From the Sorcerer's Scroll:

Evil: Law vs. chaos

by Gary Gygax

 

-	-	-	-	-
Best of Dragon, vol. II.	-	-	-	Dragon

The DMG contains a fairly detailed section
regarding the various alignment characteristics. On reflection, however,
I began to wonder if enough had been said about the different
approaches to evil. Now, if one clearly defines the lawful evil and the
chaotic evil characteristics, the neutral evil path becomes evident as the
middle road between the two opposite approaches to the precept of
banefulness. Considering the confusion regarding alignments, it cannot
but help to say a few more words on the subject.
For those of you who have not as yet read the DMG, evil is typified
by the desire to advance self over others, by whatever means are
possible, and always by the foulest of means possible — and more on
that later. Whatever causes the most harm is typically the most desirable
course to follow. Pain and suffering are meat and drink to the creatures
of evil. Slavery and oppression of all weaker creatures are considered as
natural, for these exist only to serve and satisfy the demands of the
stronger.

LE believes that the only way to impose the tyranny of their
alignment over all creation is to follow an ordered course of action. Their
evil society is rigidly structured, each being knowing its place and cruelly
dominating all beneath this station, while being just as bullied from those
above. Each creature in this hierarchy strives to follow the orders from
the stronger most painstakingly — both to avoid punishment and in
hopes of bettering its position in the order. To those beneath each is as
harsh and cruel as possible: fearful of failure in its tasks, of being
replaced by an underling. The evil ends desired might be better obtained
by actions which are actually less vile than other options, but the
order of lawful evil will generally perceive the most useful course rather
than merely the most baneful in the short term. Hell and its environs
hate chaotic good most vehemently, for they see threats there to both
the structure of their social system and their proposed course. What
worse than both total freedom and happiness brought about only by
individual achievement and character? Therefore, lawful evil would
certainly not hesitate to ally itself with virtually any other cause if this
helped to abridge the scope and influence of those creatures typifying
the chaotic good. Similarly, a devil would attempt to influence and
possess principally those humans who were powerful and influential
leaders of ordered communities, organizations, and states, i.e. lawful
individuals not already committed to evil ends.

-
CE||CE certainly has the common denominator of banefulness
with those creatures who follow the ordered path of woe. They likewise
oppress and enslave, torture and kill for the pure pleasure of seeing
suffering and death. But while LE sees these activities as part of
the structured course towards a world ruled by evil, those of chaotic evil
alignment see such activities as an end in themselves. While the weaker
chaotic evil creatures fear and often hate the stronger, they are ruled by
them only insofar as the reach of the stronger extends — and possibly
only as long as the stronger has interest in so doing. The individual evil is
more important than the collective one. Let each evil being do its best to
spread evil and chaos, and the ultimate result will be a cancerous spread
of the alignment. Order is next to good in undesirableness, so lawful
good is the antithesis of chaotic evil. Yet creatures of this alignment will
not long associate to combat their hated foes, except lesser creatures
under the leadership of some mighty demon or in extreme situations
where the very structure of chaotic evil is threatened by some great
coalition of good. A demon is not interested in ruling nations but in
spreading evil as it alone sees fit. Therefore, possession by a creature of
chaotic evil is typically of an unstable individual who will run amok for
short time, or of some singular figure who will be in a position to send
out many such individuals.

The differences in tendencies and philosophies are reflected in the
personal involvement of devils and demons in the affairs of the Prime
Material Plane. The rulers of the Planes of Hell (devils) will seldom
involve themselves in worldly affairs directly. Archdevils operate
through their organizations to influence the course of events on the
Prime Material Plane. Because of the strict order that devilkind adheres
to, intervention of even lesser devils is rare, as the rulers make pacts with,
humans and other agents. These arrangements assure that lawful evil is
spread upon the Prime Material Plane, even though the Tiers of Hell are
smaller than the Layers of the Abyss, for example, and there are far
fewer devils than there are demons. While there is rivalry betwixt the
Dukes of Hell, it is a prescribed and ordered contest wherein the rivals
recognize limits and the need for mutual cooperation in order to insure
that their collective realm remains strong and inviolate.

The very nature of demonkind, however, dictates a far more direct
involvement in activities on the Prime Material Plane. Lacking extensive
organizations, each demon lord must become personally active if he or
she desires to meddle in the affairs of humankind, etal. It is not making a
virtue of necessity on the part of demons to point out that they prefer
such personal involvement. Thus, this or that demon lord will be
encountered in material form, directing the activities of whatever group
of followers he or she has gathered to spread disorder and woe upon the
earth. Each powerful demon (and there are scores and scores of them)
competes bitterly with all others in a deadly rivalry for supremacy — both
in the Abyss and on the PMP. The chaotic nature of
demonkind dictates that mutual cooperation is unlikely at best, and any
alliance between two demon lords will be one of mistrust and betrayal,
doomed to a very short lifespan.

