About evil characters, I suppose I could talk about issues with party cohesion, the risks of upsetting individual different comfort zones or the tricky genre conventions, but that would just be excuses.

The truth is simple. Some people are fascinated by the dark side, by what motivates a person to do terrible things and how they live with it.

I'm not. For me evil is just greedy, petty, cold and ugly and frannkly not a lot of fun. I guess it's similar to the way some people just aren't inspired by "superheroes" or "cyberpunk" as a genre. Either you get it or you don't.

Quote from: Soylent Green;307153About evil characters, I suppose I could talk about issues with party cohesion, the risks of upsetting individual different comfort zones or the tricky genre conventions, but that would just be excuses.

The truth is simple. Some people are fascinated by the dark side, by what motivates a person to do terrible things and how they live with it.

I'm not. For me evil is just greedy, petty, cold and ugly and frannkly not a lot of fun. I guess it's similar to the way some people just aren't inspired by "superheroes" or "cyberpunk" as a genre. Either you get it or you don't.

Interesting. That is a very real view of Evil I think but not sure how it relates to the fiction. Take Silence of the Lambs or Dexter. Here the protagonists are evil but in a fictionalised way and as such they have a veneer of charm and appeal. Do you watch these sorts of films? Read books of the genre etc?

I am very interested in historical and cultural definitions of evil and how they are portrayed in various mediums. For example as I type this The Exorcist is on the Telly. I am wondering if it woudl be more disturbing if the little girl stayed looking like a little girl when she is possessed and not like a demon. Would Dexter or Hanibal be less palatable if they picked on heroic characters in stead of villains?

Quote from: J Arcane;307121I tend to create a character's morality, and then pick the alignment to fit.  Playing fun with certain false expectations of D&D morality is an occasional hobby of mine.  

(Slightly of topic - general comment not specific to D&D) I think players playing with the expectations (false or otherwise) of accepted morality creates interesting characters. An example of this would be the player in one of my campaigns, who created a character modelled somewhat on Matt Dillon's racist cop in Crash.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: jibbajibba;307152I kind of thouight Pseudoephedrine's guy seemed more LE than CE to me. Real CE to me would be actively trying to promote anarchy and bring down legal and authoritarian regimes. Its a problem for us because most of our historical exposure to Evil is lawful, ie groups create and use Laws to promote their own interests (Nazis, Aztecs etc.) at the cost of others. Now true CE is tricky even a sociopath really in CN as they have no concept of Good or Evil. A cinema villain such as Jason or Mike Myers would be CE but they are so extreme as to be unplayable.

I consider Wayland to be CE, not LE, because he ultimately came down on the side of personal power and will against the various religious and legal institutions of his native land (both legitimate and otherwise). He didn't want to control or use them except as a temporary goal on his way to godhood. Also, he really enjoyed dominating people on a personal level as much as through his accumulated temporal power. I do agree that he had elements of lawfulness, and in a sense, that was his defining moral conflict: Rather than worrying about being good or evil or whatever, he was concerned with whether he should strive to realise himself inside a system he considered stupid, unfair, and corrupt, and yet because of those failings, easy to take control of and bend in line with his will (He helped ignite the civil war with the eventual goal of putting his dopey brother on the throne, frex).

Quote from: jibbajibba;307170Interesting. That is a very real view of Evil I think but not sure how it relates to the fiction. Take Silence of the Lambs or Dexter. Here the protagonists are evil but in a fictionalised way and as such they have a veneer of charm and appeal. Do you watch these sorts of films? Read books of the genre etc?

Not so much. Silence of the Lambs is very well acted but it always struck me as bad B-movie with A-movie production values.

I tell you the villains I do enjoy as characters are the more pathetic ones, the kind which are are born losers, and know it. The superhero genre, especially if you look at second-string villains, are full of them. These are guys which huge chips on their shoulders and inferiority complex knowing full well that no matter how hard they try Spiderman is going to whip them good every time.

Some of my favourite comicbook moments focus on the story from the point of view of some these second-string supervillain (including the recent mini-seires "Doom and the Master of Evil").

Not exactly fertile rolepalying material though.

