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Angron
Acolyte
13 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 00:18:44
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what do people here think of playing evil characters?(like a whole party of evil characters doing evil things)
I love playing evil but most dm finds it hard or dislikes DMing for evil players or parties, why is that?
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Gray Richardson
Master of Realmslore
USA
1291 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 01:48:37
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D&D takes place in a tradition of heroic fantasy. Emphasis on the "hero". Most people want to emulate their favorite fantasy heroes from myth and fable as passed on to us from storybooks and movies and the laps of our mothers.
Consider also that people usually game in groups, and such parties are little microcosms reflective of our real-life roles in community, family and other organizations. When you game in a group it involves working together, cooperating for the good of all. It is hard to do that when you don't trust the other characters in the party.
Most people have a hard enough time in their daily working lives that they don't want to deal with evil party members trying to stab them in the back, steal from them or kill them in their sleep.
In fact, people usually fantasize about being triumphant, being admired, defeating the bad guys and achieving some measure of what they lack or could never have in their day-to-day lives. There is a strong inclination to play "good" characters.
There is nothing wrong with playing "evil" characters though. It is role-playing after all. Play the game in whatever way makes you happy.
I will tell you that when charcters in my games have tried to play evil before it has not been wholly satisfying for them and the other players. People tended to confuse character motivation with the player's real feelings. For instance when a player's thief tried to hide or keep loot for himself, it caused real hard feelings among the other players, even though their characters may not have noticed in-game, the players new out-of-game and all felt very cheated. It was next to impossible for their characters to try to trust the "evil" character, even if they did not know in-game that he was evil and had no reason to suspect in-game that he was cheating them.
The player playing the "evil" character thought his actions were mischievous and expected his antics would add to the everyone's sense of fun and create greater role-playing possibilities. He was very disappointed that people did not react to his take on role-playing the way he expected them to.
This dynamic became so disruptive to the game and people's feelings that it started to affect their friendships outside of the game.
I don't imagine this is the way that all groups would end up if they played evil characters. I am sure some groups are just fine with it.
But I imagine it takes certain personalities to pull off playing an evil character well and in a way that is fun for the whole group.
Good luck to you and your group. |
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Crennen FaerieBane
Master of Realmslore
USA
1378 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 02:27:53
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Don't let people play chaotic evil characters.
I know that sounds like a broad sweeping generalization. But unless you are ready for characters who are generally murderers, backstabbers, and a lot of other nasty things.. don't do it.
Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil are actually very fun alignments for characters to play. One is the perfect antihero, the other is the typical selfish foil.
Just make sure the adventure stays on course, and the evil part of the adventure doesn't take a life of its own.
C-Fb |
Still rockin' the Fey'ri style. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36797 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 02:30:13
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Another point: a lot of people can't roleplay evil well. They tend to play their evil characters like psycopathic murderers, regardless of law, chaos, or neutrality. Granted, pyscopathic murderers could be considered to be CE, but not all CE people fall into that category. And not all evil people are CE...
For many gamers, evil means uncaring, selfish, murderous, and impulsive. A party made of people playing like that won't last long, and it's no wonder a DM wouldn't want anyone like that in his/her group. It's hard to craft a good adventure when a PC arbitrarily kills off important NPCs. |
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Adam_Garou
Acolyte
USA
30 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 18:23:15
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My two cents...
As a DM, I think the players in my group are unpredictable enough even when they're playing GOOD characters. That's one reason for not allowing it. 
Another is the same reason cited earlier--that a lot (I might even venture to say "most") of the players won't be able to separate the in-game actions of a character from the out-of-game player.
The guy who introduced me to the D&D game has a huge collection of the stories he and his original gaming group played when they were younger and ran an entire party of evil characters (with one or two neutrals thrown in). He talks about how much fun it was, and really wants us to run an all-evil party with our current group. Oddly enough, he also talks about how difficult it was playing with them, because the evil mage would "accidentally" cast fireball spells when the party's fighters were in the way, or the evil cleric would refuse to raise fallen characters from the dead without a ridiculous amount of money and magic involved, or the evil thief would steal the most powerful offensive and defensive weaponry from the fighters just before they needed it the most.
I think running an occasional evil PC is probably fine--part of what makes roleplaying fun is getting to do things you'd never do in real life. So run a barbarian who waltzes into a village and kills all the men and has a grand time with all of the ladies before burning the village to the ground and walking away.
But me personally, I'm not interested in doing it. Good and neutral groups tend to last longer, and the players can work together toward a common goal and pretty much trust that no one in the party is actively trying to stab them in the back while they do it. |
"If we do happen to make contact (with the enemy), I expect nothing less than gratuitous violence from the lot of you."
