Legatus Legionis
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How to Evil Properly?
- Thread starter Fauchard1520
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Flamestrike
Legend
The Hound baulks at (indeed actively rebels against) family, honour and tradition (the big 3 cornerstones of Lawful). He literally hates everything (including himself). He will cut a mans throat for a meal, or a place to sleep for the night.
He's CE. Not the 'dialled up to 11' moustache twirling genocidal baby killing sadistic rapist CE of his brother, but CE nonetheless.
He has one redeeming quality though; he has genuine empathy for people in whom he sees something of himself (abused and abandoned children let down by the system). He takes first Sansa, then Arya under his wing under those circumstances
Being CE he tries to teach them how to survive by being CE like him (trust no-one, honour and family mean nothing and will just get you killed, the world is a terrible place, and mercy and compassion mean nothing and will get you killed). Its this empathy that ultimately serves to redeem him away from CE (in the latter parts of the TV show in any event).
His tutelage is (partly) responsible for Sansa and Aryas slide away from Good (Arya ends up LE, and Sansa LN) but he all but recants his teachings to Arya in the penultimate TV episode.
Flamestrike
Legend
CE protagonists can be loyal, but they are generally only serving out of fear of their masters or until such time as they can betray them safely (Darth Vader and pretty much every Sith), serving because it puts food on the table and is beneficial to them (the Hound, the Mountain), or serving out of genuine friendship (Titus Pullo, HBO's Rome).
Try to avoid the Starscream or Joker of CE insanity and team killing, and you'll be fine.
I'm not textbook Chaotic Evil, but I'm somewhere near the CN/CE border. (Do not @ me about how "nobody really believes they're Evil"; I know me better than you know me.) I love my friends and my... well, my friends, at least, and I'm loyal to them. I have a code of honor, in that my friends and my foes alike know where they stand with me, and I always keep the promises I make to them, for good or ill. Especially for ill.
I have a very strict, uncompromising Chaotic Good moral philosophy. I want to be a Chaotic Good person, and I want to live in a Chaotic Good world. The problem is that if you give me the choice between helping good people and hurting bad people, I know which choice is morally correct and I'm still going to choose the other one every single time.
If the other heroes are trying to overthrow an oppresive regime, uproot an infernal conspiracy, or keep alien horrors from eating the universe, I get to be a hero. If they're trying to protect a legitimate regime, on the other hand, they're probably protecting it from me.
I have a very strict, uncompromising Chaotic Good moral philosophy. I want to be a Chaotic Good person, and I want to live in a Chaotic Good world. The problem is that if you give me the choice between helping good people and hurting bad people, I know which choice is morally correct and I'm still going to choose the other one every single time.
If the other heroes are trying to overthrow an oppresive regime, uproot an infernal conspiracy, or keep alien horrors from eating the universe, I get to be a hero. If they're trying to protect a legitimate regime, on the other hand, they're probably protecting it from me.
Darth Solo
Explorer
It's how your PC deals with situations. They can be charming and funny, like the characters in Goodfellas, but when they're "doing their business" or someone crosses them, things can get ugly in a hurry.
They can have a family and friends they love, mainly because those people don't judge them (unless they get out of hand). Back at Goodfellas, look at Joe Pesci's character, "Tommy": he's a cold-blooded killer, but he's also a hilarious jokester you wouldn't mind hanging out with.
Evil is all in the means.
Party needs info from a non-compliant NPC? The good guys might try Persuasion or offer a favor. The bad guy introduces the NPC to the Intimidation skill. A town is having bandit problems? The bad guy might try to join them and steal the stolen stuff back, or just take over their organization (for the greater good).
You don't necessarily have to "act evil". Actually, acting like a friendly, good guy works fine ... until it's time for the teeth to come out.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I play in an all-evil party in one of my games. There's a few tricks to it - to not ruin the game, to keep everyone having fun, and to avoid cliche.
The first thing is to think of your character as a real (or real-ish) person. What makes them evil? Often it is all about their faults. Selfish. Manipulative. Power-hungry. Etc. But to make a 'real' person, they can't be only that. Balance their good traits with their bad ones, with the bad ones being bad enough to make them overall evil.
To keep the game from falling apart, you just need to make sure, out-of-character, with the other players, that anything you do in the game to show your "evil-ness" is not going to annoy anyone. You can even betray another character, if that character (and the DM) on onboard as to how it will work, and what good it will do for the story.
Some examples:
My Human Valourous Bard. He's an orphan who was so alone as a child that he is obsessed with being loved and admired. He only thinks that he cares about people back. He has a hero complex (he motivates the party to follow the adventure, because it will make them look good, not because he actually cares about the 'saving the innocent'. He's not very self-aware. He really thinks he's a good guy.
The Halfling Rogue. He's a dirty little psycho, really, but he loves his friends. He plays cruel tricks on them to get their attention. He has no understanding whatsoever of the pain he causes, He'd be sad about it if he understood.
The Aasamar Wizard. This guy's all vanity. He's the smartest guy in the room, and he knows it. His main motivation is for power, and he's aloof. He also finds violence reprehensible. (All his spells are control, not damage).
The Genasi Swordmage. He came from a society where slavery was legal. His family were big-time slavers. He might actually be nicer than most people he grew up with, but his values are just... wrong.
There's more characters in the party, but you get the point. They are all friends (in particular everyone is friends with the bard, who always finds ways to keep the peace, and to spin any acts of evil so that the party overall seems like heroes. I don't think any of them think of themselves as evil.
But they are.
