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

[Renfield]

Ah yes... that's the hardest part of many of my adventures... even whent he characters are supposedly good aligned they have so many neutral and selfish tendencies it's hard for me to get the vast majority of them in to stay. My party seems to be far more group oriented in games that have a specific and large plot that often involves saving the world... small adventuring campaigns tend to work in opposite fashion sometimes... but seeing as we have a nice quest thing and they're actively looking into reasons for them to work together amongst themselves things should go easier on me. Alas... we have no Jedi to keep evil people in line

 

[Mystery Man]

I would run the DM to player relationship much like Darth Vader to his underlings.

They always have some bigger fish to answer to, they have to fight for every ounce of free will they get and the penalty for failure is nothing short of death (by unga bunga).

Keeps them from trying to kill each other.

 

[takyris]

Evil can simply be a matter of motivation rather than individual action. You can have a Lawful Evil knight who goes out and fights honorably for the innocent -- but he has strict and unyielding laws about who and what is innocent, and he firmly believes that death by torture is the clearest way to deter other people from following in the examples of criminals.

Said Dark Knight might very well offer a sword to a defenseless foe so that they could fight on more equal terms -- but if a foe attacked the Dark Knight in a sneaky way, such a foe would be treated like a rabid animal.

If foes try to escape into the crowd, the Lawful Evil Authoritarian Wizard might fireball the crowd and then, upon capturing the foes, charge them with the deaths of the villagers in the crowd -- who would not have died 'if the criminal had not insisted on hiding in their midst'.

Not every Evil person is a puppy-eating psychopath. They can be just as shaded as good or neutral characters.

 

[Hunter]

I played in an evil campaign using 2nd edition rules (just before 3rd came out).
The campaign was in Judges Guild's Citystate of the World Emperor. If your familiar with that campaign world you'll know its quite well suited for an evil character party.The society that the characters live in is primarily lawful evil.

Our DM was very good at giving us challenges that were political, such as land rights, noble titles, and evil alliances-(lots of political intrigue and role playing).
I think what really worked best was the fact that any adventure we went on we all had individual objectives/gains that didn't crossover to the other character's greed. If you've ever had players arguing over a particular magic item that both could use, imagine that amplified with evil characters. I played a lawful evil Cavalier and I felt that it was a good 'evil' alignment to role play because you believed in a sense of order to your ambitions. I had great fun getting a powerful LG cavalier/paladin to challenge me to a duel. I agreed on one condition. No magic items to use in duel. Just before the duel the wizard in my party cast a limited wish to temporarily render me immune to all normal weapons that were not enchanted-(say +1 or better to hit). We also went on Against the Giants G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. Instead of attacking King Snurre we made an alliance with him against the Drow. Snurre tried to double cross both the Drow and us but for a time we were allies-lol!
Beware of a very good role player who picks a chaotic evil character, especially a wizard or assasin. Then when the party is occupied with some nasty you've concocted, said character is liable to leave and/or attack at a crucial moment and make off with whatever treasure was gained. If he's a good role player and he's playing his character then who can blame him?

~Hunter

 

[takyris]

Very true.

Also, remember that Evil doesn't mean that you hate and want to kill everything -- that's certainly one possibility, but it's not the only possibility. The way I like it played, alignment isn't "How you behave with everyone" -- it's "How you behave with people you're not for against already, strangers you meet on the street".

You could have a Chaotic Evil person who is basically a psychopath, but who is utterly in love with a Chaotic Neutral thief. He doesn't care what she asks him to do. He'll kill anyone for her. He'll do horrific things. He'll go along with every one of her crazy, dangerous schemes. He trusts her implicitly. She is his sun, his moon, his light. He would give his own life for her in a heartbeat, and die with a smile on his face.

And while she isn't even a terribly violent person, she gets a kind of sadistic thrill out of knowing that all she has to do is say, "Hey, that guy tried to grope me as I passed by his table," and that guy at the table is gonna die.

 

[Renfield]

Allright,

Wow, missed a lot of posts since I last looked at this one... wonder why it never said updated... accursed luck. Anyway, had my first game the other night, went off relatively well, considering only one of the players was ready. The idea of playing an alignment neither good or neutral was so foreign to the longer standing players that they had troubles in comming up with concepts. Two of the characters are in devoted love with arcane spellcasting classes. Or just spellcasting in general, so I have a sorcerer and a chaos mage. Of course this isn't everything but I'll get into that later.

Oh, and as for the having higher ups thing... alas that wouldn't work exactly. Mine are players who aren't into having to answer to anyone. Anyone. Not to mention the first thing they mentioned when I said it was cool to run an Evil Campaign was that they were not going to be part of an evil organization. So that made things like that null and void... for now.

How the adventure went: I arrive at about 9:30pm to find that two out of three players are not close to being ready and the one that is isn't anywhere to be found. I and the player who suggested the evil campaign in the first place, Black_Kaoshin (sp), simply chatted as he played on the PS2 trying to figure things out. Apparently the other player, we'll give him generic name number 23: Don, was a step ahead and had a concept and was simply working things out. Eventually they go out to do some random stuff leaving me time to write up the stats for the enemies they'd have to face (ah the wonderful perk of the DM's guide, couple adjustments to overly 'balanced' stats and you have yourself automatic enemies or NPC's), and they wound up comming back with the thus far missing third player who I'll call Bill. (simply not sure if they want to remain anonymous or whatnot)

We go to the room where we play and the others find that Black_Kaioshin is in no way ready. So after the other two have finished polishing up their characters via magic items and all that, one get's on the PS2 whilst the other get's on his shiny new lap top. Meanwhile myself and Black_Kaioshin open up negotiations for a character concept he developed. One of his recent banes was that the Book of Exalted Deeds came out recently getting him all interested in playing a Good character. So he was reccomending that perhaps a divine force of good decided to send him along with the evil characters because they were going to do something important or what not. Which is the general vein the campaign was going. I thought it would work out but Don thought it made the entire idea of having an 'Evil' campaign pointless. So with some quick adjustments (i.e. making the player something of an evil version of the Saint template) he was set as an evil character.

