Roleplaying as Evil

[burbles]

Heh, nobody fears paladins, and evil people least of all.

[Chipowski]

One thing I've noticed, playing this game for a few years and, before that, nwn1 from age 14-19, is that when it comes to evil characters, 1 of 2 pitfalls usually happens.

1.) The player has difficulty playing a subtle, actually evil person. A common pitfall I'd notice would be people playing their characters as very obvious, evil entities. Evil is a hard thing to play, it's even harder to survive. If you're obvious, the goodies are gonna kick your butt on sight.

2.) For those inclined to playing proper villains, they often needed a lot of dm support to maintain their secrecy. Even those who were able to find a player base group where they could be evil together had difficulty with this, would often find themselves bored or burnt out keeping it up, and stop playing the character.

I personally am all for seeing a bandit group, though! I'd love to see bandits I can actually interact with instead of having to fight as soon as they show up! My PC isn't the type to kill her enemies, anyway, so them escaping or being left just beat up would subtract from the jarring "cartoon villain syndrome" where the bad guy is defeated one episode, only to be back the next. Can't speak for other people there, though!

On another note, another problem I've noticed is Paladins... Paladins, like villains, seem to be very difficult for most people to play "properly". Instead of being the ideal, good knight-type, they are turned into stereotypical zealot toons who tend to yell a lot and smite everything for anything. But that's a different topic on it's own

[Rasael]

Heh, nobody fears paladins, and evil people least of all.

Paladins should fear Paladins losing track of what is really good.

[Thoril]

My main tip for playing evil is doing it on an alt character that might not be your primary gaming focus on the server all the time. The reason for this is that if your in-character evil actions is robbing people, pvping, etc you will want to have some downtime to let things cool off in between your evildoings.

If you have a really high online presence on your evil character people will easily be able to see your patterns and you'll most likely turn into more of a "schoolyard bully" type of evil character rather than the witty plotting professional. It's all down to personal preference really, but from what I've noticed from playing on this server for a pretty long time is that evil characters who really act out their "evilness" on other players do this best with a lot of downtime in between your attacks/robberies/etc.

I've also noticed that most times I get metagame'd it's usually a heat of the moment type of thing (most likely driven by a lust for revenge :p). So having a less online presence actually helps to alleviate this by a whole lot.

[Storm Munin]

Playing evil toons needs the support of the players with good toons and vice versa. My main was evil for over two years without being outed for:

A. Being halfdrow
B. Being a spy
C. Doing wicked things like slavehunting, marking sites for teleportation of raiding forces and whatnot.


She could do all this because of massive player and dm support.

Thank you all, you know who you are.
She will return.

[V'rass]

I managed to make an evil character on the nwn1 pw Amia who eventually became a legend, which is funny since I did not plan for or even desire to be such. Im told even to this day people there talk about him. He was pure smart evil. Everyone knew he was a necromancer but there was never any proof and since he behaved himself and helped out the good guys a lot the forces of good decided he was not a threat and let him be. Hell... some of the good adventuring parties even permitted him to use undead and turned a blind eye to it. He was evil, but due to his affability people loved him... even the good guys. Granted I played him as more of an anti-hero then a villain but still, I could pretty much practice necromancy even in front of the good guys and still be considered their ally. It was some of the best rp I have had.
If anyone from that server is here they will know who I am talking about.

[The Whistler]

ok

[Lockonnow]

you only evil if you have a evil plot

[V'rass]

My necromancer did much better then my cleric did on that server. Tried playing him as overly evil and as you might expect got my a** kicked. I tried to defile the triad temple in the paladin city and raise an unholy altar to bane inside it. The building was empty but the dms were watching and decided to make an event out of it. Got swarmed by paladin npc's, captured, and banned from the city for life. Had tons of players after my a** for doing it but it was fun nonetheless. I learned two things from the incident: smart evil is safe evil, and always be wary cause bored dms may be watching.

[Zethrenx99]

Anyone played Austoria back in the day? You could play evil of any gradation and not feel like you are walking on a tightrope with knives pointed at in from either side. Think the issue is on Austoria the main npc city power was focused only in the city and they didn't have meta-gaming uberpower guards outside of it (since it was barely strong enough to protect the citizens inside). I think the server could use a little bit more lawlessness and less npc presence so that players can take more control over the server. but that's just my 2 cents worth.

[Steve]

I think the server could use a little bit more lawlessness and less npc presence so that players can take more control over the server. but that's just my 2 cents worth.

Lands (Areas) north of Baldur's Gate are considered Lawless Lands, except where Guard-like NPCs exist. Whole reason it was expanded, actually, a few years back.