Can CE exist productively within a party?

Can CE exist productively within a party?

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Really depends on how well the rest of the party puts up with their shit. Even chaotic evil motherfuckers can have friends, they're not necessarily chaotic evil to everyone all the time.

But if they are to a lot of things, a lot of the time, it probably get harder for your friends to deal.

CE simply means hates rules, and is a selfish asshole

he can be nice to people he knows personally, while still plotting the downfall of some distant regime that doesnt immediately concern the party

he can still aspire to ruke the whole world, although his plans will now extend to the whole party instead of just himself

as long as the party deems his skills worth having to put up with his shenanigans its possible to keep him

chaotic evil is not chaotic stupid.

A CE character can function without burning orphanages down for fun, they should have a larger goal that makes them play nice(for the most part) like toppling a government or getting revenge on the man who killed their father.

no
some edgelord will blend in just long enough to that guy up a game

Belkar

Sure. Just because they can be an complete dick doesn't mean they have to be a complete dick. They can also have friends, family etc.

Only if they don't screw with party members.

Like if they're fanatically devoted to everyone in the party.

Even then, it's a maybe. And you probably shouldn't try it in a party full of good people.

Play a fucking character and not a fucking alignment.

A lot of "Good" characters I've seen are actually played moreso Chaotic Evil. Just because you're a selfish murderhobo who kills for money and doesn't like governments and rules doesn't mean that you are an idiot.

As already stated, Chaotic Evil is not Chaotic Stupid.

You could play it like it's Falling Down, the 90s movie.
youtube.com/watch?v=zJs9p-VNORw

The major challenge of chaotic evil is that it precludes the two main motivators for cooperation, which is pretty important in a tabletop rpg. These motivators are altruism and willingness to obey authority/rules. That does leave you with enlightened self-interest, so you can go along with the party for reasons like
"The world can't be destroyed, I live in it."
or
"I know how to do math. If I work with you three and play nice, I get a quarter of the loot. If I work alone, i get a chest full of goblin spear and no loot at all."

Good movie. Daniel Day Lewis is fucking amazing.

Pretty much. If the number of sociopaths in board rooms and governments tells us anything, it's that as long as their bottom line is served, they're adept at leadership and decisive action. Just make sure there's a moderating influence, otherwise they'll do things like sacrifice party members toward their own ends, because it's just good business.

It's arguable whether the man actually slips into Evil. He goes full Chaotic alright.

chaotic evil people can still have friends
and they can want to stay with the group because they want to help their friends

He slips into Evil as soon as he taunts an old man suffering from a heart attack, with "Now you're gonna die, wearing that stupid little hat. How's that feel?"

All because the old man punted a golf ball at him.

Firefly did it. Your party member just has to be clever and self serving enough to realise he's better off with than without the party

>Can a murderhobo murderhobo in a group of murderhobos
Yes.

where did the word murderhobo come from?

I agree, however he is more LE than CE

>Jayne is CE
He's CN. He's an asshole, but he's CN.

I was actually just about to suggest that Plainview would be NE. He doesn't have enough honor to be LE in my personal opinion, but certainly is too methodical for CE. Not trying to be argumentative; just thought I'd share.

This; Jayne does not have a heart of gold. He has a pocket full of gold and an above average loyalty to his employer.

The man DID betray the Serenity once; and the only reason he'll never do it again is because he discovered the hard way that Mal does not make idle threats.

Just remember though; Your party will be far less forgiving of "The money was too good."

>I drink your milkshake
I don't know guys...seams awfully chaotic to me

If he serves the forces that maintain and control the universe, he's LE.
If he serves the forces that seek entropy and destruction, he's CE.
If he's a character in a historical piece, then those terms don't actually apply and this whole exercise is foolish.... Or you should at least default to Neutral.

