Ideas, ideas, ideas

[thegreatbuddha]

bump

I'm liking the ideas so far, and I'd love to hear more.

I have decided to use the (mostly) good party from another game I play in as adversaries for the evil group once it gets underway, which means I'll be gaming in Kalamar barring some world-shifting and character re-writes.

 

[megamania]

VERY nasty baddie hires your baddies to steal baddie weapon. Baddie weapon likes your group of baddies more. Baddie weapon is cursed and returns to baddie PCs each day. Now baddie PCs have VERY nasty baddie seeking their heads, the folks whom were hiding the baddie thing to begin with and finally baddie thing further corrupts baddies into very bad baddies?

Just a thought.

The humor of it. Your "evil" PCs may be put into a position of doing a "good" thing to destroy this minor artifact of evil to save their own skins. The one that hired them originally may not be so sure of it's properties and thinks he was tricked by evil guys gone good. PCs may have to go BACK to the neutral party where they stole the thing to get rid of it creating all-new tension.

hmmmm sounds so good I may need to run something like this myself!

 

[Felix]

At character creation, make sure the PC's know their roles within the party; the jostling for power in an Evil campaign can make for bad times gaming. If the group dynamic is set at the beginning, and power lies in the hands of one PC, things can go much smoother.

Possible Hierarchy:
Quiet, Reserved, Soft-spoken, Evil-to-the-core Leader
Brash, Loud, Violent, Does-everything-Leader-says Bodygaurd
Pranking, Witty, Spiteful Rouge-type
Dumb as a bag of hammers, Fist hurts like said bag Henchman
Toadying to Leader, Venemous to everyone else, Holier-than-thou Cult Dude

It depends upon their alignments as to how stable this hierarchy will be, but LE will follow the "rightful" leader, and the CE will follow as long as the leader is more powerful. So, there should never be a rule-by-concencus type of Evil party.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Eh. They're evil. They can band together for as simple a reason as to have somebody else to aim for. They should only be interested in power if they're LE, really...NE or CE could be very happy being seen as subordinate..."Sure mac, whatever you say..."

CE's aren't too hard to do...you just have to try harder to learn what their characters will do, because you can't assume they'll be heroes. Nor can you really automatically assume they'll be villains, either. The key to a long evil life is to *not* draw attention to yourself by trying to rule/destroy the world.

 

[jdavis]

Create a powerful NPC to be their mentor/boss. Let them know that he will not stand for freelancing or unnecessary attention, he should govern their actions with a iron fist. Fear of his wrath should keep them in line and will also give them the goal of getting out from under his influence and/or killing him. They will do his bidding and will turn over the bulk of what they find to him. Their hatred of the boss should hold the party together for a while. By the time they get strong enough to take the boss out they should have some group chemistry going, if you still think they might turn on each other then it is real easy to say that the first boss was actually the underling of a much more powerful boss and that they either have to work for the new boss directly or they have to stick together to stay alive and escape his wrath. It sort of sounds a little Sopranos -ish but that isn't always a bad thing for evil.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Create a powerful NPC to be their mentor/boss.

Ditto here, they should have an evil boss! Make him like ALL BOSSES, make the players dislike him/her, they should want to kill him after a few games or let the good guys take him out.

Pointers for bosses - have the bad guys perform meaningless task, status reports, duplicate work, low wages, overworked, bad job condintions, no recognition!

 

[jdavis]

Ditto here, they should have an evil boss! Make him like ALL BOSSES, make the players dislike him/her, they should want to kill him after a few games or let the good guys take him out.

Pointers for bosses - have the bad guys perform meaningless task, status reports, duplicate work, low wages, overworked, bad job condintions, no recognition!

I'd point out that all Bosses are evil by definition but I was a supervisor once myself and I was good and fair.....yea right.

Just think of how mad it would make them to give him say a 50% cut of everything they made and first choice of any magic items they found (and he can take as many as he wants). Being a evil pawn is no fun, sort of like working at Mc Donalds. It should give the players lots of incentive to stick together and fight the common enemy.

Edit: He should also take all the credit for anything they accomplish and brag about it too.

 

[DM with a vengence]

The party is a mercenary squad much like the Brave Companions from a Song of Ice and Fire. They're foreigners brought in to help fight a war, constantly trading off allegiances. Eventually they betray the wrong people or the war dies down, and they're stuck a thousand miles from home, in the middle of people they just finished raping and pillaging, with everybody after their heads, and they don't speak the language very well.

Have fun getting back.

 

[Tonguez]

Take a look at Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot

basic outline : Repressive government that declares the practice of 'a religion' ('Catholicism') banned and punishable by death in favour of the 'State Religion' ('Anglicanism')

A group of conspirators from the banned religion (Neutral Evil?) get together and decide to kill the King and his Parliment

The rest as they say is history (or adventure gaming)