Playing Evil

[pawsplay]

"To the north, a band of bandits has begun raiding the Baron's caravans and stealing his pie. It is rumored these bandits have fallen under the say of a half-elven ranger. Defeat the bandits and their leader and return the pie, and a reward shall be yours."

"My friends, the princess has been kidnapped. She is being held captive by our enemies in a high tower while she awaits sentencing for so-called crimes. Rescue the princess, and you will have your choice of reward in gold, or if permissible, her hand in marriage."

"Only the Orb of Thingy can defeat the Ublex before it devours the world. But if the orb falls into the hands of the forces of Good, they will use it against us once the Ublex is defeated. Recover the Orb of Thingy or we are all lost."

"Our master is interested in some local real estate. Your quest is to go to the Golden Rooster Inn and infest the basements with dire rats. To accomplish this, you will first need to defeat a number of rat-catchers who live in the area. Bring me their hands as proof."

 

[Hussar]

See, that's my problem Pawsplay. None of the actions that I'm likely going to take in those adventures (assuming they are straight up and no twists) are not going to be particularly evil. Rescue the princess? Even if the princess is being held in a Lawful Good nunnery, it's just a bog standard adventure, just with the alignments reversed.

Go to X, kill things and get the loot, doesn't (unfortunately) say a whole lot about morality.

As I said earlier, I really think D&D, with its focus on combat, isn't a very good vehicle for this sort of thing. Since the solution for the majority of story lines in D&D is "apply greater and greater levels of firepower", morality isn't a huge deal.

Although the Ublex thing could be fun. To make it evil, I'd actually have the party working FOR Ublex and bringing about the end of the world. Now THAT'S evil. Explore the ideas of religious zealotry, cults, mind control and brainwashing, that sort of thing.

In my mind, if you want to play an evil campaign, there should be all sorts of moments around the table where people are cringing in their chairs. That the actions that make sense for the character are pretty much abhorrent to the players.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Seems easy enough - just reverse those ;p. Look at how we can change the first two:

"You've heard word of several caravans that the Baron sends out, and they tend to be sparsely unguarded. However, their one point of contention that keeps most bandits away is a half-elven ranger that leads the guards of the caravans. If you can defeat their leader, the guards will fall quickly as well, leaving the caravans unguarded for your own desires."

"The king has been especially fond of bragging of his wealth and opulence, and has of late announced that any who can win the hand of his daughter will be given the kingdom. Incidentally, I can't help but note that the princess will be leaving the castle for a small vacation in a few days. I don't think it takes an archmage to figure how much you could get out of a nice ransom - or if you're feeling especially ambitious, find a priest that can bind you to her in marriage and try to legally take the kingdom as a whole."

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I am always toying with a "Points of Darkness" campaign for running an evil campaign.

Essentially, this is Middle Earth after Sauron has been defeated. It is Star Wars after the Emperors (true, not "i still have some clones running around) death and the dismantling of the Empire and the Jedi Academy is reinstated by Luke Skywalker.

In essence, there are lots of proud and strong good aligned countries. THey are not without conflict with each other, but they generally tend to favor diplomacy over violence, and they will often work together to defeat evil.

There are still some places where you can find darkness. Corrupt City States, a small Hobgoblin Kingdom, a few desecrated grounds where undeads dwell. But they are small, and they pose no threat alone.

But they still all have an interesting in staying evil and not turn good. They don't want to abandon their dark gods, since they might get punished for that. Also, they don't trust the goodness. They see it as having an inherent weakness that might lead to those empires crumbling at some point. They think they allow inappropriate freedoms, things that are against the natural order of things or the divine will of the gods. Some might think they will in the end consume the world, as even the weakest members of such societies get a chance for survival and require more and more resources, instead of getting killed off in wars or just having to live without aid.
And even if they were interested - the good guys don't trust the treacherous Kobolds and violent Orcs after decades of war. Coexistence might be acceptable, integration impossible.

In this time, the "heroes" enter. They work for a man or woman with a vision, or a cult with a goal - Destroy the good empires from within, to allow strive and violence come to pass again, and gain dominion over this world, returning the evil gods.

The PCs goals would be destroying the good relationships between the various good forces, turn people to succumb to their own dark desires, bring Paladins to fall, seduce Kings and have them go to war with neighbors.

They will have to be very careful. People look out for evil and will watch anyone suspicious. They won't easily strike out - attack without provocation is not good - but you'll have to work careful, because if you are found out, you might be easily overwhelmed and thrown into jail.


An interesting thing might be that this campaign might even work with "Points of Light" - it's just that you don't care about those PoLs but about controlling the darkness and using it for your own. But committing evil acts against evil people has less "impact" then committing evil acts against good people, I think.

 

[Phaezen]

"To the north, a band of bandits has begun raiding the Baron's caravans and stealing his pie. It is rumored these bandits have fallen under the say of a half-elven ranger. Defeat the bandits and their leader and return the pie, and a reward shall be yours."

Confront the ranger and convince him that raiding the the caravans of Good King Barry will be more profitable, thus weakening his ability to raise armies when we launch the assault.

"My friends, the princess has been kidnapped. She is being held captive by our enemies in a high tower while she awaits sentencing for so-called crimes. Rescue the princess, and you will have your choice of reward in gold, or if permissible, her hand in marriage."

