It's a bad idea, but if you insist at least don't make this 'hurr I kill people I'm bad' guy.

e.g. try to use everyone for your personal goals only you know. Don't tell anyone and be discreet, like Palpatine. Don't be a ruler, try to act quiet so that noone knows you are an evil mastermind but you. And finally kill your team and rule the world someday.

Lawful Evil
character is an asshole serving his own interests and gets into frequent arguments with the rest of the group, but ultimately they're working towards the same goal of serving whatever leader is in power at the time.

>Watch Death Note
>Be Light

>How do you pull off an evil character in a good aligned group?
Play as a run of the mill adventurer.
Ie: a murder-hobo who wanders the country side looking for more victims the feed his insane blood thirst.
Be sure to slaughter members of any race that isn't good looking by human standards: orcs, goblins, koblods, etc. Then loot their corpses.
Invade old tombs and rob the hell out them while destroying their holy defenders.

>>13915913
Or the opposite of this, agrees with everyone on the surface but is an evil shit when noone is looking. Is working with the other characters because that dragon-bear-squid army threatens not only Peace, Justice and Harmony, but my secondhand fuck-toddler emporium aswell.
You won't disrupt the sessions as much, and you'll be more evil.

It's not so hard. Take an ideology and push it to the extreme, with a side of self-servingness. No need to be a scheming asshat, you just need to be the guy that's perhaps a little too ready to kill your prisoners so they won't inconvenience you later.

>>13915913

Pretty much this. Remember that the heart and soul of evil isn't kicking puppies or killing orphans. It's looking out for Number One over everything else. So if you've got a party of do-gooders who happen to be your best means of accomplishing whatever objectives you have, you go along with them and 'play nice' for a little while.

The key is to balance these things:
—Don't ever be evil for evil's sake, at least when there's any way they could know. Hell, do some 'nice' things (things that look nice, at least) to throw them off from time to time.
—Make yourself indispensable. That way, even if you make them squeamish, they can't ever get rid of you.
—Present them any and all opportunities to be bad themselves. Not huge 'paladin-falling' scenarios, but just little things to begin to guide them down the path to evil.

Remember: the best evil characters are the least obviously evil characters.

It's pretty easy. You don't be an overt moustache-twirling cartoon villain.

You work with the party towards their goal, but you're, in the end, a selfish bastard - you're in for you in the end.

But that means you don't throw away useful tools - like the party. When they object you back down because your alliance with them is far more useful than most any argument you might have with them over methods.

A good evil character is able to but on the veneer of being good or neutral. Few sane people think they're honestly evil, and almost no one wears their villainy on their sleeve.

When the campaign's all said and done, people might regard you as a hero - and you're quite happy with that. You're fine with the peasants' delusions.

It makes getting what you want all the easier...

>>13915925
>Implying Light wasn't Lawful Neutral, turned up to 11

be the ruthless asshole that gets shit done.

Always act good and charitable in public.
Homeless guy begs for a copper? Buy him a meal, if people who's opinions you care about are watching. Act real nice whenever you have an audience.
Cartoonish villainy is like your character's penis: only whip it out in private.

Amicable villian, who doesn't see the need to be dog kicking, etc. But if need be have him be all 'ends justify the means' and shit.

Lawful evil can be awesome. Be a total lawyer about dividing up loot, demand your fair share of everything, and only do work if there is profit. Children to be saved? They're poor? Fuck 'em. Rest of the party wants to use a common resource to save them? Nope, don't allow that shit.

That's not to say nothing will get done, or that you won't contribute to the party... the game will likely proceed roughly as normal... just with more in-party conflict.

The other possibility (for any flavour of evil) is simply not to let anyone know you're evil. Say you're neutral good. Insist that that is the case. Maybe wear a ring that you claim is cursed, in case anyone uses Detect Alignment on you... that's what they're actually reading. And in fact, this ring is a huge burden, it makes you thirsty all the time, and could you spare a few coppers for a tankard of ale? All I have is this gemstone, and I don't want to break it... you're right, it does look like that one the cleric donated to the orphanage... but this is a completely different gemstone. Must have come from the same jeweller. Small world.

