History EvilCannotComprehendGood / TabletopGames

** One ''D&D'' book provides [=DMs=] with the advice that a mind flayer sorcerer might be able to predict any action the heroes would take, but can't see that they'd be willing to perform almost certain suicide to prevent him because he doesn't care enough about anything to risk his life. Mind flayers, like the Vashar, are said to be unable experience any emotion more positive than a sort of satisfaction during feeding. This trait is even self-perpetuating; mind flayers don't learn emotion from each other, but from resonance stones, psionic deelies that emanate a specific emotion. Because the mind flayers building these can't feel love or joy, they can't build stones that project love or joy, and as such the next generation of hideous tentacle-faced monsters won't understand love and joy either.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'': Part of the reason why even AAA {{MegaCorp}}s fear the Draco Foundation. The idea that an organization just as powerful as a Mega, but is motivated by moral and social, rather than economic or authoritarian reasons, completely upsets the power balance and is completely antithetical to the worldview of most corporate execs.

* ''TabletopGame/{Shadowrun}}'': Part of the reason why even AAA {{MegaCorp}}s fear the Draco Foundation. The idea that an organization just as powerful as a Mega, but is motivated by moral and social, rather than economic or authoritarian reasons, completely upsets the power balance and is completely antithetical to the worldview of most corporate execs.

* Demons and devils in ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' do not possess any of the SevenHeavenlyVirtues and have to strain themselves even to imitate them briefly. This often takes them into StupidEvil territory: lacking Faith or Charity prevents them from cooperating even towards common goals, lacking Hope and Prudence undermines their long-term planning, and lacking Justice makes them relatively easy to lie to.
* In ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'', [[TheFairFolk the True Fae]] are utterly unable to understand human motives and rationale. This isn't just a weakness, it's a ''defining trait''--if one ''does'' start to understand a human's viewpoint, they lose most of their powers in the process, and in some cases lose their memories of their true nature outright.
** This trait is potent enough that Changelings base their own government around it. The governing of their territories is routinely passed between Courts because the Fae simply ''cannot'' comprehend the idea of mutual cooperation and the willing sharing of power, which aids in concealing Changelings from the Fae.

** The {{sourcebook}} ''The Book of Vile Darkness'' introduced the Vashar, a subrace of coldly evil humans. The Vashar are said to literally be unable to comprehend "positive" emotions, to the point that most of them wouldn't think to use a hostage as leverage, because they don't consider that the victim's friends would care about them.
** Likewise, one ''D&D'' book provided [=DMs=] with the advice that a mind flayer sorcerer might be able to predict any action the heroes would take, but couldn't see that they'd be willing to perform almost certain suicide to prevent him because he doesn't care enough about anything to risk his life. Mind flayers, like the Vashar, are said to be unable experience any emotion more positive than a sort of satisfaction during feeding. This trait is even self-perpetuating; mind flayers don't learn emotion from each other, but from resonance stones, psionic deelies that emanate a specific emotion. Because the mind flayers building these can't feel love or joy, they can't build stones that project love or joy, and as such the next generation of hideous tentacle-faced monsters won't understand love and joy either.
** Inza Magdova Kulchekovitch, [[TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} Darklord of Sithicus]], has this problem. Before she became a Darklord, she justified her thieving, traitorous, downright sadistic behavior because ''of course'' everyone else felt exactly the same. Naturally, as a Darklord, her curse is the presence of true heroes in her domain, which drives her ''absolutely bonkers'' because a) she can't understand why they're selfless, and b) if true altruism actually exists, that means her worldview is entirely wrong, and she's just the bad guy. Naturally, she can't accept this, so the suppressed HeelRealization is a continuous thorn in her side.

** The Deathlords have this as one of the only weaknesses in their [[TheChessmaster strategic genius]]. As the Abyssals splatbook puts it:
---> Deathlords are notoriously selfish beings, almost incapable of truly understanding others. They might, for instance, do nothing more than ascribe their own thought processes to their enemies. ("Of course you returned to rescue your sister. Doing otherwise would suggest weakness in the face of your enemies!")
** And then there's the Ebon Dragon. The Ebon Dragon is ''bastardry incarnate''. ''Everything'' it does is centered around the idea of dicking someone else over. How bad is he? He had to create [[BigGood the Unconquered Sun]] just so he'd have a concept of what he was ''supposed'' to oppose. What's more, he's explicitly incapable of comprehending the motivations behind any kind of heroism save by dismissing it as abject insanity on the part of the hero. This doesn't prevent him from preying on the "crazy heroes", because he doesn't need to understand their motivations in order to identify and manipulate their desires.

