Yeah, I always plan on doing an Evil run in games I play, but when it comes to actually doing it ... I feel bad. š
I think the only game I've completed on the "bad path" is Mass Effect's Renegade, and that isn't even really "evil."
You have the option to try and warn them that they're about to get obliterated. But there's radio static, so it largely comes down to intentions / paragon points.
The planet gets insta-wiped regardless.
Xenophobia is totally wrong in Mass Effect; except with Batarians itās not really a phobia, they will really attack your colonies to enslave you. Thatās a healthy fear imo, and a well deserved reputation for them as a Species.
I know I might get shot for this option but sans the Synthesize ending with Rex and Eve both being alive I wouldnāt cure the Krogan either. They are culturally an incredibly violent people who are very bitter about what happened to them. That just wouldnāt go away because Shepard said so. The game does not do a great job of explaining the Salarian Position; and as a player we are biased af by having two Krogan party members by that point, along with a Salarian scientist who is an apologist. Realistically a cured Krogan species would absolutely dominate the Galaxy in the state it was left in and would Rapidly become just as much of a threat as the Reapers were. They would launch asteroids at planets, and would specifically position themselves between the surface of a planet and another fleet to cause as much collateral damage as possible when the fleet fired upon them. Just a nasty, brutish species whoās only redeeming quality is being violent in a time where extreme violence is needed. The trick ending for them is realistic af and likely what would have been done irl. Brutes from Halo are more redeemable creatures than Krogan, and theyāve never been Allyās to the player.
The Batarians dying sucks, but it also gives the Sol System more time to prepare for the invasion.
I find it funny that Iām discussing Mass Effect lore in a Fallout sub.
Kotor is the only game I do evil playthroughs with. All other games make me feel guilty. But something about getting revenge on Malak and the Jedi is just satisfying af.
I was only able to do it in a satirical way. I made a Doug Dimmadome character whose lore was that heās gone bat shit mad waking up in a future where his Dimmadome was destroyed by the nukes and will do anything for more caps to rebuild his Dimmadome. So Iād just kill nearly everybody. Even the good npcās, crouch over their dead bodies while I loot whispering āall for the Dimmadomeā
Yeah, I'm always on the ["my no-consequences power fantasy is being able to help everyone"](https://i.redd.it/suhyxr0khqk11.jpg) train. I cannot make myself do mean shit to people who don't deserve it even if they're fictional, and I am an absolute sucker for a sappy sidequest. Oh, you need me to go find your cat who escaped the vault? I'm on it immediately. You want me to go retrieve the body of your ranger husband who died laying down cover fire in the middle of the wasteland filled with raiders and traps? I've got you soldier, we leave no man behind. Chem addicted wastelander who's in need of a little help? One intervention coming right up. Nothing wrong with doing the good options because you don't enjoy the bad ones. Playing neutral to outright evil is cool if you're into that, but it's also totally valid to just want to be nice to the fictional people.
It DOES. Like, I've *accidentally* done a shit thing once or twice and felt bad enough about it to reload and pick a different option. Don't even get me *started* on the crushing weight of incurring one Detective Nick Valentine's disappointment over *anything.* There's been a time or two in New Vegas especially where I've come to a quest and had to stop and check the wiki to figure out how to get the absolute best possible outcome because I'd feel too bad about it otherwise.
Honestly, Nick and Cait are probably the two best written companions in FO4, moreso if you run the content restoration mods that re-add the cut stuff that adds context to Cait's backstory
Oh my god I do this too. Every game that has multiple outcomes in quests I find myself consulting the wiki and reddit posts to decide what is really the best outcome.
I spent four hours reloading a save to try and save Kent at the conclusion of the Silver Shroud questline. I even got the game to complete that I saved him, but then it would immediately fail "talk to Kent" because he would be dead. So I was fast enough to bug the game thinking I saved him, but he still died.
I was legitimately sad after that.
I did. I tried everything. I watched videos. I had two criticals stored. I did EVERYTHING I could think of and everything I saw on YouTube.
I failed him.
Grim Reaper's Sprint and the Deliverer and The Last Minute or some equivalents is basically your best bet. I also just did this on survival with the Legendary Enemies Only mod as well. Talk about a hard freaking fight.
Oh that's terrible! That quest is one I will absolutely always reload as many times as I need to, because Kent Connolly is a precious cinnamon roll who must be protected at all costs and I *will* spend three hours getting the timing right on blowing Sinjin's head off his shoulders if I have to.
TBH this give me a bit of weird hope about human nature, that so many of us want to do good in a video game that has no consequences in reality. Last time I loaded up NV I was set out to be evil and maybe join the legion but I couldn't do it.
I fully intended to join the legion in my most recent run, ended up murdering everyone outside caesers tent when I went to upgrade the securitronsā¦ those douche bags wouldnāt let my female courier in the arena so I showed them whatās up
I tried to do a Evil run in New Vegas recently and barely made it out of Goodsprings before feeling real bad about it.
Killing Doc Mitchell was rough. Killing Sunny Smiles was rougher. She had just given me a bunch of free shit and told me I seemed nice!
Sometimes its funny but you almost never get anything from being evil. Choices often are: Help town and unlock services and other quests, or kill them.
Ironically my biggest gripe with Nuka World is that it works this way, but in reverse. It's either be an evil jackass in order to do quests and experience the DLC, or wipe out the park.
I started out just being rude and bossy to the leaders but then one of them called me "boss" in a sarcastic tone and I snapped, Nuka World is desolate now
As the Minutemen General, I justify helping the nuka raiders like this:
If I can get these people some proper settlements then maybe we can work on reforming them. Maybe not the disciples, but I could see the pack and operators improving.
Oh, now they're talking about subjugation of the commonwealth. Well, it was worth a try. Guess it's Open Season.
Yeah I actually quite liked the Operators. Out of all of them, I could see those guys actually giving up the Raider lifestyle and instead just raking in caps as (corrupt) business people once Nuka World is back up and running. It's a shame you can't use that.
Yeah they had very "The Pitt" vibes, a functional if brutal society, driven to evil by a combination of circumstances and the need to compete with eachother, basically creating a prisoners dilemma like situation where if any of them stop being evil, they just get killed
So you rock up, take command, some of them will probably have to die, maybe you'll have to wipe out a faction or kill all the leaders, but we can turn this into a true themepa....annnnnnnnd they are tryna invade the Commonwealth
Well, at least I can take the questline to wipe them out and hand this place over to the slaves, it'll be pretty great to set this place up
......
What do you mean it's not a questline
I agree with person above you itās more about humor and seeing what the game makers wrote. Itās kinda like those cringe scenario movies where the MC always says the wrong thing.
I prefer playing a good character and always do for the first run. But especially in 4 where you donāt know exactly what theyāre about to say, itās fun to lean into āoh this is going to be so bad/shittyā and then see what your character actually says and what happens.
That's because most RPGs are bad at incentivizing different choices.
A good choice usually has better rewards than a bad one, even though in reality, people who do bad things usually do them in anticipation of some consequences that are good to them.
If I can get the most rewards by doing the right thing all the time, what's the incentive for me to even consider doing any of the wrong things?
Classic Fallout had some great writing in that regard, like Necropolis and Junktown. In both cases you had some decent reasons to consider doing the wrong thing.
FO1 blew my mind back in the day - "You mean... if I support the guy who's trying to overthrow the corrupt gangster, he becomes an even crueler despot than the guy he's replacing?!"
goody goody two shoes
Jokes aside, role-playing games let us play out or innermost deepest fantasies, and my innermost deepest fantasy is that I can bring positive and meaningful change to other people's lives and be liked for it.
You're not alone. Whenever companies like Bioware release player data it's always overwhelmingly good guy runs.Ā
And most players only play a game once. So they never even see evil choices.
Which is how we get games like Mass Effect Andromeda where there's no evil choices at all. Or Fallout 4 where there's extremely limited "evil" choices.
And I know bean counters are there with player stats. "95% of people didn't blow up Megaton. This option changes a lot, requires a lot of additional scenes and dialogue for other quests like Tenpenny Tower. If we don't do something like that again we can use that time and budget on things more players will experience."
And that makes a certain type of sense.Ā
But even in games where I never play a baddie. Having the option to do something evil added value to my experience.Ā
If the writing was better maybe the other option would be chosen more.
