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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bryan Vining" data-source="post: 373193" data-attributes="member: 7628">Evil is as evil doesInteresting topic, and one that is sure to stir up debate, eventually.  If we don't watch it, it'll become one of those alignment discussions (yikes!)Anyway, my personal view of evil in the real world and how I use evil in my campaigns are very different.  To me, one of the central elements that makes an RPG interesting is the idea that one is battling evil.  For that to be interesting to me, evil has to be something that exists somewhat apart from any individual, which is to say that I treat it like a force.  Let's see now, that's two points I just made, so let me say more about them.  First, there are those who enjoy running and playing RPGs in which evil is not a force and moral dilemmas abound.  While this may more accurately model our reality, and I sometimes use this device, I still prefer to play a character who will be involved in stamping out something that threatens the quality of life for people.  I mean, if I'm not playing a character whose purpose is to combat people and forces who make life suck for other people, then, IMO, I might as well play a barber.  There are people who like that, and that's cool.  But me... I find it boring.  Second, making evil a strictly personal thing rather than a force brings in moral ambiguity.  Now, that *can* be interesting to a point, but it removes a lot of the heroic aspect of an RPG for me.  Why?  Well, once you introduce this element, then the motives of any villian are somewhat understandable, and one could perhaps even feel some sympathy with the villian.  While that is perhaps more true-to-life, it is, to me, pretty unrewarding.  I don't want to go through the hell of defeating the machinations of a villian just to end up saying, "Poor guy."  I want to feel good about what my character has done, without reservation.  If good and evil aren't black and white, I don't get that satisfaction.  That comes about for me because, in the real world, villians always have reasons for what they do, and we can almost always sympathize with them, even while we disagree with their choices.  I don't want a carbon copy of that in my RPGs.  Once you introduce that element into an RPG, it's no longer fantasy, it's a model of reality, and that isn't exciting to me.</blockquote>

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