Evil should always be rewarded.

ajwz

In game I mean.
Even if more evil options are implemented into bg they have to be done right

Example
A farmer wants you to find out what happens to his brother who went off to explore an ankheg nest.
What should happen:
Evil: The evil character stumbles across his body, and brings it back. He then extorts the farmer to give him his magical ring in exchange for his brothers body so he can be buried. Net rewards: 1000xp for quest completion, magic ring,1 rep loss for extortion
Good: The good character stumbles across the body, and brings it back to the farmer, who sadly thanks him. Net rewards: 1000xp for quest completion

What actually happens:
Evil: The evil character stumbles across his body, and brings it back. (magical world where bg actually has evil options suddenly appears) Extorts the farmer to get the body back. Net rewards: 1000xp, 20gp
Good: The good character stumbles across the body, and brings it back to the farmer, who sadly thanks him. The good characters help him bury the body. "Thanks for being so kind to the poor old farmer. Please take this magical ring for all your help" Net rewards: 2000xp, magical ring.

The point I am trying to make here is that evil should have some obvious immediate gain to it, otherwise it is evil for the sake of being evil - stupid evil.
Refusing a reward should not grant a reward, and it should definitely not grant a greater reward.

Schneidend

And, if all else fails, you should be able to just kill the farmer and take his ring at the cost of Reputation.

wariisop

Well, me being evil most of the time, I just steal everything off the farmer before/after finishing the quest. Thus by that point I don't need to ask for a reward.

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud

Hmm, I admit that Baldur's Gate tends more to the good side than to the bad instead of being neutral. But on the other hand, I doubt a loss of Reputation has that big an impact on the game either, aside from several NPCs dropping out of your party. I think it would be better if dialogues with NPCs would reflect your actions and the moral route you're following. For example, quest givers might be more hesistant in giving you a quest, because you don't seem very trustworthy, they heard bad rumours about you or something like that. So you'd get better loot by deceiving/killing NPCs, but some NPCs might refuse to give you their quest. I hope this makes sense.

Schneidend

Kitteh_On_A_Cloud said:

Hmm, I admit that Baldur's Gate tends more to the good side than to the bad instead of being neutral. But on the other hand, I doubt a loss of Reputation has that big an impact on the game either, aside from several NPCs dropping out of your party. I think it would be better if dialogues with NPCs would reflect your actions and the moral route you're following. For example, quest givers might be more hesistant in giving you a quest, because you don't seem very trustworthy, they heard bad rumours about you or something like that. So you'd get better loot by deceiving/killing NPCs, but some NPCs might refuse to give you their quest. I hope this makes sense.

Reputation loss can be a pretty big deal when your level 3 or below party routinely gets attacked by well-equipped parties of Flaming Fist mercenaries accompanied by mages slinging 4th Level spells.

Communard

Sometimes the stereotypically evil action is just a stupid thing to do even if you are a self-interested sociopath. In fact this is often the case. In a game where your profession is travelling adventurer and mercenary...well, evil not being a better reward is just realistic. If you have a reputation for being an unreliable extortionate murderer nobody will hire you.

Sceptenar

Evil seems to be pretty lucrative in real life (not an endorsement), why shouldn't it be here?

Aliteri

Not \o/ ALWAYS \o/. You should both suffer and gain from being either Good or Evil.

Communard

Sceptenar said:

Evil seems to be pretty lucrative in real life (not an endorsement), why shouldn't it be here?

It's not though, not really, especially not in the context of adventuring. You go questing, the idea is that people who don't want to do a thing pay you to do that thing for them. People will not choose you for that if you murdered or conned everyone else who trusted you. Just because you're evil doesn't mean you have to be stupid. If you want to play someone who is completely disinterested in the wellbeing of others then quest for the money, stick to tomb raiding or just kill people on a whim. I've done all three before (in the game!).

Sceptenar

@Communard
Being evil isn't necessarily the same thing as being a complete psychopath. I'm talking about evil being lucrative, not "chaotic stupid". An evil person isn't above cheating, stealing, lying and murdering his/her way to the top per se, but unless he is chaotic stupid, in other words a completely insane psychopath (not even Xzar is this crazy), then he/she is able to work with others, and realize when it is a good idea NOT to cheat, steal, lie or murder. Think in this terms, evil has a scale. On one end you have (future) death row inmates, on the other you have (future) senators and congressmen. The difference is evil management, some do it better than others.

