If you've got a real consensus in your group, then it might not be so difficult playing a 'bad' character.

This doesn't mean a Chaotic Neutral character who's got a dark, tragic past which means they never make attachments with anyone and don't care about anybody else and never do anything for anyone except themselves. That just means your player is a tool.

That kind of character is more like Walt from Breaking Bad, where he eventually turns against even his allies and his family in his selfish quest for power above all else.

Look at The Sopranos or The Godfather, or The Departed, or many Chinese gangster movies. If there's a bond between your characters, then you have the basis for a roleplaying game adventure. Your party can work together.

Technically Michael Corleone in The Godfather also turns against his allies and his family in his selfish quest for power above all else. But if your characters belong to a shared organization, clan, family, etc, where they have a shared code and believe in each other, then maybe their objectives aren't moral or ethical but they can at least work together.

If you've got a real consensus in your group, then it might not be so difficult playing a 'bad' character.

This doesn't mean a Chaotic Neutral character who's got a dark, tragic past which means they never make attachments with anyone and don't care about anybody else and never do anything for anyone except themselves. That just means your player is a tool.

In my experience, this doesn't make the player a "tool" (though this seems to be a misuse of this term). It generally seems to mean this particular player doesn't feel much attachment to the setting/world, but still wants to game. I get at least one player in any given campaign like this. They want to play with everyone else, but otherwise just don't care about this particular campaign. As long as it isn't ruining other people's fun, then, meh. Let them be that way.

"tool" in this context is just a derogatory term for someone who's kind of an unpleasant person that I don't want to be around. In a broader sense it's a phallic reference indicating the person in question is a ****.

IMO it applies just fine

"tool" in this context is just a derogatory term for someone who's kind of an unpleasant person that I don't want to be around. In a broader sense it's a phallic reference indicating the person in question is a ****.

IMO it applies just fine

Ahh, you're thinking of a ****** or douchebag.

Tool - someone who is dumb as and therefore used by others like a tool. An idiot, or a fool.

And again, just because someone creates a character that doesn't have an internal RP reason to be with the party doesn't make them less of a player or someone that shouldn't be included. Sounds almost like an issue of "play the game my way or you're an ass..."

Heh, I don't really mean to belabor the point, but the idiomatic way I was using the term 'tool' isn't really 'wrong'. A slang insult like that has a lot of possible interpretations and uses. I was just being crude for emphasis

I've been fortunate with having great players so I just meant that someone who insists on creating dark, "Chaotic Neutral" type characters may find a game they really enjoy, however I don't think they'd be appropriate for my own games. I likewise wouldn't allow someone to play an 'evil' character who's going to backstab the party and try to murder them, either. It just doesn't fit with the way my players and I tend to want to have fun.

Anyone else is more than welcome to play whatever kind of game they enjoy

In a RPG it's supposed to be about team effort. I think with a lot of these players who make the PC that is wildly out of step with the rest of the group the issue is generally one of personality and not questions of morality. They're making the character that is going to drive events to pivot around them. To me it's more a matter of egotism than morality. They're playing the Kanye West character....

In a RPG it's supposed to be about team effort. I think with a lot of these players who make the PC that is wildly out of step with the rest of the group the issue is generally one of personality and not questions of morality. They're making the character that is going to drive events to pivot around them. To me it's more a matter of egotism than morality. They're playing the Kanye West character....

2P51, that's a good point, but Imma stop you right there, Progressions had the best forum post of all time.

(See what I did there?)

And again, just because someone creates a character that doesn't have an internal RP reason to be with the party doesn't make them less of a player or someone that shouldn't be included. Sounds almost like an issue of "play the game my way or you're an ass..."

IMO, if they don’t have a good RP reason to be with the party, then it means that either they’re playing the game wrong, or the GM didn’t have an successful Session Zero with everyone in the group to explain what this game is about and how it’s supposed to be played.

But that’s just my personal opinion. YMMV.

I don't like playing Edge to be like Shadowrun. Edge is supposed to channel Han Solo, meaning a rogue with a heart of gold, who does some bad things to protect him and his, but in the end he's a Good Guy in a cinematic space opera. If you want total gray amoral "kill em all and let God sort it out" mercenaries, I think Shadowrun provides a much better option and setting for it.

