Newbee's Problem of Evil

[rossrebailey]

I am a very-recently returned gamer after a brief, 28-year hiatus from D&D. I loved the game then and I hope my 14-year-old son, Ashton, will too. I live and work within the same square mile in Morris Plains, NJ. I'm happy to introduce myself to this forum and I hope to get acquainted with others, so thank you for any replies at all.

Last week I hosted our first game with six players, friends of Ashton and one of their dads. There are others who may join as well. We had a very good time together. I started with a pre-made adventure. I think I will want to tailor other people's adventures for a while rather than write my own from scratch, first to learn what works and second to manage my time.

I can't tell for sure at this early stage, but I suspect that most of the players will want to play as evil, or possible neutral. If that's the case, I would rather work with an adventure that suits their alignment. What do you find works for a basically evil-aligned group? Are there adventures out there for these kinds of groups that you have used that work well? How do you keep the group playing together? Is it inevitable that the characters will spend a good part of their time trying to kill each other off? How do I give them what they want without destroying the cohesiveness of the group? I'm not very interested in staging a bunch of contests among the players.

Thank you in advance for your comments and greetings.

Ross

 

[Clueless]

Quickest way to get them going? Steal their stuff
Best way to keep them going? Give them someone to hate. Or keep them on the run. Oh and profit.
Worst thing you could ever do: Tell them to save the world.

If you've ever run for Shadowrun or Cyberpunk - use those sort of motivations. If you've not run for those sort of groups, I'd check out a few movies featuring 'bad people who don't like each other but have to work together anyway'. The Usual Suspects comes to mind, I'm sure there are others. As I usually do for Shadowrun, I aim for Ocean's 11, but expect Reservoir Dogs.

My current party runs from LG to NE with C tendencies and is overall LN in alignment. We pull this off by an artful combination of backstory, role playing developing and dynamic relationships, and honestly from OOC acknowledgment that we're here to have fun, and so is everyone else at the table - so stepping on *their* fun in the name of our own would be exceedingly uncouth to say the least.

So, you want to make sure your players are mature enough to keep ooc and ic separate - and make sure they understand the rule "Evil people have friends too". The worst stories about evil-parties detonating usually come from players that have trouble not detonating in good aligned groups... so you want to make sure you know your players psyches well. Keep an eye on your younglings to make sure that out of game rivalries stay either out of game, or friendly.

 

[rossrebailey]

Great concepts! Thank you. I hope I can find an adventure that lends itself well to those motivations or else figure out how to adapt one so that I can run it. I do want to create one, but I'm not sure I'm ready.

 

[MrWildman]

Hello and welcome, Ross.
"Brief 28-year hiatus"...welcome back is more like it. A lot of us are coming back. It's cool.

I have a suggestion for your party's motivation.
Coup d'etat.
Rowan Atkinson's "The Black Adder", episode 6 featured the "Black Seal", a group of the six most evil men in the land. They're assembled (by the guy who plays Mr. Bean!) to overthrow the King and seize the throne. Mostly they were parodies of Robin Hood's men, a dwarf named John Large, Friar Bellows, and so on.
An NPC Prince, or Princess , could be recruiting ruthless types to remove inconvenient relatives. If a PC dies then the player just introduces another criminal (think "Oz" or "Sopranos") to the gang.

"Brief 28-year hiatus"...welcome back is more like it. A lot of us are coming back. It's cool.

I have a suggestion for your party's motivation.
Coup d'etat.
Rowan Atkinson's "The Black Adder", episode 6 featured the "Black Seal", a group of the six most evil men in the land. They're assembled (by the guy who plays Mr. Bean!) to overthrow the King and seize the throne. Mostly they were parodies of Robin Hood's men, a dwarf named John Large, Friar Bellows, and so on.
An NPC Prince, or Princess , could be recruiting ruthless types to remove inconvenient relatives. If a PC dies then the player just introduces another criminal (think "Oz" or "Sopranos") to the gang.

Using Clueless' great ideas:
This ambitious royal has power over the PCs (The Usual Suspects) and can do stuff to their stuff if they don't co-operate. This gets them going.
Someone to hate is easy: their own employer! Or another royal, an NPC untouchable until higher levels. Or a repressive church to harass them ("St. Cuthbert to the rescue!!").
And they're not out to save anything except their own skins. As they pick off royal heirs they may find one more worthy of their talents. Turnabout is fair play, after all, and their employer started the relationship with blackmail.

Actually, this is starting to sound like a lot of fun!

Peace.

 

[MrWildman]

Don't know how I did it, but it looks pretty cool.
Sorry 'bout that.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I am a very-recently returned gamer after a brief, 28-year hiatus from D&D. I loved the game then and I hope my 14-year-old son, Ashton, will too. I live and work within the same square mile in Morris Plains, NJ. I'm happy to introduce myself to this forum and I hope to get acquainted with others, so thank you for any replies at all.

