D & D Going All Evil. Experiences?

[Hussar]

Well, I'm going to start my new campaign next week. Really looking forward to it. A 3.5 Savage Tide campaign that I've been working on for quite a while. And, as an added twist, my players have chosen to be bad guys on this one. Fortunately STAP works pretty well either way, with a few tweaks here and there.

This is my first time running an all evil campaign. In the past I'd shied away from it to be honest. While I didn't mind characters that were morally ambivalent, outright evil was something I generally wasn't interested in. Should be interesting.

In order to keep things functioning though, I felt the need to bring up a few ground rules for the group. Mostly I don't want one player deciding to off the rest of the party in their sleep to steal their magic items. So, I laid it out pretty plainly. I told the group that the game would be, to borrow an MMO term, PVE (Players Vs the Environment)

Essentially, in MMO's, if you play PVE, you can only attack other players in very limited and typically mutually agreed upon circumstances. Usually there's some sort of arena, or special area, or you have to give your permission to be attacked. Depends on the MMO.

In this campaign, we've agreed that the players must come up with a way to weave their backgrounds together such that sticking a knife in a fellow player isn't really an option. We haven't really come up with a way to signal when two players can go at each other yet, and I'm not sure if pre-arranging that sort of thing is necessary anyway. I think I'll let that come up in play.

What I'm wondering from all of you kind, intelligent and wonderous people, is if you have any experience running an all evil campaign and what pit falls I should look out for and how do you handle in party conflicts?

[Mark]

I really feel that evil is for monsters and villains, not PCs. IME, players who try to play evil do not actually play evil, just selfish, and use their own desires to justify heinous acts. Perhaps the worst part is finding mid-campaign that all you are really doing as DM is facilitating your friends, if they are friends, or strangers to describe a collection of bizarre and disturbing fantasies, many of which you might discover you would rather not have heard. There is rarely any subtlety or nuance and it usually become a litany of backstabbing and greed. Sadly, it's the ones that introduce the subtlety and nuance who can be the most disturbing. Remember, an NPC or monster is an objective creation made for a plot purpose, while a PC is meant to be an extension of the player's imagination and fantastical desire. Many have told me that their campaign would be different but stories I have heard post-campaign are to the contrary. Be prepared ot view the people you game with quite differently. Mind you, I have only been doing this for three and a half decades and my opinion is limited to my own experiences in many home campaigns, some where there were just one or more evil characters, some where one or more became evil and wanted to try playing that for a while, never with a full-blown intention of all PCs being evil.

[Crothian]

We did an all evil campaign once. But we made a mistake and didn't talk about what evil meant to everyone. I ended up playing EVIL while the others played just evil. After three sessions we had a talk and I had to tone down the EVIL to something more evil like. The campaign turned out to be like most other campaigns except our motives were helping out an evil god. Even playing good PCs you end up killing lots of things so the fact that we killed lots of things wasn't any different.

[Hussar]

Yeah, Mark, I'm in the same boat as you to be honest. I've seen the odd evil character come and go, I've never done an all evil party.

I'm hoping it's going to go more in the direction of Sopranos, or possibly Moorcock. My bunch are pretty solid, and I'm hoping for the best, but, there's that voice in the back of my head kinda setting off a worrying sound.

It is possible to do it, I think. It's just difficult. Here's hoping.

[Mark]

I think Crothian has the right of it in regard to making sure you talk as a group and clearly define the evil your group will portray. It might help to have tightly defined campaign goals and to avoid messy situation like those where children NPCs are involved. I remember one annecdote, I think on EN World, where a group tried and evil campaign only to discover midway that one of the women who was playing has had a sexual assault incident in her past and one of the male players had a sexual assault fantasy he wanted to include. Not a good situation for anyone at that table.

[Jengenritz]

I've heard other people talk about their evil campaigns, and it was usually just a mishmash of adolescent power fantasies and greed (moreso than D&D normally is, anyway, and this coming from a longtime fan).

I had the opportunity to play in an evil campaign a few years ago, and let me tell you...it was hard to do, but all the more rewarding for it.

I won't bore everyone with details, but (in general) the winning formula was 1) everyone was pretty mature to begin with, 2) all of us trusted that whatever our characters did and said didn't actually reflect our own attitudes or opinions of the rest of the party, 3) we each had hooks (in the most cruel sense of the word) that meant we were driven to see this dark deed done, and 4) the GM kept us in the dark about the actual endgame.

The last point was what made the game work...it was about mistrust, deception, and seeking advantage. In that way, it was no different than any of the various "reality" shows out there...lots of deal-making and deal-breaking, lots of currying advantage.
We just had the bonus of assorted patron rakshasa (all similarly trying to outmaneuver each other) instead of Julie Chen or what's-his-butt from Survivor.

With this setup, you couldn't eliminate any one PC, because you needed that one to be an ally against the other, or because you think your rakshasa patron wanted that PC for a special purpose (usually something really bad), or because that one PC reminded you of that sister you killed.

It was an excellent exercise in role-playing, and it actually brought our gaming group closer.

[taliesin15]

The largest challenge I think is dealing with human and demi-human communities, which are largely not evil (or EVIL). I would think watching one's reputation in communities would be or could be an ongoing issue.

