Has anyone had this work out? Like have you personally played, or played with, someone who ran an evil character and had it function in the game? I'm worried that if I/ my DM allow it, we are going to get less "Big character who uses their size to get what they want" and more "I R*** the women and eat the children"
The big thing that you need to make the player understand about playing an evil character with other non-evil characters is that evil does not equal "stupid and no impulse control."
Someone who is chaotic aligned (i.e. does not believe in law or believe there *should* be law ideologically) can and should follow the laws if there's a clear incentive to. Sure, an evil character *might* just try to murder anyone who annoys them, but then they would be arrested/killed/imprisoned/executed; it's really too much of a bother to them.
Someone who is evil aligned (i.e. hates others, doesn't value the lives of others, or only cares about themselves) can and should still work within the constrains of the society they're trying to subvert/conquer/whatever because if they're not stupid, they'll know that guards outnumber them, armies outnumber them, nations have them ridiculously outgunned, and they need to build their strength/resources in order to make any meaningful play for the object of their evil scheme.
Now, as for "Why would such a character work with good-aligned characters?" There's a lot of fun answers.
1. Maybe they find their goals temporarily aligned because if the bigger badder guy takes over the world, well then that's pretty bad for business for you. Ergo...
2. You need to become powerful, which means you need powerful minions, and you're convinced that these fellow party members might just be the dupes you're looking for, so you'll play along with their little games, bide your time, and get on with the manipulating.
3. One of my personal favorites: you're an evil character, you hate/are apathetic to pretty much everyone, BUT this merry band contains some of the few people in this world you carry genuine affection for, despite yourself. Sure, when other people talk it makes you wanna stab, and you definitely wanna overthrow the king someday, BUT it's hard to do with them looking over your shoulder with that dammed disappointed look. You just hate to see them sad...
There's plenty more ways you can justify an evil character among good heroes, and Matt Coville has a great video on Playing Evil Characters that goes into it a lot more.
Whether the PC is just being evil for a backstory reason or they are secret bbeg that is working with the DM, the main thing about an evil pc in a non-evil party is the player has to avoid causing friction/drama with their fellow party members. As the player is walking a tightrope between their actions being interesting to potentially becoming that jerk that 'ruined the game'.
To get the good sort of evil player, the player needs to be actually mature in how they go about their evilness, avoiding the cheap shock value options like you mentioned in the original post, and actually help create a fun environment for the rest of the party so they are not kicked out. Usually such evil characters tend to go for a slow burn approach.
Addenum: If a player is not this, that they do go for the cheap things that make the rest of the table quickly uncomfortable by their presence in games, you as the DM need to be ready to put your foot down.
In my current campaign we're traveling with an evil Undead Warlock Necromancer. She's very intelligent and conniving... she works great with the party and often makes the hard choices the more heroic party members hesitate on, but she's still more selfish and cruel than the other party members. She would occasionally sneak away early on to kill criminals and steal their souls and some other dark stuff, but still always avoided harming innocents.
In a previous campaign we also played with an evil Assassin Rogue... but the player could never fully commit to the evil aspect of it and ultimately she was just more enthusiastic about killing enemies on combat than everyone else was.
Anyway, it can work, but only if they play as a realistically evil and selfish person, and not as like... a cartoonish monster. There's a difference between a character who goes out of their way to eat random children and, say... a spellcaster who doesn't care if civilians get caught in the AOE of a fireball.
Evil people know that they probably can’t just do whatever they want without getting their comeuppance. The same should apply to players with evil PCs. If they think that their PC can get away with heinous atrocities because the DM and other players turn a blind eye on account of being a PC, you’re likely to have a bad time. If they think non-evil PCs will react as non-evil heroes to discovering one if theirs is an awful villain and the DM will make NPCs and the setting in general react in a realistic manner to crimes being committed on the other hand, they’ll know that they can’t just disregard the consequences of their actions and you’re more likely to have a PC that’s much less disruptive. Make it clear that you won’t pull punches or make unnecessary allowances and that you expect the same from the other players, and obviously stick to that during the game.
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I've both played as and played with evil PCs that worked. However, every single one of them was an intelligent character played by an intelligent person, and I think that helped avoid some of the common issues groups have.
The "I R*** the women and eat the children" PCs are, in my opinion, extremely unfun but the party can always arrest them and kick them out. Or even kill them. I know some groups try really hard to force themselves never to work against each other but having just one r*** and murder member of a good-aligned party doesn't make sense in that context. So, if you're not feeling good about directly rejecting the character, you can always just give them fair warning and let the party sort them out.
Has anyone had this work out? Like have you personally played, or played with, someone who ran an evil character and had it function in the game? I'm worried that if I/ my DM allow it, we are going to get less "Big character who uses their size to get what they want" and more "I R*** the women and eat the children"
So then you impose the right consequences, which is to kick the human out of the group for trying to bring that level of shit into the game.