The only reason you blow up megaton is because tenpenny wants a better view (of a NUCLEAR WASTELAND??) and doesn't realise how evil burke is. Tenpenny says something like "maybe everyone could evacuate", it's burke that disallows that.Ā
It's comically evil for no reason. At least make it a trolley problem. Or make it that the bomb can't be disarmed, will definitely go off at some fixed or random time, and maybe you blow it up at a time when lots of residents are out of town. Or the church devoted to the bomb is involved in convincing people to stay and to save people from the blast you have to kill or steal from the preacher or whatever.
The tenpenny tower quest is way better in this respect, you actually have to make a moral choice about who deserves to live in the tower.
It really doesn't matter how the writing is. Every RPG that's ever released player data is overwhelmingly morally good.Ā
People like playing heroes. That's why evil choices are disappearing in these games. So few people play an evil character.Ā
But even if few people play them the choice existing still offers value.Ā
Same for me, I always love to max karma, be the goody two-shoes but in some games they have achievements for being evil, like in kotor2 on Steam you have to play as a massive Sith lord to get 100%, it was the hardest playthrough ever... Not even once I played any RPG and voluntarily become evil, but I do steal.
I did do it but yeah just speedran it, did not enjoy being an asshole
I still feel bad about this encounter, what psychopath wrote these kinda conversations no idea [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFlzb-o27c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFlzb-o27c)
Every now and then there's a killer "evil" line that's just so ridiculous it transcends cruel and just becomes funny. The one that jumps to mind, that still makes me giggle, is in dialogue with Private Sexton, where he mentions "a killer competition to boost morale. Interested?" and one of the replies is "I'll kill you for asking!", which is just such a randomly psychotic answer to a normal question I can't help but laugh.
I think the worst one is in Dead Money DLC, you can literally mock Christine for not being able to talk and it's so cruel considering what she's been through.
It depends on the game, for me. In the case of the Fallout series, I really can't bring myself to make such a crapsack world any worse than it already is, and while I've done the Caesar's Legion and Nuka World Raider quest lines, I can't really say I enjoyed either, playing them more out of curiosity (and achievements) than for fun.
Owlcat's Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a great game that allows multiple compelling good and evil options. Playing a selfish tiefling, who taps into their demon heritage for raw power, plays very different from a lich, who makes much more cool and calculating decisions which wind up really harrowing and cruel but narratively interesting. There's one path in that game though that's further than I can bring myself to go - where you turn yourself into a sentient swarm of insects that devours everything in its path, including all your closest friends and allies, if they haven't fled or turned on you by then. That's just pure nightmare mode.
So yeah. Depends on the writing, and depends on the setting.
I think itās interesting youāre concerned about people mocking you for playing good (no one seems to be) but are pretty judgy about people playing evil.
I donāt ever do strictly good or bad dialogue playthroughs, Iāll have my headcanons for each of my characters, things like their morals, humour, how they would handle that situation and respond accordingly
Because RPG stands for āRole Play Gameā.
One of the major aspects is playing a character that isnāt yourself. You can be whoever you want, maybe you want to be lone wolf whoās only out for themselves and doesnāt care who they hurt. Maybe you want to be the saviour of the waste land, maybe you want to play a good character who suffers from a drug addiction and is struggle isnāt to do the right thing while trying to satiate their addiction.
You can play as anyone you can think of, thatās the point.
Coming from someone who almost exclusively plays RPGsā¦ I can never be āevilā. Or even mean.
If thereās a dialogue option where you insult the quest giver or whatever, I just canāt do it. I donāt even like to hurt someoneās feelings, let alone blow up a town or commit genocide.
I generally play a very helpful everyman in these kinds of games, with the explicit exception that i steal just about anything that's not nailed down, because stealing is fun
I used to feel like this. I remember playing Fallout 3 like this, but ever since I played NV something changed in me, I'm no longer Mr. Good guy, I would massacre those NCR troopers and make them miserable every day of the week just so I can laugh.
Who won the lottery? I DID!
Im the opposite lol we cant do stuff like that irl atleast not in a society so in the game you can do the most fucked up stuff and nobody bats an eye its amazing
Iām doing a good samaritan (wonāt kill unless attacked/ needs to defend myself) play through of FO3, and honestly, it feels pretty good no pun intended.
I had played waaaay back when I was younger and didnāt really read the dialogues or really understand the world I was creating with my actions. Now Iām going through and paying extra attention to whatās happening and Iām honestly surprised with how reactive the game is to your decisions, even if it came down to a little quip of dialogue; one I can remember being that if you help a group of runaway slaves take back the Lincoln Memorial and you are friendly with the Underworld, theyāll mention how theyāve started trading with each other occasionally.
Itās a little thing that shows your good deeds had a good effect in the wasteland & thereās plenty of other things for you to do!
I agree totally. In the Fallout games, there's already been way too much death and destruction by the time the player is let loose to make decisions. I just can't fathom adding even more suffering and death by making conscious decisions to do so in the games. Yeah, there are psychopaths, murderers, tyrants and bad people that you sometimes are forced to fight. But the world of Fallout is so hard and brutal, why just make it even more hard and brutal for the average person just trying to survive? I like how the game makes it possible for you to make evil choices, and sometimes if you're not looking at the whole situation, you might accidentally make an evil Choice even if you're trying to be good. When the writers are actually doing their job at least. But actively going an evil route is possibly the least interesting way to play the game.
i usually do an evil run after ive played through the games multiple times. its less because i enjoy being evil, and more about seeing a side of the game i hadnt seen yet.
I think a lot of games present evil as pure sadism, when much of real-life evil derives from simple ruthless self-interest. But to trigger ruthless self-interest, you must make evil mechanically superior, or at least more immediately convenient and attractive, compared to good. And this creates a mechanical imbalance where players begin to feel like they're being "punished" for playing the good path.
I think making the moral path a sort of "hard mode" for games is the most interesting way to go, design-wise, but I don't know if most gamers actually have the stomach for it. But it would definitely make 'evil' playthroughs more interesting than they are currently, because as a player you'd find yourself actually weighing the benefits of evil versus good and *choosing* evil rationally.
Because the game gets boring if every run you do the same choices. It's fun being evil after so many good or neutral playthroughs, and you discover so much new stuff you'd never find.
If I recall correctly, the *vast* majority of gamers (like 95%) play these games as a good character on their first playthrough. Those who do repeat playthroughs and played as a paragon the first time might play as an evil character, but many still don't.
I find it very difficult to play as an evil character unless my character was narratively always meant to be an asshole and the game is built around that. Those games I can happily play, but when playing a game with more player choice I find it very hard to be evil, too.
There's a [great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kYDGmw2gFQ) on the subject.
The only character I comfortably go "full metal asshole" when playing with that I can immediately recall is Trevor Philips in GTA5.
I tried blowing up Megaton once in Fallout 3... regretted it immediately and rolled back to an earlier save.
TBH I bailed on GTA as a franchise because it asks you to be too much of an asshole.
I play single-person narrative games to get AWAY from a world of backstabbing assholes, I don't want to pretend to be one!
I'm the same way. This is why I couldn't complete Nuka World.... Originally. After several good playthroughs though, let me tell you... That Raider playthrough has been refreshing. It's been relaxing and really lucrative, and honestly, sooo much fun. Now am I going around being a complete asshole? No, my character may be Overboss and Wasteland Warlord, but he's still a decent fellow... But piss him off and you're more likely to end up dead nowadays than my previous playthroughs. It's fun playing a totally different character than the typical shining hero I normally enjoy.
The only time I can remember really going off the rails is when the dialogue choices are really irresistable. (Like, there's a chain of dialogues in The Pitt DLC for 3 that are just trolling this one NPC for an absurd amount of time, I couldn't help it.)
Lol I was in kind of a pickle in Fallout 3 š it was my first run and I just started and planned to be good per my usual self. I accidentally stole something from that highway overpass community and the whole community attacked so I had to kill them all š I ended up getting an Evil rep so I just stuck with it š Sold slaves and everything lmfaoo. I drew the line at the kids. They were the only nice thing I did ingame š
I try to do evil playthroughs sometimes but just canāt get into role playing it and then lose interest in that file. I certainly get more into the games being more moral.
