The Power of EVIL!

[Talisman]

...The setting also assumes there's an actual evil force that can be called upon, with its own dangers for doing so; yet groups of people are willing to call upon them as cults, and can potentially summon these forces.

The above quote got me thinking about the nature of evil in most fantasy RPGs. No, this isn't an alignment rant; rather, I was wondering about evil gods, uber-demons, and others that empower villains.

It's accepted as a given in most D&D-esque worlds that you've got your good deities and your evil deities, and that these two factions empower their mortal servants to carry out their will. The good guys get the bald green winged chicks and paladins and shiny fuzzy animals; the evil guys get the big red horned guys and blackguards and dark, red-eyed, scary animals.

When a good guy dies (assuming he's been a decent chap) he goes on to Happyland. When a bad guy dies, he gets dragged screaming into the pit of eternal torment and - wait; what? Why does he work for these people again?

There seem to be two possibilities re: evil people being empowered by evil deities. Either the evil deities are gigantic bastards who torment their most faithful servants when they die, or they reward their moral servants appropriately with wealth, status, power, wenches, whatever.

Neither of these possibilities appeals to me very much - the one makes evil = crazy, and the other means that no one would ever repent because what's the point? As D&D is written, the only costs for being evil are social - which equals "none" in the mechanical sense, not even in the afterlife. Why would a blackguard ever repent and redeem himself except due to GM handwavery when he knows Acrozzag, Lord of the Red-Eyed Darkness, will reward him if he remains faithful? But if the rewards of evil are an eternity of torment at the hands of your erstwhile lords, who but the most insane or desperate would willingly choose that path?

What I would like to see is a system which allows for sane, rational, people who can be empowered by supernatural evil, but with a definite cost in some form or another.

Thoughts?

[Elennsar]

I think the problem, and I am approaching this from a perspective that does think only people who are insane, desperate, or deluding themselves would serve Evil, so keep this in mind when sifting truth out of here, is that..well...

If you can gain just as much power by being Good as being Evil, and its just as easy, there is no motivation in that regard to pick being Evil if there's any price you'd ever have a problem with paying (in other words, only people who would be sadistic assholes anyway become Evil and they're just rewarded for following their nature).

No temptation to Fall there, however. You get every reward you'd want by being Good, unless you're interested in rewards Good doesn't offer.

If there are no consequences to screwing up morally, there's no reason to repent.

You -benefit- by being fully and totally evil. The only sting that would make you want to change your ways is one you ignored when you set foot on the path to begin with.

I don't think what you want is possible if you want evil to come "at a price" without it being a price no one would want to pay or it becoming just a "which price do you want to pay" deal.

[shau]

I'm with Frank here. From the tome of fiends...

In D&D, creatures do not "fall" into Evil. Being Evil is a valid choice that is fully supported by half the gods just as Good is. Those who follow the tenets of Evil throughout their lives are judged by Evil Gods when they die, and can gain rewards at least as enticing as those offered to those who follow the path of Good (who, after all, are judged by Good Gods after they die). So when sahuagin run around on land snatching children to use as slaves or sacrifices to Baatorians, they aren't putting their soul in danger. They are actually keeping their soul safe. Once you step down the path of villainy, you get a better deal in the afterlife by being more evil.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that it means that you pay absolutely nothing in becoming evil (particularly if you live in an evil society).

And there's no temptation to either Fall or redeem yourself.

While I don't mind redemption being impossible (I'm a cynical bastard), having there be no reason to Fall or no reason you would want to redeem yourself if you could means that "fallen paladin" has no reason to exist.

Even assuming it makes sense to begin with (entirely seperate issue).

[virgil]

You could have the whole afterlife thing be vague and not definite, unlike D&D. This means people run off of promises as far how the actual afterlife works, and the evil cultists know this and simply try to get what they can without getting killed by actual soul-devourers.

There's also the theory that since it's largely considered a sign of mental instability for people to truly be evil in real life, that having evil=crazy not be all that wrong of an assumption in your evil cultist. It's also not like we don't have examples of people who take obviously bad ideas in real life for even minor benefits.

[Username17]

The problem is that it means that you pay absolutely nothing in becoming evil (particularly if you live in an evil society).

And there's no temptation to either Fall or redeem yourself.

Right. In D&D standard cosmology there is no incentive to change sides, which is why so many battles are fought to the death. The only time it is advantageous to switch sides is if you are important enough that the other side is willing to give you a disproportionate reward to betray your team.