By gaining her hand in marriage you will gain significant political influence and the ability to sway nobles over to our cause, weakening the hold that the church has over the land.

"Only the Orb of Thingy can defeat the Ublex before it devours the world. But if the orb falls into the hands of the forces of Good, they will use it against us once the Ublex is defeated. Recover the Orb of Thingy or we are all lost."

Recover the orb and you will be richly rewarded in this life and the next.

"Our master is interested in some local real estate. Your quest is to go to the Golden Rooster Inn and infest the basements with dire rats. To accomplish this, you will first need to defeat a number of rat-catchers who live in the area. Bring me their hands as proof."

This too.

Focus more on the personal political power that can be gained by the adventurers deads, thater than the greater good/evil and even the standard fantasy tropes can become interesting in an evil campaign.

 

[Hand of Evil]

As I always say, define evil in your game. That then gives you the means and mission statement to be followed, many cases this MAY be around the gods.

Example of this being an orc - right off the bat, you are seen as being evil BUT why?

• Cold blooded murder? How many games have you been in where someone did not kill some inteligent race on sight?
• Pilliaging? Rember that burned down tavern, oops.
• Cannibalism? Hey, humans are not orcs so it is not cannibalism.
• Slavery? Someones got to work.
• Torture? How much suffering and pain you can take shows you are worthy to our gods.

 

[TheNovaLord]

good discussion.

point above is excellent...if you arent doing the things that make orcs evil, and they are low end evil morales beasties, you arent being evil.

-support slavery, capture new slaves, own slaves
-go back and kill any gaurd who gives you grief about entering town. rob his body. be horrid to his wife and kids
-blackmail a rich lord you have seduced. kill his children when he stops paying up
-be prepared either run away from your home town in an instant, or spend alot of time fighting the enemies you make.
-when hired to do a job, kill and rob the employee, see how you can get rich with not much risk for doing the job
-GM must be prepared to wing a lot, as they players wont play 'normally'
-Rob good temples, if they are weak, find ways to blame others

We are in about 10th session of a rolemaster campaign where the party go from being rascals (rob the rich, and the poor) to naughty (seduce and cajoul the careless and tempted) to evil (kill on a whim, slaves etc). They are all part of the same 'thieves guild' but more than that, and they do all sorts subplots
Some of the party are sort of CN with not many E tendencies and some G tendencies
Most CN and out for themselves
a couple with kill an innocnet, cos they can.

Worked really well. They have acted against whole range of other 'groups'

Not sure it would work as well if they where all truly diabolic/abyssal minded

 

[Starbuck_II]

True. The problem with that though is that the games play out pretty much the same regardless of the alignment. A "necessity" game, such as "Find the MacGuffin before Baron McStabbity destroys the world" just doesn't resonate all the well with me for trying to be an "evil" campaign.

I think it's better, if you're going to do an evil campaign, to find motivations that are ... well... evil. The party is actively helping Baron McStabbity for example.

But think of yourself there if you were evil:
The World is where you keep your stuff!
Unless you an acetic evil fellow: you want stuff!

So stopping him means you keep your stuff. With your stuff you can take over the world. More XP barring that.

 

[Hand of Evil]

But think of yourself there if you were evil:
The World is where you keep your stuff!
Unless you an acetic evil fellow: you want stuff!

So stopping him means you keep your stuff. With your stuff you can take over the world. More XP barring that.

true, making him the fall guy and you look the hero and still be doing bad things, aka murder and such, until you can take him out is a good thing and you get his stuff too.

 

[TheYeti1775]

I would be interested in a game where the characters truly were evil, but I think very, very few players are capable of this ... but on another level, I think I am very happy for that rarity as well...

Have both played in one and DM'd one.
I enjoyed playing more.
The real suprise of it was the shy girl in the group, was the one with the worst of the 'evil' acts. She ended up being our party leader.

The starting levels of it centered on raiding merchant caravan's, even defeating various parties sent out after us. We used the old B2 Keep on the Borderlands as the backdrop for starting out, placing it in 3E FR as an outpost of Cormyr. That gave us a natural enemy of the Purple Dragons and War Wizards. Also helped in bonding us together because of natural enemies.

Our group even helped with the fight against the 'bandits', arranging themselves as trusted guards by using underlings to 'attack and retreat' so we successfully defended several and many were left alone. Made for some lucrative contracts since lesser groups were constantly attacked and wiped out / slaughtered. Trails of false evidence, and even more grissly things were done. (Eric's Grandma wouldn't approve of at least 90% of it. )

Investigators for the Crown that got close were dispatched, but never in the same way. Some were disgraced, some where maimed, some went missing, others simply killed, some returned to the Keep as undead zombies. Others wished that happened to them, the Mistress of Pain (the shy girl's PC) with us enjoyed them in the depths of the Caves of Chaos.

Many of the monsters in the Caves were brought under our control, those that weren't were dispatched as well. Very few weren't, as they saw the riches (slaves, goods, fresh meat on the hoof) we brought back with us. They also helped in the fake attacks where we guarded.

As we leveled up, so did our acts of Evil. Some of which were quite disturbing, the remoteness of the Keep allowed for a greater autonmy in doing it as well.

So I know it can be done, the PC's only need to learn to work together and that Evil doesn't mean Chaos.