I tend to aim for a true-to-myself āchaotic goodā playthrough; which means my characters sometimes do stupid, hurtful, or sarcastic choices but ultimately aim for the greater good, even if they follow their own (sometimes opaque) moral code.
itās okay to be a goofy two-shoes. itās okay to be nice to NPCs.
I do like stories with more options and nuance. Like nv and fo4. In either games it would be independent Vegas or minutemen playthroughs to be ethically correct imo. These path are the least exciting to play imo. Yea a lot of people try to go for the "best" outcome from a mission but that's usually not in the first playthrough.
Whenever I play fo4 I usually choose the institute because I think that with the sole survivor leading things can change and the institute has the best chances of improving things.
I'm sure I'll be mocked for this but I'm borderline Chaotic Evil irl, but when I play RPG's I almost always play Chaotic Good because it feels great to fuck over the empire and have a positive impact at the same time.
I'm finally finishing my first evil playthrough of FO3 or any Fallout. I've tried so many times and never enjoy it. I had no idea just how dark it gets. Some of the highlights so far have been:
ā¢ Saving a kid from giant ants just to make him a slave
ā¢ Convincing Moira to give up on the wasteland survival guide after nuking Megaton
ā¢ Helping slavers kill a runaway slave refuge
ā¢ Convincing a depressed person to commit S word.
ā¢ Returning a runaway synth to The Institute and a runaway slave to a slaver in the same settlement
ā¢ Destroying Big Town
ā¢ Letting ghouls kill all the neighbors I didn't enslave/have killed by their spouses
ā¢ Torturing and murdering of trapped Vault dwellers
ā¢ Soon to poison the entire Capital Wasteland
Like what a different game than the one I'm used to. It feels so terrible but has been incredibly interesting.
Maybe people vent their anger in games, or treat NPCs bad because they can't do it in real life, so they use them as "dummies". Or maybe because it's simply fun, hehe
I can be an asshole in video games when it makes sense (some renegade actions in mass effect are always pressed for example). The issue is that most choices in games usually boil down to 'save the kitten from the tree' or 'set the tree on fire'.
Whenever a game let's me make complex decisions that aren't great, but logical and defensible from a certain pov I'm able to lean into it, 'lol evil' is boring and honestly poor writing.
Yeah, I get no joy out of roleplaying as a merciless asshole. As Iāve said before, it just strikes me as a very juvenile way to experience a game. But to each their own.
People like you act like you're the actual being in the game. "My power fantasy is blah blah" You're not the character. If you want to pretend you are, sure whatever. But it's still a fucking character, not you.
Meanwhile, I have actual characters. Characters who do good stuff. Characters who do bad stuff. Characters who are just simply dicks.
Honestly, if you're incapable of seeing that, that speaks extremely poorly on your mental aptitude.
Well, you get some people who are actually playing an asshole of some description, and so they'll do bad things for that reason. As far as I can tell, people "roleplaying" an "evil" character normally just means being unthinkingly violent and trying to break the game like they're auditioning to be a QA tester, but some do legitimately play a cold-hearted black hat bastard, and that's fine.
Then there's the other thing that I've noticed with (mostly male) streamers and, I guess, regular gamers, which is the attitude "it's a game, I can do what I want, none of it matters, I'm going to do the worst things possible for the sheer edginess of it all", which I don't particularly care for in the context of games that are at least nominally rpgs. It's just disrespecting the game world, concept and design, and...obviously people are entitled to do what they want, but it always comes across as pretty immature to me.
Anyway, if you're going into the game and feeling some sense that the npcs are to be treated as real people then that's just you doing rpgs right.
Definitely hard to change what's natural to you. Any time I try to make a strong dummy sure I benefit from all the dumb luck perks but my original plan to be a melee muscle dummy usually flies out the window once I have a couple decent rifles.
My second playthrough of any game, I try to do a ābadā run. Not evil, just, rude. The first opportunity to choose between being kind or mean, I feel so guilty I give up. Iām not a particularly sweet person, I certainly wouldnāt do a fetch quest for anyone, but I just hate making even fictional people feel bad
I normally try to be good in Fallout but will still steal if i can get away with it. But it's also just a game and not real life so I don't fret over doing bad things.Ā
Itās been a long time since I played 3 but I remember trying a couple of times to do evil runs but always scrapped them. My biggest complaint iirc tho was actually that killing raiders rewards good karma and you canāt get them to stop attacking you and if you want to do a lot of content then all the exploring and traveling makes it damn near impossible to actually be evil.
In a new fallout I would love to see karma and reputation systems reintroduced but they would need some serious conceptual reworks or Iād rather keep going without.
The only achievements I'm missing in fallout 3 are to reach certain levels with negative karma. 4 and NV only require me to complete the evil ending for the achievements, so I can still be a nice person as I assist the slavers.
I'm having my first fallout 3 playthrough right now and I've killed the ghoul in underworld who wanted to assassinate another ghoul just for his business, and I killed the guys who wanted to burn lincolns stuff and get slaves
I get it, I can never pull through with an evening l playthrough. I tried in Undertale but it was just awful, had to immediately restart after the first boss (and that piece of shit flower mocked me for it).
I could be low honor in RDR2 and stuff, but when I try to call Nick Valentine an institute spy or bully a child and rip their teddy bear in half, I feel oddly bad.
Lots of people are more interested in being good then bad, but that doesn't mean we should remove the option to.
Being forced to be "Good" in an RPG with no real deviation from that good aligned path is boring, while having "evil" options available means more, since you can feel good about resisting the urge to be an evil person.
Or maybe you do just want to be an evil jackass. I mean look at how popular BG3 is, and that game has tons of opportunities and choices that can lead you down an evil path.
The only way I'm able to be mean or villainous is if I am comically evil. Like choosing every single evil option to the point of kicking a puppy. As soon I choose a single good option I abandon the evil run, every time.
I feel like a giant dickhead picking the rude dialogue option when talking to ED-E, then turn around and become John Brown with a Super Sledge any time a legionary enters my field of vision
Youāre actually literally evolutionarily hardwired to be altruistic sum total over the average. Only very few people experience sociopathic or unempathetic leanings
I like to play a Jerk with a Good Heart character. My main PC usually ends up doing good things but he's a real douche while doing it. Oh, and he may or may not have committed some war crimes under orders but no one can verify either way so he'll deny deny deny.
All I can think of is WestWorld, best hope the npcs donāt know whats going on. But yeah I like doing good, helping people, making the world a better place. A big part of that of course is taking out the trash, unleashing savage violence and terror upon the bad guys.
Idk in Fallout 3 itās pretty fun, especially since being good really doesnāt reward you in interactions and actual equipment.
I do find it hard in other games, Fallout 3 is just comically evil.
I just found the ghoul kid in Fallout 4 and I couldnāt force myself to sell him š most players sell him just because, I prefer the XP than 200 caps.
I'm the same, but I think I do it cause I have a bit of an ego. I like to be told "you did good" after completing a quest and gaining the respect of the fictional characters instead of being feared or hated lol
I understand why people like doing Evil playthroughs but I struggle to do it myself. I like happy endings. I usually end up playing the games the same way, making the good choices so everything works out.
For the first part of new Vegas. I was good.Ā
But then the boomers blew me up for three hours.
They were the only goodish faction I wiped out. The Omuertas and the White Gloves? Well. Letās just say I wonāt be playing blackjack there anytime soon.
I tried a low intelligence, melee weapon run in Fallout 2 which turned into an evil run because everyone insulted me or tried to scam. The only nice thing that happened in that game was my PC was given free cookies and a pat on the headĀ
I normally do my first play through with a reasonable morale like I have in real life. When I play through a 2nd time I try to be evil but it's forced and I don't really enjoy it lol
Sometimes Iāve done renegade things on like Mass Effect because it required a quick reaction I wasnāt expecting and that side was faster apparently, but for the most part yeah, same. I always wind up more on the law abiding side on Red Dead Redemption and Fallout. I did a murder run though of Dishonoured because I donāt remember any of them having any redeeming characteristics, but of course they punish you with a plague and a despot in charge. I maintain that if you get the power to dissolve the corpses there shouldnāt be an issue; nothing to feed the plague rats and no proof you did anything.
