How To Play Evil Characters Without Ruining the Game

So, today I'm going to be talking about a topic that I feel quite strongly about. With my recent post about alignment and other argument starters, there's something I feel that I didn't address, that's quite important, and something that a lot of DM's and players don't understand. So, I'll leap right into the meat straight off. I love playing Evil aligned characters. Now, most DM's hear that and immediately, their knee-jerk reaction is to tell me to stop trolling, and for the most part, I agree. However, I think with my track record of writing articles, you might guess that I'm not the kind of guy that joins the game just to troll it for the other players. One of my favorite storytelling tropes, as I mentioned from my Alignment post, is that of the reluctant or unlikely hero. The sort of guy who's amoral, or outright evil,  but is forced to do good for the sake of his loved ones, the greater good or just because it's in his best interest. I think playing Evil or Neutral characters can be very interesting, and I have done it many times without wrecking the game or ruining it for everyone else. To explain this, I want to examine the motivations of the characters in question and try to explain how to be an evil aligned character that still has a reason to help the party and contribute, and does not necessarily have to slit their throats over a kit-kat.

First off, I'd like to start with a story. I mentioned an anecdote for this story in the alignment article, but I'd love to expand on it a bit, with a character very close to my heart. Meet my very first Dungeons and Dragons character, and I'm pretty sure my first roleplay character that wasn't in a Play by Post forum. This is Ollie/Olly, the Neutral Evil Changeling Rogue.

He wishes he looked this badass

Now, I've played Ollie in two games, both of which went for about a year, and with some of the same players, so he was the same character, with a level of continuity between the two games, and even today I still think of him as one of my favorite characters I've ever played. Ollie was a shapeshifting, money-obsessed hedonist. He loved everything that glittered and his dream was to live in luxury, preferably with all his (many) enemies dead. Now, this sounds more Neutral, and I would agree, Ollie was very much leaning toward Chaotic Neutral, however, he never lost his evil edge. he was selfish, completely self absorbed, and would have happily stolen from an old man and leave his victim starving and impoverished in the street, if not dead. Now, he might not have sounded like the most fun guy to roleplay with, but here's the thing. Ollie never had a family. Ollie never really had people who cared about him, and one of his character traits, despite the nastiness, was his loyalty. If you treated Ollie well, he'd be your best friend in the world. He'd steal and kill for you. he obviously got along with the second party (which was mostly Neutral aligned) more than the Good aligned first party, but in both settings, he wouldn't have sold them out. (Except maybe the douchebag Chaotic Good paladin of Bahamut. Fuck that guy).  This brings me to my first point.

Being Evil doesn't mean not having friends, or caring about nothing.

Wayyyyyyyyy to many people use Evil aligned characters as an excuse to betray the party, and this is where I usually facepalm and ask 'why?' Even the most self-absorbed assholes alive would probably prefer a group of people who had his back. Look, maybe if the party were abusing him, or were seriously not taking his wishes into account, but overall, most people are not raging psychopaths. Most people like having a group of friends to pal around with, or at least a group that they trust not to kill them in their sleep. Ollie was pretty decent friends with a lot of the second group, and even some of the first group, and in the second group, even began having feelings for a more good-aligned party member. People are social animals and they develop bonds. It's actually pretty unlikely for an evildoer to ditch and betray his friends when they are serving his interests just fine, and even if they aren't, he's probably going to try and sway them instead of just cutting their throats and starting over.

STUPID EVIL

I hate this. I fucking, fucking hate this. Not the show 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,' because that's a fantastic show. I just hate this mentality. You're EVIL. That doesn't mean you're a fucking idiot. So. Take a moment, with just a little bit of logic. Say you're traveling with a group of people. You might not always get along, but you've established that they have your back against all the other goblins, brigands, heretics and inquisitors out there in the big scary world. Now, say you have some minor disagreement. Is it a better idea to a) try and negotiate b) find some way to steer them toward your goal or c) kill them all and go find another group who are willing to help?

If any one jumped straight to c), then congratulations, you have just qualified for the alignment of STUPID EVIL. This is the kind of character that I'm sure most GM's are used to seeing played. It went under the name Chaotic Stupid for a while, but these are two entirely different things. Stupid Evil characters are characters that act maliciously and evil, regardless of how practical it is. For example, say you're paid to rescue a kitten from a tree. An evil character might take the money and run off. Another evil character might save the cat, then try to hold it ransom for a bigger reward. A stupid evil character will kill the cat and the reward giver and leave. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Stupid Evil characters are usually played by emo teens and fans of the Joker, who have a five-year old's understanding of morality. Evil people, usually, don't get up every morning thinking about what evil acts they're going to commit today. They don't do evil just for the sake of it, because that's the kind of behavior that ends you on a hangman's noose. Evil aligned people, usually just want something. They're willing to crack some skulls to get it, but at the end of the day, everyone has a goal, be it money, power, a dark god's favor, whatever. Burning down orphanages for no reason is something only utter psychopaths do, and here's the next important point.

