On Being Evil


Pathfinder Online

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Goblin Squad Member

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I've been watching all the various "chartered company" threads popping up and reading through them, seeing if any of them caught my eye. A few have and I've toyed with throwing my name down but one thing I did notice is that they're all, predominantly, interested in playing Neutral or Good philosophies. Nothing wrong with that, that's great fare for your fantasy roleplaying.

Then you've got The Order of the Thorn and Tony's Legitimate Bakery. They're both a little vague on details, as you would expect, and decidedly morally ambiguous. However still, neither are what you would consider to be 'true flat out evil' in a traditional fantasy rpg. They have the potential to be, granted, but certainly initially they're not setting out to be that way.

This got me thinking.

How exactly would a company who's flat out stated intention of "subjugating the world and feeding everyone's entrails to evil gods" actually function in a game like this? Can it? It's not something you could really advertise properly, I mean unless you find like-minded people quietly it's kind of hard to recruit publically.

Wearing your Company Tag would rapidly become a death sentence in the presence of any non-aligned groups. Towns and Kingdoms would want nothing to do with you. We've discussed in some other threads spying, disguise, and all the good little tools a true "evil conspiracy" might need to succeed, but is it something you actually could pull off in a game like this?

Could the cult of doom ever actually succeed in summoning a greater demon of death to reap the land? Would it be fun to try? Is the threat of success of such a group counter-intuitive to the real-world business sense of Goblinworks? Can a player actually research 'forbidden' magics like demonology or necromancy? Would they be killed/driven off if good folk discovered it.

If someone were to view my posting history here they may be inclined to think I'm a jerk interested in griefing the playerbase with stealth, spies and cons. I'm not. I am however, genuinely intrigued by the idea of playing somebody "truly truly evil". I'm talking "scourge of mankind" stuff, the guy who eventually gets killed in the final chapter. Or destroys the world. Is this too ambitious? Am I wasting my time with this and instead look to focus on maybe building a nice elf fur trader or a sarcastic sword-for-hire protecting the roads of the south?

It's one thing to want to play evil, but it's also a fine line between being 'an effective bad guy' and 'ruining other people's gaming experience' which is counter productive. A good story needs a good bad guy, someone you love to hate and see them get what's coming to them, and this will happen organically through simple rivalries in game I'm sure, but to consiously set out to be that would be dificult I think. Especially if the game systems don't really factor it in. There's no point claiming you'll summon the lord of death when everyone knows there isn't one and never will be in game.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this.


I doubt you'll ever be able to truly destroy the world in an 'OMG, Rovagug is free' sense but I'm sure you could be Chaotic Evil and attempt to destroy as many settlements/Companies as you can. I dare say you'd get a fair few people to join in too.

Goblin Squad Member

I've been wondering some of the same things. I'd be very interested in a Lawful Evil guild that self-consciously sets out to play villain to the world of PFO.

It would have to be Lawful Evil or True Evil, in my opinion, since Chaotic Evil characters are described in Core as not being willing to accept a middling place in a hierarchy. An organization such as the one I'm suggesting would need its own internal structure to help regulate its members and determine/accomplish its goals, as well as for policing against griefers who might otherwise spoil the group's dramatic reputation. I personally favor Lawful Evil over True Evil, because it fits well with the self-policing Evil settlement/nation structure I'm envisioning.

This internal structure would also be necessary to interface with e.g. The Great Legionnaires publicly and consistently. Some kind of public (perhaps even metagame) dialogue with the group's natural nemeses would go a long way toward establishing its all-important reputation.

That reputation's necessary aspects would include at least the following:
(1) "We are honest RP-folk, not IRL jerks who get our kicks from online trolling, griefing, and other shenanigans."
(2) "We are or will become a legitimate threat to Good nations. We will try to destroy you."
(3) "We want to nurture an ongoing conflict with Good that is both fun to experience and challenging to win. As such, we won't pull our punches, and neither should you."

What do other folks think? Would anyone be interested in throwing together such a group at some point?

Goblin Squad Member

Would be a good Development Blog title.

If alignment's gonna be meaningful, it'll be interesting how evil evil can be.

