So Veeky Forums, what makes a good psychopath? How do you do them well without them turning into obnoxious edgelords?

So Veeky Forums, what makes a good psychopath? How do you do them well without them turning into obnoxious edgelords?

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Think of a noble and admirable goal first.
Then think of despicable means to achieve it.

Alternatively - maximize efficiency, minimize ethics.

In what role?

as a PC? It's eas to not be an edgelord: avoid black, avoid brooding, avoid CRAWWWLLLINNNGGG INNNNN MYYY SKKKIIINNNN. Just have a means and method to kill every motherfucker you meet, and congratulations! you are a psychopath in an RPG.

as an adversary? Color. Green or blue or yellow. They Smile, they joke, they ram a 9" long steel spike into the throat of the barmaid because she denies that she's hiding the PCs. They have a sense of purpose and it all leads to a better brighter tomorrow where they just have to get to and they have every mean necessary at their disposal, including lots of pointy, sharp, heavy, toxic, hot, cold, smelly, spooky, even sleazy things that can remove obstacles very efficiently.

A clearly incorrect concept of justice, necessity, and warped values in general is all it takes to make a psychopath.

They probably are obnoxious edgelords.

>hurr durr i kill people so original.
>i would like do blay a gameb XDDD
>this is going to hurd you allod more than me lel

A good psychopath knows how not to act like a psychopath. And when they do something that your typical normie would NEVER do, they can rationalize it like a motherfucker.

So, a good one isn't "edgy" at all. Pragmatic, sure. Ruthless, when necessary. But perfectly capable of seeing when the reaction of others is going to cause problems, and adjust their own behavior accordingly.

Remove their empathy but don't make them retards who are unable to understand consequences, nor make them antisocial edgelords.

Make them callous, willing to kill people to achieve whatever they want. But there shouldn't be any grand design in their minds, only a certain goal they want to reach.

Then remove any kind of restraint from them. They will provide a reason for their actions to others, but not one they actually believe. What they do, they do because they feel like it, the same way an OCD freak arranges his bookcase by colors instead of topics. Whatever reason he provides, truth of the matter is that if the colors aren't right, it just ain't right.

Most psychopaths don't show it, mostly because they have exercised themselves on acting normal. If they have to show it, what happens may vary. Most psychopath NPCs or villains should get at least one breakdown since they have been found; that last safe area they reserved inside their head got penetrated and their seeming of normality is shattered.

If they have done a lot of bad shit, they'll probably try to eliminate all witnesses. Failing that, they'll run away. In rare occasions, they'll rip a man's face off, wear it and start playing pretend with their family.

Killers are people, just like everyone else, but they just have some problems going on. Some serious problems that result in them hurting other people, but they're just humans at the end of the day.

If you set out reducing them to an illness or a set of actions, you're probably going to wind up with a cardboard cutout instead of a character.

Psychopath villain 101:

Step 1: Have a goal. Doesn't have to be world domination, or killing the Batman. Buffalo Bill just hates his body, and wants to be someone else. Most of the time it's pretty relatable.

Step 2: The ends always justify the means. If someone has to die for you to get your way, then get rid of them. Don't be a goddamn idiot and kill everyone, that's how you attract attention (unless you're in power, in which case it's intimidation to those who might think about opposing you). Consequences are still a thing. It's a last ditch effort, but you won't lose sleep about it.

Step 3: Don't get carried away with torture and stuff. Pain is never inflicted for the sake of pain. It's about showing power over someone. The peasant shitting his pants in your captivity doesn't need to be tortured, you already won. The PC, who spits in your face because he still has 30 HP? You can't let them die a martyr to their cause. Prove you're more dominant, break them, then they can die.

In the end, it's about tuning into the lizard brain. Power, domination, territory. You have your goal, and those are your tools. Look at your favorite fictional psychopaths, what makes them work and what doesn't. Frank Underwood is great, because he understands power, and only kills as a last resort. New 52 Joker who lets his own face get cut off so he can wear it as a mask? Edgelordy as fuck. It benefits no one, and it just to make him creepier.

Fpbp

Chairman Sheng-ji Yang is an perfect example of an sociopath who is able to function in an society.He's passionate about the greater welfare of humanity as a whole, but he shows no remorse or compassion for the suffering his policies may cause for many individual humans.

There's a storytime on /co/ right now that I think will be very helpful to you, OP.

Ha, I storytimed that.

>Pain is never inflicted for the sake of pain.

