I did play like evil Geralt, however I can tell it was very difficult to push myself into something, it was simply against my will. And the end, well, it was really intense. But I can say for it was very well done, it really leave heavy thoughts on your mind.
I did it. Geralt was just as mean as possible and pushed everyone away from him. In the end..
He alone continues on the Path, while most people close to him die. For B&W I killed Dettlaff, and let the sisters die. Beauclair was pretty sad after that..
No, but I did a "get as much money as you can" playthrough. Did every Gwent game until I got all cards from the base game with max bets., always tried to get most possible mony from contracts (with negotiation and 5% Gold Bonus) and did all fistfights and horseraces with max. bets. and it's very fun.
Result: 52k Money after the completion of the base game, 20% "?" left, Wolf Set Mastercrafted, Level 35. I hope that's enough for HoS and B&W now
I did, twice in fact. First time was my 2nd or 3rd playthrough (it was the reason why my first venture into HoS was very delayed - I couldn't stomach the idea to journey into HoS with this jerk). This second time had the purpose to test some things and to get Dandelion at the end of BaW.
But I had relapses for certain NPCs and quests each time, so it wasn't "complete **hole". Even with these relapses, I could only stand doing it by giving Geralt some stupid haircut and beard, and I was close to canceling the project several times.
Closest to "complete **hole" would've been the last one.
- Ciri gone (100% bad choices)
- Emhyr won; Radovid winning would be more fitting, but I wanted to test if dead Ves caused problems in act 3 with the assassination.
- Svanrige won, because I didn't bother to help either Hjalmar, Cerys or Blueboy (that is not to say that Svanrige is a bad choice. Currently, I'd vote for him.)
- didn't bother to check what the pesta had done with that fisherboy. I actually did bother to check it out after ending the quest, and it looked like a case of "this is something so far off from normal that CDPR didn't script anything for this. (peaceful pesta in the fisherman's hut.)"
- botchling was killed
- didn't bother to check how the baron fared in Return to Crookback Bog (yep, there's a special dialogue line for this event when Ciri asks about the baron's fate in act 2). It would've been a failed attempt to lift the waterhag-curse from Anna and a suicide for the Baron though...
- refused a whole lot of side quests
- megascope crystal went quickly to Radovid; the better approach would be to show it to both sorceresses and deny it to both, then give it to Radovid. I started to be in a hurry to get done with this nightmare at that time, so my will to draw it out for longer had left me.
- when given the option to kill someone or to solve a situation peacefully with Axii, you can imagine what I chose
- no romance, hostile lines towards both the red nightmare and towards Yen.
- Zero Crewe achievement in Kaer Morhen. Yeah, not even Ermion or Zoltan. I just didn't ask anyone. No, that is not really a secret achievement. Felt like one though.
- Ves died during Eye for an Eye, and not by accident
- Lambert died
- Letho's plot was sabotaged by me (killing dudes!), and then I sent him off to wherever.
- Keira died by my hands
- Mr. Draw Your Weapon died.
- didn't sleep with any potential target for sexual encounters, except with a prostitute right infront of Yen in act 3 in Crippled Kate's
- would've done the same with Triss at the Passiflora, but couldn't be bothered
- oh, that's not quite true. I did sleep with Shani after making her drunk, and I slept with the Syanna psychopath.
- killed the Kaer Morhen trolls
- chased Sarah away
- I am pretty sure that there was *nothing* that I could've brought up as an argument in my defense during Skellige's Most Wanted; but I never did that contract.
- Dandelion got the Bouidour design (nope, not because I had asked Priscilla about her opinion)
- I had planned to doom Iris to an eternity of the hell of that painting, and to join forces with O'Dimm in HoS, but then the permanent rain drove me off and away from frigging Velen at some point in the middle of HoS, and I never returned from Touissant. Both Brosodis died though. Olgierd rejoiced, to my surprise.
- Guillaume got an alcohol problem
- I failed a bunch of fistfight encounters during quests just to see what would happen
- I had plans for the quest with the witch and the woodcutter, but that didn't work as intended. (I got the kerchief, refused to be humble, then explored the cave, and the curse was lifted properly...)
