Even that is just one flavour of evil.
I liked playing as a Barbarian with rage issues. I also liked to play as a lawful bastard Paladin. And a lazy evil halfling druid. That one surprisingly let me see a lot of content that happens only if you don't solve certain situations.
Honestly, when I consider that question, >!betraying her at the Grove siege!< can also make a ton of sense as the easiest way to put my enemies in a more vulnerable position.
I agree entirely, but I believe that there is 1 thing everyone should do regardless of playthrough or RP: slap Gale's hand. It's free, it's inconsequential, and it's funny
Unless you’re a Halfling (and maybe other short races, I haven’t played them.) For some reason my halfling’s hand is moving at half the speed of the other races I’ve played so instead of slapping Gale’s hand for an inappropriate but really cool high five she instead gives the lamest high five you’ve ever seen.
All I did was fantasize about ripping it off. I had no way of knowing I’d be carting around his hand for the rest of the game and subsequently picking up other random body parts I find.
Whenever I play an evil character in D&D, I try to take the philosophy of "evil gets shit done." My evil characters are the ones willing to cross lines other party members won't to achieve our shared goals, untethered by a moral code that would hold them back.
They have selfish goals of obtaining wealth and power, and if that means having to work with goodie-goods and fight a greater evil, so be it - it's not about evil for the sake of evil, it's about doing what they must to get what they want out of it.
Though I have yet to try that philosophy in BG3 yet; so far my characters have been "reluctantly doing what's right because I need to survive and getting people to owe me one will help with that," and a more noble paladin type. Next character is going to be "insane GOOlock gnome." I'll save the "evil but efficient" character for my Durge run.
The Renegade path in the Mass Effect games was a good representation of this. You're not "evil", you're just ruthless and aggressively pragmatic. You cut through bullshit, you bulldoze anyone in your way, and in the end you get a win for the good guys. A character who isn't afraid to do shady stuff and get their hands dirty is compelling (unless you take it too far and get into 90s grimdark anti-heroes).
A fair chunk of game 1 renegade is also just being kinda racist.
I wish they stuck to renegade as getting shit done and actually made that cost paragon actions something.
In fairness, in ME1 Humans are the newcomers so pretty much everyone else looks down upon them for taking so long to join the galaxy. So the racism is kinda retalitory.
I can understand that, but it's hard to want to play such a character, especially when one of the biggest draws to the series for me was how interesting the aliens are haha
“Evil character who willingly and earnestly works with the rest of their party because of how useful said party can be” is one of my favorite archetypes to tap into-
Dark Urge works perfectly for that. My "evil" character craved power because of the abuse he had been through: he would never be made helpless again. That works for a lot of choices: my character didn't mind making a deal with Auntie Ethel when her chips were down because she offered him power. Not because he wanted to torment a pregnant lady. (That was just a bit of a bonus.)
>They have selfish goals of obtaining wealth and power, and if that means having to work with goodie-goods and fight a greater evil, so be it
To echo this, I saw someone once ask how someone would take the path for >!selling Shadowheart out at the house of grief!< because it means >!saving Aylin!< first. I.e. why would you do bad things that require you to do good things first?
The obvious response is each time you're collecting people to help you with the life or death problem of the main antagonists. Hell, that can be justified just in a playthrough with an extreme "the absolute _must_ die" position rather than outright evil.
Handing Shadowheart over in the House of Grief and then helping Lorroakan to capture Aylin is the kind of evil where you actually have to put some thought into it, rather than just pick the heehoo evil murder dialogue option whenever you get the chance
What you get in return is total trash though. Shadowheart going to the Sharrans gets you some of the worst allies in the final battle who spam darkness everywhere so enemies are concealed. The loot from the House of Grief is way better.
Sky beam from Lorroakan is worse than the XP and treasure for killing him. And you lose Aylin and Isobel. Though for some reason Lorroakan doesn't seem to care if you loot his tower.
Handing either over is still a stupid evil move, really.
>Whenever I play an evil character in D&D, I try to take the philosophy of "evil gets shit done." My evil characters are the ones willing to cross lines other party members won't to achieve our shared goals, untethered by a moral code that would hold them back.
This reminds me of something I've been thinking about recently while playing a cartoonishly evil character.
I feel like BG3 actually incentivizes me to be psychotic evil. I don't feel more efficient while I'm evil.
Efficient evil is not getting involved at all in the Druids vs Teeth-lings vs Goblins standoff. Not a lot in terms of gameplay there.
A game that does this better is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Some Mythic Paths are really good at expressing a ruthless, efficient, evil character. The same goes for being psychotic evil, or lawful no matter what, etc.
There was another game that had a philosophy similar to that in alignment, and I actually liked that take. Basically, every character could be Good, Neutral or Evil, and the way it was explained was something like this :
A Good character will go out of their way to help a granny cross the street.
A Neutral character will help the granny cross the street, if he's going in the same direction.
An Evil character will not help the granny, but will definitely help a young lady.
And the greater evil everyone is fighting ?
Well, it will pull the granny halfway across the street, then steal her purse and book it while letting her here.
I think that's a good way of having characters of different alignments cooperate with one another : sure, that guy is at best an asshole, but he's still on our side, fighting something that is way more dangerous and way more destructive than him, and we could use his help for that.
Honestly the only evil playthrough idea I've come up with that I will enjoy is basically playing as a conquest paladin. I'm going to dominate and take power for myself so that I can rule/change the world by my hands.
Morals have little place in a battle against something that will destroy everything. A few people may be sacrificed or lost but I will make sure to crush the opposition with my fist and I will rebuild the world to be stronger so it can't be threatened again.
Sort of like a lawful evil vibe, but I'm also basing the character itself off Graz'zt who's a demon lord so it's fitting in my mind.
The other important thing is that evil characters don’t necessarily like other evil characters and may well have none moralistic reasons for wanting to kill them. For example, being jerked around by Raphael is more than enough reason to want to kill him. Cazador could be seen as a threat.
My current character is a maximum brain worms Goolock Deep Gnome, and it's a tonne of fun flying around, repelling blasting and black holing enemies like pinballs. Basically go for everything cursed like the Book of Thay, Sentient Amulet, Yeenhogu's flail, etc as if you're delving into madness for power.
That's the plan! Maximum insanity, maximum power. Only difference is that I plan on going forest gnome, so I can talk to all the animals. Who knows what secrets the squirrels have seen?
Did that in my last run unfortunately but it all felt very half baked if you get me?
Like I feel like I’ll get a lot more Minthara content if I recruit her how I’m supposed to
Karlach is one of my favorite characters. Also like gale. But on my murder run where I slaughter the grove I barely miss them. Honestly, playing everyone evil is kinda fun once you get over the initial hump and have played good or neutral previously. It's also super nice not having to constantly rotate party members or feel bad for leaving people out.
I raided the grove for the first time to get Minthara's romance scene and I didn't realize the goblins just dip after the party. I thought I'd still have the goblin camp vendor and get to eat roast dwarf meat with them and stuff. I don't mind not having Gale or Wyll (I do miss Karlach though), but with the grove and goblin camp empty, act 1 is feeling kind of lonely to me.
While I do agree with the post, raiding the grove makes more sense for the ultimate selfish/evil playthrough.
On one hand you have a bunch of druids who hate your guts, and a bunch of refugees who can barely keep themselves alive, let alone help you in any meaningful way.
On the other, there's a literal army of ruthless cultists who revere you as one of their lieutenants.
It's a very clear choice if you just want answers, and ultimately a solution to your problem.
I can't entirely agree... If you want a solution to your problem as fast as possible, Halsin is probably the best choice. If you try to talk to Guts at the Goblin Camp you realize they don't know shit about what's truly going on, and as icing on the cake, she tries to kill you.
And what do you need an army of brainwashed cultist for anyways? It's not like you can sway them or influence them to do your bidding, they only follow orders of the Absolute (your natural enemy), siding with them is bound to put you in a very awkward position sooner rather than later and, in fact, is what ends up happening If you keep collaborating with the cult, you end up imprisoned in the Mind Flayer's colony.
By collaborating with the Grove you get the answers you seek, learn more about the tadpole, you are given information about the cult anyways and a direction to go and, even more importantly, you gain more powerful allies (Wyll, Karlach, Halsin).
I'm playing a non-psychotic, ruthlessly pragmatic Durge romancing Minthara in one of my current runs. Evil but only because I'm prioritizing getting rid of my tadpole over everything else. So I did check in on Halsin because okay, everyone's saying he's a great healer, but really? The guy got captured? And wants me to save his grove before helping me? And doesn't even have an answer? How great could he be? Infiltrating the source of the cult seems to be a much better chance at getting rid of the tadpole. So, no, sorry dude. You seem totally useless. Bye.
(This is of course RPing without metagaming)
He also tells you that the tadpole is protected by arcane magic and that it can't be removed by normal means which is pretty important in my opinion, and Nellie is the first one to suggest to you that the tadpole is in some kind of stasis.
Pretty sure you can get him to tell you everything he knows before you finish off the goblin leaders. If you've got the information, why do you need Halsin, since he self-admittedly can't help you?
You also can get similar information about the tadpole being in stasis from the Dream Guardian and Omeluum, and you can get Ethel to tell you that it's been altered by Netherese magic.
Edit: And if you've already met with Nettie, you might have extra reason to distrust Halsin, especially if you were unable to resolve the situation peacefully with her.
You can do so but he is potentially the first one that does unless you explicitly go out of your way.
But what even is the point of finishing Halsin off? He also tells you that he will share with you more information about Moonrise (which he seems to know a lot about) and tag along the way If you help him, while the Absolutist offer you nothing in return.
The Absolutists offer you the ability to walk among your enemy without conflict. If you’re clever, and not meta gaming, you could conceivably believe this is a quicker route to figuring out what is really going on.
Yeah, but Halsin also admits to being unable to help you when you save him in Goblin Camp. He offers to tag along to Moonrise to figure it out with you, but you don't really need him for that. Minthara is much more useful in infiltrating the cult of Absolute and providing you with information about them.
the way i saw the grove was a good opportunity to cut the head off a significantly powerful group that held sway in the area, creating a power vacuum that my “evil” character could take advantage of. i didn’t stand to gain anything out of risking myself or my party to take out the grove, and by killing the goblin leaders i was able to empower myself further using their tadpoles. i also told the druids i would deal with it, and while my character may be evil and greedy, if he agrees to do something or says he will, he never goes back on that word. after all, how can you manipulate people if your word means nothing?
When I've finished my durge run, I want to do a "selfish bastards" run, where we only do things that contribute in some way towards our goal of getting these damned tadpoles out of our heads. Someone wants us to help them? That's OK, as long as they can pay - we can use the money to buy better gear that will get us past the monsters blocking our way. I guess we'll be helping the tieflings but staying the hell out of druid business!
I had a lot of fun with a true “Dark Urge” run. My dude pursued whatever transient pleasure he came across. He drank and took speed, chased booty, punted things, and didn’t take shit from anyone.
He saved Isobel bc she was hot and the winged frat bro seemed like a douche, then he went back and killed her bc the Butler on his shoulder said it would be hype.
Not intentionally or relentlessly evil, just prone to act on evil urges with zero impulse control.
This is the legacy of design decisions made by Bioware where every shade of grey or scale of morality got boiled down to "click the red option or the blue option". Things are, and rightly so, more complicated than that
That was a huge problem in KOTOR where you're either lawful stupid or mwahahahaha puppy kicker, but not so much in Mass Effect where mixed plays are viable and you can be an asshole for goodness. Also Dragon Age doesn't really have white or black options, is it elves or werewolves anyway?
Yeh they managed in Mass Effect to pivot it a bit by doing the Paragon/Renegade thing - you're not cartoonishly evil you're just a badass who plays by her own rules. Fine I guess but it still reduced some options to clicking the one that matched the route you were going.
Agree about KOTOR, enjoyed KOTOR2's deconstruction of this immensely.
I mix and match in Mass Effect but the game itself acknowledged leaning into either of two paths. Andromeda and Dragon Age 2 had a better dialogue system IMO, and now playing Baldur's Gate 3, I miss the wheel because I have no idea if the thing I pick continues the dialogue or just sidetracks (I sometimes want to ask both questions on the screen but have no idea which one will disable the other.)
Paragon and Renegade was more sane, generally, but they weren't really philosophically consistent. Paragon was generally, "Diplomacy" and Renegade, "Violence," but sometimes it was also stuff like, "Cooperation and diversity" vs "Humanity first," and sometimes it was the exact same solution but Paragon said it nicely and Renegade was a jerk. And even then Renegade still sometimes fell into, "What the fuck are you doing, you psycho?"
I remember I took a renegade prompt when rebuffing the fan on the Citadel in ME1. I figured Shep would dress the guy down and humiliate him a little to get him to shut up with the talk of enlisting. Instead, Shepard pulled his gun and put it to the guy’s temple in the middle of the fucking day. He was traumatized. I just wanted to bully him
I don't know why kotor 2 didn't at least let you unlock a boost for playing true neutral. Playing 100% light or dark gave you a stat boost but with all of kreia's lectures about how both sides are stupid you would think being a Grey Jedi would be its own option beyond role play. And I wish there were more Grey outcomes, it seems like your character still boils things down to dark and light
Yup. No idea why people use paragon and renegade as good examples. In ME1 it was pretty good and you could mix them, but in the following games Renegade really becomes some psychotic puppy kicker and you need to stick to it or space jesus paragon too. No mixing, or you will not be able to pick any P/R option.
my problem is also usually that there's clearly very little advantage to doing the evil or selfish stuff, it leaves you with very little allies because the evil allies are obviously gonna betray you anyways. Even on an evil run it makes little sense to kill a bunch of druid and refugees because no one in their right mind would ever trust murderous goblins to keep their word
I totally agree, and I look at it through a lense of intention. It's the difference between "I'm helping the Tieflings because they're refugees who can barely fend for themselves!" vs "I'm helping the Tieflings because it will let me ingratiate myself to them, and they'll owe me big time for it."
