Why Be Evil?

[*Pellease]

So I was thinking some about the posts in the "Change Sigil to Social" convo and some really good points about evil chars driving plot lines came up.

One such observation was the near godlike abilities of pcs to notice evil acts and crimes. Other things like the harmonium presence also bring it to light. Right now my characters see Sigil as a sort of police state, because that's how everyone talks about it. "Better watch out for the Harmonium. Don't cause no trouble." Really it's supposed to be anarchy with a super power making sure the anarchy is. . . well established? Essentially no other powers are allowed to swoop in and take over.

Mind you this is anarchy as in no one is in charge. Not, grab your guns and start looting.

Now I think some other things discourage it too and that's why I'm starting up this thread. So we can chat about it and see if there's ways to try and adjust the server to promote more contention amongst toons and thus player driven rp that goes beyond drama or grouping up for a hunt.

So lets start off and ask what's the point of being evil?

Beyond the psychopathic or pathological which delights in violence, manipulation or sorts of vices. Many ideas of evil are based on things like greed, gluttony and the lust of power.

However, in Sigil many of these things are either relatively easy to find or diffused so well that there isn't much of a notion behind it.

Wealth, at least the amount of wealth a character can use is as simple as running the sewers on your own for an hour or two. Or when you get high enough looting the bosses in the minor abyss. Of course people could be richer and we do have our merchants, but this begs the questions of why and how. Why be richer if you can afford most things? And how can you be richer when most of the money is held in environmental spawns or concentrated on a few merchants. Yes, you could rob the merchants, but is the outcome worth the social ostracization?

As for gluttony, its pretty easy to rp it away. Drink a lot. Eat a lot. You're done.

Power though I don't think I understand as well on here. I guess the only really concentrated forms of power are the factions, but not being too involved with them I don't ever see that happening and I don't see them exercising power outside of their factions. There's no kingdom here to rule. No mayorship. Just factol positions. So this I would love to be educated on and if you are involved with factions please tell us if you believe the factions provide enough incentive for power motivation.

[*Jelkia]

Fer tha server et seems like power es jus who an how many folks er gonna come ta do wha yer character asks when they call fer somethin ta be done. Good er bad er between. Like ya said.. wha's ah little more money er magic ta ah planes walker?

An sure.. ah guess there's tha factions but they all seem sooooo boring... er tha concept ta em es downright silly. Ugh. Tha one PC ah got tha's in ah faction pays little ta no attention ta et.

Ah dunno bout really even bein evil... but tha "bad" stuffs usually more fun an pleasurable.. an good folks er either awful at fun an pleasure er they got problems wit other folks enjoyin themselves.

Ah mean.. jus cause someone gets hurt now an then fer fun an pleasure wha's tha deal? Et aint ah problem really. But tha 'good' folks go an get all grouchy an finger pointy.. Ets strange though... cause they don seem ta care ah lick fer most bodies.. wouldn't look at em twice.. might ah seen tha same berk an ignored em over an over fer turns on turns.. but if ya hurt this er tha berk ah little jus havin some fun.. then tha goody little prats er suddenly all care an concern. :rolleyes:

Tha said.. tha only folks tha ah seen wha might be 'evil' stead ah jus sorta chaotic er folks who er tryin ta be evil evil dark dark edgelords wit their character. Ya migh be wantin one ah them ta respond. >.>

[*Mander]

Man, trying to read through your posts always gives me a headache Jelkia >_>...

But as for the topic; why be evil? There's a good OOC answer and a good IC answer. The OOC answer is that without villains, nothing happens. D&D is about storylines, the hero's quest. Without the villains out there setting events into motion, you have a very dull setting. On SCOD there's the NPC villains that are portrayed by DMs, but these can never be as organic or present as a PC villain can. Without PC villains it turns into waiting around bored until the Dms whip up another one shot to defeat. Also the fact that sigil has always been presented as a melting pot where good evil law and chaos swirl together and cause controlled mayhem. By portraying one of those villains, you're directly contributing to making it feel more like planescape instead of boring bar simulator.

In character? Philosophy. That's the bedrock planescape was built on. A lot of antagonists in the background setting are out to advance a philosophical concept and are directly empowered by it. Fiends advance in rank and power by spreading the concept of their plane. A demon who corrupts people into serial killings or other abominable acts is making itself stronger. That's the power you mentioned Pellease. This aspect even extends to villains who aren't outsiders. They may be working against one of these concepts that is growing too strong by taking up the other end of the stick for a time, or acting against this system of beliefs as a whole like my character Vizier does.

[*Embersworn]

Because evil is ultimately selfish and self-serving and that's a pretty good motivation for a planewalking adventurer.

[*MimiFearthegn]

I think the good / evil dynamic is the wrong place to look for motivation. That's not really the struggle you'll find if you delve into planescape lore or conflicts. Planescape is more about law vs. chaos, and all the people caught in the middle. So Sigil is a place where bad things are just sort of accepted as part of the status quo. Oh look, a demon. And there's a slaver. Oh, and you have no rights.