Goblin Squad Member

@Finn: I'm certainly interested in such an organisation, most likely based out of Fort Inevitable and with branches representing not just rulership and expansion but harvesting, crafting, finance, etc. Certainly griefers would not be welcome but people who want to play true LE/LN characters and carve out a realm of 'Order in the name of Asmodeus' or some such. The Order of the Thorn thread is close; but I'm thinking a more widespread agenda of spreading diabolism as the answer to the problems the River Kingdoms face.

Goblin Squad Member

From my experience evil aligned companies will be the majority of the veteran population once the game has been out for awhile. Open World PVP games tend to attract a lot of bad elements, and a lot of people go a bit mad with power once they have been around a bit and grown stronger.

For instance you will notice in Darkfall. Among new players there is a lot of enthusiasm and people willing to join anti-griefer clans. Among the older more powerful clans almost all of them are evil or neutral. Very few I would actually consider to be good aligned. The prevalent thought is that everyone not an ally should be killed, with about half of them exempting people who are obviously newbs from that.

That is why GL is going to such great lengths to bring together all the good aligned companies now, and form bonds. I fully expect WE will be the ones, who will be placing a death sentence on our heads by taking such radical stances as "You should have a good reason to kill someone even if they aren't allied, and aren't a newb." if we are not well trained, organized within our own faction, and working together on a grander scale. Our entire goal as a company is to be the powerful veterans that are solidly good aligned, working with the newbs and any other good aligned companies who survive into veterancy to make this community better. Unfortunately I think many of the companies that are good aligned now will crumble to dust or have their purpose corrupted as the game matures, and we will be looking to prevent that as much as possible.

So don't worry about the evil factions. They will come, and they will come in hordes.

Goblin Squad Member

@Andius: If that's the case, then my proposal won't be necessary. I'll have to wait and see for myself, since I don't have any MMO experience to fall back on in my speculations. Still, the idea of belonging to the Kingdom of Calamitous Intent is just so appealing...


The Order is Hellknight-based, which means results by any means. Diabolism may be part of the arsenal but the laws come above all else.

Goblin Squad Member

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Southraven wrote:
How exactly would a company who's flat out stated intention of "subjugating the world and feeding everyone's entrails to evil gods" actually function in a game like this? Can it? It's not something you could really advertise properly, I mean unless you find like-minded people quietly it's kind of hard to recruit publically.

I'm reasonably certain there will be lots of such entities. One or two will become ginormous. It's the nature of the beast. Just wait until the Russians show up.

They'll survive the way such groups always survive, but being bastards. They'll likely carve out some Settlement as far away from well traveled areas as they can get, and then work like mad to develop all the nearby resources and max out the income potential of their territory. Once they have a handle on the economics they'll go into all out military production and field really large, really well equipped armies. Their neighbors will get crushed.

Along the way they'll betray friends, break alliances, double cross those who thought they were fellow travelers and generally leave a wake of pissed off and angry players behind them.

By the way - most people will read this and think "how awful". It would surprise you how many people reading this will think "sign me up!"

Goblin Squad Member

Sign me up :)

As long there isn't metagaming and griefing. I'd be more than willing to participate in such an organisation.


What steps will Goblinworks take to avoid the "Aluminium Magnate Saga" that I've heard of in Eve Online where some Russian aluminium magnate's son spent several thousand dollars on PLEX so that he could outfit his alliance's fleet?

Will that be something that Goblinworks and Paizo attempt to stop, or will there be much rubbing together of hands? ;)

Goblinworks Founder

I'm hoping to see a few variations of evil companies in PFO. I think sociopathic guilds are lazy RP, there's always a place for it but I think evil can be expressed in far more intricate ways if the game mechanics allow for it. I would love to see a fully organized crime network grow in PFO complete with protection rackets, resource and market fixing, thievery, fencing, assassinations and bush ranging/banditry/highway robbery, information gathering. I would love to see the leaders of such organizations to be puppet masters of other nations, tricking or blackmailing them into wars or cutting off their resources. For more insidious evil it would be cool to see those worshipping or bargaining with darker powers to infiltrate and corrupt companies and stage there evil deeds in a covert manner instead of just killing at random. I think some RP guilds would even allow such infiltration if it had the potential for a good story.

