One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. This statement is as true now as it was since the dawn of time. It’s a simple statement that reflects on a complex concept: that right and wrong are determined purely by the observer. Those bearing witness to the events give them definition and ultimately decide where they fall into the moral graph. In other words, evil is not as evil does but rather evil is whatever people view it as.

But, perception is not some singular tool that is fully formed from birth, nor is it some static object that can never be reshaped once forged. Perception is formed by the combined forces of logic, personality, and sensory intake. What we see, smell, and taste create our initial thoughts of these things and forms the primordial essence that constructs our morals. Instinctually we know that pain is bad and that pleasure is good. Therefore we do our best to remain pleased and comfortable and seek desperately to change the situation if it becomes otherwise. From this very simple mechanism our parents, pastors, teachers, friends and enemies build and reinforce our viewpoints on the world, and thus the world itself.

So with that wonderful bit of Psychology 101 out of the way the question becomes: what does this matter to your game? In a word, everything. Our preconceptions and world views shape our characters even as they shape us. When we speak of notions of good and evil in fantasy we tend to bring along our own definitions in order to ground it into reality. However, even in our own wondrous reality, perceptions on what makes good and evil are many and varied. A devout catholic priest will tell you that birth control goes against the will of god and is thus evil, yet, there are plenty of people who will tell you the exact opposite. It is this kind of baggage we take with us into the realm of imagination where we play our games. That, in turn makes evil difficult to play for in our minds evil requires an entirely different mindset than what we are accustomed to. So, when we deviate from this mindset and attempt to play characters of different moral compasses then our own we find ourselves stumbling blindly trying to grasp concepts we were never trained to do.

The problems this leads to are obvious ones. We either over do it or simply not do it at all. On the one hand we turn into one of a thousand villain clichés that have no place and often do little more then irritate the hell out of our respective gaming groups. On the other we can hardly even justify our own moral leaning. One might consider it the source of our evil woes and a big reason why many evil games don’t quite turn out right.

Instead, the alternative solution might be not to decide whole heartedly that a character is generically evil, but shift our perspectives as such that we have justification and reasoning for doing things the way they do. Your bad guy shouldn’t view themselves as bad guys, but as people who feel they are the only ones with the hearts and wills to do what is absolutely necessary to accomplish their goals. What they do isn’t sadistic, it’s necessity. A soldier justifies killing as part of his job, as a necessity for survival in a terribly stressful environment, even though he has been raised with the notion that killing is wrong. Likewise a super villain might slaughter entire swathes of innocents in the name of the greater good, or to accomplish some ideal. This in and of itself is somewhat cliché but it does give a player and GM a powerful tool from which they can perpetuate evil acts in their game. This in turn gives you a foundation upon which to justify actions and consider why he is evil by your own definition of such. For example your serial murderer thief probably doesn’t kill just for the pleasure of it, though that’s an option, perhaps to him murder is simply a nasty facet of his chosen occupation of wealth redistribution, and having the original owners of said wealth re-redistributing the wealth makes his job somewhat pointless.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many of our viewpoints of what is good and evil often stems from cultural taboos. Cannibalism, occult practice, and other such things are taboo for one reason or another and often times portrayed as evil by the cultures that find them socially unacceptable. Playing on this social trait is a great way to make interesting communities and different cultures for the characters to run into. How might the party’s cybernetic, anthropomorphic dog react when the group runs into a village where technology and dogs are considered malevolent signs? Likewise, how would a group feel finding themselves in a city where necromancy is a legal and encouraged practice and is considered a social and cultural obligation to become undead when ones time has passed?

In the end the perception of good and evil is what defines what good and evil is. Using it, you can completely shift the paradigm of what players consider normal and create truly fantastic settings or characters. The only hazard in nay of this is giving the impression that the morals you portray through your characters are the values that you actually hold. This, however, is a danger that is beyond the scope of this article and is up to you and you alone to resolve. Until then, happy pillaging...I mean strategic acquiring of enemy resources.