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It's really hard to give specific advice since we don't know what the story arc of campaign is supposed to be. If the party is to restore the land of rainbows, puppy dogs, and ponies, he might be in for a rough time.
I'm not sure what is in his backstory to make him join this particular group. Also, he either has to behave himself or risk alienating his 'friends.' Neutral Evil is going to be tough. Lawful Evil can be convinced to do Good in order to preserve the Greater Evil.
In the past when I've dealt with this make sure the player knows that if his character tries to derail the party, it may very well result in his character's death or at the least his salvation (conversion to non-evil).
You have two powerful story elements to drive the story--betrayal and/or salvation. If you use them your story will be stronger for it.
Just make sure his character doesn't become the asshat PC, which everyone knows is off limits because he's a PC and the party just has to live with. Don't let his fun ruin the party's fun.
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Neutral Evil does not equal Neutral Dumb. What is does mean is the other PCs are fodder for the NE PC. He can be friends with them, and help others out in the name of "Good" if it serves his purpose. However each and every one of them is expendable, and he has no issue with removing them from whatever goals he has placed for himself.
It reminds me of an old Dragonlance game I played in where one of the characters was NE. He did serve the Dark Queen, but no one knew. He played the role of friend to everyone, and assisted the demise of a few characters in situations that made it look like he was helping the victim, but instead assistance in their demise. He was found out in the fifth module and became an NPC shortly after a party battle (where the character escaped and became a re-occurring villain). One of the most memorable gaming experiences I have ever had.
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As another note: Being evil doesn't mean he can get away with anything another PC couldn't. Just being evil is an utterly insufficcient reason for him to get away with anything.
Now, if he's clever and discreet, and conceals anything realy awful he does from the other PCs, he can probably get away with some nasty business, but if he's stupid? He should get caught and punished appropriately.
Hell, if he does bad enough things a Paladin or Inquisitor (or both) might come after him. That could be an interesting encounter, depending on circumstances, and who the rest of the party sided with.
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Not all evil characters are like twisted vile killers,
I agree with your post entirely. However, based on a previous (no longer existent) thread...evidence suggests this character in particular is very precisely a twisted, vile, killer.
Now he's not necessarily a bad character because of that, but he is one.
keep in mind that a raw evil alignment won't usually show up on a detect evil casting until 5th level. only clerics or paladins do right from the start. This means for a few levels at least only his actions will give him away. Just be clear with the player that his actions will have repercussions if he's caught in the act, and maybe if he does anything really bad he could become an NPC.
Asta
PSY
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PS: A paladin and an inquisitor would never work together in my setting. To me, the idea of an inquisitor is a lawful evil guy who does his evil in the name of good.
Historically? Absolutely. But that has as much to do with the Inquisitor class as actual minstrels have to do with a Pathfinder Bard. Or actual knights in Charlemagne's time have to do with Paladins.
Read over the class. All it means is you're a more...covert agent of your deity than a Paladin or Cleric. You work for the deity themselves, not the church, and hunt down their enemies for them. That's it. No torture, Evil alignment, or anything else involved.
Forcing all members of the class to be evil is as silly and unfair (if less overtly so) as removing the Bard's spellcasting ability.
Two things:
I've drawn a hard line in the sand that none of my players will either
A) Openly kill PCs (stab in the back, etc)
or
B) Leave PCs in a situation where the "evil" pc could do something to save them, and instead leaves them to die (same thing as A in my mind).
This leads to the new PCs making the opposite of whatever the other PC is, and joining the group specifically to kill him. Feelings get hurt, and it is a really easy way to tear up a group and ruin everyone's fun.
So in doing either of these, that player will be excused quickly and in most any case, permanently. I don't screw around with that. I don't waste my time gming so that "little kiddies" can get off on "being sneaky" and stabbing people and stealing directly from the party.
