D&D 5E Goals for a party - why should they even go anywhere together?

[Kalshane]

Ultimately evil characters (as well as PVP, inter-party theft, etc) are entirely dependent on the players and DM involved. Some players can clearly keep IC and OOC actions separate and think it's fun that one of their companions might turn on them if sufficiently motivated, while others expect the team to be a team, regardless of PC personalities.

I would highly recommend a DM just starting out put a ban on PVP actions and evil characters. After he's been running a game for awhile he can decide if he (and his players) are ready for the possibility of treachery and villainy. I do agree with idea that a vote should be taken in this instance and there needs to be unanimous buy-in before such things are implemented.

 

[Satyrn]

Ultimately evil characters (as well as PVP, inter-party theft, etc) are entirely dependent on the players and DM involved. Some players can clearly keep IC and OOC actions separate and think it's fun that one of their companions might turn on them if sufficiently motivated, while others expect the team to be a team, regardless of PC personalities.

I just want to chime in to say that I when I've played an evil PC there was absolutely no chance that I was gonna turn on the party, or perform any sort of PvP.

 

[Shiroiken]

Before any campaign I provide a campaign handout, which works similar to a Session 0 (without everyone having to get together). I set forth the basic premise of the campaign, along with a story for the first adventure. All character creation rules are given, along with player expectations. This lets everyone know what they need before they start, and the reason for keeping the party together depends on the campaign.

My current campaign is the Greyhawk Classics, which would run through some of the best adventures written by Gary Gygax (T1-4, S-4, WG-4, G1-3, D1-3, Q1, for those that speak old school). The party started out as an adventuring company chartered by the Church of St Cuthbert to investigate strange goings on in the Village of Hommlet. The party was to start at level 3, with rolled ability scores, but allowed to default to standard if they didn't like the result. While I'm normally a huge fan of sandbox, we are playing on Roll20 VTT, so deviations are discouraged (but workable, especially with advanced notice).

The party succeeded in their first adventure, which garnered them great fame and one of them a title (including a fort). The party decided they worked well together (and had been through a lot), and everyone kinda crashed with the the titled PC. I expected as much, and set up the next adventure series from there.

My next campaign is going to work a bit different. Everyone will have 3+ characters, and I'm going to have a short session 0 for each adventure. The players will then decide which character they want to use once they know the setup for each adventure, but have to play out the entire adventure with the same character (or choose to fail the adventure). The group will be together because they are performing this specific adventure, not because they like each other.

 

[Oofta]

I just want to chime in to say that I when I've played an evil PC there was absolutely no chance that I was gonna turn on the party, or perform any sort of PvP.

Two(ish) questions.

Why play an evil character in a non-evil party? Why would an evil character not cheat/kill/steal from the goody-two-shoe who deserves it?

If you commit evil acts, why would others in the party not stop you, have you arrested or kill you? If you never commit evil acts, why play an evil character?

 

[Satyrn]

Two(ish) questions.

Why play an evil character in a non-evil party? Why would an evil character not cheat/kill/steal from the goody-two-shoe who deserves it?

If you commit evil acts, why would others in the party not stop you, have you arrested or kill you? If you never commit evil acts, why play an evil character?

I could go into character motivations, but the answer really comes down to "I'm not interested in PvP, so I will never choose an action that leads to it." I'll keep the lying, stealing and killing directed outwards away from the party.

I'll also abstain from playing an evil character in a party full of goody-two-shoes. Slot him into a party that's more neutralish or even a tad bit evil, and they won't feel a need to stop me.

And then, besides, there's other ways of being evil than being a lying, stealing murderer. My character might just revel in other sins.

 

[iserith]

I could go into character motivations, but the answer really comes down to "I'm not interested in PvP, so I will never choose an action that leads to it." I'll keep the lying, stealing and killing directed outwards away from the party.

I'll also abstain from playing an evil character in a party full of goody-two-shoes. Slot him into a party that's more neutralish or even a tad bit evil, and they won't feel a need to stop me.

And then, besides, there's other ways of being evil than being a lying, stealing murderer. My character might just revel in other sins.

And if you really want to be a stickler, the definitions of the evil alignments are right on page 34 of the Basic Rules. They aren't specific enough to require the PC do anything to upset the party and, frankly, more or less accurately describe what adventurers do - methodically take what they want, do whatever they can get away with, and act with arbitrary violence. Enter a dungeon and you can do all of these things. Who's the real monster here?