--Sgt. Harry Wells, DOG SOLDIERS-- |
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Chosen of Bane
Senior Scribe
USA
552 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 19:05:47
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I don't have a problem with playing evil PC's for a change of pace. I just think you need a DM and party that can handle it. As mentioned before, not all evil characters need to be vile in every sense of the word at all times. Evil people can have friends and people they actually care about, they don't need to murder and kill on a whim or be utterly consumed with selfishness.
I think having a secretly evil character in a good/neutral group is also a bad idea, there's no way it can end well.
What my group is currently doing is actually running pretty well so far. We all decided we wanted to try an evil game because we are used to playing the heros and wanted a change of pace. So, I volunteered to DM the game and chose to run a Zhentarim campaign.
Being members of the Zhentarim insures that the PC's are under a very lawful organization that will not tolerate calling negative attention to their interests by unneeded killing.
The PC's are all Lawful Evil, and although they aren't all buddy buddy (two PC's actually don't like each other at all) they are bound together by a lawful organization and all worshipping the same deity...you guessed it, Bane.
I think another important factor when running an evil campaign is an appropriate amount of meta-gaming. It could easily get out of hand at high levels if the party doesn't meta-game a little. For instance... The party I am DMing for is currently 7th level. They're getting to the point where they can wipe out a small hamlet or village and take the entire towns wealth with little trouble. Fortunately, I have mature players who say, "Let's not, that will screw the game up in terms of party wealth."
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Jindael
Senior Scribe
USA
357 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 20:24:31
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My only successful experience with playing an evil character was very satisfying, but I know that this never would have happened with a group that wasn’t as mature (or at least, RP-mature) as the one that I used to have.
My previous character had died at the same time as another character who was a rogue. (pesky dragons) I decided that I was going to go rogue, and I wanted to play with the LA buy off rules, so I went with a drow elf.
After fiddling around with some concepts, I ended up with a womanizing drow who was Neutral Evil. Because of the stat adjustments, he was brilliant and charismatic. Selfish, but still understood (better than some of the other good party members) that an adventuring group is a team, and needs to rely on each other.
His ‘evil’ came from his total disregard of people who were of no real use to him, and the fact that someone on the verge of death was a waste of potions or healing spells and (what seemed to him to be a kindness) should just get an arrow through the skull so that they may die peacefully. He took ownership of the parties half-orc, considering him his ‘muscle’ and, since the half-orc was so easily manipulated, used the half-orc’s share of the treasure to outfit the half orc with what I, as the drow, thought was best. (the half-orc’s player thought this was just as entertaining and in character as I did.) However, when the halforc died (at a stunning -43 hit points), my drow wasn’t the least bit sad, just a little put off that he had to find a new meat shield.
Eventually, despite my characters problems with being social in towns, and his incorrigible womanizing (“Dude, she’s a Halfling! Sick!”) He eventually became the teams ‘field’ leader; shouting commands in battle and coming up with the majority of the plans. And the rest of the part listened, even though they had a few problems with his moral outlook.
All in all, it was a fantastically fun role playing experience for everyone. (or at least, that’s what everyone at the table told me.) And no hard feelings came out of it.
Sadly, the DM eventually decided that the LA buyoff rules were still a little unbalanced, and she felt it wasn’t quite fair to the other players. I (reluctantly) agreed, and switch characters again.
However, (And slightly more on topic) every other time I have played evil, it eventually degraded into theft and petty murder and chaos. Of course, this was back in first edition, and I was in Jr. High.
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"You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."
-- C.S. Lewis |
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Angron
Acolyte
13 Posts |
Posted - 20 Oct 2005 : 23:22:27
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What me and my friends tends to do when we play evil characters is that we are friends, so we dont constantly try to kill each other, because evil people have the choice to be evil when they want and dont be evil when they want, that seems to be the problem for alot of players to understand. As some of the new players we have picked up they tried to kill and rob everything the laid their eyes on when we played, but after 2 scenarioes of serious problems with the new players, they understood what we do when we play evil people and after then it has gone smoothly. My characters tends to allway have grand plans for them like taking over a town or 2, but like some dms likes to have everythin go after their plans, that gets a bit hard to do then, so we have recently picked up a dm that dms a free campaigne, the story follow us in what we do, but he sends us in different adventures now and then, like we have just finished city of the spider queen, where my drow sorcerer have become the power behind the throne of the ruling house of mensoberranzan, and now our group are trying to wrest control of Turmish with an army consisting of 5000 soldiers(they have become epic,the group).I like continuing playing with an character for a long time my drow which is at level 21 have i played since he was level 1.
But what do peolpe here think about campaignes like that, more controlled by the players and their choices and not about the dms adventures? |
Edited by - Angron on 20 Oct 2005 23:29:11 |
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evil players
