1. Devs are fags and can't be mean
2. They know no one will pick them
3. Extra work
In short, only the best devs with some real life experiences and passion can make them

>>3060948

Being evil for evil'sake is both irrational and narratively unsatisfying. Most people are quite happy being evil on ocassion but not evill ALL THE TIME.

Making an evil path that's interesting and not generically evil is hard because most video game writers are hacks

What are some games with satisfying evil playthroughs?

being an evil character feels really counterproductive to making the effort to actually engage with the world and do quests.
It's always like
>do a long quest chain to save a kitten
>you can return the kitten a for a reward and positive reputation or kill the kitten for no reward and negative reputation.
But, why would an evil character bother to begin with? Why talk to the npc quest giver and offer your "help" if you're evil?

The only CRPG I've ever played that lets you be evil properly is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

>>3060975
Fable

Good in RPGs usually means selfless and Evil in RPGs usually means selfish. A selfish character has very little reason to do random favors for people unless he just wants to be cruel for no reason and for no gain and somehow subvert the help for a random stranger. A selfish character barely has any reason to undergo the hero's journey that is the main plot. Its a hard thing to do without just doing an actual evil campaign which nobody really wants to do. Not even Tyranny could really commit. The choice and consequence of RPGs just doesn't work on strict moral selfless vs. selfish levels. It works in a typical RPG because you want to pick the option that you the player thinks will result in the most good or the least bad for the fictional world. That is a skeleton example of how a compelling choice works in RPGs thus far but the average developer can't even reach those heights consistently. It would be interesting for an evil campaign RPG to constantly call for you to make intricate choices like a typical good RPG does but instead you are trying to pick the choices you think will result in the most bad for the world or the most personal gain for your character exclusively rather than the typical RPG compromise where you do sidequest and every now and then pass an intimidate or speech check to bully someone or shake them down for more money/reward after you did their favor anyway.

>>3060948

The writing in general sucks. The challenge of writing a morally gray or evil character simply makes it obvious enough that even someone who doesn't realize vrpg writing is shit to start realizing it is shit.

>>3060948
Because usually games are designed with the idea that the player character is a "hero" or has some benevolent notions to start with in how the main quest is written, and then the evil options are slapped on as a way to circumvent the main quest or main narrative as opposed to something the main quest accounts for.
>>3060959
Nah hard disagree on that. There is nothing more fun than being evil for evil's sake if you're going to be evil, it is when evil needs to cope by attaching false notions of benevolence unto wicked actions that the whole thing is less about having fun and more about political bullshit.
>muh irrational
Hate to break to you but human beings are not rational creatures and most actions we hold with importance aren't rational decisions.
>>3060961
this
>>3060978
also this.

>>3060959
True Neutral master race

Chaos vs Order is a much more interesting conflict than brain-dead good vs evil. It is the reason most modern games have switched to fascist vs nutters dilemma, which is a tad more nuanced.

>>3060948

A downfall to evil is or redemption to good is more compelling.

>>3061025
Sell me on Chaos. What might a well done Chaos play through look like?

>>3060975

Planescape Torment is infamous for its more mature take on evil. The reason is because it is less about kicking puppies and more about doing genuily soulcrushing stuff.

>>3061035

Basically chaos is all about freedom but is also has destructive tendencies. From the narrative standpoint, it is all about breaking the status quo, and plenty of stories rely on doing just that.

>>3060948
>Why do evil options in RPGs suck so much?
Rape is taboo.

Why do good options suck so much? Usually you are just a boy scout, bending over backwards for people who don't deserve it.

>>3061062
>Here's your father's ancestral sword that you lost in some faraway dungeon. btw it would be nice some money as a reward...
>[Karma loss] [Reputation loss] [No EXP gained]

>>3060948
What does evil mean?

In fairness there isn't really an "evil" option in Fallout games. Warlockracy was right, old Fallout didn't do the Bioware concept of Light Side/Dark Side or Paragon/Renegade, what classic Fallout gave you was the choice between
>the obviously correct option
and
>the contrarian option for people who don't want to do the thing the game is screaming at you to do

Good/evil as a conflict or set of paths isn't an intelligible narrative structure for a modern person. There is no shared sense of 'good' as a perspective to write from. In real life we only see groups and people coming into conflict over power or resources(=power). What is good for one will be bad for the other.
Now we can certainly have video games where one can get good and bad boy points for x action, as determined by the developing team, but a writer today, especially a video game writer, will be completely bereft of a perspective by which they can provide cogency to these notions to a broad audience. So we get stuck with get renown vs get gold types of hackneyed dilemmas. I think they should give up on it completely but given how these things are baked into a whole lot of fantasy and tt games, the shadows of these dead ideas will long appear in our little role playing video games.

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>>3060948

>>3060978
>kill the kitten for no reward and negative reputation.
What games are you playing? Evil choices are almost always short cuts and/or have greater or alternate rewards of their own. It's usually more like
>Do a long quest to save a kitten
>Return it to its owner and get reward A with positive rep in town
>Sacrifice it to the kitten-eating-beast for reward B and negative rep in town but positive rep with the beast
There's no intrinsic reason evil has to have less interactions or less rewards
>But, why would an evil character bother to begin with? Why talk to the npc quest giver and offer your "help" if you're evil?
Reward? Most RPG quest givers either offer rewards outright or are implied to be capable of handing them out. Being evil doesn't mean you burst into flames if you do a good act for your own gain. Go play kotor 1 or 2 where most evil choices are "Gain extra rewards or make your quest easier by demanding extra money or killing someone you could negotiate with." Admittedly there is sometimes the 3rd option "Be a sadistic asshole for shits and giggles and no gain" but in that case your reward is the shits and giggles.

>>3061035
Chaos is an ideaology sold to people living in too much order and visr versa. It's less cringe and more understandable now that western society is so constraining on dumb issues. Like wanting to ignore the law in obvious cases and not caring about societal consequences.