Be Chaotic Evil. Just hear me out. NEVER kill someone out of turn. Sure, don't go out of your way to help someone, bend the laws to put a little more coin in your pocket. Never seem more evil then a simple jerk. But wait.

Eventually, the party is going to be put into a place of power. An incredibly powerful macguffin. Temporarily holding the power of a god, who knows. At this one moment, and not once before, you seize control, and destroy EVERYTHING. In one fell swoop your murder count should go from zero to continents.

How you play up until that point depends on you. Maybe express some nihilistic views. Say that the caste system is the wrong direction for economy, and that a barter system would be better at this point. Etc. If you've seen Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, be like Owlman.

You deal with evil people every day and don't know it.

They're doing it right.

One interesting idea I have yet to actually try out:

Evil guy who has done horrible things gets caught by group of pacifist clerics. They place a divine rune of the utmost power on him. He can no longer knowingly cause harm to people unless they are evil. And I don't mean perceived as evil, he will be stuck in place should he attempt to attack someone that isn't evil.

And by harm, I mean he can't hurt, steal, intimidate (actively), blackmail, or anything like that. The character design was made with the idea that the party's cleric is one of the original group that cursed him and is his sponsor. If the sponsor allows an action, he can execute it.

So the character functions perfectly within the good group, but he can still be roleplayed as the source temptation. He can try to get the other members to ask for more gold here, interrogate a bad guy there, and hopefully bring them down a few places on the morality ladder before he finally tries to get them to release him or break find means to break himself free.

>>13915980
>You don't be an overt moustache-twirling cartoon villain.

ACTUALLY? DO THIS. DO THIS TO THE POINT OF INCOMPETENCE. EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU PLOT TO SCREW THE PARTY OVER, ANNOUNCE IT THEATRICALLY, OR MONOLOGUE TO YOURSELF *RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM*.

CURSE THEIR NAMES AND EXIT STAGE LEFT WHENEVER THEY FOIL YOUR PLAN (THAT YOU TOLD THEM AHEAD OF TIME), BUT ALWAYS SHOW UP FOR BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY.

DO IT TO SUCH A DEGREE THAT THERE'S ONLY TWO CONCLUSIONS: YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS; YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

YOU TRULY ARE EVIL, YOU'RE JUST AN IDIOT.

Sell them out to BBEG

Simple, before any action, ask yourself "What's in for me ?"
If the cons exceed the pros, then screw it, let those children burn... unless you think the extra reputation might serve you in town.

>>13916041
I do think that a good 10% to 20% of any given human population in DND should be evil.
A paladin who spams detect evil in a major city should get a couple hits in any decently sized crowd.

Kill all the good characters before they reach level 2. It's much more efficient, both in-game and in the metagame: In-game, the other characters have little to lose, but your evil character will get experience instead. In the metagame, nobody will be able to complain about "dying 10 sessions into the campaign".

Play selfish-evil, greedy-evil, overthetop-evil, subtle evil or I'mmevilandcan'thelpit-evil.

>>13916077
>nobody will be able to complain
I see you've never played a game that involved PCs killing one another.

Even evil character can appreciate and care for the party. Just don't forget to be evil to the "bad ones" (a category as wide as you like it).
A sadistic executioner can kill 200 men a day (and enjoy it), but still go home and pet his dawg afterwards.

>>13916070
Actually, you need to realize that in the case of the simple commoner, they would need to go out of their way to be evil. Neutral is what all evil people are until they are in a position of power where they can commit evil acts.

A simple store owner:
-Can't kill people, no strong enough
-can't pay to kill people, not enough money
-can't abuse people, drive away business
-can't overcharge people, they would just shop elsewhere

If they have no outlet to use, they are just neutral. In the normal town, very few would be evil, and very few would be good.

>>13916047

This is ideal if you intend to suddenly swing into effective evil later. They know you're evil. They can accept that, they are used to it, they think you're entirely harmless. That will be a grave, grave mistake at some point.

did it once

neutral evil necromancer looking for a way to become immortal, bbeg put a price on his head


Ended up switching sides twice when facing the BBEG and managed to make it seem like a just as planned moment

shit was awesome


(do ask your DM for a heirloom that protects you from detect evil and likes)

>>13916115
Any peasant or person in any town (no matter how little power they have) can lie, cheat, steal, be a general asshole. Happens all the time (even if it just makes everyone hate them). To say that "everyone is neutral until they have power" is just wrong.