NE, as typified by daemonkind, follows the middle course
between the rigidly ordered society of the Nine Hells and the anarchy of
the Abyss. Yet this alignment has neither the organizational capability of
lawful evil nor the great multitudes of chaotic evil, so all told it is weaker
than either. The flexibility of neutral evil creatures enables them to
survive and remain relatively free of rule by either Hell or one or more
demon lords. The daemons and other inhabitants of Hades (and Gehenna and Tarterus as well) will as often as not become personally
involved in activity on Prime Material Plane if they see it as gainful to
their power and prestige or particularly enjoyable. In like manner, they
will join in diabolical or demonic enterprises to further their ends, evil
and personal.

LE||LE has more common cause than those of lawful neutral
bent than it does with demonkind, just as chaotic evil has more fellowship
with chaotic neutrality than it does with Hell. Both alignments, the
chaotic and the lawful evil, despise those who take the neutral course,
seeing this as fence straddling, so to speak. The demons are too disorganized
to enslave these creatures, however, while Hell desires a buffer
and uses daemonkind as tools as well. For their part, daemons play off
the Abyss against lawful evil to insure their freedom, power, and continued
importance.

In summation, LE||LE, through its orderly arrangement and
structure, wields great influence throughout the Prime Material Plane,
even though devils seldom take a personal role, and the number of the
dwellers in the Nine Hells is not overwhelming.

An altar
dedicated to
an evil deity

CE, on the
other hand, while represented by a far greater number of powerful
creatures taking a direct part in the affairs of the world, has no greater
influence or power — perhaps less even — because of animosity between
demons and the chaotic tendencies which preclude organization and
assurance of purposes carried out by lesser beings under direction. Hell
works carefully to bring its evil yolk over all the world, while demonkind
attempts only individual forays to aggrandize some lord or other, increase
the fame and glory of a particular prince or princess of the Abyss,
or merely to bring a few decades of foulest pleasure.

The LE||LE character, then, is bound to follow a course which is
strictly ordered. The path he or she follows is one of evil, but also one
which attempts to bring formal rule to the world under the auspices of
Hell. The character must obey and strive for the purposes of lawful
evil — furthering his or her own position in the process, of course. Those
of you who have read Fred Saberhagen’s CHANGLING EARTH will
recognize that the Emperor John Ominor ruled a lawful evil realm — although
he apparently served no diabolic master.

In contrast, the CE||CE character serves only him or herself, but
always towards evil ends. But the chaotic evil character recognizes no
master, save out of fear and necessity, and even in the event that such
recognition is necessary, he or she will always strive to gain the upper
hand and dominate. If lawful evil can be likened to a mountain chain,
with the highest peaks being the Dukes of Hell, and the lowest foothills
the menial servants, then chaotic evil is a series of islands and islets in a
vast sea — numerous but connected only tenuously by underwater
ridges.

The LE||LE character will certainly cooperate with others in order
to extend the sway of his or her alignment — seeking advantage by lies,
trickery, and deceit while adhering to the letter of the bargain, naturally.
The chaotic evil character will rule but seldom cooperate for long. As
soon as he or she sees a possible advantage accruing through abandonment
or betrayal — or perhaps simply because he or she has grown tired
of the pact — the CE character will be true to the precept of his or
her alignment!

Players can assume the role of a good or an evil character without
undue difficulty, but in my experience the orderly or disorderly tendencies
are another matter altogether. Law and chaos seem to be more
ingrained in the actual personality of a player, and these bents are thus
not as easily acted out. While you, as DM, will order the NPCs of lawful,
neutral, or CE||CE alignment, your players will tend to assume
alignments which actually fit their personalities as respects order versus
anarchy, so you must observe such activities quite closely. It is common
for players to seek the best of both worlds by claiming the benefits of one
alignment while using the processes of the other in order to gain power.
Thus, a player might well claim to be lawful evil in order to receive the
assistance of an archdevil, and thereafter blithely go about setting up a
totally independent and free-wheeling empire of evil which has nothing
to do with the aims of Hell. Such liberties cannot be allowed . . . .

THE FORUM
There's been a lot of controversy in the gaming
hobby over those FRP games where the players
run evil PCs and get their thrills by performing
heinous deeds and disgusting acts. I don't mean
ordinary games where some of the PCs have such
human but unendearing traits like vanity, selfish-
ness, and a hunger for power; I mean games
where most or all PCs are dedicated to downright
Evil with a capital E.

Although there are too many arguments
against playing evil campaigns for me to review
all of them here, I can easily sum up the defense
offered by those who advocate evil campaigns. I
have yet to read or hear anyone defending their
involvement in evil campaigns who has any valid
point but this one: Everyone is taking our games
too seriously; it's just a game, and we're only
doing it for Fun.

On the surface, this defense seems reasonable.
After all, in ordinary FRP games there's lots of
violence, supernatural forces, and peculiar reli-
gions, all of which have made many non-gamers
attack and condemn our hobby. Even though
these critics refuse to see it, we all know that "it?s
just a GAME," make-believe and let's pretend.
Why should the rest of us similarly condemn the
players of evil PCs? So they've tortured a Paladin
or 2; the rest of us have all slaughtered dozens
of orcs. Surely those players wouldn't torture
anyone in real life. Aren't the rest of us just being
hypocrites?

