Do You Allow Evil PCs?

[Jupp]

I love evil PCs, especially if you can put them into a group that consist of neutral to good PCs. If the player is up to the task and you trust him/them then this can be become a mighty interesting campaign. Give the evil players a hidden agenda or a secret task they have to fullfill, then go to the neutral-good players and do the same. Now watch them circling each other like vultures...priceless roleplaying, i tell ya. And most of the players love this kind of playstyle because it asks for their constant attention to the plot AND the others in the group.

 

[irdeggman]

I voted yes, but it depends. . .

In 2nd ed I allowed an evil PC into a redominately good party. While the player who actually played the evil PC did an excellent job of not disrupting the party, the remainder of the group ended up playing witch-hunt (too much meta-gaming me thinks) and the party was so torn apart (even though none of them knew which PC was evil, in fact they were pinning it on a different PC whose player was playing extremely chaotic, but not evil, that I had to make two parties and run two separate groups/games within the same campaign. Far too mucheffort and caused a total breakdown in continuity.

Now in 3/3.5 things are much different. While 2nd ed promoted individual play (exp awards based on individual PC actions - which were often in conflict with the other PCs), 3/3.5 promotes teamwork. All exp awards (except for role-laying ones) are based on the team and split individually. This keeps the in-game backstabbing to a minimum (which far too often carries outside of the game, from my perspective). So if one player is running an evil PC and the rest are running good ones, things are fine as long as thePC work together. When they don't, well the entire party suffers but not gaining the exp they could have. A few sessions like that and the group learns quickly how to work together or they will not gain anything except the joy of "pissing" off the other PCs (and possibly the other players).

IMO it is important to lay the team concept of 3/3.5 out for the players before they create their characters and ensure they understand that unlike 2nd there are essentially no individual awards.

Personally I'm finding it harder and harder to define things in terms of good and evil within a game. Law and chaos are much easier, but good and evil tend to be a matter of the character's perspective. Maybe it's something I developed from playing Dark Sun (in 2nd ed) where good and evil was a kind of grey area - I guess that fits in with the Eberron way closer than others do.

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't have a clear restriction.

There's evil and evil however... evil in the sense that may hurt innocents for his profit (e.g. kill the bank clerk during a robbery) or that may not help friends and associates when it has a cost (IOW, coward) is acceptable.

Characters who purposefully hurt others for the joy of it, who are focused on "dangerous" topics such as torture, rape or truly depraved habits, or otherwise who are played by supposing they are constantly against the rest of the party, would be quite soon kicked out of the game, or outright banned in case they are known since the start. Just best not...

 

[robberbaron]

I find that immature people play evil PCs to out-evil everyone else.
Mature people consider what they do, their reasons for their actions and can accept that D&D is a "team game".

Evil PCs tend to find shared goals easier than good PCs. They agree to kill and steal for gain or revenge - good PCs kill and steal for varied reasons and can bicker about their motivations too much for my liking.

Evil parties might decide quickly to kill A, loot B then set C up for a nasty surprise whereas a good party will have a long, and often heated, conversation about what they should do first.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The first and best Third Edition game I played featured an evenly-split evil and neutral party. However, the caveat in that situation was that all of the people playing evil characters were experienced, mature roleplayers, bar one who didn't play her character as particularly evil in any case; so while the characters definitely committed vile deeds, it never descended into gratuitousness.

(My own chaotic neutral character was the one in charge of gratuitous grotesquerie, thank you, but that's what you get when you play an alienist.)

I would allow evil characters if I were sure of the player's ability to stick with the overall direction of the game - but any kind of character can be disruptive if the player is selfish about cooperating with the players or DM.

 

[Psion]

I put option #1. Really, my attitude is closer to option #3 ... if a player is in collusion with me or has a character concept that I think won't turn out to be just an excuse to butcher at will, I would consider allowing an evil character. As yet, it hasn't happened since 3e came out.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I voted for the depends on character concept and campaign.

I personally don't like evil campaigns or evil characters. It's not that there aren't options and challenges for them.

For example, one of my friends ran an all evil campaign where the party members were all agents of Zhentil Keep and were working to move up in that organizations leadership. They fought one another, Thayians and other evil factions. Pretty much the standard group.

At the end, the party of course turned on one another and many bad feelings were involved because everyone except one character were killed by each other. Lots of "we should re-roll this combat. I wouldn't have done that. This is nonsense." style complaining afterwards.

I've also learned that in a standard campaign, if I say heroic as a GM, I mean it. Too many times I've seen people use this to play slightly neutral characters who really don't care about the world setting or options and just want to mash things making it difficult for them to get along with the other characters.

 

[diaglo]

players are allowed to decide their own characters.

however, i warn them ahead of time that it may lead to party strife. and that their characters may be slain out right by the party.

usually this leads to the unwritten rule that all party members have compatible alignments.

but that is not the referee's decision. that is strictly the players' choices.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Sorry, no evil oout of me when I DM. I don't mind shades of gray, but out right evil to me just doesn't work. The characters end up betraying each other and things just spiral out of control form there.

If I want that type of campaign I'll DM Vampire, shades of gray and black with intricate back stabbing is the name of the game. But in DnD I want heros.

-Ashrum

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Yep, I do allow them, but campaing needs to be something they fit in. Also, there are some people I have (from experience) noticed you can't allow evil characters. Since, they are playing evil anyhow and actually having "evil" read in their character sheet makes them party-backstabbers and constant in-fighters.

Party in-fighting is ok only if it fits tha campaing and other players agree to it.

Otherwise it's going to be fun over very fast.