D&D 5E (2014) Evil parties that don't fall apart: ideas, suggestions, experiences?

[GameDoc]

I would also add that its important to remember that villain, antagonist, and evil/immoral person are distinct concepts. They so frequently overlap it's easy to forget.

 

[Afrodyte]

I think people often make the mistaken assumption that evil characters are unable to form bonds with others. Not every evil character is a total sociopath.

Evil characters can still fall in love, have some sense of wanting their children to be happy, honor their family, befriend others with similar mundane interests that have nothing to do with conquest and power (e.g., sports, art, hunting).

Evil can be about how you regard (or disregard) those who mean nothing to you or can do nothing for you. Tywin Lannister, Darth Vader, Grendel's Mother, Tony Soprano, and Magneto are all evil characters who at times are motivated by a sense of love or connection to another person and even occasionally a lofty ideal or two. They just have no moral qualms about what they'll do to protect who and what they care about.

This is precisely what I was getting at: how to run a game for a group of characters like this without them imploding as soon as I say, "What does your character do?"

Edit: To be more specific, how do I draw the line between evil and stupid?

I would also add that its important to remember that villain, antagonist, and evil/immoral person are distinct concepts. They so frequently overlap it's easy to forget.

Yes. For the sake of clarification, I mean evil in the D&D alignment sense.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

How often does evil consider itself to be evil (aside from detect evil spells)? An evil character who intentionally commits acts to be evil is probably psychotic (vice those committing acts they feel are justified) -- and a group of PC psychpaths is not going to hang together long. If your players are "playing evil because we want to rape and murder with no consequences" it's probably a tough concept for a long term campaign.

Ways I can see to make an evil campaign last longer:

- Lawful evil, in the service of a powerful patron (individual, government)

- Misled evil, in the service of an evil government. They consider themselves "good" ... with a rather flexible definition of "good". See Lawful Evil, above.

- Other evil, under an extremely powerful patron, so that they have to hang together to survive and team up to overthrow their patron.

- Make 'em all related. 'Cause no one hangs together like family, especially evil family.

 

[jrowland]

I think laying the ground rules is a must...a 4th wall that must not be breached.

Last time I ran an evil group was 2nd edition, so I may be rusty...but one thing we established was the definition of evil.

Bloodthirsty psychopaths yelling "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" are evil, sure, but how close to non-evil can you go but still remain evil? Play there, not the psycho who kills anything living.

For us, it came to "Evil is choosing self over others." from there, we established that good aligned creatures do evil and evil aligned creatures do good, but its the sum total of actions that determine alignment. Therefore, we established that "Evil is choosing self over others in most decisions".

Now that was our group. you guys might want to play a darker campaign. Working together is, in many ways, selfish, if working together means you'll benefit selfishly in the end (whats in it for me?). There will be moments, where it will be tempting to coup de grace a party member and take their stuff. That should be established well in advanced: is that cool? For our group it meant once every 3 levels (2E leveling curve...today I might say just once per player) you can effectively eliminate another party member and they can bring in a new character.

But yeah, ground rules, ground rules, ground rules.

 

[Jishosan]

I'd like to think that we've come a long way since the days of "Lawful Stupid" and "Chaotic Random". Here are some rules I live by as a DM:

Your Order <-> Chaos designation emphasizes your goals. Do you want to impose order, justice, retribution? Do you promote freedom, individuality? Or perhaps you have no greater agenda?
Your Good <-> Evil designation emphasizes your methods. What are you willing to do to achieve your goal? Do you struggle to bring justice while honoring and helping the innocent around you? Or do you impose retribution and order by grinding all those who would stand in your path, regardless of their innocence? Or are you content with helping a family retrieve their kidnapped son, and then secretly helping yourself to their hidden loot stash as you leave?

Additionally, "Evil" doesn't mean uncaring. Evil people can have comrades, emotions, loved ones, obsessions, etc. There are plenty of truly evil people who would still be willing to take a bullet or go to jail for a family member or close colleague even in the real world.

