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View Full Version : Idea's for evil campaign



Sly
2007-09-03, 04:11 PM
Okay, so I want to run an evil campaign, but the onyl reason i can think of for a band of evil players to come together is under the direction of a higher power, i.e., the four champions of Naz'a'gul sent out to seek the seven swords of Re'tha. Or whatever. the problem here being that there's little autonomy for the players. And if you take away the overbearing direction of some cruel dictator, you get in-party fighting. Now if the players have a reason to stick together (survival, for instance) fighting should be limited to the occasional theft/fist fight/argument, but then you have the issues of constantly pressuring them to work together, and your back to the overbearing dictator issues. So my question is:

How do you run an evil campaign with no force keeping the party together which take away their ability to choose their own adventure (as it were)?

headwarpage
2007-09-03, 04:21 PM
Basically, you deal with it OOC. Before the campaign starts, sit everybody down and lay out some ground rules, including "don't kill each other". If you have reasonably intelligent/mature players, they'll understand that killing each other won't make for a very fun campaign (at least not for long), and they'll find IC reasons not to do so. If your players can't handle that concept, don't play an evil campaign.

Sly
2007-09-03, 04:22 PM
I see what you mean, thanks for the advice.

slexlollar89
2007-09-03, 04:26 PM
This is tough... what kind of evil are these players? Are they chaotic stupid evil? do they create webs and traps that NPCs fall into?

Basically: do they play evil carefully, or do they slaugter for no reason kill evryone smite all good types?

If they actually play evil carefully and maturely, put them in a situation where they want/need to work together to survive or benfit. For example, they could start out together in jail, and have to work together (like the justice league or something... pun intended) to escape. OR you could have them each get hired by a man to steal/get an item. They all meet, ready to kill each other for the item, and realize they were hired by the same guy... etc. etc.

situations like this allow them to play it their way, and still be within the bounds of a "DM-able" evil group.

Jothki
2007-09-03, 04:29 PM
Your characters are going to have to want to stay together and help each other. If you aren't heavily railroading or relying on some greater force, then you and the players will need to work out the plot and their backstories in such a way that they have some sense of respect for or obligation towards each other. Since they can't be counted on to automatically do the Right Thing, you'll need to work out in advance what the thing that they'll do actually is.

Paragon Badger
2007-09-03, 04:31 PM
Lawful evil characters always manage to party better together than chaotic evil... almost always, at least. Being somewhat cohesive in terms of background and/or race helps too.

6 drow would work together far longer than a drow, an orc, a halfling, a gaint and so forth.

What bugs me about so many evil campaigns is that the premise itself seems so unlikely.

Why would an evil dwarf monk be working with a fire giant? >_> Why would a troll mage be in the party too?

slexlollar89
2007-09-03, 04:39 PM
Thoe are rather extreme race chioces, as most evil campaigns are "common" or at least semi-intelligent races like humans and the ever-popular 1/2orc.

Funkyodor
2007-09-03, 04:39 PM
Thieves guild trying to take over / retake a city is a good basis for a evil campaign. Allows good growth and development as they start as flunkies given orders, and turn into the bosses deciding what to do and who to do it.

Edit: This could also describe extreme racial player variation. Specialties within fields are supossedly what organized crime wants. So the Giant thug and Drow burglar, and Gnome illusionist don't have to get along as long as they do their job.

Rachel Lorelei
2007-09-03, 04:40 PM
It's much easier with "realistic" evil characters. That is to say, they're evil in that they do unethical things, but evil or not, characters still have things they won't or don't like to do, they have friends and family they care for and/or trust, they have causes (and I don't mean Being/Serving Evil).

You could have the PCs be longstanding friends, or part of a particular organization (not even, necessarily, an evil organization). Something like this is a good idea for campaigns anyway. Not all of their actions and all of their motives have to be evil, either.

