Ever player the bad guys?

[bensei]

I'm interested:

Has anyone played a campaign on the evil side?
The group is evil, perhaps one chaotic neutral person. You are ordered by a devil or something similar. You kill people and raze villages for fun. You are chased by the king's armies over the whole land. You become richer and richer. You assasinate the county's duke. You use forgery to send official letters to all paladins to come to one place at one time and then kill them all.

And so on. And so on.

Please do not misunderstand me. I'm not a pervert who likes such fantasies. I just wonder: Does everyone always play the good guys (or neutrals, but nevermind)? Or has anyone ever tried out being bad to the bone?

 

[Crothian]

Lots of people play eveil characters. Nothing wrong with it as long as everyone has fun.

 

[Grazzt]

Back in 1e (before I started DMing all the time.....15 years now) we played an evil party on more than one occassion. Very interesting stuff...fun too. We looted, robbed, burned, etc...when it suited us, but we did our fair share of dungeon plundering as well. Always had to watch your back though, because you can't trust a CE guy to guard your back..he might just stick a knife in it when you aren't looking.

We also (1e as well) played members of an assassin's guild. Most adventures consisted of assassination missions, but there was at least one I remember where we went on a search and rescue to recover one of the assassin's who had botched his job and had gotten himself captured.

Of course, once in our hands, we took him before the Grandfather of Assassins who ordered his immediate execution for failing (and getting caught).

 

[gfunk]

I've tried it but it didn't work very well with my group. One of the important things in our campaigns, we learned from this experience, was that we need a "good" motiviation for the party. Although profit definitely plays a part in our adventures, we are not really comfortable with wanton destruction, cruelty, or violence.

However, if you toss on terms like "paladin" and "smiting evil," it suddenly becomes all rosy! Strange, huh?

Also, my players complained that playing all evil characters made it too difficult to form a cohesive party. Since everyone had their own agenda and had little compunction about harming/killing other PCs, this led to some very unpleasant confrontations. At one point a Cleric of Tiamat and a Shade Druid began to duke it out.

 

[CRG]

We've had a number of successful and fun evil campaigns. The were not, above all else, mindless kill-everything campaigns. Most were centered around fairly evil goals (in the grand sense - furthering an evil god, domination of an empire, financial gain, etc.) but they all ran well.

The biggest thing is that the party played 'evil' or 'neutral' characters that were more diabolic and mercenary than a simple spree-killer.

 

[Drakmar]

I am currently playing in an evil campaign. lets see.. we have my char.. a 6th rogue... who is n/e almost c/e...a 6bar/1fig who is c/e, a fig 6 who is n/e, an a fig4/sor2 who is n/e almost c/e... o and the goodie two shoes.. druid 6 who is c/n...

we are in a campaign where we are pirates.. looting and pillaging and doing other unsepeakable acts..

my char.. Silcar.. is currently working on becoming a minion/acolyte of a powerful cleric of a dark god. Unfortunately this does put me at odds with the druid.

thing is.. one of the things that we are trying to do is to save the pirate nation (which has mayhap 1000 people) from destruction.

it is great fun.. I am getting to explore a nasty streak that I am not fond of. But know thy enemy and all that. I much prefer to play the Lawful Good warrior personality...but for some reasons.. not Paladins.