Why evil?

[yennico]

Nothing wrong with playing in a campaign with only evil (and the occasional neutral) PCs. But mixing good/evil in a party is IMHO never a good idea, as that's very disruptive.

That depends on the group and on the alignment of the evil PC. You can not play an evil PC in a group with a paladin PC.
We had in D&D 3.0 a LE fighter/bard in our group: CG halfing, LG human wizard, CG human fighter/sorcerer and an NPC cleric.
Most NE rogues if they do not want to kill their other party members every time can fit in a group.
Although I have experiences that an evil PC can fit in a good group I would not allow an evil PC IMC in a good group.

 

[Estlor]

There are really three alignments I like to play (and am good at): LN, NG, and N with evil tendencies (aka Neutral-Selfish).

I like playing people who embody pure law above everything else, good without respect to societal concerns, and slightly selfish and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals (which aren't necessarily evil, vile, or wicked, they're just willing to use evil methods to achieve "good" goals).

 

[Hand of Evil]

My soapbox - I think it is because people do not know what evil is, in the game, the DM should define it, but most do not and so players think by playing evil it allows them to 'get away with things', allowing greater flexability.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Sometimes, the character concept or personality just calls for it. One of my first AD&D characters was an LE assassin. A player that wanted a challenge once had a PC that was NE, in Ravenloft (His next character was a LN Necromancer, I might add). I'd much rather an evil character than a CN character (most often just an excuse to be a campaign wrecking-ball), or a character that on paper is listed as good or neutral but is played with evil tendencies.

If I had to account for evil characters these days, I might point to the influence of Vampire: The Masquerade.

 

[MoonZar]

I know it can't be related to personal morality or anything -- most of these people have been pretty upstanding in their non-gaming lives, and in at least one case, the person is a devout religious type. So, what exactly is the allure to players of evil, anyway? Pillaging and looting seems like it can only go so far.

I think that evil campaign could be as far as good one.

Evil character travel in dungeon just for different reason, and they achieve great quest also for different reason.

Also Evil doesn't mean to be unhuman, they can have goal, relationship, religion like good people do.

What can be tricky is for the dm to make the character to don't kill each other, specially when they have CE character in the group.

 

[Seeten]

Can I play a Neutral-Good Pale Master in your campaign?

If not, I guess it'll need to be evil, then.

If so, great, I'll come up with motivational stuff for NG. If not, well, I guess its evil for me!

 

[griff_goodbeard]

I guess it boils down to this:
Darth Vader is cooler than Luke Skywalker (or even Anakin Skywalker, for that matter).

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Playing a campain with one or many evil characters can be a nice change of pace. Why free slaves, when you can kill their masters and take then for yourself.

 

[Seeten]

The group I play in is currently playing Evil. I'm the aforementioned Pale Master, LE, we have an NE Assassin in the group(who is my retainer, but a PC nonetheless) and a Warrior(My "General") as it were. We function like a perfectly well oiled machine. We like each other, we enjoy each others company, we have reasons to adventure together(Phat lewt, freeing the land from the rule of the oppressive tyrant, only to become oppressive tyrants ourselves, if I have my way) and the game is fun.

What more do you need?

 

[iwatt]

Nothing wrong with playing in a campaign with only evil (and the occasional neutral) PCs. But mixing good/evil in a party is IMHO never a good idea, as that's very disruptive.
And evil campaigns seem to be rather short-lived.

Never is too strong a word. If you have disruptive players you can have bad experiences playing all good campaigns. Just messing around with the law/chaos axis can cause a party breakdown.

I've seen (and played as well) an Evil character in many games.

I've seen the iredeemable (sp?) bloodthirsty headhunter. He wasn't disruptive because he was "used" in his role as killer very effectively by the rest of the party.

I've seen the power hungry wizard (and that's a cliche that is always fun to play ). No problem in iether all evil or mixed good/evil.

I've seen the greedy rogue who keeps stealing from his fellow players. This is probably one of the most disruptive, but in a mature group capable of avoiding OOC (out of character?) knowledge it can work as well. As long as the rogue player isn't an ass about it at least.

Personally, one of the most fulfilling gaming experiences I had was of a half-elf who was the embodiment of: "The path to hell is paved with good intentions" or something like that . He was an agent of a kingdom (rogue class) that was taken over by the prophet of a new God. This prophet was LN and he was pretty tyranical about keeping order. The game turned into a series of mcguffin quests set in order to stop the prophet from gaining ULTIMATE POWER TM, as well as a lot of intrigue. My character (NG initially) slowly started slipping into TN and then NE because he kept using the "end justifies the means". It helped that he was a natural manipulator, so he was able to keep the party convinced that what they were doing was "Good". He was even able to cvonvince himself . Objectively, I knew the character was evil (torturing prisoners, poisoning, backstabbing, causing wars and revolutions for his own goals) but Symon was convinced that all he was doing was for the greater good. Until the prophet had his brother killed and became an Avatar. Then it became personal and the gloves came off . Symon made a pact with a trapped TN God in order to become "his" avatar, under the promise that he/they/it would kill the LN God. That's when I lost the character to the DM.*( I was suffering from player burnout because Symon had about twenty plots/lies ongoing at the same time, and had lied so many times to the other PCs ).

But as I said before I got sidetracked down memory lane, it all depends who you play with. In the last example, my fellow players "knew" Symon was lying, but they acepted there was no way they could tell Symon was not honest with them (max bluff is the bomb).


* We abandoned that game in 2e. We're thinking about retaking it sometime. I've been talking the DM into allowing me to play Symon again. The idea is that the TN god will expunge all the Good and evil into two distincts entities: NE and NG. So we'll just take the same basic Symon and slap an Asimar template and Tiefling template on each. We'll be converting to 3.5 though. And I'll get to fight myself now. The Dm will use all my old evilness against me.

 

[Luce]

It al depends how evil is defined. If the motivation is just kill stuff, why good charecters do that also all the time-clearing the "dens of evil".

I think players just may want to try different aproach to their regular gig, you can still go rescue princesses and what not, but this time you do it for personal reasons- you want the money, respect, social benefits(so far not that much different from what some LG do). And evil does not mean they will be backstabing fiends-it could they do not trust anybody outside of their little group(tribe).

On a side note I like to throw unusual allyes to the players in order to save the game when they are way over their heads, say if they are fighting a powerful deamon, one of his competitors or underlings may just offer some help-for a big peace of the spoils(of coarse).
This motivates them to try harder next, since even the most immoral ones does not like to loose tresure.

I like to close in with a clote from Slayers Try:"Why are you helping us demon? I though you wanted this world to be destroyed?" "I do, but we demons want to do it ourselves."