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How can one play the evil Empire?
Elikal
Member UncommonPosts: 7,912
It's something I just don't get.
Ok, here is my logic. There are two possible ways I can imagine to play character. (A) I don't care, I don't identify with the character, I just set myself in this "it's merely a game" mode and distance myself emotionally from it. The issue I have with this point of view is: why play it then? I mean, why would I play some dude and then distance myself from him like that? Whats the point? Then I can (B) identify somewhat with the character. It's what I usually do. Pretend this were me and what would I do. Tbh, when I am unable to identify at least in some fleeting, odd way with a character, playing him would be boring and uninteresting to me.
Now what do Sith do? They torture, they betray, the kill innocent, the vaporize entire planets, they enslave everyone... so I just don't get why ANYONE would want to play that? For me that's a bit like saying, I enjoy drilling holes through my knee for entertainment. Either I distance myself from the char, then why care? Or I feel connected, then how can I do this to people? How can I stay being part of a Nazi-holocaust Empire? It's like someone told me, play Contentration Camp overseer, but hey, it's just a game, it's no real Jews you are gassing. And, hey within the system maybe you can do some good? You gas only 9 of 10 and save one Jew of each round.
HOW ON EARTH CAN ANYONE PLAY THAT AS LEISURE FUN?
Games should be about making people better, about making us think, about forging our own ethics and understand about ourselves. I mean, ok, I am influenced a lot by the old Ultima RPG games. One of the premises of becoming and being the Avatar of the Eight Britannian Virtues was to NOT maim everything that moves, to NOT steal everything that isn't nailed down. And it shaped my perception of what games could and should be. So many games just send you to kill stuff unquestioning. You kill it because some dude tells you so. Where is the choice in that? Where in the ethics in just becoming a paid merc who doesn't care rats ass about it? And it gets worse every year. Games like GTA, Mafia and whatnot put people as murderers, robbers and whatnot. And we play these type of criminals as if they were heroes! What sort of degrade state must humanity have, when our spare time fun entertainment is to play criminal or Nazi concentration camp overseers, aka Sith? It makes me shudder to think.
Now don't you tell me it's just a game. I don't really have the time or will to cite all the scientific theories about human games and the psychology behind it. The subcouncious doesn't know such a thing as fiction. For it, pretending is doing, seeing is believing. It's just the false rationalization to think you can push this away. Somewhere it does have a root.
I remember vividly after having played Planescape Torment as goodie, I thought, hey to get the full entertainment, now play evil. Then there was this woman. I recalled here fate from the first run. She was in danger to lose all her belongings by a crook who wanted her money. Now as goodie I had helped her, and now as evil I could have cast her even deeper into misery. But you know what: I couldn't. I just sat there I felt, no way in hell I can do this to her. I told me a 1000 times she wasn't real or it was just a game. But something within me told me, I could and should not start to go down this road, not even in a fictional world. It was a limit as real as a wall of stone for me, some line I just could not cross. And for me it is entirely beyond understanding how anyone else can manage to do that.
I am sorry if it sounds like I accuse some of you as being bad or sick, but for me... if I drop all pretense... it's what I feel about people playing evil. I just don't believe a person can pretend to torture and maim innocents and NOT being at some point connected to it. Flame me, but I just don't buy it.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Comments
Why? Why should games be a medium of teaching us how to behave and how to act? Games are a medium of entertainment and thats what they should do, entertain us... there is games that are meant to educate and etc but thats usually for children and thats fine, but why would I as an adult want to play a childrens game, or not want to play a game where everything isnt black and white?
People can have a different ideology from yours and different means to an end that you might deem cruel or evil and etc, but if they were the vast majority and you were the minority then thats how things would be and it wouldnt be considered "bad".
People might want to make choices and just simply do things in games that they would never do in real life, because its entertaining, not maybe in a fun comical way but in an exciting way. I personally usually feel sorry for the poor pixels and polygons when they get sad faces in mass effect 2 so I usually choose to play as a good guy xD... but its still fun to do some evil or be badass at times.
As for the world of reality, personally I put the responsibility on the parents to teach their kids right from wrong and the difference between fiction and entertainment versus reality.
So you really should just keep an open mind to the fact that people feel differently from you, want different things and want to experience things differently... and as long as they arent hurting anyone (outside of the realm of 1010101010011101) its really not your place to tell them how they choose to do something is wrong or sick and etc.