Best example is teachers pushing hormone drugs on kids. The Order answer is to complain at parent teacher conferences and try to get the news to talk about it and debate the trannies and jews that call you whateverphobic. The chaos answer is to get enough of your friends together and kill that teacher in broad daylight for pedophilia and thrraten the cops on what happens if they try to avenge the pedo.

>>3060948
Bc media guide lines don't allow for actual evil

>>3060948
Being evil is for faggots. Sucking is part of the job description.

>>3061035
>Sell me on Chaos. What might a well done Chaos play through look like?
Ok, in this RPG the wealthy and powerful are evil, and they enslave, rob, rape and murder their people like they usually do irl. The Order approach is to try to stand against them within the system, which is doomed to fail due to the ruling class's absolute control over the system, and if you somehow do make any real progress, they will simply have you killed. The Chaos approach is to murder them, but inevitably tons of unrelated people will get dragged into the violence. If you are successful and things work out as ideally as they reasonably can, you'll buy your nation a brief respite of freedom at a huge price in bloodshed before a new evil ruling class seizes control in a generation or two.

>>3060959
>Being evil for evil'sake is both irrational and narratively unsatisfying.
Politicians exist.

>>3062033
Politicians aren't evil for evil's sake
They are "evil" for profit
Also a politician pretends he is good
So in an RPG setting a politician would be helping others to build his powerbase

>>3062038
>Politicians aren't evil for evil's sake
>They are "evil" for profit
Nobody pays them to rape kids on Epstein's island.

>>3062049
>Nobody pays them to rape kids on Epstein's island.
It's literally part of the application process to the elite class. They use those recordings to ensure the politicians stay in line. Also the pursuit of pleasure is another common evil motive.

>>3062053
Exactly
You can't succeed unless you have passed the initiation rite of raping kids in Epstein island
The Jews would never let a free agent acquire power

>>3060948
Because most of the time it doesn't make sense for the story to actually be evil. Being evil isn't pragmatic. Basically any evil path exists just to give you the option to go out of the way to be a jerk for no real pay off and after so many evil choices it just doesn't make any sense why anyone would want to party with you or even let you be the leader of the quest.

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>game has a karma meter
>there's an incentive to remain neutral
>there's no "neutral" way to resolve quests, so you have to randomly jump between doing good and bad deeds like some sort of schizophrenic

>>3062089
this reminds of bioshock, doesnt matter if your evil or good, you get almost the same amount of adam
developers should create incentives for being evil, then it would really take effort to be good, and good is rewarding in itself

>>3060948
Because the idea of "good" and "evil" is juvenile and stupid. It dumbs things down.
Even more so with the tendency of making "good" and evil just being irrationally a super saint or super satan.

It's far more interesting to go for a more fleshed out and believable approach.
Like you're sent to a remote village to handle a rumoured disease outbreak. You realize it's important to contain the spread since it's a very dangerous disease. There is no cure and the disease is fatal
To simplify,
>Option A, you want to save as many non-sick as possible, so you order your men to check everyone in the village for symptoms and quarantine the sick
>Option B, you deem it safest and best to torch the entire village to not risk your men and to guarantee the disease doesn't spread
Later on the consequences are
>A, most of the men you sent in had to be quarantined and then died of said disease. while you were busy checking and quarantining the village, a few villages had time to sneak out and then ended up speading the disease to other villages and regions. Total death count: 1000+20 of your best men
>B, some critizise your more extreme measures, with some calling you "the butcher", total death count: 67 villagers
Which option is "good" and "evil" here? Even if for some reason you think one is good and another is evil, it's not as clear cut.
After all, B might seem cruel but it spared far more people, including your men.

>>3062060
>Exactly
>You can't succeed unless you have passed the initiation rite of raping kids in Epstein island
>The Jews would never let a free agent acquire power
Lawful Evil won irl

>>3062108
>this reminds of bioshock, doesnt matter if your evil or good, you get almost the same amount of adam
>developers should create incentives for being evil, then it would really take effort to be good, and good is rewarding in itself
Or maybe the evil path gives you wealth and power but leaves you to manage a pack of backstabbers, while good leaves you poor and weak but your companions are your 100% trustworthy blood brothers.

>>3062143
That would get patched out day 1 after twitter throws a bitchfit that the evil backstabbing bastard backstabbed them.

>>3062118
That's just the trolley dilemma
It's obvious what's good and what's evil
Taking things into your own hands and murdering people makes you evil
>but but muh deathcount is smaller
that's literally what every evil person tells themselves
I was doing it for the greater good
This is textbook evil

>>3062118
The problem with that sort of "moral choice" is that it's mostly a problem just because of unclear consequences, and the player's choice will be heavily affected if they're metagaming and already know what will happen. It also leads to boring arguments on the internet about roleplaying vs metagaming when it comes to making moral choices in games. These sorts of things work better when the consequences are clear but you can't make everyone happy or keep your hands totally clean no matter the choice.

>>3062146
>That would get patched out day 1 after twitter
Please stop getting angry at twitter scenarios you've made up

I think there's also the issue that there's very often no real impact on the players own conscience. Like in Tactics Ogre if you agree to slaughter the village, it's by all accounts the bad choice but since we know it's fiction we're not really too conflicted because we as the player have no connection the village itself. Nobody we know lives there, nobody we like lives there, it has no more attachment to us than any other part of the game.

>>3061101
Mostly this, I've never really seen any games that don't give evil players material rewards. Rather I have seen multiple games give good players no material rewards as there is often the option to say "no, you keep the reward, you need it more than me"

The rewards usually go like this:
>Good guy pc gets minimum rewards but max reputation boosts (gets most xp from quest completion)
>Neutral/self interested pc gets max money rewards and some rep boost but not as much as good guy
>Evil guy pc gets best item rewards, fastest quest completion and most xp (exp is spread throughout killing more stuff and quest exp)

Earlier posts in the thread already touched on it, but really the biggest issue with evil paths in RPGs is just that the games aren't really designed for them. The devs make the game as a standard hero's journey to fight evil and then stable on evil choices for the player. Any consequences for the player's evil choices are an afterthought.

