The most "evil" PC you ever played/seen?

[moldymaltquaffer]

IMO, a good evil character is insidious. I've played a few of them, but it's rare that any of the other players/PCs have caught on.

For example, over the course of a recent Supers campaign, I played three characters. An idealistic boyscout, a "king and country" government agent, and a mad scientist (who, among other things, was a serial killer, conducted genetic experiments on innocents, and was happily corrupting nearly every NPC and PC he ever came in contact with).

The other PCs *hated* the boyscout with a purple polka-dotted passion.
They resented the government agent.
But everybody liked the mad scientist. (And I received numerous comments of "Why couldn't your other PCs be more like him?")

It got to the point where the GM was trying to hit them over the head with it, and was receiving responses like, "He's not a mad scientist. He's just a bit eccentric."

Sadly, he *was* more altruistic than the "heroic" characters, even though his motives were selfish.
Example: he healed a deaf girl. He did so because it was an interesting challenge, and because he wanted her loyalty. (She was a metahuman whose powers hadn't manifested yet. He had a good idea what they were going to be, and thought they'd be most useful.)

[quarkstomper]

I wouldn't exactly call this character evil, but once in a CHAMPIONS game I played a semi-reformed villain named Colonel Chance, a Flash's-Rogues-Gallery type who dressed like an old-time riverboat gambler, spoke in a Foghorn Leghorn accent, and used an arsenal of gambling-inspired gimmicks. As I said, Chance had given up crime and had been put in the hero team as part of his parole. But the funny thing was that every once in a while, when the team had to choose some course of action, Chance would chime in with an ethically-dubious idea: "Fah be it -- Ah say, fah be it fo' me to suggest anything ILL-legal -- against the Law, that is -- but it seems to me..."

And whenever I would say those magic words, the other players would listen to me seriously and respectfully, and more often than not, do the insanely illegal act I'd just recommended.

Colonel Chance wound up saving the world through homespun wisdom and very nearly obliterating the GM's carefully orchestrated re-boot. But that, as the fellow said, is another story...

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by moldymaltquaffer

IMO, a good evil character is insidious. I've played a few of them, but it's rare that any of the other players/PCs have caught on.

For example, over the course of a recent Supers campaign, I played three characters. An idealistic boyscout, a "king and country" government agent, and a mad scientist (who, among other things, was a serial killer, conducted genetic experiments on innocents, and was happily corrupting nearly every NPC and PC he ever came in contact with).

The other PCs *hated* the boyscout with a purple polka-dotted passion.
They resented the government agent.
But everybody liked the mad scientist. (And I received numerous comments of "Why couldn't your other PCs be more like him?")

It got to the point where the GM was trying to hit them over the head with it, and was receiving responses like, "He's not a mad scientist. He's just a bit eccentric."

Sadly, he *was* more altruistic than the "heroic" characters, even though his motives were selfish.
Example: he healed a deaf girl. He did so because it was an interesting challenge, and because he wanted her loyalty. (She was a metahuman whose powers hadn't manifested yet. He had a good idea what they were going to be, and thought they'd be most useful.)

The Bastard Son of Doctors Horrible and House? ;)

[D10]

My Dwarf from a fantasy game once lit candles under a hobgoblin's balls so he would "spill it out" sadly he didnt knew anything, not that this prevented grokky from decapitating the hobgoblins head and taking it with him and hurling it at the high priestress after he kicked his way into the cerimonial chamber of the temple.

In the end he ended up as the chosen of the dwarven deity, but he was always more of a chuck norris/steven seagal/charles bronson, kind of good

[rosignol]

Mine was a mage who had been Enslaved (by something loosely inspired by Mind Flayers) and commanded to kidnap/capture mages and send them to the creature that had enslaved him.

The character wasn't entirely evil, as there was a magical compulsion involved (...that the other PCs never picked up on. Which was fairly annoying, as the GM and I had set it up as a plot hook pre-campaign), but he did have free will with regards to how he carried out the order.

