Evil Campaign

Swedish Chef · Sep 13, 2009

I know threads like this have been posted before, but I can't seem to find any at the moment (my google-fu is weak).

My group wants to start an evil campaign, with me running it. I'm okay with that, and have implemented some house rules ahead of time to try and keep things under control (ie. this is an evil campaign, not a raving lunatic psycho campaign where the players kill each other and everyone else Just Because), but obviously I want them to have fun.

What I'm looking for is two fold. 1) I need some advice from other DMs who have run such a campaign (ie pitfalls to watch out for, what worked for you and what didn't, etc) and 2) some ideas for modules/dungeon adventures that I can relatively easily switch to a more "evil" bent. I'm expecting that this campaign will be far more roleplay based than any of our prior campaigns (which are usually retrieve the MacGuffin dungeon crawls), but I need adventures ready incase the entire group falls into their usual mode, only with "evil" characters.

This will be 3.5 based, with pretty much any rule book, if that makes a difference to your responses.

Thanks in advance.

Physiker · Sep 13, 2009

I never played an evil campain as DM, but once at player.

The story was quit simple:
We took a monarc (of a small town) hostage, as he was riding in the woods.
We placed a doppelganger in his place (in that case it was me)
I introduced my new "staff" (the party) and fired the old one by one.
So we had a powerbase an a decend income, since we raised taxes.
Than an enemy army ... they had something against the country my town was in... started to invade us. And since no one of us wanted to leave that goldmine, we had to defend that town....

I think that was a 3 days adventure, and we had a lot of fun.
(And if I'm not mistaken we were Level 10 at the beginning)

So I would say, that you can use probably every campain you can use for good players, but the reasons why the characters do what they do changes.

green slime · Sep 14, 2009

Only do this with players you kow well, and whom know each other well. It is far too easy for such a campaign to cause a rift, and let in-game actions spill over into real life.

I'd skip the BoVD, and other similar stuff, but that is just me: I'm not happy about going into gruesome detailsk, or having rules for the same.

Put the game in context, and sound the players out about their goals for their characters: Specifically, why are they playing evil characters? What do they hope to achieve? Do thery really want "Evil" or are they just tired of being do-gooders? Perhaps a more selfish "neutral" attitude is what they are really looking for? Evil does really imply slavery, murder, mayhem and rape. It can get pretty nasty from there once you start involving undead, sex, and PCs as the antogonists...

So my suggestion is; really talk to the players, what do they want, what do they mean, and think about what you are comfortable with.

Swedish Chef · Sep 14, 2009

GS - good advice. I am emailing the group and trying to suss out their ideas, wants and goals in the upcoming campaign. So far, I'm not getting much in response, which leads me to believe it will be a "small e" evil campaign (or, more of a selfish neutral, as you put it).

I have no plans on going into extreme detail, or asking for it from the players. We've all gamed together for upwards of 20 years, so it shouldn't be a problem from that perspective. Even when we played d20 modern, and they were mercenaries, their whole idea of "evil" consisted of "I torture the guy to get the information, if he's not going to co-operate. You know, the basic stuff. Cut off fingers, cigarette burns, etc". That was as descriptive as it got. And since one of the players is one guy's 14 year old daughter, rape is not a subject anyone deals with in any way except the most glossed over, in the background, barely acknowledged sort of way.

None of us own the BoVD, so that won't be an issue either.

Physiker - that's really my problem. Many of these adventures assume a good nature to the party. Person X will die if the party doesn't return with a healing potion. King Joe will lose his country if the party doesn't stop Evil Group. Stuff like that assumes a basic altruism to the party. If they are evil, how would I modify those goals/hooks? The group is now Evil Group trying to overthrow the king? Great, but the module is now useless, as it is written as a story to stop Evil Group, not to *be* Evil Group. That's my issue is that many published adventures do not translate well to the "evil" side of things.

Realistically, I only need 1 or 2 low level adventures that I can switch to get me started. Once the group has set its sights on something, I can wing it without problem. Its just getting them started that is hardest. Unless, of course, they get off their collective butts and let me know at the beginning just what they plan on doing (ie take over the country. Form an assassins guild. Whatever).

Physiker · Sep 14, 2009

Physiker - that's really my problem. Many of these adventures assume a good nature to the party. Person X will die if the party doesn't return with a healing potion. King Joe will lose his country if the party doesn't stop Evil Group. Stuff like that assumes a basic altruism to the party. If they are evil, how would I modify those goals/hooks? The group is now Evil Group trying to overthrow the king? Great, but the module is now useless, as it is written as a story to stop Evil Group, not to *be* Evil Group. That's my issue is that many published adventures do not translate well to the "evil" side of things.

Just switch some things: "Person X will die if the party doesn't return with a healing potion." Which means you will lose the option to iterrogate him where his treasures are.
"King Joe will lose his country if the party doesn't stop Evil Group." The example in my first post fits here nicely, because that is actually what we did. Just because you are evil does not mean you don't work against an other evil group.