"Good" is most often defined as "looks out for others".
"Evil" is most often defined as "looks out for itself, at the expense of others if necessary".

The rest of your party does what they do because they're out to make the world a better place. You're with them because you think it'll help you in some way, shape, or form. What sorts of bennies might entice you to go with a Good party?

Consider the following:
*Adventurers make a fuckton of money. If you're not born into nobility or go into adventuring, there's a strong possibility you'll go your entire life without seeing more than fifteen gold pieces in one place at one time.
*If you're a hero, the only bad guys that will be hunting you down are the ones you've pissed off. If you're a bad guy, odds are you're living in fear from your government AND any number of groups of heroes that are trying to fuck up your plans.
*People fucking love heroes. People will GIVE heroes land, gold, family heirlooms, and even daughters. Villains will pretty much always have to take these things by force, and that is a fucking hassle.
*Kill some guy because he pissed you off and you're sentenced to hard time in prison. Kill some guy "because he was a cultist of the Dark Lord and TOTALLY swung first" and you walk off without further incident as long as you have the reputation to back it up.

Easy, OP.

Be the Neutral Evil villain of your own campaign, and never let the rest of the party know.

You don't EVER have to give away the fact you're evil. Donate to charities, free slaves, do whatever, all for the express purpose of ruling the kingdom/killing potential rivals/collecting insanely powerful magical artifacts. etc etc etc

People always seem to think evil means ALWAYS KILLING BABIES. Evil as the friend you thought you knew is always inherently six times as delicious.

>>13916115
An NPC can:
>beat his wife
>be a rapist
>be a crooked merchant
>ruin people's reputations out of maliciousness
You don't need character levels to register as 'evil'. In the same sense that there are probably some evil people in your neighborhood. They are just express themselves in pettier ways than evil DND PCs.

I always wanted to play an evil wizard who's goal was to be the most evil person in the world and make it do that no one could even compare to him in evilness. To do so he was going to hunt down all of the other evil people in the world and kill them. Thereby cementing himself as the the most evil person in the world. Alignment is a circle, if you go in one direction long enough you are what you aren't.

>>13916115
-Can't kill people, no strong enough

you play DnD, right?

>>13916115
all 4 food merchants in a small village work together to drive up the prices to the point the other villagers have to sell half their belongings to feed their children

>>13916047
I like this plan.

That said, Evil people CAN have friends ad care about people, you know. There's room for exceptions. Particularly since it's easy to fall and hard to rise.

Your character CAN act, essentially, good aligned towards certain people but otherwise be evil. Perhaps the other party members were childhood friends of theirs?

>>13916200
>it's easy to fall and hard to rise
[citation needed]

Honestly, I played a guy hired by the party to "get shit done". I did more good than most of the good guys and worked closely with the paladin. Honestly, the trick is to just be a self serving dick who takes the party's goals and, through careful PC planning, kills everything dead.

>>13916227
was a bit like that to

was only in it for the money and did the things they were to "good" to do
A little torture here a little kidnapping there and voila: location of the BBEG's mcguffin

They never asked what was going on and they had to admit to themselves whatever I did it was getting results

Is Trombley evil? He seems to just be there to kill people and then maybe try to see what it's like being shot.

My character in an upcoming campaign is basically going to appear neutral good to the party, but in reality he wants to achieve the overarching campaign goal so he can catapult his people back into importance. So basically he's using everyone to get power for his country, and only really cares about his own race.

You don't always have to be a baby killer, haha.

Ok, first off: nobody in my party has EVER used detect evil, and none of them have sense motive.

With a few ranks of bluff I could convince the rubes that the orphanage burned ITSELF down, and the heat of the fire ejected the strongbox in my direction!

"Excuse me while I return these funds to the church."