CE is the default for any D&D character, so OF COURSE. Being CE is baked into the mechanics of D&D and if you aren't playing CE, you're handicaping yourself. You might say they're lawful good or whatever, but chances are they're really CE. Why? Because you're all fucking murder hobos, jumping at the opportunity to kill anything that moves and loot their corpses. And don't forget to steal anything that isn't nailed down. And invade people's homes and ancient ruins whenever possible for more loot. I don't even blame the players, it's just how the system encourages them to act.

He plays LE pretty damn good.

As someone who likes party cohesion, I want to say absolutely not, if only to prevent some edgelord or joker knockoff. But then I would be lying and I can't have that, it CAN work as long as the character is more asshole who happens to be a libertarian as apposed to KILL RAPE BURN, and if he is the type to pull shit like that the player shouldn't bitch if the party stuffs his ass in a brass bull.

Yes.
>doesn't obey law/social norms or whatever you define as chaotic
>is acting out of selfish interests - works fine if party is working towards them or CE has self-control

A chaoitic evil character can also be very secretive about their agendam They dont have to be "LOL so randumb DX".

That seems more like lawful evil to me though.

LE is, for instance, a politician, a shady businessman or a strict zealot

CE could be a serial killer or a particularly nasty bandit. Selfish and with no interest to "play the game", not lolrandumb

He genuinely enjoys hurting and killing people.

Come to think- yeah, what is the etymology/history of this particular bit of slang? I mean, what it refers to is obvious, but what's its origin point? Who popularized it?

He also has several moments of conscience.

>He's not a retarded caricature so he can't be [ALIGNMENT]

>Good
>Nothing Ever Happens for Three Hours and then Milkshakes: The Movie

I had a halfling doctor that was as far as i can see CE.
Generally speaking he wasn't a major nuisance and kept it in his pants until town because he was aware that he relied on those people for survival and like any reasonable person he could withhold any stupid urges until it wouldn't directly reflect on the crew.
While the party MAX STEEL he was an effective doctor and would not generally shy away from the fight despite shooting sort of ineffectively and having a 1/5 chance of hitting trash opponents in melee.
Even managed to come off as on of the more level headed members of the party, then again with the amount of OOC interactions they were having it's not surprising. one fellow against all characterization decided to jump into an underground ocean and swim over to one of the attacking vessels (I am fucking glad he almost drowned) because another chuckle fuck decided to solo his way through an entire goblin ship because splitting up the group would be bad, dispite his character having no clue where our other crew was and what they were doing.
Hell sometime through out all of it he managed to some how worm his way into being the leader of the refugees and lead them to safety.
Alone he jerked around, on a whim saved a pick pocket and recruited her to his own band of thieves, conned patients out of money when he could. stole liberally, knowingly blew up a business when the town came under attack, mutilated a vampire-lich and kept his head in a box so he couldn't regenerate, intentionally caused a lab accident that nearly killed folk working there, their likely evil not withstanding just so he could loot the rather diverse medical supplies.
The dm couldn't even send people after him because he had generated a reasonable reputation as salt of the earth fellow, and gained a reputation during the whole refugee incident as a selfless docter and a good organizer.

Playing one right now. Slavishly liking the party and has no sense of right or wrong. However she prefers to talk people into chaos and confusion more than murder.

So far she's almost killed a dog with nonlethal damage, intimidated a shopkeeper as part of a protection racket and framed Paladins for child abuse.

It's been great fun.

Now you get it.

I've always thought Caim was a great example of a CE protagonist.

Granted, most of Drakengard's main party were of dubious morality, but Caim was an outright murderous psychopath who showed outright contempt for most of them and had zero issue murdering innocents. The main reason he worked as the main character was:

1) The villains were even worse and were trying to summon an army of giant god-babies
2) The villains kidnapped his sister, who he seemed somewhat fond off
3) He shared a genuine relationship with his dragon, who was only slightly less evil than he was and not as unhinged

Sure. I think they way Belkar in Order of the Stick is handled would be a good example of this.

>Only if they don't screw with party members.
Can still work as long as they don't spend 100% of the time screwing with them.

