Evil Player Characters

[Timelord]

In light of Asrogoth's topic Traditional/Orthodox Christianity and D&D, I wondered what the OD&D community's views were on playing evil PCs? I think it has been an interesting development in the RPG world where a mainstream company such as WotC has been advertising the STAR WARS RPG as an opportunity for players to play Imperial (i.e. evil) characters ...

Unlike Vader you don't have to start out as a good guy

Timelord

[The Northlander]

I've never played an evil PC, and never had someone play one in a game I was running. As a GM I generally would not allow it anyhow, ESPECIALLY in a Star Wars game.

-Northy-

[Grypharius]

NOT

Evil PC's are self destructive to adventuring groups.
It's contrary to the classic good vs. evil of mythology, legends
inheirant to the storylike feel of RPG's.

Chaotic Neutral is tough enough with.

[Cab]

Evil characters are fascinating for short campaigns or one offs; they don't, in my experience, make good long term campaign characters.

[budman]

Evil characters are fascinating for short campaigns or one offs; they don't, in my experience, make good long term campaign characters.

we have had a few but with 14 deaths in 3 sesions not long for this game

[Cab]

we have had a few but with 14 deaths in 3 sesions not long for this game

Was that with a party of mixed good and evil characters?

[diaglo]

yeah, Chaotic characters (there are only 3 alignments Chaos, Law, and Neutral) are hard on adventuring parties. individuality kills group dynamics and more often kills other characters.

[Cab]

yeah, Chaotic characters (there are only 3 alignments Chaos, Law, and Neutral) are hard on adventuring parties. individuality kills group dynamics and more often kills other characters.

But, of course, you can be chaotic and free willed without being evil. I've had no problem with allowing chaotic PC's, but I don't allow 'evil' PC's.

I often wonder whether I'd be better off dropping the whole 'alignment' thing anyway.

[Barrataria]

I know this is the D&D forum, but I would quibble with the idea that Imperial characters must by definition be "good" characters. I recognize the films had a very black-and-white (literally) view of good and evil, but I don't think some TIE fighter pilot must by definition be viewed as evil any more than some X-wing mechanic who is a mass murderer could be viewed as good.

That view is probably a product of the SW campaign I always envisioned, where the "New" Republic soon finds itself crushing "rebellions" and "resistors" on the worlds it takes, and some worlds actually choose to stay with the remaining scraps of Empire because they actually deliver vital goods, etc. There would be lots of fights among old nobility returning to their old homeworlds, yet more crushing of "resistors" (such as alien races that may have cooperated or been neutral to the empire now getting shoved back to second-class status. That's how I always envisioned it anyway.

As to D&D, I would think a chaotic (N/G) campaign of merry-men type pirates or bandits would be fun and could be sustaining. If the chaos looks like Keep on the Borderlands and is an evil temple of human sacrifice, etc... it's hard for me to imagine that being sustainable, especially if the character establishes a stronghold.

BB

[rogueattorney]

There is definitely a line, and it stops being fun when PC's cross it.

It's one thing to be roguish, anti-authoritarian, price-on-my-head, do what I want Chaotics. That's an established fantasy archetype that should be encouraged. Han Solo, to steal from the Star Wars aspect of this thread, being the epitome of this archetype.

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session. You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

"But he's chaotic, that's what he's supposed to be doing." Yeah, whatever. Show me where the rules define chaotic as a deranged psychopath (2nd edition rules notwithstanding), and I'll quit D&D alltogether.

To quote Blazing Saddles, "How are things in the clean world?"

R.A.

[Wycked Grinn]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session. You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

[rogueattorney]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session. You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

Yeah, I know. But you don't have to search too long to find stories of games that descend into exactly this kind of sickening morass. There was a thread posted on this website not long ago that linked to a thread on another board that had a bunch of tales concerning nightmare campaigns of this sort.

The all-time king was a campaign where the DM had set up an alternate reality wherein the characters were to help Hitler slaughter the Jews. The "punch-line" was where the DM said that since the holocaust never really happened, it was suitable fare for a D&D fantasy campaign. Just sick, sick, sick stuff. The thread was condemning campaigns like this, and deservedly so.

R.A.

[Jason Coplen]

Evil characters are lots of fun. They flip things upside down. Most fun!

[JDJarvis]

In light of Asrogoth's topic Traditional/Orthodox Christianity and D&D, I wondered what the OD&D community's views were on playing evil PCs? I think it has been an interesting development in the RPG world where a mainstream company such as WotC has been advertising the STAR WARS RPG as an opportunity for players to play Imperial (i.e. evil) characters ...

Unlike Vader you don't have to start out as a good guy

Timelord

Well they could have meant :
You can start out as a low life miscreant who enjoys the backing of authority when kicking folks about until you discover how it is really wrong and move away from the dark side and become a hero rallying forces against your former despotic masters.

