Evil Parties - and Evil PC's - A Discussion

[Hitokiri]

evil does not equal psychotically stupid

First off, I have both played an evil PC and GMed an evil campaign. There are no problems doing this if the people playing are decent RPers and reasonably mature. Evil is all about putting yourself first, sometimes at the expense of others. It does not necessarily denote a complete lack of ethics or morals, but instead an often twisted version of what most people would find to be normal or a willingness to occasionally ignore your misgivings about an act. Playing a PC that walks into town and slaughters a shopkeep isn't evil, he's psychotic. Even a CE character has to realize there are repurcussions to their actions, and blatently slaughtering townsfolk is likely to bring the local paladin down on you in a hurry and end your bid for wealth and power right there. A LE PC might try to swindle the shopkeep, by trading defective goods. A NE PC might give him currency that he knows has been diluted with base metals or shaved. A CE PC would have no qualms about breaking in that night to steal what he wanted (or take "ye olde five fingre discounte" if the item is small enough).

The evil game I ran featured the PC's as members of an assassins guild. The players were mostly NE and CE, but it sure didn't mean they went around indiscriminately killing and looting the local populace. Did they do despicable acts, heck yeah they did. They killed for money, they were generally ruthless with those that opposed them, and were genral scumbags. I think the worst that happened is one of the CE guys tortured someone for information (the NE PC who was with him left the room, sickened by the procedure). But they also did their best to stay under the radar of the local authorities, and had one of them decided it was more worthwhile to kill a shopkeep than pay for his services even though they could usually afford what they wanted, they would have found themselves ousted by the group quickly and very likely in a very permanent and lethal manner.

 

[Hammer of the Circle]

LOL - the fact that there's no mechanical downside to attacking the orphan girl, nor cleaving into her puppy.

YES! That's the spirit!

No, seriously, Hitokiri has the way of it. Evil does not equal pyschotic episode. I once ran a (largely) solo campaign for a drow PC wizard through an entire career. He did many evil things (murder, torture, elimination of rivals) but he was also very protective of and generous to those he had close relationships with.

 

[Ravensblood]

I'm not a big fan of Evil PC parties. They just seem to de-evolve rapidly. Usually one or two evil characters in the party manages to piss off everybody else. This is typically the greedy rogue type that does eveything selfishly, or just a player who hadn't thought his actions through. But i have been a part of instances where an evil party was fun in the short term.

We had a DM who ran a mid to high level evil PC campaign, and then afterwords, we had to create a good party to combat and undo everything the evil group had done. We got to play both sides of the coin in the same storyline. It was most gratifying.

Personally, I've enjoyed playing an evil PC seeking redemption. For instance, a cleric who under a terrible curse (death effect where I rolled a 1 for my save) was turned into a vampire. While seeking to change himself back, he captured an imp with some info. The imp found its wings fixed to a door with daggers while it was tortured for information. The vamp cleric tried to resist drinking blood and eventually failed (another failed save) leading him to find and kill the tyrant magistrate of the town, etc. Even tried a character who was a werewolf and didn't know it. Eventually was confronted with his own suspicions, and tried to redeem himself.

 

[Humanophile]

I'll say my usual spiel here that I do whenever "mature campaign options" come up:

Is it possible to play evil (or whatever) well? Yes.

Do most circumstances of playing MCO-style things go south? Also yes. Go to any con and you'll see where your average gamer's social skills are.

I wouldn't mind letting players at a MCO-option, if I knew and trusted everyone at the table and everyone was cool with it. If I had any worries that anyone wasn't comfortable with or ready for it, the game wouldn't go through. And if there was anyone I didn't know well enough, I'm sure someone skilled enough to play a trickier character would have no problem giving additional depth to a nice, simple, noble LG knight to demonstrate their roleplaying skills to us.

 

[The Shaman]

I ran a lawful evil cleric once, in a party of mostly good and neutral characters. There were no problems to speak of, as his evil was of the selfish variety colored by a cruel streak, but he was also disciplined and honorable, so he was still a good "teammate" for the rest of the party. (He also had some amusing delusions of grandeur - I peppered my IC speech with things like, "Soon the lords of this land will tremble before my iron fist. But first, where do we stable our horses?")

The nagging question for me was, "What happens at higher levels?" At some point he would be able to realize his ambitions of building a temple, gathering an army, and establishing himself as a significant warlord.

Now the obvious answer is that the other adventurers would be likely to stop him, which arguably becomes an interesting adventure premise - the problem with that is it most likely becomes the denouement of the campaign. Regardless of who wins, the party is split up as a result, and one or more people are starting from scratch in the character department.

An evil character in a mostly good party is likely to become a problem somewhere down the line, IMHO.

As far as evil parties go, I've never played in one, though I did GM one against my better judgement, and predictably the game fell apart fairly quickly - the players apparently thought they could get away with whatever they wanted with impunity and they never got past second level, hanged from a tree by a noble and his retinue as the brigands they were. (The players were not happy with me, but it was the most logical consequence of their actions, they failed their escape attempt - badly - and well, I wasn't interested in pulling my punches and encouraging them to behave like morons any longer.)

 

[Seeten]

I think this sounds about the consensus:

Mature gamers who can handle good rp, and arent out to "Ruin others fun" can do good, evil, or some of both without incident and have a rewarding good time.

Thats what frustrates me most about the 2 of the 3 games. Nobody at any of the three is under 30. Most of them have been roleplaying for 20 years, but they are terrified of it due to experiences when they were 15.

Thank god for my 3rd group.