New DM and evil campaign

[Nitties]

Hello, this is my first post.
Anyway, recently i have taken a shot a DMing and found that im stumbling in to some issues.

the first is that the way my brain works, I only have the urge to run evil campaigns. ether its because if find the story telling easier, or im just a big jerk i cant run a game effectively any other way.

The second is i don't have alto of time on my hands to set up a hole campaign, so i prefer to run those pre-made modules dnd has. but i just can seam to find any that i like for evil characters.

Does any one know of an evil campaign that would involve the 9 hells. i just picked up the fiendish codex 2. and having them run around there sounds like it would be a blast for all
preferable an evil campaign that starts low level n then goes till high level.

any help would be great thx

[Nettlekid]

Although I know it's not what you want to hear, my advice is that you don't go through with that. All the things you mentioned add together to make things very complicated and troublesome.

For starters, evil campaigns are a little harder than nonevil ones because you need to somehow convince the party to work together and not slaughter one another at the first opportunity. It's by no means impossible, but it's kind of tricky. It will also be hard to get them to do what you want. Because they're evil, they probably won't care about the legal system of wherever they are. In a regular campaign, players won't simply kill all shopkeepers they meet and steal items and immediately rule a kingdom not because they can't (most can) but because they're good enough people not to. If you give an evil campaign the chance, they could easily go that route, upturning all your hard work. And because you're a new DM, you probably won't see it coming and be able to stop it as well as a seasoned player might.

It's partly for the above reasons that there are very few evil modules, because gameplay doesn't really flow too well. There are just fewer printed options in general, including Good monsters to fight. To make a successful evil campaign, you'd probably end up homebrewing a lot (a friend of mine is running an almost-totally-homebrew evil campaign, and I think it's working better than a non-homebrew would). But because you don't have a lot of time on your hands, whatever you make would end up being either slapdash or just not fulfilling enough. And you'd probably get frustrated when the players find their way around what you have put time and effort into.

Finally, you want an adventure exploring Baator, but that seems more the realm of heroes than villains. Unless you plan for them to make deals with devils and the king of hell, in which case it's not that much of an adventure and more like a long chat. If you want to explore in Baator, I suggest a heroic devil-slaying campaign or something to that effect. There are more options for you, there are probably modules of that, and it enables you to use the Fiendish Codex II to provide enemies.

[Chilingsworth]

Well, there's the Way if the Wicked Pathfinder adventure path. Even though it's pathfinder, it should be convertable to 3.5 without too much trouble. Unfortunately, afaik it doesn't involve exploring Baator, though it can involve working with the church of Asmodeus (I don't know if that's the default evil power you're supposed to work for, but it is the one my group is working for in this campaign.) Also, it has a built-in way of keeping the characters working together: infernal contracts signed by the PC's at the begining of the campaign.

I wouldn't try creating my own evil campaign as a first time dm, though.

[Story]

There are just fewer printed options in general, including Good monsters to fight.

What's wrong with fighting normal monsters?

[Chilingsworth]

One thing you might consider is running a Blood War campaign. It could take place on the Planes. It could be (fairly) simple to run (the PC's just take on waves of demons/devils (depending on what side they fight for), and there would be something to keep them from abandoning the campaign (the threat of your bosses' eating you if you're fighting for the demons, loyalty and the threat of your bosses eating you if you're fighting for the devils.)

It would be a decent starting point, anyway.

[Morbis Meh]

You can run any module you like and have the players be evil as possible, heck my DM is running the Drow War and we are stealing everyones left shoe and punching puppies evil (well at least my character is). You just need to tweak NPC actions slightly and instead of Mighty Heroes saving the world from evil they would be Eviler villains taking out competition so they can conquer what is rightfully theirs

[ArcturusV]

I think far too many people get hung up on the idea that Evil = Out to Betray Everyone. Honestly I've had as much trouble with supposedly "good" PCs, and Neutral PCs, backstabbing the party as I have had with "evil" PCs.

Just because you're evil, doesn't mean you can't work with others. Maybe Chaotic Evil if you take the strict madman cackling fiend read of the alignment... but Lawful Evil is built on working in systems. And Neutral Evil societies exist in most settings (Most Orc and Goblinoid nations end up on that alignment and they are at least stable enough to maintain across several generations, feats that some otherwise Neutral or Good kingdoms struggle with in most settings).

Sadly I can't think of any good campaigns fitting your criteria for 3rd/3.5. You MIGHT want to look at 2nd edition adventure modules, if you can find them. I vaguely remember a lot of them had a "and if you're evil..." option built into them. Like the Icewind Dale adventure module where basically it was the same adventure as it would be for Good, with just different motivations and a different set of end bosses, and a different launching point for further adventures. You could probably rip the guts out of any 2nd edition module, just replace Monster/NPC statistics with near clones. Call it decent enough and run with it. At the very least it'd save you time writing plots, mapping, etc.

[Systole]

Another vote for Way of the Wicked. I'm having a blast with my antipaladin. He is unspeakably evil.

[Nitties]

o wow, :smallsmile: thank you guys so much for the input so fast... and detail lol

I do get what you mean Nettlekid, i do tend to get myself in trouble by doing things im not prepaid for as a dm lol

N ArcturusV im with you, just because your a bad guy doesn't mean you are a bad guy lol. its the evil sides that i find to be the most interesting.

thx guys.

now does any one know of a campaign (good,evil, or neutral) that is decent n goes from lvl 1-20? all i really need is an interesting start, that way if i do want to push in a different direction, i don't have my hole party leave... again... jerks...

[Nitties]

oops sry didn't see that way of the wicked lol
thx for the heads up, ill go check it out

[ArcturusV]

You know what kinda weird idea just popped into my head?

There was an old module called "Reverse Dungeon". Which casts the players as the typically "evil" side and as I remember was a lot of fun Back in the Day(tm). Basically the idea being the players were Goblins, Orcs, etc, tyring to figure out how to defend their homes against crusading and looting Adventurers.

[EarFall]

If the team is lawful evil, there is no reason other than bias of people against the word "evil" that they wont work together. I could argue that it would function better than most parties, in fact... provided they all have the same patron. THAT part is also important.

[Nitties]

O, ya ArcturusV i did see that reverse dungeon. But the thing is from what i read is that every encounter/ thing you start over as new characters, and my group would linch me if i tryed that lol.

So i checked out that Way of the Wicked Book One: Knot of Thorns n its just what i was thinking of, thx you guys so much. i know im gonna switch it too 3.5... um anyone doing that, or have seen that n got any tips i could use?

[Chilingsworth]

O, ya ArcturusV i did see that reverse dungeon. But the thing is from what i read is that every encounter/ thing you start over as new characters, and my group would linch me if i tryed that lol.

So i checked out that Way of the Wicked Book One: Knot of Thorns n its just what i was thinking of, thx you guys so much. i know im gonna switch it too 3.5... um anyone doing that, or have seen that n got any tips i could use?

Well, my group plays a (mostly) 3.5 homebrew system (primary differences: pathfinder rules for XP, Combat Manuvers, and Turning/Rebuking (i.e. replace them with channel energy.)) It works ok for us. You might have to rebuild the NPC's, though since some pathfinder classes are different enough to warrant it. Then again, you might get away with leaving the NPC's as they are if your players agree not to use combat manuvers. (Gappling, tripping, sundering, etc.)

[sabelo2000]

I loved Reverse Dungeon! I need to find a copy of that somewhere and update it for my group, it will make a great one-off!