D&D 5E How would you conduct an evil campaign?

[Herosmith14]

So, this is an idea that's been rattling around in my mind for a while. A number of months ago a group at a FLGS I occasionaly go to started up an evil campaign. I wasn't apart of it, but I thought it was a fun idea. I eventually ended up thinking about how you would conduct an evil campaign, and by that I mean how you would handle the possibly clashing individual goals of the party. Of course you could just go for the old "conquer the world and divide it up" strategy, but that only works in certain circumstances, and, to me at least, seems rather uninventive. I was hoping you guys could give me some advice on a strategy I came up with to run an evil campaign.

So the basic idea is each character has a certain set of goals they need to accomplish in order to achieve there endgame, as well as some roadblocks that block the party as a whole, such as the good guys. You could evenly distribute ways of reaching goals throughout the adventure, such as having 4(one for each party member, not specifically 4) items or people dispersed throughout a dungeon or small adventuring area that would progress the scheme of each character.

Once all the major threats have been neutralized and a character has accomplished all of the prerequisites to their final goal, a player could talk to the DM, and, with the DM's okay, could "Endgame," or betray the party; their once-comrades now being the largest known threat to them. The DM could supply an NPC that would fill the same niche as the traitor(So as to not unbalance the party). The party and the traitor would fight (the traitor would presumably have summoned minions in some form) and if the party kills the traitor, the player in control of the traitor would roll up a new character, with a new set of goals to accomplish, and the campaign would continue until another player "endgames." If the traitor kills or otherwise defeats the party, the campaign ends and you could possibly start up a new one, with heroes instead of villains, and the point is to topple the victor of the last campaign.

One of the problems I see with his model is that it might unintentionaly encourage backstabbing through out the entire campaign, not just at the end, and could lead to a lot of mistrust around the table.

Any thoughts?

 

[aco175]

I would not encourage an evil campaign unless you and your players are ok with it and have been playing for quite a while and know how to handle it. That being said, I find that a lot of good PC reasons for adventuring would be the same as evil PCs. The only major difference is the means and lengths they will go through. Some may resort to bribery, like many good people have done, and other means such as blackmail, torture, and theft. I would try and keep it out of torture, rape, and random murder just to kill someone.

 

[Soul Stigma]

My personal experience is that evil characters don't make good campaigns. One shots, sure, but that's about it. An "alliance" of evil characters is one of necessity, nothing more.

Think of villains in a normal campaign - someone has to be head honcho to have any real order, and that would mean other characters are subordinates. If not, if they are equals, then it's the sort of arrangement that lasts until one of them feels threatened or sees an opportunity to bring others to heel.

All of this is mostly due to the total selfishness inherent in evil alignments. The L, N and C prefix only tells you how they tend to go about that selfishness.

Anyway, maybe someone has a viable model that could work for an actual campaign. I'd sure be interested to see it, out of sheer curiosity!


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[cmad1977]

Wouldn't bother.


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[Oofta]

As others have stated, I wouldn't.

Having gotten that out of the way, there are several options:

Delegate to the Players
Have the players tell you why they won't stab each other in the back in a session 0. They don't have to have a reason not to stab everyone in the back, just at least one other person and every person needs to be covered. So Bob won't kill Sue because she's his sister, Sue won't kill Tom because she secretly loves him and so on.

Just make sure no one is left out of the loop.

Overlord
Easiest is to just have an NPC be an evil overlord type who deals harshly with infighting. Goal of the campaign may be overthrowing the overlord so that they can take over, but until then everybody obeys the boss.

It's Magic!
The entire group is under some kind of magical compulsion/geas to not kill each other. They may not even know they're under a geas until/if they try to stab each other in the back.

Together we are stronger ... for now
Everyone needs the other members of the group in order to achieve their goals.

Anyway, those are my thoughts off the top of my head. I'd never do an evil campaign myself, it's not for me.

 

[Soul Stigma]

As others have stated, I wouldn't.