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The flip side to that, is that if an evil character is played correctly, and wisely, you might not ever know that they were evil. It is in their best interest to hide it from everyone, and to play on everyone's sympathies to get what they want. Played correctly, the evil guy will be everyone's best friend - lying to anyone and everyone - just so they like him and trust him.
And for what it is worth, I think it is a bad idea to try to change a PCs alignment. If you aren't comfortable enough to have it in the campaign for the longhaul, you shouldn't have it in the campaign at all. That's my .02
Inquisitors aren't evil, though they can certainly be played that, like most anything else.
An Inquisitor is like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, or Denzel in the Book of Eli. Just overall "resident bad asses" that don't answer to anyone, anywhere (except, as mentioned - their god). They don't need to send a form to know if it is okay to kick down a door. They go in, get the bad guy, and then punch him until he gives them the answer they need.
That's the way I see it, anyways.
(I have an overwhelming urge to play a "Book of Eli" based inquisitor now...)
Beyond his character sheet, how evil is he really? Does he kick a puppy every day? Is he plotting against the party all the time? Does he invade random houses, murder the people inside and take their stuff? (Remember, that's only okay if you do it to certain races/species).
Is his evil likely to go against the party? Is the party likely to get mad at his evil? Can they just internalize his actions "Will no one rid me of this turbulent NPC." followed by "Hey, that guy we hate died, they say he stabbed himself twenty times, worst case of suicide ever. Woo hoo he's dead."
Unless your world has people's alignments checked or a general "If they register as evil it's okay to murder them" rule it may never come up. Similarly as long as he's not making the character to mess with the party, ruin your game I don't see the problem.
Full Disclosure: I come from a long tradition of ignoring alignments outside of class requirements and don't respect the system greatly.
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Beyond his character sheet, how evil is he really? Does he kick a puppy every day? Is he plotting against the party all the time? Does he invade random houses, murder the people inside and take their stuff? (Remember, that's only okay if you do it to certain races/species).
Well (again based on the other thread), he murdered a random person because they 'insulted' him (by saying he smelled when he'd just been adventuring in a swamp and did in fact smell). And not precisely on the spur of the moment (because it was hours later).
So, pretty evil. Though not necessarily inimical to the party.
Well (again based on the other thread), he murdered a random person because they 'insulted' him (by saying he smelled when he'd just been adventuring in a swamp and did in fact smell). And not precisely on the spur of the moment (because it was hours later).
So, pretty evil. Though not necessarily inimical to the party.
In that case, the best thing I've found (different groups etc.) is to just warn them that they may face the consequences if caught and let the dice fall where they fall.
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In that case, the best thing I've found (different groups etc.) is to just warn them that they may face the consequences if caught and let the dice fall where they fall.
That's my general feeling as well. :)
Maybe with a bit of karma thrown in (ie: seemingly random people are more badass than they seem, or a Sherlock Holmes type happens to be in town).
NE is usually someone without compassion, rules and morals of any sorts but also without the crazed maniac approach (which would be better portrayed by being CE).
So it can work if the player narrows that down a bit to encompass only a certain field of interest.
For instance your Wizard could be extremely hungry for knowledge and would do anything and everything to aquire it (even murdering). At the same time he sees the other party members as useful in his quest and could even develop some sort of friendship that, if tested, would give him at least some sort of dilemma.
But if he insists on playing the NE alignment to its fullest, then I see this PC be dead sooner than later.
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From my experience, CN is more dangerous to any sense of good, decent behavior, than anyone playing an evil character. People who want to play evil characters usually develop motivations, backstories, and actual personalities. People playing CN PCs tend to do whatever they can to mess with whatever plot you might come up with, and blame it entirely on their alignment. CN is usually a lazy and selfish alignment for players to take(it doesn't surprise me that you're "true min-maxer" took this alignment.)
I usually see CN as the alignment people play in campaigns where evil PCs are banned just so they can get away with being evil, but blaming it on the chaotic part of the alignment. And Reckless, it's not like all "min-maxers" are CN, or even really that bad.