No, we're not. The "it's just a GAME" defense
begs one very important question: Just why do
the players of evil PCs enjoy the sufferings of
those who in no way deserve pain and death?
Role-playing involves what the name implies --
acting out roles, giving life to our deepest fanta-
sies. Whether they like it or not, evil-style players
are revealing that they enjoy fantasies of inflicting
suffering upon the innocent and that they fanta-
size about wanting power so much that they don't
care how they get it.

Let me make clear right now what I am  not
saying. I am not viewing these evil campaigns
from a moral or religious standpoint. Since '?m
far from a religious person, I have no right to say
that these games are "bad" or "impious" in an
absolute sense. Since the games don't harm other
people, no more can I condemn them on the basis
of secular morality. Finally, never would I claim
that the players of these games are in any way
more "evil" than the rest of us. Except for a few
saints, every human being has thoughts, im-
pulses, and fantasies that can be called evil.

What I am  talking about is psychology. Al-
though everyone has evil impulses at times, few
of us give these impulses a lovingly detailed
expression in our games, nor do we spend long
hours dwelling upon and cultivating this side of
our personality as do the players in evil cam-
paigns. I maintain that spending all that time
pretending to be evil is dangerous to the players
themselves.

1st of all, let's consider why such evil-style
players are fascinated enough with evil to develop
campaigns around it. Psychologists have done
many studies about people who read violent
books and watch violent and amoral movies to
the exclusion of other kinds of entertainment.
They've found that violence and evil seem glam-
orous to people who feel angry, and thus want to
hurt someone else the way they've been hurt, and
who feel weak and powerless in their own lives.
Fantasizing about being powerful, ruthless, and
evil is a compensation for something that the
fantasizer lacks in reality. Rather than being a
sign of strength, a preoccupation with evil is a
sign of weakness. When a gaming group gets
together to develop an evil campaign, they are
sharing their weaknesses and reinforcing them.

Even normal FRP games have a certain ele-
ment of compensation, of course. Life is never
perfect, and we live today in troubled times.
When we feel that we can't do anything about
nuclear war or our boring job, it's very satisfying
to go into the GAME world and kill those lousy
orcs who are threatening the peaceful village.
Our mental image of the head orc may even bear
a marked resemblance to our boss or some politi-
cal figure. Since we can't kill the troublemaker in
real life (and in fact, wouldn't even want to), this
kind of compensation is healthy. At least in our
fantasies, we can take the side of the good and
deal decisively with problems that we can't touch
in real life.

For the players in evil campaigns, however, the
release of being the good guys simply isn't
enough. They want to wreak havoc, not merely
let off a little steam -- a sign that their anger and
pain run very deep indeed. In a way, the decision
to play evil PCs is a sign of despair, an indication
that the players feel that evil is stronger than
good, that the good can't really score any lasting
or satisfactory victories, and that the individual
might as well stop fighting and get what he can
for himself.

Previously I called this style of game danger-
ous. One of the dangers is simply that by releas-
ing a bit of their feelings of weakness in their
games, the players will feel no need to deal with
their real problems. A much greater danger,
however, is that these things snowball. Rather
than releasing and getting rid of evil impulses,
dwelling on an evil campaign tends to strengthen
them simply because of the way any RPG develops.

We all remember our 1st few FRP sessions,
where killing a giant rat or a couple of orcs was a
real thrill and felt really dangerous. As we gained
experience and skill, we needed greater chal-
lenges to reproduce that same feeling of excite-
ment. The same thing happens in evil campaigns.
Let me tell you a true story, which I heard from a
gamer I'll call Bob. (I'm sure he wouldn't want
his real name used here.)

For several years, Bob played an ordinary
D&D campaign with a group of close FRIENDS.
Then, when they began playing an all-evil cam-
paign, they started out on a very low level of
"atrocity." 1st they killed an unbearably self-
righteous Paladin, then graduated to robbing rich
merchants. Their best Thief character took a leaf
from the comics and risked life and limb to write
"the king is a fink" on the king's own tower wall.
Good clean FUN? Certainly, but it didn't stop
there. Soon someone pointed out that they
weren't really being evil, merely naughty.

The group played for several months, with the
ante getting higher and higher. Soon they were
stealing from the starving poor, burning temples
and forcing the Priests to stay inside to burn with
them, and torturing prisoners in more and more
inventive ways. Finally, some of the players
insisted on having their characters gang-rape and
murder a princess. At this point, the 2 women
in the group rebelled. They forced a discussion of
the issue by reading a list of every crime the
group's characters had committed in the name of
good FUN. "Listening to that list in cold blood,"
Bob told me, "was a sickening experience." No
one in the group could even look at anyone else
in embarrassment.