>>13915858
if your DM is all about the blackest black and the whitest white and believes the aligment grid in DnD to be a holy instrument to pass judgements on his/her players, fuck it, just play something that conforms to the aligment of the party an learn to DM your own shit in the meantime
Lawful Evil seems the most likely to work with other Good aligned character, so long as the rules and codes he follow allow for it
also, as it has beeen mentioned before, evil chars can care about those close to them
captcha: Polymersae upown
apparently captcha thinks Polymerase is cool

Let the rest of the party know your alignment, and don't be a sneak. If the other players think you're going to betray them, it doesn't matter that you're 'in character', they're going to hate you.

>>13916267
He's disassociated himself from emotion as a coping mechanism, and a bit naive to his own actions. I went to war with people just like Trombley, Young kids who were fresh out of training and had never been shot at or fired at a living thing in their lives.

The surreal atmosphere of war can make normal people seem like monsters. He wanted to finally do what he had trained and prepared and been indoctrinated for for years. If Trombley is on your side he's just overzealous and crazy, but a damned good shot. He is going to kill anything that even remotely looks like the enemy and follow his orders to the letter.

>>13916338
Makes sense.

>>13916324
never show they your character sheet


or show them one with a fake alignment

I'm playing a sociopathic half-elf fighter right now. He latches on to short-term goals (almost always the same ones as the party), and gets them done..

He just doesn't give a fuck how many people have to suffer, die, or get hurt along the way. All that matters is the job.

Right now I'm playing a Neutral goblin theocracy (run by an LG cleric) off against an entire nation of Orcs, to save a human village of maybe 50 souls, solely because they hired me to protect the village. So far hundreds, possibly thousands of other intellingent creatures - likely including both humans and elves, as I'm steering one of the remaining hordes towards the better-defended human territories, and starting a forest fire to do it - are going to because of the war I deliberately started.

The village that hired me will be safe. And my fellow PCs haven't figured out that I'm LE yet. We have a fucking Paladin in the group, and he's going along with this.

>>13916458
Sounds like an eldar from 40k.

>50 of our own are in danger? Better engineer the deaths of countless humans to save them.

Without becoming That Guy?

In general you don't.

If you're not trying to troll the group, JUST FUCKING DON'T, okay? Nothing good will come of it.

Two concepts for evil characters - oneI played successfully, the other I have yet to put to use but is absolutely badass in so many ways.

One, Ranger. Hatred. Go back to calling it 'hated enemy', throw a tantrum when people mention [Race]. Be suspicious, be the outsider, laugh when people fail at things in the wild because the 'cityfolk have no wits about them'. Trick is, you have to be the best goddamn ranger there is to pull this off without a hitch. I've done it, and in fact both times I've played a Ranger I somehow managed to break the game.

Two: Self serving bard. I've talked about it a few times, and it's where you bluff and charm your way through life because, hey... you're only in town for two days, who gives a shit? Fast talk the innkeeper into letting you play for the night to earn your bill, convince the barmaid you'll run a tab and pay it of from the night's tips, explain to the group that you'll pay for everything and settle up with them later - and when you leave collect a few silvers from each party member, then tell the barmaid you'll pay at the counter and tell the innkeeper at the counter the barmaid already collected! Petty, I know, but it adds up really quickly - and that's where your max ranks in Disguise comes in handy, since you look like somebody else by the time you leave. Not going to rule the world, just kind of a dick.

Judging by your use of the term "aligned," I assume you mean D&D.

The answer is: don't be a villain. Being the designated dog-shooter and cynical bastard is an important role to fill in a party. Being a douche is not. Instead of asking "HOW CAN I APPEASE KHORNE IN THIS HAMLET," ask "how can I make this situation work for me?" Just be a self-important jerk without many moral compunctions and you're well on your way.

Oh, and don't play with a paladin. It can work, and when it does it works beautifully, but unless you're confident in both players' role-playing skills, it won't.

Lawful Evil Mercenary

You will do anything for money or power except violate your code of honor. Your methods are harsh and ruthless. You despise traitors. Any significant betrayal you personally witness is punished by the most horrible fate you can devise. You are kind to small children, cute animals and the downtrodden.

>>13915858

Only act out perverse torture and death scenarios on acceptable targets: IE; Evil Opponents, Criminals, anyone who is majorly unpopular in an area.

Also, try to do it outside of view of the party proper.

Act correctly in a public context while making damn sure anyone who crosses you and yours dies a painful slow death.

