D&D 5E Evil Campaign?

[Nickolaidas]

SO me and my friends really want to run an Evil Campaign (Chaotic Evil being banned boo.) but Lawful and Neutral are a go! I wanted to help contribute some ideas for a plot because he doesn't have anything yet, so I was wondering if you guys could spitball me some general ideas that I can present to him and have him pick from and flesh out? Thank you

I recently started playing D&D 5th with my brother, him controlling an entire party and me being the DM. From the first two sessions I got the impression that while he created Lawful Good characters, their attitudes and ambitions hinted more at a Lawful Evil party. So he switched and has them Lawful Evil now.

It's a nightmare for me - he is just as willing to betray / ally himself with the good guys as he is with the bad guys and that's a real problem when you make a dungeon for the cultist followers of an Aboleth, only to have his PCs use diplomacy to ally themselves with the Aboleth AGAINST the city they championed just yesterday (because now the Aboleth gives them infiltration missions against the city - new dungeon maps, new encounters, new everything). Which means that, in every session, I have to create maps and encounters for his party in order to be ready for him invade good guys' dungeons, bad guys' dungeon, or both.

Not to mention the fact that damsels in distress simply won't work - adventure hooks have to appeal to their greed and thirst for power. D&D is a game intended for people who want to play heroes, and it shows. Take any adventure module/path - they are intended for heroes, or at the very least, treasure hunters. Not villains.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

If you get the process down, you can actually start including evil characters in parties primarily good-aligned, and vice versa, without so much friction as to destroy the party cohesion or derail the campaign.

Anecdote Time!

One of the greatest ongoing experiences of my entire gaming life involved a long-running campaign (started out in AD&D, ran through 3e) in which I played a quite committed LE warlock joined up with a LG knight, and NG cleric. We had a unified goal. Amazing character interaction. Some of the richest roleplaying and character development I've ever had the privilege of being a part.

You see, we were out to stop a vile demon cult moving towards world destruction, as demon cults are wont to do. And since I was playing an Asmodean warlock, I would stand for none of that! After all, demons were the most hated of enemies to devils, who fought bitterly for countless centuries in the Blood War. If anyone was going to take over and destroy the prime material plane, it was going to be my brand of evil, not theirs. So I was no less motivated as the others to succeed. Maybe the other PCs didn't always appreciate my methods. But they sure as heck couldn't argue with the results...

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I get what you're saying, there's one thing though, a different PC my friend, really wants to play Chaotic Evil.
And he's insanely creative when he plays so I know he has something in mind he wants to do. But our DM is very adamant about not letting us be Chaotic Evil in this campaign.

Has he spoken with the DM about his character concept? If the DM is adamant about not playing CE characters, being secretive or dodgy about the character won't bring the DM around. But explaining the concept and how he wants to play the character at the table could change the DM's mind.

And putting aside the goal of trying to convince the GM to allow your character concept, in my experience you get much more out of your character when the GM understands you character and knows how to respond to the character in ways that you enjoy.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

The thing with alignments are this: the player can play his character however he wants, regardless of what's on his sheet. The DM can't just say "No, your character doesn't do that because he's Lawful Neutral". So... [MENTION=6826003]Matita[/MENTION], there is basically nothing stopping your friend from saying "Ok, fine. I'm Chaotic Good. Now, I want to acquire a lot of deadly poison so I can begin planning my assassination of the entire Village of Homlett".

Anyway...

The biggest problem I've had with players deciding to play "non-good" characters is what annoys me the most. The characters are not "Neutral Evil" at level 1. The character is "Neutral Good". Then, after gaining two or three levels, they become "Neutral". Add in a couple more levels, say, level 6 or 7 now...now the character starts "behaving Neutral Evil". Why? Becuase if they were behaving NE from day one, they probably wouldn't have made it to level 2, let alone level 3 or more.

Currently, by coincidence, my players had decided they wanted to play "bad guys". They rolled up characters and we've been playing for...four sessions, I think. At the end of last session one player commented "Well, we aren't really bad...we aren't evil...maybe self-serving and greedy...but not evil". And I just blurted out "Yeah, that's because you guys are low level. Just wait until you get a few levels under your belts. You'll all be knifing drunks in the tavern, breaking into shops, and killing entire families because you just want a safe place to rest for the night". Suffice it to say, the looks on their faces pretty much told the story. It was an awkward silence for a few seconds (which felt much longer), and then one said "No, we won't do that...".... ... more silence... "Yes. You will. Just watch..." I said. Some uncomfortable shuffling of characters into back packs and whatnot (it was the end of the session and everyone was getting ready to leave).

I highly suspect I just hit a raw nerve of "Pick your stats". Oh, what I mean by that? One time, over a decade or two ago, I got sick of supposedly "rolled stats" turning out to be ridiculously unprobable (like 3d6 ending up with 18, 18, 16, 16, 15, 14, or 18, 17, 17, 15, 12, 6, etc.) from one player in particular, but others more often than not as well. So...when we started a new campaign I just said "Pick your stats. I trust you to make a decent character". :evilgrin: Surprise surprise! I got characters that had one 'high' stat, many medium ones, and maybe a low-ish one (like 8 or 7). Well, except for one guy, who made a ridiculous character...once. The disgusted looks of disappointment from me and others at the table must have been enough, because all his characters after that were...'reasonable'. Anyway...I think me pointing out that they aren't evil right now because they are so weak, and that the moment that changes, it's Demon City Shinjuku...well, I think they realized what they are doing and are likely to do.

In closing: Evil/Bad parties? Pointless and only for players who want to just blow off steam and power trip. I mean, when was the last time you had a group of evil PC's risk an obviously deadly fight if they didn't have to? Now, if a player comes to me and says "I'm interested in playing an evil character because I want to get into the whole 'tortured soul' type mindset. I want to make bad or outright evil choices, and then suffer for them. I think it would be a nice RP change" Well...I'm all for that. However, I've never had a player say that. When they want to play a "bad" character, they get genuinely P-O'ed when their characters evil actions have actual consequences...like their character gets hunted, beat up, thrown in jail, and executed for the cold blooded murder of an entire family of farmers.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Matita]

I get it okay I know what you mean, I think the DM has an actual plot planned so us just being evil for evils sake isn't going to be the thing, like each of our characters so far have a goal, motive, and dream. That just to happens to involve the destruction of some type of good force. And knowing our DM we're gonna get killed by a pig or something.


My friend was telling me about just lying/not bothering with his alignment like you said haha.