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Ladies and Gentlemen, in all honesty, the objections I keep hearing to this concept fall more along the lines of "I hate evil players" not "I hate evil characters" and I genuinely believe that's a little silly.
We can't prevent evil players, nobody can and if the guy playing the character is a disruptive sicko, he's just as disruptive and sick at CN then he is at CE. Changing one word on the sheet won't make it worse and if you fear for your safety because of a dot on your sheet there is nothing that could be done anyway.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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thecursor, some players play different characters with different personalities. Some play according to their PCs' alignment. So, they play good characters as benevolent, and evil-aligned characters as malevolent, as a corruption of all that's decent.
I honestly don't know what you envision a Chaotic Evil PC to be, in an organized play environment. I don't know how you would expect a player to portray that alignment and not be:
a) pretty disturbing for anyone sitting at their first table
b) difficult to adjudicate, for brand-new GMs who aren't familiar with the character
c) running against the tenets of the in-world Pathfinder Society, and clearly running against the assignments that the Venture Captains hand out at the mission briefing. "Go help the Mendev crusaders against the demons pouring out of the worldwound?" "Why would I do that?"
Yes, the Society has plenty of evil-aligned agents. No, the Society is not a good-guy organization. But I imagine the Venture Captains have different assignments for those guys. "This village has gotten ahold of a powerful scepter. Bring us the scepter; incidental murders aren't our concern."
Right now, if a player is disturbing other players and disrupting the game by having her PC torture people or drinking their still-warm blood, we rule the character as evil and ask her to try again. That's not "just a dot on the character sheet." That's a real-world ramification: if you play an evil character, it will be removed from the game.
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thecursor, some players play different characters with different personalities. Some play according to their PCs' alignment. So, they play good characters as benevolent, and evil-aligned characters as malevolent, as a corruption of all that's decent.
I honestly don't know what you envision a Chaotic Evil PC to be, in an organized play environment. I don't know how you would expect a player to portray that alignment and not be:
a) pretty disturbing for anyone sitting at their first table
b) difficult to adjudicate, for brand-new GMs who aren't familiar with the character
c) running against the tenets of the in-world Pathfinder Society, and clearly running against the assignments that the Venture Captains hand out at the mission briefing. "Go help the Mendev crusaders against the demons pouring out of the worldwound?" "Why would I do that?"
Yes, the Society has plenty of evil-aligned agents. No, the Society is not a good-guy organization. But I imagine the Venture Captains have different assignments for those guys. "This village has gotten ahold of a powerful scepter. Bring us the scepter; incidental murders aren't our concern."
One, I agree there are obstacles, the whole point of this thread was to try and come up with ways to manage that obstacle, which I believe have been raised. (Secondary campaigns, Boons, votes or nominations, "evil scenarios", etc). Telling me no and then giving me a string of reasons only works when those reasons are not the same three reasons over and over. Nor am I necessarily advocating CE or even low tiered evil characters run by newly minted GMs and new players.
Two, Again the whole point of the thread isn't "No evil characters ever" you have all voiced that over and over, the discussion was supposed to be about how to adjudicate said difficulties, something which a lot of people jumped all over our OP about. That was a new player and he had a new idea and nobody wanted fo hear him out so I would be more concerned about how we treat the real human beings with an outrageous new ideas who want to play something different than hypothetical new players in a fictional environment. Let's bring options, not negativity.
Three, You raised and then answered this in the same post: PFS in game is not a nice group, evil characters could exist quite well. We could have separate missions for evil characters and experienced players.
As for motivation: "You, Priest of Abadar leave your nice clean city and go out into the dirty wilderness. You, Paladin of Erastil, stop making babies and leave your home, family, and community and go find this certain macguffin two thousand miles away and deliver it to a total stranger. Druid, spend the next six days in a city defending a group of woodcutters. And you, Dwarf and Halfling, this is a Half Orc barbarian and a Cheliah sorcerer, they are your partners now and you have to spend two weeks on a river boat in a foreign country keeping them alive." I haven't heard a sensible reason for the GOOD characters to go on their missions frankly other than "I'm a Pathfinder" so if we're inventing baloney, let's just invent some evil salami as well.
