*sigh* evil party again [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Sergikins
01-18-08, 02:43 PM I have a reasonably mature group. I let them have free rein over their characters. once again, they have saddled me with an all evil party.

Level 3
Cleric/Divine crusader aiming for a variant of Ruby Knight Vindicator that fits Eberron. Lawful evil, aiming to aqquire as much power as possible by appearing as a public hero and exploiting his fame

Hexblade/rogue aiming for ghost faced killer. Hes one heck of an alcholic

Warlock (this is kind of a problem) this is his personality, though he's toning it down slightly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g&eurl=http://lfgcomic.com/video.php

Its richard from LFG!

well anyway, I don't want them to become good or anything cheesy like that. but does anyone have tips on how to quell the potential chaos from... Richard?
KyoMamoru
01-18-08, 03:00 PM Well.... Let them, just have everything with a consequence. Players will be more careful with their powers/abilities once they have killed an important NPC that would advance them in power.
I_roll_ones
01-18-08, 03:03 PM Give them a quest. If some NPC's run out, after seeing the face of the villians(Distract them with treasure, so give them a choice of loot or kill the NPC) so now the law enforcement knows who they are, and wants to hunt them down.

So they can try to do it on their own, or team up to kill the common enemy.

If that fails, give them a bunch of listen/spot checks to detect a hidden spy. The spy reports to the local thieves guild, that either wishes to recruit them to harness their power, or to destroy them because they are making it so there are more patrols from guards.

if they join the guild, they have to play nice, or the assassins of the guild will kill them since they are acting against the guild.

If they don't, then we go back to uniting against a common enemy.

Give the other side sneakers and magic. The warlock can detect magic, making him useful. The cleric can do something against it. The rogue/hexblade can reduce saves(I think?) making it easier for the cleric. And hopefully, the hexblade he can spot/hear the sneakers. The warlock can use some abilities without saves, so he might not be as affected or gain much benefit. His blast is also hard to resist, since it is not an energy type. I think that warlocks might get a dispel, but I am not sure. However, is he a meleer? If not, he might want to hide behind the cleric meat shield.

Have any of these guys got a religion or honor code?

Or, yanno, ask OoCly to try to work together. Good and neutral parties have to do the same thing.
iserith
01-18-08, 03:21 PM Politics will always keep evil PCs in check. Sometimes you just can't kill someone, even though you want to. The heat can get too bad. I have a rival NPC adventuring group filled with the most smug children of nobles you've ever seen. Though my PCs had the chance to kill them, they chose not to because they couldn't afford to be on the bad side of the nobles.

I have two evil PCs in my campaign - a gnomish assassin and a changeling master of shrouds. The gnome is driven by revenge. He collapsed a tower in Sharn to kill the ambassador of Zilargo and several members of The Trust. Now he can't even move in Sharn without copious amounts of nondetectiongoing. The master of shrouds is deep into necromancy and has little regard for life. His Leadership feat has earned him an insane cult and he recently raised an army of undead to march on the Great Hall of Aureon as part of a campaign against a government gone bad. The end result is good for the people of Sharn, but it caught the attention of the Church of the Silver Flame who now has squads of paladins out looking for him.

Consequences, as was stated earlier, drive the point home that you can't just go around killing everyone. Evil thugs with no brains never make it. Evil geniuses at least make it to the final scene before being dispatched by good guys.
AngeloftheNight
01-18-08, 05:39 PM I play evil a lot and so do my friends. Is your group smart evil or dum evil, I was a pychopathic wizard but when a CR 20 angel appeared i still hit the ground really fast and was bowing and so on. The charactors that i have played with also were usaully on an adventure where we would die if the party fell apart. There were some minor scuffels over treasure (I permantly blinded one person and webbed another, hehehe) but we worked together as long as there were enemies.
malignor
01-18-08, 06:09 PM Greed and lust for power.
Dangle them like little carrots over their short-sighted heads.
All you need is an indispensable NPC to hold the carrots... one who can either crush them in an instant, or one so cunning that he cannot possibly be cheated by the party.
Sergikins
01-19-08, 12:35 PM I play evil a lot and so do my friends. Is your group smart evil or dum evil, I was a pychopathic wizard but when a CR 20 angel appeared i still hit the ground really fast and was bowing and so on. The charactors that i have played with also were usaully on an adventure where we would die if the party fell apart. There were some minor scuffels over treasure (I permantly blinded one person and webbed another, hehehe) but we worked together as long as there were enemies.

