Alignment change - Playing Evil

[AEtherfyre]

Evil means you are out to hurt people, and be a nasty bastard.

I'd disagree with that. No self respecting, intelligent evil person is going to actively and intentionally screw themselves over because they haven't inflicted enough pain in one day.

Evil is about being for yourself to the exclusion of all else - being actively malicious helps, but isn't necessary, IMO.

 

[Ave Rage]

One more suggestion - talk to your DM and find out exactly what he thinks CE is and what options you have with it. Without that information, none of the advice that we give (wonderful as it is ) is any good to you. If he thinks CE means that you must sacrifice 13 kittens at an altar made of human fat every evening, you probably cannot run the PC in this campaign. If he thinks (hopefully) that it is possible to run CE without being chaotic dumb, you're fine.

I'm pretty sure whatever you guys say (that's well put/thought out) he'll accept. We usually come here to read the debates over rules and such anyways. I showed him this thread after I made it and I think he liked the responses.

 

[Psyckosama]

Sounds like a lot of the suggestions are Neutral. Putting yourself 'number one' isn't evil, it's neutral.
Evil means you are out to hurt people, and be a nasty bastard.
He can be subtle about this, but after each session think about "What did he do that's really Evil, not just selfish?"

Magical alignment changes usually put the character to extreme alignments anyway. Playing Evil as Neutral with a tiny little bit of evil seems to be bad roleplaying.

Geoff.

I must disagree. Selfishness is a sign of both neutrality and evil. Neutral is just selfishness with some moral grounding limiting the extreams while evil is amoral selfishness.

 

[Ranillon]

I must disagree. Selfishness is a sign of both neutrality and evil. Neutral is just selfishness with some moral grounding limiting the extreams while evil is amoral selfishness.
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That depends on what a person is willing to do to be "selfish" if you ask me. If he is just as likely to do a "good" act as an "evil" one -- that is, he does only what's in his best interests >period< without concern to the moral implications either way -- that sounds like some flavor of Neutral. Mind you, not all neutral people are selfish, but someone who is Evil will go out of his way/get his jollies by performing acts of evil. A merely neutral (any flavor) may commit an evil act, but usually only as a means to an end. He won't actively promote evil for its own sake. By comparison, the evil character will receive satisfaction from evil acts and will therefore go out of his way to commit them (which is certainly NOT the same thing as saying he'll be stupid about it).

I do think it is possible for a person to be neutral or even evil (to a point) without being selfish per se. It is quite easy for anyone of any alignment to be selfish without consciously realizing it (that is, they tell themselves they are acting for "proper" reasons while remaining ignorant of the true nature of their own motivations).

 

[LuYangShih]

According to the SRD:

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.

As you can see, an evil character need not actively pursue the "cause" of evil. He may simply have no compassion, and act purely out of his own interests and goals. Selfishness can be extremely evil when expressed in this manner. If murdering thousands of innocent people to achieve his goals will result in a quicker or more effecient way of achieving an evil characters goals and/or plans, he will do so without any hesitation or remorse.

After all, what are they to him? Evil people generally view people not personally connected to them as pawns for their plans or pleasure, or nuisances and inconviences to be disposed of. Chaotic characters are very independent, so a CE character can be very difficult to play in a party of adventurers seeking to do good in the world. The only reason a CE character would do so is if he saw a great deal of profit or power to be gained from such. Try and work that into your characters motivations for staying with the party.

A CE character would likely refuse to acknowledge the authority of any of the other party members, and indeed, of the party itself. The only reason he would ever acquesiece to the rest of the parties desires is if he felt not doing so would result in a loss of power/profit, or endanger his own life. You should try and find a way to do this that will not result in you getting killed/kicked out of the party, but it may be hard, depending on the makeup of the rest of your party.

Just remember, even CE people can have friends, but it's likely they would dispose of those friends in a heartbeat if it gained them a greater degree of power, profit, or furthered their goals. It would be difficult to play such a character, as I said earlier, but it can be done.

 

[greycastle]

Well, if anyone has read "Elminster, the making of a mage"

they'll 1, see how much of a dork Ed Greenwood is

but also for example, how the 'evil' king in the story, forget his name now, while he didn't actively cause pain to this people, he did nothing to stop it, and still increased it more, by taking pretty lasses away from their family, killing them many a time, as he bit their necks for blood *shudder*. Just because your evil, doesn't mean you have to do it yourself.

High some poor thug to stage a 'foiled' attack, and then as an illusion, return as that same thug and desimate the group of peasents with a fireball

Evil never lies...no wait...um....damn....

 

[Darklone]

Yihhaaaaa!!! Alignment debate!

Another possibility of chaotic evil is to have someone who is stronger than you and keeps his eyes open ...

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Along the lines of some posters here portraying a more neutral selfishness as evil (which I agree is happening here) I think that there is also a general side-lining of the importance of the chaotic part of the alignment.

An evil character who keeps agreements, is loyal to his comrades, etc. is a lawful evil character, not chaotic evil. Lawful is to be ordered, and to honor rules and restrictions, even if you use them to selfish or evil ends (such as extracting a vow from a paladin under false pretenses). Chaotic is to give such things no value. Chaotic characters are not bound to keep thier word unless it suits them on the particular day. Nor does authority have any special meaning to them.

I can imagine playing a lawful evil PC in a good party. One need merely have an agreement with the party that the evil PC will honor and the other good PCs are comfortable with. I find it much more difficult to envision a chaotic evil PC working out.

It's not so much the evil or the chaotic by themselves, but the combination that makes it crash and burn. I advise you to avoid the headache this will become (and the better you roleplay, the more likely it is to be a problem!) and scrap the PC now. If you really want to do the evil thing, make your replacement PC lawful evil.

 

[Winternight]

FIrst of all you have to discuss with your GM about his POV.

Then think of the guards in the KZ's most of them were nice husbands and caring fathers, but @work they tortued inmates.

Another point is,
you don't have to kill babies, but you'll do if it either suits you or serves you.
Evil is often the easy way - you don't take prisoners 'cause it's easier to kill them.

You won't attack your party, why you don't gain anything from that with them you got to level 10 (or what ever) they helped you, they are usefull tools.
maybe you can try to tempt them. That would be evil doing. (see my threat http://boards.wizards.com/community-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=272;t=000948#000019

 

[AEtherfyre]

I must disagree. Selfishness is a sign of both neutrality and evil. Neutral is just selfishness with some moral grounding limiting the extreams while evil is amoral selfishness.
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That depends on what a person is willing to do to be "selfish" if you ask me. If he is just as likely to do a "good" act as an "evil" one -- that is, he does only what's in his best interests >period< without concern to the moral implications either way -- that sounds like some flavor of Neutral.

Eh. With no moral grounding whatsoever, they're neutral? I'd ... disagree with that. Greatly. By that definition, a man who is willing to massacre hundreds or thousnads of innocents to gain power is neutral, so long as he doesn't enjoy the experience. The demon summoner who sacrafices virgins to dark gods is neutral, so long as he's not getting anything other than power out of his actions.

I know that that wasn't what you're trying to say - but what I'm saying is that the above is what being self-centered to the exclusion of all else means. If either of the above two characters also did their best to keep their image in their community up - rescuing kittens, defeating invading armies, or any other thing that helps the community with their own intrests in mind - would that make them any less evil? No malice, no benevolence - just a complete lack of any type of moral restraint in what they'd do to gain power, or anything else. To me, that's evil.