So you have an evil character with a good paladin in the party. They don't see themselves as evil, he's just realistic and is protective towards the others as unlike them he knows what the world is really like and he doesn't want to wreck their delusions. My problem is when I run characters they're usually good and I can see myself running this character and still be more good aligned than the actual good aligned PCs! I'm not kidding I've seen paladins run as crusaders in a manner that can only be described as evil and not brought up as the gm is very chaotic. Faerun has a lot to answer about that!
A fun mental exercise: I can actually come up with a reason how I can play an evil character is the "save the children" scenario. I am playing something similar now anyway. Here's the deal: this character would get out of his way to save the children due to personal reasons. But he would be so brutal in his methods to those who hurt the children, or even haven't done anything yet, but might soon. And he would be absolutely reveling in it, all while thinking highly about himself, because he believes he's doing a good deed. Another good tip of playing the evil character in my opinion would be those insignificant cosmetic but still neat little details you can add. For example, my DM askes how does my character Theo kill the bandit leader. Theo says "You are disgrace to the status of the commander. Know that your people fell today because of your tactical blunders. By the name of the Red Knight, I condemn you." He does a series of small multiple cuts on the bandit's leader's legs, and when the leader falls on his knees, Theo says "You have now my permission to die" and just lives the guy bleeding.
This is awesome. None of our current party members are aligned as evil, but I think these tips are good to keep in mind for everyone in general as well! When party members make really irrational decisions or act like jerks in-game because it's "what their character would do", it can really derail things and people can take it personally. Always keeping in mind how it will affect the DM's plans and everyone's experience as a whole is a great tip. Thanks for the video! Maybe one day I'll try out an evil character haha.
Good advice. I'm playing a rogue pirate and just chose assassin as my subclass with a mostly good party. The role play of taking contracts behind their backs is awesome and I'll be able to hide it better now
I mean someone evil might kill for money, they might kill to protect their interests, or to settle a score. They might kill out of a need to settle some misguided perceived moral principle that they live their life by (Thanos) or kill to satiate some primal need like a serial killer would. There are hundreds of things that could drive an evil character to action but If your characters main motivation for killing is that they kill at every opportunity because they want to show the world how evil they are that's not really character building.
I haven’t actually played DnD before, but I’ve been making a few characters I might want to use. One I have for later is Lawful Evil. He’s a High Elf Fighter/Warlock. He’s a prince in line for the throne of his kingdom. His parents were very hard on him and always expected perfection of him. They raised him to be a jerk who thinks elves are better than everyone else. He is willing to fight dirty, trade lives, and lie in order to benefit his people (and himself). He’s desperate for his father’s approval. But one day, he leads his squadron into an ambush. A necromancer and his orcs slaughter him and his troops. As he dies, he calls out for help. If he dies, his line will be broken. A demon answers him and gives him the power to kill his enemies and take the necromancer’s scrolls. Now he seeks to grow in strength and find a way to break his contract with the demon before he destroys his kingdom, without letting his people find out he died.
Ik im really late but this helped me so much making my character! I’m playing a satyr bard/warlock in a very very chaotic party with pyromaniacs and a 3’ 2” half spine devil half satyr barbarian (very great story). None of our party members are really “evil” but that’s gonna change
The thing about playing evil characters is that they always need to be more complex than just being evil, and if they were just evil you would run through many consequences because "it's just what my character would do"
I'm currently in a party with a spread of good and evil characters. The party as a whole is openly involved in some fairly shady dealings (drug dealing, arms dealing, the occasional contract killing), but even though the good characters find these actions objectionable, they don't interfere. By contrast, the good members of the party have helped to cultivate farmland, drive away bandits, set up distribution channels for healing items and productivity, etc. While the evil characters aren't necessarily happy about not profiting from these ventures, they also don't interfere. The party dynamic works because the entire group has shared goals. While the party doesn't always (or even often) agree on specific actions, the more general truth is always the same. Our whole party has common enemies, overarching concerns, and goals. And also importantly, our characters canonically like and respect one another over bonds forged from those shared circumstances.