What really shook Bob, though, was the way in
which he and his FRIENDS grew emotionally and
morally calloused as their characters' crimes grew
worse. At the beginning, no one would even have
thought of committing a brutal rape and murder
-- it wouldn't have seemed fun at all. By the end,
the idea seemed perfectly logical. Of course, the
NPCs who were the victims of these crimes were
just a few lines of description and a handful of
statistics, but even so, the group began by having
some compassion for these imaginary people and
ended up by having none. Since compassion is
one of the things that makes us human, not
animals, I maintain that eroding one's sense of
compassion is too high a price to pay for a few
evenings of entertainment.

By Now, I'm sure that any evil-style players
reading this are sneering at me and Bob's group
and assuring themselves that they can keep things
under control. I doubt this. What we?'e dealing
with when we play FRP games is group psychol-
ogy, and groups and their momentum have a real
power over the individual members who make
them up. Anyone weak enough to be in an evil
campaign in the 1st place is going to find himself
drawn to more and more "creative" acts of evil.
Finding out just how dark and nasty their minds
can be is only going to increase their sense of
being powerless, weak, and out of control.

Please notice that the above does not refer to
the player who occasionally runs an evil PC or
who likes neutral but dashing thief characters.
I'm talking about the ardent players of evil
campaigns who get angry whenever someone
suggests that there's something odd about their
favorite sport. These players are doubtless steam-
ing right Now, thinking that I'm way off base,
because once again someone is making "too
much" out of a simple GAME. To them I say that
if you think poison, torture, murder, and rape are
FUN, THEN you've got a big problem, even if you
confine that problem to fantasies.

Katharine Kerr
San Francisco, Calif.
(Dragon #89)

*    *    *    *

Q. If demons, devils, and evil creatures
are so strong and numerous, what
can prevent Evil destroying Good at a
single stroke?
A. Many of the powerful, evil creatures
are confined to their own planes,
where, of course, they are dominant.
Secondly, they spend much of their
time fighting among themselves for
pre-eminence.  And finally the
'Cosmic Balance' does not allow Evil
or Good to become all powerful.
(Imagine #4)
 

This letter concerns what I feel is a tendency
of the AD&D game to favor good-aligned PCs over evil ones.
To begin with, it seems that most people hold it to be true that
only a few people enjoy evil PCs over good ones.
It seems to be the opposite to me because all my
FRIENDS who play AD&D games play evil characters;
so do I. But we have to put up with all
sorts of restrictions. <Knights> who turn evil
become hated by their own kind and lose some
of their special abilities. Evil <Priests> must use the <x=?>
reversed forms of their curative spells, and they
encounter all sorts of problems because this
style tends to be weaker than the standard
"good" style. And why can't PCs play evil Paladins? <Illrigger: LE, Arrikhan: NE, Anti-Paladin: CE)
Doesn't Orcus need a strong champion as
much as Tyr? The only evil PC class, The Assassin,
will not exist in the revised rules. And
modules that contain adventures for evil characters
do not exist. After you change a module to
accomodate evil characters, it barely resembles
the product that you bought.

DEITIES & DEMIGODS (page 2) states "evil power is
only represented as a foe for the forces of good
to strive against and to crush." Why must this be
so? I do not want the game to become biased in
favor of evil, but I think that in the revised rules
something should be done to make evil characters
more compatible. Keep the assassin, and
allow evil paladins and <Knights>. Come up with
some evil adventures. The core rules have
always allowed characters to choose evil as their
alignments; perhaps The GAME should stop
trying to prohibit and scorn the use of such
characters, and do more to enhance the possibilities
such characters have.

Sean Jump
Corbin KY
(Dragon #138)
 

I chose this time to write to "Forum" because
of the letter by Sean Jump in issue #138. He
made a few good points as to why players
should be allowed to have evil characters. I
would like to expand upon his work.

As a DM, my adventures are very demanding
on the intellect of the player. I have long since
discarded the hack-and-slash element of play to
make room for more problem solving and
refined killing. After 7 or 8 hours of
play, 1/2 of my party has headaches and the
other 1/2 have drawn their swords and are
killing each other to reduce actual stress. Hence,
I created the evil characters.

Every 4 or 5 games, I get out the notebook
full of evil PCs, of all classes, and let Thief
players have a breather from having to be good. <they only start out as non-good>
Soon enough, the band of deadly foes marches
upon some defenseless town to lay waste to
another society. I am forever providing the foes
with opportune times to destroy and do generally
nasty things.

These evil adventures are a source of release
from all the strain of being good. It allows the
players to partake of the spoils that they usually
see their archfoes lounging in. None of my
FRIENDS are evil, but yet they find elation in not
always having to be heroic and daring. The
element of fantasy provides them with a place
to channel real-world frustrations as well.

Christopher E. Brogan
North Andover MA
(Dragon #143)

Concerning Sean Jump's letter in issue #138, I
am also from Corbin, Kent., and it is true that
many people down here seem to prefer evil
characters.

