How to Evil Properly?

[Imaculata]

Some of the best villains are those that have good intentions. Someone who wants to protect his people, or sees no other option than to do what is necessary. Sometimes a villain is just someone where the end justifies the means. Sometimes the villain simply inspires others around him/her to do wrong, and does not stop it.

A villain through incompetence can also be interesting. A villain who does not mean to do evil, but does so because he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions (for example, Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park). A villain who is single minded and only cares about himself. A villain who feels wronged in some way, and does not see the collateral damage he causes as a result for his need for revenge. The key to a good villain is motivation. The more relatible their motives, the more compelling they are.

That said, I would not recommend ever running an evil campaign. But if you do, the first thing I would focus on is how the player characters are supposed to work together. A party of evil characters must have something in common, in order for them to work together, and there has to be some level of trust among them. It would help if they have a common goal. Perhaps they were all wronged by the same person and are trying to get revenge regardless of the consequences?

In my current campaign I have an evil necromancer npc, who works together with a good aligned party. They all know she is evil and that she invokes sinister magic that is generally frowned upon. But they also know she is loyal to them, and will follow orders. She is a reasonable person who just so happens to have less moral bounderies, which can be occasionally helpful. They know that she is a reliable ally, but they also know she has her own agenda. She will seize an opportunity for bloody vengeance against those who have wronged her, if given the opportunity. The party occasionally uses her bad reputation and creepy appearance to intimidate their foes and avoid a direct fight. I think this is the sort of evil character that can work well in a party (be it an evil or a good party).

 

[Bilharzia]

I'm not a d&d player so I don't use alignments, but the idea of an "evil campaign" sounds like a recipe for a bad experience with bad players who are unpleasant people, I have run across a few of these types. The closest I would get to that I think would work is a game along the lines of "The Black Company" setup - where the characters are working for the bad guys, and perhaps naively aren't aware of it at first, and may change sides down the line.

 

[DammitVictor]

Arya Stark, Frank Castle, Carol (TWD) etc are all examples of this trope.

Hannibal Lecter was Will Graham's best friend until he tried to kill him with a putty knife-- in his mind, he still is, despite the fact he knows he can never trust Will again, and he understands why Will can never trust him again. He lacks remorse or regret for his actions, but he feels sadness for their necessity and their consequences.

In the end, he knew it was either him or his best friend. In the end, he chose himself-- after years of risking his life and his reputation for his best friend's sake. Nothing else short of absolute necessity would have led him to do that... and even though he's angry about losing that battle, and the years of his life it cost him... Hannibal takes every opportunity he can get from his prison cell to play with Will, but I don't think he'd deliberately hurt him again unless he felt he had to.

 

[atanakar]

Sometimes players claim they want to do an evil campaign then you deliver and you slowly realize as time passes that they are more and more heroic and soon they are no longer evil but fighting for the good side.

It happened to me. Players wanted to play badass evil guys. I propose a pirate setting. After few games I could see they didn't have the stomach to play evil badasses. Soon they became privateers for the crown and started chasing and sinking other pirates. They were having fun again.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think the best way to play it is to set aside alignment for a bit and apply some bad traits to the character. Maybe they’re selfish. Maybe they’re cold and uncaring. Maybe they’re disloyal. Maybe they’re bloodthirsty.

Think about what you want and then give the character those traits and play them accordingly. Having goals for the character certainly helps. It helps put things in perspective about what’s most important to them.

The problem that I’ve seen come up most for folks playing evil characters is that their goal seems to be “be evil” and it’s utterly dull and it goes nowhere. And very often, these characters can’t work well with a group....which can pose a problem for a game with more than one player.

Look to fiction for examples of characters who we would classify as evil, but who also had some redeeming qualities, and who could cooperate with others and who could be loyal and so on.

All of this. @hawkeyefan has the right of it.

No one just decides to "be evil". Because what is or isn't "evil" is a majority opinion of an entire society so "being evil" isn't actually a thing. Instead, you have personal beliefs or personal desires that you carry out that the rest of society is okay with, or which has decided is "evil". So there are no "evil campaigns"... instead, there are campaigns where the adventurers who have gotten together are making choices to do things that other people within the game world would consider to be bad or "evil".

Decide what your character believes in and what your character wants... and then decide the reasoning for why they are doing it with a group of other people. Then once you all know why you are working together, how you all go about getting those things that your characters want will categorize your characters and group as "evil people" or not.

What you write on your character sheet means nothing. How you actually behave is the determiner as to whether you are good or evil.

 

[billd91]

I think the best way to play it is to set aside alignment for a bit and apply some bad traits to the character. Maybe they’re selfish. Maybe they’re cold and uncaring. Maybe they’re disloyal. Maybe they’re bloodthirsty.

Think about what you want and then give the character those traits and play them accordingly. Having goals for the character certainly helps. It helps put things in perspective about what’s most important to them.

The problem that I’ve seen come up most for folks playing evil characters is that their goal seems to be “be evil” and it’s utterly dull and it goes nowhere. And very often, these characters can’t work well with a group....which can pose a problem for a game with more than one player.

Look to fiction for examples of characters who we would classify as evil, but who also had some redeeming qualities, and who could cooperate with others and who could be loyal and so on.

There's good advice here. Evil characters risk devolving into caricature and that tends to be detrimental to a decent game. If the cannibal dwarf is so anti-social that he runs around burning down orphanages, that's a real irritant to the game (real game experience here) and the player is probably just being a jerk.