...I'm pretty much decided to try to use the storyline to try to slowly convert his character into being non-evil...
Unless the player is ok with it, I would shy away from this. This sounds an awful lot like the GM trying to runs someone else's PC. Even if that is not what you were doing, it is how I would feel if you were doing it to me.
Any campaign I've ever seen, has plenty of temptations/opportunities for the PC to do good things. And if he starts taking those, you might say, "Hey you've been pretty selfless and noble for the last few sessions. It's time to consider if you really are or want to be an evil dude."
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Having said that, there is nothing wrong with an evil character in a neutral or even slightly good group IF YOUR GROUP CAN HANDLE IT. Many groups can not handle it. Evil doesn't mean a berserk psycopath.
My best example is I once played a neutral evil fighter. He loved beating people up and humiliating them or killing them. However, he was also smart. So he worked for the good guys. When the prince gave him the authority to stop the brigands, he went after them in a big way and loved every minute of it. Hard to prosecute him for murder when he was following orders to kill criminals. Nobody liked him, but he was good at his job and worked with otherwise neutral and even some good characters.
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There is nothing inherent in being evil that means "Doesn't play well with others." That all comes down to the Character and personality of the character rather than the alignment. Evil might tend you towards it marginally more... but it doesn't mean you are.
I played for years an assassin who was evil in a party with a pally back in 3.5 days. She was designed as an intensely loyal (both to those above and below her) character that personal and professional loyalty superseded the 'Must murder babies and cavort in their blood' status quo that seems to be associated with evil. Her focus was to finish the mission and was socially adapted well enough (more than well enough) to realise that most people (and most party members) didn't necessarily agree with her outlook. Go hunting for my other posts if you want more information on her. There's some in one of them somewhere.
If your genuinely concerned about it... I'd suggest sitting down with the player and discussing. Draw up some proverbial 'lines in the sand'. What would he be willing to do for a copper? For a gold? For immortality? Power? Where does the parties 'quest' or over-arching plot lie in with his world view? Are there any lines that they would never cross, and why not? Does he find 'good' amusing, repugnant. inefficient, or (in the case of Spaceballs) just dumb? Are there going to be any plot issues with the personality? Are they evil because of a specific moral blindspot? Develop the character and the personality first, see if you can live with it, THEN give it an alignment. And point out that your happy the char and personality... they shouldn't try to 'act' NE because it's what's on the sheet.
A PC who is completely dedicated to the cause, can be an excellent character, coherent part of the group and a wealth of RP opportunities. A player who just wants to run around say 'Ooohhh... I'm evil... ooga booga. I wanna wear black robes and stuff!' should be slapped... preferably with a wet fish. Something with some weight behind it. I recommend Cod or Salmon.
...A player who just wants to run around say 'Ooohhh... I'm evil... ooga booga. I wanna wear black robes and stuff!' should be slapped... preferably with a wet fish. Something with some weight behind it. I recommend Cod or Salmon...
Excellent ! ! !
...A player who just wants to run around say 'Ooohhh... I'm evil... ooga booga. I wanna wear black robes and stuff!' should be slapped... preferably with a wet fish. Something with some weight behind it. I recommend Cod or Salmon...
^
Umm... do I have to allow the salmon to thaw before delivering the slaps, or is it okay to use frozen salmon?
There is nothing inherent in being evil that means "Doesn't play well with others."
You're kidding, right? That there's pretty much the definition of Evil.
I'd suggest sitting down with the player and discussing. Draw up some proverbial 'lines in the sand'. What would he be willing to do for a copper? For a gold? For immortality? Power?
Good advice, this. In fact, it would be a good thing for all alignments - even the Good can be tempted by a Faustian pact.
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You're kidding, right? That there's pretty much the definition of Evil.
Not necessarily. The Evil game I played in had perhaps the most cohesive party I've ever seen (we didn't even have individual treasure, just a party fund doled out more-or-less evenly as needed. Handy thing, really. We got the Druid Wild Hide Armor several levels early, for example).
