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Kurtulmak
2009-08-02, 12:58 PM
So here's a fun thought experiment:

My group is thinking of running a villain campaign. Not a "Let's eat some babies" campaign, not a "Let's murder each other" campaign, but a "Let's make a party and take over the world" campaign.
Everyone works together, it is for all intents and purposes a normal party, and the only major difference is that we're going to raze a few villages and take over the world, instead of saving them.

Saturday Morning Cartoon style villainy, as it were.

So the obvious question, then, becomes: How do we do this?

What are some things you would do in order to accomplish this goal? Should we build an army? Focus on personal power? Are there any clever feats or spell usages that might help? Should we use a certain class?
Is there anything we should do to take care of wouldbe "heroes"?
Assume anything that does not involve blatant rule destruction is possible: Diplomacy, Necromancy, Leadership, Mind Control, Fear.
Anything you want, as long as it isn't something a sane DM would start beating you with a hammer for, but keeping in mind that the purpose is to... take over the world!

The campaign, so as not to spend a lot of time coming up with things we might very well destroy, can be assumed to be 'generic fantasy'. Elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, etc.
Our campaigns usually end around level 13, because anything past that starts to turn broken, so, keeping that in mind...

tl;dr
You are given the opportunity to create an evil empire, from the ground up. You and your fellow PCs are the villains from every other campaign you've ever played. What do you do?

Woodsman
2009-08-02, 01:03 PM
First thought: Take over the world.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-08-02, 01:10 PM
So here's a fun thought experiment:

My group is thinking of running a villain campaign. Not a "Let's eat some babies" campaign, not a "Let's murder each other" campaign, but a "Let's make a party and take over the world" campaign.
Everyone works together, it is for all intents and purposes a normal party, and the only major difference is that we're going to raze a few villages and take over the world, instead of saving them.

Saturday Morning Cartoon style villainy, as it were.

So the obvious question, then, becomes: How do we do this?

What are some things you would do in order to accomplish this goal? Should we build an army? Focus on personal power? Are there any clever feats or spell usages that might help? Should we use a certain class?
Is there anything we should do to take care of wouldbe "heroes"?
Assume anything that does not involve blatant rule destruction is possible: Diplomacy, Necromancy, Leadership, Mind Control, Fear.
Anything you want, as long as it isn't something a sane DM would start beating you with a hammer for, but keeping in mind that the purpose is to... take over the world!

The campaign, so as not to spend a lot of time coming up with things we might very well destroy, can be assumed to be 'generic fantasy'. Elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves, etc.
Our campaigns usually end around level 13, because anything past that starts to turn broken, so, keeping that in mind...

tl;dr
You are given the opportunity to create an evil empire, from the ground up. You and your fellow PCs are the villains from every other campaign you've ever played. What do you do?

Well it will depend on your DM and how much "realism" you want.

Saturday morning cartoon/comic book supervillains plots are relatively straightforward and free of grittiness: mind control the king, create a death machine and hold the city hostage, have an secret army in a hidden base that no one knows about.

So you're PCs will concentrate on personal power and wealth and minions and your enemies will be hapless heroes and government forces.

However, you could play it more "dark" and "gritty". Same elements. Just more unpleasantness, innocents dying, pact with demons, rasing undead, etc.

PLUN
2009-08-02, 01:11 PM
Well, if you're going to be evil, or even neutral, you need somewhere to Put All Your Stuff.

There are plenty of places to put your stuff, but the REALLY good ones have current inhabitants. The CLEAN ones have current GOOD inhabitants.

Miklus
2009-08-02, 01:25 PM
Are there any super powerful artefacts in this world? Like Nales first plot with the talisman? That is true supervillan stuff.

Or take over someones identity. Like a king or a powerful noble. Or a general!

Make a deal with a God...or a Demon?

Corner the Iron market? Iron being the most importaint strategic war material.

Spooking the population by painting the orc nation as "preparting to invade" and get elected Suprime Leader through a campain of lies and slander?

Whatever you do, think big...supervillan big!