That is, an Orc quartermaster's life is not terribly important to Team Evil over his life because he's replaceable. But if he decides to switch sides to Team Good right before a major battle and sets fire to the javelins of the Orcish army, that has a huge impact and he might get remembered for a long time and get some sweet comps from Team Good for doing it. Rewards that would be far greater than what Team Evil would have offered for just counting the javelins every couple of days.

In short, since people are rewarded for the net impact they had for the team they were on, you get the best benefits from either a lifetime of loyalty or switching sides voluntarily at a moment when it does catastrophic damage. Switching sides when you've been beaten is a sucker's game - a POW would be better off just stabbing themselves in the eye than switching sides and imperiling their immortal soul.

---

That's nothing like the only way to do good and evil. I'm not saying it's even the best way to do good and evil. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not. But that is what the Great Wheel stuff really says. It says that only great loyalty or great treachery is rewarded, with wishywashiness or minor treachery punished.

And it tells us that even "good" people don't have to take prisoners, which is pretty much what the whole alignment system was written for.

-Username17

[Neeeek]

The problem is that it means that you pay absolutely nothing in becoming evil (particularly if you live in an evil society).

You've got that sort of backwards. Being good should require sacrifice, because being good is what is right. It shouldn't be easy. Being evil should be alluring and what happens when you don't make sure you are doing what is right.

Evil is wrong. That's a good enough reason to avoid it. You shouldn't need extra incentive to be good.

[FatR]

When a good guy dies (assuming he's been a decent chap) he goes on to Happyland. When a bad guy dies, he gets dragged screaming into the pit of eternal torment and - wait; what? Why does he work for these people again?

Because he's duped. Remember, his bosses are evil, and often specifically hate mortals. Why should they tell their mortal pawns the truth? Knowledgeable and valuable pawns theoretically can get a better deal for themselves, but a mook cultist # 4456456? He simply doesn't realize what he's getting into. Also, I think that you see things backwards. Quite often it is not "damning yourself for power". It is: "These horned dudes offer me power for doing things I was going to do anyway? Great!" The DnD world has its share of tyrants, malevolent manipulators and psycho killers - it is just that it also has beings, willing to empower these people, so that they would be better at doing stuff, they were already inclined to do.

There seem to be two possibilities re: evil people being empowered by evil deities. Either the evil deities are gigantic bastards who torment their most faithful servants when they die, or they reward their moral servants appropriately with wealth, status, power, wenches, whatever.

Yeah, they are gigantic bastards. It is written right in their alignment, after all. Some, particularly valuable, servants might be rewarded - by granting them power over the souls of the lesser followers and wealth forged from said lessers, of course. Those who failed to prove themselves to a similar extent are losers and should be exploited and fed upon by their betters. By signing up with the Evil side you enter a pyramid scheme, where a miniscule percentage of people at the top gets nearly all of the benefits (while still remaining bitches of their gods/archdevils/whatever), and the rest serve as stepping stones for their ambition. Of course, a mortal who realizes this and still serves Evil do so because he/she/it believes, that after going to the afterlife he's going to be like Orcus one day (but he is vastly more likely to become someone's snack).

As D&D is written, the only costs for being evil are social - which equals "none" in the mechanical sense, not even in the afterlife. Why would a blackguard ever repent and redeem himself except due to GM handwavery when he knows Acrozzag, Lord of the Red-Eyed Darkness, will reward him if he remains faithful?

Not really. You see, Lord Acrozzag, even if he does not just lie to his minions, does not give a shit about his faithfulness - he is going to reward his blackguard only if said blackguard succeeds in promoting his plans. If the blackguard does not get killed by servants of Good, does not get one-upped by his underlings, and generally proves himself valuable enough to keep around, he gets his wealth, power and sexual toys in the afterlife. Otherwise he's likely to end up as someone's sexual toy, if he's lucky. And, well, the blackguard might realize, that he's much more likely to be screwed, or become tired of the endless struggle.

What I would like to see is a system which allows for sane, rational, people who can be empowered by supernatural evil, but with a definite cost in some form or another.
Thoughts?

Really, all you need is an assumption, that the supernatural evil is not particularly fond of mentioning all the costs (including your chance of getting to be the butch in comparison with your chance of getting to be the bitch) up-front. You need to be pretty high-level to definitely know that yes, evil people are mostly screwed in the afterlife. And offer to give you power in reward for conquering, plundering, killing and raping, or whatever you already dream of, can be pretty sweet.