Well, the party is a strange combination. all of them have a burning desire to kill. The warlock thinks evil is to shatter windows and ale mugs with baleful utterance when he can get away with it. The hexblade is one LOUD drunk (and mean LOUD) and is always drunk, especially when he wakes up (he sobers up for combat, thanks to parasites) At least the cleric has a more burning, quiet plot. they were assigned to deliver powerful ritual components, and he intends to swap them for fake ones and take the real ones to his cult in the mountains.

the warlock is just acting so immature, I'm almost tempted to remind him its real life, not a web comic.
otakutaylor
01-19-08, 07:43 PM Seen this enough times to know that since apperently your players want an evil party give them an evil game.

Now no I don't mean be an evil DM and kill them all off so you can start the game you want to play. You've apperently got a vote of 3 to 1 in favor of evil so sorry to say they should get that.

Now some of the nicer people may have difficulty with this but if they want to be evil, let them be evil. Present them with truely evil situations, some of the naughtiest, cruelest, and meanist things to do. Especially if it' ssome other NPC's doing it. It's evil, and it fights against itself alot. Maybe your "richard" thinks he's bad. Then he meets someone badder. Your fake Chivalrous knight get's ousted in one town be a rogue who takes pleasure in ruining peoples dreams. And encountering a dry county, rife with Lawful people who believe drinking is a unforgivable sin and lynch drinkers on sight.

If they want good, give them good.
If they want evil, give them evil.
Then give them the opposite.

As most nerds know, when evil get's too powerful a group of 4 rag-tag but goodly adventurers somehow show up and win out in the end.
Gurv
01-19-08, 08:53 PM My suggestion is to leave the good heroic types out of it. Have the evil PCs opposed by other evil people. Eberron, where it sounds like you're playing, has a multitude of well-established evil organizations which are not going to be happy with a band of psychos disturbing the status quo.

Have the Lords of Dust recognize the potential in these guys. They're not going to want these mortals increasing in power, now are they? They could become rivals. Have them send all sorts of trouble at them. Demons, assassin, spies, etc. Heck, even if some of the Lords of Dust support the group, others might see that as a threat!

Basically, evil doesn't get along with evil. Have them fight it out. It should be funny when they come across some greater fiend with DR 20/good and no one can touch a holy weapon.
danielinthewolvesden
01-20-08, 01:52 AM "Hey guys, this time around I would like to run a classic heroic campaign. So, no Evils or Sociopathic CN's or anything like that, OK? Heroes. Please. Remember, D&D is a game, and the idea of a game is for everyone to have fun,and that includes the DM. No, that doesn't mean you all have to be Goody-two-shoes right out of BoED either. So, let's do it Heroic this time, for me, OK? Thanks".
Etarnon
01-20-08, 03:05 AM Ever the sage.
Sergikins
01-20-08, 08:51 AM "Hey guys, this time around I would like to run a classic heroic campaign. So, no Evils or Sociopathic CN's or anything like that, OK? Heroes. Please. Remember, D&D is a game, and the idea of a game is for everyone to have fun,and that includes the DM. No, that doesn't mean you all have to be Goody-two-shoes right out of BoED either. So, let's do it Heroic this time, for me, OK? Thanks".

I have done this before, and yeah... it worked, but it STILL ended up evil (because I allowed one player to create a new character mid stream, and when that happened, he made a sociopath fighter obsessed with Nerull. He did a great job with it, and the campaign ended up becoming evil as corrupted all of them At the final encounter of the campaign, he ended up coup de gracing one of his party members that was knocked out in the final fight when it was over and he was the only one standing. brilliant conclusion to the adventure, even thought everyone except him and the warforged (non eberron warforged) died, everyone thought it was amazing.)