- killed that monster in the arena that Guillaume was trying to fight instead of sparing it
- went full blown mental during the tournament as Ravix of Fourhorns and with a vow on the garters of the duchess.
- the old guy did not get to enjoy a day of nonstop sex; I just took the stones from him right away
- I had planned to kill Iocaste, but for some reasons, I then just wanted to finish and watch Dandelion's reaction to all 3 endings. The obvious choice would be to do the Elder Cave ending with this jerk Geralt, but I was at that time only interested in Dandelion dialogues anymore. So I just did a super effective BaW endgame that allowed me to watch all 3 endings and all 3 dialogues without having to replay too much:
1.) do Wonderland and be nice to Syanna, save just infront of Girl who got everything,
2.) get ribbon, kill Detlaff, investigate, take save
-> do a magic instant psychotherapy of that personality disorder patient and watch the amazing fairytale ending;
-> reload previous save and screw this up and watch the triple death ending;
-> reload to the save at the drugdealer girl and do not get the ribbon and watch the good ending.
For some bizarre reason, I had all the chivalric virtues, except "compassion" done when I went to the hermit though. Knights really aren't all that shiny.
I did budge from this style with:
- did not fail the Novigrad important NPC sidequests; partially because I need that Gwent card collection complete for my OCD, partially because there are limits to what I can stomach.
- I did not screw up the Carnal Sins quest, because I have done that on purpose one time already and it felt extremely bad
- I did not kill Doppler or Succubus, because I just didn't do these quests
- I was torn if I should disappoint Lambert or stay true to the mass murderer approach concerning Karadin. TBH, I do not remember what I chose.
- I couldn't make myself chose the hostile line to Detlaff at the party
- I also couldn't make myself not agree with Regis to go get Syanna in Night of Long Fangs. But that matched the intended super effective "all 3 BaW endings seen in one evening" plan, anyway.
- some minor sidequests in vanilla were done normally.
While I was romping about in Touissant and chasing the manticore armor and reading the notes, I felt that there could actually be roleplayed some sort of redemption arc for such a character: finish BaW mainquest, maybe go to jail, then do contracts and knight for hire stuff, and kill hanses and help build that Lebioda statue, and feel like you're getting some redemption like the manticore armor dude did... But yeah, I was only interested getting it over with and in the Dandelion BaW dialogues in the end.
Anyway, this resulted in a level 50 Geralt who has a lot of paintings (including the amazing Dandelion painting) and items. This one is actually going to be the basis for a NG+, if I really can be bothered to do one again. I just very much prefer NG playthroughs, because finding formulae and watching the progress of the alchemy stuff is fun.
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In the process of another "this is really not what I would ever decide" playthrough, which doesn't fit the "total **hole" label. Results will be:
- Ciri in BaW, because this Geralt slept with everything that didn't run away (like TW1 Geralt. Had a major crisis during the preparation for the Triss one night stand)
- Ciri witcheress.
- Radovid will win (because I want to see what Radovid will do in White Orchard during Vanilla Witcheress Epilogue.)
- Hjalmar will win (that will probably be the toughest thing to swallow, now that the Triss one nighter is done with. No particular sinister reason for this, except that I only seen him win once so far and want to see it again. This fits the "decisions I wouldn't normally ever do" premise.)
But I do the sidequests like a normal human being this time instead of like a sociopathic mass murderer. Will go for all BaW endings again because I like watching them.
There are indeed limits to what I can make myself do. Triss romance and Ciri empress are not on the list of these things which I can make myself do. Luckily, there's youtube to watch the results of these horrors at the end of BaW.
These "decisions I'd normally never do" playthroughs can have very interesting results though, by the way.
For instance, previously, I always chose Axii in Flesh for Sale. So,
last playthrough, mass-murder happened instead. And oddly enough, the reward is much better - extra dialogue line with one of the freed people; access to the slaver leader's hut and his chests. He even had a superior formula.
So, hard as it is, I advocate such playthroughs for sure, within the limits of what's still possible to stomach. You do not want to push the limits so far that you are just too disgusted by the sight of that swine Geralt and can't stand the franchise anymore. But if you somehow stay within your limits, it's very interesting indeed. And some ugly haircut and uglier beard style helps.
