I've had some time to think on it and I agree with Shar. I used to play them as stupid evil, just being a chaotic brute. However, evil may well be more subtle. Even Sarevok was at least a little subtle, he was clever and was able to appear to be a hero. He won over the nobles and the general public until some meddling kids swept right on through and RUINED EVERYTHING.
Someone must mod a new dog companion after that last comment
Anyway I have tried to play evil in many games, and never completed any game in the evil way. I have never actually played one where the evil path seemed worthy it. Most of the times you're forced to take actions that would clearly be stupid and do more harm to you than anyone else...
I've only done one psycho-evil run, using the Valen mod which adds a chaotic evil vampire fighter/thief NPC. Needless to say I had to wipe out everyone in the temple district, but my best moment was a certain orpan/paladin quest going utterly wrong, followed by the paladin summoning a deva.
The thing is, there is raw evil in the world, but most players are probably not truly evil, or put another way, most truly evil people don't get their kicks by playing games. So the option to play truly evil (hopefully) makes most of us a little uncomfortable.
I installed the Kido NPC because I wanted to play a bard-only party, and Kido's quest is super nasty. Not to be confused with the OTHER bard NPC, Keto, who is a sweetie. The vanilla evil NPCs on the other hand really have pretty neutral quests.
D&D allows a lot of moral flexibility, in that you get the chaotic/lawful spectrum for HOW you believe goals should be reached, and also the good/evil spectrum for WHY you have the goals in the first place.
Mass effect's Renegade/Paragon system was mentioned, but I think it maps more to the chaotic/lawful spectrum than the good/evil one, so actually good/evil in mass effect is not monitored at all, which is fine, it is much harder to figure out why than how. People already mentioned evil characters performing good acts to curry favour.
My favourite moral system is from Jade Empire, the way of the open palm / closed fist. There really is a sense that you can choose to follow the closed fist because you believe that solving other people's problems for them weakens them, and ultimately does them a disservice.
Shadowdancer would be good for a chaotic evil styled run (like a really chaotic, stupid evil). If only in the sense that you can escape easily if things go badly!
There are a number of thieves in BG2 who will tend to drink invisibility potions to get the same effect. But based on what I've looked at I don't think there are technically any other shadowdancers in BG2. There could be some in the black pits 2 I don't know.
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Anyway I have tried to play evil in many games, and never completed any game in the evil way. I have never actually played one where the evil path seemed worthy it. Most of the times you're forced to take actions that would clearly be stupid and do more harm to you than anyone else...
The thing is, there is raw evil in the world, but most players are probably not truly evil, or put another way, most truly evil people don't get their kicks by playing games. So the option to play truly evil (hopefully) makes most of us a little uncomfortable.
I installed the Kido NPC because I wanted to play a bard-only party, and Kido's quest is super nasty. Not to be confused with the OTHER bard NPC, Keto, who is a sweetie. The vanilla evil NPCs on the other hand really have pretty neutral quests.
D&D allows a lot of moral flexibility, in that you get the chaotic/lawful spectrum for HOW you believe goals should be reached, and also the good/evil spectrum for WHY you have the goals in the first place.
Mass effect's Renegade/Paragon system was mentioned, but I think it maps more to the chaotic/lawful spectrum than the good/evil one, so actually good/evil in mass effect is not monitored at all, which is fine, it is much harder to figure out why than how. People already mentioned evil characters performing good acts to curry favour.
My favourite moral system is from Jade Empire, the way of the open palm / closed fist. There really is a sense that you can choose to follow the closed fist because you believe that solving other people's problems for them weakens them, and ultimately does them a disservice.