They probably don't think about it as such a deep issue as you do, mosty likely. Or that being a Sith is merely being a "Badguy" and not the epitome of evil. Still though, not everyone is/will be that monstrously evil. There are some that are forcued in a bad situation as the Sith empire and the have no hope to get out of it unless they want the be hunt down and killed. Some may be the lightest side they can or redeem themselves later on like many dark sided characters in Star Wars.
Elikal, I thougth you were a role player?
If that is truly the case then how much of a role player are you?
I have said this before but I seriously think you need to take some acting improv classes.
Playing a role is just that "playing a role". Now, not everyone is playing a role and there are some people who truly want to be jerks.
but with a good group of people, playing "evil" can be fun. As long as the players know the boundaries as to where the game stops and actual people start.
Games should not be about making people better. And in the arena of role play games they should allow people to play a role.
Role Play.
As long as people remember it's "play".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well, there's a couple of different reasons why people would play it. Really, the Republic and Sith are 2 opposite ends of an idealogical spectrum; It's not necessarily good vs evil.
The Republic believes in helping those in need in any means necessary. They abide by your basic morals and thus are considered to be a "good" faction, because peace, diplomacy, and helping others are looked upon as the right thing to do.
The Empire, on the other hand, is more of a survival of the fittest. Any weak military personel are replaced by their underling if they lose the duel. They believe that anyone who has lost something, was not strong enough to have it in the first place and doesn't deserve it. They believe in any means to the desired end. Killing civilians is a military strategy, it lowers morale of the entire country/faction, and the war begins to lose support, this has been used in the real world in almost every war.
Both of which are trying to force their ideals on the other, and thus causing a war where many people die. Neither side really has a moral highground in that.
Now, as for good vs evil in general, some people just like escaping from their superego, and causing havoc. Some people just love destruction, often more people than you realize. There are always the kids that pull the legs off of a spider. They seem to gravitate toward a chaotic, destructive faction. It makes it feel like they have power over something/someone, no matter if they're real or not. Just like doing the right thing feels "right" to you.
hmm why Empire? rather than being a lawless criminal out to destroy the system? Stable government, stable economy, jobs, healthcare, career advancement, kickass white plastic armor.
oh, the movies cast the Rebellion as good guys, history is written by the winner /shrug
Okay. I'll bite... let's boil this post down to something more readable though:
How can anyone play the part of the robber in "Cops and Robbers"? Since we didn't have video games back then, we were obviously more engrossed in the role of the robber more so than any video game.
I say ... why not? It's fun. I like being the bad guy some times. In some ways, it can be a release or even becoming a parody of things we joke about in real life. I play GTA from time to time. I'm not a thug. I am extremely opportunistic in eve and will not think twice about piracy in the short term, but in real life I tend to be overly generous.
A good story will allow us to relate with the main character, even if we do not agree with their ideals. Take the old comic book character, Spawn or the Crow, for example. These stories highlighted fear and emotions that we can all understand and allow us to feel the pain that they went through. We even rooted for them. But - if you really think about it, they were both bad people that were no better than the crooks that wronged them.
I dunno .. I don't look that far into it. I just play to have fun. In a competitive game that allows PvP - you are at some point, going to be the bad guy in the eyes of others. Regardless of how you spin it. Being someone's hero also means that you are someone else's villain. Especially in the case of Star Wars. I don't know the whole story as I didn't read the books. BUT - I can see why many people were fed up with the Senate and would give praise to the Empire. The empire was strict and disciplined, while the senate let some of the planets starve.
As for morality in video games? That's not a bad thing. The eight virtues started back in Ultima IV. I thought it was a neat little storyline. I also liked the concept that Richard had to try to teach ethical thinking to younger video game players. But - I don't think all games should be like that. Did you ever play Beyond Good & Evil ? It was a fun little game that wasn't all about killing, but was just as entertaining as several other action adventures.
Heh, interesting point, not long ago we had a whole discussion about that Sith empires weren't merely pure evil but that a number of them could be compared with Sparta or the Roman empire, totalitarian states with often a 'survival of the fittest' mentality.
The Expanded Universe leaves enough room for this broader view than merely the two-dimensional black vs white viewpoint, and it's certainly the direction that Bioware has chosen.