I've had adult themes, and I'll continue to have adult themes in D&D. It's with the consent of the players. That being said, **** is not something that should be condoned in any form. I don't have the social graces to tell any sort of story with he gravity required to handle the subject, and honestly, in a fast and loose off the cuff game like D&D, no one really does.
The posts prior to this speak to how to deal with evil alignments, and those posts are fantastic. While alignment in the context of game mechanics can be a tricky subject, morality isn't as tricky but has many more areas of grey. People are flexible in their personal beliefs and their outward projection of them to accomplish their goals and "Evil" aligned NPCs are no different. The cultist will totally work a 9-5 and potentially have a family that they even legitimately love, but still serve Cyric, and willfully employ their beliefs onto those who don't serve. To that person, they might not even be a cultist, just a loyal priest of a God. What is to say that what they are doing is wrong, when to them someone who serves Kelemvor is completely Evil. That type of roleplay is complex, and while the character might do things that traditionally isn't considered "Good", it would absolutely be welcome at my table. The minute it goes into "I murder everyone I see haha I'm so random", well, that player gets captured by the town guard and lose their pc. If they are high level, then deities are going to take notice and their Chosen are going to be intervening. If it delves into the forbidden, and sexual assault is absolutely on that list, I stop playing, I delete their character from my campaign on D&D Beyond and I tell them to leave my table. If I were a player at a table where this happened, I'd stop the game and ask the party if they were OK with this. If the party is OK with it, I leave. If the DM doesn't stop it, I leave. I'm absolutely going to force the conversation right at that point because certain topics don't merit serious consideration, they require action. To not address it in that moment, makes you complicit in the behavior and to that person, now THIS is a safe space where they can "act out" that type of fantasy, and I do not want ANY D&D table to have that. So I refuse to be a part of it.
As one of my groups only "Evil by Default" players I feel like chiming in on this is something I shouldn't pass up.
TL;DR : Really depends on your tolerance for content, and the players motivations. If both of those line up, or are relatively similar. Or at least within a reasonable distance there shouldn't be a problem
First off as a DM and Player you need to have an understanding with whoever is playing an Evil (or in some cases overly good) PC and make sure what's going on there. Cartoonish mustache twirling evil can range from something you might get kicked out of the group for content wise, all the way to the other end of cartoonish by being Snidely who just does evil random shenanigans. In my mind either of those present a problem because most evil characters worth playing are neither. The favorite example of this is when we started a campaign several years ago a friend(DM) who came off of CR and past knowledge of regular D&D was completely (like 95%) unprepared for the shenanigans a friend and I got up to with our "Evil" PC's. Skinning the killed enemies only to show their boss their heads and flesh for intimidation, or what I think really topped it, waterboarding a hobgoblin with oil really made our DM two parts Facepalm and be like "Really guys?"
Now in that case we told him and he agreed, "These aren't going to be disruptive needlessly, but they are not by the book or nice people." It was clear the communication between the three of us was perhaps a bit lacking, after the fact we hashed that out and he sorta expected to get some Tolkien-esque evil shenanigans, and what he ended up getting was Berserk evil shenanigans. Wildly different expectations there.
But those actions weren't void of usefulness either, one was a legit scare tactic to make the enemy stop fighting saving us resources, time and possibly deaths. The other was a more strait forward extraction of what information we could get, and because intimidation and asking nicely didn't work, we asked hard. However beyond those specific actions and a bit of semi-unrelated inner party tension nothing really ever came of the "Evil" in the short campaign we manged to play before the boss known as scheduling destroyed it.
That sort of example is necessary, I think, to frame what expectations one should have when building a character with the Evil tag in general. In addition as a DM I treat them as any other PC, my only real requirement is that nothing violates the groups consent charts.
The other big subject of this sort of debate / question / detail is "What passes as Evil or Good?"
A lot of it boils down to that exact question. My previous character was on a quest to get land so that he could quite literally just move his family there and rule it. Was he nice? No, no no no, absolutely not. Would be considered somewhat of a Tyrant if not at least a logical one. In standard fantasy trope that's Evil. As DM it's up to you IMO to set the entry level bar for that. What constitutes evil and good in your game, and is the players character really Evil or just something outside their comfort zone?
Also Guy Sclanders has an older video on Evil Characters that might help here as well. YouTube "How to be a Great GM" and see if that video's still up.
