DragonLancer
Hero
Personally, I don't care for evil campaigns whether as DM or player. D&D is about being heroes not villains.
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Evil Campaigns: How do you feel about them?
- Thread starter Traveon Wyvernspur
- Start date
For me evil is generally defined in one of two ways either goals, there are goals which are obviously evil, and the lack or ability to "switch off" goodly thoughts or feelings like sympathy, empathy, mercy etc. in order to achieve your own purposes.
The first way doesn't lend itself well to party play because in a mixed party most of the characters will not have evil goals and this will more than likely lead to conflict, probably of the physical kind.
The second way allows one to be evil yet till function within a group dynamic. It just so happens that when you have the last guard weeping for mercy in front of you after telling you all he knows there will be little hesitation in the mind of an evil character of what the next step should be. ( though there probably wouldn't be much in the mind of a good chararcter either its just the end result would probably be quite different.)
Hussar
Legend
Well, I suppose, it depends on how you define your heroes. After all, Elric is most certainly evil as are most of Moorcock's heroes. Conan is arguably not particularly good. I really enjoyed the Steven Erikson Malazan novels and the heroes in that series are definitely not D&D good.
Heck, even in Tolkien, while evil is pretty one dimensional, good has lots of shades of grey.
Mrbongos
First Post
I'm certain I'm reiterating someone at some point, in some of this, but I'll at least say I agree with most of the responses of evil campaigns not being preferable. I've run a few evil campaigns, to a Black Spiral game for Werewolf The Apocalypes, Super-villains in the DC Universe game from WEG, 3rd Ed D&D and have played in my fair share as well.
In my opinion, as far as games go, the only 'evil' campaign game out there that works is ShadowRun, since you're playing a member of a team of career criminals.
In most cases, it requires some of the utmost responsible and team minded players to play an evil campaign. In most cases, it's hard to find a regular 5 player group that can function like that.
In my own group, in the past, there has been the classic alpha male personality type who, in an attempt at evil campaigns in the past, he has the previously stated Anti-Paladin domination problem (and sometimes has that problem as a heroic character)
Currently there is a gentleman who is under the impression that if he hard-balls everything, they'll bend to his will (even a Great Wyrm blue who eventually was no-longer amused with the level 3 trying to hard-line negotiate with him and smushed him)
Those rare gems where the players all acknowledge "No dicking over other players" is the rare white buffalo, and a group that acknowledges that heroes, authorities, bounty hunters, small military contingents, will be coming after them and/or will attack them on sight within most cities are rarer.
Many times in evil campaigns, Cocky becomes a primary descriptor for the characters and their players. They feel that they can walk boldly into any town and all will tremble with fear and/or empty their coin purses at their very approach, and it quickly feels like Player vs GM when you make them wake up and deal with the consequences of their actions.
So like others stated, one of the best ways to run an evil campaign? A short one, maybe only a few sessions - and those short campaigns, maybe use them as a means to opening up a storyline for the regular campaign. Let the players help 'flesh out' the personality of some villains, and let them know that ultimately who those characters will be, later on, is determined by you, though take their own influences for the characters well in hand.
All in all, I play D&D to be heroic, (while one of my players has disturbed us by saying he plays D&D because he's not allowed (not unable) to do certain things in real life) If I'm running D&D, or other games really, it's to see a heroic narrative. If someone is in the group playing evil, rather than all, but he acts in a way that works with the others and aides their overall goals (while helping his own nefarious ones) so be it, as long as it doesn't turn into a series of party kills.
In my opinion, as far as games go, the only 'evil' campaign game out there that works is ShadowRun, since you're playing a member of a team of career criminals.
In most cases, it requires some of the utmost responsible and team minded players to play an evil campaign. In most cases, it's hard to find a regular 5 player group that can function like that.
In my own group, in the past, there has been the classic alpha male personality type who, in an attempt at evil campaigns in the past, he has the previously stated Anti-Paladin domination problem (and sometimes has that problem as a heroic character)
Currently there is a gentleman who is under the impression that if he hard-balls everything, they'll bend to his will (even a Great Wyrm blue who eventually was no-longer amused with the level 3 trying to hard-line negotiate with him and smushed him)
Those rare gems where the players all acknowledge "No dicking over other players" is the rare white buffalo, and a group that acknowledges that heroes, authorities, bounty hunters, small military contingents, will be coming after them and/or will attack them on sight within most cities are rarer.
