Being Evil in RPGs

[NecroLord]

What RPGs can you think of that really allow a player to be a legitimate villain and overall evil piece of shit?
Fallout 2 lets you do some pretty fucked up things(including raep or rather coercing a woman into doing the nasty with you in a certain Vault City quest).
KOTOR 2 also has some good Dark Side villainy,if you choose to pursue that path(contrast this to the silly and cartoonish "give me all your credits or else" villainy of the first Kotor).
Hell,you can sacrifice Visas during your fight with Nihilus to weaken him. As she lays dying at your feet,you can say something like "Did you think I would care enough to be beside you when you die? Then you were wrong - and I am pleased to kill that hope." Or "I want the last words you hear to be the hate I have for you." Fuck...

Toee allows you to massacre innocents with impunity(Chaotic Evil party in Hommlet,anyone?).
You can also force yourself(if party alignment is neutral or chaotic evil) on some poor prostitutes in a brothel in Nulb...

 

[RickOmbo]

You can take a slave in Jade Empire.

 

[Tony]

I never play the bad guy so I wouldn't be able to give specific examples, but it seems Arcanum, the Baldur Gate games, Pathfinder games, would be good examples. Mass Effect's system always seemed a bit silly, where the normal human choice was considered the "renegade" choice, and the action didn't fit the dialogue choice. Like, Shepard's choice would be, "No more questions." and he'd beat-up the female reporter. Kotor 1 was similar in silliness.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I never play the bad guy so I wouldn't be able to give specific examples, but it seems Arcanum, the Baldur Gate games, Pathfinder games, would be good examples. Mass Effect's system always seemed a bit silly, where the normal human choice was considered the "renegade" choice, and the action didn't fit the dialogue choice. Like, Shepard's choice would be, "No more questions." and he'd beat-up the female reporter. Kotor 1 was similar in silliness.

ME1 renegade was Dirty Harry, there wasn't really an option to be evil. Then they screwed it up in ME2 by making it like star wars.

 

[ropetight]

Tyranny had some pretty evil moments.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

What RPGs can you think of that really allow a player to be a legitimate villain and overall evil piece of shit?
Fallout 2 lets you do some pretty fucked up things(including raep or rather coercing a woman into doing the nasty with you in a certain Vault City quest).
KOTOR 2 also has some good Dark Side villainy,if you choose to pursue that path(contrast this to the silly and cartoonish "give me all your credits or else" villainy of the first Kotor).
Hell,you can sacrifice Visas during your fight with Nihilus to weaken him. As she lays dying at your feet,you can say something like "Did you think I would care enough to be beside you when you die? Then you were wrong - and I am pleased to kill that hope." Or "I want the last words you hear to be the hate I have for you." Fuck...

Toee allows you to massacre innocents with impunity(Chaotic Evil party in Hommlet,anyone?).
You can also force yourself(if party alignment is neutral or chaotic evil) on some poor prostitutes in a brothel in Nulb...

People will say Tyranny, but tbh the first PoE is far more fucked up. Examples are sacrificing companions at a blood altar for stats gains and feeding a little girl to a zombie.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You can side with the slavers in deadfire.

 

[Reinhardt]

You can side with the slavers in deadfire.

he asked about evil

 

[nlfortier]

In Soulash you play as a villain whose goal is to consume the souls of the living and conquer the world. It's a roguelike with pixel graphics, which I know isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's quite good.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You can side with the slavers in deadfire.

he asked about evil

You can side against the slavers in deadfire.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Expeditions: Conquistador (by choice) and The Age of Decadence (by necessity).

 

[Üstad]

You can say evil things in Pathfinder Kingmaker Which shows the shallowness of the moral alignment system.

 

[Pink Eye]

Don't remember which one of them, but in the Shadowrun games you can sacrifice an entire city plus kill off your companions to get a wish granted by a Demon Queen.

