I'm too much of a wuss, I just can't go darkside on any of my characters. I've got 3 imps and 2 rep characters and all of them are as lightside as you can get. I just can't bring myself on any character to chose darkside options at all!

Am I missing out on lots of fun? What can I do to embrace the darkside?!

Darkside can be interesting at times and stupid evil at others.

Try going darkside trooper, usually the choices are more pragmatism rather than kitten kicking. For example, killing an obviously guilty man instead of letting in go to trial, where he can delay forever; or taking supplies for yourself rather than letting them go to waste in some storage facility.

I'm too much of a wuss, I just can't go darkside on any of my characters. I've got 3 imps and 2 rep characters and all of them are as lightside as you can get. I just can't bring myself on any character to chose darkside options at all!

 

Am I missing out on lots of fun? What can I do to embrace the darkside?!

5 fully dark sided characters. And yes you are missing out on a different side of questing. It involves lots of killing and revenge.

I like to set "rules" for a character when I start out. For instance, a bounty hunter that always honors the original terms of the contract, as some sort of personal honor code. That can lead to darkside choices, as well as light. The Trooper who always follows orders. The Jedi that works "for the greater good," even if that means killing now/letting good people die now, if more can be saved later. Etc.

Basically, a character can have a personal code that isn't necessarily full of rainbows and sunshine. Darkside characters don't have to be honorless, for instance.

While I think full dark can be funny, I do think playing "gray" is far more compelling, and a good way to ease into DS choices.

To this day I've only managed to stick to one 'Pure' Light side character - A Jedi Guardian. Everything else I choose based on the situation and the personality I've associated to that toon.

The Dark side always proves to be more interesting/funny. Try it - The Inquisitor Really suits it. The light side actually feels wrong on that story.

I'm usually light-only or at least, close to it... but once in awhile I dip my toe in the dark side.

There's basically 3 possible triggers for this:

1) The dark side option doesn't even make sense as a "dark side" option in the first place. The absolute biggest of these is the Fort Garnik medical supplies mission. I could complain for a month about that mission; but on my Troopers I always go Dark Side on that option, even though I'm a lightsider through and through.

There are, as I recall, a few other cases like this as well; but *most* aren't so ridiculous.

2) The character has a sufficiently good reason, in their perspective, for doing something even though they know it's wrong. For instance, an enemy has wronged them personally to such a degree that the idea of letting them live is just out of the question; or they're too emotionally invested to think entirely rationally and are just acting on emotion.

3) I'm on my Sith Marauder. She's a bit of an odd duck in that she has a very peculiar moral code that kind of makes her a Proud Warrior Race Gal.

Basically if you attack her or her friends, she feels honor bound to kill you unless you can give her a *really* good reason not to. She doesn't believe in taking prisoners in any but the most extreme of circumstances either - fight and die with honor, surrender is for cowards.

That said, if you're an honorable person you've nothing to fear from her - she's absolutely happy to help those who can't help themselves; and while she'll kill you if you attack her - she's never particularly cruel about it; if you're going to die it's going to be as quick and painless as possible.

So her alignment ends up being very neutral, since she makes a lot of light side and dark side choices practically bake to back, sometimes within the same arc depending on changing circumstances.

------

Someday I may try a straight Darkside character, but I have a hard time envisioning myself doing it to be honest.

3) I'm on my Sith Marauder. She's a bit of an odd duck in that she has a very peculiar moral code that kind of makes her a Proud Warrior Race Gal.

Since you bring up TV Tropes (and I both love and hate you for getting me sucked back into that site), some other useful tropes to play a not cartoonishly evil character are the Evil Virtues and Noble Demon or even Lawful Evil.

But yes, sometimes the good or evil choice is just so dumb (or as you pointed out, not actually "dark") that even my full light Sage picks a darkside option every now and then.

I love killing Cathar.

I've killed Cathar called Kittenface, Meow and more.

I kill them over and over and when they ask "Why?!?" I /say "Because I hate cats."

I like to set "rules" for a character when I start out. For instance, a bounty hunter that always honors the original terms of the contract, as some sort of personal honor code. That can lead to darkside choices, as well as light. The Trooper who always follows orders. The Jedi that works "for the greater good," even if that means killing now/letting good people die now, if more can be saved later. Etc.

 

Basically, a character can have a personal code that isn't necessarily full of rainbows and sunshine. Darkside characters don't have to be honorless, for instance.

 

While I think full dark can be funny, I do think playing "gray" is far more compelling, and a good way to ease into DS choices.

I like to set rules too. But I struggle to stick with them, I just feel so morally wrong saying "kill the prisoners" that I end up with real life guilt over my virtual actions...

I need help don't I

I like to set rules too. But I struggle to stick with them, I just feel so morally wrong saying "kill the prisoners" that I end up with real life guilt over my virtual actions...