Originally, there was one main role-playing
group in Corbin, which in its prime had over
200 regularly playing members (quite large for a
town of 8,000). There were at least a dozen
GMs, myself included, and a plethora of games
being played, ranging from the AD&D game to
Hero Games' CHAMPIONS' and FGU's SPACE
OPERA games. Everything was going well; we
had even developed a measure of acceptance in
the community (which is very hard to do in a
conservative, semirural setting). Things
changed, however. It started with a few new
members of the club who wished to play evil
characters. It went all right for a while, the evil
characters doing their best to conceal their
alignments from their fellow party members.
Such is part of the FUN of role-playing.

Suddenly, though, their attitudes changed.
The good and neutral-aligned characters began
dropping like flies in a sealed jar. Almost all of
the nonevil characters (and their players) disappeared
from the campaigns, followed soon
thereafter by the DMs. They tried to play other
games, but the "evils" followed, due to a rule in
the group's charter that a GM could not exclude
a player due to the player's actions in a different
campaign or under another GM. If these (literal)
character assassinations had been a part of
normal game play, maybe it wouldn't have been
so bad; however, the majority of the killing was
to "get even" for real or imagined (mostly imagined)
slights by other players. Things got worse.

Soon the group dropped from 200 members
into 2 groups of about 20 each. The first was
primarily good-aligned but was mostly made up
of GMs. The second was made up of the players
who only played evil PCs. The first group collapsed
as there were not enough players to go
around between the GMs (there were 2
players per GM). The latter group fragmented
further due to the back-stabbing that went on in
those campaigns. The Hobby Center, the only
gaming store for 50 miles, went out of business
from lack of support. This finally put the good
aligned group down for the count because the
store had been the sole provider of regular
gaming space in town, as the GMs (who were
mostly adults) lived too far apart to have the
games at their residences. All that was left was
the occasional surviving evil campaign (whose
membership changed weekly) and my own
group, 3 persons strong. Soon, my group
too went by the wayside for a while, due to
college.

The moral of my story is simple: All evil
characters do for a campaign or group is lead to
the game's destruction. Tracy Hickman and
Margaret Weis weren't just whistling Dixie
when they said in the DRAGONLANCE® books
that "evil turns in upon itself." Read the "Sorceror
's Scroll" columns by Gary Gygax,
reprinted in The Best of DRAGON Magazine,
vol. II. The AD&D and D&D games were originally <not D&D>
created as a battlefield of Good vs. Evil,
with the opposition to the players being Evil!

The evil-character rules were at first mostly
guidelines for creating evenly matched foes for
good and neutral characters. The reason that
creatures such as Orcus don't have champions is <ahem, ahem: anti-paladins>
because the champion (by his alignment's
nature) would eventually try to supplant his
master. Evil clerics, by nature, are usually too
selfish to use healing spells on others, anyway.
Any person even slightly familiar with the
AD&D game's alignment system should be
aware of that!

Finally, it is the people who run and play in
evil campaigns who have given role-playing
games (especially AD&D games) their bad reputation.
5 years ago, people thought that
anyone who played D&D games was a devil
worshiper. 3 years ago, we had almost
eliminated that myth. Now it is back to the way
it was 5 years ago. In my experience as a 21-
year-old with 4 years of college and DMing
under my belt, the only thing evil PCs do is
destroy what all players have strived for for
years -- public acceptance.

Stanley Bundy
Corbin KY
(Dragon #143)
 

In response to Sean Jump’s letter in issue
#138, I wonder about the ultimate goal in playing
evil characters. There are good reasons for
the bias in favor of good-aligned PCs
in the AD&D game. First, we must remember
the spirit and intention of the GAME. Of
course, our aim is to have FUN, but we must ask
ourselves why we choose the excitement of
FRPGs for this purpose. Ideally, these games
promote cooperation, teamwork, friendship,
and open communication. Are these not essentially
the fundamental assumptions guiding the
actions of good-aligned characters? Are not such
characters devoted to one another, as well as to
“the cause,” whatever that might be?

It is difficult and perhaps unwise to separate
the moral framework that motivates and spurs
such characters from our own value systems as
people. Through our actions we prove our
beliefs; as the old saying goes: Actions speak
louder than words. We must then ask ourselves
what the true intentions of an evil PC really are
and how those intentions must inevitably be
fulfilled. If we adhere to the alignment system
provided in the AD&D game system, then we
must assume that evil “does not concern itself
with rights or happiness; purpose is the determinant”
(1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide,
page 23). To fully develop and make our characters
believable, we must comprehend at least in
some basic way the tenets our creations
embody. While each of us can empathize with
the desire to promote prosperity and happiness,
evil should revolt and repel us, spurring us to
overthrow and abolish the catalysts of atrocities
against living creatures.

A party, or group of interdependent characters,
underlies the foundation of the AD&D
GAME system. How, then, can characters with
the fundamental belief in the self work with
others toward a mutually desirable goal? A
lawful-evil character may work with others, but
he sees those fellow participants as pawns or
tools with which that individual may attain an
ultimate outcome. PCs with this
value system will ultimately provoke antagonism
and paranoia in even the closest of groups.