Communard

Sceptenar said:

@Communard
Being evil isn't necessarily the same thing as being a complete psychopath. I'm talking about evil being lucrative, not "chaotic stupid". An evil person isn't above cheating, stealing, lying and murdering his/her way to the top per se, but unless he is chaotic stupid, in other words a completely insane psychopath (not even Xzar is this crazy), then he/she is able to work with others, and realize when it is a good idea NOT to cheat, steal, lie or murder. Think in this terms, evil has a scale. On one end you have (future) death row inmates, on the other you have (future) senators and congressmen. The difference is evil management, some do it better than others.

Exactly, that kind of evil already has perfectly adequate representation for the money-grubbing mercenary: ask for money in exchange for helping people. The fact that people are less likely to reveal the locations of family heirlooms to extortionists than to gallant knights is pretty realistic. If you're truly evil then just rob the guy.

Schneidend

Communard said:

Exactly, that kind of evil already has perfectly adequate representation for the money-grubbing mercenary: ask for money in exchange for helping people. The fact that people are less likely to reveal the locations of family heirlooms to extortionists than to gallant knights is pretty realistic. If you're truly evil then just rob the guy.

The problem there is that in a lot of these games that particular reward, such as the heirloom ring in this example, are not on the character nor anywhere in his house. He just magically gives it only to Good characters.

Communard

Schneidend said:

Communard said:

Exactly, that kind of evil already has perfectly adequate representation for the money-grubbing mercenary: ask for money in exchange for helping people. The fact that people are less likely to reveal the locations of family heirlooms to extortionists than to gallant knights is pretty realistic. If you're truly evil then just rob the guy.

The problem there is that in a lot of these games that particular reward, such as the heirloom ring in this example, are not on the character nor anywhere in his house. He just magically gives it only to Good characters.

Oh, well then I absolutely agree that that should be fixed. I strongly disagree that "evil should always be rewarded", but I don't think that evil should always be penalised. I do think that questing specifically is a profession which lends itself more to altruistic characters though. On my evil playthroughs I tend to ignore a lot of hooks (unless the quest giver seems particularly wealthy) and just go dungeon looting or theiving.

Schneidend

I can agree to an extent, but mostly on the grounds that, realistically, most people would have no reason to tell you to go into a dungeon. In a "realistic" fantasy world, adventurers would explore ruins and such entirely independent of NPC-offered hooks. Most real adventurers would do their own research and decide from there whether or not a particular dungeon delve is worth the risk.

Communard

Schneidend said:

I can agree to an extent, but mostly on the grounds that, realistically, most people would have no reason to tell you to go into a dungeon. In a "realistic" fantasy world, adventurers would explore ruins and such entirely independent of NPC-offered hooks. Most real adventurers would do their own research and decide from there whether or not a particular dungeon delve is worth the risk.

Oh absolutely, I meant the classic "fight the bandits" or "fetch the macguffin" or "kill my rival" type stuff when I said questing, viewing dungeon crawling as a seperate activity (and one I think far more suited to evil characters).

shawne

One way to justify it is by saying that just because you're evil doesn't mean you don't know the value of good PR - sure, go to the ankheg cave and look for some dumb kid, people will think you're a hero, maybe give you some money and a discount on goods. They don't need to know you're planning on becoming the next God of Murder.

Six

It is just too rare where a smart evil character will be able to profit from doing something a good character don't have the stomach for.

Doom972

Modern games with moral choice systems give equal treatment to good and evil characters, and it makes it so it's not so fun to be evil anymore. It's just more fun to be evil when the game world puts you in the position of a hero and you just abuse it.

Smaug

While I agree w/ the OPs statement that turning down a reward should not produce greater rewards, I have to disagree w/ his proposition that an evil character should be able to extort the farmer for his magic ring. Since the character returning w/ the child's body has no previous knowledge that the farmer owns ANY magic rings, I find it unrealistic to assume the farmer would offer his most valuable possession to an extortionist. I think it's realistic that the evil character gets only 20g, I think the farmer would be angry and resentful at the extortion attempt, and would claim that the 20g is the limit of his wealth. Who is the character to say that the farmer has more than the 20g to his name? I think pushing the issue would result not in greater rewards, but the farmer going to fetch The Watch.

Schneidend

I don't disagree Smaug, but as I mentioned before, the trouble with this sort of thing is when they make it so only one method allows you to acquire the special item. If the possibility exists for the farmer to give you his special ring, then it should either be in his inventory or somewhere in his house.

