Evil Campaign - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Evil Campaign

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
abk_calis
May 27, 2010 9:46:26
So, our veteran group has saved countless damsels and amassed treasure hoards enough to please Tiamat herself. Everyone still loves to play but after 20+ years of gaming, we've covered just about everything. I am working on an Old West setting now but it's not going to be a high fantasy game.

I was thinking about trying out a campaign where the party started out as bad guys and tried to rule the world (or their little corner of it). I wanted to know how it worked out for those who have tried it. It's probably the only campaign type I haven't run but we need to revitalize the gaming group and thought this might do the trick. I was thinking of having it set in FR but I'm open to other ideas.

Thoughts, suggestions, advice?
#2
Chiba_Monkey
May 27, 2010 11:40:05 I have run an evil game before, and there's some pitfalls to be aware of.

First off, Evil characters (especially villains, not just anti-heroes) tend to be selfish and will not hesitate to take out any who get in their way, including former allies. To prevent any PvP action, I suggest having all your characters be involved in character creation together. If the PCs are created with motivations that tie them together, or similar goals, they are much less likely to turn on each other. An example would be to have them all serve the same master, worship the same evil deity, etc.

Second, heroes are reactionary. This means that a party of villains is going to have to be more proactive. If they want to take over (part of) the world, it's not the DM's job to figure out how, it's theirs. This both lightens and burdens the DM's workload. The players are now driving the story, and the DM is reacting. However, since the DM still controls NPC actions, he has to be both in on the plan, and countering it. Everything from the people being conquered, to opposing/allied evil factions, and the inevitable heroes who show up to save the world.

The last Evil campaign I ran, I did like this: I got the players who wanted to play in one together and we discussed some ideas. I had them come up, not only with character concepts, but a plan, and build characters around the kinds of villains that would be motivated/interested by said plan. Based on the scope of their schemes, I set the starting level for the campaign (this was 3.5). Because what they were trying to do was on a pretty big scale (raise an army of undead to take over a major trade city, and infiltrate and desecrate the paladin motherhouse within), I set the starting level at 18, and told them that level adjustment races were allowed, but that LA would be enforced and ECL was 18. The party necromancer, rather than take the level hit to be a lich, made a level 18 necromancer, spent a good chuck of his money having his phylactery already made, and planned to perform the lich ritual ON the paladin's altar, thus desacrating it. The party's concept, by the way, was that they all, in some way or another, served the same Neutral Evil god of death and undeath.
They sought out and killed a metallic dragon, animated its corpse for the seige, took its hoard to use to hire orcs, ogres and giants to assist in laying seige to the city. They also bribed the city's Thieves Guild to help them smuggle in some of their people during the seige. They successfully entered the city and swarmed it with undead, killing off the paladins and turning the necro into a lich, defiling the altar.
Well, enter the heroes. A good-aligned party of heroes came in to challenge them. The cleric (sun domain, radiant Servant PrC) one-shot popped the lich, the paladin unhorsed and trampled the cleric's Blackguard cohort, and the Barbarian took downthe evil party's 1/2 dragon Ogre Fighter. The rest of them fled for their lives.

It was a fun, short little exercise. They got to be evil, they succeeded in their evil plan. but in the end, good triumphed over evil.
#3
phaqueue
May 28, 2010 5:02:26 Last time I saw anything like this... it was also in 3.5, we actually had an evil and good campaign running together at the same time. The DM wanted to run an epic campaign, and it worked for the evil campaign especially.

There were only 4 evil characters in that party (and around 12-14 in the good party), so they were kept well ahead of the good campaign in level, and as they were both existing in the same world, the evil party became the bad guys in the good party's campaign.

The people who played in the evil campaign played both characters when the situation warranted such.

The evil campaign spent most of it's time taking over towns, plundering whatever they could and searching for powerful artifacts to use against the good guys.

It worked extremely well in 2 respects,

First: The people who wanted to play evil got to do so, and make themselves powerful

Second: The villians for the good campaign were played by different people, and I think were much more creative in their actions and motives than they might have been had they just been run by the DM.

This works especially well if your players are good at roleplaying as their character, and not meta-gaming, since they will obviously know the ins and outs of both of their parties... it can make for some interesting roleplaying.
#4
skibo_the_first
May 28, 2010 22:13:32
The cool thing about evil campaigns is that you can have a nice variance of antagonists.
From heroes, to other villains, to anyone who gets in your way.

It's also a great twist, starting with an ideal world and slowly turning it evil. It's also amazing having the whole world against you.

Have each player choose an objective, and make sure they don't clash. Give them good transportation so each can have his or her own kingdom and not clash with each other. Keep each person's kingdom far apart so they don't compete for land.

