Monolithic Evil

[Toy Killer]

So, many years ago, I started ranting about how I never understood monolithic evil entities. Groups of baddies that put aside their differences to work together as one big evil happy family. Whenever the topic comes up, it immediately breaks my foundation of immersion. It works in Saturday morning cartoons because we weren't supposed to look to deeply into it and it advances the plot.

I've only seen it played off once to great effect in a one off (Which, in turn, became a 7-off game, of sorts) where the players were the evil entities and the whole point of the game was to screw each other over and bring upon our own sense of domination to the world. (And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that damn Demonologist and his meddling... demons? :smallconfused:)

Getting into the discussion again regarding the weight of role-playing decisions and setting up intrigue and why monolithic evil empires don't work, I've started to look back at the evil pact game with fond memories and have been tossing the idea around to run a version of it for myself.

But in a 3.5/Pathfinder setting, simply being high level and evil doesn't give you the overlord feeling of having minions out running errands. We were all given Leadership as a bonus feat, and had a few extra bags of goodies in terms of locations and such, but the game was nearly 12 years ago and I don't remember the details that well. Plus, as soon as Leadership was placed in front of us, one player quickly realized the sheer power of pumping his charisma score, and he was able to overwhelm with demonic forces over the land, almost to the point of breaking said immersion, as we started to ask why he would be bothered to joining in on the pact if he really didn't need it.

So, now, I'm looking at making some kind of psuedo-point buy system. distributed into a few different scores that would give the overlords something to lord... over:smallconfused:. (I'm full of recursive statements today). But I'm not sure how to balance it out without making it managing rosters and playing personal management with a maligned twist.

I was thinking about Project Slaughterhouse off of Angry DM's Blog, but I'm not sure how to make that into a workable player mechanic for the PCs. Ultimately, I want a fun, easy system for the players to struggle for a higher footing before inevitable backstabbing to occur and the game to create it's own climax, or do you think I'm trying to make lightning strike twice?

Please, any ideas or comments. I've been in Cali for 3 months now and don't have a game rolling out yet, and I'm worried my cranium is going to explode without a creative outlet.

[Epsilon Rose]

Out of curiosity, why do you consider monolithic evil organization so immersion breaking?

[Andezzar]

I think you equate Evil with "Evil for the sake of Evil" or "Evil because my god told me so". Those kinds of people don't really work well together.

Now if on the other hand you create a working organization which has evil goals and/or uses evil methods to achieve its goals. You have a whole new level of connection between its members. The members do not even need to think they're evil. Their actions speak for them.

Also there is the issue of perception. If you tell the story about a few heroes who oppose The Evil Empire, the antagonists will appear a lot more homogenous than they really are. It on the other hand you focus on a couple of characters within that Evil Empire, you will get a lot more nuances. There may be those who wholly stand behind the ideology, those that simply go along to further their own agendas, because they think it is easier that way and those who simply think they have no choice but to follow for fear of reprisals.

[Red Fel]

Also there is the issue of perception. If you tell the story about a few heroes who oppose The Evil Empire, the antagonists will appear a lot more homogenous than they really are. It on the other hand you focus on a couple of characters within that Evil Empire, you will get a lot more nuances. There may be those who wholly stand behind the ideology, those that simply go along to further their own agendas, because they think it is easier that way and those who simply think they have no choice but to follow for fear of reprisals.

This.

When dealing with an evil campaign, each evil PC will be individually fleshed out, nuanced, and motivated. There may be little or no reason, once they're sufficiently powerful to make their own way, to work together.

This is similarly the motivation behind the Blood War. Demons and Devils may both be evil, but they don't have to play nice together. Once you focus on them as individual groups, instead of as "evil Outsiders," differences arise which distinguish them from one another.

You can take that individuality further. Devils are, generally speaking, viewed as monolithically evil. Yet if we look at the archdevils, we see power struggles and differing motivations amongst them. Again, once we start looking at them as individuals instead of as a group, they become less monolithic.