Like, if your PC is good, then your goal in the game is to defeat the villain and save the day. If your PC is evil then you goal is... to defeat the villain and save the day. But you're randomly an asshole or psycho murderer on the side. Like there no real "evil path", your goal is the same either way. It's not like playing evil will get you some alternate goal and end with you fighting the heroes. Oftentimes you'll still get help from heroic characters to fight the antagonist even if your evil actions give them no reason to remotely like or trust you. Even games that people often thing are better at evil like Fallout 2 are like this. Even if your character is a psychopath that murders entire villages and sells their friends into slavery, they still have to care about saving their home village or else there's no plot or goal.

And also the good vs evil choice doesn't feel "even". Like if you're good then you're a literal hero, a paragon that everyone admires who saved the world. If the evil side is supposed to be the opposite then you would expect to feel like such a massive villain that you feel like the bad guy of another hero's story, but instead being evil is usually more like just being a petty crook or randomly violent thug who happens to have a personal reason to fight the villain of the game.

Basically if we were take a playthrough of any given RPG and judge it as a story, then 99% of the time the story will work better and be more cohesive if the protagonist is a standard hero, and will just be weird and inconsistent if the protagonist is an asshole.

>>3062147
>textbook evil is to only allow 67 people to die
>it's not bad to cause widespread disease and the deaths of 15x times more people, over 1000, including ordering people to risk getting the disease yourself

You also missed the obvious point being made.

>>3062151
The point is to have more complex situations that don't devolve into some saturday morning cartoon mustach twirling villain shit.

There is absolutely nothing interesting or believable about someone that's just "evil". Because that shit doesn't exist.

>>3062174
>Because that shit doesn't exist.
lol

>>3062106
>>there's an incentive to remain neutral
What game?

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>>3062118
>Because the idea of "good" and "evil" is juvenile and stupid. It dumbs things down.

>>3062234
In Fallout 3, there were some companions that would only join if you had neutral karma. There was also one item in KOTOR 2 that you can only wear if you were neutral.

>>3062171
>If your PC is evil then you goal is... to defeat the villain and save the day.
The less terrible games usually go with "...and to take his place". Or at least "to become a comparable evil".

>>3062238
>There was also one item in KOTOR 2 that you can only wear if you were neutral.
Must have been a really lousy one as I don't even remember that it exists.

>>3062242
and what are they supposed to do?
make a 2nd game within the game?
let's face it
if you wanna make a good evil game, you need to design the whole game for an evil guy
there's a market for that I'm sure, a ballsy dev could pull it off

>>3062238
In fairness, Fallout 3's karma system was totally fucked. You get positive karma from simply completing a lot of quests.

>>3062252
>and what are they supposed to do?
This was not he point of my post. I was replying to a part that is at least sometimes wrong.
But since you've brought it up, I completely agree with that anon although instead of expecting "a 2nd game within the game" I'd be happy with having more variety like a not-quite-hero wanting to defeat the BBEG/whatever for his own gain without being strictly evil himself. As in instead of wanting to save everyone only to retire to a hermit life the protagonist wants to be the king of the people he's saving. And that is only one possible non-saintly outcome, there can be plenty of nuance even in between that and the typical implausible good hero.

>>3060948
Play Mask of the Betrayer.

>>3062118
>Because the idea of "good" and "evil" is juvenile and stupid.
Wow ur so smart and matur and cool I wanna b just like u

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>>3062252
I mean...
that was SUPPOSED to be the entire idea behind Tyranny but Obsidian pussied out and railroaded you into overthrowing the evil emperor.

>>3062257
Or just giving water to homeless people

>>3062389
what a pussy.

>>3062470
I think it takes a good deal of strength to stay positive after all the shit that's happened to him. Would've broken most people.

>>3062224
No anon, "good" and "evil" doesn't exist.

People are nuanced. A hitman that brutally murders people for money could be a loving family man and great person outside of "work". Helping the community, donating to charities, etc.
Is this person good or evil in your limtied world view? Or does your limited world view also include neutral?

The only people that unironically believe in "good" and "evil" are idiots and religious nutjobs. People that want the world dumbed down for them.

Disagree? By all means elaborate instead of shitposting.

>>3062638
Not him but good and evil is judged on mentality behind actions and not just the actions themselves. Choosing to be a villain means choosing to be a bad guy, thus relinquishing the premise that you can ever do better and can never actually help anymore.

I think you'll find that's how most people actually view morality in the real world. What I just said, that's what it means to be an adult, and adults don't put on rubber masks and terrorize people because it's fun, because that would be fucking silly. Part of the bitterness of growing up is realizing we're all just children that got old, no one really knows what they're doing and once a person comes to terms with that, they can either look down on people or they can show everyone the respect they deserve. That doesn't mean a person can't still be scummy but they still live in the world, even if the system is broken it's a system you're a part of and you can't just opt out. Being evil is effectively the equivalent of being someone that uses their money to fund a form of LARPing because they refuse to grow up.

This about it, every time someone acts "evil" in fiction, it's the way a kid or an edgy teen thinks an evil action would be which is often why it's so cartoonish. There does seem to be an inherent immaturity to being evil, to at the very least being a selfish little brat to refuses to have anything not go their way.

and I kept going way past the word limit so I'm going to have to split this into 2 posts

>>3062657
2/2
Like here's an example of "nuanced" evil that isn't baby-eating: In Yakuza 7 fairly early on you investigate why a prostitute keeps paying such an absurd amount of money for her father to stay in a really nice retirement home, on the grounds he needs a lifesaving operation that can be performed there. After investigation everything seems to be legit, but then you learn the top floor of the building has been giving the patients the lethal injection and not telling the families, saying the person is too sick for visitors and thus keep collecting both the residency fee on top of the person's government pension. When you stop and confront them, they justify themselves by saying it's to ease the economy by providing humane euthanasia for people who are an economic drain on society, something that Japan today has a serious problem with because a third of their society is in retirement. So see their conscience is clear, and it's all fine to them.

