I notice that so many players want to go the evil path, some planning to commit terrible acts of evil like killing all the druids for instance.

In traditional fairy tales the protagonist is always good (or start out being good), the helpers are good, and typically enemies are evil. The very definition of evil is wanting to do harm to others I think. They don't just have other opinions, they generally are not nice to their fellow beings (except sometimes on the surface perhaps). I don't think you will find any society on Earth (in real life) where being evil is an ideal. We may as outsiders judge other societies as evil yes, but that is not how they see themselves. The struggle to go through life wanting to be good while being opposed (or tempted) by evil is the challenge most of us face, and if in a fairy tale the protagonist should fall to evil that's the end of the story.

What then is the challenge for an evil protagonist, what will be his goal? World domination? Vengence? Optimizing body count numbers for his diary? Playing evil doesn't appeal to me, but I'll try not to be judgemental and instead ask the question: What appeals to you about playing an evil character? Hoping for some good answers

... for fun I guess? Personally if playing evil it's Lawful or Neutral, using society's systems to my advantage or just being selfish respectively. Or because a cool class is locked behind morality i.e. Assassin, Blackguard or Necromancer.

Though if thinking outside RPGs and morality as a physically manifesting concept, many games lets us do things we'd never want to or be able to in real life. Saints Row/Grand Theft Auto is extremely fun; being able to hop into any vehicle and shoot anyone who is an asshole in the face is extremely satisfying. But I'd never wish to steal someone's car RL and there's not many people I'd risk jailtime for for removing from the populace.

In traditional fairy tales lmao. In Larian's last game, Divinity Original Sin 2, the two best endings were: 1) you die, and 2) you become a soulless husk, the middle ending was, you become a divine but literally nothing was accomplished, the conflict against the big bad evil continues as if nothing happened...except like a lot of people worship you now even though you fixed basically nothing. And the bad ending was you release the big bad evil just because you're a psychopath...for no other reason. At least in BG3, at least with the Dark Urge Swen confirmed we can become ruler of the forgotten realms...which in D&D is like all of the Prime Material Plane....which, yeah, hell yeah, I'll take that. The absolute last thing I want to do is another generic selfless servant of the people ending where my reward is death or zombification. I do not care, all y'all druids and everything else, have fun getting stabbed I am NOT going through another "good" campaign for nothing. And even when there is a fairy tale ending it's just obnoxious generic stuff like yay, you united all the various groups and whatever and here's like a medal or something...no thanks. I'll take something new and different...VERY few games let you have a real satisfying dark/evil ending that isn't designed to make you feel like a loser. Of the few games with multiple endings some have their endings designed as measures of completionism too rather than actual real divergence...there is only one optimal ending, the rest are just there to make you feel bad you didn't do more.

Just being able to have a real fun evil ending that feels good...I will take that.

A definition of evil coming from 1st edition AD&D is someone who puts their own personal gain ahead of the wellbeing other people. They don't necessarily WANT to hurt other people, but they won't hesitate to do do if they get in their way.

And, by that definition, there are a great many evil people in the world.

Now, traditional fairy tales aren't a good guide for D&D - the game's original creators tried to put as much space between D&D and traditional fairy tales as they could. Traditional D&D is "Swords and Sorcery" or, later "Heroic Fantasy", not a fairy tale.

But If you want to discuss fairly tales, a common theme is a protagonist who behaves selfishly, and either learns their lesson or gets their comeuppance. Thoroughly "Good" protagonists are more a feature of the Heroic Fantasy sub-genre.

Good question. "Evil" persons in real life are frequently psychopaths who lack the necessary empathy to see other beings as beings, for them humans are just obstacles or means. Many evil deeds otherwise are results of special social circumstances and don't fit to an evil playstyle because they are not reproductable. Or evil deeds result out of ideology, like religion, fascism, communism or other -isms, where you commit terrible things (in the view of others) because of a greater good you allegedly work for. I think in the game you can be a psycho or a zealot of ideology to justify an evil playstyle.

There is also a certain admiration in some societies for a certain kind of villains, who are "so cool" and such big personalities because rules don't count for them. Remember the movie "Bonnie and Clyde"? Some disgusting real world murderers with deep psychic problems became heroes in the movie, which also used blatant lies about the policemen who killed the pair, to make the villains more sympathetic. No wonder that evil play might appeal to some in such societies.

Larian can do whatever they want, they will not get me to play an evil character. I lack the ability to roleplay something different than I would be in the gameworld. For example, as soon as I realized you cannot avoid killing guards in Red Dead Redemption 2, I deleted the game asap from my harddrive and was then annoyed about myself to have bought such a crap despite I should have known better before.

Honestly that is a very bad definition...that's called survival...it's literally what most of the creatures in nature do. Everything is hunted by a bigger predator. Even the herbivore creatures left unchecked without any predators will multiply and multiply until they raze the land of all their sources of food and then they die.

In so many CRPGs, I choose this ending! Dragon Age? I died. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous? I died. I bet in the end of BG3, I will die. Pretty much every CRPG I play should be called "Frosty dies in the end"!

Hmm, ruler of the Forgotton Realms? Now I am tempted lol. But I still hope the 'good character' endings are not as boring as you suggest.

'someone who puts their own personal gain ahead of the wellbeing of other people' ? Sounds like selfishness to me, which in my views is not the same as evil. I'd call that chaotic neutral in terms of alignment. If you were willing to kill for personal gain yeah, that would be more like evil. So not the best definition imo.

The other side is that "good" is putting the well being of others ahead of your own survival. Something that many animals in nature cannot do.

Yep, they can keep that stuff. I am not doing a whole 200+ hour campaign of running chores and fighting multiple deities to be rewarded with death. Absolutely no happening. I'll play the game stabbing everyone Swen deems to need stabbing and I will have satisfying ending for once.

I can definitely understand that. My characters don't want to be assholes as a rule, but a satisfactory ending, with very few exceptions (RDR2 comes to mind), has the survival of my character, mentally and physically intact and generally in a good state, as a necessary ingredient. It's really not much to ask IMO. I require neither respect nor power. I'm fine with walking into the sunset, despised by everyone regardless of what I did. But if I only get even that minimal good by being the Realm's greatest asshole, then so be it.

And Larian has a history of unsatisfactory endings. I recall Ego Draconis, where you end up as a captive in an egg-shaped container on the plane of Hypnerotomachia, alive and conscious, but unable to act, with no prospect of change. And it wasn't even clear exactly why. DOS2 was also a disappointment, but it was golden compared to that incomprehensible downer ending. They changed it in a DLC which is nice since in any other respect, I really like that game.

Having said that, I do not believe we'll have to be evil to get a satisfactory ending in BG3. I certainly see no reason to *start* as an asshole and, say, lead the goblins to attack the druid grove. If this game is really good, it will be possible to let my character be shaped by the story somewhat.

To me ... its mostly curiosity.
Im really interested in seeing how far will Larian be willing to go.

I was being told in the past that i really shouldnt anounce such things publicly, bcs it sometimes give people bad ideas about my person.
But you allready know what i am, so what the hell.

To be completely honest, i find most of "Evil" characters and routes for players quite boring ...
Yes, i know murder is often seen as the worse crime you can do ... but in game context, it feels kinda dull, doesnt it?
I mean, even our goldstar hero kills at least hunderts if not thousands other people on their path ... so, i dont really find murder quite satisfying for my Evil characters ... since there is simply something lacking.
Im like: M-hm ... just killed another NPC ... loot and go on.

What i want and what i hope for, is to satisfy deepest darkest sadistic(est?) urges ...
And i feel like this is good place to stop and dont go any futher.

I very strongly doubt you become the ruler of the entire Forgotten Realms, the Sword Coast... maybe. The entire realms? Not bloody likely. There are way too many extremely high level and powerful NPCs in the realms for that to happen.
Also, Faerûn is but one world of many on the Prime Material Plane...

Mostly because I can. Playing games is like being an actor - it's still me but I have a role to play. Sometimes I want to play the hero, sometimes I get offered a cool antagonist gig.

I draw the line at borderline psychopatic murder-hobo types of evil, but being on the lawful side of evil? Sure, why not - I can play a callous, selfish, power-hungry role.

I think it boils down to this - if you feel like you cannot separate yourself from the character you play it's normal you won't play an evil character and have a harder time understanding why people would want to try.

And I'm sure there are those that don't connect to their game avatar at all and go in just to cause chaos and mayhem :P

Swen's words, not mine. He was describing his latest Dark Urge ending where he finished with a party of Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Minthara, and at the end he added "oh and I'm now the ruler of the forgotten realms so you can call me Sir".

Actually, BG3 may be the first time where I play a character that turns to evil. Not the first one, but maybe the second one.

