In real life, crime and "evil" tend to be tempting to those so inclined. Easy money, a desperate solution to a problem, or a political-esque agenda. As much as I love fallout, I'm not sure that I have ever found the "dark side" to be tempting. When I do an evil playthrough, it's usually a second or third run-through, because I want to see those quests, or just have fun blasting. But I never really feel like going full dark out of desperation or for greed, beyond "I like that guy's hat and I don't see it for sale anywhere." The legion doesn't tempt me with greater money or power or anything than the other endings. The most goody-goody courier will end up dangerous, powerful, loved, and silly rich. "Evil" is left with, "Well... uh... you can be a sadist, I guess, if you want." I can't be bribed into being evil in Fallout. Tenpenny's Megaton "bribe" was a joke for people who just want to see the world burn, for instance. Caesar doesn't offer the courier a radically better life than the other endings, I think, unless you really really love slaves and killin'.
Can anyone think of any examples to the contrary? I'd love to hear them.

Ahh, this is a fun question and it goes deeper as it is a question that psychologists and philosophers have been trying to answer for thousands of years.

Personally, on the video game level, I really enjoy evil characters. Many times, their motivations can go far deeper than simple greed or lust if they are written correctly. Perhaps, the character is evil out of an external motivation or upbringing. Perhaps, they are not truly "evil" as you would define it. 

Take the example of Caesar from FNV. Was Edward Sallow an evil man when he was volunteering to help the tribes via the Followers of the Apocalypse? Was Joshua Graham evil when he set out as a missionary who sought to study tribal dialects and become an interpreter? When they were captured by the Blackfoot, they were going to die by proxy if they didn't help the Blackfoot fight the other tribes they were warring against. 

What began as way to escape death, became the means in which Edward Sallow became Caesar. Now, he was by his own admission a prideful man to begin with before he ever encountered the Blackfoot but I don't think anyone could have said he was evil. 

Personally, I love evil characters in video games if they are written correctly. I love playing as them as well and that is coming from a person who is a law abiding citizen in RL. I just love putting myself into the shoes and mind of someone who perhaps thinks that what they are doing is RIGHT even if society would disagree. But in the case of Edward Sallow, if society doesn't agree with your concept of RIGHT than you simply kill every other society until your the only one left to have an opinion.

It's indeed fun sometimes in a game to be so different from real life, and just let loose the violence or whatever. But did Tenpenny or Caesar actually "tempt" me to be evil? Have any of my characters ever been murderous because it was simply easier? Again, not unless I was already planning on playing someone who would commit murder for a hat; no temptation necessary.
It's not the end of the world if fallout evil has never "tempted" me to turn bad for money or power, but it'd be nice to see for once, like if Tenpenny had actually made an offer so damned good that it would have tempted my otherwise law-abiding character to blow up megaton for the reward.

Yeah it is, the most evil choices really do benefit you in some way and sometimes... the evil choices are just too funny to pass up lol

It just depends on one's perspective on how you look at evil. There is a line drawn between lawful evil, and chaotic evil. Lawful evil is mostly for people like my profession sometimes in gaming, because at first you believed yourself as a hollier-than-thou-art sort of white knight and you believed you could be a savior, you believed you could do good. Which is, save the world, stop evil, and get the girl. But at some later point when the rest of the world seems like it's against you, it hurts if you never felt it before, to be betrayed by your own kind. Like one could compare it to witchcraft and someone's just saying shit about you in which you feel or know that isn't true, so you want to prove to them otherwise. But as you feel suppressed by another force of evil entirely when you try to expose them, or save the people from their lies, god-forbid if you ever let them succeed without a challenge.

It is at that point you become empty and speechless. You just don't know what to do anymore, everything seems overwhelming, and you feel the world's hatred upon your shoulders. And then shortly afterwards, after the emotional recovery, you say 'Fuck it. If people are truly against me for believing the lies of that evil force, then I will destroy that evil force, even if it means killing everyone who is against me'. That's my example of lawful evil. Chaotic evil is just for outright, deranged and delusional psychopaths who like to rob and kill just for fun. It benefits them, yet they don't care who they kill, regardless if they've been attacked by someone other or not. And in fact, sometimes in the rarest motions, it's chaotic evil that breeds lawful evil. Which means the lawful evil person will always seek revenge against the chaotic evil person that ruined his/her life, and yet survived because of it.

So the ultimate question you ask is, is evil really 'tempting'? Well, if you have no moral boundaries holding you back, yes it may seem tempting to some or many. But the real conclusion is, you're either true evil, or a necessary evil.