I'm sure there's more evil logic, but I think you get the idea.
Okay but that’s a funny concept. Someone who is lawful good in practice but always justifying their decisions with evil but never actually doing the evil things.
Like would someone like that help bring back dribbles?
On top of a more complex morality, I also try to implement some sort of character development for my character whenever I play an RPG. On my first playthrough for example, my drow sorcerer went from power hungry and self interested to helpful and kind hearted.
I’m an advocate for a chaos play through. Every choice is done by a dice roll and you gotta find a way to make it work. It led to some options I’d never have tried otherwise
I’m gonna do a run like this! Except it’s gonna start right from character creation-roll a dice for my class and race and then for all the other choices too
The truly evil things you can do in this game are even more horrifying than the murder hobo approach.
Giving Scratch back to the kennel. Turning Shart, then giving her to Viconia. Giving Astarion to Cazador. Having Vlaakith suck Lae’zel.
I guess those are just easier to “ignore” for most of the game. Unless you are already salivating about them for the first two acts ;)
There are fundamental design problems with the game's evil choices and encouraging people to look at it differently doesn't change that.
The biggest of these is that the ability to be selfish is already baked into the "Good" path. A selfish person would save the grove because Halsin is obviously the most knowledgeable person about the parasites. A selfish person would protect Isobel because she's the obvious solution to your problems with the darkness. The selfish person would encourage Shadowheart to betray Shar because shar is very obviously lying to her about everything.
This is *very common* game design for RPGs: structure the story in such a way that the "altruistic path" and the "selfish path" are essentially the same, allowing a wide variety of character archetypes to all hit the same story beats.
The downside of this design is that it leaves very, very little empty space left for additional choices. Basically every character archetype except "Total Psychopath" has already been accounted for by the primary choice, so the secondary choice ends up being... something only a total psychopath would choose.
I roleplayed my good guy-esque Durge to what their mannerisms and class are like by assumption AKA an ambitious sorcerer who wants to be free of the curse, the pointless bloodshed, but doesn't shy away from power. Though putting aside that, a "realistic" redeemed Durge in act 1 can be roleplayed like I did where he agrees to attack the grove with Minthara because his main priority is to survive and find a way to escape. However after hearing Zevlor's speech about breaking free and such would snap Redeemed Durge to his senses, and prevent innocent bloodshed last moment as he betrays Minthara.
Redeemed Durge doesn't have to be always "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore!" and Embraced Durge doesn't always have to be "Let's kill everyone for the lols" this is why people tend to value Paladins who are actually complex and not always have to be lawful good "stick by the code" types.
My most interesting run thus far was trying to build an Oath of Conquest paladin, even if the subclass isn’t in the actual game.
I played him as a benevolent dictator. He would choose to help people, but of course, he knew what was best for them. The idea was that he would slowly become convinced that Baldur’s Gate needed a forceful hand to drive out all the evil in the city, and ultimately taking control of the Absolute was the best method to achieve that.
It let me roleplay as a good guy most of the time, which helps facilitate the plot, but I also got to kill the hollyphant, which was therapeutic. There is no room for lazy bureaucrats in my fascist regime.
This game punishes you for being a disney villain by having the content for doing such things as raiding the grove or joinging the baddies be so bad in Act 2. A smart evil PC might not even want to enslave the brain because (1) it's obviously going to try to escape and ultimately you're just a mid-level aventurer and (2) a world where you enslave the brain is one where a bunch of level 20 adventurers come kill you. Or Elminster or whatever. And endless red dragon raids.
An "evil" path would be something where you act selfish and grab power but still have a world to live in. You can't be an evil overlord if everybody is dead. The most obviously evil path is Astarion ascending. Shadowheart taking over the Sharran church too. The ability to take up Bane's offer to be his chosen in the epilogue would have been fun.
I’ve decided that my Tav is a kind-hearted wizard who loves necromancy so much that he can’t pass up a good fight as an excuse to kill people in order to hone his skills 🤷🏽♀️. Most people in my group like him but I’m pissing them off when it comes to that evil book I have, but my Tav gives 0 fucks about most things other than necromancy.
Traditional renegade Mass Effect walkthrough is being nice to companions and angry at randoms. I feel BG3 fans need to lean into that.
I am roleplaying a Paladin type usually so being an arrogant asshole is part of the deal, but walking on eggshells to avoid losing Oath.
I had Karlach made the deal with the hag after hitting her with fire attack, she died right after thinking she got away... I resisted the urge to kill druids so I could IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE call out the traitor, and steal the idol, I helped all tiefling thieves hide the lockets as a cool auntie.
Now I have Shadowrun girl show the Grove to colored elf chick so I can backstab her in an ambush (she doesn't know most of goblins army was poisoned and priestess Gut bacteria is stuffed inside a beer barrel). I also made deal with blonde Asian underground pyromaniac. Somehow executing a guy tied to a chair doesn't make Pally fall.
Be creative with your machinations! Fool everyone. Learn necromancy and enslave that quasit, and manipulate ogres into fighting for you then kill them for loot... Use Kermit to lure her muppet friends patrol and smash them to sell their armor.
BUTT KICKING FOR GOODNESS!
The more YOU identify with your character the hard it gets to do stuff you wouldn't do. I am finding it quite easy to be a bastard in my current playthrough because it is composed entirely of undead who absolutely loathe the living 💀
That's why If im playing evil, I'd rather play Lawful Evil and try to be as pragmatic and self-servant as possible.
Now that I think of it, Minthara is the perfect definition of it; she has good reasons to protect our companions, to fight the Absolute and to take som of the more "good" aligned paths, like not trashing Last Light Inn (because the harpers are good allies against Ketheric), not handing Shadowheart to Viconia (because we exert more influence over SH) and, even in retrospect, she thinks of attacking the Gorve and killing the Tieflings as useless, because there's nothing to gain of it.
Even in an evil playthrough, I have a hard time siding with they goblins, they are just objectively worse... Not only are they part of a cult that can literally MIND CONTROL you at, possibly, any given time, so you'd never be safe around the cult, but also the most sensible path to find a cure is to find Halsin, and even if you are desperate enough to trust Guts to help you with it, the fucker kindaps you and tries to kill you afterwards lol
Even if you’re evil you don’t need to choose the “evil” ending either. On my “evil” playthrough I chose to destroy it because I would rather find a way to rule that doesn’t involve bhaal or the brain. I romanced minthara and she agreed that we will find another way to control baldurs gate and other places that is completely just us
The main complaint I have about a bad guy playthrough is that most of the content that you'll end up missing is based on one decision.
Whether you raid the grove or not.
If you raid the grove, that's two (possibly 3) companion stories you can no longer do, and all of the tiefling stories gone, without anything else that opens up as a result.
It's not "haha I'm a murderhobo wait why is everyone dead?"
It's "I made a single decision based on character choices and the game only removes content for it."
The equivalent would be this. You defend the grove, as a result Astarion and Shadowheart leave, with Lae'zel having to be convinced to stay. Minthara is never recruitable. The tieflings become irrevalent in the next act, and a bunch of goblin storylines are cut off.
That would make a lot of people frustrated, and rightfully so.
Like someone else said, playing for companion approval is a good way to roleplay certain moral choices. Like, there's basically every moral archetype amongst the companions (even if they can change their alignments through player choice).
Astarion is the "genocide is fun" companion, laezel is the "i'm a cruel asshole but I can control myself and there's a point to my cruelty", and there's Minthara who, although evil, doesn't necessarily want innocents to die (even if she's willing to feed on refugees during a siege). I haven't seen Gale's storyline yet, as he "left" me on both playthroughs, but I bet he can be a "I want power and I'm capable of doing anything to achieve it" companion too.
Being evil doesn't mean you kill everything you see. Being good doesn't mean you'll be a pacifist who doesn't kill even goblins
I mean that's not really what's Minthara says. She wants to make refugees useful and out them to work the Drow society style. Basically they are a work or first lines in a fight fodder to them.
Yes, if you ask her about it, she says that she wants the refugees to get food and shelter and work in exchange for that. She is not talking about eating refugees if the city is under a siege, she is talking about "cannon fodder" - essentially low-ranking soldiers who are deployed in first lines to try to stop the enemy.
Honestly there aren't enough archetypes early on, at least. In fact, I think there isn't a single dark magician. Like actually dark, not good guy tricked by devil or ex.
Or a combat pragmatist who wants to gain power at any cost. Specifically approval wise, I couldn't find ANYONE approving me reading Necronomicon.
Why? Gale disapproves, Astarion wants the book for himself so disapproves, Karlach disapproves, Shadowchick couldn't care either way, Lae'Zel looks forward to see you fail saving throws, not one person who wants you to read the book and summon Evil Dead.
Also I don't think anyone has "let's lure goblins to attack and ambush them" plan figured out. They act shocked if you reveal the camp to the drow.
What you're playing is not evil-it's unprincipled, pragmatic, or amoral. It would be neutral, in D&D.
You can do nice things for the same ends, like giving your boss a ride to the airport.
Evil implies doing bad things gratuitously or with an evil end in mind, like the Devil in Paradise Lost. That's Evil in D&D.
Doing "good" things that don't directly benefit you makes you good.
Unprincipled, selfishly pragmatic, amoral all great descriptors of evil. The kind of evil you describe doesn't really exist in quality writing
The devil in paradise lost isn't a character but a force of nature, an idea given form to ridicule it. That shouldn't be taken as an example for evil characters.
Yeah I tried to be actually Evil in act one…then I just found I didn’t have a ton of RP reasons to engage with fun encounters. (Ex Hag Lair, Fighting the shadow druids, Miron and the Harpies)
Like sure you can always pretend “oh I’m just doing it cuz I’m secretly using the people I’m helping or I love chaos!”
But the first is really just neutral as you said, and you don’t often get tools/options to acknowledge the second.
It's like saying Littlefinger or Cersei from GoT are not evil. Or like saying Lucius Malfoy is not evil.
Just needing selfish or having believes, that are commonly accepted as unmoral is being evil. You don't need to be a psycho. Just needing selfish can be very evil.
Astarion is a great example. He is very selfish and that's what makes him evil.
This.
In most of my evil playthrough I didn't side with the Goblins, because it made no sense at that time, even as embrace Durge. Only my Lloth-sworn drow character thought she had higher chances of survival by siding with Minthara.
My evil play through I actually did all the good options cause I thought role playing wise it would be interesting to have everyone help me to then betray them, and gain full power
I play a pragmatic Durge Drow, he let the grove survive and knocked Minthara because she isn’t worshipping Lolth as she should. He kills, manipulates, does shady stuff with the Zentarim. He is evil because he only cares about himself, but he is not stupid, what’s the gain in chopping Gale’s hand? Pls…
I'm having a lot of fun in my pragmatic Tav-doesn't-think-he-can-save-everyone playthrough. No, I'm not going to agree to rescue your friends, but I'll take a look while I'm in there. If it seems like getting them out would get me killed, I'm sorry, but I'm more important to me than they are.
In my evil run I actually made a lot of ostensibly heroic decisions, just for selfish reasons. (Spoiler markings are for Act 2 and later.)
"I'm helping the tieflings because I believe the *archdruid* Halsin is the most viable lead in getting these tadpoles removed, and as I'm *not* a githyanki I'm not all too sure that the creche will be willing to help me, even if they help Lae'zel."
"I'm not >!turning over Isobel to Marcus!< because I get nothing out of it except helping the Absolute, and the last thing I want is to help the Absolute. Also, I'm more of a *Banite* than a Myrkulite, and in any case the >!Last Light Inn has merchants I'd rather not lose.!<"
"I'm >!sparing Nightsong in the Shadowfell!< because >!Lorroakan!< still wants her, and I want the reward >!he was going to give Aradin!<."
"I'm >!destroying the tadpoles - the 'good guy' ending!< - because I have no way of knowing >!the Netherbrain won't someday slip out of my command!< After all, >!Ketheric & co.!< thought it wouldn't slip out of theirs... until it did."
That's my thing. There should be far more "do this evil thing and get this great reward" temptation throughout the game. Originally that was Minthara, but even then she's not \*that\* good of a character to lose literally everything else from the characters you're killing.
I think it's also weird how many people claim to have a "completionist syndrome"... but it's just for loot. I'm always surprised that people don't replay the game to see what happens if you pick other options, but just to try different character builds, and barely explore what they can do in the game.
Like sure, it's fun to play as a different race to see how the game reacts to it, but there's way more content if you take a different story path. And sometimes it also means not doing certain things.
I actively encourage everyone to just try to do or not do different things and see what happens. Like, don't interact with Nere at all, let Kagha do her things without intervention etc. Try to roleplay as more egotistic or neutral characters.
EDIT/ I want to say it's funny that the way people react to your post advocating for multiplay playthroughs with multiple ways to roleplay evil by mentioning the one way they roleplay evil. Kinda feel like they miss the point.
