It depends on the creature or villain.

Chromatic Dragons tend to not be cognizant of their evilness.  They're essentially racist, and simply incapable of recognizing the needs of humans as having real legitimacy.

Demons and Devils revel in their own evilnesses.  They actually take real pleasure from pointless cruelty, lying, and sowing ruin and destruction for it's own sake.

Evil Humanoids are motivated by the spark of evil, and rarely capable of overcoming their basest desires and urges, and are thus considered iredeemably evil.  Few of these creatures posses any sort of intellectualism, generally possessing only a dim cleverness.  They are not merely culturally or economically disadvantaged, some metaphorical other, but are actually twisted mockeries of the human and demi-human races.

Evil humans -- who tend to be the major villains of my campaigns -- tend to have more complex motivations, or to be more accurate, tend to have complex justifications, rationalizations and delusions about their evil deeds.

Since evil is a real force in my campaign (an extrapolation of spells like detect evil), it would be most accurate to say of human villains that most think they are good, but a few (generally the most powerful) know they are evil.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineMostly 1, but I'm willing to admit that some people are willing to consider themselves evil because of a transgressive thrill from doing so.

Same here.

I think most genuine harm is done by people who have a detailed rationalisation and strong motivation for what they're doing.

There are of course people who think that to be nasty is k3w1. Some serial killers are like this. "Who do I have to kill to get into the papers?" said the BTK killer thirty years ago.

As GM I have to have fun roleplaying too. The first type of guy is fun to roleplay, especially when they're explaining themselves to the PCs and one or two say, "Well, I can see that point of view, that's reasonable..." then shake their heads suddenly and sit up indignantly, "no wait! That's crazy shit! You're evil!"

But the second guy is just lame and stupid and no fun to roleplay.

The second guy can be good so long as he's integrated properly into the world and not presented as being stupid. We've all met people in our lives, I'm sure, who seem to really thrive on the misery of others without deriving any material benefit from it.

It depends on whether the villains are PC's or NPC's and what "genre" is being gamed.

Note that my OP does not suppose that the justifications used by villains are actually meant to excuse them in anyone's eyes but their own; I'm not talking about some lily-livered PC "no one is really bad" philosophy here, where Death Knights are just "misunderstood" or its really all "society's fault".  

I'm talking about the ways villains present themselves as, well, the hero of their own story.

Lex Luthor is an utter shithead, but he's often justified himself by suggesting that Superman's "super" nature is something that destroys the value of humanity, that Supes is a monstrosity because his very existence insults human potential and makes human beings like ants that must live or die by Superman's whim.  It just so happens that Lex ALSO believes that of course, he's the paragon of the human species and that if it wasn't for Superman's very presence, he would be the natural saviour and ruler of mankind.

RPGPundit

There are numerous kinds of evil in my games.

Evil because you serve a philosophy is one thing that has its place, but I could never do that with the *majority* of encounters with evil.

Likewise, some people are straight up perverse, acknowledging the evil of their ways, and maybe even reveling in that knowledge. Again, doesn't strike me as a majority situation.

The majority for me is the group that is selfish, uncaring, and shortsighted. They take because they want. They kill because they're angry. They lord it over their inferiors because in their mind their word is law. They neglect their obligations if it doesn't serve their own whims. They need no justification to behave a given way but their desire to behave that way. And if they don't care what's good, why would they call themselves evil?

Add to this group a few with the intelligence to pretend to have a second agenda beyond their self-serving nature, but that don't actually care about it. Those that justify their whims after the fact, that is.

And lastly there's another minority situation where a person acts as a catalyst for a series of nasty things happening without realizing it. Incompetence in office can appear indistinguishable from evil.

I like a mix.

I'd also nominate another category for people who don't self-examine and just do evil things. Justification, identification, all that crap? Don't care. I'm just going to go kill this grannie and steal her shit. Why? 'Cause.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaI give you the corporate executives of Enron, circa 2000: "We're going to fuck grandma in the ass!"  
!i!

Actually they had a motivation Greed. Which fits the criteria for #1.

I am firmly in the #1 game. Because the added details generate more conflict and more conflict means more opportunities for adventure.

However understand sometimes the reasons can be pretty basic like Greed. Other times they can be a result of culture/religion.

I find the deconstructed, relativist "He's just misunderstood" villain to be just as cliche and painful to the ear as some find a more black and white game world, and more to the point, he requires a lot more work.  And you can definitely keep him the hell out of my fantasy.

Certainly it's good to have some motivation for the guy, but at the same time, sometimes it's fun to have a guy who's just a bastard.

Quote from: J ArcaneCertainly it's good to have some motivation for the guy, but at the same time, sometimes it's fun to have a guy who's just a bastard.

Peter Parker: Eddie, it's the suit. You've got to take it off.
Eddie Brock: Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't ya?
Peter Parker: I've been there, Eddie. The power; it feels good. But you'll lose yourself to it. It'll destroy you. Take the suit off Eddie, it's not too late!
Venom: [ponders thought] Nah... I like being bad. It makes me... happy...

Quote from: J ArcaneI find the deconstructed, relativist "He's just misunderstood" villain to be just as cliche and painful to the ear as some find a more black and white game world, and more to the point, he requires a lot more work.  And you can definitely keep him the hell out of my fantasy.

Certainly it's good to have some motivation for the guy, but at the same time, sometimes it's fun to have a guy who's just a bastard.

The idea of a person having motivation doesn't imply that he's just misunderstood though.  His motivations can be evil and twisted and wrong, in a very black-and-white way that everybody but the villain can see clearly.

There's still a big difference between someone who says "I will exterminate the half-breed races because their filth pollutes our world!" and someone who says "I hunt half-elves because I'm eeeeeevil!"

Still though, J has a point. Niether the racist guy or the evil guy are terribly original at this stage of the game.

I run mostly S&S, and I find the games are just more fun if the bad guy is, well bad. The PCs don't even really have to be good, really, but the bad guy has got to be bad.

Quote from: RPGPunditSo, when you're gaming, what do you prefer from your villains:

Both, because the real world has both.  The secret to keeping the villains who know they are Evil and like it that way interesting it understanding that such people are not necessarily stupid.

Quote from: TonyLBIs there an option for people who know that they're doing a bad thing, don't enjoy it, but do it because they're weak?

That's yet another option and a good distinction to make.  A variation includes things like werewolves, possessions, people under mind control, and so on -- basically people who have lost control of themselves.