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The difference is between 'evil' and 'thuggery'. Thuggery is the stereotypical evil most present in RPGs, the whole kick a puppy just 'cause you can kind of thing. While the actual mysterious evil is doing its job--being mysterious and evil. I personally feel the best equation would be to lawyers and politicians-- that is the kind of evil that's really out there making a difference, having a polite lunch with you while getting you to sign here here and here to gradually allow negative loopholes into play (pretty much Lawful Evil, the frequently most successful evil according to the alignment descriptions). Not the doom and gloom blackguards sowing hatred and destruction across the land. Which is a problem for the evil people who want to be that. They don't get good treatment from either good events or evil events, because they're too evil to be good and too 'loud' to be evil. (though I'd say Furion is a great example of an 'evil' character who might be able to partake in otherwise 'good' events. He's a bigtime Talos worshipper, making it known as often as he can, and is often fairly rude and bloodthirsty, yet he's still a very honorable fighter that respects strength and cunning, fighting alongside the good guys against the evil denizens of the world. He's my favourite 'outwardly evil' character out there, very much an anti-hero.)
Problem is, the outwardly evil that actually directly and openly opposes good, the 'thuggery/bandit' kind of thing, is very hard to pull off. It does mean pretty much either being alone or in small, unstable groups, unable to participate in a lot of the things other, more neutral or secretive characters might be able to. If you want to find the organized secretive evil groups, it's mostly a 'right place at the right time' and 'don't call us, we'll call you' thing. It can't really be flaunted with loud bells like the good guy events, because that only draws out the good guy zealots with pitchforks and torches.
Unless, of course, evil eventually wins. At which point the loud, doom and gloom blackguards become the enforcers of the law and it becomes next to impossible to play the good guy zealots. Pretty much whichever 'side' is currently in charge is the one that's free to have active, loud characters of their alignment, while the one that is losing has to result to secrecy and thus characters who draw too much attention to themselves of that alignment are ignored.
Problem is, the outwardly evil that actually directly and openly opposes good, the 'thuggery/bandit' kind of thing, is very hard to pull off. It does mean pretty much either being alone or in small, unstable groups, unable to participate in a lot of the things other, more neutral or secretive characters might be able to. If you want to find the organized secretive evil groups, it's mostly a 'right place at the right time' and 'don't call us, we'll call you' thing. It can't really be flaunted with loud bells like the good guy events, because that only draws out the good guy zealots with pitchforks and torches.
Unless, of course, evil eventually wins. At which point the loud, doom and gloom blackguards become the enforcers of the law and it becomes next to impossible to play the good guy zealots. Pretty much whichever 'side' is currently in charge is the one that's free to have active, loud characters of their alignment, while the one that is losing has to result to secrecy and thus characters who draw too much attention to themselves of that alignment are ignored.
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