off, and then it's just a brawl. Eventually, one or more PCs will turn on all of the other PCs, and someone emerges supreme. Bam. End of campaign.WHY!?
Because this is not the manner in which evil was meant to be played. Not by players. Not by DMs. Not by anybody. Therefore, in this article, I'm going to list 5 pieces of general advice for the erstwhile evil roleplayer. I'm sure there are some great evil RPers out there, but I don't know if it's cultural or personal or just a natural revulsion of evil, but most players I've encountered RP evil very poorly.
1. Even Chaotic Evil People Have Purpose
Except for the tiniest fraction of psychopaths in the world, everyone in life has a reason for what they do. It doesn't have to be fancy, or even logical, but they have one. Despite what urban legends or Disney movies may have taught you, random beating and attack is one of the most exceedingly rare acts in the world. What I'm saying is, evil people don't spend all day plotting to backstab and kill one another. They'll work in groups and obey others' orders and wishes. "Evil" doesn't mean "randomly discourteous." If your evil person is working toward a purpose, say, accumulating enough power to become a god, is he going to risk rotting in jail for twenty years in order to steal a little girl's coin pouch? Probably not. Evil characters have purposes for their evil actions. They don't just go around doing random evil stuff; they are simply willing to do things that good characters aren't to get what they want.
2. Evil People Love
Sometimes more passionately than the best of knights, too. Don't forget that. Hitler had trusted confidantes and best friends. He loved a woman so much that they committed joint suicide together in his bunker when it was all over. You can be one of the most thoroughly evil guys in the multiverse, but you still have hormones and emotions and feelings. Obviously there are a few exceptions, as there always are, but for the most part a villain isn't some enigmatic loner who doesn't have a single friend or loved one ever, anywhere, because he killed them all. Evil people can be motivated by incredibly intense passions to do evil things. They might torture random city guards because one city guard imprisoned their wife. They might rob a church to feed their hungry children. An adventuring party of evil people won't necessarily turn on each other at first opportunity; they could be incredibly tight friends.
3. Evil People Have Rules
Even most Chaotic Evil people have rules; or at the very least limitations. They might have an incredibly twisted set of rules, but they don't have NO rules. The problem that I see most commonly with evil roleplay is that evil is depicted as absolutely ruleless. This is not true. You could have an evil guy who secretly rips off hundreds of widows with a scam who would never pick pockets if he met people on the street. You could have a bandit that leaves people alive because he wants their money, not their life. In fact, you could have an incredibly decent man be evil. Why? Because good men can do horrible, horrible, reprehensible things under the right circumstances. The difference between good and evil here is that good people believe in self-sacrifice for some kind of greater purpose, while evil people have a lower threshold before they start doing bad things to get their way. This doesn't mean, however, that evil people will do absolutely anything to get their way just because they feel like it. Barring absolutely everything else, evil people have phobias. A villain could still leave people alive because he's afraid that he'll be haunted by their ghosts or what have you. Evil people are not all loose cannons doing exactly what they want at all times, and they aren't totally twisted psychopaths that like hurting people and despise all that is clean and happy and bright. Which brings me to my next point...
4. Evil People Don't All Dress In Black
...or live in caves with bats and ill lighting, or allow their weapons to degrade into a sorry, rusty, blood-soaked condition, or cackle while they mutilate kittens. Evil people are generally motivated by the same things that motivate all people: comfort, happiness, pleasure, joy, the wellbeing of those that they like. They aren't going to spend all day straining their eyes in the dark any more than they are going to trap the door to their dining hall. Evil people can be clean-shaven, fashionable, even pleasant. They want to look good, sleep on a comfortable bed and eat good meals. They're just willing to do some bad stuff to get those things.
And lastly...
5. Evil People Don't Think They're Evil
At least in 99% of cases. The human mind is amazingly good at rationalization. Hitler thought that he was doing good, as did the 9/11 Hijackers and the old European imperialists. They're still evil, and they were wrong, but they believed that they were bringing good into the world and doing the right thing. They weren't torturing people, they were civilizing barbaric lands. They weren't wiping out whole races of people, they were bringing about the best race in the history of humanity and speeding up its progression. Evil people, as a general rule, don't refer to themselves as evil. Even when consorting with demons, they are more likely to think, "I'm doing what those other guys don't have the guts to do in order to bring about a better world/better circumstances," not, "Muahahahaha! Now I will use this power to crush peasants and kittens and run over old people because I am EVIL!!" Evil people might do terrible things, and they might do them for selfish reasons, but they almost never see themselves as the bad guy, or at least not -that- bad. Maybe they've done a few things here or there that might be questionable, but under the circumstances could they really be blamed? Evil people tend to rationalize and have a skewed perspective of what they've really done.
So, I hope this has been helpful for those who want to roleplay evil characters more effectively. I may be preaching to the choir talking to the D&D message boards, but hopefully someone I've RPed with in the past (or someone similar) has had the opportunity to learn a bit from this article. Feel free to add, comment, pick this apart, tell me that demons and undead don't follow the same rules, that chaotic evil people are all cut from the same deranged cookie cutter, whatever.