Poll: Press X to be a *****!

[Fwee]

Depends on the game. I noticed on Red Dead Redemption every mission I've completed gives me at least 100 "good guy points", even though I'm getting chased by sheriffs for stealing the horse of a guy that just tried to kill me? WTF.
So in that game I decided to be a bad guy and the only choice I seem to have is just shooting strangers and lawmen and wearing the bandanna if I'm going to do the mission. Doesn't matter though because I got bored on the second day and probably won't play it again.
Developers for the most part are bad at making motivation for choosing the "selfish" or "evil" options. Usually someone will ask you for help and all you get to say is "give me your money or I'll kill you!" I want a more insidious approach to my evil damnit!
Although I found it very easy to choose "rogue" dialog in Mass Effect. First playthrough I got 75% paragon level and 65% rogue. Then I started other playthroughs I went either all Rogue or Paragon.

 

[interspark]

i can play as the villain but i occasionally feel bad about it, and of course i have limits, no women or children of course! well... maybe women, depending on how evil im feeling

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

Depends on my mood. If I have companions in a game I desperately want them to like me so I try not to piss them off. Sometiems I am happy to slay the prick who keeps holding me up, but ont the other hand if someone needs help I'll usually stop and help them.

Me and the writers of the game often have disputes about what is good. The biggest conundrum I've encountered is that of The New Californian Republic in FNV.

I certainly want to be on their good side when the shit hits the fan, and they are better than Caesars legion (hey I take racism over slavery of whoever any day), but it just seems that in almost all of the quests they ask me to do I end up royally fucking some other people I've been trying to build up a reputation in.

I think that's the point they're trying to get across. The NCR might look like the good guys, but deep down they're just selfish, corrupt pricks. And Ceasar is actually a pretty cool guy, he just has an inflated ego

 

[dark-amon]

I tend to take the "good karma"-road but that's mainly because most "bad karma"-choices in games feel so ridicoulus and forced. Like the best story is always played when you play as "good".
There aren't many games that really make me reflect my choices in games. But when they do, I learn that I never see good/evil, but situation and what is ethically desirable.

 

[feeback06]

A lot of people have already said this, but I play good first then evil.

 

[jboking]

I tried being evil in Fallout 3. Somewhere after nuking megaton I just felt bad. I feel like a shitty person. So, most of the time in Fallout 3 I was a good guy. Fallout: NV was a different story. On my first playthrough, I tried to be a good guy and made all of the reasonable good guy choices. I wasn't constantly checking in on my morality to make sure, instead I checked the fraction settings. About halfway through the main quest I checked my morality and found out I was neutral. I was a little surprised, but now I'm lvl 30 and am still true neutral even though I've been making the reasonable good guy choices. The fuck.

 

[Valkyira]

This happens to me every time I try and be a dick in Fallout 3 and NV. I am determined to be a total turd, but I always change my ways when innocent people like those in Megaton and Goodsprings get in harms way.

I just can't bring myself to be evil.

 

[Drakmeire]

when I'm evil I can be crazy evil, but I can only be very good, never over the top.
I guess you just suck at being evil. be creative, like in fable 2 where I had the choice to give a key to a bandit or free slaves with the key. I chose to give the key to the bandit, kill the bandit, release the slaves and then kill the slaves.

 

[Requx]

I do what I want...but I'm not neutral.

 

[Cyan.]

I am the most evil, twisted, badass and sadistic mother fucker possible.

Playing as a good guy is almost sickening to my inner nature.... Im nice in real life, why would i be this way in the virtual realm?

Someone asks me to do them a favour in real life, if i dont want to do it, i normally do it anyway.

In a videogame i can say no, shoot his children and eat their corpses while he watches......

Or at least...... I should be able to....

 

[crystalsnow]

I lean a little towards good, but I'm almost totally neutral. I'll take any option that benefits anyone and if forced to make a choice I'll blindfold myself and throw a dart.

 

[Rainforce]

I always play good, but only "good" as in "Let me do you a favor so you give me some light side points, otherwise... prepare to die!"

^^

edit: being merely evil is just too generic

 

[RatRace123]

For some reason "good" is my default first-playthrough in most games. I can't play the game as an evil guy until I beat it as a good one.

After that, though. Nothing really stops me from being the evilist bastard out there, especially in Fable 3. When you become King the guards can't arrest you when you go on murderous rampages, which I tended to do with alarming frequency.
I should never have power.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I played as the bad guy the first time I played Fallout 3. I tried to be good the second time. I succeeded in not blowing up Megaton or burning Harold. I even didn't put the virus in the water that would kill all the super mutants.
This was excruciatingly difficult for me.
So ya I was good in all the important choices but I ended up with a neutral karma because I have a very bad habit (a habit that carried over from my evil game) of shooting anybody who disagrees with me.
For example: Spoilers
Vance didn't want to help me in my problem with trying to take the kid he was sheltering home. No one wanted to give me the password to the kid's room. This aggravated me to the point of where I simply pulled out my Black Hawk and shot everyone in the face. I then walked into the kid's room told him what I'd done and that he was coming home. He says he needs time to pack so I start heading back to the town. Long story short, the little punk shoots himself and I end up with bad karma. This annoyed me so I went back to the town and killed everyone there for making me go to all this trouble.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I almost always play as a good guy, but not out of choice so much as nessecity. Very few games allow you to play as a bad guy without missing out on a huge chunk of gameplay.

Eg: An NPC requests my help in the matter I can:
A: Take the good option and help the NPC out.
B: Take the good/neutral option of accepting the quest but for selfish motivation.
C: Take the evil/neutral option of leaving the NPC to their fate and miss out on the quest.
D: Take the evil option and kill the NPC, missing out on the quest.

Why would I ever choose to take option C or D? I didn't buy a game not to play it. At least not on my first run.

The only game I can think of where I was allowed to play as an evil character is in Dragon Age, thanks to the well thought out repercussions of your alignment.

Bingo. This is the main problem. Developers confuse "evil" with "irrational hatred of profitable sidequests".

Not always. In Fallout 3, there is a point where you can either help children get their friends back from slavers, or you can trick all of the kids and hand them over to the slavers. Then you can go back to where the children live, find the most innocent child there, convince her that outside will be a lot of fun, then hand her over to another slaver.

LOTS of money is the reward. The evil quest is actually longer than the good one.

 

[Mechsoap]

i tend to not be able to be impolite in anyway to most people, including in video games being a bad guy makes me feel bad and ashamed.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Chaotic neutral tending towards chaotic good... I picked "I'll cut you down, only if you get in my way"

 

[SturmDolch]

I was evil in Fallout 3 because nuking towns is awesome, and I got to be a high roller after. And it was easy in Oblivion because the Dark Brotherhood was one of the funnest things I have done in a game. But you really can't in Fallout: New Vegas.

A town saved your life. Some criminals -- i.e. rapists, murderers, druglords -- escaped from prison and are coming to slaughter the town. Who do you help!?

And do you choose the faction that crucifies it's enemies or the one that is trying to unite America again?

The real turning point for me was those ghouls that want to fly away in their spaceship. How could I take something like that away from them? I think that's the biggest dick move possible in a game. I actually felt sad when one of their ships didn't make it, because the ghouls were so sincere.

I always like to play my characters like Han Solo. They start out doing everything for money, but they eventually start helping people because it's right after some sort of turning point. The ghouls was it for my New Vegas character.