What is the appeal of playing as “evil”?

[UndeadHalfOrc]

My dealings with the common denizens is not defined by good or evil, nor lawful or chaotic, but by a contract:

1.
I save the world.

2.
I get to take all your shit.

 

[WorkingAnt]

Thus I ask, what is the appeal of playing an evil path?

tasteful r**e

 

[Larianshill]

The appeal of playing evil is basically the appeal of how Hollywood sells evil:

Glamour. Power trip. You get to dress in black. Wreak shit. Enemies fear you. You fuck lascivious bitches who wear latex, and they want it. You conquer shit. Have a throne. Have badass capital starships and armies.

The reality of evil (especially as it manifests in our time, with no virtue mixed in at all, no martial virtue, which for example is in Darth Vader) is of course absolute shit, and nothing like this Hollywood image. Evil is being a smug police bully who batters European protestors, arrests old grannies for Tweets, but is a coward to foreign threats. Evil is a corpulent being like Jabba the Hutt, entitled to the point of demanding everything is delivered to them. Evil is an ugly politician that looks like a joke, and is also a pedo. Nobody "fears" these people, they aren't badass; they are a fucking disease.

Bascially all the glamourous bad boys, vampires, etc, are never how evil ever manifests. Hollywood probably reached peak power trip evil in the vampire craze. Be immortal, feared, etc, but also look like a Calvin Klein model for all time. What could possibly be an immature power fantasy there? It had a big influence, I think, on the current crop of rebels who imagine themselves as a transgressive vampire, and actually look like an overweight, disease riddled, flunky.

In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil. Satan fell. In my myth Morgoth fell before Creation of the physical world. In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.* In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about ‘freedom’, though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants;† if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world. * Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order. † By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. When Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. - J.R.R. Tolkien​

In KOTOR is easy to understand. Sith Lords have the Sauron thing going on. Angelic levels of malice refined by virtues like discipline. In D&D, where it amounts to taking money off orphans, I can't see the point.

I think this hits the nail on the head. The appeal of evil is being cool. Being feared. Dominating, owning every room you walk into, squashing those in your way without pause. The biggest appeal of evil, however, is saying "fuck you" to mediocre writer.
"Revenge is bad!", cries the craven liberal mind behind the video game. "If you kill him, you're just as bad, and ackkshually even worse!"
Whatever you say, I answer, and kill his pet character anyway. This way an evil playthrough can make a bad game better. Take Dragon Age 2, for example - it's mediocre to terrible. It has two sides in it - both are "gray", but one (the dindu mages) is clearly supposed to be better than the other (fascist templars). Siding with the templars is therefore the evil playthrough, and about 15% players choose it. However, in this evil playthrough you can kill scores of dindu mages who engage in demon summoning, blood magic and murder, while crying about how oppressed they are. You can even kill the gay terrorist Anders for blowing up the church.

An example of how an evil playthrough doesn't make a game better is BG3, because BG3 doesn't really understand what the appeal of evil is. The Dark Urge in BG3 isn't cool - he's a bit of a doofus at times and often feels like a victim of circumstances and a puppet even when you're on the evil route, because that's exactly what he is. His father, Bhaal is not cool - he's a dork, a god of committing murder for the sake of committing murder. You can do all kinds of evil shit in BG3, kick squirrels to death, randomly break a bard's lute like an utter asshole, kill any NPC that you want, even the writers' pet Nightsong, but it never feels satisfying.

 

[Puukko]

The appeal of playing evil is basically the appeal of how Hollywood sells evil:

Glamour. Power trip. You get to dress in black. Wreak shit. Enemies fear you. You fuck lascivious bitches who wear latex, and they want it. You conquer shit. Have a throne. Have badass capital starships and armies.

The reality of evil (especially as it manifests in our time, with no virtue mixed in at all, no martial virtue, which for example is in Darth Vader) is of course absolute shit, and nothing like this Hollywood image. Evil is being a smug police bully who batters European protestors, arrests old grannies for Tweets, but is a coward to foreign threats. Evil is a corpulent being like Jabba the Hutt, entitled to the point of demanding everything is delivered to them. Evil is an ugly politician that looks like a joke, and is also a pedo. Nobody "fears" these people, they aren't badass; they are a fucking disease.

Bascially all the glamourous bad boys, vampires, etc, are never how evil ever manifests. Hollywood probably reached peak power trip evil in the vampire craze. Be immortal, feared, etc, but also look like a Calvin Klein model for all time. What could possibly be an immature power fantasy there? It had a big influence, I think, on the current crop of rebels who imagine themselves as a transgressive vampire, and actually look like an overweight, disease riddled, flunky.

