I LOVE BEING EVIL
Read the article in [gaslight] issue one, for the trve HOUDINI experience.
I love how it feels to be powerful and petty. I love being mean and vile. When someone tells me they hate me, my tar-black heart squirms a little in joy. I love working for cruel masters, who openly plot the demise of all goodness in the world. Best of all, I love getting paid for what I do. If there’s a way to extract cash out of someone Consensually or Non-Consensually, I’m the first to try it. I steal, I lie, I kill, I threaten and mock and torture and rule. I love doing all of these things………………………………………………..In RPGs.
Fictional evil can be a lot more fun than people give it credit for. Unfortunately, we live in Media Illiterate times. Evilness in fiction is chased far more than evilness in the real world. Why is that? Does it anger you to know I’m usually buddies with the worst of the worst types of fictional dudes? In New vegas, I’ve done the Legion ending a couple times. I’ve gone full Corpo in Cyberpunk. I have a kill count of Knights and Hobbits which puts Sauron to shame.
On the flip side, I am no fan of the real villains in our world. The Tech ‘Kings’ who rule an ever-collapsing throne, or the Disciples of the Orange Man, not even the soldiers bombing hospitals and the hordes of folks claiming all three are heroes. If I support the analogues to these men in my fantasies, then why doesn’t that support apply to the real thing?
The difference between me and them is that I employ an ancient lost art known as ‘Empathy’. I practice empathy in a very real, very specific way. Not empathy in being nice to dogs or tipping when you go out to eat (I only pet dogs I trust, and only tip when I like the meal, if that helps), but empathy in the sense of learning how enemy rhetoric works. Roleplay is a system all about empathy, if even incidentally. All the decisions you make are built on your emotions rather than logic, and the best kind of roleplay is done when you act as someone very different to yourself.
I can’t prove to you in any meaningful way that I am a good person (and if I tried, would you believe it?) but I CAN say with confidence that I’m a pro at these lie-generator games. I’ve played digital, tabletop, new and old, i’ve been both player and storyteller many, many times. I have been hundreds of people and my conclusion to those collected years of dream-lives is simple: There is nothing to be learnt in confirmation. If you want to evolve, you’ve gotta find out your weaknesses. You have to see your own beliefs from outside.
The lie of being a bad person is a useful, inventive one. It tells you a lot about that hidden version of yourself, the person desperate to bleed, or make others bleed. What kind of person are you when everyone is Screaming, at you, constantly? Impulse is the point here. The measure of a mind that I’m testing. Someone insults you, how do you act? Someone betrays you, how do you respond? It’s easy to be evil if you let go of your morals.
Villains in fiction are ways we depict arguments we disagree with. If we (the writer) DID agree with them, then why pit them against a Hero who defeats them? The mirror to this is a Villain Protagonist, the domain of ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Breaking Bad’. These characters are believable and enlightening, written for the purposes of exposing truths about the human (and sometimes inhuman) ability to do Evil.
But doing this character yourself, of CHOOSING to be these types of people, is unique. Suddenly this myth stops being about how evil Patrick Bateman is because of his psychopathy, now it’s you. It’s horrifying to watch him chase people with a chainsaw, but living it, I see the appeal.
My favourite scene in American Psycho (Skip this paragraph if spoilers concern you) is when he doesn’t kill his secretary. It’s complex and confusing because it’s a glimpse of humanity that sticks out in a way that twists the narrative. I don’t know why he didn’t do it. What makes a monster hesitate? When your mind is so full of the thrill of killing, why did she spoil the fun? I’ve been in similar situations, finding pity and other reactions in places I didn’t expect. I won’t tell you why he chose not to do it, you have to find that truth out yourself.
Compare that to ‘Popcorn’ RPGs where evil actions are usually met with a slap on the wrist, if you’re even allowed to choose. Even when joining evil factions, when seeking to do the worst, the game stops you. Essential NPCs, refusal to have the player really choose the ‘wrong’ choices, or my least favourite, writing overtly evil forces into ‘Misunderstood good guys’. I despise Fallout 4 in ways you couldn’t understand.
My argument for all these examples is, when it comes down to it, the freedom to choose is important when being someone you’re not. Is it really a kind choice if I’m not allowed to pick any others? Second to that, it’s important these games understand what evil truly is. In a weird, roundabout way, I like being called out for what I do by NPCs. Pushback is important. The power fantasy has to be fought for.
The joke, the punchline, of this article is that I enjoy being evil in video games because, for the most part, RPGs utterly fail in proving they’re worth my empathy. Fiction is ABOUT empathy and when the game abandons it for convenience, for flashy lights and satisfying numbers, when it treats villains as monsters to be slain, acting like goodness is an obvious path and all the grimness of the human soul as an inhuman entity, I find the tired act of heroism to be hollow.
Being evil is a way to wring out some of the empathy by force, to push my tired eyes to see parts of my soul I wouldn’t otherwise. Nothing can be learned in your comfort zone. You’re stronger when the fiction you engage with makes you uncomfortable.
I have been cruel and petty and conniving, but not in Disco Elysium. I got halfway through a Fascism-ideology playthrough before I stopped. It was some of the greatest roleplay writing of its time and I had to quit because that writing was being used to hurt me. It worked. I put the sword down, took the Dark Lord’s helmet off, and wept.
This isn’t a games review, it’s a proof that the artfulness and tactness of roleplay has been lost and dying for so long, but there’s a game out there which made me feel again. These games could be so much more.
I like pretending to be more evil than I actually am because it teaches me about myself. There are parts of yourself, your true self, in the masks you choose to wear. These masks will never be tantamount to the real thing, of BEING these people, but I learn about the human condition. I can feel the shame and thrill in killing without ruining people’s lives.
Are these roleplaying experiences better at developing empathy than REAL cultural experiences, like learning about tragedies and talking to the people who went through them? FUCK NO. Still, it’s an attempt. I reach for the lofty heights of understanding and expression by stress-testing the bounds you give me. I pretend to be evil because I don’t need to prove I’m good inside. It feels like everyone else these days is doing the opposite.