Your Edge maybe, but not mine. I was attracted to this system (and moved off Saga) because the players weren't immediately drawn to force users and it allowed the players to explore the 'underside' of the Star Wars universe. My PCs regularly double-cross NPCs and more than one discussion has ended in blaster fire. It allows the players to explore the anti-hero group in a unique way while staying in a universe they know and enjoy. I won't criticize anyone who prefers a more 'Firefly' feel to their EotE game. There is nothing inherent to EotE that drives the morality of the PCs one way or another. As long as their is consensus between players and GM and both sides are enjoying the game, consider it a success.

That said it's important that everyone be on generally the same page when the game is starting. It's no fun if you're the hero with a heart of gold in a group of Kill**** Soul****ters who just care about the creds. It's also no fun being the totally gray guy in a group of Paladins who constantly try to force you to act the way they want.

Certainly true. But this is no different than a gun hand in a group of pacifists, or a planner in a group of impulsives. We once has a Shadowrun game where our entire group was skill focused and we tried to overcome every challenge with guile - and one PC was a trog with a minigun. He simply was incompatible with the overall group in a way that had nothing to do with game system.

I don't make 'tool' jokes about other characters anymore.

This annoying Drall in our group kept mispronouncing my character's name as 'Steak', even going so far once as claiming it was hard for him to pronounce the letter 'R' .

So I finally did it. I called him a 'Drill'. it was perfect. The 'tool' analogy was perfect.

Except... he liked it! "My new nickname is 'The Drill'! Yes!"

Sigh. 'Steak' goes back to sulking and being annoyingly polite.

In my group the new character to the group, a Weequay Marauder, just cut 2 pirate thugs clear in half with a vibrosword in broad daylight on a Nar Shaddaa street and knocked out a third. Now he and the Corellian pilot are going to take the pirate somewhere quiet to torture him to find out why the pirate thugs were shadowing the pilot and why they killed her friend.

Is the Weequay a bad guy? I am still not sure but I will maintain it is very difficult to be a noble and good Marauder somewhat by definition. I think he justifies that doing bad things to bad people is ok.

The group will run spice, deal with Hutt crimelords, fight bounty hunters, kill street thugs but they wont deal with slaves (one character is a Twi'lek trying to get her sister out of slavery). Are they good people? Again, I am not sure. When it comes to morality, I like to hope that most of them use "what would Han Solo do?" as their starting point. Sometimes the answer to that is come back to save Luke on his suicide mission against the Death Star, sometimes that is shoot Greedo under the table without a second thought or any remorse except for the mess.

I don't like playing Edge to be like Shadowrun. Edge is supposed to channel Han Solo, meaning a rogue with a heart of gold, who does some bad things to protect him and his, but in the end he's a Good Guy in a cinematic space opera. If you want total gray amoral "kill em all and let God sort it out" mercenaries, I think Shadowrun provides a much better option and setting for it.

But Edge doesn't have to be. Maybe you're playing Bosk or IG-88, a bounty hunter out trying to make a living, even if that means taking jobs from the Empire. Or you're a deep space scout, looking for new worlds that haven't yet been explored or hyper-routes that'll reduce the travel time between known places. Or you work for the Hutts, smuggling stuff to various places (like Han prior to the first movie or Mal throughout the whole series of Firefly).

Besides, Han strikes me more as the guy with a "sense of honor" than a "heart of gold". He might have rescued Chewie from the Imps, but he had no issue with smuggling drugs and other cargoes that can probably harm the people that use them. He took his pay from the Rebellion, but decided to risk something to help them, much like he did with Chewie. In the various books he maintains that roguish guy (even in the new canon).

Tobin Stryder started off as a good guy on a path of revenge, but various instinces of collateral damage (including one particlar incident where a little girl got killed in confronting ISB agents on a train, another, a entire settlement was raized because they found out we had said plans) has numbed his heart and given him unsettling dreams, recently hes taken a more proactive approch to revenge by killing a powerful prisoner he was escorting and is now on a course to Na Shada alone to steal the jewel of Yavin for a third time, and draw in his bounty hunter nemsis for a showdown that could send ripples through the underworld, consquences be damned.

