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I've played all kinds of evil alignments.

Generally, it ends with me killing the other party members.

I am pretty new to Rifts, and I haven't had the pleasure of playing a full campaign yet, but I am looking forward to being the "bad guy".
Typically, I find that the best story to go with is just a simple question: What does your char want? Normally the answer is power, so the next question is why? Players can come up with some amazing answers for that one, and as a GM I usually take almost all of my cues from what the players say.
The hard part is getting the group to stick together. I had a very memorable campaign where one of the players was the recurring villain. The GM would sometimes game seperate from the rest of the group with just that one player so that he could get everything set up for us to come by. It got pretty tough because all the cliched villain downfalls were actually in the campaign, thats how the villain got beat the first two times. On the third try, the cliches were all still there, but they had been changed into super-deadly traps for the goodguys. The villain won, but it was still the best campaign we had played in a long time.

I've had player use Evil alignments.

MY advice ... DON'T LET THEM ... IF ... They are not mature enough to handle it, or You arent.

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I found out quickly most players don't play "evil" very well, if they themselves cannot get into the mindset of "evil" itself.

I had plays pick Miscreant (evil) because they wanted to be greedy types. But in the end they played like Han Solo type of person (which was their point it turned out), I switch their alignment to UNPRINCIPLED (good) instead, cause that is what Solo really is.

NEVER let them play Diabolic !!!
You'll only have to put the character down at some point. Why? Most players go too far playing the ARCH-villian styled or emotionless Killing Machines types.

ABERRANT (evil). Now that one is tricky. If the Player can role-play PRINCIPLED (good), then they should be able to Roleplay Aberrant well enough. You got to stress, they have a CODE, or sense of HONOR to their actions, even if they end up doing evil deeds. Their Word should still be their Bond. Where a Pricipled character respects all Life, an Aberrant character does not. "Some People just need Killing" is a good way to look at aberrant mindset. Aberrant is kinda like a mix of Scruplous and Principled but with an Evil Twist to them. Honorable (a Code), Willing to Kill, but willing to do acts that downright evil to get a point across or needs to whatever reason.

HOWEVER ... As a GM, all the games with Evil characters bored me to death, even in the games where i was a player in another GMs game. I Like HEROES and not VILLIANS.

most dont know how to be evil , mostly act anarchist at best

I have played several evil characters and ran several evil campaigns. They can be a lot of fun, my favorite was a pirate campaign. the secret to is to find a reason for the group not to betray or murder each other.

Oh we've done it. I prefer the group try and be good alignments, but everyone seems to want to play selfish (which slides to evil) or an evil alignment. So i gave up trying to push the everyone to playing good. Instead I adopted a new motto. The will suffer the consequences of their actions. This works out pretty good and has actually lead to some real good role-playing and character development.

Played a Diabolic Wolfen in the PF world once. His favorite game was to force people to poison themselves. He died well. No blubbering about sparing his life or any of that...

Carl Gleba wrote:Oh we've done it. I prefer the group try and be good alignments, but everyone seems to want to play selfish (which slides to evil) or an evil alignment. So i gave up trying to push the everyone to playing good. Instead I adopted a new motto. The will suffer the consequences of their actions. This works out pretty good and has actually lead to some real good role-playing and character development.

That is what we always did, that was half the fun, it forced us to be careful and find ways to either pass the blame to someone else or cover our tracks very well and keep moving.

Currently playing Aberrant in a mostly good campaign. My GM is pleased with the group interaction as I try to seduce the goody-goods with my schemes and plans and they try to point out the error of my ways. My favorite evil character was a Zentraedi in a Rifts campaign who started as Aberrant but got corrupted by demonic powers and became Diabolic. During rolling him up, he hated humans but followed Commander Breetai so when he was away from the party he would go on killing sprees against puny humans. The rest of the party was appalled out of game but in game they knew nothing. The GM said I pulled it off.

burgler81 wrote:I have played several evil characters and ran several evil campaigns. They can be a lot of fun, my favorite was a pirate campaign. the secret to is to find a reason for the group not to betray or murder each other.

This is good, oh the occasional betray is possible, but as long as no one take it personally it will be fine.

I personally am allways Abranth when playing evil even in other games systems. I make a good counter point generally to other players.

Lord Nikon wrote::?

Just curious on how many people have played or game mastered evil alignments. To be honest, My players usually stick with scrupulous, unprincipled or the odd anarchist. I haven't had a lot of exposure to the dark side.

I was hoping to hear from others on how the characters were played, problems that came out and any positve or really fun experiences you've had playing bad guys.