FlawedParadigm
2009-08-02, 01:26 PM
Offhand, I'd go for trying to resurrect one of the canonically dead evil Gods. It's something you could pull off pre-epic, because the group that was supposed to *stop* the God would be the epic group. It goes towards taking over the world, but leaves the big final axe crash to someone over level 13 who can actually deliver it.

Miklus
2009-08-02, 01:34 PM
Ok, so...

1) Go to library
2) Research long dead evil gods
3) Research powerful artefacts that might revive Evil god
4) Find said powerful artefact
5) Find Evil God
6) Revive evil God
7) Become only clerec of evil God
8) Find most powerful general in the world
9) Assassinate general, insert disguised party member
10) Provoke Orc nation into attacking with a few massacres
11) Slander King for being to soft and weak to stop the orcs
12) Destroy invading orc army
13) Become "Savior of the people"
14) Overthrow King with peoples help
15) Slander and invade neighboring nations
16) Rule the world!
17) Cake!

Hawk7915
2009-08-02, 01:41 PM
Some general ideas on who I'd want in my party:

1. A classic Batman wizard who can both Scry and Die heroes/lords/kings/AncientGuardiansofThatOneThingThatDestroysTheWorld , and prepare spells to stop said heroes from Scry-and-Die attacking you.

2. Someone with high charisma and leadership - What sort of villains are you if you don't have henchmen and mooks to sacrifice? Ideally, EVERYONE has leadership and at least a 10 charisma if not higher.

3. A really, really good Rogue - Preferably a seductive chick rogue. Paranoid kings and Prince Charming's will have all sorts of ways to trump magic...but well-optimized and with a DM who doesn't just rule 0 out of it, it's hard to beat maxed out Hide/Move silently for sneaking around and poisoning food, and maxed Disguise/Bluff to impersonate people.

4. Access to necromancy - MOAR mooks.

5. Access to teleportation as soon as possible - When you are trying to beat EVERYONE and take over the world, mobility is your friend.

6. Mind control - Mind control the king to give you a fortress from which you plot an eventual coup. Mind control the brave ranger who must destroy you into killing his teammates. Mind control civilians into acting as a moving wall between you and the Paladin and let the Gods sort it out. Mind control goons who ask for too much gold into being MOAR Mooks!

Obviously not all of these are exclusive to one character a piece: A Beguiler with Leadership can cover everything except Necromancy, Scrying, and Teleports.

BloodyAngel
2009-08-02, 03:47 PM
If the group is up for being subtle, I too support the "Villain with good PR" approach. The group should side with good, and pull a Palpatine, getting themselves the status of beloved heroes who are asked to lead, for the good of all. Then the secret cabals of assassins who "enforce the king's will" can come out.

As said before... all that's required is to give the people an enemy to unite against, and a reason to do so. Miklus' idea of mind controlling an orcish nation to attack the kingdom is a good one. If the place they want to take over already has a rival or enemy, use that. Otherwise... make one up. Then, become the bold heroes who rise to defeat that foe. A staggering number of war heroes go on to lead, after all. I'd suggest to your party to build themselves up as bold heroes of the realm, THEN bend it over their knee.

Or if you want to go REALLY cartoony and "mwa ha ha" evil, just have them kill/depose the head of the orcish army (or whatever enemy the kingdom has) and lead the "evil" races against the good ones themselves. Perhaps a few deals with various devils, selling their sould for loyal devilish servants or aid on their quest to oppress and control the good people of the world. Apply the leadership feat when possible to give them a nice base of (relatively) loyal minions... and you're good to go! Just keep an eye out for those obnoxious parties of do-gooders. :smallbiggrin:

Siosilvar
2009-08-02, 03:50 PM
6) Revive evil God

Bad plan. Ancient evil gods always eat the world for breakfast.

Ormur
2009-08-02, 05:21 PM
DMing an evil campaign it could be fun to make their encounters with completely over the top heroic NPC. Stupid good Paladins, knights in shining armour that can't remember how many villages they've saved, old wise kings, ideological good wizards using magic to better the world etc. Make them naive and pretentious so the PC's can laugh at their puny attempts to thwart them.

