An Evil party... Troublesome?

[Desdichado]

I don't think evil parties have to be troublesome UNLESS the players are so drawn in by the novelty of it that they act absurd.

In our Age of Worms campaign, for quite a long stint (until we had some PC deaths and had to have replacement characters) our entire party was either neutral or evil. We still stuck to the basic plot of the adventure arc, but our methods were not always so heroic. It was a lot of fun.

 

[Jolly Giant]

The longest running and also most memorable campaign I've been involved in in any way was with an evil party. It lasted for 5 years and ended with the PCs having effective character levels well into the 50s. There were 5 players (or 6 for a little while), plus me as DM. Not once did a PC even consider backstabbing a fellow party member.

The most effective "trick" I used to keep them together was to give them plenty of common enemies, both good and evil, and some they didn't even know who was (not at first, anyway). They soon realized they were gonna need every friend they could get to ensure their own survival.

The second "trick" I used was to give every PC a chance to really shine on a (more or less) regular basis; to pull of some feat that none of the other PCs could have done. In that way each PC saw the usefullness of having the other PCs around.

Third; I made sure there were always NPCs around the PCs could benefit from backstabbing, if they absolutely felt the need to backstab someone. And of course, I also let them be backstabbed by NPCs from time to time...

Hope this helps.

 

[Bad Paper]

I haven't read the thread, so forgive me if someone else has said this.

I think an evil party works best as Lawful Evil, with an explicit agreement that handles things like treasure distribution, healing, unconsciousness, death, and resurrection. I can't imagine a NE or CE party member consistently going out of his way to save a party member. It seems like NE or CE characters would be impossible to adventure with.

 

[Mallus]

I think an evil party works best as Lawful Evil...

Why would the characters moral nature matter when its the players ability to get along --or at to be honest when communicating what the want/expectant from the campaign-- that counts?

 

[Zachariah]

Thanks for alot of all the imput. Learned alot from it. I will try to follow the guide lines suggested by jolly gaint.

The reason why we play an evil campaign is that the players just prefer the freedom, like they can almost do whatever they want. I myself as the DM (btw my first campaign) just found it more appealing aswell. Getting them hunted down by heroes, celestial forces and demons alike. They are like isolated in a world were everyone prefers to see them dead. Especially sinds they get stranded on a island which they know nothing about.
Thing I just want them to do is to work as an efficient team, while in any other way act as the most evil that they can be.

ty,

 

[Treebore]

They are destructive. I will never be talked into running an "evil" game again. No matter how much they promise not to act against each other.

 

[Particle_Man]

Thanks for alot of all the imput. Learned alot from it. I will try to follow the guide lines suggested by jolly gaint.

The reason why we play an evil campaign is that the players just prefer the freedom, like they can almost do whatever they want.

How would that be different from a party of all CN characters?

 

[Mallus]

They are destructive.

I'm finding it hard to believe that penciling 'Good' on some character sheets is enough to turn a group of players who can't be trusted in real life to keep their word into a co-operative, smooth-running party.

I've seen plenty of friction in D&D groups over the years, and it's always due to the player's personalities, not the fictional personae/soulless killing avatars they adopt.

 

[Particle_Man]

I'm finding it hard to believe that penciling 'Good' on some character sheets is enough to turn a group of players who can't be trusted in real life to keep their word into a co-operative, smooth-running party.

I've seen plenty of friction in D&D groups over the years, and it's always due to the player's personalities, not the fictional personae/soulless killing avatars they adopt.

In my experience, there are games that shape player interaction.

For instance, Monopoly can bring out the worst in some people. There are some people I will play other games with but not Monopoly.

Lord of the Rings, by its nature, requires cooperation and even self-sacrifice. It makes players act differently.

Similarly, there are players that will act differently depending on whether "good" or "evil" is marked on their character sheet. I have seen it happen. Thus I think Treebore has a point. His players acted differently (and destructively) precisely because "evil" was on their character sheets.

Thus there are at least three types of players.

a) Those that are always great players, supporting the fun of the game.

b) Those that are always destructive, ruining others' fun.

c) Those that are sometimes great and sometimes destructive, depending on various factors.

For some people, the alignment of their characters is one of those factors.

 

[HellHound]

I ran an evil Underdark campaign from level 1 to level 16.

Each character had an evil goal in mind, and I made sure that the storyline encouraged them to work together - working directly towards one character's goal would also bring things together that would help another character's goal, and so on.

In the end, they were three potent underdark denizens who were even more powerful because of their network of allies, contacts, and each other.