Admittedly, cooperating with Good characters is a bit harder and usually requires justification, but it's hardly impossible (especially with LE).
Now this PC in particular might be a problem, but there's nothing inherent in Evil Alignments that makes them any less likely to 'play well with others' than Chaotic Alignments. Or LG sticklers in a Chaotic party.
Indeed, the biggest problem isn't ever any particular alignment as much as it is alignment differences within the same party, though even those can usually be surmounted given proper motivations and backstories.
No, Evil is the guy that "Doesn't play well with others...unless it benefits him to do so."
I agree with this sentiment. The problem is that it is often hard, especially for a novice GM, to continue to provide realistic reasons that such a selfish character will want to work with the party.
Sure you can get an Evil character to play nice with the party--for a while, then what? Campaign-ending derailment? Player vs. player?
You can't simply pretend that all will be right and ignore the conflict. What happens to this Evil character has to included in the campaign story arc. Either he will eventually betray the party or must find salvation (unless the party just says bugger this and become his evil henchmen).
<didn't read thread just skipped to posting>
I wouldn't try to convert his character or assume he will be disruptive to play. An evil PC can do good things he just needs different motivation. A good PC will save the town because it needs saving an evil PC saves it for the reward, or because the villain threatening the town has a miguffin he wants.
Evil people can have an ethical code. Raistlin (that right?) had a code where he always repaid his debts. Even after going to the dark side he saved the life of a few of his good party members because he felt he owed them. He also stood up for the downtrodden. He then destroyed the world to remake it as a better place.
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" - Wash
In the long run, NE is the worst alignment that you can play. Unlike CE (which burns out quickly), Neutral Evil has long-term staying power. The NE character can appear to be a useful team player, right up until he betrays his "friends".
If you've got a responsible player who can handle it, then LE is much more likely to play nicely with others while having the decency to hide his despicable acts from his friends.
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I have a NE PC among my group too. I told her (and the CN player) right off the bat that if anyone was using their alignment to get away with disrupting the party and plot then I would take great pleasure in their slow, inglorious death, and they would then roll up a NG character (imo the hardest alignment to justify being a jerk with).
And then I informed them that if they played a perfectly reasonable evil (or CN) PC who didn't let their alignment get in the way of the party's goals or the overall plot that there would be no problem. They'd have the same chance of survival as a PC of any other alignment.
And it isn't my job to rewrite the adventure to appeal to an evil PC. I told them before character creation what the adventure was about, it's up to them to make their own reasons for wanting to participate, evil or not (and if they do, then I'll help them build on those reasons, but I'm not going to do it for them if they aren't going to make any effort). There's a word to describe a PC who won't go along with the adventure, and that word is "NPC".
.... The problem is that it is often hard, especially for a novice GM, to continue to provide realistic reasons that such a selfish character will want to work with the party...
I agree with Gluttony. That is not just the GM's responsibility. The GM provides a world that has many reasons why different people can want to work together. If the player makes a PC (of any alignment) that doesn't get along with others, that is his fault and his problem.
That is not just the GM's responsibility. The GM provides a world that has many reasons why different people can want to work together. If the player makes a PC (of any alignment) that doesn't get along with others, that is his fault and his problem.
True enough. Ultimately its up to the player to find his motivation, but the GM will have to make sure there are several adventure hooks, one that might appeal to an Evil character. A GM won't be able to simply say "The Good King asks your party to do X.
Gluttony surely give good advice: "...it isn't my job to rewrite the adventure to appeal to an evil PC." There is however, as with any unexpected player choice, some amount of give and take, you don't want to have to resort to railroading.
Gluttony surely give good advice: "...it isn't my job to rewrite the adventure to appeal to an evil PC." There is however, as with any unexpected player choice, some amount of give and take, you don't want to have to resort to railroading.