In most games, I feel that being evil is absolutely pointless. That includes our old classics BG1 and BG2. I mean, why do real people do evil? To gain power, money, advantages, mates etc...right? In most games, you won't have any advantage in that regard by being evil. Or because they're fanatics. I can't play that mindset. Or because they're psychopaths. I have no desire to play that even if I could - which I don't know.

But in BG3, I might start down the path of evil because it gets me mind powers. Illithid mind powers, yep, I can easily imagine a character who'd grab this opportunity by the horns no matter the cost to anyone else. They'd just be careful not to lose themselves in the process. After all, what are those powers worth if it's not you who wields them in the end?

I think in general its a novelty thing, in most games you play the hero so playing the villain is appealing. In practice it doesn't work out so well because when a lot of people get involved in a narrative it becomes difficult to treat the people in there poorly. I think people are hyping themselves that BG3 may be different but in EA we really haven't seen anything other than "save the puppy for a reward" or "Stomp on the puppy for no reason".

Fictional villains are usually cooler and more entertaining than the good guys. Characters like Darth Vader, Cruella De Vil, or the Kurgan completely steal the show imo. BG also has a history of memorable villains - Sarevok (basically the Kurgan, heh) and Jon Irenicus were both great.

Similarly, I find playing a villain myself far more entertaining than playing a stupid goody two-shoes. I'm already constrained by a moral code IRL, I don't need that baggage in a game. Some NPC annoys me? I chunk them! Some fool wants me to retrieve his sword or whatever? I get it, then show it to the npc but keep it myself and laugh at them!

I'm really happy Larian gives lots of opportunities to be a selfish dick and outright evil. It's going to be so much FUN. With that said, I don't usually play completely evil characters. It's more like, screwing people over because they deserve it (though the reasons for why they "deserve it" may be really flimsy). But I don't randomly kill npcs I haven't even talked to or torture animals or stuff like that, that's not fun to me.

Were the Druids not about to expel a bunch of refugees and children into the wild to face certain death? Were the Tieflings not plotting to assassinate the Druid leadership? Are those evil acts or good acts? Both are looking to survive and see the other as a threat.


Not really. All humans are capable of baseline sociopathy, you just have to start removing things from the hierarchy of needs and you have the capacity to get there. Free will isn't really a thing for the majority of our decisions. We respond through "reaction formation" most of the time.

Robert Malthus, in the 1800's was able to plot the conditions for which society will turn on itself and start dividing and even killing through perceived tribal lines - for which he was reviled at the time, but he was right.

Evil, or the capacity to act without regard to others needs is in many ways a useful social tool. Sometimes you need people like that, especially leaders who can save a society at the expense of some "less valuable members". Most people just don't have the capacity to act in this way, even if this sort of action is desperately needed.

Empathy isn't some great and noble expression of love, or I should say it would only be considered noble if it radiated out when times and conditions were the most dire. The reality is empathy is more like a control system, that keeps us "socially stable", and prevents our own infinite desires and needs from becoming "socially untenable". Empathy is imposed upon the majority of us, but not sociopaths who are free to take actions that others find impossible.

So being evil can have great social benefits - especially in a crisis - or more commonly when dangerous elements have to be removed from society. We didn't always have prisons or the resources to maintain them. If you have a member of your society that is too dangerous to allow loose you need someone who can remove the problem.

So, BG3 is set in a situation where the Sword Coast and the City of Baldur's Gate is in a crisis. Dangerous elements of society need to be hunted down and eliminated. You are running out of time which may necessitate absolutely brutal actions to resolve the crises. You will need plenty of resources to take on this threat, and so that may require brutal actions to get what you need.

In times of crisis, evil is good.


Nonsense. A sociopath is completely capable of being pleasant, friendly, diplomatic and charming.

Being Nice is a survival pathway for people who are "socially low value." - "I am totally useless but see how nice I am, don't kill me or kick me off the island"

Sadly it works.


Really, depends on your perception. The vast majority of people don't see their own actions as evil as you wisely mention below.

Did the Protestants in 15th century England see the Catholics as a society of evil (YEP).

There are tons of modern societies and cultures that see each other as evil.



You mean if the protagonist is defeated by evil? or corrupted by evil? As in overtaken by it? So they are not themselves anymore? Are we talking about Mindflayers, because once you turn into one you are dead anyway.


Necessity - because it is what is needed to save society, to do what others can't. I will use the power I gain to accomplish that, and to protect the people I value. My needs will be met, but so will the needs of many others, and together we will thrive and none shall threaten us.

We will "play Ender's game" and the enemy will receive no mercy, and those who abet the enemy shall find likewise the same "mercy" and they shall stand as a testament to others what such actions shall earn you. I will win renown for my actions and will be adored, and finally safe...

Frankly, ruling anything seems like far to much like hard work to me. When would I find the time to play computer games?

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 😢

I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that 'real' evil doesn't exist in the real world. You can be so far down in hate, jealousy, power hunger, desire, lust etc. that you'll commit evil acts fully knowing they are evil with little or no shame. To me that is evil. But to be a bit philosophical: Evil is not a force of nature, but rather an abstraction made up by man to emphasize all the qualities and actions we don't like in our society, and in ourselves and others. In fantasy you can be born evil, not so in real life imo. The devil was invented by man, to scare off people from commiting acts of evil.

Regarding whether it should be boring to play good (or evil for that matter): That is of course a matter of perspective, but in my views it is nonsense and simplification. Being human (or another being of similar intelligence) is always interesting because of the many layers and thought constructs of the human mind. It doesn't really matter if you are good or evil, there will always be dilemmas, contradiction in thoughts, emotions and relationships etc that make up individual complexity. Even socalled 'simple minds' are not so simple upon scrutiny. Let a person fall in love for instance, and all of his/her beliefs may shake or shatter. Good people become evil, and evil people become good. Excuse me for saying, but to say that being good or being evil is boring is a bit primitive and narrow minded, at least if you are taking it beyond your own preferences and playstyle. Not trying to offend anyone, although I probably will.

Btw, love your inputs, maybe we can all learn something, and broaden our perspectives on people, life and the world in general, at least a little bit.

I think we largely agree -- I do agree that there is something we could call modern evil which comes in a bloodless, soulless, bureaucratic form. I mean that sort of evil never becomes a force in the world that can be effected by, say, a dispel evil spell. Where in DnD if you are selfish enough for long enough the gods will notice your soul will change - you might even wander into the mists of Ravenloft. . .

But yes, you are correct, "evil" is crude form of analysis 95 percent of the time. But I can think of two important exceptions . . .

I'm waiting to hear from others before I try a Dark Urge play - I want to be like BG2 where you felt the urges but resisted them but it should like you cannot stop yourself from killing squirrels and that doesn't sound any fun.

Choise... I know how and what i like to do, and really look forward to as some say a more traditional "heroine" like run... But im also very curious and look forward to seeing and reading about how other people choose to play... It might not be my way of playing but im still thrilled by the seemingly so many ways to run BG3... See it like streamers, there is games i dont like to play for lack of choise, be it narrow pick of lead role, etc, and then i myself cant enjoy playing, but i might enjoy watching just seeing the plot and story unfold... i done this alot watching Cohh playing as a example...

I like playing neutral evil chars in rpgs, as long as it makes some kinda sense for the system and the world (loved f.e. Tyranny and my BG2 party included Korgan, Viconia, Edwina etc.).

I'm a goody two shoes harmonizer in RL, hobbies should offer some variation to your job. Evil rpg-playthroughs do qualify for that imo

I don't play evil because in most of the games the evil path it's stupid, irrational and meaningless. Usually doing evil actions you deprive yourself of good part of game content and in return you gain nothing but lulz.

It worried me that Swen said the reason to play evil was to lure of power, that can work, but if it's just getting new boss fighting moves, that's not a great roleplaying lure to me. Without a compelling justification for a character to do 'evil' acts its poor writing. When they talk about how the EA segment of the game has been reworked I hope it's our onboarding for the goblin route. That's been a complaint since day one it seems. That said, I imagine the inner monologues for all the origin characters might be doing a lot of the hard work there too.

Fantasy, like Science-Fiction, and all fiction on some level, is about experiencing logical and moral conundrums, and play acting how different choices and worldviews turn out. If the conundrum is a choice between power for power's sake, and achieving the same thing without it, it'll be as compelling as any of the evil choices in the previous games, which is to say not very.

Releasing the beast to play out great acts of senseless violence is another perfectly fine outlet games give us, most of the people I know who play Grand Theft Auto use it solely for that purpsoe, but it's hardly something to hang a interesting narrative on...looking at you Dark Urge. Thankfully it seems there's more going on there than just a narrative 'in' to murder every NPC you come across.

Im affraid you are corect ...
From gameplay in shadowlands we have seen in last PFH, narrator clearly states that if our character will join Harpers and attack Drider, they "blow their cover" ...

So it seems like Goblin route was decerased to meere infiltration.

Shame our character cant be genuinely interested in joining the cult, isnt it?