[Elennsar]

You've got that sort of backwards. Being good should require sacrifice, because being good is what is right. It shouldn't be easy. Being evil should be alluring and what happens when you don't make sure you are doing what is right. Evil is wrong. That's a good enough reason to avoid it. You shouldn't need extra incentive to be good.

Its only a good enough reason if "being moral" is important to you.

In other words, the only people who will avoid being evil in this set up will be the ones who would avoid it anyway.

Much as I'm not against "Good requires sacrifice" (in many ways, I'm in favor of it), you lose nothing by choosing to be Evil. Yes, you're immoral. This doesn't mean anything if you don't care about being moral.

Repeating myself for emphasis.

You're no more vulnerable to holy things than someone who is good is to unholy things, you're not getting a worse deal in the afterlife, you're not necessarily even a pariah...

And with D&D set up as is, a paladin saying "I am Right." is given about as much support by the system's set up of how Good works and how the settings work (or don't) as a schziophrenic druid played 2nd edition TN style.

Maybe less. After all, all the paladin gets is the ability to make a bunch of sacrifices to defeat Team B without any assurance that the world will be meaningfully better off than if he just stabbed himself in the eye.

[Roy]

...Holy fucking shit. I'm actually agreeing with Elennsar about something.

[Elennsar]

The horror, the horror.

What is really worrisome about Evil in this regard.

Really, what you're given an incentive to do when both sides get equal benefits and equal power and are otherwise just sports teams for all intents and purposes...pick a side rewarding you for behaving the way you want to anyway.

In other words, you're better off finding the God of Getting Filthy Rich than the Lord of Tyranny or the Perfect Knight.

There's no incentive to fall if there's no undesired sacrifice to be made for being Good. There's no incentive to redeem yourself if you lack the morality to be someone who should be good to begin with.[/i]

[FatR]

But Team Evil does not really get equal benefits, except, maybe, in 3.X Forgotten Realms. While "good" afterlife in Planescape and its derivatives often isn't exactly that great, if you go to Lower Planes after death you're pretty much assured of being turned into a lowly wretch that is extremely likely to be eaten or suffer some similarly unpleasant fate. Well, and in the 3.5 iteration, the process of being turned into a lowly wretch can involve a lot of horrible torture. To avoid such fate you must either be very, very lucky (to spontaneously become a more powerful fiend) or so badass that evil gods or lords of Hell would be willing to consider a personal deal with you.

[Roy]

And the good afterlife turns non stellar souls into building materials. So basically you only actually get punished if you're incompetent regardless of alignment.

[Guyr Adamantine]

Demon worshipping and Evil following would only be considered by the mad or the hopeless. With the planes as they are and clerics polluting the Material', you can bet any commoner knows what lies on the other side of the veil.

I think Good is about doing what is right, not what is easy. That would mean being Neutral (On the moral axis) is probably more common for any creature on the planes.

[Calibron]

You can have Evil mean paying a price later, as long as you get your reward nao!, faster or easier or more than if you were good. This is a classic way to handle things, a strong hero of good, or just as often some skilled but not too exceptional second banana, side-kick, or rival, gets disillusioned, or vengeful, or just power hungry, turns to Ebil and gets an immediate power boost that lets him accomplish his goals now while still damning his soul later on.

Of course you would want this to mostly be a narrativistic effect than a straight mechanical one("your rival gained two levels and some suspicious huge red horns while you weren't looking", instead of "Blackgaurds are more powerful than Paladins of the same level".)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

But Team Evil does not really get equal benefits, except, maybe, in 3.X Forgotten Realms. While "good" afterlife in Planescape and its derivatives often isn't exactly that great, if you go to Lower Planes after death you're pretty much assured of being turned into a lowly wretch that is extremely likely to be eaten or suffer some similarly unpleasant fate. Well, and in the 3.5 iteration, the process of being turned into a lowly wretch can involve a lot of horrible torture. To avoid such fate you must either be very, very lucky (to spontaneously become a more powerful fiend) or so badass that evil gods or lords of Hell would be willing to consider a personal deal with you.

People tend to ignore the sidebar in Fiendish Codex 2 that says people dedicated to a deity go to that deity for judgement instead of being run through the various meatgrinders in the lower planes.

'Course, that deity might just do that ANYWAY, but a deity's best servants might be allowed to keep their form, memories, etc. (And if you're a kobold, you pretty much are the same in hell regardless, just tougher and able to smite good.)