But if you play a bit more subtle, you can have a winner. For example, we played Paizo's piracy AP - Skull and Shackles. Most of the PCs were CN, but I played NE - and having a character with a high charisma, I put in my bid to be our captain when we succeeded in gaining our own ship. I figured that being a pirate captain took a bit more of a predatory attitude and ruthlessness in some decisions - but I also wanted to build a particular rep. So, my take on the character was to be good to his crew to build loyalty, be merciful to opposing crews who surrender, but be absolutely ruthless to ones who did not surrender, particularly the officers who made the decisions to fight on (lashed one to an anchor and sent him down in front of his men). I figured that having a rep along those lines would encourage defeatism among enemy crews. In the end, it worked reasonably well - I had good crews and good recruiting pools for more sailors among surrendering crews.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, my most recent gaming session made me think of this thread.

We’re playing a short D&D adventure meant to be a few sessions long and then complete. It ties into our ongoing campaign, but is very much a side story. It involves one PC going on what is essentially a suicide mission. So rather than risk his friends, he assembles a crew of criminals to do the job. Think Suicide Squad or The Dirty Dozen.

So the PCs are all pregens made by the DM, and they’re all varying shades of “evil”. They’re mostly pirates of one sort or another. People who steal and pillage for a living.

So in the first session, we fought some evil priests (of Orcus, I believe) near a crossing of the River Styx in the Shadowfell. In doing so, we liberated a small group of prisoners they had. These were all priests and/or paladins of benevolent deities. They’d all faced some kind of hardship and were in bad shape.

So one of the players says “Let’s get rid of them” and another agrees. “We’re evil, right?” he says.

My character is a rogue, and has been designed to be a negotiator. Why throw away a commodity? Why do something vile without gain? It made no sense to me. At worst, why wouldn't we just sail away on the Styx and leave them to fend for themselves?

So I spoke up. I said my character unchains them, gives them some rations and water, and some basic comfort. Some first aid to bandage wounds and so on. No healing magic or other meaningful resources, but enough to get them comfortable.

Then I got what information I could from them. They shared a couple of details that may come in handy, and were more willing to do so because I showed some kindness.

So then the Ferryman showed up and we needed to go. We had enough funds to buy passage for our party plus two. So I gauged which two of the prisoners might be the most help, and we brought them with us. We left the others there with the gear from the defeated cultists.

Now we have a couple of hireling/henchmen types to help us on our mission. What happens to them is not really something I see my character caring about beyond their usefulness.

This seemed relevant to me as an example of the caricature of evil that we often see in play (“let’s kill these good guys cause we’re eeeevil”) and a more nuanced approach (“what can I get from these people”).

 

[payn]

I think it is really important to consider how societies in the game world view evil as has been mentioned. I also think it has huge implications as to law and chaos, but ill stick to evil for this post. If I am playing an evil character i'm going to look to the world around me. Are you part of an openly evil society? Then, overt and obvious evil actions are going to be expected. Though, if you are evil in a society that is hostile to evil actions, you need to be smart about it. That means not stealing everything in sight, or kicking every puppy, killing everything in your path etc.

I think the same goes for the adventuring party (especially is you have a mix of good and evil PCs). If you are all ruthless pirates at sea and everyone is on the same page, then anything goes. That means kicking your fellow PCs puppies and trying to kill them are par for the course. If you are members of a good society openly evil actions will attract adversity and roadblocks (to say the least). In this type of group attacking the fellow PCs will be unproductive. You may have to get clever about how your evil PC is going to do their thing in this situation.

You may ask why would an evil PC live in a society or join a party that limits their evilness? Well, evil can be quite destructive and good quite protective. A clever individual may use the protections of a good society while pursuing their own means. That means compromise, which I know is something that doesn't seem like evil, but it can be.

Honestly, I think the most interesting games are those of the mixed varieties. The best fiction chains a paladin with an assassin. For some reason fate has bound their paths and they must work together. How do they manage to achieve their shared goal together? Who will change whom? The longer the ride the more interesting the story, imo.

Sometimes a black and white game makes things really simple and enjoyable too. A friend of mine loves doing vampire meets John Wick type games. You are either vamps or vamp hunters and you just go around laying waste to your enemies. Shoot first and who cares later. This can be a really fun change up (albeit one i prefer to only last a few sessions tops ymmv.)

I think the expected morality of the game is just as important as the type of setting. This is something that the GM and players should work out together before the game starts. This will greatly impact what it means to properly do evil.

-Cheers

 

[GMMichael]

I think the best way to play it is to set aside alignment for a bit and apply some bad traits to the character. Maybe they’re selfish. Maybe they’re cold and uncaring. Maybe they’re disloyal. Maybe they’re bloodthirsty.

Are you saying most PCs are evil?

Maybe @Fauchard1520 would like to specify which "evil" he/she's referencing?

Christian evil: breaks commandments, related to or influenced by the Devil

D&D evil: an inherent quality, like a taint, that is objective and usually involves hurting others

Popular evil: doing actions most people would find disagreeable

Selfish intent (personal favorite): being evil is being self-serving. Like, luring unwary forum goers into a webcomic, or a free RPG...

 

[aco175]

We do not play evil in my games, but you could look to movies for inspiration and model them. There are warlords like Darth Vader and Sauron. Some are more obsessed and single focused like the girls in Misery and Fatal Attraction. There are manipulators like the warden from Shawshank or Jafar. I'm sure there are more types that I'm not coming up with.

I would also look to the 2nd tier bad guy and not just the in your face evil like Joker. I would be more like Eddy Brock and Venom where I would be a tortured soul and try for good, but have outbursts. That is more CE rather then LE which fits better in a party.