237 réponses à ce sujet

[PhroXenGold]

The problem is how the force works in star wars. You know all those mindless evil things sith do sometimes? They actually have a reason for doing that and its not for the lols. Its because it increases their personal power the light side does not do that. The more evil you are in star wars the more of the dark side you can draw upon the more death and destruction you cause the more your connection to the dark side strengthens. You pretty much become a beast power wise if you do this. Since the dark side is about sheer power according to lucas.

 

Revan states as such in the books when he was a sith lord and various other sources say the same thing that's the reason why your dark side abilities can now clear entire rooms if you are maxed dark side. If you do help people even for a bad reason or prevent suffering in some form no matter what it is. The dark side can't nuture within you and your connection cannot grow stronger with it because the dark side likes pain, suffering, hate, selfishness and destruction. It feeds upon those things so it closes its doors on you because you are not giving it what it wants and its harder to drawn upon because you lack the connection to it. 

 

Yeah dark side in a small nutshell I could explain more but that would take ages that's just the bare bones of why you ended up light. Oh and wizzo that's why I like obsedian writing sometimes and funny enough with kotor 2 and the restoration mod you actually get more story details if you go dark side! Who would have thought!? Kotor 2 did give more options on how to go dark side though which I liked kotor 1 just did it in the basic form. 

 

Personally I wish dark side exile was canon they were pretty badass. 

 

To be fair I did know most of this. I just think its still stupid even with an in-universe explanation. The whole "dark side makes you behave like a ******" and the lack of any room for nuance or depth is the main reason why I find Star Wars less and less interesting these day

 

And besides, being able to throw force lightning around isn't power. Being able to control people, armies, nations is. That's the kind of power my "evil" characters seek, and you can do that perfectly well being nice.

[AlanC9]

^ I wouldn't even agree that evil parties got the best characters. Sure, Korgan and Edwina were good, but Viconia wasn't a patch on Anomen. He did at the bare minimum twice as much damage as her (thanks to 2e mechanics only giving people with warrior classes extra attacks) - and out of the box, before the stronger buffs and equipment level some of the stat differences it was far more than that - and only loses out on a few low level spells of which you have far more than you need anyway.

Vicky does have MR, though, which can be useful. But yeah, if I was looking for a pure spellcaster play there I'd be running with Aerie.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Double Post.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I think evil trading practices would be going beyond mere merits. It'd be gaining leverage, but keeping everyone else down despite their merits.

The LE position would be that those people wouldn't be in a position to be held down if they had merits.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Another.

[PhroXenGold]

Darth Vader and Palpatine do both. Vader moreso.. he's more of the conventional organizer, while Palp sits alone on a chair. 

 

The dark side part is just to do with their Force powers.

 

Palpatine is excatly the kind of charcter I mean. He didn't get where he was with force powers. He got to the top excerising political power, not just throwing force lightining at people. He got there by manipulating the crap out of everyone and convincing them he was actually a good person. This latter point in particular is what my "evil" characters usually focus on - if other people think you're a good person, if they think you'll act in a positive way, then they will support you, even if you are actually just doing it for the power. it is much better to be loved than feared. Ok, sure, it's still better to be feared than ignored, and said evil characters are perfectly happy to turn to violence and force if it is beneficial to do so, but the first choice will be to secure power through loyalty and respect, and it's only if that fails that you resort to more tyrannical methods. I find I just can't roleplay the "kill everyone cos it's EVUL!!" kinda character, even in a setting where there is some justification for that.

 

I mean, sure, in the case of Palpatine it helped that everyone around him was an utter idiot, but the principle is there.

[PhroXenGold]

I have to repeat what someone else said though --- Palpatine is pretty ridiculous. 

 

Especially after watching the Clone Wars series. It's entertaining, don't get me wrong. It's just that the depths of his deception is beyond unrealistic. No one could get away with that.

 

Yeah, and I did admit that

 

A better example would be that of Alpha Protocol that someone raised earlier (in which it's believable that people would support you as you manipulate everyone brilliantly), but Palpy is a decent approximation given that I was specifically talking about SW.

[Han Shot First]

To be fair I did know most of this. I just think its still stupid even with an in-universe explanation. The whole "dark side makes you behave like a ******" and the lack of any room for nuance or depth is the main reason why I find Star Wars less and less interesting these day

 

And besides, being able to throw force lightning around isn't power. Being able to control people, armies, nations is. That's the kind of power my "evil" characters seek, and you can do that perfectly well being nice.

