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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mad Zagyg" data-source="post: 6379886" data-attributes="member: 47680">Running an evil campaign is totally doable. You just need a group of mature people who are interested in the concept for the right reasons. If you have players that want to play evil characters so they can torture and kill everyone they encounter and backstab their buddies, the game will certainly be short lived. This sort of cartoonish evil is how kids might view the concept.From a realistic standpoint, the themes that are possible to explore with a group of black-hearted adventurers, who as a group aspire to wealth, power, and conquest, can make for a fantastic game. This notion that bad guys don't/won't/can't have friends or work together as a team is silly. Bad guys do that all the time! Remember when the Empire Struck Back?In the same way that your good guys aren't ALWAYS good, bad guys aren't ALWAYS bad. Look at any top ten list of people's favorite villains and you'll notice that there are some qualities in these characters that we find admirable. The movie "Unforgiven" gives us several great profiles of bad men. We root for Clint Eastwood in that film, but he is a man prone to violence (or at least, he was) and bad temperament. Gene Hackman's character is a bad man in charge of keeping the peace in his town. He is not above torture and employs such tactics two or three times in the course of the movie. And yet, in a few scenes, we find him affable and friendly.If people are interested in trying this type of game but have had difficulty in the past, it's possible your group isn't the type that can handle these themes. One suggestion might be to try giving the party a built-in goal right from the beginning. Be up front with the players. Tell them that you aren't interested in running an evil campaign where the party backstabs and steals from one another. An evil character can realize just as easily as a good one that creating discord within his group will not further his or her goals.Even a band of evil characters that considers themselves a mercenary group for hire can recognize that they are part of a team. They can easily understand that they are working together to get a job done. The difference between this group and a "good" group is that they will use any means necessary to accomplish their mission.Except... "No disintegrations."</blockquote>

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