Advice Needed: Roleplaying Evil and XP awards

[I'm A Banana]

I started a campaign this summer that has me a bit stumped, so I've come to EN world for advice. I'm a lenient DM, and I like to think I can work with anything, and this recent party has thrown a big challenge at me: At least half the group is Evil.

I allowed this...I mean, the plot I had would probably work well for any alignment, being more focused on the individual heroes than fighting any great evil or anything...something the self-interested could be roped into as easily as the altruistic. But there is something that I haven't really prepared for....

What is considered good Role Playing for an evil character?

I'm in the habbit of giving small (10-50 point) experience awards for things that add to the flavor of the setting from the PC's. A history, a bit of personal description, and, of course, Good Role Playing -- really fitting your character's role.

So what kind of good role playing should I award an evil character?

XP for killing a random inncent?
XP for fighting the forces of goodness?
XP for being a self-serving )!@#$!)#%*?

Keep in mind, I want to only reward play that adds to the fun of a game -- plotting to kill a PC and stuff like that is probably right out. I'd especially like to reward things that show that you're not using metagame knowledge -- doing something your character would do, even if it's not the best. But for evil characters, they never do anything that's not the best.

I mean, in retrospect, the party spent a few adventures simply killing off a town of about 20 people, all because they swiped a valuable sword in a bar fight. The first day, they were beaten back. Once healed, they came back and rampaged on the village. The village's head honcho came by, they offed a few more, and then retreated. The next day, the head honcho had moved on and the town had gone to bury their dead from the previous day, so the PC's escape the prison they were in, and killed off people as they came from their funeral.

This is Pretty Freakin' Evil (tm), not even considering the helpless people they slaughtered, children, babies, noncombatants.

Strangely, the NE assassin-type couldn't bring himself to kill a Wife and Child...

And I was thinking about these events...should I have docked him XP for not role-playing well?

So, basically, I need advice on how to dole out some bonuse XP for roleplaying really bad really well. Some examples, etc. should be good.

And, as a disclaimer, yeah, I allowed it, yeah I want to work with it, no, I don't want to ban these guys from the game. Much the opposite, I'm taking it as a bit of a challenge to come up with ways to tempt them to the light side. Advice on this front would be appreciated, too.

--KM

 

[Weeble]

Well, this one is hard, for sure. I have one evil PC in my campaign, but he often just acts with the party while behind the scenes he is rather indifferent to their cause. His shtick is that he is using the other PCs to further his own goals. Being evil, he is not limited on how to handle most situations, especially when the other PCs aren't around. But in truth, read the entire PHB and DMG, front to back. The general principle behind it all is that the heroes are heroes. Many of the quests involved with any d20 company's adventures involve doing things for the good of others, and a predominantly evil group probably wouldn't do this often.
My suggestion would be to have the PCs reigned in by some evil power group, i.e. a mob, that they infringed upon. Maybe that village they slaughtered was under the protection of some greater evil that extracted coin from them. Or maybe the PCs could be hired into a covert evil organization with specified missions and tons of political intrique/assassination attempts, etc.

 

[Cullain]

Strangely, the NE assassin-type couldn't bring himself to kill a Wife and Child...

Just because an evil character doesn't commit every evil act possible, it doesn't mean he's not roleplaying the character correctly.

You could pretty easily have an evil character that had a compunction that he would not harm innocents. Probably more interesting than a character that simply does as much evil as he possibly can, all the time.

Cullain

 

[Patrick-S&S]

Just a note... Evil does not mean that you go a round killing innocent people all of the time. Such behaviour is called psychopathy. Evil is when a character does stuff that he will gain on without caring for those he hurts. That could include killing a lot of innocent people if they were in his way for him to get closer to his goal. Killing them for no apparent reason is for the insane, and not for those we usually call evil.

 

[Weeble]

But possible. Chaotic Evil is pretty insane.

 

[Patrick-S&S]

But possible. Chaotic Evil is pretty insane.

Yes if you have to create some social-psycho murderer the CE would be the best alignment to use. Still killing for no apparent reason is quite psychotic and I doubt it could be classed as an alignment. But that is just my two gold coins...

 

[Storminator]

I'm about to start DMing an all evil group, so I'm in the same situation. One of the attractions of evil is that you can do everything to suit yourself, with no morals or qualms. As such, there's not a lot of inner conflict, and those are the really good RP moments. So I tend to not grant any XP bonuses for evil PCs. Evil is its own reward.

PS

 

[Anabstercorian]

Inner conflict for Good Guy - "Save my loved one or save the innocents?"

Inner conflict for a Bad Guy - "Save my loved one or make off with her share of the loot?"

Every one has connections. Some are just stronger or weaker.

 

[jollyninja]

the main question to ask yourself when thinking about xp awards for pring an evil character is this: did he advance his goals or the goals of the party. just like with a good character. if the assassin's goal was to slaughter every woman and child in existence and he let these ones go, then dock his xp. if an opportunity to commit an evil act that in no way helps a character achieve his goals, why bother? most good villians commit evil acts because that is the quickest and easyest way to achieve their immediate goal.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Well, about the slaughtered town...they did have a motive for it, though it was a tenuous one. The cult that had saved them from a life of slavery wasn't welcome in the town they went to, and a barfight actually ended up with one character unconcious, and his magical sword taken...

So what do they do? Come back the next day, swords swinging. After being chased off by the local powerful force (a wizard who's got a bit of a stranglehold on the town...or had. ), they return the day after when the townsfolk are burying their dead, and kill them as they come back.

The thing was, they didn't just go after the guy who took the sword -- they killed everything that passed by, taking pot shots from rooftops. They burned houses to lure people out the second time around, seeming to have more a grudge against the Wizard than against the lost sword (which they actually forgot about).

I understand that evil people don't have to want to slaughter everything, but they would peg guys running between buildings to be with their families. They had no real compunction about killing kids that deserved it (e.g.: that got angry or decided to cling to their legs).

I'm also kind of looking for general advice on what an evil character may do to give them *deapth*, and how I can challenge their alignment. If I can put them in situations where they may not be evil, I can give them some conflict, andd give them a chance to share in the benefits of a few extra XP.

I also wouldn't mind some conflict for neutral characters, as most of the party that isn't evil is neutral to some extent.

And I don't really want to force them into anything...I like to have the PC's determine the direction of the plot for the most part. However, they have irked the leader of the town they offed, and they've got a powerful good being (a lammasu) watching them after the forces of good heard of their slaughter. So they've made plenty of enemies in short order.