I can't play good characters.

[Aphetoros]

Not to be like, inversing Dae or anything. But... I literally can't play a good character. I don't know how to make a 'good guy' that's fun to RP. I can't get into 'em, it seems. I'm not really sure why, and I'm not sure if it's a case of not understand how it works (although any advise there is appreciated, too.) It's strange because I tend to gravitate towards playing evil; even if I make a character with the intent of being technically on the side of good, something happens and it gets pulled to evil.

So... any help on the good side of the roleplay spectrum? I mean, I've been having trouble with evil lately because I've been getting a bit upset with myself (the last time a character of mine tortured someone I couldn't get into it and didn't really enjoy the RP.)

[Xigo]

Make a character who has explicit intent of doing the right thing.

[muhaha8]

I would write a deep post about how to do good, but I don't often do good. Plus, Xigo ninja'd me with basically all I'd be saying, anyway. CURSE YOU, XIGO.

[Aphetoros]

Make a character who has explicit intent of doing the right thing.

Well... I mean, I get that's the idea. But I get really bored with it very quickly. I'm not sure how to make a character that I am interested in that is 'good.'

[Aadora]

Maybe it all depends on ones definition of "good".

[mimloopen]

I feel the same way... I could suggest finding a few other characters with good intentions, maybe a guild, and stick your fellow in with them. Every character is more interesting when part of a story

[Forenzic]

Eh, if you can't get into playing a Good or Lawful character then it isn't all bad really, some people are naturally hateful :>

A good quote I remember reading was:

"Playing an essentially "Good" character may seem as easy as opening your eyes, but as with other alignment classifications, there are some points that need to be remembered. They can be as difficult to role-play believably as villainous characters. They don't necessarily have to be huggy, kissy, warm-fuzzy type of people. What defines a character as being good is how they work to achieve the goals they have established within their role-play."

Not to reword the quote but in my eyes being good isn't just about fighting for a noble cause, fighting for what's right, or any other clichès. It's about how they act around people, in different situations, or as said before working to achieve goals. For example, I play my character Boli as good, but in a more sinister way. He believes what he's doing is for the right cause and he's saving people and lives but in the end he's causing more harm then good. A seemingly "good" character played in a way that garters them respect for their actions while also being on the edge of complete destruction sounds up you're alley. Or maybe a slightly insane character who doesn't know which doesn't know which side is "good" and simply does what he wants feeling no repercussions. Or even a character who is on the extreme side of lawful where he/she ends up hurting civilians or people more when he attempts to "help" them. The possibilities are endless, a good character isn't someone who saves the damsels in distress or purges the land of all evil. And if my advice is bad or cliche, then, whoops :>

[Loxmardin]

Well.

Building a "good" concept around the idea of doing the right thing is a little bare-bones. It's the basics of the basics of playing someone of a Good alignment. Instead of pursuing your own goals and ambitions you tend to instead gravitate towards pursuing the needs and wants of those around you. Or, their needs as you perceive and understand them. How much you really do it depends on how altruistic and self-distanced you are.

I think it's important to consider a Good character's reasons for why they hold the ideals that they do. Just like with evil characters, you have to conjure up a solid mindset that is based in their experiences in life and that drives them towards pursuing that sort of path in life. The discussion about evil characters brought up the idea of using personal trauma and suffering to gravitate more towards the evil concepts in order to exact vengeance on certain groups, pursue your own happiness, doing the "right thing" with a weird twist...

Good characters aren't necessarily all happiness and rainbows. Especially not in the World of Warcraft, which is a bad place to be if you're thoroughly Good-aligned. There's a lot of suffering everywhere and, generally, a lot of bad people to make your good efforts go spilled out for nothing or rendered useless from the start. Good characters are just as driven by their past as Evil characters are, so what you'd need to do to create an interesting Good character is to see if you can figure out how to develop a past history that drives and inspires the character to do "good" things, even if the character will likely have to suffer in many ways as it continues to pursue those ideals.

A couple of my own suggestions as far as mindsets go;

• ...they're not all that bad, really. This isn't a rule of thumb for Good characters, but it's a start. Believing the best about people and being able to look past their flaws to see the "Good" in them. This takes a great deal of patience and understanding, but may be a good quality they possess. This could also come with the desire to help people live up to their hidden potentials and the mindset of "I know you're better than this!".
  
  ...how does he feel when he gets up on Sunday mornings? Having a greater perspective on things and not sticking so closely to your own wants and desires. Being able to reach out and sympathise with others to the point that you suffer from the thought of interfering with another individual's life. You find a dead man on the side of the road and you stop to ponder where he was going, how he wound up here, if someone's waiting for him where he was headed, if he kissed his wife goodbye when he left home... Such things.

[Dae]

Now, with me at least, part of why I gravitate to good characters is a matter of two things: I prefer to play non-combat oriented characters, and give them goals that would not benefit from making enemies or inviting danger.
Also, though, one of the main ways I develop a lot of my characters is by having them project themselves onto others. This both gives me an opportunity to learn more about my character with every new person they meet, but also winds up making them often have a hard time condemning others, either just through harsh judgement or quite literally by bringing something horrible upon another.

In general, I find that Lawful Good is good because of morals, Neutral Good is kind because of a heightened sense of empathy, and Chaotic Good just get lots of warm-fuzzies for making others happy. Now, this is obviously not true for everyone, especially when these motives tend to overlap, but its where I usually start.

As for making Good fun for you... Well, what is it about RP in general that you enjoy most?

[Anski]

I'm typing this on my phone in class, so expect it to be short and some words will have a fullstop in between.

