Anyone else find it difficult to be "evil" in RPGs these days?

[Wuorg]

For my second playthrough I thought it would be fun to be a heretical pyro psyker bladedancer/executioner. The build is really fun (and pretty OP), but that's besides the point lol.

I remember playing games like Kotor 1/2, NWN 1/2, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect 1/2/3 (and so on) and finding the "bad guy" paths to be really entertaining. I've always preferred to play the good guy in RPGs, but was still able to get a hoot out of the opposite approach up until...I'm not sure when? Now I really have to push myself and build up to pretty much every "evil" choice (even for Dogmatic ones, as the case may be). Have game writing paradigms changed or have I just gotten older and more mature lol.

[anaris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Gorwe:

All the way until GW realizes the untapped potential of such a faction(RT, Farsight). If they do, expect it being monetized.

They don't care as long as it makes $$$.

They will not humanize Chaos. Chaos needs to be psychotic and cartoonishly evil, in order for anything else in the setting to make sense.

Chaos characters will all be mustache twirlers, or strident madmen forever.

have you ever tried actually reading some warhammer 40000 lore

[anaris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

Anything you stop shooting at, will see it as a weakness, and kill you.
40K is a universe with apex predators and nothing else. Only the most brutal survive.

except for the eldar, the tau, 90% of the aliens the imperium exterminated etc

[anaris]

the kroot, like three of the races of the koronus expanse, the aliens in the cold trade

[anaris]

Jokaero, Drakhen, Szaeyr, Caryatids, Thexians, Stryxis, the Chromes, the Nekulli, Adarnians, the Chikanti, the Saruthi before humans got involved, the Byavoor, Cimmerac, Enoulians, the Fra'al, the Ulindi.....

[anaris]

Particularly worth noting the Ulindi, Cimmerac, Chromes, and Adarnians, all of whom at one point were allied with the Imperium but the Imperium betrayed them (and in the case of the Adarnians murdered them all to make rejuvenat drugs), and the Saruthi, who were benevolent until human refugees they sheltered corrupted them to Chaos using the necroteuch.

[anaris]

again: 40k lore has always made the point that the Imperium's tactics are a self-defeating betrayal of the promise of humanity, and that every enemy they have they made themselves out of fear and ignorance.

Believing that the Imperial xenocide is necessary is falling for Imperial propaganda that is *openly described* as propaganda in the text.

[Kindred Spirit]

Phosphex and Tyranid. We get it. You can stop pinging this thread in your drunken posting spree. Yes, we get the Imperium is against xenos and for mixed reasons.

Back to what we were speaking about, "buddy". That is a different story when it involves Chaos spreading because psykers pop up in the local population, and why the dangers of the Warp for psykers is constantly reinforced throughout the setting.

Then there's the whole Slaanesh/Eye of Terror that isn't "Imperial propaganda".

Anyone who has played through Chapter 1 can see the dangers of the Warp and Heresy.

[jonoliveira12]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von anaris:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

They will not humanize Chaos. Chaos needs to be psychotic and cartoonishly evil, in order for anything else in the setting to make sense.

Chaos characters will all be mustache twirlers, or strident madmen forever.

have you ever tried actually reading some warhammer 40000 lore

I have read plenty of it.

[jonoliveira12]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von anaris:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

Anything you stop shooting at, will see it as a weakness, and kill you.
40K is a universe with apex predators and nothing else. Only the most brutal survive.

except for the eldar, the tau, 90% of the aliens the imperium exterminated etc

The Eldar are race supremacists, and the T'au literally chemically castrate you to genocide your kind.
The first species that joined the T'au, did it willingly, and within one generation went extinct from a mysterious plague the T'au were completely immune to.
Thae T'au are genocide with a smile, and teh Eldar will not even pretend to care about you.

Have YOU read any actual 40K lore?

[Kindred Spirit]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

The Eldar are race supremacists,

That's just, like, mon-keigh propaganda, maaaan.

and the T'au literally chemically castrate you to genocide your kind.

For the Greater Good!™

Have YOU read any actual 40K lore?

Indeed, we're not having to look anything up, we're discussing the basics here.

Why the Imperium has to run like a fundamentalist theocracy for mere survival against Chaos and why it sours relations with the rest of the universe is one of the basics of the universe. There is not meant to be an implicit good guy because the creators saw how that affected the WWII tabletop players. Instead, no clear heroes except for individual merit against the suck, and plenty of villains all around to unleash "war crimes" on.

Except when you don't Exterminatus a planet in Heresy fast enough, it becomes a nigh-invulnerable daemon world.

When you're fast enough to stop the spread and it just affects one hive city of many on a planet to attack another hive city, then you have Dan Abnett's Necropolis. That book - which I think should be animated at the very least - explores everything from the commoners, to the Imperial Guard to the nobility of the city being affected by the Chaos invasion, and mostly how insidious and THOROUGH the messaging spread to turn the entire city top to bottom into a disaster.

[anaris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von anaris:

have you ever tried actually reading some warhammer 40000 lore

I have read plenty of it.

then how have you not noticed all the times they humanised chaos characters lol

[anaris]

bro there's an entire Horus Heresy series about it

[anaris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von jonoliveira12:

The Eldar are race supremacists,

who explicitly tried to ally and assist the Imperium during the heresy

and the T'au literally chemically castrate you to genocide your kind.
The first species that joined the T'au, did it willingly, and within one generation went extinct from a mysterious plague the T'au were completely immune to.

and all the others didn't.

I'm talking about the Tau. You're talking about the Ethereals, who were created by the Necrontyr to control the Tau and turn them to war.

[anaris]

OOH special mention to the Endymine Cordat, who presented the Imperium with technology that kills demons and prevents warp incursions and could end Chaos; the Imperium burned it as xenotech then did exterminatus on their worlds.

[anaris]

the worst thing about the Imperium, worse than the torture and murder and genocide, the absolute worst thing, is all the fans who can't read subtext to save their lives.