[ProfessorCirno]

As others have said, keep it evil, not EVIL, make sure your players are mature, and personally, I'd advise talking to them deeply before the campaign to see what their characters are like and what they'll be doing. Remember, evil doesn't have to be twirling moustache levels; it could be someone with good intentions, an "ends justify the means" type.

Also, I'd advise you make it a very DANGEROUS game. Keep them under pressure. It'll help insure the work together.

[Mort]

Played in an "all evil" campaign a few years ago.

We avoided the standard problems with evil characters: no one was at anyones throat, no PvP or other serious party conflict etc.

We did have some other seriously frustrating issues though:

1. Being evil, each character had thier own agends which may or may not conflict with others in the party. The big problem here was the time it took. The DM was forced to concentrate on 1 or 2 (of 6) players at a time for large patches of time - making for a frustrating play experience. This problem can be mitigated with an experienced DM - but it's hard to eliminate entirely if agendas differ.

2. Related to 1 - you think good characters can hog the spotlight - they got nothing on evil characters - and PC's with an excuse. Talk about a time waster.

3. Like Crothian my group didn't iron out what "evil" to be. Some were psychotic - start a bar fight and/or cannibal evil. Others were plotting to take over the city evil. Some couldn't decide what the heck being evil ment. And oddly enough, just like Crothian my character was EVIL (as in slowly plotting to sacrifice the entire city to his god).

As for experience, it was underwhelming for me. I tried to go at it full bore, but I found I just like playing the hero better YMMV.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Mark

...players who try to play evil do not actually play evil, just selfish, and use their own desires to justify heinous acts.

One might ask - what is the difference between Evil and "willing to do evil things to get what they want"? Selfishness to the point of hurting others is a form of evil, is it not?

This is the primary downfall of evil parties, in my experience. You are talking about characters who are willing to see others hurt to reach their own ends. If, at some point, their own ends are best served by hurting the other PCs, then there's a problem.

It helps if the characters have a reason to work together. Lawful Evil, for example, can be an aid here. Telling them that they need to take a long view - so that if they do hurt each other, at least it is part of a dramatic, long-term plot - can also help.

Members of an evil party need to have good impulse control, no matter how selfish they are

[Doug McCrae]

I've played in several all or mostly evil parties, and run a specifically all evil game once. My current group are pretty much incapable of playing good guys, if they do they make them lawful stupid or just stupid, they can't comprehend the idea of an intelligent person being moral.

All or mostly evil definitely works for my current group. We're all agreed on no PVP, the group has to work together as a team. This is perfectly plausible, there's no reason why bad guys can't have friends or see the value in co-operative effort. Minor conflict such as fist fights and disagreements are fine, obviously. We're generally agreed that going off on your own is a Bad Thing in any rpg and keep it to a minimum. It's a good group, these guys know what they're doing. No one's ever played EVIL - insane, sadistic, psychopathic - just selfish or misguided evil. Which I think is a good idea, like the protagonists in a story, PCs have to be at least somewhat sympathetic for an rpg to work.

Evil games in the past have worked less well. There was an Amber game where the PCs had all been trapped in a city for the last eight sessions. We'd probably become very frustrated and started trying to outdo one another in EVIL acts. I ate a kid, one PC raped a kid, another turned into a cloud of acid and flew around killing people at random. The campaign soon folded. We were sick of the game by then and the EVIL was most likely a symptom, not a cause.

[the_orc_within]

In my experience, playing alongside evil PCs generally just led to annoying play, with a lot of petulant, greedy and destructive behavior. The once case I recall playing alongside an Evil character proved genuinely disturbing. Maybe it would be more rewarding with an entirely evil group?

The stronger the back story, the better for you as DM, imho - but it sounds like you already know that . You might use some in game method like Mark of Justice, guardian spirits, curses, etc, to keep the in-party evil in check, but that's kind of weak from a story perspective.

Requiring character be Lawful Evil (or "Honorable Bad" ) is a possible route, especially if there's a code of some sort to back it up. Violate the Code, and suffer the consequences (either mechanical ones, such as gaining a Flaw; or an rp one, such as suddenly being beset by ninjas from the Brotherhood).

Of course, the flip-side of the Decent into Evil is Redemption. So, again depending upon character backstory and motivation, there are always those kinds of RP paths to explore further down the line if it gets too out of hand.

[Hypersmurf]

My one experience of an all-evil game was a poor one. I tried to make a character who was plausibly evil... who could actually survive in a city without being hunted down by a pitchfork-wielding mob and who could further his own goals.

Every single other PC was a cackling madman who would cross the street just to kick a puppy. And then set it on fire.

I ended up getting my throat cut because the others decided I must be a spy. And the DM really couldn't see a way - or a reason - to stop them, since I think she'd written it off as a failed experiment by then anyway.

-Hyp.

[JohnBiles]

My experience with such games was such that I'd rather repeatedly hit myself in the groin with a sledgehammer than do it again. I wish you luck, but I expect you will see your campaign destroy itself in fire.

[Moniker]

You've really, really got to get everyone on the same page. Having a mature set of gamers that aren't using the game to play out their own hidden, sadomasichist fantasies helps.

I've been running a "gray" morality-based campaign for going on ten years, and the reason it's survived is primarily due to the maturity of the players involved. A good inspiration for understanding how "evil" can work at a gaming table would be to read up on the Black Company by Glen Cook.