Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

Not all Evil is snidely whiplash and Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney.
Not all evil is ambitious, greedy, or ruthless.

But I'll tell ya- some of your favorite characters are probably evil.
And we're talking about protaganists.

Anyway- that being said,

Lawful Evil is a Lavey Satanist.
They're not gonna hurt you if you don't hurt them.
They won't hurt an innocent.
They serve a system and heirarchy of rules, conduct
and are generally self serving.
MOST PEOPLE ARE SELF SERVING AND SELF INDULGENT!!!
But this brand of "Evil" owns up to it.

I'm of course not saying Lavey Satanists are evil- I'm just giving you real life examples to the heirarchies of character motivations within DnD.

You have the
Lawful- Neutral- Chaotic
Good- Neutral- Evil

And I hate that every character I play has to be an outright villainous asshole. Where's the moral fucking ambiguity?

I'm playing one of my favorite games- Ogre Battle. And in this game, you lead an army to defeat an oppressive empire and... through your actions through your army's composition, or your amy's tactics and strength
It could turn out that the people are worse off than before.

...
So in order for the super duper good guy ending
you can't hunt people down, you can't grind up your army into invincible strength
hell there are certain characters you shouldn't even recruit because they're lunatics or ruthless killers
Even some of the honorbound visibly chivalrous people turn out to be rampaging villains.

How do I play?
To win.

My strength justifies my victory. Sure I build good, solid units but sometimes you're facing off against walking terror knights with a small squad of footsoldiers and pissants.

... You're gonna lose.

Repeatedly.

If I'm strong- I like to think its from hardwork and tenacity not being a ruthless marauder (which this game tends to paint you as one).

There's even a startup questionaire that determines your general's characteristics, statistics and the initial people in your fellowship.

I tend to get a STRONG pragmatic character, but not necessarily the most moral and righteous one.

This is also how I play the KoToR series- If I'm threatened- I'm going to kill you, if I'm inconvenienced or if my mission is impeded, I'm going to hurt you. Why should I show you mercy when you could stab me in the back, or weren't willing to talk to me first anyway?

This tends to make an
E
V
I
L

Character- but I'm not burning down orphanages and raping twi'leks- I'm just adhering to my own judgement- and my judgement says
I'm strong
I'm going to survive.
If you have a problem with my ruthless methods, or my self preserving instincts- I suggest you do what you asked me to do. Because I'm here to save the damn galaxy no matter what I have to do.
I did what had to be done, and you weren't willing to do it. I might not be the right man for the job
but I'm definitely the only one for it.

...
That's my definition of Lawful Evil.
Results.
Like the Count of Monte Christo.
Mwahahahahahaha.

Wait... there's reallt not much mincing, hand wringing or cackling in lawful evil
that's more Neutral Evil (self serving or evil for the sake of evil) and
Chaotic Evil (looney or rising to the top)

Anyway-
Ogre Battle 64 (the followup game in the series) has more endings, and a less pissy system of alignment and goodguyness- hell, I was on my way to the "Evil good ending" ... man how can I phrase that better

Okay
I was evil, I was HIDEOUSLY STRONG, well equipped from murdering all of my opponents and looting their spoils, had openly evil people in my ranks
but I was a charismatic leader, and I knew what was best for my country
I rose to power through darkness
but my heart was in the right place, and my allies agreed with my methods.
I was unforgiving of traitors, and rarely lowered my guard.
But I built alliances with good (not necesarilly righteous people, but adept) people, and I was set on advancing my nation, not just my power.
So
Dark, but beneficial ending.

Then my game froze and I could never get it to stop freezing past the cut scene leading to the boss fight.

But there's a LOT less moral ambiguity or means justifying the ends in the predecessor game.

You're either a warlord brute that destabilizes a nation (for your own greed, or misguidedly and accidentally leading your country to ruin) or you're a pious fucknut.

And I mean PIOUS.

Dudleyfuckingdoright.

Fuck that twit.
You're pretty much reliant on consumable health items and constantly losing your battles to get the duper good ending.

I didn't play this game to lose.
A challenge, maybe, but spending money on health items, instead of just building a superior unit and using superior tactics isn't really an honest win to me.

How can a dishonest, money dependent victory be "good" when I'm fighting and killing guys that back opressors on fairly even straightforward footing?

Might doesn't make right
but money shouldn't either.

... Long live the king.