Evil characters have their places, to be sure,
but do we want to risk placing a destructive,
manipulative, and antisocial character in the
hands of a player who must attempt to foster at
least a superficial form of unity and solidarity
within the group, as well as undertake a thorough
understanding of and attraction for that
character. Such evil characters should remain
in the hands of the DM, who undertakes the
impetus and final resolution of the party’s
endeavors. To allow evil characters is to disrupt
the relationship of the DM and the players; the
players would then be forced to create, maintain,
and resolve conflicts based on their own
individual caprices.

I do not mean to infer in any way that those
who play evil characters possess such traits
inherent in their diabolical creations. I am
merely suggesting that playing these characters
is in direct opposition to the spirit of teamwork,
cooperation, and desirable interdependence that
makes FRPGs a unique and socially desirable
community event through which we not only
have FUN, but through which we learn a few
things about trust and our need to care for one
another. Evil and horror may fascinate us even
while they repel, but let’s not fall prey to those
demons; we must instead work both as PC party
and as human beings in the struggle to achieve
their downfall.

Daniel Reardon
Troy NY
(Dragon #146)
 

In issue #143, there is a letter from Stanley
Bundy that I’m in total disagreement with. He
writes that players who played evil characters
made the main role-playing group in Corbin, Ky.
fall apart. He goes on to say, “All evil characters
do for a campaign or group is lead to the GAME’s
destruction.” He also says, “It is the people who
run and play in evil campaigns who have given
role-playing games . . . their bad reputation.”

I’ve been a GM for 7 years, and I find that
players enjoy playing evil characters much more
than the traditional good characters. Most
beginning players like playing good or lawful
characters that are brave and noble. But after a
while, saving princesses, slaying dragons, and
trying to rid the land of thieves gets repetitive,
and PCs find that their alignments hinder them
in some actions.

It is much more exciting to play evil characters.
I find that the characters have a greater
chance to be creative if they’re trying to do
things such as getting away from a group of
good adventurers who want to do away with
them, or explaining to a castle <sentinel> what they
were doing in the king’s treasure room. Sometimes
the most FUN you have while being evil is
getting caught.

I’ve noticed that in most articles and letters in
DRAGON Magazine, evil characters go around
killing and stealing from everyone else in the
group. Most of the groups I’ve GMed for have
evil characters in them, and players with evil
characters have never given me trouble. In fact,
in groups that consist solely of evil PCs, there is
no bickering because most PCs realize that they
need each other to complete their goals.

The moral of my story is simple: Even if PCs
are bad, it doesn't mean that they can't be good.

Ian Reyes
Ware MA
(Dragon #146)
 

It is my opinion that evil characters do have a
place in the AD&D GAME, if you don't count the
assassin. When played properly, the evil character
usually behaves in an unscrupulous manner
only toward enemies. While he may occasionally
lighten another character's load a little, an evil
character can often show loyalty.

An example of this behavior is present in one
of the evil characters in my campaign. This
character designed a 9th-level version of the
contingency spell. She used this in one of those
infamous death traps that evil characters love to
produce. It works like this:

At the entrance to her abode, she laid marble
stones on the floor in a pattern similar to a
chessboard. This Arch-Mage CAST her new
contingency spell on the ceiling above the 5th
row of the chessboard. The spell said that if
anything crossed the 5th row without first
saying "checkmate," a cloudkill would be CAST
onto the chessboard. The trap can be easily
circumvented just by dropping a coin onto the
5th row. Tell your FRIENDS, and they can get
past it.

The simple fact is that evil-aligned characters
do not necessarily go around killing each other
all the Time; they can in fact be quite loyal to
their FRIENDS, provided their friends don't cross
them too many times.

Aaron Goldblatt
Fort Worth TX
(Dragon #149)
 

Lately, players have overwhelmingly favored
the exclusion of evil characters in a campaign.
In issue #143, Stanley Bundy painted a dire
picture in which a few evil PCs destroyed the
gaming atmosphere for an entire town and
caused the local hobby store to close down.
Other letters came out with support for "temporary
" evil campaigns, to relieve the boredom of
having to be good all of the Time. I would like to
present a different point of view.

The main point is, the only evil alignment that
should cause problems is chaotic evil. This
alignment's belief in true Chaos is simply incompatible
with the idea of forming an adventuring
party. I allow any alignment but chaotic evil in
my campaign; that alignment is best used for
the creation of an NPC high-level cleric, magicuser,
or fighter. Such an opponent would have
no morals and no honor; in short, he would be
an ideal obstacle to overcome. He would consider
and use any avenue to defeat the characters,
and as such, should serve to promote
cooperation among the party members.

Those who wrote letters in favor of allowing
campaigns to blow off steam by using evil
characters once in a while were typically talking
about CE+CE characters--those who terrorize
small towns (like Corbin?) into submission.

But what about LE+LE In another article
in issue #143 ("The Highs and Lows of Fantasy"),
the author makes a point about forming a world
on a grand scale and not being limited to small
scenarios that follow each other without apparent
connection. This is a philosophy that I have
followed since starting my DM career in 1980.
In a campaign that dates back that far, the
overwhelming conflict is between Law and
Chaos.

