Besides the obvious CE. How does people feel NE and LE play out with group with generally good characters? Can someone give me like background/goals ect to maintain while with the group? What about good hiding methods from evil deeds, such as stealing, murder, ect. Obviously number 1 thing I can think of is going off solo.
Are we talking cartoon evil, or real evil? Because in RL, evil people maintain relationships with friends, family and co-workers every day, without random murder or constant betrayal. The character just needs to keep in mind how closely his fate is linked to the party, and act in his long-term self interest.
The real question is, why do you want to play an evil character? Do you want to explore the evil person inside of you? Are you really evil, and it would be freeing not to have to write "NG" on your character sheet? Do you want the experience of doing evil things? Because I can't think of any other reasons, and none of those reasons are good ones (even the second reason only exposes you, unless you hide behind reason 1 or 3).
Any time I have played with people who wanted to play evil characters, either their character's behaviour eventually sickens the player, and he stops playing the character; or it sickens the other players, and the campaign blows up; or it sickens the DM, and the campaign ends. I have actually found it less disruptive to play with player whom I believe to be evil (or at least neutral with evil tendancies), than a character who is declared to be evil.
D&D (and really most systems, because human beings just aren't evil, nor understand evil well) is not well built for an evil campaign much less adding evil characters to good parties. This is a hero system and if you have to ask about adding evil PC's the answer is "Don't"
*These are my opinions and views on things, and I do quote a bit here.*
Well the reason why I ask is because I have roleplayed every other alignment other then evil. I can't see myself playing a CE character mindlessly killing ect ect. playing a LE character is more towards where I wanna play. Now since this group I am going to is new I am not sure what Alignments they are playing but one can assume it is more towards good or neutral. To me a LE character is moviated by his own greed, selfisness and will to meet his goals. Example become a leader of a thieves guild, become a king, gain an artifact for his god. Everyone has their own sense of what each alignment is. D&D gives a good basis on what they are or should be, but they are just guidelines you as the players determine what is what.
Beoirc - I play D&D because 1.) It is fun. 2.) I enjoy spending time with friends and socializing in person and not over social media. 3.) To roleplay.
1 and 2 are obvious. Let me go into detail a bit more on 3. I roleplay because I imgaine what or how different alignments act. To some that might be different. I have Dm'd many games and been a player in very few. You mentioned outside of game IRL that "evil people maintain relationships with friends, family and co-workers every day, without random murder or constant betrayal." Your right some people are assholes and steal from stores and from the governement ect ect. Does that make them evil? If you have read the Drizzt series you will see Artimes E. He in the start is as CE as you can get. In the latest series he is more towards NE. Alignments change.
Zathris - D&D (and really most systems, because human beings just aren't evil, nor understand evil well) is not well built for an evil campaign much less adding evil characters to good parties. This is a hero system and if you have to ask about adding evil PC's the answer is "Don't"
Sir explain ISIS to me. To them they are not doing evil, to the rest of the world they are scum, terrorists, talaban(not sure if spelled correctly) and murderers of children,women and men alike.
As you take it D&D is a hero system? Sure thats how you feel. D&D first off is an RPG game, built with creativity and expands on how much your DM/players creavtivty will go. If D&D was just a hero system their wouldnt be books on playing evil characters, instead we would just be left with a bunch of monster manuels.
I thank you for your comments, I apologize if anyone was offended by my statmenets. I am a very opinionated person.
A bit more detail on the character I would like to build, my orignal thread start was vague.
I would like to play a LE character who is selfish, greedy and gets what he wants by any means possible. Wether that is killing, stealing, robbing, mugging, hiring people ect.
I can roleplay reasons why I don't leave the group or why I stay with the group. I guess I was asking if anyone else has played an evil character and get some input on down fails/ups of RPing.
-Thanks
First of all, how about you forget alignments exist, and you play a character instead of someone elses poor description of a moral position.
Whatever character you decide to play, there are two factors that matter:
-will the PC fit with the rest of the team ? (stupid evil team members or parties tend to dissolve rather quickly, whereas a common goal of fitting in with society, and perhaps occassionally doing some charity while attempting to create an oppressive dictatorship might work)
- is the DM OK with adjusting the story as a result of whatever actions the team takes ?
