Do you prefer evil options to be as strong as good options, stronger because of course being evil gives you advantages, or weaker because good options give you more holy power or something?
>>98680370I prefer good options to be stronger, because it's more difficult to be good.
>>98680699In an abstract sense, yes. At the table.... yeah, basically. In video games, absolutely not. There are no video games which treat "good guy" and "bad guy" routes equally. Maybe you could make the case for the lich path in Wrath Of The Righteous, but the devil and demon paths fucking suck.But back on the topic of tabletop games, I prefer for morality to just not be a mechanic / game system at all. It just absolutely not possible to make any system of morality that withstands scrutiny. That's not even a controversial fact in philosophy these days. It literally was settled more than two hundred years ago. You'll spend an entire semester on the topic if you ever go for any kind of degree that requires intro to philosophy courses.
>>98680370I prefer evil options to carry high risks and offer high rewards, and good to be safer and consistent. WFRP does it well with the chaos tables, clerics get a slap on the wrist, wizards get all sorts of screwed.
>>98680370Good options should be stronger if being "good" requires significant personal sacrifices (money, time, stat points, etc.) or seriously constrains PC behavior in a way that effectively nerfs the PC back into being average.Evil options should be stronger if being "evil" comes with similar sacrifices or behavioral requirements, but in the opposite direction, or a terrible reputation that really screws you over sometimes.If both are true, then Good and Evil should be stronger than just simply being Neutral, which carries the benefit of the freedom of choice to choose the most pragmatic option in every situation.
>>98680370They should have different upsides.Evil options should be more of a shortcut. A faster, cheaper, or easier option than doing something the normal way, but at an immoral price or at greater risk. Summoning a demon might be easier than summoning an angel, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg (sometimes literally). Good options should be stronger, but at the cost of a long term commitment. Following a rule or restriction for a time before gaining any power, and also losing that power if you break the rules.
The interesting option is Good being the harder choice. A clean conscience, and knowledge that if you fall, at least you'll be rewarded in the afterlife for your struggles, is the main benefit being Good should give. If a game makes being Good and altruistic as mechanically powerful, or often-times SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful than being an evil, selfish bastard, you have thrown morality out the window entirely and turned it into team sports at best and a non-choice at worst. It's not just TTRPGs guilty of this, lots of videogames have the same issue where choosing the Good, selfless options is just as if not more rewarding than being an asshole or dick. It's "Save everyone, be rewarded as a hero, get +5 Holy Avenger and a blowjob" vs "Save everyone, but you kick some puppies and everyone hates your guts, get a +5 Unholy Avenger that only works on 5% of enemies in the game since most are evil"........even if you WERE an evil asshole you'd still pick the first option purely for pragmatic reasons, it benefits you more AND you get a blowjob, Evil people will do things that benefit themselves most even if it also happens to also benefit others, nobody is retarded enough to shoot themselves in the foot for no reason.If the choice is "Be good, have a clear conscience, in exchange for objectively weaker powers, less money, less loot, less XP, and potentially sacrificng your own potential well-being because it's the right thing to do" vs "Be evil, get MORE loot, more XP, stronger abilities, more personal power and fame, but some people hate or fear you unless you become even more evil and silence them to protect your reputation." now you have an actual moral choice. If picking the "Good" option is more rewarding then even evil people will pick it and it stops being the "good" option it's just the smart choice. If you have two buttons, one which gives you $50 for kicking a puppy, and one gives $100 for playing fetch with it, you're retarded for NOT pressing the second.
>>98680370Not stronger. Quicker. Easier. More seductive.
>>98680370The other Anons have already said it as much:Evil grows in power significantly quicker than good; Evil has a fast start, but begins to get diminishing returns and slows down in the higher echelons of power. The weakest Evil can decimate the weakest Good, but the strongest Evil will always lose to the strongest Good - that's why Evil can be tricky.Good on the other hand takes fucking forever, but that's because Good is often resistance training; you actually have to make a lot of tough decisions, and face against adversity, and protect others, these obstacles are "difficult", but the entities that persist through them are always going to be more powerful than the ones who were filtered or didn't bother. This is also the reason why STOPPING being Evil can be really, really, difficult: it's easy, it's comfortable, it's familiar, and being Good "cold turkey" can be really uncomfortable, complicated, and unintuitive. Likewise, Good "ceasing" and becoming Evil can provide the illusion of growth because they no longer have to limit themselves: a lot of things are now easier, you have more free reign, and your power can be more explosive, but then growth typically ceases, it's a masturbatory and low-discipline maneuver that will cost you gains.
Evil is stronger but Good (High/Very Good) has super effective advantage over Evil. Both offensively and defensively.It means Evil is stronger against most of the population in most situations but still loses out to a dedicated Good.
>>98680370I like evil to be quicker but riskier, and demanding heinous misdeeds and long-term consequences. Good, meanwhile, is slow but stable, and needs a continuous effort to uphold.