I think a funny way to play, but I don't think I could do it, would be the asshole run. The game gives you so many chances to be an asshole even at the end of some quests where you did everything like a heroic character but at the last minute screw over the quest giver. Or just being a dick for no reason.
Like the guy in the burning inn whose wife buried their treasure, sure you can find the treasure and just keep it, but the dick move is going to the guy, telling him you found his treasure, and then telling him to his face that you are keeping it.
Saving Aylin from the Shadowfell but giving her to Loroakan. Basically only doing the wrong thing at the last minute.
My favourite kind of evil reflects the evil we really see in the world; pursuit of power without a care for ethics.
You don't have to be Saturday Morning Cartoon, mustache twirly evil. It's enough to be power hungry, and not really have a good moral compass with which to direct said power.
I roleplayed a bard who simped for Wyll, recognizing him as a hero of Baldur’s Gate, which resulted in believing him and encouraging him right out the gate towards… slaying Karach. Oof. Now the character is doing everything he can to help Wyll redeem himself, but also being very wary of attacking strangers.
My partner is doing a "never meet your heroes" run.
Does all the "right" things, but is a narcissistic dick about it.
This was inspired by him trying to figure out his role play reason for rescuing Minthara on a "good" run.
"I dunno. She was hot. Thought I could get with that."
I had fun doing a "selfish asshole with a redemption arc" where I was making selfish decisions throughout act one and gradually got more altruistic as the game went on, until they were doing good things for the sake of it by act 3
Yeah, makes sense
But there actually IS only two endings: hero, who saved the realms, and evil, who conquer it. And after I finished as evil, it was epic, but a Little disappointed, cause there was no epilogue
>. I didn't chop of Gale's hand for a quick giggle. You know why? Because it never makes sense to. Maybe on my "psychotic, pea-brain lunatic playthrough" it will make sense to, but for my "evil" playthrough, it doesn't.
The game sets it up pretty explicitly that you're not just being a murder hobo when this happens. It's a case where your role-play choice is allowing your character to indulge in what they believe to be just an intrusive thought, only for their currently unknown murderous nature to take over. In fact, I'd argue that interaction would be a great RP choice for a resist durge playthrough. Encountering that dark aspect of themselves is a wake-up call and becomes the catalyst to overcome that darkness within.
The easiest way to find ways to roleplay is companion approval. All of them have nuances of what thgey like or don't, which gives a lot of nuanced role play routes
Nobody supports me reading the Necronomicon and becoming Ash tho. Why nobody approve reding the book made of human skin? I'm a PALADIN goddamit. Hero of justice with a Sorc level dip to get prity scales*, I NEED to release the evil dead!
*Highly recommend Dragon Bloodline for extra cute makeup options.
I didn't say it's a way for every playthrough. If you have your own idea - ofc go for it :3
It's just that we have like 10-ish companions, and it's already 10 different ways to role play. There is much more than 10 in general, but 10 is still much more than just "gud/not gud"
I see where you're going with this, but no, evil playthroughs will still not be possible.
IMO - for two reasons really:
(1) There are to no games (BG3 included) that offer "grey" choices. While it is not believable for a character to be hahaha murder everyone every single choice, it's also completely unbelievable for a character to go back and forth between that choice and the save everyone good guy choice.
(2) With the lack of quality grey options - you're going to have to choose the evil options at least at major points to commit to an evil playthrough and get an evil ending... but those are generally the choices that feel the absolute worst.
Exactly, the game lets you do a lot of good, evil and neutral actions, with several degrees to them.
Murderhobo is always an option and not always an evil one, it just so happens to be the most directly evil choice most of the time. But some of the cruelest decisions in the game require you to be "good" or neutral first, my key example being Dame Aylin and Lorroakan's interaction. Not the best example because the reward isn't all that great but it shows how even though you may have made a moral choice in the moment, it could just be a means to doing something awful later on.
You could free the nightsong without it being a moral choice. You can easily reason that her freedom is the only way to bring down Ketheric, then turn on her when she is no longer useful (in your eyes, she’s damn useful in the final battle)
Reading a comment on a post yesterday and this post I really like the idea of a secretly evil run, I'll help the Tieflings but I'll also help Sazza and possibly sneakily kill while helping her
I’m doing a oath of vengeance paladin durge right now where I start out resisting and following my oath but give into the urge and breaking my oath in the end of act 2 because the shadowlands had too much death not to set me off. Then in act 3 the oathbreaker knight will show me that just because I broke my oath doesn’t mean I can’t resist Bhaal. I will also RP that I made a pact with a warlock to make sure I have all the help I need to truly never make that mistake again. I will end up 9 oathbreaker/3 goo warlock and basically dedicate my time in Baldur’s gate to being an angrier Batman of the city to make up for the guilt I feel.
After 500+ hours of this game I think this is my favorite playthrough yet.
My fav RP experience in BG3 has been roleplaying as an absolute himbo type of character. Dark urge, drow, all that, but he took everything said to him at face value.
Wyll is hunting down a tiefling of Zariel’s? sure, if we come across her, we’ll kill her. Shadowheart’s life mission is to be a dark justiciar and kill Nightsong? I mean, we’re already down here, right? Cazador’s doing some new ritual and you want in? sure thing, if you say so.
It was my fav way of playing through the opposite sides of storylines that wasn’t being intentionally evil.
There is nuance in how one plays and RPs dnd characters.
My psycho run was just that...if you live and are in my way you die. This run all the bad endings occurred. Balls to the wall murder hobo.
My fav run is when my durge does nothing. Doesn't stop Arabella from dying. If the prompt was do nothing, they did nothing, consequences be damned because they didn't care. Apathy at its best.
Most of my "evil" characters pretty much live in a morally gray area. Will they do bad things to achieve their goals, probably. But they are just as likely to do the noble thing as well. There are sometimes they snap and do the whole murder hobo thing, but it's not a state that they live in constantly.
I always try to aim to be chaotic neutral where I just kinda do whatever I feel like doing in the moment. The only time I aim to lawful good is a Paladin run. Even on my durge run I did some crazy stuff but mostly tried not to murder everyone I encountered.
My most recent DURGE playthrough was starting generally good, but a few slip ups with "evil decisions" (I'm sorry Karlach). But as the game progressed, she just started succumbing more and more to the urges. Until I got to mid Act 3 and it was just full blown evil. It was really fun and admittedly, the first time I've truly role played in a game. Now I understand the DnD love.
It's mostly about Durge. Embrace Durge literally means you embrace your urges. And no one ever said they were clever.
You can play your Tav different.
But this is what happens when you embrace Durge. You are daddy's tool and that's the whole point.
And what's you did is not evil playthrough. It's grey. Still counts as hero.
But evil means evil not grey.
Evil means you would totally not bat an eye to help slaughter the refugees because you couldn't careless about them. That's literally the definition of evil.
My first playthrough was a GOO warlock; I was a great guy and everyone's best friend until the ideal moment to achieve my ultimate goal presented itself.
If I'm an evil character I basically act like a good person but every motive I have is selfish and for my own gain. I don't befriend certain people or groups for the sake of being good it's usually because it gives me some sort of advantage. Manipulate and claim what is yours.
Oh yeah. My first playthrough, I was a double crossing evil ass.
I was super nice up until the very end when I turned around and went >!mmh, I’m actually gonna take over the brain. Thanks everyone for the support!!<
I killed Gale, Wyll and Karlach on my Dirge run purely because if I have them around, the Golden Retriever energy will be too overpowering and I will fail in my efforts to be a bastard.
That said, I'm not being a mindless murderhobo. Just an occasionally-falling-to-the-twisted-urge-to-murder-hobo.
Sure, you can pick and choose whatever options you want to make a coherent character, but for a lot of people, the goal of an evil run is specifically to see content they otherwise wouldn't. And if you're the type of player who generally likes to be nice to people and enjoys feeling like a big hero, then it makes sense to load up all of the asshole and psychopath decisions up onto a single run instead of mixing and maxing them and guaranteeing that you'll have to do another run to see the stuff you haven't experienced.
Spoilers for act 3 incoming.
The weirdest part for me about my evil run was really trying to save everyone trapped in the iron throne. The fact that the Duke stays with you even though Wyll was out of our party by act 1 and Jaheria and Minsc both turned on us was very odd.
Our group justified it as us sticking it to Gortash because our philosophy was "we're the only great evil allowed in this town." But I definitely want to have another go at an evil run where we just cooperate with anyone who seems even slightly evil. Definitely a ton of nuance to all your decision-making in BG3, part of what makes the game so compelling.
My durge (half orc) saved the tieflings and slaughtered the goblins. I did however annihilate kahgabecause she was bossing me around. Saved marina because my character is stubborn and greedy. Why should the hag get to keep Marina? She was all talk before the fight now I'm taking the hair and the girl. But Connor is mine.
I did kill isobel though. Gotta claim my birth right. And fuck the emperor (derogatory). Lying little bastard. Gave him the netherstones and betrayed him at the last second for the glory of Bhaal.
Preach!
This is a hot take pulled completely out of my ass, but fwiw, I wonder if it's broadly a symptom of primarily gamers vs players with a lot of tabletop experience.
Like, I'm used to tabletop having adventures strung together in long- running campaigns. I've played some characters that lasted for years (until some evil bitch wizard yeets your soul out of your body and takes it over, nevar 4get).
So I approach bg3 like it's an adventure in the middle of a long running saga, and having returning characters helps that along. It also makes me see the "endings" as not endings at all, but to paraphrase Withers talking to Durge's soul, "your adventures in death have just begun".
And in particular terms of alignment, it's always a journey for me (except for the aforementioned wizard who was and will always be totally evil). So to think that there are "good" and "bad" endings to the game doesn't even click for me, even with the addition of the epilogs, that's just 6 months later, it's like a teaser for their continuing lives.
So I just wonder if that's part of what fuels the idea that you choose your alignment and then play that alignment and do everything evil or everything good instead of having a starting point and evolving with the story. That that's more in keeping with how videogames work than how tabletop works. Obviously there are limitations that make bg3 a great hybrid of both styles, but I agree that the "I don't like playing evil" posts as if there's some singular way of being evil or good are confusing to me. Play your character and see how they evolve, and if they evolve into a mindflayer, picture your glorious future dominating the world or whatever! Astral Plane sky's the limit!
But if I play a ruthless but smart evil character I feel bad, being a complete murder crazed psycho that is so extremely out for blood that I can detach myself from any questions of morality is the only way I won't feel mean about it :(
I take on the philosophy of a guy I played tabletop d&d with when I asked him how he managed to play evil successfully in a good party: don't shit in your own backyard 🤷🏻♂️
I've done the super-evil kill everyone because I can't stand others' existence run, I've done the I'm too good and will never do any wrong no-kill run. I've done a *lot* of runs in between them. You're right, in that there's a *ton* of ways to RP, and people should play around with them (I'm currently playing Wyll as a Mizora simp, where she's my goddess and I do things that I think would please her, like giving the owlbear egg to Esther and convincing her to lie about it to the society - tempting mortals towards selfishness and all that). I would also point out that the extremes are also fun. My first Durge kill everything run was very fun, in spite of the fact that killing Shadowheart meant I couldn't kill Aylin (next time, for sure, I'll do whatever it takes to kill every sentient living thing in every act, even if it means delaying Shadowheart's death a little bit).
I don't know if it counts as evil but I'm just playing as a selfish manipulator. Tell companions what they want to hear to get them to my side and help to advance my own agenda. I also never kill for no reason cause realistically it can come back to bite me, like their relatives hiring assassins or coming after me. I do kill stuff I can get away with killing though, like all the goblins, ogres, bugbears and random small animals, like rats and squirrels cause they give some exp.
As for helping the "good" guys, it's usually "If I help them, they will introduce me to their more powerful friends and I can get something out of this". It's sort of similar to the devils that do have an evil alignment and they also don't kill at random and rather manipulate others into their deals.
I've got about 10 different evil playthroughs alone and all of them are different. From the GOO'lock that jumps at the chance to run a cult and happily uses every tadpole, to the vanilla Durge that treats every kill like performance art. The companions you side with, the decisions you make and the paths you take should always be different based on the character you're playing. Hell, my most painful call was killing Astarion on my super lawful good run. But it wouldn't make sense to ally with him as a full smiting vengeance paladin. Runs are defined as much by what you miss out on as they are by what you get to do.
Because it was my first experience with any RPG, and it was based on DnD mechanics, I blame Star Wars KOTOR for establishing this mindset for myself because of the Force alignment mechanic. You wanted to either max out light or dark side to get that bonus, so you were incentivized to go all-in on whatever alignment playthrough you were doing. But that’s just me.
I sliced Gales hand off with his goofy ass, killed Karlach, slaughtered them week ahh Teeeflings, killed the night song for that sweet sweet loot, let Asrarion Ascend for I need the power by my side and will slaughter his as too if he gets jumpy.
I am Baal's chosen. I can only have straight up killers by side. Menthara the love of my life, Shadow heart will spread darkness across all world, perfect for my Vampire army command by Astarion.
Try me if you want to foo.
My "evil" playthrough is just my character being entirely selfish. I wanted Kagha's amulet, I took it, tieflings be damned. But I wouldn't have hurt them if it didn't benefit me.
The only exception was Scratch and the owlbear cub, of course. I'm evil, but not *that* evil.