Then make sure they you end the game before they turn on each other.

THere are some challanges to making an evil campaign. But there's also alot of cool things you can do in an evil campaign that you can't do in a good campaign.
#5
ZaxonDMir
May 29, 2010 17:06:51
Best evil campaign I was in was an assassins' guild campaign. We were all 1e assassins taking on hits for the guildmaster until we threatened his position...and then things really got heated.

Another evil campaign involved a much longer time span and catered to a need for a D&D soap opera. Our characters were cold on the outside but haunted on the inside. We explored issues such as family and loss. At higher levels it led to a falling out between two characters and one hell of a final showdown (which pretty much ended the campaign, but was worth it!).

You have to be sure everyone understands what kind of evil campaign you want. Evil can work together for a common goal and you can always use the Riddick concept of evil to fight evil. I also suggest you watch The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Mel Gibson's Payback. Both films explore different shades of villainy. Another movie might be the remake of 3:10 to Yuma. Russel Crowe's portrayal of Ben Wade offers a complex man whose one part cold blooded killer and another part misunderstood, lonely man.

Good luck.

#6
BRJN
Jun 03, 2010 20:44:17 You should locate and read The Power of the Sith Star Wars supplement. There's plenty of advice there to run an evil campaign.

Not totally original, but my suggestion: pre-make the BBEG who tells the PCs what to do. If he's going to be epic, make some paragon lieutenants who tell the PCs what BBEG wants them to do. As the PCs get more powerful, they can think about replacing the lieutenant(s) and eventually becoming BBEGs themselves ... over the current BBEG's dead body, of course.

Also have some Good parties who will show up to get in the PCs' way. It might be fun to have the Royal Sherriff show up, beat the snot out of your PCs, then take them to jail. OF COURSE the PCs will want to plan a jailbreak! It could also be interesting to have your powerful PCs beat up some weak heroes ... then later run afoul of a group of tougher heroes out to avenge their fallen comrades.

No BBEG worth his salt will have only one group of trouble-shooters - ahem, PCs - so you can have a rival group working to gain favor with BBEG. Sometimes they help the PCs (against outside forces), sometimes they backstab the PCs and take all the credit they can carry and get away with.