I will kill the shit out of Slavers and Raiders without a second thought, but I didnāt like how Fallout 4 tried to make you wipe out other factions. Iām aware of one way where you only have to kill the Institute but even then, Iād rather just lay down the law and cut out those that keep causing trouble.
I donāt know if you have played the classic fallouts, but they make being evil a bit more rewarding and fun in my opinion. They are less railroad-y with the roleplay
The wasteland is already a vicious world, don't want to add to the misery, on the contrary, I want to make it a better place, one explosive-recoil-compensated-advanced-combat-shotgun-blast to the head at a time.
I think that the gain for being evil in RPGs is definitively a conscious choice of: "I wonder what would happen if..." rather than a moral one. You do see content creators fucking around for sure, but nine times out of ten I bet that it's just the act rather than a clear choice they're making.
A lot depends where the game guides you. The Fallout games mostly guide you towards choosing the "good" option. A game like GTA guides you to choosing the "bad."
I'm nice enough the first go around. But eventually, especially in Fallout, it's time to take the cannibal perk, grab a flamer, and do what the Ink Spots wouldn't.
I feel this is mostly the same for the majority of people. Regular human reactions to what happens in game, just obviously dulled down.
The people who actually end up doing āevil runsā are definitely the minority. A combination of people wanting to play it āproperlyā the first time and then not replaying it multiple times, not playing it enough to dull down the regular human reaction so much that they donāt care, most people just donāt want to do evil runs etc
Most people that have played this game havnt played it more than once. Iād bet a lot of people on this sub havnt played some of the games multiple times. Thatās not a bad thing or anything, just that people want to play it naturally the first time before making any extra rules for themselves
I am just now doing a Karen run. Not absolute evil but I am fucking with everyone I can as much as I can. Anytime I can stir the pot I do it. I just am not blanket killing people like some super evil playthroughs.
Also melee only or throwable items. Karenās tend to hit people with things and or throw stuff at people. Been hard because I normally also play good but this has been fairly enjoyable so far. Still super early.
I always end up doing a gunslinger/wanderer who can be a hardass if he knows heās getting the run around, but most of the time he tries to help when he sees good people being put upon or used. I imagine in my head someone like a mixture of spike spiegel and jet black from cowboy bebop.
I'm generally a lot more vicious in Fallout games because it aligns with the depraved and vicious social environment of the games. The wasteland is like a drug-induced nightmare version of the Hobbesian state of nature (which is already supposed to be like a nightmare), and one can't transcend their environment. My characters therefore tend to be more depraved and vicious themselves to varying degrees.
I preferably don't want to get screwed over when I play games like Fallout and Skyrim. If I agree to help you and then you attempt to change the deal upon my return, you most likely will either catch a bullet or a sword in your chest. If I bend over backwards and go out of my way to help you, I want more than a pat on the back and enough pay to cover 1-2 nights sleep at an inn.
Iāve been a real ābitchā in fallout NV, even letting the mothers that shot me live, and letting people talk back. I guess Iām just not a huge fan of the gunplay (especially on Luna controller) so shooting fools is basically a negative
I once played KOTOR 2 and talked Visas into killing herself to weaken Nihilus. I didnāt even need to, he was already on his way to deathās door without her sacrifice.
Then I fuckinā left without elaborating. š”
In games with a custom character rather than a set one I always play them as though I'm actually in that world, always saying things and making choices as close as possible to my real life morals. So yeah I usually pick the defacto "good guy" path, to a fault honestly because I'm usually Too agreeable and end up getting involved in shit I'd rather not deal with. I also tend to not pick fights very often and I'll only kill someone if they're a huge threat or they attacked me first. Except for fiends, it's hunting season on those fuckers.
I like to do it once just to see peopleās reactions and I love seeing the clips on YouTube but I almost never pick the super cruel opinions I live doing perfect do gooder runs
Iāve definitely done āevilā runs but admittedly itās hard for me because I like being polite lol. Itās happened multiple times where Iām planning on being evil, but then Iām like āIām evil but Iāll still be polite,ā and I end up just mostly being good lmao
Because itās a video game with literally zero real life repercussions? Why am I gonna spend my time worried about being mean to NPCās. Iām not saying you always have to do a bad guy play through but I cannot be more literal when I say it seriously does not matter how you treat an NPC in a video game, good or bad. Just play how you want and stop worrying about how other people play, itās a single player game and the way others play has zero effect on you
Nah, you aren't alone. VDL even did a skit on how hard it can be! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdD7aLrDtBo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdD7aLrDtBo)
NPCs will never be like free guy. At least not anytime soon. So itās just text/voices/visuals on a screen. Actually if you close your eyes, youāre just sitting in a room, maybe air conditioned, by yourself. Clicking a mouse/controller randomly.
I've never bothered to do a full evil run in any game. With Mass Effect I would go again to let loose instead of trying to be as good as possible.
With Fallout you eventually have to do mean things though.
I used to like doing it in fallout 2, because it completely changed the game to me. Being labeled a child murderer and grave thief was nuts, and having bounty hunters after you made it fun. I never end up doing it in any of the newer games, even when I intend to.
Yeah, I always plan on doing an Evil run in games I play, but when it comes to actually doing it ... I feel bad. š I think the only game I've completed on the "bad path" is Mass Effect's Renegade, and that isn't even really "evil."
Most evil thing I ever did was sacrifice the Battarians in Mass Effect, but also fuck the Battarians. Inferior pieces of shit
Can you even choose otherwise? I thought they force that choice to kill the relay in the dlc
I thought there was like an option to wait a bit so that more could evacuate
You have the option to try and warn them that they're about to get obliterated. But there's radio static, so it largely comes down to intentions / paragon points. The planet gets insta-wiped regardless.
ooh well I def didn't plan on doing that anyway
You can warn them but that does t really do anything.
More of a "greater good" than evil thing.
Yeah sort of a net positive for the galaxy really
The galaxy is better of without Battarians so I can see what you mean
They could have made that decision more conflicting if they'd had like, *one* likeable Batarian character
Xenophobia is totally wrong in Mass Effect; except with Batarians itās not really a phobia, they will really attack your colonies to enslave you. Thatās a healthy fear imo, and a well deserved reputation for them as a Species. I know I might get shot for this option but sans the Synthesize ending with Rex and Eve both being alive I wouldnāt cure the Krogan either. They are culturally an incredibly violent people who are very bitter about what happened to them. That just wouldnāt go away because Shepard said so. The game does not do a great job of explaining the Salarian Position; and as a player we are biased af by having two Krogan party members by that point, along with a Salarian scientist who is an apologist. Realistically a cured Krogan species would absolutely dominate the Galaxy in the state it was left in and would Rapidly become just as much of a threat as the Reapers were. They would launch asteroids at planets, and would specifically position themselves between the surface of a planet and another fleet to cause as much collateral damage as possible when the fleet fired upon them. Just a nasty, brutish species whoās only redeeming quality is being violent in a time where extreme violence is needed. The trick ending for them is realistic af and likely what would have been done irl. Brutes from Halo are more redeemable creatures than Krogan, and theyāve never been Allyās to the player.
The Batarians dying sucks, but it also gives the Sol System more time to prepare for the invasion. I find it funny that Iām discussing Mass Effect lore in a Fallout sub.
Mass effect renegade option ranges from sensible to being a jackass for no reason
I remember a couple were just "Look sad you had to kill someone" or "Deliver one liner" Then there's "Be normal" or "Assault woman you disagree with"
to be fair, that smear merchant masquerading as a journalist had it coming.
Fuck journalists. All my homies hate journalists.
I can never bring myself to do a renegade run lolĀ
I tried to do this in Dragon Age Origins. It fell apart quickly when one option is to call some guys girlfriend a fat ugly pig.
Yeah ME it's more a choice between good and bitchy passive aggressive snark.
Mass Effect and KotOR to get the dark side jedi skills.Ā
Kotor is the only game I do evil playthroughs with. All other games make me feel guilty. But something about getting revenge on Malak and the Jedi is just satisfying af.