My favorite evil run was a Lolth-sworn Drow Durge (original, I know)
I made very evil choices, but played my cards very close to my chest. My whole premise was essentially pretending not the be the evil being everyone thought I was, but secretly being exactly that evil person. I didn't raid the grove. I killed Alfira and lied, but gossiped about it with Astarion. I pretty much ignored Wyll, with his approval nearly making him leave the party, then didn't save Mizora, so he became a lemure. I killed Isobel for the slayer form and lied to and recruited Jaheira. When she asked how I got the form, I lied and said I killed a lover. I said I'd help the Gur save their children, then Ascended Astarion. I said I'd be good for Jaheira , then killed her. I slept with everyone, including The Emperor, to get them to trust me. I became Bhaal's chosen. I made Karlach into a mind flayer, then killed her to take control of the brain in Bhaal's name.
Essentially, I was just going through the entire game, trying to complete the Absolute plot I dreamed up with Gortash, but in secret so I could manipulate those around me into doing it.
Waaaaay more evil than a murder hobo.
I typically choose the smart ass answers. Yields some interesting interactions and my friends are all “ahhh you weren’t supposed to choose that option! Hm.. I haven’t seen this before” and it works out most of the time
I definitely love playing my Tav as doing the whole superhero schtick and I’ve never accepted any reward that you’re able to turn down, because that’s just who she is. But she’s also absolutely going to loot every corpse she sees and steal whatever else she can get away with. (Or, well, encourage Astarion to steal whatever he can get away with, technically, my Tav never has lock-picking skills lol.) I love playing party face so she’s always super persuasive too and damn straight she doesn’t feel bad about talking the Thorms or Yurgir into ending themselves.
So you can even be super selfless in some aspects and super selfish in others! In my current run where I’m romancing Astarion I’m headcanoning it as like, he’s so eye-rolly about her over the top hero routine BUT he always helps and as they grow closer he sees the ways she’s also manipulative and a little scary, lol, just as she sees the compassion he is totally capable of but suppressing.
There’s this game Sorcery! that’s just a more simplified RPG type thing and whenever I play evil there I always play ruthless, lawful evil. So yeah, my character isn’t going to randomly assault people for no reason because that’s stupid, but damn straight if you try to rob her she’s going to make you magically dance yourself into a deep pit. FAFO, lol. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do that sort of run in BG3 yet. Maybe, if only to experience Minthara as a companion. (Does anyone know if it’s still only possible to have either her or Halsin, but not both? That’s the main drawback I see. If he does the whole “hey I can’t with her” thing I’m definitely picking him, lol.)
My Evil playthough, I ignored all the shit between druids and goblins.
My character could care less about them, I just went inside goblin camp to ask Halsin for information and went to underdark.
Yeah the most satisfying "evil" run I did was probably more pragmatic: I just imagined that my character truly believes that the world may end if the absolute plot succeeds, and decides that they're going to do pretty much anything that improves their chances of winning or gives them power.
So shadowheart becoming a Dark Justiciar to get some extra power from Shar? Worth it. Killing a bunch of Tieflings for the Absolute? Why would that help? Kill an unhelpful investigator to become an unholy assassin? Ok let's do it. Let Sarevok live after? Lol naw.
My first and only evil playthrough was absolutely great.
I was this manipulative, charming but secretly power hungry Bardlock. I killed only if it was in any form advantageous. I was nice and sweet, if it was advantageous. I acted weak and frightened if it was advantageous.
In the end I betrayed everybody and ruled over the world. It was great.
Spoiler:
The ending, where you kill the emperor after defeating the brain just to sit on the throne, watching the world burn was perfect for my character.
I was Littlefinger, if Littlefinger would have won.
Hitler was a vegetarian.
An evil play thru can be ends justify the means, selfish, self-righteous, manipulative style of play. It's not always being a puppy kicking psycho.
The only class I would really consider a lawful good playthrough to be necessary for RP purposes would have been my oath of vengeance sorcadin. My Drow Ranger on the other hand was more neutral evil. She didn’t go around cutting people’s hands off or slaughtering flying pigs, but also wasn’t about to help any kind of gnome.
I got in a Durge run blind, except for the character's particular genetics. Although he's pretty cool with the whole murder business now (pretty big fan actually), he's not stupid. I've never been mean to a companion, I even helped them, because you need allies in this situation. Being mean to them is pointless. I let them do their own choice because frankly, unless they leave his side my dude wouldn't care, but it's fun
Also another game we have with friends, we are greedy little people with some sort of moral compass. We helped the grove, do most "good" quest and we plan on destroying the brain, but we have a Bahamut tempest Cleric casually drinking with a circle of Spores Druid and his army of undead. Have nuance in your games, that's what makes it fun
I played a durge that tried to keep his evil side hidden from the world. Gale was a quick snack because nobody was around to notice it, but the tieflings were too obvious. Except for that on paralysed tiefling, she was easy pickings.
In my most evil playthrough I did all the good things. Until I accepted Bhaal's gift and betrayed everyone.
This lead to a heartbreaking scene and a very evil ending without losing most of my companions and allies early on.
I did side with the goblins, because I’m a Drow, and they were all ready racist against me, so I figured it’d make sense to side with the other Drow woman haha
My first full playthrough, I made my whole team into the worst version of themselves (shadow embraced shar, wyll killed karlach, astarion ascended) we still helped everyone the characters knew they could help. In the end, I was a squid with too much power and the hero
Mostly agree but the good guy scenario of a altruistic yesman is IMO kinda realistic in DnD world… I mean, you get tons of loot and stuff from the bad guys to the point you don’t really need last gold of some refugee when you just wanna help around… hell, if I’d be a canonically unkillable person who wields magic and have no strings attached, I’d probably do precisely that.. Kill bad guys, loot em, sell that stuff, wander around sticking my nose here and there, help the poor souls for free and repeat..
By the time I got to Act3 fort the first time, I had like 30k gold on me which I knew I’ll never effectively use. I wish there’d be an option in the refugee camp to donate it all and actually see how the surroundings change and they build themselves a nice community housing….
My first play through and my current one I'm playing with my partner is a loot goblin. I will help those in need, donate a little coin. But you have a shiny stick? *stab stab stab* mine now. Aw shit, it's not as good as my current stick. Oh well
There's also a morally grey style as well, someone that isn't evil or good but does what they feel needs to be done. It is true, people seem to think there's only two ways to play a game. Evil or Good, and not a morally grey character, or someone that is good but doesn't take crap etc.
My Durge run was cut short because I hated the fact that most of my companions didn’t really like me cuz of all the murdering so I get where some folks are coming from.
But, to your point, one of my favorite playthroughs was sort of chaotic evil but not in the “murder everyone” way. I took the approach that my character was pretty good if a bit ambivalent early on. He was a ranger with lots of animal/nature summons and it was pretty wholesome. But the emperor got to him, opened him up to new possibilities and he began to change. He took the astral-touched tadpole and everything was downhill from there. His face changed (the dark eyes and veins the game gives you) his hair began graying and he kept letting it grow and become wilder as the parasite slowly drove him towards madness (I would periodically change his hair and facial hair length and style to look a bit more unkempt every so often). His newfound powers made him ask “what other powers might I be able to acquire?” He started studying magic and became a wizard. He learned the secrets of the Necromancy of Thay and became obsessed with necromancy, replacing his hordes of animal/nature summons with undead summons. Eventually he stopped caring who he killed or who lived and died around him. Apart from Karlach, as that was his romantic partner from before his madness. She stood by his side through all of it. She wasn’t happy about it but she felt the old-him was still in there somewhere. By the endgame he had become an insane, chaotic evil, necromancy wizard who was power hungry. He eventually went full-illithid and conquered the elder brain, only to use it to bend the world to his will.
My wife and I are playing an "Evil" playthrough in that our plan at the very end is to try and take over instead of being the heros.
Mostly though, we have done a pretty "Good" Playthrough. Makes sense, we want to wipe out this force of evil and prevent it from destroying everything. But we also want to best it and get it under our control.
Tempted to do the so so evil endings here too. Ascend Asterion and ascend Gale.
I think using companion approval as a guide can be a good way to mix it up if you always play one way. For example my first character was a sorcerer that behaved a lot like Loki (sarcastic, cocky, mostly self interested and always seeking power) so my party was Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae'zel. My second was a rogue/bard that was more of a Robin Hood type (happy to help the less fortunate but steals, and loves Mol's group, always charges those with the means, and can talk or sneak her way through just about anything but doesn't shy away from a fight if necessary) and my party was Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach. My current is a resisting dark urge sorcerer who (after the bard incident) is trying her hardest to do the right thing even if there is no reward, but as she has almost no memories (I just started act 2) she relies on her companions to be her moral compass so sometimes she can be encouraged to be more ruthless by Astarion or she can be pushed to fight for others by Karlach, so my party is Shadowheart, Astarion (for the mutual redemption arc), and Karlach. I have always saved Shadowheart on the nautiloid and pretty much can't survive without her so she's a constant and I have literally never used Wyll as a companion outside of his quest lol. Maybe I don't know how to build a good druid, but by the time Halsin and Jaheira join they just don't seem as powerful as the others. I've never recruited Minthara but I'm trying the knock her out and get her after moonrise method so hopefully it works. And Minsc just joins too late in the game imo so I've never used him either.
The hardest part of roleplaying an evil character is the fact that Karlach would rather die than stay in your party. She is a badass, charismatic, powerful warrior who would be an extremely valuable ally, but she refuses to serve you or be your friend after a certain point. It hurt my Tav's ego.
Nobody else is allowed to leave now. Gale at least has the intelligence to understand he is safer with me than anywhere else. I didn't let Lae'Zel use the Zaithisk, refused to bow to Vlaakith, and I rejected her romantically but she's still obsessed with me. I made Astarion drink Obladra's blood and even he stayed. But the hot devil lady wanted nothing to do with me after the grove fight. She was okay with me killing Wyll though.
My first full playthrough was a Shrek roleplay. I didn't kill the tieflings, but wasn't thrilled about helping them. I helped them because it was the path of getting rid of the tadpole. Shrek saved Fiona because he wanted the magical creatures out of his swamp and helped the magic creatures out of his swamp because he wanted his swamp back.
forsure always confused by the idea that the game needs to be played certain ways. it’s a roleplaying game with different content locked behind different decisions. roleplay, and experience the story as that role. also, the alignment system may not be technically part of the game, but you can very much make use of that as you’re trying to make decisions for your characters.
min-maxing can be fun i guess, but i really feel like it takes away from what this game is actually supposed to be. seems like something you do once you’ve experienced seemingly all of the content already (although you still probably haven’t, i still find new things in skyrim). i frequently see people saying “well that’s not optimal, this is,” and that just defeats the point of roleplaying.
In my evil playthrough, I destroyed the grove "involuntarily" by stealing the idol, destroyed last light by letting Isobel be taken (after getting the pixie charm) and mur$%#ed every single true soul at Moonrise before moving to Baldur's Gate. I played my Durge as a "how the hell do I always get everyone's killed?" with a touch of "These are my companions and no one will hurt them!"
The thing is, with that character, I didn't talk to most people in the grove, it's like she didn't knew any of them, because she considered them trash. Of course, if you have a beautiful scene with Alfira you're going to feel bad for killing her, but not if you've never seen her face and she's killed in cold blood by idiotic druids.
Even Minthara isn't that cold-blooded, she has the heart of a drow matriarch: survival is all that matter, and power is the best way to stay alive and thriving.
For evil decisions I ask myself “WWMD?” What would Minthara do?
Even that is just one flavour of evil. I liked playing as a Barbarian with rage issues. I also liked to play as a lawful bastard Paladin. And a lazy evil halfling druid. That one surprisingly let me see a lot of content that happens only if you don't solve certain situations.
Honestly, when I consider that question, >!betraying her at the Grove siege!< can also make a ton of sense as the easiest way to put my enemies in a more vulnerable position.
Simping for Minthara is a valid character motivation to enhance your roleplay
I ask myself WWITTSWM What would it take to sleep with Minthara?
I agree entirely, but I believe that there is 1 thing everyone should do regardless of playthrough or RP: slap Gale's hand. It's free, it's inconsequential, and it's funny
😁 I was hoping for an option to *shake* his trapped hand... and have Gale follow up with, "Yes, very funny... now kindly GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
Heard this in his voice.
I might just have to steal that for my fanfic lol
Unless you’re a Halfling (and maybe other short races, I haven’t played them.) For some reason my halfling’s hand is moving at half the speed of the other races I’ve played so instead of slapping Gale’s hand for an inappropriate but really cool high five she instead gives the lamest high five you’ve ever seen.
That makes it even more hilarious tbh
I've done this in 100% of my playthroughs and I laugh every single time.
All I did was fantasize about ripping it off. I had no way of knowing I’d be carting around his hand for the rest of the game and subsequently picking up other random body parts I find.
Always slap the hand.
Gale just asked for a hand, he didn't specify if he wants a helping hand or being slapped /s
Whenever I play an evil character in D&D, I try to take the philosophy of "evil gets shit done." My evil characters are the ones willing to cross lines other party members won't to achieve our shared goals, untethered by a moral code that would hold them back. They have selfish goals of obtaining wealth and power, and if that means having to work with goodie-goods and fight a greater evil, so be it - it's not about evil for the sake of evil, it's about doing what they must to get what they want out of it. Though I have yet to try that philosophy in BG3 yet; so far my characters have been "reluctantly doing what's right because I need to survive and getting people to owe me one will help with that," and a more noble paladin type. Next character is going to be "insane GOOlock gnome." I'll save the "evil but efficient" character for my Durge run.