Goblin Squad Member

Elth wrote:
I'm hoping to see a few variations of evil companies in PFO...I would love to see a fully organized crime network grow in PFO complete with protection rackets, resource and market fixing, thievery, fencing, assassinations and bush ranging/banditry/highway robbery, information gathering. I would love to see the leaders of such organizations to be puppet masters of other nations, tricking or blackmailing them into wars or cutting off their resources.

Hmmm, I can think of many non-evil organizations you just described (*grin*)...maybe it depends on whether you are on the inside or outside of those groups...

Goblinworks Founder

Forencith wrote:


Hmmm, I can think of many non-evil organizations you just described (*grin*)...maybe it depends on whether you are on the inside or outside of those groups...

I think it all depends on the methods behind the madness ;)

On a player character level the motives behind their character might have nothing to do with harming other players and might even contradict their ultimate goal. The difference between them and a good character would be that the evil character would have no empathy toward anyone that gets hurt in the process and might take great pleasure in finding devious ways to ensure their competitors are hindered or set back.

The world surely needs sociopathic killers too I just think there are far more creative ways to role play evil. What is the greater evil, murdering a random innocent in a forest (ganker) or orchestrating a long plan to set two nations against each other with the ulterior motive of more bodies for the dark powers you serve? There are so many ways to play evil without being just another gank squad. Im hoping we will see some interesting creations. For the sake of an interesting sandbox I hope we have many creative good, neutral and evil creations from personal characters to chartered companies, settlements and nations.

Goblin Squad Member

Elth wrote:
The difference between [an evil character] and a good character would be that the evil character would have no empathy toward anyone that gets hurt in the process...

Having a lack of empathy for others seems to be an occupational hazard of online activities. I'm thinking that it's likely that such evil may be much more common than good in PFO. We'll see how evil and good manifest, in time.

Goblin Squad Member

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Lictor Fedryn Mannorac wrote:
Will that be something that Goblinworks and Paizo attempt to stop, or will there be much rubbing together of hands? ;)

Rubbing together of hands. Someone wants to pay for hundreds of people to play? We'll happily take that money!

Goblin Squad Member

Being Evil Is so pathetic! I am going to be a selfish bastard run around ganking and dribbling crap out my mouth back stabbing and being a general duch to everybody who can't kill me. Wheee! I will gladly kill anyone packing such an Evil alignment and feel just fine about tracking them down like the rats they are. So I have my work cut out for me as the internet is full of loser crack head punks.


I figured that would be the case. Not that I'm against it, just that it could introduce an element of 'pay to win' as someone uses external cash to gain a massive influx of in-game currency and purchase a load of stuff. Great if you are supplying the stuff, not so great if someone is aiming that battering ram at you.


Bromton wrote:
Being Evil Is so pathetic! I am going to be a selfish bastard run around ganking and dribbling crap out my mouth back stabbing and being a general duch to everybody who can't kill me. Wheee! I will gladly kill anyone packing such an Evil alignment and feel just fine about tracking them down like the rats they are. So I have my work cut out for me as the internet is full of loser crack head punks.

Well played evil brings a much needed foil to the goody two-shoes roleplaying many people do. However, people who tank and then attempt to pass it off as roleplaying are idiots for thinking people might actuall believe them.

Goblin Squad Member

This touches on the main reason I can't really get into it. What R.D. says is correct: it will eventually boil down to one or two huge guilds full of people with a sort of doofus approach to everything in the role of the big server villains. I'd prefer the Russians EVE guys any day over some of the really goofy and annoying ones I've seen in some fantasy mmos.

Anyway, they make playing a bad guy pretty crappy, because you will forever be lumped in with them after they start griefing the crap out of everyone. The antidote is probably not caring, but I'm just not very good at it.

Goblin Squad Member

Previous post sounded like doom-laden prognostication, which wasn't the intent. It's my concern based on what I've seen elsewhere and what keeps me off of mmos nowadays.

Goblin Squad Member

For me, this is the most important reason to require slow-moving Siege Equipment (or even NPC Armies) to actually move across the landscape. If a Goon Army just swarm any resistance without being constrained by real logistics, then the attacker will always have the almost insurmountable advantage of knowing where the battle is going to take place, and thus being able to concentrate their forces there.

