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I wasn't playing a flat out evil madman but I got my rep down to 1 in less than 5 hours. I did things like killing those dupes for Silke in Beregost when you first meet Garrick.

Now, I'm a seasoned roleplayer. I don't do gak like that for no reason. My character was neutral evil. At the time, she was under a curse and needed 500 GP to have it lifted at the temple. Silke was offering 300 GP for killing those dudes, plus a cover story so that I wouldn't get in trouble with the guards for doing it.

I think that was an entirely legitimate play style decision; not just some OTT chaotic evil nonsense. In response, the game sends hordes of OP mercs to kill me. This is stupid for at least four reasons:

(1) defending myself against these mercs also counts as evil for the purpose of losing good- and neutral-aligned companions (during the fight!!!);

(2) the mercs attack at the entrance to Friendly Arm, the only location where I can donate to a temple to gain rep so as to not be attacked;

(3) I understand people friends and family of my victims putting a mark on my but these guys claim to be the law and I was careful not to do anything that would get me in trouble with the guards (while any were looking); and

(4) even if there are bounty hunters, they don't need to be so much more powerful than my party. That just reads transparently as a punishment for not playing a good or morally conflicted party.

And it's not the only punishment. Low rep means that some merchants (turns out, many if not most) will not do business with me. Meanwhile, high rep parties get discounts.

I think the worst part is not just that the game forces you to maintain a high reputation but that if you are evil you can only do this by giving away your hard-plundered GP to temples. And those templs are invariable to good- or neutral-aligned deities, which disgusts my evil character.

S'all pretty gakky if you ask me.

 GrimDork wrote:
going flat out evil madman just gets you into trouble.

Good. BG takes things a bit too far as going the evil route boxes you into a corner, although in BGs defence there really isn't much for an evil character to do other than pointlessly murder people so Bioware obviously didn't want people to go that route.

There should always be logical consequences for the PCs actions in any good RPG, be it P&P or a computer game.

 Palindrome wrote:
there really isn't much for an evil character to do other than pointlessly murder people

I mean, I just explained how that is not necessarily the case.

I'm trying to think of how many occasions you actually get to take the evil route and see gain in that way... I don't remember a lot, but those in the middle of the game I probably didn't try as much as those at the beginning.

The fact of the matter is that you've got to stop Sarevok's plans and doing so is going to help the sword coast out, even if you do them in the nastiest meanest ways possible. Even if you're just taking down Sarevok to replace him and be even worse, you still do the sword coast a lot of good on the way. I guess there's that option to flood the mines without getting the workers out first isnt there? The end of the game is the same though, even if you kill Sarevok out of personal greed or rage, it's not like you get to take over and run things. The game is linear to the extent that the plot will always end the same, even if you're rougher around the edges, there is no "badguy win" that I know of. Actually, how many games do have a "badguy win" that you can think of? I'm drawing a blank though I know I've seen something somewhere...

I prefer to keep my charcther either neutral or lawful good, it makes for much more smooting sailing. Well most of the time, seeing how I always manage to blunder into some big ghastly monster whenever I explore a cave or even a cellar!
But anyhow the game set in the forgotten realms that actualy rewards you for being bad is Icewind Dale 1 & 2.
The sheer amount of rather seedy affairs you can end up in makes me smile each time I roll a evil Characther in those games

My neutral evil character has a huge interest in Sarevok not winning. The fact that others benefit is entirely incidental and forms no part of my character's motive. If the same people all had to die so that my character can be safe, then so be it. Furthermore, my character will try to undermine Sarevok whether or not she gets to replace him. That's totally irrelevant to her being evil or trying to stop him.

Evil characters can save the world. That doesn't make them less evil.

Alignment is less about what you do and more about why you do things. My complaint about BG is that it doesn't understand that. It punishes me for being evil because it assumes evil is always disruptive. "If you are evil, people will not like you." That doesn't seem true IRL or in fantasy stories.

Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising

We're veering a bit off topic here, of course, but yeah BG (and D&D) get muddled pretty fast when you bring up good/evil.

They've got it as both a concept along the lines of right/wrong and on a metaphysical level such that weird things occur. The way (especially the older systems) describe the alignment axis, you'd probably see a lot of lawyers as evil if they lie and twist the law to their favor. The same alignment as Devils from the nine hells. You can make a circle of protection: lawyers, debt collectors, guy in the office that doesn't throw in money for the christmas party. Gets a bit odd. Other systems/settings have evil as an almost physical trait, where your Lawyer/corrupt CEO/bully from above is just 'not nice' or morally bankrupt, but evil things have it in their makeup, like the aforementioned hell critters.

I like badguys that have an accidental positive effect, and calling them badguys is a bit off too. Selfish characters who "work out" can be pretty cool, and usually get to be edgier and potentially more interesting that obligate dogooders and paladins.

 Manchu wrote:

I mean, I just explained how that is not necessarily the case.

There isn't in BG as its not designed for the evil route. Obviously there are far more effective, and much more interesting, ways to RP an evil character than mindless slaughter.

 GrimDork wrote:
I like badguys that have an accidental positive effect, and calling them badguys is a bit off too.

I don't think so. For example, let's say the US gets taken over by a crazy dictator who enslaves us, limits how much we eat, and makes us do nothing but hard physical labor all day. Incidentally, the rate of heart disease will go way down. But the dictator is still obviously a bad guy.

 Palindrome wrote:
There isn't in BG as its not designed for the evil route.