While the urge to not railroad is completely understandable, I also make it clear to the players that they will be railroaded to some degree because, simply put: I know that I'm neither skilled enough, nor do I have the free time to create a game that can truly accommodate everything they may want to do. There will always be some things that the answer will be "no" to simply because I can't do everything. That said, I'll try to make things work in regards to player choice whenever I know I can because I know choice helps make it fun for them.
What I do try to do is railroad broadly. Keep the game pointed in one general direction and allow them to make their own path towards that direction. It's less about not railroading than it is about making the railroad enjoyable enough to not seem like a railroad.
Railroad is a nasty word at any rate. It's often necessary to some degree, if for no other reason than to save the sanity of the GM. And I wouldn't call such games bad for it.
No matter the definition of what is Evil and how stupid or "doesn't play well with others" it is, there's two problems here:
Inexperienced DM's should not allow their player to play Evil PC's.
And, it almost NEVER a good idea to have one evil guy in a otherwise Good party.
Will_asher, just tell your player: "Look, I am sorta new at DMing PF and so I'd rather not get into the complexities of inner-party conflict and morality issues. I'd like to get my feet wet with a heroic campaign with good aligned heroic characters. It's not you, it's me. Maybe next game, OK?". Don;t try the "converting " angle. Its very likely the player with resent it or try to subvert it. Just say NO.
Guys do we have to put every Op where alignment is mentioned into a 100 page raging argument about what is Good vs Evil? Can't we just give some good advice, answer his question, give some help, and take the HUGE and never ending debate to one of the other dozen threads about this? Please?
I know- "What is Evil?" is a very exciting debate topic. But there are scads of other threads on this, and no one ever convinces anyone on this anyway.
Inexperienced DM's should not allow their player to play Evil PC's.
Good advice if I ever heard any.
Guys do we have to put every Op where alignment is mentioned into a 100 page raging argument about what is Good vs Evil? Can't we just give some good advice, answer his question, give some help, and take the HUGE and never ending debate to one of the other dozen threads about this? Please?
I know- "What is Evil?" is a very exciting debate topic. But there are scads of other threads on this, and no one ever convinces anyone on this anyway.
I don't think the consciousness of forums is capable of such restraint. XD
Inexperienced DM's should not allow their player to play Evil PCs.
And, it's almost NEVER a good idea to have one evil guy in a otherwise Good party.
Will_asher, just tell your player: "Look, I am sorta new at DMing PF and so I'd rather not get into the complexities of inner-party conflict and morality issues. I'd like to get my feet wet with a heroic campaign with good aligned heroic characters. It's not you, it's me. Maybe next game, OK?". Don't try the "converting " angle. Its very likely the player with resent it or try to subvert it. Just say NO.
Maybe I should've asked for advice earlier, but I think it's a little late now to ask him to make major changes to his character after we've already started. Of course, he could easily change his alignment to N or CN and his character would only be slightly different (not as much murdering innocents...).
There's three others in the party, and of the two who have created their characters, one is a CN alchemist and the other is a N fighter, so it's not really an otherwise good party. It may be good NPCs who hire them most often, but they all really fight on the side of greed.
I'd like to try this without asking him to change his alignment. I'm pretty sure I can do this. What you have convinced me of is that I should be straightforward with the player and tell him I'd like to use the story to try to convert his character and basically ask his permission. If he doesn't like the idea, I'll just be okay with him staying evil. He may decide to change his alignment anyway just because I brought up the question to him.
PS: I appreciate you actually giving helpful advice rather than continuing the discussion on what a NE PC should or could be like.
Thanks for listening. Ok, let us meet half-way. Talk to him, yes- be straightforward, very good. Explain both the "conversion" bit .....and what I said. Give him a choice. Don't let him be obdurate in staying evil. It could be bad for your campaign.
Also keep a eye on that "CN" alchemist player too. (How old are these guys?)
Really- do NOT try this at home. <g>
Yeah, don't worry too much. This is a classic debate in any D&D thread. "Should a Paladin kill a baby goblin?" is the typical threadstarter, usually by someone who is just trying to be a troll.