It's multiple layers of power. For one there is the personal power as your character will get insanely powerful gear, powers, etc. but it's not just that. It's also the story aspect of it that at the end you character will be in a position of power like becoming ruler of the forgotten realms and probably absorbing the power of several gods and so on. So there is a lot there...and it will all be very VERY good...the best kind of good...in fact you could even say you're playing a good aligned playthrough when you think about it.

I don't see anything remotely interesting about playing evil, unless you want to start out as evil and play an redemption story arc.
It's fine that the game gives us the choice to be evil, but it's not a choice for me. I prefer being a good guy and going full murder hobo on evil creatures like goblins

I simply have to ask: Level cap at 12 and ruler of the forgotten realms, how do these 2 match? Something smells odd. The level system in d&d is there so you can EARN your power through many, many hours of gameplay. I hope it is not a deus ex machina kind of ending.

I'm generally fine with being evil can lead to more power, like power positions in society and things like that, but there still has to be balance so that playing good vs evil is not just a question of how cool you want your character to be in terms of stats, skills and equipment. You don't need rational reasons in order to be evil, you can just want to fulfill your immediate needs and drives. But maybe Larian wants to tempt us into evil roleplay by offering rewards? I guess that's the conditions playing computer games, you can only play out the story that's made for you and by the rules made by the developers. In BG3 we still get option though it would seem, I just hope those are options I like

I mean in the balance of things this game will offer by far more agency than any other game ever has...over 175 hours of cutscenes to account for all sorts of choice combinations and consequences. So in terms of game limitations...no other videogame has ever offered more choice and likely won't again for a long time unless Larian outdo themselves with the next game.

I agree to the following statement:
good = you value the well being of others over your own
evil = you value your own profit above the needs of others

So instead of only having 2 options (good and evil) I would split the good/evil scale into 5 categories:

- strongly evil: You do evil things because you like it. You do whatever you want and you do not care about others. This does not mean you kill everyone. You do whatever has the greatest benefit for you and you can get away with it. You don´t kill a poor villager when the guards are standing right next to him (nothing gained, too much trouble). You don´t kill or anger someone when you need their help to achieve your goals (this can wait until after they stopped being useful). Often it is better to manipulate others to do what you want then to kill them. Even a complete sociopath needs a little bit of self control when he wants to achieve his/her goals. Killing everything just because you can will get you killed fast for no benefit.

- mildly evil: You do what benefits yourself most and you can get away with. You have no problem doing good things as long as you profit from it yourself. You avoid doing evil things unless you profit from doing so. When you do something evil you try to hide it from others.

- neutral: You help others except when doing it would cost you too much. So you will work to help others but you will absolutely not sacriface something importent from yourself to help others (not giving money or items to others just because they need it and definitely not sacrificing parts of yourself or your own life for others). You try to maximize your own profit without doing things that are considered evil.

- mildly good: You want to help others and you want to avoid doing evil things but everything needs limits. You will not put your life in danger for others and you will not do tons of work for free just because it may help others a bit. (example: You will not run into a burning building to save somebodies pet but you may give them some money so they can stay in a hotel now that their house is destroyed.)

- strongly good: You will help others and even put your life in danger for them just because you thing that this is the right thing to do. You actively fight evil forces even if they did not do something bad to you and even if you do not profit from doing so yourself. But even goodness needs limits. You don´t chase a goblin around the world just because he stole an apple.

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In that sense I may play a neutral char. I will generally follow a good path, but being deceptive or maximizing your own profit is totally OK as long as I do not do something evil towards good or neutral people.

My fovourite evil char:

Power doesn't simply come from class or character levels. Joffrey Baratheon was a level 3 dipshit. He was also the First of his Name, King of the Andals and the Rorynar and the First Men and Protector of the Realm. Palpatine was a level 30 Lord of the Sith or somesuch, yes - but he gained power through scheming and politics.

I think that the Dead 3 perfectly exemplify the various types of common evil in the Forgotten Realms. You have Bane the Tyrant with Lawful Evil, represented via Gortash who wants to rule and dominate. Myrkul the Necromancer with Neutral Evil, represented via Etheric, who uses any and all means to achieve his ambitions. Finally we have Bhaal the Assassin with Chaotic Evil, represented via Orin whose sole motivation is killing people.

Short answer? Why not, I'll be playing good and evil.

Longer answer: I really like helping all people I can in games, makes Paladins and such the perfect classes for me. BUT every once in a while, it's nice to play someone fundamentally different to my IRL self in a game. Renegade Sheppard, Swarm that Walks in Pathfinder WotR or maybe a murder hobo Dark Urge in BG3

Honestly in this game where if you go full evil you get access to a lot of different places and quests and such it's just much more interesting. I want to go there. I already know what the good camp wants...on no, we're in trouble, go find the bandits there, go save the kitten from the tree over there, help us set defenses, blah blah blah. Nah I want to go hang out in the evil camp...like when Kethrick says you have total power over the goblins that was fun...a lot of fun. I want to see a lot more of that. And being in an evil camp there are different dinamics at play...you get to play with a lot more subterfuge and deception...how far can I take that? If I defeat Kethric after establishing myself as a person of power and authority can I take control of the place? An entirely different way of gathering allies maybe...rather than running petty errands for the "good guys" so I can call on troops from a village or whatever, can I get myself some evil armies instead through subterfuge and cloak and dagger tactics? I'll take that over running petty errands all day every day.

No? All we know about the cult is they are trying to gain power, are willing to kill kids and want to kill us. There's at least one of those goals we shouldn't be into. Our goal makes more sense as a subversion, getting to the point you can take over the cult then bend it your will.

I don't like playing evil in videogames, because it is often the mhuahaha kind of evil and I like it more subtle approaches. I do play evil characters in pen&paper groups sometimes, but generally I prefer playing good or neutral.
I have a Sabbat character, a Tzimisce, whom I very much like, and he is not a nice guy. And in one Call of Cthulhu campaign I play a serial killer with a code (a bit like Lecter or Dexter) - he is fun too.

In BG3 playing evil is a bit trickier. I could try to play a Durge and still side with the tieflings, because I really don't see myself ever siding with the cult of the Absolute and Minthara.

You're not making a commitment to the cult of the absolute by helping Minthara, it just creates a real chance to infiltrate the cult and once you get there you can talk to NPCs do quests there, etc. How you play it from there is up to you and what's possible remains to be seen but it is a far more interesting approach than running whatever errands the other camp want to give you. It allows you to sabotage them from the inside or try to pit them against each other. Or who knows...I think it might even be possible to take over the place in some capacity. I definitely want to see just how much I can establish myself there before I fight Kethric and see if a power play opens up or not.

I don't like the storyline with helping Mintahra and frankly I don't like Minthara or the goblins at all, on the other hand, I love a lot of the tieflings and some druids, so easy pick for me. I don't do stuff, I don't like.

Personally I don't tend to enjoy evil playthroughs simply because I don't like being mean to people who don't deserve it. I don't like kicking folks who are down, betraying people's trust, it just feels bad to me. The closest I've come is playing somewhat lawful evil tyrant types who think that in exchange for providing a baseline quality of life they as those of higher standard should be free to do as they wish beyond that. So I rarely play evil, at most I play harsher degrees of good.

Another thing is, I find that evil has less room for personal growth. Its all about what you can get externally. Its selfish and power hungry and any introspection you have can't lead to growth. Playing a good person corrupted to evil sounds like a downer, and playing someone who starts evil and stays evil leads to a flat character that seems boring for me to play.

Oh man you will not believe how much personal growth there is down the evil path...just look at how devoted Orin is to Bhaal...it takes A LOT of personal growth to inspire that kind of loyalty, truly inspirational. Really need to work on making sure your words are sharper than your daggers to get there...but also stabbing, you will be shocked at how much better you can become at stabbing, which is a more attainable short term goal while working on the longer term recruiting methods and inspirational speeches.

Good vs Evil tends to not work in RPGs for me. The issue is, that good paths aren't selfless - I think it comes from a mechanical need to give player incentives and rewards. You might help tieflings because you are selfless - but if that fails, Halsin is your best bet at saving yourself. And you get promised loot for helping them. And in the process you make bunch of people like you. No matter who you play as, you are given motivation (both for your character and you as a player) to follow the good path. Except for some edge case psychopaths, most characters I can come up with - selfless, or selfish - would lean toward helping druids. In general, I would rate BG3 choice range between pragmatic=>sadistic.

I think there a very few instances when choices offered feel genuinely balanced - probably the encounter with gnoll and caravan survivors is the best encounter in my book. Each approach comes with benefits - even the cruelest of approaches doesn't seem arbitrary. If you are goody-two-shoes you might miss out on an interesting thread - and consequences of each choice feel appropriate and satisfying. With different charcters I opted to make different decisions, while I only explored the evil path out of curiosity.

