Guidelines to play an "evil" character

[Sarras Volcae]

@verden, there are psychological disorders that cause people to commit evil crimes, whether they wanted to or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman example!

[Sangwa]

Rinenud's losing market value...

It's no use discussing psychology with anyone who hasn't studied it at all. There are tons of people that believe that we can all choose what to think and what to feel. Truth is all your thoughts and demeanors are dictated by chemical reactions which can be affected by genetic or environmental issues. Saying a depressed (talking about pathology and not the mundane meaning) person can choose to be happy is just as smart as saying a blind man should see just because he has eye balls. Saying that a person with rage issues is able to choose what it does is just as smart. There are genetic reasons for people to be more prone to this and that feeling and therefore to undergo this and that action. You say we all choose everything. I say a "choice" only happens subjectively and therefore we must see it in the optic of the object: does the object perceive the choice or not? Crazy (the word's unethical, I know) people don't.

Things aren't as disgustingly simple as some of you make them look. And that's why I don't like overworked character backgrounds and personalities, because you end up adding so much formulas and rules to it that it ends up looking plastic. Like those "beautiful" models which all look alike.
Genetics and environment are so deeply connected that it gets hard to determine what is what at the edges. Different people under the same conditions might respond differently, or not. It's barely predictable, because it contains so many factors it becomes what we call random.
Spontaneity is what compensates this lack of precision and it's exactly what experienced players have that beginners don't (despite their knowledge of human behaviour). It's a sort of intuition you earn with playing, not just by knowing your own emotions, but by experimenting with emotions you know of and improving your approach on them based on other players' feedback.

[verden]

Even someone who is insane must make a basic decision to act on some compulsion. Those who follow some different take on it are being manipulated by criminals who have learned that clueless people can be taught to treat them as victims rather than transgressors. The inability to assign blame to a person and their choices is a fallacy that has been propagated by those who don't want to admit that everyone carries blame for anything that they do. It is manipulation and mind control and it does not work in reality. If you are so keen on not blaming people for their choices, there are many people released from prison every year that were obviously victims of their environment. Please feel free to invite them to come live with you for a while so that you can prove your ideas on this.

[Sangwa]

At least read what I go through the trouble of typing, if you want to reply to it.

Instead of saying (in your fashion) that no one is accountable for their choices, I said that it depends on whether people perceive this choice or not. That's how law deals with the problem. If it's proved the person didn't perceive a choice (i.e. "temporarily/permanent madness") then people aren't guilty. I'm not telling you my opinion, I'm telling what the current convention says for this area. When you get a country of your own, you can establish whatever convention you want. For now, you'll have to bear with me.

Also, you don't make a choice to act compulsively. You have a compulsive attitude (built by random experience) towards a subject and that might influence your choice. That's actually how that concept works. There are different degrees of compulsion and some border pathology. It's up to experts (not you, not me) to decide which go over that border and which are behind it.

[Sangwa]

Certainly. Your eyes saw the information I so wisely displayed in front of you, ,triggering some electrical impulses and chemical reactions within your tight skull. We call it analyzing information. These impulses are influenced by previous similar reactions, which combined with the present ones lead to even some more of these reactions (which we know exist but we can't quantify or specify results yet, because we do not know how the "reading" mechanism works). These reactions make you feel the need to look witty and so, respecting the extent of your intellect, the result was your previous post.
There you go.

Everyone thinks they know how the mind works, just because they have one. Very few go to the trouble of actually investigating it and these few are unfortunately unable to exercise their knowledge with the other part of the community, whose philosophy of life seems to override the reasonable.

What matters here is not the above theories, which are well explained and written by this piece of heaven you all got to know. What matters is what I said about applying human behaviour knowledge in roleplay and how its results pale in front of a trained intuition.

My guidelines: follow any general RP how to, give it a try in game, listen to opinions, profit.

[Sangwa]

Not upset... It's just that it's hard to explain 2+2. Anyway, what do you think about my idea about the topic?

[Peacer]

interesting.

No you won't be able to create a character and be the aura of ultimate evil walking through the plaza.

But the evil you talk about is psychopaths, they don't have to be mental. There are many kinds of evil that's true and what someone should do when wanting to play an evil character (any character) is to define their personality, read it over and think if he would be evil.

this is an example of someone evil
someone who's highly selfish
big ego
highly set on accomplishing things in life
high belief in his beliefs
careless about everything but his own interests
doesn't believe in the relationship to other people (base on his own personality that everyone to their own)
which also gives him some trust issues
bad social skills
believes in anarchy

this could be a potential evil character, since he spends time only with himself he has a lot of time on his hands, and he's very set on accomplishing things in his life. He could then learn the art of being a skilled assassin taking out leaders of society.

Having an understanding of psychology is a great asset when you want to create an evil personality

[Elkarway]

The only evil that PlaneShift really lends itself to is the murderers and dark magicians.  And even then, they are generally dealt with quickly by vigilantes.  The only way true, interesting evil will ever grace Yliakum is if there are guards and officials, both of which can be corrupted.  NPCs are great, but they can't react.  If I kill somebody next to Jefecra, then I'll RP going to jail.  But, I -always- know where he is.  I know where every guard is.  Added to which, I could also RP having bribed him in advance or some such (maybe not Jefecra but, you get the idea).

Planeshift needs a player government in order to thrive.  It's very hard to RP in a world where all the most important people never move and can't understand English.

As for RPing evil in today's Yliakum.  If you're a murderer/kidnapper or what not, you'll get vigilanted, congrats.  Generally, the only way to be continuously successful as somebody Evil is to come off as good.  It's a PR campaign; in stead of walking the fine line of the law you walk the fine line of the vigilantes opinions.

