Are Evil characters totally aware that they are evil and uncaring of it, or are they convinced that what they are doing is not evil even if they ping the Evil alignment?
Are Evil characters totally aware that they are evil and uncaring of it...
Camden Peterson
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Lucas Gray
They're usually convinced that what they're doing is necessary or at least practical, regardless of whether it's "evil" or not.
James Harris
"Evil" is just a pejorative propagated by the so-called "Good", to elevate them and their gods above the "Evil" and show themselves to be better.
Or, basically, while "evil" may be a cosmological thing in D&D it's not necessarily like everyone will agree that Good is, well, good.
Or that they'll agree that it's actually a cosmological thing in the first place. Most characters probably aren't too well-versed in religion and whatnot, or at least not in the ones that might be relevant.
Some of them are right bastard who know that they're evil fuckers, because this is D&D we're talking about and there's some downright cartoonish caricatures going on there, but I reckon that most probably consider themselves to be correct.
And that's the big thing, isn't it? It's not just "I am Good", or "I am Evil", it's "I am Correct, and [insert opposing alignment here] is Wrong".
Especially given that D&D's Evil vs. Good has over the years had an undertone of Altruistic vs. Selfish. Would you necessarily see yourself as Evil for harming others for your own gain, or would you just see that as the law of the jungle? (Or law of the capitalist market, I guess?)
Bentley Wood
And even if evil is a cosmological thing, the most evil characters don't necessarily have to face eternal torment. Instead they might easily rise up the ranks in Devilry/Demonhood after moving on to their final destination. So to them there's no downside except those pesky adventurers who keep disrupting their operations
Camden Morris
Metaphysics in D&D is all fucked up because there are tangible, verifiable measures of Forms.
Everyone can know with certainty if they are Good or Evil, everyone knows the have a Soul. So yeah, Evil people in alignment system bog standard d&d can Know they're Evil. That's just not always a big problem for them, they got other shit to do like have batwings on their sick helmets.
They're representatives of ideological concepts that are constitutive forces of their universe that are also still contextually linked. They're not really concerned with being Good or Evil, they're concerned with winning the fight between Good and Evil, Law, Chaos, etc.
Its pretty weird.
Ryan Turner
Well, in my games Evil aligned people and creatures are not only selfish but also enjoy harming others and of two options if one makes other people suffer they'll probably chose that, that's my definition of Evil, someone who enjoys causing pain and damage, being physical or mental. Selfish people as mentions is treated as Neutral in my games.
Good people want to help, they are sympathetic and empathic, they feel others pain and want to put a remedy to that.
Might not be how D&D is intended, to be honest it has been years since I read the alignment chapter, but it's how my group works, we also ignore alignment restrictions for most classes (monk, barb, rogue, etc) because well, we mostly use alignment as a guideline of how you most likely will act in a situation.
Joshua Martinez
Good and Evil should never have been alignments in the first place, in OD&D the only alignments were Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic and that made much more sense. It's hard to imagine someone knowing he's evil and not giving a fuck, but a lot of people can know they're Chaotic and not give a fuck. They just think FUCK THE POPO makes sense and is the right thing to say/do, and not some juvenile shit.
Chaos are still a bunch of right cunts of course, but this way they can be unaware of it and believe they're the good guys who just "need" to ally with like the Lord of Plague to stop those boring Law guys from making it so everyone has to play by the same rules and gets what they deserve.
Luke Roberts
>Are Evil characters totally aware that they are evil and uncaring of it, or are they convinced that what they are doing is not evil even if they ping the Evil alignment?
Why bother? Either just ignore the whole putrid mess, or if you can't, play Myhtra or something where they were smart enough not to include this kind of shit.
Nathaniel Ross
Most "evil" people IRL are just assholes who don't care about other people and do what they want. I don't think that would change even if they were officially Evil.
Jace Mitchell
This.
Man, how many times I wanted to make a Church following a Good God as excuse to prey on the weak but couldn't because they'd have been stripped off their powers
Landon Gonzalez
This, basically.
I played a LE character who was also a paladin (not fallen, a variant), and who knew she pinged as evil but still pursued justice in her own twisted ways. Basically the reasoning was that she thought she knew better than the cosmic forces who slap alignments on persons, and Chaos was the real horror of this world.
Sebastian Parker
Yeah, that's the other thing. Lawful people can still be giant assholes, everyone realizes this instinctively and not only that but what KIND of assholes they are. Good people... obviously can't not be good.
Jason Martinez
>Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.
Kevin Roberts
My evil characters are usually card-carrying villains who love what they do and relish in being called evil.
Jayden Ross
Yes.
Grayson Howard
Very few people actually see themselves as evil in the real world, so the same would almost certainly apply here. It's always "Yeah, I'm probably going to hell for what I've done, but it was for the greater good." or "Nah, man, I'm not evil. Besides, that bitch totally DESERVED it" or even "They're ELVES, for fuck's sake, there's nothing evil about killing them." Sometimes they're even right.
Angel Gray
Do you seriously think vampires, liches, and devils think they're doing the right thing?