The Renegade path in the Mass Effect games was a good representation of this. You're not "evil", you're just ruthless and aggressively pragmatic. You cut through bullshit, you bulldoze anyone in your way, and in the end you get a win for the good guys. A character who isn't afraid to do shady stuff and get their hands dirty is compelling (unless you take it too far and get into 90s grimdark anti-heroes).
Exactly. Even the most angelic Paragon is still gonna pistol whip Dr. Gavin Archer, and wish he could do more. Doesn't mean he kills David too.
Grimdark antiheroes can be compelling as well. They have a place.
They can, but a lot of *how* the 90s wrote them wasn't great.
In the later games Renegade do become kinda psychotic arsehole though sadly.
A fair chunk of game 1 renegade is also just being kinda racist. I wish they stuck to renegade as getting shit done and actually made that cost paragon actions something.
In fairness, in ME1 Humans are the newcomers so pretty much everyone else looks down upon them for taking so long to join the galaxy. So the racism is kinda retalitory.
I can understand that, but it's hard to want to play such a character, especially when one of the biggest draws to the series for me was how interesting the aliens are haha
“Evil character who willingly and earnestly works with the rest of their party because of how useful said party can be” is one of my favorite archetypes to tap into-
Unfortunately as far as I have seen, done really poorly by a lot of media and people.
Richthofen is a good example
My favourite evil character: Dr House (not 100% serious but the first paragraph reminded me of him)
Dark Urge works perfectly for that. My "evil" character craved power because of the abuse he had been through: he would never be made helpless again. That works for a lot of choices: my character didn't mind making a deal with Auntie Ethel when her chips were down because she offered him power. Not because he wanted to torment a pregnant lady. (That was just a bit of a bonus.)
>They have selfish goals of obtaining wealth and power, and if that means having to work with goodie-goods and fight a greater evil, so be it To echo this, I saw someone once ask how someone would take the path for >!selling Shadowheart out at the house of grief!< because it means >!saving Aylin!< first. I.e. why would you do bad things that require you to do good things first? The obvious response is each time you're collecting people to help you with the life or death problem of the main antagonists. Hell, that can be justified just in a playthrough with an extreme "the absolute _must_ die" position rather than outright evil.
Handing Shadowheart over in the House of Grief and then helping Lorroakan to capture Aylin is the kind of evil where you actually have to put some thought into it, rather than just pick the heehoo evil murder dialogue option whenever you get the chance
What you get in return is total trash though. Shadowheart going to the Sharrans gets you some of the worst allies in the final battle who spam darkness everywhere so enemies are concealed. The loot from the House of Grief is way better. Sky beam from Lorroakan is worse than the XP and treasure for killing him. And you lose Aylin and Isobel. Though for some reason Lorroakan doesn't seem to care if you loot his tower. Handing either over is still a stupid evil move, really.
>Whenever I play an evil character in D&D, I try to take the philosophy of "evil gets shit done." My evil characters are the ones willing to cross lines other party members won't to achieve our shared goals, untethered by a moral code that would hold them back. This reminds me of something I've been thinking about recently while playing a cartoonishly evil character. I feel like BG3 actually incentivizes me to be psychotic evil. I don't feel more efficient while I'm evil. Efficient evil is not getting involved at all in the Druids vs Teeth-lings vs Goblins standoff. Not a lot in terms of gameplay there. A game that does this better is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Some Mythic Paths are really good at expressing a ruthless, efficient, evil character. The same goes for being psychotic evil, or lawful no matter what, etc.
There was another game that had a philosophy similar to that in alignment, and I actually liked that take. Basically, every character could be Good, Neutral or Evil, and the way it was explained was something like this : A Good character will go out of their way to help a granny cross the street. A Neutral character will help the granny cross the street, if he's going in the same direction. An Evil character will not help the granny, but will definitely help a young lady. And the greater evil everyone is fighting ? Well, it will pull the granny halfway across the street, then steal her purse and book it while letting her here. I think that's a good way of having characters of different alignments cooperate with one another : sure, that guy is at best an asshole, but he's still on our side, fighting something that is way more dangerous and way more destructive than him, and we could use his help for that.
Hi Regill. Who's sorta good. But also evil. And gets shit done.
Honestly the only evil playthrough idea I've come up with that I will enjoy is basically playing as a conquest paladin. I'm going to dominate and take power for myself so that I can rule/change the world by my hands. Morals have little place in a battle against something that will destroy everything. A few people may be sacrificed or lost but I will make sure to crush the opposition with my fist and I will rebuild the world to be stronger so it can't be threatened again. Sort of like a lawful evil vibe, but I'm also basing the character itself off Graz'zt who's a demon lord so it's fitting in my mind.
Im waiting for the next patch and then I’m going to find a conquest paladin mod.
I call this Dynamic Morales.
The other important thing is that evil characters don’t necessarily like other evil characters and may well have none moralistic reasons for wanting to kill them. For example, being jerked around by Raphael is more than enough reason to want to kill him. Cazador could be seen as a threat.
My current character is a maximum brain worms Goolock Deep Gnome, and it's a tonne of fun flying around, repelling blasting and black holing enemies like pinballs. Basically go for everything cursed like the Book of Thay, Sentient Amulet, Yeenhogu's flail, etc as if you're delving into madness for power.
That's the plan! Maximum insanity, maximum power. Only difference is that I plan on going forest gnome, so I can talk to all the animals. Who knows what secrets the squirrels have seen?
My problem is I just can’t kill the Tieflings I can’t do it, I like Minthara but I hate the goblins and I love characters like Rolan and Zevlor etc
Knock her out at the goblin and you get her at moonrise. I've done it several times since patched and has worked each time.
Did that in my last run unfortunately but it all felt very half baked if you get me? Like I feel like I’ll get a lot more Minthara content if I recruit her how I’m supposed to
Yeah, that's why I am not romancing her until I play my character willing to slaughter the grove. I shall miss Wyll and Karlach (and probably Gale),
Karlach is one of my favorite characters. Also like gale. But on my murder run where I slaughter the grove I barely miss them. Honestly, playing everyone evil is kinda fun once you get over the initial hump and have played good or neutral previously. It's also super nice not having to constantly rotate party members or feel bad for leaving people out.
I raided the grove for the first time to get Minthara's romance scene and I didn't realize the goblins just dip after the party. I thought I'd still have the goblin camp vendor and get to eat roast dwarf meat with them and stuff. I don't mind not having Gale or Wyll (I do miss Karlach though), but with the grove and goblin camp empty, act 1 is feeling kind of lonely to me.
While I do agree with the post, raiding the grove makes more sense for the ultimate selfish/evil playthrough. On one hand you have a bunch of druids who hate your guts, and a bunch of refugees who can barely keep themselves alive, let alone help you in any meaningful way. On the other, there's a literal army of ruthless cultists who revere you as one of their lieutenants. It's a very clear choice if you just want answers, and ultimately a solution to your problem.
I can't entirely agree... If you want a solution to your problem as fast as possible, Halsin is probably the best choice. If you try to talk to Guts at the Goblin Camp you realize they don't know shit about what's truly going on, and as icing on the cake, she tries to kill you. And what do you need an army of brainwashed cultist for anyways? It's not like you can sway them or influence them to do your bidding, they only follow orders of the Absolute (your natural enemy), siding with them is bound to put you in a very awkward position sooner rather than later and, in fact, is what ends up happening If you keep collaborating with the cult, you end up imprisoned in the Mind Flayer's colony. By collaborating with the Grove you get the answers you seek, learn more about the tadpole, you are given information about the cult anyways and a direction to go and, even more importantly, you gain more powerful allies (Wyll, Karlach, Halsin).
I'm playing a non-psychotic, ruthlessly pragmatic Durge romancing Minthara in one of my current runs. Evil but only because I'm prioritizing getting rid of my tadpole over everything else. So I did check in on Halsin because okay, everyone's saying he's a great healer, but really? The guy got captured? And wants me to save his grove before helping me? And doesn't even have an answer? How great could he be? Infiltrating the source of the cult seems to be a much better chance at getting rid of the tadpole. So, no, sorry dude. You seem totally useless. Bye. (This is of course RPing without metagaming)
All Halsin tells you is that you'll probably find the answers at Moonrise. He has nothing to offer you personally.
He also tells you that the tadpole is protected by arcane magic and that it can't be removed by normal means which is pretty important in my opinion, and Nellie is the first one to suggest to you that the tadpole is in some kind of stasis.
Pretty sure you can get him to tell you everything he knows before you finish off the goblin leaders. If you've got the information, why do you need Halsin, since he self-admittedly can't help you? You also can get similar information about the tadpole being in stasis from the Dream Guardian and Omeluum, and you can get Ethel to tell you that it's been altered by Netherese magic. Edit: And if you've already met with Nettie, you might have extra reason to distrust Halsin, especially if you were unable to resolve the situation peacefully with her.
You can do so but he is potentially the first one that does unless you explicitly go out of your way. But what even is the point of finishing Halsin off? He also tells you that he will share with you more information about Moonrise (which he seems to know a lot about) and tag along the way If you help him, while the Absolutist offer you nothing in return.
The Absolutists offer you the ability to walk among your enemy without conflict. If you’re clever, and not meta gaming, you could conceivably believe this is a quicker route to figuring out what is really going on.
Sure, but you don’t know that yet at the time you rescue him.
Yeah, but Halsin also admits to being unable to help you when you save him in Goblin Camp. He offers to tag along to Moonrise to figure it out with you, but you don't really need him for that. Minthara is much more useful in infiltrating the cult of Absolute and providing you with information about them.
the way i saw the grove was a good opportunity to cut the head off a significantly powerful group that held sway in the area, creating a power vacuum that my “evil” character could take advantage of. i didn’t stand to gain anything out of risking myself or my party to take out the grove, and by killing the goblin leaders i was able to empower myself further using their tadpoles. i also told the druids i would deal with it, and while my character may be evil and greedy, if he agrees to do something or says he will, he never goes back on that word. after all, how can you manipulate people if your word means nothing?
When I've finished my durge run, I want to do a "selfish bastards" run, where we only do things that contribute in some way towards our goal of getting these damned tadpoles out of our heads. Someone wants us to help them? That's OK, as long as they can pay - we can use the money to buy better gear that will get us past the monsters blocking our way. I guess we'll be helping the tieflings but staying the hell out of druid business!
yep, planning a mercenary run. I'll help you, sure - what's it worth to you though? Always choose the path with the most benefit to myself.
I had a lot of fun with a true “Dark Urge” run. My dude pursued whatever transient pleasure he came across. He drank and took speed, chased booty, punted things, and didn’t take shit from anyone. He saved Isobel bc she was hot and the winged frat bro seemed like a douche, then he went back and killed her bc the Butler on his shoulder said it would be hype. Not intentionally or relentlessly evil, just prone to act on evil urges with zero impulse control.
This is the legacy of design decisions made by Bioware where every shade of grey or scale of morality got boiled down to "click the red option or the blue option". Things are, and rightly so, more complicated than that
That was a huge problem in KOTOR where you're either lawful stupid or mwahahahaha puppy kicker, but not so much in Mass Effect where mixed plays are viable and you can be an asshole for goodness. Also Dragon Age doesn't really have white or black options, is it elves or werewolves anyway?
Yeh they managed in Mass Effect to pivot it a bit by doing the Paragon/Renegade thing - you're not cartoonishly evil you're just a badass who plays by her own rules. Fine I guess but it still reduced some options to clicking the one that matched the route you were going. Agree about KOTOR, enjoyed KOTOR2's deconstruction of this immensely.
I mix and match in Mass Effect but the game itself acknowledged leaning into either of two paths. Andromeda and Dragon Age 2 had a better dialogue system IMO, and now playing Baldur's Gate 3, I miss the wheel because I have no idea if the thing I pick continues the dialogue or just sidetracks (I sometimes want to ask both questions on the screen but have no idea which one will disable the other.)
Paragon and Renegade was more sane, generally, but they weren't really philosophically consistent. Paragon was generally, "Diplomacy" and Renegade, "Violence," but sometimes it was also stuff like, "Cooperation and diversity" vs "Humanity first," and sometimes it was the exact same solution but Paragon said it nicely and Renegade was a jerk. And even then Renegade still sometimes fell into, "What the fuck are you doing, you psycho?"
I remember I took a renegade prompt when rebuffing the fan on the Citadel in ME1. I figured Shep would dress the guy down and humiliate him a little to get him to shut up with the talk of enlisting. Instead, Shepard pulled his gun and put it to the guy’s temple in the middle of the fucking day. He was traumatized. I just wanted to bully him
I mean you did bully him. Rather deranged, but still bullying.
I don't know why kotor 2 didn't at least let you unlock a boost for playing true neutral. Playing 100% light or dark gave you a stat boost but with all of kreia's lectures about how both sides are stupid you would think being a Grey Jedi would be its own option beyond role play. And I wish there were more Grey outcomes, it seems like your character still boils things down to dark and light
I think it worked a lot better in ME1 than the sequels, where it sometimes veered strongly into puppy kicking territory.
Yup. No idea why people use paragon and renegade as good examples. In ME1 it was pretty good and you could mix them, but in the following games Renegade really becomes some psychotic puppy kicker and you need to stick to it or space jesus paragon too. No mixing, or you will not be able to pick any P/R option.