But that's also true of the good guys, isn't it? Do you really think the reason that heroes should work together is "We're all good guys here?" That's just a little trite, really. I can think of plenty of reasons why an individual hero would leave the party, either to join another group or strike out on his own. How many parties have a sneaky, conniving rogue and an upright, ethical paladin, for example? Surely, they should have killed each other by now!

And that's just it. Any group, when viewed from the general lens of oh these guys can appear monolithic. But as soon as you start breaking them down into smaller groups, you'll notice the differences between these smaller groups that should keep them from working together.

But when you zoom back out to the larger view? The problem vanishes, and the monolith is all that's left.

[Andezzar]

I wouldn't go as far as say the shouldn't work together. There are reasons why they should and why the shouldn't work together. Since they obviously do work together, the reasons for cooperation must have been more compelling - or at least at the moment are.

[Toy Killer]

I find monolithic Evil to be immersion breaking because the branding of evil tends to be selfish and lazy.

For example, since I just saw Kick *ss 2, We see Kick Ass ramp up his game by sparring and working out with Hit Girl. When we look over to see what Mother F*cker is up to, he tries to learn how to fight with some of the best MMA trainers in the world, and eventually just pays one fighter to wail down on the other, claiming money is his super power.

When you look at it wide spread, much like the 9 hells, an evil person may have evil motivations, but he doesn't just want to be number one, he wants to crush number two under the boot of his heel, with a short cut and sneaky use of Iocaine powder.

The idea of evil putting aside their differences to work under a common umbrella is very interesting, but I can't, for the life of me, believe that people who lied, cheated and stole their way to where they are to simply shrug and decide to play nice for an extended amount of time.

You siege a stronghold with the end in mind. you don't break the walls if you want to take it for yourself and you don't storm the castle if you can just starve them to death instead. If you want to destroy the castle before it can play a pivotal role, you don't wait for months for everyone to starve out. If you want to display force, you storm the castle and throw causalities out of your mind.

With that in mind, those subtle nuances start to make different plans for how you go in taking on the castle. And with a group of people paranoid at tipping their hands, working together, and anyone gaining anything out of it starts to become absurd. Too many moving pieces when you have to guard your flank, your patsy's flank, take on the castle and repeat this by each group within the monolithic evil.

No wonder the 9 Hells are so political in nature...

[Red Fel]

I find monolithic Evil to be immersion breaking because the branding of evil tends to be selfish and lazy.

For example, since I just saw Kick *ss 2, We see Kick Ass ramp up his game by sparring and working out with Hit Girl. When we look over to see what Mother F*cker is up to, he tries to learn how to fight with some of the best MMA trainers in the world, and eventually just pays one fighter to wail down on the other, claiming money is his super power.

When you look at it wide spread, much like the 9 hells, an evil person may have evil motivations, but he doesn't just want to be number one, he wants to crush number two under the boot of his heel, with a short cut and sneaky use of Iocaine powder.

The idea of evil putting aside their differences to work under a common umbrella is very interesting, but I can't, for the life of me, believe that people who lied, cheated and stole their way to where they are to simply shrug and decide to play nice for an extended amount of time.

You siege a stronghold with the end in mind. you don't break the walls if you want to take it for yourself and you don't storm the castle if you can just starve them to death instead. If you want to destroy the castle before it can play a pivotal role, you don't wait for months for everyone to starve out. If you want to display force, you storm the castle and throw causalities out of your mind.

With that in mind, those subtle nuances start to make different plans for how you go in taking on the castle. And with a group of people paranoid at tipping their hands, working together, and anyone gaining anything out of it starts to become absurd. Too many moving pieces when you have to guard your flank, your patsy's flank, take on the castle and repeat this by each group within the monolithic evil.

No wonder the 9 Hells are so political in nature...

"Evil wants to be number 1" is a safe, if not completely accurate, estimate of the alignment's motivations. Most Evil characters (ignoring for a moment the Lawful Evil samurai or dark knight-types) are primarily selfish, concerned with self-advancement. That does not, however, make them lazy.

