What's wrong with being good?

[Paradoxish]

I'm just wondering if anyone can answer this: why do players have such an aversion to playing good characters?! It seems my players always either go for neutral or evil alignments unless they absolutely have to be good (to be a paladin, for example). It'd be okay if they were making evil characters for roleplaying or story purposes, but they more or less just seem to think evil means no rules. Of course, this ends up meaning that they get angry at me when their actions have consequences. I can't imagine that they're actually surprised when their murderous rampages attract the attention of local authorities.

I'm bringing this up because one of my players now thinks he somehow "beat me" by making a chaotic neutral character. Apparently he thinks if good and evil characters have to deal with consequences, chaotic neutral ones don't. Sigh. What ever happened to actually wanting to make a heroic character? Or at the very least interesting evil ones? Am I the only one with this problem?

 

[Crothian]

No your not the only one with the problem. Heck, I forbid CN and all evil characters for a while because of that. I perfer good characters, heck, I just picked up Good by AEG because I like it so much.

 

[Nightfall]

No your not the only one with the problem. Heck, I forbid CN and all evil characters for a while because of that. I perfer good characters, heck, I just picked up Good by AEG because I like it so much.

What about BoHM Crothy, you get that yet? (Psion reviewed it but I was curious about the prestige classes in the book...)

 

[Crothian]

What about BoHM Crothy, you get that yet? (Psion reviewed it but I was curious about the prestige classes in the book...)

I want to get it, but I don't want to buy the pdf, knowing I'm going to get it in hardcopy in a few months. My friend got it and printed it out so I'll read it before gaming Sunday.

 

[EarthsShadow]

I have the same problem also...the last time I asked everyone to make heroic characters, even neutral ones that might have good leanings, I almost got lynched. I think a lot of people want to play evil people because they can't be as evil in real life, but still.

The way I see it, if you play a good character, your in the minority because 99% of the rest of the world is evil anyways, so why be like everybody else?

 

[jgbrowning]

I have the same problem also...the last time I asked everyone to make heroic characters, even neutral ones that might have good leanings, I almost got lynched. I think a lot of people want to play evil people because they can't be as evil in real life, but still.

The way I see it, if you play a good character, your in the minority because 99% of the rest of the world is evil anyways, so why be like everybody else?

This coming from a person whose sig is....

"Evil is better because Good is Dumb."


?


joe b.

 

[megamania]

The two groups I play in tend towards CG. It allows for heroic intensions but also one can accomplish this at any means. Most of the players aviod LG referring to it as Lawful Stupid since some feels it traps them to play a specific way thus becoming a 2d cardboard cutout character.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I've played CN before just so I can randomly go about my life doing whatever strikes me at the time. It worked for a rogue character who had a hand in the local drug trade and prostitution ring.

If the players still want to fight evil but don't care much for rules, I think CG would be the appropriate alignment.

If they just want to go off on murderous rampages, they should maybe get some professional help... Just a thought...

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The two groups I play in tend towards CG. It allows for heroic intensions but also one can accomplish this at any means. Most of the players aviod LG referring to it as Lawful Stupid since some feels it traps them to play a specific way thus becoming a 2d cardboard cutout character.

This is a really annoying misunderstanding that I've seen many, many times regarding Lawful Good.

The confusion either springs from the idea that a Lawful Good character must always obey local laws, even if the laws are evil-- or, worse, must obey any authority they encounter. Almost as bad are people who think LG must obey their superiors at any cost-- including following dishonorable orders.

Or, they believe that Lawful Good has to fight, head-on, against all evil, and cannot use trickery, guile, or misdirection to win, even against evil. As the blurb states in Defenders of the Faith, Paladins may be honorably holy warriors, but they're also professional, trained soldiers who know the battlefield. They can feint, bluff, and ambush.

Even the most restrictive Lawful Good characters, the Paladins, are not required to either fight stupidly or obey any and all orders given them-- even a strict code of knightly conduct for a Paladin leaves them a lot of freedom of action in dealing with evil.

 

[hong]

I'm bringing this up because one of my players now thinks he somehow "beat me" by making a chaotic neutral character. Apparently he thinks if good and evil characters have to deal with consequences, chaotic neutral ones don't. Sigh. What ever happened to actually wanting to make a heroic character? Or at the very least interesting evil ones? Am I the only one with this problem?

Nope.

Your players basically want to indulge in some power tripping. There is nothing wrong with that as a playing style, as long as people are clear that that's what they want to do. As long as everyone is having fun, then it's all good.

If you want to have a "heroic" campaign, you should try to set things up so that they can continue to kill things and take treasure, but in a heroic context. Send them into big dungeons full of evil monsters that have to be eliminated. Emphasise that good guys can kick butt and take names just like everyone else. Don't try to screw them over by insisting that they refuse treasure rewards, throwing insoluble moral dilemmas at them, making their victories cheap, and so on. That just breeds player resentment, which is a bad thing for a gaming group.

The campaign will probably take on a rather Diablo-ish tone, but again, if that's what floats their boat, there's nothing wrong with a Diablo-ish campaign.