An Evil Campaign

[painandgreed]

In any game, especially and evil one, it's good to metagame the player's relations between eachother before hand to make sure everybody is on the same page. Just say that everybody trusts eachother and there is no backstabbing, unless everybody has agreed to an all against all campaign. Otherwise, they'll trust somebody's new character just because they know he's a PC and that character will turn on them. If that character had been an NPC instead of a PC, they never would have trusted him. In all my games, I ask the party before hand if they want a cooperative game or a cut throat and they usually take cooperative and make their characters accordingly. In a game like D&D where the party may be out together in the wilderness for weeks or even months on end, a cut thraot game really isn't possible because they'd never survive.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One thing to do is make the player's all working for the same mercenary unit and have a commander whose wrath they do not want to encourage.

Another thing is to have some of the players have strong bonds of friendship. Evil is not stuip. Evil is not above using their ties effectively.

Another thing, since the campaign is going to be higher than first level, might be to have the characters start off under a curse when if they deliberately harm or by inaction, allow another player to be harmed, taht they will suffer the same fate. Might inspire some moments of hated herosim in them.

 

[village6]

Hi all-

Well, it looks like I am going to DM an evil campaign for the lads. Any advise on dealing with evil crazy characters short of not killing them out right?

I have some ideas, but I figured perhaps you guy's might also have some helpful suggestions.

Scott

My $.02...
Give them some (secret) conflicting goals, some important but limited group resources and/or rewards. The biggest challenge for evil PCs should be other evil PCs. Put them at each other's throats without the normal behavioral constraints of 'good' aligned parties, and they'll soon be witness to why the good guys do win in the end.

I played in a campaign like this, under protest, but after 5 weeks everyone was ready to give it up because I and one other player really played evil, and pursued our goals and desires with little or no care for the other PCs beyond their utility to us. Evil sounds good, but most players really don't dig it when it is played with gusto.

Be seeing you...
- 6

 

[Rel]

Hi all-

Thanks for some great advise and tips guys. My idea is to perhaps run a campaign with the players working for a mercenary company in the Eberron setting. The Mercenary company is based in the city of Sharn, some one has to go down into the depths of the city to clear out the failed expairements or the odd creature running amok the Cogs within Sharns depths.


Scott

Interesting. I'm currently running an Eberron campaign where the PC's are basically their own mercenary outfit. About half are Neutral and half are Evil of some stripe. They stick together because they need to. Nobody likes them (the only person in the party with a non-negative Charisma is the Gnome Necro-Sorcerer) and they are mostly viewed as "outcasts" being a Hobgoblin, Bugbear, Shifter, ugly Elf, Gnome Necromancer and standoffish Warforged Psion.

They are bound together by the fact that the players want the campaign not to devolve into chaos. In character they know that they need each other if they're going to survive the harsh wilds of Xen'Drik.

I agree that you need some kind of "binding agent" for Evil parties moreso than with Good parties.

 

[Mallus]

If your players are looking to have a campaign where they work together to bring about incredible acts of evil and destruction, you'll need some method (either roleplaying based or magical) that will "force" them to work together.

Why wouldn't a simple agreement between the players beforehand suffice?

Selecting an evil campaing shouldn't be any different from selecting which variant of poker to play on poker night. In both cases, informal table rules should govern what behaviors are acceptable (no cheating, no PK'ing, no spitting, no fistfights, no drinking the hosts 16 year-old single malt Scotch without express written permission, etc.).

Rules which are totally independent of the game being played.

 

[Rashak Mani]

I'll repeat what has already been mentioned... give them a solid reason not too kill one another. Either they work for a big bad guy that doesn't want backstabbing.

Remember you have to get them going either through financial or power greed.

 

[Markn]

Let's try this again. My first reply disappeared on me....

Anyways I am currently DMing an evil campaign and we are about to hit level 4. I have lots of advice for you.

Have the players sit down and discuss character concepts. Discuss what kind of evil campaign it will be...is it random acts of evil, is there a plan or a goal and maybe even more importantly how will they go about acheiving it. Also discuss what type of evil is allowed. Should party backstabbing be acceptable? Will they abandon the party to save their own skin? Will they kill the high priest if they can get away with it?

The current campaign I run is using Waterdeep (and it will mostly be a city campaign from start to finish). Most of the players are followers of Cyric. We even have one player who has chosen to play a Paladin of Torm and the first 5 levels are about the party causing his downfall to a Blackguard. Every one talked about this and agreed this would be pretty cool to kick of an evil campaign. I have given the Cyricists a magic item that foils the Paladin's detect evil ability and they have all taken skills in disguise, bluff and that sort of thing to masquerade as a follower of a different diety for now. The crux of the paladin falling is that he is a lower born noble of his family and the family is known for making superior weapons. Recently, a rival family have suddenly been producing superior weapons at a fraction of the cost. The head of his family has asked him to look into the situation. He actually sought out mercenaries (the rest of the party) to help in uncovering what is happening.

It turns out the rival family has been purchasing mithral laced ore from an unkown source at a deep discount. AFter finding the source, they discovered it was Duerger dwarf who is trying to dump ore on the market to help finance a war with Menzoberranzan. This is where things get tricky for the Paladin. If he does nothing, his family suffers. He could stop the duerger but another could just as easily come along so that doesn't help either. Instead, he brokers a better deal with the duerger to supply ore to his family. Sure, the duerger race is evil but as far as the paladin knows this particular one has not caused any harm or broken any law. Better to have him in his pocket where he can be watched and dealt with if need be. Besides who's to argue if two evil races want war with one another.

Unfortunatly, for the Paladin, I have spoken to all the players outside the game to help reinforce this point of view and so he went along with this.

