Evil Campaigns

[mr_outsidevoice]

During college, starting 1st ed then converted to 2nd ed, we had an evil game that we played in aside from our normal game. It was fun. We had a non-agression pact w/in the group because we made more money working together.
We had fun working for an NPC evil wizard when we had to lay low for awhile(stupid cleric forgot to make sure there were no witnesses). We were riding high in wealth and magic, helping a grand evil plot to rule the world when the DM threw an adventuring party at us. It started out when we had to find out why contacts in a couple of towns and a nearby city went quiet. Then we had to investigate who exactly wiped out the tribe of ogres we busted our behinds to conquer. When we finally figured out who they were, we were recalled to defend the castle while the wizard was conducting his "Ritual of Power".After 70% of our troops were wiped out and we barely survived our encounter w/ the Paladin's crew, we decided to split up. Half of us led the heroes to the boss, warning the boss of the group so there was a prolonged fight, the rest of us broke into the vaults and looted the place.
Then we all met up and fled. We then took up piracy for a bit. My character decided to hunt paladins for fun.

We didn't do dark depraved stuff because we as players weren't comfortable with it. We just wanted to get destructive urges out. Our regular games we had more moral conflicts and dealt with consequences of actions.

 

[drunkmoogle]

I'm running an evil campaign right now. It's in a very odd situation right now. One of my players plays a [Lawful] neutral character; a Thayan Knight to the party Red Wizard.

I've used the BoVD to great extent, having the party harvest some material components (Read: Fresh Body Parts) for some Questionable Activities. Just recently, I think I may have overly disgusted some of my players when I said the enclave leader ordered some "Freshly de-virginized Human Children."

The Thayan Knight had enough. She renounced the Red Wizards, abandoning the mission, citing her morals and ethics. The rest of the party decided to go on with the job.

Some things happened, I won't bore you with those details. The party is back together, in good grace with the Red Wizards. Except now, the party has a Good character, and is spreading goodness to these other evil characters. She's also an informant for the Harpers, and...

I love the irony. Usually, it's the other way around with an evil character being introduced and dragging the party down. I'm milking this for all it's worth; this may be the best campaign I'll ever run.

Well, that's my first hand experience with an evil campaign.

 

[BlackMoria]

Depends on the relative maturity of your players. An evil campaign with lots of intrigue, double dealing and scheming can be quite statisfying to run.

Characters who think before they act and plan ahead will do well. Evil characters whose concept of evil is kicking puppies and killing shopkeepers because the shopkeeper overcharged them for some item will have a short life expectancy.

I ran several evil campaigns during my time as DM. Some were successful. Others were not. The one I grimace most about was the time I ran an evil campaign because the players wanted to play one. To a man, they all decided to be homicidal sociopaths. The campaign lasted 30 minutes real time....

They gathered in the tavern at campaign start. They must have thought they were in the cantina for the first star wars movie (where Hans Solo blasts the bounty hunter and noone bats an eye) instead of a tavern in Waterdeep (yep, that Waterdeep).

First act one of them does is to kill the person serving them drinks - reason: don't have to pay for the drinks. That understandably upset the bartender, who they killed - reason: the bartender talked back to them.

One of them decided then and there to rape one of the serving wenches - reason: she was a pretty female.

By this time, most of the patrons are fleeing the bar. So they start cutting down the patrons - reason: the patrons may bring the watch.

A few patrons escape and the watch arrives. A pitched battle ensues and watch members are killed. The surviving watch members send for reinforcements.

By now the players are upset with me, because I am not cutting them any slack. I calmly reminded them that this was Waterdeep and what the hell did they expect....

A 7th level watch mage of the Watchful Order arrives with some other low level reinforcements. A call was made for the party's surrender. The party declines.

Realizing that an assault would be costly in manpower, the Watchful Order requests from higher authority the authorization to use 'all means available' to stop these dangerous criminals.

So, with a fireball through a busted out window, the party's troubles are over as they all die to a man. Campaign over. Shortest one in my 30 years of playing and DMing. The players were angry and I had to go into a pointed discussion of the law of action/consequences and that they called for the thunder and they got it....

 

[Sado]

Evil doesn't have to mean backstabbing, utterly untrustworthy villains.

Very true. Think Imperials from Star Wars. Evil party members can even be close friends who stick their necks out for each other.

 

[pogre]

1) Make sure all the players understand that they are evil. Not neutral, not conflicted with goodness, but evil--so you don't get into moral questions with the other character's vile actions.

This is excellent advice and something the DM did not do in our "evil" campaign. There was a lot of good done in that campaign, and frankly, I was disgusted.

 

[Alloran]

I've both played in and run evil campaigns with two different groups. Both went off FANTASTICALLY. Probably the best games I've played in. The trick to both, though, was character motivation. Why does the party stick together. I had a Lich employ the PCs one at a time, and set the penalty for hurting his 'possesions' quite high. This gave the PCs kind of a buffer protection from the LG society in the next country over (they ended up taking over the capitiol city) and made them work together. If you don't like that kind of 'leading the PCs by the nose' thing, there's always greed, lust, and revenge to get them to work together. ^_^

~Alloran

 

[Evilhalfling]

My evil campaign was less sucessful.
The party was given rings, and each one that was awakened(by a different person) would increase the power of them all. This stopped them from killing each other, but not cheating, stealing, spying and using each other as patsys. One charater was a bully, another a meglomaniac and a third a drow priestess. The priestess tried to blackmail the wrong guy - and was buried in his backyard. The meglomaniac ended up taking at least 1/2 the parties treasure on one pretext or another and a replacement character was brutally assainsated. The campaign group collapsed for RL reasons but Im sure the game didn't help matters.
It was a very high turnover game - 6 deaths in about 2 months

They can work I have had some luck with Vampire games, but stupied evil dies fast, and there is usually some.

 

[Sado]

If you don't like that kind of 'leading the PCs by the nose' thing, there's always greed, lust, and revenge to get them to work together. ^_^

~Alloran

Lust isn't necessarily evil

 

[Malin Genie]

My one suggestion - a Lawful Evil party can work but Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil won't (as a party.) For solo adventures Neutral or Chaotic Evil could be interesting...

 

[Sejs]

I've played in one successful (and a number of abortive, unsuccessful) evil campaigns in my time as a gamer. The one successful one was based on the premise was that the PCs were budding Evil Overlord types who wanted to carve themselves out an empire (and of course from there, Rule The World! Mwa ha ha) and kept with a strong us-vs-them, united we stand divided we fall, allies are priceless victims are a dime a dozen kind of mentality. Worked like a charm, too. The only instance of inter-party backstabbery was quashed when the offender was rounded up, pummeled into submission and told that he was in sore need of some perspective - would he rather grab what he can for just himself and end up ruling some mountain valley full of dirt-farmers, or would he rather work for the good of the group like everyone else is and end up ruling the world?


Oh, and that he's just cashed in his one good-graces chit and should we ever have to have this conversation again, he will get to serve as an Example.