I played a C/N tiefling who was, without being outright evil, extremely bigoted towards humans. His parents were humans (father made a pact, mother died during childbirth), and that's why he hated humans. The deal his father made was to gain magical power, and an heir that was born magically gifted. My tiefling character was the first born to his father, but was not born magical. His two younger siblings (from another woman his father married after gaining his fortune) were, though. That led to a lot of bitterness, compounded by the fact that the character understood that the existence of tieflings was an inherently bad thing. He blamed the perceived evil of humanity for his own flawed existence and had a lot of anger about it, especially when they (who were, in his mind, collectively guilty for his existence in the first place) reacted to him with the typical fear and suspicion that is common for tieflings. His backstory was far from the usual tragedy you'd find from tiefling characters, but there was a lot of anger and hate (he was raised in opulent wealth, after all). The catch was that even his father (the character's personal villain) deserved some amount of sympathy. Their home city was a strict magocracy, and one had to be able to demonstrate command of magic to own property, enter into contracts or even address the ruling council. Any "inerts" (a rather inventive slur for those who lack magic) could only live as renters, servants or serfs. There was a lot of reason for his father to seek magical power, and the character's eventual banishment (which he blamed his father for) was actually the deal his father made to avoid a beheading. Still, that boy hated every human he ever saw. There was never a redemption for that, either
So you have an evil character with a good paladin in the party.
They don't see themselves as evil, he's just realistic and is protective towards the others as unlike them he knows what the world is really like and he doesn't want to wreck their delusions.
My problem is when I run characters they're usually good and I can see myself running this character and still be more good aligned than the actual good aligned PCs!
I'm not kidding I've seen paladins run as crusaders in a manner that can only be described as evil and not brought up as the gm is very chaotic.
Faerun has a lot to answer about that!
A fun mental exercise: I can actually come up with a reason how I can play an evil character is the "save the children" scenario. I am playing something similar now anyway. Here's the deal: this character would get out of his way to save the children due to personal reasons. But he would be so brutal in his methods to those who hurt the children, or even haven't done anything yet, but might soon. And he would be absolutely reveling in it, all while thinking highly about himself, because he believes he's doing a good deed.
Another good tip of playing the evil character in my opinion would be those insignificant cosmetic but still neat little details you can add. For example, my DM askes how does my character Theo kill the bandit leader. Theo says "You are disgrace to the status of the commander. Know that your people fell today because of your tactical blunders. By the name of the Red Knight, I condemn you." He does a series of small multiple cuts on the bandit's leader's legs, and when the leader falls on his knees, Theo says "You have now my permission to die" and just lives the guy bleeding.
Omg someone in my party really needs to hear rule 1
tell them that an angry monkey will chase them otherwise !
Yes!! I live for morally grey and villainous characters. Great advice!!!
Finally an in depth guide on child murder in dnd
(In a serious note this is amazing please make more)
Hahaha well yeah that’s one way to call that video, glad you like it !
I like that you don’t edit your videos that much, it makes comfortable and real. Kudos
Great advice man. Have an evil character I’m making right now and this was very helpful.
Happy to help!
Will you do like tutorials of like how to play well some of your homebrew content ? Can’t wait to see what you’ll do next !
Yes I will very likely dive into my homebrew content ! Glad you like it !
@@MonkeyDM :D
Just found a clip of this on tiktok. Went here to fully watch it. Thank you!
thats the best haircut i have seen all year
thanks!
This is awesome. None of our current party members are aligned as evil, but I think these tips are good to keep in mind for everyone in general as well! When party members make really irrational decisions or act like jerks in-game because it's "what their character would do", it can really derail things and people can take it personally. Always keeping in mind how it will affect the DM's plans and everyone's experience as a whole is a great tip. Thanks for the video! Maybe one day I'll try out an evil character haha.
Haha well you should try, they are tons of fun !
Gnight good sir, very helpful video, i just had session with my death knight pc, "words better then actions" advice actually really good advice
Nice tips! My party and I are starting new campaign soon and I'm thinking of playing an evil character for the first time, so those will be useful :)
happy to help !
Good advice. I'm playing a rogue pirate and just chose assassin as my subclass with a mostly good party. The role play of taking contracts behind their backs is awesome and I'll be able to hide it better now
I mean someone evil might kill for money, they might kill to protect their interests, or to settle a score. They might kill out of a need to settle some misguided perceived moral principle that they live their life by (Thanos) or kill to satiate some primal need like a serial killer would. There are hundreds of things that could drive an evil character to action but If your characters main motivation for killing is that they kill at every opportunity because they want to show the world how evil they are that's not really character building.