 

I need help don't I

I've had the saaaame thing. In fact the action that I had the most guilt over was a light side choice.

Spoiler for Trooper story -

 

 

In the Trooper story, you befriend a special forces Sergeant named Jaxo - then much later you're both working together to rescue Republic POWs from an Imperial prison. Long story short, things go horribly wrong and you've got a nasty decision to make: Kill your friend Jaxo, or let the POWs die. While I couldn't bring myself to let the POWs die, and I reluctantly killed Jaxo, that was a decision that left me so upset I had to log out for the rest of the day.

I'm too much of a wuss, I just can't go darkside on any of my characters. I've got 3 imps and 2 rep characters and all of them are as lightside as you can get. I just can't bring myself on any character to chose darkside options at all!

 

Am I missing out on lots of fun? What can I do to embrace the darkside?!

Wow.. Glad to know I am not the only one with this issue.. I have 5 republic characters.. All lightside.. I have 2 darkside characters, none above lvl 15.. Even those are lightside at the moment.. I am having issues with the plots..

<Sigh>

I do like some of the advice in this thread though.. I really would like an imp character some day..

I like to set "rules" for a character when I start out. For instance, a bounty hunter that always honors the original terms of the contract, as some sort of personal honor code. That can lead to darkside choices, as well as light. The Trooper who always follows orders. The Jedi that works "for the greater good," even if that means killing now/letting good people die now, if more can be saved later. Etc.

 

Basically, a character can have a personal code that isn't necessarily full of rainbows and sunshine. Darkside characters don't have to be honorless, for instance.

 

While I think full dark can be funny, I do think playing "gray" is far more compelling, and a good way to ease into DS choices.

Yeah, that's what I do, too. Before I start playing a character, I think about what kind of person s/he is. For some I have even made up some loose background story.

This helps when facing difficult decisions, because it helps distinguishing your RL self from your character. At that point, I guess, it becomes role play, and it adds a great big deal to the fun. (For me at least, I'm a sucker for immersion. I spend hours to create a character around the given voice acting and role/class until it "feels right".)

A side effect of this is that I sometimes felt bad when I let my RL self and its morales/philosophy interfere with the character, because I feel like I betrayed the character by forcing them to act "out of character".

That doesn't just apply to dark side choices, but also to light side choices, where in RL I would have said "learn to deal with it", but my light side character should not have wavered and offered unconditional support.

I also recommend some reading up on the philosophies of the dark side and light side. It's not simply good/evil. If you're familiar with Jade Empire, compare the notes on the ways of the "Open Palm" and "Closed Fist" - they're not simply good/evil, either. Understanding that also help creating a character that is consistent/authentic and can make dark side choices without player remorse.

ETA:

You have to consider the circumstances of your character and the situation. A very good example of the malleable meaning of light side and dark side is one situation in the game, where you are faced with an NPC infected with the a virus.

The empire players get the choice to kill him immediately (light side = mercifully ending his suffering) or wait until the plague kills him (dark side = watch him suffer).

Republic players, though, get the choices to immediately kill him (dark side = prematurely ending a life, murder) or let him live / wait until the virus kills him (light side = letting life come to it's "natural" end, not interfering, not getting your hand dirty etc.).

I'm too much of a wuss, I just can't go darkside on any of my characters. I've got 3 imps and 2 rep characters and all of them are as lightside as you can get. I just can't bring myself on any character to chose darkside options at all!

 

Am I missing out on lots of fun? What can I do to embrace the darkside?!

What you need to do is to create a "throw-away charcter" that you can go fully dark side on. Where you force yourself to pick every dark side choice there is.

Preferrably this would be a sith character, but a jedi could work too.

Just make sure that no matter what you always pick the dark side choice.

After a while you will learn that its just a character and not an extension of yourself, so you can start picking dark side choices for your characters when it "feels right" in the game.

I feel no moral obligations on this game. After all, it's just pixels I would feel guilty for example if I deliberately went out my way to Need on loot which wasn't for me but clearly suited for someone else in the party (not something I practice btw).

With me, I've seen the "good guys" win in the movies, I wanna give the villains a chance

Both my Juggernaut and Mercenary are Light V lol

Been pondering creating an Imperial Agent, guess I could go dark with him

I like to set rules too. But I struggle to stick with them, I just feel so morally wrong saying "kill the prisoners" that I end up with real life guilt over my virtual actions...

 

I need help don't I

Being softhearted and empathetic enough that game characters trigger your conscience is admirable, not wrong. You should be proud to be sensitive enough, rather than embarrassed. The world needs more people like you, rather than more people like me.

You can never play a fully LS/DS character (through the storied options) that doesn't come out being a bizarre idiot one way or the other. Not sure if they did it on purpose like that and they're subtly brilliant or if it just came out that way and I'm perceiving brilliance in random chaos.