The main characters in our campaign have
managed to stay together and play together for
almost 9 years, and among them are: several
high-level, LG+LG Lords; a LG+LG
High Priest; some LN+LN Wizards; and a
very powerful LE+LE High Priest. (These are not
the only characters we use, but they make the
point.) There is no reason for the evil cleric to
refuse to help his companions; the Law vs.
Chaos conflict is much more important and
critical in this campaign than any petty differences
caused by minor disagreements. Everyone
[in our campaign] agrees that Law is preferred
to Chaos; with such in mind, they have a common
ideal that has made for many interesting
adventures. On one hand, the LG+LG
people may disagree with some of the cleric's
methods, but by keeping the big picture in
mind, they cooperate. On the other hand, the
EHP may feel that he is surrounded by weakminded
fools who believe that the forces of
Good are strong enough to survive the coming
cataclysm, but who are helping him in his
crusade against Chaos. All in all, our campaign
has worked very well.

One letter mentioned that an evil Priest would
be limited to the reversed versions of his spells.
No way. There is no reason why an evil Priest of
the lawful persuasion would be prevented from
helping those who are helping him further his
cause. The point I am trying to make is that evil
is what you make it, and it certainly doesn't
have to be destructive.

But what happens when a few people try to
ruin everyone else's fun by choosing a CE
alignment? A good DM can do plenty to
ensure that a minority of evil characters doesn't
destroy the FUN for the remainder of the party.
It has been said before (and will be again):
"Good is NOT stupid!" Why should good characters
knowingly allow evil deeds in their midsts?
Why shouldn't good characters be able to take
measures to protect themselves? Evil characters
should receive no special protection from the
DM. Stanley Bundy wrote that those who played
evil PCs could not be excluded [from a campaign];
rather, a DM who remains in charge of
his world (as it should be) should have been able
to keep a hold on the situation. The good characters
did not have to stand idly by while the
neutral character (by definition) strives for
balance. If the evil faction had gained the upper
hand, the neutral characters should take the
side of the good faction. This applies either to a
Law vs. Chaos orientation or to a Good vs. Evil
campaign.

I would like to reiterate a point mentioned in
the previous paragraph: A DM creates a world;
that world has characters, places, and events,
and the picture created by mixing these elements
is called a campaign. Players can influence
the development of the world with their
actions, but ultimately it is the DM who controls
the destiny of the campaign and answers to the
players if he allows a few evil PCs to spoil the
FUN for everyone else. If this happens, then the
DM has failed his prime responsibility.

I guess you could say that a DM's alignment
must be LN. A DM should be strong
enough to maintain order in his campaign, yet
flexible enough to allow the characters to live
and grow in their own directions. With 8 of
the 9 alignments to choose from, characters
should have enough selections to make them
happy. If a player insists on being CE,
simply point out to him the drawbacks of the
alignment. If he persists, allow him to play the
character, but insist that he play the alignment
as it was meant to be played. I think you will
find that people who are really interested in
role-playing will not stay with a CE
character for very long

David G. Rathbun
No address given
 

<I> have several comments in regard to Stanley
Bundy's letter to "Forum" in issue #143. The
reason the role-playing group collapsed was
because the GMs ignored other evil characters.
What of the wealthy LE merchant?
Won't he feel threatened if people start dropping
like flies? What of the government? Why
aren't they after the evil characters for the
murders they've committed? The way to handle
this situation is to turn the tables on the evil
characters. The above-mentioned merchant,
along with others not known for kindness,
could hire several high-level Wizards and
assassins to begin systematically hunting down
the evil characters. Meanwhile, the government
puts out massive rewards for the capture or
deaths of the evil PCs. If THE CAMPAIGN contains
many high-level characters, nobility may feel
threatened and hire the assassins' guild to
eliminate the PCs.

Other threats will include the surviving good
and neutral PCs. Paladins && Priests will go on
holy quests to cleanse the evil from the AREA. If
the dead PCs are resurrected, they will most
certainly be out for revenge, as will the people
who knew those dead PCs. When the evil PCs
are surrounded by a couple thousand assassins,
<Wizards>, and Paladins, all prepared to eliminate
them, they will realize what their evil ways
have done to them.

This does not mean that evil characters cannot
work in a campaign. It just means that the
campaign cannot adapt to those characters. Evil
PCs could work with Iuz or the Scarlet Brotherhood
from the WORLD OF GREYHAWK® setting.
Assassins can only assassinate with guild permission;
so what will happen to rule breakers?
Certainly, rule breakers and nonmembers
cannot be allowed by the guild. Look at renegade
magic-users and illusionists in Krynn [in
DRAGONLANCE® campaigns]; they?'e considered
threats and are persecuted. The best
places for evil PCs to be are in free cities, such
as Dyvers and Greyhawk on Oerth, where the
guilds have some open power.