Quite fasinating to see a good guy eventurally get sullied by the blood on his hands, one way or another though it will be a climatic conclusion.

Is it Tobins fault though? Or that sith lightsaber he had on him all this time. Time will tell, but the world will have moved on by then.

Travok is much more simple, hes a merchent that had been driven off a Cortosis mine he had owned and labeled a criminal. As a trandosian he despises weak people and has no quarms with selling adicits their spice in order to fund his enterprise, not to mention as a Alpha preditor he sees his species as he has no quarms with the ritural consumption of any prey is unfortunate enough to see this business man as weak prey. Yet otherwise hes quite a steward noble individual who isnt affraid of what he says, everything he says he means and thus far his achievements for the allience outweigh any quirks his personality has.

WARNING - This post went on for longer than I had planned so apologies in advance for the wall of text.

In my experience, this doesn't make the player a "tool" (though this seems to be a misuse of this term). It generally seems to mean this particular player doesn't feel much attachment to the setting/world, but still wants to game. I get at least one player in any given campaign like this. They want to play with everyone else, but otherwise just don't care about this particular campaign. As long as it isn't ruining other people's fun, then, meh. Let them be that way.

Unfortunately that just means you have been lucky. I have seen a lot of that in varying groups and varying games over the past couple of decades. There is almost always one person who either takes great delight in breaking the game/system to see if they can, or just can't seem to build a character who isn't a loner. I think that the second option sometimes stems from the fact that a not inconsiderable amount of action/fantasy movies seem to focus on one hero who is often the lone wolf misfit but who somehow manages to save the world/kingdom/plot.

I just focus on the fact that there are a lot of players who put a lot of passion and imagination into the game, and effort into making the game fun for everyone. It should however be said that it is not only players who can be problems.

I have also played in games where the Ref considered there to be a competition between himself/herself and the players, or were so attached to their plot idea that they virtually threw a tantrum when the party go anywhere but where the plot is happening.

I had one Ref in Dnd 3.5 who after the party refused to go to the elemental plane of water, had them randomly teleported to a gate and had everyone make a saving throw, those who made the save were affected by a spell of waterbreathing. She was that desperate to get us to do the 'dungeon', and there was no motivation for the group to go to there.

As for not feeling attachment to a game being a reason for creating a character who doesn't fit, I am currently playing a game of RQ6 which I am finding no attachment too. I hate the system and the plot is just alright but my character is very much a party person to the point that after having gotten his sword arm broken he is crowding into combat to try to assist other members of the party versus the chaos mutant things we are fighting.

I would much rather be playing something else and if this character were to die I would not have that much of an issue. My point is that not finding the game to your preference is no excuse for being disruptive to a game, which is what a lot of these character/player types can be.

Just my thoughts

I have also played in games where the Ref considered there to be a competition between himself/herself and the players, or were so attached to their plot idea that they virtually threw a tantrum when the party go anywhere but where the plot is happening.

I had one Ref in Dnd 3.5 who after the party refused to go to the elemental plane of water, had them randomly teleported to a gate and had everyone make a saving throw, those who made the save were affected by a spell of waterbreathing. She was that desperate to get us to do the 'dungeon', and there was no motivation for the group to go to there.

See, that's just bad GMing. The trick is to keep your story fluid enough (no pun intended) that the important bits happen no matter where the PCs go. Granted, if the players are actively pulling away from your story, maybe it's time to reassess the narrative you thought you were telling and craft something that appeals to their interests more. It's also a good idea to get them involved personally.

For my part, the first major arc of my current campaign happened on one planet. The players had every opportunity to wash their hands of the situation, but that also wouldn't have solved the problem: if they decided to move on, the world would have fallen to the crime lords. Ordinarily they might not have cared, but one PC's mentor lived on that planet and the NPC who asked for help from the group has connections to another PC's dead father. With them hooked, I was able to keep the story loose and adaptive enough for everyone's tastes. They even stayed after realizing they were actively messing up the operations of a Hutt one of the PCs is indebted to.

