Evil Is Petty/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A convention often seen in Karma Meter-based games where Evil consists of doing lots of tiny, petty annoying acts.

  • Straight: In Fangblade, Spyke can be played as a decent, straightforward hero or a rude, obxonious Jerkass, with the former giving him lots of 'good' points and the latter lots of 'evil' points.
  • Exaggerated: Fangblade has two entirely different paths depending on the player's choices. Spyke can either be The Chosen One who saves the world while setting a perfect example for all, or a self-centered Jerkass who sets half the world ablaze and lets the rest smoulder For the Evulz.
  • Justified: In Fangblade, the Ultimate Evil is a Trickster Archetype who thrives on Chaos, while the Designated Big Good is a Knight Templar: two Jerkass Gods vying over a Crapsack World.
  • Inverted: Reputation casts you as Lord Draco, son of the high-ranked House Godwin of The Empire. You can follow in your daddy's footsteps as an Affably Evil loyalist, or become a rude revolutionary fighting to overturn the evil empire.
  • Subverted: Player Bob makes Spyke kick a puppy, but he doesn't gain any evil points for it.
  • Double Subverted: ...because it was a werewolf puppy. Kicking a normal puppy still gets evil points.
  • Parodied: The big actions you can take over the course of the game -- like saving a burning orphanage or being the one who set it on fire in the first place -- have absolutely no effect on Spyke's Karma Meter. Instead, it's decided entirely by petty acts like whether you avoid swearing or Cluster F-Bomb your way through dialogue, petting or kicking puppies, and such things.
  • Deconstructed: Spyke quickly discovers that he Can't Get Away with Nuthin': no matter how rudely others treat him for being different, even being the tiniest bit snarky in response has everyone treating him like that just proves he's evil, including the Jerkass Knight Templar God. The only one who welcomes such behavior is the Chaos God, meaning he apparently has to choose between putting up with everyone else's crap or go full-blown evil.
  • Reconstructed: This whole situation turns out to be a game-wide Secret Test of Character: in the end, Spyke discovers that the Gods' personalities are determined by what their worshippers believe, and he can Take A Third Option of changing how the gods are viewed, rewriting their personalities to something that better suits his sensibilities.
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: While Spyke can choose to be petty, it has no effect on his Karma Meter.
  • Enforced: "It'd take a lot of time and money to script an entirely separate 'evil path' for this game. Why don't we railroad the player down a single path, but provide 'polite' and 'dick' responses in the conversation trees that create the illusion of choice?"
  • Lampshaded: ???
  • Invoked: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: "As a villain, I expect you won't be satisfied burning my house and killing my father. No doubt you'll want to smash my porcelain figurine collection, stomp through my vegetable garden, and give me a wedgie too."
  • Conversed: ???
  • Plotted A Good Waste: ???
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: ???

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