>>98680872>>98680821This
>>98680370the 3.x star wars game had a pretty fun twist on this idea where you had a fate/inspiration point style pool of "force point" dice and you could choose to channel the darkside or not, with the dark side literally getting you more of a bonus for low to mid level characters while scaling worse - and the caveat that every time you use it you get a naughty point and if you get too many then you're forced to always draw on the dark side and get other consequences I forget aboutTLDR: a mechanical version of the "just this one I gotta let the rage take over" story hook with the associated justifications for why someone would risk it while still keeping the overall narrative of "good wins in the end"
>>98686833I remember this one. Channelling a force point would give you a die bonus based on whether you were light, dark or a muggle. Something like thisLevel Muggle Dark Light1-4 1d6 2d6 1d65-8 2d6 3d6 2d69-12 3d6 4d6 4d613-16 4d6 5d6 6d617-20 5d6 5d6 7d6
>>98680370Evil gives more overall firepower. One on one evil is stronger Good gives better aoe buffs/sustain. Many on many good is stronger
In my homebrew, being evil gives you about two wizard levels automatically, while also sublty empowering certain damage or "manipulate" type spells.This makes a great difference, actually, but from that point it has only downsides to the character. It also puts you in touch with a greater evil from your campaign which depending on its nature will eventyally try to use you, erode you, eat you, parasite you, replace you, etc. https://alchemistnocturne.blogspot.com/2026/09/casting-chaotic-evil-spells.htmlshilling>>98680954this anon knows things
>>98680877much like dogs people really just want to be called a Good Boy and making it the mechanically superior option for no reason helps to avoid alienating people with something as prevalent as a moral dilemma that can stretch through an entire game"evil is stronger to start with but scales poorly" "good is a long term commitment" and the other examples posted so far are coping methods (not derogatory) for the fact that reality benefits evil people in the short and long term
>>98680370None of the above. I like them to be direct counters to each other, so that if a paladin and an antipaladin collide, it's more a battle of who strikes who first. Bonus points if the good guy can defend the party from the bad guy's shit, but is vulnerable to the bad guy directly.
>>98697648
>>98680370I generally prefer the opposite of the >>98680954 approach, though I do see the merits of it.My fondness for games I run is that the strongest evil character is much stronger than the strongest good character, but they're strong ALONE, while the good guys have, y'know... friends, allies, trusted companions, and people who look between the two and decide "I'll team up with the guy who ISN'T going to sacrifice my entire city for evil sorcery and profane power."The local jerk might be able to overpower one guy who won't fight back, but is at a serious disadvantage if the whole village shows up at his house and tells him to scram. The Terrible Evil Dark Lord is a titan of dark sorcery and ruthless ambition, but his vassals are squabbling and disunified against the coherent forces of the Great Alliance of Nice Fellas.Thus Evil tends to win short-term, but eventually gets stomped when Good gets its shit together and teams up against him.I also tend to do this because I like running games where supernatural forces are untrustworthy, hazardous to ordinary people, or require abominable costs and sacrifices that sensible people wouldn't make. Sure, anybody can become a sorcerer, but since it requires murdering your entire family to do it most people decide being a sorcerer is a shit deal. So you get a few very powerful assholes who end up losing in aggregate against a ragtag band of disparate goodies brought together by circumstance and held together by the bonds of friendship (aka the Solo Boss Monster getting whupped by the Adventuring Party).
>>98698679In non supernatural circumstances this can be more nuanced, since it's not hard to see that in the real world "evil" (or at least ruthless, ambitious) people tend to do pretty well for themselves by working with other ruthless, ambitious people to all attain their own goals at the expense of literally everybody else.But even then that requires some degree of temperance; the dictator and his cronies have to tone down their gleeful self-advancement at least enough that they don't betray one another and descend into a disastrous civil war which would leave them all weakened, like a national-scale prisoners' dilemma.Or you can play up that Evil Supernatural Power exclusively flows from top to bottom; if you get empowered by the Dark God of Tyranny, you'd damn well better use that power to serve the DGoT's aims or you're gonna have a real bad time. Sort of like how D&D plays The Nine Hells of Baator: essentially everyone in that system is enslaved by the person directly above them. Sure, you can be pretty abusive to your own slaves and victims, but you'll always be at the mercy and sufferance of your superiors.Wheel of Time emphasized that a lot with the Forsaken, the Dark One's generals. They could entertain themselves, do nasty shit, blow people up, and so on, but it was repeatedly shown that if they ever messed up or just pissed someone off they would be the victims of quite awful torments, and "not getting my soul flensed by cosmic evil" was a legitimate motivation for at least one of them turning coat and joining the good guys in one of the Shadow's greatest boondoggles. If the Forsaken had worked as a united front they'd be unstoppable, but instead they pursued their own aims, betrayed one another, used the good guys against one another, turned coat, and ultimately lost because they just couldn't pull their heads out of their asses long enough to fight the increasingly coherent, powerful, and unified forces of the good guys.
