Being evil should feel like cheating and getting away with it. It should feel like the “right” way to play the game if you are playing it that way, your character should essentially “skip dialog”, by cutting people off before they say anything heartfelt or by walking away when stuff starts to get too “sappy” for them. You should never hear what the other characters motivations are, they should all feel like one-sided npcs that just complain all the time.

That is what life feels like to selfish people. They don’t feel selfish. They feel like everyone else is just missing all these easy and obvious shortcuts and whine and complain too much about nothing.

The npcs that we all get to know and care for, are pretty much impossible to be mean to. You have to actually see them the way an “evil” person would for it to make sense to be evil. They should seem like their plans are way too complicated and risky for no reason other than that they aren’t as smart as you and can’t see that rescuing the trapped goblin is not only a huge time cost but risky too. Not worth doing, the reward increase is pretty miniscule, and if any party members should die, or the rescue attempt goes wrong at all and just results in alerting the enemies and getting everyone killed… why risk all that for such little pay off? And of course cut them off or not care about their stupid whiny reasons like it’s a sentient creature or whatever nonsense they are gonna spew. It’s just a plain bad idea, and they aren’t getting it. Maybe you should just try to sabotage it so it’s not even an option anymore, then they’ll come around.

The best approach in my opinion was in Mass Effect.

Dragon Age a close second but there it’s much more subtle and good/evil not really a part of it, it’s more internal to you the why behind your characters actions. Stuff like using blood magic which is illegal but very powerful can be used from a perspective of “the greater good” or you could roleplay that decision as a lust for power. Which factions you side with for sure has morality attached but since all roads lead to saving the world its much more about your own reasons to judge if your character is evil or just focused on the grander scheme, utilitarian.

But back to Mass Effect. It’s the same thing with all roads leading to save the world but unlike Dragon Age there is a morality system in place that is not about just a dichotomy between self sacrifice and malicious indulgence. Instead it’s about what is OK to do to save the world? What sacrifices are reasonable? What risks should you take for others? What approach do you take to solve conflict? Renegade (as the ‘evil’ approach is called) options allow you to pistol whip people that want you to follow rules and decorum while the Galaxy hangs in the balance. It allows you to order people to die for the greater good. It’s about using the power you have to take the shortest and most direct route to ultimate salvation. To not pussy foot around trying to appease everyone.

And really that’s the only way to make morality work in a story driven game imo. If the same story is to be told with moral decisions left to the player than they need to be ultimately inconsequential to how the game and story plays out. At best they give slight variations to story beats but nothing really changes from a good playthrough to an evil one in the grand scheme. If it works and feels satisfying is largely down to the developers accepting this and instead focus on smaller nuances like Mass Effect or leaving it ambiguous and up to the player to craft their narrative for the why and motivations like Dragon Age.

What I’d instead would like to see is a game where you play out an evil narrative. And I do know of one such RPG, Tyranny, but I haven’t gotten around to play it yet.

The best example perhaps of melding good and evil in the same game is Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMORPG). Because you can play it from the evil side as a good character and the good side as an evil character. If you play it through multiple time you can really craft a world and narrative of incredible depth. And I can really recommend playing it as you would any other western RPG and just ignore the MMO side of things. Bear in mind that each individual playthrough suffers from the exact problem you raise in your post, but on the total, the bigger picture, becomes something very interesting and worthwhile.

Lex Luther is evil, but he doesn’t go around stealing candy from babies and punching grandmas. In fact he takes a lot of actions that people would think are good and altruistic. His motivations are what makes him evil. And when push comes to shove he would show how little he actually cares for all those babies and grandmas. This seems to allude many story tellers in many mediums. Infamous was a great game on the “good” story line, and terrible on the evil because you had to punch grandma with no real reason in order to stay evil. Bio shock was a bit better as you had motivation to kill those little girls to gain more power faster.

Writers and storytellers need to think more motivation than actions when it comes to being evil.

I once tried to play Witcher 3 that way. Geralt was - in my version - a classic mercenary-style witcher. You pay him, he does it - no matter what. You don’t pay afterwards? He takes it from you.

Short story: It doesn’t work at all.

You should check out Tyranny. It’s one of my favourite CRPGs, and it gives you a solid motivation for making evil choices. It also doesn’t really give you “good” options most of the time.

BG3 is a terrible example. One of my main gripes with that game is that the virtual DM actively hates evil characters and tries to sabotage your play through at every step. Not to mention that the writers provided only chaotic stupid dialogue variants for evil roleplay. It’s usually [good], [good], [question], [attack the whole town], [goodbye]. And murderhoboing isn’t even fun here because it’s boring to fight whole cities at once. BG3 is a good tactics game with a brothel of a harem VN on the side, but it’s a lousy RPG. Very reminiscent of Mass Effect in that way that was a TPS with a brothel, but a terrible RPG.

Good examples would be KOTOR 2 and Fallout 1/2/NV.

I find cartoonish moustache-twirling “evil” boring. Playing as morally grey characters is most compelling. Whether my character is a hero or a villain depends on whom you ask and at which point in history. Damage one faction and help another, when it’s ambiguous who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are. Steal, rob and assassinate for what you believe is a “good cause”. Set up dictators to avert death and destruction, then betray and terminate the them with extreme prejudice when they have served their purpose and become a liability. And so on.

Or just go full mercenary; everyone hates you, believes you have no principles and thinks they have the moral high ground, but at the end of the day everyone needs your specialist expertise. Every client is one missed payment away from becoming a target and every target is one bribe away from becoming a client—unless the target is eg slavers or pirates, because you actually do have principles.