I used to hate alignment, and now I love it. Here's why.

In any game with alignment assumes a particular morality which may or may not mesh with our own values or our societies. Even ones where the morality seems obvious or correct on the surface offer bizarre incongruities that don't make sense from our perspective. Witness any discussion about D&D alignments and, say, Branford's comment about Negative Energy.

White Wolf, similarly, has an objective moral system with a hierarchy of game sins that doesn't have anything to do with meaning or intent. Ghosts, for example, seem like sentient creatures, but you can destroy them all day long and it never causes spiritual decay.

You can try to fit a square peg in a round hole (simple game morality vs. complicated constructed real-world morality) or run with it. I've really enjoyed my chaotic neutral and lawful evil D&D characters, but the groups never had to fear for themselves while they were in the party. Sure, you can play a character that has no group cohesion and it'll suck. But good alignments fall into that trap too. (See: Lawful Stupid or Good is Dumb)

I'm going somewhere with this, really.

It boils down to not being a purile dick, basically. Evil is frequently an excuse in the game to be kind of a jerk, but it's not the alignment, it's the player. Now, a character with a motivation that's opposed to the rest of the players that the player themself chooses to use when he knows it's going to stop others from having fun is destructive. But playing an 'evil' alignment or choosing unsavory character concepts or concepts with sinister motivations arn't always bad at the end of the day.

These are not problems with alignment; they're problems with particular systems of alignment at worst, and at best they are problems with individuals' interpretations of alignment.

I think alignment is a great tool if used properly.

RPGPundit

I personally don't like evil characters. Not that I have a problem with them per se, but EVIL characters tend to be two dimensional. Same goes for GOOD characters.
I favour characters with good intentions and/or understandable motivations that go a morally questionable route to success over pure good/evil, like many characters in the new Battlestar Galactica or for example the Shield.

Quote from: Saphim;307512I personally don't like evil characters. Not that I have a problem with them per se, but EVIL characters tend to be two dimensional. Same goes for GOOD characters.
I favour characters with good intentions and/or understandable motivations that go a morally questionable route to success over pure good/evil, like many characters in the new Battlestar Galactica or for example the Shield.

You see I think the whole morally grey kind of thing is actually easier to play. Its easy to play a character that goes along with the party and pinches the occassional pile of treasure when no one it looking.
The challenge to me of alignment is playing the CE guy as someone that actively promotes Chaos and Evil rather than some one who is just selfish and self serving. The idea that it is a bad for an evil character to save the family of peasants as it is for the paladin to kill them all is quite a challenge all the more so if you are trying to do it in a party without causing disruption to party harmony and the like.
Don't get me wrong most of the time I will go with the flow especially where I am not familiar with the group or if this is a long campaign but we have always played a lot of one offs or limited session games (say 2 12 hour sessions over a weekend - hey its better than going on a golfing break right?) In these I like to look at charcater in more depth and take risks.
The Murder mystery stuff I do is interesting in this regard cos usually in the 'party' there is at least 1 evil murderer.I do so hope my murderers are not seen as 2 dimentional by the punters...

Ok, a disclaimer before we get into arguing semantics. I only speak for my playing style and that of my group. This is about what we think is fun. YMMV.

I don't care much for the harmony within the party. I think inter character conflict is essential to have a good story. Characters in our groups will most often be in conflict about several things and only agree on the general goal, i.e. they want to save the kingdom, but one of them would gladly sacrifice armies to grind down the enemy while another treasures life and is opposed to that.

I think we are looking for different kinds of conflict.

Quote from: Saphim;307623Ok, a disclaimer before we get into arguing semantics. I only speak for my playing style and that of my group. This is about what we think is fun. YMMV.

I don't care much for the harmony within the party. I think inter character conflict is essential to have a good story. Characters in our groups will most often be in conflict about several things and only agree on the general goal, i.e. they want to save the kingdom, but one of them would gladly sacrifice armies to grind down the enemy while another treasures life and is opposed to that.

I think we are looking for different kinds of conflict.

No I can totally understand that and as i say we play different kinds of games. We usually have some intraparty stress and most characters have a backstory and the GM builds in conflict to some degree.