Satyr
2007-09-03, 04:40 PM
The only "evil" campaign I played and mastered for a significant time was somethiung like a mercenary campaing. All characters were mercenaries who fought and killed for money, not for honor or loyalty. The PC's were absolutely pragmatic and had little to no rejections to betray a former ally or change sides if it seemed to bring a profit.
Important are two things, (but I think that counts for any campaign): A common motivation and a feeling of togetherness. The example above had the common aim of "Getting rich and powerful, no matter what" and a bounding factor in form of a great leader character (a great character who was also played as a formidable leader, even though he was a cruel and vicious bastard).

valadil
2007-09-03, 04:47 PM
Watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. All three characters are greedy killers with varying degrees of immorality. The way that two of them end up not killing each other is that they each heard part of the secret location of buried treasure. Specifically, the loot is in a grave. One of them knows which grave and the other knows which cemetery. They have to keep each other alive, but only until they get to the cemetery, where all bets are off. Something like that should make your players play nice, at least until the dramatic conclusion, and it's slightly less cheesy than a geas or some such.

The only real problem is that you need to be able to handle character death. Otherwise the party might dissolve once a single character dies, preventing the full secret from ever being revealed.

Neon Knight
2007-09-03, 04:49 PM
Watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Seconded, on the general principle of it being an awesome film.

Kami2awa
2007-09-03, 04:56 PM
I'd like to run a campaign similar to 'The Black Seal' from Blackadder; extremely comic group of 'the most evil men in England' with a view to taking over the kingdom, gathered by a prince who is frustrated by his failure to take over the throne alone.

TheOOB
2007-09-03, 05:07 PM
A ran an evil campaign once, and I gave my players the stipulation that all of they characters had to have a past friendship and/or working relationship with the other characters to the point where they held a general trust of each other and would not betray one another without a really good reason. Evil people still have friends and allies.

Yeril
2007-09-03, 05:29 PM
SUMMON PLOTHOOK IIX!

The Characters begin in a generic seedy tavern, One of the PC's knows that in the next week a fairly famed merchant will be traveling through the town and spending the night, he has in his possetion a rare statuette that will fetch a very large bounty on the black market, word of him carrying it has been kept low key so far so it would be easy and very profitable job.

The merchant is staying at "The Silver Oak" Tavern the other side of town and would be ariving in the next 2 or 3 days, the statuette would either be in the taverns lockup or in his room. (secretly Roll 1d4, a result of 1-2 shows its in his room, a roll of 2-4 shows its in the lockup)

In the Tavern there are Seven guards (3 at a table, playing cards, 2 outside his room, and 2 outside the lockup.) Aswell as a small group of "dogooders" ( a dwarf fighter, a elven sorcerer, and a human paladin) who are also in the bar and will jump to their feet if a fight breaks out in the tavern.

(Generaly try making the whole "Charge in and gut everyone" option look unattractive for a tactic.)

Now if they get into the lockup in the basement (Padlock DC 30) theres 3 chests, all 3 are locked (2 with simple DC 20, one with amazing DC 40) aswell as some bags of general possetions, add some loot here. If the statuette is in here, its in one of the DC 20 chests.

In his room is a small box under his bed (He will call for his guards, if they have already been bested then he will surrender and give you the chest and the key, that is unless they kill him straight out.)

They claim the statuette and head back to the seedy inn, they see a redhaired elf woman wearing a cloak pass by on a horse towards {name of nearby village}. When they get to the inn and try and sell it, "This is a fake, what the hell are you trying to pull mate??"

Somone in the tavern at the bar tells them that they saw a young elf girl with a statutee similar to that, she checked out late last night.

The quest continues....

Eeeeeeey that was fun, sorry for my bad spelling and grammer :smallbiggrin:

Traveling_Angel
2007-09-03, 05:39 PM
Make sure your player's know to do the Belkar version of evil, not the Yikyik. As long as they're not completely nuts and can work together, they should be fine.

Stormcrow
2007-09-03, 06:33 PM
I'd infect them all with the same disease and make them look for the cure. Anyone who doesn't have it who spends too much time with them dies. Got to love a diefic vengance disease.