Always be loyal to the party itself, as having people you can truly count on is a significant asset to an evil character.

Only betray the party as a last resort. And I mean utter, final, "It's this or my soul gets consigned to oblivion" last resort.

The loyalty thing is a big one. The group will let you get away with a lot of shit as long as you are a Bro who always has their backs. It's cool to run away and let your friends be captured if you then have the ability to go and bail them the fuck out afterward.

>>13916692

Forgot my image.

>>13916219
Alignment is affected by gravity.

Play it smart; confine your evil to "acceptable targets" and keep it largely off-screen.

Take-no-prisoners attitude, refuse to treat the dead honorably, work for money instead of people, constantly look for an angle, lie, swindle, kill when you can get away with it, monopolize...
There's a lot of ways to be evil.

The only reason a lot of the people in this thread can't think of ways to do it is that they equate society with good - and many of them are, in their own petty little ways, desperately evil. "I didn't take those pictures of the little girl - it's okay to fap. It's not like I'm hurting anyone by doing it! That's long past, and hell, she's probably forgotten".

Anything you have to say "And no-one will ever have to know" about should be examined very, very carefully...

Take up an NPC class, like an Expert, and insist that you be the traveling trader that happens to follow along with the party for situations that call for cash and goods to be exchanged. Work out a contract with the Paladin or the Lawful guy of the group and reassure him that this is simply business.

Actually write out a contract for them to look over and sign. Ensure that you are the one that benefits the most from it, even if just a little. After all, you're not an adventurer by trade: You're a merchant. You've got a kid to feed and alimony to pay. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for these strong, healthy people to earn back double or even triple what you get from them with a single lucky day in a dark tomb of nameless horrors. Always be sure to reinforce the fact that you're a convenience and that your connections and insight into the economy of the land will be extremely useful. If you have to partake in combat, do it to protect your investment in these people. If you must take a loss on a trade, do it solely to make a profit off of the good relations you can build with them later. After all, you're the man with the most money laying around and appearing to play favorites can work to your advantage.

If the group is at a loss for something to do, make something up and hope your DM can fly by the seat of his pants. Things that are unplanned are often unbalanced, and therefore more likely to give you greater opportunities for cash. It doesn't matter if it's cleaning up a bad part of town so that commerce can begin again or lending the true heroes weapons (offering to purchase their old gear so that they might take up more non-weapon equipment that can lead to greater ease of victory) so they can break a siege.

>>13916971

Should they decide they don't like your prices and have the funds to get it somewhere else, buy out the entire stock and lock it away somewhere safe. Mention that you happen to have a shipment of the item they seek and graciously offer to sell it to them as a preferred customer.

When you're ready to make your move, having specified that the gear you lent to them was indeed a loan, you'll have all the legal grounds for turning a country against them, painting them as villains of the lowest sort with your connections to the rest of the world. After all, they may have saved the kingdom from orcs, but the army of bards you can employ with the money they supplied you with will be more than willing to tell the world about how the supposed heroes of the land were working with them all along.

Who knows? You might even become a lord for helping bring these violent people to justice. And from there, it's a simple hop, skip, and a jump to true power. Especially if they make the mistake of assaulting your home for revenge with an army of hirelings, setting off the high-octane Symbol of Death you prepared for the occasion, and enabling you to spread yet more tales about how the "heroes" came to your doorstep and slaughtered all those people for daring to stand against them.

>>13915858
I have a story about being a good guy in a party of evil characters.

Basically, my party was a group of mercs. We did just about anything for money, but if there was none involved, forget it. They weren't "lol, evil" but they were pretty ruthless.

How I did it was this: whenever we came into town, we'd typically split the loot and go off to indulge whatever vices our characters had. My character(a cleric) would usually go off to the shadier side of town and, after making sure I wasn't followed by the other party members, would make some rounds and administer healing to the locals(especially effective if the local church charges for this). If it was a town we had been to a few times I had some freinds there who tended to have relatives in high places(servants for the nobles, workers in the local guilds, etc) who would drop hints to people who might need the services of or little group.

Sometimes I'd go as far as hiring the group myself(through a third party of course) to do something that I thought would be a worthy cause, making them do something good, even if its not for the best of reasons.

