Playing at Evil: Consequences of an Evil PC

[Sound of Azure]

Good point. It's the main reason I felt a bit funny about it.

Trouble is... it's about the only concept he plays. I guess it's irrelevent now that the particular group has disbanded. *shrugs*

I'm usually fine with PC on PC stuff in game, so long as it doesn't ruin the fun of other players, and become some kinda ego trip.

 

[sckeener]

I don't allow evil PCs in my games. I don't like that others play games in that fashion, but it's their game, as long as it doesn't spill over into mine.

Simply put, what's the point? Turn on the news, get your belly-full of evil, then go be the hero in the game. I also restrict CN because - as someone said about evil, that is the alignment to try and avoid consequences. Well, there are consequences... Maybe not alignment, but trust, legal, etc. to your actions in-game or out.

Sorry if I sound preachy, I don't understand the desire, so it makes me shake my head and wonder when people want to be the one killing people off for sport.

Do you put your hero players in situations where there are moral choices? Such as having to kill innocents to save lives or what to do with the orc babies after killing their parents or what to do with their own babies from the local wench?

I see playing an evil PC as an embrace of the consequences. In real life, those consequences would be potentially life-destroying. In a game, you can see the whole thing play out.

Exactly. I think more people play heroic [non-evil] games but never have any moral issues really come up or at least nothing that is traumatic. I use to be considered a killer DM, but now I am just a mean DM. I think it is because I go for the pain before the kill now. To quote BtVS
D'Hoffryn: Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain

Personally my favorite type of evil is the type that is normal for everything (LG) except for one small (CE) POV such as viewing X as human and Y as not human. Religious Zealots are perfect for this role. The whole kill’em all and let god sort them out mentality.

Of course I had a fun time in Dark Sun playing a halfling ranger with humans as his favorite enemy. The party was all elves with one half-giant and thri-kreen. I don’t even think I was evil in that game….Dark Sun is nice that way and it was 2nd edition. It was fun eating humans and sharing with the Thri-kreen. My halfling blamed humans for all the ills in the world. Hard to say he was evil after all the Halfling’s in Dark Sun ate sentient beings and I only ate the ones I fought.

Then there was my anti-paladin who had wives and kids. He had to defend them against all the heroes of the world that would try to kill them just for existing. They were all monsters as far as the heroes were concerned. He was evil because he expected the heroes to see how good he was, but he didn’t return the favor.

 

[pawsplay]

He's 100% right. So's the rest of the group. It's perfectly fine for the rest of the group to say, "That's nice, but we're tired of that concept. Play a different one."

Then I guess he won't mind when the CE guy gets tired of his character's stupidity and snaps his neck.

 

[Wik]

I like playing good guys. Usually, I wind up trying to play the "tough, but with a heart of gold" type, and then realize that I'm *still* much nicer than the rest of the group, so I just drop the "tough" facade.

In one game, set in Dawnforge, we were talking about characters. I started, and said "Hey, I have an idea for a Tiefling Wizard" thinking I'd get to be the "evil" (more neutral with evil leanings) guy in the party. Rest of the group went "hey, Dave's being evil" and took that as their cue to play evil characters. So, once again, with my EVIL PC, I was the nicest in the group.

*sigh*

When we were running our good-aligned group (I had a neutral good rogue, there was a lawful good cleric, a lawful good monk.... and a chaotic good scout), we came across a scene where some bandits were raping a villager while they set fire to her house. This sort of graphic portrayal (and the GM's depicting of it, which set such a thing in a "light" tone) really bothered me, and I just chose to drop out of the encounter as a mild form of protest. So, Yeah, I don't really like being exposed to evil, and when it happens, I'd rather it be "off-screen".

 

[kanithardm]

My main discomfort is the playing through the details of the actions (torture, and humiliating acts), instead of glossing over it.

But thats the whole point of being evil. I mean I would know, Ive DMed this kind of stuff. Its really fun for the players.

 

[sckeener]

we came across a scene where some bandits were raping a villager while they set fire to her house. This sort of graphic portrayal (and the GM's depicting of it, which set such a thing in a "light" tone) really bothered me, and I just chose to drop out of the encounter as a mild form of protest. So, Yeah, I don't really like being exposed to evil, and when it happens, I'd rather it be "off-screen".

Yeah that can be hard to judge. Sounds like something to discuss with the DM though.

I once had to DM a group that 1/3 of the party wanted fluffy bunnies Anime and 1/3 wanted graphic over the top descriptions. There was no middle ground. I either had to run an xbox game rated E or run a detailed M rated roleplaying heavy game. I was bad. I knew curiousity would get them, so I agreed to give graphic handouts to all that wanted them. In the game I basically just glossed over it making it an E for everyone game...though I did have trouble making it more xbox like. I like roleplaying. I really didn't have that much happen during the game that was over the top...

