Games that did evil well and why

[Slip]

First game that comes to my mind is Nwn2 Mask of the betrayer, I roleplayed a faithless, and I am sad that game didnt also add some dialogue if you dont believe in any deity, but there was already a huge amount of extra dialogue for a lot of stuff. So when you see where faithless end up, and having the option to avoid said fate. It had a unique follower called One of many who was just awesome, and connected to overall story very well. You could go lawful,neutral or chaotic evil with options in the game. Base game also had an evil ending, but it didnt make much sense to take King of shadows deal, and felt lack luster in many areas.

Kotor ofc, with the whole amnesia plot, gave you a reason to play evil, and then be like oh it makes sense why I am evil, or go redemption route, also few followers were connected to the plot, and could be turned evil or good.

Tyranny is quite unique game where evil won and you being sort of a judge for its forces, gives you a reason to start evil, and then you can go into multiple directions.

Vampire the masquerade bloodlines, amazing game with Wesp5 patch, being a product of evil, sets you up with a lot of options, even more so with different clans, being of more animalistic or social nature.

Games where you can play evil and is a lot of fun, but is not of an rpg nature, Overlord and Black and white 2 .

[Lani]

Never had fun playing 'evil' in any of those games.

[Woke Buster]

Baldur's Gate 2 has a really cool evil path. Both BG1 and BG2 are packed with awesome evil characters. Plus, there are tons of wicked items for the bad guys, like this insanely powerful armor made from human flesh. Also, a lot of times, being evil feels more rewarding than being good, which is how it should be.

[Altimely]

Originally posted by User-315-708:

evil feels more rewarding than good, which is how it should be (otherwise, it's just stupid and pointless).

You're almost there

[Clockwork]

I try and do evil, but it never works out. Probably because I'm not a psychopath. Tried to raid the Grove with Minthara, but when it came to slaughtering a room full of helpless tieflings cowering in fear, I didn't feel like continuing. Plus, you lose out on a lot of stuff not being a good character.

[Woke Buster]

Originally posted by Altimely:

Originally posted by User-315-708:

evil feels more rewarding than good, which is how it should be (otherwise, it's just stupid and pointless).

You're almost there

Usually, less than ~10% of players even try to do the evil run. And if you make it less rewarding in terms of exp, items, story, characters, etc -> then this number can easily go to ~1%. So what's the point? There were tons of complains about evil run being irrational, unrewarding, and even boring in BG3.

I totally get it why they added it though. For the same reason they added:
* "Crafting"
* Knock out mechanics
* Woke filler characters and content
* (feel free to add any other unfinished feature of BG3)

It's all about checkmarks. Oh, look, we have an "evil path" too! We offer so many choices! Nah, if you remove all of the above from the game, nobody will even notice. Low effort and poor implementation, that's what it is.

[Chroniver]

I will agree with Tyranny.

NWN2 and KOTOR1 you were pretty much just a psychotic murderhobo, which I just don't like playing. Though I will give KOTOR1 the virtue of the whole Korriban experience as Sith and the heartbreaking scenes with Mission and Zaalbar.

The other one that did it better than BG3 for me is KOTOR2 with the restoration community patch. There is no other game that ever did the manipulative sociopath thing better imo.

But it really depends on your definition of evil. I just finished my playthrough as a righteous vengeance paladin (who did plenty of things that would be unacceptable in our current society) and you still get the evil final choice. You would be the kind of ultimate evil to betray everyone and everything at the very end after manipulating them the entire game by pretending to be good really.

[Lunduke is the Trump of tech]

what is evil and what is good is subjective.
The devs of BG1 want it to seem like it is good to go and kill lots of hobgoblins to save a witch, but is it really good to save a witch?....... a witch.... ?! Those hobgoblins could be trying to save the world from the witch.

[northernwater]

Oxymoron: "doing evil well"

[Trolleur_Durden]

It's not an RPG, but The wolf among us was extremely satisfying to play as a darker and wild version of the Big bad wolf.

[Brian_the_Brute]

The Temple of Elemental Evil. The game BG3 emulates in many ways with it's switches from real time movement to turn-based combat and radial selection menus (on console). Unfortunately BG3's evil path is missing a lot of logic and story. Party alignment isn't even a thing in BG3, so the moral compass of the group is left ambiguous and the role playing aspect of the game suffers for it.

In TOEE, for evil, you had 3 different flavors of evil alignments (+3 good and 3 neutral) to pick from and each had their own unique starting location and vignette. You also couldn't cheese the party setup by mixing evil and good characters together like BG3 does. The game set the motivations and role your party should play. The NPCS you could recruit and how they interacted with the party all depended on whether you were good or evil. It took the evil path fully into it's story telling and gave a unique experience based on the role you chose.

[Lunduke is the Trump of tech]

Another example of how games can get it wrong depending on your opinion on evil and good is the cliche where some fool has borrowed money from some dangerous people, maybe the thieves guild, then they can't pay back the loan in time.
That's when the protagonist shows up which is you. Is it evil or good to help the fool? I mean a deal is a deal after all and these people can't just let people borrow money and then not pay back, just continue with their lives as normal.

[Starrok]

Try Lich, Devil or Swarm-that-walks in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

[Slip]

Originally posted by Clockwork:

I try and do evil, but it never works out. Probably because I'm not a psychopath. Tried to raid the Grove with Minthara, but when it came to slaughtering a room full of helpless tieflings cowering in fear, I didn't feel like continuing. Plus, you lose out on a lot of stuff not being a good character.

Doing evil not just because w/e, but because game introduced it in such a way that there is a human reason behind it.

Think real life, you gonna tell me you never lied or did something that hurt someone else? Maybe not physicaly, but emotionaly, or something even more benign.
We all have dark thoughts, and a well done evil path in a game can emulate the route of evil if you let it, its called roleplaying. You think actors that do evil roles in movies are pscyho?

[Slip]

Originally posted by Chroniver:

I will agree with Tyranny.

NWN2 and KOTOR1 you were pretty much just a psychotic murderhobo, which I just don't like playing. Though I will give KOTOR1 the virtue of the whole Korriban experience as Sith and the heartbreaking scenes with Mission and Zaalbar.

Like I said I also agree on Nwn2, but mask of betrayer I think has alot of extra options, especially since you are dealing in large part of the game with evil factions
Remmeber those monkey things, I forget the name, where they worship you, and if you tell them to sod off and kill them, you are left with a choice to kill their children or not. Hag covenent, you could be lawfull evil and make a deal with them. You had complex followers, that were well written with their alignment in mind. You had spirits, and what to do with them, considering your curse, do you fight it or give in, and so on.

[Panda-Bishop]

Originally posted by Clockwork:

I try and do evil, but it never works out. Probably because I'm not a psychopath. Tried to raid the Grove with Minthara, but when it came to slaughtering a room full of helpless tieflings cowering in fear, I didn't feel like continuing. Plus, you lose out on a lot of stuff not being a good character.

What I did was encourage the Tieflings to rise up against the heartless druids who murdered one of their children, which turned out to be a one-sided battle, so I had to avenge them by finishing off the rest of the druids. Since everyone was dead, I took the pragmatic approach of pointing Minthara towards the now-empty grove.

I did nothing wrong, my hands are clean. *evil drumming of fingers*