Evil is cool

[Kzach]

Or so the designers seem to think so.

Lately I've been making a lot of divine characters up and it seems that whenever I look for a domain or divine feat for them, all the coolest, most powerful ones are for evil deities only.

Even the most benevolent At-Will, Astral Seal, gets the most love from evil domains. What's more, a lot of the benefits can hardly be considered evil. Temp hit points, save penalties, attack bonuses, etc.

As someone who refuses to play evil characters, I find this incredibly frustrating. Especially in LFR where you can't simply approach a DM and say, "Look, this feat is awesome and really suits my cleric, but it's for evil only deities, can we fudge something?"

Is it just me or do WotC employees all prefer the dark side of the force?

 

[EroGaki]

This is not limited to 4E; I notice that the most interesting and useful spells and prestige classes in 3E were evil most of the time. There is a saying in our group: The Gods (the designers of the game) favor evil.

I feel your pain; I like my characters to be heroes, and nothing is more frustrating than seeing all of the evil powers/spells/prestige classes/feats getting the most power. It is almost like they want you to be evil.

 

[avin]

Nobody on my groups like to play zealots/heroes. We mostly ignore alignment on 4E, focusing on roleplaying (you are what you roleplay) so that really don't affect us.

In fact, I would say that is quite the opposite: 4E designers love GOOOOOOOOOOOOD vs evil, to the point of making metallic dragons unaligned, preventing us to fight "good" creatures.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I think 4E is very much good vs EVIL, and I like it that way.

As for favoring Evil, I just do not see it. Some good prestige classes were for evil in 3.x, to be sure, but the baddies needed some love so the goodies would have an appropriately scary baddie to beat down.

 

[Kzach]

I think 4E is very much good vs EVIL, and I like it that way.

As for favoring Evil, I just do not see it. Some good prestige classes were for evil in 3.x, to be sure, but the baddies needed some love so the goodies would have an appropriately scary baddie to beat down.

Ah, but in 4e you don't need any PC-based stuff for the NPC's or monsters. So all this evil flavoured powers are for evil-flavoured PC's.

 

[Dice4Hire]

How in the world will one do evil parties withthe super simplistic

You
Allies
Enemies

division of the world in 4E?

Allowing evil PCS to choose allies as enemies and vice-versa round to round would be a total mashup, though I suppose evil PCS could do a lot with powers that target creatures........

Still, 4E is probably less made for evil PCS than any edition I have seen.

 

[Garthanos]

I like playing good guys who wear dark hats.... that break the stereotypes, turn the dark against itself and for me that is cool. In real life I like order which defends freedom rather than preventing it.

 

[Rechan]

It's also possible to play good worshipers of evil gods. Or at least unaligned worshipers. I imagine the gods are less clear cut black and white, and have relatively useful/non-Snidely Whiplash tenets.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Or so the designers seem to think so.

Indeed. It starts with the races in the PHB. Well, one in particular. Is there even an equivalent in there - an 'Aasimar', by whatever name? No.

And, as you say, it does not end there. But this is not a marketing approach limited to 4e. Unfortunately (IMO) it's all too common, in a number of fields.

Not that the very possibility is necessarily a terrible thing, mind. The way it saturates certain things, and the way it's primped and pimped, however. . .

 

[Celebrim]

Yes, I feel your pain as well.

There are several things that create the problem, and I hope that none of them are as blatant as the designers think that evil is cooler than good (although, in some cases in RPG design, this was actually the problem).

When you write from a DM perspective there is a natural tendancy to want to make the villains, cool, awe-inspiring, fearsome, and 'bad'. And sense you are the DM, you can do whatever you want. You can start violating the normal rules that enforce: 'Thou shalt not be good at everything'. Also, when you are creating NPC's or rules and abilities for NPCs, there is a natural tendancy to not worry so much about balance because all the stuff you are creating is for the NPC and well, the game is balanced against the NPC anyway so it doesn't matter if you give the NPC abilities you'd never consider giving PCs. In 1e this showed up as the NPC class, which in 1e often didn't mean 'a lousy class to give NPCs', but rather a brokenly powerful class to give only to NPCs because it had powers that would be game breaking in a PC's hands. But all this tends to create the perception that 'evil is better than good'.

Couple this with some typically confused understanding of what alignment means like, "Evil is the best alignment because you can do whatever you want." and sterotypes like, "Evil always wins because Good is Stupid.", and it is quite common to find tables were playing evil characters is the default way to play.