The secret to a functional evil party is to create a compelling back story that stops the possibly in-fighting from the beginning. Perhaps they are family, the Mansons of Greyhawk, devoted to a single person or faction leader?

I have successfully run a 3.5E evil campaign. I considered it slightly novel, because the PCs started out working for the villain. The villain was a LE General who was generally friendly, good to his soldiers, a family man, loyal subject of the realm, with a strong code of honor, and good to his word. However, his job was defending the kingdom, and he employed some truly terrifying methods to deter would-be invaders. If forces attacked, he had no issues with sending a small force into a neighboring village, razing the buildings, murdering it to the man, woman, and child, mounting the bodies on stakes, and putting them at the border for the next would-be attack force to see. He believed that in the long run, his brutality saved lives on both sides, and that it was noble to do it.

The PCs were all Lawful Evil recruits of his elite forces and, on a mission into a neighboring territory, were the only survivors of an ambush by what appeared to be enemy troops. Long story paraphrased, they were "rescued" by orcs who killed their attackers, escaped the orcs, discovered the enemy soldiers were actually their own troops in disguise, were declared enemy deserters and traitors, and discovered that the general had taken possession of an artifact that was consuming him with growing paranoia such that he was playing with magics that would destroy the neighboring kingdoms and likely their own. The path of the story eventually led to some good roleplaying and gradual alignment shifts, including one character who renounced the blood on his hands and became LG after dedicating himself to Pelor. Probably some of the best role playing I've ever had from players, so I'm glad I took the chance.

Hopefully, you'll find a way to get a good evil group going! It can be challenging, but fun. And that's coming from a guy who doesn't actually like to play evil in RPGs.

 

[GameDoc]

For us, it came to "Evil is choosing self over others." from there, we established that good aligned creatures do evil and evil aligned creatures do good, but its the sum total of actions that determine alignment. Therefore, we established that "Evil is choosing self over others in most decisions".

This is a good way to think about it. Alignment is a general tendency, not an absolute.

 

[Hand of Evil]

(I know some of you have heard it before)

Define what is "evil" in your game, be it because they worship an evil god, eat other races, perform cold blooded murder, lack a soul, are undead, practice slavery, have no problem with mind control or because they are orcs, or that they see the seven deadly sin as a guideline for living life to the fullest.

That is my biggest rule for running evil games.

 

[The M'hael]

I think about a game like you are the lieutenants of the dark lord, fighting against the forces of good, and competing with the other lieutenants. Like wheel of time playing as the forsaken. You can also play a serious, grim, type of game, without having evil characters. You could have a vengeance paladin, a wild mage with an alternate wild table,...

My ideas sort of fell out there.

 

[The M'hael]

I remembered!

There was a 3.5 game where I dm'd that had a lich, a mindflayer, and an Ogre mage, and they went and beat up a Lawful-Stupid Paladin. Some other adventurers came and attacked their lair, and got crushed. They played these powerful evil characters and went into a low level adventure, but totally messed it up and beat up the normal bad-guys for their stuff, and then burned and plundered the village. This wasn't actually balanced or anything, just for fun.

 

[Storminator]

(I know some of you have heard it before)

Define what is "evil" in your game, be it because they worship an evil god,

. . . check

eat other races,

. . . check

perform cold blooded murder,

. . . check

lack a soul,

. . . check

are undead,

. . . check

practice slavery,

. . . check

have no problem with mind control

. . . check

or because they are orcs,

. . . check

or that they see the seven deadly sin as a guideline for living life to the fullest.

. . . check

That is my biggest rule for running evil games.

Wow. You've perfectly nailed my game group!

I run an Eberron game where all the PCs are from the same goblin tribe. Originally their goal was to keep their tribe from being crushed by all the bigger more powerful goblin clans. Now they're looking to genocide the elves, and soon they'll be looking at world domination. Assuming none of the apocalypses (is that the right pluralization?) they've set in motion happen first.

They have common origins, common motivations, and comradery. They also think they're heroes, so they're a bit delusional as well . . .
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