Many times in evil campaigns, Cocky becomes a primary descriptor for the characters and their players. They feel that they can walk boldly into any town and all will tremble with fear and/or empty their coin purses at their very approach, and it quickly feels like Player vs GM when you make them wake up and deal with the consequences of their actions.
So like others stated, one of the best ways to run an evil campaign? A short one, maybe only a few sessions - and those short campaigns, maybe use them as a means to opening up a storyline for the regular campaign. Let the players help 'flesh out' the personality of some villains, and let them know that ultimately who those characters will be, later on, is determined by you, though take their own influences for the characters well in hand.
All in all, I play D&D to be heroic, (while one of my players has disturbed us by saying he plays D&D because he's not allowed (not unable) to do certain things in real life) If I'm running D&D, or other games really, it's to see a heroic narrative. If someone is in the group playing evil, rather than all, but he acts in a way that works with the others and aides their overall goals (while helping his own nefarious ones) so be it, as long as it doesn't turn into a series of party kills.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm playing an evil character in our Dark Sun 4e campaign, where we have a mixed group.
Mostly so far I've been indistinguishable from the Good characters. The character is functionally Lawful Evil (even if it would apparently break 4e for me to put that on a character sheet
), a true believer in the Sorcerer-King's world, who doesn't value mortal life very highly (does the lion value the life of the gazelle? Why should my character value the lives of those whom she must hunt to live?). She's not a malicious opportunistic instinctive jerk, though. Being evil doesn't mean she's going to be an insane compulsive murderer. She just doesn't see the value in life.
The one area where there is a divergence is actually one of the more interesting RP moments in the game. We found some item that legally would belong to the Sorcerer-King Hamanu, but several members of the party want to keep it from falling into his possession. My character would like to see it in his possession, others differ. That's more a debate about Law and Chaos than about Good and Evil anyway, since even an LG character might follow the leadership of the S-K's unless asked to do something directly evil.
Evil doesn't have to be cartoonish or insane. In some readings, my character could certainly qualify as a psychopathic individual (she only cares about others in that she cares about what they can give her!), but it's not like she's a criminal or a maniac. She's just evil.
Mostly so far I've been indistinguishable from the Good characters. The character is functionally Lawful Evil (even if it would apparently break 4e for me to put that on a character sheet
), a true believer in the Sorcerer-King's world, who doesn't value mortal life very highly (does the lion value the life of the gazelle? Why should my character value the lives of those whom she must hunt to live?). She's not a malicious opportunistic instinctive jerk, though. Being evil doesn't mean she's going to be an insane compulsive murderer. She just doesn't see the value in life. The one area where there is a divergence is actually one of the more interesting RP moments in the game. We found some item that legally would belong to the Sorcerer-King Hamanu, but several members of the party want to keep it from falling into his possession. My character would like to see it in his possession, others differ. That's more a debate about Law and Chaos than about Good and Evil anyway, since even an LG character might follow the leadership of the S-K's unless asked to do something directly evil.
Evil doesn't have to be cartoonish or insane. In some readings, my character could certainly qualify as a psychopathic individual (she only cares about others in that she cares about what they can give her!), but it's not like she's a criminal or a maniac. She's just evil.
As a DM I won't run an evil campaign and I don't allow evil or CN in my games. I am not interested in providing opportunities for them to do dastardly deeds. There are several reasons for this one I really don't have interest in exploring the dark side other than to destroy it.
Secondly I don't give my players plot immunity. Eventually unless they were very careful the good guys would notice them and send adventurers after them. If the good guys won the PCs would be either jailed or executed and in my experience this tends to make most players unhappy.
Secondly I would hate to see my good NPCs killed and I would not be wanting the players to succeeded so it would become DM vs player.
I have played in a mixed party and I hated it. The evil characters stole, back stabbed, sabotaged anything the good characters were doing. And eventually they tried to kill the good characters. It left a lot of hard feelings that carried into the next game.
I did play in one evil game that was fun. First of all we all worshiped the same god and worked for the same overlord so we had the same goals. We were all lawful evil and were not into doing evil for the sake of evil. We didn't just butcher other people because we didn't want to bring the good guys and the law down on ourselves. We did kill witnesses if needed to.
