"I am Neutral-Evil" or "Playing the Bad Guy"

NOTE: I apologize for the long time since my last post, I have been struggling with writer's block as of late. It seemed my muse was out of touch and I had to use the few moments it called my brain collect to work on some other more pressing projects. I will be writing more regularly I think. I've also been trying to find things to write about than graphics and videogame fanboys, let me know what you think of today's post.
The DM


The vast majority of games have you playing some hero. You are saving the world, village, country; rescuing your girlfriend, teacher, parents... How many time have you been able to play evil? I'm not talking Mass Effect 'I'm going to be a jerk with a damn bad attitude' evil, I'm talking killing people for fun and profit as the reason you play a game even when there's the option to be good.

Currently I am playing in a DnD campaign when for the first time I am playing a Neutral Evil character. since I feel the alignments in dnD are fairly open to interpretation I am doing that like so: I am neutral and just don't care about circumstances and such when I am involved and occupied... in those scenarios I am generally thinking about what is most beneficial to my characters or those my character has become friends with. But when Manimarco gets bored (note: I do not say when I get bored, my character is not me, he is fictional (take note LARPers and furries)) he tries to liven things up. so far it has not come down to me killing anything yet. Things haven't been that boring yet. I did however practically give alcohol poisoning to a group of dwarves with something that makes Drow Spider Blood look like a 5% Alcohol/Vol. wine cooler. It made for a fun time and people did almost die.

I should mention where I got the name from for my character. A couple years ago I was playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my PC, and one of the villains in a side quest is a liche named Manimarco. But Oblivion also changed my view of games forever. In that game there is a quest line called The Dark Brotherhood, which is essentially an assassins guild. I enjoyed the prospect and the quests until I happened to see the result of my actions.

I had killed a man, and his servant was left alive (as I was not paid to kill him, just my target). About a month later in real life I happened to visit the town where that nefarious deed took place only to find the servant in the tavern drinking and crying over the person I had killed.

Maybe it was the voice acting or some other factor about the character, but I actually felt remorse for killing a fictional character. I have found that since that point I have not really been able to play evil in any game unless it is by misinformation on my part. Even Manimarco in DnD isn't necessarily evil, just bored.

I know I have DnD players and videogamers reading this, what are your thoughts on playing the evil guy? Do games really show enough of a result from your actions in this respect as well? I realize Call of Duty and such games where you kill hudreds of minions on a mission is one thing, but if you kill someone in particular, a person with a story and a life in the game... there should be a result of the action.

For instance, in Fallout 3 there is a chance that you can kill person X, who is the father of Person Y. Y is a child. you can talk to Y all you want, even with the dead body of X in the room, and the only thing they will say is "I have learned to take care of myself now that dad is gone." THAT'S IT? A one line thing when you dad lies dead behind you after I just put a bullet thru his brain?

It just doesn't seem like enough, even a timed event, like for the next week in game time the character is distraught, maybe doesn't say anything... but more than that 1 minute after someone dies.