"I once knew this fella, Aasimar raised in the Underdark. Was like a brother to me. When he escaped we couldn't take much with us. Poor, emaciated husks of the living we were. 'ts okay though. We survived and made our ways. I'll never forget the way the people from my home looked at us when we walked in the archway. Though, I'm frighteningly certain the feelings they would have, had they but the opportunity ta see us leave." --Manolovo the Traitor, Memoirs of a Scoundrel
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Has anyone had this work out? Like have you personally played, or played with, someone who ran an evil character and had it function in the game? I'm worried that if I/ my DM allow it, we are going to get less "Big character who uses their size to get what they want" and more "I R*** the women and eat the children"
The big thing that you need to make the player understand about playing an evil character with other non-evil characters is that evil does not equal "stupid and no impulse control."
Someone who is chaotic aligned (i.e. does not believe in law or believe there *should* be law ideologically) can and should follow the laws if there's a clear incentive to. Sure, an evil character *might* just try to murder anyone who annoys them, but then they would be arrested/killed/imprisoned/executed; it's really too much of a bother to them.
Someone who is evil aligned (i.e. hates others, doesn't value the lives of others, or only cares about themselves) can and should still work within the constrains of the society they're trying to subvert/conquer/whatever because if they're not stupid, they'll know that guards outnumber them, armies outnumber them, nations have them ridiculously outgunned, and they need to build their strength/resources in order to make any meaningful play for the object of their evil scheme.
Now, as for "Why would such a character work with good-aligned characters?" There's a lot of fun answers.
1. Maybe they find their goals temporarily aligned because if the bigger badder guy takes over the world, well then that's pretty bad for business for you. Ergo...
2. You need to become powerful, which means you need powerful minions, and you're convinced that these fellow party members might just be the dupes you're looking for, so you'll play along with their little games, bide your time, and get on with the manipulating.
3. One of my personal favorites: you're an evil character, you hate/are apathetic to pretty much everyone, BUT this merry band contains some of the few people in this world you carry genuine affection for, despite yourself. Sure, when other people talk it makes you wanna stab, and you definitely wanna overthrow the king someday, BUT it's hard to do with them looking over your shoulder with that dammed disappointed look. You just hate to see them sad...
There's plenty more ways you can justify an evil character among good heroes, and Matt Coville has a great video on Playing Evil Characters that goes into it a lot more.
Hope that helps!
Whether the PC is just being evil for a backstory reason or they are secret bbeg that is working with the DM, the main thing about an evil pc in a non-evil party is the player has to avoid causing friction/drama with their fellow party members. As the player is walking a tightrope between their actions being interesting to potentially becoming that jerk that 'ruined the game'.
To get the good sort of evil player, the player needs to be actually mature in how they go about their evilness, avoiding the cheap shock value options like you mentioned in the original post, and actually help create a fun environment for the rest of the party so they are not kicked out. Usually such evil characters tend to go for a slow burn approach.
Addenum: If a player is not this, that they do go for the cheap things that make the rest of the table quickly uncomfortable by their presence in games, you as the DM need to be ready to put your foot down.
In my current campaign we're traveling with an evil Undead Warlock Necromancer. She's very intelligent and conniving... she works great with the party and often makes the hard choices the more heroic party members hesitate on, but she's still more selfish and cruel than the other party members. She would occasionally sneak away early on to kill criminals and steal their souls and some other dark stuff, but still always avoided harming innocents.
In a previous campaign we also played with an evil Assassin Rogue... but the player could never fully commit to the evil aspect of it and ultimately she was just more enthusiastic about killing enemies on combat than everyone else was.
Anyway, it can work, but only if they play as a realistically evil and selfish person, and not as like... a cartoonish monster. There's a difference between a character who goes out of their way to eat random children and, say... a spellcaster who doesn't care if civilians get caught in the AOE of a fireball.
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Evil people know that they probably can’t just do whatever they want without getting their comeuppance. The same should apply to players with evil PCs. If they think that their PC can get away with heinous atrocities because the DM and other players turn a blind eye on account of being a PC, you’re likely to have a bad time. If they think non-evil PCs will react as non-evil heroes to discovering one if theirs is an awful villain and the DM will make NPCs and the setting in general react in a realistic manner to crimes being committed on the other hand, they’ll know that they can’t just disregard the consequences of their actions and you’re more likely to have a PC that’s much less disruptive. Make it clear that you won’t pull punches or make unnecessary allowances and that you expect the same from the other players, and obviously stick to that during the game.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I've both played as and played with evil PCs that worked. However, every single one of them was an intelligent character played by an intelligent person, and I think that helped avoid some of the common issues groups have.
The "I R*** the women and eat the children" PCs are, in my opinion, extremely unfun but the party can always arrest them and kick them out. Or even kill them. I know some groups try really hard to force themselves never to work against each other but having just one r*** and murder member of a good-aligned party doesn't make sense in that context. So, if you're not feeling good about directly rejecting the character, you can always just give them fair warning and let the party sort them out.
So then you impose the right consequences, which is to kick the human out of the group for trying to bring that level of shit into the game.