Chippy

The problem with evil as I see it (I dimly recall this being discussed wuite a bit on the Bioware forums) is that nobody can agree on what type of evil they want to play. I'd only find playing the Tim Curry machiallavian type of evil as "fun". The child killers in BG/2 always broke immersion stone cold for me, and in retrospect if Viconia was actually treated as a drow, I think the tone of the game would have been entirely differant.

Sed

As with all discussions regarding good and evil, I think the main point is that you should be able to be famous (high rep) and still be cosidered good or evil.

I think Mass Effect handles it quite well, being either the saintly good guy or the renegade that "gets the job done by any means possible".

More like this
Scenario 1:
You cleared the cloakwood mines, saving all the miners.
Scenario 2:
You cleared the cloakwood mines, no survivors.

Both will make you famous, but with different outcomes.

Aliteri

Both High and Low rep implies that you are well known, one positively and the other negatively. So Evil parties are indeed famous - or rather infamous.

Sed

Yes, but the deeds required for them in BG1 vary quite a bit. To get to -20 all you have to do is go rampaging, and it has only negative drawbacks.

The problem with the rep system is that it's not at all rewarding to be evil.

Razor

@Sed kind of... but at the same time ME2 had this part in which, for example, you were forced to care about this kid who wanted to "go to war". I'am not exactly sure about the rewards already but its something like this:
Outcomes:
-You care, act moral and mighty and get paragon points.
-You tell him to go ahead (get yourself killed) and even check his gun, renegade points...
-or you just dont f. care! which I didnt, it was his option. And the game rewards you with a video of the boy getting shot like instantly. Like saying "he died because you didnt care..." wtf, it's just like a lousy USA pro-active propaganda...

On topic, I do agree (and since no discrimination talk seems to be hot), that evil shouldnt be discriminated... though I do understand why awarding great rewards for cruel (ingame) acts might put some devs off.

Sed

A video like that would probably be quite satisfactory for someone playing an evil char ;-)

Aliteri

Sed said:

The problem with the rep system is that it's not at all rewarding to be evil.

I never played a evil party so my question is this: can you be evil without being stupid, that is, can you be a anarchic monster without purposedly becoming a notorious scumbag?

Because if so, if you can steal and murder and whatever your way into wealth, then this isn't really a problem. The game was design specifically so that negative reputations are punished. You're not really supposed to let people know how evil you are and neither to pursue deeds of valour.

And if not, then the game either lacks elements that allow you to be a evil-doer from the shadows or some perks to make the option of Evil somewhat attractive (but not something that rarely, if ever, punishes you, as are my impressions from Mass Effect 3).

shawne

@Aliteri: Broadly speaking, yes. It's entirely possible to justify "heroic" actions that raise your reputation as your Bhaalspawn being smart enough to know the value of good PR. Saving a lost child or retrieving some stolen trinket means nothing to you, but it keeps the Flaming Fist off your back while allowing you to do things like killing Drizzt for his lovely equipment.

shawne

Sed said:

The problem with the rep system is that it's not at all rewarding to be evil.

I like to think it's more of a challenge than a high-rep playthrough: equipment costs more, less opportunities for XP. And to counter that, you have Kagain, Viconia and Edwin as powerful single-class NPCs...

Schneidend

Aliteri said:

Sed said:

The problem with the rep system is that it's not at all rewarding to be evil.

I never played a evil party so my question is this: can you be evil without being stupid, that is, can you be a anarchic monster without purposedly becoming a notorious scumbag?

Because if so, if you can steal and murder and whatever your way into wealth, then this isn't really a problem. The game was design specifically so that negative reputations are punished. You're not really supposed to let people know how evil you are and neither to pursue deeds of valour.

And if not, then the game either lacks elements that allow you to be a evil-doer from the shadows or some perks to make the option of Evil somewhat attractive (but not something that rarely, if ever, punishes you, as are my impressions from Mass Effect 3).

There's no evil alignment in ME3.

Synergetic

I think you are trying to go a bit too deep with a system that was never intended to be a cause and effect scenario. Sure it makes sense and all but honestly I just don't see them fixing up that way. I mean just think of it that's hundreds of scenarios that you would have to write good and bad outcomes for. Mass effect excluded, I doubt this can be achievable in the amount of time left or for future versions.