I think the trick is to either not have a story in mind when you GM, so the players can dictate what they'd like to do as much as you do, or to at least love the setting more than you love your planned narrative. I take the latter approach with my Halo game.

Never had a probelm with GMs forcing us down certain paths but had some who if you managed to kill a very powerful enemy, thus turn the tide of a battle they planned for the party to lose they would drop another enemy of the same class on us instantly.

In one example I remember we were doing a capship battle with each PC captaining a ship and through a series of lucky critical we managed to kill it before it got a shot off. Then a second SSD emerged from the main battle and ripped the hell out of us because most of our ships were much smaller then it, and it got to act before most of our ships did due to them using their turns for that round fighting the first one.

Evil (not doing what's right) doesn't require you to be a jerk to everyone you meet, it can be accomplished simply through inaction. Good (doing what's right) does require you to be a decent person to everyone you meet, and can only be accomplished through intentional action.

Look into ethics a bit, and you'll see how much harder it is to be a good person than a bad one.

And when one comes to realize that these concepts are subjective, then you get into the real fun. Spoiler: Anakin didn't feel like he was doing evil.

Reminds me of Bobo in the Muppet movie all of a sudden realizing he is a henchman of the villain; "So we're working for the bad guy, aren't we?"

In my group the new character to the group, a Weequay Marauder, just cut 2 pirate thugs clear in half with a vibrosword in broad daylight on a Nar Shaddaa street and knocked out a third. Now he and the Corellian pilot are going to take the pirate somewhere quiet to torture him to find out why the pirate thugs were shadowing the pilot and why they killed her friend.

My follow up is the PCs interrogated the guy for information he didn't have then shot him in the head and threw the body off the side of a walkway in Nar Shaddaa without a second thought. So yeah, they are evil. As the GM, I am struggling to come to terms with this development.

In my group the new character to the group, a Weequay Marauder, just cut 2 pirate thugs clear in half with a vibrosword in broad daylight on a Nar Shaddaa street and knocked out a third. Now he and the Corellian pilot are going to take the pirate somewhere quiet to torture him to find out why the pirate thugs were shadowing the pilot and why they killed her friend.

My follow up is the PCs interrogated the guy for information he didn't have then shot him in the head and threw the body off the side of a walkway in Nar Shaddaa without a second thought. So yeah, they are evil. As the GM, I am struggling to come to terms with this development.

See, I take notice of the phrases "pirate thugs" and "killed her friend." That immediately changes the context of the whole killing him and dropping the body off a bridge. They're angry and vulnerable, at least emotionally. If their personal morality doesn't preclude torture, then they still probably perceive themselves as on the side of good.

True evil would have been dropping him off the bridge alive.

I'm sure everybody's play style is completely different, but for the most part my players and I establish if they want the campaign to be a good or dark side campaign. If it's the latter, the story is completely different, it's toned more for "Sure you're willing to go the lengths to be evil, but how far? At what cost to yourself even?"

We have an ongoing joke that whenever a good character does something questionable, we all laugh and say "Uh-oh, Dark Side campaign!"

In fact, I can think of one instance of playing D&D with my buddies when all the "good guy" characters agreed to take a dreadful course of action. There was a moment of silence and one of my players suddenly piped up saying "Guys, seriously . . . did we just begin a Dark Side campaign?"

But to keep with OP's questions -- I prefer to play a good character with morally questionable side lines. A Bounty Hunter who has convinced himself that Jedi are too powerful, and no "super humans" should be running the galaxy. He's a good guy with a fair moral compass, but he abhors Jedi, light or dark.

Or a Jedi-in-training that was raised by a dubious parental figure. She means well and believes she is a good person, but it's hard to shake the morality instilled on you by a parent, especially a bad one that hides intentions. (Best line of the campaign is when the Jedi was forced to kill people she knew well for the "greater good", and the parental figure simply told her to look to the Jedi Code for comfort. "There is no emotion, there is peace." She forced herself to be at peace with the "evil" she did.)

Point is, all the best characters should be strongly somewhere on the moral scale . . . but with heavy clauses and asterisks throughout. Have a strong idea of where they are on that scale, but add many "If Then" situations. Those make for the best characters in my opinion.