I find it a little bit funny you think the good paths are too rewarding because last I remember the "rewards" I got for playing good in DOS2 were a) death or b) become a soulless husk. I mean...if that is too much reward I don't want to know what you consider an appropriate reward. It was actually DOS2 that made me realize how fed up I had become of the good paths and how boring and formulaic they had all become in gaming. That was probably the point were I reached the I feel nothing for NPCs moment, I don't care anymore.

I'm embarrassed to admit I hadn't even considered that. Sharpen your blades, sharpen your mind . . .

I'm like @flymar - I just couldn't imagine enjoying slaughtering the refugees and I don't do things I don't like. Which is what brings me to these threads "why do some people enjoy that"?

Now I agree with @Sozz - I do want evil paths to be in the game even if I never play them because then my choice to avoid them seems meaningful. Why did I reject the path of *unlimited power*? Looks like we might get that with the tadpole powers . . .

Ah, the old 'do true selfless acts really exist?' question. I lean towards a 'no', because there is a rationality behind being good that has to do with building up a society or a life that works. Ideals of being good are not just random ideas, like 'I want to help people just because..', even in religion there are reasons behind the laws you must follow. So when you help someone you may not get a reward right away, but the people you helped will remember, and maybe they'll pass on the story and pave the road for you making others more willing to help you when you are in need. Does that make your act less good? I don't think so. True selflessness is an insane ideal, you cannot help anyone if you don't take care of your own needs too. So about the game rewarding good acts (as well as selfish ones) I think is quite alright. It does not have to be in the form of material goods though, can be more subtle. And yes, there should also be room for just being good or helpful without getting anything in return, except perhaps inner satisfaction.

But that was a sidestep explaining something about 'good'. Original question was about 'evil'. Many of you have given nice explanations of what motivates you to be evil. Enlightening, but also a bit disturbing

To be honest I found D:OS2 so dull and incoherent I really couldn't bring myself to care about anything that happened at the end. Too little too late. I do like the concept on paper though.

That wasn't really a point I was trying to make. More that if I get all my character could possibly care about (highest survival chance, money, power, social standing), than I find it really hard to come up with a character who would be interested in dark path.

Good as shown in games is generally a fully self absorbed desire to impose your own will to fix what is persumed as a problem in another individual without their consent. Eg: Paladin sees an orc arguing and yelling at a women, assumes the orc is attacking smites him under oath, later learns the orc was the husband and the argument was about where to eat. The above is why good does not exist in games, as the good option would be to close your eyes to the conflict and watch from afar as the orc yells at his wife, and allow events to unfold without imposing your will - this would be seen as a chaotic Evil act in dnd.

The above example although being simple can be seen in virtually all dnd and pathfinder in general, angels and celestial just run around and do stuff on a whim with no rhyme or reason because *we are good*. Demons are actually more good then the good guys as they are free with full meritocracy. Eg: Scothbenoth and Baphomet: allow people to serve them of free will, elevate worthy with power, weapons, fame, homes and treat people fairly. Now compare this to angel Zarial and others: pressure followers to pray consistently, take powers from followers for slightest reason, provide nothing in return, take claim for their victories, highly strict codified leadership, no way to gain power without dying and binding your soul to good loosing your soul, and your memories.

Aka tldr good is probably more evil then evil. Or at minimum could be argued to be the case. So it provides a lot more room to RP and generally makes more sense from a Human perspective

Yeah, because we all know orcs yelling at a women where they turn out to be married is so common place in fantasy. Plus, he was abusing her over where to ear. He's evil. He deserves to be killed. You don't verbally abuse your SO over food. That's evil. PERIOD.

Plus, 99.9999999% of orcs are evil. I'll take my chances that ending the life of an evil monster is good.

And, no 'good is more evil than evil" isn't even a logical argument. That is some twisted logic. If good was actually more devil than evil than it be evil.nkt good. That makes no sense.

I disagree with every single part of this post, including the line: "at minimum could be [reasonably] argued to be the case."

Good is about being selfless. If a Paladin sees an orc arguing and yelling at a woman, the Good option is to step in any try to mediate, not necessarily immediately murder the Orc. Alternately, an equally Good option is to wait and see if said woman actually needs help: i.e., if the situation advances to violence. Lawful Good isn't the same as Stupid Good or Lawful Stupid. (Or a CN murerhobo who masquerades as LG)

A character that closes their eyes to the conflict and walks past would be closer to neutral than evil. A "doesn't concern me" type of attitude.

A character that watches from afar and still doesn't intervene after the situation comes to violence would be Evil (most likely NE or CE, depending on how much joy they take in watching).

Demons are certainly not more Good than "Good Guys." You're equation Freedom/Chaos with Good. Freedom and Good often overlap, yes, but they're not one and the same. A society where everyone is "Free" to kill whoever they want isn't a Good society. What you're leaving out is that Demons punish/torture/enslave those *not* worthy of power, and often kill rivals who have similar levels of power or might become a threat.

As for your whole section on celestials, even if some celestials might do some of these things (the more Lawful types), that doesn't mean all or even most celestials act this way. Source needed that this is how Good celestial beings typically act. Especially the "take powers...for slightest reason, provide nothing in return." And again, your statement on "highly strict codified leadership" is equating Lawful with Evil, when in reality these are on two separate axes.

So firstly closing your eyes and walking away from the situation would be neutral. You don't know the circumstances, leaving the situation is an act without moral weight one way or the other. As for saying demons are free with a full meritocracy, they're the most brutal, savage kind of meritocracy that uplifts destruction, corruption and has no place for compassion destroying the weak without a second thought. They don't care about who ranks where under them because they're always the ones on top. They encourage slavery and abuse of power, creating a framework where you seek power to have it over others. They don't treat people fairly, they're cruel, petty, they don't care about the lives of their followers beyond what value they can extract, and upon death you're consigned to eternal slavery that may likely involve your soul being consumed to power the machinery of destruction and corruption. And the forces of fiends think nothing of subverting and threatening potential recruits, creating circumstances that would lead people to follow them or just preying on people's worst instincts or weaknesses or traumas, rather than trying to actually uplift them.

Meanwhile angels actually allow people to come to them of free will, being honest in their expectation of selflessness and honor. They seek to heal and protect people, to uplift the weak and improve them, rather than casting them aside. Their highly codified structure is a true meritocracy where people can actually prove themselves without killing or ruining those above them. They're expected to use theit growing power and status for the betterment of all, not just themselves and if they're notwilling to do that, they won't be killed for trying to peacefully leave.

Well. There is the aspect of 'what type of player are you'. The way people interact with their video character is typically divided among three groups;

A The Character becomes the player
This is actually the most common and is what most games are tailored for. When a player embody their character, they ensision themselves unto the character. Or, rather, an exrremely flattering version of oneself. For this group, the feelgood comes out of the power fantasy, the validation and celebrates succes.

B The Player becomes the Character
This is typically where the 'true roleplayers' come in. This is least common group, but at the same time what this particular game is made for. It's not the group it's most sold to, however. This group embodies their character that is presented, emphatize with the character, and steer the character towards its goals and purposes, rather than following the player's own choices.

C The Player owns the Character
This is the group that knows they're in a game and has no stakes within the narrative at all. Their character is more a personification of achievement and accumulated power. These players tend to skip dialogue, and build the strongest characters with the best gear. They do quests for the rewards solely. This group is most common among MMO's, but certainly exist within single player games.

Now,
A is most likely to 'only play good'; as this feeds directly into the fantasy of being that hero that everyone likes.
B Is more likely to step unto the dark paths, but generally people enjoy a happy ending still.
C Doesn't care. It's just a game. You get more loot and xp if you kill everyone.

C is the best attitude to have and is generally how I approach the game but I don't skip dialogue or cutscenes. The story is still a lot of fun to see. And especially having a properly fleshed out and solid evil path is a delight. And I don't do quests solely for the rewards. It is fun to play a character for whom subterfuge and cloak and dagger approach aren't just things on the character sheet barely used. I like to infiltrate and see what I can do from within. I strike a good balance with role play where I do it but I don't treat it as the be all end all or obsess over what color of socks my character would wear.

What you mention in 1 is true. But you must remember that those concepts of slavery, torture cruelty are human society morality really only past 80 years. For thousands of years we humans tortured one and other and it was seen as a notion of good. The catholic church in particular sacrificed childreen and women on the pyre to Molek / Moloch and it was celebrated by thousands under a roar of applause. Rome made childreen as pleasure dolls for rich in return for them providing troops, food and jobs to the common public. The notion is exclusively modern human. Those societies thought they where acting in good. Who are we to judge them with modern knowledge / ideas... the point being good is subjective. Demons are no more good then us, good is just a perspective.

An interesting take but I think most players are a mix.

