Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why play evil?

The short of it is that people are dicks and without direct physical consequences, as most video games lack, they will be dicks. People only tend to be "good" or not "evil" when they know there are consequences to their actions, sometimes permanent ones.

I'd play evil if I chose an anti-villain character, or even anti-hero. But even then, I'd have a theme or story I'm sticking to.

e.g.

One flavour of anti-hero fallen paladin, say disillusioned over druid indifference to Tiefling plight, is no longer satisfied with eventual comeuppance - payback has to be now and immediate. This play through skirts evil and may even have kind streaks and guilt runs.

But if I play a supremely ambitious wizard (anti-villain) who'd sacrifice almost anything for longevity and arcane power, I'd have him view everyone fundamentally as objects to be used, avoided, or eliminated on way to such ending. For this playthrough I would beeline to ending so as to emphasize treating every choice as opportunity for cold intellect decision making. Even so, might still have some sentimentality like a romance partner to complicate playthrough decision making - and maybe make the coldest decision at the end, or the one redeeming weakness.

Considering an evil character, since I really want to be ruler of the Forgotten Realms. Maybe some of the experienced evil-players can tell me if this guy works for evil-play:

A disillusioned alchoholic human who was never given any love in his childhood, and who hates other races saying they have come to the town to take the jobs from honest hard working humans. He was encouraged by his wife to go on adventure, mostly because he tends to often get home drunk from the tavern stinking of beer and beating up his wife and kids.

For those looking for some help reasoning through 'evil' playthroughs. Evil doesn't mean that you are a rude asshole. Plenty of 'good' people are rude assholes and plenty of evil people are perfectly polite.

The key difference is a character's inherent value system. Withers' question of "What is a life worth?" is the closest thing in the game so far that asks what your alignment is, so think about what your character's answer to that question would be. If your answer is 'as much as I can sell it for' or 'as much fun as I can get out of playing with it, even if I break it' then you've got your motivation.

The label 'evil' is often used to apply to people who only care about themselves (or a small group of people) and are willing to hurt others for their own benefit. Obviously there are levels to it, and in DnD the difference is mostly just: Do you do it for pride/power/greed or do I do it because you get inherent pleasure out of it.

You can totally be evil and still do good actions, your justification would just need to be "which decision will benefit me more?" The Goblins/Grove decision could be based solely on which group can better help you achieve your personal goals regardless of any other moral considerations. At the end of the day, maybe you kill both camps after you've gotten all the information you could out of them because there is profit to be made by selling all of their stuff. Or you choose to keep the Grove open because they have 2 merchants instead of one.

You don't have to be a murder hobo to be evil. You can simply be a self serving adventurer for which any means justifies your own personal goals.

I don’t typically play evil characters, but I will in this game. I will do one evil playthrough, and it’s going to be multiplayer. My friends know nothing about the Dark Urge, and I am not going to tell them. Instead, I am going to slowly let them figure out they have a villain in the party.

It's possible that you are IRL evil :P

😂
I am our group’s Dungeon Master, so I do always play all of the villains in the story. I am going to low key DM our BG3, playthrough. They love this sort of meta shit.

You can't DM the game...you don't have control over maps, encounters, rules, or anything else and this game won't have the map creation like DOS2 either. The game just is what it is.

I’ve played Divinity OS 1 and 2. I know exactly what kind of game BG3 is. Stop being such a contrarian, stick-in-mud. It’s obnoxious.

You know what, apologies for snapping like that.

What I mean by low key DMing is that I will secretly be running a secondary narrative for my friends where I am the villain.

Why play evil?

Well. firstly, I like to address that I do not play to what's good or evil.

"Not only did she assassinate the Lord, that would be too quick. Before that, the Lord had to suffer. So, the assassin snuck through the castle, finding all his sons... slitting their throats one by one, and gutting them like wild pigs. One after the other they fell, and even yet, the assassin wasn't finished. She made sure to collect a piece of each one - and gathered the pieces in the Castle's kitchen. There, she would prepare a hideous dish with them all. Disguised as a servant, she took this horrendous pie filled with boy's fingers and men's toes to the Throne room. As the lord of the castle excitedly expected his most fine meal, he quickly became mortified as he looked straight into the unliving eyes of his eldest son on his plate - He gasped for air, as he felt a knife on his throat..... "
Ordinarily, this Assassin would be considered pure evil, right? Yeah. But it's fine if Arya Stark does it out of vengeance.
Context matters, and even when I go the Heroic route, I'm not above going medieval on my enemies, either. As the Klingons say; revenge is a dish best served cold.

The Dark Urge
I'm really excited about playing the Dark Urge.
Because, we all have evil urges - it's our ability to control them that makes us civilized. Have you never fantasized about beating the everlasting crap out of that guy that stole your girl away? Have you never lost yourself in a fight and taken it too far? Now, what if that Urge becomes too strong to resist? Regardless of what the source of this Urge is, once you know you have it, and you know it needs a release, where and when do you apply it? Can you resist it long enough before it needs a resist?

I *love* this sort of story, and I cannot applaud Larian more for letting us experience that. You're playing evil, without having to play an evil character. The evil in you becomes just another obstacle that you need to deal with one way or another. You end up directing that evil as best you can; hoping to retain some semblence of who you are - or, perhaps you realize the futility in that, and just roll with it. I can't wait for this. Perhaps you reach a point where you think; this far and no further and have to destroy yourself to save the world. Or something. Anxious to see how this can play out.