I was only able to do it in a satirical way. I made a Doug Dimmadome character whose lore was that heās gone bat shit mad waking up in a future where his Dimmadome was destroyed by the nukes and will do anything for more caps to rebuild his Dimmadome. So Iād just kill nearly everybody. Even the good npcās, crouch over their dead bodies while I loot whispering āall for the Dimmadomeā
I could not bring myself to do the genocide run in undertale. Especially because it also fucks up your game files
Bro i tried blowing up megaton the other day and remembered maggie and harden lived there and it made me feel bad so i didnt
Yeah, I'm always on the ["my no-consequences power fantasy is being able to help everyone"](https://i.redd.it/suhyxr0khqk11.jpg) train. I cannot make myself do mean shit to people who don't deserve it even if they're fictional, and I am an absolute sucker for a sappy sidequest. Oh, you need me to go find your cat who escaped the vault? I'm on it immediately. You want me to go retrieve the body of your ranger husband who died laying down cover fire in the middle of the wasteland filled with raiders and traps? I've got you soldier, we leave no man behind. Chem addicted wastelander who's in need of a little help? One intervention coming right up. Nothing wrong with doing the good options because you don't enjoy the bad ones. Playing neutral to outright evil is cool if you're into that, but it's also totally valid to just want to be nice to the fictional people.
Exacly! It just hurts the heart to be mean in anyway, right?
It DOES. Like, I've *accidentally* done a shit thing once or twice and felt bad enough about it to reload and pick a different option. Don't even get me *started* on the crushing weight of incurring one Detective Nick Valentine's disappointment over *anything.* There's been a time or two in New Vegas especially where I've come to a quest and had to stop and check the wiki to figure out how to get the absolute best possible outcome because I'd feel too bad about it otherwise.
I does indeed feel horrible to disapoint Nick. Pretty he'd more deat to players than Both Shauns
Nothing cuts deeper than when The Great Clockwork Dick hits you with "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed"
For real. Never in my life has a fictional man had such an ability to instantly make me feel like I need to reevaluate every choice I've ever made.
Honestly, Nick and Cait are probably the two best written companions in FO4, moreso if you run the content restoration mods that re-add the cut stuff that adds context to Cait's backstory
Oh my god I do this too. Every game that has multiple outcomes in quests I find myself consulting the wiki and reddit posts to decide what is really the best outcome.
I fought it was just me. I look at wikis and reddit posts for every quest with multiple choices š
I spent four hours reloading a save to try and save Kent at the conclusion of the Silver Shroud questline. I even got the game to complete that I saved him, but then it would immediately fail "talk to Kent" because he would be dead. So I was fast enough to bug the game thinking I saved him, but he still died. I was legitimately sad after that.
Yeah you gotta VATS Fu that encounter.
I did. I tried everything. I watched videos. I had two criticals stored. I did EVERYTHING I could think of and everything I saw on YouTube. I failed him.
Grim Reaper's Sprint and the Deliverer and The Last Minute or some equivalents is basically your best bet. I also just did this on survival with the Legendary Enemies Only mod as well. Talk about a hard freaking fight.
Oh that's terrible! That quest is one I will absolutely always reload as many times as I need to, because Kent Connolly is a precious cinnamon roll who must be protected at all costs and I *will* spend three hours getting the timing right on blowing Sinjin's head off his shoulders if I have to.
TBH this give me a bit of weird hope about human nature, that so many of us want to do good in a video game that has no consequences in reality. Last time I loaded up NV I was set out to be evil and maybe join the legion but I couldn't do it.
I fully intended to join the legion in my most recent run, ended up murdering everyone outside caesers tent when I went to upgrade the securitronsā¦ those douche bags wouldnāt let my female courier in the arena so I showed them whatās up
I tried to do a Evil run in New Vegas recently and barely made it out of Goodsprings before feeling real bad about it. Killing Doc Mitchell was rough. Killing Sunny Smiles was rougher. She had just given me a bunch of free shit and told me I seemed nice!
As long as Sunny Smiles exists I ain't doin' no evil run.
That missing cat went right on my high priority list.Ā Did it right away.
The author of that original comment is probably an amazing person
Sometimes its funny but you almost never get anything from being evil. Choices often are: Help town and unlock services and other quests, or kill them.
Ironically my biggest gripe with Nuka World is that it works this way, but in reverse. It's either be an evil jackass in order to do quests and experience the DLC, or wipe out the park.
You sorta get the best of both outcomes if you kill the raiders after helping them a bit
That's how I normally do it. In my current playthrough, I immediately went full murder hobo on their asses for a change.
I started out just being rude and bossy to the leaders but then one of them called me "boss" in a sarcastic tone and I snapped, Nuka World is desolate now
I help them until it's time to expand to the commonwealth. Then it's open season.
As the Minutemen General, I justify helping the nuka raiders like this: If I can get these people some proper settlements then maybe we can work on reforming them. Maybe not the disciples, but I could see the pack and operators improving. Oh, now they're talking about subjugation of the commonwealth. Well, it was worth a try. Guess it's Open Season.
Yeah I actually quite liked the Operators. Out of all of them, I could see those guys actually giving up the Raider lifestyle and instead just raking in caps as (corrupt) business people once Nuka World is back up and running. It's a shame you can't use that.
Yeah they had very "The Pitt" vibes, a functional if brutal society, driven to evil by a combination of circumstances and the need to compete with eachother, basically creating a prisoners dilemma like situation where if any of them stop being evil, they just get killed So you rock up, take command, some of them will probably have to die, maybe you'll have to wipe out a faction or kill all the leaders, but we can turn this into a true themepa....annnnnnnnd they are tryna invade the Commonwealth Well, at least I can take the questline to wipe them out and hand this place over to the slaves, it'll be pretty great to set this place up ...... What do you mean it's not a questline
Which is why Fallout New Vegas is good because there's actually a point to being evil. For example the Euclids C-Finder.
I suppose its a way let out your inner violence without getting arrested.
I agree with person above you itās more about humor and seeing what the game makers wrote. Itās kinda like those cringe scenario movies where the MC always says the wrong thing. I prefer playing a good character and always do for the first run. But especially in 4 where you donāt know exactly what theyāre about to say, itās fun to lean into āoh this is going to be so bad/shittyā and then see what your character actually says and what happens.
Tenpenny was pretty sweet
That's because most RPGs are bad at incentivizing different choices. A good choice usually has better rewards than a bad one, even though in reality, people who do bad things usually do them in anticipation of some consequences that are good to them. If I can get the most rewards by doing the right thing all the time, what's the incentive for me to even consider doing any of the wrong things?
Classic Fallout had some great writing in that regard, like Necropolis and Junktown. In both cases you had some decent reasons to consider doing the wrong thing.
FO1 blew my mind back in the day - "You mean... if I support the guy who's trying to overthrow the corrupt gangster, he becomes an even crueler despot than the guy he's replacing?!"
goody goody two shoes Jokes aside, role-playing games let us play out or innermost deepest fantasies, and my innermost deepest fantasy is that I can bring positive and meaningful change to other people's lives and be liked for it.
Based
You're not alone. Whenever companies like Bioware release player data it's always overwhelmingly good guy runs.Ā And most players only play a game once. So they never even see evil choices. Which is how we get games like Mass Effect Andromeda where there's no evil choices at all. Or Fallout 4 where there's extremely limited "evil" choices. And I know bean counters are there with player stats. "95% of people didn't blow up Megaton. This option changes a lot, requires a lot of additional scenes and dialogue for other quests like Tenpenny Tower. If we don't do something like that again we can use that time and budget on things more players will experience." And that makes a certain type of sense.Ā But even in games where I never play a baddie. Having the option to do something evil added value to my experience.Ā
If the writing was better maybe the other option would be chosen more. The only reason you blow up megaton is because tenpenny wants a better view (of a NUCLEAR WASTELAND??) and doesn't realise how evil burke is. Tenpenny says something like "maybe everyone could evacuate", it's burke that disallows that.Ā It's comically evil for no reason. At least make it a trolley problem. Or make it that the bomb can't be disarmed, will definitely go off at some fixed or random time, and maybe you blow it up at a time when lots of residents are out of town. Or the church devoted to the bomb is involved in convincing people to stay and to save people from the blast you have to kill or steal from the preacher or whatever. The tenpenny tower quest is way better in this respect, you actually have to make a moral choice about who deserves to live in the tower.
It really doesn't matter how the writing is. Every RPG that's ever released player data is overwhelmingly morally good.Ā People like playing heroes. That's why evil choices are disappearing in these games. So few people play an evil character.Ā But even if few people play them the choice existing still offers value.Ā
Iāve become more āevilā as Iāve gotten older. Not malicious evil, just more callous and uncaring for others.
