Game Theory – Moral Dilemmas: Playing Evil

The RPG Blog Carnival for October 2009 is Morality: In-Game and Real Life.  I have taken the easy way out, discussing playing evil characters.

First, my (simple) definition of evil: To desire the ends is to desire the means.

In other words, evil is a willingness to do whatever is needed to achieve your goals.  Remembering the maxim that everyone is the hero in their own story, evil character may have noble goals but the costs they are willing to pay will make them be viewed by most as anything but a hero.

This is what makes an evil character interesting, what gives them depth, it is not that they are crazy but that they actually have a vision of a better world, once they rule it.   This is where much of the evil characters you hear about being played go wrong, they are not evil so much as bloodthirsty and crazy, willing to kill anyone at any time for any reason.  That is not evil that is just bad: bad characterization, bad roleplaying and often just bad for the game.  Evil characters need to have goals, gain friends and allies and play well with others . . . at least until they achieve their final objective.

These evil characters work in a campaign because they are working toward an end, an end that they will need help to achieve.  I keep hearing stories of how evil character betrayed their fellow adventurers and for what?  You have just killed a group of people that were willing to help you with your vision.  Sure, you may have gained some loot, but you have lost trust (probably both in and out of game) and potential allies and you may very well be hunted by friends or relatives of the people you just killed.  How is that a net gain in obtaining your final victory?  Work with the other characters, build friendships, you will need these people’s skills, you may even be able to bring them around to supporting your vision given time.   And if they cannot be converted, maybe they can be convinced to at least be neutral and sit things out, killing them should be the last resort.

An important point of contrast between good and evil (and a reason to make friends and allies, especially non-evil ones) is that while good people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause, the evil ones will sacrifice others to achieve their goal.

Enough on how to play evil and ask why play evil?  Well, many reasons, it is something different, a chance to see what it is like on the dark side.   If you are in tune with the campaign, it might be a chance to set up a future villain for the game.   Or it might just be an interesting character concept that you want to try out.

But remember, roleplaying is a social game and some player might not be comfortable playing with an evil character in the group, even a reasonable evil character, so make sure that it is good with the group before you play your demon-summoning sorcerer who wants to save the world from itself.

Related material:

Over at Evil Machinations, Jade looks at the inner life of playing evil.

Edit: Added compare and contrast over sacrifice.