If instead they're forced to deal with real logistics, then their movements will likely be detected, and the defenders can react either by harassing their lines or by concentrating for defense or counterattack. It also introduces all kinds of dynamics centered around misinformation and strategic feints.

Goblin Squad Member

Hrm.... front page shows I made the last past, and my post is showing up in My Posts, but it's not showing up here, and the front page is linking it as "http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz62ne?On-Being-Evil#4567861" instead of "http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz62ne?On-Being-Evil#22" like I'd expect...

Goblin Squad Member

Oh well, here's what I said, sorry if it ends up as a double-post:

Nihimon wrote:

For me, this is the most important reason to require slow-moving Siege Equipment (or even NPC Armies) to actually move across the landscape. If a Goon Army just swarm any resistance without being constrained by real logistics, then the attacker will always have the almost insurmountable advantage of knowing where the battle is going to take place, and thus being able to concentrate their forces there.

If instead they're forced to deal with real logistics, then their movements will likely be detected, and the defenders can react either by harassing their lines or by concentrating for defense or counterattack. It also introduces all kinds of dynamics centered around misinformation and strategic feints.

Goblin Squad Member

Being Evil is Easy it is the slack jawed simpering of immature minds with no long term goals other than to Dominate on their terms.
Lawful Evil is different you might say, Bull pucky your just another victim until you can Force your will to get things done your way.

This appeals to some they think they will be the next Lex Luthor Please just shut your whine hole when no one wants to deal with you other than your swift annihilation.

Goblin Squad Member

Nihimon wrote:

For me, this is the most important reason to require slow-moving Siege Equipment (or even NPC Armies) to actually move across the landscape. If a Goon Army just swarm any resistance without being constrained by real logistics, then the attacker will always have the almost insurmountable advantage of knowing where the battle is going to take place, and thus being able to concentrate their forces there.

If instead they're forced to deal with real logistics, then their movements will likely be detected, and the defenders can react either by harassing their lines or by concentrating for defense or counterattack. It also introduces all kinds of dynamics centered around misinformation and strategic feints.

That would be beautiful.

Goblin Squad Member

The upside of having experienced developers, like Ryan, should alleviate some of the grief-element to these mega-"evil" organizations. As long as they remain in-character, are not cheating, and they don't control the entire game space I think it can be pretty cool to have a "evil" empire around.

Goblin Squad Member

Groups like that in my experience don't rp at all. I wouldn't hold my breath on that 'in-character' part, unless you count portraying the same doorknob they play on the rest of the internet:)The last group I saw do this ran around quoting 'Subway' commercials all the time.


Bromton wrote:

Being Evil is Easy it is the slack jawed simpering of immature minds with no long term goals other than to Dominate on their terms.

Lawful Evil is different you might say, Bull pucky your just another victim until you can Force your will to get things done your way.

This appeals to some they think they will be the next Lex Luthor Please just shut your whine hole when no one wants to deal with you other than your swift annihilation.

And I think we get to the thinly-veiled reason for your aggressive posts. Obviously you've been the victim at some time but that doesn't automatically make your point the only valid one.

Either learn to avoid their areas of operation or learn to defend yourself, either by being better or having more allies than them. Just because you don't like their playstyle doesn't make it an invalid one.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Southraven wrote:
How exactly would a company who's flat out stated intention of "subjugating the world and feeding everyone's entrails to evil gods" actually function in a game like this? Can it? It's not something you could really advertise properly, I mean unless you find like-minded people quietly it's kind of hard to recruit publically.

I'm reasonably certain there will be lots of such entities. One or two will become ginormous. It's the nature of the beast. Just wait until the Russians show up.

They'll survive the way such groups always survive, but being bastards. They'll likely carve out some Settlement as far away from well traveled areas as they can get, and then work like mad to develop all the nearby resources and max out the income potential of their territory. Once they have a handle on the economics they'll go into all out military production and field really large, really well equipped armies. Their neighbors will get crushed.

Along the way they'll betray friends, break alliances, double cross those who thought they were fellow travelers and generally leave a wake of pissed off and angry players behind them.

By the way - most people will read this and think "how awful". It would surprise you how many people reading this will think "sign me up!"