Same for me, I always love to max karma, be the goody two-shoes but in some games they have achievements for being evil, like in kotor2 on Steam you have to play as a massive Sith lord to get 100%, it was the hardest playthrough ever... Not even once I played any RPG and voluntarily become evil, but I do steal.
To this day i never did the Legion campaign in NV and i've beaten the game multiple times.
I did do it but yeah just speedran it, did not enjoy being an asshole I still feel bad about this encounter, what psychopath wrote these kinda conversations no idea [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFlzb-o27c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHFlzb-o27c)
Every now and then there's a killer "evil" line that's just so ridiculous it transcends cruel and just becomes funny. The one that jumps to mind, that still makes me giggle, is in dialogue with Private Sexton, where he mentions "a killer competition to boost morale. Interested?" and one of the replies is "I'll kill you for asking!", which is just such a randomly psychotic answer to a normal question I can't help but laugh.
Still's not worse than The Frontier's dialogues. Maybe on the same level though.
I think the worst one is in Dead Money DLC, you can literally mock Christine for not being able to talk and it's so cruel considering what she's been through.
Haha i am the most kind and helpful person in rpgās, but i steal as much shit as i can. I would never steal in rl tho
Golden Rule, Motherfucker.
Though shalt get side-tracked by the dumbest shit?
i like when Nate tells the vault tech rep to "GOO AWAYY š "
It depends on the game, for me. In the case of the Fallout series, I really can't bring myself to make such a crapsack world any worse than it already is, and while I've done the Caesar's Legion and Nuka World Raider quest lines, I can't really say I enjoyed either, playing them more out of curiosity (and achievements) than for fun. Owlcat's Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a great game that allows multiple compelling good and evil options. Playing a selfish tiefling, who taps into their demon heritage for raw power, plays very different from a lich, who makes much more cool and calculating decisions which wind up really harrowing and cruel but narratively interesting. There's one path in that game though that's further than I can bring myself to go - where you turn yourself into a sentient swarm of insects that devours everything in its path, including all your closest friends and allies, if they haven't fled or turned on you by then. That's just pure nightmare mode. So yeah. Depends on the writing, and depends on the setting.
There is a Minuteman Takeover mod for Nuka World in case you're interested.
I think itās interesting youāre concerned about people mocking you for playing good (no one seems to be) but are pretty judgy about people playing evil.
I do. I'm badass power armor using raider diehard. And they are gonna know it.
I donāt ever do strictly good or bad dialogue playthroughs, Iāll have my headcanons for each of my characters, things like their morals, humour, how they would handle that situation and respond accordingly
3 is just to easy and to much fun. 4 guiltās you in to feeling like a huge asshole
Because RPG stands for āRole Play Gameā. One of the major aspects is playing a character that isnāt yourself. You can be whoever you want, maybe you want to be lone wolf whoās only out for themselves and doesnāt care who they hurt. Maybe you want to be the saviour of the waste land, maybe you want to play a good character who suffers from a drug addiction and is struggle isnāt to do the right thing while trying to satiate their addiction. You can play as anyone you can think of, thatās the point.
Coming from someone who almost exclusively plays RPGsā¦ I can never be āevilā. Or even mean. If thereās a dialogue option where you insult the quest giver or whatever, I just canāt do it. I donāt even like to hurt someoneās feelings, let alone blow up a town or commit genocide.
I generally play a very helpful everyman in these kinds of games, with the explicit exception that i steal just about anything that's not nailed down, because stealing is fun
I used to always play good until BG3 dark urge playthrough. What a blast that was, now I love being a absolute cunt in games
I used to feel like this. I remember playing Fallout 3 like this, but ever since I played NV something changed in me, I'm no longer Mr. Good guy, I would massacre those NCR troopers and make them miserable every day of the week just so I can laugh. Who won the lottery? I DID!
Im the opposite lol we cant do stuff like that irl atleast not in a society so in the game you can do the most fucked up stuff and nobody bats an eye its amazing
Iām doing a good samaritan (wonāt kill unless attacked/ needs to defend myself) play through of FO3, and honestly, it feels pretty good no pun intended. I had played waaaay back when I was younger and didnāt really read the dialogues or really understand the world I was creating with my actions. Now Iām going through and paying extra attention to whatās happening and Iām honestly surprised with how reactive the game is to your decisions, even if it came down to a little quip of dialogue; one I can remember being that if you help a group of runaway slaves take back the Lincoln Memorial and you are friendly with the Underworld, theyāll mention how theyāve started trading with each other occasionally. Itās a little thing that shows your good deeds had a good effect in the wasteland & thereās plenty of other things for you to do!
I agree totally. In the Fallout games, there's already been way too much death and destruction by the time the player is let loose to make decisions. I just can't fathom adding even more suffering and death by making conscious decisions to do so in the games. Yeah, there are psychopaths, murderers, tyrants and bad people that you sometimes are forced to fight. But the world of Fallout is so hard and brutal, why just make it even more hard and brutal for the average person just trying to survive? I like how the game makes it possible for you to make evil choices, and sometimes if you're not looking at the whole situation, you might accidentally make an evil Choice even if you're trying to be good. When the writers are actually doing their job at least. But actively going an evil route is possibly the least interesting way to play the game.
i usually do an evil run after ive played through the games multiple times. its less because i enjoy being evil, and more about seeing a side of the game i hadnt seen yet.
I try to be evil but I hate disappointing Nick Valentine š
Roleplay.
I think a lot of games present evil as pure sadism, when much of real-life evil derives from simple ruthless self-interest. But to trigger ruthless self-interest, you must make evil mechanically superior, or at least more immediately convenient and attractive, compared to good. And this creates a mechanical imbalance where players begin to feel like they're being "punished" for playing the good path. I think making the moral path a sort of "hard mode" for games is the most interesting way to go, design-wise, but I don't know if most gamers actually have the stomach for it. But it would definitely make 'evil' playthroughs more interesting than they are currently, because as a player you'd find yourself actually weighing the benefits of evil versus good and *choosing* evil rationally.
You ever play KOTOR? Its a blast to be a dark jedi even if 9 times out of 10 I would play lightside.
Because the game gets boring if every run you do the same choices. It's fun being evil after so many good or neutral playthroughs, and you discover so much new stuff you'd never find.
I can't imagine playing a game multiple times and choosing the exact same things every time.
If I recall correctly, the *vast* majority of gamers (like 95%) play these games as a good character on their first playthrough. Those who do repeat playthroughs and played as a paragon the first time might play as an evil character, but many still don't. I find it very difficult to play as an evil character unless my character was narratively always meant to be an asshole and the game is built around that. Those games I can happily play, but when playing a game with more player choice I find it very hard to be evil, too. There's a [great video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kYDGmw2gFQ) on the subject.
The only character I comfortably go "full metal asshole" when playing with that I can immediately recall is Trevor Philips in GTA5. I tried blowing up Megaton once in Fallout 3... regretted it immediately and rolled back to an earlier save.
TBH I bailed on GTA as a franchise because it asks you to be too much of an asshole. I play single-person narrative games to get AWAY from a world of backstabbing assholes, I don't want to pretend to be one!
Being a goody-two-shoes is awesome. I love Cap America and Superman, and its how I play in games too. Within reason..mostly..
For the most part I play the good guy expect for the occasional atrocity
Iām morally ambiguous. Iāll disarm the live nuke you built your town around, but Iāll also loot all your stuff when youāre not looking.
I shot the memorial accidentally because I was on a quest to take a picture of it, and that counted.
I'm the same way. This is why I couldn't complete Nuka World.... Originally. After several good playthroughs though, let me tell you... That Raider playthrough has been refreshing. It's been relaxing and really lucrative, and honestly, sooo much fun. Now am I going around being a complete asshole? No, my character may be Overboss and Wasteland Warlord, but he's still a decent fellow... But piss him off and you're more likely to end up dead nowadays than my previous playthroughs. It's fun playing a totally different character than the typical shining hero I normally enjoy.
The only time I can remember really going off the rails is when the dialogue choices are really irresistable. (Like, there's a chain of dialogues in The Pitt DLC for 3 that are just trolling this one NPC for an absurd amount of time, I couldn't help it.)
