I've been giving a little thought to the question of evil PCs recently. Granted, I no longer use alignment, which means such PCs wouldn't get the official label, but the concept still applies.
Broadly speaking, when creating an evil PC I think there are two important questions to answer:
- What is it that makes this PC evil?
- Why should the other PCs continue to work with this guy?
(Of course, the second question is something that can be asked of any PC, and especially for any 'jerk' PC, not just outright evil ones. But that makes it no less valid to ask it of the evil PCs!)
In particular, it's worth considering whether this PC will be a lone evil PC in a non-evil group, or if he'll be part of an evil party. And, in the latter case, it's worth asking whether this PC has his own agenda, or if the group as a whole has a common goal - the latter case makes answering the second question easier, while the first may make for a more interesting party dynamic. ('Interesting' in the sense of 'explosive', that is!)
And it's probably worth noting that "he's really good at killing things" probably isn't a good enough answer to the second question. After all, that would be equally true of a PC who was exactly the same except for being non-evil. So you'll need something else - maybe he's related to another PC, or maybe the group's employer wants him along, or maybe the others simply don't know about his generally evil ways. It doesn't necessarily matter what the answer is, only that there is an answer.
Of course, there's also the common issue of players choosing an evil PC because they just want to cause trouble in the game. But I've talked about that previously, and it boils down to an obvious rule: don't be that guy. So that's enough about that, I think!
No comments:
Post a Comment