Nobody had a clue what was happening until one of the PC's decided to follow me and saw me handing out money to some beggers and tending to some injured children. He confronted me a few min later and it went like this: "I can explain.....okay, so I can't"

Ended up buying the drinks that night so he wouldn't tell the others since they thought I was just a ruthless bastard like the rest of them.

It can be done, but it is often hard. Since the game is about the group, and you're the one making the oddball, you have to find a way for your PC to fit in. It's your job as a player to make a PC that fits well with the group.

The most important question is why does your PC travel and adventure with the group, and why should they allow it. If your PC has a convincing reason why working with the party serves him best, and why pursuing the party's goals is something he would do, you won't have a problem.

Evil PCs are fully capable of working well with good individuals, and literature is full of evil individuals who helped the world and had friends who were good, but there will be times you might have to show restraint because it is in your best interest.

I have two evil individuals in a party with 6 good individuals and it's no problem, but I have a rule where I always require a new PC to provide me, the DM, justification for why their PC should be a part of the groups story. The players of the two evil PCs did, and we don't have problems.

Earlier, a couple of other players made evil PCs as well, but they didn't show restraint. One pursued his interests regardless of the rest of the party's opinions, and was promptly killed by the party for killing someone they shouldn't have. The other decided he didn't want to help the party save a village, because he didn't see anything in it for him. He spent the rest of the night watching the party adventure because I wasn't going to run something just for him, and the group left him behind in the town. Since the campaign follows the group, his PC was left to obscurity without a DM to plan adventures for him. This is the sort of fate that might await you if you don't show restraint.

For the record I've seen lawful evil contracted Mercenaries and Assassins work well with good individuals if they have the same missions. Evil mages and necromancers work well because the party made useful allies against a common foe. And especially like our current setup where a group of two evil drow (one an assassin, and one a scout), both hate aberrations, and the party is trying to stop the opening of a gate to the far realm in the prime plane.

All these evil individuals had overwhelming reasons to work with the party for their own goals, afterwards, when the goal was completed, there was never any reason for them to betray a party of competent allies, so they didn't.

A lot depends on your DM. As a DM, I make sure there is never a situation where an evil PC would benefit by betraying the party, and would have no fun if they didn't go along with the group. Then I make sure they're able to obtain reasonable goals through evil methods that don't break the campaign and even get chances to tempt the party to do evil acts. This allows the player to do their thing, but keeps the story on tract.

Making sure the party has a formidable common foe is actually pretty good advice for any DM. I start every campaign by manufacturing a situation where the party must work together in order for them to survive. By the time they're done be hammered from all sides me, they're usually too united and set on their goals to consider splitting up. I know I've done it right, if by the time the party doesn't need to stay together to survive, they're all so set on destroying my BBEG due to either a need for personal vengeance or a desire to do good, that I never need to worry about ensuring the party stays together again.

Manipulator evil, machivellian bard works just fine. Derp I kill things doesn't work well in any group really.

I play up the so obviously evil dick dastardly shit to the point of affability...but then reveal that the character is far more sinister then previously mentioned, if you get it. Do some serious serious serious evil when everyone thinks that I'm the token 'evil' incompetent.

I played a goblin transmuter, NE, in a Savage Tide 3.5 game. He had kind of a gangster background, grew up with people not liking him for his race, tl:dr had legitimate reasons to be a cynic and an asshole. Oddly, that's what kept him with the group. He saw the warblade, a LG changeling, as naive and innocent, but at the same time that made him/her important and special. He also owed that warblade his life for a reason I'm forgetting, but it was something that impressed him with his altruism. So he found himself wanting to take behind the scenes evil actions to protect both the changeling and his/her "innocence". He was willing to be absolutely brutal, but he saw that as "normal" and the warblade as special in that regard. He also was making money hand over fist with this group, and the politics of the situation put him and his homeboys on the same side as the rest of the group, and they were mercenary enough to not care about alignment issues.

>>13917942

Subtle evil, either blatant or completely behind the scenes.

We've gone entire games without knowing who the villain was, because it was actually someone very close to the party, and yet we never suspected them nor did they make themselves apparent beyond occasional clues or slip-ups.