An Evil party... Troublesome?

[HellHound]

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.

The trick is that the players work together and have their characters be FRIENDS.

You see, evil people tend to expect that not only will they deserve and get better service / attention / stuff / treatment than average Joe, but that their Friends will also. Greed isn't entirely personal.

So, when the goblin thieve's guild lieutenant is about to get killed by the BBG, the half-drow soulknife WANTS to save his life because he's his connection to a network of hundreds of thieves.

Etc.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Especially sinds they get stranded on a island which they know nothing about.

That's pretty close to how I started my campaign. The PCs started off as pirates and the first thing that happened was that somebody (I myself didn't even know who at that time) assassinated their captain and sunk the ship. In the middle of the night. During a storm. Far from land... The PCs managed to get onboard the ship's lightboat and ended up on a (nearly) deserted island.

So from the very start they knew they had a resourceful, powerful, common enemy, but not who that enemy was. Made them quite paranoid and they all agreed; right away, that they needed to stick together and watch each others' backs.

 

[Mallus]

For instance, Monopoly can bring out the worst in some people.

I hear ya. For me and my crew its Risk. Or D&D, for that matter. I've seen (and, embarrassingly enough, felt), it bring out the worst in people (including myself). And that had precious little to do with alignment.

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.

And I've seen 'good' characters tasked to fight 'a great evil' come to blows over the ownership of a magic sword, while in the middle of a ridiculous life-or-death situation (i.e. a dungeon). Admittedly, this was a long time ago in a shining, misremembered time I like call my youth.

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

I just don't buy it. This is all about the players being mindful of each others enjoyment of the game. If they can't do that, or choose not to, then they're to blame.

Writing the words 'considerate person' on a piece of paper in front of you is (usually) not enough to turn you into one...

 

[Jolly Giant]

Writing the words 'considerate person' on a piece of paper in front of you is (usually) not enough to turn you into one...

No, but I can see how writing 'complete bastard' can have a bad effect. Especially if it's written in the alignment box of a character sheet.

Although (as you can see from my previous posts) I know from personal experience that it is fully possible to run a longtime campaign with utterly evil characters without it leading to PCs flying at each others' throats...

 

[Mallus]

No, but I can see how writing 'complete bastard' can have a bad effect.

How are the two cases different?

 

[Jolly Giant]

How are the two cases different?

From all the bad experiences people seem to have with evil characters, I suppose some people see that CB alignment (complete bastard) as an invitation to outrages behaviour. To go a little 'nuts'. To do all the things that they're not normally allowed to do. Forbidden fruits have a strong fascination for a lot of people.

Again, my own experiences with evil characters do not support what I just said, but I can easily imagine how some players might use a CB alignment as an excuse to act on certain (game disruptive) urges they usually have to suppress. Or they might simply think that backstabbing their buddies constitutes 'good roleplaying' or 'staying in character'. The many tales I've heard about campaigns crashing and burning because of evil PCs seem to support this.

 

[Particle_Man]

I think the Mummy Returns (or whatever it is called) has a good example of how evil works together...for a while.

The BBEG and his Girlfriend work together because they love each other...until the BBEG is in trouble and looks to the Girlfriend to save him. Instead she runs away. She loves him but is too selfish to risk herself when it comes right down to it.

Contrast Brendan Fraser's character. He is in trouble and his girlfriend saves him at considerable risk to herself. She loves him and is a good person.

I think that "Evil friends" can work for a while, but under stress they are more likely to turn on each other than "Good friends" are.

In real life, friends do rat each other out to avoid serious prison time, for example.

 

[painandgreed]

IMHO, it's all abou the people. We actually experience better coherency with evil parties than good. With good parties, everybody knows that nobody will hurt the others so everybody goes and does whatever they feel like. In evil parties, it all becomes business and it is an open fact that if anybody brings heat down on the party or otherwise messes with the parties general success, they'll be the first to go. With that understanding, we found that our evil parties ran like clockwork where our good parties would have been goofing off willy nilly.

With a player who likes to mess things up, or a role player who will get the party in trouble because that's "what the character would do", good parties have to deal. Evil parties just stick a dagger in his eye an tell the player to roll up a new character that will work with the party. The guy who will only plays to mess things up will drop out, and the role player, knowing his criteria, will come up with a suitable character.

 

[Zachariah]

That's pretty close to how I started my campaign. The PCs started off as pirates and the first thing that happened was that somebody (I myself didn't even know who at that time) assassinated their captain and sunk the ship. In the middle of the night. During a storm. Far from land... The PCs managed to get onboard the ship's lightboat and ended up on a (nearly) deserted island.

Wow! thats so close to what I had in mind. In my campaign the PCs are members of a assassin guild, put togather as a team to retreave a powerful cursed ritual dagger. Its on board of a cargo ship and its well guarded, so they have to act stealthy. They must not leave any possible witnesses behind, in other word: kill the everyone on board. While they are at they enter a storm. Sooner or later they will have to deal with the captain, or ill just make him notice something is going on. The ship will be uncontrolled and they will end up crashing in to the island on which the rest of the campaign will take place.

Now I just need to think of something for them to do on just after stranding on the unknown land... And I need to find some goals for the players. Or maybe I should hand that over to the players. Set there own goals with there characters.
Btw. the party will consist out of 3 players:
A Rogue/Ninja Spy (the expected pain in the ass player.
A Druid/Vermin Lord (this player really wanted to play the Vermin lord > Evil)
A probably a Fighter... or something alike

(P.S: my spelling/grammer might be a bit screwed, but I just finished my nightshift... very sleepy ^^)

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

I am not convinced.

I could see Belkar from OotS being CE, and while he might sometimes enjoy seeing Elan or Roy being kicked a bit, he never does bad things to them personally.