I will say this we worked together better than any good party I ever played with. Part of this was that we knew if we screwed up the plan our god and overlord had set in motion we were dead so the players didn't have their PCs doing stupid things that in a good party would be tolerated because you don't kill fellow PCs in a good party. For example I have seen rogues in good campaigns steal from the party and steal from stores, steal from the king. They get the party in trouble but usually the worst that happens to them is they get banished from the party.
In the evil campaign the rogue knew if he did anything like this he would be dead. The same with the characters who love to go into town and start brawls or piss off the local guards.
Lone wolf behavior was quickly squelched if you went off on your own and it was not part of the mission and you got hurt there was a good chance you didn't get healed unless you had away to do it yourself. It was viewed as a waste of resources.
The game lasted until we were about 11 level then one player had his character do something really stupid that brought Blackstaff to our door with two paladins. And instead of trusting the magic items we had to protect us the same player killed one of the paladins and was in the middle of killing the other when Blackstaff and the invisible wizards we didn't see opened up on us with meter storm and other nasty area spells. My character was the only one who lived because my intelligent evil sword teleported me away. But that was the end of that campaign.
Secondly I don't give my players plot immunity. Eventually unless they were very careful the good guys would notice them and send adventurers after them. If the good guys won the PCs would be either jailed or executed and in my experience this tends to make most players unhappy.
Secondly I would hate to see my good NPCs killed and I would not be wanting the players to succeeded so it would become DM vs player.
I have played in a mixed party and I hated it. The evil characters stole, back stabbed, sabotaged anything the good characters were doing. And eventually they tried to kill the good characters. It left a lot of hard feelings that carried into the next game.
I did play in one evil game that was fun. First of all we all worshiped the same god and worked for the same overlord so we had the same goals. We were all lawful evil and were not into doing evil for the sake of evil. We didn't just butcher other people because we didn't want to bring the good guys and the law down on ourselves. We did kill witnesses if needed to.
I will say this we worked together better than any good party I ever played with. Part of this was that we knew if we screwed up the plan our god and overlord had set in motion we were dead so the players didn't have their PCs doing stupid things that in a good party would be tolerated because you don't kill fellow PCs in a good party. For example I have seen rogues in good campaigns steal from the party and steal from stores, steal from the king. They get the party in trouble but usually the worst that happens to them is they get banished from the party.
In the evil campaign the rogue knew if he did anything like this he would be dead. The same with the characters who love to go into town and start brawls or piss off the local guards.
Lone wolf behavior was quickly squelched if you went off on your own and it was not part of the mission and you got hurt there was a good chance you didn't get healed unless you had away to do it yourself. It was viewed as a waste of resources.
The game lasted until we were about 11 level then one player had his character do something really stupid that brought Blackstaff to our door with two paladins. And instead of trusting the magic items we had to protect us the same player killed one of the paladins and was in the middle of killing the other when Blackstaff and the invisible wizards we didn't see opened up on us with meter storm and other nasty area spells. My character was the only one who lived because my intelligent evil sword teleported me away. But that was the end of that campaign.
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Zelda Themelin
First Post
I am pretty neutral toward playing evil characters.
I kinda prefer them mostly serious though. Player vr. player is ok for one-shots, but tends to ruin any longer games.
I prefer to play neutralish characters myself. I can potray evil very well when I am DM, but when I play, I tend to be too nice. I kind like being party-friendly and nice most of the time.
My problem as dm for evil games is that people don't play them evil enough. They tend to be more neutral/mercenary rather. Or some people go for comic book evil in style of 80', which I find boring and pointless.
When I was younger games I played involved lot pvp and killing anything that looked you wrong. In those games when I wasnt a dm innocent looking farmers and cityguards and tavernkeeprs suddenly seemed to gain demi-godly powers. Those games were types where new characters got made often and they continued to take revenge for things done to their prior characters. Alignment reading on character sheet had no meaning for those people.
So this is kinda game style I really don't like. I don't want game get some jerkiness-contest between players and dm. Also I don't particulary like dm vr. players mentality, where both sides seek to win the game.
If I am playing evil character I don't want plots where dm's overpowered paladins are out to get me.
I don't like good characters, because many dm's I've known, has used my "goodness" as excuse why my characted have to accept all stupid no-pay help missions. It's ok if mission is interesting one but they often arent. Especially so with dm's who like doing low-levels ad infinitum.
Many people have defined some elements of evil games here well, but honestly I think evil characters are just like any character. They shoud have goal and motivation for adventures. And they should have better things to do than torment some poor peasants.