>>98698729tl,dr; Being evil helps a bunch but you're gonna piss a lot of people off in the process and you'd better hope they don't all get together to kick your ass.
>>98680370Literally the only reason people are evil in real life is because they perceive it to be the better option. If evil doesn't have an unfair advantage, literally why even be evil?
>>98680370Not a category.
>>98699207This. >>98680877>If the choice is "Be good, have a clear conscience, in exchange for objectively weaker powers, less money, less loot, less XP, and potentially sacrificng your own potential well-being because it's the right thing to do" vs "Be evil, get MORE loot, more XP, stronger abilities, more personal power and fame, but some people hate or fear you unless you become even more evil and silence them to protect your reputation." now you have an actual moral choice. >If picking the "Good" option is more rewarding then even evil people will pick it and it stops being the "good" option it's just the smart choice. If you have two buttons, one which gives you $50 for kicking a puppy, and one gives $100 for playing fetch with it, you're retarded for NOT pressing the second.Is really the only sensible way to run things. If the "good" choice is stronger than the "evil" choice, you can no longer actually determine someone's morals based on the decisions being made. All you're measuring is their basic attention to detail and intelligence. It's smart choice vs dumb choice instead of moral vs immoral. However, at the end of the day I think >>98695896>much like dogs people really just want to be called a Good Boy and making it the mechanically superior option for no reason helps to avoid alienating people with something as prevalent as a moral dilemma that can stretch through an entire gameis basically right. That's why in every D&D clone and knockoffs like Pathfinder, the "Anti-Paladin" equivalents are just mechanically inferior to being a Paladin; you actively LOSE character power and abilities by becoming a champion of evil compared to being Good or Neutral. Even if you're a genuine Evil asshole who's a selfish bastard to the core, you're retarded for becoming an Antipaladin in PF2E instead of just being a fucking Fighter who is mechanically superior to an evil champion in every way. Look at how fucking garbage the Chaotic Evil option for Champions is.
>>98695896>people in the short and long termwhat about the middle term anon.haha I got you.
>>98699356wat
>>98701763>That's why in every D&D clone and knockoffs like Pathfinder, the "Anti-Paladin" equivalents are just mechanically inferior to being a Paladin; you actively LOSE character power and abilities by becoming a champion of evil compared to being Good or Neutral. Even if you're a genuine Evil asshole who's a selfish bastard to the core, you're retarded for becoming an Antipaladin in PF2E instead of just being a fucking Fighter who is mechanically superior to an evil champion in every way. Look at how fucking garbage the Chaotic Evil option for Champions is.That is more an issue with PF2e's design and Paizo not wanting to be seen as supporting "Evil characters" after the pedo demon god controversy.Usually the desired balance is something like this:>Fighter - baseline no restictions on action>Paladin - +2 over Fighter but comes with easy to fail restrictions if they are not careful with their action>Anti-Paladin - +1 over Fighter but either comes with easy to do conditions or hard to fail restrictions
stronger because of course being evil gives you advantages
>>98680370Thematically speaking I think >>98680877 is correct. Evil should be tempting, and should offer quick and easy shortcuts to power. It should augment your physical abilities, grant powerful forbidden magics, and allow you to create massive armies of Orcs or Undead to do your bidding. Good may be strong, but it may not reach the same heights and definitely takes more effort and discipline to achieve.However, I think being evil should also offer two key failings. One is the simple lack of camaraderie. Everyone is in it for themselves when they're taking these shortcuts so freely. You can't trust your own second in command not to turn on you the moment it seems like a better deal that what's going on currently. Your armies may have poor morale when they realize victory won't be easy, only kept in line by threats from their own leaders.The second is that the costs paid should either be too abstract for the spiritually disinclined to get, or vague enough that your villain thinks they can outsmart whatever's offering them the contract. Consigning your soul to Super Hell for eternal torture doesn't sound bad if you plan to become immortal. Maybe you can think you can find a loophole in the Devil's contract. But of course you can't outsmart the Devil, and an eternity of getting your dick crushed is all that awaits you after death; everyone has to pay the piper sooner or later.I also wouldn't reveal these drawbacks immediately or overtly, let them become more clear as time goes on.
>>98680877what is good, really? imagine that some aasimar is floating around a major city, constantly emitting holy word from her mouth.merchants die, rulers die, society collapses, and a bunch of people lay dead.did you achieve something good? or did you achieve something evil?many people WILL go hungry now, with the 'bad' people out of power.humans aren't built to be judged as good and evil. the very concept of good and evil is very hard to decipher in humans.I would offer two solutions:1) what modern D&D does = most humans are neutral, which means become evil or good depending on the situation, therefore alignment never set in stone.2) good and evil are only reserved to angels and demons from separate planes, just like an earth elemental from the earth plane is made of earth, angels are made from good, and demons are made from evil.yeah."Aaaaaasssiiimmmaaaaarrrr....."
