Anyone run campaigns with "less than good" characters?

[Sanackranib]

require each of the characters to give you a list of both short and long term goals.

besides Good is such a relitive term, there are shades of Goodjust as there are shades of Grey and degrees of Evil . . .

 

[Felix]

You know, Good does not neccessarily equal nice. Nor does Evil equal mean.

Josey Wales (of Clint Eastwood fame) was no pleasant guy... but most of what he did in that movie was Good (specially harassing them thrice-damned Redlegs! ). Granted, he's likely more Neutral, but he still isn't a nice guy.

And a nice Evil guy? Think of a diabolic mind with Clinton's charm. Bingo.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I'm currently running a Sabbat (WoD) game. Everyone is a Brujah pack member. We've been playing for about a half a year now.

We had one player who stopped playing because he didn't like playing an evil character. (He also hated Presence and Dominate. I think it was more of his reluctance to playing Vampire, really.)

Other than that, the other four players are having a blast. Between slaying Camarilla vampires, werewolves and fairies, their humanities have dropped to a three, a two and two ones. They're about to go onto various paths after some downtime.

Seriously, playing a Sabbat game is just like DnD: the players kill "monsters", get treasure and XP, repeat. Add in a battle map, and you have great munchy goodness.

 

[TuDogz]

I have DM'd and played in a few evil campaigns and what has generally ended or created difficulty in each of these campaigns is interparty conflict.

If you are dealing with a group of "not nice" folks you need to provide them with some organic story source that ties them together or the likelyhood is high that CE character#1 will piss off CE character #2 and end up with his throat slit two months later and stuffed down an outhouse hole because he happened to end a battle unconcious and compromised (this happened).

I have generally used an NPC as an overriding force that keeps things in line. Make them spies of an evil empire sowing dissent for a coming invasion.
Get them in the employ of a demon operating a luquid agony production shop. Whatever... but if evil players play their alignments there will inevitably be interparty conflict so be prepared cause it can end a campaign at a moments notice.

editted for spelling

 

[ForceUser]

I have no interest in running a campaign where all the characters are thugs and miscreants.

 

[Desdichado]

No, actually I don't...

Care to expand ?

Most games I run feature characters that act like selfish bastards who only care for maximizing power or profit. Regardless of what the character sheet has written for alignment.

 

[mo]

have a character get involved in an evil organisation, for personal power and glory, but then end up in over their head.

As an example, I had a LE character who was involved a nasty religious sect of the local monthestic church which, unbeknownest to him, was a cover for a bunch of devil worshippers - when he hit about fifth level it was revealed to him and he was too involved to get out - ends with a oath binder demon ready to take his soul should be get out of line, but gets caught up in internal power struggles, asked to do things which are basically suicide mission etc etc. Lots of fun for the DM, and lots of room for the player to connive and squirm. It was great. And the other players don't know the full details about the cult the player is in. If you can balance it properly, evil players with different agendas is also fun.

 

[Dugite]

being less than good does mean action without consenquences.
It may be a thrill for a thief to pick a pocket or steal a jewel,
or fun to rough up that annoying peasant in the tavern.
But the local thieves guild may not like it.
A evil character may still want to save the world but the its reasons may be more selfish ie its mine to plunder now.
In my games i have found those annoying paladins the most difficult to handle. they usually die young thou.
If your characters go the ce route it can be tough to keep em alive.
because if they survive long enough they will be hunted down.

 

[Eldorian]

I have never run an evil game, but I've played in quite a few, and they were alot of fun for the whole group. Greed and fear are the best motivators. Greed as in, wanting power or money, and fear, as in, have at least a small part of the party declare a pact to control the other parts of the party. A close-nit group of lawful characters can work pretty well too. Revenge is a good motivator for all parties, even good ones, tho evil ones tend to work harder at it, and be more violent. If the most important question you have is how to keep an evil party going, and what kind of adventures should you have them do, well, my answer would be to have the party either form a binding pact, or have at least a powerful minority form a binding pact, that will keep them from betraying eachother and ending the game with dead characters. As for adventures, you should definatly get the party's imput on what they want to do next, and then write the adventure based on that. This is a good tactic for good PCs too, to poll the party for thier next objective.

For the first few adventures, use easy to handle senarios like raiding a caravan or the like, and have them gain an enemy in doing this that can come back to haunt them. Two of the evil games I've played in were started in caravan raids, with seperate DMs that didn't even know eachother, and they were the best evil games I've played in.

Eldorian Antar

 

[omnimpotent]

Somebody really hit it earlier on. Revenge. I had a party of mostly good aligned characters held up by bandits, who swiped some of their stuff. They went CRAZY. They would have stopped at nothing to get at the bandit leader who made them look bad, and stole their precious possessions. If you do this to an evil party, they will be jamming bamboo splinters in the guys sainted grandmother, even if they have to dig her up.

Another great suggestion from above reminds me of the AEG EVIL sourcebook. Have the characters work for an evil overlord/organisation. Instead of rescuing orphans for fun, they will get their orders to rescue said orphans OR ELSE. You don't even need a reason, as the overlord would sooner rant and froth at his underlings than explain himself to them. Make the overlord pretty tough, as the players will probably come gunning for him at some point, which is another adventure that sort of writes itself. The overlord/organisation also somewhat replaces the good alignment, because if orders include keeping things quiet or minimizing collateral damage, it cuts down on some of the wanton murdering and pillaging.

And don't forget to hang the players with their own rope. If one of them has ever played one of those paladins that detect evil every other breath, make sure that some sort of carcariture of that character plagues the evil PC.

The most fun part of an evil campaign is that you can use all of the guys in the MM to fight them, not just the evil ones.