Roleplaying evil characters

So, I almost never play evil characters in most CRPGs - despite the potential fun to be had - and recently I’ve been thinking about why.

I mean, lawful good is the most boring alignment, evil NPCs can be an absolute hoot (exhibit A: Astarion), stealth murdering villagers for lulz can be entertaining, so why am I always such a freaking goody-two-shoes when it comes to actual plot decisions?

I think a lot of it comes down to lame and crudely-drawn motivations for the evil option in each case.

Your options in most games always seem to boil down to callous, greedy or spiteful: haha no / fuck you pay me / I just blinded your child lol.

And those just aren’t satisfying. Especially when you’re starting out and forming your character’s persona and network, you’re pretty much powerless, dumped in a situation where you’re casting around for allies and can’t afford to burn your bridges.

Running around just randomly being mean to folk like some poster child for Troubled Youth and the need to be Tough On Crime is just… stupid. There’s some crude sadism there, and there’s some crude avarice, it gets you minor short term benefits but no long-term ones, it gets you hated but not feared, without any real sense of control. Everyone dies or gets led off in chains with big sad eyes, and there’s always the strong implication that you failed.

It just feels like a heavy-handed morality lesson where all the bad people are thugs, arseholes and/or developmentally challenged. Apart from being not much fun to play, it’s kind of erasing the harm presented by smarter, more insidious kinds of evil.

Being a good guy gets you willing allies, is about personal validation, and feels like success. It gets you the generosity of the people you help, but that’s a bonus on top the fundamental win of making the world a shinier better place.

By the same token, being an evil bastard should get you unwilling allies, it should be about power, and it should feel like winning. It gets you benefits you did not earn, but that should be a bonus on top of the fundamental win of tightening the screws on people. That’s the actual payoff, but it seems to be the one they always miss.

I think evil playthroughs could be a lot more fun if you had better ways to be evil: blackmail, extortion, sneaky betrayal and brutal revenge. Not ODD, in other words, but NPD. Control, leverage, perfidy. Locking your victims down so they have no choice but to help you, or deceiving them into working against their own interests. Either keep a tight rein on your PR - or let them hate, so long as they also fear.

And another BG3 example: I think the nature of the shadow curse was a misstep, what with the all the grotesque madness and putrid corruption that surrounded it. I think it would have been far more effective as psychological horror, morally corrupt but reeking of purity, so shadowheart would have had believable reasons for wanting to join the gothstapo, and the player could plausibly be sold on it despite everything. But instead the lesson seemed to be that evil is yucky and broken and ew don’t get it on you, and that just feels like a missed opportunity to me.

What say you?

Am I an outlier in this? Do the typical offerings feel satisfying to you? Are there games that do relatable, enjoyable evil especially well?

Stopthatgirl7,
@Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world avatar

I love BG3, but I’m doing a durge run for the first time and have been really disappointed in the evil option. Like, it wants you to be a crazy, egotistical murder hobo. The dialogue options with your party are so over the top I never choose them, because my character is more of the DL serial killer than murder hobo. There’s zero subtlety if you go down the murder route.

Ultraviolet,

I think the ideal way to make moral choices compelling is to make good an actual sacrifice. Declining powerful things for yourself and putting yourself in danger to help others with no gameplay reward, only narrative reward. Make evil tempting, being selfish and pragmatic will make things easier on you. Let’s say there’s a survival sequence where you’re in the wilderness with limited food and encounter someone starving. You can help them, for no inherent player power related reward, but you’ll run the risk of running out of food yourself. Let them starve and you make the sequence much more comfortable.

sylver_dragon,

I think one of the reasons “evil” plot lines get written into games is largely because players keep asking for them. I also think most developers set out to write a game with a heroic plot line. But, because players will keep whining about not having an “evil” option, they shoehorn one in and the end result is exactly the clumsy, “evil for evil’s sake” type response which are so common in games. Imagine you have some sort of “threat to the whole world” type plot line going, but the main character decides to just fuck off and use the ensuing chaos to further their own power/glory/vanity/etc. While it could certainly make for an interesting experience for the player, it means the developers are basically making two games. It would require a large investment of time and resources into making something that isn’t actually the game the developers set out to make. So, at minimum, the “evil” plot line needs to force the evil player to hit all the same story points, set pieces and the like which exist for the “heroic” plot. At best, it is going to feel forced and expose just how meaningless the player’s choices are.

