What's wrong with being good?

[Buttercup]

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).

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm wondering how old your players are? Their attitude seems (IMO, of course) to be a sort of rebel-without-a-cause that is common among teenagers.

I forbid evil alignmnets in my games, and will only allow CN if the player can convince me they have a good reason. I've seen one player do CN well, and the other instances were disruptive, stupid and annoying. Of course, you might enjoy DMing an evil party, in which case, that's fine. But it sounds like you don't want to, in which case, don't. DMs do too much work to have to run a game they don't like.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Evil is easy. Players want to get away with things, they want to have those loop holes that allow them to pass go and collect $200 without going to jail. Players see evil as being that loop hole.

(My soap box please)

You as a DM need to define what evil is in your games. Then judge if your players meet that defination. Now you also have to hold your players to that, do they kick puppies every day, do they rape and flay their foes, are they orcs?

You will find that if they know what is evil that many will not want to be evil. Also remember that for every action there is a reaction, doing things evil will have the party hunted down and locked up, if that are CE put down like a mad dog!

 

[The Cardinal]

I usually play N characters, but I currently play a paladin/cleric (who also registers as CE on all magical tests...). In my campaign players often want to play G characters - and I find most "do-gooder" PC incredibly boring and/or annoying, so I will kill this campaign pretty soon.
But in the campaign in which I play the GM *loves* good PCs. Why? Because they are easy to motivate and easy to control - and he thinks that pre-made adventures work best with paladins and/or good clerics in the party

 

[mmu1]

Re: Re: What's wrong with being good?

I forbid evil alignmnets in my games, and will only allow CN if the player can convince me they have a good reason. I've seen one player do CN well, and the other instances were disruptive, stupid and annoying. Of course, you might enjoy DMing an evil party, in which case, that's fine. But it sounds like you don't want to, in which case, don't. DMs do too much work to have to run a game they don't like.

Chaotic Neutral is such a misunderstood alignment...

Why the hell do most people end up playing them as someone without any moral compass at all, no sense of loyalty, and no damn common sense?

The last CN character I played definitely didn't respect authority, didn't particularly care for laws, (because he grew up in a LE society), followed a religion that wasn't viewed all that well by the establishment (a somewhat big deal in the game), and would gleefully hurt anyone that crossed him.

He was also smart enough to know when he could get away with things like mouthing off to someone in authority and when to shut up before getting the party into trouble, was loyal to his friends, and stuck by the primarily Good party because it allowed him to splatter unpleasant people on the walls and feel good about it, instead of having to work purely for the money.

 

[EarthsShadow]

I have also found CN the hardest alignment to roleplay properly because so many people that try it tend to do more evil actions and say its due to freedom of spirit and such nonsense, and in fact most end up playing NE without realizing it when they play the alignment that I can do whatever I want for my own selfish reasons and I will do it regardless of what other people may think (all really selfish acts and methods of acting, which is NE).

Has anyone else seen this occur?

 

[Eosin the Red]

Like some have indicated - your game type generally is a reflection of your life stage (IME). Most gamers go throught stages of wanting to play like this. The real question is what you want to do about it? Hong has an excellent suggestion about conforming to their gaming needs while still getting yours. If that is not sufficent maybe you could play for awhile and lead by example?

 

[reapersaurus]

Re: Re: What's wrong with being good?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I'm wondering how old your players are? Their attitude seems (IMO, of course) to be a sort of rebel-without-a-cause that is common among teenagers.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

I'd be willing to bet that his players are not mature.
By mature gamers, I mean over ~28.

Play with some older gamers, and I'll virtually guarantee that you will see this problem vanish.

 

[Quickbeam]

Most of the players IMC voluntarily choose Good or Neutral aligned characters...and never Evil. We will have the occasional CN character, but they don't last long because their motivations, desires and behavior patterns, tend to run counter to those of other party members.

As others in this thread have noted, CN is very hard to roleplay well, and even harder to play as something other than reckless, selfish and immoral. Our campaigns tend to have a small scale good vs evil bent to them, and being bad is counterproductive in such a setting .

 

[Cedric]

For whatever reason, I could never really get into playing non-good characters. Just not my cup of tea.

Although, I admit that on occassion I'll wind up playing an evil character briefly, but only in the right setting or campaign.

Cedric

 

[Lord Zardoz]

The reason that people play evil characters in RPG's is pretty much the same reason that people will post links to in-appropriate content on Slashdot (I am refering to a particular link that often pops up there that contains the word goat and belongs to the '.cx' domain). Or to put it another way, its the same sort of reasoning that has people laugh at the antics of MTV's Jackass.

I personally do not care much if the characters are saintly types who help the poor or if they are sociopathic lunatics. As long as the players arent being overly disruptive to the game, it is not a real problem.

I find that players tend to become disruptive when they are not engaged with the goings on in the adventure. The most disruptive players are those who wish to pursue their own agenda rather then the adventure layed out for them. The people who play the Chaotic Stupid Knnder who steals from everybody is more intrested in being a twit and seeking attention then rescuing a princess.

I can understand the restriction against Evil players. They tend to simply not fit in with most adventures. But if you feel that you cannot trust your players to play a Chaotic Neutral type, then why are you playing with them in the first place?

END COMMUNICATION