Reputation does matter for evil too, if you are mostly known for being petty jerk, you probably are not one up for being a leader, or one that gets things done. You seem like easlily distracted type. One likely to compomise secrets.
Most of the psychotic hunter/killer types I saw in werewolf the apocalypse games. They were very common character types. I didn't mind that either, unless they were also "mysterious solo-types".
I hate people who want to play solo-game in group-game. I ban any evil character that is created with motivation to have some solo-time. Often happens when someone tries to create evil character for good game or good one for evil game.
I kinda prefer them mostly serious though. Player vr. player is ok for one-shots, but tends to ruin any longer games.
I prefer to play neutralish characters myself. I can potray evil very well when I am DM, but when I play, I tend to be too nice. I kind like being party-friendly and nice most of the time.
My problem as dm for evil games is that people don't play them evil enough. They tend to be more neutral/mercenary rather. Or some people go for comic book evil in style of 80', which I find boring and pointless.
When I was younger games I played involved lot pvp and killing anything that looked you wrong. In those games when I wasnt a dm innocent looking farmers and cityguards and tavernkeeprs suddenly seemed to gain demi-godly powers. Those games were types where new characters got made often and they continued to take revenge for things done to their prior characters. Alignment reading on character sheet had no meaning for those people.
So this is kinda game style I really don't like. I don't want game get some jerkiness-contest between players and dm. Also I don't particulary like dm vr. players mentality, where both sides seek to win the game.
If I am playing evil character I don't want plots where dm's overpowered paladins are out to get me.
I don't like good characters, because many dm's I've known, has used my "goodness" as excuse why my characted have to accept all stupid no-pay help missions. It's ok if mission is interesting one but they often arent. Especially so with dm's who like doing low-levels ad infinitum.
Many people have defined some elements of evil games here well, but honestly I think evil characters are just like any character. They shoud have goal and motivation for adventures. And they should have better things to do than torment some poor peasants.
Reputation does matter for evil too, if you are mostly known for being petty jerk, you probably are not one up for being a leader, or one that gets things done. You seem like easlily distracted type. One likely to compomise secrets.
Most of the psychotic hunter/killer types I saw in werewolf the apocalypse games. They were very common character types. I didn't mind that either, unless they were also "mysterious solo-types".
I hate people who want to play solo-game in group-game. I ban any evil character that is created with motivation to have some solo-time. Often happens when someone tries to create evil character for good game or good one for evil game.
I love situations where the majority of NPCs think the PCs are the big bad evil guys because they're doing something totally against the locally prevailing opinions on politics/morality/goblin hordes, but the party thinks it's the right thing to do. I am totally uninterested in characters which do things because they are intentionally being evil and vindictive, twirling their moustaches and cackling while they tie maidens to train tracks etc.
So I would neither play nor DM a campaign sign-posted as evil, but I quite like unaligned characters doing bad deeds in pursuit of good goals.
So I would neither play nor DM a campaign sign-posted as evil, but I quite like unaligned characters doing bad deeds in pursuit of good goals.
Wombat
First Post
I have a few serious problems with Evil Campaigns. I have run two or three (depending on how you are counting -- see below) and played in one other; in addition, I have watched/heard of innumerable others in my 30+ years of gaming. I'll try and articulate my problems.
As a GM and as Player, I prefer my heroes to be generally good. No, not Goody Two Shoes, for many have been flawed, dark, and even wrenching redemption story types, but at the core it is simply easier to play a character (or run for characters) who is positive in nature.
Having said that, I did run a campaign with a group of good characters where one took an arc towards irredeemably evil. This was huge for the game and left everyone drained by the end of the arc, but drained in a good way -- they knew that one of their own had turned ultimately against them and was gone forever. Wow, talk about amazing roleplaying! Yeah, that one was worth running.
As for the ones where I set out to run Evil campaigns, one turned primarily towards dark paranoia and creeped out my players so much they asked me to stop. The second started off fine, but a new players joined in who was of a mindset that I will describe below and this brought the game to a crashing halt. The final one I attempted is hard to determine -- I was running an old school Star Trek game (TOS) where the players were Klingons. Were they evil? Hard to determine; they certainly were not likable. That one ran fairly well and came to an acceptable conclusion.
The one I played in, I found I was the only person playing a seriously Evil character. I left after four sessions as I found the whole thing pointless.
