The Mayor from Buffy could be very kind. He and Faith had a good relationship, he was nice to her, from my vague memories of the series he did generally come off as a pretty nice.
Morden from Babylon Five, perhaps, who went around asking people what they wanted and then giving it to them.
Dexter Morgan. Sociopathic serial killer, family man, all around nice guy.
Some versions of Magneto from the X-men (depends on what writer he has).
Hans Scorpio from the Simpsons. (Who I’ll mention rather than the James Bond characters that inspired him.)
Tanya Huff has a fantastic couple of short stories about a Queen, who’s Evil, but has done a lot for the welfare of her Kingdom.
In addition to the examples by @FairyGodfeather, many real life serial murderers and terrorists were described as nice fellows, think of the Boston bombers.
As to the game, the good and evil here is more about the intents and divine patronage when doing things, and the kind/mean value is about how the character does them. It’ stated that worshippers of the evil gods hide their allegiance and disguise themselves as followers of benevolent deities, For example, such a fully coherent character could be a priest of an evil goddess who is a friendly and helpful guy and perfectly nice towards the people around him, as nobody needs to know what he does in secret.
I guess the game makes it clear that Nice/Mean is how you’re perceived while G/E is what you really are. The labels alone don’t give me that impression, but in a context which makes that clear, that’s fine, they don’t have to.
But this feels related to one of the things I found amusing-but-jarring about Life of a Wizard, where being extremely evil didn’t make that much difference to your relationships or how your life was ultimately perceived:
In any CoG whose choices don’t focus on the difference between the MC’s facade and their true intentions (which can be a lot of work), I’d find it implausible to see lots of actions that take Kind and Good in very different directions. Surely the Boston bombers or John Wayne Gacy take a big hit to “nice/kind” as well as “good” when they kill people.
Maybe my imagination is just impoverished because I’ve not partaken of any of the media you mention, FG, except for X-Men movies. But thinking of Magneto from the films, I don’t feel like his kindness and goodness move on different spectra. He’s kind to those who think and are like him. He’s capable of monstrous unkindness to those who don’t/aren’t. He justifies his unkindness as self defense. All those things, to me, are what help us place him on the good-evil continuum – they’re not some separate “kind-unkind” thing.
I deliberately didn’t choose any real life examples. I could have but it just makes me angry. Furious. Evil hiding behind a mask of niceness. Better to deal with fiction. I’m less likely to start frothing at the mouth that way
Okay, back to fiction…
Comics Magneto is a complicated man. I’m not sure if the movies quite get that across in the same way as some of the comic books do. (Just some, with so long a history comic book continuity tends to be nonexistent and things keep getting written that contradict past actions and characters can be wildly inconsistent over the years.) Comic book Magneto was definitely a villain, although he was closer to an anti-hero by the time I stopped reading comics. He founded a Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. If that’s not a sign of evil what is?
This said though, I do agree with you about the whole Evil idea. I’m not a fan of it either, but Lucid is and it’s his game. I find something even as nebulous as Dark vs Light is at least a bit more open to ambiguity. I tend to take that path, if I have to have an alignment system, then promptly make the Light folks the rigid, authoritarian, anti-free-will group who may deal with healing and light magics, but they’re not good. And Dark tends towards towards having a more chaotic approach to things. (I’m rather inspired by Changeling the Dreaming’s seelie vs unseelie system.) I liked Choice of Romances Life vs Death mages with neither being evil but definitely at odds.
Yeah, I almost suggested that too, but then I figure Lucid seems set on the Good/Evil labels.
But yes, if we were mainly talking about allegiance to one gang of gods or another, I’d personally go for some variation of Light/Dark, and then have the morality meter moved by Kind/Callous actions, which is at the heart of real-life good and evil for my money.
Light and Callous or Dark and Kind would make much more immediate sense to this reader than Good + Callous or Evil + Kind (which only work, IMO, if one set of words describes a facade concealing a heart-of-something-different).
I play a nice character educated and well manered princess but also is Evil full of vengance and selfish. Being bad or mmaquiavelian doesnt mean beimg a tasteless jerk shouting bad words and kicking puppies just because. That is stupid an nobody inteligent evil or nor would do that also charisma hasnt sense with a mean ogre. I see mean as the war personality in da2.
I hope that I haven’t lost those of the earlier waves. Yes! Check it out and let me know if you find anything new. You can also see what’s different and if the changes are good.
Amazing response! The application for new beta testers is closed again. Not to worry, I’ll re-open it again soon.
At this point, there are 50 beta testers. Please send me feedback! And yes, if you were one of the early ones, keep on playing, finding errors and sending feedback.
I eventually respond to every email, even if it’s a couple days after you send it to me. I save the emails in my inbox until I have the time to make the changes. Once I make the changes, I reply to the email. Once I make enough changes, I update the game. The link doesn’t change.
Thanks everyone! I really REALLY appreciate everyone’s help!
I am ready for a few more testers! I also encourage old testers to give it another go and for any unsent feedback to be sent to me. I don’t mind multiple emails.
At this point, I’ve responded to everything sent to me. With all these changes, there will be some new issues arising.
Thanks to everyone! I really appreciate everyone’s help.
