How to play Evil?

Hello!

I would like to ask others on their perspective of playing Evil...I am kind of planning to do an evil playthrough, plan a character - his motives - morality and goal, but I always bump into a very basic issue :

 

- How do you explain an evil ( not necessarily a douche, but evil is considered egoistical at least ) accepting all those sidequests?

I just can't make up an excuse, apart from the usual be manipulative evil that just pretends helping people. My problem with that approach is that it tends to be quite similar to being good, so I am looking for a better alternative.

This topic is more about roleplaying than actual mechanics in games. I am just curious of those who actually prefer playing Evil - How do you roleplay accepting all those sidequests?

Cheers!

Edited November 6, 2018 by Hazmy

Are you looking for roleplaying reasons to be evil or ways (actions) that are evil? In terms of actions you can just attack and kill random NPCs if you want. With roleplaying it's more difficult to come up with a logical reason to be evil (just as in real life). My personal preference is to play someone who genuinely means well but is tragically flawed (usually a brute who's very aggressive and incapable of competent social interaction, aka Wolverine).

With my evil playthroughs i didnt accept all quest or sometimes i did accept but didnt finish since there was no resolution for my character in game so i had to roleplay one.

 

I did playthroughs that resulted in evil actions (one we would consider evil) but were understandable. I played a hearth orlan slave stolen from glanfathan home in the dyrewood trying to find his way home. So he was mean, suspicious, manipulative, thieving to those he perceived as part of the culture that stole and enslaved him and he was appreciative, understanding, helpful to the glanfathans he made contact with. So it was a matter of perspective if the character was 'evil'. I dont like thinking those terms good, evil like dnd system and i think POE supported that. Here are some other characters i made.

 

I did a wizard who lost his mother do to some disease and swore to find a way to conquer death at all cost (i based this character on dr frankenstein from penny dredful on netflix who didnt start evil but slowly justified more and more bad actions because of his goals). He traveled to dyrewood to learn about new science animancy to see if that would be the answer since his magic didnt work. In this framework, he can justify 'evil' acts as furthering his study or getting money to support his study and he can ignore pleas for help since they are irrelevant to his goals. This means i helped peoples sometimes because i thought they could further my knowledge or be useful and sometimes i would be cold, callus, and use the helpless. Like the animancer you find in Raedrics castle Osrya. She was trying to cure the hollowborn through study but used evil means to accomplish the goal. You see this alot with people having higher goals and think that the ends justify the means. 

 

I also did a berath priest judge dredd i am the law run. In many circumstances i did evil things because they were lawful. I basically forced myself to respect whatever law that city or area adhered to instead of my personal conception of law since i believed this is what my god berath wants. This gave rise to stuff like killing Kolsc and leaving gilded vale in hands of Raedric since he was rightful ruler but doing so mean that town continued to suffer. This one though did good stuff to so it was a mixed bag.

 

To me evil is a matter of perspective for these characters. They believed what they were doing was right according to their ethos but their actions caused a lot of suffering and were evil from an outside modern observer but they didnt view themselves as evil and this made for more interesting characters instead of the usual i am just an evil prick give me all your money runs.

 

Again with these playthroughs i didnt take or complete all quest. Some quest didnt fit my character and some after getting to a certain point my character didnt think completing them furthered any goal they had or there wasnt a resolution that matched my character so this also played into the roles for me. These characters help me roleplay more instead of power game or try for some completionist run and made my experience with the game more fun.

Edited November 16, 2018 by draego

I'd say that my character wasn't necessarily evil but her actions were. My wood elf was who liked money, so it made scene to accept lots of quests to get a proper reward.She was also a no nonsense type of person.  The evil aspect came in when I decided that either the reward was not adequate enough, or there was too much bull**** between me and the reward.  As a result my character ended up despising children, shook down the poor, and ended up taking shortcuts on quest when they lasted too long.

Two possible justifications for doing the quests are:

 

1) You want to create a false reputation of being benevolent and honest, so you try to get that disposition. I'm not sure if you can get any reward from this besides being treated as a good person, but you can always kill all npcs that won't be noticed (golden ones in an isolated area ) and enjoy being a murderer that is treated as a hero.

 

2) Playing as sadist that enjoys seeing people in need asking for help just to backstab them in the end.

 

 

 

You would go to Anslog's Compass to get the potion for Aufra, hoping to poison her later but finding out that you can simply tell her the truth. And if she doesn't react as you want, kill her. Notice that you can also tell her what happened to Calisca...

 

 

This second case would look like what LittleAmadillo0 described above and must be very satisfying when you can kill the npc after ending the quest and getting the rewards, if that is your thing.

 

 

My two evil characters were not really evil. One was a Bleak Walker that tried to find justification for killing but only did it to bad people. She enjoyed it a lot when it happened. The other was a Priest of Skaen that even got 2 points of Benevolent disposition. She was cruel only to oppressors.

I suck at playing evil, but I would find greed a good reason for accepting sidequests. Pure greed.

You need the Soules to buy the expensive chocolate you so love to drown virgins in, thereby combining both main course and dessert as you cook them later with spices.

I can't go completely evil. For example, when my Bleak Walker was asked to kill a baby, I killed the npc on the spot.

I can't go completely evil. For example, when my Bleak Walker was asked to kill a baby, I killed the npc on the spot.

True, there are just some moments in the game where I break character. Baby killing is one of them.