(many modules just assume you will rescue the princess in the tower, instead of perhaps kidnapping her on your own accord for ransom)
These two highlighted parts are at odds with eachother:
" who is selfish, greedy and gets what he wants by any means possible. ...I can roleplay reasons why I don't leave the group or why I stay with the group. "
And the relevant bit you are forgetting is why would the group want your PC around ?
Thanks Baldhermit appricate the input.
First of all, Alignment doesn’t sit well with a lot of people here.
I suspect the following reasons:
1. It limits the Char-Op’s (for example no Monk – Barbarians possible)
2. Many evil people don’t see themselves as evil.
3. Bad experiences in the past (different opinions on alignment)
1 limits the creativity when creating a character, while 3 limits the options to act role-playing wise.
This leaves us with 2: Take for example the Nazi’s: They wanted to create the ultimate human race: Tall, blond and blue-eyed. This “Arier” was thought to be superior to everyone. This social-Darwinism justified everything. The Nazis were very well organized and social towards their own people. Well, we all know about the other things and the final outcome…
But for LE you could play a blonde blue-eyed Nazi High Elf that hates orcs and slaughters them without mercy – even women and children. He will be true to his party as long as they contain no half-orc. Humans and other elves will be tolerated (but seen as inferior) and his ultimate goal will be for high elves to dominate everything.
This is kind of a “the ends always justify the means” attitude.
But a character could also have “quirks” that make him evil: He could be a sadist and/or a bully for example. DnD doesn’t describe well what makes you evil or how much lust for freedom is needed to make you chaotic respectively how organized you have to be to qualify as lawful. Alignment is a simple shorthand and it’s up to you to fill it with life.
Shawn_IL wrote:
Shawn_IL wrote:
I have seen a couple people legitimately play an accurate evil, or chaotic character. Every single one of us requires medication.
Beoric wrote:
Don't go off solo, that sucks.
My first piece of advice is to work with the group during character creation so that you all have a bunch of characters who mesh well and have reasons to stick together. That doesn't mean you have to all have the same alignment, but it means it might not be a good idea to have everyone create characters who can't possibly work together and then wonder what happens when you have a bunch of intra-party strife and people aren't having fun.
Also, if the other players don't want intra-party conflict, think up reasons why your character doens't steal from, harm, or dick them around. Think of Bender from Futurama. He wants to kill all humans, but he has the rest of the Planet Express crew on his "Do not kill" list. Put the rest of the party on your "do not kill" list
Beldak_Serpenthelm wrote:
He likes passing notes and being the only one clued in on plots and plans that will ruin the day for the heroes.
ie. He's probably a jerk.
And yet you say human beings aren't evil. 
Humans, as a species both in the real world and in d&d aren't. There's exceptions to everything, Dick Cheney and Fzoul Chembryl exist in their respective worlds.
Also, being a dick is N/CN, not XE.
I was joking. But to be serious for a moment, all I can say is I really, really, wish I could agree with you.
I do agree that most people do not understand evil particularly well. Particularly those who are.
Before we get into a large argument about what is evil, and what is not, bout whether the developers of the original D&D understood it's implications, or whether the developers of 5e have any clue how to explain alignment; can we cut this off simply by saying it is wise to check whatever character you're playing, with whatever moral insight / viewpoint, it is best to check this with the rest of the party since you're all supposed to want to work together ?
baldhermit wrote:
I think, Beldak, we've been in a discussion before were I stated (paraphrasing) alignments do not exist. So I think my post #19 is valid.
baldhermit wrote:
An LE character can do a nasty deed for the good of somebody else. For instance, if I force my ... ahem ... unwanted attentions ... on the vrigin to be sacrificed, then she will no longer be a virgin and will not be eligible to be sacrificed. So I have in fact saved her life.
If the meta-plot is an invasion of demons from the Abyss, a Cleric of Bane may be a stalwart supporter of the group because he abhors chaos as much as them. He believes that all persons should work together for the common good, not waste time and efforts at cross purposes while saying things like "freedom and liberty". If somebody does not to cooperate with the good of the group, he can be cast out on his own resources, as a lesson to others.
As long as motives align and the LE character is not flaunting his Evil-ness in the group's faces, you can play at the same table.