Heck. Even general advenure ideas would be great.

Nope. We generally forbid evil alignments, or more appropiately we don't toleratet hose doofuses who thing being the evil backsatbber is fun type of player. The party generally turns on them both in game and out of game so those guys lose interest or switch alignments REAL fast.

My only evil Rifts game has been a group of CS soldiers. They were completely over the top evil, but they played good sociopaths. There job as an elite death squad kept them team based as they saw each other as equals and were able to unleash their depraved diabolical evils on the inhuman. They almost didn't fit into the standard alignment set up, as they were clearly diabolic when dealing with there enemies but they were aberant to unprincipled when dealing with humans/civilians.

Actually I think insane would be the best way to discribe the group, as they were nearly different people when they took the deadboy armor off . . .

I've had plenty of evil characters pass through my gaming table, along with one game of strictly evil characters. In one of my current games a character runs a grey area between anarchist and miscreant. Players did Aberrant a ton back in the day, but looked else where for a harder alignment to play, since Aberrant is very easy to justify most acts.

This never works out well.

I've been told that I do evil really well, if given the proper motivation. My roommate can do evil exceptionally well (he got his start roleplaying in Vampire the Masquerade). Another guy in our group, however, goes by the ancient and venerable alignment of Chaotic Stupid.

I have discovered in alot of evil campaigns, the players rarely work together for any extended period of time. usually only long enough to kill other party members and steal their goodies.

Lord Nikon wrote::?

Just curious on how many people have played or game mastered evil alignments. To be honest, My players usually stick with scrupulous, unprincipled or the odd anarchist. I haven't had a lot of exposure to the dark side.

I was hoping to hear from others on how the characters were played, problems that came out and any positve or really fun experiences you've had playing bad guys.

Heck. Even general advenure ideas would be great.

I have run and played in evil games in this and other systems and they can be great fun, if everyone is mature. Playing an evil character is like playing a paladin, if you want to be lawful stupid and ruin the group's fun, you can... if you want to be stupid evil and pee all over everything, you can. In either case, you are taking the character way out to the extreme and ruining the game. If I spot a character going in this direction, I will advise them that they can play their alignment without going to this extreme, if they choose to try to ruin the group's fun, I cut them loose ASAP.

Even worse than the far out psychotics who are trying, are the immature, lone wolf tough guys that want to prove they are badder than everyone else. Best just to boot them in the butt when they show up. They will whine for a while, but will eventually leave. If you leave them in the game, they will continually try to start fights and disrupt things, best to be rid of them at once.

Once you sort through the people who cannot handle running an evil character, you are ready to game. In one game I ran, I based it off the old Thieves World books and the characters were all either hard core mercs, or evil villains trying to take over the city they were in, they had a pretty good time of it. In another game I ran, the PCs were all minor rulers of small areas of land and they were either for or against the king of the area, most chose to be evil and fight the king. In an evil game, there has to be a "goal" that harnesses the characters' energy and makes them want to band together, otherwise the game tends to break down. A common political enemy, a common evil overlord, or a common mission that benefits all financially, anything like that will work if you have players that are trying to have fun.

Carl Gleba wrote:Oh we've done it. I prefer the group try and be good alignments, but everyone seems to want to play selfish (which slides to evil) or an evil alignment. So i gave up trying to push the everyone to playing good. Instead I adopted a new motto. The will suffer the consequences of their actions. This works out pretty good and has actually lead to some real good role-playing and character development.

This is how i got my players to stop playing Evil characters.
Consequences of their Actions !!

Either through Law Enforcement, or people seeking Revenge for their evil actions.

TechnoGothic wrote:This is how i got my players to stop playing Evil characters.
Consequences of their Actions !!

Either through Law Enforcement, or people seeking Revenge for their evil actions.

meh, that should just make them stop playing stupid, blatantly overtly evil characters.

evil does not mean you walk into town, shoot the shopkeeper, and steal everything that isn't nailed down. sure, that's evil, but it's stupid evil.

an evil character could just as easily walk into town and buy stuff at the store like everyone else. but, when they can get away with it, they're going to do evil things. a good character who is being paid to find someone's daughter, for example, would not use torture to get information. an evil character won't even hesitate in most cases. a good character who finds a criminal wanted dead or alive will try to take the criminal alive, if reasonably possible. an evil character will do whatever is most convenient, which usually means killing them unless they're worth more alive. a good character presented with a chance to ambush an unarmed group might step out with weapons drawn and demand the group surrender. the evil character will gun them down without hesitation (provided perceived benefits outweigh the cost of ammunition, etc).

even diabolic characters usually won't just walk into town and start shooting people for fun. being evil doesn't mean you always have to do the most cruel, heartless, vile thing you could possibly be doing at any given point in time. it means that you don't care how cruel, heartless, and vile the things you have to do are to get what you want, so long as you get what you want. it doesn't mean that you don't consider the actions of others and how they might respond to your actions.