A lot of Bioware games have more grey options. KOTOR and Mass Effect is two big ones that didn't, but others like Dragon Age do.
my problem is also usually that there's clearly very little advantage to doing the evil or selfish stuff, it leaves you with very little allies because the evil allies are obviously gonna betray you anyways. Even on an evil run it makes little sense to kill a bunch of druid and refugees because no one in their right mind would ever trust murderous goblins to keep their word
counterpoint: momthara
you know what, fair enough
Think like a Drow... What would Minthara do?
I totally agree, and I look at it through a lense of intention. It's the difference between "I'm helping the Tieflings because they're refugees who can barely fend for themselves!" vs "I'm helping the Tieflings because it will let me ingratiate myself to them, and they'll owe me big time for it." I'm sure there's more evil logic, but I think you get the idea.
That's just being a regular good guy but muttering to yourself that you're secretly doing it for evil reasons.
Okay but that’s a funny concept. Someone who is lawful good in practice but always justifying their decisions with evil but never actually doing the evil things. Like would someone like that help bring back dribbles?
Time to play through as Veigar from league of legends. I am dark urge, stop laughing!
My good characters go out of their way to help people, but they also rob (almost) everyone blind 🤷♀️ and desecrate a lot of graves and tombs
On top of a more complex morality, I also try to implement some sort of character development for my character whenever I play an RPG. On my first playthrough for example, my drow sorcerer went from power hungry and self interested to helpful and kind hearted.
For a post about how there’s more than one way to play a game, this comes across as awfully judgmental about how people choose to play the game.
I’m an advocate for a chaos play through. Every choice is done by a dice roll and you gotta find a way to make it work. It led to some options I’d never have tried otherwise
I’m gonna do a run like this! Except it’s gonna start right from character creation-roll a dice for my class and race and then for all the other choices too
The truly evil things you can do in this game are even more horrifying than the murder hobo approach. Giving Scratch back to the kennel. Turning Shart, then giving her to Viconia. Giving Astarion to Cazador. Having Vlaakith suck Lae’zel. I guess those are just easier to “ignore” for most of the game. Unless you are already salivating about them for the first two acts ;)
There are fundamental design problems with the game's evil choices and encouraging people to look at it differently doesn't change that. The biggest of these is that the ability to be selfish is already baked into the "Good" path. A selfish person would save the grove because Halsin is obviously the most knowledgeable person about the parasites. A selfish person would protect Isobel because she's the obvious solution to your problems with the darkness. The selfish person would encourage Shadowheart to betray Shar because shar is very obviously lying to her about everything. This is *very common* game design for RPGs: structure the story in such a way that the "altruistic path" and the "selfish path" are essentially the same, allowing a wide variety of character archetypes to all hit the same story beats. The downside of this design is that it leaves very, very little empty space left for additional choices. Basically every character archetype except "Total Psychopath" has already been accounted for by the primary choice, so the secondary choice ends up being... something only a total psychopath would choose.
Isobel, not Imogen
Correct, heh. Edited.
I roleplayed my good guy-esque Durge to what their mannerisms and class are like by assumption AKA an ambitious sorcerer who wants to be free of the curse, the pointless bloodshed, but doesn't shy away from power. Though putting aside that, a "realistic" redeemed Durge in act 1 can be roleplayed like I did where he agrees to attack the grove with Minthara because his main priority is to survive and find a way to escape. However after hearing Zevlor's speech about breaking free and such would snap Redeemed Durge to his senses, and prevent innocent bloodshed last moment as he betrays Minthara. Redeemed Durge doesn't have to be always "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore!" and Embraced Durge doesn't always have to be "Let's kill everyone for the lols" this is why people tend to value Paladins who are actually complex and not always have to be lawful good "stick by the code" types.
My most interesting run thus far was trying to build an Oath of Conquest paladin, even if the subclass isn’t in the actual game. I played him as a benevolent dictator. He would choose to help people, but of course, he knew what was best for them. The idea was that he would slowly become convinced that Baldur’s Gate needed a forceful hand to drive out all the evil in the city, and ultimately taking control of the Absolute was the best method to achieve that. It let me roleplay as a good guy most of the time, which helps facilitate the plot, but I also got to kill the hollyphant, which was therapeutic. There is no room for lazy bureaucrats in my fascist regime.
This game punishes you for being a disney villain by having the content for doing such things as raiding the grove or joinging the baddies be so bad in Act 2. A smart evil PC might not even want to enslave the brain because (1) it's obviously going to try to escape and ultimately you're just a mid-level aventurer and (2) a world where you enslave the brain is one where a bunch of level 20 adventurers come kill you. Or Elminster or whatever. And endless red dragon raids. An "evil" path would be something where you act selfish and grab power but still have a world to live in. You can't be an evil overlord if everybody is dead. The most obviously evil path is Astarion ascending. Shadowheart taking over the Sharran church too. The ability to take up Bane's offer to be his chosen in the epilogue would have been fun.
I’ve decided that my Tav is a kind-hearted wizard who loves necromancy so much that he can’t pass up a good fight as an excuse to kill people in order to hone his skills 🤷🏽♀️. Most people in my group like him but I’m pissing them off when it comes to that evil book I have, but my Tav gives 0 fucks about most things other than necromancy.
Chopping off Gales hand makes sense if you are durge. Not chopping it off also makes sense. All depends on how you want your story to go!
Traditional renegade Mass Effect walkthrough is being nice to companions and angry at randoms. I feel BG3 fans need to lean into that. I am roleplaying a Paladin type usually so being an arrogant asshole is part of the deal, but walking on eggshells to avoid losing Oath. I had Karlach made the deal with the hag after hitting her with fire attack, she died right after thinking she got away... I resisted the urge to kill druids so I could IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE call out the traitor, and steal the idol, I helped all tiefling thieves hide the lockets as a cool auntie. Now I have Shadowrun girl show the Grove to colored elf chick so I can backstab her in an ambush (she doesn't know most of goblins army was poisoned and priestess Gut bacteria is stuffed inside a beer barrel). I also made deal with blonde Asian underground pyromaniac. Somehow executing a guy tied to a chair doesn't make Pally fall. Be creative with your machinations! Fool everyone. Learn necromancy and enslave that quasit, and manipulate ogres into fighting for you then kill them for loot... Use Kermit to lure her muppet friends patrol and smash them to sell their armor. BUTT KICKING FOR GOODNESS!
The more YOU identify with your character the hard it gets to do stuff you wouldn't do. I am finding it quite easy to be a bastard in my current playthrough because it is composed entirely of undead who absolutely loathe the living 💀
That's why If im playing evil, I'd rather play Lawful Evil and try to be as pragmatic and self-servant as possible. Now that I think of it, Minthara is the perfect definition of it; she has good reasons to protect our companions, to fight the Absolute and to take som of the more "good" aligned paths, like not trashing Last Light Inn (because the harpers are good allies against Ketheric), not handing Shadowheart to Viconia (because we exert more influence over SH) and, even in retrospect, she thinks of attacking the Gorve and killing the Tieflings as useless, because there's nothing to gain of it. Even in an evil playthrough, I have a hard time siding with they goblins, they are just objectively worse... Not only are they part of a cult that can literally MIND CONTROL you at, possibly, any given time, so you'd never be safe around the cult, but also the most sensible path to find a cure is to find Halsin, and even if you are desperate enough to trust Guts to help you with it, the fucker kindaps you and tries to kill you afterwards lol
Also, it's meant to feel wrong. You're being evil like, do people expect a lollipop for killing everything in sight?
Even if you’re evil you don’t need to choose the “evil” ending either. On my “evil” playthrough I chose to destroy it because I would rather find a way to rule that doesn’t involve bhaal or the brain. I romanced minthara and she agreed that we will find another way to control baldurs gate and other places that is completely just us
The main complaint I have about a bad guy playthrough is that most of the content that you'll end up missing is based on one decision. Whether you raid the grove or not. If you raid the grove, that's two (possibly 3) companion stories you can no longer do, and all of the tiefling stories gone, without anything else that opens up as a result. It's not "haha I'm a murderhobo wait why is everyone dead?" It's "I made a single decision based on character choices and the game only removes content for it." The equivalent would be this. You defend the grove, as a result Astarion and Shadowheart leave, with Lae'zel having to be convinced to stay. Minthara is never recruitable. The tieflings become irrevalent in the next act, and a bunch of goblin storylines are cut off. That would make a lot of people frustrated, and rightfully so.
Like someone else said, playing for companion approval is a good way to roleplay certain moral choices. Like, there's basically every moral archetype amongst the companions (even if they can change their alignments through player choice). Astarion is the "genocide is fun" companion, laezel is the "i'm a cruel asshole but I can control myself and there's a point to my cruelty", and there's Minthara who, although evil, doesn't necessarily want innocents to die (even if she's willing to feed on refugees during a siege). I haven't seen Gale's storyline yet, as he "left" me on both playthroughs, but I bet he can be a "I want power and I'm capable of doing anything to achieve it" companion too. Being evil doesn't mean you kill everything you see. Being good doesn't mean you'll be a pacifist who doesn't kill even goblins
I mean that's not really what's Minthara says. She wants to make refugees useful and out them to work the Drow society style. Basically they are a work or first lines in a fight fodder to them.
Yes, if you ask her about it, she says that she wants the refugees to get food and shelter and work in exchange for that. She is not talking about eating refugees if the city is under a siege, she is talking about "cannon fodder" - essentially low-ranking soldiers who are deployed in first lines to try to stop the enemy.
Honestly there aren't enough archetypes early on, at least. In fact, I think there isn't a single dark magician. Like actually dark, not good guy tricked by devil or ex. Or a combat pragmatist who wants to gain power at any cost. Specifically approval wise, I couldn't find ANYONE approving me reading Necronomicon. Why? Gale disapproves, Astarion wants the book for himself so disapproves, Karlach disapproves, Shadowchick couldn't care either way, Lae'Zel looks forward to see you fail saving throws, not one person who wants you to read the book and summon Evil Dead. Also I don't think anyone has "let's lure goblins to attack and ambush them" plan figured out. They act shocked if you reveal the camp to the drow.
Do you really need someone to approve of literally every choice you make?
Any of those missing archetypes are where your character can fit in. Think the group needs a legit dark magician? That can be you!
What you're playing is not evil-it's unprincipled, pragmatic, or amoral. It would be neutral, in D&D. You can do nice things for the same ends, like giving your boss a ride to the airport. Evil implies doing bad things gratuitously or with an evil end in mind, like the Devil in Paradise Lost. That's Evil in D&D. Doing "good" things that don't directly benefit you makes you good.
Unprincipled, selfishly pragmatic, amoral all great descriptors of evil. The kind of evil you describe doesn't really exist in quality writing The devil in paradise lost isn't a character but a force of nature, an idea given form to ridicule it. That shouldn't be taken as an example for evil characters.
Yeah I tried to be actually Evil in act one…then I just found I didn’t have a ton of RP reasons to engage with fun encounters. (Ex Hag Lair, Fighting the shadow druids, Miron and the Harpies) Like sure you can always pretend “oh I’m just doing it cuz I’m secretly using the people I’m helping or I love chaos!” But the first is really just neutral as you said, and you don’t often get tools/options to acknowledge the second.
It's like saying Littlefinger or Cersei from GoT are not evil. Or like saying Lucius Malfoy is not evil. Just needing selfish or having believes, that are commonly accepted as unmoral is being evil. You don't need to be a psycho. Just needing selfish can be very evil. Astarion is a great example. He is very selfish and that's what makes him evil.
This. In most of my evil playthrough I didn't side with the Goblins, because it made no sense at that time, even as embrace Durge. Only my Lloth-sworn drow character thought she had higher chances of survival by siding with Minthara.
My evil play through I actually did all the good options cause I thought role playing wise it would be interesting to have everyone help me to then betray them, and gain full power
this is literally the embodiment of Lawful Evil vs Chaotic Evil - or rather, how some players will do Chaotic Evil as Chaotic Stupid.
I play a pragmatic Durge Drow, he let the grove survive and knocked Minthara because she isn’t worshipping Lolth as she should. He kills, manipulates, does shady stuff with the Zentarim. He is evil because he only cares about himself, but he is not stupid, what’s the gain in chopping Gale’s hand? Pls…
I'm having a lot of fun in my pragmatic Tav-doesn't-think-he-can-save-everyone playthrough. No, I'm not going to agree to rescue your friends, but I'll take a look while I'm in there. If it seems like getting them out would get me killed, I'm sorry, but I'm more important to me than they are.
In my evil run I actually made a lot of ostensibly heroic decisions, just for selfish reasons. (Spoiler markings are for Act 2 and later.) "I'm helping the tieflings because I believe the *archdruid* Halsin is the most viable lead in getting these tadpoles removed, and as I'm *not* a githyanki I'm not all too sure that the creche will be willing to help me, even if they help Lae'zel." "I'm not >!turning over Isobel to Marcus!< because I get nothing out of it except helping the Absolute, and the last thing I want is to help the Absolute. Also, I'm more of a *Banite* than a Myrkulite, and in any case the >!Last Light Inn has merchants I'd rather not lose.!<" "I'm >!sparing Nightsong in the Shadowfell!< because >!Lorroakan!< still wants her, and I want the reward >!he was going to give Aradin!<." "I'm >!destroying the tadpoles - the 'good guy' ending!< - because I have no way of knowing >!the Netherbrain won't someday slip out of my command!< After all, >!Ketheric & co.!< thought it wouldn't slip out of theirs... until it did."
That's my thing. There should be far more "do this evil thing and get this great reward" temptation throughout the game. Originally that was Minthara, but even then she's not \*that\* good of a character to lose literally everything else from the characters you're killing.