EXCEPT IT'S NOT FINE, they're killing perfectly healthy old people so that they can steal their pensions, and the guy doing it is kicked out of the Yakuza for his actions and told he'll be killed if he ever shows up again. That's why there's a difference between being evil and being simply bad. Bad people ultimately are still generally being good but make shitty decisions. Evil people still think like teenagers who don't believe in consequences for their immorality.

>>3062118
You're arguing in favor of utilitarianism, and you'll find people who think like that irl have far fewer moral qualms with killing anyone that stands in their way.

>>3062638
>Is this person good or evil in your limtied world view?
Nta but yes. Killing is always morally wrong, always. Yes, even in self-defense or to protect someone else it might be the correct thing to do in that situation, but it is never right to take a life because all life is sacred. This is something that didn't even need to be said, it was just universally understood as a sin that you hoped you were forgiven for in the hereafter because of the circumstances behind why it happened.

>>3062638
oh sure, some robber might have a family to feed but if they make it that someone's entire life is only worth what's in their wallet at the time then, even if they're not evil, they're definitely... well, no, they're evil, by any definition, like "profoundly immoral and wicked" or "morally reprehensible". Look up the definition yourself and pick one that suits you.

>>3062638
>No anon, "good" and "evil" doesn't exist.
>
>People are nuanced. A hitman that brutally murders people for money could be a loving family man and great person outside of "work".
So you still can't grasp that D&D Evil does not mean "incapable of attachments or positive emotions". You should look into getting meds for your condition.

>>3062657
>even if the system is broken it's a system you're a part of and you can't just opt out.
Hermits can.
Cults can too, and they usually attempt to make a better system which invariably fails.
Various monasteries can as well and, since they've had thousands of years of trial and error, their versions are usually at least semi-functional. But ascetic way of living is not for everyone.

>>3062171
>Like, if your PC is good, then your goal in the game is to defeat the villain and save the day.
In most cases saving the world is in your own best interests. Even if you're evil it makes complete sense to stop Galazan, Destroyer of Worlds, because you also live in the world. That or you're the chosen one and on the bad guy's shit list. In kotor 2 for example you can repeatedly say "Fuck the sith, the galaxy can go fuck itself I'm not dealing with this." But each time you do you're reminded that the antagonists are gunning for you in particular so defeating them is in your best interest.

There are games like Fallout 2 where your quest really is just "save the day" but I think in most games it makes just as much sense for an evil protagonist to beat the main quest as a good one.

>>3062957
>>There are games like Fallout 2 where your quest really is just "save the day"
The quest in FO2 is "save your tribe". You can be an evil fucker and still care for your kin.

>>3062957
My point wasn't that it doesn't make sense for an evil PC to fight the villain. Yeah, often the villain wants to kill everything or has some reason to gun for the PC for incidental reasons unrelated to the PC's personality (which gives a reason for the protagonist to HAVE to get involved even if you're trying to roleplay a character that would otherwise have no reason to).

My point is that they're written this way because the games are obviously made primarily for playing a good guy and playing evil is an extra. There might be a few individual moments where an evil choice gives you something funny or interesting, but the main quest of the game is often barely changed by your alignment. Playing evil often then doesn't feel as cohesive a plot as if you just playing a good guy like it's mainly written for.

>>3060948
Because you haven't played Tyranny. Also, WotR lich patch is great example of evil without typical cartoonish stupidity.

>>3060948
Here's a list of games where you can play various falvours of evil, and not just psychotic madmen:
>Planescape: Torment
>Knights of the Old Republic 2
>Star Wars: The Old Republic
>Arcanum
>Fallout: New Vegas
>Pillars of Eternity (both)
>Pathfinder (both)
>Tyranny
>Underrail
>Might & Magic VI - VIII
>Neverwinter Nights (entire series)

>>3062279
They later patched in that you can stay loyal to Kyros.

>>3062171
That's not true.
>Fallout - Your only initial goal is to save the Vault, something which is in your own personal interest no matter your morality.
>Baldur's Gate 2 - A purely private affair, you save Suldanesselar by accident.
>Arcanum - Assassins are gunning for your life, and you don't know why.
>Pathfinder: Kingmaker - You want a land of your own. You can explain your reasons for doing so via conversations.
>Pillars of Eternity - You became a Watcher, and very quickly you learn the condition will drive you insane, so you want to hunt down the person responsible.

Most WPRGs and their plotlines are based on something personally related to the MC.

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>>3062118
So this is the board the last of your kind decided to congregate huh?

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>>3062638
Lol.

>>3063042
>Arcanum
but the evil playthough requires slaughtering an entire town, how's that not of the psychotic madmen variety?

>>3063049
Yeah that's what the gold edition patch was.

>>3063042
>>Might & Magic VI - VIII
VIII no longer has any of that. You can, and generally should, have something like a Priest of the Sun, a Lich, a Nosferatu and a Champion in one party. And considering how much of a "grey morality" kind of deal the candidates for the two remaining council seats are, you can't even really affect the world in a meaningful way. If you think about it, both the Loudrin's guild (working with smugglers and blackmailing them by abducting their leader's daughter), the Balthasar's herd (perfectly fine being neighbours with people-eating ogres), and the people of Rust (considering their neighbours) aren't much better either. Only Blood Drop seems to be a decent place and it's completely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

for me it doesn't matter how simple the morality system is so long as it serves the narrative and system

take the original KOTOR for instance. Very simple "donate to orphanage for light points, burn down orphanage for dark" but in the end it was mostly about how the character around you react to it first and foremost and the nurture vs nature narrative as they reveal you were the sith lord the whole time. Carth's character is more interesting when after he learns to trust you after being betrayed you actively betray him once again.

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Because devs don't really try to make evil work I would guess. There probably also is a negative feedback loop when they put minimal effort in evil options, so no one chooses them, so the stats are bad and they spend even less time on them because "no one plays them anyways".

I think that to make evil work it needs to be serious, and pretty much the only option. A good example of success would be the Warcraft 3 campaign with Arthas (yes I know, not RPG).