If the CE character is a pain in the ass but also the only one who has the utility/power/etc. to achieve the goals, they might work with them reluctantly but it can still work.

...

Neither does River.
She can kill you with her brain.

DRAIIIINAAAAGE

Started as a CE that guy and learned to be a cooperative CE. I've only really read up to Roy's time in the afterlife though.

It's a slow paced character study where we watch one man gradually spiral into self destruction. Not exactly possible to make it brisk.

I'd say at that alignment becomes unimportant due to overwhelming amounts of RAGE and MADNESS.

KILL RAPE BURN is fine. Until there are no more acceptable targets. Then it is time to take the CE out back behind the shed for as honorable an end as they were ever going to get.

>Can CE exist productively within a party?
if you are actually playing to your alignment, then no.

After that he gets even better at being functional CE. He also starts having real conversations with others and develops something I could only call friendship with Roy.

>Just because I fight for the forces of good doesn't mean I have to give up on my lifelong dream of murdering the President.

I can see that working.

After all, if you repeatedly help the party, you might eventually get that audience with the King that you want to murder.

Yes. As long as he is the guy in charge. If he is in charge and the party does what interests him, then the party is fine. Until that happens, he should be plotting for him taking over, unless he has free reign to do whatever he wants already. CE, doesn't like being anyone else's bitch. He will bite the hand that feeds him if he is hungry and that is the only food around.

No. CE cannot exist productively at all.

CB can if they are not stereotyped as random lul stupidly rebellious but evil characters are incomptatible with most parties and most campaigns.

I had an idea of a LE Paladin character that essentially wants to bring goodness back to the world... mostly by being extremely devoted to a moral code an absolutely intolerant of any kind of depth.

Like, he'd be treating the party well, giving away most of his riches to the poor (and his party buddies), willingly healing people who are sick... but also cutting the fingers off of Robin Hood style thieves, purging priests who don't live up to the standards of the church, and acting extremely discriminatory towards other religions in the setting.

Would that be able to function within a party, or no?

Sounds like your typical LG paladin to me

Admittedly haven't ironed all the kinks out, but I intend this one to be more philosophical if anything, taking a stand against Nihilism in a sense and he's "evil" mostly due to his actions.

In a sense, he'd argue that if governments and people act in the world as if "The Gods Were Dead" so to speak, then it leads to the deconstruction of any kind of moral system and chaos, and that he's pushed to the choice of being hyper-intolerant in order to make society reaffirm that its values are *worth* keeping, or it will slide into chaos, apathy, and decay.

Ironically enough I'm almost starting to picture some Tzeentchian style paladin.

Alignments are in and of themselves a stupid concept.
Allowing a player to join a team who's
CHAOTIC
and
EVIL
is just stupidly asking for trouble, which that player is eager to supply, for the lulz of course.

No one joins a cooperative team-effort with Evil intentions for anything other than their own subversive amusement.

Again, the idea of Alignment systems are stupid. "It's a guideline for roleplaying your character"...no. It's a permission slip for being a chucklefuck at the table. Poor roleplayers will just project their own personalities 100% into the game anyway, nuanced roleplayers don't consider cartoonish aspects like muh alignment,.

He just wants to be a dick, and have the cover of "my alignment says I have to be a dick".

Actually it's mostly because if Paladins are inherently a pain in the ass because of the stereotype of bleating moral voice for the party, then might as well have one that's full on black and white morality. Someone who's more likely to carve a Necromancer's face in if they fail to repent than to whine that "If we kill him, we'll be just like him." Someone who gives evildoers a painful penance, rather than letting them go if they're scared enough.

>No one joins a cooperative team-effort with Evil intentions for anything other than their own subversive amusement
What happens if the players agree to work together, while each playing evil characters, and work out a way to do so without messing up a group dynamic?

Anyone who says alignments limit party composition is a philosophical zombie.

Yes, use it as a threat and WMD.