The thing is, the PCs aren't making a problem because they are evil (The Hexblade is abusing intimidate out of combat, but thats in another thread. what he's doing isn't evil though, its chaotic. The cleric has expressed he's willing to change because he was raised by a cult of the Dark six, but he has some sort of celestial heritage. Very open minded.

The only player I'd like to get rid of is the warlock, but that shouldn't be too hard to justify (death in combat, sure. He nearly died in the first fight.)
aikimiller
01-20-08, 09:06 AM I have never understood people's need to play evil characters.

The other two sound like they can be worked with, but chaotic evil is, by definition, not an alignment that works in a group. Does not play well with others.

I'd say your best bet is to have them opposed by other evil forces. But that warlock isn't going to last- natural selection will hopefully take him out before long. You go around killing stuff, and people notice.
I_roll_ones
01-20-08, 06:50 PM It sounds like the lack of realism and the wish to be CS(Chaotic Stupid) is more of the issue then evil. I have done evil and worked together as long as no one took things OoCly. I've played as a follower of Bane who worked with other followers of Bane. It worked out really well, actually.

DnD, at least in my opinion, due to the lack of DM, classes balanced for PvE,(player versus enviroment, a videogame term I know) and the time it takes to create a new character, does not encourage PvP.

Therefore, I ban CS(People who exist simply to kill) and ask the players to work together. By telling them early, I hope that they will make a backstory so all cooperate and I don't have to boot people from the group or integrate people or whatever.

As for the warlock? Have his breaking items obession backfire. Guards come, and take him off to jail. Glass shatters, and he has to make a reflex save to avoid the glass. Have him blow up some loot.

Chaotic is NOT random, it is situational and flexible.

Maybe send them up against some mobs with class levels(Deadly, but not overly so) that use teamwork and are STILL evil. A rival cult might be good, but they are not inclined to back stab one another. Maybe one pretends to go along and betray the cult, but leads them to a trap. Maybe they compete with this cult for loot, and the people that work together succeed. Maybe they frame the group for a crime, and work out a story to use in court. Show them what evil CAN be, if done right.

