#14: Five Ways to Play Evil Characters

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/building/building14.phtml

Summary:

Having fun, conquering the universe, and not destroying your RPG group or close friendships.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/building/building14.phtml) for more information.

[Asklepios]

Hmm, I suspect Christopher Gunning, who did yesterday's column on Deus Ex Machina might disagree with your definition of the term! An inbuilt plot device that stops characters being as evil as they might otherwise be isn't deus ex machina, its just a useful plot device!

Re: scripting characters actions - this isn't something that appeals to the westernised gamer that much, but I do recall it being mentioned once (in an old Arcane article) that scripted games were once quite well liked in Japan.
I guess the modern, narrativist equivalent to this would be complete player involvement in story design: You let everybody know that one of the player characters is evil, but you put the responsibility of making sure this doesn't derail the game or story into the hands of the players themselves. Then because the players (and especially the evil player) are responsible for creating a story that is fun for all involved, they will (theoretically) avoid asshattery.

Good column! Keep it up!

[thurgon]

I think there are other ways besides Option 1 of integrating "evil" PCs into a standard campaign without tricky plot devices.

To start with the definition of an "evil" character:

characters that place the motivations of selfishness and bettering of themselves (or their social/racial group) over the goals, happiness and lives of their fellow characters. Does the second occurence of "characters" refer to PCs or NPCs? If NPCs, than most kick-in-the-door style play invovles "evil" characters, as in this sort of play the PCs prioritise the party's interests (ie the intrests of their social group) over the interests of the NPCs they kill and loot - so let's assume it means PCs.

Limited in this way, the definition is still a bit unclear. Is a PC who doesn't put in for beer money evil? What about one who hogs all the magic items to him- or herself? These are ways of putting self-interest ahead of the goals of fellow PCs, and Option 1 won't resolve those sorts of issues. But a PC with that sort of personality is not fatal to the game in my experience, unless the player also tends to that sort of behaviour. . .

What about a PC who prioritises the interests of her social group over those of fellow PCs? A fanatic fits that description, but fanatic PCs are completely fine, provided that nothing in the game forces them to choose between the competing sets of interests. The same is true for selfish PCs.

Once the two sets of interests come into conflict, interesting roleplaying opportunities emerge for all concerned. I have had PCs convert other PCs to their cause, in not on pain of death than still less than fully voluntarily. Again, this need not be fatal provided that the player of the converted PC doesn't have to sacrifice too much of his or her own agenda in undertaking the conversion.

(In my own game where this happened, the "evil" PC was an up-and-coming underling to a ruthless wizard staging a coup in the kingdom; the converted PC reluctantly came over to that side, but this did not stop the player of that PC pursuing his own interests: running a campaign against slavery in the kingdom, and trying to establish himself as a magistrate in his home town. In fact, the promise of a magistracy was one of the inducements offered by the "evil" PC.)

I think the real problem with "evil" characters arises in systems which try and implement a metaphysical alignment system, so that "evil" is no longer a debatable question of individual motivation, social context, the accumulated consequences of moral trade-offs, etc, but rather is an objective spiritual status. The problems with this sort of system are only increased when the behaviour associated with such "evil" status is taken to be not petty selfishness or minor wrongdoing but the sort of psychopathic outlook often attributed to Orcs, Goblins, etc - a worldview which I find it very hard to imagine any sane person cultivating, and which is not at all captured by the definition of "evil characters" given above.

[Duilen]

I just mentioned this in another thread somewhere but what about playing a character with MPSD? This way a character could be mostly good/neutral with a bit of an evil streak.