Now, I've never run or played in an Evil campaign myself. But I've read other folks' descriptions of them ... and I did stay in a Holiday Express last night.
#7
abk_calis
Jun 04, 2010 10:53:53 Thanks for all the ideas guys...lots of good info!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 abk_calis May 27, 2010 9:46:26	So, our veteran group has saved countless damsels and amassed treasure hoards enough to please Tiamat herself. Everyone still loves to play but after 20+ years of gaming, we've covered just about everything. I am working on an Old West setting now but it's not going to be a high fantasy game. I was thinking about trying out a campaign where the party started out as bad guys and tried to rule the world (or their little corner of it). I wanted to know how it worked out for those who have tried it. It's probably the only campaign type I haven't run but we need to revitalize the gaming group and thought this might do the trick. I was thinking of having it set in FR but I'm open to other ideas. Thoughts, suggestions, advice?
#2 Chiba_Monkey May 27, 2010 11:40:05	I have run an evil game before, and there's some pitfalls to be aware of. First off, Evil characters (especially villains, not just anti-heroes) tend to be selfish and will not hesitate to take out any who get in their way, including former allies. To prevent any PvP action, I suggest having all your characters be involved in character creation together. If the PCs are created with motivations that tie them together, or similar goals, they are much less likely to turn on each other. An example would be to have them all serve the same master, worship the same evil deity, etc. Second, heroes are reactionary. This means that a party of villains is going to have to be more proactive. If they want to take over (part of) the world, it's not the DM's job to figure out how, it's theirs. This both lightens and burdens the DM's workload. The players are now driving the story, and the DM is reacting. However, since the DM still controls NPC actions, he has to be both in on the plan, and countering it. Everything from the people being conquered, to opposing/allied evil factions, and the inevitable heroes who show up to save the world. The last Evil campaign I ran, I did like this: I got the players who wanted to play in one together and we discussed some ideas. I had them come up, not only with character concepts, but a plan, and build characters around the kinds of villains that would be motivated/interested by said plan. Based on the scope of their schemes, I set the starting level for the campaign (this was 3.5). Because what they were trying to do was on a pretty big scale (raise an army of undead to take over a major trade city, and infiltrate and desecrate the paladin motherhouse within), I set the starting level at 18, and told them that level adjustment races were allowed, but that LA would be enforced and ECL was 18. The party necromancer, rather than take the level hit to be a lich, made a level 18 necromancer, spent a good chuck of his money having his phylactery already made, and planned to perform the lich ritual ON the paladin's altar, thus desacrating it. The party's concept, by the way, was that they all, in some way or another, served the same Neutral Evil god of death and undeath. They sought out and killed a metallic dragon, animated its corpse for the seige, took its hoard to use to hire orcs, ogres and giants to assist in laying seige to the city. They also bribed the city's Thieves Guild to help them smuggle in some of their people during the seige. They successfully entered the city and swarmed it with undead, killing off the paladins and turning the necro into a lich, defiling the altar. Well, enter the heroes. A good-aligned party of heroes came in to challenge them. The cleric (sun domain, radiant Servant PrC) one-shot popped the lich, the paladin unhorsed and trampled the cleric's Blackguard cohort, and the Barbarian took downthe evil party's 1/2 dragon Ogre Fighter. The rest of them fled for their lives. It was a fun, short little exercise. They got to be evil, they succeeded in their evil plan. but in the end, good triumphed over evil.
#3 phaqueue May 28, 2010 5:02:26	Last time I saw anything like this... it was also in 3.5, we actually had an evil and good campaign running together at the same time. The DM wanted to run an epic campaign, and it worked for the evil campaign especially. There were only 4 evil characters in that party (and around 12-14 in the good party), so they were kept well ahead of the good campaign in level, and as they were both existing in the same world, the evil party became the bad guys in the good party's campaign. The people who played in the evil campaign played both characters when the situation warranted such. The evil campaign spent most of it's time taking over towns, plundering whatever they could and searching for powerful artifacts to use against the good guys. It worked extremely well in 2 respects, First: The people who wanted to play evil got to do so, and make themselves powerful Second: The villians for the good campaign were played by different people, and I think were much more creative in their actions and motives than they might have been had they just been run by the DM. This works especially well if your players are good at roleplaying as their character, and not meta-gaming, since they will obviously know the ins and outs of both of their parties... it can make for some interesting roleplaying.
#4 skibo_the_first May 28, 2010 22:13:32	The cool thing about evil campaigns is that you can have a nice variance of antagonists. From heroes, to other villains, to anyone who gets in your way. It's also a great twist, starting with an ideal world and slowly turning it evil. It's also amazing having the whole world against you. Have each player choose an objective, and make sure they don't clash. Give them good transportation so each can have his or her own kingdom and not clash with each other. Keep each person's kingdom far apart so they don't compete for land. Then make sure they you end the game before they turn on each other. THere are some challanges to making an evil campaign. But there's also alot of cool things you can do in an evil campaign that you can't do in a good campaign.
#5 ZaxonDMir May 29, 2010 17:06:51	Best evil campaign I was in was an assassins' guild campaign. We were all 1e assassins taking on hits for the guildmaster until we threatened his position...and then things really got heated. Another evil campaign involved a much longer time span and catered to a need for a D&D soap opera. Our characters were cold on the outside but haunted on the inside. We explored issues such as family and loss. At higher levels it led to a falling out between two characters and one hell of a final showdown (which pretty much ended the campaign, but was worth it!). You have to be sure everyone understands what kind of evil campaign you want. Evil can work together for a common goal and you can always use the Riddick concept of evil to fight evil. I also suggest you watch The Good the Bad and the Ugly and Mel Gibson's Payback. Both films explore different shades of villainy. Another movie might be the remake of 3:10 to Yuma. Russel Crowe's portrayal of Ben Wade offers a complex man whose one part cold blooded killer and another part misunderstood, lonely man. Good luck.
#6 BRJN Jun 03, 2010 20:44:17	You should locate and read The Power of the Sith Star Wars supplement. There's plenty of advice there to run an evil campaign. Not totally original, but my suggestion: pre-make the BBEG who tells the PCs what to do. If he's going to be epic, make some paragon lieutenants who tell the PCs what BBEG wants them to do. As the PCs get more powerful, they can think about replacing the lieutenant(s) and eventually becoming BBEGs themselves ... over the current BBEG's dead body, of course. Also have some Good parties who will show up to get in the PCs' way. It might be fun to have the Royal Sherriff show up, beat the snot out of your PCs, then take them to jail. OF COURSE the PCs will want to plan a jailbreak! It could also be interesting to have your powerful PCs beat up some weak heroes ... then later run afoul of a group of tougher heroes out to avenge their fallen comrades. No BBEG worth his salt will have only one group of trouble-shooters - ahem, PCs - so you can have a rival group working to gain favor with BBEG. Sometimes they help the PCs (against outside forces), sometimes they backstab the PCs and take all the credit they can carry and get away with. Now, I've never run or played in an Evil campaign myself. But I've read other folks' descriptions of them ... and I did stay in a Holiday Express last night.
#7 abk_calis Jun 04, 2010 10:53:53	Thanks for all the ideas guys...lots of good info!