First evil character, could use some advice

[Cheatcake]

I can't say I understood your question, Rhaz

[Mikara]

I would not feel too restricted by guidelines either. In playing an evil character I like trying to sense what it is to be evil to the core, which of course involves a judgement on how I understand existence as a whole. Then I mediate through both by my characters indiviuality, and her ability scores.

She is evil with low charisma and high wisdom, which leads me playing her as an abrasive (low cha) fanatic devotee (high wis) of a god that wants to drown the world in shadows, loss, and general disorder.

But there is an infinite number of ways you could play the ability scores. Low charisma might also mean weak, or ugly, or smells terrible, or meek.

Basically, roleplay is in essence a creative art, so as long as someone is making an effort to be creative I welcome it. There are an infinite number of ways to be evil just as there are an infinite number of ways to be good, so explore and most of all have fun!

[Myrddin]

If you wish to play an evil character, I refer you to the most evil of all IRL villians, Adolf Hitler. The man made Time Magazine's man of the year, not once, but Twice. You should do your upmost to never let anyone but the DM staff know your evil, becasue once it becomes common knowledge you're screwed. Good characters will hunted you down in full lynch mob order, whack you and leave your body for the buzzards.

Do something different, like rat out your fellow evil characters. Be evil by being a landowner who having lovers that when one gets old, you stuff his or her body in a a chest in the dungeon and get a younger one.. Tell everyone the first one sailed off to Waterdeep.

But, again, the moment every good character finds out, you best get out of Dodge, cuz the lynch mob is a comin'.

[Haroshia]

^Godwin's law has been called...

That being said, the best advice I can give for playing an evil character is to remember that they rarely do evil just to be evil. Many of them are evil because they think they are doing things for the greater good. Hitler IS a good example of a truly evil person, because despite his attrocities he thought the whole time what he was doing was for the greater good.

[Eternal Serf]

I agree with Haroshia.

I think evil is in the eye of the beholder. Some folks look at say Adolf Hitler and say 'he was a great leader, father of our race.' and believe it. While other folk look at him and say 'he was a mass murderer who jailed political, union and religious leaders, took people off the streets because of their race and killed them. So one mans 'great leader' is anothers 'Leader of a Genocide'. Evil or Good? Well for some people evil is good, heck loads of folks had jobs, made tons of money and felt safe and happy with Adolf and his crowd of killers in charge.

In game terms; evil is something tangable, heck its even got a sort of rating system; neutral evil is opportunistic, lawful evil is oppressive, and chaotic evil is socialpathic murderer. Of course this is a really basic outline of evil alighnments and my own sort of judgement of them. Personally I hate alighnment except for NPC's as it rail roads a player into a niche which truthfully is almost impossible to 'roleplay'. I think it should be like a players 'motivation' (sort of like a bad actors aid).

I played an evil alighned characters that helped folks out, did quests to aid places and all sorts of things that others would consider to be good. The only thing is about him was that he would never give quarter in battle, take prisoners or allow thieves or those that harmed children to live. A local paladin was stunned when he found out he was 'evil', of course I told him that I was just playing my alighnment which when I explained it he got quite upset as he a 'lawful good' character did pretty much the same thing except he would give quarter to 'good' folk. I said I considered not being merciful to be evil...he disagreed as he wouldn't be merciful to evil folks no matter what. I often think that his paladin was just as evil as my mercenary...

Sorry for rambling. Have fun with your character as I think that is the point of roleplaying.

[Myrddin]

Be as evil as you wish, but DO NOT TELL ANYONE! Don't walk around shouting to the world I'm Dr. Evil. They will come out of the woodwork once they know, and that's it. Your character will be dead, over and over and over and.... You, I hope, get the idea. I have to agree with Serf, I wouldn't do it, because you will paint yourself into the corner.

Unless you try a twist to it, be a lawful evil assisin FOR THE STATE!, You know, a SPY! James Bond a goodie goodie, are you smoking hash, the man has a license to kill. You know, "Hey, your a spy of those guys my guys say are out to get us, BANG!" "Not anyone you dead Bugger!" Now it doesn't matter who knows, because you kill for God, Queen and Country!

[Cassiel]

Evil is very fun to play. There are just as many facets to an evil character as there are to good characters, so no one here will be able to give you definitive advice, but hopefully you take it all in and come up with your own flavor.

I prefer the Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil characters. The alignment of the character is of course only a (fairly large) fraction of who they really are. Your stats are another imo large fraction. Based on alignment and stats, you should have a pretty broad idea of what a character is like. I'd say those two (alignment and "behavior stats" like Int, Wis, Cha) make up 40% of your characters overall behavior. These are the building blocks.

Then you get into religion. Religion (or "belief"/"fait") makes up 20-30-40%, depending on how devout you are. The rest is based on past exeriences, culture, and emotions.

I enjoy LE with high cha or high wis. My LE/Cha characters are hardly ever found out to be Evil until they are in such a position that it won't matter anymore. Sometimes they are never found out (by anyone who's still alive).

My LE/Wis is much less able to hide his evilness forever, but he seeks other evil folks, and only ventures into goodie lands when he's rolling with his possie. I mean... he's no FOOL. He's hanging out in evil temples/guilds, etc.

Of course you can always play the chaotically evil person, or the blatantly evil person right from the start, and it's fun too, just not my bag. If you're going to do that, you should certainly find allies (or good hiding places).