 

One of my criticisms of SWTOR is how light side/ dark side choices were handled. Far too often the dark side choice was Stupid Evil. A good example is the quest from the Empire side, where a loyal Imperial citizen approaches your Sith Lord and gripes about some other Sith who are murdering Imperial citizens for sport. These Sith are basically serial killers, murdering indiscriminantly, for the lulz. The two choices are to either being these Sith down (light side) or to basically tell the guy he's an insignificant worm who has no right to question anything a Sith does. 

 

My problem with how that is handled is that your character is either shoehorned into bringing the Sith down because he/she thinks that killing innocent people is wrong, or he or she is Stupid Evil and doesn't see that those sorts of shenanigans undermine Sith power and support for the Empire among the populace. There should have been a third option, where you can elect to bring down the serial killer Sith but with a dark side motivation. A dark sider would not care one iota about the violated rights of the slain or feel any sort of empathy for them, but he or she might still wish to bring down those Sith because they are destroying an Imperial resource (loyal clitizens) and undermining support for the Sith and the Empire. To that Sith it is the equivalent as if the murderers had instead destroyed Imperial ships in an act of vandalism. Also by bringing down those Sith your character could have set himself up as someone who appears to be righteous and a champion of the people (even though he is not), and he helps maintain the illusion that all citizens in the Empire have rights and that the Empire is a just civilization. 

[TheEternalStudent]

One of my criticisms of SWTOR is how light side/ dark side choices were handled. Far too often the dark side choice was Stupid Evil. A good example is the quest from the Empire side, where a loyal Imperial citizen approaches your Sith Lord and gripes about some other Sith who are murdering Imperial citizens for sport. These Sith are basically serial killers, murdering indiscriminantly, for the lulz. The two choices are to either being these Sith down (light side) or to basically tell the guy he's an insignificant worm who has no right to question anything a Sith does.

My problem with how that is handled is that your character is either shoehorned into bringing the Sith down because he/she thinks that killing innocent people is wrong, or he or she is Stupid Evil and doesn't see that those sorts of shenanigans undermine Sith power and support for the Empire among the populace. There should have been a third option, where you can elect to bring down the serial killer Sith but with a dark side motivation. A dark sider would not care one iota about the violated rights of the slain or feel any sort of empathy for them, but he or she might still wish to bring down those Sith because they are destroying an Imperial resource (loyal clitizens) and undermining support for the Sith and the Empire. To that Sith it is the equivalent as if the murderers had instead destroyed Imperial ships in an act of vandalism. Also by bringing down those Sith your character could have set himself up as someone who appears to be righteous and a champion of the people (even though he is not), and he helps maintain the illusion that all citizens in the Empire have rights and that the Empire is a just civilization.

I quite agree, ,these are valuable resources, we're not wasting them' isn't nice, it's practical villainy.
Motivation is hard to fully cover, but they didn't really try in TOR

[batlin]

 

@Batlin: I think the thing you’re kind of missing (that a couple of people have mentioned) is that most people who we would consider evil don’t actually consider themselves evil. There’s actually very few people who actually conceive of themselves as bad.

 

Your basic narrative that being bad is easy and profitable, and being good is hard, just isn’t that relevant because the “bad” you’re talking about is basically petty criminality. It’s not “evil”, it’s selfishness.

 

Given that, the question then changes from one of “good” or “bad” choices being represented realistically, but one of differing moral systems being represented realistically. For example, you can imagine a game allowing your character to behave in a kind of left-wing way (emphasis on collective responsibility, progressive social values, diplomatic foreign policy), or a kind of right-wing way (emphasis on personal responsibility, traditional cultural values, aggressive foreign policy).

 

In that case, the game would have to give relatively realistic and balanced outcomes for both outlooks, or risk coming across as partisan.

I agree with you that games too often present “evil” choices as cartoonishly villainous, and then also smack them with gameplay penalties, as if the player needs to be reminded that CRIME DOESN’T PAY.

You just repeated a good chunk of what I already wrote. Yes, selfishness is the heart of evil. No one would do bad things if doing good things would get them the same, or even a better, result. If you look at the state of the world today (or, better yet, of the feudal era of Europe), atrocities are pretty common. Why? Did people do these things for the hell of it? No, because back then, the best and most efficient way to get things was to take it. And yes, very few of these people think they're evil. They justify their actions based on the end result: they have what they want.