In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero. I do not think that at any rate any ‘rational being’ is wholly evil. Satan fell. In my myth Morgoth fell before Creation of the physical world. In my story Sauron represents as near an approach to the wholly evil will as is possible. He had gone the way of all tyrants: beginning well, at least on the level that while desiring to order all things according to his own wisdom he still at first considered the (economic) well-being of other inhabitants of the Earth. But he went further than human tyrants in pride and the lust for domination, being in origin an immortal (angelic) spirit.* In The Lord of the Rings the conflict is not basically about ‘freedom’, though that is naturally involved. It is about God, and His sole right to divine honour. The Eldar and the Númenóreans believed in The One, the true God, and held worship of any other person an abomination. Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants;† if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world. * Of the same kind as Gandalf and Saruman, but of a far higher order. † By a triple treachery: 1. Because of his admiration of Strength he had become a follower of Morgoth and fell with him down into the depths of evil, becoming his chief agent in Middle Earth. 2. When Morgoth was defeated by the Valar finally he forsook his allegiance; but out of fear only; he did not present himself to the Valar or sue for pardon, and remained in Middle Earth. 3. When he found how greatly his knowledge was admired by all other rational creatures and how easy it was to influence them, his pride became boundless. - J.R.R. Tolkien​

In KOTOR is easy to understand. Sith Lords have the Sauron thing going on. Angelic levels of malice refined by virtues like discipline. In D&D, where it amounts to taking money off orphans, I can't see the point.

I think this hits the nail on the head. The appeal of evil is being cool. Being feared. Dominating, owning every room you walk into, squashing those in your way without pause. The biggest appeal of evil, however, is saying "fuck you" to mediocre writer.
"Revenge is bad!", cries the craven liberal mind behind the video game. "If you kill him, you're just as bad, and ackkshually even worse!"
Whatever you say, I answer, and kill his pet character anyway. This way an evil playthrough can make a bad game better. Take Dragon Age 2, for example - it's mediocre to terrible. It has two sides in it - both are "gray", but one (the dindu mages) is clearly supposed to be better than the other (fascist templars). Siding with the templars is therefore the evil playthrough, and about 15% players choose it. However, in this evil playthrough you can kill scores of dindu mages who engage in demon summoning, blood magic and murder, while crying about how oppressed they are. You can even kill the gay terrorist Anders for blowing up the church.

An example of how an evil playthrough doesn't make a game better is BG3, because BG3 doesn't really understand what the appeal of evil is. The Dark Urge in BG3 isn't cool - he's a bit of a doofus at times and often feels like a victim of circumstances and a puppet even when you're on the evil route, because that's exactly what he is. His father, Bhaal is not cool - he's a dork, a god of committing murder for the sake of committing murder. You can do all kinds of evil shit in BG3, kick squirrels to death, randomly break a bard's lute like an utter asshole, kill any NPC that you want, even the writers' pet Nightsong, but it never feels satisfying.

If you ask me, slaughtering a village by having them turn into mindless undead in real time just to ruin a lesbian "romance" was pretty satisfying.

 

[Moonrise]

Thus I ask, what is the appeal of playing an evil path?

It's called self-inserting. Okay but seriously I'm lazy, and solving quests the evil way usually involves less legwork. No need to negotiate. No playing therapist for two people feuding who coincidentally live on opposite sides of the map. If people die, it's no sweat. If the gate into Constantinople is left open, it's not my problem. The player character or party typically has something pressing to deal with, either a personal concern, or the very fate of the world. Getting sidetracked by other people's problems, especially petty problems, is kinda silly. I don't mind RPing a character who makes a straight line to the objective when there isn't one.

 

[leino]

The idea of playing evil has an aesthetic pull but when push comes to shove I'm usually too soft to follow through.

Villains get to pursue their ends and character to the max without compromise to morality or convention; often they're the most memorable characters of their stories, whose lines does one remember from eg Paradise Lost?
Taking part in clandestine dealings
Good characters even when they enter strange underworlds do it to stand against rather than to embrace the weird and dark
Evil is seductive; good opposes all kind of forbidden temptation but giving in has an appeal by definition, whether it's sensuality, merciless extremism, black magic whatever
A story of falling from grace can be more interesting than one of purity and stalwartness

A good evil playthrough I think would offer fun to be had in the sin (at least initially) and tempt the player with rewards they must forswear to uphold their morality, rather than the good path being unambiguously more rewarding in every way. Evil choices eventually backfiring could be cool though.
IIRC Mask of the Betrayer did a good job of tempting a power-hungry player rather than just giving actions vaguely "of evil intent"

 

[Melcar]

I think most people play "evil" so they can steal and punch people in the face. Very few games let you take a truly evil path (it usually devolves into stealing and punching people in the face), and the reward system (either intentionally or due to lack of imagination from the developers) is not as satisfying.

