An Evil party... Troublesome?

[robberbaron]

My current party is 'evil', though there a couple of CNs.
The problems I have encountered are mostly with party cohesion and introducing new characters. There is a lot more 'me, me, me' play with them being evil and they have a tendency to not work together.
Maybe being evil characters brings out the worst in them.

I actually had one of them tell me that they were going to kill a player's new character and take his stuff if I didn't come up with a good reason for them to take him into the party.
Very unhelpful and I was this close to shutting my lappy and going home, however, we discussed the problem and came up with a reasonable compromise - the party, when on R&R, scope out NPCs with a view to being future members of the party. When someone dies, they invite someone they have already met (this is a 'handwave'. They never actually meet these NPCs in game).

Having an evil party also seriously reduces your options with regard to getting them to adventure.
A good party will go out to right wrongs and, maybe, pick up some nice kit on the way.
An evil party has to know they will get a 'reasonable' remuneration for their efforts.
It is difficult to keep their levels of kit down when you have to pay them to do stuff.
I would advise any DM with an evil party to involve several of the characters in the backstory. Give them a role in the world and they might help you, otherwise you have to bribe them to do anything.

I'm trying to come up with a long-term story arc which will get them involved. Hopefully, it will work and they will act as a team for a change.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

There is also a difference in the adventure dynamics. A good aligned group of Heroes almost always a step behind the plot of the evil guys and desperately tries to foil these plans. Most of the time Good is the Hunter and Evil is the hunted.
The DM has to come a with said plot that the PCs can foil.

With an Evil aligned group it can be the other way round. If you have creative Players you as the DM are in a reacting position. The PCs come up with the diablic plans that ultimately lead to world domination. You as DM have to judge how Good will react to the PCs plans.

 

[phindar]

The average 'hero', some guy who jumps in a river to save someone, or such, doesn't get on the wheaties box. Most things like that aren't mentioned that often or when they are, they're just in passing. The news is more geared towards celebrities, athletes, and tragedy than heroics.

Paris Hilton.

I always thought another good example was the fact that Mother Teresa and Princess Diana died in the same week. PD's coverage far outweighed MT's at the time. And we just had the ten year PD anniversary concert plus book plus about 8 articles in major news magazines (Time, Newsweek,etc). And not that PD didn't do a lot of good work with various charity organizations, but it doesn't quite compare with say, an entire lifetime selflessly devoted to the poor.

 

[Ant]

In my experience evil parties always end up doom-spiraling into a messy bloodbath of backstabbing and looting of each other's stuff. Which is great fun but kinda kills the campaign.

One memorable example was in our first all-evil D&D game (2nd edition, I think) where an all out near self-TPK was caused by one character (Fump the Ogre) asking another character (I think it was the drider) for some poison. For reasons still unknown to this day this simple request resulted in near-mutaul annihilation of every party member. Only my goblin shaman and said drider survived. Needless to say, Campaign Over.

Another example that didn't quite have time to reach this critical mass was in an evil MERP campaign where we were hunting hobbits and elves. One of the trolls decided to use my orc mage as a make-shift club during a battle against some elf rangers which resulted in much scheming and plotting of the troll's (and his buddy's) demise. Unfortunately the DM folded that campaign just before evil did.

Where evil parties work an absolute treat is in what we call "Random Nights" - a one-shot adventure with randomly assigned, high-level characters. Much fun!

 

[Darklone]

Paris Hilton.

I always thought another good example was the fact that Mother Teresa and Princess Diana died in the same week. PD's coverage far outweighed MT's at the time. And we just had the ten year PD anniversary concert plus book plus about 8 articles in major news magazines (Time, Newsweek,etc). And not that PD didn't do a lot of good work with various charity organizations, but it doesn't quite compare with say, an entire lifetime selflessly devoted to the poor.

Yupp and nowadays they start to take a "more realistic" look at how PD "really was". Newspapers start calling her names.

MT will probably still be on some holy list in 200 years.

On topic:
Evil parties all depend on your players. Let them play evil but as soon as they kill each other over and over, stop the campaign.

 

[green slime]

It all depends on the players.

How well do you kow the players?

 

[robberbaron]

Evil parties all depend on your players. Let them play evil but as soon as they kill each other over and over, stop the campaign.

Yep, as soon as the party start killing each other I'll know that they have lost interest in the game, which is my cue to hand over the DM chair.

 

[Shadeydm]

I have seen some fun "evil character" games however none of them could stand the test of time and tended to get old and tired much quicker than the standard game revolving around the mostly good party dynamic. Granted this might have partially been the fault of the DM (as it seemed that he was the first to get bored with the game) and someone else might have no problem keeping a 1-20 level evil campaign fun and interesting for all involved especially himself.

 

[Drowbane]

...How are you going to keep a evil party together and loyal towards each other?...

You don't. Party cohesion should be based on a mix of fear and ambition, not respect and loyalty. If the PCs get it into thier head to off each other, so be it! Thats a feature, not a flaw.

Don't get attached to any characters.

 

[Particle_Man]

Figure out why they want to play evil characters:

The sheer novelty?

The kewl powers from the evil classes and feats?

The chance to do evil things (vicariously, through their characters)?

Freedom from a perceived Heroic Quest Railroad?

Freedom from a DM saying "you can't do that, that's evil"?

Other?

Talk to the players. Find out the why.