"Save those people."
"Why?"
"Because you get like five hundred gold and two dots of fame every scenario."
"Eh, reason enough...but I am totally robbing their house later."
The BTK killer held down a 9 to 5 for two decades. If a serial killer can hold down a proper job, my evil Pathfinder can stab exactly the right people at the right time in a four hour scenario once or twice a month.
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Right now, if a player is disturbing other players and disrupting the game by having her PC torture people or drinking their still-warm blood, we rule the character as evil and ask her to try again. That's not "just a dot on the character sheet." That's a real-world ramification: if you play an evil character, it will be removed from the game.This was my point that thecursor tried to hand wave away. At present one of the most effective remedies to dealing with a player being disruptive at the table is the threat of removing the character from play completely. As I see it all that allowing evil characters would do is remove that barrier. People would do whatever it took to get the evil character boon and then completely ruin tables just for kicks.
I didn't hand wave it away, I pointed out that it is a rather silly thing to quake in fear of. A disruptive player is always going to be disruptive and alignment is not an obstacle to removing them nor will it stop them. If your seriously telling me that the entire point of the no evil rule is to manage player disruption then I contend it is a MISERABLE failure.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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thecursor, I asked you to explain how you envision someone running a chaotic evil character, that could work at the table, given that the other player and the GM could deal with it, even if they were all new to the game.
A disruptive player is always going to be disruptive and alignment is not an obstacle to removing them nor will it stop them.
That's simply not true. Addressed and answered.
Secondary campaigns, Boons, votes or nominations, "evil scenarios", etc
Every boon in this game can be traded away. The campaign doesn't track them. GM Rewards boons, Emerald Elixir, Goblin race boon, boon someone paid $600 for at a GenCon auction; they have all been traded away. And now you're proposing "play an evil character" be a boon that a mature character could (somehow) earn, and then trade away to a random player.
Every boon in the game has also been the subject of forgery. That's why the goblin race boon, and the really expensive boons up for auction are embossed: to discourage would-be forgers and make it more difficult for them. A "you can play an evil PC" will be much more enthusiastically forged.
I don't think that restricting who can play evil will work, under any circumstances. Nominations, votes?? From whom? What take-away does a person have, when whoever's voting, votes no?
People have said how you could manage evil PCs: start a separate OP environment, where people can play tables of evil-aligned characters. This solves the problem of naive new players at the same table: they'll be playing evil characters, too. This answers the concern about new GMs, because the GMs would come into the environment knowing that their players would be running wicked characters. This addresses the problem of scenario goals. But don't expect Paizo to put its imprimatur on that kind of PR nightmare. Think of it as analogous to "Way of the Wicked" for PFS, an evil-aligned campaign, run by a third party.
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To respond positively to John Compton's framing of the question, I don't want to have evil PCs in PFSOP, but if it were to be allowed, I think the best way to handle it would be to have another splinter (like the Core campaign) using the same set of scenarios. In this 'sub-campaign' the PCs would be some competitor or offshoot to the society (I'm thinking something like Star Trek's Section 31). Maybe there could be a new faction reward sheet specifically for this campaign, expecting the PCs to be suitably ruthless. There would be no crossover between these PCs and normal/core PFS PCs/sessions.
It would also be important to ensure that it was clear to any observers of public games (e.g. bystanders at a convention) that what they were witnessing was NOT typical PFS play, to avoid any negative publicity.
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Actually you did hand wave it away just like you are now. You are not providing any substantive counter point. You are simply belittling the argument rather than addressing it.I didn't hand wave it away, I pointed out that it is a rather silly thing to quake in fear of. A disruptive player is always going to be disruptive and alignment is not an obstacle to removing them nor will it stop them. If your seriously telling me that the entire point of the no evil rule is to manage player disruption then I contend it is a MISERABLE failure.Right now, if a player is disturbing other players and disrupting the game by having her PC torture people or drinking their still-warm blood, we rule the character as evil and ask her to try again. That's not "just a dot on the character sheet." That's a real-world ramification: if you play an evil character, it will be removed from the game.This was my point that thecursor tried to hand wave away. At present one of the most effective remedies to dealing with a player being disruptive at the table is the threat of removing the character from play completely. As I see it all that allowing evil characters would do is remove that barrier. People would do whatever it took to get the evil character boon and then completely ruin tables just for kicks.