FlawedParadigm
2009-08-02, 07:18 PM
If the group is up for being subtle, I too support the "Villain with good PR" approach. The group should side with good, and pull a Palpatine, getting themselves the status of beloved heroes who are asked to lead, for the good of all. Then the secret cabals of assassins who "enforce the king's will" can come out.

As said before... all that's required is to give the people an enemy to unite against, and a reason to do so. Miklus' idea of mind controlling an orcish nation to attack the kingdom is a good one.

Now, on this, I'd be a little more subtle. When it comes to mind control, until very high levels, you have to keep a careful check on durations of mind control effects. Under these circumstances, I'd rather just Diplomacy or straight up talk out a mutually beneficial arrangement with the orc horde, because it's easier to mind control as few beings as possible. Set the orcs up to attack a locale, and tell them to break off and flee when your group shows up, or after you kill a small amount of their main force, in exchange for sharing whatever rewards the locale gives you with the orcs, and/or leaking information to the orcs and any allies they might have. Then when the orcs and any allies they might have attack again later, this time striking all the locale's weaknesses, save your mind control for anyone who might suggest you're in league with the orcs. This way you can avoid using magic possibly at all if no one ever the wiser to the fact that you're double agents.

An ideal locale to set this up in would be one the orcs couldn't conquer themselves...or at least not without taking a dangerous number of losses that they couldn't hold it. Somewhere where the difference between conquering and being defeated by might just be the need for information, or having someone in place to open the gates to them. Then there's also the question of if you don't mind orcs running the place, or if you want some kind of control. This is the part where you've got to be careful; if you don't mind orcs running the joint, then well and good. You've won, move on. If you guys want some kind of leash on the place, though, you either need to sweet talk the orcs, mind control their leaders, or give the orcs reason to believe they couldn't outnumber and overwhelm you the way they did the town if you get lippy.

Oh, and don't try to consume any energy field larger than your head.

Rixx
2009-08-02, 07:40 PM
Leadership is an absolute must - perhaps even have every member of the party take it. A legion of expendable mooks under their command has a certain evil flavor to it.

Jack_Simth
2009-08-02, 07:53 PM
You might find some use out of the Large Scale Undead Factory (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120157) thread that seems to have died down earlier today. Great way to make armies.

Also, don't forget the lowly evil cleric with Brew Potion.
See, for a Cleric, Animate Dead qualifies for putting into an Oil.
When you're applying an oil, the applier is the caster (using the oil's caster level), and the thing the oil is applied to is the effective target. So if your Cleric invests heavily in Oils of Animate Dead, every member of the party (and that includes followers from Leadership!) can have about as many mindless undead under their direct control as does a "standard" necromancer....

woodenbandman
2009-08-02, 08:07 PM
Make a nation filled with puritan, Lawful Good citizens instilled with the belief in the utmost good and law from birth, and then suggest that other nations and perhaps even their neighbors are unspeakably evil.

Nerocite
2009-08-02, 08:17 PM
You could go "Villains by Necessity", and have the bad guys save the world from too much "Good".


Eating babies is a must.

Benejeseret
2009-08-02, 10:04 PM
My longest running sit-down game is an evil game of continent razing proportions.

I set the campaign in old Sarlona (Eberron) prior to the rise of Riedra, home to the Inspired.

The PC's are the first Inspired to walk the planet - not yet fully Quori possessed. They receive their missives and training in dreams controlled by the Quori and are their avatars among the waking. Unlike most games, this is a Psionics-Only game.

The trick, is that they must gain the full support of the people of Sarlona. They must be their Saviors, the heroes and the Chosen Ones....

But they do that through brutal murder, corruption, and upheaval of the social order. They started in a northern province edging the tundra overthrowing a decaying port town diminished by past wars. From this stronghold they are creeping east and south, slaughtering clergy and all churches as well as eliminating all arcane spellcasters.

