Can you tell me about a time when you successfully played an evilly aligned character?

Can you tell me about a time when you successfully played an evilly aligned character?

Can you tell me about a time when you successfully played an evilly aligned character? What needs to be done so that the game doesn’t just spiral out of control?

9 thoughts on “Can you tell me about a time when you successfully played an evilly aligned character?”

  1. In a nutshell? Every other player, including the GM, needs to be OK with you playing an “evil” character. I’d also suggest that you need to be OK with changing or abandoning the character if the other players start saying they’re not having fun.

  2. I’d also say that keeping in mind “evil doesn’t mean being a dick” can be helpful. I’m sorry it’s a generic piece of advice, I think I’ve never seen an evil PC in DW

  3. Be subtle.

    Like, the most successful I’d been was playing an anti-Paladin in 2E D&D. Introduced to the party with a caravan that’d been attacked. He was dirty, looked starved and only had a frying pan for defenses. He helped the party track down the bandits with his trusty frying pan. They adopted him into the party. They told him about this guy named Mordenkainen and how there’s really cool loot inside his place. Of course he could tag along and get more skilled in swatting things with a frying pan.

    Until near the end of the module where the party found the Sword of Ebon Flame. What should they do with a potentially evil artifact? Give it the guy with the frying pan. What is he, 1HD? 3hp? How much trouble could that be?

    And that’s how my anti-Paladin got his Unholy Avenger. Pretending to be a gimmicky, worthless piece of comedic humor. He lasted just the one module because I couldn’t let the players down by telling them what he was going to do with said Sword… So the DM turned him into a Big Bad toward the end of the campaign.

  4. What Nikitas Thlimmenos said, plus remember what being evil means (as opposed to being good).

    A good character will help that street urchin find a loaf of bread. An evil character will ignore the urchin at best, and eat a loaf of bread in front of her at worst! Evil doesn’t have to mean murder hobo, it can mean “what’s in it for me?”. A good character may respond to “No-one will ever know” temptation with “But I’d know”, while the evil character would respond by looking to make sure no-one is watching. The good character will fight honorably and the evil character will look for and take any underhanded advantage he can find.

    Something I love to do with my players is have open secrets (rather than a secret between you and the GM only). All of the players know that evil Bob the Builder is planning to steal the Hammer of Building while everyone sleeps, but the characters don’t. This leads to a lot of fun RP. So if you want to go this route, do as Chris Stone-Bush said and make sure everyone is on board, and then talk about having an open secret: “This is what my character is doing, but this is his real agenda”.

  5. One campaign was where all of the characters entered into a blood pact to not harm, maim, steal, or kill each other. There were mechanics in play that if they did any of those things they would get harmed in some “equal” and random way.

    Another campaign all of the characters were in a military order and there were a lot of nasty higher ranking characters that would route out any problem soldiers in violent and often lethal ways. Fear will keep them in line. hehe.

    In a similar way there was a campaign where everyone was an evil priest in Fantasy Flight’s Midnight Setting. Everyone had similar goals of spreading the domain of their god Izrador and the group did not want to get in the way of their fellow priests.

  6. By the book, all your alignment really means is what you do to get that extra XP. So when I played an Evil Wizard, it meant I was looking for ways to scare people with magic. I was much more of an anti-hero than a villain.

  7. 1. Be open about the fact that your character is evil with the other players.

    2. If you’re about to do something which might screw the rest of the party over, make sure the rest of the players are okay with it first.

    3. If your campaign will necessarily involve a lot of backstabbing and double-crossing, establish that upfront to make sure everyone’s on board.

    4. Establish the line you can’t cross in your villainy.

    Follow those four rules, and you can play evil characters to your heart’s content in just about any game.

  8. Dungeon World defines evil as:

    – Tak[ing] advantage of someone’s trust;

    – Caus[ing] suffering for its own sake;

    – Destroy[ing] something beautiful;

    – Upset[ing] the rightful order; and

    – Harm[ing] an innocent.

    In other words, it’s all in a days work for the humble GM! 😉

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