How do you handle evil?

[Blue]

Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, even lots of YT content creators. A prominent example would be the channel Nerdarchy on YT. They appear to think there's some kind of problem with evil and anyone enjoying RPing it.

Suggest that you bring this up there, where you can have a discussion with the people who are saying it. They are the people you can have a debate about ti with.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I rather enjoyed I, Strahd by P.N. Elrod as well as Knight of the Black Rose by James Lowder which are both set in Ravenloft. Like Vampire the Masquerade, these books are specifically about monsters so I think your point still stands.

I've never played Vampire, but I think it is an exception to the 'I want to play an evil PC' question.

 

[Crusadius]

Often the situation is that one person in the group wants to play an evil PC when the others are not. Sometimes then you might hear "I'm just playing my character" when evil deeds are done dirt cheap, with an expectation that the other characters cannot act against the evil one because they're good.

Which is a silly argument because good doesn't mean stupid and why would anyone murder hobo around the world with someone who would steal your stuff and constantly act to put your lives at risk.

So yes, play an evil character, but the Paladin can then kill you because they're also "just playing their character".

 

[Jd Smith1]

'I'm just playing my character' is the weakest excuse in the history of RPGs.

 

[Yora]

I don't use alignment in my campaigns.
All I require of PCs is that they want to play in a team with the other PCs. A character who doesn't like the other PCs and doesn't want to cooperate with them has no reason to be in the party.

 

[Tantavalist]

The most telling part of this question is that the poll uses Alignment to frame it. It genuinely doesn't give the option that non-D&D gamers would use by default, that the idea of having a notation attached to every character be it PC or NPC saying if they're Good or Evil is absurd.

In my games, my players just play Characters. They don't have Good, Neutral or Evil written anywhere on their sheets. How they act is entirely up to the player in any given situation.

Generally this results in PCs leaning toward the selfish side of Amoral but I've also noticed something over the decades of running RPGs. If PCs don't have a section on their sheet saying they're evil then they can on occasion also show flashes of mercy or charity, even from characters who've been playing more like classic Murder Hobos. It's almost as if taking away the Alignment concept leads to characters being less two-dimensional, because it means that players are going with "What would this person do?" rather than "What would someone of Alignment XXXX XXXX do?"

In an association with the TTRPG hobby that dates back to the late 80s I have never once come across a convincing account of someone saying how the D&D Alignment rules made a game session better. Usually it's someone pulling the classic "My character is XXXX and so you can't blame me for playing that". Imagine the same situation with no Alignment rules to hide behind.

In short- doesn't this debate belong in the D20 forum rather than the TTRPG General one?

 

[Zubatcarteira]

As long as they have the same major goals and will work with the party, I don't see an issue. If anything, it's good to have a character who's willing to do the more shady stuff, sometimes stealing an item, or assassinating a rival, or making a lil' deal with the devil makes things easier.

 

[MGibster]

I've never played Vampire, but I think it is an exception to the 'I want to play an evil PC' question.

I think the exception comes because the game was designed from the ground up for PCs to play vampires who prey on human beings. That's what vampires do. Another game where the PCs are expected to be evil was PEG's Necessary Evil. In NE, aliens invade and kill most of the super powered individuals who weren't imprisoned. So it's up to the supervillains to save the day. But even then you gotta be careful. Most of the players in my group made silver age style villains while one made a 90s edge lord villain appropriate to something you'd find in an issue of Spawn. My character was a Jekyll & Hyde pastiche and the other player was a mind controller embedded in an orphanage who used the orphans to do his bidding.

 

[Maxperson]

The most telling part of this question is that the poll uses Alignment to frame it. It genuinely doesn't give the option that non-D&D gamers would use by default, that the idea of having a notation attached to every character be it PC or NPC saying if they're Good or Evil is absurd.

In my games, my players just play Characters. They don't have Good, Neutral or Evil written anywhere on their sheets. How they act is entirely up to the player in any given situation.

Generally this results in PCs leaning toward the selfish side of Amoral but I've also noticed something over the decades of running RPGs. If PCs don't have a section on their sheet saying they're evil then they can on occasion also show flashes of mercy or charity, even from characters who've been playing more like classic Murder Hobos. It's almost as if taking away the Alignment concept leads to characters being less two-dimensional, because it means that players are going with "What would this person do?" rather than "What would someone of Alignment XXXX XXXX do?"

In an association with the TTRPG hobby that dates back to the late 80s I have never once come across a convincing account of someone saying how the D&D Alignment rules made a game session better. Usually it's someone pulling the classic "My character is XXXX and so you can't blame me for playing that". Imagine the same situation with no Alignment rules to hide behind.

In short- doesn't this debate belong in the D20 forum rather than the TTRPG General one?

I don't agree. Even though the poll references alignment, the poll and OP are about people being jerks when they play evil(alignment OR roleplayed in another game) and using "evil" as the excuse. That's broadly applicable to any game where someone roleplays a character who is a right evil bastard OR uses that as an excuse to be a wangrod.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

Not in my campaigns. Otherwise I wouldn't use the term 'evil'.


He ordered the deaths of millions of people. And he did have a very theatrical personality.


It's not a strawman, at least not on my end. You're trying to say playing an evil PC has nothing to do with evil, and that a cape and a silly sword are just too awesome to be truly evil.

I'm standing by my belief that your evil portrayal would fall into the category of 'silly'. At best.

-I'm not at all sure we even agree all that much about what evil is. Which is fair.

-It seems as if you're purposely being stubborn and refusing to admit that fiction authors make villain characters that are plainly different from real world villains. I don't know what I'm supposed to do then but disagree?

-Yeah you're only further demonstrating that you haven't been coming at the things I've said on their own terms.

"A cape and a silly sword are just too awesome to be evil" is incredibly trite and dumb and you're characterizing what I've said that way. That's a glaring straw man.