I role-play a neutral evil mage and my reputation is 20.
I don't think the game tailors at all to an evil play. I've been role-playing a neutral evil mage, and I ended up with reputation of 20 and with good companions.
In contrast to real life, being good in the game is enormously more advantageous than being bad. There are simply not many, if any at all, evil choices that my MC would deem worthwhile to hard his reputation as a hero party, despite his more selfish and evil interior motives and personality.
In addition, why would anyone want to travel with 'evil' companions that will likely sell you out for golds? Even if my MC is evil, unless he is either stupid or lunatic, he is going to travel with good companions for the public display and their loyalty as long as he can conceal his real motives. The notion that evil MC would want to travel with evil companions doesn't make sense unless the MC has chosen a job of bandit or serial killer, neither of which are feasible choice in the game.
There hasn't been single evil choice(few in BG2 and TOB but non affecting reputation) the prospect of which seem profitable enough to reveal my MC's true intention. Hence the 20 reputation and good natured companions.
If reputation played bigger parts that your good companions won't abide by even one evil choice you do and there were some evil paths that profits you greatly, playing an evil MC might have been feasible. In real life good companions will probably attack you for killing one innocent civilian instead of tolerating a murder for every 1000 gold you pay to temples.
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Firstly, RPing, an evil character would rarely donate gold to good aligned churches of Lothander and Helm. Giving money to help the needy or influence a God that you do not strive your life after would be out of character.
Secondly, there are many rep hits a party can take if they choose the evil, selfish path instead of the known good one.
Siding with Silke is one example. If greed is a motive, killing the easy targets for a quick 300 gold would be more profitable than turning away from your obligations and leaving empty handed. Your character is not aware that Silke is going to go ballistic and attack your party outright.
Saying that you are Greywolf to collect his bounty also nets you a rep hit and quick gold.
Yes it is more profitable to do the good side of these quests but, if you are RPing, your character is not aware of this.
Thirdly, two NPCs can be obtained before Chapter 3 that lower your rep by 2 automatically.
I recall one of the pnp players handbooks bringing this up. The notion of an evil only party (especially with neutral evil and chaotic evil characters) isn't one that makes a lot of sense because eventually someone would turn on the others.
The reputation system and how low reputation and evil players are handled is an overall weakness of the series. Especially given that evil characters in your party, even wise/intelligent ones, can't recognize that you are taking the more profitable approach to quests.
I'm quite confident all these characters know a good opportunity when they see it (they're adventurers after all) and would rather reach their full potential while walking the planes, slaying liches and looting Watcher's Keep than hang around Athkatla.
There are some occasions in which you can act rude and provoke NPCs into attacking you on some desolate mountain path; the problem is, when my character did that(cloakwood for instance) and subsequently murdered the NPCs who attacked him, his party's reputation dropped by a huge amount despite there being absolutely no witnesses. This is just one proof of the game not properly supporting evil playthrough. My character often ignored quests and sold quests objects for his greed but journals don't even update to reflect the change; if you haven't noticed 99% of journal entries were written with an assumption that you will play a good MC.
Many of the in game quests are simple fetch/kill quests and there is simply no merit to acting evil in RP stand point. Also, I played a evil sorcerer in my blind BG1&BG2 play through but still ended up with 20 rep in that blind play; mind you, it was minimal reload run and I pressed on despite Imoen being chunked in BG1. I RP all my blind/replayed games and I am familiar with preventing my meta knowledge from influencing my RP.
In RP perspectives maybe I shouldn't be concerned with party reputation, but when you murder someone in an uninhabited place and the whole world knows of it, I would grow cautious if I were to live in that world as an evil character.
Every time you meet someone there is at least one evil choice. Whilst Lawful Evil characters would normally murder only when they have more to gain than they can lose, Neutral Evil characters kill whenever they feel like it. Maybe you envy this commoner's shoes. Or maybe that farmer said you're ugly. Or that Flaming Fist mercenary, kill him because he's a bloody Flaming Fist. Poor boy lost his dog? Punch him. A paladin in the woods? Sacrifice her to your evil deity. For a Neutral Evil character, murder is not something strange and any reason is a good reason.
