Thomas Shey
Legend
And this is relevant to the post you were replying to--how? The fact you're an exception is not something that changes the reason other people do things.
Piracy And Other Malfeasance
And this is relevant to the post you were replying to--how? The fact you're an exception is not something that changes the reason other people do things.
Voadam
Legend
Part of it is DMing a long term ongoing campaign, there is a lot of time spent roleplaying just being a person interacting with others. Even the psychopathic assassin who was the most cartoonishly evil torturer I saw with prisoners was a decent guy with his brother and long time adventuring buddies and he often kept himself in check when he felt vulnerable around powerful people.
As a player even when playing evil I want to be a group player, so my evil characters may be brutal or work for devils but they are part of the team. I had a lot of fun playing a lawful evil tiefling psychic knight dedicated to the LG triad knighthood as well as his LE archdevil grandmother in a Red Hand of Doom 3.5 game here, for example. I think his evil came across without being a caricature, as well as his being a big team player in the mostly good group.
Argyle King
Legend
After my earlier (some pages ago) questions about where shades of gray end and black begins, I had another thought that was influenced by others discussing how the game is marketed (and similar conversations about D&D elsewhere).
How dark do you prefer your evil?
There's quite a large gap between Dick Dastardly cheating to win Wacky Races and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen finding pleasure in physical assault.
Maybe a better question is to consider how much granularity you want in your morality. Are the black hats & white hats of a western movie good enough or do you prefer the complexities and shifting alliances of something like Shōgun?
For me, it depends upon my target audience. Game genre likely has an influence too. Running a swashbuckling adventure for children is something I would approach differently than if I were running a Dark Sun hexcrawl for some of my vet friends.
Which isn't to say that you can't run Dark Sun for kids; if I did, I would likely describe certain aspects in more-vague terms and "fade to black" much like how some movies handle implied things. I may do the same thing for a group of adults if neither myself nor the group felt the need to expound certain Shōgun?
My own preferences typically lean toward having some amount of granularity. "All orcs are evil" might be okay as a general rule of thumb for a short adventure, but I would find "most orcs are my enemy because they serve the BBEG, but individual leaders still have personal motivations" more interesting for a lengthier campaign.
Additional thoughts:
As a kid, I remember Cobra teaming up with GI Joe to oppose a drug cartel, so even a megalomaniacal leader (Cobra Commander) of a terrorist cell might have cause to be "good" under the right circumstances.
Given that this is in the general chat and not D&D, I think it's worth noting that D&D alignment often isn't how other games, movies, or stories do things. Certainly, there is value for using alignment as broad strokes to quickly categorize friend or foe.
However, I typically think more in terms of different factions (or individuals) having finer strokes that color in morals, beliefs, alliances, and enemies. This is something seen in many non-D&D games that I play: for example, GURPS has mental "disadvantages" to cover a sense of duty toward a group and includes things like "allies" that can be bought with points; Edge of the Empire (Star Wars) has -as part of creating a character- "obligation."
As well, video games such as Fallout, Skyrim, and even Baldur's Gate have more nuance in how exactly a character's morality plays out, and that influences how a character interacts with others.
TLDR:
How evil do you like your evil to be?
How much granularity do you prefer when it comes to painting morality?
How dark do you prefer your evil?
There's quite a large gap between Dick Dastardly cheating to win Wacky Races and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen finding pleasure in physical assault.
Maybe a better question is to consider how much granularity you want in your morality. Are the black hats & white hats of a western movie good enough or do you prefer the complexities and shifting alliances of something like Shōgun?
For me, it depends upon my target audience. Game genre likely has an influence too. Running a swashbuckling adventure for children is something I would approach differently than if I were running a Dark Sun hexcrawl for some of my vet friends.
Which isn't to say that you can't run Dark Sun for kids; if I did, I would likely describe certain aspects in more-vague terms and "fade to black" much like how some movies handle implied things. I may do the same thing for a group of adults if neither myself nor the group felt the need to expound certain Shōgun?
My own preferences typically lean toward having some amount of granularity. "All orcs are evil" might be okay as a general rule of thumb for a short adventure, but I would find "most orcs are my enemy because they serve the BBEG, but individual leaders still have personal motivations" more interesting for a lengthier campaign.
Additional thoughts:
As a kid, I remember Cobra teaming up with GI Joe to oppose a drug cartel, so even a megalomaniacal leader (Cobra Commander) of a terrorist cell might have cause to be "good" under the right circumstances.
