Ampersand: Wizards and Worlds
- Thread starter evilbob
- Start date
I think that the majority of DMs ban Evil characters not because the game is "Default Good". I think the majority ban evil characters because players use "I'm Eeeevil!" as an excuse to be an ass at the table.
Just like many DMs don't like Chaotic Neutral for that very reason.
The main culprit is the use of alignment as an excuse for party backstabbing and plot derailment.
And that's not limited to CN/EVil. Everyone here, I'm sure, has ran into one guy who plays Lawful Stupid, much to the detriment of everyone else at the table.
Jasperak
Adventurer
Is the game implying the the act of making a deal with the devil is not evil? I don't have the book in front of me.
1. Yes. The pact you forge is a path to power, and what you do with it is your choice.
2. Technically, its not a deal with "the devil." There is no "the devil." It is a pact with some nebulous infernal source of power that is left to individual campaigns to define, or to ignore. It could be a grand pact for your soul, or it could be that you've simply bound yourself to infernal energies, and now you can control them. This is not the sort of thing that the game dictates.
3. This is the same way that a great many fantasy novelists have had magic function. Its where we get the archetypal Imp familiar- a wizard in many fantasy universes might bind a demon to him, controlling the demon in order to benefit from its power. The demon may be evil, but using its power isn't.
Jasperak
Adventurer
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
pawsplay
Hero
Absolutely. I've also known DMs to ban Lawful Good for the same reason.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
None of which bother me, as long as it stays in character. As DM, if they want to backstab - or frontstab - each other it's fine with me; as a player, I'm more than capable of holding my own if-when things get rough within the party, and expect the same from others. As for plot derailment, that *should* be a non-issue; no plot ever survives first contact with the characters anyway and as long as they're having fun, who cares?
Lane-"CN for 25 years and counting"-fan
That's the important part.
It's not fun for me when someone is intentionally screwing the game over. As a DM or player, I don't want disruptions. Period.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I get thoroughly annoyed at out-of-character disruptions e.g. hour-long arguments over what toppings to order on the pizza. But in-character "disruptions" e.g. an in-party brawl aren't disruptions at all; to me they're part of the game, every bit as much as exploring the Ruins of Ruination is...as long as it stays in character.
As DM, I don't have a pre-set time as to how many sessions a given adventure will take; I long ago learned the folly of that. A recent adventure I ran that I thought might be done in a couple of real-world months took more than twice that long (largely due to party infighting and bad luck), while another that I thought would take quite a bit longer took less than a month mostly because the party got captured where they shouldn't have. ::shrug:: Hardly the end of the world...
Lanefan
And to me it's not.
If one character wants to spend a Real-time hour peeping in other's windows and running away from the party, that's an hour of MY time wasted. If the character wants to stab random people in town and set houses on fire, and get the entire party hauled into jail, that's a waste of my time because he's being an ass. If a character wants to make fart noisees while everyone else is trying to stealthfully infiltrate some place, that's a waste of my time trying to play the game. If a character wants to stand up in the middle of a ball and urinate on the Duke's shoes, getting us thrown out, that's a waste of my time to get us in in the first place. If the character wants to run several rooms ahead to alert the monsters and drag them back to us, that's a waste of my time. Bringing in a mime with the hiccups to a Call of Cthulu game is a waste of my time of the game's atmosphere.
I've had too many games fall apart because one person's "Character" had no reason to stay with the group.
"Because I'm in character" is no excuse for ruining the fun of the other people at the table. And if that's the individual being "in character", then my character is going to kick them out of the damn party at sword-point and go on without them, or slit their throat in their sleep.
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