Chaotic Evil is a bit harder to roleplay, as it is totally unreasonable. You need to be more psychotic. Chaos seeks no justification and accepts no reasoning, so an interesting idea is to randomize everything, e.g. by rolling a dice whenever you encounter someone to decide whether you will behave normally, rudely, rob the bloke or kill them. Chaotic Evil is also the only kind of character that allows an actual killing spree to happen.
In other words:
LE - mafia, shady lawyers, greedy politicians, pharmaceutical corporations etc.
NE - neighbourhood gangs, common thugs, drug dealers, hooligans etc.
CE - psychos, serial killers, raging monsters, religious zealots etc.
I'm not a D&D geek, though. What I've written here comes from roleplaying and storytelling experience (and maybe, somewhat, from chatting with many, many evil people) that I gained elsewhere rather than from some sort of a universe rulebook, therefore my definitions of the respective characters may be slightly unorthodox. Nonetheless, I played through the BG series with a number of evil Charnames, and all of these playthroughs have been thoroughly enjoyable.
But, I would have to ask:
What did you do with Silke?
What did you do with the Flaming Fist that accosted you on the way to Nashkel?
What did you do with Oublek?
What did you do with the Blood stone necklace?
What did you do with Elven Firebead?
But yes, the reputation system is flawed. It is also an old game that at least attempted a chance for the player to be evil through a play through with certain sequences happening only when players rep were low.
I still don't really understand the problem. You think you shouldn't lose reputation for killing people, but you also think you ended up with too high of a reputation?
Korgan's ending in ToB is much the same.
Clearly the game has limitations, but that's just the nature of the beast. What the game doesn't permit you must find ways to simulate through its mechanics and your own imagination.
-Killed Silke. My MC didn't deem a blatant murder on daylight a good idea, and he thought if Silke is killed he can legitimately take her money.
What did you do with the Flaming Fist that accosted you on the way to Nashkel?
-Joked/Killed. It was them who attacked first and despite no witness, I took a massive reputation hit.
What did you do with Oublek?
-took 200 golds.
What did you do with the Blood stone necklace?
-didn't give him the amulet.
What did you do with Elven Firebead?
-I didn't cheese 300 golds and I returned the scroll because I was a conjurer(can't learn identify) and did not need a scroll at that point. For the second quest I stole a book from other house.
The D&D rules suggest that Neutral Evil means you don't go out of your way to cause trouble. You're looking out for your own interests, you'll sacrifice anything and anyone to get to the top - but you don't do it on a whim. And sometimes your best interests dictate doing something that can be interpreted as Good, but it also means you can double-cross anyone you want.
So yes, I told Oublek the truth and gave him the emeralds - then I charmed him into a secluded area, slit his throat, and took the emeralds back so I could sell them.
Just because you are evil, doesn't force you into acting evil, killing all the time. There are many ways to be evil without the actual act of killing others. For example, Korgan is CE. This means he prolly sees hiself as better than others and would only follow a leader out of a mixture of fear and respect, mostly the former. If he would see the CHARNAME as weak, he would probably attack and take the leadership himself. Much like many animals function in packs; there's an alpha male, and he reigns supreme until old age/weakness make way for a stronger leader. This does not necesserely mean that you kill everyone you come across, it means that you value force and strenght above all else and put your own gains ahead of everything.
However, @God also mentioned his views on the alignments are his one, and to that I full-heartedly agree. I have my own way of interpreting the alignment chart which in some cases align to the creators intent, and in other probably not. But to me, who has played alot of NE chars. Pretty much all my rogue type chars ('cept bards ofc) are NE. This is because the rob, steal and do their best to get the most out of the world for themselves. That does not include killing everyone they encounter though, IMHO.
Hehe, I wonder how many times the alignments have been discussed in these forums
So, lawyers are more Lawful Neutral than evil (normally). Lawful evil is more of a determined destruction but to replace with a different order. Cunning destruction, if you will.
Neutral evil is destructive, but very selective about order.
Chaotic is more the maniac mess.
I tend to stay away from the corners of the alignment box, sticking more to NG, LN, etc. Seems more honest to me than the true paragon (LG) or the do good at all costs (CG) - NG just tries to do good, and is careful to be too adherent, or too disobedient, to the law.
Just my 2¢