Jessex, you are right. I did hand wave it away, because Sebastian already brought Disruptiveness up on the second page and I felt I answered it with as much depth and strength as needed. I hand waved you away because you haven't brought anything new to the conversation, you keep trying to derail the thread and you're being, lol, kind of disruptive. It is not my fault you remained unconvinced so I will once again say, when you say "I fear disruptive player" and I hear "I have no faith in the rules or system to manage itself." And if that is your obstacle, why even play in this organization?
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thecursor, I asked you to explain how you envision someone running a chaotic evil character, that could work at the table....
Probably couldn't, Lawful Evil then.
That's simply not true. Addressed and answered.
Disagreed, but off the topic of the thread, now a pointless argument since we seem to be running in circles.
Every boon in this game can be traded away. The campaign doesn't track them. GM Rewards boons, Emerald Elixir, Goblin race boon, boon someone paid $600 for at a GenCon auction; they have all been traded away. And now you're proposing "play an evil character" be a boon that a mature character could (somehow) earn, and then trade away to a random player.
Okay, splinter organization then, or we could improve how boons work. Sounds like a problem, what's your idea for a solution?
Every boon in the game has also been the subject of forgery. That's why the goblin race boon, and the really expensive boons up for auction are embossed: to discourage would-be forgers and make it more difficult for them. A "you can play an evil PC" will be much more enthusiastically forged.
Again, as with Disruptiveness, making rules only for the bad actors in our society is neither fair nor a solution.
People have said how you could manage evil PCs: start a separate OP environment, where people can play tables of evil-aligned characters. This solves the problem of naive new players at the same table: they'll be playing evil characters, too. This answers the concern about new GMs, because the GMs would come into the environment knowing that their players would be running wicked characters. This addresses the problem of scenario goals. But don't expect Paizo to put its imprimatur on that kind of PR nightmare.
*holds up Faiths of Corruption* I bought mine at Barnes and Noble. I am less and less concerned by the bad pr argument when you consider that PFS already tends to meet in privately owned game stores and if I can exist in any space where Games Workshop players are standing next to me shouting "Blood for the Blood God!" And a Call of Cthulhu DM can shout "...it eats the child." I think we already are a PR nightmare and that's not a reason to do something. Jerry Falwell is dead And Jack Chick already hates us, it won't give them MORE ammo in a world where Gay marriage and recreational Mary jane are both about to be legal,
Think of it as analogous to "Way of the Wicked" for PFS, an evil-aligned campaign, run by a third party.
Hmm, that is a plus sized idea. Perhaps run and organized by fans?
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Okay, splinter organization then, or we could improve how boons work. Sounds like a problem, what's your idea for a solution?
Boons work well enough. The "play a wicked character" schtick doesn't work very well if it's a privilege that's tracked through boons.
And absolutely, go ahead, make a fan-run organization for corruption and evil. Make the rules for it that you think you'll want: only Lawful Evil, maybe. No child endangerment, maybe.
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Okay, splinter organization then, or we could improve how boons work. Sounds like a problem, what's your idea for a solution?Boons work well enough. The "play a wicked character" schtick doesn't work very well if it's a privilege that's tracked through boons.
And absolutely, go ahead, make a fan-run organization for corruption and evil. Make the rules for it that you think you'll want: only Lawful Evil, maybe. No child endangerment, maybe.
Hehehe. Finally we are getting somewhere. The Consortium will be... pleased to hear this.
Now what self respecting megalomaniac loony draws the line at child endangerment?
Such a bleeding heart wimp does not deserve to be called evil at all.
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An excellent point was raised regarding the fact that we already have two scenarios involving evil PCs.
So I'll put on my hypothetical-hopeful hat for a moment (it has a simply marvelous plume!) and inquire how horribly disruptive those scenarios were to other parts of PFS as I know how they went in my area...
