Evil Campaigns: How do you feel about them?

[Lord Crimson]

I do not think that everyone in the party has to be " Lawful " Evil, but they do have to be " Loyal " Evil. If there is nothing uniting the party except the pursuit of profit, then there will be nothing stopping anyone from killing their fellows if it would profit them.

You could think of Aristotle's types of friendship as well. If they are friends because of profit it will not work, if they are friends because they enjoy each others company it can work (as long as they enjoy each others company), and if they are friends because they have some sort of mutual respect and desire for well-being, it will probably work.

This has been my experience. Playing a party of evil characters =/= playing a bunch of PCs that spend all day screwing each other over.

I had an evil campaign I DM'd for years. All the players did was operate from the assumption that dicking over the other PCs was just not acceptable.

Dicking over anyone else, though? Totally fair game.

Hell, I even had them working for more heroic NPCs. Because, when the chips were down, they were the most capable people in the region. And knowing that things were bad enough that the "good guys" were coming to them? Well, now they could justify an extortionate "reward" for their "good deed".

And even evil characters know that something more powerful and more evil than them is dangerous and needs to be stopped. And if it threatens their lives and illicitly-acquired goods, castles, and nations? Now they're really motivated. ("We stole all this stuff fair and square. No way we're letting you steal it from us.")

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

Interesting results so far, seems like most people have answered that they generally don't like or even hate the concept of an evil campaign and it generally stems from the "me first" mentality of the PCs.

A few follow-up questions to the community, if you do enjoy running/playing in evil campaigns on a 50%+ basis:

How do you keep the in-fighting to a minimum and keep the group together through thick and thin?

What do you think about loyalty to the group and what seems to be the me-first attitude of evil?

Do you have an "overlord" that makes sure the group stays on track?

What do you do to motivate them so they aren't just killing puppies for the fun of it and stealing everything not nailed down just because?

 

[nedjer]

I love evil campaigns but not stupid evil (killing other pcs because they are tgere and take their stuff). The characters may be evil but they still have values, attachments, loyalties etc. For me Goodfellas is a good model for how an evil party might operate.

The Godfather just shades it for me

'values, attachments' . . . and plenty of consequences for the bad guys in both movies.

For a cynical solo TPK maybe roll-up the mates, cousins, brothers, betrothed and pass them to the players with dead PCs - along with a rumour the size of a beacon about where the lowlife traitor can be hunted down

 

[JamesonCourage]

I generally don't find much fun in it, but that's because when we play, it's for a long term campaign. Our one-shots are in other systems. So, when we used to play, the idea of a long term campaign with Evil campaigns lasting was odd to me, only because I knew the odds of them lasting was small. Possible, sure, but I find that the moral shades of grey is much more compelling for my group than black and white, and Evil characters tended to be distinctly Evil, which kind of ruined the shades of grey aspect.

However, in my RPG currently, the players are warlords. They assassinated the last warlord, took over, and have tentative plans to conquer the region. They've expanded by taking towns, creating a forced labor force, have plans to kill the other warlords / guild leaders / adventurers in the region / mercenary captains that offend them, etc. They're pretty bad guys (for the most part), but they have some sympathies, too, which makes it interesting. When the chips are down, they'll negotiate before fighting, and they're into political maneuvering to get what they want, and haven't resorted to hiring assassins or the like yet. So, this campaign has been interesting, because the party has more shades of grey, is fulfilling the role of the organized evil warlords (including the adventuring party that's a thorn in their side), and is very loyal to one another. It'll be interesting to see where it goes.

 

[Pentius]

Interesting results so far, seems like most people have answered that they generally don't like or even hate the concept of an evil campaign and it generally stems from the "me first" mentality of the PCs.

A few follow-up questions to the community, if you do enjoy running/playing in evil campaigns on a 50%+ basis:

Basically, I'd love to run an evil campaign with the same social etiquette as a good one, but, ime, when a players says, "I would like to play an evil campaign." this actually means, "I am tired of following Wheaton's Law. I would like to be a jerk, to you, to the other players, to the NPCs, to everybody ever. I would like to act out, just everywhere, and then be able to say that I was just playing my character."

This is the base problem with evil campaigns, and you can see it in most of the responses here.

How do you keep the in-fighting to a minimum and keep the group together through thick and thin?

What do you think about loyalty to the group and what seems to be the me-first attitude of evil?

Do you have an "overlord" that makes sure the group stays on track?

What do you do to motivate them so they aren't just killing puppies for the fun of it and stealing everything not nailed down just because?

Honestly, if it comes to the point where you have to ask yourself, "How do I make people not be jerks?" you've already lost. They are either going to, or are not going to.

 

[Umbran]

They aren't my cup of tea. Not that I refuse to take part on principle, but I generally don't find it a fun mode of play, myself. So, I prefer not to, and you'd have to do a good job selling me on what would make yours enjoyable before I'd take part.

This goes beyond D&D, for me, beyond game alignment systems. White Wolf's Vampire games, for example, register about the same for me as evil D&D games. I just prefer White and Grey Hat games, as opposed to Black Hat games.

I warn my players that, if they get too nasty, while I won't directly plaster them outright, they shouldn't expect any plot-protection from me as a GM. Repercussions will dog Evil PCs pretty continuously.

 

[LostSoul]

I am playing a Chaotic Evil character in a game right now. It's a lot of fun.

1. How do you keep the in-fighting to a minimum and keep the group together through thick and thin?

2. What do you think about loyalty to the group and what seems to be the me-first attitude of evil?

3. Do you have an "overlord" that makes sure the group stays on track?

4. What do you do to motivate them so they aren't just killing puppies for the fun of it and stealing everything not nailed down just because?

1. & 2. Evil does not mean stupid. Working together is more profitable than working alone.

3. No.

4. We motivate ourselves. We want power. We don't kill everyone we meet and steal everything we can because that would cause trouble with the authorities, and that's not going to help our cause.

 

[the Jester]

I voted "Other" both as a dm and a player.

Both as a dm and as a player, I like and enjoy evil campaigns once in a while. I'm happy to run them or play in them when that's what the group wants to do. But I'm very much of the school of thought that everyone should make the character they want to play, as long as they're willing to bite at whatever excuse I toss them to fit into the group.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have run evil campaigns a number of times when my group wanted to try it out. Every time I relented and ran the game for a while, until the group splintered and fell apart due to intra-party strife.

Good parties tend to have in-character reasons to stick together and generally work together. Most evil parties can suffer each others goals long enough to stick through a a long campaign.

 

[Ahnehnois]

So I've realized that I start a lot of polls...

Not necessarily a problem. I like polls.


As to the thread question, I put 50% for both. This is an adult game. I have few compunctions about the subject matter, although at some point my sense of decency precludes graphic depictions of certain things. Certainly, I acknowledge that in my campaign world, people lie, steal, cheat, assault, and kill each other, and that all of those things have consequences. I don't push players to be evil or particularly try to reward it, but I find they do evil things now and then and unless they're acting in a metagame fashion I let it go.

As a player, I want the freedom to do whatever I can think of. Again, there are boundaries of taste, but certainly I don't want to have a highly restrictive moral code imposed on me.

I certainly wouldn't say that D&D is "about" heroism. D&D is a medium for fictional storytelling. The subject matter is and should be the province of its players. I like fiction that encompasses the whole range of human experience, so I make that the goal in D&D. Thus, my campaigns are neither good nor evil but typically mixed, as are the parties that play in them.