Or as Daniel Erickson from Bioware stated:
"We have two things, which are faction and morality. I think the people confuse the Dark Side/Lightside alignment. One thing important for us is that the Sith are not cartoons. They cannot wake up in the morning and say "oh lets have some evil cofee and some evil pancakes. They got to be real people with a real culture. They have to have a legitimate point of view.
Again Light Side is a very different thing in our game. People often say "Oh - I'd just switch factions!" No you wouldn't. The Sith were literally chased out of the galaxy by the Jedi, you had an entire culture and people who were pushed out of known space. So you get these guys who come back and have a big chip on their shoulder. If you are playing a lightside Sith, you do NOT jump over to the Republic and join the people that tried to wipe out your entire people.
Being a good man [in the Sith Empire] means trying to change the world from the inside. You're trying to make the Empire a better place. We have to make sure that people understood that every evil regime that's ever existed in history has good people in it. The majority of people were just trying to 'do their thing' "
"Its not a chance to be evil, thats NOT what the Dark Side is about. it's about passion, competition, the thrill of victory. And ofcourse the strongest should rule"
Besides, it's just a game. Why do people choose to play an orc, or a necromancer, or why choose a vampire in Vampire the Masquerade or in the upcoming WoD? Because they often think it's badass or cool, and many like the dabbling in the dark side in the game. Most people don't think more of it than that, also the roleplayers.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
This.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I play what is a facet of me. I play what matters to me, the what if I were him idea.
It is so difficult to say in the right words how it is for me. It is a barrier. It is not that I studied some books of ethics or learned my code of moral. I don't believe in any moral systems and I am not follower of any ideology of sorts.
Every time in my life I was confronted of violence, I yielded. It is like an overwhelming barrier inside of me that I can not do violence. I games, I can for the sake of justice and defense of the weak. Again, believe me it is not some choice I made, not some idea I thought about. It is a feeling of empathy, if you want, which is so part of me, like the desire to eat and drink. I never chose or read about it. I know it must sound profoundly uncool and absurd in our days to most of you. And usually I keep this in the background, knowing how people react to this. Calling me a whim or psycho or whiny. I know. But sometimes I must let it go in the open. I just read the comic of this Sith, and how he killed the Padawan just for the sake of. It made me sick with grief. Now yes, you say get a life, it's just a comic. But even that made me sad, comic or now. I can't imagine how one can bear doing that in a game.
When a person is in pain, I suffer. It has always been so for me. This is a very personal story, but I'll share it nonetheless. When I was 5 and in kindergarden, there was a race, me against some boy in a sack, jumping. Dunno if you know that kind of kid fun. Anyhow, I was leading and he fell behind me, and he cried. So I stopped, I went back and helped him, and let him win. I couldn't bear the thought of him being sad, tho I didn't even know him. It wasn't even how I was raised, since my parents always tried to tell me to think more of myself, and care less, because it would not be good for me. It's how I was since I can think. I don't regard it even as ethics or moral, because these imply choice and rational thought; it is part of my being. Ever since I was 12, for the last 27 years I have the habit to pray that all in pain and need should find comfort and divine help. (Yeah, it's irrational, never seen it logically do anything, besides making me feel better that I thought of other people. And no, I am not follower of any particular faith, if you must know.) When those guys in the mine in Chile came in TV, who are locked in, I almost cried. Those poor fellows, that inimaginable horror! But so many just shrug these things off. I can't. To the point where I can't watch news, often.
And so for me, I can't understand. It's like someone came to me and told me the world was flat and the moon made of cheese. I know this must sound extremely uncool and weird in our day where dark heroes like Wolverine are famous and dark, fallen heroes are fashion, where the most badass and the most popular. But my hero is Superman. Make fun of it, if you must.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
It is just a matter of your point of view. Sure, from a Jedi perspective the Sith are evil. But the same is true from a Sith's point of view concerning Jedi.
Sith want to establish or keep order, just like the Jedi want. Just by other means. And it is not always easy to say who is good and who is evil.
Imagine a planet where a small colony is infected by a deadly plague. The Jedi try to heal those people. But unfortunately they fail, the plague spreads and the whole planet population dies. The Sith would have simply exterminated the small colony, but the major part of the planet's population survives. Now, who was the bad guy ? And who would the planet's population judge as good ?
So... you'll be playing lightside?