The first thing is to think of your character as a real (or real-ish) person. What makes them evil? Often it is all about their faults. Selfish. Manipulative. Power-hungry. Etc. But to make a 'real' person, they can't be only that. Balance their good traits with their bad ones, with the bad ones being bad enough to make them overall evil.
To keep the game from falling apart, you just need to make sure, out-of-character, with the other players, that anything you do in the game to show your "evil-ness" is not going to annoy anyone. You can even betray another character, if that character (and the DM) on onboard as to how it will work, and what good it will do for the story.
Some examples:
My Human Valourous Bard. He's an orphan who was so alone as a child that he is obsessed with being loved and admired. He only thinks that he cares about people back. He has a hero complex (he motivates the party to follow the adventure, because it will make them look good, not because he actually cares about the 'saving the innocent'. He's not very self-aware. He really thinks he's a good guy.
The Halfling Rogue. He's a dirty little psycho, really, but he loves his friends. He plays cruel tricks on them to get their attention. He has no understanding whatsoever of the pain he causes, He'd be sad about it if he understood.
The Aasamar Wizard. This guy's all vanity. He's the smartest guy in the room, and he knows it. His main motivation is for power, and he's aloof. He also finds violence reprehensible. (All his spells are control, not damage).
The Genasi Swordmage. He came from a society where slavery was legal. His family were big-time slavers. He might actually be nicer than most people he grew up with, but his values are just... wrong.
There's more characters in the party, but you get the point. They are all friends (in particular everyone is friends with the bard, who always finds ways to keep the peace, and to spin any acts of evil so that the party overall seems like heroes. I don't think any of them think of themselves as evil.
But they are.
3catcircus
Adventurer
Check out Way of the Wicked for some ideas. It was a 3.x/PF adventure path for evil PCs and did a decent job of it.
The big thing is limiting the PCs to LE (or NE). The CE complete psychopath doesn't work too well - they're just all over the place. The thing with LE characters - most of the time they don't see themselves as committing evil acts. The evil is subtle, well-ordered, and with plans in mind. The pirate isn't stealing, he's feeding his family and plans just one more big score. The scientist is trying to save everyone from the coming zombie apocalypse fortold by the legends of yore - if a few beggars and orphans need to be snatched up and experimented on, its for the greater good. Your PC is running slaving operations? Well - those people snatched up didn't look busy to begin with and it'll give them something to do. The market is dictating the demand for slaves, otherwise you would find another line of work. Let's not get all wrapped up in semantics about selling them to people who aren't paying them and forcing them to work for them. The mayor forbidding the practice of magic except by those few individuals wealthy enough to pay the annual licensing fees and who promise to establish an institute of higher research? Its for the good of the people - we can't have the uneducated accidentally fireballing a church. Never mind that the licensed establishment has designs on the surrounding resources and has a ton of dirt on the mayor.
Basically - pick any headline in modern society and you can adapt it for use during an evil campaign.
The big thing is limiting the PCs to LE (or NE). The CE complete psychopath doesn't work too well - they're just all over the place. The thing with LE characters - most of the time they don't see themselves as committing evil acts. The evil is subtle, well-ordered, and with plans in mind. The pirate isn't stealing, he's feeding his family and plans just one more big score. The scientist is trying to save everyone from the coming zombie apocalypse fortold by the legends of yore - if a few beggars and orphans need to be snatched up and experimented on, its for the greater good. Your PC is running slaving operations? Well - those people snatched up didn't look busy to begin with and it'll give them something to do. The market is dictating the demand for slaves, otherwise you would find another line of work. Let's not get all wrapped up in semantics about selling them to people who aren't paying them and forcing them to work for them. The mayor forbidding the practice of magic except by those few individuals wealthy enough to pay the annual licensing fees and who promise to establish an institute of higher research? Its for the good of the people - we can't have the uneducated accidentally fireballing a church. Never mind that the licensed establishment has designs on the surrounding resources and has a ton of dirt on the mayor.
Basically - pick any headline in modern society and you can adapt it for use during an evil campaign.
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3catcircus
Adventurer
I would put Titus Pullo in the CN or maybe even CG category. Definitely gets into a lot of messes (and gets himself out of them), but he does have a moral code (of sorts). Oh, he's definitely a problem and completely reckless, but everyone he killed was out of a sense of justice. His value system isn't "don't kill people." It's "don't kill people who don't deserve it."
hawkeyefan
Legend
Not really. He became a killer for hire for a while after the wars, and it landed him in big trouble.
Then in season 2 he killed the guy that was going to marry the girl he liked.
I know it’s hard to think of him as evil, he was such a likable character. But he did some brutal and unnecessary stuff at times.
I think that ultimately, he’s a great example of why alignment sometimes is useless when examining characters. No one’s always lawful or always evil or always good. Instead, they may trend certain ways, but most people are at least a little of every alignment.
Flamestrike
Legend
He's a hired killer, who openly admits to multiple rapes, murders a rival love interest by bashing his head into a pillar repeatedly, brutally tortures and then murders a guy for no other reason other than cuckolding his best friend, murders a man for cheating at a game of dice with him, etc etc!
And that's just the first season!
Quotes by Titus Pullo:
''I have simpler tastes. I like to kill my enemies, take their gold and enjoy their women. That's it.''
''Now, your best method of pleasing a woman is the warm, beating heart of an enemy. Oh, women say they don't like it, but they do!''
Chaotic Good? Chaotic Neutral? The dude is as Chaotic and Evil as it gets!
He's a likeable guy, and he's genuinely loyal to Vorenus, but he's clearly an evil murdering, rapist torturer who (by his own admission) enjoys violence, killing and taking women by force.