 

[mondblut]

rather than the good path being unambiguously more rewarding in every way.

That's the worst. Doing good should be a reward unto its own, no? IRL, everyone who's anyone has got there by being the most ruthless, psychopathic motherfucker in the pack.

Enter games. "What, you don't want to help the chicken cross the road? That's it, we're withholding loot, xp and content as your punishment for being mean!"

 

[Konjad]

Almost always... actually, always - evil playthroughs are just simply more interesting. The 'good' ones are the most predictable and feel like you read/played/saw it already hundreds of times, whereas evil ones might not be quite intricate, but at least they have either something unique or at least you 'only' saw it dozens of times so far.

 

[babayaga]

Thus I ask, what is the appeal of playing an evil path?

It's called self-inserting. Okay but seriously I'm lazy, and solving quests the evil way usually involves less legwork. No need to negotiate. No playing therapist for two people feuding who coincidentally live on opposite sides of the map. If people die, it's no sweat. If the gate into Constantinople is left open, it's not my problem. The player character or party typically has something pressing to deal with, either a personal concern, or the very fate of the world. Getting sidetracked by other people's problems, especially petty problems, is kinda silly. I don't mind RPing a character who makes a straight line to the objective when there isn't one.

So for you it is all about convenience?

 

[Louis_Cypher]

The 1990s just went overboard with sympathy for the devil. It spawned a generation of people who have legitimized evil and degeneracy.

Are you one of those "FPS incentivize actual killing" guys? If one cannot separate fiction from reality his place at a loony bin.

Nah I think the 1990s thing is different, in that it's telling a generation of kids that evil is glamourous, and the establishment is fascist.

The Dark Urge in BG3 isn't cool - he's a bit of a doofus at times and often feels like a victim of circumstances and a puppet

The problem is, this is how evil often REALLY is. I made the case for why evil is appealing, when glamourised. If we are talking real evil however, it does basically use up a life, like a sock puppet. The transgressives of today imagine themselves as lithe, beautiful, anime demons. But they never are. In worshipping Slaanesh, you are never Slaanesh, you are Slaanesh's cock warmer.

So, makes for a bad game, but realistic, when evil is corpulent and unappealing.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

It depends on the setting. But usually the "good" playthroughs in modern games are extremely gay. Look at BG3 for example. The poor refugees. On a similar thought, the "evil" companions are usually a lot cooler and better characters than the good ones. Again BG3 all the good companions are annoying faggots and troons

 

[Moonrise]

So for you it is all about convenience?

There's a bit of overlap here between myself as player, and the character I'm playing. Evil is self-concerned. When you cut someone down because they're in your way when there was a better but more tiresome solution, yeah, that's evil. It can be both convenient and compelling.

 

[babayaga]

It depends on the setting. But usually the "good" playthroughs in modern games are extremely gay. Look at BG3 for example. The poor refugees. On a similar thought, the "evil" companions are usually a lot cooler and better characters than the good ones. Again BG3 all the good companions are annoying faggots and troons

It is unfortunate that crpgs and games in general are flooded by gay devs that have no clue about what is right or wrong. Ideologies such as these aren't rooted in reality thus are incompatible with what normal people actually think. I avoided playing BG3 for this reason.

 

[Vic]

self insert

 

[AndyS]

I usually play evil out of curiosity to see what other options there are. What frustrates me about alignment in video games is that there isn't a lot of the sort of middle-ground of a Conan type of character. A guy who isn't a choir boy and has no problem committing violence but also has his own particular code. Most games go for a stifling binary style where you're either following the law like a good boy or kicking pregnant women in the stomach and then laughing about it.

 

[Shuruga]

Thus I ask, what is the appeal of playing an evil path? What do you get out of it? What makes it interesting? What sort of feeling are you pursuing?
Is it to let out steam? To feel in control? Is it a morbid curiosity of what would happen if you chose these options?
What games cater to your wants the best?
Lay it out here and perhaps I will be able to deepen my understanding.

What I tend to look for is reactivity -- give me multiple ways of responding to a situation so I have some narrative agency. If you do that in a meaningful way, then you allow characters to be good, pragmatic, fed-up-with-your-nonsense, apathetic, bitter, selfish, cruel etc. on a case-by-case basis. If someone consistently focuses on negative pathways, you get an evil playthrough. On a broader scale, giving different objectives is nice: allow the player to have an overarching objective which is self-serving (e.g., "I am going to be a warlord") or altruistic ("I just want to help defeat the invading army!"). This helps prevent the situation found in many games, which boils down to "I will save everyone, but maybe I'll be a jerk about it."

