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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tectuktitlay" data-source="post: 6822057" data-attributes="member: 82812">Ok, but people are flat out saying that having ANY evil characters in a campaign at all is a deal-breaker. When many evil characters not only fit, but add a lot to a campaign, even a campaign that saves the world from BBEG. It's actually a really common trope that someone who is evil is part of the team, most people even get along with smashingly, but when push comes to shove they are flat out evil. Some people play LG or LN characters like what I would consider a LE character to be. That LG paladin who has zero problems engaging in genocide on a village of orcs or goblins? Because he considers their entire species to be evil, period, so the lands much be purged of the foul beasts? Those are sentient beings, living life in ways quite similar to early bands of humans, caring more about the health of their own tribe than anyone else. That doesn't actually mean they deserve genocide, and a LG or LN character who engages in that behavior is being evil. The kind of evil that leads to horrific atrocities that history does not look kindly upon in the real world. So when people say having ANY evil characters in a campaign at all is a deal-breaker, that is, in my experience, ruling out a lot of very apropos heroes/anti-heroes. People who make the world a better place for selfish, evil reasons. Secret agents. Assassins. So many other archetypes that can easily be both evil, and still make the world a better place with their actions, as twisted and evil as those actions might be. Considering how many adventurers regularly engage in genocide? In wiping out many, many tribes or bands of people living in ways very similar to members of their own species, or how their own species used to live? Or who regularly go out and slaughter animals out in the wild to such degrees that really, they would be collapsing ecosystems with the kind of bloodshed they are engaging in? I love seeing campaigns where an elder council of orcs ends up engaging in diplomacy with a nearby city of humans, and describes the horrific atrocities PCs are committing on their people, and formally requesting aid, or sanctuary. Because a lot of the actions taken by GOOD player characters are evil, evil, evil. It often really is in the eye of the beholder. Perspective is everything. While it's perfectly fine to have "evil PCs" as a deal-breaker, and I won't actually tell anyone that's not ok, it is perfectly valid to let them know that hey, evil people actually serve the greater good successfully quite often, and make for fascinating characters. Throwing them out entirely is akin to tossing the baby out with the bathwater.</blockquote>

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