Christopher Fisher
Devils spend the majority of their time fighting against demons and punishing evildoers. That sounds like "doing the right thing" to me. Liches mostly concentrate on gathering more knowledge which, by itself, is a rather noble goal.
And those are all rather extreme examples. Devils contain literal elementary evil, vampires are just insane, and you have to take some very extreme steps to become a lich. So no, Evil outsiders and most undead are not under any illusions that they're anything other than evil. But they're more monsters than characters. A local bully, a freedom fighter who went too far, a bandit who chose banditry over starving... those are more typical evil characters, and none of them necessarily view themselves as evil even if they are aware that they're of Evil alignment. For that matter, do you think terrorists view themselves as doing anything other than the right thing?
Jackson Clark
Joseph Nguyen
>But they're more monsters than characters.
They are what the Evil alignment exists for.
John Edwards
OP was asking about characters, not monsters. And there are certainly plenty of evil characters as well.
Thomas Williams
Read 'The Screwtape Letters' you fucking children.
Benjamin Adams
>A local bully, a freedom fighter who went too far, a bandit who chose banditry over starving
Also, all of these are unaligned.
Colton Martin
No, they're evil.
Jordan Hernandez
>Evil implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master
and yet you can kill all the orcs and it's fine
Ian Thomas
No, because they're not aligned to someone such as Satan, who is the devil.
Aaron Russell
You don't need to be aligned to some devil or anything to be Evil. You just need to do Evil things.
Jason Ramirez
Incorrect. 90+ percent of people don't have access to spells to tell them whether or not they are evil. And in most editions, whether they would actually register without being as evil as the infernal is also up to question.
Most people don't know. But often they get little samples of proof throughout their lives. Warning shots if you wish.
But the big ones, yeah they almost always know. Now like fedora tipping retards, they could just think the whole thing is rigged and they are actually the good guys. That level of delusion is obviously possible. Look at modern politics.
Justin Flores
See
Julian Jenkins
In theory, you're protecting other, innocent people from being hurt/oppressed/killed by said orcs.
Gavin Evans
Which being "a bully" or "a bandit (with noble intentions)" are not.
Jacob Morris
in my setting, the orcs are humanitys prototype, locked away on an australia stand in after the creator of mankind decided they where defective but couldn't kill them.
They see evil actions as normal because they have poorly written brains.
Henry Stewart
>"a bandit (with noble intentions)"
Never said anything about noble intentions(unless you count "getting paid" as noble). But robbing and killing people who just happen to be in your general vicinity is evil regardless of your intentions.
Nathaniel Diaz
So would Robin Hood be capital-E Evil to you?
James Fisher
Robin Hood didn't rob and kill people indiscriminately(as I recall, he only targeted the rich and the supporters of the Prince), and he also did good acts(giving money to the poor), so on the balance he would probably be neutral.
Jose Harris
Might be misremembering, but didn't Robin Hood just charge a toll on land that was rightfully his?
I know it's getting far from the noble bandit idea, but still
Nicholas Reyes
It depends entirely on whose version you're reading. In the old ballads you're just supposed to sympathize with him because he's a peasant and doing funny shit like fucking rich guys' shit up, but the only one where he does anything like a selfless good deed is one where he helps a knight. Then later on Walter Scott included him (still as a peasant) in Ivanhoe, as a Saxon fighting the Normans but supporting Richard, and that led to his popularity being renewed and to the whole modern version where he's an outlawed nobleman but also gives to the poor.
Dominic Taylor
The vast majority of humans are actually behaving rationally; it's what leads them to rationalize those choices. Criminal, military, and terrorist elements are all rational actors, and usually reflect societal pressures or something.
Jeremiah Green
My take is they generally just don't care. An evil character values their own personal good or their personal belief over the good and belief of others. Rather than considering the needs or point of view of others they will ether create a justification for their actions or just ignore the problem.
Evil characters do not genuinely think they are in the right, their big philosophical spiels are probably ether a way to fool others or fool themselves to make getting what they want easier on their conscience. If they happen to help others it's byproduct of helping themselves or proving themselves right.
Jackson King
Has anybody read The Golem and the Jinni?
>Jewish kid is born in medieval Poland
>He's an utter, incredible genius at interpreting Jewish law
>His teachers are ecstatic
>He advances quickly through rabbinical school
>Definitely on track to become a world-renowned scholar of Judaism
>Probably will be trained in the kabbalistic mysteries, eventually
>One day, he has an ominous dream
>He's walking through what looks like paradise
>A voice booms "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE"
>A dark chasm opens beneath his feet, and he wakes up
>He's now convinced that he's doomed to hell, even though all his teachers think he's good through and through
>He quits rabbinical school, even though all his teachers are sobbing and pleading with him to stay
>He wonders why he's been predestined to hell through no fault of his own
>He stops wondering and turns evil
>It eventually turns out that he was the umpteenth reincarnation of an ancient evil magician who had bound his life to the life of the titular jinni, and so kept reincarnating while the jinni was trapped in a bottle
I thought it was an interesting take on "evil".
Colton Perry
Schaalman was probably the most interesting characters in that. The twist at the end went a little bit differently than what I was expecting. I fully though there was going to be more Qlippothic dualism involved.