A NE character is out for his own self, without regard for how he does it. Unnecessary political comments are above, so I'll just point out that Chancellor Palpatine can raise an army (a Lawful organization) and start a civil war (brings Chaos) to achieve his ultimate end of personal power. This kind of character, however, is practically guaranteed to become a target of PvP facing the Good-aligned PCs when he finally harms too many others for the PCs' consciences to take it any more.
The closest I have gotten to playing with a self-conscious CE character was sharing a table with two Drow who demonstrated their drow-ness by betraying the other members of the party in combat, and refusing to follow the plans we made. I'm not looking forward to the real thing. (but: revenge ! I had a power to redirect a blow from me to somebody else and I was standing near to the Drow when Hercules decided to get into a fistfight with me...)
Of course, on the flip side is the LG Paladin who cannot operate at the same table as any sticky-fingered Rogue or smooth-talking bard or an Infernal Warlock, due to his "peanut allergies of the conscience".
As a DM, I use alignment to describe how the rest of the world sees you and your actions. Because too many players are allergic to having alignments mean anything binding on them.
This might be a little off base.
But; I'm currently playing a weekly game on D20 - a merge of World of Darkness and Eberron 3.5 (the world, literally overlaps and has merged; creating an entirely new game and possibilities) the system uses the D10 over D20 for mechanical reasons.
My character is the only 'legally' evil one, taking in mind we have a Druid, Sorc and Rogue from the D&D lot and myself a Brujah and two Werewolves in the WoD lot.
Her alingment is NE; in it for herself and willing to stab or help to get all she wants. She'll happily side with anyone not in the Silverflame (IC reasons) and if she can get stuff out of it... she'll play nice. Granted, she's done some horrific acts are general meanness (beating up a hotel nerd to get a room, tazering people 'at it' - you know, real evil stuff) or leading said Silverflame knights into the cities Prince and Sherrif (WoD term).
For me; I always list TN as my alignment, despite that being likely the worst one to pick - because they do "nothing" and are just as likely to side with evil for 10 minutes as to side with innocents who are being raped and pillaged. But this is because I don't like being forced into a singular alignment. Each character I make that is drastically different from another has it's own quirks and desires - their own mannerisms and their own views on how something should be.
My Pixie for example. Undead bad. Reading hurts. Games are fun. What's this button do? DRAGONS!!! Kender stupid, no Pixies in this dark room. - her alignment is TN. I go through my acts with her and I could debate throughing a mix of Good and Evil in either way would likely fit her. If Tiamat came down and said she would grant my character Dragonhood - or a pet Dragon - she'd likely join the Darkside as it's her cookie. The same could be said for Bahumet (FR).
My Centaur character I'm working on for Pathfinder; she's more towards GN - but is a direct actor. She's 16 and hormonal in the angry way. I play her as such; she'll get pouty and angsty and would easily act out of a "good" characters way of acting - afterwards, she'll feel bad* about it. Keyword there.
Alignment causes alot of problems. But if you keep your characters mannerisms in mind; if they feel guilt for actions or not - you can usually tag them the right way. I always make it a thing to tell a GM about my alignment, if I plan on playing towards it - or if I honestly feel that my character isn't a nice person. - Especially in my current D20 game, she's such a female dog of mating age!
"I lie about my alignment so that I can play my character however I feel like, bad roleplaying be damned"
In my campaign the players play the role of pirates. For the purpose of the story, I have established that piracy in and of itself is not evil. And that the players are basically good or neutral people. They have however brought a female spellcaster on their crew who is clearly evil (an NPC). But only in regards to the cruelty to her enemies. She uses fear and intimidation as a weapon, and goes quite far in the cruelty she is willing to inflict on enemies. In this way, evil and good characters can work together. As long as the evil character follows orders from the good players, all is peaceful.
1st of all - I personally like alignments. It gives a great sense of why a character generally does what they do. It only becomes problematic when you fall into the alignment trap and start referring to it as a Sith (i.e. in absolutes.) "I'm Lawful Good I can't tell lies!!" Horse apples. Alignment is a guideline. That character (assuming it's no paladin) can lies his/her ass off. Chances are they'll feel guilty about it later. Or not . Whatever. What they should say is "My character's Lawful Good, and as such is hesitant to lie."
