My PCs are horrible people!

[Quickleaf]

"you're just taking away anything we earn cause you're a jerk"

This was said as a loving joke or was it a real objection?

Maybe your gang of lovely ladies want a more swords & sorcery style game without any good or evil so they can kill monsters (and NPCs) and take their stuff with impunity?

 

[Lady Chaomii]

The term "Hero" is arbitrary, especially in this case.

The beauty of Roleplaying games is it's ability to morph around the goals of the players, rather than the players setting their mind on the goal that the game has offered them.

If your players want to be evil, let them, encourage them, and offer rewards and campaign options for doing evil the same way a good hero would be for doing good.

Completely and utterly reverse the roll of Good guys and bad guys. Maybe send the characters on quests of personal gain, or to serve a tyranical overlord who rewards them for their efforts.

While good players gain a steady supply of allies, evil characters would inversely gain a steady supply of enemies. Maybe a party of adventurers is sent to stop the players.

When offering allies to the players, you shouldn't be thinking about what the ally would get out of the alliance, only good guys think about others. You should be offering allies which would result in shear personal gain for the players.

When dealing with evil adventurers; "Because it's the right thing to do" is irrelevant poetic nonsense. On the other hand; "Because it can lead to wealth, fame and above all POWER" is thinking in the right head-space.

 

[trancejeremy]

Whether or not you use alignment, you probably do use clerics.

Would those actions offend the god the cleric worships? If so, then cut off the divine powers until the cleric atones, or converts to an evil god (who would make even more evil demands)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Couldn't you use an encounter with good-aligned clerics and paladins as a "wake-up call"? Basically they're super-cops going after this band of serial killers.

 

[Sunseeker]

I think it's time for a little comeuppance. Evil people are usually the kinds that good adventurers seek out to destroy, so make up some good-aligned fighting force to go beat up your PCs. When you can do whatever you want with no real punishment, you tend to get more and more extreme. That tends to be how evil villains, and the heroes who want to stop them come to be.

 

[haakon1]

neither pander nor punish for any sort of out of game reason. Rather, let things take their natural course. If they gain a reputation for ruthlessness, they'll be feared - and fearful people are irrational. If they do harm to others, they'll be the objects of hate and people will plot vengeance. If they break the law, then they'll become enemies of the law and soon distrusted throughout civilized lands.

Nod, that works for me.

 

[Elf Witch]

I don't like DMing evil characters but I have played in evil campaigns with some excellent DMs.

Here is my advice and that is to use natural consequences for them. In a campaign with good PCs good things happen to them as the game progresses. They make allies, people hear stories about them and open their doors to them or give them breaks on the price of equipment.

With evil characters and make no mistake these are evil characters there should be consequence. People should be afraid of them so they won't go out of their way to help them. The towns guard should ask them to leave. They should attract the attention of other evil groups who either want to ally with them or view them as rivals and want them gone.

Send good NPCs at them see how they like being on the end of a smite evil. I am not saying to over power the encounter be fair about it. But use the resources of good against them the same way you would use the resources of evil against a group of good PCs.

There actions don't seem subtle at all they sound like they are playing what I call stupidly evil. That attracts all kinds of attention because they are not playing smart ans subtle use that against them.

I am a great believer in PCs not being given plot immunity. Regardless of their alignment.

 

[Wycen]

In one of my games the other players have apparently decided they want to be ruthless bastards. Well, two of them, the wizard and druid. The DM in the first session basically said "Well, in this place, you guys are basically the law" and so it unleashed the dark side of their gaming personality. And to top it off we've been forced to recruit NPC's to help augment our party. The last session we got a fighter killed. Then to replace him we hired a cleric, which we really need since our party either doesn't have a cleric or the cleric player doesn't show up. The cleric got swallowed alive by a giant flail snail, but luckily we managed to kill the snail and free her. Then of course, the wizards tries to use mind control so she'll not want to keep any of the treasure we promised.

Maybe once we run into something that kills us that'll change, since it is a sandbox setting.

 

[S'mon]

I agree with the crowd; evil campaigns work best if you just allow natural consequences for their actions. This tends to lead to relatively short-lived PCs, but that's fine. Off-topic, good campaigns should also have natural consequences - positive consequences. If PCs are shining paragons of virtue, have NPCs treat them that way. They should receive frequent praise, and gifts - whether an apple from the street urchin or masterwork plate armour from the local lord. NPCs may compete to see who can give the Paladin PC the greatest gift. If you want PCs to be Good, don't make society/NPCs sociopathic or uncaring.

 

[S'mon]

1) utter murder of prisoners taken in battle (bandits they captured)
2) Use of rescued slaves as bait to see if dragons are hiding outside
3) plans to buy slaves in the market (yes, the society does it, but it's suggested to be a bad thing).
4) Slapped one of the freed slaves when they said "but where will we go? our homes were destroyed by bandits?" (slaps her) "That's not my problem, now get out of this Inn!" (leaves and is eaten by a dragon)

Very Hobbes/nihilist group I'm playing with.

By 'Hobbes' I think you mean State of Nature/War of All Against All - not the Lawful-Neutral total obedience to the State that Hobbes actually advocated.

I would class the above behaviour as probably CN(E) in traditional AD&D alignment, maybe N(E) if they seem more consistent/organised. They don't seem to have a strong commitment to doing evil, but the use of slaves as bait slides it towards Evil from purely Neutral. Players of CN(E) PCs IMCs typically behave exactly as you describe.

Exactly how evil it is may depend on societal norms; in an ancient Greece type setting slaves may be regarded as expendable objects, whereas in a setting with a Christian type religion slaves may be regarded as human beings with some human rights, such as the right not to be eaten by dragons.