The next step puts the Paladin in some serious trouble. The law (aka town guard) discover this deal between this noble family and the duergers. If this knowledge is exposed to the Lords of the town then not only would there be an investigation but the family may lose their nobility and at the very least suffer a massive penatly to their reputation. This is again where the rest of the players come in, they encourage the Paladin to stop this information in coming to light. Likely it means killing a few law enforcement officials to cover up the secret. And, voila, the paladin falls....peronal downfall for the good of the family.

All this was accomplished because we sat down and discussed the campaign. The paladin player knew his character was going to fall, but now how, and that was the goal of the rest of the party.

As DM I have also stressed that there will be consequences for their actions. They could commit any evil the wanted but the more public it became the more they would find difficult foes looking for them.

In addition to this, I have statted out 1 evil party and 1 good party that they may encounter throughout the campaign. Early on they meet some of these guys individually and then later on as an NPC group. I will also change the dynamics so that sometimes they are allies (due to circumstances) and sometimes they are enemies.

Oh, one last thing. I have also stressed that not everyone is out to kill them and thus they should act in the same manner. This helps make reoccuring NPC's and if they don't heed this then these are the reasons powerful NPC's may begin looking for them.

So far so good.

Hope this helps and hope it inspires your campiagn.

 

[Rel]

As a cautionary tale, here's what happened the first time a GM in our group tried to run a "Baddies Campaign":

We were playing Rolemaster and the group was comprised of a Vampire (me), a Chaos Warrior, a Demoness and a Witch.

We were all the servants, slaves or vassals of this evil lord. He summons a demon too big for him to handle and gets killed leaving us in charge of his manor by default. It so happened that the tax collectors had arrived that night and taken possession of the coffer full of gold owed to the demon summoner's leige. My character murdered one of the tax collectors and stole the money.

We spend a couple weeks looting the manor and rooting out our old master's secrets until the knights from the leige showed up demanding the taxes plus weregild for the guy I offed. We turned them away and they indicated that they'd be back with an army. We fled into the countryside abandoning the manor. In the process we killed the Witch (it was my wife's character and she had to quit the campaign after only a few sessions in order to work on planning our wedding). Note: The GM had planned the entire campaign around us trying to maintain a facade of respectability as we ran the manor and adventured around the countryside expanding our area of influence. That plan was now destroyed.

We find ourselves along this trade road in a swamp. We decide that since we have no other prospects at the moment, we'll become highwaymen ("land pirates" we were calling ourselves). But we determine that the swamps are already inhabited by a tribe of Gnomes who did not take kindly to our presence. So we attacked and killed them. But in the process their elder shaman cursed the place with a plague of giant mosquitos. So we said, "screw this!" and left. Note: The GM had rearranged his plans and figured on us adventuring to find a way to lift the curse and then establish ourselves as bandits with many an adventure in capturing booty and evading the law. That plan was now destroyed.

Our path took us to a big city where the Chaos Warrior used to be a gladiator. About this time I was getting married in real life so took a couple weeks off from gaming. When I returned, I discovered that the Chaos Warrior had summoned a mass of pure "Chaos" that got out of control, grew to enormous size and destroyed almost the entire city. He did this as revenge for his time as a slave fighter. Our whole group fled the city on a ship headed south. Note: My character had planned to set himself up as the "vampire lord" of the city with the other characters as my enforcers. The GM had come up with many adventures involving us rubbing up against the existing criminal and political organizations already existing within the city. Those plans were now destroyed.

The ship took us to an island nation in the midst of a civil war. We encountered members of one side of the war as we came ashore and they attacked us. We fought and killed a few of them and the rest of them fled. We came ashore and encountered members of a mercenary company who were fighting for the OTHER side. They extended an offer for us to work with them and we agreed. But then a member of our group discovered that the guy sent to negotiate with us had several rather nice magical items on him. So we killed him and took his stuff. Note: The GM had planned for us to become part of this mercenary band, acting independantly as a sort of "elite strike force". Many adventures would have ensued of us partaking in this civil war. Those plans were now destroyed.

The GM threw up his hands in frustration and we killed the campaign.

I don't know exactly what it was about being Evil but we lost any sense of real loyalty to each other, pursuing our own immediate goals even to the long term detriment of our own characters much less the group as a whole. Any time something pissed us off we killed it and if we couldn't immediately destroy it we left in frustration looking for new areas to plunder and harm.

We weren't just Evil. We were CHAOTIC Evil. And more than a little jerkish, stupid and short sighted.

I'd like to think we've all grown and matured as players (this was 10 years ago) but that campaign has forever made us cautious of any idea of a "Evil Campaign".

 

[wingnut_dc]

I ran one where the characters were part of a cult and dedicated to freeing their demon lord. I gave the priest character visions of what I wanted the party to do. He would command the party to do the demon's bidding, which they did. We had a very successful campaign.

I did set them down before hand and told them no party infighting as they are all fanatic followers of the cult. Us against them mentality. They didn't have a problem.

 

[Parlan]

I hate evil campaigns. One of DnD's strengths is it's ability to support long-term campaigns. Evil campaigns always seem to devolve into random violence and p1ss1ing contests as players show off their Kewl Powrz by offing any NPC that looks at them funny. This is cool for an hour or two, but as Rel's experience showed, it's not conducive to a serious campaign.


If we're just wasting mooks, I'd rather play Doom... better graphics and sound FX.


I'd much rather play in an "all good" campaign and focus on killing monsters and saving damsels. That said, a well-played evil PC (and there were a couple in my last campaign) can be really interesting, as long as the character isn't diabolically evil and has some redeeming characteristics (eg, loyalty to party-members)