The main problem I have is coming up with
new ideas for adventures. I have done so many
variations of the evil marquis cambion Arch-
Mage threatening the Prime Material plane that
the players finish the game in 1/3 the time
that it should normally take. Even when I detail
each step of the game, they still finish it in
record time. I did manage to get them interested
in a 300-encounter game that utilized foils
and various sorts of hidden golems (I thank the
authors of those DRAGON articles).

I also surprised them with technological
weaponry. I do not understand why technology
is not allowed. I simply make hand-held grenades
and missile launchers into variations of
the fireball spell. Electrical discharge weapons
are equivalent to lightning bolt and lasers are
equivalent to the prismatic spells. Light sabers
are basically technological versions of the rod of
lordly might's sword function, My players' PCs
now avoid technology after a rather haphazard
flight in a MiG-28.

Tarun Nagpal
Oakbrook IL
(Dragon #149)
 

Enough! It seems that evil PCs
are FAST becoming the “female dwarf beards” of <link>
'89. As a gamer with over 11 years playing
experience (5 as DM), please
indulge me for one story.

Bored with playing the good guys, my players
started asking for a “different” campaign. Talk
turned to assassins, antipaladins, and mages of
foul disposition. “One more game in Oceanus,” I <Wizards who generally tend to be foul>
said, “and then we’ll see.”

Next gaming session, the party was approached
by an old man who spoke of a great
evil spreading across the land, monsters overrunning
the countryside, and events that obviously
indicated his insanity. The diamond he
produced as a retainer, however, convinced the
party to hear his story. They retired to the
Naughty Mermaid Inn.

Once there, the party was lead to a large
room filled with crates, casks, and barrels. The
insane look on the man’s face was gone, and he
spoke quite eloquently. “Our world is in great
danger. These supplies are needed desperately.
THANK YOU for aiding us.” He then began to
chant arcane words. A circle of power appeared
about the party, and they were gone.

They reappeared in an AREA of ruins, shaken
awake by scantily clad humans. Orcs were
overrunning the human forces, using rods that
flashed powerful beams of energy through the
night. “Run quick, fools, or die!” the PCs heard
as the humans fled. The mage was slow to act
and was struck by an orc’s power beam.
Screaming in pain, he looked at the stump that
was once his forearm and hand. The party
barely escaped.

What had happened? The party had been sent
to a parallel world where a space probe run
amok had caused the evil races to gain control.
Most good-aligned individuals had been eliminated;
the remainder fought with guerilla
tactics and aggressively took what they needed
to survive. Paladins wore leather for its stealth
value and were feared for their great fighting
prowess. Rangers became the kings of the
warbands, relying on their survival abilities to
save their people. Magic was at a premium. The
good-aligned still kept to their principles when
possible, but exceptions became the rule. Neutrals
were enigmas, as often enemies as allies.

The horror of this world came home to the
players when the party met the counterparts of
their own high-level characters (then retired on
Oceanus) on this world. Leading a warband,
these counterparts were far different from the
characters my players used. Attitudes, abilities,
and features had changed. Most had lost at least
one limb or organ and looked, as one player
later said, “tough.” The elves in the party recoiled
in horror to learn that the 3 high-level
elf characters were the last of their race.
Suddenly, the “evil” in the world was not so
attractive. Unable to return home, the party
began a quest to free at least some small part of
their new world. The task was not easy.

Parties of adventuring humanoids hunted the
survivors — raiding their lairs, seeking powerful
artifacts, and smashing uprisings. Using technology
(couched by the probe as powerful magic),
the evil races ruled supreme, and the good-aligned
beings fought for survival in a world
gone mad. The challenge became to remain
good while suffering all the negative aspects
normally given to evil.

The moral? Both the players and I learned
that the allure of evil PCs is not in
being evil per se, but rather the challenge ov
SURVIVAL outside the bounds of the “normal”
game setting. Through playing this world’s evil,
the party strengthened its ability to play another
world’s good. So the next time a player
says, “I want to play an assassin!” give ‘im a
hunted paladin instead. He might survive to
enjoy it.

John Wommer
Fort Ord CA
(Dragon #151)

I am writing in regard to a letter written by
Stanley Bundy that appeared in issue #143. I am
11 years old, and I enjoy both the D&D® and
AD&D games. With 1½ years of experience as a
DM, I strongly suggested playing a non-evil
character to all of my players. So far, only one
has played an evil character, but he greatly
disrupted The GAME and ruined it for the others.

The stories that people hear about D&D
games are most likely started by nonplayers
overhearing a game with evil characters. When
parents hear these stories, they do what good
parents would do and protect their child from
this “cult” of role-players. My mother has heard
these stories, too, but she does not stop me
from playing because of the mental and creative
aspects of the game. But others have not been
exposed to this, and I have problems finding
players for my campaigns.

The best way to stop these rumors is to stop
the use of evil characters—which, after reading
Mr. Bundy's letter, I have done. When I read
what happened to the group of 200 in Corbin, I
realized my own shortage of gamers was petty.
But I still felt compelled to write this letter.

Dan Humphries
Mercer Island WA
(Dragon #152)