[KauTZ]

It would also depend on just how "evil" and how much of a bastard your god is.

Hugely evil, and a huge jerk god? You are screwed either way. The thing you get from him now better be worth it.

Hugely evil, not a jerk god? You better be able to impress him to not get screwed over.

Mildly evil, huge jerk god? He'll be a huge douche while judging your actions, and you are probably screwed.

ect, ect, whatever.

I also recall FrankTrollman talking about becoming a devil after you die. It could work along those lines. If you where really awesomely evil (or just really really evil) in your life, your god lets you keep a couple memories, mostly just how to kill everyone around you. This helps you survive in the afterlife, and you become more and more awesome as you kill more people and time passes, and you become just as awesome, or more awesome then before. If you sucked at being evil, you don't get any memories, and you are forced to be killed over and over again as punishment for sucking.

[Surgo]

If evil gets a shit deal in the afterlife (patently false in default D&D, as Frank has said) then one has to wonder why anyone in D&D turns evil at all. This isn't like the real world, we actually know the D&D gods exist because they occasionally come around in some form and smack shit around.

[RandomCasualty2]

The problem is that evil are a bunch of dickheads by nature, and that just because you're on team evil doesn't mean they're not going to bully the hell out of you and otherwise treat you like shit, just because they can.

Evil is pretty nice if you're on top, but if you're not, it's not really all that great a life.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The problem is that evil are a bunch of dickheads by nature, and that just because you're on team evil doesn't mean they're not going to bully the hell out of you and otherwise treat you like shit, just because they can.

If they can. After all, being treated like shit is just another incentive to betray, and in Evil's 'dog eat dog world', Good is not the only group that rewards the defection of evil creatures.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

It would also depend on just how "evil" and how much of a bastard your god is.

Hugely evil, and a huge jerk god? You are screwed either way. The thing you get from him now better be worth it.

Hugely evil, not a jerk god? You better be able to impress him to not get screwed over.

Mildly evil, huge jerk god? He'll be a huge douche while judging your actions, and you are probably screwed.

ect, ect, whatever.

I believe the fluff is that if you worship Wee Jas, you are transported to her citadel and tested. If you pass, you are tested in a more exacting manner. And again and again until you fail, at which point you are utterly obliterated. There is no point where you succeed and are rewarded in a conventional manner. Her followers consider that an honor, however.

[FatR]

If evil gets a shit deal in the afterlife (patently false in default D&D, as Frank has said) then one has to wonder why anyone in D&D turns evil at all. This isn't like the real world, we actually know the D&D gods exist because they occasionally come around in some form and smack shit around.

If half of these gods are evil, they can tell lies or half-truths to their followers and paint the words of good gods as enemy propaganda. It is not like an average grunt can go and check. Also, as about 99% of population get a shit deal in, say, Planescape afterlife (and evil gets shittier deal, as your road to fusion with the plane is likely to be considerably more painful), all the gods might agree not to disclose how exactly the afterlife works.

As a side note, when I read about DnD cosmology/afterlife, it often makes me wonder, whether authors use its description as an outlet for their secret hate of black-and-white heroic fantasy, thas DnD is officially supposed to be. Really, the Creation from Exalted seems less scary and pessimistic by comparison, and it is designed as a crapsack world.

[Judging__Eagle]

Doesn't being good also have a cost in the afterlife?

Like, you get turned into bricks or a pot, and some Immortal uses your walls as shelter, or heats you up to make a stew?

Of course, you enjoy being a brick in a wall, and having your ass in the fire, because you're a brick or a pot.

You could seriously have the immortals seem like they are being dicks to good people (turn minor people into objects, majors into immortals) and evil people (torture or eat minors, turn majors into immortals), but really it's their reward after a life of free will.

[Psychic Robot]

Maybe the cost of evil is that you get what you've always wanted when you die (assuming you have served evil gods faithfully and successfully)--you get the women, the riches, the cushy life. The only thing is that you find that it doesn't fulfill you. You feel empty and hollow, and you're left spending an eternity knowing that your mortal life was it--it was the highest of highs you'll ever experience, the very top of the peak of pleasure. From now on, it's only downhill, and the only thing that makes you feel better--makes you feel alive--is hurting other people. And the longer you spend hurting people, the less alive you feel, but the more you want to hurt them for feeling dead on the inside.

[Elennsar]

How much of a price is that for people who enjoy hurting other people, though?