Given that this is in the general chat and not D&D, I think it's worth noting that D&D alignment often isn't how other games, movies, or stories do things. Certainly, there is value for using alignment as broad strokes to quickly categorize friend or foe.
However, I typically think more in terms of different factions (or individuals) having finer strokes that color in morals, beliefs, alliances, and enemies. This is something seen in many non-D&D games that I play: for example, GURPS has mental "disadvantages" to cover a sense of duty toward a group and includes things like "allies" that can be bought with points; Edge of the Empire (Star Wars) has -as part of creating a character- "obligation."
As well, video games such as Fallout, Skyrim, and even Baldur's Gate have more nuance in how exactly a character's morality plays out, and that influences how a character interacts with others.
TLDR:
How evil do you like your evil to be?
How much granularity do you prefer when it comes to painting morality?
GrimCo
Adventurer
Depending on the game and people at the table. We rarley if ever go to R rated graphic depictions of evil actions. It's more implied and hinted. I gave some pages ago example of torture scene.
In Vampire games, evil goes very evil. You are monster after all. Specially if they play Sabbath. But, i run those kind of games with adults who are capable of handling that kind of stuff. Only rule is - no children. Anything graphic containing children is taboo and strictly forbidden.
Same with my Ravenloft or Dark Sun D&D (or any D&D since i run it more like Warhammer fantasy). It can get pretty dark pretty fast. Decent amount of PC would be prime candidates for Hague Tribunal. Again, no children. Burning orphanage? Ok, but it goes fade to black. I won't describe any of it.
What i don't allow is Chaotic Stupid. Evil for sake of evil. I don't mind evil deeds by PCs if they make sense in furthering their agendas. But plain stupid kicking puppies evil is a no go.
In Vampire games, evil goes very evil. You are monster after all. Specially if they play Sabbath. But, i run those kind of games with adults who are capable of handling that kind of stuff. Only rule is - no children. Anything graphic containing children is taboo and strictly forbidden.
Same with my Ravenloft or Dark Sun D&D (or any D&D since i run it more like Warhammer fantasy). It can get pretty dark pretty fast. Decent amount of PC would be prime candidates for Hague Tribunal. Again, no children. Burning orphanage? Ok, but it goes fade to black. I won't describe any of it.
What i don't allow is Chaotic Stupid. Evil for sake of evil. I don't mind evil deeds by PCs if they make sense in furthering their agendas. But plain stupid kicking puppies evil is a no go.
MGibster
Legend
One of the difficulties of talking about generalities in gaming is that games are so very different from one another. What's appropriate in Vampire or Delta Green might not be appropriate in D&D. But then other factors determining how appropriate the content of a game is depends on the participants as well as where the game is taking place. What I am comfortable playing with a bunch of adults in the relative privacy of someone's home might not be appropriate for a game day event at my local gaming store.
For me, this is as close to a blanket answer as I can get. In short, it just depends.
With respect, popularity also gives a proxy measure for how much they pleased the audience. And, broadly speaking, if the business is entertainment, that's a reasonable goal, even if money isn't involved.
Perhaps more important, though, is that your post was four words with no clear relevance to the rest of us. Is there something about your non-adherence to the broad trend that we should want to discuss? Is there a particular reason you didn't follow the trend that might be important?
So, this actually brings interesting questions to mind that would take some complicated surveying to figure out. Are there correlations between various demographics of gamer and the type of behavior seen at tables? Why did some of us see a lot of this, and others not?
Like, we'd at least to first guess expect depictions of evil lacking in nuance from players who are particularly young, because they don't have a nuanced view of the world overall, and their are still working on building their visions of the world. Giving a 14-year-old a place to "act out" may have such results.
But we can also consider how long that player has been a gamer, their playstyle preferences, the stated playstyle of the table, experience with other fiction, and so on.
I think that, lacking a real delve into the subject for data, ascribing the behavior to the game structure is jumping to a conclusion.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
A good inquiry and I couldn't really say. In my experiences there certainly was a bit of youthful mindedness to disruptive play, but I’ve seen it in adults too. Probably a combination of experience and expectation instead of a singular source.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Given that one of the player-facing classes in 1e (Assassin) had to be Evil, I don't think that houserule was nearly as common as you think prior to the Great Sanitization that was 2e.
Similar Threads