 

So since players will almost always choose to play the good side, having the rewards for being good be superior to the rewards for being evil completely defeats the purpose of having an evil choice at all. Why would anybody actually choose to do something bad knowing that what they get at the end of the day would be worse than the good option? If there were a player who really was evil, and he was presented with the same choices ofen seen in games would pick the choice that's most profitable, not the one that involves stealing candy from a baby, meaning he would probaly end every RPG with a halo over his character's head. You said it yourself: evil is about selfishness.

 

So why even have an evil option? What's the point?

 

So punishing people for picking the evil option and/or giving them lesser rewards is flawed in two ways: First, it completely goes against any realistic motivation for being evil. Second, it means the developers wasted time even presenting an evil option to begin with, because a player who wants to play an evil character would rationally choose the good option 99% of the time. Crime doesn't pay? The sad truth is that sometimes it does. And that's why evil people exist.

 

I'll invoke GTA again: Those games are fun and popular because being bad in them is fun AND profitable. If you commit a crime and there's a witness, you'll get the police after you, but unless you have six stars, getting away from the police is pretty simple. That's for a reason. If getting away from the police were extremely difficult and the most efficient way to make money were to sit in your house and wait for your real estate to make you money, the game would be pretty boring, right? Why do that with the evil option in RPGs?

[Super Drone]

So why even have an evil option? What's the point?

 

I wonder that question myself. It seems like an artifact of the Baldur's Gate era, and attempt to appeal to people that played LE Drow Assassins in D&D when they were 14. These stories are built around being a Hero, the framework of the story assumes you are trying to save the world because you are the good guy.  Trying to play against that but keep the same basic plot means that, yes, deviating from that framework is only going to be the most token of efforts.

 

Maybe it would be best to scrap the whole thing. Give people and option to be ruthless or a jerkass, but leave true Evil motivations to people's headcanon.

[Lennard Testarossa]

I wonder that question myself. It seems like an artifact of the Baldur's Gate era, and attempt to appeal to people that played LE Drow Assassins in D&D when they were 14. These stories are built around being a Hero, the framework of the story assumes you are trying to save the world because you are the good guy.  Trying to play against that but keep the same basic plot means that, yes, deviating from that framework is only going to be the most token of efforts.

 

Maybe it would be best to scrap the whole thing. Give people and option to be ruthless or a jerkass, but leave true Evil motivations to people's headcanon.

 

What exactly do you mean by 'These stories'?

[ShinsFortress]

This wouldn't be much of a roleplaying game if the only option was to be nice.

 

It would be fine by me.  To think that there's only one way to be decent shows a lack of imagination in my book.  "Good" doesn't have to be sickly sweet saccharine coated Disney, but to actively pretend to be evil?  No thanks.  If you're not a trained actor, I don't see how that's good for you.  Some people say that role-playing evil is a certain vent.  I think it desensitises.

[Bigdoser]

You don't even need to be outright evil to be a Dark Jedi/Sith type. 

 

All you have to do is be human. 

 

Look at Anakin. Mom gets killed by Sand people. He gets pissed off and slaughters them. A totally natural response if you ask me. lol.. Yet that's Dark Side in SW.

Well slaughtering a whole bunch of people the dark side likes that kind of stuff and gives out dark side cookies for doing such things. 

[Bigdoser]

One of my criticisms of SWTOR is how light side/ dark side choices were handled. Far too often the dark side choice was Stupid Evil. A good example is the quest from the Empire side, where a loyal Imperial citizen approaches your Sith Lord and gripes about some other Sith who are murdering Imperial citizens for sport. These Sith are basically serial killers, murdering indiscriminantly, for the lulz. The two choices are to either being these Sith down (light side) or to basically tell the guy he's an insignificant worm who has no right to question anything a Sith does. 

 

My problem with how that is handled is that your character is either shoehorned into bringing the Sith down because he/she thinks that killing innocent people is wrong, or he or she is Stupid Evil and doesn't see that those sorts of shenanigans undermine Sith power and support for the Empire among the populace. There should have been a third option, where you can elect to bring down the serial killer Sith but with a dark side motivation. A dark sider would not care one iota about the violated rights of the slain or feel any sort of empathy for them, but he or she might still wish to bring down those Sith because they are destroying an Imperial resource (loyal clitizens) and undermining support for the Sith and the Empire. To that Sith it is the equivalent as if the murderers had instead destroyed Imperial ships in an act of vandalism. Also by bringing down those Sith your character could have set himself up as someone who appears to be righteous and a champion of the people (even though he is not), and he helps maintain the illusion that all citizens in the Empire have rights and that the Empire is a just civilization. 