When you're bored as shit, yeah. My only problem when I play fallout is I take it too seriously, but when the illusion of the game has faded I start treating it like Saints Row and start to blow shit up. Ashes the Cat? Blow that shit up. Mama Murphy? Blow that shit up. Myrna the Paranoid? Blow that shit up.

It gets even better when it's New Vegas because there's so much npc from The Strip all the way to Freeside.

Idk, it is simpler to me, for example i've just finished InFamous 1 and 2(again), i never went full evil or full good. On one hand, i just don't have that many moral boundaries and/or idealistic thought process while deciding to save people or gain power, i mean, why should i care about a bunch of random people that i don't even know..?     They can burn for all i care, better yet if that gets me power, but on the other hand, i do care for the ones close to me, the people i actually know.

However, many evil or good missions sounded a bit dumb and pointless or i just found them downright stupid and went for the alternative instead, i don't care if i'm not the new messiah or the fucking anti-Christ or some shit, i prefer to get things done as effective and practical as possible.

Even though I use video games as an escape from life, I find myself adhering to my values regardless. So I'm always a goody two shoes, never steal, save as many as possible, etc. Interesting question, no doubt.

If one is playing a character who is psychotic enough to murder simply out of boredom, then evil doesn't have to offer some kind of bribe or hard choice or whatever, so psychotic characters don't quite count for purposes of my question. They're already on the dark side,basically.
Blowing up Megaton for a handful of caps, and losing out on a whole town of vendors. It never felt sensible, let alone tempting, outside of those psychotic bored characters. A handful of caps is not temptation to a sane, decent, non-lunatic to destroy a whole town. It's frankly a terrible bribe. Like trying to bribe a cop with a quarter -- you gotta try harder, evil.

This is quite an interesting subject. Almost reminds me of Crusader Kings II, to which your ruler starts to have ambitions after a euphoria of boredom, that's never a good sign for anything. But again, that's just a politics simulator, it tells you how stupid and petty people are. I never played Crusader Kings II myself, but I get the idea.

In conclusion to the question of chaotic evil types, I consider more of myself as an anti-hero. Meaning I can do alot of nasty shit, and can be very sadistic in torturing my victims, though I can help certain people or groups, but only if it benefits me. Otherwise I just won't care. No, I'm not exactly an Otis Driftwood like the few of you are, but the ideas of sadistic cruelty can relate. Though I like how njmanga097 said it like it is. One white knighter here? Blew that shit up. One Sam the Proud? Blew that shit up. One Charles the Sinister? Blew that shit up. Oh, how I just love bringing truce of that 'blowing shit up' argument with a custom-made MIRV mortar cannon I made in FNV just recently... (It crushes the competition easy if you're outdoors, saves you time to call an airstrike or having to get your hands dirty, which in that case I only pull out a few shottys and SMGs when going indoors or close quarters combat.)

As for evil being 'tempting' to me, yeah I get bored sometimes but that's not usually the common motivator for tempted evil. More times than not which makes evil really tempting, that you would proudly do and not give a shit for, of all the things that piss me the fuck off like the NCR for instance, or real life bullshit, it's always a good stress reliever to take your anger upon a bunch of random NCR civies on the Strip and Freeside. House and the families can't do shit to stop me. But yeah, unlike the 'NCR', I don't waste time with talking and dialogue, I just get right into the action, and kill as many NCR scum as the eye can see. "Durrr, I'm an NCR ranger and I'm 'da grim reapa', I'm big n' scary, you has three days to fix your repu" man, shut the fuck up bitch! Not trying to hear that shit. I didn't give a fuck back then and I still don't give a fuck. So yeah, I found their secret cell as to where they wait, so I go there and kill them so they don't spawn. I'm aware there is a no ultimatums mod for FNV, but I scripted in my own code so that they'll ambush and fight instead of talking.

Though in vanilla terms, the Legion is slightly a better enemy than the NCR, because they don't waste their time with this 'peacekeeper' crap. Even though they'll engage you in the dialogue menu anyway and say you've been marked for death. Aside from that, they'll just try to swing at my nuts, and of course. I welcome them to try. Whether I blew their asses up with a mortar strike, or up close and personal just how they like it, with a very large fucking jet hammer, or even that of a plasma-powered battle-axe. So yeah. I avoid hitting my companions and ally troops as much as I can, hence I gave them an anti-friendly fire script, but everyone else? Fuck 'em. Don't care about 'em, they can all eat shit and die while I take my fellow Horsemen of the Apocalypse across the mojave or wherever.

Evil has always been seen as the opposite of Good and justice, and many people in the real world would tend to stay on the path of Good but Evil is always lurking round the corner for unsuspecting people to fall into its grip. So yes, it is tempting. The promises of power, money, and anything that you could ever desire are the only few factors that would drive Man insane and slip into Evil when Greed comes to play. Although Mankind apart from a certain few has learned to resist it.