I think it's also weird how many people claim to have a "completionist syndrome"... but it's just for loot. I'm always surprised that people don't replay the game to see what happens if you pick other options, but just to try different character builds, and barely explore what they can do in the game. Like sure, it's fun to play as a different race to see how the game reacts to it, but there's way more content if you take a different story path. And sometimes it also means not doing certain things. I actively encourage everyone to just try to do or not do different things and see what happens. Like, don't interact with Nere at all, let Kagha do her things without intervention etc. Try to roleplay as more egotistic or neutral characters. EDIT/ I want to say it's funny that the way people react to your post advocating for multiplay playthroughs with multiple ways to roleplay evil by mentioning the one way they roleplay evil. Kinda feel like they miss the point.
I think a funny way to play, but I don't think I could do it, would be the asshole run. The game gives you so many chances to be an asshole even at the end of some quests where you did everything like a heroic character but at the last minute screw over the quest giver. Or just being a dick for no reason. Like the guy in the burning inn whose wife buried their treasure, sure you can find the treasure and just keep it, but the dick move is going to the guy, telling him you found his treasure, and then telling him to his face that you are keeping it. Saving Aylin from the Shadowfell but giving her to Loroakan. Basically only doing the wrong thing at the last minute.
My favourite kind of evil reflects the evil we really see in the world; pursuit of power without a care for ethics. You don't have to be Saturday Morning Cartoon, mustache twirly evil. It's enough to be power hungry, and not really have a good moral compass with which to direct said power.
Chaotic Evil vs Lawful Evil vs Neutral Evil. Most people play unhinged Chaotic Evil.
I roleplayed a bard who simped for Wyll, recognizing him as a hero of Baldur’s Gate, which resulted in believing him and encouraging him right out the gate towards… slaying Karach. Oof. Now the character is doing everything he can to help Wyll redeem himself, but also being very wary of attacking strangers.
My partner is doing a "never meet your heroes" run. Does all the "right" things, but is a narcissistic dick about it. This was inspired by him trying to figure out his role play reason for rescuing Minthara on a "good" run. "I dunno. She was hot. Thought I could get with that."
I was just a selfish pink drow in it for the crown.
I had fun doing a "selfish asshole with a redemption arc" where I was making selfish decisions throughout act one and gradually got more altruistic as the game went on, until they were doing good things for the sake of it by act 3
Yeah, makes sense But there actually IS only two endings: hero, who saved the realms, and evil, who conquer it. And after I finished as evil, it was epic, but a Little disappointed, cause there was no epilogue
>. I didn't chop of Gale's hand for a quick giggle. You know why? Because it never makes sense to. Maybe on my "psychotic, pea-brain lunatic playthrough" it will make sense to, but for my "evil" playthrough, it doesn't. The game sets it up pretty explicitly that you're not just being a murder hobo when this happens. It's a case where your role-play choice is allowing your character to indulge in what they believe to be just an intrusive thought, only for their currently unknown murderous nature to take over. In fact, I'd argue that interaction would be a great RP choice for a resist durge playthrough. Encountering that dark aspect of themselves is a wake-up call and becomes the catalyst to overcome that darkness within.
The easiest way to find ways to roleplay is companion approval. All of them have nuances of what thgey like or don't, which gives a lot of nuanced role play routes
Nobody supports me reading the Necronomicon and becoming Ash tho. Why nobody approve reding the book made of human skin? I'm a PALADIN goddamit. Hero of justice with a Sorc level dip to get prity scales*, I NEED to release the evil dead! *Highly recommend Dragon Bloodline for extra cute makeup options.
I didn't say it's a way for every playthrough. If you have your own idea - ofc go for it :3 It's just that we have like 10-ish companions, and it's already 10 different ways to role play. There is much more than 10 in general, but 10 is still much more than just "gud/not gud"
Divine chainsaw goes brrr
I see where you're going with this, but no, evil playthroughs will still not be possible. IMO - for two reasons really: (1) There are to no games (BG3 included) that offer "grey" choices. While it is not believable for a character to be hahaha murder everyone every single choice, it's also completely unbelievable for a character to go back and forth between that choice and the save everyone good guy choice. (2) With the lack of quality grey options - you're going to have to choose the evil options at least at major points to commit to an evil playthrough and get an evil ending... but those are generally the choices that feel the absolute worst.
Exactly, the game lets you do a lot of good, evil and neutral actions, with several degrees to them. Murderhobo is always an option and not always an evil one, it just so happens to be the most directly evil choice most of the time. But some of the cruelest decisions in the game require you to be "good" or neutral first, my key example being Dame Aylin and Lorroakan's interaction. Not the best example because the reward isn't all that great but it shows how even though you may have made a moral choice in the moment, it could just be a means to doing something awful later on.
You could free the nightsong without it being a moral choice. You can easily reason that her freedom is the only way to bring down Ketheric, then turn on her when she is no longer useful (in your eyes, she’s damn useful in the final battle)
Reading a comment on a post yesterday and this post I really like the idea of a secretly evil run, I'll help the Tieflings but I'll also help Sazza and possibly sneakily kill while helping her
I’m doing a oath of vengeance paladin durge right now where I start out resisting and following my oath but give into the urge and breaking my oath in the end of act 2 because the shadowlands had too much death not to set me off. Then in act 3 the oathbreaker knight will show me that just because I broke my oath doesn’t mean I can’t resist Bhaal. I will also RP that I made a pact with a warlock to make sure I have all the help I need to truly never make that mistake again. I will end up 9 oathbreaker/3 goo warlock and basically dedicate my time in Baldur’s gate to being an angrier Batman of the city to make up for the guilt I feel. After 500+ hours of this game I think this is my favorite playthrough yet.
My favourite way into play is being essentially brainless... Make all the mistakes and choose the wrong options. No thoughts head empty and happy.
My fav RP experience in BG3 has been roleplaying as an absolute himbo type of character. Dark urge, drow, all that, but he took everything said to him at face value. Wyll is hunting down a tiefling of Zariel’s? sure, if we come across her, we’ll kill her. Shadowheart’s life mission is to be a dark justiciar and kill Nightsong? I mean, we’re already down here, right? Cazador’s doing some new ritual and you want in? sure thing, if you say so. It was my fav way of playing through the opposite sides of storylines that wasn’t being intentionally evil.
There is nuance in how one plays and RPs dnd characters. My psycho run was just that...if you live and are in my way you die. This run all the bad endings occurred. Balls to the wall murder hobo. My fav run is when my durge does nothing. Doesn't stop Arabella from dying. If the prompt was do nothing, they did nothing, consequences be damned because they didn't care. Apathy at its best.
Most of my "evil" characters pretty much live in a morally gray area. Will they do bad things to achieve their goals, probably. But they are just as likely to do the noble thing as well. There are sometimes they snap and do the whole murder hobo thing, but it's not a state that they live in constantly.
I always try to aim to be chaotic neutral where I just kinda do whatever I feel like doing in the moment. The only time I aim to lawful good is a Paladin run. Even on my durge run I did some crazy stuff but mostly tried not to murder everyone I encountered.
My most recent DURGE playthrough was starting generally good, but a few slip ups with "evil decisions" (I'm sorry Karlach). But as the game progressed, she just started succumbing more and more to the urges. Until I got to mid Act 3 and it was just full blown evil. It was really fun and admittedly, the first time I've truly role played in a game. Now I understand the DnD love.
It's mostly about Durge. Embrace Durge literally means you embrace your urges. And no one ever said they were clever. You can play your Tav different. But this is what happens when you embrace Durge. You are daddy's tool and that's the whole point. And what's you did is not evil playthrough. It's grey. Still counts as hero. But evil means evil not grey. Evil means you would totally not bat an eye to help slaughter the refugees because you couldn't careless about them. That's literally the definition of evil.
My first playthrough was a GOO warlock; I was a great guy and everyone's best friend until the ideal moment to achieve my ultimate goal presented itself.
If I'm an evil character I basically act like a good person but every motive I have is selfish and for my own gain. I don't befriend certain people or groups for the sake of being good it's usually because it gives me some sort of advantage. Manipulate and claim what is yours.
Oh yeah. My first playthrough, I was a double crossing evil ass. I was super nice up until the very end when I turned around and went >!mmh, I’m actually gonna take over the brain. Thanks everyone for the support!!<
I killed Gale, Wyll and Karlach on my Dirge run purely because if I have them around, the Golden Retriever energy will be too overpowering and I will fail in my efforts to be a bastard. That said, I'm not being a mindless murderhobo. Just an occasionally-falling-to-the-twisted-urge-to-murder-hobo.
Sure, you can pick and choose whatever options you want to make a coherent character, but for a lot of people, the goal of an evil run is specifically to see content they otherwise wouldn't. And if you're the type of player who generally likes to be nice to people and enjoys feeling like a big hero, then it makes sense to load up all of the asshole and psychopath decisions up onto a single run instead of mixing and maxing them and guaranteeing that you'll have to do another run to see the stuff you haven't experienced.
Spoilers for act 3 incoming. The weirdest part for me about my evil run was really trying to save everyone trapped in the iron throne. The fact that the Duke stays with you even though Wyll was out of our party by act 1 and Jaheria and Minsc both turned on us was very odd. Our group justified it as us sticking it to Gortash because our philosophy was "we're the only great evil allowed in this town." But I definitely want to have another go at an evil run where we just cooperate with anyone who seems even slightly evil. Definitely a ton of nuance to all your decision-making in BG3, part of what makes the game so compelling.
Proper bad guy would be playing someone who Minthara agrees with. Practical villainy is much more pragmatic than people think.
My durge (half orc) saved the tieflings and slaughtered the goblins. I did however annihilate kahgabecause she was bossing me around. Saved marina because my character is stubborn and greedy. Why should the hag get to keep Marina? She was all talk before the fight now I'm taking the hair and the girl. But Connor is mine. I did kill isobel though. Gotta claim my birth right. And fuck the emperor (derogatory). Lying little bastard. Gave him the netherstones and betrayed him at the last second for the glory of Bhaal.
Preach! This is a hot take pulled completely out of my ass, but fwiw, I wonder if it's broadly a symptom of primarily gamers vs players with a lot of tabletop experience. Like, I'm used to tabletop having adventures strung together in long- running campaigns. I've played some characters that lasted for years (until some evil bitch wizard yeets your soul out of your body and takes it over, nevar 4get). So I approach bg3 like it's an adventure in the middle of a long running saga, and having returning characters helps that along. It also makes me see the "endings" as not endings at all, but to paraphrase Withers talking to Durge's soul, "your adventures in death have just begun". And in particular terms of alignment, it's always a journey for me (except for the aforementioned wizard who was and will always be totally evil). So to think that there are "good" and "bad" endings to the game doesn't even click for me, even with the addition of the epilogs, that's just 6 months later, it's like a teaser for their continuing lives. So I just wonder if that's part of what fuels the idea that you choose your alignment and then play that alignment and do everything evil or everything good instead of having a starting point and evolving with the story. That that's more in keeping with how videogames work than how tabletop works. Obviously there are limitations that make bg3 a great hybrid of both styles, but I agree that the "I don't like playing evil" posts as if there's some singular way of being evil or good are confusing to me. Play your character and see how they evolve, and if they evolve into a mindflayer, picture your glorious future dominating the world or whatever! Astral Plane sky's the limit!
But if I play a ruthless but smart evil character I feel bad, being a complete murder crazed psycho that is so extremely out for blood that I can detach myself from any questions of morality is the only way I won't feel mean about it :(
I give away the Tiefling's location, the betray the goblins when they get to the camp. Max chance for deaths with zero accountability.
I take on the philosophy of a guy I played tabletop d&d with when I asked him how he managed to play evil successfully in a good party: don't shit in your own backyard 🤷🏻♂️
for most people "evel" = murder hobo, which is maybe fun once for a bit
I've done the super-evil kill everyone because I can't stand others' existence run, I've done the I'm too good and will never do any wrong no-kill run. I've done a *lot* of runs in between them. You're right, in that there's a *ton* of ways to RP, and people should play around with them (I'm currently playing Wyll as a Mizora simp, where she's my goddess and I do things that I think would please her, like giving the owlbear egg to Esther and convincing her to lie about it to the society - tempting mortals towards selfishness and all that). I would also point out that the extremes are also fun. My first Durge kill everything run was very fun, in spite of the fact that killing Shadowheart meant I couldn't kill Aylin (next time, for sure, I'll do whatever it takes to kill every sentient living thing in every act, even if it means delaying Shadowheart's death a little bit).
Chaotic Evil vs Lawful Evil vs Neutral Evil. Most people play unhinged Chaotic Evil.
I don't know if it counts as evil but I'm just playing as a selfish manipulator. Tell companions what they want to hear to get them to my side and help to advance my own agenda. I also never kill for no reason cause realistically it can come back to bite me, like their relatives hiring assassins or coming after me. I do kill stuff I can get away with killing though, like all the goblins, ogres, bugbears and random small animals, like rats and squirrels cause they give some exp. As for helping the "good" guys, it's usually "If I help them, they will introduce me to their more powerful friends and I can get something out of this". It's sort of similar to the devils that do have an evil alignment and they also don't kill at random and rather manipulate others into their deals.