* While ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' avoids identifying any color wholly with good or evil, White and Black both appear to have this dynamic with each other when the designers write articles describing their perspective as though they were people. Black justifies its selfish amorality by claiming [[AtLeastIAdmitIt everyone else is just as selfish and amoral as it is]] and hates White for being a hypocrite (and admittedly also for White's dedication to Black's complete annihilation). White, on the other hand, believes that the morality it subscribes to is the basic nature of life and shared by the other colors despite their actions; in White's view, Black knows right from wrong in the exact same way White does and ''deliberately chooses'' to do wrong, making it irrevocably evil. Perhaps fittingly for their names, Black and White are the colors least capable of understanding others could ''possibly'' view the universe differently than they do. Things get interesting when [[YinYangBomb White and Black are mixed.]]
* Most of humanity in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe just want to live their lives free of war. [[OurOrcsAreDifferent The Orks]], [[AxCrazy on the other hand]], find war to be not only a bloody good time, but the only endeavor worthy of their time. To an Ork, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality peace is as horrible a concept as war can be to a human being]]. This also extends to cultural aspects, orks are naturally bald and use furry biting 'air-squigs as hair implants and use their teeth as currency, not understanding why no other species in the galaxy ever accepts these two bartering items. And since to orks, the leaders grow bigger because he's in charge and vice-versa, so it took them a while to realize the highest-ranked Imperial is not the tallest but the one with the fanciest hat and BlingOfWar.

** Some [[TheCorruption Chaos]] worshippers, especially those who were born on planets under Chaos control away from Imperial borders seem to have a problem understanding why people might not want to worship soul eating EldritchAbomination hordes.
* [[AlwaysChaoticEvil The Skaven]] from ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'', similarly, don't understand ''any'' of the things humans would call 'virtues'. Traits like humility, loyalty, charity, fidelity and courage are completely alien concepts to them, as is the concept of self-sacrifice for any reason beyond "it'll be worse for you if you don't". While this means Skaven are very good at pushing buttons to manipulate human weaknesses, as deception and greed are second nature to them, their 'society' is in a constant state of near-collapse and when other species act on HonorBeforeReason it can end up completely blindsiding them.

* Most of humanity in the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe just want to live their lives free of war. [[OurOrcsAreDifferent The Orks]], [[AxCrazy on the other hand]], find war to be not only a bloody good time, but the only endeavor worthy of their time. To an Ork, peace is as horrible a concept as war can be to a human being. This also extends to cultural aspects, orks are naturally bald and use furry biting 'air-squigs as hair implants and use their teeth as currency, not understanding why no other species in the galaxy ever accepts these two bartering items. And since to orks, the leaders grow bigger because he's in charge and vice-versa, so it took them a while to realize the highest-ranked Imperial is not the tallest but the one with the fanciest hat and BlingOfWar.

* In ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'', [[TheFairFolk the True Fae]] are utterly unable to understand human motives and rationale. This isn't just a weakness, it's a ''defining trait''--if one ''does'' start to understand a human's viewpoint, they lose most of their powers in the process, and in some cases lose their memories of their true nature outright.
** This trait is potent enough that Changelings base their own government around it. The governing of their territories is routinely passed between Courts because the Fae simply ''cannot'' comprehend the idea of mutual cooperation and the willing sharing of power, which aids in concealing Changelings from the Fae.

* While ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' avoids identifying any color wholly with good or evil, White and Black both appear to have this dynamic with each other when the designers write articles describing their perspective as though they were people. Black justifies its selfish amorality by claiming [[AtLeastIAdmitIt everyone else is just as selfish and amoral as it is]] and hates White for being a hypocrite (and admittedly also for White's dedication to Black's complete annihilation). White, on the other hand, believes that the morality it subscribes to is the basic nature of life and shared by the other colors despite their actions; in White's view, Black knows right from wrong in the exact same way White does and ''deliberately chooses'' to do wrong, making it irrevocably evil. Perhaps fittingly for their names, Black and White are the colors least capable of understanding others could ''possibly'' view the universe differently than they do. Things get interesting when [[YinYangBomb White and Black are mixed.]]
* Demons and devils in ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' do not possess any of the SevenHeavenlyVirtues and have to strain themselves even to imitate them briefly. This often takes them into StupidEvil territory: lacking Faith or Charity prevents them from cooperating even towards common goals, lacking Hope and Prudence undermines their long-term planning, and lacking Justice makes them relatively easy to lie to.

* Demons and devils in ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' do not possess any of the SevenHeavenlyVirtues and have to strain themselves even to imitate them briefly. This often takes them into VillainBall territory: lacking Faith or Charity prevents them from cooperating even towards common goals, lacking Hope and Prudence undermines their long-term planning, and lacking Justice makes them relatively easy to lie to.

* Demons and devils in ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'' do not possess any of the SevenHeavenlyVirtues and have to strain themselves even to imitate them briefly. This often takes them into VillainBall territory: lacking Faith or Charity prevents them from cooperating even towards common goals, lacking Hope and Prudence undermines their long-term planning, and lacking Justice makes them relatively easy to lie to.