Reason to be bad?

[pagulhan]

I try to play as a bad guy. I killed the caravan, I forced a kid in Defiance Bay to tell me the secret, I told people in Gilded Valey what I'd done. Because of that, I missed xp for kid's quest, missed quest for Calisha's sister, missed xp for saving the cook quest. There's just no point in being bad because of all the xp you lose when you're not kind and not going to help and save everyone. Why don't you get xp for killing people that attack you once you told them about the caravan? Like it's another way to end the quest as killing everyone in the beginning of the game is.

[Tigranes]

You didn't miss XP for the kid's quest, I believe you still 'complete' the quest this way, though I could be wrong.

 

I'm not sure why you'd expect to get quest XP for.... slaughtering the entire caravan? There's no reason to slaughter the caravan unless you're a crazy mass murderer. 

 

Do you mean people in the Gilded Vale attack you when you tell them you killed the caravan? I've never seen that, but then I didn't expect them to design around people nuts enough to slaughter the caravan.

[Keneth]

Most quests have several ways of completing them, but you do miss some of them if you're dismissive or just plain Stupid Evil.

 

Even so, there is more than enough XP in the game to hit the cap and you generally get more loot by playing an arse.

[Anthile]

In most Obsidian games, being evil rarely has any immediate payoffs. I do mean going out of your way to be evil, not just being aggressive or greedy. It's mostly for flavor and roleplaying.

In the Fallout games you could do absurdly evil like giving addictive drugs to children or becoming a slaver but the rewards were rarely worth it. Think of it as an inversal of the saying virtue is its own reward: it's good to be bad.

 

Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.

Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,

Few come within the compass of my curse,—

Wherein I did not some notorious ill,

As kill a man, or else devise his death,

Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,

Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,

Set deadly enmity between two friends,

Make poor men's cattle break their necks;

Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,

And bid the owners quench them with their tears.

Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,

And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,

Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;

And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,

Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,

'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'

Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things

As willingly as one would kill a fly,

And nothing grieves me heartily indeed

But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

[b0rsuk]

Do you mean "being bad", or "being stupid" ? You just acted like a stupid, cruel person with no motivation. Bad/evil people are often motivated by something, for example extreme greed. You can be a greedy or sadistic bastard in Pillars of Eternity. I've been able to make Grieving Mother leave my party in disgust. Sociopaths will play along as long as it benefits them. You travel with a caravan for safety, a sociopath wouldn't probably risk running into bandits or glanfathans alone.

 

There ARE some rewards for nasty people in the game. Gift from the Machine, Effigy. Also, some quests have alternate rewards depending on how you complete them. You can create a powerful weapon if you're murderous. Defiance Bay lets you work with criminals, steal, etc.