How to deal with players that lean "evil"?

[Celebril]

I have 2 players in my group that are awesome role-players and hilarious individuals. They come up some of the most funny, off the wall stuff. Unfortunately, they tend to like to play characters that lean toward the dark side. Now one of them wants to start a brothel. That is so un-Tolkien that I told him, "Tolkien is spinning so hard in is grave right now I worry his corpse will spontaneously combust!" after he made that comment. Personally, I am inclined to let them do these type of things and just assign them shadow points. So I am kind of curious what others have done in these type of situations or if anyone has any suggestions on dealing with them.

[Celebril]

It is if you use slaves or at least it is in my world. The point was really that I have a couple of players that lean toward the unscrupulous side of things. They are not really Tolkien fans so the whole "heroic" thing is lost on them. I am leaning toward letting them do what ever harebrained scheme they come up with as long as they know that going against the grain of the Tolkien universe will gain them shadow points.

[Rue]

I think brothels (especially with slaves), would be considered immoral at best in Tolkien's universe! Will your players get what shadow points can reall do to them?

[Celebril]

I think brothels (especially with slaves), would be considered immoral at best in Tolkien's universe! Will your players get what shadow points can reall do to them?

I should probably go over that again with them tomorrow.

[Rich H]

They are not really Tolkien fans so the whole "heroic" thing is lost on them.

Would it be better to simply play another game? Sounds a bit like you're trying to fit square pegs in round holes. Not all games are suitable to all players. You may want to play TOR but do your players, and more accurately, do they want to explore the same themes and ideas in the game that you do. If they don't then you're going to be constantly 'fighting' against each other which isn't really conducive to a fulfilling game in my experience. Perhaps a chat with your players about this would be best just to make sure you're all on the same page and want the same things out of the game.

[jacksarge]

Agree with what Rich said - personally, if I had players who wanted to do stuff like that I just wouldn't bother - let 'em go off and play D&D or some such with another GM.
The fact is that TOR is different, it has grounding in what Tolkien conveyed in his mythology- which in turn was a reflection of some of what he believed personally about the nature of good and evil. If that is too narrow for some, that's cool they can look elsewhere. TOR has a framework to operate in that is more than just game mechanics- it has a Middle Earth worldview, that's just how it is. I happen to think the game is brilliant.

[Glorelendil]

I'll 3rd that.

If I'm playing Monopoly and somebody insists on massing his hotels from Park Place and Boardwalk in order to attack the Jail, I'll suggest we play Risk instead.

[Rocmistro]

Yep, it sounds like the wrong fit for them.

Take heart, though, you are not alone in being alone among friends who do not "get" TOR. That is why this rich community exists (hehe, no pun intended Harrison), and you always have PbP.

[Rich H]

(hehe, no pun intended Harrison)

Cheeky!

[Rich H]

Celebril, if you're happy to carry on running it with your players, then do so - just because such friction would put me off doesn't mean it's the same for you.

But... If you do want to play TOR as it's designed to be played (eg, pretty much with the PCs as heroes) then you need to chat with the players and tell them what kind of game you're aiming for. It's a completely reasonable thing to talk to them about - clearly explaining the game and what you want to do with it and its reasonable for a GM to give the players an idea of the character types he would like in the game. If the players understand what you want from it then they may create characters that aren't 'evil'; they may be reverting to this because they think that's what you're happy with them doing.