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Blue Bandit
2011-02-08, 12:23 AM
Hello Giant in the Playground Forums!!

My group's regular DM has recently become tired of Dming, so me and another player are taking turns running adventures to give our DM a break. currently, the other player I mentioned is running a Star Wars campaign. So while this game is going on, I'm trying to create my own D&D campaign.

The players have already told me that they wish to play evil "anti-heroes," something our usual DM never did. As a DM, I've only ever ran a couple of one-shot adventures, so I could use some advise in creating an interesting campaign plot. My group is pretty lighthearted, so I don't expect them to take this game too seriously.

Background information;

D&D 3.5 edition
Forgotten Realms Campaign setting
starting level 3rd (3 players total)

My original plan was to start the players out as minions for a BBEG, who's lair is at HellsGate Keep. The plot would then be centered around this BBEG's diabolical scheme to dominate the world. However, I'm afraid that this plot might sound too cheesy, plus, I haven't figured out what the BBEG's scheme should be anyway.

So Playgrounders, do you have any advise for an aspiring DM on how to create in interesting campaign?

Loki Eremes
2011-02-08, 12:41 AM
Its a good idea what you just said.
Yes, its cheesy but to start it will be fun and they wont die easily at the hand of guard or paladin if they are backed up by an organization.

When they reach a higher lvl (lets say 7 or 8) and they can take care of themselves, disband the organization. Something like the current boss failed at something an good guys comes bursting into de HQ and put him in jail or kill him.
Now your guys are alone.

Maybe the boss is one of the PCs father or relative to all of them, so theyll seek vengance.

its all about what kind of campaing you want to carry.

I think the idea of starting at an organization, then losing it and them maybe doing some quest to form another one will be pretty interesting and will be rol heavy, but entertaining.

Between the gaps of finding new members and alies with same interest, you can throw them sidequest where the y fight OR RECRUIT monsters to help the party.

Im getting excited just thinking about it xD

ThirdEmperor
2011-02-08, 12:44 AM
What Lomi said sounds like the best idea. Also, at some point: Wipe out the Ewoks. This is a required part of any evil campaign, Star Wars or no.

Mauther
2011-02-08, 02:36 AM
depending on your players you may want to keep the BBEG around. Some evil parties have a hard time cooperating without the firm yet murderous discipline of an evil overlord. As far as the scenarios, just go grab any cheap FR scenario, and just back track to when the evil side starts to lose. Or maybe just as fun, make them evil mercenaries. Kind of the Evil version of SWAT. When generaic villians are in the process of being wiped out by some crusading goodie two shoes he can hire your group to bail his tentacles out of the fire.

DragonOfUndeath
2011-02-08, 02:54 AM
Working for a BBEG is usually good for low-levels. When they get higher either have them kill him (A) or have them be killed by Adventurers several levels above them (B).

(A) Come up with a way to have them stick together and NOT backstab each other. Prophecy is good and I have used it a few times.

(B) You now have a BGG (Big Good Group). Throw them some side-plots but focus on getting back at the guys who killed their master.

Comet
2011-02-08, 04:39 AM
One thing I've found out about playing the bad guys is that the players usually want to do it to escape from the usual "but thou must" mentality of being a hero. They want to be their own masters, and masters of the world while they're at it.

As such, and as already said in this thread, I'd recommend using the evil overlord NPC sparingly. Maybe for the first few sessions you can use him to steer the PCs at the right general path, but then something dramatic happens and the overlord is either disabled or driven to oppose the NPCs through circumstances.

Besides, evil vs. evil games are awesome. No one needs to feel bad about beating the enemy, either in character or out of it, and you can go all out with the scale and desperation of the war. And it's usually more personal, too, since evil PCs and NPCs both tend to have very strong motivations to them.

edit: Oh, and dragonriding needs to figure in there somewhere. Doesn't have to be literal dragons, but bad guys love to ride huge beasts of war and dominate the countryside with fear when they march past.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-08, 04:55 AM
Besides, evil vs. evil games are awesome. No one needs to feel bad about beating the enemy, either in character or out of it, and you can go all out with the scale and desperation of the war. And it's usually more personal, too, since evil PCs and NPCs both tend to have very strong motivations to them.



Completly agree with Comet.
There is no need to be EVIL vs Good.

Mmmm, A plot twist: Make your Pcs think that the Evil guys are The Good guys. This will make them think about their morality limitation while they dont have such. :xykon:


"Sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with...another kind of evil" -Aereon, Chronicles of Riddick.

Sillycomic
2011-02-08, 05:40 AM
The first thing an evil BBEG needs to do is to eliminate the competition.

This includes that evil cult which has been grabbing for power ever since it's main cleric got that really sweet new macguffin.

His old group of adventurers that recently disbanded from the BBEG to start up their own group to try to take down their former boss.

The evil wizard who is very close to getting the mayor, duke, king (whatever) and will perhaps begin changing legislature in his own favor.


Plus... isn't there a rumor around town that says the best guarded bank has some powerful new item that the BBEG wants for himself?

Perhaps if there's an "incident" on the border between this kingdom and another one close by, wouldn't someone send a bunch of troops and infantry out there? Which would make any sort of coop inside of the country that much easier?

Doesn't the cleric of the BBEG have this awesome new spell that grants cool powers and whatnot, but has a bunch of random ingredients that need to be gathered around some random mountainside? A cyclop's eye? Owlbear talon? The wind of an air elemental?

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot my favorite one. There is a mob boss still conducting business from inside of a prison. So it's the adventurers job to get into the prison and assassinate this guy however they can, and then escape.

Bonus points for their clever ways of getting into the prison.


By the time you have run these simple one shot adventures (you could stretch some of these out to a couple of sessions) then you can actually figure out what it is the BBEG wants to do with all of this.