From the standpoint of someone building a game, I think it helps to put yourself in a variety of mindsets when designing what options you want to present to the player.

 

[babayaga]

From the standpoint of someone building a game, I think it helps to put yourself in a variety of mindsets when designing what options you want to present to the player.

I agree. It is the reason why I am trying to understand the perspective of players I don't necessarily align with. It is very interesting to see what others find enjoyable.

 

[Lamiosa]

The short answer would be that it's generally more fun.
Being the hero that helps anyone who ask gets boring after a while, and that's what we've been doing in CRPGs since we were kids. When the game is well written it's not a problem (i.e. in Enderal the endings are a lot more impactful if you/your character care about the world). But since most games have mediocre writing at best, I usually have more fun with edgy main characters or pragmatic ones (just kill everyone in this village so the disease doesn't spread, my word is law and I don't wanna be seen as weak, just torture the thief until he reveals where he hided the kingdom's treasure).

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

It depends on the setting. But usually the "good" playthroughs in modern games are extremely gay. Look at BG3 for example. The poor refugees. On a similar thought, the "evil" companions are usually a lot cooler and better characters than the good ones. Again BG3 all the good companions are annoying faggots and troons

It is unfortunate that crpgs and games in general are flooded by gay devs that have no clue about what is right or wrong. Ideologies such as these aren't rooted in reality thus are incompatible with what normal people actually think. I avoided playing BG3 for this reason.

I haven't played rogue trader but from what I've seen the lawful playthrough seems pretty based but people would probably describe it as lawful versus lawful good.

A lot of modern RPGs have gotten rid of the whole alignment thing. 5E dnd doesn't even have stuff like alignments anymore. Back to BG3 again, imagine a character where you remove the tieflings because they're breaking the druids laws. Maybe you try to assist them on the road but they don't belong in the druid grove. But basically modern rpgs would pretty much consider that "evil."

 

[KeAShizuku]

Its extremely rare for rich, intelligent and powerful people to be law abiding cucks who don't lie on their tax returns and sleep with one wife.

 

[lukaszek]

The biggest issues with evil path in RPGs are how they naturally don't give particularly good rewards compared to the good paths and how the game moralizes the player who took the evil path. These are particularly bad design examples that should be avoided but yet still plague games like Baldur gate 2 and modern releases.

i like how in kotor2 player is moralized for taking good path

 

[babayaga]

Its extremely rare for rich, intelligent and powerful people to be law abiding cucks who don't lie on their tax returns and sleep with one wife.

Indeed, because they share each other's wifes

 

[Storyfag]

Evil feels good.
Evil looks cool.
Evil is sexy.



Just a drop of your blood on the dotted line.

 

[dukeofwoodberry]

The biggest issues with evil path in RPGs are how they naturally don't give particularly good rewards compared to the good paths and how the game moralizes the player who took the evil path. These are particularly bad design examples that should be avoided but yet still plague games like Baldur gate 2 and modern releases.

i like how in kotor2 player is moralized for taking good path

Yep I feel there's a lot of unexplored potential for an RPG game to take on more gray morality.

Let's take the refugee trope from video games. So okay refugees are hanging out in the druid grove. Those mean old druids want to force them out. Of course you're the big hero so you can save everyone. But what if by siding with the refugees you caused druids to get killed in the process? Like there would actually be consequences to just being an overly altruistic retard who didn't think pragmaticallh at all? Maybe its actually a moral dilemma about how much you should prioritize your own people vs helping others? Rather than just lecturing the audience about how not helping refugees is evil omg!?

RPGs almost never put any consequences behind being the most altruistic person ever. You can always save everyone and usually get rewarded with the best loot also. There's no sacrifice involved in being the ultra goody two shoes. Would if being that super good character meant you lost an attribute point for a story related reason or a popular companion died due to you being overly altruistic. Now we're actually challenging the player: are you sure you're willing to make real sacrifices to be altruistic?

I remember ME2 had one little part where you were fighting a gang and you found a worker there who begged for forgiveness and said they were forced to join the gang and didn’t want to. If you took the paragon option and spared them they tried to shoot you in the back when they got the chance. But its such a small little segment with no actual consequence.

But even more than that I would love more gray scenarios where its not clear what is the ideal outcome. Like the refugee dilmena I mentioned earlier. Is it worth sacrificing druids to save refugees? You could debate either way. I feel like Dragon Age origins tried to make the decision making less good/bad and more ambiguous but now we're in the retard simplistic era of Larian writing.

I also want to point out that the majority of players take the good path in these RPG games. Whenever they release stats on these major RPGs, usually like 2/3rds of playthroughs are the good path