 

[transtemporal]

Before you begin play, get them to determine who knows who and how they met. Not everybody needs to know each other and they don't have to be best mates, they just need to be of a like mind. This even applies to good and evil characters since it is completely possible for them to find common ground despite having fundamentally differing world views. For an example of how this can work, Sturm and Kitiara from the original Dragonlance series are a brilliant case study. They bond over a common profession and sense of honour. Eventually it all goes downhill of course but for a while they are close friends.

 

[Caliban]

Ask the players ahead of time if they want to have shared backstories and decide how they know each other, or if they want the DM to arrange it. Some players are just not interested in coming up with a backstory.

If no one is feeling inspired, the DM can get creative:

All the PC's wake up in a dungeon with no memories. Shared goals: recover their memories - which may come back naturally (i.e. the players decide on the backstory during play) or when a certain event happens (something has their memories stored and they need find it).

Zombie invasion - they all start in the same location because that's where they happened to be when the zombies came.

Demon invasion - because zombies are boring and predictable.

They are all convicted of the same crime and need to work off their debt to society. They are the fantasy equivalent of the Suicide Squad. Except with 1st level characters (it's really suicide). Bonus: Easy replacement of dead PC's.

 

[MNblockhead]

When I started my campaign a couple years ago as a new DM I had the "no evil alignments" rule, and I still do, but now I realize that the only use for this rule is to set a tone. It doesn't really give guidelines for behavior. Also, I like to play with moral ambiguity. It can be difficult for the players to always know if they are the "good" guys and what the "good" course of action is. Much of it is subjective. What make the PCs heros to some, make them villans to others and the "some" and the "others" could all be LG.

Also, there are plenty of evil people who do terrible things but are incredibly loyal to their loved ones or partners. Couples who commit serial murder together, come to mind. They are not lawful evil and when you get to the point of arguing over whether they are neutral evil or chaotic evil, it gets silly.

Much more useful than worrying about alignment is to have clear rules that govern the PLAYERS and how they will play their characters at your game. You HAVE to have some agreement on this. DMing games for kids make this even more clear where the players that just want to kill everything anger the kids that want solve problems and play pretend.

With young kids I might simply state that they are heros and need to act like it. I'll give story/goal based XP rather than XP for each kill. Also, a particularly disruptive and psychopathic character will end up in jail, etc.

With my current group, I didn't really spell out many rules and everyone kinda naturally were in agreement not to be jerks to each other.

If a were to start a campaign with a new group of strangers, I would likely type up a number of basic rules and expectations and what the theme of the campaign was going to be. The focus would be on cooperation and keeping it fun for everyone. The exception being Paranoia, which I hope to run once I get my hands on the new Mongoose Publishing edition. But, again, everyone will go into that game with the same understanding of how the game is played (and that system is built to support a more PvP style).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm a newbie player in D&D, and I just started writing some scenarios/quests for fun.

I notice everywhere that typical parties are formed by a real ragtag of characters (because everybody just chooses whatever they want), ranging from chaotic to lawful and from good to evil. What could be some good examples of ultimate goals for a quest that would unite a random selection of players? I cannot come up with a single goal...

Currently, I am thinking of an evil character who is also really rich and in possession of some powerful items. That should attract the good guys to kill him for reasons of justice/honor/etc., and the neutral/evil ones to get the loot and the powerful items. How do the more experienced DMs solve this obvious problem? the two solutions that I can think of have obvious disadvantages:
1. Limit the alignments that are allowed in a quest, so that everyone has the same or comparable motivation: not nice for the role-players.
2. Work with multiple parallel goals for all players so that completely different characters will at least go the same direction, and fight the same monsters: not nice for the DM, it's complicated enough as it is.
3. (is there a 3rd way?)

I searched online, but I probably did not figure out the currect keywords because I didn't find an answer.

I recommend this: http://slyflourish.com/fiasco_relationships.html

Essentially how this works is that each PC has a unique relationship (rolled randomly, or chosen) with exactly two other members of the party. Maybe A and B were salt miners together for a while, and B and C were both framed for the same crime, and C and D are friendly rivals in love or business, and D and A are father-and-son. You get all the players in a circle, and then each guy rolls randomly for his/her relationship with the guy to his/her left, and accepts the relationship rolled by the guy on his/her right.

It can make sense to roll some "loose end" relationships too if you anticipate bringing in more PCs (from deaths or new players) as the campaign progresses. Maybe you establish that D was once a bounty hunter, so that when some other PC arrives D can say, "Rolf, old buddy! Did you ever catch Mengar the Magnificent? Ah, those were the days!"