Citizen Joe
2007-09-03, 06:59 PM
How do you run an evil campaign with no force keeping the party together which take away their ability to choose their own adventure (as it were)?
Umm... that IS how evil works. Evil underlings work for others out of threat and intimidation. Sometimes manipulation works. The problem is that if the leader shows weakness, the rest will set upon him. So you can't really count on a player to do it.

Evil is selfish so no amount of the greater evil is going to make them want to work for it. They need their own personal reasons for doing stuff. The real trick is providing individual personal reasons that don't conflict with one another. So you couldn't have two people working out of greed because they would have to share the treasure.

Sornjss Lichdom
2007-09-03, 07:12 PM
the key part to running an evil campiagn is to be an evil DM, tell them if you kill somebody they return to life with all there items, and if they wish they can take vengince. Also OOC ground rules are a must, try to stray way from the chaotic evil, their just there to kill all around them, no fun at the parties.

comicshorse
2007-09-03, 07:23 PM
Dangle a reward so great they can't resisit it, but so hard to get they must work together to achieve it. But be prepared for them to turn on each other when they get the reward. Try seeing ' The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' for the effects of huge wealth on people.

BlueWizard
2007-09-03, 07:28 PM
I've done this before and every time, even with experienced players it degenerates after they all reach EPIC level.

Even the best players someone becomes neutral, someone becomes too evil, another is happy with their domain, but is bugged by the others, etc....

Right now two of my former evil PCs took over and now rule kingdoms in my homebrew world.

Green Bean
2007-09-03, 07:41 PM
I'd infect them all with the same disease and make them look for the cure. Anyone who doesn't have it who spends too much time with them dies. Got to love a diefic vengance disease.

I must be really tired right now, because I read that as a diefic venereal disease. That'd be a very different adventure. :smalleek:

CasESenSITItiVE
2007-09-03, 08:31 PM
just because a person is evil doesn't necessarily mean that they are incapable of love or friendship. if these are evil characters put together by chance or necessity, of course they are going to stab each other in the back. if these are evil characters who knew each other for awhile, perhaps since childhood, they are less likely to do so. essentially, just have them start out with preexisting relationships

Dervag
2007-09-03, 09:17 PM
Why would an evil dwarf monk be working with a fire giant? >_> Why would a troll mage be in the party too?Because they're friends?

Evil people aren't automatically stupid or emotionless. They know they need someone to watch their back (think of the 'buddy systems' used in prisons), and they are certainly capable of developing social attachments to particular people who were with them when times were hard, or who helped them when they didn't have to, or just because they've known those people for a really long time.

The monk works with the giant because they make a good combat team- the giant can smash anything, and the monk can deal with stuff too small for the giant to get a clear shot at. They know it, and they've been partners for a while now.

The troll mage works with the party because he's received a vision that they are powerful allies. Or because he and his clan have allied with fire giants for a long time and he knows and trusts this particular fire giant. Or because when the villagers had dismembered him and were about to douse and light his body, the fire giant charged in and scattered the fire they were using to light their torches from with his bare hands.

The point being, many of the same motives that justify the formation of groups of good or neutral people work about as well for evil people.

Laesin
2007-09-03, 09:56 PM
Most of these suggestions boil down to three words, Mutually Beneficial Goals. Specifically goals that require the cooperation of the party to achieve. Set up properly this should result in a gentlemens agreement not to seriously screw over the other PCs in an entirely IC manner. Of course minor details like the rogue pocketing the choicest items will happen but with a bit of care this should not be too important.

Xuincherguixe
2007-09-03, 10:38 PM
Hey, since they're already evil why not just go the obvious route.

They're trying to take over the world(tm) They would of course have to agree ahead of time how the world is going to be shared between them. Otherwise it would just get messy.

And of course, provide lots of NPCs to murder. Try and give them nice backstory so that the players can feel like they actually killed someone rather than just another random encounter. It's not fun unless you're hurting something.