Edit: Fuck it was Hong Kong, I'm so retarded. I even beat it recently too:

Spoiler

 

[notpl]

In the Chinese crpg Ho Tu Lo Shu, the player can find a heroic knight-errant sequestered away with a Taoist nun named Bai Sun, trying to use his sect's chi-manipulation techniques to cure her of a crippling injury. If you come back at night when both characters are asleep, and you try to pickpocket Bai Sun, she will wake up as you're rifling through her pockets and be so aroused by the situation that she allows you to rape her if you so choose. If you go along with it, after you two wrap up she reveals that she's actually a spy sent over to steal the sect's healing techniques, and she recruits you for her plan to lure the knight into a nearby den of monsters and kill him, after which she will join your party as a trophy bride.

In another case, you get a quest to help a single mother protect herself from the advances of a wealthy suitor whom she doesn't love. Eventually he grows impatient and kidnaps the woman's daughter, feeding her poison and telling the mother that he will only provide the antidote in exchange for her hand in marriage. You can do the obvious thing and beat up the mercenary poisoner for the antidote and save the child, but you can also force the woman to marry the man, recruit the poisoner onto your team, and then blackmail and rob the wealthy noble for everything he's got. Later, the mother kills herself out of shame, leaving her child orphaned.

 

[Erebus]

In too many games, the evil options are very shallow. Either they're motivated by nothing more than narrow-minded greed, or they have the PC behave like a complete psychopath for no good reason.

Mask of the Betrayer is a memorable exception. Being evil is highly satisfying, it brings risks as well as rewards, and it leads to the best ending in the game.

 

[Cryomancer]

One game which being evil is great is PF:WoTR.

Why? Your companions are shit. As an villain, you can mess with them hard. Including against the bitch queen.

 

[Darth Canoli]

What RPGs can you think of that really allow a player to be a legitimate villain and overall evil piece of shit?
Fallout 2 lets you do some pretty fucked up things(including raep or rather coercing a woman into doing the nasty with you in a certain Vault City quest).
KOTOR 2 also has some good Dark Side villainy,if you choose to pursue that path(contrast this to the silly and cartoonish "give me all your credits or else" villainy of the first Kotor).
Hell,you can sacrifice Visas during your fight with Nihilus to weaken him. As she lays dying at your feet,you can say something like "Did you think I would care enough to be beside you when you die? Then you were wrong - and I am pleased to kill that hope." Or "I want the last words you hear to be the hate I have for you." Fuck...

Toee allows you to massacre innocents with impunity(Chaotic Evil party in Hommlet,anyone?).
You can also force yourself(if party alignment is neutral or chaotic evil) on some poor prostitutes in a brothel in Nulb...

ToEE has some pretty good evil quest-lines in the temple, the struggle for power between the different elemental priests.

As for KotOR, I don't see it.
Would Palpatine sacrifice Darth Vader? It makes no sense because it weakens him.
Unless he has no choice and it's a matter of life and death.
Weakening yourself (by sacrificing a companion) to weaken an enemy you can beat isn't an evil choice, it's a retarded one.

 

[notpl]

What RPGs can you think of that really allow a player to be a legitimate villain and overall evil piece of shit?
Fallout 2 lets you do some pretty fucked up things(including raep or rather coercing a woman into doing the nasty with you in a certain Vault City quest).
KOTOR 2 also has some good Dark Side villainy,if you choose to pursue that path(contrast this to the silly and cartoonish "give me all your credits or else" villainy of the first Kotor).
Hell,you can sacrifice Visas during your fight with Nihilus to weaken him. As she lays dying at your feet,you can say something like "Did you think I would care enough to be beside you when you die? Then you were wrong - and I am pleased to kill that hope." Or "I want the last words you hear to be the hate I have for you." Fuck...

Toee allows you to massacre innocents with impunity(Chaotic Evil party in Hommlet,anyone?).
You can also force yourself(if party alignment is neutral or chaotic evil) on some poor prostitutes in a brothel in Nulb...

