Evil Campaigns

[Morlock]

A human who decides to follow a dark god is a horrible creature that is surely terribly and unrelatably evil.

Oh, I dunno. The pantheon of Krynn, for example, is kinda asking for it, what with the whole cosmology of balance, and having as many evil gods as good or neutral ones. Why are the evil gods there, if not to be worshipped?

Gods like Takhisis promise power, and that's enough for some (many) people; I'm not sure that's so hard to relate to. I'm actually not that up on Krynn's cosmology, but, which gods unleashed the Cataclysm? A lot of gamers think the Cataclysm was an evil act - what if an evil character became convinced (even wrongly) that the Cataclysm was the doing of the good and neutral gods? That would seem to be a pretty good excuse to side with the evil gods.

If the real world is any guide, pretty much all evil people see themselves as good, and always have. 'Course, all of this feeds back into the point you made in your next paragraph.

Evil by Necessity

Another evil campaign? Muhahahaha! Thanks, I'll have to check it out.

Edit: you sure it isn't Villains by Necessity? I'm getting search hits for that, but not Evil by Necessity.

Edit2: no, looks like VbN is a novel.

But, to be fair, most of the characters aren't capital-E Evil. They may be small-e evil. Most are neutral-selfish, but aren't actually looking to hurt anyone - as the title says, they are villains *by necessity*, not by nature or inclination.

Well, aside from "Evil with a Point" where a character kind of has to be Evil, I prefer evil characters; people who are willing to do anything to achieve their goals, but don't get their rocks off that way, otherwise.

Its not fantasy or D&D, but one Savage Worlds setting is call Necessary Evil. Its a Supers setting. The base premise is Aliens made contact and promised all sorts of goodies for us. In the big celebration, all the "good" Supers were exterminated by the Aliens and the invasion began (never trust an Alien, I always say). Thus, only the evil supers were left to resist the Alien takeover of Earth.

I am not much of a Supers fan, but that is one campaign I would love to play in.

I saw that somewhere recently, and thought it was a really good idea for a campaign/setting. Has Marvel or DC done a big event recently based on this idea?

 

[Ryujin]

The only Super I ever played was an invulnerable energy expulsor in a Rifts campaign and he was Aberrant, which is how I see the original Batman being anyway. Or The Shadow of the old radio serial. Or pretty much any of the Film Noir 'heroes.' Small wonder I scooped the web address morallyambiguous.net .

If I had the time I think that I could really get into developing a different sort of 'necessary evil' campaign in which the PCs played the sort of troubleshooters that even a nominally good realm tends to need; spies, assassins, and thugs who do what is needed, but not the sort of thing that any monarch would admit to in polite company.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm pretty sure they're CN because they're a knockoff of the phraints from Arduin Grimoire, but I no longer have any of the old AG books (), so I can't verify that any more.

Something to research. I'll stat with Google.

 

[Rygar]

@OP

One of the Dragonlance authors talked about this some years ago on the Nexus. The gist of it was that WOTC/Hasbro's rule was that "Evil cannot be permitted to win. It can temporarily appear to win for a very good narrative reason, but good must ultimately defeat it". So that's why there isn't an evil campaign, corporate policy. Probably also why one could argue that the Book of Vile Darkness is more like the Book of Kinda Naughtiness".

 

[pickin_grinnin]

One of the Dragonlance authors talked about this some years ago on the Nexus. The gist of it was that WOTC/Hasbro's rule was that "Evil cannot be permitted to win. It can temporarily appear to win for a very good narrative reason, but good must ultimately defeat it". So that's why there isn't an evil campaign, corporate policy. Probably also why one could argue that the Book of Vile Darkness is more like the Book of Kinda Naughtiness".

I was really disappointed with the Book of Vile Darkness, for that very reason. For me, "evil" (however you define that) has to be able to "win" sometimes for the game to be interesting.

I have been enjoying the indie "Black Tokyo" game because it doesn't pull any punches whatsoever.

In games I DM/GM, there is no such thing as a black-and-white universal "good" or "evil." All things are shades of grey, on more than a single axis or two.

 

[the Jester]

@OP

One of the Dragonlance authors talked about this some years ago on the Nexus. The gist of it was that WOTC/Hasbro's rule was that "Evil cannot be permitted to win. It can temporarily appear to win for a very good narrative reason, but good must ultimately defeat it". So that's why there isn't an evil campaign, corporate policy. Probably also why one could argue that the Book of Vile Darkness is more like the Book of Kinda Naughtiness".

That's a very old policy, though- I wouldn't bet that it made it all the way into 3e, much less that it still exists. Which isn't to say that it doesn't- but I wouldn't take a bet that the policy is still around.

 

[gamerprinter]

@OP

One of the Dragonlance authors talked about this some years ago on the Nexus. The gist of it was that WOTC/Hasbro's rule was that "Evil cannot be permitted to win. It can temporarily appear to win for a very good narrative reason, but good must ultimately defeat it". So that's why there isn't an evil campaign, corporate policy. Probably also why one could argue that the Book of Vile Darkness is more like the Book of Kinda Naughtiness".

I think that was more an issue in the 1980's when the fear of D&D as a Satanic scare thing was actuator of maintaing such a "code". I think for the most part, at least for the larger audience, that fear no longer exists. It was a TSR thing really, I don't know that it ever was a WotC policy, per se.

 

[Alzrius]

@OP

One of the Dragonlance authors talked about this some years ago on the Nexus. The gist of it was that WOTC/Hasbro's rule was that "Evil cannot be permitted to win. It can temporarily appear to win for a very good narrative reason, but good must ultimately defeat it". So that's why there isn't an evil campaign, corporate policy. Probably also why one could argue that the Book of Vile Darkness is more like the Book of Kinda Naughtiness".

Wasn't this part of TSR's laughable "Code of Ethics" that they adopted for their novels in the wake of the Rose Estes books?

 

[delericho]

Wasn't this part of TSR's laughable "Code of Ethics" that they adopted for their novels in the wake of the Rose Estes books?

I'm pretty sure that's right, although I'm too lazy to go look it up.

Nonetheless, I would be surprised if a policy of that sort existed (at least informally) in WotC (at least the D&D division). "Book of Kinda Naughtiness" is a pretty apt description of the 3e work. And the reaction to "Book of Erotic Fantasy" was pretty telling also.

(To be completely honest, though, I'm not convinced that's a bad thing anyway. It strikes me that a smaller third party is probably better placed to do that kind of work anyway, not having the same pressure to maintain a wholesome image.)

 

[Alzrius]

And the reaction to "Book of Erotic Fantasy" was pretty telling also.

Just out of curiosity, do you mean their changing the d20 STL to include a "community decency" (or whatever it was called) clause? Because that's the only reaction that I'm aware of.