Neutral Evil; doing whatever I want.

ahhyep

Decided to summon all the NPCs to watch me breeze through ToB without their help, afterall I am the son of a god and they are nothing to me.

Pteran

This is great

Aewyrven

More Chao evil. Neutral evil works towards a goal. Chao evil is douchebaggary. :P

rapsam2003

That's not really neutral evil...

A neutral evil character would likely view all the NPCs as "tools to accomplish the end goal". Anyone who stands in the way of that goal gets killed. Neutral Evil is all about "means to end, no matter who gets hurt".

shirt.woot.com/offers/neutral-evil-1?ref=sh_cnt_wp_1_8 -- This t-shirt sums up neutral evil quite well.

God

You should now teach Jan 'Mr Psycho Gnome' Jansen Flesh to Stone and tell him to decorate your pocket plane with quality lifelike sculptures

Nonnahswriter

Aewyrven said:

More Chao evil. Neutral evil works towards a goal. Chao evil is douchebaggary. :P

Who said chaotic evil can't have a goal?

Maybe the goal is to destroy everyone and everything.

Malicron

Yeah, chaotic Evil can have a goal, they just don't keep to a plan to achieve that goal.

Nonnahswriter

Malicron said:

Yeah, chaotic Evil can have a goal, they just don't keep to a plan to achieve that goal.

Eh, I dunno about that. Sarevok had a pretty complex plan in place and followed it well, even if he failed in the end. He's pretty textbook chaotic evil, but he's smart and manipulative, not so much in-your-face nonsensical and crazy like Xzar is.

Chaotic evil desires chaos, but they're not stupid enough to always fall back on it if it goes against their long-term goal of even bigger chaos and destruction.

BelgarathMTH

@Nonnahswriter , I agree, and I think people often confuse alignment with intelligence and wisdom.

Thus, we get tropes like "lawful stupid" and "stupid evil", and people playing those tropes tend to think they're playing their alignment, when they're really just playing a character with impaired mental abilities.

I used to think Sarevok was more lawful evil than chaotic evil because he was manipulating the government to achieve his ends. But then, someone explained to me that "lawful" in an alignment doesn't necessarily refer to government, but can mean the person has a personal code of ethics, or desires to force or impose their own kind of order on others, and that Sarevok doesn't care about any of that. He wants mayhem and destruction, i.e., chaos, any way he can get it, including using governments and manipulating political factions; he has the 18 intelligence to do so effectively.

I think many, many D&D players, maybe even half or more, play chaotic evil in their games, and try to justify it in their own minds as some other alignment that sounds less full out EEEE-VIIIL, if you know what I mean. "Chaotic neutral" and "neutral evil" are very common false stand-ins for chaotic evil, which I see over and over in people's chaotic evil game behavior.

To paraphrase Juliet, "A rotten egg by any other name stinks just as sourly."

rapsam2003

Nonnahswriter said:

Eh, I dunno about that. Sarevok had a pretty complex plan in place and followed it well, even if he failed in the end. He's pretty textbook chaotic evil, but he's smart and manipulative, not so much in-your-face nonsensical and crazy like Xzar is.

Chaotic evil desires chaos, but they're not stupid enough to always fall back on it if it goes against their long-term goal of even bigger chaos and destruction.

Alignment isn't about intelligence. A lot of Chaotic Evil characters tend to be insane, to the degree that their "plan" is seemingly random. Take Tiax, for example. His plan is basically to become some kind of overlord of the world. But he's too insane to make it a reality. Xzar is kind of similar. He has such an egomaniac complex that he never actually achieves much of anything.
Then there's guys like Sarevok who methodically cause chaos and destruction. He uses that to further his own goal of becoming the new lord of murder. His insanity (killing thousands to become a god is pretty insane) doesn't prevent him from being lucid and fulfilling his goals.

Sidenote: it's worth noting that mental stability has little to do with intelligence either. Xzar is quite brilliant. He's also such an egomaniac that he doesn't fully put his intelligence to use. That's his measure of insanity.

BelgarathMTH said:

I think many, many D&D players, maybe even half or more, play chaotic evil in their games, and try to justify it in their own minds as some other alignment that sounds less full out EEEE-VIIIL, if you know what I mean. "Chaotic neutral" and "neutral evil" are very common false stand-ins for chaotic evil, which I see over and over in people's chaotic evil game behavior.

To paraphrase Juliet, "A rotten egg by any other name stinks just as sourly."

Yeah, I've seen/heard several instances of this. There's a reason that a lot of DMs either ban chaotic alignments or ban neutral evil and chaotic evil. People just don't know how to play evil alignments. I tend to enjoy playing Lawful Evil characters, but I have a few simple rules:

1. Don't screw over the party.
   
2. Don't do senseless things (for example: killing innocents on the street).
   
3. Do things with purpose.
   

What people don't really realize is that Lawful Evil is more likely to act in a manner that manipulates themselves into a position of forwarding their power. So, if the masses love you ("Popular" rep in BG series), great! That can be used to gain power. Lawful Evil tends to kill with purpose, if there's a reason for it.
Neutral Evil is more like a mobster. It's not personal. It's "business". In other words, neutral evil will kill those who get in their way. They view those who oppose them as a roadblock.