Problem is that imperial citizens don't have rights when it comes to the sith their lives are to do with what they will by law. Now if they were murdering any of the soldiers etc? Then its a different story all together and would get the sith in trouble BIG time since they were acolytes hence why they targeted normal citizens. 

 

It goes back to the explanation of the force and the dark side and how it operates. It does not care if you are saving lives for whatever reason if you are saving lives the dark side is not going to hand out its cookies of power. Even sidious with his whole manipulation thing was evil as sin in the background and took every chance to torture people with lighting going by his background and stories if he could get away with it. That tips the scales to keep the dark side from being too cross and when he finally got control? Man did not care any more he could torture people for the lulz and get away with it scout free. 

 

Its just one of the silly or awesome depending on who you ask about star wars and one of the main points of kotor 2 is that the force is playing its game with every force user. Its like lol nope I don't like that I am not going to give you power light or dark or help with your connection if you don't do what I like!! Or if you try to strike it neutral it just makes it easier for the dark side to try and corrupt you. When it comes to the dark side if said action  does not lead to corruption, death, destruction or suffering (the dark side likes suffering more than outright death by the way) in some form and if you stop it from happening for almost any reason it won't give a rat's arse why are you doing that certain action. It won't strengthen its connection to you or it, it will not allow you to grasp more power. 

 

That's why in the game every sith you meet have varying levels of corruption since some would stop the muders for that exact reasoning you gave or some would let it continue because death fuels the power of the dark side or even the sith does not care if they believe they have a right to murder those people if they wish since they are sith.

 

Revan states as such in the bane books all those random evil acts of violence? All evil things sith do? Have reasoning to a sith it makes you stronger I am being serious here very serious every act you call stupid evil makes your connection to the dark side stronger. Every murder, every person you corrupt, every time you commit genocide and every time you torture someone makes you stronger in the dark side. 

 

Of course the dark side requires more if its going to hand out the tastier cookies but then you body starts breaking down because it can't handle the power and the corruption. Moral of story? Force users are screwed from the get go you are either a power crazed dark sider or a zen light sider. No in between. 

[Super Drone]

What exactly do you mean by 'These stories'?

 

Bioware stories. nearly all of them.

[In Exile]

Problem is that imperial citizens don't have rights when it comes to the sith their lives are to do with what they will by law. Now if they were murdering any of the soldiers etc? Then its a different story all together and would get the sith in trouble BIG time since they were acolytes hence why they targeted normal citizens.

It goes back to the explanation of the force and the dark side and how it operates. It does not care if you are saving lives for whatever reason if you are saving lives the dark side is not going to hand out its cookies of power. Even sidious with his whole manipulation thing was evil as sin in the background and took every chance to torture people with lighting going by his background and stories if he could get away with it. That tips the scales to keep the dark side from being too cross and when he finally got control? Man did not care any more he could torture people for the lulz and get away with it scout free.

Its just one of the silly or awesome depending on who you ask about star wars and one of the main points of kotor 2 is that the force is playing its game with every force user. Its like lol nope I don't like that I am not going to give you power light or dark or help with your connection if you don't do what I like!! Or if you try to strike it neutral it just makes it easier for the dark side to try and corrupt you. When it comes to the dark side if said action does not lead to corruption, death, destruction or suffering (the dark side likes suffering more than outright death by the way) in some form and if you stop it from happening for almost any reason it won't give a rat's arse why are you doing that certain action. It won't strengthen its connection to you or it, it will not allow you to grasp more power.

That's why in the game every sith you meet have varying levels of corruption since some would stop the muders for that exact reasoning you gave or some would let it continue because death fuels the power of the dark side or even the sith does not care if they believe they have a right to murder those people if they wish since they are sith.

Revan states as such in the bane books all those random evil acts of violence? All evil things sith do? Have reasoning to a sith it makes you stronger I am being serious here very serious every act you call stupid evil makes your connection to the dark side stronger. Every murder, every person you corrupt, every time you commit genocide and every time you torture someone makes you stronger in the dark side.