This isn't necessarily true. A psychopath might find inflicting gratuitous pain gratifying.

>Pain is never inflicted for the sake of pain.
As a sadist, I find this untrue.

Make them hide their psychopathy, or at least suppress it long enough to get an advantage.

You ever see silence of the lambs? Buffalo Bill seemed like a normal guy in public or when he first invited the detective in. Make them have a fragile guise of sanity.

>research actual psychopathic disorders so that you can write them subtly and therefore more disturbingly
>have more to their character than just being a psychopath
>???????
>profit

But that's not for the sake of pain, that's for the sake of getting pleasure out of it. It isn't hurting people for the sake of hurting people like a machine might. Semantic, but important. Jason Voorhees kills for the sake of killing, Kreuger kills for the sake of pleasure--essentially.

The thing about psychopaths is that, rarely, does the fact that they're crazy become apparent. In fact, the worst of this type of villain never let on how balls-to-the-wall crazy they are until the chips are down and something of theirs is at stake. Some are calm and cool until that point, some are milquetoast, some are even charming and friendly.

They'll constantly believe that they're the smartest person in the room -and they may be!- but this makes them feel superior to everyone else. They'll think that they can get away with anything if THEY are the one to do it and cover it up. They'll reel in disbelief if they're discovered and - depending on WHAT kind of person they are - either they run away or they will turn on a dime and go batshit insane on whoever discovered them, and THEN run away.

I liked the dude from Farcry 3. He was cool.

Give them a selfish goal that isn't unreasonable.
Make them not care about others, BUT don't make them chaotic stupid. They should realize that doing certain things will make people respond in a certain way and they don't want to act edgy since that increases the likelihood of them dying.

There are a lot of terms here, such as the definition and difference between say, A sociopath and a Psychopath.

The short of it is Psychopaths have no Conscience. No little voice that tells them what they are doing is wrong. A sociopath has one but its very minor.

How to make a character that's a Psychopath? Don't focus on being Psychotic. You need a clear calculating line of thought process for the character which you as a player will need an innate sense of self awareness for.

just like you could make a gay character, or a female character or anything you are not. Don't make that the focus. Its annoying as shit when a player, say, makes a homosexual character and feels the need to bring attention to it constantly. Don't like it in real life, don't like it at the table. If you can't play a girl without screaming about your vagina every 10 minutes, your not doing very well.

Psychopaths have a process and logic that is askew from what is normal in the world they are being played in. If your in a swords and sorcery setting it would be normal to fight a foe with a sword. It would not be normal to fight with a sword you just stole from a Bud K shop in the mall and stabbed it through the chest of someone you thought stole from you in the Mall but that in itself is a little bit of an exaggeration.

A normal person might punch someone in the face with intent to kill them. A psychopath might realize he wanted someone to die right then and there and have the intent to kill but know that approching calmly and reaching out and snapping their neck might be much more efficent than simply punching them while onlookers would find this entirely disturbing. Its all in how you make your decisions and follow through with them that is askew from what a person with a conscience telling him "no that's fucked up" would do. lack of self doubt once you've made a decision.

and as clarification, I don't care about sexual orientation being a fag myself, I just hate it when people think a character or even they as a person are entirely defined by one trait

The defining trait of the psychopath is a lack of empathy. Take any character and remove the empathy from them as a limiting factor and you get a psychopath. All things such as social isolation and willingness to resort to quickly resort to physical violence stem from this.

So, if I was to make those actionable, I'd get my character to follow principles over people and escalate conflicts very very quickly. To avoid cliches I'd try to play them as someone who knows they're a psychopath and but has an academic understanding of Good and has tried to set rules in place to help them be good.

Make them actually funny.

A psychopath always has a reason to do something and tried to find the best way to do something.

Put yourself in the mindset of a robot.
>if i want X to happen, i have to do Y.
>there are many ways to do Y but i will do the option that is fastest/safest/other.
>a fuckup happens during Y that will jeopardize X. How can i minimize the damage?

But in many cases, you rarely get a pure psychopath like my example. They could have other traits as well like sadism and narcissism and whatnot.

Something to note: a psychopath will seem like a normal person until close inspection at the least. Being found out as a psychopath is generally detrimental.

Other than that, there's a lot of good advice in this thread currently.

1 in 50 people are a psychopath. Take from that what you will

youtube.com/watch?v=xYemnKEKx0c

Always loved that quote from DnD Grievous

Make him the nicest and most polite person your players will ever meet