I have thrown in elements of strategy and tactics as they must dictate what general tasks to set their strongholds and warriors toward (ie. given two powerful enemies, which do they want weakened?). As they conquer an area and build a monolithic psionic tower, they can perma-bind one of their Quori masters into a human vessel to run the cities/fortresses in their place so that they are always sweeping forward.

DragonBaneDM
2009-08-02, 11:27 PM
MY BROTHER!!! I'm doing the same thing at the end of summer, bro!!!

A good thing that I've figured out, especially at heroic levels, is to start them out working for an already huge supervillain.

That way you can provide them with structure early on, until they inevitably grow strong enough to defeat said already huge supervillain.

At which point you design cultures for them to destroy/assimalate, heroes to destroy/assimalate, and rival villains to destroy/assimalate.

And with what I'm sure is horrid spelling on my part aside, you have a storyline, friend!!!

hewhosaysfish
2009-08-03, 06:39 AM
One potential problem with running a game based on Saturday-morning cartoon villainy is that either:
A) The heroes will always escape you fiendish death-traps and you will never win.
...or...
B) The heroes will not escape one of you fiendish death-traps and the campy, light-hearted tone of your villainy will be jeopardised by people getting stripped to the bone by pirhanas, painfully cut down the middle with huges lasers, etc.
Have you thought about how to deal with this?

Tiki Snakes
2009-08-03, 07:53 AM
One potential problem with running a game based on Saturday-morning cartoon villainy is that either:
A) The heroes will always escape you fiendish death-traps and you will never win.
...or...
B) The heroes will not escape one of you fiendish death-traps and the campy, light-hearted tone of your villainy will be jeopardised by people getting stripped to the bone by pirhanas, painfully cut down the middle with huges lasers, etc.
Have you thought about how to deal with this?

It's not like the campaign needs to pass a board of censors. I'm guessing the 'Saturday Morning' feel is much more about villainous cooperation rather than the associated tropes of kids tv.

It sounds like a cool idea in all. But you need to familiarise yourself with the evil overlord list. Don't drop the heroes in a pool of pirhanna's. Coup-de-grace them the second they are at your mercy, burn the body, (and if possible trap/destroy the soul in some way.)

Then have an office party to celebrate, maybe a villainous bring-your-pet-to-work day? ^_^

But, yes, tl;dr - You need a cool base, you need to focus on personal power first, (minions coming second at best), and you need to study the Evil Overlord List. Also, team bonding excersizes.

Adept Omega
2009-08-03, 11:02 AM
Hey guys. I'm one of Kurtulmak's group members who's also really interested in this villain campaign idea. Some of the responses in this thread have been pretty intruiging.


It's not like the campaign needs to pass a board of censors. I'm guessing the 'Saturday Morning' feel is much more about villainous cooperation rather than the associated tropes of kids tv.

Tiki Snakes has hit the nail right on the head here. It's not like our baddies wouldn't kill people or spill a drop of blood; It just means that we're not running around randomly eating orphan hearts for the evulz (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForTheEvulz) or stabbing each other in the back chronically.


Then have an office party to celebrate, maybe a villainous bring-your-pet-to-work day? ^_^

And my first immediate thought is 'baleful polymorphed heroes'. Dangit, now I really hope this happens. ;)


DMing an evil campaign it could be fun to make their encounters with completely over the top heroic NPC. Stupid good Paladins, knights in shining armour that can't remember how many villages they've saved, old wise kings, ideological good wizards using magic to better the world etc. Make them naive and pretentious so the PC's can laugh at their puny attempts to thwart them.

I definitely like this idea. Caricatured heroic antagonists would be quite memorable enemies. Particularly if some of them managed to become recurring.

There's some mention of scry-and-die tactics here. I'd just like to note that our campaigns tend to end in the upper-mid levels (13-ish), and the world demographics in terms of class levels tend to be closer to Eberron than Forgotten Realms.