I play Aberrant.
Miscreant and Diabolic are too foreign to my mindset to properly comprehend to play.

Shark_Force wrote:

TechnoGothic wrote:This is how i got my players to stop playing Evil characters.
Consequences of their Actions !!

Either through Law Enforcement, or people seeking Revenge for their evil actions.

meh, that should just make them stop playing stupid, blatantly overtly evil characters.

evil does not mean you walk into town, shoot the shopkeeper, and steal everything that isn't nailed down. sure, that's evil, but it's stupid evil.

an evil character could just as easily walk into town and buy stuff at the store like everyone else. but, when they can get away with it, they're going to do evil things. a good character who is being paid to find someone's daughter, for example, would not use torture to get information. an evil character won't even hesitate in most cases. a good character who finds a criminal wanted dead or alive will try to take the criminal alive, if reasonably possible. an evil character will do whatever is most convenient, which usually means killing them unless they're worth more alive. a good character presented with a chance to ambush an unarmed group might step out with weapons drawn and demand the group surrender. the evil character will gun them down without hesitation (provided perceived benefits outweigh the cost of ammunition, etc).

even diabolic characters usually won't just walk into town and start shooting people for fun. being evil doesn't mean you always have to do the most cruel, heartless, vile thing you could possibly be doing at any given point in time. it means that you don't care how cruel, heartless, and vile the things you have to do are to get what you want, so long as you get what you want. it doesn't mean that you don't consider the actions of others and how they might respond to your actions.

they were playing stupid. They have forethought.

But I started to have hidden cameras catch their deeds on vids. A Witness they didnt see get away. Then their faces were on TV as known Super-Criminals. Family members of people they attacked, or killed would be inspired to become HEROES to Hunt them down and bring them to Justice or for Revenge.

The Funny thing was, when they pissed off another criminal. Now picture having a Super-Villian wanting you dead. They found out they had a "Hit-Contract" out on them for millions. Villians came out of the woodwork to try and get that money. They never did find out who put the hit out on them. The last Hit-contract they heard about was 10 Million per Head of the group, or a BILLION if the entire group was killed.

Well that scarred them so bad, they Left the planet by hiring a Wizard to get away for awhile.
Well...that wizard transported them to a Demon-infested world where the group died. Torn to pieces by Millions of demons. The Wizard got that Billion payday. The Wizard was one of the players, one of them who would sometimes show up, but not often. He was Miscreant Evil.

You should have seen the group's face as he betrayed them for a BILLION dollars.
I about peed my pants laughing at the group for trusting him.

The last group I was in started an evil campaign but it didn't get past the second game due to the GM being in over his head...

Sucks too, because the PC I made was almost entirely random rolls, and ended up with a background that perfectly fit the direction I wanted to take him.

TechnoGothic wrote:they were playing stupid. They have forethought.

But I started to have hidden cameras catch their deeds on vids. A Witness they didnt see get away. Then their faces were on TV as known Super-Criminals. Family members of people they attacked, or killed would be inspired to become HEROES to Hunt them down and bring them to Justice or for Revenge.

The Funny thing was, when they pissed off another criminal. Now picture having a Super-Villian wanting you dead. They found out they had a "Hit-Contract" out on them for millions. Villians came out of the woodwork to try and get that money. They never did find out who put the hit out on them. The last Hit-contract they heard about was 10 Million per Head of the group, or a BILLION if the entire group was killed.

Well that scarred them so bad, they Left the planet by hiring a Wizard to get away for awhile.
Well...that wizard transported them to a Demon-infested world where the group died. Torn to pieces by Millions of demons. The Wizard got that Billion payday. The Wizard was one of the players, one of them who would sometimes show up, but not often. He was Miscreant Evil.

You should have seen the group's face as he betrayed them for a BILLION dollars.
I about peed my pants laughing at the group for trusting him.

meh. the GM can arbitrarily screw the characters over if he wants. i don't see the point though.

if they screw up, and don't bother checking for cameras, fine. but if you just randomly decide "oops, you didn't get the hidden camera", i don't agree.