Ultimately, what players what in an “evil” plot in a game is an entirely different game. But, that’s never actually going to happen; so, we get the half-assed versions we see today.

invertedspear,

Lex Luther is evil, but he doesn’t go around stealing candy from babies and punching grandmas. In fact he takes a lot of actions that people would think are good and altruistic. His motivations are what makes him evil. And when push comes to shove he would show how little he actually cares for all those babies and grandmas. This seems to allude many story tellers in many mediums. Infamous was a great game on the “good” story line, and terrible on the evil because you had to punch grandma with no real reason in order to stay evil. Bio shock was a bit better as you had motivation to kill those little girls to gain more power faster.

Writers and storytellers need to think more motivation than actions when it comes to being evil.

ZombiFrancis,

Since you referenced BG3…

The D&D series has always had ‘evil’ as in the alignment and then ‘mindflayer evil’ which was always kinda the next level melodramatic brand of evil.

So BG3 kind of tackled that head on. It was rather successful I think in that it gave evil characters and NPCs a much better and less arbitrary framework, even if it revolved around the trope of everyone being power hungry. Although it all just kinda blurred and overlapped with a few exceptions.

Like the exploding blood potion drow lady. She is evil. But she was well done. In her lane and it worked.

But I could have given a shit less about the machinations of all the side evils. Like, Selune-Shar was always a cringey mess, so Shadowheart never had a chance unless we could’ve had the option of her ditching them both for like, Waukeen.

exocrinous,

I loved the first half of Tyranny. You get to play as a bad guy. You’re encouraged to be clever, calculating, to make important decisions that will affect the rest of the game. There’s mysteries about, and power to be had, and though you have superficial allegiances, your actual boss is an enigmatic figure who wants you to vie for power. Your mentors warn you that others will try to control you, and that you should always be looking out for number one.

Unfortunately, halfway through there’s a moment where you don’t get to do that. A moment where the obvious decision to make in order to gain power, is blocked off. Where you cannot make the smart play. Where you have to act not in your own interest, not with cunning, nor deception, nor brute force, though any of those options were easily possible. The game simply doesn’t give you those choices. Your only option is to do what a guy you allied with at the start of the game says. No double cross, no clever lie, no action and rationalisation of the thing you want, the thing that will give you power. You simply give up power that is nearly in the palm of your hands because a guy who thinks he’s your boss but isn’t, says so.

And now I hate that game.

BellyPurpledGerbil,

I don’t know how seriously to take this kind of discussion sometimes. I can rationalize that a person can do awful things to people in a fictional setting and it’s not a commentary of who they are as a person. On the other hand I cannot escape the feeling that I am replying to a genuine sadistic monster, based on everything you just said in this post. Forget all of that. Unnecessary commentary when there’s a point I want to make.

There’s a crucial difference in video games vs more free-form varieties like TTRPGs: You’re on The Rails. Video game RPGs are almost always on the rails. There’s no real sandbox game anywhere. Like there are good attempts, but at the end of the day, any game has programmed expectations for your inputs and what it can output. Video games can’t possibly fathom how deeply evil you could actually get. It would be a developmental and technological nightmare to try programming in all of your awful choices and how they could spiral the narrative. They have to do their best within the limitations of how much could possibly fit in a game. And I’m assuming the game companies also have to take into account the ratings system, and PR. Even if you could play the game any way you want, good AND bad choices, you’re going to get odd looks from people if they know the game allows you to sexually abuse NPCs, or enslave people through extortion. You know what I’m getting at? The real limitation isn’t the technology, even though that’s already a big one. Even in virtual, completely fictional settings, being allowed to play that shit out is wholly monstrous. And I can’t imagine the toll it would take on designers who would be tasked to write it.

So if you really want all of that and accept the risks, make your own CRPG where you can go all out on Evil. Being critical of developers and designers for not being willing to go as far as your twisted mind can go in a video game is a wild take. Go play in an evil TTRPG campaign if you want to get those kicks. It’s way easier.

itsralC,

There are many kinds of evil, and also the morally gray. Evil doesn’t have to be evil just for the sake of it.

At the end of the day, these kinds of videogames tell stories, and a story full with nonsensical evil will only appeal to those freaks you talked about. In the other hand, if it is handled correctly, the story will appeal to a much broader audience. As an example, at the end of The Last Of Us (the show, idk about the game), the main character refuses to save the world because it would mean the death of the only family he had left, and massacres a lot of people in a mix of survival instinct and paternalistic rage. It is horrible from a moral perspective yet it is a good, engaging story.

I feel like, in the same sense, a character with impenetrable morality and no conflict would not be very entertaining to read/watch/play.

