Hello ive been thinking about playing an evil character and i want feed back from the community on if its hard or easy. Are there things i should watch out for? And how hard is it to role play one.

Quote from Orcist >>

Hello ive been thinking about playing an evil character and i want feed back from the community on if its hard or easy. Are there things i should watch out for? And how hard is it to role play one.

 well the answer to the question depends on how evil and in what ways you may be evil yourself if your not very evil your gonna have a hard time if your very evil its a walk in the park 

Well the character im thinking about playing is NE would that be considered hard?

Quote from Orcist >>

Well the character im thinking about playing is NE would that be considered hard?

 not very much though it may be a bit alienating 

Quote from stuffattackknightofrandom >>

Quote from Orcist >>

Hello ive been thinking about playing an evil character and i want feed back from the community on if its hard or easy. Are there things i should watch out for? And how hard is it to role play one.

 well the answer to the question depends on how evil and in what ways you may be evil yourself if your not very evil your gonna have a hard time if your very evil its a walk in the park 

 This is not true at all. I could play the most despicable character in the world, or the kindest and most loyal one. It's easy to play an evil character. The problem is making sure you don't go overboard and hinder the rest of your party. Make sure to get their permission first, too.

Evil murderhobos are definitely easy, but that's only because (In my opinion) most people who play them aren't interested in roleplaying.

Quote from Halfastbracegirdle >>

Evil murderhobos are definitely easy, but that's only because (In my opinion) most people who play them aren't interested in roleplaying.

 The trick to playing any character is understanding their personality. If you understand a character's motivations, you can understand what they'll do in any given scenario. A character's personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw can help you better understand their personality and world view.

We've got a couple of characters in our campaign who I think would be "evil" characters based on their actions (not that it's been officially revealed). They've actually worked pretty hard at RP'íng their characters and ensuring the campaign develops. The DM should be able to guide you as well, and will point out that if as an "evil" character, you say kill some innocent bystanders when killing the main villain just because they were there, there will most probably be some consequences.

I'd struggle playing that style of character, but if you're keen, go for it.

I think the real trick to being the evil member of the party is being the ONLY evil member of the party.  Anyone else who's evil, you have to betray and kill them right away or they will betray and kill you.  That's not really an alignment thing, it's just how people act when they play evil characters.  Then you should find a way to charm or endear yourself to the strongest party member.  Bring them over to your side by using their greed, their ego, their ideology, or some kind of compromising information.  Now, it's basically your party.  And as long as you're careful not to boil the frog too quickly, they'll all be evil before long.  Or they'll stop playing with you.

I mean the thing evil people always have to watch out for is society.  You have to curb your evil tendencies; or find a career that allows you to be your particular brand of evil; or the world will put you in a cell.  The easiest thing to do is to let your evil out on even worse evil people.  That's always easy money.  The most EVIL thing to do is be evil to people who aren't evil at all, they're just marginalized - so no one with power cares.  

I think Neutral Evil is probably the hardest one to play.  Lawful Evil looks surprisingly familiar if you squint; Chaotic Evil has force of personality and clear goals; Neutral Evil is kind of just a post-truth nihilist.  Their ideological paragons are the Daemons/Yugoloths of Hades.  So their worldview is shaped by the fact that they're the front line of the Blood War (or were, back in one of the old cosmologies.  In my universe they were almost born of the war itself).  There's no such thing as actual truth, only different peoples' propaganda.  No stock to be placed in any ideology and not another being is worth lifting a finger to help.  Just an utterly bored, brutal, numb, pointless kind of evil.  If a character like that were dumb, he might be like the Swedish guy in Fargo.  If he were smart, with a high charisma, he could be like maybe Christian Slater in Heathers.

I'd say the part to put more thought into is how you're going to play an evil character without making it hard for other players to enjoy the game. 

It's completely do-able, you just always wanna consider how your character's behavior impacts the other player's fun. Find that balance and you're golden. Talk to your fellow player's about it beforehand and it's even better. 

Yeah, I should clarify, I meant this as a comedic example of what an evil person would do.  An anti-example.  I definitely think it's obvious that you never want to bring that kind of energy to your gaming table, or tolerate that behavior in anyone else at your table.  

The correct thing to do is let your friends tell you how comfortable they are so you can all have the maximum fun.