Start looking at 'good' as divided between two factors, Justice.and Morality. When we walk outside typically we.stop ourselves from robbing the first bank we see or a more vulgar crime.such as jaywalking. This is because we follow the law, and expect others to do the same. Someone who was told to uphold the law in youth typically upholds the law at all times. A character that is seen as morally good is someone who consistently follows the path of upholding justice over what is morally good It's hard to be a true morally good character until you have the chance to prove your morality, save 100 lives for 10, the moral.theories vary greatly. If you were to start, take Xigo 's wonderfully dry humor advise and make a character who upholds and follows the path of justice until a moral dilemma takes place.

I feel as though that should make more sense.
Maybe it's because I'm in class.

Hm..

[Nikodemos]

My advice is focus on who you hang with. As in RL, rp friends have a tendency to either uplift your character or drag them down into the mud with them. The best way for your good aligned characters to remain so, in my opinion, is to avoid hanging out with warlocks and thieves. Just something that came to mind.

[Bovel]

You said you had a witch hunter - coming off as evil but really tries to do good? Not corrupt or even unjust but callous and detached?

[Bingles]

If you need 'good' character friends I am here Aphe! Just PM me and we can organize an RP c:

[anji]

My advice is focus on who you hang with. As in RL, rp friends have a tendency to either uplift your character or drag them down into the mud with them. The best way for your good aligned characters to remain so, in my opinion, is to avoid hanging out with warlocks and thieves. Just something that came to mind.

This is very true - I find that all of my characters have been influenced, at least in part, with who interact with in RP.

...but on the other hand, hanging around with warlocks, thieves, and other undesirables can be an easy path to playing a distinctly good character. I find that good is easier to perceive when it's juxtaposed against evil. If you can't play an obvious do-gooder, you could also play a 'good guy' who serves a malevolent (or morally ambiguous) cause. Such a character might not appear good at the surface, but he could have a number of good qualities that make him stand out in his crowd. With that, your character could have an internal conflict between his conscience and his obligations.

[Geoni]

*A bewildered looking person runs across the thread and yells, "Run away! Ghurm is about to ramble!"*

Hello, fellow CotHians!

I think a lot of us might disagree about what the words "good" and "evil" mean. They are subjective things. Here's my opinion.

I don't think there are evil characters, but I think that characters can be evil when they embrace any of the following evils. Okay, okay, the last one I list is an evil character, but it makes sense in its context.

The "necessary" evil

The necessary evil, as I define it, is doing something harmful because you thought it was necessary. The characters that embrace the necessary evil are those that don't realize that what causes them to do harm to other people is actually fear. They thought that somebody or something was a threat, and whether it was or not, they harmed that somebody or something. When put on the spot about doing this, the character that embraces the necessary evil will try to justify his/her act by pointing out what they thought the threat was and what they thought was the necessary action to eliminate that threat. A lot of characters in WoW embrace this evil because of factions and xenophobia. The necessary evil is something that is difficult to realize and not embrace.


The evil that lacks capacity for empathy

Empathy is the ability to consider and contribute to the feelings of others. The lack of empathy, or the lack of capacity to be empathetic, I would consider evil most of the time. The exceptions for me are those with mental disability or non-aggressive psychological illness (they're just cursed with mirror neurons that don't work right, can't be blamed). The characters that embrace the evil of lacking empathy or the capacity for empathy are those that...well...don't have empathy. It's definitely a great starting ground for players wanting to create what others will consider an "evil" character. Even I probably can't think of them all. Selfishness is the evil we all like to think of, the evil that is most often portrayed in media. Selfishness, really, is only considering your own feelings, and every action a purely selfish person makes is made in order for them to feed their own feelings. This deals with power hunger, fear, desire, and many other emotions. While the psychopath is somebody who has just plain lost his or her mind, the epitome of a character that lacks capacity for empathy is the sociopath, but for the sake of forum etiquette I'll let you guys google them and think about them if you don't know what they are.

The stupid evil

The stupid evil is when harm is done due to ignorance or thoughtlessness. A great example of a character who embraces the stupid evil is the blockhead bodyguard of a power hungry king who has undying loyalty to his king and doesn't think much about following his orders. If any of you have played Heavenly Sword, Roach is the perfect example of this. This is the evil committed by those not smart enough to even realize that what they are doing is harmful to another person. Woe to the character who falls into the evil of stupidity.

The fictional evil

This one doesn't exist in real life. It does, however, exist in WoW. Demons are a prime example of the fictional evil. In real life, religions symbolize what it is to be evil through demons. They are possessors, killers, perverts, torturers; they are all of the things humanity dislikes. Thankfully, as far as I know, we don't have demons roaming among us the way demons sometimes do in works of fiction. WoW has Demons, Satyrs, Imps, The Scourge, Death Knights (when they used to be cold blooded killers), and more. These are characters who embrace the fictional evil, because they are the fictional evil. Those characters who use them or associate with them, such as warlocks, are also embracing the fictional evil.

So...

if you want to play a "good" character, play a character that doesn't embrace any of these evils. Well, he or she will be good in my book at least. A character who is selfless or thoughtful and considerate are the most agreeable characters to call "good" for most people. Characters that are innocent and naive are often unintentionally good, but innocence is easy to lose. And of course there are pacifists, who don't want to physically harm anybody. That's a good thing, right? I'm sure there are a ton of "good" qualities to have, but they'll just differ from person to person.

Intentions are the most important thing to think about when determining whether or not a character is being "evil" or being "good".