For instance, I have a range of types I can play but none of my characters will serve any gods. I just can't get into that mindset. I tried in tabletop and it was a disaster. The type of actions these characters typically take (outside of combat, that is) just don't occur to me. I can play pragmatic evil but not asshole evil because I think the latter is stupid, and I do not like to play stupid characters. So that's a mix of B and A. And if a fight turns out to be too difficult, I do occasionally get out of roleplaying mode and play the encounter as efficiently as possible regardless of roleplaying. That's throwing a bit of C into the mix.

We are modern people with the benefit of hindsight and the perspective of history in all its horror and glory. Who are we to judge them? We're the only people left who can judge them. Our modern knowledge and ideas were developed in large part from those past. It's irresponsible to look at the past and not try to take the lessons it can teach, and that does mean casting judgement. There were people back then who thought those things were wrong. If you look closely, you'll see there have pretty much always been people who spoke out against slavery and abuses throughout history. Saying that they didn't know better and that we can't judge them is irresponsible of us. And on the topic of demons specifically, then leaving aside real world morality they exist in a setting where evil is a demonstrable, provable metaphysical force, and they are almost literally made of it. I don't like sticking to alignment for mortal creatures, but demons, like angels, are an embodiment of a fundamental force of morality in the universe. And even then, just on its face saying that the things which kill and cause pain for entertainment and on a simple whim, and that know nothing of compassion or care are no more evil than the people who are the opposite is just a silly notion.

I like playing machiavellian rogues because to me it's just more fun. BG3 has a lot of scope for playing factions off each other for charname's entertainment and personal gain, and I intend to use that to full effect. It's not at all about causing death, suffering and destruction for their own sakes, and while it is about charname gaining power, that's not a deciding factor in every decision. There are also elements of just being disruptive and manipulative, shaking things up, stealing everything that isn't nailed down, and getting away with it all, that in a crpg is a lot of fun. I tend to identify this behavior with neutral evil, and I distinguish it from chaotic evil because it's far from a murderhobo playstyle, but would be interested if anyone versed in the alignment system says otherwise.

Oh my, what a mess. Concepts are turned upside down and it is unclear what is really the point. A qualified guess, and correct me if I am wrong, is that you are trying to tell us that much evil has been done in the name of good. If that is the case I can agree on that, but your argumentation is confusing and contradictive. If you say that good is evil and evil is good then the words lose their meaning and noone understands what is being said. You are maybe right when in your second post say that'good is just a perspective', the way I would phrase it would be: 'What it means to be good is a matter of perspective'. It is not quite the same, so I don't know whether we are on the same page or not. I'm just trying to clear the fog here. Yes the church has done much evil in the name of good you may say. When you kill in the name of the christian god you are completely ignoring one of the ten commandments. So it is very contradictory, and on top of that is goes against the way we in the modern western world generally define 'good'.

I think when you give critique it is important how you do it if you want to be understood. I once saw a t-shirt with the writing: 'Satan loves you'. I was amused, because that is just making Satan God and God the devil, and would that really solve anything? Then your children can do another rebellion turning things around once more. Nothing has really changed except of the confusion of concepts and who is in power.

Please forgive me for my school teacher approach, but I just get a little provoked when people mess up the language like that. Had to respond.

I intentionally wrote it to be vague and frustrating to read because it makes people think critically about what I say. I found in my life that telling people things directly means they do not listen. If I tell them 90% of the information and make them confused, they are more likely to look into it. Everyone can interpret what I write differently... almost exclusively the point. On the point of the 10 commandments they do not exist, the Bible was written by people, and has been altered beyond the point of truth. There exists no truth in it beyond what various people have chosen to write into it. No human could ever interpret the creator. It is why the discussion on good versus evil exists for thousands of years. BG3 is no different. I am curious to see how Larian will tell of it

If I do an evil run it's chaotic evil, so a lust for violence or tearing down order out of spite. I really don't like lawful evil people like intelligent tyrants who oppress thousands and I wouldn't be comfortable rp'ing as one.

I have played evil characters before in CRPGS but sadly it is rarely satisfying or believable. I hope BG3 will change this, I am really looking forward playing as the Dark Urge, starting out as someone who tries to hold back at first but then completely loses it and begins to revel in it. One of the few games where I enjoyed playing an absolute asshole, to the point that it became my canon playthrough was Dragon Age Origins. I played an ambitious elf mage who made pacts with demons, used his companions as stepping stones and always picked the side of those that offered him better rewards or power. Ended up chosing the dark ritual ending with Morrigan (who REALLY loved my asshole mage lmao), killed Leliana, had Alistair executed and Logain as my ally.
Too bad Dragon Age as a series went to shit right after Origins and none of that had any real consequences in the crappy games that followed

This said, in regular playthroughs (and by that I mean those in which I am not roleplaying a horrible person) I tend to adapt my moral choices to the situation. Some characters just DESERVE to met a gruesome end and I can see even an otherwise good aligned character becoming really cruel under specific circumstances. So, having the option to be evil is always a good thing in my book because you can use it to spice up a goody-two-shoes playthrough.

This might be a bit late as it looks like we've already moved on, but just in case anyone is tempted to return to it, let's leave the off-topic moral philosophy which was threatening to derail this thread which was specifically about motivations for evil runs. I think we all can understand that question well enough to have a good discussion about it without needing to settle the questions of what evil is or whether we should we be realist or relativist about it.

An evil character can have as many motivations as a good character, even noble ones, the only difference is in how they achieve an objective.

They will have less compunctions about doing unsavory or even violent things and they are not going to waste time helping Sally find her lost Bunny rabbit.

A psychotic character is going to have unstable motivations, which could swing wildly all over the place, but we are talking CE with the added mental health issue as well.

A character aligned to an evil Cult or God will have at their core the need to belong and feel safe. They will do evil things for the Cult because their fear of being alone/unsafe will compel them to.

In the case we are in we are faced with both a choice and a motivation.

We can choose to 1) control the Tadpole or 2) we can choose to rid ourselves of it.

Evil will choose the first option as often as the second, and good will almost entirely stick to the second option, and I don't know why they would choose the first.

Again, the theory holds that Evil has the greater range and flexibility.

I disagree with most of what you said, but I feel constrained to stating only that, given Red Queens warning.

Play the game and have fun. Help others if you want. Or don't and be the evil-ness you want to be. But the most important part is again - play the game and have fun.

Not exactly. The Unfettered types have more flexibility and can do evil as well as good, but being Unfettered does not equal evil.

Which brings home the point that as a rule, people are not good or evil, only their actions are. If your disposition were actually towards evil as others' disposition is towards good, you'd be as constrained as them, but that's very rarely the case.

That is relevant for the games btw. I like to experiment with different ways of being Unfettered, but the games rarely give me a reasonable motivation to do the more evil things. For instance, I have a character planned who feels unconstrained about using illithid powers from a viewpoint of morality, but she cares very much about not losing control of herself, and not becoming a mental slave to the Absolute, whoever that is. So that plan for a character who does evil stuff for illithid powers is out of the window. It's like that in most games. Most storylines impose additional costs for doing the evil things, rather than letting the players reap the reward of an evil action with no downside except running afoul of local law enforcement (which wouldn't even apply in this case).

Okay I let an intrusive thought win:

Do you think as an Evil Durge you can grab Boo from Minsc and just kill him in front of him? Would you do it as an evil character?

You're treading on some mighty thin ice, there, bub.... You're really awakening the Dark Urge, here....

Edit: Actually, that should, just like the Mind Flayer sequence in the crashed Nautikloid, end in Death. You tried, but the Butt Kicking Good Urge lopped your head off.

Why play an evil path? Cause I'm in my villain era of gaming

On a less joking note, I'm just tired of not having the choice to play counter to what a game might be expecting. I like having the option to behave a certain way in games. Especially since I've gotten into games lately that really let you approach things differently versus railroading you towards saving the day. Game will let you go off the beaten path just a little bit but not too much because the game doesn't really want you RPing like that. I'm not interesting in stories with those limitations lately.
Over the past year, pretty much every RPG I've played a character that was super chaotic (leaving NPCs concerned about/afraid of what they'd do next) or a really selfish one that didn't do anything that didn't serve their needs. I've been having so much fun doing this!

For me personally, being the "stereotypical" hero in games is overrated right now. I just want to watch the game worlds burn lol

BG3 Narrator: You hold the little hamster by the neck. It squirms and squeals, trying to bite you, but its little teeth cannot pierce your armor.

1. *Let Boo go.*
2. Calm down! I'm just looking!
3. [Strength] Squeeze as hard as you can.

I think an evil protagonist can be well done in RPGs, but it's often not. Usually you just have the option of 'pet the kitten' or 'kick it to death' ala something like the simplistic morality systems of a Bioware RPG. Games that do this well often don't gamify morality (no good or evil points). The Pathfinder video games for example, with the first you can be a harsh ruler of your barony, trying to make an 'orderly' realm. The second game even better, you can slip into dark powers, like Lichdom, as a way to battle the existential danger of the demon threat, which the games dialogue options support until you make that last choice over the edge. Tyranny is another RPG that executes evil characters that don't feel too mustache twirling.

