Ideas, ideas, ideas

[thegreatbuddha]

I'm going to be starting an evil campaign soon, but I've come across writer's block. I can't think of any good ideas for "villians." I don't want to just set my evil party against a random lawful good church full of clerics and paladins, cuz that's kinda lame IMO. I'd like to have the characters all be a part of some type of secret society, and I'm leaning towards either revolutionaries or medieval black-ops types. Other than that, I'm out of ideas for my campaign, and I would like input from anyone who has run an evil campaign before and who is willing to share some advice/ideas.

Specifically, I'm looking for:

Campaign Setting (NOT FR; right now I'm leaning towards Kalamar)

Alternate Plot Hooks/Means of keeping party cohesive

Pitfalls of running an evil group

Anything else you think I should know beforehand.

TIA for the help

 

[Jeph]

Why should the 'villians' be LG, or even G at all? The Demon/Devil/Yugoloth conflict is always fun, playing elite assisings in the war on The Enemy.

Or go for something 1984-ish. Citizens know nothing, except that whoever the gov. says is bad, is bad. The PCs are the people who go and take out whoever is currently bad. Don't tell them it's a 1984-ish society, though. Let them figure it out. "Hey, JoeGamer, does this seem vaguely utopian to you?" "Yeah, I mean, they keep calling us 'consumers,' and wasn't Lord Braxis our ally last week?"

JSRT,
-Jeph

 

[maddman75]

DOn't fall into the monolithic evil trap. Evil baddies still make good villains.

Our evil group had a blast searching out a relic for a vampire so he could enact some Evil Overlord plot. We had lots of fun tracking it down (good ol' dungeon romp), avoiding the good clerics, and trying to screw the vamp out of the item.

Your players may rapidly try to take the game out of your hands. It just happens. One moment I recall

"The barkeep said this village pays the orc tribe 100gp a month in tribute to keep them from destroying the place."

"Really....How much do you think they'd pay us?"

 

[thegreatbuddha]

OMG. I should smack myself for not thinking of that. It'll be like Paranoia, only with more backup characters

 

[Maldur]

You can start off relatively 'normal' by letting them destroy an disguised 'monster' of some sort. more in the style of the bladerunner remark: "did you ever retire a human?". On which the characters should answer: "yeah , so?"


Beying utterly ruthless (like Richelleu and Rochfort, in the three musketeers) can be serious fun.

 

[Dave Blewer]

Dimensional invasion!

Something so alien that it is neither good nor evil . It doesn't care about such things, It just wants to subdue another world.

I ran a campaign like this back in the 2E days and had great fun twisting the descriptions of creatures into aliens (A sort of homebrew version of the pseudonatural creatures template - only not as sophisticated) and creating some sort of magical bioware for them to use (insectal alien lenses that allowed the wearer to cast hold person once a day - That kind of thing).

The PC's started out good aligned but because of the threat they faced soon found themselves allying with (and playing) Evil PCs.

 

[Sanackranib]

settings

look into the Scarred Lands setting. this may just have what the doctor ordered for you in a break from a more traditional setting and it is possible to have good and evil characters working togather in the same party. (even their Gods have)

 

[Kilmore]

To be honest, Evil never lacks for opponents. Good doesn't like fighting good. However, Evil rarely faces such restrictions. Watch a gangster show for example. Not only do you have the cops and sometimes a group of heroes going against them, they go after each other!

 

[Sanackranib]

evil opponents

one word: Necromancers!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Evil campaigns! I miss you!

It can be hard...I myself did an evil campaign...and you don't have to go Good for the opposition, either...you just gotta think of motivation beyond "save the world" or "right the wrongs." Motivations like "Get Rich," or "Kill the Guy who Stole your Sword"

I once had an adventure sidetracked for a good night while the PC's tried to get back a masterwork blade that was stolen from them, and wound up laying waste to most of a town because of it.