D&D 5E (2014) Evil characters material not going to be in the PHB

[Scorpio616]

I think one of the goals is a small Player book. That means a lot of stuff is going to get cut from the PHB section.

Oh yes, stripping down the main rulebook is a strategy to sell supplements.

 

[Celebrim]

Oh yes, stripping down the main rulebook is a strategy to sell supplements.

This is my opinion as well. The idea in stripping down the rulebook is to offer less text and/or pages at the same price, thereby making up for predictable low sales numbers with higher profits per book.

 

[Manabarbs]

I think the LAST place it should be is the DMG. PHB is fine. If there's not space for everything and you have to cut some stuff, sure, prioritize cutting evil stuff, but put player material in player books and DM material in DM books. I don't have strong feelings about whether playing evil characters is a bad idea or not, but I do have strong feelings about splitting up player crunch over more books than is necessary. There's a reason that 3.5 stopped squirreling PrCs off in DM books after the core books; it's because player material should be consolidated so that players don't have to buy or even really look at DM books any more than necessary.

 

[Hussar]

I want to be clear: are you objecting to the notion that good characters, on balance, tend to cooperate more easily than do evil characters?

I'm not sure that they do. Take the stereotypical Mafia Family scenario. The group operates and cooperates for years without any real problems, so long as everyone stays in their place. In many Mafia movies and TV shows, it's because of one (or possibly a small, splinter group) member of the group that problems occur.

D&D does not engage in complex moral relativism. The system doesn't acknowledge it, and the mechanics don't support it. So while you're technically correct (the best kind of correct!) it doesn't really have a bearing on this discussion. Good characters tend to cooperate more easily, and D&D works best when the PCs cooperate well.

Having run and played in more than a few straight up evil campaigns recently, I've found that evil groups function better than good ones to be honest. Good characters (and players of good characters) don't feel the need to cooperate because they know that if they don't cooperate, the worst that will happen to them is they will get yelled at by the other players.

When evil characters step out of line, their player's tend to have to roll up new characters. So, they cooperate. When conflicts between characters do arise, they get resolved very (sometimes very) politely. Because everyone at the table knows that this can escalate to a degree that a good group never will.

I know that this is a tangent to the OP, but, it's an interesting one. I would hope that if they do put an "Evil Campaign" section in the DMG, it will include a lengthy discussion about what steps the DM and the group can take to make sure that the whole "I steal from the party 'cos I'm eviiiiil" thing gets nipped in the bud.

 

[skotothalamos]

There's nothing more evil than making Kender a core race.

I'd be fine with all that stuff being shunted off into Book of Vile Darkness Mk. III, but like others have said, I would want that to be an early book so I can start tinkering with villains immediately.

 

[Dannager]

Good characters are no more likely to have identical desires, beliefs, and goals than evil characters.

I do not believe that to be the case. For instance, two evil characters might share a similar, evil belief system ("No one's well-being matters but my own!"), but the fact that those beliefs are shared doesn't mean that they are more likely to cooperate - quite the opposite, in fact! Good characters tend to hold to beliefs that thrive on cooperation and trust, while evil characters tend to hold beliefs that thrive on selfishness, malicious deception, and distrust.

Good characters that find themselves with conflicting goals might choose to resolve the conflict in a different way, if they can, but conflict resolution doesn't equate to cooperation. Are you saying that good aligned characters would never find themselves in an ethical dilemma and choose contradictory solutions despite the same values?

It's not useful to speak in absolute terms like that. On balance, good-aligned characters will be less likely to clash (especially clash violently) when their goals are mismatched, and they are less likely to find their goals mismatched when their beliefs align.

 

[Dannager]

I'm not sure that they do. Take the stereotypical Mafia Family scenario. The group operates and cooperates for years without any real problems, so long as everyone stays in their place. In many Mafia movies and TV shows, it's because of one (or possibly a small, splinter group) member of the group that problems occur.

The cooperation is due to a strong organizational structure, and the view that the individual is benefiting through association with the group. That said, nearly every piece of fiction featuring organized crime involves some kind of internal conflict that, almost invariably, stems from someone's desire to take malicious/selfish advantage of others in the group.

 

[Nagol]

The most difficult PC in my last campaign wasn't the LE Wizard/worshipper of Hecate. It was the CG Wizard who believed he had the freedom to insist on specific courses of action/areas to adventure. The second most troublesome was the CG Fighter/Cleric who decided to adopt causes without consulting the rest of the players.

IME group trouble comes to the fore more from PCs who develop wildly divergent goals/tactics and aren't willing to compromise. That is at least as often mirrored by the L<-->C continuum as the G<-->E one.

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit, the Chaotic Good, "Well, I'm not lawful, so, I can do whatever I want" character is far, far more disruptive than the Lawful Evil ones.

 

[Sunseeker]

Evil campaigns are fun, but they are certainly a niche within the game as a whole. I don't have a problem with the "Big Book of Evil Badness" being a separate book, and considered highly non-core. Let them put more effort into, make very tailored, highly evil aspects for all the classes, I think that is a fine way.

I'd rather not fill up space with "evil" stuff in the PHB. If you want to play a darker class, roll up a warlock. Otherwise, "evil" is more a matter of RP than rules by my reckoning.