Mind you, it can be a fun debate. Just not every single thread.
(PS, as long as you are honest, straightforward and explain openly, it's not to late to ask him to change. If he is a mature player, he'll understand.)
It's always the same with alignment - after some posts it is said that evil must not be evil but can also be some sort of between neutral and evil.
Yeah, right, that's how the real world works for sure.
It's just not how the adventure world works. During adventuring you are constantly challenged by extremes. There is usually only black and white. PC's = Heroes, Monsters = evil.
So unless you want to run a gritty, real world campaign that is NOT inherently supported by official matrial (all of which assumes that the PCs are acting good and/or lawful), stay away from evil PCs.
The only exception I found is when a character "only" has an evil quirk bt is otherwise not acting evil (you could call that N with an E tendency). As I said above if your Wizard is nice and all but gets the gleam of evil greed in his eyes as soon as he sees a spellbook, then this can work.
Until the Paladin acts up, that is...
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Ultimately, there's all sorts of different types of evil characters, but I tend to see two types.
Long-term evil characters have goals, and are aware that backstabbing anyone who mildly inconveniences them will end their lives abruptly mid-scheme. These characters are selfish, opportunistic and utterly lacking in human compassion, and yet will never, ever get punished for their myriad crimes (and, indeed, may well be *admired* for these qualities!). They'd make perfect congressmen. Their players probably spent years playing Vampire, or Paranoia, or Diplomacy and never once had PVP occur (or a chair thrown at them by another player).
'Mindless evil' will always attempt to screw people over, sometimes with no end-goal in mind other than 'screw people over, 'cause I'm evil, mwahahaha.' These characters are self-correcting, because they get themselves killed off really, really fast. Their players can't go to their kids little league game without getting in a shouting match with one of the other parents. Reveling in disruption and the discomfort of others, their last words will probably be something along the lines of, 'Man, you should have seen your face!'
Figure out which sort of player you've got, and that will go a long way towards determining how, if at all, you should proceed.
'Mindless evil' will always attempt to screw people over, sometimes with no end-goal in mind other than 'screw people over, 'cause I'm evil, mwahahaha.' These characters are self-correcting, because they get themselves killed off really, really fast. Their players can't go to their kids little league game without getting in a shouting match with one of the other parents. Reveling in disruption and the discomfort of others, their last words will probably be something along the lines of, 'Man, you should have seen your face!'
Also known as "Stupid Evil" alignment.
My biggest complaint about the whole alignment system has always been that it leads to excessive pigeonholing of character types. Definitely shows in some of the posts here, where people assume any evil character must do X, Y, and Z.
I had a player make an evil PC once. He wanted to use Book of Vile Darkness stuff, particularly the sacrifice table/mechanic. I let him do it but ended up planning elements of the campaign around it.
The first time he sacrificed someone, I introduced the main villain of the campaign- a half-dragon who had set up a man-in-the-middle hack of the universe, allowing him to steal intentionally sacrificed souls for his own use. The theme of sacrifice became central to the campaign from that point on and the player abandoned doing it for a time until he could be certain the sacrificed soul would get to the right place and he'd get his rewards. Later, they ran across a town run by a mysterious group of monks(servants of the half-dragon) who could channel powerful clerical magic by sacrificing large numbers of slaves at a time. The party (unknowingly until after the fact) benefited from this when that evil character got infected with lycanthropy and the monks sacrificed a large group of slaves in a large ceremony to cure him. I regret the campaign never quite concluding, it was a VTT game and I lost the data files during a crash, but it certainly worked at curbing his main evil tendency while also giving him a good reason to stick with a party of neutral/good guys. They all wanted to stop this half-dragon who was gaining immense power, just for their own reasons.
Yes, it would be a bit much for some players, but the over the top insanity of it all worked great for my group. So I guess my take on evil characters is to try to out-evil them. Large scale systemic evils are great at that and give them a good reason to co-operate with people they might not otherwise.