Which ties into the point about the police state - no, its not a police state. Yes, it is chaos. But when you have no rights, live on the verge of anarchy, and don't know anybody with political power. . . well, yeah, that lowly Harmonium can inconvenience / arrest / make you disappear without consequences. So can that Fated officer. So can the Mercykiller.

And if you get trampled in a Xaos/Sensate party-turned-riot? There's really no recourse unless you know the right people.

The right people are the factions. So yes, there's a lot of motivation to be found there power wise. Factions are the only way you're going to "be somebody" as far as the setting is concerned. There's also a lot of fun RP possibilities in really delving into faction ideologies. But again, there's equal motivation for evil and good people.

When it comes down to it, driving storylines on the PC side is a matter of coming up with a story that you can rally people around. Being the villain is a fun challenge if you want a shorter term character that people want to defeat. Pulling off a storyline where your PC is the villain and everybody has fun? That's sort of the pinnacle of community interaction right there. But there's a lot of other ways to drive story and quests with your character. Its about what you think is fun, and what you can manage to pull off.

[*zethrenx99]

Are the factions run by EM's or players? The biggest issue is that the faction system in sigil collapses because all the factions constantly fight each other for power, here none of the factions seem to really bother, not in any extent i've seen.

[*Embersworn]

I really don't think that factional RP is end of all.

Lots of times factions are dull or overdone.

Factions are certainly important for plots revolving around Sigil itself, but they're not the entire Multiverse.

For a fiend or a celestial who's only visiting Sigil on their way elsewhere their own inherit "factional" distinctions of good/evil will be more important.

Then, there are also characters who only happend to be in Sigil because it's the main planewalking junction... But they aren't very interested in factional shenanigans. Or whatever's happening with Sigil in general.
The Multiverse is boundless and the city is a one place in it, even if geographically it's the center.

[*Cibernadie]

The factions as i see them are like a mixture of a gang and a political party. Like someone already said, the only way to really grow in prestige within Sigil (Or have people to back you up in case you are down on your luck) is to find belonging with them and creep up the ranks, unless you are an extremely resourceful person with a small fortune, and the reputation not to be trifled with. The city is downright dangerous to be on your own, specially for the adventurous type who tends to find trouble.

As for "being evil" i actually drive a division between being evil and being a villain. Evil by itself is simply selfishness, lack of pity, a disregard or incapacity to consider what is around them. A villain makes evil into a life statement; a villain obtains (or seeks to obtain) through their deeds the attention of others in either awe, fear, or challenge, because what they seek goes beyond the mundane day-to-day life and expectancy. A villain wants the spotlight even if it means a generous helping of people trying to stop/destroy them. A regular evil person tends to short term, quick-gain acts of evil that don't gather much attention because they are the norm, they can get away with it very easily; the villain instead cranks it up to eleven because they walk the extra mile. An evil person could cut you in traffic, a villain will do so and flip you the bird so you know they did it on purpose. An evil co-worker will misspell your name in the office, a villainous will discreetly rearrange everything on your desk without telling you. An evil person is a murderer, a thief, or a trafficker, but the villain is the murderer whose name is whispered with fear, the infamous thief who no door can keep outside, the drug lord who profits from the misery of untold masses. Just like how not every good Samaritan out there is a shining hero in golden armor willing to die for a cause, not every selfish prick is a bond movie villain.

[*RavenousB]

What separates neutral from evil is a willingness to harm others for personal gain. A neutral entity might play a bit dirty and start rumors about others who are in direct competition with them to gain an advantage but likely will feel varying levels guilt about their misdeeds. The evil entities will have few reservations using or sacrificing innocents nor creating a lot of collateral damage if they believe it will not be tied to back to them depending upon how far on the evil spectrum they may fall.

As Mimi said the setting is about the factions which tends to be law vs. chaos.

[*zethrenx99]

Celestials and fiends visiting sigil would have done so knowing what they are getting themselves into. A chaotic good celestial would work in whatever way he wants to destroy evil, but a lawful celestial would be hard pressed to act against the acting law of a region he had willingly entered. Since Sigil itself is not inherently evil, a lawful good celestial or character of any kind wouldn't act outside of the law in order to destroy evil. Likewise, a chaotic evil fiend would do whatever he wants for his own personal gain or amusement and would disregard sigil in order to get whatever he wants, where as a lawful evil fiend would see the laws of sigil as something to respect so long as the laws benefit them in any way. That's why the factions and thus law in sigil is the key for anyone other then chaotic (which i don't think you can be a chaotic aasimon or devil). Now a neutral character doesnt have respect for law per/say but has a respect for tradition or an ideal which allows them the convenience of choosing whether or not to adhere by law in prohibiting their actions so long as that law pertains to their ideal or tradition.

So the only ones that can really do anything inside of sigil are neutrals or chaotics. So what incentive do they have to do evil acts? You can make more money by adventuring with less risk then mugging robbing or murdering some one. The only way to gain power in sigil is from a faction and the factions themselves aren't striving for more power so eventually you will be stuck there. No gods or invading force can enter sigil so using sigil as a platform to launch invasions on other planes, while it would be a neat plot, simply cant happen in sigil. So that leaves acts of lust which only affect a small minority of players. So that leaves Envy and gluttony?