... but i don't think they really did.

"cackle in glee as you blast Luke Skywalkers aunt and uncle into a pile of burning mush." could be horribly closer to the truth.

I let folks play evil PCS after i explain the nature of evil within my campaigns. "Evil consumes its own." anyone not bright enough to realize what that means will not have an evil character long enough to cause problems.

[rogueattorney]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session. You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

Yeah, I know. But you don't have to search too long to find stories of games that descend into exactly this kind of sickening morass. There was a thread posted on this website not long ago that linked to a thread on another board that had a bunch of tales concerning nightmare campaigns of this sort.

The all-time king was a campaign where the DM had set up an alternate reality wherein the characters were to help Hitler slaughter the Jews. The "punch-line" was where the DM said that since the holocaust never really happened, it was suitable fare for a D&D fantasy campaign. Just sick, sick, sick stuff. The thread was condemning campaigns like this, and deservedly so.

R.A.

I found the thread I was referring to:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=9 ... ght=hastur

R.A.

[Alex]

I don't suppose it has been brought up, but you posted in the Classic D&D forum. Classic D&D has no concept of evil. Therefore this question is abstract from the rules system and should be general discussion. I'm feeling strange today. Pardon this post.

[Cab]

That the alignment system in classic doesn't include evil does not mean that the concept of evil is alien to the characters in the game. There are certainly a few evil things running around in my game, all with dastardly plans that need thwarting...

[Evil Eli]

[Cab]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session.

Pyromaniac S&M? I've come across many strange things in my time, but S&M pyromania is new on me. What were your players into? How did you find them?

You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

Again, in many a long year I've yet to be asked this kind of thing; I DO sometimes give frightening detail if the situation demands it (if the PC's misjudge something badly and people get hurt, I lay the full, gruesome implications on thick). Otherthan that, no, it's just not important to go into gory detail.

"But he's chaotic, that's what he's supposed to be doing." Yeah, whatever. Show me where the rules define chaotic as a deranged psychopath (2nd edition rules notwithstanding), and I'll quit D&D alltogether.

If you let a player play someone who IS that evil then fair enough, you have to let that character be evil. There are shades of grey, though. I'd also argue that not everyone who is evil is also bloodthirsty. How much more evil is poisoning a villages only well for the hell of it than merely killing it's blacksmith because he won't quote you a good price? I'd argue that said 'shades of grey' are well worth exploring in a roleplaying game, and in facesome of the best roleplaying games there are (1st Ed. Vampire and Call of Cthulu, to name just two) are all specifically about exploring that.

To quote Blazing Saddles, "How are things in the clean world?"

R.A.

Or, perhaps an even more salient quote from the same classic film, "Are we just jerking off?"


[/i]

[Cab]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session.

Pyromaniac S&M? I've come across many strange things in my time, but S&M pyromania is new on me. What were your players into? How did you find them?

You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

Again, in many a long year I've yet to be asked this kind of thing; I DO sometimes give frightening detail if the situation demands it (if the PC's misjudge something badly and people get hurt, I lay the full, gruesome implications on thick). Otherthan that, no, it's just not important to go into gory detail.

"But he's chaotic, that's what he's supposed to be doing." Yeah, whatever. Show me where the rules define chaotic as a deranged psychopath (2nd edition rules notwithstanding), and I'll quit D&D alltogether.

If you let a player play someone who IS that evil then fair enough, you have to let that character be evil. There are shades of grey, though. I'd also argue that not everyone who is evil is also bloodthirsty. How much more evil is poisoning a villages only well for the hell of it than merely killing it's blacksmith because he won't quote you a good price? I'd argue that said 'shades of grey' are well worth exploring in a roleplaying game, and in facesome of the best roleplaying games there are (1st Ed. Vampire and Call of Cthulu, to name just two) are all specifically about exploring that.

To quote Blazing Saddles, "How are things in the clean world?"

R.A.

Or, perhaps an even more salient quote from the same classic film, "Are we just jerking off?"


[/i]

[Cab]

It's quite another when the player decides to try to use me as a conduit to live out his pyromaniac S&M fantasies during my D&D session.

Pyromaniac S&M? I've come across many strange things in my time, but S&M pyromania is new on me. What were your players into? How did you find them?

You tell your fantasies of raping the women and goats while burning down the village to your head-shrink, and leave me out of it! No, I'm not going to describe to you what it feels like as you stick the spear up the goblin's...

Again, in many a long year I've yet to be asked this kind of thing; I DO sometimes give frightening detail if the situation demands it (if the PC's misjudge something badly and people get hurt, I lay the full, gruesome implications on thick). Otherthan that, no, it's just not important to go into gory detail.

"But he's chaotic, that's what he's supposed to be doing." Yeah, whatever. Show me where the rules define chaotic as a deranged psychopath (2nd edition rules notwithstanding), and I'll quit D&D alltogether.

