About to run an evil campaign! Advice wanted. (players of my game no peak)

[Renfield]

Okay,

Here it is, in my campaign "Of Children and Lost Souls", the players all died. It appears my particular group lacks any sort of luck when dealing with trolls and essentially got ripped and rended to death. However, they wish to continue with the plot, but with a twist: They'll all be playing evil characters. Now this isn't something that is frightening me as they'll be working out a way to work together amongst themselves, likely working intertwining background histories together, which is a good thing considering my group.

Still I would love some help and advice.

If any of you actually read my storyboard thread I'm sad to say I am more than a little behind in my posts. No longer having the luxery of waiting two weeks between gaming sessions. I've never DMed for and evil party, I've DMed for groups with and evil character in it, that didn't go too bad thankfully. The worst alignment I have trouble with is Neutral, particularly True Neutral as they can be even more unexpected than Chaotic Neutral in their own right. So I'm glad the group is choosing one part of the spectrum over the other.

Anyway, any advice is welcome, feel free to ask about the plot if you think that would help in the giving of advice. Thanks for your time whoever bothers to respond

 

[MarauderX]

I think 'handling' an evil party is much like a good party in that you may have to anticipate their moves. Good parties are predictable for the most part - doing the 'right' thing and not worrying about their own success as much.

In my experience evil PCs do all of the nasty things they possibly can, and when you get 3-6 player brainstorming bad things to do they can get very creative. I think it was the second or third session we were gaming, and the players were finally becoming used to the idea of being evil when they would go off and have tangent conversations like this:

"After we kill this guy, let's poison the well, torch the grainery, push some old people down the stairs and kill a puppy..." "...and then eat it while praying to Orcus to make us powerful necromancers..." "...so we can raise all of the undead in the graveyard..." "...and have them carry us on platforms we make them build so we can ride around our newly subdued town..." "...that is only the start of our empire..." "...MUhahahaaaa..."

Now there are a bunch of things that will hinder the players before such a plan could come to fruitition, and thinking them through may be the hard part. Knowing what motivates the PCs makes it much easier - money, power, fame, knowledge, items, etc. Use it to lead the party into traps the same way you would a good party with a damsel in distress. Let them talk themselves into things which you can build around easily and watch them go for it with evil vigor.

Since you already have a plot in place you may want to change the focus of it from possibly helping someone else to helping themselves. And another important point is to keep in mind that 2 evils aren't necessarily friends even though they may have common enemies. Those trolls you mentioned probably won't like the PCs any more than the old party, and trying to reason with them will only get them torn asunder again. Not only are the good guys out to get them, so are the baddies.

 

[der_kluge]

Some of the best role-playing, and team-work I've ever seen have come from groups of evil players. I think you'll be fine. Just run with it. The players will likely take the initiative in most things, as evil characters tend to be... motivated.

 

[Renfield]

Very true... my players often lean towards neutrality, some might have a good alignment but they still expect a magic item or some heavy gold for rescuing that damsel in distress, eventually the party became wholly and completely neutral. Hell, I can't remember a time when the party went on an adventure for the sake of doing good, and when they were neutral I was lucky that the necromancer had some motivation and two other characters were essentially tagalongs. Still, next week will be the first game... and I've got a general idea as to how to go about things... still, tad quesy, last thing I want to have to do is actively try to wipe them out simply to preserve my own personal sanity.

 

[Renfield]

bump

 

[Obi-One]

Running an evil campaign is a true test of players and GM's. Good players - and I mean GOOD players - will make your life easy because they will pick an alignment and stick to it. No matter what. No matter how opposite to themselves, or vile their course of action might seem, they won't falter in persuing the character's agenda.

Nuetrality has no place in an evil campaign. A player who remains nuetral is not comfortable with the moral shift in the game or finds it hard to "get into role". And in that lies the challenge for the GM. How do you engage the players on a level of "evil" they are all comfortable with?

Some people find it easy to let loose their cathartic angst in an evil game, others shy completely away from it. As the GM, you need to make them understand also that evil is a point of view as much as it is an alignment. They don't HAVE to be mass-murderers or baby-killer. Understated evil is better. Evil characters persue their goals without adhering to moral codes deemed "good" by the population at large - e.g Drow Elves, a great example of this.

It doesn't mean they aren't capable of benevolence. In fact, in any "evil" game I have run where one of the characters has extended a kind gesture, the moment has been more poignant and emotive than if a Lawful Good Paladin had done the same thing.

To be honest, my evil campaigns have been the most challenging and most rewarding roleplaying experiences to date. The best advice I can give you is to challenge yourself and the players, and make the consequences for their actions very real.

Oh, plus don't forget to have fun

 

[Renfield]

Ah, make the consequences real, that is another thing I'd like advice on. Real and effective enough that they'll not go too wild. My players are very adept at making potent characters. So adept that I was actually surprised they fell to three trolls and a 5th level Troll Priestess, there were three 7th level characters, one 8th level character, and a 6th level NPC plus they had a Fog Giant zombie (don't ask, take a glance through Mongoose Publishings "Necromancy") though I neutralized that by putting the objective trolls in a cave. Regardless they were cut to tiny little ribbons after the spellcasters were seen as indeed: spellcasters. Sure I could have gone easy but my players and my own pride put my days as a merciful "oh you were cut down to five hitpoints with that attack? Then the trolls bite and claw attack will go to the guy next to you" DM behind me and let the dice fall where they may. Oh, and for the record the fifth level troll priestess didn't come into the battle until one troll was dead and two were under 10 hp each.

 

[Obi-One]

Ah, make the consequences real, that is another thing I'd like advice on. Real and effective enough that they'll not go too wild.

The best way to regualte their actions without railroading their fun is to have consequences planned in advance. For example, the party decides to wipe a small village off the map because it's harbouring someone they've been chasing for a while. Fine. Let them do it.

So the village is destroyed, the locals are dead and their nemesis is captured. What the PC's don't know is the local noble has a rather kick-a** contingent of rangers in his employ. They are dispatched to destroy the characters.

Do not hesitate to bring the sneakiest, rat bastardly tactics the rangers would use to bear on your PC's. As long as the encounter level is enough to match them in a fight, you should deplete 70% of their resources and incapacitate at least one of them IF they survive. Obviously allow for them rolling so well that they make a mockery of your careful plan, as my players do sometimes

The point being - consequences. Their nemesis may escape because of the attack and survive to haunt them longer. They may kill all the rangers, so the noble puts a death mark on them and hires mercenaries to bring them in dead or alive. Rumours spread of their deeds which attracts good/bad attention. A simple, evil decision can spawn countless encounters, story arcs etc etc.

Yet the crucial message is: do overtly bad things to innocents enough and scary good people turn up to hand you your own a**. They'll regualte their own behaviour after that, and you can feed off their paranoia

 

[Renfield]

Ah wonderful ideas... I'll remember that, stuff I should have already known but noooOOOooo I was too brain dead to come up with it myself Another wonderful twist is that two of the players have anti-hero concepts. People who are so dedicated towards the greater good that they believe the ends justify the means. Essentially they'll do anything, no matter how cruel or despicable, to preserve the greater good from the looks of it.

 

[Stone Angel]

Actually we played in a star wars campaign and it was the easiest job the dm said he had ever had. We were so scared of the Jedi coming in we had to be very sneaky and subtle. No more just running in and killing all the monsters. It brought out some of the best roleplaying we've ever had.

The hardest part of the actual story was why we were all together. In an evil campaign one person will always tend to dominate the others. So you have to dm this very carefully. Actually running the game isn't the problem it is the interplayer reaction that is the key to the evil campaign.