I believe most people who choose to play the "evil" roles do so for one of a handful or reasons (or some combo of them):
1) They find it more amusing because it may be different from what they've seen before in other games, or they know they aren't "supposed" to do the evil thing. In other words, they are totally detached from the game character. Maybe they just want to make their friends laugh at their ridiculously over-the-top exploits of mayhem.
2) They think evil = cool, because they equate evil to doing whatever you please with no fear of the consequences. They see that as "badass". Usually it takes a rather immature mindset for this to be the case.
3) They want to explore every possible outcome of a given situation. This requires some detachment, but could also serve the educational purposes you mentioned, if they properly show the consequences. I think the problem with most games is that the evil side really doesn't properly illustrate the gravity of the consequences your actions would have, so doing evil is seen as no big deal.
4) They honestly want to try to get into the mind of a sociopath and try to see what would drive them to do what they do.
In your story, do you think that the other kid deserved to win? Clearly, you were the better. Other people, myself included, would have finished the race. The race was to determine who was better, I was better, I get what I deserve. Some people believe that coddling the weak will only make them weaker and more dependant on others to help them. That would be the outlook of the Sith.
Your ideals match more towards the Republic though, helping those who cannot take care of themselves. The Republic depends on people depending on them to win their war. They help others in the hope that they will support their efforts.
It's the age old Give a man a fish, or a fishing pole. Giving him a fish satisfies him now, but he'll become dependent and need someone to give him another fish whenever he gets hungry again. Giving him a fishing pole will give him the means to be an independent person, so he won't need anyone else. But if he fails to learn, if he's not good enough, or smart enough, he'll starve. Which do you think is the right thing to do? There's really no "right" or "wrong" answer, just what you believe in.
Ok, Jedi and Sith are IMPOV both flawed ideologies. Sith just make this intellectual pretense to justify their dark nature. IMO none of them really is interested a bit in establishing order or improve the galaxy by survival of the fittest. That is their PR catchphrase, the way they delude themselves to block their consciousness away.
The Jedi have a way too rigid thinking for my taste. A person can not really be good, when he never thinks of thimself sometimes, too. Doing always only good for others isn't healthy IMO. You can stop doing harm and still living a good life for yourself, you don't have to be a selfless monk.
As to the plague example: could you kill that infected village? I couldn't. I don't think any rationalizations makes killing good. And as a sidenote, I don't think the Sith care. They always tried to excess in violence. Their so called philosophy is just a bad excuse for their personal violence.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
That's pretty easy. The Jedi were on the side of good in that scenario (if you define good as attempting to work toward the most favorable outcome for the greatest number of people/creatures) - they had the intention of saving as many people as possible. The Sith wouldn't have cared either way how many people died. Even if their way would have been revealed to be the most effective after the fact, that doesn't make them good (in fact, it doesn't seem very sith for them to try to help at all unless they had some alterior motive - the sith philosophy would tell them that people who died to the disease didn't deserve to live in the first place). It might make them more correct in terms of how to handle that situation, but no one would have been able to know that the disease would engulf the whole planet. That scenario also ignores other possibilities like quarantine.
Anyway, this whole debate has been played out elsewhere and isn't the topic of the discussion. The OP is asking why people purposely try to go for the choices they believe will lead them down the "evil" character development path in games where it's an option.
This is the answer for the OP. This is for the RPers that want to "get in to their character". You can be a sith and have a good alignment by trying to chose to do what you think is the "good" option. Chose to not kill your superior, but advancing in another way. Chose to help someone because it is right, not just for the credits. Try to decrease casualties or let prisoners go. These choices will change what quests you get and how you do them. Leading you to a light side alignment as a sith.
Or as others have said. You get a chance to play the way you never would in real life. You can do anything because it is just a game. You can be into it as much as you want. Get invested in your character and evil choices because it is something you would never do. Being bad can be fun for many when it is not real.
How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?
R.A.Salvatore
Well, I guess the OP never played a pen and paper RPG as a Game Master then.
The Concept of the Villain is not that hard to grasp and we all know that without villains... there would not be any heroes.
I've played my share of evil characters in my time and first of all, you have to realize that NO ONE consider themselves Evil beside the truly insane. Everyone of my evil characters always thought they were doing The Right Thing (TM). Yes, their visions might have been twisted by something that happened to them in the past or by a twisted ideology but in their mind, they were not evil, maybe selfish at worst.