Or, it's the standard sort of save the world type deal. Except that they aren't held back by those pointless rules that hold the good guys back. When the guy who just robbed you begs for mercy? *stab*. You get payed in advance to deliver something? Take the goods AND the money. And free experience when they hire thugs to take revenge on you for exploiting their stupidity.

Or it could just be a campaign of silly evil. Each player gets a black top hat and has a long curly mustache. Every minute or so they must make a will save to resist stroking it. They may or may not also all have cats.

Khanderas
2007-09-04, 05:18 AM
The PC's got a mission. Could be an assassination of some General/king/noble that will help the employer, a nighboring king, invade. Or general destablizing (sowing dissent, starting riots, poison supplies, the list are endless). Or kidnapping of a target.

If they are sucessful the employer will look upon them very favourable, if they fail... well depends on if they fumbled up and made things worse or just managed to do a partial sucess. Riches, pardons for crimes, specific magic items or just having a King owe your gang "a favor" the reasons can be many and each might pick a reward of their choice. But as in "Mission Impossible" if you are captured or killed, you will get no help whatsoever.

Now the country you are operating in dont really like evil guys, and few NPC's would let the PC's achieve their goal so the PC's gotta stick together to have any chance of doing the work. Players gotta invest in Bluff skills and general sneakyness. Nondetection spells might be needed in ceratain areas that are off limits to Evil people, limited supply of those ofcourse.

Ashtar
2007-09-04, 05:35 AM
I have had several Evil campaigns, with a varying degree of success. One of the reasons for evil characters to work together is sometimes to oppose a greater evil which threatens all of them to such an extent that collaborating is the only solution. To quote Benjamin Franklin: "we must all hang together or surely we will all hang separately."

In one campaign, the "Greater Evil" was the dark powers who brought us to Ravenloft. Our only solution to escape was to work together, and in the end, we turned against one of us to guarantee the escape of the others. ^^ (But as you know, there is no escape from Ravenloft, at best, only a temporary reprieve, Yay for our EVIL DM).

Lord Briar (a death knight) ended up with a domain that amounted to a Tree and a tiny patch of land around it (~5 yards from the tree).

John_D
2007-09-04, 05:39 AM
I'm running a campaign at the moment which is not so much "evil" as it is amoral (none of the characters are good-aligned, and for a good reason). It's quite similar to GTA, in that it's city-based and the city is full of people who are just as bad (or badder!) than the PCs. The players are reminded fairly often that they are small fish in a big pond, and that they need to work together because the alternative is death at the hands of another, better-organised gang.

I'm fairly certain that the campaign will eventually build towards a save-the-world theme at much higher levels, because even evil characters don't necessarily want to destroy the world, or even rule it.

Jarlax
2007-09-04, 07:59 AM
if your PCs turn on each other or not will normally come down to the players, if they are there to have fun then even in an evil campaign they wont need reasons not to kill each other, they just wont do it.

otherwise they should be placed in an evil organization. obviously any evil act preformed against outsiders will not be questioned and any attempt at violence against other team members would be dealt with harshly.

organizations such as a thieves, assassins or spy guilds would work fine. a pirate crew where the PCs form the core members and the mooks running the ship are in the background worked fine for my evil campaign.

basically any formation of evil people where acts of violence against one another has been forbidden will work. but in the end it comes down to your Players, just give them enough NPCs to kill and they shouldn't feel the need to turn on one another.

Lord_Kimboat
2007-09-04, 07:15 PM
Ah, evil campaigns. It seems to me that players want evil campaigns so that they can be free to do what they want. Instead of the DM saying, "no, you can't torture that guy, it will make you evil," or "you can't just kill the prisoners, that's evil," the players get to do this. It makes it easier for them.

Unfortunately, the reason the DM doesn't want this is because it makes it harder for him/her. If you give the PCs the ultimate freedom they crave, they have few reasons to stick together, share the wealth when they can keep it, etc. I hereby dub this, the "DM's Evil Dilemma".