (At least in KAP 4.) If they're all 11+, you're still evil, but not evil enough to be NPC-only... It is, however, just barely doable to be a chivalrous knight and evil... but you must then be superhumanly Energetic, Just, Modest, and Temperate... if they are all 19-20, and you don't max out selfish and cruel. (And, yes, such a knight would be super hardcore Lawful Evil in D&D terms...) Had that happen once... player started with the evil bonus and I gave them one adventure to drive them down... he failed. That was due to random rolls.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When talking about protagonists as varying degrees of good vs evil, what do we do with things like that?

Clearly, he changed his alignment, in D&D terms.

 

[Lanefan]

Uhm, not to put to fine a point on it but--so?

So, your experience is clearly different than mine, is all.

We already know how you feel about it, the question was how did a lot of people feel about it, even back then.

As one of that "lot of people", I answered the question.

 

[Lanefan]

It's worth noting that many who run multiple games have one version of Good for D&D/Pathfinder, and a wholly different one for other games...

Partly because some games define evil quire differently. Or, such as palladium, several different kinds of evil differently. Many others lack a clear game definition but have setting definitions. Or a few have no definition of evil.

And partly because some use their own personal definitions even when running D&D, but use the book or the GM's call when playing in someone else's game.

I'm fond of Pendragon's approach...
Evil is typified by the following 5 Traits: Vengeful, Selfish, Deceitful, Cruel, Suspicious.
If they're all 16+, you're playing a thoroughly evil bad person... and not for long, because if they stay that way over winter, the character gains the evil religious bonus, but you also lose control over the character, who is now an NPC. (At least in KAP 4.) If they're all 11+, you're still evil, but not evil enough to be NPC-only... It is, however, just barely doable to be a chivalrous knight and evil... but you must then be superhumanly Energetic, Just, Modest, and Temperate... if they are all 19-20, and you don't max out selfish and cruel. (And, yes, such a knight would be super hardcore Lawful Evil in D&D terms...) Had that happen once... player started with the evil bonus and I gave them one adventure to drive them down... he failed. That was due to random rolls.

The bolded is what makes me sad. The player should be able to go on playing that "black knight" archetype, wherever it leads.