That's something of an axiomic shift in my understanding of the game. I was assuming that chaotic/warlike etc would always be a limited and limiting stance in the game compared to say Lawful Good for a kingdom creation and ceiling those can grow towards. It's good though, I hazard guessing, creating opportunity for necessary alliances a d cooperation to contain such juggernauts.

I wonder what the effect of distance will be on wars as Nihimon puts it so well?

Goblin Squad Member

I might be off base, but I think one of the things that makes for the type of "russian" model that Ryan described is the low barrier to travel time in EVE. The hyper-space jump model allows for relatively easy transport of large groups over a significant distances, for sudden and overwhelming application of force. With a slower timescale, as Nihimon suggests impactful logistics, I suspect moving larger groups of even the most well equipped troops will allow for some sort of organized resistance. At the very least this described kind of behavior is a hard Lawful Evil, and maybe not even that. We can't say just because a monolithic groups spawns from zero into massive efficacy and goes on a rampage to dominate a localized region is necessarily evil. Taking your stuff and burning your buildings makes em "a bad guy" but not evil. They'll be "your" bad guy.

I think the alignment of a character really should have the most impact on the NPCs and theme park like elements of the game. In this way Good characters will receive missions and influence from Good organizations, while the converse will be true for Evil. A good mission might be something more like delivery of sacred goods from one church to an outpost, and evil mission might be gather the soulstuff from a rival evil org for dedication to a dark god.

Conflict between player organizations will (ideally) already be a heavy feature set of the game, that something like alignment shouldn't really be the main reason to war with someone. It will certainly be an additional factor for consideration. In the realm of player wars, I think stuff like acquisition of territory and the resources within will drive the impetus for battle. That the opposition also aligns itself with a fictional evil god will be the cherry on top of the icing.

Goblin Squad Member

Gruffling wrote:
... I think one of the things that makes for the type of "russian" model that Ryan described is the low barrier to travel time in EVE.

Exactly! See above :)

Gruffling wrote:
... as Nihimon suggests impactful logistics...

Ah, I see you already have seen above. Excellent.

Goblin Squad Member

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Evil is great. Villians are great....

The problem comes from too many people who don't understand the difference between PLAYING a character who is an S.O.B. and behaving like an S.O.B. as a PLAYER.

The former wants all the other PLAYERS he's sharing the game environment to have a FUN time. The latter wants all the other PLAYERS to have a CRAPPY time...or at the very least doesn't care that they are having a crappy type.

The Former will often follow a scene where they robbed/murdered someone with... /Whisper: "OOC - Hope you enjoyed that RP encounter. You did pretty well. Next time you may want to think about a different spell, the one you were using doesn't work very well against light armor. Good Luck, if you need advice or anything just send me a /Whisper"

The Latter will follow up the same scene with.... /Whisper: "POWN'D U NEWB. Will POWN U Next Time TU..Ha HA."


The Order of the Hidden Hand is Lawful Evil.


I think that GrumpyMel hit the nail on the head. You need to differentiate between evil characters and players who are douchebags.

Evil characters understand the fine line. Douchebags just act like douchebags because they can. We, the 'evil' roleplayers, have no interest in signing up with the likes of the douchebags. Indeed, if push came to shove, the Order would ally with the likes of GL in order to limit the impact such groups would have on the game.

Goblin Squad Member

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The Russians were successful because they were disciplined and because they had incredible internal cohesion. Unlike a lot of other factions in EVE they didn't get distracted with political infighting and disruptive powergrabs. They also communicated primarily in Russian so it was very hard to get intel on them unless you were also a Russian. They had a clearly defined idea of who was "us" and who was "them".

Call them lawful evil.

The Goons took the opposite approach. They didn't care if you were spying on them, or trying to mess with their minds, or taking potshots at their leadership. Their primary goal was to "ruin" EVE for everyone else, and as long as they maintained that mindset they were playing a different game than you or I.

They approached the problem of being able to "ruin" the game for the larger established Alliances by turning their world-views upside down. The premiere Alliances when the Goons arrived prided themselves on their combat prowess. The Goons fought them with masses of cheap ships and disposable characters. They Zerged the established order.