As for the workload, I’d rather they didn’t give me the option to be evil if the story is going to be bad. The devs themselves choose to make different paths, so at least have them be equally fun. (I’m not getting into pressures from above for “branching narratives” or any other marketable terms. Replace devs with “studios” if you wish.)

exocrinous,

Designers don’t have to program in every evil thing to make an evil path. They just have to program in one evil path that’s fun. Making games fun is their job. If playing an evil character isn’t fun, they failed. If they can’t find it in themselves to write an evil main character, they shouldn’t be including the option.

setsneedtofeed, (edited )
@setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world avatar

I like the idea of evil playthroughs, but I agree that the execution of them is unsatisfying.

For me it boils down to the bluntness of the evil options and the inability to be effectively deceptive. I want to play an evil character who betrays people after gaining their trust. Most games don’t make that a normal route, as good dialog choices usually give me good boy points.

I envision a game with good/evil dialog options that doesn’t change my alignment based on most verbal choices but instead on my large scale actions. I want to be able to have a heart to heart conversation with an NPC who then opens up to me allowing me to betray them even harder. I want to play as Senator Palpatine, not be forced to act like Emperor Palpatine right away.

While I don’t mind morally simple evil, the inability to play it properly means I tend to go to more morally complex games. Something like Wasteland 3 where the presented choices are rarely obvious in which is the truly morally ideal. The games runs more on conflicting faction reputations and only has a perfectly good (according to the writers) ending if you play an exact perfect combination of factions, which you probably won’t do without looking up a guide.

The next best morality system example is something like Metro 2033 or Frostpunk where the game simply doesn’t mention that it has a morality system until the end, and that brings out the more honest reactions of first time players.

Coelacanth,
@Coelacanth@feddit.nu avatar

The Metro system was okay in the first game (especially since the bad ending is the intended canon ending), but I have to say the awareness of its existence is part of why I never finished Last Light. Making sure to sit through all the dialogues and do all the things to gain karma every time is such a pain in a game without manual saving.

I’ll try to get through it again some time though, I’ve heard Exodus is great.

Shurimal,

I find cartoonish moustache-twirling "evil" boring. Playing as morally grey characters is most compelling. Whether my character is a hero or a villain depends on whom you ask and at which point in history. Damage one faction and help another, when it's ambiguous who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are. Steal, rob and assassinate for what you believe is a "good cause". Set up dictators to avert death and destruction, then betray and terminate the them with extreme prejudice when they have served their purpose and become a liability. And so on.

Or just go full mercenary; everyone hates you, believes you have no principles and thinks they have the moral high ground, but at the end of the day everyone needs your specialist expertise. Every client is one missed payment away from becoming a target and every target is one bribe away from becoming a client—unless the target is eg slavers or pirates, because you actually do have principles.

For example, in X3:TC I single-handedly brought peace and prosperity into the universe: fought off Khaak threat; contained Xenons and completely denied their incursions into human and alien space alike; set up industry that boosted the economy at large for everyone; hired a lot of people for very good salaries. But, I had the monopoly in most industries; a fleet of warships capable of steamrolling everyone else if I wished so; literally owned a whole sector; controlled trade routes via the Hub; set up alliances with the pirate factions letting them roam free, trading illegal goods with them, building infrastructure for them. In short, very much a shady dystopian megacorps🙃

EarMaster,

I once tried to play Witcher 3 that way. Geralt was - in my version - a classic mercenary-style witcher. You pay him, he does it - no matter what. You don’t pay afterwards? He takes it from you.

Short story: It doesn’t work at all.

SuddenDownpour,

That’s because that’s not Geralt at all. Geralt is a sour, cynical old man, but he always has, up to some point, tried to maintain a moral compass, even when the vast majority of the world hated him just for being a mutant. The most brilliant part of the books is their set up for interesting moral dilemmas and how different charactes engage with them.

EarMaster,

I realized that, but given the level of optical customization and the praise the game received for its RPG component I had hoped I could play outside the existing character limits…

bionicjoey,

You should check out Tyranny. It’s one of my favourite CRPGs, and it gives you a solid motivation for making evil choices. It also doesn’t really give you “good” options most of the time.

exocrinous,

Nah that game boofs it so bad.

Five words: you can’t kill the baby.

bionicjoey,

I have no idea what you’re saying.

SuddenDownpour,

Tyranny is great because those motivations are not just strange situation where doing evil is, for some reason, such a not bad thing to do, but rather your position in the story is almost always constrained by fucked up social systems that rely on violence to sustain themselves - and they will destroy you if you want to triumph above them (unless you somehow find the good route).

Tarquinn2049, (edited )

Being evil should feel like cheating and getting away with it. It should feel like the “right” way to play the game if you are playing it that way, your character should essentially “skip dialog”, by cutting people off before they say anything heartfelt or by walking away when stuff starts to get too “sappy” for them. You should never hear what the other characters motivations are, they should all feel like one-sided npcs that just complain all the time.