For example, in X3:TC I single-handedly brought peace and prosperity into the universe: fought off Khaak threat; contained Xenons and completely denied their incursions into human and alien space alike; set up industry that boosted the economy at large for everyone; hired a lot of people for very good salaries. But, I had the monopoly in most industries; a fleet of warships capable of steamrolling everyone else if I wished so; literally owned a whole sector; controlled trade routes via the Hub; set up alliances with the pirate factions letting them roam free, trading illegal goods with them, building infrastructure for them. In short, very much a shady dystopian megacorps🙃

Agree! I’m bored of always being chosen one, lawfully good saviour and choose neutral or evil playthroughs but it’s like you said - always feel kind of shallow and punishing.

Don’t have anything to add, just appreciation for your post. A true evil playthrough would be interesting. Done well it’d uncomfortable and illuminating. But maybe too threatening for many? Maybe we stick to simplistic versions because they are safe?

Dishonored 2 did something in the right direction, the way choices start to color the world around you.

Since you referenced BG3…

The D&D series has always had ‘evil’ as in the alignment and then ‘mindflayer evil’ which was always kinda the next level melodramatic brand of evil.

So BG3 kind of tackled that head on. It was rather successful I think in that it gave evil characters and NPCs a much better and less arbitrary framework, even if it revolved around the trope of everyone being power hungry. Although it all just kinda blurred and overlapped with a few exceptions.

Like the exploding blood potion drow lady. She is evil. But she was well done. In her lane and it worked.

But I could have given a shit less about the machinations of all the side evils. Like, Selune-Shar was always a cringey mess, so Shadowheart never had a chance unless we could’ve had the option of her ditching them both for like, Waukeen.

Evil is usually about power and influence and that’s something players typically don’t get to have in large quantities – otherwise the game quickly starts behaving much differently. Why go on adventure when you can just hire adventures to do it for you while you work to further your influence, after all?

A TTRPG can try to mutate to accommodate this (probably using a pile of ad hoc house rules) but a CRPG world need to have all that programmed in. And the players might not like the genre shift.

If you don’t have power you can still be an effective hero but as a villain your only option is to try to backstab your way to the top – but if you can make any substantial progress there we end up with the aforementioned problems. If you can’t make that progress you’re basically stuck roleplaying Iznogoud and few people want a gameplay loop that deliberately leads nowhere.

What can work is an evil character playing along with heroes for their own reasons. I once had a TTRPG character who was a SHODAN clone (inhabiting a human body via invasive cyberware). My SHODAN was perfectly aware of how vulnerable she was and how she needed allies. As a result she wasn’t nice but fiercely loyal to the party, deferring to their judgement on most matters because that was most likely to keep her alive.

She still ended up getting written out when she turned out too annoying to play. I hope she’s happy with the space station I bought her.

I like the idea of evil playthroughs, but I agree that the execution of them is unsatisfying.

For me it boils down to the bluntness of the evil options and the inability to be effectively deceptive. I want to play an evil character who betrays people after gaining their trust. Most games don’t make that a normal route, as good dialog choices usually give me good boy points.

I envision a game with good/evil dialog options that doesn’t change my alignment based on most verbal choices but instead on my large scale actions. I want to be able to have a heart to heart conversation with an NPC who then opens up to me allowing me to betray them even harder. I want to play as Senator Palpatine, not be forced to act like Emperor Palpatine right away.

While I don’t mind morally simple evil, the inability to play it properly means I tend to go to more morally complex games. Something like Wasteland 3 where the presented choices are rarely obvious in which is the truly morally ideal. The games runs more on conflicting faction reputations and only has a perfectly good (according to the writers) ending if you play an exact perfect combination of factions, which you probably won’t do without looking up a guide.

The next best morality system example is something like Metro 2033 or Frostpunk where the game simply doesn’t mention that it has a morality system until the end, and that brings out the more honest reactions of first time players.

I think the ideal way to make moral choices compelling is to make good an actual sacrifice. Declining powerful things for yourself and putting yourself in danger to help others with no gameplay reward, only narrative reward. Make evil tempting, being selfish and pragmatic will make things easier on you. Let’s say there’s a survival sequence where you’re in the wilderness with limited food and encounter someone starving. You can help them, for no inherent player power related reward, but you’ll run the risk of running out of food yourself. Let them starve and you make the sequence much more comfortable.

I love BG3, but I’m doing a durge run for the first time and have been really disappointed in the evil option. Like, it wants you to be a crazy, egotistical murder hobo. The dialogue options with your party are so over the top I never choose them, because my character is more of the DL serial killer than murder hobo. There’s zero subtlety if you go down the murder route.

I loved the first half of Tyranny. You get to play as a bad guy. You’re encouraged to be clever, calculating, to make important decisions that will affect the rest of the game. There’s mysteries about, and power to be had, and though you have superficial allegiances, your actual boss is an enigmatic figure who wants you to vie for power. Your mentors warn you that others will try to control you, and that you should always be looking out for number one.

Unfortunately, halfway through there’s a moment where you don’t get to do that. A moment where the obvious decision to make in order to gain power, is blocked off. Where you cannot make the smart play. Where you have to act not in your own interest, not with cunning, nor deception, nor brute force, though any of those options were easily possible. The game simply doesn’t give you those choices. Your only option is to do what a guy you allied with at the start of the game says. No double cross, no clever lie, no action and rationalisation of the thing you want, the thing that will give you power. You simply give up power that is nearly in the palm of your hands because a guy who thinks he’s your boss but isn’t, says so.

And now I hate that game.