I personally found the justification for siding with Minthara and the Goblins kind of thin in EA. I guess the Dark Urge kind of solves some of this (why do you want to massacre refugees? Because you have an urge to kill), but I'm hoping there's more emphasis on *why* beyond just murder for murder's sake. Although there does seem to be a good amount of reason for evil/mercenary Tavs to side against them (Lolth-sworn Tav might see punishing Minthara and Nere as traitors to Lolth more important), so maybe this isn't such a bad idea so long as you have the dialogue options to express you didn't do it to 'save the day.'

ROFLOL

Edit:

Minc: Oooo. Oooohooo, YOU are a smart one! I understand now! You did what youd did just to get me mad! Mad enough to Purge that Urge! You are as smart as Boo, sometimes.

Hopefully "Purging that Urge" in this context involves a boot so far up the butt it decapitates you.

"Butts shall be liberally kicked in good measure."

LOL, aren't we nerds.

Love that I can hear the voices as I read these.

I think something that all those games have in common is that they are all to some degree or another, very much ABOUT being able to be evil. With the exception of Kingmaker, being able to play a properly evil character is very important to the experience of the game. In most rpgs you do have a central story that you have to get to. And there's only so much flexibility you can give in interacting with that story until the story itself falls apart. And those stories typically are made under the assumption that the player is going to be pursuing a good goal. Saving things, stopping another evil, etc. So evil paths are included out of obligation as much as anything else. Often really evil, selfish people wouldn't have much motivation to pursue the story in the way the devs have created it. And you can say "well the devs should do more to accomodate evil choices and make them complex and satisfying" but the thing is, that's not the story they want to tell or are trying to tell. And more often than not trying to accomodate more evil would lead to both sides being diluted.

Now where Tyranny and WotR differ is that providing deep evil paths were, from the beginning, a design goal as important as making quality good paths. The evil paths are part of the story that require a lot of focus and effort. And even in Kingmaker, the story there lends itself to evil very well - after all at the core of it, you're trying to attain power and authority. The constraints of the story there are that you always have to be working to keep control of your barony, which isn't something that will conflict with a lot of evil characters, so evil choices are easier to make work. So my thesis is that unless the point of the game is tied in with being evil, then the evil path just istn't going to be as fleshed out in most games.

Oh personally I feel if the developer can't make the 'evil path' compelling/narratively satisfying in the parameters they set out for the game, they shouldn't include one and use what they otherwise would've allocated towards the mustache twirling path to make the 'main narrative path' more engaging and increase the feeling that your choices mattered in it. I just like it when the paths in a game are well written and don't fit awkwardly within the larger narrative. Luckily BG3 seems to be trying to make the evil paths feel deeper and less arbitrary.

Good and Evil are subjective, as much as we decive ourselves they are not.

Survival in itself is amoral. It lies above morality, since to be a moral judge you first need to survive.

What is a life worth? Whose life? The answer may be worthless and priceless, both at the same time. Entire books have been written on the subject, but in the context of the game, the problem with "evil" is how it is written. The writers often approach the situation thinking "what the most evil thing I can I can do? What evil option can I add here?"
Instead they should be adding sensible options, since all action, weather they are perceived as evil of good, follow a logic of their own and make sense within their own framework.
People you might label "evil2 do not think they are evil. Their actions makes perfect moral/logical sense to them. In fact, they might consider you evil.
This is nuance that is often lost in writing.

I reiterate …

To have deeper philosophical meaning. To remind yourself that world is not black and white, good and evil.
It short: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Or, having good intentions - doesn't necessary means helping, or even not doing harm. Likewise harsh egotistical approach doesn't necessary means that endgoal will bring harm and disaster to others.

Funny thing, Gary Gigax himself strongly disagreed with TSR (after he already left it) that evil alignment should even be allowed for players. D&D from the start was strongly inspired by pure heroic fantasy writers like Michle Moorcock. Yet community loved it, and TSR just rolled with it.
Same worked with Star Wars. To nowadays Lucas is on fence with SW fans who adore characters like Palpatine, Darth Vader and Boba Fett (before Disney utterly ruined him in recent show). And again, it just worked. In Clone Wars they had quite a few episodes, showing that evil characters can be far more helpful, and actually doing something good. While some Jedi, been blinded with their own righteousness could bring a great harm.

Playing evil can be achieved by going down the slippery slope of morals.

You start with trying to protect a certain goal or value. And then you need to make sacrifices to achieve that goal.

A protagonist who has certain flaws can become evil given the right or wrong choices.

Some problematic person needs to disappear. To protect village X you need to get rid of village Y.

White turns into different shades of grey and eventually into black. It is a tragedy really.

I like how Pathfinder: WotC put forth the Lich path for example. My morally flawed sorceror did and sacrifieced everything to achieve his goal and became undeath.

Moorcock, a pure heroic fantasy writer? Definitely not in the sense you mean it. The genre he wrote is nominally heroic fantasy, but Elric of Melniboné of the Elric saga - maybe his most famous creation - is almost the prototypical anti-hero.

As for why it is interesting to play such characters, or even darker ones: why do people play games? To experiment. To learn about things through play what for real might be too dangerous. What is it like to be a person who does the darker things. What might bring people to go down the darker paths? What might tempt me to do the same? And of course, sometimes it's just for katharsis, because it's so satisfying to step away from the constraints of our society for a time, even though only in your imagination, and go and just kill them all.

What more is there to say after this? Aside from me asking that question.

Allow me to once again make status.

It seems to me that most actors playing evil say they will always try to defend their character no matter what horrible acts he or she commits, because that makes the character less one-dimensional and more interesting. But I've noticed that many of you feel they have to defend not only your character but evil itself which is quite different. This is not to encourage a philosophical discussion, just makes me wonder.

Others answer they want to play evil for fun or to let out their inner demon or devil (my words not yours) which I can much better relate to.

Some want power beyond what a good alignment can provide. Others just find evil characters to be more interesting.

I now realize that my original post and question entice many of you to explain your ideas about what it means to be good or evil. Please focus on answering the original question and if you feel you have to elaborate on it by describing your views on good and evil I guess that is ok.

The question posed by the thread title was answered by Silverstar. That is the answer to every "Why do 'thing X' in a leisure activity?" question. Either the thread dies or people zing off into wild philosophical tangents.

Ghal is a sociopath and all acts leads to him having more power; talking people into helping, poison the food and chaining Mystra are all means to that end.

Wyll is selfish and wants people to 'see' him as good but is willing to do really sick things like Flogging just to keep this power... he is good if someone is watching and bad if he can get away with it

Lae'zel has absolute morality with her queen being the final word on which is right or wrong
Minthara is just bat shit nuts

and Shadowheart is conflicted ... she follows an evil God so assumes the evil path is best [prob correctly] but she also has feelings and doubts because her heart knows part of her memory is missing so she can't fully trust her head

my point is each of these [except Minthara] are playable so my view of good or evil depends on what character i picked

Gale(not Ghal lol) is absolutely not to be trusted. I will probably do his companion story but he's probably getting killed in the end...I will ultimately betray him as he has betrayed others for personal gain if I can(and we probably can).

Wyll I'll probably just sacrifice to Boooal or some such early game. Don't really care about him either way.

Lae'zel is young and hotheaded, I don't mind that too much, I will guide her and she will grow. She'll probably be in my party for most of my playthroughs.

Shadowheart has a good heart and can probably be redeemed fairly easily so she can fit both good and evil parties. At least she can be guided away from ideals of goodness, and she too will probably be a fairly fixed member of my parties.

And lastly Minthara will be a really good addition to evil parties. Even though she is not a playable origin character she still has a really interesting story. She and Shadowheart will probably be my main romance partners across the various playthroughs I will do in BG3.

I think to truly be able to play a through and through evil character, you have to see their side of the story. I saw an interview with Tobin Bell ( he is a total sweetheart btw, met him at a horror convention), who played John Kramer in the Saw movies and he said, of course this character is evil, he tortures and kills people. But he focused on the loss this character endured and his terminal illness and made him more dimensional. That is, what I like to explore: Can I play a character, that is the total opposite of my own moral code, believable? For me, pen& paper is the better tool for that, because you have all the freedom, while a videogame has limits. To stay with my Saw example: John Kramer would never have sided with the goblins but I think, he would have put every single companion through his 'tests' for different reasons.