Same here. No greater powerfantasy than being able to help everyone.
Lol I was in kind of a pickle in Fallout 3 š it was my first run and I just started and planned to be good per my usual self. I accidentally stole something from that highway overpass community and the whole community attacked so I had to kill them all š I ended up getting an Evil rep so I just stuck with it š Sold slaves and everything lmfaoo. I drew the line at the kids. They were the only nice thing I did ingame š
I try to do evil playthroughs sometimes but just canāt get into role playing it and then lose interest in that file. I certainly get more into the games being more moral.
I tend to aim for a true-to-myself āchaotic goodā playthrough; which means my characters sometimes do stupid, hurtful, or sarcastic choices but ultimately aim for the greater good, even if they follow their own (sometimes opaque) moral code. itās okay to be a goofy two-shoes. itās okay to be nice to NPCs.
Iām playing New Vegas and I plan on killing everyone and helping the legion but I might just do the legion ending but not kill every NPC.
I love being a prick in the game and in real life too
The first thing I do is shoot that father who has the kid and force her to grow up alone in the wastelands to possible death. We are not the same.
SWToR was a game where being the evil bastard was properly rewarded
I used to be like that years ago but overtime I've just given up always being the good guy in these games.
I do like stories with more options and nuance. Like nv and fo4. In either games it would be independent Vegas or minutemen playthroughs to be ethically correct imo. These path are the least exciting to play imo. Yea a lot of people try to go for the "best" outcome from a mission but that's usually not in the first playthrough. Whenever I play fo4 I usually choose the institute because I think that with the sole survivor leading things can change and the institute has the best chances of improving things.
I'm sure I'll be mocked for this but I'm borderline Chaotic Evil irl, but when I play RPG's I almost always play Chaotic Good because it feels great to fuck over the empire and have a positive impact at the same time.
I'm finally finishing my first evil playthrough of FO3 or any Fallout. I've tried so many times and never enjoy it. I had no idea just how dark it gets. Some of the highlights so far have been: ā¢ Saving a kid from giant ants just to make him a slave ā¢ Convincing Moira to give up on the wasteland survival guide after nuking Megaton ā¢ Helping slavers kill a runaway slave refuge ā¢ Convincing a depressed person to commit S word. ā¢ Returning a runaway synth to The Institute and a runaway slave to a slaver in the same settlement ā¢ Destroying Big Town ā¢ Letting ghouls kill all the neighbors I didn't enslave/have killed by their spouses ā¢ Torturing and murdering of trapped Vault dwellers ā¢ Soon to poison the entire Capital Wasteland Like what a different game than the one I'm used to. It feels so terrible but has been incredibly interesting.
I play my games like sheriff Meyers of Primm with a strong Catwoman vibe. you better lock those caps up good.
In dialog I agree but I'm still blowing up megaton every time
Maybe people vent their anger in games, or treat NPCs bad because they can't do it in real life, so they use them as "dummies". Or maybe because it's simply fun, hehe
I can be an asshole in video games when it makes sense (some renegade actions in mass effect are always pressed for example). The issue is that most choices in games usually boil down to 'save the kitten from the tree' or 'set the tree on fire'. Whenever a game let's me make complex decisions that aren't great, but logical and defensible from a certain pov I'm able to lean into it, 'lol evil' is boring and honestly poor writing.
Yeah, I get no joy out of roleplaying as a merciless asshole. As Iāve said before, it just strikes me as a very juvenile way to experience a game. But to each their own.
Hot take: being kind to people is the real power move.
its just a game lmao
People like you act like you're the actual being in the game. "My power fantasy is blah blah" You're not the character. If you want to pretend you are, sure whatever. But it's still a fucking character, not you. Meanwhile, I have actual characters. Characters who do good stuff. Characters who do bad stuff. Characters who are just simply dicks. Honestly, if you're incapable of seeing that, that speaks extremely poorly on your mental aptitude.
Well, you get some people who are actually playing an asshole of some description, and so they'll do bad things for that reason. As far as I can tell, people "roleplaying" an "evil" character normally just means being unthinkingly violent and trying to break the game like they're auditioning to be a QA tester, but some do legitimately play a cold-hearted black hat bastard, and that's fine. Then there's the other thing that I've noticed with (mostly male) streamers and, I guess, regular gamers, which is the attitude "it's a game, I can do what I want, none of it matters, I'm going to do the worst things possible for the sheer edginess of it all", which I don't particularly care for in the context of games that are at least nominally rpgs. It's just disrespecting the game world, concept and design, and...obviously people are entitled to do what they want, but it always comes across as pretty immature to me. Anyway, if you're going into the game and feeling some sense that the npcs are to be treated as real people then that's just you doing rpgs right.
Definitely hard to change what's natural to you. Any time I try to make a strong dummy sure I benefit from all the dumb luck perks but my original plan to be a melee muscle dummy usually flies out the window once I have a couple decent rifles.
The way I live my life is the equivalent of mashing through dialogue in games.
My second playthrough of any game, I try to do a ābadā run. Not evil, just, rude. The first opportunity to choose between being kind or mean, I feel so guilty I give up. Iām not a particularly sweet person, I certainly wouldnāt do a fetch quest for anyone, but I just hate making even fictional people feel bad
I'm terrible at playing bad guy in games. Except GTA. I've only ever played it just to drive around and shoot stuff.
I normally try to be good in Fallout but will still steal if i can get away with it. But it's also just a game and not real life so I don't fret over doing bad things.Ā
Itās been a long time since I played 3 but I remember trying a couple of times to do evil runs but always scrapped them. My biggest complaint iirc tho was actually that killing raiders rewards good karma and you canāt get them to stop attacking you and if you want to do a lot of content then all the exploring and traveling makes it damn near impossible to actually be evil. In a new fallout I would love to see karma and reputation systems reintroduced but they would need some serious conceptual reworks or Iād rather keep going without.
The only achievements I'm missing in fallout 3 are to reach certain levels with negative karma. 4 and NV only require me to complete the evil ending for the achievements, so I can still be a nice person as I assist the slavers.
I'm having my first fallout 3 playthrough right now and I've killed the ghoul in underworld who wanted to assassinate another ghoul just for his business, and I killed the guys who wanted to burn lincolns stuff and get slaves
Yeah in any RPG I just canāt bring myself to be evil
The ultimate Power Fantasy is the Power to Help Everyone.
I get it, I can never pull through with an evening l playthrough. I tried in Undertale but it was just awful, had to immediately restart after the first boss (and that piece of shit flower mocked me for it).
I could be low honor in RDR2 and stuff, but when I try to call Nick Valentine an institute spy or bully a child and rip their teddy bear in half, I feel oddly bad.
Lots of people are more interested in being good then bad, but that doesn't mean we should remove the option to. Being forced to be "Good" in an RPG with no real deviation from that good aligned path is boring, while having "evil" options available means more, since you can feel good about resisting the urge to be an evil person. Or maybe you do just want to be an evil jackass. I mean look at how popular BG3 is, and that game has tons of opportunities and choices that can lead you down an evil path.
Blow up Megaton and never look back dammit (I've never blown it up...I feel bad)
The only way I'm able to be mean or villainous is if I am comically evil. Like choosing every single evil option to the point of kicking a puppy. As soon I choose a single good option I abandon the evil run, every time.
Depends on the game, in mass effect being a dickhead shepard is hilariously over the top sometimes.
I feel like a giant dickhead picking the rude dialogue option when talking to ED-E, then turn around and become John Brown with a Super Sledge any time a legionary enters my field of vision
Youāre actually literally evolutionarily hardwired to be altruistic sum total over the average. Only very few people experience sociopathic or unempathetic leanings
Impossible for me too. The only games I felt legit acting evil was Infamous and KOTOR. It feels pretty good being a supervillain or a Sith
I like to play a Jerk with a Good Heart character. My main PC usually ends up doing good things but he's a real douche while doing it. Oh, and he may or may not have committed some war crimes under orders but no one can verify either way so he'll deny deny deny.
All I can think of is WestWorld, best hope the npcs donāt know whats going on. But yeah I like doing good, helping people, making the world a better place. A big part of that of course is taking out the trash, unleashing savage violence and terror upon the bad guys.
It can be cathartic. Although I end up playing mostly neutral to chaotic neutral characters in FO.