It wouldn't be complicated to adjust the current RPG formulas to make it happen. For instance cyberpunk could have you play as a corpo and do horrible corpo things. Always leaving you the option to refuse, but with the consequence that you will get thrown on the street and will have to play the rest of the game with zero resources, living in a shitty apartment and so on. Or maybe your game has 3 waifus, but you can only choose one, and the only way to get them all is to abuse/brainwash them into accepting it.

If you want good evil options, you need them to give much, much more things than the good option. Not just some rep loss and a little bit more money shit. It also shouldn't be balanced. The evil choice should always be the easier one and the good one the harder, otherwise it's a pointless choice.

Pic related: The Chadiest of evils.

>>3063042
>and not just psychotic madmen:
>Kotor 2
That's Kreia's entire problem, she wants to create either a jedi who regained the light without being chained to dogma, or a sith lord who is a crazy murderhobo. You can do the former in a good playthrough, but you literally can't do an evil playthrough without being a crazy murderhobo which is why she thinks she failed at the end of a DS playthrough.

>>3065794
>or a sith lord who is a crazy murderhobo.
who ISN'T one, I meant

>>3062049
Raping kids isn't evil for evil's sake either, moron. Its evil for lust's sake. Educate yourself.

>>3060975
Planescape: Torment is more harrowing and soulcrushing when you play as an evil character since the things you do there can be fucked up but often sensible like manipulating your abused ghost ex-girlfriend to helping you escape by lying to come back for her for one or betraying one of your companions to sacrifice to the skull column in Baator to get information for the final area as examples

KOTOR 2 are has a really satisfying Dark Side playthrough where you can make everybody's lives worse and bring your companions down to your level by getting them to embrace the Dark Side.

NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer is the epitome of evil playthroughs where you can go for a farmer from the swamp to an absolute eldrich literal soulsucking abomination that can murder the Powers themselves. Each evil act you do there to sustain yourself is something few games manage to effectively do

everybody here knows about how much of a bastard you can be as a Demon, a Devil or a unfeeling Aeon in Wrath of the Righteous if you can stomach Owlcat's nauseating writing talent. Same goes to some Larian games like Divinity: OS 1/2

>>3065794
>but you literally can't do an evil playthrough without being a crazy murderhobo
You don't have to always choose the dialogue option that gives you the most red points.

>which is why she thinks she failed at the end of a DS playthrough.
That's only if you kill the council members.

>>3060948
>>>3063445

>>3067012
Lust isn't the biggest component of that kind of thing, it's despoiling something pure. Evil is the part of man that is self-destructive toward its own divine nature.

>>3067867
>despoiling
So sex is evil then?

Evil is gay and you should feel bad or choosing it.

>>3067980
Good is gay
Why are you good?
Because of fear
Fear of God punishing you if you are religious, or fear of others retaliating if you are not
Fear is for faggots

>>3067980
>>3067984
Chaos Neutral is da way to go!
You can be good AND evil at the same time!!! Maximum fun!

>>3067867
>>3067012
Lust is worse than evil!
Evil is bad, but at least it's fun.
Lust is just disgusting and something you need to resist at all cost!

>>3067985
>muh chaos
true neutral is the only based alignment
murder a kid, then save a village
pure schizo

>>3067997
>murder a kid, then save a village
Based!

Why chose between good and evil when you can be both?

>>3067984
>Why are you good?
>Because of fear
Anon, do you have some kind of neurological problem?

>>3060959
Bullshit.

>>3060948
Alot of extra work for 10% tops

>>3068861
>Alot of extra work for 10% tops
This is why we can't have nice things anymore

>>3068861
10% of the people who play your game can get 50x their number to play it if they are impressed enough. Metrics are garbage.

>>3060975
Fallout 1.5 has nicely balanced and remotely well written stuff happening if you go down the negative karma road

>>3061074
It’s clearly visible in level design in F1 and 2. If you’re playing the game for the first time, you’d probably try to talk to every single NPC in order as you meet them. That’s why do-gooders factions are always the ones closer the entrance of any town you step into.
Evil play is objectively harder to do (still meaning fallout 1 and 2) because it’s for people playing the game a second time.

>>3060948
Because they're written by goodfags trying to show off their moral good boy points.

Evil = having ambition, using power for a facade or impossible ideal and making it real, forgetting everyone you step on to make it happen.
Good = rejecting ambition, returning to roots and reality, being the lubricant that sends evil beings to their tragic collapse. A champion of those who were victimized.

The greatest good is crushing sand castles. It is only natural, but sometimes sand castles are reinforced with cement and hundreds of generations is too long to wait. As a player you can only demolish what is established. It is up to the developers to create things and ways for you to upset them.

>>3069005
Yes but the evil paths are also so comically over the top that you don't do it for the reward, you do it for entertainment value.

>>3068280
He's right though, the only reason I'm not murder-raping my way across the city is fear of consequences.

>>3068931
He's technically right because of how the average modern user is. You are right as well, of course.

>>3069464
I weep for the modern youth who is only stopped by that consideration alone. Just think of how exhausting that would be for starters. And one of the worst aspects is that there would be no one to appreciate your accomplishment. There is so much wrong with the concept that it can only really be explored in fiction.

>>3069005
It really is most visible in Junktown. As Warlockracy said, our options are between
>Side with Killian who is handsome, not a sociopath, is a victim of an attempt on his life when you arrive, siding with him leads to an elaborate quest with unique items where there is a scripted boss battle and in the end of the battle you are rewarded with a unique hyper violent death
OR
>Side with Gizmo and get none of these things. You get nothing. There is a battle against generic sprites and he is also supposed to be physically repulsive and he is so cartoonishly villainous that he feels like a cartoon character

>>3069958
>Do the Gecko powerplant quest the good way
lots of experience, vault city citizenship
>Do the gecko powerplant the evil way
puny exp, expelled from vault city

>>3063297
Anon, you don't have to choose EVERY evil option. If you're playing anyone but an Elf you'd be retarded to be siding with Min'Gorad.

>>3069979
The evil way makes me happy though.