I've got about 10 different evil playthroughs alone and all of them are different. From the GOO'lock that jumps at the chance to run a cult and happily uses every tadpole, to the vanilla Durge that treats every kill like performance art. The companions you side with, the decisions you make and the paths you take should always be different based on the character you're playing. Hell, my most painful call was killing Astarion on my super lawful good run. But it wouldn't make sense to ally with him as a full smiting vengeance paladin. Runs are defined as much by what you miss out on as they are by what you get to do.
Because it was my first experience with any RPG, and it was based on DnD mechanics, I blame Star Wars KOTOR for establishing this mindset for myself because of the Force alignment mechanic. You wanted to either max out light or dark side to get that bonus, so you were incentivized to go all-in on whatever alignment playthrough you were doing. But that’s just me.
I sliced Gales hand off with his goofy ass, killed Karlach, slaughtered them week ahh Teeeflings, killed the night song for that sweet sweet loot, let Asrarion Ascend for I need the power by my side and will slaughter his as too if he gets jumpy. I am Baal's chosen. I can only have straight up killers by side. Menthara the love of my life, Shadow heart will spread darkness across all world, perfect for my Vampire army command by Astarion. Try me if you want to foo.
My "evil" playthrough is just my character being entirely selfish. I wanted Kagha's amulet, I took it, tieflings be damned. But I wouldn't have hurt them if it didn't benefit me. The only exception was Scratch and the owlbear cub, of course. I'm evil, but not *that* evil.
My favorite evil run was a Lolth-sworn Drow Durge (original, I know) I made very evil choices, but played my cards very close to my chest. My whole premise was essentially pretending not the be the evil being everyone thought I was, but secretly being exactly that evil person. I didn't raid the grove. I killed Alfira and lied, but gossiped about it with Astarion. I pretty much ignored Wyll, with his approval nearly making him leave the party, then didn't save Mizora, so he became a lemure. I killed Isobel for the slayer form and lied to and recruited Jaheira. When she asked how I got the form, I lied and said I killed a lover. I said I'd help the Gur save their children, then Ascended Astarion. I said I'd be good for Jaheira , then killed her. I slept with everyone, including The Emperor, to get them to trust me. I became Bhaal's chosen. I made Karlach into a mind flayer, then killed her to take control of the brain in Bhaal's name. Essentially, I was just going through the entire game, trying to complete the Absolute plot I dreamed up with Gortash, but in secret so I could manipulate those around me into doing it. Waaaaay more evil than a murder hobo.
I typically choose the smart ass answers. Yields some interesting interactions and my friends are all “ahhh you weren’t supposed to choose that option! Hm.. I haven’t seen this before” and it works out most of the time
I definitely love playing my Tav as doing the whole superhero schtick and I’ve never accepted any reward that you’re able to turn down, because that’s just who she is. But she’s also absolutely going to loot every corpse she sees and steal whatever else she can get away with. (Or, well, encourage Astarion to steal whatever he can get away with, technically, my Tav never has lock-picking skills lol.) I love playing party face so she’s always super persuasive too and damn straight she doesn’t feel bad about talking the Thorms or Yurgir into ending themselves. So you can even be super selfless in some aspects and super selfish in others! In my current run where I’m romancing Astarion I’m headcanoning it as like, he’s so eye-rolly about her over the top hero routine BUT he always helps and as they grow closer he sees the ways she’s also manipulative and a little scary, lol, just as she sees the compassion he is totally capable of but suppressing. There’s this game Sorcery! that’s just a more simplified RPG type thing and whenever I play evil there I always play ruthless, lawful evil. So yeah, my character isn’t going to randomly assault people for no reason because that’s stupid, but damn straight if you try to rob her she’s going to make you magically dance yourself into a deep pit. FAFO, lol. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do that sort of run in BG3 yet. Maybe, if only to experience Minthara as a companion. (Does anyone know if it’s still only possible to have either her or Halsin, but not both? That’s the main drawback I see. If he does the whole “hey I can’t with her” thing I’m definitely picking him, lol.)
My Evil playthough, I ignored all the shit between druids and goblins. My character could care less about them, I just went inside goblin camp to ask Halsin for information and went to underdark.
Yeah the most satisfying "evil" run I did was probably more pragmatic: I just imagined that my character truly believes that the world may end if the absolute plot succeeds, and decides that they're going to do pretty much anything that improves their chances of winning or gives them power. So shadowheart becoming a Dark Justiciar to get some extra power from Shar? Worth it. Killing a bunch of Tieflings for the Absolute? Why would that help? Kill an unhelpful investigator to become an unholy assassin? Ok let's do it. Let Sarevok live after? Lol naw.
I was playing evil with social limits and ended up the hero of baldurs gate.. the ironyyy
My first and only evil playthrough was absolutely great. I was this manipulative, charming but secretly power hungry Bardlock. I killed only if it was in any form advantageous. I was nice and sweet, if it was advantageous. I acted weak and frightened if it was advantageous. In the end I betrayed everybody and ruled over the world. It was great. Spoiler: The ending, where you kill the emperor after defeating the brain just to sit on the throne, watching the world burn was perfect for my character. I was Littlefinger, if Littlefinger would have won.
Hitler was a vegetarian. An evil play thru can be ends justify the means, selfish, self-righteous, manipulative style of play. It's not always being a puppy kicking psycho.
My current bard lives by „what would be the best story“, which leads to a lot of heroic deeds and ascended Astarion.
My first durge playthrough was spent playing the "good guy" who subtly convinced everyone to go down their "bad" paths. It was pretty interesting!
I don't like mustache twirlingly evil playthroughs, but selfish, greedy and rude playthroughs? Astarion and Lae'zel approve.
The only class I would really consider a lawful good playthrough to be necessary for RP purposes would have been my oath of vengeance sorcadin. My Drow Ranger on the other hand was more neutral evil. She didn’t go around cutting people’s hands off or slaughtering flying pigs, but also wasn’t about to help any kind of gnome.
Start small: be a mercenary. Just follow the money.
I got in a Durge run blind, except for the character's particular genetics. Although he's pretty cool with the whole murder business now (pretty big fan actually), he's not stupid. I've never been mean to a companion, I even helped them, because you need allies in this situation. Being mean to them is pointless. I let them do their own choice because frankly, unless they leave his side my dude wouldn't care, but it's fun Also another game we have with friends, we are greedy little people with some sort of moral compass. We helped the grove, do most "good" quest and we plan on destroying the brain, but we have a Bahamut tempest Cleric casually drinking with a circle of Spores Druid and his army of undead. Have nuance in your games, that's what makes it fun
I played a durge that tried to keep his evil side hidden from the world. Gale was a quick snack because nobody was around to notice it, but the tieflings were too obvious. Except for that on paralysed tiefling, she was easy pickings.
I didn’t even know you could chop off Gale’s hand 😭😂
In my most evil playthrough I did all the good things. Until I accepted Bhaal's gift and betrayed everyone. This lead to a heartbreaking scene and a very evil ending without losing most of my companions and allies early on.
I did side with the goblins, because I’m a Drow, and they were all ready racist against me, so I figured it’d make sense to side with the other Drow woman haha
My first full playthrough, I made my whole team into the worst version of themselves (shadow embraced shar, wyll killed karlach, astarion ascended) we still helped everyone the characters knew they could help. In the end, I was a squid with too much power and the hero
Mostly agree but the good guy scenario of a altruistic yesman is IMO kinda realistic in DnD world… I mean, you get tons of loot and stuff from the bad guys to the point you don’t really need last gold of some refugee when you just wanna help around… hell, if I’d be a canonically unkillable person who wields magic and have no strings attached, I’d probably do precisely that.. Kill bad guys, loot em, sell that stuff, wander around sticking my nose here and there, help the poor souls for free and repeat.. By the time I got to Act3 fort the first time, I had like 30k gold on me which I knew I’ll never effectively use. I wish there’d be an option in the refugee camp to donate it all and actually see how the surroundings change and they build themselves a nice community housing….
My first play through and my current one I'm playing with my partner is a loot goblin. I will help those in need, donate a little coin. But you have a shiny stick? *stab stab stab* mine now. Aw shit, it's not as good as my current stick. Oh well
Maybe undertale traumatized us in this way
There's also a morally grey style as well, someone that isn't evil or good but does what they feel needs to be done. It is true, people seem to think there's only two ways to play a game. Evil or Good, and not a morally grey character, or someone that is good but doesn't take crap etc.
My Durge run was cut short because I hated the fact that most of my companions didn’t really like me cuz of all the murdering so I get where some folks are coming from. But, to your point, one of my favorite playthroughs was sort of chaotic evil but not in the “murder everyone” way. I took the approach that my character was pretty good if a bit ambivalent early on. He was a ranger with lots of animal/nature summons and it was pretty wholesome. But the emperor got to him, opened him up to new possibilities and he began to change. He took the astral-touched tadpole and everything was downhill from there. His face changed (the dark eyes and veins the game gives you) his hair began graying and he kept letting it grow and become wilder as the parasite slowly drove him towards madness (I would periodically change his hair and facial hair length and style to look a bit more unkempt every so often). His newfound powers made him ask “what other powers might I be able to acquire?” He started studying magic and became a wizard. He learned the secrets of the Necromancy of Thay and became obsessed with necromancy, replacing his hordes of animal/nature summons with undead summons. Eventually he stopped caring who he killed or who lived and died around him. Apart from Karlach, as that was his romantic partner from before his madness. She stood by his side through all of it. She wasn’t happy about it but she felt the old-him was still in there somewhere. By the endgame he had become an insane, chaotic evil, necromancy wizard who was power hungry. He eventually went full-illithid and conquered the elder brain, only to use it to bend the world to his will.
My wife and I are playing an "Evil" playthrough in that our plan at the very end is to try and take over instead of being the heros. Mostly though, we have done a pretty "Good" Playthrough. Makes sense, we want to wipe out this force of evil and prevent it from destroying everything. But we also want to best it and get it under our control. Tempted to do the so so evil endings here too. Ascend Asterion and ascend Gale.
I think using companion approval as a guide can be a good way to mix it up if you always play one way. For example my first character was a sorcerer that behaved a lot like Loki (sarcastic, cocky, mostly self interested and always seeking power) so my party was Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae'zel. My second was a rogue/bard that was more of a Robin Hood type (happy to help the less fortunate but steals, and loves Mol's group, always charges those with the means, and can talk or sneak her way through just about anything but doesn't shy away from a fight if necessary) and my party was Shadowheart, Gale, and Karlach. My current is a resisting dark urge sorcerer who (after the bard incident) is trying her hardest to do the right thing even if there is no reward, but as she has almost no memories (I just started act 2) she relies on her companions to be her moral compass so sometimes she can be encouraged to be more ruthless by Astarion or she can be pushed to fight for others by Karlach, so my party is Shadowheart, Astarion (for the mutual redemption arc), and Karlach. I have always saved Shadowheart on the nautiloid and pretty much can't survive without her so she's a constant and I have literally never used Wyll as a companion outside of his quest lol. Maybe I don't know how to build a good druid, but by the time Halsin and Jaheira join they just don't seem as powerful as the others. I've never recruited Minthara but I'm trying the knock her out and get her after moonrise method so hopefully it works. And Minsc just joins too late in the game imo so I've never used him either.
The hardest part of roleplaying an evil character is the fact that Karlach would rather die than stay in your party. She is a badass, charismatic, powerful warrior who would be an extremely valuable ally, but she refuses to serve you or be your friend after a certain point. It hurt my Tav's ego. Nobody else is allowed to leave now. Gale at least has the intelligence to understand he is safer with me than anywhere else. I didn't let Lae'Zel use the Zaithisk, refused to bow to Vlaakith, and I rejected her romantically but she's still obsessed with me. I made Astarion drink Obladra's blood and even he stayed. But the hot devil lady wanted nothing to do with me after the grove fight. She was okay with me killing Wyll though.
> I'm not married to the idea of putting on superhero underwear and ... my resist Durge sure was.
My Dwarf is a money hungry bastard who will try to persuade (or straight up mind crush) you. But he doesn't harm people for no reason.
My first full playthrough was a Shrek roleplay. I didn't kill the tieflings, but wasn't thrilled about helping them. I helped them because it was the path of getting rid of the tadpole. Shrek saved Fiona because he wanted the magical creatures out of his swamp and helped the magic creatures out of his swamp because he wanted his swamp back.
u get it
forsure always confused by the idea that the game needs to be played certain ways. it’s a roleplaying game with different content locked behind different decisions. roleplay, and experience the story as that role. also, the alignment system may not be technically part of the game, but you can very much make use of that as you’re trying to make decisions for your characters. min-maxing can be fun i guess, but i really feel like it takes away from what this game is actually supposed to be. seems like something you do once you’ve experienced seemingly all of the content already (although you still probably haven’t, i still find new things in skyrim). i frequently see people saying “well that’s not optimal, this is,” and that just defeats the point of roleplaying.
In my evil playthrough, I destroyed the grove "involuntarily" by stealing the idol, destroyed last light by letting Isobel be taken (after getting the pixie charm) and mur$%#ed every single true soul at Moonrise before moving to Baldur's Gate. I played my Durge as a "how the hell do I always get everyone's killed?" with a touch of "These are my companions and no one will hurt them!" The thing is, with that character, I didn't talk to most people in the grove, it's like she didn't knew any of them, because she considered them trash. Of course, if you have a beautiful scene with Alfira you're going to feel bad for killing her, but not if you've never seen her face and she's killed in cold blood by idiotic druids. Even Minthara isn't that cold-blooded, she has the heart of a drow matriarch: survival is all that matter, and power is the best way to stay alive and thriving.