I mean what does evil even mean here?
Apparently killing goblin kids is fine. But killing tieflings is supposed to be bad. Why?
By what moral standard can you tell me that killing both tieflings and goblins is not a moral act? They are both non-human species with a bent towards exploitation (the tieflings already prepare to assassinate Kagha, and their kids already started a thieves guild, full of criminal youth).
By what moral standard can you tell me that Kagha is evil but Halsin is not? Kagha embodies the natural principle of competition for resources, which is totally in line with Sylvanus, a god totally detached from morality. Halsin in the emantime was quick to abandon his responsibilities and if you sace him he will be quick to do so again.
In fact, the more I play the game the more I realize that the only good aligned NPC-s we probably meet are Mayrina's brothers who risk life and limb to save their sister. If I really thought very hard I could probably find more, but probably not too many more.

I don't think this game will be a classical black and white morality play. I think even as an Absolutist you can be more or less ruthless in how you approach things.

I think most people define the lines in terms of who is the aggressor and who they serve...so goblins are the aggressive faction while tieflings want to be left alone and goblins are working with the absolute, the dead three...the gods of Murder, Death, and Tyranny...possibly even Shar, the most evil deity in D&D, may be in there somewhere as her magic is in play with the tadpoles and nobody uses her magic without her permission. Plus killing the goblins can be considered just self defense here. But I think if you want to play evil you should just have fun with it, I know I will. My goal is to infiltrate the cult of the Absolute and attempt to take power at any and all costs...I am not interested in justifying my in game actions any more than the dead three are.

That's funny because based on that criteria, Mayrina's brothers are evil for trying to save their sister from a consensual pact with the hag.

That woman was going to sell her newborn son for the resurrection of her husband...there's a key element of consent missing there...from the one person that pays with his life...I don't think anyone involved in that deal is "good".

In my good playthroughs I don't kill the goblin kids, I let them run away ( I deal with the three leaders first before freeing Halsin, so they can't really bring reinforcements). I don't think, I ever killed the gobbo kids yet, but Halsin in bear form did, when he was lucky enough to break out quickly and the kids were late with their initiative.
I often wonder about Halsin too. He just witnessed, how his grove was nearly going to shit, while he was away for a few days, yet he immediately goes away again. He is not really good at his job as first druid.

On this tangent, in my Patch 9 plays, once I kill the Goblin leaders and return to the grove, Halsin is automagically freed. Maybe it was always like this and pre-Patch 9 I always proceeded on to rescue Halsin after killing the leaders.

I was very hesitant to join this discussion due to the question being asked in some wacky pseudo-phylosophical way.

Why play evil? Can we for a second pretend that it is not a very complex question. Here is my easy answer.

If you roleplay:

- It can be a state of mind as a result of a past trauma
- It can be a state of mind due to the history between groups (evil to some, kind to others)
- It can be an external condition altering your state of mind (Durge be like)
- Evil deeds can be performed out of necessity, with a gun to your head

If you don't roleplay:

- Can take things from others
- More combat
- More experience
- Morally dubious yet quicker and easier solutions to quests
- Can punish anyone talking shit immediately

This hits at a very interesting topic even D&D rarely touches. There is magic in D&D that can instantly and permanently flip your moral alignment like Compel(though that's from 3e, some approximation of this exists in 5e as well I believe)...it's very rare and I'm not even sure how many DMs even bring it up at all in their campaigns...but it does exist. You can play as the most pure good of Paladins, but run into the wrong enemy, roll a nat1 on the wrong saving throw and you could instantly become pure evil. And undoing the spell can be very difficult as it would require someone else to that same spell, a wish spell, or a miracle.

Here we, go, in 5e if you attune to the Book of Vile Darkness you must pass a DC17 Charisma saving throw or your alignment instantly flips to neutral evil.

AD&D 1e had a magic item, a Helm of Opposite Alignment. If a 1e paladin (or ranger, probably a druid, too) put it on, they ceased to be a paladin until it was removed and they atoned.

Oh, I see I'm too late already.

Still, this was a great item for Viconia, as a Good Cleric is of more use in BG1 than an Evil one.

That description doesn't sound all that Bioware-ish. Is that from a mod?

Yes but for something like that at least there is something you can do to quickly fix it...the party could restrain or knock the Paladin unconscious and remove the helmet...but there is magic that can flip your alignment and there's almost nothing the part can do for you...they'd need something like a wish spell or miracle to reverse it.

In 5e there is at least attuning to the Book of Vile Darkness that can shift your alignment. If a character finds it without knowing what it is and attunes to it there are problems.

No, it was in the Original, from the Tales of The Sword Coast expansion. You can find it in Durlaq's Tower. Then again, it was Black Isle then, so maybe that's why

Edit: There are actually a fair number of descriptions in BG1 that came straight from Hasbro / TSR

I don't have AD&D 2e books to consult to see how the description reads in PnP. So maybe that is the exact wording from TSR.

not sure how you get to that idea... Viconia is my bitch and turning undead to my side in a battle helps me a lot more than making them pop

as a sharman my spirts not popping = great
in the final battles of BG2 using wish to bring vampires in then having Viconia turn is an easy win against many boss fights because they have no defence against level drain

Well, you are clearly better at thinking outside the box than I am.

I was referring to her brothers

I play No-Reload with SCS/Ascension. I have no time for those shenanigens, way too risky. ToB section is *ludicrously* hard with those mods.

Regardless. That helmet is in BG1 only, not in BG2; although you *can* get Viconia to Neutral through Romance.
Which, admittedly, suits her better to begin with. She never does something truly evil in-game, is loyal to a fault and the only evil things she does story wise is in self defense, againt other evil people. Slaying evil is parmitted in AD&D, and essentially, good.

They're not wrong for their actions though. Good people don't bargain with the lives of the innocent, and if their sister won't see reason they are just in their action to step in. You can try to reason with the hag but no, she wants the baby and the mother isn't much more reasonable. So violence it is, and certainly justified. You sound like you are interested more in a lawful evil role with more of a corruptive role rather than stabbing. More of a lawyer of the devils type.

I guess technically it's not 'in game" since we don't see her do it, but the Fist merc is pursuing her because she murdered a family, and it wasn't the Manson Family.

Oh hang on, I'm in the wrong here. I mistook the 'evil rapist family' she described in her Romance in BG2, for the one she killed in/prior to BG1.

I rarely have her in my party, I find her banter annoying. Plus the rep hit.

Evil is the way to go in Bg2, though. Edwin/Anomen/Viccy and Korgan make for the strongest team there is; plus the 20% Damage resist from Evil Hell trials.

edit: And the Human Flesh Armor. Oh, yes.

I used to be able to kill dragons in BG2 without turning on story mode. Then I took an arrow to the enthusiasm.

On Hardcore / 50% Damage increase. I NEED to powergame, or I won't make it. I;'ve never made it all the way, actually.

she is drow and evil so by the laws of the area that is enought to kill her on sight
she also uses sex to get her way and [between bg1 and 2] we learn she was raped and killed them for it
for the record i also play No-Reload with SCS/Ascension and have gotten 1 character to the end... several dozen didn't of course but i agree she works better [story wise] as Neutral

this is a good example of evil characters being worth your time to learn, her story is complex and you can easy skip all of it by saying to that first Ironfist merc "yes she is evil so go ahead and kill the bitch"

Hey, if you need to power game, you do you, Back in the late Jurassic, I always played on PnP mode and beat the game several times. But now, I just don't have the patience to do all the prep work of setting up Chain Contingencies and all the other stuff I used to do to whack Firkraag.

Yeah, the thing is, the old alignment system doesn't really wade into.. 'How evil' , just evil. Neutral, Lawful or Chaotic doesn't really set a scale here, either.

So, a burglar that steals for his own benefit is evil.
A Matron Mother that tortures and sacrifices a bunch of innocent captives is evil.
A Skeleton is evil. It fights, sure, but mindlessly. It is, however, just by creature type, evil.
Demogorgon, The Prince of Demons is Evil.

And they're all just as evil.

It doesn't work. And, frankly, none of those systems work. You can put a scale to it, like Mass Effect or KotOR did, but... Doesn't *really* work.

Awesome, what did you play when you made it? My most recent and actually best attempt was a HOrc F/T, made it all the way to the Ravager.

You don't need that much prep work for Firkraag, even if you play with SCS. But I get what you mean. If you play with SCS, the amount of preparation you need to to is going to be crazy, especially in ToB. And then someone gets a lucky crit in and one-shots one of your party to perma-death anyway. I can't even imagine playing no-reload.

As for evil companions in BG2, I used to care more about this but the evil ones are actually quite a bit more enjoyable than you might think, and Korgan is a beast, easily worth two of the other fighter types. I mod my reputation to be capped at 18 and enjoy them for what they are. My favorite character types are off-the-scale on the live-and-let-live meter so it tends to work well.'

Well. There's a bunch of things you need *constantly*, like Death Ward, Imp Haste, Impervious Sanctity of Mind and Chaotic Commands; but the game lets you hotkey these. And I've been doing this for over twenty years. I am *so* used to it and fluent in the game with the hotkeys that way, that this no longer takes any effort on my part.