>>3069999
Because it screws over those assholes in Vault City?

>>3070002
No.

>>3060948
Being evil sucks. Be good.

>>3060948
Because IRL good doesn't exist
Everyone is evil, powered by selfish motives
So in a fantasy world everyone pretends they are good
Of course even good guys in RPGs are still evil and powered by selfish motives
Ooops you ended up with 1 billion XP, millions of gold and a literal God, while you were larping as a hero
What a shame
Evil is the only truth and is inescapable
They only way to be good is to die

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PS:T did it right
>Evil/Chaotic choices lets you maximize quest rewards by playing both sides and getting paid twice
>Good/Lawful choices forces you to stick to your vows and lock you out of 'fun' solutions, but you gain access to exclusive items for your diligence

>>3060981
So far 90% of all evil choices have been
>[Evil] I don't want you to live anymore! (Attack)
Does it get better once you get to Drezen?

>>3070013
Cringe baby-tier philosophy.

>>3070097
>the truth is philosophy

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>>3060948
Being evil is probably a lot more work for devs:
>find some injured merchant in the wild
>good option is to heal him and bring him back to his mansion
>he gives you 1000 gold coins and his family heirloom sword hidden behind secret door as thanks
>evil option is to threaten him and march him back to his mansion where he gives you 1000 gold coins and sends you on your way without the heirloom

With a bit more work:
>evil option heals him and brings him home
>gets gold and heirloom
>+reputation as a friend of nobility
>go to the local bandits
>inform them of the secret room and the mansion without a guard
>they steal everything
>you go to their hideout and murder them and take the loot
>bring back 200 gold to the noble but sadly they sent off the rest of the gold to a faraway land or something
>you silence the gang and get off scott free, richer than the good choice and the noble tells the city guard you're a supercop and everybody loves you

>>3070104
Have you never once in your life just helped someone out, at cost of time and effort for yourself?

>>3062108
>this reminds of bioshock, doesnt matter if your evil or good, you get almost the same amount of adam
Ashkchwally, IIRC with the bonuses Tenenbaum gives you for saving little sisters you get MORE adam than if you are killing them for the slug. Just not immediately. Which brings the question of why they even bothered with the mechanic at all.

>>3062171
NV had some workaround for that with its mustiple variants of flavor text for each of factions. But Obsidian, being Obsidian, had to fuck it up by giving positive carma for killing fiends and raiders. And since they are trash mobs that every character no matter the alignment kills in hundreds, proper evil ending are almost inaccessible. Like Lily's sidequest which is triggered after she loses half of the HP: since you encounter her fairly late into the game, and she is a well armed nightkin, most of the encounters are finished way before that.

>>3062638
>A hitman that brutally murders people for money could be a loving family man and great person outside of "work". Helping the community, donating to charities, etc. Is this person good or evil in your limtied world view?
Evil, of course. Like this guy was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Komin_(killer)
A murder is a murder, even if it is done by a hitman in a line of work since a conventionaly good person wouldn't choose that line of work to begin with.
>The only people that unironically believe in "good" and "evil" are idiots and religious nutjobs.
Do you have any idea how much you sound like an edgy 13 years old? Either way, add to that everyone who shares the concept of Kant's categorical imperative. At least.
Returning the topic, i think imechanically the best way to implement good or bad alignment in VRPG is not implementing it as a mechanic at all, and just making NPCs react by scripts to your actual deeds, mainly the completed quests.

>>3070203
>But Obsidian, being Obsidian, had to fuck it up by giving positive carma for killing fiends and raiders
This is also a problem in the original Fallouts. You would have to kill every child you find to compensate.

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>>3065794
>which is why she thinks she failed at the end of a DS playthrough
Kreia thinks that at the end of every playthrough no matter what.

>>3069958
I wish the devs had the balls to left the original Junktown endings in, where Killian's victory ends up with Junktown becoming a shithole while Gizmo makes it a prosperous town.

>>3070243
Not true, she's explicitly proud of you in the LS ending because you achieved the thing she gambled everything on: someone who found their way back to the light but was no longer bound to the dogma of the jedi.

>>3070261
They took it out for 2 reasons. First being it felt like it fucked with the player, but second and more importantly it doesn't really track that that would happen. Gizmo had no intentions of making the town prosperous, he wanted to pocket everything for himself like a mob boss.

>>3070171
yeah and now that person is indebted to you
>inb4 it was an unknown person
then you did because it makes you feel good
by giving money to a beggar for example, the reward you get is feeling good
I know it because I do it all the time
Not because I care about the beggar but because it makes me feel good
Also if you believe in God or Karma (I do) then the more reason to do it
There is no selfless act

>>3070276
>Gizmo had no intentions of making the town prosperous, he wanted to pocket everything for himself like a mob boss
Yeah but he also would have let other people make profit, like he does in his ending in the release version.
>it felt like it fucked with the player
Which is a good thing to do once in a while, just to show that the goody two shoes approach isn't necessarily the best one in the long run. Especially in the game as focused on the formation of societies as Fallout was.

>>3070298
>There is no selfless act
Nah.
>Selfless
>concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one's own

You're thinking:
>concerned with the needs and wishes of others to the complete exclusion of their own
which is dumb.

I mean, the only way you'd be incapable of being selfless is if you just really, really enjoyed helping people that much.

>>3070303
It sucks because it was deliberately made as a 'gotcha' moment, though.

Like a teenager's attempt at a twist.

>>3070303
>Yeah but he also would have let other people make profit, like he does in his ending in the release version.
Ok sure but why would the opposite happen, where Killian winning leads to overregulation. There's nothing supporting that he would do this outside of him clamping down on Gizmo. But he's not clamping down on Gizmo because he owns a casino, he's doing it because Gizmo is a criminal that's tried to murder him.

>>3070382
you are still not getting it

>>3070418
No, I get it. I do a good deed, I feel good. You believe this diminishes the initial good act.

>>3070298
>you did because it makes you feel good
And so that makes it evil or self-serving? "There is no truly altruistic act because if you feel good then it's ackshually selfish".
Like I said, baby-tier philosophy.