That being said, playing an evil character in a good party CAN be but doesn't HAVE to be disruptive. I played in a party with two LE evil monks that literally stabbed my character in the back over a reward of 30 gold pieces. Because they were evil and for no other reason. That "campaign" lasted for two levels. I played a nuetral evil goblin rogue (perpetually wearing a mask and pretending to be a halfling) in a party of dwarves. It came down to shaping the characters view to be cohesive with the parties. Did I care that dwarves were being enslaved or a dragon was eating villagers? Hell no. But if I travelled with a group of do-gooders people would think I was a hero! Also so much more gold to be had in a dragon's lair than picking pockets at the inn. Oh, and also wall of dwarven meat and shields who are all "We stand as one for our comrades!" to hide behind when big scaries with sharp teeth start coming getting agitated. Plus not a one of em had any sense motive to speak of so no chance of them discovering all my extracurricular activities.
It really comes down to one factor - the player. Does the player want to play evil because it's an interesting outside the box dynamic? Or do they just want to ****, burn, and pillage things? The player decides whethere to make the characters goals line up with the parties (not necessarily perfectly), or they choose to go "that's what I do cuz I'M EVIL HAHAHAHAH"
Cornchip-san wrote:
In my campaign the players all play pirates, but I work with the idea that piracy in itself does not have to be an evil act. So I generally assume all the players are good or neutral. But the players have an npc among their crew who is clearly evil. Her name is Sitaara (my avatar is also the portrait I use for her), and she belongs to a race of spellcasting pirates called the Speakers for the Dead. The Speakers all use fear as a weapon in their piracy, and they also practice necromancy. However, this does not have to be a problem for the party. You see, Sitaara is lawful evil, so she respects the chain of command and would never act against her crew. Her evil alignment only shows when dealing with enemies, because she is cruel, and utterly without mercy. But the captain of the party is pragmatic, and does not really care what happens to his enemies. He's a good character, but even a good character can ignore atrocities if they are inflicted upon the bad guys, and they are of the pirate profession. It kind of comes with the occupation. Additionally, Sitaara worships the same gods as the players.
And I think this is the big difference with the standard DnD pantheon of gods. In my campaign evil characters pretty much worship the same gods as the good characters. The god of death is not an evil god, he is neutral. But people can worship different aspects of him. Sitaara worships him because he brings death to her enemies. But the players worship him, because he guides the souls of the dead to their final resting place, and judges their sins. The god of death is a force that directly opposes the real evil powers in my setting, and so the players can have common ground with evil npc's.
Another interesting constellation is a group of all evil characters that share a bond so they can/have to work as a team. A good example of this is a group of Drow elves belonging to the same house.
I have explored similar ideas in a monster campaign I ran a few years ago. All players played a different monster (Mindflayer, Lich, Succubus, Troll, Frost Giant), and they were all on their way to the same goal. To get there they had to work together, against common foes (Both demons and humans).
I've played in a group as a drow family, and it was a lot of fun to able to be a bunch of despicable characters with a common goal.
If you want an evil character to fit in with a party, just have him go to extreme measures for good ends, for instance, if the king or whatever is holding back information, he approaches the guy at night and tortures him, not caring about the fact that it'd put his party in danger and potentially start a war - He has good intentions, those which he seeks to achieve.
Panartias wrote:
CCS wrote:
The problem is when people are play "cause im a dick/ass/evil" characters. Raslin from dragonlance is a great example of a borderline evil character(at least at first) who later took his grasp for power. Both the DM and the Player have to understand that you might need a stronger story and roleplay concept then a generic fairly good guy does. And to a lesser extent, the other players in the group will need to know that evil can happen in the party. hopes it makes sense
cowleymen wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
It's the aggressive driver argument. Aggressive drivers don't cause accidents, bad drivers do; but bad drivers who are also aggressive drivers tend to cause the worst accidents. Many other accidents occur when non-aggressive bad drivers encounter aggressive good/neutral drivers because of their inability to deal with the situation. So, for several reasons (mostly associative fear and being shamed by a better driver) we have decided to punish aggressive drivers while we cannot punish bad drivers until an accident occurs.