And yeah, no-reload is a *serious* challenge, as indeed;

A single Fire Giant with Crit Strike and 5APR at 23 STR will murder Mazzy or Korgan in one second. Even Korgan can't tank past Suldanesselar, he needs to weave, or hunt Mages.

That's what I meant with; 'Powergaming is required' - Every bit of Physical resistance is needed.

My entire point was that Mayrina's brothers are the only "good" people that we meet. xd
To be fair to Mayrina, she thought that Ethel was actually going to raise her child as a wizard, an education she feels she could not provide the baby alone.

Barcus, just off on a journey to find his old friend Wulbren because he's worried about him.

i'll say dwarf mage cleric but she may have been gnome Illusionist cleric... it was a long time ago and Bioware before Beamdog days

Not quite sure what you're telling us here. You will sacrifice him to Boo? :P

No, Boooal(precise spelling) is a potential boss fight, but you can choose to sacrifice a party member for a permanent passive bonus that gives you advantage to attacks against any bleeding target.

Let me reiterate. Gigax specifically was inspired by specifically heroic fantasy written by Moorcock... and many other heroic fantasy novels.

Since some people here gets touchy about trying discus real world moral. Let me give you much more themed example. Not even just D&D-themed, but specifically Forgotten Realms. Or specifically FR cosmology, earlier known as Great Tree (now it doesn't have any name, but that's mostly because 5th edition cosmology lore mainly is a huge mess).

Most of you probably heard of Lathander. Most consider him as THE most good-aligned deity.
What many of you might not know, is that at some point (very far in the past) Lathander rebelled against established nature of cosmology, and attempted to reform it entirely, putting himself on the very top (so practically he attempted to unseat Ao himself). The event was known as Dawn Cataclysm.
Reason of it mostly was that he couldn't stand of nature of good vs evil balance. And wanted re-establich cosmology only with forces of Good dictates how things are, and all evil being relentlessy hunted down.
His attempts ultimately failed, causing of death of several gods in the process. Helm specifically could never forgive Lathander for death of his lover.

So... good intentions, that ultimately lead to horrible disaster. And by all accounts Lathander still is good-alligned god.

Another interesting example is Jergal. An evil deity that at some point grew to an immense power. No other gods (besides an Ao again, of course) could compete with him.
But in the end... he just grew tired and bored of his powers. And he just gave those away (well, most of it), and instead "retired" himself simply as seneschal of the Kelemvor (before Kelemvor - Cyric, and before Cyric - Myrkul).
And although his actions doesn't really brought anything good (specifically that's what gave goodhood to Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal), he himself broke the prejudging cliche about that evil would never give up on power in his possession.

It's not a bad definition. You're just wrongly applying alignment to shit like sheep.

There is a huge difference between people who do bad things as a means to survive and evil. Evil is someone like Shar, who wants to destroy all of existence because she hates everything, to cause suffering and pain for no other reason than because she is spiteful. But some poor soul who is starving to death being taken in by Shar's loyal people and being offered a place where he can belong, have shelter and food, accepting to do terrible acts in the name of Shar is not by default evil...he does what he must to survive. Nobody else offered him pity or help when he was about to die in the streets so why would he feel obligated to sacrifice anything for the good of those who couldn't care less about him? There are a lot of nuances here...but putting your own well being above the well being of others is not inherently evil at all.

Most people make moral judgments in different domains. I'll try a list. Note that not all people make moral judgments in all these domains. The details also vary by culture.

1. Harm: caring about others' wellbeing and avoiding harm where possible vs. being indifferent to others' suffering or actively causing unnecessary harm.
2. Fairness: showing fairness in your exchanges with others vs. ruthlessly going for your advantage.
3. Loyalty: being loyal to people who can legitimately expect it from you vs. betraying them at your whim.
4. Authority: respecting legitimate (!) authority vs. undermining it at your whim.
5. Purity: Taking proper care of your body and mind vs. wallowing in the unclean, unhealthy or disgusting.

The further you're on the right of the scale defined by the listed opposites, as the more evil you will be regarded by your society, but cultures vary greatly in some domains. The Purity domain is not usually consciously recognized as being morally relevant by our culture, but it is often invoked in fiction to mark something as evil or enhance its evil in our perception by giving it disgusting and repulsive traits. It usually works.

The most commonly recognized evil is being indifferent to others' suffering. You are expected to not cause harm, and if it can't be avoided for some reason recognized as legitimate (such as self-defense), you are expected to minimize it. Most evil game characters I've known express their evil by not recognizing the limits of the suffering they can legitimately cause by their actions.
But as the list shows, things are considerably more complex and evil characters can be interesting in rather different ways.

Which as I said...to the person who lived on the streets and literally nobody cared about who may have been perhaps hours from death...is he "evil" for being indifferent to the suffering of those who didn't care about his? Maybe he was robbed in broad daylight of his last coin and food and nobody cared. He might quite a lot of anger at being "expected" to minimize the suffering by those indifferent to his...he might look at those scales for balancing what's good vs. evil and assess the entire city as evil. Who could such a character "legitimately owe loyalty" to? The only ones who took him in and cared for him were the Sharrans. And if we bring in showing fairness in trade, where does that line get cut off? Is making a profit evil? Maybe seeking to make too much profit but where do we draw that line? A lot of traders seek to maximize profits...where does that stop being fair? As for respecting legitimate authority, that is easily corruptible...sometimes the authority serves only to serve a major business, or worse, criminal groups like mafias or cults of evil deities. Would undermining that authority be evil?

I think these seemingly simple balances are nowhere near as simple as they seem on the surface. The world can be a VERY cruel place. There are people who are raised in areas where crime is the norm and law enforcement is minimal...then add all sorts of powerful magic at play further complicating things. The world(especially that of D&D) is an infinitely more complex place that can't be put in a neat little box of this is how we define good and evil.

Oh, absolutely. I didn't want to imply the application of these domains would result in simplicity. You've mentioned some of the common areas of disagreement between and within cultures. I just didn't want to go into all the complexities or give an account of the scientific research at the foundation of this categorization. This is an area of great interest to me, but this is a gaming forum.

I would, however, submit that the people in our fictional worlds are, as a rule, psychologically human enough to apply this broad categorization to them, and that things like the presence of magic do not fundamentally change things. For instance, we may not need to worry about mind control magic in the real world, but coercion is very much on our minds, and we have no problem recognizing coercion by magic as evil in most circumstances. (Actually, sometimes freedom vs. coercion is regarded as its own domain).

Sort of. Sadly WotC decided to ditch the whole dawn cataclysm story when it decided to blow up the realms for 4e. Grrrrr.

But in my reading of the where the story was going: the dawn cataclysm caused him to change his very nature. Remember that at the start of 4e Lathander is dead. Or as Amaunator's faithful like to think of it - he matured into his noon time state.

As I read this Lathander's act changed his nature fundamentally - the attempted reordering of the world was a Lawful act. All of you will follow these rules. Proceeding knowing you were going to kill innocents for the greater good was morally grey act and shifted his alignment away from good. That's why Lathander isn't around in 4e - he became the Lawful Neutral god Amaunator.

Lathander only came back because fans demanded him back and WotC have never fully explained his return. Now, as the god of rebirth, his return makes a great of sense but the sun cycle has changed. It was supposed to be Dawn Aspect becomes Noontide Aspect becomes Dusklord but - because people liked Lathander - morning followed noon in 5e.

@ledra2

I don't think you can use moral foundations theory to explain actions in the realms. And, frankly, I think that theory is a bunch of horse manure and it's author a cheap charlatan. For all the problems of the 9 box gird it does a better than MF theory!

Trying to get any real world moral theory to work with the alignment grid is destined to fail - but there was a very interesting Dragon magazine article about this decades ago - but you were bound and determined to do it I would start Plato or Kant. There is a form of Law, a form of Good . . .

I look forward to 20 page threads trying to apply Kant’s Categorical Imperative to each major moral decision in this game when it launches. ❤️

I'll be disappointed if we stop at 20

Aren't we confident. Brushing off 30 years of experimental research on the subject just like this....

I think the alignment grid is.....what expression did you use....a bunch of horse manure, and the game doesn't use it, so I was not trying to map anything to it. I maintain, however, that almost all people in almost all fictional worlds ever created are psychologically human, simply because it is extremely hard for a human mind to envision a truly alien one. So RL theories can often be legitimately applied.

Edit: There are factors in Faerun there aren't present in the real world. There are no atheists in Faerun - the afterlife is reality. Your actions on Toril literally change the outer planes. Gods reward or punish for making certain decisions. All of these factors are missing from modern theories of morality. Which is why - if you were to do it - I think Plato would be best because it has the metaphysical aspects you need for a moral theory to work in the Forgotten Realms. (and, to a lesser extent, so does Kant)