Quote from TimCurtin >>

I think the real trick to being the evil member of the party is being the ONLY evil member of the party.  Anyone else who's evil, you have to betray and kill them right away or they will betray and kill you.  That's not really an alignment thing, it's just how people act when they play evil characters.  Then you should find a way to charm or endear yourself to the strongest party member.  Bring them over to your side by using their greed, their ego, their ideology, or some kind of compromising information.  Now, it's basically your party.  And as long as you're careful not to boil the frog too quickly, they'll all be evil before long.  Or they'll stop playing with you.

I mean the thing evil people always have to watch out for is society.  You have to curb your evil tendencies; or find a career that allows you to be your particular brand of evil; or the world will put you in a cell.  The easiest thing to do is to let your evil out on even worse evil people.  That's always easy money.  The most EVIL thing to do is be evil to people who aren't evil at all, they're just marginalized - so no one with power cares.  

I think Neutral Evil is probably the hardest one to play.  Lawful Evil looks surprisingly familiar if you squint; Chaotic Evil has force of personality and clear goals; Neutral Evil is kind of just a post-truth nihilist.  Their ideological paragons are the Daemons/Yugoloths of Hades.  So their worldview is shaped by the fact that they're the front line of the Blood War (or were, back in one of the old cosmologies.  In my universe they were almost born of the war itself).  There's no such thing as actual truth, only different peoples' propaganda.  No stock to be placed in any ideology and not another being is worth lifting a finger to help.  Just an utterly bored, brutal, numb, pointless kind of evil.  If a character like that were dumb, he might be like the Swedish guy in Fargo.  If he were smart, with a high charisma, he could be like maybe Christian Slater in Heathers.

 Thank you for the advice i have all ready put  NE on the character sheet but ill just erase it and do lawful evil because now that i think about it thats what my character leans towards most. And also made a sheet of reminding me to role play ( Instead of just fight alot ) in our next session.

Something else to consider is what ties the character to the party. When creating an evil character (or a lone wolf type), it is important to remember that they joined the party for a reason. and they stay in the party for a reason too.

An example reason might be having feelings for another character and wanting to be close to them. Or being frenemies with the party paladin.

The reasons to steer clear tend to go like this, 'I am staying with the party so I can grow rich/learn of my enemies/become powerful at all costs.' These are valid reasons for adventuring as a whole, but they do nothing much for your connection to the party.

I think that the issue is when people first decide to be evil, then decide what their character will be like.

I do it the other way around - I decide what my character is like, what their beliefs are, how they will interact with the world, and then I put an alignment on them that fits. If I make a character who has trust issues, will always believe that deceit and lies fester beneath the visage of everyone he meets, and will therefore always treat people with the contempt they deserve for trying to decieve him, then that character is evil. If they follow a strict code of conduct, or feel strongly that liars should be punished, that's lawful evil. If they just work for their own ends, with little regard for others, then they're neutral evil. If they feel the need to actively rebel against the institution, cause mischief or twist and manipulate everyone around them to their own ends, that's chaotic evil.

It's far better to roleplay a character in the way the character works and pick an alignment that fits best, than to pick your alignment and then shoehorn the character into it.

I do pick my character concepts before alignments, but I think it is always important to go over your creation afterwards and see how the character is tied into the party. If they aren't, then you have a problem. 

Again thank you for the advice this will help alot with making an running the character ( Most of the party is CG CN LE But we do have one CE so mabye she could be more partner in crime or some thing idk. )

Quote from Orcist >>

Again thank you for the advice this will help alot with making an running the character ( Most of the party is CG CN LE But we do have one CE so mabye she could be more partner in crime or some thing idk. )

So a majority of the party will be evil? Evil parties are fun, but evil parties with a good member often end up tossing a dead body into a river early in the morning.

Evil parties are very fun. And a chaotic neutral? This is sounding more and more like one of my parties. We do always have 'the alignment talk', where we look at the party alignments and tell the evil and chaotic neutral players not to be murderhobos.

Matt Colville has an interesting viewpoint:

Quote from Stephanie252 >>

Something else to consider is what ties the character to the party. When creating an evil character (or a lone wolf type), it is important to remember that they joined the party for a reason. and they stay in the party for a reason too.

An example reason might be having feelings for another character and wanting to be close to them. Or being frenemies with the party paladin.

The reasons to steer clear tend to go like this, 'I am staying with the party so I can grow rich/learn of my enemies/become powerful at all costs.' These are valid reasons for adventuring as a whole, but they do nothing much for your connection to the party.

 I really liked the second paragraph of this advice but I can’t give Thanks on my phone so I wanted to say it out loud.