Likewise, it's at lot easier to say "no evil characters" because evil characters in the hands of bad players will always result in party failure; even in the hands of good players, party failure can occur if there are bad players that don't know how to handle there being evil characters. Removing evil characters limits party failure to the minimum, as far as this scenario goes.
Zathris wrote:
You can also twist the rules a bit and interpret alignment as a political choice.
Imagine a small people of barbariams that is threatened by a big empire. At some point they start looking for allies, but the only avaiable allies are orcs and goblins. Therefore they find themselves allies with the forces of evil. But they are also lawful because they act out of loyalty to their clan.
I have some experience with this (as player of LE PC). It was a fun experiment but I'm inclined to think that it will eventueally get out of hand. In my case my character was completely self serving and did more than once left the rest of the party to die to save his own hide. That did upset some of the other players quite a bit - I sure can't blame them. Same thing with big decsisions on how to treat NPC's and such.
I wouldn't play evil PC's again and never allow it as DM, because it's a time bomb in my experience.
I think the best answer is still "don't". But I'll play devils advocate here. I think there are ways to have evil characters mingle with good characters. But it probably only works if you write a realistic character, and not a cartoon villain.
Lawful Evil
A lawful Evil character does not feel that he/she needs to meet a cruelty quota each day. Realistically, Lawful Evil characters would be characters that could follow a leader (such as the party leader), a creed, or be loyal to something. They could be loyal to the players, even to the law of the land, but have a tendency towards other immoral acts. They don't have to be criminals, and they don't have to be genocidal maniacs. For example, you could have an evil character in your party that feels no remorse about killing, but when asked will keep an enemy alive. That same character might also not feel remorse about cruelty to the enemy to extract information. But again, if they are loyal to the players, they'll probably ask first. Lawful evil characters would probably not murder innocent people in a city, because they know it is against the law. But they might not feel bad about killing a merchant who has seen too much outside the reach of the law.
Neutral Evil
Neutral evil characters would probably not take sides, nor believe that laws are made for them. They may have very good reasons why they feel that stealing is perfectly fine. But that doesn't mean they are without compromise. They are probably not very suitable for following orders. But I can imagine players joining up with an evil npc, to take care of other evil doers. He might suggest immoral ways to take out these enemies, and leave it to the players to choose how to go about things.
Chaotic Evil
This is a very difficult alignment to have in any party of good or even neutral characters. Chaotic evil characters are just really unpredictable.
Evil characters are awesome when played by no disruptive roleplayers. My god it's beautiful and dark and beautifully dark!
There is a big difference between evil and disruptive. Be evil, not disruptive. =)
Hamenopi wrote:
Hamenopi wrote:
Imaculata wrote:
When it comes to evil characters the best way to integrate them into groups is to have the group's goals match theirs for the most part. LE characters are usually the easiest since most of them follow some kind of personal code and as long as the party doesn't get on the bad side of said code and they're willing to accept the character's excessive actions then things are usually fine. NE characters I've to best be used along of the lines of "I can pay you more than anyone else.", "I'm the only way for you to get what/who you want.", or "Bertraying us will get you certainly killed/tortured/etc vs dealing with our problem." As long as you make it clear it's in their absolute best interest to tow the party line they usually will (Though they will likely plot in secret and if the campaign ends with them pissing off the group at the last second then oh well).
It's the CE characters where things get messy. Too often they get played up as completely idiotic in their reasoning and motives. The key to a good CE/party interaction is a character that is actually intelligent and doesn't act like some psychopath on meth. The CE character needs to be smart enough to hide whatever nastiness they're perpetrating from the party (or direct it to targets the party won't care about) and be willing to play the part of supportive party member. Manipulative CE characters are good for this.
Regardless of the evil character it will take a fair bit of work between the player and the DM to integrate them into the party. Let me give a non-DnD example. I was playing what would be considered an LE dark knight who followed a god of darkness but was for the most part honorable. He was more than willing to use some low life rabble and criminals as cannon fodder to test the heroes for example but once they proved capable he was willing to fight them himself in honorable combat (he wasn't the kind of guy to stab someone in the back or kill an enemy who was unconcious which actually did come up in play with a hated party member at one point). Eventually the god of darkness decided to rampage against his followers in part due to the knight's mistake. This pissed off the knight because in his mind the god and his followers had a pact whereby the followers worshipped and followed the god and the god provided protection and miracles and the like. That what he considered innocent people were punished for what he thought was his mistake drove the knight to forsake the dark god and join the party with the intent of getting revenge.