An excellent illustration of industrious, hardworking, and surprisingly affable evil is David Xanatos. Here is someone who will lie, cheat, and steal to get his way. He will make enemies on an almost daily basis. He will also invite those people to his wedding. He will work with the very people who have sworn to destroy him, even those he himself has decided "If I can't own them, I'll crush them," when it suits his advantages. He is ruthless, antagonistic, and gleeful about it. He is also a man of his word, a caring husband (as loving as a person like him can be) and a doting parent. He respects his enemies; obviously, he must respect them, or they wouldn't be worthy of the title "enemy."

Xanatos is also an example of a villain that will work with other villains to achieve a common goal. Take the collaboration of Xanatos with Demona. His goal was to control the Gargoyles; hers was to show the Gargoyles how treacherous and unworthy humans were. Both of them were using the other as a foil; both knew it. Xanatos knew Demona would portray him as a base deceiver; Demona knew that Xanatos would try to control her as well as the other Gargoyles. Yet they collaborated, because at the end of the day, the end goal was more important.

Nobody would say they were one big, happy family. Yet they were able to reach a certain level of grudging respect, and generally didn't go out of their ways to kill each other. Generally.

Tl;dr version: Evil can work with other evil, even repeatedly or continuously, provided their goals are aligned and they are able to think in the long-term. Short-sighted evil can't collaborate very well without coercion. And smart evil should even be willing to work with good guys if it advances their goals - remember, their motivation often boils down to "me first."

[Fax Celestis]

The idea of evil putting aside their differences to work under a common umbrella is very interesting, but I can't, for the life of me, believe that people who lied, cheated and stole their way to where they are to simply shrug and decide to play nice for an extended amount of time.

You don't have to lie, cheat, or steal to be Evil. You just have to do things that are morally objectionable. A contract killer is Evil, but doesn't necessarily do any of those things.

Stop thinking in terms of Hollywood Evil and start thinking in terms of 'organized crime syndicate': the mafia certainly counts, as does the yakuza. The Nightingales in Skyrim, Sarif Industries in Deus Ex, Tri-Optimum in System Shock, the RDA in Avatar, the Umbrella Corporation, and basically anything here. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilInc)

Evil isn't always motivated by madness or a need to dominate or destroy. Sometimes its just motivated by profit, and sometimes its motivated by a misguided cause.

[Andezzar]

Evil isn't always motivated by madness or a need to dominate or destroy. Sometimes its just motivated by profit, and sometimes its motivated by a misguided cause.+1

Reducing it to the former two motivations pretty much always leads to lawful/chaotic Stupid - or hilarity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQm_Tx2VA5Q).

[Fouredged Sword]

That and there is just no other way to get it done. Say you are the Ratinator. Yes, you don't like anaconda man, and think he is the most irritating idiot of all time. You don't trust him, you don't like him, and you may one day kill him, but you REALLY want to beat the supper league of justice friends, so you deal with it. Why, because you are REALLY REALLY TIRED OF LOOSING! When good is really more powerful than evil, evil will do what it has to for a shot at the top of the ticket, even if that means playing second fiddle for a few of the crazy schemes.

[Andezzar]

That is one option. Also there is nothing that says evil people cannot like other (evil) people, or that they must be evil to everyone all the time. Look at Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle or Ryld Argith and Pharaun Mizzrym. They get along fine even without a common enemy.

[Killer Angel]

So, many years ago, I started ranting about how I never understood monolithic evil entities. Groups of baddies that put aside their differences to work together as one big evil happy family. Whenever the topic comes up, it immediately breaks my foundation of immersion. It works in Saturday morning cartoons because we weren't supposed to look to deeply into it and it advances the plot.


Mafia, drug smugglers, ancient empires with human sacrifices to hungry gods...
Do they break your immersion? :smallamused:

[Toy Killer]

Well, we could spend pages discussing what is or is not evil, the right or wrong way to display evil. but that's derailing the thread pretty hard.

