Evil Campaigns

[Morlock]

(Warning, Dragonlance spoilers ahead)

Does anyone else think it's kind of odd that there are no evil campaigns (for sale)? I don't mean campaigns where the players can be evil. I mean evil campaigns, evil adventure paths.

Like, say, the particularly juicy idea I just had for a Dragonlance campaign: the players are servants of Takhisis, or a Dragon highlord, before and during the War of the Lance. The before part sounds just as interesting as the during part, since Takhisis was doing an awful lot of skullduggery before the war started. Who was it who stole the metallic dragon eggs, again? Who exactly helped whatshisname and whatshisface come up with that ritual to convert the eggs into draconians? Who subverted this kingdom to Takhisis' side, and who terrorized that one? Who helped Kitiara recover that red dragon? Etc.

Not that the during part is a slouch, mind. They wrote your assassin out of what really happened when Sturm died? You were there and did all the heavy lifting abducting Laurana? You say you killed a party of do-gooders down in the dungeons of Skullcap led by some half-elf bastard? Wait, you say his father actually finished him off? Etc.

Then there's the whole "Takhisis encouraged her servants to fight amongst themselves, so only the strongest survived" bit.

So, not just mean and nasty, but servants of the dark powers nasty. Evil with a point nasty.

As an added bonus, while Krynn is one of the most loved settings, it's also easily one of the most hated. I bet a lot of D&Ders would camp out in tents overnight to get tickets to a kender/gully dwarf/tinker gnome/general-Krynn-cutesy killin' party.

Edit: the beauty of an Evil-With-A-Point campaign is that you can be the bad guys in a more abstract sense, without the bits that people find distasteful. More "my (evil) side is going to win" evil, and less "rapin' and pillagin' evil."

 

[the Jester]

You mean evil adventures, I take it?

I seem to recall seeing one during the 3e era... but yeah, it's a little disappointing that there is such a surfeit of adventures targeted at evil pcs. I think part of the reason is that evil pcs tend to be more proactive, choosing their own goals and building toward them, and are less likely to follow along with a preplanned adventure.

That said, I think it's a damn shame, and I'll bet there's a market for it.

 

[Crothian]

Some company has an AP called Way of the Wicked that is for evil characters.

 

[gamerprinter]

Does anyone else think it's kind of odd that there are no evil campaigns (for sale)? I don't mean campaigns where the players can be evil. I mean evil campaigns, evil adventure paths.

While evil campaigns are definitely in the very small minority, you cannot state that there are no evil campaigns (for sale), that is simply not true.

Some company has an AP called Way of the Wicked that is for evil characters.

Fire Mountain Games has a full AP, as you mention Crothian, called Way of the Wicked, that is an entirely evil PC group for a 1st - 20th level campaign.

While not an evil campaign, since the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) (my published setting) only as one short 3 module campaign as an intro to the setting, we haven't developed a lot of campaigns for it, so haven't touched upon any possible evil campaign. That said, Kaidan does offer a single one-shot module called Up from Darkness, that while the PCs in of itself, don't know if they are evil or not (there is an amnesia element to that one-shot), in the end they discover they have volunteered to join the Shogun's elite death squad of assassins and are indeed evil PCs in a not-necessarily-evil world. I'm sure Kaidan will eventually offer an evil campaign of some sort, down the road.

Incidentally, I purchased the first module of the original Dragonlance series and absolutely detested the adventure upon first reading it, the setting and concepts were interesting but the railroad of an adventure was definitely not. I didn't then and wouldn't ever play Dragonlance - count me in as one of its dislikers. Since that module was my first introduction to the setting, I never did buy any of the Dragonlance novels - so the entire storyline means nothing to me.

 

[Morlock]

Some company has an AP called Way of the Wicked that is for evil characters.

It's Paizo, thanks for the tip. At least now I know there's at least one. Just didn't sit right with me that there were none.

Edit: correction, it is indeed Fire Mountain Games' product. Paizo's just slinging this filth.

Some interesting quotes from a "related" thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?100374-Evil-Campaigns

Most of the time I run evil campaigns, just not in the traditional sense. They are evil in the sense that the means don't matter, just the end. They will happily go save the princess from the goblins, just they make the goblins they kill become skeletons to slay more goblins for them, or killing their horses for mounts that will never tire therefore making them more efficent.

See, I'm talking about the exact opposite: players who will take the princess and turn her over to the priesthood of Takhisis to be sacrificed, and don't much care about the gold. Players who would take over the goblin tribe and set them against the kingdom (or destroy them, if Takhisis already controlled it).

We all (4 of us) played genuinely bad people with dark backgrounds and the distrust/hatred/jealously factor was pretty high. So the GM gave us a lot to keep us busy, here is a couple things I'd recommend:

1) Make sure all the players understand that they are evil. Not neutral, not conflicted with goodness, but evil--so you don't get into moral questions with the other character's vile actions.

2) Give them lots of good guys to torture and enemies to keep them on their toes. If they have time to rest and reflect, they'll probably be at each others throats in short order.

3) Have the populace treat them in such a way that they have few to no friends outside the party, that will also help keep them together.

4) Make sure each party member is valuable to the group, or they'll be quickly viewed as expendable.

I just wanted to say I think that sounds like a lot of fun for a change-of-pace campaign.

I'd say the one important thing that you could do from the start is make them an organized group of adventures rather than just a random group of evil doers. By that I mean give them a focus, it doesn't have to be singular, that keeps them working together so you lessen the tension between the party members.

If there isn't a focus to the group then you'll wind up with lots of back-stabbing and inter-party problems. Maybe they're part of a death cult, or a evil empire expanding it's borders into nations on a new continent and the players are the advance group, etc... Things like that.

This. This this this. Where's the adventure path for this? Paizo, paging Paizo, please pick up a black courtesy phone (LoL, turns out they picked up).

Evil doesn't have to mean backstabbing, utterly untrustworthy villains. It can mean people devoted to evil, which is a very different proposition if you think about it.

Whatshisface gets it.

 

[Morlock]

While evil campaigns are definitely in the very small minority, you cannot state that there are no evil campaigns (for sale), that is simply not true.

The man's going to deny me my right to lie, right in my own evil thread.

I'm sure Kaidan will eventually offer an evil campaign of some sort, down the road.

I look forward to it. Just think, you'll be doubling the number of products available for the niche!

 

[amerigoV]

I have played in a Ptolus campaign that was essentially evil - we were an up and coming gang aligned with one of the major crime families. The DM did a good job of taking the Ptolus material and tweaking it to make it work in this way. Its on hiatus right now, but we will come back to it (it was a "full campaign" - just taking a break before we gear up for more evil adventures).

We did have the son of a couple in the game (player), so we could no go all Russian Mafia during that run, but he is older now so it might get a bit darker.

I am running a game now that is not evil, but boy one of the players is exploring her dark side (the mother of aforementioned child). Sometimes I get confirmation from the husband that he is ok a couple of days after some sessions...

 

[Evenglare]

way of the wicked is great

 

[Morlock]

way of the wicked is great

One thing's for sure: it's the greatest evil adventure path on the market.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I'm not a supporter of evil campaigns, but logic and anecdote suggest that an evil Dragonlance campaign has about a 90% chance of going in one direction:

Kender. Extermination.

EDIT: Oops, sorry, missed that you'd already noted that.