Alignments like chaotic neutral don't aim to do evil things. They take the middle of the road more often than not, because...neutral. Neutral evil isn't chaotic, because...neutral. People seem to not always know how to play neutral.

Artona

Pity that BG games don't let you play not-stupid-evil in the way that would be different from playing as good one - I mean, you can't explain supposedly intelligent Edwin or Viconia that maybe discounts at shops and popularity among Baldur's Gate citizens are better than being hunted by Flaming Fist and Harpers. Therefore my evil characters are often kinda stupid-evil - to experience difference. And for fun, of course.

Nonnahswriter

rapsam2003 said:

Nonnahswriter said:

Eh, I dunno about that. Sarevok had a pretty complex plan in place and followed it well, even if he failed in the end. He's pretty textbook chaotic evil, but he's smart and manipulative, not so much in-your-face nonsensical and crazy like Xzar is.

Chaotic evil desires chaos, but they're not stupid enough to always fall back on it if it goes against their long-term goal of even bigger chaos and destruction.

Alignment isn't about intelligence. A lot of Chaotic Evil characters tend to be insane, to the degree that their "plan" is seemingly random. Take Tiax, for example. His plan is basically to become some kind of overlord of the world. But he's too insane to make it a reality. Xzar is kind of similar. He has such an egomaniac complex that he never actually achieves much of anything.
Then there's guys like Sarevok who methodically cause chaos and destruction. He uses that to further his own goal of becoming the new lord of murder. His insanity (killing thousands to become a god is pretty insane) doesn't prevent him from being lucid and fulfilling his goals.

Sidenote: it's worth noting that mental stability has little to do with intelligence either. Xzar is quite brilliant. He's also such an egomaniac that he doesn't fully put his intelligence to use. That's his measure of insanity.

Maybe describing Xzar as "crazy" and saying that Sarevok wasn't so much was a bad choice of words. They're both crazy, but different kinds of crazy. Sarevok is more..."composed" than Xzar. Quiet crazy. Less bombastic, at least until the moment is right and he can let the mask fall.

A lot of people think Chaotic Evil and think first of characters like Xzar--babbling, bloodthirsty, chaos-seeking devils without much depth or range at all. I can't tell you how many times I've read "chaotic evil characters are boring" somewhere on these boards. But we forget about characters like Sarevok, who are cunning, manipulative, quiet, and just as if not more bloodthirsty, insane, and chaos-sewing as any other. Just because they're not always drinking the blood of their enemies or laughing maniacally in the shadows like some Saturday-morning-cartoon villain doesn't mean they're not Chaotic Evil.

Artona

Honestly, I never considered Xzar to be stupid crazy - both his Intelligence and Wisdom are quite high and his Zhentarim overlords saw him fit to collect informations about iron crysis in the Sword Coast. He's also able to work with Montaron despite their obvious lack of fondness to each other - and that requires some kind of long-term thinking: denying themself instant pleasure for the sake of distant goal. What's more, when we meet him, he's not torturing children for fun and happily setting kittens on fire - he is calm, he offers us potions and help to solve iron crysis - so I think he is "composed" as well. The most insane part of him are his battle cries - and beside that he is kinda blank; he can be as mad, as we command him to be.
I always had impression that he is truly mad, but his lunatic babbling is more of a cover; something to convince everybody around that he is no threat due to his "obvious" insanity.
But those are just my impressions.

Nonnahswriter

Artona said:

Honestly, I never considered Xzar to be stupid crazy - both his Intelligence and Wisdom are quite high and his Zhentarim overlords saw him fit to collect informations about iron crysis in the Sword Coast. He's also able to work with Montaron despite their obvious lack of fondness to each other - and that requires some kind of long-term thinking: denying themself instant pleasure for the sake of distant goal. What's more, when we meet him, he's not torturing children for fun and happily setting kittens on fire - he is calm, he offers us potions and help to solve iron crysis - so I think he is "composed" as well. The most insane part of him are his battle cries - and beside that he is kinda blank; he can be as mad, as we command him to be.
I always had impression that he is truly mad, but his lunatic babbling is more of a cover; something to convince everybody around that he is no threat due to his "obvious" insanity.
But those are just my impressions.

I have a similar interpretation of his character as well. To me, his madness comes and goes in fits. Lucid one moment, twitchy-eyed crazy the next. His composure isn't as well reigned-in as Sarevok's. Montaron seems more like the one keeping him in line, though just barely, and only because his superiors told him to.

But again. All interpretation.

jackjack

Xxar is quite sane and most of you fell for his ruse.

rapsam2003

jackjack said:

Xxar is quite sane and most of you fell for his ruse.

Yeah...just how Jack jack was just "playing" as a jackass rogue...

He's really quite a good guy.

jackjack

Precisely!