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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 4605037" data-attributes="member: 49613">I allow characters of any alignment, as long as the players observe the rule that the party is supposed to basically get along and work together... but if they want to work together for woe rather than weal, so be it.There are a couple Evil characters in my Empire of the Petal Throne game. They are, however, impeccably lawful (which is not an official alignment in the game... merely an adaptation necessary to avoid the impalement stake). For example, they met a talking stone face (a satyr-faced old man) in the Underworld. It turned out that this enigmatic creature possessed information that the party desired, but the price he demanded was a suitable female (for an undisclosed but obviously dubious purpose... he had some rap about "you wouldn't understand", etc.). A bargain was struck and it was upward and off to the slave market for the evil band, whereupon they purchased some unfortunate for the deal (they even checked her teeth). Despite her futile hysterics, the poor slave was forced at spearpoint by the party into the creature's stony maw, never to be seen again.Evil? Yes. But the Tsolyani culture accepts slavery and human sacrifice as lawful and proper (now, it's also true that objectively speaking they're horrible and wrong... but the Tsolyani would undoubtedly punish that opinion as impious... this happens in real life, too; viz. Socrates). And the party was careful to honor their bargain to the stone face, and it honored its bargain to them. All was done, in the eyes of the law, with propriety and respect. The Good characters in the bunch (only a couple were present that day) might have disagreed, but there was no crime committed and ultimately they probably wouldn't see it as that big a deal (after all, practically everybody in that society accepts that slaves are routinely discharged as so much chaff).It's clearly evil to be violently anti-social, but not everyone who is evil is violently anti-social (all horses are animals but not all animals are horses). Evil characters can get along with others and obey the law and even be treated as heroes. It's just that they're cold-hearted sons of biscuits who don't place the proper value on human life. There are a lot of people like that.How many people that you interact with on a daily basis value their own well-being over another person's life? Probably a lot of them. Those are the Evil people you know. They generally don't spring at you with sinusoidal daggers shouting "Cthulhu ftagn!" or twirl their waxed mustaches while chaining purehearted lasses to the railroad tracks. They're still Evil, though.</blockquote>

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