Evil Characters?? Whats your take.

[Li Shenron]

They have to understand that I don't run stupid NPCs so if they are going to be evil, they need to be a smart about it or they will get caught and delt with. I give them enough rope to hang themselves with.

...

One thing I don't really like is players working against each each other. THat can really destroy a game and a gaming group easier then many other incedents. So, it takes the right people in the right mind frame with some basic understanding of what evil is going to be allowed for it to work right.

Same as you. I don't like disallowing options, but usually the first reaction from players when allowed to be Evil is "I can do what I want", and expect an easy time. Reckless dangerous people don't last long in any community tho, so they either correct they behaviour or be prepared to face serious trouble (and I have less remorse in causing trouble to an evil party than a good one ).

So usually I suggest to play non evil, explaining that it's not an easy task to RP interesting evil PCs. To tell the truth, it's not easy either to RP Good characters well...

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Many players get the wrong idea about evil. At worst it is a lame excuse to be destructive and act out weird criminal fantasies. If I thought someone wanted to be evil just to be disruptive or to have an excuse to whack another PC, then no way.

On the other hand, if the characters mutually decided that they wanted to play a tight knit group like something out of the Sopranos, realizing that 'evil' could include loving your wife, helping people who you like and merely willing to cast aside morality to get the job done, then that is an interpretaion of evil that could be kind of fun to play in as well as be the GM for. But this corny idea that evil characters simply have to run around tying damsels to train tracks or worse, stabbing their waitress in the eye, just seems like it would take over the game as opposed to merely holding a worldview as they play out the adventures or interact with teh campaign world.

 

[Thanee]

My take is simple. No evil PCs. Period.

Bye
Thanee

 

[shilsen]

And evil characters aren't protagonists -- it's a contradiction in terms in the grammar of story -- they're impediments to the hero. An evil protagonist succeeding in the story and reaping the boon would represent the power of the cosmos being bestowed on someone who represents its negation. It's lexically meaningless.

Only if you assume the cosmos is a good or benevolent one. If you assume a malevolent or even amoral cosmos, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with evil protagonists. And even in a good cosmos, having absolutely no evil protagonists would be fairly silly, IMO. And having evil protagonists who succeed is just as true to human history as having good protagonists who do the same. Or maybe I'm just a cynic

 

[MonsterMash]

My group rarely want to have non good or netural PCs and alignment doesn't tend to play a big part in the campaign. The Wilderlands setting I use has the classic Sword and Sorcery feel of being fairly amoral where power tends to justify itself and slavery is common.

As a DM I do have evil NPCs of various types, but the PCs tend towards good actions (apart from killing monsters and taking their stuff).

 

[azmodean]

I told my group I would be running a game and asked what they were interested in. The unanimous resonse was Eeeeeeviiiiiiillllllll!. (A big part of this was, I think, an evil campaign I tried to run a few years back that failed due to logistics) After some more discussion we determined the theme should be world domination. The only limit I place on their behavior (aside from naturally occuring consequences of actions) is "don't kill PCs unless they're possessed or something". It's been great fun so far. (look for my story hour,"Tyr must pay!", once I get my background stories from all of the players)

One thing that has been overlooked in this thread thus far is the mechanical differences between good and evil players. My evil party consists of a pair of death knights, a necromancer cleric, a weretiger, an assassin, a ghost/sorceror, and a shaper... kobold. Many of the abilities possessed by this party are not available to a good party. In adition, since the party is veeery evil we are also using the BoVD more or less as a core book, including sacrifices, trapping souls, binding demons, vile spellcasting, vile power compnents for spells, torture, etc... The group is also having fun building their dungeon, they put forth a staggering amount of money for their level (60,000 gp/lvl 10) to have the place enlarged and trapped.

There are several plot hooks falling into place for dealings with the devils of Carceri (Nerull is the official patron god of the party) And I'm looking foward to running some blood war based adventures.

On the other side of the screen, I get to play good-aligned creatures and NPCs in a combat role, which I haven't had much opportunity to do previously. All around it lets everyone involved explore a different side of the game from a mechanical point of view, whatever your moral view iof it is.

As for the "silly villans" problem, what is the problem there? If they're stabbing people at random, there are consequences and they either learn not to do it or learn to do it in a way that they won't get caught. And I'd absolutely love it if someone in the party tied a hostage to some train tracks that'd be a riot. (of course, if my party did that, they'd kill the target, animate them as a zombie, put some nondetection and alter spells on them, and then tie them to the tracks in such a way that the hero would have to go through a lot of trouble to rescue them only to find out that they are dead already... then the party kills them.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, WoTC has Champions of Ruin coming out soon for playing evil characters in a FR setting and we did have several books like AEG's Evil and WoTC Book of Vile Darkness.

I can see the appeal but have seen too many games breakdown as the party decides that it's best to kill each other instead of playing the game.

 

[AuraSeer]

We allow evil PCs as long as they don't disrupt party unity. (We players find killing monsters to be more fun than real-life arguments.) In practice, that tends to mean LE only. A CE character would be totally unbelievable as a trustworthy ally. A NE character might be allowed, but only with a very strong backstory to explain why he's so loyal to the other PCs.

My group is mature enough that no one uses evil alignment as an excuse for gleeful stupidity or gratuitous mayhem. Some evil characters are even quite pleasant, to the people they like. Their bad side comes out when dealing with NPCs, especially enemies. These are folks who might be willing to kill a captured enemy in cold blood, but they don't mistreat the household servants, and like anybody else they love their friends and family.

I guess you could say that evil alignments are allowed, but melodramatic eeeevil "bad guys" aren't.

 

[clockworkcrab]

I could also note that my group has had many more problems with Chaotic vs. Lawful PC conflicts than good vs. evil PC conflicts. Generally I find the good vs. evil conflicts are over what the goal of the group is, which can be finessed by a DM and the players by clever use of backstory and outside events.
The chaotic vs. lawful conflicts tend to focus more on methods to accomplish this goal. It's tough for a DM to help avoid these conflicts unless he lays down a big fat railroad, which I do my best to avoid. Thus you get major conflicts like "should we kill this dangerous prisoner, in case he escapes later" or "is it okay to break into a (probably) corrupt person's house to look for evidence", both of which were major dustups between the LG and CG members of the party.

 

[the Jester]

I usually have both good and evil pcs in my groups. Friendship can easily transcend alignment; I'm a good guy (imho) and I am or have been friends with several people that I would describe as evil in dnd terms. (One old artist friend is CE, one old military friend is LE.)