I along with most when playing games like Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Fable - basically any game that has karma for our actions, we would tend to be the hero. Save villages from bandits! Kill that monster! Help the people! You know the rest, all those things that will give our characters a good reputation, be the true hero or champion that the world needed. Then we get bored or curious and start our Evil walkthrough by butchering every single sentinel being seen on screen - as long as it walks and made sounds - kill 'em.

Sometimes I take Roleplaying too far in games like Total War and Hearts of Iron 4, when politics come into play. And that's where my temptation to rule comes to play. In Hearts of Iron 4, I played as Germany just for the sake of it to see how long I could survive. I tried to change history a little but it became too much when Poland was annexed by Slovakia thus avoiding one of the major events between Soviet Russia and Germany of that time. WW2 carried out as per normal, Japan with their war with China, Italy starting hacking away in Africa, France pushed and almost captured Norway before being pushed back resulting in Norway joining the Axis. Then, I prepared for Stalin's push in 1942 but imagine my total surprise when USA came and asked to join the Axis, out of curiosity I accepted and they went rampaging in Canada - and nearly lost. I had to sent several divisions over to aid their invasion on poor Canada while UK and SU was pounding hard on my allies. Best game ever - HOI4 "Screwing history since day 1"

Evil is very cool if you have magic or super power and the most important thing is that as a hero, as Arstas (King of the Lich) tried to stop you somehow, let the icy sorrow go for blood.

I think I've got a bad English as always

I get the feeling my question was completely misunderstood somehow.

I can't quite bring myself to play an outright evil character in Fallout, Elder Scrolls, etc. Closest I'll come in those kinds of games is an anti-hero. Even then, I'm still pretty damn good-natured.

Yes, if only to see what the result of said action would be.

Come on, we've all blown up Megaton, or sided with the Powder Gangers at least once, if only because we could. It's like driving on the sidewalk in GTA V. There's a weird psychology behind all of this. I did a game theory class last year where we talked about modes of play and this came up. I can't remember the term (if anyone else can, please help!), but basically, it's that when you're playing a game, you'll act out things that are ridiculous, or immoral, just to see what the result would be, or simply because you can. There's a power dynamic to the whole thing that's really interesting.

Anyway, getting way off topic, but yes. And honestly, I think everyone should, if only because of all the funny dialogue you can get playing as a psychopath in the Fallout games, especially 2 and New Vegas.

To answer the original question, I think evil is always tempting.

If you're basing your gaming expeirence off of the way you've played games up until this point then I think evil is not tempting to you, or you're scared of not getting the best ending/outcome from something. I know I go on about Bioware games constantly to the point where everyone must be sick of reading it, but older Bioware games have the best karma system in games. Mass effect challenges plain "Good Vs. Evil" and poses it as a Paragon and Renegade system, which I think is a better terminology for it because how often in day to day life is good and evil ever so black and white?

Morality is a social construct, so temptation is part of that too. Temptation is inherently human, if you're never inclined to do evil or fuck someone over in a game then that is down to the individual. Playing as Shepard in ME you can be a renegade who has questionable methods but also gets the job done, or you can be a through and through military operative who saves the day.In KOTOR you can be a dark or light jedi, even settling for the gray inbetween.

The gray morality is often what I go for, I react as I want the character would react in the moment, not what I the player think is right or wrong, or what I think would yeild a better outcome. Sometimes disregarding past expeirence or playthroughs and doing something in the mindset of a character you're playing as will provide a better experience overall.

To bring it back around, yes. I do think that "Evil" or questionable acts in games are tempting. How many "Very Good" playthroughs of the Fallout games have we all done? Sometimes it's better to take of the shackles of saving the day and embracing the chaotic game worlds we choose to immerse ourselves in.

*What is Normal for the Spider is Chaos for the Fly*

On an entertainment level (for things like video games), committing acts of evil are usually born from 1) the fun factor of doing things you'd never be able to live with in real life, and 2) convenience. And the second reason is a really big one. You're willing to do a lot in a video game just to save some time or make things easier on yourself.

Answer above ^

Idk, if im doing a evil roleplay, i dont hesistate. being Evil is one of the most entertaining options because its so ridiculous in Bethesda games. Ex: Burning Harold, Nuking Megaton, Sacrificing a follower for Boethia, White glove society is my favorite companion sacrifice

I just can’t do evil. Like at all. I know it’s stupid but I feel guilty and wrong. I find I can’t escape my morals, even in games. Sure, every now and then I save the game and go to town on some faces, but I always load up my previous save.