>>3070439
Yes it is the very reason you do it
If you felt like shit afterwards you wouldn't do it
So your motives for doing a good deed are selfish

>>3070453
your motives are selfish
how can you not understand this?

>>3070463
I think your problem here is that you're not realizing people actually do understand what you're saying, they just disagree with it.

This lack of understanding on your part is causing you to put up a wall and deflect anything that isn't your point as a lack of understanding on their part.

>>3062279
Just because you overthrow the evil overlord doesn't make your character virtuous. There's a 99% chance your character is also evil.

>>3070504
yes but i'm the good overlord so it's fine

Basically, its an even bigger undertaking than having playable non-human races that actually impact how the world looks at/treats you and most of the time devs can't even do that, or just cut out non-human options altogether because guess what? It's unpopular and most people won't bother with the option.

>>3061035
Chaos is about breaking rules and disobeying hierarchy

Order is about obeying rules and adhering to hierarchy

>>3070519
That's what the last overlord said

>>3060948
they don't. You have to enjoy being bad. Most players are onions fags that take being hated by digital characters personally.

>>3070171
No.

What's funny is people who dwell in their own heads and lack experience often don't know themselves. I've seen very self-centered people in a social setting step in front of someone defensively in an emergency, entirely by instinct. Knowing yourself isn't easy.

>>3070412
>>3070386
Would have been better than boring FAT UGLY BASTARD BAD SLEAZY BLONDE CHAD GOOD with no subtext whatsoever. Oh well.

>>3065790
>If you want good evil options, you need them to give much, much more things than the good option. Not just some rep loss and a little bit more money shit. It also shouldn't be balanced. The evil choice should always be the easier one and the good one the harder, otherwise it's a pointless choice.
Basically you're saying the devs need to have an evil orientation. Good luck with that.

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>>3070630
>Devs in charge of making roleplaying games can't into roleplaying

>>3070613
Would have been best if BOTH endings were the good endings.

Having objectively wrong endings, especially those removed from your intentions, is just bad writing.

>>3063053
>Fallout
Actually you can decide that you would rather be a ripped 8 foot semi-immortal mutant that can live for hundreds of years instead of saving your vault. You even join in on raiding your old home.
Honestly, if you were someone who didn't want kids (or you already had them) then it could be a good deal, as long as you dont mind the gamble on whether you will become mentally handicapped.

"Forever healthy and strong! No diseases or sickness, and live long enough to see 5 or more generations of your family! Just one dip is all it takes!" -
If this was brought to our world, I think most people would do it. All the old people and fatally ill or injured. The corpos would hire all the dumb dumbs as manual labour under the guise of helping the mentally impaired. While the smart ones would end up eventually in control of every place of control over time.

>>3070152
>implying good option gives more stuff
maybe directly from a quest giver, but evil usually gets more over all from having access to other sources. Like stealing, murder, blackmail etc.
The real evil option devs take in your example is usually:
>evil option you kill injured merchant and find 200 gold, a mansion key and a note saying where his mansion is
>go to his mansion and loot his whole place, finding easily 400gold worth of loot and a note telling you where secret vault is
>go in vault and find the thousand gold and family heirloom usually given to good option, as well as an assortment of random gems worth another 300 gold

Good options usually leave you poor as fuck compared to evil options, just people like you instead of hate you.

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Because good is usually more rewarding than evil. In KOTOR, being an edgelord gets you a little more money, but not much else. You can still be a goody two shoes and be frying niggas with lightning, so dark side is only good if you want to corrupt bastilla. Being a selfless person in a violent and dangerous world should be risky and less rewarding. If we want to be realistic an RPG protag IRL would be a marauding bandit common folk are terrified by.

Recently I've been playing Cyberpunk RED tabletop and one thing I love about that game is the economics. Players take up mercenary work because the setting is a dire post war shithole where the economy is broken and working a regular job isn't enough to get by. They straight up have to shoot people to afford rent/food and this gives the gm alot of leverage to add in moral dilemmas. Playing a psychopath who doesn't give a fuck leads to your character getting more money, which leads to getting better gear, which leads to a greater capacity for violence. I really want a CRPG adaptation of that game or classic 2020.

At the end of the day I think devs prioritize good paths because most players want to live out hero fantasies and being an edgelord doesn't have the same mass appeal.

>>3060959
Most people aren't jews

Considering how most RPGs have your team on a non-stop murder spree, you're already pretty evil. Think of all those times you just burst into a random goblin village and started slaughtering the inhabitants just for existing. Is that not evil?

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>>3069999
>>3070005
>gets quads
>advocates genocide of non-human beings
>refuses to elaborate
>leaves

>>3070651
>Would have been best if BOTH endings were the good endings.
They kinda are though.

>>3070706
I think I'm playing the wrong games because one big reason I always play good is that I get money and items just by playing and there's rarely a reason to be evil other than being mean. If there was an actual scarcity of items and resources being evil would be a lot less about greed and more about survival and pragmatism.

>>3070476
They offer no arguments except saying "I disagree"

>>3070893
You choose to interpret good deeds as selfishness. It says more about you than anyone else.
How about this for an argument: even if you are right and good deeds are selfish, a good deed still helps other people and therefore remains good.

>>3070696
>Actually you can decide that you would rather be a ripped 8 foot semi-immortal mutant that can live for hundreds of years instead of saving your vault. You even join in on raiding your old home.
It is just a glorified animated "game over".

>>3060948
Games need more evil options that play on the greed and curiosity of the player, not kicking the puppy evil.
There is a dungeon with treasure there, but if you unlock it monsters will start to roam the countryside of a peaceful village, killing people and choking the life out of it by the end of the game.

>>3070934
Sounds like a win/win for an adventuring party. Get all the wealth from the dungeon, and then take on a contract from the village to hunt down the monsters. Paid to make the mess and paid to clean it up.