Last week I hosted our first game with six players, friends of Ashton and one of their dads. There are others who may join as well. We had a very good time together. I started with a pre-made adventure. I think I will want to tailor other people's adventures for a while rather than write my own from scratch, first to learn what works and second to manage my time.

I can't tell for sure at this early stage, but I suspect that most of the players will want to play as evil, or possible neutral. If that's the case, I would rather work with an adventure that suits their alignment. What do you find works for a basically evil-aligned group? Are there adventures out there for these kinds of groups that you have used that work well? How do you keep the group playing together? Is it inevitable that the characters will spend a good part of their time trying to kill each other off? How do I give them what they want without destroying the cohesiveness of the group? I'm not very interested in staging a bunch of contests among the players.

Thank you in advance for your comments and greetings.

Ross

Hi and welcome back!

I'd second the ideas about keeping them on the run and giving them someone to hate. I love the idea of them being hunted by a Church squad - it also means that any time things get too easy for them you can just have a squad of zealots crash through the door.

You've got to make it clear that no matter how much they hate each other, what they're facing is worse. Maybe you would consider talking to one of the players and having him sacrifice his character early on to establish this. Keep taking him to one side during the game, establishing that he's hiding stuff from the other characters, then have the Bad Guys (Good Guys?) dump his body in the groups HQ as a warning.

DON'T let the players start negotiating with their opponents - and make sure that the evil deeds they do come back to haunt them and have consequences. Keep them moving!

 

[MrWildman]

DON'T let the players start negotiating with their opponents - and make sure that the evil deeds they do come back to haunt them and have consequences. Keep them moving!

Actually I'd encourage lots of negotiating with opponents. The nobility attracts competent advisers and useless hangers-on in about equal numbers. Great fun could be had by playing patrons off against each other through their lackeys. Double- and triple-crosses should be the expected terms of business, keeping the players on their toes and also teaching, by example, about the folly of criminal ambition. You usually don't have to build consequences into this kind of campaign, it happens pretty much through osmosis.

I mean, just imagine a high-ranking, Good-Aligned church elder whose conscience drives him to meddle in the party's affairs, sometimes to their advantage, sometimes not. How to deal with him? Confront him or not? And what exactly is his agenda?
Fun times, indeed.

Peace.

 

[roguerouge]

I'd recommend against going much higher than 6 players. The issues of who gets to be in the spotlight get to be pretty hairy to manage much beyond that. (Throw in the jealousy of the evils and... party backstabbing!) And, in this edition, combat could drag to a halt at middle levels.

I recommend neutral mercenaries. You've got a new group, so they're not used to playing with each other. Evils campaigns are about coming very close to the line but not crossing it. They don't know where each others' lines are. Emphasize the "hard-bitten" part of the band of mercenaries and see if that satisfies their appetite for grim n' gritty.

Perhaps you can emphasize the freedom of being True Neutral. After all, they go both ways.

Also, are you really sure you want to see what evil lurks in the heart of your son? Read Lord of the Flies again to remember just what goes on inside 14 year old boys. I'm sure what he does will ultimately be very healthy. I'm fairly sure that if he gets into playing the campaign his issues, whatever they are, will be very... obvious. I'm just saying that a father and son evils campaign has all sorts of implications that you may not have thought out yet.

 

[doghead]

general - newbee's problem of evil

My inclination would be to steer the players away from playing evil characters. It can be done, and done well. But in my experience, it generally takes a group of mature gamers able to find the balance between playing self serving and manipulative characters while not taking away from other people's enjoyment. As noted above, evil parties have a tendency to implode and the anti-social behaviour has a tendency to cross the ic/ooc barrier

Another might be to play anti-hero types. Playing traditionally evil races who have gone over to the Light Side, so to speak, is quite popular these days. Tieflings seem to be all the rage at Wizards. It a chance to be 'badass' without putting the party (and the players) under the pressure that seems to come with playing a party of evil characters. As RR suggested, have a look at the 'hard bitten' option.

Another thing that might be significant. Most published adventures assume, to some degree, a party of altruistic PC's. Running an evil party may require a level of rejigging of publish modules that effectively cancels out the time savings sought in the first place.

If you do end up with a group of evil characters, then I would take the advice given above. Keep them so damned busy trying to survive that they don't have time to turn on each other.

BTW, you said that you suspect that most of the players will want to play as evil, or possible neutral. What leads you to think this?

doghead
aka thotd

 

[rkwoodard]

look for older adventures

Hi,
For evil or non-good adventures, just look at the older 1st edition modules. A lot were just about looting places. White Plume Mountain (hey lets go get those weapons that were stolen), etc.
Heck, some even started out with the PC being rounded up by the powers that be (Ghost towers of Inverness, the start of the giants series).
Village of Hommlett is open ended. Send them there and let them clean out the moat house in order to take it over as there own base.
Anything that looks like an adventure path (Red Hand of Doom) is probably more heroic centered than your group may like, so beware those.

Hope this helps,

RK