After some brief diversions, we now return to our regularly scheduled column where today we discuss the plights and tribulations of playing evil characters in role-playing sessions.

The first challenge before even writing another sentence is defining what an evil character is. Then I can then proceed to tell you why you should or shouldn't play them. Trouble is, this question brings up the rather expansive debate about the nature of the universe, religion, and Microsoft. If you are interested in detailed explanations, you try the Catholic version of Evil, or the almost as long Buddhist Evil. But I am not talking about the meaning of life, I am talking about the role-playing characters.

And I hope you all know the difference. (Crossing my fingers here.)

Anyway, here is a definition of Evil characters: characters that place the motivations of selfishness and bettering of themselves (or their social/racial group) over the goals, happiness and lives of their fellow characters. (If you want social commentary, just replace characters with people and you have it.)

Notice that this is very different from Wikipedia's definition of evil that relies heavily upon immoral and hurtful acts against humanity. According to the definition above, the overlord that conquers all of the world in order to create peace and stop the infighting might be considered non-evil, whereas in standard thought they would be easily scoped out as evil.

The definition that I use, really is simply the opposite of rule 3 – all characters must be good at heart. But all rules are meant to be broken, so let's go do that with 5 Ways to Play Evil Characters, Have Fun, Conquer the Universe, and Not Destroy Your Role-playing Group or Close Friendships.

Wait, here is the disclaimer: Playing Evil is not for everybody. Sometimes evil or immoral characters, by their mere existence, cause rule 2 and 7 to be broken. So, know your group, know your GM before you try any of this. The Role-playing of evil characters depicted within is performed by experienced professionals. Do not try this at home without proper training and the correct protective gear.

1. Make them non-evil

If you examine the definition of evil that I put forth, it is still possible to play characters that are "morally objectional" in the sense of actions against society, as long as those actions do not occur within the group itself. Effectively, this is aligning the betterment of the individual with the betterment of the group. Examples, include playing member of an evil race out to accomplish a mission in "good" society. The success of the mission is paramount to there individual success, and they all have the same goal of having their evil society take over the good. In this case, you are allowed to build a sense of group and unity that is necessary for people to have fun while still giving them that evil flavor that makes you feel cooler then the geeks that play goody two shoes. This is part of the being a Rebel, right?

2. The One-Shot

This is usually referred to as the contrived, one adventure situation where there is no requirement for long-term commitment to the character by any of the players. They understand they are in a one-evening adventure and their evil characters may piss off, destroy, aggravate, kill, humiliate, antagonize, or otherwise do irritated and unkind things to fellow characters and there will be no long term repercussions to a campaign of adventuring group.

This is a place for GMs to truly shine, by designing vignettes to allow players to "act out" any situation they could dream out, with any cast of characters. Often the cast of characters is pre-designed for the scene, or limits are placed upon the characters (like "you will all be evil") in this medium.

While this arena has no long term in-game repercussions, it still maintains a pretty high probability for pissing off other players, so there is still a good chance that in-character actions could cause other players to have less fun. This can be easily mitigated by upfront commentary by the GM and players who realize what it is they are in for.

3. The Traitor

This is a special situation were the GM pulls one player aside and tells them they are playing the evil character, the traitor within the midsts of the group. Obviously, this is the sort of thing that a GM should plan from the start, but has great potential to bring out story as the campaign unfolds.

The key to making this successful and fun for the whole party is making sure that the traitor doesn't win. Whether that is because the party eventually discovers the activities of the player, the traitors plan backfires, or (the best) the heroics of the party manage to overcome even the traitor within their own midst, the good guys should prevail.

I'll add the quick caveat that no player likes to have the story scripted out ahead of time, so the GM really just needs to make sure that the characters have a reasonable chance of winning. Given that reasonable chance, most parties come through.

For the player with the evil character, this is really almost like playing an NPC. The GM may very well give a set of rules as to what they can and can't do (although it works best if the GM can avoid this) and the player needs to follow them. This can be called a "hidden NPC" as much as a traitor.

4. Deus Ex Machina

This is when the GM creates an in-game construct to ensure that the evil players play well together. A strange artifact that links all of their lives together so that if any one dies the rest do as well is an example of Deus Ex Machina. There are as many of these as the GM has creativity, but they all have the same basic concept – they force the evil players to think about something besides their own interests.

The downside to Deus Ex Machina is simple – it can seem like a heavy handed meta-game attempts to control player behavior because it is a heavy handed meta-game attempt to control player behavior.

5. Lack of Player Attachment

If you play the game to play a game instead of develop a character, the only thing left to get attached to is the numbers on the sheet. And many games do what they can to mitigate the problem of losing your numbers when you die for some reason. Paranoia is probably the best example, giving each player six lives, but the concept of using your current character's earned experience as a bonus for your next character is common in many game systems.

This is all part of the basic concept that if players do not care about the development of survival of their characters in any more then a mechanical means, then by all means there can be as much inter-party strife and arguments as you want. After all, the strife becomes the fun part, irregardless of the outcome for your character.

This is without question the most common sort of evil campaign, and it is often the one where the players do not even know they are playing in an evil campaign. Because the base attitudes of the party members do not matter, the characters themselves to do not matter. It would be a lot like living in a world where people did not matter. Or, as the case may be, playing a game where people do not matter ...

I'll leave you with that. Till next time.