It was sad for one of the players (part of the 1/3 over the top descriptions.) The scenes most complained about were written by a player as part of her backstory. She wrote it and I approved. Picture a worse version of Abu Ghraib with female prisoners run by Shar priests.

heck, I can remember one of the fluffy bunny anime group was disturbed by a dungeon adventure which had gnoll skulls hanging outside the hut of a good 'witch'...that wasn't even an addition of mine...another time they were disturbed when I described the inflict wounds spell as feeling the flesh melt under your fingers....(and just recently I saw that in an old Goblins comic)

in the end I'm just not sure it is possible to please all the gaming group all the time. That inflict wounds spell was just one instance in a 10 hour game, but I got to hear about it for the next 4 weeks. It is like watching the first Indiana Jones movie and harping on the last scene where the bodies melted and then exploded when the ark was opened.

 

[sckeener]

My main discomfort is the playing through the details of the actions (torture, and humiliating acts), instead of glossing over it.

But thats the whole point of being evil. I mean I would know, Ive DMed this kind of stuff. Its really fun for the players.

Nah, that kind of stuff isn't for everyone. If it has to happen and the players want graphic, then it should be either handled away from the table or by dice rolls, so as to not offend everyone.

 

[Mallus]

Sorry if I sound preachy, I don't understand the desire, so it makes me shake my head and wonder when people want to be the one killing people off for sport.

Catharsis. The joy of acting out. The fun of temporarily --and fictionally-- acting outside the bounds of ethical society. Operating on pure id for a few hours a week/month in a completely safe game-space.

Look how much money the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series made by offering players that kind of experience (though, arguably, it was as much the structure as the antisocial content of those games that appealed to people).

Or consider the success of gangster movies/fiction, where the audience is meant to indentify with a crimimal protagonist and thrill to their exploits as much as they're suppose to cheer when the character is eventually brought to justice.

Besides, most PC's, regardless of alignment, are essential amoral, homicidal maniacs (and graverobbers to boot), so acting outside the scope of conventional morality is part a parcel with the core game experience.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

A followup: The consequences of my own evil acts.

The character I am playing at the moment is most certaintly an evil character, specifically a Changling Rogue in an Eberron game. I try to keep from derailing the game to any signifigant degree, and have no problems with going on typical good adventurer type quests (ie: Find out what happened to the body of a local man).

My character is working towards an unusual goal. I am trying to create the impression that there is an ancient evil cult called the Unholy Order of Dagon (No, not that Dagon, I just stole the name because its easy for me to remember) which has existed for a very long time. Of course, this Cult is in no way real. It is fiction. Pure bull plop.

(truncated)

So to spread word of this cult, I have been attributing every evil and mysterious act that I can to this cult, and scrawling the symbol in places where it might be appropriate. I have even written up scrollls describing unholy rites, and desecrated dead bodies and abandoned temples with the Symbol of Dagon.

A followup to the above, warranted since it deals directly with the consequences of my characters actions.

In the previous game, while investigating a tomb amidst some ruins, I desecrated both a body and a temple. I had also used my changling abilities to pose as a preist. Todays game dealt with the consequences of those actions. In that game, shadows had started appearing and attacking us within one day of the acts of desecration.

First off, within 2 days, the number of undead attacks had increased a great deal, with Ghouls, Shadows, and Ogre Zombies wandering about causing carnage. The powers that be within the kingdom of Thrane sent a team to figure out what happened. They managed to connect the acts of sabotage to my character through interrogating an outgoing PC, and showed up to arrest me, and dragoon our adventuring party into cleaning up the mess I had made.

After returning to the tomb and undoing the worst of the desecration, my character and the only surviving long time companion of my character (the other players had swapped out their characters for new ones that they liked better) were given tickets on the next lightning rail out of Thrane, and instructed never to return. While on the train, we were drugged, thrown off the train in the middle of nowhere, and robbed.

Therefore consequences of evil acts, in this case, were to have our money stripped away and to be exiled from Thrane.

Quote of the night: "Ok, so just because I am a changling in a kingdom with racist tendencies against my race, have impersonated a priest of the religion of the ruling theocracy, and desecrated a tomb which lead to the dead waking and killing many citizens of this kingdom, I am facing a potential death sentence? That is so unfair!"

In any event, a good time was had by all. And within D&D, as long as everyone at the table is having fun, there is nothing wrong with playing at Evil.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[rgard]

Hi all,

I just wanted to post my thoughts, and was wondering if others have had similar experiences.

<SNIP>

Hmmm. Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on a bit and getting this off my chest.

It sounds like a fun campaign.

I'm currently playing a Fallen Paladin of Freedom, Ur Priest, Wizard Mystic Theurge (AL = NE) and it is hard sometimes to do the evil thing to keep in character. Aside from Vile Lightning Bolts every session, the character has rarely done some real evil. Once picked a fight with an NPC drunk so my PC could kill him with her sword and check the last requirement for Spell Sword. And once cast a blade barrier in the middle of a battle with the intent that one PC (just about all the PCs are evil and the one targeted had killed a party member) on the wrong side of the barrier would be separated from the rest of us and killed by the NPC horde...worked just great, he died. Accidentally caught a second PC on the wrong side and he died as well...didn't lose too much sleep over that.

It's funny, I can always think up some new evil thing to do, but rarely follow through. I guess those dwarf children are safe from heart removal for the moment.

Thanks,
Rich