Shark_Force wrote:

TechnoGothic wrote:they were playing stupid. They have forethought.

But I started to have hidden cameras catch their deeds on vids. A Witness they didnt see get away. Then their faces were on TV as known Super-Criminals. Family members of people they attacked, or killed would be inspired to become HEROES to Hunt them down and bring them to Justice or for Revenge.

The Funny thing was, when they pissed off another criminal. Now picture having a Super-Villian wanting you dead. They found out they had a "Hit-Contract" out on them for millions. Villians came out of the woodwork to try and get that money. They never did find out who put the hit out on them. The last Hit-contract they heard about was 10 Million per Head of the group, or a BILLION if the entire group was killed.

Well that scarred them so bad, they Left the planet by hiring a Wizard to get away for awhile.
Well...that wizard transported them to a Demon-infested world where the group died. Torn to pieces by Millions of demons. The Wizard got that Billion payday. The Wizard was one of the players, one of them who would sometimes show up, but not often. He was Miscreant Evil.

You should have seen the group's face as he betrayed them for a BILLION dollars.
I about peed my pants laughing at the group for trusting him.

meh. the GM can arbitrarily screw the characters over if he wants. i don't see the point though.

if they screw up, and don't bother checking for cameras, fine. but if you just randomly decide "oops, you didn't get the hidden camera", i don't agree.

Players did screw up Perception rolls and skill rolls though.
On My part as GM, i didn't help the players out anymore, by having a witness sneeze or tripping and making noise. Noone looked for hidden cameras, and i was not going to ask them to make rolls for it if they were not concerned about survalance devices.

Basicly the character/players got cocky as hell for awhile.
But I'm so glade they decided not to play evil characters anymore. The Player who betrayed them is what really caused their decision. They felt "Betrayed" by one of their own. They did not like that feeling at all of having to worry one of their own might do that for profit...

I only play aberrant characters. It allows most freedom I feel. Not a fan of alignments personally.

I play in an all evil/selfish group. It works out because one, we don't do any IC fighting (at least not anymore). I'm not a fan of Character fighting and now feel that I'm too grown up for that kind of stuff. Sometimes it's fun, but really, honestly, I don't find it fun at all.

Some things to remember (even with a mature group)

Being evil doesn't mean your rude.

Being evil doesn't mean you can't compromise.

Being evil does not mean you can't be a die-hard loyal friend or that you're character is incapable of love.

Always remember the creedo "The path to hell is paved in good intentions". This means you can do and try for good things (Such as protecting a city from villains), but your willing to kill, extort, kidnap...all for the "greater good". Some of the more interesting "evil' people in literature and history did the things they did because they wanted to make good things happen.

I myself have played an Evil Marvel Super Heroes campaign once. I did not betray my companions, Because we kept our minds set on our goal of world domination. We would have gotten that, too, but our "leader" betrayed us and we ended up fighting ALONGSIDE the hero-types to stop him in the end. Since then, I played an Aberrant headhunter in a campaign. He did use force, sometimes torture to get info out of someone, but he did follow his own code. Said Headhunter is rotting in a Coalition prison right now and if he breaks out, he will be EXTREMELY prejudiced against Crazies. I agree that Evil isn't a 20-point drop in one's IQ. Evil will be very patient and may even PRETEND to be good to achieve Evil goals. As Yoda said in the Phantom Menace, "Hard to see the Dark Side (i.e. Evil) is".

I've never had issue with it.

Well let's see there's all kinds of ways to play evil.I like playing the carefull, honorable and psycotic killer(Think Hanible Lector).I understand when people say they don't like the so called stupid evil.It justs bothers me when game masters and players look down on people who try to play this type of evil.Remember not everyone plays the same and stupid evil does exist(But thankfully it doesn't last long).Anybody remember the tower sniper in Austin or The Fort Hood shooter?those were cases of stupid evil in action.

batlchip wrote:Well let's see there's all kinds of ways to play evil.I like playing the carefull, honorable and psycotic killer(Think Hanible Lector).I understand when people say they don't like the so called stupid evil.It justs bothers me when game masters and players look down on people who try to play this type of evil.Remember not everyone plays the same and stupid evil does exist(But thankfully it doesn't last long).Anybody remember the tower sniper in Austin or The Fort Hood shooter?those were cases of stupid evil in action.

I don't think those class as stupid evil, that was 'I plan on dying anyway and want to make sure I leave some lasting pain behind with a pile of bodies before I go'. Not stupid, just evil. Stupid evil is doing an evil act that you're wanting to get away with but do it so ineptly you're easily caught.