Editorial More of Avellone's Morals: What is evil?

[Armacalypse]

Or, you could just, you know, skip the whole alignment bullshit?
Just create a villain, and make people people in the world think he's evil. That is all there is to it in the real world; there are no fucking alignment bars, just people killing eachother for their moral beliefs.

And Hory, how is sacrificing yourself for something, no matter what it is, selfish?
How selfish you are is measured by how much you care for yourself compared to how much you care for something else. You can't call someone with absolutely no care for himself and absolute care for another person or a nation selfish, that defies logic.

You can call anyone evil though, if they don't think and feel as you think they should.

muds_animal_friend
I think "insane" is a broad and subjective definition. And why does the villain have to be a sadist? Why can't he just hate everything to achieve the same result?
And a "selfish" villain doesn't need to be insane. All he needs is to not have modern humanist morals and he could conquer the world all because of his love for his family. "Normal" people don't give a shit when they buy clothes made by slave-children in the third world as long as it's not on the TV, and as such he wouldn't care when his "minions" did all the dirty work as long as he doesn't see it.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

The concept of alignment is obviously flawed as a one-size-fits all solution. It's fine as a motivational toolbox in narratively simple RPGs but becomes a useless constraint in complex character-driven games like Mask of the Betrayer or Planescape: Torment.

I think "insane" is a broad and subjective definition.

Not in the clinical or legal sense. There are well-defined and predictable behavioural patterns for various forms of insanity. My point is simply that the clichéd RPG evildoer is in fact insane. They don't have rational motives; they’re completely irrational monomaniacs. As a result they’re over-the-top and shallow characterisations.

 

[Armacalypse]

I think "insane" is a broad and subjective definition.

Not in the clinical or legal sense. There are well-defined and predictable behavioural patterns for various forms of insanity. My point is simply that the clichéd RPG evildoer is in fact insane. They don't have rational motives; they’re completely irrational monomaniacs. As a result they’re over-the-top and shallow characterisations.

Well I'm not a psychologist so I don't know what the definition is or how you would define it, but I don't believe it is a very precise term in the scientific world.
Besides, no single person in the world has "rational motives", and in the end everyone's motives are decided by their emotions. Some plan further ahead, and some just disregard rationality altogether in the form of faith.

 

[themadhatter114]

Avellone's definition of evil wouldn't classify someone as insane no matter how thin you stretch it. Sure, if you are just doing extremely evil things because they are fun, you might be insane. But if you're an asshole because you think it's fun, then you're just a big asshole. But if you intentionally fuck other people over for some gain that is disproportionate to the misery you've caused, then I think that at the very least makes you the worst sort of asshole if not pretty damn evil.