Now here is my major problem with Evil campaigns. Most people do NOT play Evil when they are in Evil campaigns. They run Chaotic Idiotic, they play Bad Puns, they play "Hee hee hee, I killed a kitten", but they do not actually get into the skin of being Evil. They are more like Deadpool or Cesar Romero's Joker than Hannibal Lecter or American Psycho. They play what I refer to as Disney Evil -- more naughty than vile, big on the jokes, and never either dealing with (or seriously justifying away) the cruelties, selfishness, and general vileness that is evil. Yeah, that character sheet may have Evil written on it, but aside from being able to pickup certain magic items and prestige classes, they are no worse than most Good PCs.
And this is not just true for D&D -- I have had the dubious pleasure of being around people playing Vampire: the Masquerade and they are constantly like this. They play individuals who only continue to exist by ripping the lifeblood of others away from them, at the very least Assault and Battery and often Murder. How do they deal with this? They skip over most of the bloodsucking attacks ("That's boring. We already did that. Do we have to play it out all the time?") and then get involved in low-rent pseudo-Machiavellian political maneuvers, with a machine-gun chorus. The closest they come to dealing with evil is justifying that somehow they are nicer than the other vampires, but without ever mentally/emotionally facing, especially as players, the damage they cause to the world simply by continuing to exist.
If someone were to run a Really Evil game in my presence, I would applaud them. I doubt such a campaign would last very long, though, if the players really thought about what they were doing.
As a GM and as Player, I prefer my heroes to be generally good. No, not Goody Two Shoes, for many have been flawed, dark, and even wrenching redemption story types, but at the core it is simply easier to play a character (or run for characters) who is positive in nature.
Having said that, I did run a campaign with a group of good characters where one took an arc towards irredeemably evil. This was huge for the game and left everyone drained by the end of the arc, but drained in a good way -- they knew that one of their own had turned ultimately against them and was gone forever. Wow, talk about amazing roleplaying! Yeah, that one was worth running.
As for the ones where I set out to run Evil campaigns, one turned primarily towards dark paranoia and creeped out my players so much they asked me to stop. The second started off fine, but a new players joined in who was of a mindset that I will describe below and this brought the game to a crashing halt. The final one I attempted is hard to determine -- I was running an old school Star Trek game (TOS) where the players were Klingons. Were they evil? Hard to determine; they certainly were not likable. That one ran fairly well and came to an acceptable conclusion.
The one I played in, I found I was the only person playing a seriously Evil character. I left after four sessions as I found the whole thing pointless.
Now here is my major problem with Evil campaigns. Most people do NOT play Evil when they are in Evil campaigns. They run Chaotic Idiotic, they play Bad Puns, they play "Hee hee hee, I killed a kitten", but they do not actually get into the skin of being Evil. They are more like Deadpool or Cesar Romero's Joker than Hannibal Lecter or American Psycho. They play what I refer to as Disney Evil -- more naughty than vile, big on the jokes, and never either dealing with (or seriously justifying away) the cruelties, selfishness, and general vileness that is evil. Yeah, that character sheet may have Evil written on it, but aside from being able to pickup certain magic items and prestige classes, they are no worse than most Good PCs.
And this is not just true for D&D -- I have had the dubious pleasure of being around people playing Vampire: the Masquerade and they are constantly like this. They play individuals who only continue to exist by ripping the lifeblood of others away from them, at the very least Assault and Battery and often Murder. How do they deal with this? They skip over most of the bloodsucking attacks ("That's boring. We already did that. Do we have to play it out all the time?") and then get involved in low-rent pseudo-Machiavellian political maneuvers, with a machine-gun chorus. The closest they come to dealing with evil is justifying that somehow they are nicer than the other vampires, but without ever mentally/emotionally facing, especially as players, the damage they cause to the world simply by continuing to exist.
If someone were to run a Really Evil game in my presence, I would applaud them. I doubt such a campaign would last very long, though, if the players really thought about what they were doing.
Why is that a problem? It's fun to get your Snidely Whiplash or Count Rugen on from time to time.
Most D&D campaign aren't conducive to a serious exploration of ethics or The Problem With Evil. Regardless of the PCs alignment.
FYI... American Psycho is Bret Easton Ellis's idea of a comedy. It's a mean joke at the expensive of 1980s-style materialism. And Hannibal Lector is more than little camp... consider the terrible "I'm having a friend for dinner" line at the end of Silence.
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