Either way, everything I've played through fully to date is less like a person and more like a two dimensional, very poor comic book figure the more heavily you emphasize absolute focus on LS or DS convo options.

Now, if they'd just get rid of LS/DS requirements on those leveling relics, we could all play characters that'd choose as we'd like without having to sacrifice valuable Endurance pre-50+.

All the vanity junk is fine for having LS/DS requirements on, but really now, relics aren't vanity.

I'm too much of a wuss, I just can't go darkside on any of my characters. I've got 3 imps and 2 rep characters and all of them are as lightside as you can get. I just can't bring myself on any character to chose darkside options at all!

 

Am I missing out on lots of fun? What can I do to embrace the darkside?!

There is no real consequence to your actions. They all lead down the same path. Just some of the responses and in game mail the NPC's send you will be different.

One thing I really hate about the LS/DS choices, is that it is always a DS choice to make someone actually do their job. How is it a LS choice to let soldiers desert and leave their base undermanned so that their fellow soldiers have to work harder and are more vulnerable to attack? Or, "Oh no, don't send the elite highly decorated commando unit into the base, I'll go alone instead. You guys just stay here and play cards or something." Or, "Oh I know I'm supposed to be training you guys to defend yourselves, your families and your homes, but one of you may get a splinter during this fight. So you guys just sit here and I'll go alone." I know the player is supposed to be the "HERO" but some of the quests get a bit ridiculous. When I play a Republic character I really start to feel like they deserve to lose.

Anyway, I stopped worrying about LS/DS after my first character. When I make a new character I come up with a basic idea of how they are going to act and that is what determines the choices I make.

I have a single darkside character and he set out with the rule. Only evil choices, he never took a light side choice and always went darkside if there was an option. His compaions mostly hate him. The mails I get usual explain that the person who sends it hates me but they have to send me credits because the reward light/dark must be equal and many of his choices have been mind blowing stupid. However it can be amusing at times.

My biggest issue with a lot of darkside choices are they are clearly stupid, where as light side as a general rule might be a bit girly are not as dumb.

On my other 5 chars most have been light 2 or 3 I tend to play them as I would make the choices so they end up mostly light with the occasional darkside choice when the light side seems too wimpy.

One thing I really hate about the LS/DS choices, is that it is always a DS choice to make someone actually do their job. How is it a LS choice to let soldiers desert and leave their base undermanned so that their fellow soldiers have to work harder and are more vulnerable to attack? Or, "Oh no, don't send the elite highly decorated commando unit into the base, I'll go alone instead. You guys just stay here and play cards or something." Or, "Oh I know I'm supposed to be training you guys to defend yourselves, your families and your homes, but one of you may get a splinter during this fight. So you guys just sit here and I'll go alone." I know the player is supposed to be the "HERO" but some of the quests get a bit ridiculous. When I play a Republic character I really start to feel like they deserve to lose.

"From a certain point of view..."

And that's really all it is, certain points of view. The problem is- from a game mechanic perspective, it must be one or the other.

One of my all-time favorite pet-peeves with an LS/DS choices (and morality in missions in general) is Nik Deleru's mission on Coruscant- the one where you're tasked to find his mate whom he says has been kidnapped.

The "good" choice is more or less to condone lying to the poor sap (however deluded he may be) and carry her message back to him because she can't do it her damn self, apparently (which she should have done in the first damn place or you wouldn't even be on this mission).

The "bad" choice is to tell her she has to go back.

Now, I don't care much for Nik, but honestly I don't like her any better. They're both maladaptive scumbags from my perspective.

I'd love a third option, the one that says "I'm not your damn message boy, leave the creeper if you want, but at least tell him you're doing it, and tell him yourself,".

But that isn't in the cards, of course. In the end, someone had to write this thing, and that's what they decided is good and bad. As for me, I twitch every time I do that damn mission.

I used to have this problem too, until I discovered this game. I think it's the voice acting that did it for me, allowing me to really feel the character come alive as their own separate being. Also, easier leveling (compared to other games I've played) means that I can always go back and do it again with another character. If I kill off someone, I can always leave them alive the next time I play with a different character, you know? So the story is malleable and nothing feels totally "final." I establish a character personality and then watch it unfold as the story progresses, and as long as I'm being true to the character, the story feels "right." This has allowed me to play dark side characters and have great fun with them.

I highly recommend the sith inquisitor story as a good one to play dark side. It feels very natural and is loads of fun. I play mine as power-hungry and borderline crazy. She seeks to prove herself and gain personal glory, no matter who she steps on. She feels no sympathy for those weaker than her, because she thinks they deserve what they get. She's snarky and sarcastic and has some of the best one-liners I've heard on the Empire side. She's so mean that sometimes it's actually comical and I get a good laugh out of her.