Evil PCs?

[painandgreed]

Never really had an issue with it. I make the player's decide if it is a cooperative game or competitive game at the start (meaning, "do you allow backstabs between characters?", they always have chosen cooperative) just so all player's are working with the same understanding. In all my experience, evil PCs are much less disruptive than a paladin even when in good parties.

 

[AuraSeer]

For example, have you ever had an encounter between party members as the "good guys" find a bad guy in their midst?

In my current campaign I play the single Evil PC in a party of Goods and Neutrals. My warlock started out LE-- kind of a selfish prick, but nice to his friends, and willing to follow orders when appropriate. He since got hit with a magic effect that turned him into a sneaky, murderous, sadistic, Chaotic Evil bastard. Some of our most fun RP has been the noncombat "encounters" as the other PCs began to suspect his new alignment.

It hasn't come down to intraparty combat yet, because we all still need each other to survive, but things are getting remarkably tense. Most recently, we had to break one of the NG clerics out of prison, and he got kind of upset when the warlock went out of his way to kill some War1 guards who presented no threat.

I expect that one round after the BBEG goes down, the party will immediately turn on my PC as the next most dangerous target. I'm looking forward to it as the capstone of a long and complicated campaign. With a moderately lucky set of dice rolls, I might even survive.

 

[Desdichado]

We've got one out and out evil PC in our campaign (and then there's his cohort too.) We have severel others who are neutral. We only have two good PCs.

It depends on the group, I guess. We think it's fun to be rather selfish and mercenary. And heck; even the evil PC is going to find the Age of Worms a harrowing experience, so we've got built in motivations for him to adventure with the rest of us.

 

[Lanefan]

I've had occasional evil PC's* in my games pretty much from day 1. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't...but the same can be said for non-evils too.

Some have been subtly evil...the hidden assassin functioning as a thief, or the PC that pockets a bit of whatever treasure he finds before showing the rest to the party...while others have been more blatant, to the point of attacking other PC's etc. Me, I let it all go, knowing the players/characters will work it out among themselves; but then, I'm also quite willing to wait while the party fights among themselves - it doesn't matter to me as DM whether they get to the adventure this session or next.

* - evil by choice, rather than curse or similar.

Lanefan

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

Did you try declaring his character evil and taking it away from him?

I was going to but then two of the others players said that he always ends up Evil and laughed. I realized at that point that they were as much a part of the problem as the offending PC was. Four of the original seven players were friends who played in another game and apparently found it fun for the one guy to play Evil characters. The two players who had started the campaign with me had already dropped from the game for a number of reasons. What's bizzare is that one of the four friends was playing a Paladin but he had no problem with the Evil guy doing his thing behind his back. Kind of a 'don't ask don't tell' kind of paladin. Overall not an experience I wish to ever repeat.

 

[Janx]

There is an implicit assumption that we can trust each other to play the game by the rules and that the PCs can rely on each other to do their part for the team. There isn't time to roleplay out how a party comes together or even to reject a party member.

+1000

It is inherently easy for an evil PC to join the party, because the unsuspecting players always allow the new player to join the party. If this was a REAL adventuring company, they'd do interviews, background checks, alignment checks, etc. And they'd have the implicit right to refuse membership. D&D parties don't get this opportunity, thus it is stupidly easy for someone to betray the party.

Oh yeah, I just finished playing in a session with old friends, where a player lost his sheet, made a new PC, joined our party, and poisoned our wine which poisoned the king we were rescuing. That was not fun. Particularly as I was playing the paladin, and the PC passed my "Detect Evil" scan with no special items (he was neutral, supposedly). Since he was playing the thief, none of us had good spot numbers. The result was a walk in the park for a party betrayal.

I hate that crap. It wasted 6+ hours of gaming to accomplish a goal, only to discover you were screwed over by your friend. And technically, our PCs still haven't figured it out. The game can be hard enough, don't need fellow players helping the bad guys.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I've never allowed Evil PCs in my mainstream game, but I have run all-Evil-PC mini-games before (more of less as a for-the-heck-of-it sort of game). My players have generally enjoyed it.

However, one of the things that I've always intended with those games (but had few opportunities to do) was have the effects of the evil PC's actions be felt by the main PCs in the game. It was the Evil PCs who killed and slaughtered the contact the PCs were to meet (and they did it weeks ago, making good their escape); it was the Evil PCs who harmed &/or killed the loved ones of the PCs; it was the Evil PCs who helped frame the PCs for treason; etc.

In other words, I try to make sure the players' PCs have a good reason to hate the Evil PCs. Of course, after the end of the mini-campaign with the Evil PCs, I boost them up a couple of levels, mod their stats to reflect more adventuring since the last session (new items, maybe levels in a PrC, etc.), & then sic the Evil PCs (now NPCs) on the players--no holds barred.

 

[Rothe]

I've never had players want it so no problem in my own games.

I've turned down games where the "goodest" alignment was neutral.

In my younger days too much expereince with I'm CN /CE so I can be a jerk to you out of character types.

Now in my advanced age, the implications are too disturbing to me. To me, evil means having no compunction about hurting innocents (e.g., children) for your own gain. As a father, the very thought just sickens me. A DM can make sure such situations never come up in game but that doesn't take away that this is part the credo of evil.

I consider the honorable mafioso fiction to be more LN, when they start beating up the mom and pop shop owners because they won't pay protection money that's evil. I can't help but imagining a child asking, "Grandma why are you crying and your arm broken?"

Finally (as you can see I don't take the word evil lightly), I view the SS of Nazi Germany as the perfect example of LE, well organized and they considered themselves honorable or so I've read. Perfectly "reasonable" if you agreed with them.

So LE always conjures up the image of the SS. And that cojures up the image of one of my first girlfriend's "uncles" who had the little tatoo from the camps. He was rounded up as a small boy and was the last one from his family alive. I can't shut out of my mind what that would be like for my son, so I can't just pretend it's OK to pretend to be LE.

 

[atomn]

If my gaming group wanted to try out an all evil campaign, I'd give it a shot. But I prefer playing a hero (at least Neutral, usually Good). That said, in a party with some Good and some Evil characters I don't understand how the party would ever stay together. Unless the Evil characters are so adept at hiding their evil doing that the Good characters are completely unaware that they're evil, it makes no sense why the Good characters would continue to hang around with them. I'm not saying that the Good characters would want to bring the Evil ones to justice or kill them because they're Evil. But I think it's a stretch of suspending disbelief for the Good PCs to continue to associate with someone that they know is a bad person.

 

[Seeten]

I have played many evil characters and all have been fairly successful. I did engage in some "pvp" when I was young, but had the other pc ressurected immediately, and apologized to the player.

I like lawful-evil as an alignment, as it fits in, and I dont favor heinous acts at all, they are vulgar, and unnecessary. No rape, nothing gross, it isnt necessary either. In fact, I'm likelier to kill the rapist. LE characters have friends, stick by their friends, and work well with others. I am not into pvp, I am not into disrupting groups.

Maturity is the key, as many have said. Young kids in it to play the serial killer who wants to kill everyone obviously dont play nice. They arent the "Gentleman Assassin" or Genteel Knight, who have a nice smile, and ruthless heart, they are driveby shooters, raving madmen, and not the sort of people to run in a group. These same groups have bizarre heroic characters, also, by the by.