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 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 lawful evil 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 two; 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 I?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.

First of all, let?s consider why such evil-style
players are fascinated enough with evil to develo
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, an
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 role-playing
game develops.

We all remember our first 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.? First 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 two 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?re 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 first 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)

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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)