Funny enough, the true evil in Hydlaa are those who kill the baddies time and time again.

[Frois]

Wow it's honestly the first time in my life that I see people arguing by hiding the insults within biological talks... Wow! Anyways as for "All thoughts and actions are dictated by chemical reactions" This is not just a made up idea it's a proven fact, the brain is a bio-chemical computer and is too complex for today's science to explain completely. Also these guidelines I offered were for beginners, those who are new to rp entirely. Anyone who has any kind of experience will have met many evil characters and know how to use them besides when you act out your character's action you don't give a **** about if he's evil or just all you do is act, this is rp.

These were examples because, as previously said, all bad guys get vigilanted away and also a government made of NPCs who can't even tell you where is what is pointless and there may as well be no government and players would simply replace it with their own roleplay, the strong would lead the weak eventually leading to struggles of power, evil, chaos destruction etc untill a brave hero rallies the people and overthrows this government... And so on.

I repeat that those guidelines were for rp newbies. Not pros. I personally don't even need to have a basis to make my character he'll be shaped by how the first rp with him is done (my main was made that way, based on the first rp and the reactions that came instinctively without being my own choices was what made his personality.) Now if you are not happy with the guidelines you can say that it's not good to adhere to "rp rules" and to simply stop there, no need to start a debate on wether or not the human thoughts are nothing more than chemical reactions and jolts of electricity (a F****** FACT!)....

[Phantomboy86]

Do not forget Rineud, Charlie is also a warlock with Madonna's DNA.


And i agree with the evil people who are obviously evil are vigilanted away right quickly without a PR campaign. And even those with it need to be careful OOC, as a TON of people will 'bleed in' this information to their characters, and you get vigilanted.

The most successfull evil people are either extremely tight lipped OOC and IC, or know all the frequent vigilantes from a good account and ask them to not suddenly gain omnipotence. As far as ive seen.

[Tessra]

I can honestly and 100% truthfully say that Phantom, Rinenud and Sangwa are my heroes, and I spend hours emotionally flogging myself over the fact that I will never be so skilled and verbose, yet witty and charmingly cunning at the same time. 

As to the biological argument, its quite well studied the effects of certain neurotransmitters on both decision making, as well as consequence realization and remorse.  One day, if I can be arsed, I'll look up the results of some of the studies conducted on known sociopaths.  There is, if I remember correctly, a noticeable difference in the levels of serotonin and dopamine in those individuals who seem to show a significant lack of "morality." 

Even beyond that, a lack of basic neurotransmitters in the brain, i.e. those which are present universally at synapses, would cause there to be no processing of information such as the two statements regarding mortality and Socrates, at many levels.  Without these chemicals, one would not be able to integrate the electrical impulse at the primary visual center, nor shift it to the visual association area of the cortex, as well as the numerous other known functional areas, such as the prefrontal for analysis and decision making.  So, one would not even be able to make it to the "thinking" stage about said statements to even begin to draw conclusions without said chemicals. 

More to the point however, it is a sad fact that most evil villains are indeed vigilante-d in a most ridiculous fashion.  There have been a few RPs I have been in where to play my character true to form, she would have intervened and stopped the murder of some other poor, unfortunate soul.  But that would have been no fun as far as the RP was concerned.  So instead, with about as much feeling and emotion as a 14 day old corpse, she began to try to pull the murderer away.  [Read that as: help, help, oh won't someone help..is that a butterfly? I think it is... what a lovely butterfly... oops, that poor guy died while I was over here.] Which while being just a smidge OOC for my character, allowed the RP to continue in a way that was more beneficial to the scumbag. 

Someone should start a Villain Protection Agency.  Seriously, let's all exercise that frontal lobe and try a little common sense.  If you break your toys, you won't have any left to play with.

[Elkarway]

I can honestly and 100% truthfully say that Phantom, Rinenud and Sangwa are my heroes

The interesting thing is that I'm a hero of all three of them!

[Mekora]

I remember hearing/seeing someone say(Can't remember who) that the best type of 'evil' character is most often the 'grey' kind. I whole-heartedly agree with this. People tend not to be completely evil or good. Most likely a little of both in everyone the reasoning is up to the player. Also, I'd like to see more people that are simply not nice to others in Yliakum... There is so much of this in real life that it is unrealistic that everybody is nice and friendly. Or at least quiet-but-friendly. If this doesn't make any sense, don't worry, hehe I'm realy tired right now and my thoughts are astray.

[Frois]

Mekora you are totally right, the number of people who are just mean or not nice is far too few, there is nowhere near a descent amount of the "bad" side of society in Yliakum.

And Tessra, my guild does offer their services in the field of protection (visit the forum of "The shadow Hand" for more information) although it is not written as an official service we do provide it, given a certain price is met ;P

[Jekkar]

I remember hearing/seeing someone say(Can't remember who) that the best type of 'evil' character is most often the 'grey' kind. I whole-heartedly agree with this. People tend not to be completely evil or good. Most likely a little of both in everyone the reasoning is up to the player. Also, I'd like to see more people that are simply not nice to others in Yliakum... There is so much of this in real life that it is unrealistic that everybody is nice and friendly. Or at least quiet-but-friendly. If this doesn't make any sense, don't worry, hehe I'm realy tired right now and my thoughts are astray.

That was me.
I try to stick to those principles when I play my character. I find you can entertain yourself and others more appropriately if you take a more "conservative" approach and catch them off-guard by doing things they're confused about.
There's no reason to play somone truly evil. Lawyers, politicians, salesmen have their way of screwing over people as well.