Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What's your attitude towards PVP?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8563229" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Well, at the risk of creating an 'alignment war'... evil is pretty much definitionally a lack of regard for the welfare of others. At the VERY LEAST this is a hallmark of evil. So, the characters participating in an 'evil campaign' are basically BY DEFINITION unconcerned with each other's welfare (beyond some sort of narrow self interest obviously). The classic evil campaign we ran for a few years pretty much worked on the premise that there was, at some level, an 'evil overlord'. If you screwed up the 'evil side' too much with whatever antics you were up to, then you got offed (because Mr Evil Overlord squashed you like a bug, or more like some of his sub-lieutenants did that). NO PC ever learned the identity of the evil overlord, and if you did rise to a level of power that seemed a bit too much, you found your 'usefulness' started to be doubted!</p><p></p><p>So, the basic equation was, you could backstab or whatever, but if it compromised the outcome of your current mission, then you were probably SOL unless you had a really good excuse, or could get something on your immediate superior so he wouldn't just off you. Thus the PCs often DID cooperate, and in many cases there wasn't a lot of reason for them NOT to do so. Albeit someone was always scheming and each character constantly either sought out some way to get more powerful than the others, or else to force them to work for him, etc. After a while some PCs rose into the ranks of the 'supervisors' a couple levels, and of course it was all just more of the same! Except now you had minions (who were often other PCs, this was after all AD&D).</p><p></p><p>Overall it worked pretty well, but there were certain inherent limits. Any PC that was weakened for some reason was either ripe to be ganked and looted, or put under another's thumb, so it was hard to survive and actually advance. Beyond that, the campaign could only go in a few limited directions or else it would 'blow up'. Without an evil overlord any pretense of cooperation would evaporate (we learned this). In fact the whole thing eventually crashed and burned because some certain player's character decided to help the good guys in order to get something or other, and evil's organization got mostly destroyed, after which the PCs just all murdered each other left and right. It was interesting, but it pretty quickly got old and futile. </p><p></p><p>I think it was a great success, lots of fun was had by all (many hilarious and stupid deaths of PCs) but it was not the most long-lasting possible format. I guess if you could come up with some sort of really credible ideology for evil, that might work better. Maybe something "We Orcs are the best!" or something.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8563229, member: 82106"] Well, at the risk of creating an 'alignment war'... evil is pretty much definitionally a lack of regard for the welfare of others. At the VERY LEAST this is a hallmark of evil. So, the characters participating in an 'evil campaign' are basically BY DEFINITION unconcerned with each other's welfare (beyond some sort of narrow self interest obviously). The classic evil campaign we ran for a few years pretty much worked on the premise that there was, at some level, an 'evil overlord'. If you screwed up the 'evil side' too much with whatever antics you were up to, then you got offed (because Mr Evil Overlord squashed you like a bug, or more like some of his sub-lieutenants did that). NO PC ever learned the identity of the evil overlord, and if you did rise to a level of power that seemed a bit too much, you found your 'usefulness' started to be doubted! So, the basic equation was, you could backstab or whatever, but if it compromised the outcome of your current mission, then you were probably SOL unless you had a really good excuse, or could get something on your immediate superior so he wouldn't just off you. Thus the PCs often DID cooperate, and in many cases there wasn't a lot of reason for them NOT to do so. Albeit someone was always scheming and each character constantly either sought out some way to get more powerful than the others, or else to force them to work for him, etc. After a while some PCs rose into the ranks of the 'supervisors' a couple levels, and of course it was all just more of the same! Except now you had minions (who were often other PCs, this was after all AD&D). Overall it worked pretty well, but there were certain inherent limits. Any PC that was weakened for some reason was either ripe to be ganked and looted, or put under another's thumb, so it was hard to survive and actually advance. Beyond that, the campaign could only go in a few limited directions or else it would 'blow up'. Without an evil overlord any pretense of cooperation would evaporate (we learned this). In fact the whole thing eventually crashed and burned because some certain player's character decided to help the good guys in order to get something or other, and evil's organization got mostly destroyed, after which the PCs just all murdered each other left and right. It was interesting, but it pretty quickly got old and futile. I think it was a great success, lots of fun was had by all (many hilarious and stupid deaths of PCs) but it was not the most long-lasting possible format. I guess if you could come up with some sort of really credible ideology for evil, that might work better. Maybe something "We Orcs are the best!" or something. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
What's your attitude towards PVP?
Top