BEING EVIL DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE A PSYCHOPATH

Yet another important point to playing evil characters. Psychopaths are pretty goddamn rare. Seriously. More importantly, they're also utterly boring characters, 90% of the time. Psychopaths have no emotional connections to things. They have very little ability to plan for the future. They just do what they want, when they want to and damn the consequences. This plays into being Stupid Evil, but Psychopaths are usually really bad characters. They have no real ability to engage with a story, because for them, it's not about the story, it's about doing what suits them now. So yes, if you are playing a psychopath, I would say it is perfectly in character to kill all your comrades, burn down the local town hall and kick the guards in the balls. It is also completely realistic that you would be then ventilated with so many arrows or bullets that they would not be able to find enough of you to fit in a coffee can. Then I would politely tell you to either make a better character or go away.

Think of it this way. Most people, even in a fairly black and white setting like DnD (My inner Planescape Fanboy wants to butt in here and refute that but I will restrain him), most evil people don't really think they're evil. Let's take a bunch of Orcs, who are listed as 'Usually Chaotic Evil.' Let's think about that. Does an Orc think of itself as Chaotic Evil? Or do they simply see humans as weak, and feel that it's their right to take what they want. Hell, their tribe will probably reward them for it, and they'll be doing good by strengthening their tribe against the humans. Sure, a human Paladin can detect the 'evil' on them, but those pansy tin-cans worship Pelor or Heironeous, gods who have a grudge against orcs anyway, and of course would label them 'evil.' Our Orc worships Grummsh, and Grummsh certainly approves of his behavior. What makes one god more right than another?

I'm getting into moral relativism here, and that's the Vampire player inside me coming up, but what I'm trying to get at is that, even if their actions are objectively evil, most people won't see themselves as evil. They could see it as a cynical, dog-eat-dog world, and they're just doing what they have to. They could see it as a bad means to a good cause or even a bad means to a selfish cause, but very, very few people, other than the aforementioned psychopaths, specifically set out to do as much harm as they can. Evil aligned characters are people too. They have friends, they have family, they probably aren't on the job 24-7. Take Ollie example again. He's evil, sure, but he wants to get to know his companions. If he sees something they might like, he might steal it for them. Ollie believes that the world is cynical, that everyone is out for themselves and that the guy sitting on the highest mountain of gold at the end of the day is the winner, and trust me, he wants to be the winner, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want his friends on piles of gold almost as high as his. Evil characters have hopes and dreams, they have triumphs and they have character flaws that trouble them as much as any good guy. A lot of the time, it troubles them a lot more because they aren't exactly socially accepted, especially if they're obviously evil.

As I see it, the appeal of playing an evil character is to step outside of one's own morality and try to take in another point of view, and it is fun to be the cold, pragmatic bastard amidst the pretentious goody-goodies. There's a lot of prejudice against evil aligned characters, but the main thing I think you should take away from this is to remember, out of game, you're all friends. Evil characters don't have to be douchebags to people in the party. They don't have to backstab their friends and they don't have to undermine them and weedle them at every opportunity. There's plenty of targets outside the party to mess with, who are not currently supporting you and your adventure. Kill them and steal their stuff, but don't get your friends in trouble. Maybe, maybe, if they see how useful you are, they might start tolerating you, and from there, it's only a few steps toward bringing them around to seeing it your way.

Finally, some neat inspirations for evil characters played well, and as flawed, fallable people, and not caricatures.

Reservoir Dogs - An utterly fantastic movie, with deep, interesting characters, all of whom are grade-A bastards. Even the most sympathetic (without spoiling anything), Mr. White is still a cold-blooded killer who recommends cutting off a person's finger if they don't cooperate. The thing is, they're all loyal to each other. They don't screw each other over for no reason, and even the pragmatic Mr. Pink is utterly disgusted when Mr. Blonde (Stupid Evil extraordinaire) executes the hostages, and Mr. White desperately tries to save Mr. Orange's life, and stands up to his boss on his behalf. It's a fantastic character study of criminals as people, flawed and unpleasant people sure, but people nontheless.

Seven Psychopaths - Probably one of my favorite movies ever. It's definitely a comedy, but it has some real heart, and is a perfect examination of what it's like to have a psychotic motherfucker as your best friend. Billy clearly has his friend Marty's best interests at heart, and does his best to support him and  his dreams and ambitions. To say the way he does this is.....creative is putting it mildly, but without spoiling anything, Billy really exemplifies what it means to be Chaotic Evil, and still have motivations, dreams and a best friend forever.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire - I really liked this movie, even if lots of people didn't. Steampunk just makes my nipples hard. Anyway, while it's a Disney movie, so it can't be too dark, most of the crew are an interestingly amoral bunch, that are still clearly loyal to each other, and turn against their commander when he tries to betray one of them. Vinny (the awesome dude with the mustache and the arsenal of bombs) says it best when justifying his actions. "We've done a lot of things we're not proud of—robbin' graves, plunderin' tombs, double parking...But nobody got hurt! (Beat) Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but nobody we knew..."

The Devil's Rejects - Another one of my favorite movies. The Firefly Clan are murderous, cannibalistic rapists, but above all, they are a family, and they stick together through thick and thin. Even Otis and Spaulding, the characters who butt heads most of the way through, stick together and defend each other, and go out as a unit, shooting and giving Johnny Law a good showdown at the end.

- Kephn