In the campain I mentioned we had the choice between defend our town, which meant in the end stop the invading army, or to join the invading army. Which puts you back a lot... From ruler to servant.

And the players won't try something which is far beyond there powers just because they are evil now. So I don't think they would actually try and become the king of a country, unless they are really powerfull.
A "good" party would not try to kill the evil lichking at level 5 either.

green slime · Sep 15, 2009

My present campaign, I threw out some old preconceptions, and ran it thusly (after first confirming that the players were interested):

I fielded the players individually for the archetypes and goals they wanted for their potential character. I then created three characters for each player myself, based on our long time as a group (we have been playing together for nigh on twenty years, on and off).

Each player was then presented with a choice of one good-aligned character, one neutral-aligned character, or one evil-aligned character. On the character sheet I also suggested goals for each individual character, and listed a suggested reward for succeeding at the listed goal. Each character had also at least one affiliation with an organisation of some kind. Some had several.

Suggested rewards consisted of both xp, and social. Some goals were conflicting. Some personal rewards were conflicting (increase in XP, decreased social standing, increased influence with certain organisations).

No player knows the goals or interests of the other players, unless specifically told (clerics are usually understood to be working within their church, but they also have other affiliations). If you tell another player, are you certain he is trustworthy? Potential characters included spies from east, barbarian mercenary centaurs, loyal legionaires, war weary veterans, corrupt priests, former (escaped) slaves, shapechangers, psionic adventurers and more (psionics are banned on pain of death, within the empire).

The characters were then placed in the situation at hand (Alternative earth Roman colonists just leaving to set up a colony in the newly discovered Americas.

I set it up this way for several reasons: I have long tired of players feeling obligated to play a cleric "because we need one", and I wanted all the players to play a character (with goals and interests) they really wanted. I also wanted there to be conflict of interest, and not so obvious "single adventure". Encouraging more dialogue between conflicting parties and interests. And removing the irritating "what are we doing here again?"

So far, I must, the game has exceeded my expectations, with far more pro-active play from everyone, than I have ever seen.

SelcSilverhand · Sep 15, 2009

I ran a short evil campaign for a few of my players. They played Kobolds that stole a dragons egg from their corrupt king who was going to devour it to gain the dragons strength. They fled to the frontier and had to find a new lair, clean out the denizens, tailor it with traps, raid nearby humanoid villages, and finally fend off their former ruler who arrived to steal back the egg.

It ended up being the Diet Coke of Evil, but they still enjoyed the freedom to make whatever decisions they wanted. Using poisons, attacking humans, torturing prisoners (strictly controlled to make sure it didn't offend anyone), etc.

The players were loosely tied by having the same philosphy, which was to hatch the egg and serve a dragon. The Lawful Evil guy wanted to raise the dragon with him as a trusted advisor and be a power behind the throne. Others wanted to rule over their fellow kobolds and were vicious overseers and slavers of the other races. Mostly they enjoyed playing "adventurer fodder" and being challenged by normal stuff like dire rats, bats, underdark cave monsters, and hungry forest creatures.

It was only my second attempt at DM'ing but it turned out to be pretty good. Make sure you players have a solid reason to work together, likes others have said, otherwise they will try to kill each other for positions of power. Establish clear boundries of what subjects you will permit at the table. Talking of torture, slavery, and rape will quickly turn off the average player to the game. Decide how descriptive you will allow players to be when they describe their acts and don't be afraid to cut them off before they go too far.

aboyd · Sep 15, 2009

I'm currently running my players through Tower of the Last Baron. It's an infiltration module, which assumes that the baron is a bad dude and the good guys are part of a secret resistance to take him out. My players are all evil or close to it, and I found that switching Tower of the Last Baron for an evil campaign was supremely easy. What did it involve? Switching all the good guys to have evil alignment. That's it. Now the bad guys have a secret alliance to overthrow Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.

I imagine that Harley Stroh's "Into the Wilds" would be the same. It involves going into a village and overthrowing a mean woman who wants to usurp the throne. If instead the players are tasked to protect the evil ruler from good usurpers, that seems plausible and easy to change.

Herobizkit · Sep 16, 2009

I'd like to chime in and mention a few things about pre-made dungeons et al.

My friend and I decided that we would rail against tradition and make a non-standard party to poke fun at the 'hero' stereotype. I am currently running said party through Ruins of the Dragon Lord (d20 full campaign setting from Mongoose Publishing).

The party consists of a female Dark Elf, a Gnoll, a Duergar, and a Goblin; the story began as they banded together for survival after fleeing the Underdark and happened across a "surface" town of humans. The camapign unfolds as usual, save that these "evil" Humanoids (actually CG, CN, LE, CN in that order) are the heroes.

Throughout the module, there are times where NPCs are helpful so long as "the party appears trustworthy". This party does not. There are encounters with, um, other races in the campaign that most typical heroes would slay on sight, but this party can associate with them.

My point is simply this: in an Evil campaign, using pre-gen dungeons, the Goal is almost always alignment-neutral. How and why the Evil PC's decide to take the hook is up to the players.