What god does the cleric follow?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sergikins 01-18-08, 02:43 PM	I have a reasonably mature group. I let them have free rein over their characters. once again, they have saddled me with an all evil party. Level 3 Cleric/Divine crusader aiming for a variant of Ruby Knight Vindicator that fits Eberron. Lawful evil, aiming to aqquire as much power as possible by appearing as a public hero and exploiting his fame Hexblade/rogue aiming for ghost faced killer. Hes one heck of an alcholic Warlock (this is kind of a problem) this is his personality, though he's toning it down slightly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g&eurl=http://lfgcomic.com/video.php Its richard from LFG! well anyway, I don't want them to become good or anything cheesy like that. but does anyone have tips on how to quell the potential chaos from... Richard?
KyoMamoru 01-18-08, 03:00 PM	Well.... Let them, just have everything with a consequence. Players will be more careful with their powers/abilities once they have killed an important NPC that would advance them in power.
I_roll_ones 01-18-08, 03:03 PM	Give them a quest. If some NPC's run out, after seeing the face of the villians(Distract them with treasure, so give them a choice of loot or kill the NPC) so now the law enforcement knows who they are, and wants to hunt them down. So they can try to do it on their own, or team up to kill the common enemy. If that fails, give them a bunch of listen/spot checks to detect a hidden spy. The spy reports to the local thieves guild, that either wishes to recruit them to harness their power, or to destroy them because they are making it so there are more patrols from guards. if they join the guild, they have to play nice, or the assassins of the guild will kill them since they are acting against the guild. If they don't, then we go back to uniting against a common enemy. Give the other side sneakers and magic. The warlock can detect magic, making him useful. The cleric can do something against it. The rogue/hexblade can reduce saves(I think?) making it easier for the cleric. And hopefully, the hexblade he can spot/hear the sneakers. The warlock can use some abilities without saves, so he might not be as affected or gain much benefit. His blast is also hard to resist, since it is not an energy type. I think that warlocks might get a dispel, but I am not sure. However, is he a meleer? If not, he might want to hide behind the cleric meat shield. Have any of these guys got a religion or honor code? Or, yanno, ask OoCly to try to work together. Good and neutral parties have to do the same thing.
iserith 01-18-08, 03:21 PM	Politics will always keep evil PCs in check. Sometimes you just can't kill someone, even though you want to. The heat can get too bad. I have a rival NPC adventuring group filled with the most smug children of nobles you've ever seen. Though my PCs had the chance to kill them, they chose not to because they couldn't afford to be on the bad side of the nobles. I have two evil PCs in my campaign - a gnomish assassin and a changeling master of shrouds. The gnome is driven by revenge. He collapsed a tower in Sharn to kill the ambassador of Zilargo and several members of The Trust. Now he can't even move in Sharn without copious amounts of nondetectiongoing. The master of shrouds is deep into necromancy and has little regard for life. His Leadership feat has earned him an insane cult and he recently raised an army of undead to march on the Great Hall of Aureon as part of a campaign against a government gone bad. The end result is good for the people of Sharn, but it caught the attention of the Church of the Silver Flame who now has squads of paladins out looking for him. Consequences, as was stated earlier, drive the point home that you can't just go around killing everyone. Evil thugs with no brains never make it. Evil geniuses at least make it to the final scene before being dispatched by good guys.
AngeloftheNight 01-18-08, 05:39 PM	I play evil a lot and so do my friends. Is your group smart evil or dum evil, I was a pychopathic wizard but when a CR 20 angel appeared i still hit the ground really fast and was bowing and so on. The charactors that i have played with also were usaully on an adventure where we would die if the party fell apart. There were some minor scuffels over treasure (I permantly blinded one person and webbed another, hehehe) but we worked together as long as there were enemies.
malignor 01-18-08, 06:09 PM	Greed and lust for power. Dangle them like little carrots over their short-sighted heads. All you need is an indispensable NPC to hold the carrots... one who can either crush them in an instant, or one so cunning that he cannot possibly be cheated by the party.
Sergikins 01-19-08, 12:35 PM	I play evil a lot and so do my friends. Is your group smart evil or dum evil, I was a pychopathic wizard but when a CR 20 angel appeared i still hit the ground really fast and was bowing and so on. The charactors that i have played with also were usaully on an adventure where we would die if the party fell apart. There were some minor scuffels over treasure (I permantly blinded one person and webbed another, hehehe) but we worked together as long as there were enemies. Well, the party is a strange combination. all of them have a burning desire to kill. The warlock thinks evil is to shatter windows and ale mugs with baleful utterance when he can get away with it. The hexblade is one LOUD drunk (and mean LOUD) and is always drunk, especially when he wakes up (he sobers up for combat, thanks to parasites) At least the cleric has a more burning, quiet plot. they were assigned to deliver powerful ritual components, and he intends to swap them for fake ones and take the real ones to his cult in the mountains. the warlock is just acting so immature, I'm almost tempted to remind him its real life, not a web comic.