And they attacked outside of combat. They fought with propaganda. They worked to figure out what insults and slights would get under the skin of their opponents and once they had something they worked it to an extraordinary degree. Nothing was off-limits, not people's real lives or their real world issues. If the Goons suspected you'd get mad if they "went there", they went there.

The result was a lot of people who quit, or changed their playstyle to avoid the Goons, or who got personally over-invested in the fights and committed too much time and attention to responding to them.

Call them chaotic evil.

People like the Guiding Hand Social club are evil of a whole different sort - hurting others for glory isn't something that maps into the traditional alignment graph. Thieves and con artists abound in EVE, most are horrible at it and never do anything other than annoy people, but a handful are wildly successful and the community celebrates them as if they were a source of pride - "look at what happens in EVE - that's PROOF that it's a different kind of MMO".

There aren't any "storyline" evil groups in EVE. There's nothing to be evil FOR. But in Pathfinder Online you could be evil with a purpose and there will be evil gods ready to reward you for your service. That will create a dynamic unlike anything seen in EVE.

I think the key thing to understand is that roleplaying evil EFFECTIVELY means being evil as a group, not a lone wolf individual. To really be roleplaying evil, you'll need to be trying to make a persistent change to the world in line with the kinds of goals of your patrons. And they won't care much about random murders or pick-pocketing. They'll want mass sacrifice, they'll want paragons to renounce their faiths, they'll want obedience on the part of the potent and fear on the part of the weak. En masse. Repeatedly. Sustainably.


So Ryan, and I know this is early to be defining rulesets on what happens, would you see Goblinworks taking a stance against groups who go to the lengths the Goons have?

I can live with CE in-game. If someone tries to take it out of game, I'd be looking for backup both from the legal system and from Goblinworks.

Goblin Squad Member

Right target the Hidden Hand for execution got ya! No need to wait to see if your a fine player with good ethics who can run with a party and not turn it into a Hoserfest, You self identified! Thank you I will ether run away or kill you or die horribly back stabbed still won't sell you ham sandwich or give you the time of day.

Everyone who is enamored with playing Evil says there is so much to it like what? Hiding the fact your character is anything but worth while?
Wow world destroyers of Ravienog we want everybody dead before us so we can be the last to circle the "Drain".
Lawful Evil the world will bow before my might kings will lick my boots.bla bla what ever.
Chaotic evil pschos R'us killing spree on a whim much? wast of time.

So what is it Freedom to act as you wish? Spell it out.

Goblin Squad Member

Lictor Fedryn Mannorac wrote:

I think that GrumpyMel hit the nail on the head. You need to differentiate between evil characters and players who are douchebags.

Evil characters understand the fine line. Douchebags just act like douchebags because they can. We, the 'evil' roleplayers, have no interest in signing up with the likes of the douchebags. Indeed, if push came to shove, the Order would ally with the likes of GL in order to limit the impact such groups would have on the game.

This is a fine point, I'll concede, even if put in the most absolutist fashion. And the key to my mind is that there isn't an in game mechanical advantage to being a jerky player, even if they want to play an evil git. If the alignment system is meaningful in interesting ways, but ultimately can be ignored in player interactions then that's a good thing. If we can easily determine who's "playing as a jerk" and who's just playing, that's a good thing, but I don't expect it to be so cut and dried.

In all these discussions so far, its relatively safe to assume that coalition alliances of goodly aligned players are going to be dropping hot righteous justice on those they perceive to be "jerks". That's all well and good, but to me, there's a fine line between excluding dooshy jerks with social pressure, and forming cliques where everyone plays the same way, and deviation is punished. What I hope we don't see is the blanket assumption that the guy crossing swords with you is a jerk to be blacklisted.

If the guy that kills you in fair combat, mocks your feeble attempts to defend yourself, and then loots your caravan rolling off into the sunset, how do you determine what type of player he is? If after every conflict someone has to /w "good one, cya!", or be persecuted, how long will people be able to stay just "evil" and not be labeled as jerks? The very social pressures discussed are just as likely to push marginal players into more extreme positions than it is to prevent them from playing, or convince them to "play nice".