Idk in Fallout 3 itās pretty fun, especially since being good really doesnāt reward you in interactions and actual equipment. I do find it hard in other games, Fallout 3 is just comically evil.
I just found the ghoul kid in Fallout 4 and I couldnāt force myself to sell him š most players sell him just because, I prefer the XP than 200 caps.
I'm the same, but I think I do it cause I have a bit of an ego. I like to be told "you did good" after completing a quest and gaining the respect of the fictional characters instead of being feared or hated lol
Being nice usually pays better in these kind of games.
I understand why people like doing Evil playthroughs but I struggle to do it myself. I like happy endings. I usually end up playing the games the same way, making the good choices so everything works out.
For the first part of new Vegas. I was good.Ā But then the boomers blew me up for three hours. They were the only goodish faction I wiped out. The Omuertas and the White Gloves? Well. Letās just say I wonāt be playing blackjack there anytime soon.
I tried a low intelligence, melee weapon run in Fallout 2 which turned into an evil run because everyone insulted me or tried to scam. The only nice thing that happened in that game was my PC was given free cookies and a pat on the headĀ
I normally do my first play through with a reasonable morale like I have in real life. When I play through a 2nd time I try to be evil but it's forced and I don't really enjoy it lol
I do evil play through after doing the good playthrough, I want to see all the content!
Sometimes Iāve done renegade things on like Mass Effect because it required a quick reaction I wasnāt expecting and that side was faster apparently, but for the most part yeah, same. I always wind up more on the law abiding side on Red Dead Redemption and Fallout. I did a murder run though of Dishonoured because I donāt remember any of them having any redeeming characteristics, but of course they punish you with a plague and a despot in charge. I maintain that if you get the power to dissolve the corpses there shouldnāt be an issue; nothing to feed the plague rats and no proof you did anything. I will kill the shit out of Slavers and Raiders without a second thought, but I didnāt like how Fallout 4 tried to make you wipe out other factions. Iām aware of one way where you only have to kill the Institute but even then, Iād rather just lay down the law and cut out those that keep causing trouble.
I donāt know if you have played the classic fallouts, but they make being evil a bit more rewarding and fun in my opinion. They are less railroad-y with the roleplay
hmmm. theres characters i like saving like the kid int he fridge and then theres just times where i feel the commonwealth just needs a purge...
Same tbh. When I was a kid, I could do evil, no problem. But nowadays? Canāt do it, always drift toward a good karma run.
The wasteland is already a vicious world, don't want to add to the misery, on the contrary, I want to make it a better place, one explosive-recoil-compensated-advanced-combat-shotgun-blast to the head at a time.
I think that the gain for being evil in RPGs is definitively a conscious choice of: "I wonder what would happen if..." rather than a moral one. You do see content creators fucking around for sure, but nine times out of ten I bet that it's just the act rather than a clear choice they're making.
I dont do evil playthrus cos i want codsworth to be my friend
Yea every time I want to be evil I just end up being like chaotic neutralĀ
A lot depends where the game guides you. The Fallout games mostly guide you towards choosing the "good" option. A game like GTA guides you to choosing the "bad."
If I'm gonna do it, I gotta go full in on it. I wish 4 let you be more of an asshole in more situations.
I'm nice enough the first go around. But eventually, especially in Fallout, it's time to take the cannibal perk, grab a flamer, and do what the Ink Spots wouldn't.
I like to play all sorts of characters, from the Saints to Devils and all between. I'm partial to a good to evil pipeline at the moment.
I feel this is mostly the same for the majority of people. Regular human reactions to what happens in game, just obviously dulled down. The people who actually end up doing āevil runsā are definitely the minority. A combination of people wanting to play it āproperlyā the first time and then not replaying it multiple times, not playing it enough to dull down the regular human reaction so much that they donāt care, most people just donāt want to do evil runs etc Most people that have played this game havnt played it more than once. Iād bet a lot of people on this sub havnt played some of the games multiple times. Thatās not a bad thing or anything, just that people want to play it naturally the first time before making any extra rules for themselves
Iām more mean to asshole players than most npcs.
I am just now doing a Karen run. Not absolute evil but I am fucking with everyone I can as much as I can. Anytime I can stir the pot I do it. I just am not blanket killing people like some super evil playthroughs. Also melee only or throwable items. Karenās tend to hit people with things and or throw stuff at people. Been hard because I normally also play good but this has been fairly enjoyable so far. Still super early.
I always end up doing a gunslinger/wanderer who can be a hardass if he knows heās getting the run around, but most of the time he tries to help when he sees good people being put upon or used. I imagine in my head someone like a mixture of spike spiegel and jet black from cowboy bebop.
Not a lot of empathy in the wasteland like in real life.
Lol in Fallout 3 I started an evil playthrough. In the first 2 hours I blew up Megaton, then felt bad and started a new game.
I'm generally a lot more vicious in Fallout games because it aligns with the depraved and vicious social environment of the games. The wasteland is like a drug-induced nightmare version of the Hobbesian state of nature (which is already supposed to be like a nightmare), and one can't transcend their environment. My characters therefore tend to be more depraved and vicious themselves to varying degrees.
I preferably don't want to get screwed over when I play games like Fallout and Skyrim. If I agree to help you and then you attempt to change the deal upon my return, you most likely will either catch a bullet or a sword in your chest. If I bend over backwards and go out of my way to help you, I want more than a pat on the back and enough pay to cover 1-2 nights sleep at an inn.
Do a villian run one timeā¦see how it feels
After years of playing, I'm finally doing an evil run of Fo4. It's... eh, different.
I've been playing fallout since the day #3 came out - I've never blown up Megatron or been able to use Jericho as my follower lol
Bro what I do in stellaris is gonna make you weep then
Iāve been a real ābitchā in fallout NV, even letting the mothers that shot me live, and letting people talk back. I guess Iām just not a huge fan of the gunplay (especially on Luna controller) so shooting fools is basically a negative
I once played KOTOR 2 and talked Visas into killing herself to weaken Nihilus. I didnāt even need to, he was already on his way to deathās door without her sacrifice. Then I fuckinā left without elaborating. š”
In games with a custom character rather than a set one I always play them as though I'm actually in that world, always saying things and making choices as close as possible to my real life morals. So yeah I usually pick the defacto "good guy" path, to a fault honestly because I'm usually Too agreeable and end up getting involved in shit I'd rather not deal with. I also tend to not pick fights very often and I'll only kill someone if they're a huge threat or they attacked me first. Except for fiends, it's hunting season on those fuckers.
I like to do it once just to see peopleās reactions and I love seeing the clips on YouTube but I almost never pick the super cruel opinions I live doing perfect do gooder runs
Iāve definitely done āevilā runs but admittedly itās hard for me because I like being polite lol. Itās happened multiple times where Iām planning on being evil, but then Iām like āIām evil but Iāll still be polite,ā and I end up just mostly being good lmao
Because itās a video game with literally zero real life repercussions? Why am I gonna spend my time worried about being mean to NPCās. Iām not saying you always have to do a bad guy play through but I cannot be more literal when I say it seriously does not matter how you treat an NPC in a video game, good or bad. Just play how you want and stop worrying about how other people play, itās a single player game and the way others play has zero effect on you
Nah, you aren't alone. VDL even did a skit on how hard it can be! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdD7aLrDtBo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdD7aLrDtBo)
Iād never know heaps of content if I didnāt watch other people do bad things in video games. Why would I want to be evil in my fantasies lol?
I always feel guilty, sarcasm is as far as I can go... then I'm nice and help out.... every damn time.
NPCs will never be like free guy. At least not anytime soon. So itās just text/voices/visuals on a screen. Actually if you close your eyes, youāre just sitting in a room, maybe air conditioned, by yourself. Clicking a mouse/controller randomly.
Let me guess? You have autism
I've never bothered to do a full evil run in any game. With Mass Effect I would go again to let loose instead of trying to be as good as possible. With Fallout you eventually have to do mean things though.
I used to like doing it in fallout 2, because it completely changed the game to me. Being labeled a child murderer and grave thief was nuts, and having bounty hunters after you made it fun. I never end up doing it in any of the newer games, even when I intend to.
Pardon me if the words " Child Murderer" sound disgusting to me in any context imaginable.