Although, personally I would make the BBEG a crazy paranoid jerk who isn't doing this with any sort of plan in mind, but moreso because the voices in his head tell him to do these things. The clever thing you should do is not make it very obvious that he's crazy and the stuff he's doing is random until the adventures have the power and opportunity to take him out...

Then, you've got decent leveled adventurers with the perfect opportunity to do whatever they want with the chaos that the BBEG left behind. It's up to them and how creative they are.

Yora
2011-02-08, 06:34 AM
I do it for every campaign, but I think it's even more important for evil groups: Ask the players what kind of group they want to play. A group of random good characters without a shared backstory can be made to work together for some greater good they all agree on. But evil characters usually do anything they do only for their own benefit, so it's important that all the characters have a shared personal goal. And once the players told you what backstory their group has, it's a lot easier to come up with a plot that would make these characters work well together.

I used to play in a group of almost entirely evil characters that turned to rotating GMs, but wanting to make adventures that have at least some trace of plot I went for the lowest common denominator: greed and pride!
In the last session they had stormed a small keep on the frontier and kicked the local mercenaries out. The session ended there and I was my turn. So I started the next session with a group of farmers from a nearby village comming to the keep and falling to their knees before the PCs and begging for their help with some local crisis. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but the farmers offered their eternal servitude if the PCs would save their village. They got a castle and they got a bunch of willing serfs. And of course, they took the bait. Owing a cool keep and having minions who praise you is awsome. And they instantly swallowed the bait.
Now all the GMs had to do to get tem motivated is to get some people or monster threatening to plunder their little duchy. These guys would not tollerate anyone trying to steal their stuff and damage their silver mining opperation in the nearby hills. Defending their money and their pride was something they all could agree on.

Gravitron5000
2011-02-08, 08:29 AM
(B) You now have a BGG (Big Good Group). Throw them some side-plots but focus on getting back at the guys who killed their master.

But they're evil. What do they care about their master. If the good guys stormed their master's lair, confiscated all the character's stored stuff, and set up shop in their former home, now that should get an evil party motivated into action.

The Big Dice
2011-02-08, 08:37 AM
I don't see that there's any massive differences between a Bad Guys and a Good Guys campaign. Other than the type ofopponent you'll be facing.

Instead of low level adventurers raiding dungeons and thinning out the kobold and goblin populations, they're raiding villages and thinning out the halfling population.

Instead of mid level adventurers butting heads with evil clerics and Blackguards, they're butting heads with good clerics and paladins.

Instead of high level adventurers founding hte Kingdom of Good because they were nice to Lord Happy, they found the Empire of Evil by backstabbing and betraying Duke Dastardly.

And so on.

Take all the sort of things you'd be expecting to do in a normal D&D game, then give them a spin so that the PCs are playing the side that PCs are usually stomping on.

Callista
2011-02-08, 08:39 AM
Hey, Evil PCs make their own plot anyway. They're going to have their own plans, and chances are the world won't be in one piece when they're done with it.

Here's something my DM did--we have a mixed-alignment group but it should work for any--He had everybody just write a few paragraphs of backstory, and used plot hooks based on the backstories. It's working quite well so far, and integrates the PCs nicely with the campaign world.

There's no need to have them fight Good-aligned enemies. Your characters' boss is just as likely to want to take out rivals as he is wanting to squash Good-aligned opposition. (Which is a bonus for you; Good enemies are in short supply, so you can use the Evil ones too.)

Otherworld Odd
2011-02-08, 07:33 PM
You may want to talk to your players.

If you say they want to play anti-heroes, do they mean villains or do they mean anti-hero? It's a completely different thing.

A definition of anti-hero: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism or courage.


Meaning they still do good things. They're just not "Good-guys" and wouldn't go to the extent that the good-guys would.


However, it seems that you know they mean villains. I've had this problem with plots in evil campaigns as it usually comes down to mindless sandbox slaughter. Perhaps they could be minions of the BBEG and eventually overthrow him in power, or perhaps they could be on their own journey. Dungeoneering, etc.

The Peon
2011-02-08, 07:51 PM
Take the Barrow of the Forgotten King, which is a non-campaign specific module, and have the group be sent after the origanal evil group to clean up the mess. The module is pretty good and leads to more adventures. Plus it gives you a group of good adventures for the evil troop to fight regularly.

You may have to beef up the dungeon, by adding monsters that haven't been killed before by the Good Guy Group or the first expidition, and do a little work to show that the other people have been there.

Blue Bandit
2011-02-09, 12:00 AM
You may want to talk to your players.

If you say they want to play anti-heroes, do they mean villains or do they mean anti-hero? It's a completely different thing.

A definition of anti-hero: A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism or courage.


Meaning they still do good things. They're just not "Good-guys" and wouldn't go to the extent that the good-guys would.



Hey, thanks for the clarifications. I didn't know there was a difference between villains and anti-heroes, hehe, learn something new everyday:smallbiggrin:

Anyways, yes, the players wish to play villains. Thanks everybody for the advise and suggestions, you've all giving me some great ideas to start with. I'm thinking now that once the plot thickens after several adventures,(taking out a few rivals, stealing magic items ect,) and the Pc's are high enough level to stand on their own two feet, I'll have the BBEG betray them in some dastardly fashion, opening up a great adventure as the Pc's try to plot revenge on their former employer. All the while keeping them on their toes with a sub-plot of being chased by a good adventuring party and/or city guards with lawful-good bounty hunters.

Also, I might have the BBEG on the search for a powerful world-ending artifact. Then see if the players will attempt to "beat him to it." It would be fun to then watch the players struggle with the moral dilemma of either inadvertently saving the world, selling said artifact for profit, or using it to destroy the world themselves. Thanks GITP, you guys got my creative juices flowing