ToEE has some pretty good evil quest-lines in the temple, the struggle for power between the different elemental priests.

As for KotOR, I don't see it.
Would Palpatine sacrifice Darth Vader? It makes no sense because it weakens him.
Unless he has no choice and it's a matter of life and death.
Weakening yourself (by sacrificing a companion) to weaken an enemy you can beat isn't an evil choice, it's a retarded one.

You're thinking like someone playing an RPG, not like a person engaged in a life or death struggle against an overwhelming opponent. The Exile doesn't know he can reload the battle a dozen times and look up Nihilus's HP on gamefaqs.

 

[Yosharian]

Examples are sacrificing companions at a blood altar for stats gains

I fail to see how sacrificing Durance is Evil, the way I see it, I'm doing the world a favour

 

[Yosharian]

I can't believe nobody mentioned New Vegas yet. Selling Arcade Gannon into slavery, anyone? There a whole host of evil-as-shit things you can do in that game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Examples are sacrificing companions at a blood altar for stats gains

I fail to see how sacrificing Durance is Evil, the way I see it, I'm doing the world a favour

I can't believe nobody mentioned New Vegas yet. Selling Arcade Gannon into slavery, anyone? There a whole host of evil-as-shit things you can do in that game.

oh no, his moral compass is broken

 

[Nano]

KotOR2's evil path is pretty overrated. KotOR1's is better, especially because it has a unique ending that's much more satisfying than the light side ending.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

In too many games, the evil options are very shallow. Either they're motivated by nothing more than narrow-minded greed, or they have the PC behave like a complete psychopath for no good reason.

Exactly. I always play my characters as Mother Teresa because it provides the best rewards and there's never any sacrifice for being good.

 

[rubinstein]

you cant be evil, nor good, in a video game. simple as. maybe your actions can imitate, what we would consider irl as, good or evil. maybe they can actually affect outcome of the quests, conversations, and even entire story.
but you are still not hurting anybody.
you are still not helping anybody.
alignment systems may try to revaluate your every noteable action, they can try to place you in their n-dimensional charts, label you, but you still havent done anything meaningful. and the only meaningful stakes can be found in real life - the burden of sins, the suffering of selflessness. good and evil exists exclusively among betrayals, sacrifises, cowardness, greed etc. etc. of day-to-day existence. no amounts of immersion in any interactive media will cover it.
my point is: you cannot simulate good and evil between a real being and an illusion, because it is unsimulable. like love. feeling 'good' after helping a virtual granny find her missing object kitten_04_gray is as delusional as believing these two are actual beings - just because they are made of real particles beaming out of you monitor screen. yet its easier to convince yourself that you 'did good', when in fact, it was absolutely meaningless.

What RPGs can you think of that really allow a player to be a legitimate villain and overall evil piece of shit?

none. my answer is none. it always feels plain once you can see through the paper-thin facade of the medium. sometimes one evil path is written better than an other evil path, but it never feels fulfilling

 

[Nano]

you cant be evil, nor good, in a video game. simple as. maybe your actions can imitate, what we would consider irl as, good or evil. maybe they can actually affect outcome of the quests, conversations, and even entire story.
but you are still not hurting anybody.
you are still not helping anybody.
alignment systems may try to revaluate your every noteable action, they can try to place you in their n-dimensional charts, label you, but you still havent done anything meaningful. and the only meaningful stakes can be found in real life - the burden of sins, the suffering of selflessness. good and evil exists exclusively among betrayals, sacrifises, cowardness, greed etc. etc. of day-to-day existence. no amounts of immersion in any interactive media will cover it.
my point is: you cannot simulate good and evil between a real being and an illusion, because it is unsimulable. like love. feeling 'good' after helping a virtual granny find her missing object kitten_04_gray is as delusional as believing these two are actual beings - just because they are made of real particles beaming out of you monitor screen. yet its easier to convince yourself that you 'did good', when in fact, it was absolutely meaningless.

You heard the man. Go out there and rape some bitches, everybody!