If you let a player play someone who IS that evil then fair enough, you have to let that character be evil. There are shades of grey, though. I'd also argue that not everyone who is evil is also bloodthirsty. How much more evil is poisoning a villages only well for the hell of it than merely killing it's blacksmith because he won't quote you a good price? I'd argue that said 'shades of grey' are well worth exploring in a roleplaying game, and in facesome of the best roleplaying games there are (1st Ed. Vampire and Call of Cthulu, to name just two) are all specifically about exploring that.

To quote Blazing Saddles, "How are things in the clean world?"

R.A.

Or, perhaps an even more salient quote from the same classic film, "Are we just jerking off?"


[/i]

[JDJarvis]

I don't suppose it has been brought up, but you posted in the Classic D&D forum. Classic D&D has no concept of evil. Therefore this question is abstract from the rules system and should be general discussion. I'm feeling strange today. Pardon this post.

Sure there is some concept of evil, there are at least 4 spells with the word "evil" in the spell names.
Evil simply hides better in classic D&D.


there is also the odd ball case of Holmes basic where there is indeed evil as a component of character and monster alignment but that is indeed an expception given the general focus of this specific forum.

[rogueattorney]

I was hyperbolizing (slightly).

The point was that I don't want to be DM to someone's sick fantasies. Play evil. Play chaotic. Manipulate, murder, lie, cheat, and steal your way into a position of power. Fine. So long as it is somehow relevant to the game. There is a big difference between playing an evil role to achieve some sort of game world goal, and a player getting his kicks by getting me to play out his inner-kinks.

R.A.

[JDJarvis]

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=9 ... ght=hastur

R.A.

You know what horrifies me about that story....I think I was there. The characters in the story are a shuffling of the real players but the general occourences and the very specific in game events are all tragically true.

If i wasn't there, it happened more then once.... and that is just really disgusting.

[rogueattorney]

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=9 ... ght=hastur

R.A.

You know what horrifies me about that story....I think I was there. The characters in the story are a shuffling of the real players but the general occourences and the very specific in game events are all tragically true.

If i wasn't there, it happened more then once.... and that is just really disgusting.

Well, as long as you aren't El Disgusto or Psycho Dave, I forgive you.

R.A.

[Wycked Grinn]

Cool, thanks for the link. I'll check it out when I get home this eve.

[JDJarvis]

I wasn't El Disgusto or Psycho Dave , most of the real people involved are spread out over several of the "ficitional" personas, even those two . I was only there for couple of sessions with that group as they were juvenile, disgusting and the DM was a demented control freak.

If this isn't a very slightly ficitionalized version of a game (or two) I was at I find it really really disturbing that there was another game with a demented S&M bar, slippery puddles, a critical hit wagon roll and an obnoxious ninja who got tied up by the other PCs and branded.


Chaos does seep into the game if just one or two players are demented and the DM is a control freak that otherwise plays up to the dementia.

[Evil Eli]

[rogueattorney]

I wasn't El Disgusto or Psycho Dave , most of the real people involved are spread out over several of the "ficitional" personas, even those two . I was only there for couple of sessions with that group as they were juvenile, disgusting and the DM was a demented control freak.

If this isn't a very slightly ficitionalized version of a game (or two) I was at I find it really really disturbing that there was another game with a demented S&M bar, slippery puddles, a critical hit wagon roll and an obnoxious ninja who got tied up by the other PCs and branded.


Chaos does seep into the game if just one or two players are demented and the DM is a control freak that otherwise plays up to the dementia.

You might be curious (or horrified) to learn that Ab3 has posted numerous tales of his old game group over at RPG.net. You can read up on them and find out whether any more of them are eerily familiar. The third post down has the links.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=d ... t=disgusto

R.A.

[Cab]

I was hyperbolizing (slightly).

The point was that I don't want to be DM to someone's sick fantasies. Play evil. Play chaotic. Manipulate, murder, lie, cheat, and steal your way into a position of power. Fine. So long as it is somehow relevant to the game. There is a big difference between playing an evil role to achieve some sort of game world goal, and a player getting his kicks by getting me to play out his inner-kinks.

R.A.

That wasn't really a slight hyperbole. There are a whole load of grey areas to explore between roleplaying torture for laughs and playing evil characters. If a player character wants to scare hell out of an NPC by acting in a scary, intimidating, even twisted manner then that's perfectly valid. It's not something I'd like to dominate my sessions, but there's nothing invalid about doing that. If I felt that the player were doing that merely for their own kicks then I'd take that player aside and ask him or her not to play like that in my game, and I'd take the step of no longer inviting that player if it were to ruin the fun for everyone else. But the 'grey area' here is vast and malleable, and ultimately if someone wants to roleplay in a way that I find distasteful then all they're doing is exploring a darker part of the grey than I'm interested in. It's up to them.