I've had adult themes, and I'll continue to have adult themes in D&D. It's with the consent of the players. That being said, **** is not something that should be condoned in any form. I don't have the social graces to tell any sort of story with he gravity required to handle the subject, and honestly, in a fast and loose off the cuff game like D&D, no one really does.
The posts prior to this speak to how to deal with evil alignments, and those posts are fantastic. While alignment in the context of game mechanics can be a tricky subject, morality isn't as tricky but has many more areas of grey. People are flexible in their personal beliefs and their outward projection of them to accomplish their goals and "Evil" aligned NPCs are no different. The cultist will totally work a 9-5 and potentially have a family that they even legitimately love, but still serve Cyric, and willfully employ their beliefs onto those who don't serve. To that person, they might not even be a cultist, just a loyal priest of a God. What is to say that what they are doing is wrong, when to them someone who serves Kelemvor is completely Evil. That type of roleplay is complex, and while the character might do things that traditionally isn't considered "Good", it would absolutely be welcome at my table. The minute it goes into "I murder everyone I see haha I'm so random", well, that player gets captured by the town guard and lose their pc. If they are high level, then deities are going to take notice and their Chosen are going to be intervening. If it delves into the forbidden, and sexual assault is absolutely on that list, I stop playing, I delete their character from my campaign on D&D Beyond and I tell them to leave my table. If I were a player at a table where this happened, I'd stop the game and ask the party if they were OK with this. If the party is OK with it, I leave. If the DM doesn't stop it, I leave. I'm absolutely going to force the conversation right at that point because certain topics don't merit serious consideration, they require action. To not address it in that moment, makes you complicit in the behavior and to that person, now THIS is a safe space where they can "act out" that type of fantasy, and I do not want ANY D&D table to have that. So I refuse to be a part of it.
As one of my groups only "Evil by Default" players I feel like chiming in on this is something I shouldn't pass up.
TL;DR : Really depends on your tolerance for content, and the players motivations. If both of those line up, or are relatively similar. Or at least within a reasonable distance there shouldn't be a problem
First off as a DM and Player you need to have an understanding with whoever is playing an Evil (or in some cases overly good) PC and make sure what's going on there. Cartoonish mustache twirling evil can range from something you might get kicked out of the group for content wise, all the way to the other end of cartoonish by being Snidely who just does evil random shenanigans. In my mind either of those present a problem because most evil characters worth playing are neither. The favorite example of this is when we started a campaign several years ago a friend(DM) who came off of CR and past knowledge of regular D&D was completely (like 95%) unprepared for the shenanigans a friend and I got up to with our "Evil" PC's. Skinning the killed enemies only to show their boss their heads and flesh for intimidation, or what I think really topped it, waterboarding a hobgoblin with oil really made our DM two parts Facepalm and be like "Really guys?"
Now in that case we told him and he agreed, "These aren't going to be disruptive needlessly, but they are not by the book or nice people." It was clear the communication between the three of us was perhaps a bit lacking, after the fact we hashed that out and he sorta expected to get some Tolkien-esque evil shenanigans, and what he ended up getting was Berserk evil shenanigans. Wildly different expectations there.
But those actions weren't void of usefulness either, one was a legit scare tactic to make the enemy stop fighting saving us resources, time and possibly deaths. The other was a more strait forward extraction of what information we could get, and because intimidation and asking nicely didn't work, we asked hard. However beyond those specific actions and a bit of semi-unrelated inner party tension nothing really ever came of the "Evil" in the short campaign we manged to play before the boss known as scheduling destroyed it.
That sort of example is necessary, I think, to frame what expectations one should have when building a character with the Evil tag in general. In addition as a DM I treat them as any other PC, my only real requirement is that nothing violates the groups consent charts.
The other big subject of this sort of debate / question / detail is "What passes as Evil or Good?"
A lot of it boils down to that exact question. My previous character was on a quest to get land so that he could quite literally just move his family there and rule it. Was he nice? No, no no no, absolutely not. Would be considered somewhat of a Tyrant if not at least a logical one. In standard fantasy trope that's Evil. As DM it's up to you IMO to set the entry level bar for that. What constitutes evil and good in your game, and is the players character really Evil or just something outside their comfort zone?
Also Guy Sclanders has an older video on Evil Characters that might help here as well. YouTube "How to be a Great GM" and see if that video's still up.
"I once knew this fella, Aasimar raised in the Underdark. Was like a brother to me. When he escaped we couldn't take much with us. Poor, emaciated husks of the living we were. 'ts okay though. We survived and made our ways. I'll never forget the way the people from my home looked at us when we walked in the archway. Though, I'm frighteningly certain the feelings they would have, had they but the opportunity ta see us leave." --Manolovo the Traitor, Memoirs of a Scoundrel