Evil Campaign Advice

[Elbeghast]

I think either backstabbery or no backstabbery is fine between Player Characters as long as everyone's on the same page. When running an Evil campaign, you've got to discuss this particular point with the players extensively before the characters are even generated. It's about making sure that everyone understands what the game is about.

If it's free-for-all, campaigning together just because of circumstances until someone betrays the others, it might be fun to play, if EVERYONE is onboard. If anyone has problems with that, or its just not the point of the campaign overall, it's best to forbid PVP altogether and come up with a solid reason for all these evil characters to cooperate on the long term before the game even begins.

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

For instance, rape. As a DM, you generally know Not to go there. Your players, however, may not;

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I find the quoted text hilarious.

Not that I'm flaming you, or think that it's ludicrous (DMs should be aware of things like "player boundaries", "individual sensitivities", etc.), but I'm just imagining a young, new gamer reading a Dungeonmasters Guide and coming across a sidebar "Rape: You Know Not To Go There" that contains a bunch of well-intentioned, politically corerect, sensitivity training. Maybe with examples.

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

My suggestion for an "evil" campaign would be to open the players' minds to evil different from "Dark Lord" and "Serial Killer" archetypes to a different kind of evil. The kind of evil in Spaghetti Westerns, James Ellroy novel, Cohen brothers movies, Black Adder, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," Jack Vance novels(!!!!), etc.

Evil can be very playable in a game like D&D, without getting into "x-rated/uncomfortable/PVP" territory, when it's about "A bunch of scoundrels trying to get rich and pissing off people in the process"

I play in an "evil" campaign, and I play the grasping, greedy, venal, bumbling, mustache twirling scoundrel to the hilt. We all do, an it's a lot of fun.

We have "get rich quick schemes," we bait NPCs with magic items into fighting us by insulting them, we witness tamper, we twist whatever legal system there is to our advantage, we use gold to grease the wheels of everything, we renege on contracts, we pay our mercenaries well and give them chest thumping speeches before sending them off into the red-shirt meat-grinder.

We are greedy, we are unethical, we are fools....and we have ADVENTURE! as a result...even if the ADVENTURE! is "We have to get out of this town before the angry mob of peasants finds us!"

And it's a lot more fun that pulling fed-ex duty to save the world.

 

[Rechan]

... but I find the quoted text hilarious.

... but I'm just imagining a young, new gamer reading a Dungeonmasters Guide and coming across a sidebar "Rape: You Know Not To Go There" that contains a bunch of well-intentioned, politically corerect, sensitivity training. Maybe with examples.

You know. I should probably propose such an article over on NewbieDM.

 

[Rechan]

My suggestion for an "evil" campaign would be to open the players' minds to evil different from "Dark Lord" and "Serial Killer" archetypes to a different kind of evil. The kind of evil in Spaghetti Westerns, James Ellroy novel, Cohen brothers movies, Black Adder, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," Jack Vance novels(!!!!), etc.

Evil can be very playable in a game like D&D, without getting into "x-rated/uncomfortable/PVP" territory, when it's about "A bunch of scoundrels trying to get rich and pissing off people in the process"

I play in an "evil" campaign, and I play the grasping, greedy, venal, bumbling, mustache twirling scoundrel to the hilt. We all do, an it's a lot of fun.

So like, Cartoon Evil?

Although I am shocked "Black Adder" is lumped in there. Since Black Adder never really accomplishes anything and really doesn't do anything, aside from being sarcastic.

We have "get rich quick schemes," we bait NPCs with magic items into fighting us by insulting them, we witness tamper, we twist whatever legal system there is to our advantage, we use gold to grease the wheels of everything, we renege on contracts, we pay our mercenaries well and give them chest thumping speeches before sending them off into the red-shirt meat-grinder.

We are greedy, we are unethical, we are fools....and we have ADVENTURE! as a result...even if the ADVENTURE! is "We have to get out of this town before the angry mob of peasants finds us!"

This sounds like... like a slightly darker version of "Leverage".



Funnily enough, I ran a campaign of a similar but different focus. The players were all traveling gypsies. While the campaign goal was "Find our lost troupe", the day-to-day adventures consisted of conning/swindling others out of money. A very light hearted game.

Personally, I think "The Punisher" fits into D&D nicely as an "Evil Character". Not to get into an alignment argument here, but "assassin" type deals work very well.

As does "The Godfather" and "Scarface".

 

[Markn]

A campaign where the PCs transition to evil is interesting. I ran a 3.5 campaign where some PCs started evil (worshipped evil gods), and a portion of the campaign was about bringing another PC to darkness - namely a Paladin.

Everything was discussed before hand and everyone knew that the Paladin would fall. It was interesting because the evil players were secretly acting as good guys and slowly corrupted the Paladin. The Paladin was a good roleplayer and was able to slowly shift his attitude to evil and was constantly put in morally tough position to roleplay. At a suitable time, he roleplayed his final inevitable fall and it was very exciting.

Again, all players were aware of what was happening and it took about 10 levels for this to happen.

Once he fell, the PCs expanded to taking down a minor noble house and that was fun too.

Just a thought....

 

[Neuroglyph]

Just set a few friendly guidelines before the campaign starts. For example - "no PvP" or "don't be pricks to each other".

Actually, simply guidelines for the players are a good idea regardless of the alignment of their characters.

The easiest way to introduce the no PVP rule is to have the characters start as minions of some scary powerful entity - such as a Lich. This entity will view all the characters as assets and he can make it known from the start that only he (she, it?) has the right to "liquidate" an asset.

If the characters know that outright death of a party member will likely spell their doom, they are less likely to use lethal force against each other to solve disputes - but remember they are evil, and hurting each other should be encouraged, as long as death is not the outcome

 

[skullking]

One method of ensuring group cohesion is giving them an enemy so dangerous that if they don't work together against they will be dead pretty soon. I had a cleric of Orcus going though the D series (against the drow for those who are no grognards). The drow posed such a threat to us that no one in the party dared act too stongly against the other.

 

[EP]

It's actually easier for PCs to work together in 4E than previous editions because so many powers grant benefits to allies. And combat encounters mean you can try and go on your own, but odds are you'll need some help along the way (second winds don't cut it on their own sometimes).

We're in the middle of playtesting a merc adventure and it's gone very well within my own group... and these are people who have never played together before. So long as you establish guidelines from the beginning and allow each player to express their limitations, all you need are good, mature players looking to try something a little different. Our playtest mercs include a deva avenger of Bahamut and he's been fitting in just fine.

On top of all the other suggestions here, I would strongly recommend giving the players personal plotlines with the adventure, especially in the beginning. Give them individual goals to achieve or reasons to be there. Link the story to their characters. In our case, they have all been blackmailed into stealing a portal key from a cult of well-meaning fanatics. Along the way, they've pulled a Man With No Name and work for both sides without the other knowing. They want to screw the orc that blackmailed them (he's dead now) and they still want the portal key for themselves.

 

[SigmaX0]

For instance, rape. As a DM, you generally know Not to go there. Your players, however, may not; they're playing Evil characters, and depending on the character, they may be overtly cruel or have no inhibitions. Same with Slavery, extensive torture of captives, etc.

We once had an evil campaign where for some reason, I had to kill some elderly gentleman, we went to his house, and his young grandaughter opened the door.

Me and the DM knew it was going to end badly, but we didn't expect the druid to turn into a crocodile and *then* do it. Yeesh.

Incidentally, I killed the old man by setting fire to his wooden wheelchair and rolling it down the hill into the town. This happened about 2 years before Red Dragon came out at the cinema (where the same thing happens(not the crocodile bit))