I haven’t actually played DnD before, but I’ve been making a few characters I might want to use. One I have for later is Lawful Evil.
He’s a High Elf Fighter/Warlock.
He’s a prince in line for the throne of his kingdom. His parents were very hard on him and always expected perfection of him. They raised him to be a jerk who thinks elves are better than everyone else. He is willing to fight dirty, trade lives, and lie in order to benefit his people (and himself). He’s desperate for his father’s approval.
But one day, he leads his squadron into an ambush. A necromancer and his orcs slaughter him and his troops. As he dies, he calls out for help. If he dies, his line will be broken. A demon answers him and gives him the power to kill his enemies and take the necromancer’s scrolls.
Now he seeks to grow in strength and find a way to break his contract with the demon before he destroys his kingdom, without letting his people find out he died.
Ik im really late but this helped me so much making my character! I’m playing a satyr bard/warlock in a very very chaotic party with pyromaniacs and a 3’ 2” half spine devil half satyr barbarian (very great story). None of our party members are really “evil” but that’s gonna change
I actually really like your haircut
I really liked this video. Some great tips you got there. I'm interested what you make out of your way on RUclips. Have a nice day. :)
thank you so much !
The thing about playing evil characters is that they always need to be more complex than just being evil, and if they were just evil you would run through many consequences because "it's just what my character would do"
I'm currently in a party with a spread of good and evil characters. The party as a whole is openly involved in some fairly shady dealings (drug dealing, arms dealing, the occasional contract killing), but even though the good characters find these actions objectionable, they don't interfere. By contrast, the good members of the party have helped to cultivate farmland, drive away bandits, set up distribution channels for healing items and productivity, etc. While the evil characters aren't necessarily happy about not profiting from these ventures, they also don't interfere.
The party dynamic works because the entire group has shared goals. While the party doesn't always (or even often) agree on specific actions, the more general truth is always the same. Our whole party has common enemies, overarching concerns, and goals. And also importantly, our characters canonically like and respect one another over bonds forged from those shared circumstances.
This is an awesome video and I really want to make an evil character now. Also I love the hair.
I played a C/N tiefling who was, without being outright evil, extremely bigoted towards humans. His parents were humans (father made a pact, mother died during childbirth), and that's why he hated humans. The deal his father made was to gain magical power, and an heir that was born magically gifted. My tiefling character was the first born to his father, but was not born magical. His two younger siblings (from another woman his father married after gaining his fortune) were, though. That led to a lot of bitterness, compounded by the fact that the character understood that the existence of tieflings was an inherently bad thing. He blamed the perceived evil of humanity for his own flawed existence and had a lot of anger about it, especially when they (who were, in his mind, collectively guilty for his existence in the first place) reacted to him with the typical fear and suspicion that is common for tieflings. His backstory was far from the usual tragedy you'd find from tiefling characters, but there was a lot of anger and hate (he was raised in opulent wealth, after all). The catch was that even his father (the character's personal villain) deserved some amount of sympathy. Their home city was a strict magocracy, and one had to be able to demonstrate command of magic to own property, enter into contracts or even address the ruling council. Any "inerts" (a rather inventive slur for those who lack magic) could only live as renters, servants or serfs. There was a lot of reason for his father to seek magical power, and the character's eventual banishment (which he blamed his father for) was actually the deal his father made to avoid a beheading. Still, that boy hated every human he ever saw. There was never a redemption for that, either
Well put as usual
Dont feel bad about the originality of a tiefling warlock, I'm playing a tiefling sorcerer
Your haircut is amazing.
I would love to see a more in depth story of arcatis back story
Sure I love talking about him, I could do that !
your haircut is not that bad.... its like mine :,)
What? There are actual videos? I though you only did shorts!
How are there 30+ minute videos on this topic that still aren't as good as this?
top ten handsome d&d youtubers
haha thanks!
Were the guard human?
Nice tips.
Thanks !
You have a nice haircut!
Your haircut sucked, but this video blowed (the opposite of sucked, I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m saying this is a good video)