Having gotten that out of the way, there are several options:

Delegate to the Players
Have the players tell you why they won't stab each other in the back in a session 0. They don't have to have a reason not to stab everyone in the back, just at least one other person and every person needs to be covered. So Bob won't kill Sue because she's his sister, Sue won't kill Tom because she secretly loves him and so on.

Just make sure no one is left out of the loop.

Overlord
Easiest is to just have an NPC be an evil overlord type who deals harshly with infighting. Goal of the campaign may be overthrowing the overlord so that they can take over, but until then everybody obeys the boss.

It's Magic!
The entire group is under some kind of magical compulsion/geas to not kill each other. They may not even know they're under a geas until/if they try to stab each other in the back.

Together we are stronger ... for now
Everyone needs the other members of the group in order to achieve their goals.

Anyway, those are my thoughts off the top of my head. I'd never do an evil campaign myself, it's not for me.

Now the Overlord is an interesting concept. Still wouldn't be for me, but it would be interesting to watch them put up with each other long enough to overthrow their master, then watch the chaos that ensued once the power vacuum was up for grabs.


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[iserith]

How would you conduct an evil campaign?

Evilly.

 

[Tony Vargas]

D&D notoriously tends towards 'murdo-hobos,' anyway, and on one level an evil campaign could just embrace that. You're a party of bad people, wandering around doing bad things for fun and profit, no veneer of heroism applied. That could work with a CE party. Don't expect it to last long or for anyone to miss it when it's gone.

D&D also tends towards railroady campaigns where you get sent on missions. Instead of doing missions for mysterious strangers, benevolent deities, or wise old NPCs, you could do them for a cult or despot or diabolic power. It's not quite as seamless as it was in 3e, with 'Team: Alignment' and everything, but still pretty workable. LE party is ideal. The idea of being magalomaniac villains out to conquer the world, or working together towards specific ends of some other sort also works well for an LE party.

 

[TheNoremac42]

A lot of characters are murder-hobos anyway, so pretty much the only thing that would change is locale and types of enemies

More seriously, I think it comes down to close collaboration with the players and deciding beforehand how the group dynamic and some story elements will turn out.

Maybe a group of heroes tried to take down a lich, failed, and are now his undead underlings sent out to the world to do his bidding?
Maybe they serve as the henchmen of a Bond-style villain and work to help him with his goals? What if the Boss's vision genuinely speaks to them? Maybe they have a really good dental plan?
Maybe the "antiheroes" join in a mutually beneficial alliance that wont need to necessarily end when their goals are reached.

 

[Shiroiken]

Despite what others have said, Evil doesn't have to cause inter-party conflict (evil =/= selfish). Assuming you give the group a single goal, there is no more reason for backstabbing than in any other party. Some evil campaigns that work pretty well:

Servants of Tyranny
The party serves a lawful evil empire, where punishments for infractions are severe. Most of the adventures involve serving whichever master they currently have, with rooting out rebels (i.e. heroes) being a primary duty. A small amount of inter-party conflict might occur, but it should be minimal, because of the threat of punishment. Characters need not even be evil (LN and TN would be fine), but must accept they will commit acts of evil (or at least watch them done).

Blood Oath
Each of the PCs had an ancestor that made a deal with a devil, and now the devil wants his due. The PCs are given instructions via. dreams, a minor devil (imp?), a cult worshiper, etc. and must perform his evil will upon the mortal world. Failure to comply will cause not only pain to the character (start with damage, then other negative effects) but also the character's family. Again, characters need not be evil (and good characters make things VERY interesting), but forces characters to work together.

Mercenaries
The characters are part of a mercenary company that is known to have few scruples. Either have a large company that assigns adventures, or have the players agree on one PC that will be in charge. The party needs to work together, like any other, but the missions can be rather dark and evil. Potential for betrayal is higher, but shouldn't be overwhelming.


Side note: if you are going to run an evil campaign, make sure you and your players agree on acceptable levels of evil beforehand. I've seen this go VERY bad when someone takes things too far...