As far as I understand the mechanics, there will be no "ganking." Gear, while important, doesn't entirely make or break the character nor do their skills. It's the cooperation of each with the player deciding what to employ and when will decide the outcome of battle. So, I think it's reasonable to lay to rest the idea of the evil psychopath murdering people to no end. Invariably, he will run up against someone who's not a peasant who can defend himself and that bar, being able to defend yourself, isn't so high so that only the most "leet" among us can do it; rather, it will be the common player who is capable of this rather than the exception.

On playing evil, I think it's much more insidious to do things like getting people to do things under false pretenses. For example: getting a church to unabashedly finance a cult who burns down orphanages because the public face of the cult may be one of "disaster recovery" when they are actually causing the very disasters they assist with is pretty twisted. Also, playing a politician who doubles as a sorcerer poisoning the town's food supply in honor of their god would be evil. The random murder here and there will occur, yes. However, there won't be solitary people roaming up and down the country side being pricks. They'll meet their end soon enough.


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Goblin Squad Member

I actually think playing an evil character would be very difficult, I even feel compassion for the NPCs I am forced to kill in PvE...

I joined what I would label as a CE guild once, just to see what it was all about and to try to understand them (it was a multi-game guild that had repeatedly crushed me in another game, AoC). I went through the macho...rawr, kill them all!, get on vent and belch, etc, interview phase ...And once I got inside, it was completely different. They guys were obviously more along the lines of LG, mature and respectful to each other, decent ratio of male/female...but only internally. They did not care one iota about others in the game, only their own well-being and supporting the needs of their members which, obviously, was often within the realm of PvP.

In retrospect, I can no longer call them CE...well, I could say their organization was CE, but the members were at worst N. They just knew what they wanted and were willing to take it and defend it...even at the expense of the non-member community. They had the view that if others in the community want what they have, they can apply to the group and contribute like everyone else.

I don't necessarily think they were wrong. My experiences made me much more willing to be ruthless in the defence and support of my community. But, to be clear, I do see that improving the overall community can result in improvements for my personal community.


Part of it will be that the roleplaying evil guilds will probably know the roleplaying good guilds. The 'douche' guilds will quickly become known. Individual douches? Well, you should probably be travelling in a group and that will discourage them.

Goblin Squad Member

Evil characters and villians are very cool if played well. Though they are not the type I'm usualy interested in playing as a player. They are fun to do when I GM in tabletop.

The sneaky, manipulative ones are more interesting then the "brutes", IMO, the type with angelic faces who aren't interested in going around slaughtering peasants but rather want to corrupt the LG cleric into breaking faith with thier diety.

Although the LE Darth Vader types, who are pretty straightforward and have a code of honor even if a dark and twisted one can also be rich RP material.

I do think it's more of a challenge for most people to RP Evil in a believable fashion then Good or Neutral.

Goblinworks Founder

GrumpyMel wrote:

Evil characters and villians are very cool if played well. Though they are not the type I'm usualy interested in playing as a player. They are fun to do when I GM in tabletop.

The sneaky, manipulative ones are more interesting then the "brutes", IMO, the type with angelic faces who aren't interested in going around slaughtering peasants but rather want to corrupt the LG cleric into breaking faith with thier diety.

Although the LE Darth Vader types, who are pretty straightforward and have a code of honor even if a dark and twisted one can also be rich RP material.

I do think it's more of a challenge for most people to RP Evil in a believable fashion then Good or Neutral.

I agree. I don't tend to role play in MMOs although I do play each character with a set personality I don't do it in an externally obvious manner. I've actually never played an evil character either, I just like seeing evil characters played well in MMOs. Without evil player characters, FFA sandboxes tend to be bland without the conflict or fear of being deceived. I definitely think the distinction between evil characters/guilds and douchebag players/guilds are two very different things indeed. The Russians from EvE might not be role players per se but there strict discipline style of gaming works well within the confines of a PC game, the goons on the other hand are just pure anarchy. I'll never condone or even go near games that have a goon mentality if their intention is to ruin it for everyone else, especially when they cross the line to real-life insults and drama.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
But in Pathfinder Online you could be evil with a purpose and there will be evil gods ready to reward you for your service. That will create a dynamic unlike anything seen in EVE.

And now I'm sold..

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