otakutaylor 01-19-08, 07:43 PM	Seen this enough times to know that since apperently your players want an evil party give them an evil game. Now no I don't mean be an evil DM and kill them all off so you can start the game you want to play. You've apperently got a vote of 3 to 1 in favor of evil so sorry to say they should get that. Now some of the nicer people may have difficulty with this but if they want to be evil, let them be evil. Present them with truely evil situations, some of the naughtiest, cruelest, and meanist things to do. Especially if it' ssome other NPC's doing it. It's evil, and it fights against itself alot. Maybe your "richard" thinks he's bad. Then he meets someone badder. Your fake Chivalrous knight get's ousted in one town be a rogue who takes pleasure in ruining peoples dreams. And encountering a dry county, rife with Lawful people who believe drinking is a unforgivable sin and lynch drinkers on sight. If they want good, give them good. If they want evil, give them evil. Then give them the opposite. As most nerds know, when evil get's too powerful a group of 4 rag-tag but goodly adventurers somehow show up and win out in the end.
Gurv 01-19-08, 08:53 PM	My suggestion is to leave the good heroic types out of it. Have the evil PCs opposed by other evil people. Eberron, where it sounds like you're playing, has a multitude of well-established evil organizations which are not going to be happy with a band of psychos disturbing the status quo. Have the Lords of Dust recognize the potential in these guys. They're not going to want these mortals increasing in power, now are they? They could become rivals. Have them send all sorts of trouble at them. Demons, assassin, spies, etc. Heck, even if some of the Lords of Dust support the group, others might see that as a threat! Basically, evil doesn't get along with evil. Have them fight it out. It should be funny when they come across some greater fiend with DR 20/good and no one can touch a holy weapon.
danielinthewolvesden 01-20-08, 01:52 AM	"Hey guys, this time around I would like to run a classic heroic campaign. So, no Evils or Sociopathic CN's or anything like that, OK? Heroes. Please. Remember, D&D is a game, and the idea of a game is for everyone to have fun,and that includes the DM. No, that doesn't mean you all have to be Goody-two-shoes right out of BoED either. So, let's do it Heroic this time, for me, OK? Thanks".
Etarnon 01-20-08, 03:05 AM	Ever the sage.
Sergikins 01-20-08, 08:51 AM	"Hey guys, this time around I would like to run a classic heroic campaign. So, no Evils or Sociopathic CN's or anything like that, OK? Heroes. Please. Remember, D&D is a game, and the idea of a game is for everyone to have fun,and that includes the DM. No, that doesn't mean you all have to be Goody-two-shoes right out of BoED either. So, let's do it Heroic this time, for me, OK? Thanks". I have done this before, and yeah... it worked, but it STILL ended up evil (because I allowed one player to create a new character mid stream, and when that happened, he made a sociopath fighter obsessed with Nerull. He did a great job with it, and the campaign ended up becoming evil as corrupted all of them At the final encounter of the campaign, he ended up coup de gracing one of his party members that was knocked out in the final fight when it was over and he was the only one standing. brilliant conclusion to the adventure, even thought everyone except him and the warforged (non eberron warforged) died, everyone thought it was amazing.) The thing is, the PCs aren't making a problem because they are evil (The Hexblade is abusing intimidate out of combat, but thats in another thread. what he's doing isn't evil though, its chaotic. The cleric has expressed he's willing to change because he was raised by a cult of the Dark six, but he has some sort of celestial heritage. Very open minded. The only player I'd like to get rid of is the warlock, but that shouldn't be too hard to justify (death in combat, sure. He nearly died in the first fight.)
aikimiller 01-20-08, 09:06 AM	I have never understood people's need to play evil characters. The other two sound like they can be worked with, but chaotic evil is, by definition, not an alignment that works in a group. Does not play well with others. I'd say your best bet is to have them opposed by other evil forces. But that warlock isn't going to last- natural selection will hopefully take him out before long. You go around killing stuff, and people notice.
I_roll_ones 01-20-08, 06:50 PM	It sounds like the lack of realism and the wish to be CS(Chaotic Stupid) is more of the issue then evil. I have done evil and worked together as long as no one took things OoCly. I've played as a follower of Bane who worked with other followers of Bane. It worked out really well, actually. DnD, at least in my opinion, due to the lack of DM, classes balanced for PvE,(player versus enviroment, a videogame term I know) and the time it takes to create a new character, does not encourage PvP. Therefore, I ban CS(People who exist simply to kill) and ask the players to work together. By telling them early, I hope that they will make a backstory so all cooperate and I don't have to boot people from the group or integrate people or whatever. As for the warlock? Have his breaking items obession backfire. Guards come, and take him off to jail. Glass shatters, and he has to make a reflex save to avoid the glass. Have him blow up some loot. Chaotic is NOT random, it is situational and flexible. Maybe send them up against some mobs with class levels(Deadly, but not overly so) that use teamwork and are STILL evil. A rival cult might be good, but they are not inclined to back stab one another. Maybe one pretends to go along and betray the cult, but leads them to a trap. Maybe they compete with this cult for loot, and the people that work together succeed. Maybe they frame the group for a crime, and work out a story to use in court. Show them what evil CAN be, if done right. What god does the cleric follow?