Take this ideology: The world is full of bad things, talking to the bad things do not make them go away but you firmly believe that killing is wrong. So a "evil" person could start killing the bad things not because he is evil, but because he believe by doing so he is protecting the other innocents from dirtying their hands and keeping the others safe.
From the point of view of one of those innocents he is protecting, he is a monster that regularly kill and torture others for his own agenda (and surely, sometimes he has killed someone that did not turn out to be the bad terrorist he thought he was).
From HIS point of view he is an unsung hero that is sacrificing his own soul and innocence to save the world from doing the same, of course some will be different, you will have the agent that really enjoy the killing (he is clinically insane, do not play such characters) and others that have become cynic and are "used" to the violence (they are basically in denial). Much variety and only a small part of these is unplayable (the madmen), the others can be played and even can give you an interesting character arc (you can have the cynical callous agent have a break down as his denial shatters and he realize what he has done and that no matter what he does, there is no redemption, Ala Kratos in God of War 1).
Once we have established that evil persons do not consider them evil, you also have to consider the concept of Hero and Villain. Some of the people that play evil characters (and I knew a whole guild of them in that very same UO you speak of) do so because if everyone plays the goody goody two shoes, there is no conflict, no rivalry, no fun. After all.. what would Superman be without Lex Lutor? Just a glorified kitten saver.
Finally, your character is not you. Theatre actors regularly play heinous people without being bad people themselves, if they can do it, we surely can as well.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
i always play the evil characters in all my RPG's. reason being is that it is opposite of my real personality as well as the fact that i like my character to be menacing.
however, in starwars i wouldn't mind playing a jedi just because.....well, its starwars lol
that said, i plan on rolling either a sith inquisitor or bounty hunter as my first toon.
I think the issue is that you are internalizing the drama as opposed to "playing" or showing the drama.
More than likely you would probably be a method actor.
However, that's not healthy.
It's good that you feel so deeply but you need to be able to separate real life from games for your own sanity.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Personally I don´t look upon it as "what would I do" per say but rather "what would I do if I were him". If I play a race car driver I don´t switch on my turn signal before entering the hairpin, I don´t clean my gun between missions as a spy and I do not pet the dogs in gta IV.
Immersion is great but to actually "be" the person is for me not important. When I play games I want to be someone else. That´s pretty much the whole point for me.
Edit: Oh and good or evil is just a matter of viewpoint. The soldiers of a war consider each other as evil.
All statements I make is from my point of view unless stated otherwise.
I think your taking games way to seriuosly. Games to me are there to take me AWAY from my life and transport me to a world where i can do or be anything I want. If i find the world dull i will stop playing, not character development.
Semi-Offtipc..
Hey hey, The Empire is not 'evil'. Its just misunderstood.
People always fear the unknown. Specially the mindless rebels. Its THEIR fault Alderaan has been blown to pieces - because they thought stealing the DeathStar's plans was a good idea. Its never a good idea to fuck around with national security issues. And that obnoxious Leia... if she talked, none of what followed would have happened.
And who are those Jedi's, self-righteous bastards, to bully everyone, enforcing their narrowed-minded moral values? Who guards the guardians? Serves them right to be weeded out. If a planet has its own agenda, its bad! Oh and its super OK to separate brothers and sisters and keep their father in the dark. More so, spur son against father until they hack each other to pieces...
I say Join the Empire!
</rant>
Better to be crazy, provided you know what sane is...
There was reliable intel that Alderaan was housing WMD's.
Haha I`m glad someone caught on my metaphor
Better to be crazy, provided you know what sane is...
If you don't clean you gun between missions as a spy you will be a dead spy before long.
But on topic this thread is really Star Wars based for sure because like Obi Wan said something about truth and points of view, etc. etc. So one also already said one of my favorite thing about history; its written by the winner so to me its not hard to see why people want to play the other side of the coin because you want to try to see what it would be like to be able to be the "bad guy" but not really hurt anyone. My point of view is fairly cynical but I also don't think people mean to not be sincere or have lack integrity on purpose for the most part but that most people are just following how society has progressed and...... Well I need to get off my rant before I get on my philosophy soap box cause I would be typing all night, lol. I will leave you all with a link to what I like to think is one of the best modern philosophy essays everyone should check it out and try to find it and give it a read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx