Evil player characters in Ravenloft: A Dissenting View

[Tenebris]

I know it has long been considered canon that evil player characters cannot exist within a Ravenloft campaign but the more thought I've given to the matter, the more I've come to the conclusion that this is not only fallacious but self-limiting in the degree to which a gothic horror campaign can truly be emulated. Allow me to try to explain my reasoning.
First of all, the same way that economies of scale apply to good and neutral parties (for clearly not every good character is a paragon of ideal paladin virtue, nor is every neutral character a cold and utterly detached utilitarianist) there are also levels and degrees of evil. Evil is not monolithic, and it is possible for a person with base evil urges to be horrified by an evil yet greater or more terrible.
Secondly, I think the old way of thinking about Ravenloft alignment restrictions has stymied some opportunities for truly exceptional roleplay, complex characterization and deeper levels of suspense and psychological horror. It is one thing for the party to be huddled at a flickering campfire frightened of the unknown horrors in the mist, but it is quite another, deeper level of horror to contemplate the horror within and among them. Furthermore, suspense is created not only by fear of the unknown but by providing the characters with macabre knowledge unknown to others (think of the Psycho scene where Arbogast is headed up the stairs and the audience just KNOWS the killer will come upon him at any moment yet is powerless to stop it).
Also the true horror of Gothic has always been not just the external beast but what the beast projects in and about the protagonists and his or her own fears, frailties, demons, and repressions. A party of characters with evil urges who confronts a truly terrible and cursed villain sees not only a terrible threat but potentially their own fate and impending doom. (continued)

[Tenebris]

With the aforementioned in mind the idea for such a campaign would be characters with evil urges, desparately trying to hold on to whatever thread of humanity and decency that they have left. The nature of the world compels this not only psychologically through the horrors and tragedies they will see has become of those with demons such as their own, but also physically through powers checks resultant from acts of evil. The party would constantly be trying to do just enough good to prevent their own damnation, while from time to time being unable to hold back the beast within and thus giving in to their dark natures. To put this mechanic into play, a new check would be incorporated, a beast check. Any time the party is attempting to do an act of good in an attempt to stave off their own fate at the hands of the mist, they must make a modified will role to overcome their dark urges. If they fail, they succumb to the darkness within, with all of the consequences of their actions including resultant powers checks. If they succeed, they are able to resist their urges, and through an act of heroism or virtue, atone to whatever limited degree for the darkness within them and stave off the final judgment of the dark powers if but for another day.
Granted such a campaign requires mature and capable role players but I think it has some real potential. Any and all thoughts and comments appreciated. I'm not trying to deconstruct the setting we all love, just offering an alternative vision of roleplaying possibilities.

[BedrockBrendan]

I've run evil campaigns before and I've run campaigns with one or two evil members in the party. I think it works fine, so long as these are fully realized characters and not "stupid evil" (i.e. acting evil even when it is against their own self interest, drawing unwanted attention to themselves, fighting with party members whose abilities they need in order to survive, antagonizing the paladin, etc).

[HuManBing]

I agree with this thread.

I try to include at least the option of being evil and destructive in my campaigns. Sometimes I even succeed at making the "evil" option as balanced as the "good" option, but that's hard to do.

Sometimes I do put my PCs in situations where each choice they make has some negatives and some positives. Whether that's "evil" boils down to where you stand subjectively in relation to what they're doing.

[Galeros]

I would allow evil PCs, as long as they were not being disruptive in-game.

I would also allow Good or Neutral Necromancer PCs in Ravenloft.

[Tenebris]

I've run evil campaigns before and I've run campaigns with one or two evil members in the party. I think it works fine, so long as these are fully realized characters and not "stupid evil" (i.e. acting evil even when it is against their own self interest, drawing unwanted attention to themselves, fighting with party members whose abilities they need in order to survive, antagonizing the paladin, etc).

That's exactly what I meant about requiring a level of maturity. The whole concept would not work if they wanted to incessantly kill each other off and run around acting like a member of the Manson family. The whole idea of the campaign is the evil and horror of Ravenloft is not just all around them, but within them as well, and they're fighting a neverending battle with a tragic fate.

[Tenebris]

I'm glad to see there are others of like mind, I really want to make sure I do this and preseve the integrity of the setting at the same time. Now, comes the hard part--which realm to start them in? Do I pick a premade or create my own little cluster as a springboard?

[Deewun]

When it comes down to it, for me, Ravenloft is about choices, not alignment. I use alignment as a guide for my players to know what they are playing, but I try to keep it real amorphous so that it does not restrict by clarify.

I've had people play evil characters before. Well, kinda. I've run wholly evil campaigns before, not in Ravenloft. But in Ravenloft, I have had greedy characters, rage-filled characters, lechors, liars, so on and so on. But I would never call them evil. Again, it is about choices for me.

[HuManBing]

Me too! Lucky for me that GURPS has no alignment mechanic.

[Manofevil]

There is another way these characters could approach this as demonstrated by the TV series 'Dexter'

VIEW CONTENT:

Dexter is a serial killer compelled by uncontrollable urges to commit terribly gruesome murders. Dexter is also a man who was raised by a loving foster father and sister who taught him family values. So at first, he is very much conflicted, until he decides to channel his urges in protection of good people like his family, so he hunts other serial killers.

It would be an interesting twist on the Knights of the Mist to gather a group of people like this.

[Zettaijin]

Good and evil being a rather vague concepts to begin with and subject to various socio-historical interpretations, I find it hard to use the alignement system proposed by D&D products.

But the main issue of an "evil" campaign or even a single less than wholesome character is obviously much more meta than concerns regarding atmosphere and such. It's all about players using the game to unleash their wildest urges in a way where no one can get hurt.

We've all felt those tingling desires, be it to steal, cheat, lie, or harm others, yet held back due to our knowledge that others might do it to us and possibly do a better job at it too. But in the fantasy universe, anything is possible.

I'm reminded of the Vertigo Pop series from the Vertigo imprint of DC comics where one story set in Bangkok featured some rather horrid people as unlikely heroic figures.

VIEW CONTENT:

An unabashed British pedophile and a violent, possessive American with a thing for young Asian girls are both shown to do various deeds which could be only described as completely selfless.

As a boat full of passengers is sinking due to the sudden arrival of charging police officers, the violent man refrains from running away with his underage prostitute lover to rescue the drowning passengers. Even if this means having to deal with the corrupt police force and seeing his lover run away with the protagonists.

Later, the pedophile takes a severe beating from corrupt police officers in an effort to aid the protagonists in their quest to free a couple of Thai girls from their life of sexual servitude.

Both men gain nothing from their acts, but lose quite a bit.

It's unsettling because we ardently want monsters who are monsters by nature, unable to resists temptations and urges that we all face on a regular basis.

These are only part-time monsters, a lot like us actually. A lot like everybody.

It only takes one particularly nasty little vice to become a monster, even if everything else we do is beyond reproach within the moral framework of our socio-historical context. It would be even more damning if monsters show more humanity than humans themselves, perhaps trying to atone for their constant sins while the "pure" (or should I say those that are not involved actively in anything that could be defined as particularly good or bad) feel less concerned.

Much as we could say that the truly pure act for a very selfish reason: to gain the favour of others.

In the end, the Thai girls are reunited, but while one wishes to return to her home village working the rice paddies in abject poverty, the other prefers staying with the violent American man and his wealth. She doesn't "love" him, but he supports her and brings her material comfort.

[HuManBing]

The video game Far Cry 2 has a very interesting treatment of unethical and amoral behavior. You can't avoid it. If you want to progress at all, your mission choices will eventually boil down to a choice between two evils, and it's up to you to pick whichever one you feel is lesser.

FC2 is set in a warzone where civilian norms of good and evil no longer hold. One day you might be rescuing a planeload of refugees, the next you might be bombing some UN shipment of medical supplies and clean water to make sure the opposing military faction doesn't get hold of it. You'll start working for some warlords and then eventually you'll see them go down in combat... because you'll be the one pulling the trigger.

Lesson for the GM: If you make the stakes high enough, then almost any action, no matter how destructive in the long run, could be worthwhile in the short run if it deprives the enemy of a benefit.

Obviously this tends to hold most strongly in nations that are under immense social stress. Warzones are usually a good setting for this (Invidia or Falkovnia are pretty militaristic nations - Sithicus under Soth was constantly in a low-level war against its elves) but it's not necessary.

Another film, City of God, shows the lawlessness and gang rule that takes place in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. If you haven't watched it, you should - it's got exactly what you're talking about right here. There's one bit where both gangs are trying to recruit "Knockout Ned", a handsome police officer who's a crack shot with a gun. Ned stays neutral, until one of the gang members raids his house and rapes and kills his girlfriend. Ned then allies himself with the other gang, seeking revenge, but he starts off with several rules: when doing side jobs like bank robbing, he won't shoot anybody unless it's in self defense.

At first it works. Ned clears out a bank without killing anybody. Narrator voiceover: "One: the rule holds."

Later, a bank robbery goes awry, and Ned is almost killed. The only thing that saved him was preemptive violence from a fellow gang member, who shot first and killed the security guard before he could shoot Ned. The narrator says "Two: an exception is made to the rule."

Finally, Ned is robbing a bank with his gang and he opens up with his pistol, downing each security guard quickly so there is no chance of injury to himself or his men. The narrator says "Three: the exception becomes the rule."

I thought that was a perfect summary of the erosion of an ideal. You start off wanting to set boundaries and rules, and as the brutal context grinds on, it invalidates that ideal and you find yourself becoming just as bad as the rest of them. This is a good way for the PCs to become destructive, self-centered, and violent... because their environment forces them to.

If they look around later and then think "Damn, we've become really evil. What the hell happened to us?" then that's their own business.


(For what it's worth, this question also led to a long fan fiction - still unfinished - about Vlad Drakov's origins in war and how his psychopathic behavior might have made more sense in that context.)

[Tadelin]

"Antagonizing the paladin" is something I do as a player when I'm using a good or neutral character. And often to comedic effect.

On point, however... I've always found it depressing that DM's don't allow evil alignments more often, because there's a range of how to play "evil" characters. An evil character could just be selfish or self-serving, but otherwise appear very noble in their actions. They don't have to be "kill them all" type evil, and that's what the stigma appears to be with them.

On the other hand... My experience is that the problem alignments are Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral. One because the players invariably assume their job is to be the totally destructive force their alignment dictates, and the other because it's been seen as a license to be a psychopath of some sort. This has led to me having to tell people over and over again, "I don't care if you think you can play CN in a good way, I'm not uncapping it so someone else can break it." This is a case of too many people proving the rule to where the exceptions aren't welcome either.

[Tenebris]

"Antagonizing the paladin" is something I do as a player when I'm using a good or neutral character. And often to comedic effect.

On point, however... I've always found it depressing that DM's don't allow evil alignments more often, because there's a range of how to play "evil" characters. An evil character could just be selfish or self-serving, but otherwise appear very noble in their actions. They don't have to be "kill them all" type evil, and that's what the stigma appears to be with them.

On the other hand... My experience is that the problem alignments are Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral. One because the players invariably assume their job is to be the totally destructive force their alignment dictates, and the other because it's been seen as a license to be a psychopath of some sort. This has led to me having to tell people over and over again, "I don't care if you think you can play CN in a good way, I'm not uncapping it so someone else can break it." This is a case of too many people proving the rule to where the exceptions aren't welcome either.

It is for these reasons I would only trust such a campaign to a mature group of roleplayers who wouldn't jump the shark.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Good and evil being a rather vague concepts to begin with and subject to various socio-historical interpretations, I find it hard to use the alignement system proposed by D&D products.

There's nothing vague about it, actually. It's pretty cut and dry: Good characters place value in life and the lives of others, evil characters do not.

I've never agreed with the 2nd edition books' outright forbidding evil PCs, but being evil in Ravenloft should always be extremely dangerous. They're already right on the edge of that proverbial slippery slope and it doesn't take much to push them over that edge. When I ran a Grand Conjunction campaign back in the day, one of the characters was LE, and he had incurred the most DP checks, and as one might expect, had the most failures on DP checks. But that's the way the setting is supposed to work--Gothic horror has always been a morality play.