That is what life feels like to selfish people. They don’t feel selfish. They feel like everyone else is just missing all these easy and obvious shortcuts and whine and complain too much about nothing.

The npcs that we all get to know and care for, are pretty much impossible to be mean to. You have to actually see them the way an “evil” person would for it to make sense to be evil. They should seem like their plans are way too complicated and risky for no reason other than that they aren’t as smart as you and can’t see that rescuing the trapped goblin is not only a huge time cost but risky too. Not worth doing, the reward increase is pretty miniscule, and if any party members should die, or the rescue attempt goes wrong at all and just results in alerting the enemies and getting everyone killed… why risk all that for such little pay off? And of course cut them off or not care about their stupid whiny reasons like it’s a sentient creature or whatever nonsense they are gonna spew. It’s just a plain bad idea, and they aren’t getting it. Maybe you should just try to sabotage it so it’s not even an option anymore, then they’ll come around.

exocrinous,

But it’s a video game. You can just reload a save until you get it right and get the XP for completing the quest. If you don’t save the goblin, you won’t be as powerful at the end of the game. It’s ludonarrative dissonance.

ninjan,

I feel Mass Effect did at least some of this in terms of allowing you to cut people off and quite a few “shortcuts” of just shooting someone that you can tell from a mile away will be trouble. That game of course has you play someone that obviously can’t have reached the position they have by being a selfish asshole so the premise limits what you can do.

Scrof,

BG3 is a terrible example. One of my main gripes with that game is that the virtual DM actively hates evil characters and tries to sabotage your play through at every step. Not to mention that the writers provided only chaotic stupid dialogue variants for evil roleplay. It’s usually [good], [good], [question], [attack the whole town], [goodbye]. And murderhoboing isn’t even fun here because it’s boring to fight whole cities at once. BG3 is a good tactics game with a brothel of a harem VN on the side, but it’s a lousy RPG. Very reminiscent of Mass Effect in that way that was a TPS with a brothel, but a terrible RPG.

Good examples would be KOTOR 2 and Fallout 1/2/NV.

ninjan,

The best approach in my opinion was in Mass Effect.

Dragon Age a close second but there it’s much more subtle and good/evil not really a part of it, it’s more internal to you the why behind your characters actions. Stuff like using blood magic which is illegal but very powerful can be used from a perspective of “the greater good” or you could roleplay that decision as a lust for power. Which factions you side with for sure has morality attached but since all roads lead to saving the world its much more about your own reasons to judge if your character is evil or just focused on the grander scheme, utilitarian.

But back to Mass Effect. It’s the same thing with all roads leading to save the world but unlike Dragon Age there is a morality system in place that is not about just a dichotomy between self sacrifice and malicious indulgence. Instead it’s about what is OK to do to save the world? What sacrifices are reasonable? What risks should you take for others? What approach do you take to solve conflict? Renegade (as the ‘evil’ approach is called) options allow you to pistol whip people that want you to follow rules and decorum while the Galaxy hangs in the balance. It allows you to order people to die for the greater good. It’s about using the power you have to take the shortest and most direct route to ultimate salvation. To not pussy foot around trying to appease everyone.

And really that’s the only way to make morality work in a story driven game imo. If the same story is to be told with moral decisions left to the player than they need to be ultimately inconsequential to how the game and story plays out. At best they give slight variations to story beats but nothing really changes from a good playthrough to an evil one in the grand scheme. If it works and feels satisfying is largely down to the developers accepting this and instead focus on smaller nuances like Mass Effect or leaving it ambiguous and up to the player to craft their narrative for the why and motivations like Dragon Age.

What I’d instead would like to see is a game where you play out an evil narrative. And I do know of one such RPG, Tyranny, but I haven’t gotten around to play it yet.

The best example perhaps of melding good and evil in the same game is Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMORPG). Because you can play it from the evil side as a good character and the good side as an evil character. If you play it through multiple time you can really craft a world and narrative of incredible depth. And I can really recommend playing it as you would any other western RPG and just ignore the MMO side of things. Bear in mind that each individual playthrough suffers from the exact problem you raise in your post, but on the total, the bigger picture, becomes something very interesting and worthwhile.

exocrinous,

Tyranny doesn’t stick the landing. They ran out of time and couldn’t write a good second half of the story

speck,

Don't have anything to add, just appreciation for your post. A true evil playthrough would be interesting. Done well it'd uncomfortable and illuminating. But maybe too threatening for many? Maybe we stick to simplistic versions because they are safe?

Dishonored 2 did something in the right direction, the way choices start to color the world around you.

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