Hey all,

I just wanted to share a simple post with you guys telling you that sometimes players choosing evil characters can really come with some baggage during and after the game. I'm not sure what the effect is called, but it can be pretty similar to actors who method-act characters with bad mental health problems - Jared Leto comes to mind when he mailed dead animals to people while perfecting that role.

But the same thing can happen, has happened at my table in a sense. Nothing crazy happened, but one of my players' characters decided he wanted to play a NE paladin of Bhaal - god of murder. And we did 1-on-1 oneshots with players doing things they wanted to do. And there was just this terrible bloodbath in the session that was really narratively interesting and well-done. But that player had been doing all this killing and evil stuff in order to get power to kill the BBEG. So it felt to him like he CHOSE that path.

And so I could feel there was this feeling of "oh man, am *I* a bad person for killing these NPCs to get the power I want?" I could tell that it was really genuinely troubling my player irl, and it was on my mind a good deal too. So I reassured my player that it was all in-game obviously and that no in is a bad person. It was all just roleplaying an evil character. The actions of the character weren't indicative of the player playing them.

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We had to turn that PC into an NPC and have him work off a debt for years in the service of a LG temple. It was so bad that I really had to just take narrative control because the player didn't want to even continue with a redemption arc with that character. So I said "Alright, I'm the DM. Your character spends the next 2 years serving the community and is blessed and forgiven of his sins by the head cleric of this church. Your character goes on to serve the community until the end of his days."

*This is the only time I've ever just taken narrative control, and I think one of the only times it's ok to do so. I could tell that that player dreaded the idea of having to play out a redemption arc and just needed closure on that character's story and to just leave it behind. When I took narrative control, I could feel that player was able to kind of have a breath of relief from all that terribleness we had been dealing with. Everyone at the table was really relieved at that point.

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So I just wanted to share this as a consideration for allowing evil characters, even if you're ok with it and a player really wants to play one. Wish you all the luck, I think playing evil characters is an absolutely doable and fun thing in the right circumstances.

I think it's just really important to know what you could potentially be getting into. :) Thanks for reading, and happy DMing.