How many people have had complaints or have had to ban players when running We Be Goblins or We Be Goblins Too?
Those of you who are completely anti-evil, do you refuse to run these scenarios? ... are your hypothetical predictions of doom & gloom based off of what occurred when these horrible scenarios that involved evil PCs were run at your venues?
From my point of view, the We Be Goblins mods have been some of the most fun and engaging things I've played and run in PFS and leads me to think - we have "hard mode" options in select scenarios, what if there was a "TeamEvil™ mode" (or role-play hard mode) where PCs could opt to play with evil characters (and, much like "hard mode" is entirely opt-in by other PCs?) in some scenarios or even modules?
-TimD
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For me, it's a simple paradox: the only players who want to do evil characters are the exact ones who should never be allowed to. The ones you'd trust with an evil character aren't interested in playing one.
There are a lot of people who are enthralled with the true anti-hero archetype (by anti-hero, I mean Satan in Paradise Lost, Darth Vader, Magneto, etc.), and that is a very compelling narrative choice in fiction: can I have a character be actually evil and still be admirable?
The problem is that this only works in fiction because the author controls the narrative. The author sets up situations where the gray areas of morality get challenged and explored.
Unfortunately PFS is not fiction. No one controls the narrative. The scenario author creates a framework, the GM provides the narration and adjudication, and the players drive the plot. In an uncontrolled environment, there are no situations set up to explore the notion of morality to make the audience think: the characters and the audience are one and the same.
Also, in an episodic narrative like PFS, long-term character development is difficult at best. No one else at the table knows that your character had a life-changing event last week, because no one else knew your character before now.
So I understand the desire to play evil characters in that context, but from a writer's point of view, I can tell you that PFS is not the medium to tell that story.
Adventure paths lend themselves very nicely to what the original poster is trying to do, and my best recommendation is to play PFS long enough to meet a group of people with similar interests and then start a home game running one of the adventure paths to explore some deeper character development and push the narrative envelope--just like a lot of people in PFS already do.
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We be goblins isn't played by anyone as "evil mode" as far as I can tell. It is played, as it is clearly intended, in "nuts mode." And if you want to have a bunch of "evil" scenarios that devolve into a mess of silly backstabbings and other intra party shenanigans then fine but I doubt it will last very long as a campaign.An excellent point was raised regarding the fact that we already have two scenarios involving evil PCs.
So I'll put on my hypothetical-hopeful hat for a moment (it has a simply marvelous plume!) and inquire how horribly disruptive those scenarios were to other parts of PFS as I know how they went in my area...How many people have had complaints or have had to ban players when running We Be Goblins or We Be Goblins Too?
Those of you who are completely anti-evil, do you refuse to run these scenarios? ... are your hypothetical predictions of doom & gloom based off of what occurred when these horrible scenarios that involved evil PCs were run at your venues?From my point of view, the We Be Goblins mods have been some of the most fun and engaging things I've played and run in PFS and leads me to think - we have "hard mode" options in select scenarios, what if there was a "TeamEvil™ mode" (or role-play hard mode) where PCs could opt to play with evil characters (and, much like "hard mode" is entirely opt-in by other PCs?) in some scenarios or even modules?
-TimD
Every character in We Be Goblins is evil. I'm not sure what "evil mode" is if not an adventure written and run for a party that has nothing but evil characters, whose primary goal is murder & destruction, preferably by fire.
Since apparently you HAVE played / run We Be Goblins, please let us know what you changed before running it (based on your earlier comments about how evil never works and you don't allow it) or why it went so horribly wrong and why you fear a loss of players over it.-TimD
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There are a lot of people who are enthralled with the true anti-hero archetype (by anti-hero, I mean Satan in Paradise Lost, Darth Vader, Magneto, etc.), and that is a very compelling narrative choice in fiction: can I have a character be actually evil and still be admirable?
I agree - except that none of those characters are anti-heroes. Anti-heroes are characters such as Blade, Wolverine, The Punisher, and Sam Spade. Characters who are doing the right things - but not necessarily in the right ways - and they're tempted to go further. (Comic books are big fans of anti-heroes - hence them being several of my examples.)
What you're describing are simply interesting & well thought out villains. Other than possibly Magneto - I don't think any of them even qualify as anti-villains. (Not an official term - but one I like. I think of the archetype anti-villain as Light from Death Note. The character which you ALMOST want to agree with - but is still definitely the villain. It's done well rather more rarely than anti-heroes.)
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lots of good things
Well said.
I would add that another component of playing a black hat type of characters is that you can engage with a twist on common morality tropes. In fact, a good deal of the fun - at least for me - is to play a character who may be "normal" except for one or two things that make them "outside of bounds" on the good/neutral field.Using an example of one thing that was banned in PFS, at one point I had hoped to have a tengu Pathfinder who was based a bit on the Martian mannerisms from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (ie the whole "grok" bit, where part of showing respect and admiration is the consumption of part of their body), and a devout follower of Pharasma.
The concept that cannibalism may not always be a bad thing I find interesting, but is obviously now explicitly not allowed in PFS play.
To be clear, I'm not saying that I think opening the doors wide open for unrestrained an unrestrained murder-fest of stabbity doom is a good plan, but I find it an excellent thought experiment on how it might be done and find all the shrill "it NEVER works" arguments to be the exact opposite of my gaming experiences, where I've seen far more disruption from paladins & kender than I ever have from Lawful Evil characters.
-TimD
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Every character in We Be Goblins is evil. I'm not sure what "evil mode" is if not an adventure written and run for a party that has nothing but evil characters, whose primary goal is murder & destruction, preferably by fire.
Since apparently you HAVE played / run We Be Goblins, please let us know what you changed before running it (based on your earlier comments about how evil never works and you don't allow it) or why it went so horribly wrong and why you fear a loss of players over it.
One of the elements of "We Be Goblins" is that the characters are pre-gens, all of them. When one PC accidentally ignites some fireworks and two other PCs die in the conflagration, everybody takes it as a joke.
That's what we, as a campaign, changed before running it.
Perhaps you were around a couple years ago, when 35 or so goblin PCs started hitting PFS tables, thanks to a moderately rare boon that was handed out at GenCon. There was a lot of discussion on the boards about how to role-play a non-evil goblin, because everyone understood that playing a character like those in "We Be Goblins" would not work when other players wanted to walk away after the game with surviving characters.
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Every character in We Be Goblins is evil. I'm not sure what "evil mode" is if not an adventure written and run for a party that has nothing but evil characters, whose primary goal is murder & destruction, preferably by fire.-TimD
But the actual adventures pit the goblins against equally evil enemies. I've never seen anybody in either scenario actually commit an unquestionably evil act. By "unquestionably evil" I mean an act that would get near universal agreement to being evil if it was asked about in an alignment thread with enough context lost.
Eg, "I was adventuring with some unquestionably evil companions. Is it evil if I accidentally include them in my fireball?"
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Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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lots of good thingsWell said.
I would add that another component of playing a black hat type of characters is that you can engage with a twist on common morality tropes. In fact, a good deal of the fun - at least for me - is to play a character who may be "normal" except for one or two things that make them "outside of bounds" on the good/neutral field.Using an example of one thing that was banned in PFS, at one point I had hoped to have a tengu Pathfinder who was based a bit on the Martian mannerisms from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land (ie the whole "grok" bit, where part of showing respect and admiration is the consumption of part of their body), and a devout follower of Pharasma.
The concept that cannibalism may not always be a bad thing I find interesting, but is obviously now explicitly not allowed in PFS play.To be clear, I'm not saying that I think opening the doors wide open for unrestrained an unrestrained murder-fest of stabbity doom is a good plan, but I find it an excellent thought experiment on how it might be done and find all the shrill "it NEVER works" arguments to be the exact opposite of my gaming experiences, where I've seen far more disruption from paladins & kender than I ever have from Lawful Evil characters.
-TimD
And how do you want to decide who is doing cannibalism, torture, rape or other evil stuff just because he wants to explore an exotic concept and who just wants to digust the other players.
As an organized campaign you need solid rules that apply equally to everyone, and somehow i don't see how this should work.