Throughout the adventure the knight proved himself an invaluable member of the party dealing with several threats due to quick thinking and when elements within the group started plotting to get rid of him he set up his own power block of trusted comrades to counter the plotting. In the end the party ended up killing a different member due to said character's religious beliefs leading to a fight and my character got the opportunity to screw over the hated party member in a way that didn't involve killing the guy and was such that no one in the party would argue with it. By the end the knight had aligned with a different god and become for all intents and purposes LN so the campaign served as a vehicle for his moral transformation.
I am currently in party playing as an evil character. With how things are, I am a Tiefling warlock that is secretly a prince of hell working under asmodeus. My methods are brutal, unforgiving, with a bent on torture and executing my enemies in as brutal a fashion as possible. We even picked up a lacky while raiding a goblin encampment that at first was a "toy" to play with, but eventually got promoted to sidekick. My characters motives remain unknown to the party, but the group has largely accepted the way he does things, however immoral it may be, as those methods are not overly disruptive to the group as a whole.
After a while, and working with the DM, we together crafted an overarching plot in that the party is caught in the middle of a chess match between Asmodeus and Orcus. As long as the group continues to prove useful fufilling my characters secret agenda, there are no conflicts. Eventually however the Divine game will come to an end, the group will no longer be useful, and the warlock will turn on and try to dominate the group, but that is far down the road at the end of this adventure arc.
I always think of Alignment as potential, rather than necessary outcome - a Good person will consider risks to help others without personal rewards and thinks of terrible things as off limits, while an Evil person probably wouldn't consider risk without reward and wouldn't consider anything intrinsically off limits for personal gain. Evil represents the capacity to more easily justify torture, for instance, or even the belief that there is no need to justify anything.
I've used this outlook to play Chaotic Evil characters who function just fine in a party. The biggest thing that marks them as Chaotic Evil is that "nothing is off limits if it helps me and my friends."
Think of a gang member who'd consider breaking any law or hurting a stranger for the benefit of themselves, their friends, or anyone they consider valued family. Does that mean they have robbed a bank or stabbed/shot someone to death? Not necessarily, but if they get the chance to get away with such a crime, and it won't hurt anyone they actually care about, "Why wouldn't I stab that guy and take his money?"
It's simple, it's realistic, and as long as the character in question likes and values their party members, it can actually help move the game forward. Some of the Good party members might complain after they realize how nefarious your methods have become, but the alignment, or potential for moral or immoral behavior, was there all along.
Beguileuse wrote:
I could imagine a character that has been raised in a land that was allied with evil. If this character has an enemy, who is also the enemy of the rest of the players, then they have a reason to can work together. Of course this requires the character to be somewhat trustworthy (i.e. lawful)
The evil character probably has to abstain from spurious evil acts while working with the group, but instead he can make witty remarks such as "If I was with my clan now, then we would probably burn this village to the ground"
halvgrim wrote:
Back in 3rd Edition I played a LN Priest of Wee Jas. This was in Planescape, set in Sigil, so he was very much dedicated to the law. After several mishaps though, he was killed, brought back to life, and slowly began a shift to LE. In character I described his shift in that he'd previously believed that people would come to accept the law because reason dictates it is the best way to live. After his death, his beliefs became that people won't accept law because they're selfish and so it was his calling to bring them to the law, whatever the method.
The shift to evil never was disruptive and I spoke with my DM a lot during the beginning of the change. In play, during down time, my priest would speak with members of the party, telling them how they were constantly fighting against chaos, but never really making a dent by rescuing people. That it was time that they got powerful enough to wipe out chaos and force people to the law. Most of the party drifted to my character's thinking, except the paladin. So my priest spoke with a half devil and put a hit out on him.
Everyone enjoyed the play, slowly watching my priest drift further and further into lawful evil and taking the party with him. In case anyone was wondering, the hit on the paladin failed, but my priest was never implicated in it. I think why this worked is that the alignment didn't become disruptive, the other players and the DM bought in, and it added to the overall story we were playing.