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<blockquote data-quote="Sepulchrave II" data-source="post: 8581174" data-attributes="member: 4303">This is a strange thread. Although it's in the &quot;General&quot; forum, the language of the poll is couched entirely in terms of D&amp;D, so it seems appropriate to approach the question in those terms.&quot;Evil&quot; - in the sense of alignment - is a label which we attach to our characters at creation, which is either demonstrated or refuted (?) during the course of play. The reason that I add the (?) after &quot;refuted&quot; is that evil may act as potential - always on the threshold of manifestation - and the great literary reveals of evil are in those moments when it is suddenly made clear that that which you thought was wholesome and good, is, in fact, corrupt and abominable.This momentary reveal - in terms of a story's arc - would seem, to me, very hard to maintain in the sense of a character's subsequent behaviour; unless he or she can in insert themselves into a new group or scenario which is oblivious to their previous wickedness, and which can then be the target of their next betrayal. Perhaps evil characters are best suited to solo games - something Cugel-esque, maybe. Otherwise, you are inevitably left with a kind of pastiche or caricature: the final episode of The Black Adder - The Black Seal - springs to mind, where Edmund recruits the &quot;six most evil men in England.&quot;In the alternative scenario, where characters engage in what we - inhabiting modernity - might describe as psychopathic behaviour, we can't avoid asking the question of why the player would want to represent themselves in this way. I think that player issues around ineffectualness or powerlessness seems a reasonable conclusion.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sepulchrave II, post: 8581174, member: 4303"] This is a strange thread. Although it's in the "General" forum, the language of the poll is couched entirely in terms of D&D, so it seems appropriate to approach the question in those terms. "Evil" - in the sense of alignment - is a label which we attach to our characters at creation, which is either demonstrated or refuted (?) during the course of play. The reason that I add the (?) after "refuted" is that evil may act as potential - always on the threshold of manifestation - and the great literary [I]reveals[/I] of evil are in those moments when it is suddenly made clear that that which you thought was wholesome and good, is, in fact, corrupt and abominable. This momentary reveal - in terms of a story's arc - would seem, to me, very hard to maintain in the sense of a character's subsequent behaviour; unless he or she can in insert themselves into a new group or scenario which is oblivious to their previous wickedness, and which can then be the target of their next betrayal. Perhaps evil characters are best suited to solo games - something Cugel-esque, maybe. Otherwise, you are inevitably left with a kind of pastiche or caricature: the final episode of [I]The Black Adder[/I] - [I]The Black Seal[/I] - springs to mind, where Edmund recruits the "six most evil men in England." In the alternative scenario, where characters engage in what we - inhabiting modernity - might describe as psychopathic behaviour, we can't avoid asking the question of [I]why[/I] the player would want to represent themselves in this way. I think that player issues around ineffectualness or powerlessness seems a reasonable conclusion. [/QUOTE]

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