And regarding this whole "disruptive Paladin" thing, in all my time in PFS i never saw that happen, so I am really starting to wonder if i'm just lucky, it's a regional thing or just some strawman argument similar to "XY is not unbalanced because wizards are still allowed".
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I am sure Mr. Brock would just love the complaints fired his way if he implemented a system where certain players would effectively be categorized as "immature".
I'd bring popcorn and watch.
-j
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I am sure Mr. Brock would just love the complaints fired his way if he implemented a system where certain players would effectively be categorized as "immature".
I'd bring popcorn and watch.
-j
Just bring popcorn kernels, butter, sugar and salt. I assure you that there will be plenty of flaming oil ^^ especially once we have the first "immature" (not fit to play an evil character) VC or VL.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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I think Paizo is already working on this. The newly announced special where you can play Aspis agents.
And I think that would work wonderfully. Sometimes its fun to play something not-so-nice. (I recently did a lot of research on Pazuzu and now I really want to built something worshipping him).
If it is just with pregens initially, it could explore how evil works. As said, we have We Be Goblins. But the goblins are foremost defined by their Chaotic nature, and are evil second.
Who knows, if the new special gets a good reception, we might see several more of them. With a four or five start requirement to run, they will have well versed GMs to guide the story. And if they are as deadly as Bonekeep, only serious players will be interested in them (This is theorising that playing it with an aspis pregen has the same consequences as playinng it with a normal one).
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Sebastian, man, I know where you're coming from, I do, and I am not intentionally being dismissive. But I still believe that this is an issue of player choice and strict boundaries. Evil play is doable and while I hear your objections, I can't believe that allowing good players who have legitimate desires to play something new and to push boundaries should be held hostage by a small group of "hypothetical" bad players. I can play an evil character, I can play him so well that your paladin will loathe but respect me.
And I must also disagree. We do not make rules for the bad actors in our communities because then we have society where everyone drives 25 miles an hour all the time on every road and the police follow us looking for even one small sin. I do not want to live in that kind of society and neither do you. Instead, we make rules to establish fairness and to create safety but at a certain point we trust people to make the right decisions and to travel safely at a speed under a certain limit. I can drive 60 on the highway because the state trusts me not to drive over 75 and every time I get behind the wheel of my car and follow the rules, I earn that trust. When I violate that trust, I am penalized by those I have voted into office, and their agents, to enforce the rules and when I violate enough times and with enough disrespect, my privileges are taken from me and I must earn them back.
Evil play in PFS is no different than driving that car. It is a matter of trust and privilege, both are earned and if given the chance, I can earn it. Others, not all, can as well. I simply ask for the chance to do so.
Oh in theory I agree and sympathize, I just happen to think that the required hurdles to allow a number of select players will cause so much trouble, that it just wont happen.
To repeat myself, the process of determining mature players could cause way more damage, than 95 of players playing evil characters. Of course the remaining 5 % might cause a disproportionate amount of drama.Oh and I am pretty sure that the campaign leadership is damn unwilling to consider the approval of all those evil items (and I think cannibalism and blood drinking are still a big no no).
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I think Paizo is already working on this. The newly announced special where you can play Aspis agents.
And I think that would work wonderfully. Sometimes its fun to play something not-so-nice. (I recently did a lot of research on Pazuzu and now I really want to built something worshipping him).
If it is just with pregens initially, it could explore how evil works. As said, we have We Be Goblins. But the goblins are foremost defined by their Chaotic nature, and are evil second.Who knows, if the new special gets a good reception, we might see several more of them. With a four or five start requirement to run, they will have well versed GMs to guide the story. And if they are as deadly as Bonekeep, only serious players will be interested in them (This is theorising that playing it with an aspis pregen has the same consequences as playinng it with a normal one).
Reporting a fresh PFS character number as Deady MacDoornail isn't what I would call serious consequences. Of course the alternative of risiking a "real" character death when a pregen dies, is not a solution. Well not unless you want even less 7-11 tables.
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Okay, splinter organization then, or we could improve how boons work. Sounds like a problem, what's your idea for a solution?Boons work well enough. The "play a wicked character" schtick doesn't work very well if it's a privilege that's tracked through boons.