The GM never let on if the mages he sent back to the master were enslaved like the character was, or got brain-slurped.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Man, if this included NPCs, I'd have a ton of great examples. But for actual PCs, I haven't gotten to play many.

The evil cleric I played in one of the few D&D 3.5 games I've played in might have qualified, if the game had gone on long enough to develop anything. Had a Vrock (I think that's what it's called?) as a companion, and had plans to "upgrade" himself into becoming a demon some day. Would have surely seen a lot of development and nasty stuff (Hey, got to feed the Vrock somehow, and sacrifices give me favor!). But the DM of this evil-characters campaign ended up making it pretty shiny-happy fairy-land, plunked us firmly on the rails of being goody two-shoes, and then introduced several over-powered beings and what reeealy felt like a GMPC to keep everyone on them. Campaign died rather quickly.

The other best-example didn't last long, either. He was actually a demon. He was basically a big, heavy, brutish warrior type that had gotten away from his former masters, and now was basically doing whatever he could to survive. Which generally meant hiring on to whoever would pay him to break things. He was actually quite adamant that he was not evil. He was simply efficient and practical. He wouldn't go around kicking puppies or spitting on grandmothers, but if some armed folks started harrassing him with spears and swords, he would rip off their arms, stick them in uncomfortable places, and stomp the remains into the ground. He also had the habit of killing people who had tried to kill him by grabbing them by the neck, holding them off the ground (Strong guy), and burning them to death with a touch-based innate attack. A very low-damage innate attack. It took a while.

He was also very short with people in conversations, had no patience with prancy upper-class posing, and was pretty much a jerk to anyone who he saw as putting more value on appearances and "niceties" than things that actually mattered. I think he even got a bit of approval from some of the group for it, even the warrior lady that he basically (Very basically) told that he thought would make a fun screw. Which was convenient, since he liked her the most, being the least bone-headed and competent of the group. Other than himself, of course.

Unfortunately, the campaign ended because the GM's girlfriend (DM in that first example) seems to have a deep dislike of GURPS and of her boyfriend playing in a game with other friends instead of with her (Nevermind that she was in the game, too...). I'd really like to bring that character back sometime.

As for other players, there are a few that feel like they should be obvious, but don't really seem to make it. All the characters were evil in the demon campaign I ran, but they were more the bickering kind of evil, in between randomly killing off peasants. They did some pretty atrocious things (The nicest was a plaguebearer type who infested and wiped out an entire capitol city), but it didn't really stand out much. Certainly not the pinacle-of-evil that you'd expect a group of rampaging demons to be.

There was one PC that eventually (After play ended) rose to become one of the gods of a setting, and was most of the way there by the time we ended the campaign. And not one of the good gods, either. He experimented with magic to bind two beings into one new body, combining the chosen aspects of each form, and basically destroying one of their minds in the process. Started creating all sorts of weird creatures to serve as a harem with it. Developed another spell to temporarily keep someone alive and conscious no matter how badly injured. Ended up using it to keep prey alive when he hunted and mauled it (This was after he'd altered his own form, of course). Ended up wiping out a major trade city with a failed demon summoning (Oops), then came back to the wreckage to raise his own forces, opened up a massive passageway between two rival warring kingdoms, and then exploited the chaos to take one over and throw down its old god. So now they all give sacrifice to him. The last bit was after play, but it was pretty much going there already.

Then there was the serial-killer character. Wanted to do a rather darker-nastier campaign, and that certainly made it. Lots of murders, ended up summoning a demon (In a low-magic world, too, so extra-bad-news), eventually got a demon-granted gift to assume the form of a victim by skinning them, putting on their hide, and then changing into them. As for the why? Because it was fun, basically. He grew up in a horrible, crummy place, and found out that murdering someone (Or doing other nasty things to them) gave him a sense of power over his life. I generally think of him as the most evil of the PCs I've seen, just because what he did always seemed so personal to him.