Playing a simpler evil.
I don't like playing the Lawful Stupid Paladin, but I don't like the wanton-slaugher Chaotic Evil monster, either. Both are just dumb and shallow. But.
I do like the concept of a selfish character. You're not an adventurer, you're just someone that doesn't like your circumstances and will do whatever it takes to change them for the better. You might do something Altrustic, but only if it serves your purpose. And, that outlook rapidly turns into a quest for power. And power, is relative. So you ensure that those around you, never exceed you or get in the way of your goals. And, power can mean a number of things; but all of them mean you can influence the lives of those around you - to further your own power.

Yeah, I kind of think Larian has dropped the ball here. I think the 'good and evil' routes should have costs and benefits. I think that the 'evil' route should include a promise of something greater; because there is no incentive to join a bunch of dumbass Gobbos over Druids. They offer the same thing, the same answers. Perhaps a slightly more pragmatic approach to find the Absolute. Like I said above, I don't pick evil for evil's sake, but some of my more nefarious characters might take up Minthara's quest and kill them all for the right incentive.

..And, because I want to experience that side of the story, at some point I'll rationalize that decision from a more meta-gaming perspective.

I played EA once, and ended up wiping the tieflings and fcking Minthara without planning or trying to be evil. I was just playing the game and taking the obvious choices.

But for official release I’m gonna RP a character… and he grew up in a forest. Soo he can’t go against the druids. But he’ll make up for it to keep the neutrality 😊

Since i was a teen paying dnd games, i always leaned towards neutral-evil. Selfish, step over anything and anyone to get their way characters. It’s probably because I am a real life goodie-two-shoes paladin 😂

[quote=Warlocke]I don’t typically play evil characters, but I will in this game. I will do one evil playthrough, and it’s going to be multiplayer. My friends know nothing about the Dark Urge, and I am not going to tell them. Instead, I am going to slowly let them figure out they have a villain in the party.[/quote]

This is the way

My hope is that the game includes temptation for actually altruistically motivated characters, such as
"Just think what *good* you could do with this power, to help everyone you care about"
or "this world needs order, a firm benevolent hand - it's clear that most mortal minds are vulnerable to decay and corruption - you however are the only one that can be expected with safeguarding Fâerun's people for all eternity, they'll get it all wrong without you, you *need* to rule"
etc. etc., you know, that whole "the way to hell is paved with good intentions" thing.

That's already a choice in the grove. Kagha wants you to kill the tieflings who are the innocent party. If you fail to convince her to let the kid go, you can lead a war against the druids and their injustice. Thus protecting the innocent but leaving them defensless if you leave without killing the goblins.

This is a boring answer but it's the only one I can give you; I simply want to see as many of the main story threads that Larian have woven into the game, along with the outcomes of how it affects the various characters.

Being good is boring, I have to be good everyday in real life to my boss, to clients, etc, not because I want to, but because I have to for my own survival. Yes in real life being good is rewarded and consequences for being bad exist [shame, prison, damnation, going hungry etc]. In a game you can escape from that, and release. I DO NOT WANT MY GAMES TO BE MY REAL LIFE.

If laws did not exist, and morality was actually free that would be a different story. So if possible I want my lawfully evil/ chaotic Evil path because every single day I want to punch my boss in the face and I can't do that for obvious reasons.... but biting of gales hand, kicking a squirrel is the most cathartic thing I could experience. I know I am not the only one. That is why some of us love evil paths.

Being evil is boring. There's no depth to being evil. There's no challenge. I like the fact that crpgs give you the choice though.

have you heard of a place called Rome?

anyway yes the main reason to play evil is for fun... its a choice and this is a game so being an evil shit [in the game] doesn't mean you also kick puppies

in EA evil is the only way to get laid... you want to bang a hot drow bitch = kill those kids

your character perhaps just is a shit and gets to loot anyone i.e, yes both side... murder death kill and all that rot

If you think there is no depth to evil then you really haven't given it much thought. Evil isn't just about stabbing and being aggressive all the time. It can be about corruption, slowly shifting someone's point of view, negotiating, setting up events to happen in a certain way to create a certain outcome. If you're good at it you can even make others do your dirty work for you and come out looking like a saint. Definitely A LOT more depth and a lot more to think about than whatever is deemed "morally good". The good paths in games have become a total joke if we're being honest...for most games it amounts to, press the thing that's obviously the "right answer" with zero subtlety or depth to it.

This is the explanation I hear most often - it's an interesting difference in worldview. I tend to think that the world tends to reward bad behavior and people get to the top at the expense of others. Small things like j walking or selling individual cigarettes are harshly punished while big things like evicting people to build luxury apartments, running vulture funds, deliberately getting people addicted to opiods etc are highly rewarded.

"Evil" does not exist in our world but I tend to think that people in positions of power have personalities that D&D calls evil like selfishness, callousness etc. This movie is now 20 years but makes this point pretty well: https://www.thecorporation.com/film/about-film.html Spoiler: if a corporation could be diagnosed by a psychiatrist they would meet criteria for sociopathy.

But, sadly, real world evil doesn't show up wearing unholy symbols and you can't fight against real world "evil" with a broadsword -so I find catharsis in playing in a world where some good-intentioned nobodies with a back story take on the forces of evil and win.

Because in real life the forces of evil usually prevail 😢