And absolutely, go ahead, make a fan-run organization for corruption and evil. Make the rules for it that you think you'll want: only Lawful Evil, maybe. No child endangerment, maybe.
If a fan organization is what puts an end the the relentless, endless, negative whining on this subject then so be it.
I am immensely amused that a thought experiment by a new player has lead to the most hilarious round of out of game fear mongering I have ever heard.
No personal offenses intended, however, you guys are seriously making me want to found a fan organization, almost out of spite.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Of course, you would have to find something that is evil... since in my time playing pathfinder, I have killed things, set fire to things, messed with ships, helped prisoners escape from prisons, infiltrated an embassy...What amuses me is that the typical "good" Pathfinder character of decent level has killed more intelligent creatures than the worst of real life serial killers many times over. But its still good because they were evil.
I know RPGs are not seminars in moral philosophy, but Jesus!
Context matters. In the Pathfinder case, a lot of those intelligent creatures are already dead/abominations, or simply impossible to captures alive.
And my sympathies for the hire killers, who are trying to me and those I hold dear, is rather limited.Since I am a German, living in Germany... I do have an opinion. Killing Nazis in WW2, good idea, shame so many of those bastards managed to escape to south america. My sympathy for the common soldiers of that time (both sides) is however far greater, however the end result was a lot of death.
These days, Nazis are pretty much like zombies when it comes to popular fiction, games and movies - you can kill them in unlimited numbers without feeling the tiniest shred of regret.
However a couple of years ago during a construction project in my city, a man died, killed by a WW2 bomb. A tragic loss of life any way you look at it, and a discussion about evil doesn't even start.
(Americans might have to deal with the ethics of drone strikes in the future).
Sometimes I would like the option, not to kill an enemy, but since this requires significant resources, and causes further risk to my friends...
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Because evil party = self-destructing game.
This is the sentiment I most disagree with. I've seen evil parties work. I've seen good parties self destruct. Party self-destruction is 99.5% the players and only .5% the characters that they are playing.
The belief that the only people that want to play evil characters is both wrong and somewhat insulting. Not all of us have the same preferences or game experiences, I get that. Some of us even like different types of things at different times. The fact that sometimes, that's an evil character does not make the player a bad person or a bad player - only one that prefers more options.
The Goblins modules are special cases which don't disprove the rule.
Which rule is that?
And how do you want to decide who is doing cannibalism, torture, rape or other evil stuff just because he wants to explore an exotic concept and who just wants to digust the other players.
As an organized campaign you need solid rules that apply equally to everyone, and somehow i don't see how this should work.
I don't think you are following what I was saying, I was making a point about motivations for wanting to play evil characters and how not every concept works in PFS with the current good/ neutral requirements.
I agree that rules are necessary - I've even said that I don't think that unrestricted evil characters would be good for the campaign. What I'm arguing is the idea that seems to be most prevalent which seems to boil down to "only bad players want to play evil characters" or "evil characters are always disruptive". Neither of which I find true.----
Again, not on the band wagon that there should be a "maturity test" or that PFS should open all alignments all of the time. The OP was asking if there was a reasonable way that some evil chars could participate in an org play campaign, so I was addressing that as an interesting thought experiment. Keep your towel handy and don't panic. =0)
-TimD
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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competitive faction-based organized play
let the table-flipping commence
I really would not bet on that one, seems like something like that would depend on which players use more cheese, and how lenient the GMs are when it comes to builds, that are on the very edge of legality.
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I really would not bet on that one, seems like something like that would depend on which players use more cheese, and how lenient the GMs are when it comes to builds, that are on the very edge of legality.competitive faction-based organized play
let the table-flipping commence
...let the table-flipping commence
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I'm just worried that I'll be hard pressed to find reasons for CE Barbarian of Rovagug to want to work for the Pathfinder Society...
But if there as an Aspis Consortium that needed some people violently slaughtered...well then, sign me up.
Players will get the opportunity to play pregenerated Aspis agents and attempt to defeat the Pathfinder Society!
Aww yeah!