Of course the dark side requires more if its going to hand out the tastier cookies but then you body starts breaking down because it can't handle the power and the corruption. Moral of story? Force users are screwed from the get go you are either a power crazed dark sider or a zen light sider. No in between.

But the point is that this stupid evil is self defeating. You can want an evil empire without wanting it to fail. This is the issue with many of the DS choices. They're about hurting others in ways that clearly undermine your own interest.

[batlin]

I wonder that question myself. It seems like an artifact of the Baldur's Gate era, and attempt to appeal to people that played LE Drow Assassins in D&D when they were 14. These stories are built around being a Hero, the framework of the story assumes you are trying to save the world because you are the good guy.  Trying to play against that but keep the same basic plot means that, yes, deviating from that framework is only going to be the most token of efforts.

 

Maybe it would be best to scrap the whole thing. Give people and option to be ruthless or a jerkass, but leave true Evil motivations to people's headcanon.

How about instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, they instead do what I suggest and make evil fun for players who like to play evil characters and present the theme of ever-present temptation to players who like to play good characters? In order to do that, once again, evil characters need the option to remain subtle and there needs to be a better material reward for compromising your virtue.

 

It would be fine by me.  To think that there's only one way to be decent shows a lack of imagination in my book.  "Good" doesn't have to be sickly sweet saccharine coated Disney, but to actively pretend to be evil?  No thanks.  If you're not a trained actor, I don't see how that's good for you.  Some people say that role-playing evil is a certain vent.  I think it desensitises.

Jack Thompson? Is that you?

 

 

Problem is that imperial citizens don't have rights when it comes to the sith their lives are to do with what they will by law. Now if they were murdering any of the soldiers etc? Then its a different story all together and would get the sith in trouble BIG time since they were acolytes hence why they targeted normal citizens.

Those normal citizens are the ones who pay taxes. Gotta write a lot of checks to build that Death Star!

 

Bioware stories. nearly all of them.

A villain's rise to power can include taking out the current villain in power, or the one that is currently trying to kill them. Bad guys don't always have to contend with good guys. KotOR and Jade Empire did this well.

[Bigdoser]

But the point is that this stupid evil is self defeating. You can want an evil empire without wanting it to fail. This is the issue with many of the DS choices. They're about hurting others in ways that clearly undermine your own interest.

That's kinda the point of the dark side and star wars in general the dark side is kinda self defeating since its so destructive and corrupting. Its like that from the movies, to the books and the bioware games. Its the reason why I enjoy the restored version of kotor 2 so much since it explores the dark side more and you can make meaningful and awesome dark side choices dark side actually got more story in that game than if you played light. Plus it questions how the force kinda manipulating everything with the eternal struggle of light and dark. 

 

We are pawns in its eternal game of light and dark times when the light gets too much like in the prequels the force is lol nope its dark side time baby! If the dark overshadows completely the force goes well its time for the light to SHINE! That is what Kriea hates force users are simple pawns of the force being used in its game of light and dark. Hence kriea trying to kill the force sounds nice but that would murder everyone since well the force is in every living thing. 

[Bugsie]

The neutral path is often handled even less well. Try playing a Lawful Neutral Hawke.

I'd say that it punishes you for indecision.

 

I don't want to play purely evil because most of the time it comes across as 'complete douche' - However I do want to play a cut and dried pragmatist that is more ‘means to an end’ rather than ‘be a selfish douche to everyone’ Unfortunately most of the time when trying to go that route it falls into douchebag territory so I find it difficult to play ‘evil’ in the way I’d like to.  I don't want to be an ahat for the sake of it, I want my ruthlessness to mean something, and I have yet to experience that (although by the sounds I really need to play Alpha Protocol).

 

In regard to monetary rewards in game - If you could balance the system in that certain situations you get more for being good and in others more for playing along an evil route I think that would be a neat idea, but not sure how easily it could be implemented.

[Tragoudistros]

Jade Empire handled this very well in some cases. I think more of an issue is that being good always rewards you. There was a point where someone ask you to save their life, in order to do so, you are asked to sacrifice some of your power, permanently. You don't know what the reward may be, even if there is one. You're trying to save the life of someone in need.
I LOVED that game (still have it in fact!)


Imagine in DA:I if you had to sacrifice a companion to save the lives of hundreds, would you or could you?