>>3062672
There is literally nothing wrong with utilitarianism. It is natural and just and that is why so many midwit movies and books and vidya go out of their way to so mental gymnastics to make the bad guy some sort of strawman utilitarian

>>3070942
It's a win win, but also evil if you were clearly warned you'd do that. Which is why its better than most evil options. Hell, you don't even need to be hit with bad karma with the village, people will hail you as a hero, nobody knowing you are the reason why their kids were eaten by a zombie in the first place.

>>3070967
>nobody knowing you are the reason why their kids were eaten by a zombie in the first place.
But anon, everybody knows NPCs in RPGs are telepaths and will immediately know you're at fault here.

>>3069091
But anon, isnt it ambitious as well to want to tear down generations of cement reinforced castles? And isn't it kinda more immoral to tear down the castles and no nothing to replace them, than tear it down to replace with a better system, and better castles?

>>3070904
You are just kidding yourself
If it didn't make you feel good you wouldn't do it

>>3070382
>concerned with the needs and wishes of others to the complete exclusion of their own
that's literally how "keep your rewards, you need it more than I do" protagonists are

>>3070562
The last overlord was pretending out of selfishness. I will create a true utopia this time

Replace the Good/Evil dichotomy with Niceguy/Asshole and you have a more compelling divergence. People have more fun playing a magnificent bastard than just a generic edgelord.

>>3070967
No-one outright telling you it was evil, just leaving it up to the player to think about their actions?
It would never work.

>>3070982
>paragon vs. renegade
>open palm vs. closed fist
The problem is that eventually lazy writers just make them good vs. evil.

>>3070997
That's why you should just call it what it is so even the dumbass devs don't fuck it up.

>>3070979
And that's perfectly fine. People who do kind things purely because they enjoy it are genuinely thinking about the other person's needs when they perform their benevolent deeds. That this has a built in positive feedback loop makes it better, not worse. People like that can be relied on to behave benevolently in the future. Them getting the good feeling they want takes nothing away from the target of their kindness, unlike, for example, someone who wants money in return. No one has a problem with the fact that these people are still getting something out of the deal. That is not the point at all. Do you not get it?

>>3071009
You just don't get it
No sense discussing it anymore
Just keep your opinion and I will keep mine

>>3071013
Listen, if you want to engage in pointless cynicism and general misanthropy, that's fine by me, but don't complain because others aren't broken like you.

>>3070997
>open palm vs. closed fist
Sadly, in Jade Empire it was literally don't kick puppies vs. actively find puppies to kick.

>>3071384
They shit all over their "philosophical" approach in the tutorial town, when the closed fist option in the student duels was to basically poison the injured girl. Real closed fist would have given her the medicine so she could fight at her very best, giving a real challenge for both parties. Open palm would have encouraged her to sit this one out.

>>3070613
What's the problem, it's just like real life

>>3071398
biowares always been such shit

>>3070979
There are plenty of things that people do that don't feel good and yet, people are still doing it. When a dude jumps on a grenade to save his buddies in war, i bet the moral satisfaction of having done a good deed is the last of his thoughts.
Also, feeling good is a consequence not a precursor to an action. You don't know for sure if you will feel good doing something before you actually do it, so it's not a predictor.

It's also pointless to try to philosophize why people do good or bad things. The only reason is because neurons in the brain activated in a certain way to make it happen. Any time people have been trying to make a "humans just try to do X" rule, it is invariably contradicted by observation. Because biology is fucking complicated and always has exceptions to everything.

>>3071232
You are just deluding yourself man
I'm trying to set you free by showing you the truth, but I guess you just aren't ready
Keep believing your lies if it makes you happy

>>3071458
You believe lies that you hold to as the truth, but ultimately truth is withheld from you because you lack the love that allows a bridge for it to be made, and even this you cannot see. You are self interested and thus view everything from that lens, but not everyone is you nor shares your mindsets, for unconditional love is not selfish.

>>3071453
>When a dude jumps on a grenade to save his buddies in war, i bet the moral satisfaction of having done a good deed is the last of his thoughts.
I did say the only way to be truly good was to die
Although a person who does this, is most likely influenced by religion/karma/spirituality to make this choice
When you save someone it feeds your spirit, so your next life will be better
It's very selfish
>It's also pointless to try to philosophize why people do good or bad things. The only reason is because neurons in the brain activated in a certain way to make it happen.
It's really simple
Neurons are activated because being good is a way for society to prosper
If everyone was openly evil there would be no society
Thus we have evolved to "be good"
There is no good
It's just basic biology/sociology

>>3071461
no you are just deluded
and the worst part is you do it out of fear
what are you so scared of to openly admit you are evil?

this conversation is so lame. why couldnt you guys just post games with an evil campaign

>>3071462
>If everyone was openly evil there would be no society
>Neurons are activated because being good is a way for society to prosper
The fact that Hatti has existed for hundreds of years is evidence enough to disprove your assertations. Most societies are evil for most people do not want what is good, and even "good" societies do not last forever. More often than not people are not even aware of what is truly best for them but instead desire things that end poorly for them and others and it is why people turn to drugs and pornography and theft. Most societies are based on wickedness and it is why Gypsies are even a thing that exist.

>>3071469
Gypsies care for their own that's why they have survived

>>3071464
You project your own insecurities and make assertations that are not stated. I have not denied the fact that evil exists, but what I am proposing is that good exists also. You say in your heart "there is no goodness" yet how can there be evil if goodness does not exist, since evil and goodness cannot exist without each other for each are opposed? Your statements inherently conflict one another for you claim there to be evil yet a lack of goodness, so the fact you proclaim evil to exist implies the existence of a higher standard (good) to exist at all. Your worldview implodes in on itself.

>>3071471
Gypsies do not care for their own. They mutilate their children, eat their relatives, and backstab and steal from each other.

>>3071472
dualism is just Jewish brainwashing

>>3071464
You are irredeemable. Were I to encounter you in a dungeon, I would smite you where you stand.

>>3071475
they do
did you ever go into a gypsy settlement and start trouble?
every gypsy will band together and attack you
this doesn't happen in white settlements

>>3071477
yes
give in to hatred