Evil & Good PCs working together

[TheAuldGrump]

Well there's pragmatism and then true evil, Auld. I mean it wasn't like you ENJOYED killing him for no reason.

I suppose it all depends on what extent the ends justify the means. If you torture the bad guy for information then it is still evil in my book, even if it allows you to further the ends of good. (I.e. rescue the jolly old toymaker from evil Baron Middenheap...)

The Auld Grump

 

[Nightfall]

Well I'm about .002% on the ends justifying the means. So if you killed an evil person, even if you were supposed to let him live, I can semi-live with you not being evil, but certainly far from good.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Auld Grump, mind you, if the party Good Guy ever finds out what happend to the evil Baron Middenheap then it could go badly for our pragmatist...

Great name!

/yoink

 

[Meloncov]

My current game has one evil charecter, with the rest split evenly between neutral and good. There haven't been any problems so far, as they are fighting for the survival of the human race. The good charecters fight to save humanity, the neutral charecters fight to save the people and things that they personally care about, and the evil charecter fights out of desire for vengance.


There have been a few debates about means, but in most of them, the uber-Lawful Samurai was the dissenter, not the evil charecter.

 

[IceFractal]

What gets me is that if you asked "Could a LG knight and a CG ranger work in the same party?", most people would say they could. In fact, most people would say that a LN monk could work with a CN barbarian. But ask about good and evil characters in the same party and it's not uncommon to hear "it'll never work", or at least "expect trouble" (although this thread isn't too bad in that regard). Good/Evil parties can work fine, as long as they have a goal/purpose that isn't exclusively good or evil. Such as, for instance, protecting a kingdom. The good character is doing it to keep the people safe, the evil character is doing it to gain recognition and noble rank, but they're both working towards the same end, and could very easily be doing that together.

 

[Umbran]

I couldn't disagree more. What you are describing is suggestive of an addict, as if an Evil person will start getting "the shakes" if he goes two or three days without kicking a puppy or something. IMO, Evil can be much more subtle than that.

I am not sure what Stalker0 meant. I meant, effectively, is that Evil is what Evil does - if you don't do evil things, you don't remain Evil.

Alignment is supposed to be the result of your activities. So, if you don't act, you don't hold the alignment. If an Evil character restrains himself, he will eventually become Neutral. Same goes for Good - if you don't fight the good fight, you don't deserve the title.

FWIW, I've played Evil characters who worked alongside Good PCs with no problem whatsoever. Once, I had it in mind to play an Evil character in a group that believed it was "impossible" for Good and Evil PCs to work together, so they banned Evil PCs. I wrote "Neutral" down on my character sheet and then proceeded to play him exactly like a Neutral Evil character. No one ever noticed the difference.

What this says, to me, is that you and your DM had different ideas of what constitutes "evil". You played what you felt was Evil. But your definition, or what's written on the sheet, isn't the final judge - the DM is. DM didn't think you were evil, or didn't care, or he'd have called for a change on the sheet. So, my first guess is that you were not nearly as Evil as you thought.

 

[Umbran]

What gets me is that if you asked "Could a LG knight and a CG ranger work in the same party?", most people would say they could. In fact, most people would say that a LN monk could work with a CN barbarian. But ask about good and evil characters in the same party and it's not uncommon to hear "it'll never work", or at least "expect trouble" (although this thread isn't too bad in that regard).

I think this is basically because in most player's and GM's minds, the Good-Evil conflict is more harsh and important than the Law-Chaos conflict. Good vs Evil is about people getting hurt, and everyone has a good handle on that. Law vs Chaos is a bit more slippery, and is a theme less thoroughly probed by our fictions and entertianments.

 

[SMDVogrin]

I think it very much depends on the group. If you've got a good group, that really roleplays, and can work out in-party problems without massive PC-on-PC killoffs, then it can make for a really fun group. If your group is not particularly good at resolving such problems without an NPC-less TPK, then you're not going to have much fun.

My previous group was a really good one. We had a couple players that would occasionally play evil characters (or otherwise non-group friendly types), and we generally managed to work them in and have fun. It led to some really good roleplaying moments.

On the other hand, you have my latest D&D group. Our GM wanted to run an Epic campaign, and asked us to come up with characters independant of each other. I didn't know what anyone would be playing, so I made up a fairly neutral guy who could get along with pretty much anyone - a mercenary general/cleric of the Goddess of Strategy. He tended good, but could deal with pretty much anything as long as it was done intelligenly.

Come game day, and the other two characters were introduced: a very goody-goody Elven archer-wizard-something, and an unrepentant Red Wizard of Thay. Being played by Players who, frankly, didn't score well in social skills. Yeah, THAT lasted about 4 sessions (my character finally ended up killing both after being driven batty by the stupidity of their repeated attempts to kill each other).

The Players definately make the game if you're trying something like this.

 

[WayneLigon]

What gets me is that if you asked "Could a LG knight and a CG ranger work in the same party?", most people would say they could. In fact, most people would say that a LN monk could work with a CN barbarian. But ask about good and evil characters in the same party and it's not uncommon to hear "it'll never work", or at least "expect trouble" (although this thread isn't too bad in that regard).

That's because few people are going to come to blows over their approach to order or disorder, but will kill each other over the good-evil axis. they may argue about it a lot; having a strongly lawful and strongly chaotic person in the same party can be a heck of a lot of fun for that reason. I couldn't give a fig about the difference between a law-and-order type and an anarchist but if I saw someone do something genuinely evil I'd at least turn them in if I couldn't stop them myself.

Such a party can work but it's difficult; there would have to be some interesting circumstances involved (The evil guy is from the only bloodline that can do X, or we need someone pure of heart to get us past the Y -- but that only works until you don't need that person anymore.. ), but sooner or later there's going to be trouble. Eventually the evil guy is going to do something the good one can't ignore/rationalize. (Or the Good one will -- "Benny.. did I or did I not tell you to whack Ginolli's kid?") Now, if there is a great power disparity between them he may not be able to do anything about it, but he'll be working at cross purposes to the evil guy in hope of bringing him down. Or he'll just leave.

 

[Mallus]

I have to ask, why do these debates get bogged down in discussions of the respective characters? The characters are fiction, their players are fact. This has nothing to do with the characters and everything to do with the people playing them.

Players (including the DM) who agree to work together to make the game enjoyable for all participants can make any alignment combination work. The real question is "Can the players respect each others character choices, and find ways to enjoy the game that don't come at the the expense of others doing the same?"

The choice to work together and respect other people's choices is made first and foremost by the people playing the game. Everything else is secondary, and in the worst-case scenario, its players hiding behind their characters alignments/ethoi. Either you spend energy rationalizating ways for the group to work, or you do the opposite.

Let me say it again. It's not about the characters.

The game I currently run started with an elegant, aristocratic samurai, a flith-covered, insane, homeless street-shaman, an arrogant, bigoted, pyromanic alchemist, and an actual would-be hero. A recipe for campagin self-destruction, right? We're just around the two-year mark. It worked becuase the players were willing. If the players wanted to find reasons for their characters to behead, incinerate, and otherwise not work together, I'm sure it wouldn't have been difficult. Of course, the campaign strains credulity with some regularity, but find me a long-running D&D game that doesn't.

(You can read about their exploits in the Story Hour in my sig.)