Now, if this were including NPCs, well... I could probably top all that, easily. I'd have way too many examples to list all of them. Even all the really good ones :>

[D10]

I just remembered my most evil pc, The Baron

It was a standard fantasy world, he was human cleric who fell to the dark side and eventually became a vampire, a party of adventurers stormed into his castle rescued the princess he was going to sacrifice and destroyed him... for a while.

For he had made a pact with his dark god, and in few years time he was ressurrected in a sort of "spawn" form, completely slaved by his gods will, the only thing hes getting from it is his vengeance.

Hes done some pretty bad things, probably the worst thing hes done was to transform the paladin order who had taken his keep years ago in mindless undead serving him (at least some)

The most memorable moment tho, was when the group had to travel to a far away land and destroy some demon lords (a rival to our god's) temple, in the final room, there was some big fat chinese guy with peoples parts haging all around him, and in front of him, a tied up human girls frozen in horror as hes getting ready to sacrifice her to get all sorts of neat temporary powers.

As soon as we entered the room and saw what was happening, the baron fast drew his boomstick and put a bullet in the girls head while saying

"not so fast fatty, this ones mine"

He had an interesting sense of chivalry and honor, and he would definitely be lawfull evil by D&D standards, he would always avoid a fight if it wasant directly serving his purposes somehow, but damn he enjoyed a worthy fight.

[MattStriker]

In an old Warhammer Fantasy RP campaign, one of the characters was a healer...a priest of some deity of healing, even (I have no idea what the name was, Warhammer Fantasy lore isn't my strong point :P). He was also basically a nice guy...and a pacifist.

And the other characters mocked him relentlessly for that.

After several sessions of humiliation, the player decided that he'd had enough of that game...and the character snapped.

We eventually captured some skaven alive, and the healer got the bright idea that he'd 'tame' them. First of course they had to be taught proper speech. It went somewhat like this...

Healer points at a stone.
Healer: 'Stone.'
Skaven: 'Squeak.'
Healer: 'Stone!'
Skaven: 'Squeak?'
Healer stabs Skaven in the gut with a sliver of warpstone and watches as it expires messily. He then calmly turns to the next skaven...
Healer: 'Stone.'
Skaven: '...'

After that he decided to experiment on some of the captives to find out the lethal dose of warpstone gas in Skaven, or if they had any kind of immunity to the very nasty poisons we'd found in the jungle we were stuck in...they didn't.

After several further projects in the name of mad science (of the kind that'd shock Mengele...and he didn't limit himself to Skaven either), Tzeentch (in the form of a large psychedelic mushroom...don't ask) offered him a pact, and the former healer gladly accepted.

[Blood Legend]

I'd talked my GM into letting me play a psionic character once. His name was stricken from the records so all anyone knew him as was "Dr. Psion." He could steal thoughts, unhinge minds and kill at a glance.

His most noteable achievement was getting a member of a completely alien race with an alien tongue, in an alien vocal frequency, to audibly annunciate the world 'apple' in perfect human speech, specifically because the GM said it couldn't be done. I chose an apple because there was one on my desk, and I felt like going the kindergarden-from-hell route, teaching the creature to speak.

Now with all these psionic powers, he was the team's official interrogator. He still enjoyed the good old fashioned method and it was this that I used to get the poor sod to breach the language barrier. Took me an hour to break him. I got an alien alphabet out of him, so really it was worth it.

The best part was I didn't use any psychic powers, and the nature of the torture wasn't really detectable by the rest of the crew (alien super healing? I don't remember) so how I performed the task remained a mystery to the other players, as well as the NPC crew.

When presented with an apple the alien would be stricken with unremitting terror.

[DAT]

For modern games (90s), I've had charactes that were IRS auditors and telemarketers as their normal profession. Do they count?
-Dan