A Vampire Monk, a Legendary Chaos Mage, and a Dark Saint Sorcerer walk into a bar....

And thus the adventuring party was born. Bill had made a vampire character after much correspondance over e-mail about adjustments to the template to make it workable. We toned down a lot of the powers, sacrificed some of the weaknesses, and made him a 'day walker' in that he lost all of his abilities during the day. Another character was a Creature of Legend Chaos Mage. The reasoning behind that was one I offered. There was a city filled with these people. Basically people of all races who got together with the common philosophy of breeding a perfected race. So for centuries they essentially breeded their people, watching out for inbreeding and any sort of faults they could find. They chose only the strongest, most intelligent and so on to continue their races lineage. The result (with a little bonus from adding magic in the mix) was an entire city where every city had the Legendary Creature template from MM2. There's a lot more to it but I essentially let him have the template for a EL of 4. The third player, Black_Kaioshin, was a dark saint sorcerer. Likely the most normal of the three which is a tad ironic in an inside way.

I opened the campaign with them all on the Row of the Dead. Aka: Death Row. They were to be executed at dusk along with a bunch of other prisoners with the PC's being the showcase and the Dark Saint being the grand finale. This was set in the Theocracy of Tesh, a LG kingdom that had an almost fanatacle faith in the God of all things good Solar (Think Whitecloaks from Wheel of Time without the aversion to magic). With the aid of a corrupt guard and a less-than-stable rogue apparent named Luck, they escaped after slaying the warden and getting the collars that blocked the usage of spells and spell like abilities. So the game was allright in the end.

 

[shivamuffin]

What kind of evil are we talking about?

Evil people can be quite friendly, helpful, generous, and even trustworthy. It depends on the type of evil, and the type of behavioral traits the players wish to play, and or the DM to accept.

Running such a campaign should be no problem if the players are mature and the DM has a firm grip on the campaign.

An LE for example could be a remarkable force for good. Defending the realm from orcs, giants, whatever. Healing the sick, and protecting the weak...The inner motivations for doing such acts is where we get to the nitty gritty of the alignment. That's what counts.

An NE, deep inside is an uncaring, selfish prick, but if it benefits him, he can do some very heroic and noble deeds. Sure, he'll save the princess, for the right incentive, and if it turns out to be too tough of a job, he's going to choose himself over the princess that's for sure. An NE is most akin to a Han Solo type, that has a little less compassion. With proper guidance he can do some pretty decent things.

CE will be the most difficult. The chaotic nature makes people with this alignment unpredictable. The trick is playing the alignment cool, until there is a moment of stress. The CE can be a mild mannered individual, giving candy to children, and behaving like the all around good citizen...When the plane crashes in the Andes, the CE ( All around nice guy ) will be first in line at the buffet, and first to suggest killing off the dying.

If your players want to run around, steal the king's horse, kill old ladies, and torture children, then you have a disturbing group, and a major problem that goes beyond simple advice from the people of EnWorld. LOL!

GSI

 

[Hunter]

Thats a great start intro!
Putting them on death row in an LG kingdom is brilliant.
I guess from here on the party will be on the run, bushwaking innocents for food and mounts until they can get to a lawless town or city or maybe even a dungeon to hideout. A reverse on the good, the dungeon becomes a haven or refuge in order to plot/heal/takeover.
I think you've got a great game going!
I am getting into this game just reading your post!
Looking forward to hearing more about it if you have time to post please do!

~Hunter

 

[Renfield]

Well,

I've charged the PC's with comming up with a good name for the story hour post I'll be putting up soon enough. As for the first adventure, well, it was a little sloppy considering the lack of preperation, but the character dialogue was rather amusing. Our newest player Bill actually contributes something of his own sort of comic relief which is a nice touch. Being the nice DM I was I made sure their equipment was readily available on their escape which made their combats interesting up until they gathered those resources. They'll have their share of repercussions to deal with. As for food... well, the Dark Saint has nothing to worry about really. The Vampire managed to find himself a lamb to haul along with him until he needed a meal... poor thing The Chaos Mage might be the only one to worry about food though they all had their 'Last Meal' and all that. Regardless, I'll post a link up here when I start posting it on the Story Hour, maybe you'll give that a peak.

As for the type of evil, I expressly forbid vile evil, evil can be interesting and all that. But when it's so dark and depraved it makes you wish the players were cultists in an H.P. Lovecraft story then it's gone a little too far for my tastes. Thankfully they're of the same level of thought, so I don't think I have to worry too much about slaying old ladies and what not. Personally I find Chaotic Neutral more disturbing than Chaotic Evil, sure the evil person may do what's unexpected but they're most often protrayed as bullies and rather predictable in their chaos to some degree or another. Whereas one character who was rather adept at being CN Aganazzer's Scorchered a bard because he hated bards. Never mind that a few innocent bystanders were in the way... thankfully our group (I was a player in that campaign) got the hell out of there before there could be any lasting repercussions...

Anyway, all the input I've seen here has been really helpful, I'm sure others are finding it useful too... keep it comming

 

[Hand of Evil]

Soap box - to me you have to define what evil is and let the players know, if you don't they just run around being mean not evil. You then run the game as normal. For the most part evil players break laws more than not, paladins and witch hunters are a good choice for foes, also think about their actions. If the party seems to be thugs and trouble-makers other evils will think about hiring them or using them, if the group is master-minds and schemers, they may be seen as foes.