I'm not totally sure what "there isn't" refers to but as to BG not being designed for the evil characters that is obviously false. There are evil characters. There are evil choices. The problem is not that the game was not designed for evil play. The problem is that the designer's concept of evil play is extremely limited and on top of that they seemed to have decided that evil play should be punished while good play should be rewarded.

I guess because evil is it's own reward?

 Manchu wrote:
I'm not totally sure what "there isn't" refers to but as to BG not being designed for the evil characters that is obviously false.

Obviously there are evil NPCs and there is a functional alignment system but the quests are designed primarily to be completed by a good character given the basic evil options (kill x, steal y etc). The evil quest choices usually give a lower payout in terms of exp as well. I think the primary reason for this was development time/resources rather than an ideal of how the game should be played although that did play a part given the merchant prices etc.

BG2 at least has more scope for an evil playthrough.

I totally agree that the BG:EE design sucks as far as evil characters/parties go.

I suspected that BG2 would be better on this score (you develop, you learn) but since there is character-carryover it actually bummed me out even more because that means if I want to play the games as one big story I will have to suffer through the gakky design in BG:EE.

My solution so far was to delete my NE character and make a LG character.

"Fiiiiiiiiiine."

Ooh, get a paladin, those are just stacked. Sure, you have to be 'Lawful Stupid', but you get a lot of perks Or a monk, those are pants in BG, but get ridiculous in bg2+

I think the only carry over from the first game are *potentially* a couple of items (only very specific items, like maybe 3 or so) and the benefit of any of the stat-increasing Tomes you find. Well, any permanent changes to your character (familiar dies lose a point of con, etc) including the high/low rep based Bhaal special powers... although your Rep should reset to 10. Characters will be alive even if you killed them, and while you'll have dialog options to point out the fact, they'll still be there. I don't think the Neera romance carries over either, so it's really just your stats. As a mage, you can also learn a lot more spells in bg1 than you'd start with as a fresh bg2 character.

Sounds like I will play my LG Dwarven Defender Balghri in BG:EE and my NE Human Illusionist Hlyra in BG2:EE.

Entirely legitimate way to go about it. I like to run through from the beginning, but only if the class is enjoyable at low level. Wouldn't, for instance, play a rogue for the entire first game just to dual it to a mage in the second game... if I thought I wouldn't have fun playing the first game as a rogue.

Oh I don't mean dual classing. I mean not importing my character from the first game into the second.

Oh no, I knew that.

I was getting onto a tangent that I like to play the first game first, but only if the character concept would be fun in the first game. Like ranger-cleric I'd probably just start bg2, though stalker into cleric I may play the first game.

 Trondheim wrote:


I have not gotten very far, but are we talking like a immensly large game, or something a lot shorter?

I personally felt that it was far too short

I am still playing entirely too much World of Tanks. I am about to buy the T-150, giving me all three tier-6 Russian heavy tanks.

Loadout is amazing- when the matchmaking is working.

I'm working on building a Salvo Hexabarrel Lightning rocket launcher with either Flak or scatter, and possibly the super bouncy mod. Might go with the Mortar or Arcing shot as well. For CHAOS! SHEER CHAOS!

Also, healing shotgun is more fun than it should be.

Discovered the Dungeon Keeper App on my iPad. Can't say that it's bad, but I need to find my DK2 version, waiting hours for my imps to mine their way through the map is irritating. But at least I can slap them without them dying.

 Weltenwolf wrote:
Discovered the Dungeon Keeper App on my iPad. Can't say that it's bad, but I need to find my DK2 version, waiting hours for my imps to mine their way through the map is irritating. But at least I can slap them without them dying.

Dungeon Keeper, the not pay-to-win but simply pay-to-play pointless time and money sink? You should feel bad for supporting this non-game.

Wow, that's awful.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Weltenwolf wrote:
Discovered the Dungeon Keeper App on my iPad. Can't say that it's bad, but I need to find my DK2 version, waiting hours for my imps to mine their way through the map is irritating. But at least I can slap them without them dying.

Dungeon Keeper, the not pay-to-win but simply pay-to-play pointless time and money sink? You should feel bad for supporting this non-game.

Damn it, I thought by the link you where going to post something about Gone Home.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Weltenwolf wrote:
Discovered the Dungeon Keeper App on my iPad. Can't say that it's bad, but I need to find my DK2 version, waiting hours for my imps to mine their way through the map is irritating. But at least I can slap them without them dying.

Dungeon Keeper, the not pay-to-win but simply pay-to-play pointless time and money sink? You should feel bad for supporting this non-game.

NerdCubed is my favourite YouTuber so I might be a little biased, but I agree with pretty much everything he says in that video.

It's utterly appalling what they've done to Dungeon Keeper, and what is happening to a lot of F2P games - especially mobile ones. The player is being held to ransom. "Pay us money or be prepared to spend the rest of your life trying to do half of what you envisaged". Some games that play in real-time are fair enough, but when you have to choose between waiting for months just to expand a little bit, or shelling out tens - if not hundreds - of pounds just to speed it up a little...

Wolf Among Us episode 2 is being released later tonight, so looking forward to this one!

Playing Loadout on steam, it's free. But not p2w. Loads of dakka.

 BrookM wrote:
Wolf Among Us episode 2 is being released later tonight, so looking forward to this one!

Me too!

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 BrookM wrote:
Wolf Among Us episode 2 is being released later tonight, so looking forward to this one!

Me too!

Played the first two chapters and damn it, those choices I made in the first episode have come back to bite me something fierce.

Got dragged back into WoT, only on the EU server so I don't even have my Tier8 TD's . :(

Still on the blood bowls though.