This thread is looking fun. Got a few ideas already. :smalltongue:

Crafty Cultist
2009-08-04, 12:51 PM
a few villain ideas of the top of my head:

a factory that produces construct soldiers

undead minions. you can't go wrong with undead minions

a flying fortress. never underestimate a flying fortress (with magical artillery of course)

Fuzzy_Juan
2009-08-04, 09:19 PM
You could always do evil for the greater good...

I ran a game where the players were trying to help these people in this valley, however, in trying to resist the surge of 'evil' they discovered something stranger. A Solar was actualy behind the surge and was actively causing a rift between planes to open. part of a plan involving him opening a sealed portal straight into the depths of hell. The characters agreed to help the Solar whose plan was such...

He gave them where to find what they needed to break the prison of Levictus (whomever is frozen on the 5th level of hell). The Solar had made a pact with Orcus for the secret of reviving a dead god...in exchange, he would free Levictus and throw all of Hell into chaos. The Solar claimed that the strange rifts had started, and he was focusing this one, but if they did not help, then the ensuing rifts would see devils and demons all over the prime...however, if they succeeded in his plan, then the devils and demons would have their hands full in the lower planes and the rifts could be sealed without too much disaster on the prime...as well as the chance to resurrect the Solar's God. (in this world, another god had killed Correllian and taken his place)

So, of course the lifeblood of a solar was the only way to finish the ritual to open the portal and effectively 'lock' the gate they were at...and they had no idea what they'd need to do to do the others...and of course...resurrecting the dead god would start a war among the elves that would do so much...it was gonna be fun...we should finish that one...

Anathemus
2009-08-04, 10:11 PM
I've always wanted to do one of these, so I've put some thought into it.

Firstly, there's probably going to be some backstabbing, especially if you have some NE's in the group. You're going to want to discuss this before hand and see how much/little the players want to limit it to, so you can all come to an agreement.

You're proably going to want to start the players with a level or two, just becuase in my opinion, its really hard to do cool, fun evil at low levels.

Tell them that, in order to keep a campaign like this going in the long term, some, if not all, of their plots need to be foiled in the end. That's not to say they won't get to kill some heros, but in most worlds, good usually triumphs.

Give them seperate stakes - only one can rule the world. That's just fine for the Evil Overlord player, but what about the rest? Well, maybe the theif gets all the wealth, women, and a licence to kill, the wizard gets a massive, secluded tower with an infinite library and everything he needs to say, combine owls with bears, and the cleric gets to make his religion the only one in the land. Everyone gets what they want, and the campaign doesn't devolve into a brawl for the throne.

Don't be afraid to kill. Evil isn't easy, and if someone forgot to install the Secret Escape Shoot, well who's fault is that?

No awaking the evil gods. I've heard Cthulhu has horrible morning breath.

Finally, I'm going to reccomend a little book simply intitled "Evil". Its a third party, but it has a lot of good tips, tables, resources, and etc. I think it was published by AEG.

Hope this helps. Oh, and Mwahahahaha, etc.

Tiki Snakes
2009-08-04, 10:38 PM
Firstly, there's probably going to be some backstabbing, especially if you have some NE's in the group. You're going to want to discuss this before hand and see how much/little the players want to limit it to, so you can all come to an agreement.

I'm pretty sure the 'Saturday Morning Villains' thing procludes ganking each other in the kidneys. I think that's kind of the whole idea, cheif. ;)

Anathemus
2009-08-04, 11:23 PM
I'm pretty sure the 'Saturday Morning Villains' thing procludes ganking each other in the kidneys. I think that's kind of the whole idea, cheif. ;)

Hahahaha, very true, but I didn't mean it all literally. You could always have a situation like this arise:
Wizard: "Finally, I have found the Staff of The Guy With Five Apostrophies In His Name!"
Rogue: "Yes, and now you can finally - What in the world could that be?!?!"
Wizard "What?! Where?!"
Rogue: "Sorry, though I saw something. Nevermind."
Wizard: "...Where did the staff go?"
Rogue: *Whistles*