Last time, during one of the crisis times, I went and made a new Geralt and adventured a bit in White Orchard like a normal human being (actually, I am now continuing this "vacation from nastiness"-Geralt in my current playthrough), until I had recovered from the crisis and could return to the nasty project.
Its pretty hard to dedicate an entire playthrough to just achieve supreme inhumanity... Even the thought of it overwhelms me with self hatred...
I think there's an "evil geralt grand collection" on youtube with all sorts of bad choices/endings, including
Keira impaled on s stake
Lambert dead
refuse to help Triss to help mages escape
give philippa crystal to triss to decipher then give it to radovid
sell Ciri to Emhyr
break up with Yen
let dijkstra kill roche/thaler
Ciri dead
and the guy even killed that werewolf in epilogue quest
I can only speak for myself, but what drives me to do such things is absolutely not "to achieve supreme inhumanity".
Instead, the reason is that I want to explore the whole content of the game and witness most of the dialogues and events that can happen.
That said, I am still amazed that CDPR has thought of about 99% of the varieties in which people can do the quests, including the really far from normal ways, and a lot of the outlandish behaviour has their own special game responses.
Example from Tower of Mice
1.) "correct way": get Graham onto Fyke Isle. Keira will respond with "was he aware of what was involved?" "yes, but he had heard stories about True Love and did it willingly."
2.) "incorrect way": give Graham the bones of the pesta. Check out the hut immediately. Pesta will disappear. Keira will ridicule Geralt a bit about how he got fooled by a pesta. Journal mentions that this is how the plague came to Velen.
3.) "REALLY incorrect way". give Graham the bones of the pesta. Ignore the hut and just go to Keira. Keira: "And what happened then?" Geralt: "I don't know. He only had to bury the bones, so I suppose he'll be fine." <-- ! .o( "they didn't REALLY just write extra dialogue for what I just did, did they?")
The minor flaw here is that the pesta is then present in the hut, but in friendly state and won't do anything if you finally check the hut. Graham is dead of course.
To be honest, I did not check the journal entry, but it is quite possible that there was another specific journal entry for just this rather outlandish case of player behaviour.
The fact that CDPR wrote and recorded the dialogue lines for that third path through this quest is simply mind blowingly superb and excellent game design.
I wouldn't expect this sort of thing in any game I previously played (and I really like to torment and twist the regular flow of quests in games just to see what happens. It's a hobby.) In any other good game, I would expect dialgues for path #1 and #2,and if I did #3, either the quest would break thoroughly, or I'd hear dialogue option #2. Not so in this game. Any other mediocre or bad game would just have one dialogue and path for the quest anyway and you couldn't do anything except the strictly linear path which the devs force onto you.
This crazy flexibility is what makes TW3 absolutely amazing.
TW1 had this too, but things tended to go down the "dialogues are now VERY confused" path if I went about too wildly. TW2, had a bit less freedom than TW1, but it was far more robustly tested and well designed for all the cases when it had flexibility: Yep, they even thought of unlikely events such as "sword was given to Iorveth, but then Roche path was chosen".
And yeah, to see all these things CDPR was awesome enough to think of, you have to chose dialogue options you never would chose normally. And well, because I am a human being, I then try and lump all these bad choices together into one wholesomely horrible playthrough to get done with it in one go, instead of drawing it out through several replays. This, then, results in "total @**hole Geralts."
So, yeah, fangirlish CDPR worship aside... this is my motivation why I do these things. Not because I "want to achieve supreme inhumanity".
You can check a youtube channel for this. Just search, Witcher 3 Evil Choices. There is this one dude who has a playlist of evil choices Geralt can make. lol
I made a post about this about a year ago proposing the same thing. I do plan on doing it myself sometime after this playthrough, I will probably play it on the easiest mode just because it's all about seeing the other side of the story and less about gameplay itself, but I think it will be fun to play Geralt as a complete whoreson and just be a total dick to everyone.
In one of my playthroughs i tried to be as evil as possible.
Well, there aren't really bad consequences for geralt himself.
I would have liked more variety there.
As soon as I've had a long enough break from the game, I really want to do an evil playthrough the only things I think I'll have trouble with are letting Lambert, Roche, and Keira die (and in that order)...