I didn't want to discuss alignment issues, as I feel the system inhibits new players' role playing.

If Zim is a sorcerer, living in a tower where he occasionally delves into the planes of hell for supplies to sell like a planar level black market dealer, Zim is an evil person. (Just for simple sake of story).

I will define Monolithic evil, as opposed to simply a group of evil people; If over lord Zod has built an army of conquest, he is an evil organization or group.

when you get a number of Zims and Zods, who have no real connection to one another, and they form an organization of organizations, you have a monolithic evil.

Now, the difference between say, a Mafia, and Monolithic evil is one of scale, sure. I'm sure the money laundierers and street thugs have very different ideas behind what they want out of life, a different way of conducting business and different persona. But, that's not where Monolithic evil swings awide chaotically. The Dragon marches of Rilsa and The evil Necormancer of McIllian don't have anything to do with one another. They should have no pretense of working for one another. In the mafia, one only exists because of the other, people can move smoothly between one front to the other. In monolithic evil, the factions are rigid, as each group of people are founded and funded independantly.

It grinds my gears, I don't like it. You do? Fine, I'm not in your game group, and it does open up much more ground then these forces operating independently of each other. The idea of everyone the players don't like just shrugging and working together becuase they don't like the PCs is frustrating to me, because it never seems to rationalize well. But I didn't want to debate weather or not it's a functional trope of the setting, I'm playing with the idea as central basis for a game. Whatever! Doesn't matter.

I'm still looking for any ideas on how to manage players with factions under their control, that doesn't turn into a Microsoft excel sheet. Didn't AD&D Birthright have something like that?

[Red Fel]

Well, we could spend pages discussing what is or is not evil, the right or wrong way to display evil. but that's derailing the thread pretty hard.

I didn't want to discuss alignment issues, as I feel the system inhibits new players' role playing.

If Zim is a sorcerer, living in a tower where he occasionally delves into the planes of hell for supplies to sell like a planar level black market dealer, Zim is an evil person. (Just for simple sake of story).

I will define Monolithic evil, as opposed to simply a group of evil people; If over lord Zod has built an army of conquest, he is an evil organization or group.

when you get a number of Zims and Zods, who have no real connection to one another, and they form an organization of organizations, you have a monolithic evil.

Now, the difference between say, a Mafia, and Monolithic evil is one of scale, sure. I'm sure the money laundierers and street thugs have very different ideas behind what they want out of life, a different way of conducting business and different persona. But, that's not where Monolithic evil swings awide chaotically. The Dragon marches of Rilsa and The evil Necormancer of McIllian don't have anything to do with one another. They should have no pretense of working for one another. In the mafia, one only exists because of the other, people can move smoothly between one front to the other. In monolithic evil, the factions are rigid, as each group of people are founded and funded independantly.

It grinds my gears, I don't like it. You do? Fine, I'm not in your game group, and it does open up much more ground then these forces operating independently of each other. The idea of everyone the players don't like just shrugging and working together becuase they don't like the PCs is frustrating to me, because it never seems to rationalize well. But I didn't want to debate weather or not it's a functional trope of the setting, I'm playing with the idea as central basis for a game. Whatever! Doesn't matter.

I'm still looking for any ideas on how to manage players with factions under their control, that doesn't turn into a Microsoft excel sheet. Didn't AD&D Birthright have something like that?

It sounds like you're moving the goalposts.

An evil organization is almost the definition of monolithic evil. It is, basically, a faceless evil group, or a group sharing in the image and vision of its evil leader. That's the Evil Empire. That's every evil corporation, evil army, evil cartel, evil syndicate. They're all monolithic evil.

Now you're saying, "But wait, I'm talking about villain team-ups."

Of course villain team-ups aren't monolithic, because villains are individuals. Just as you can't say heroes are monolithic. Look at any team of heroes; if you tell me they're all completely on the same page about everything, I'll tell you they're either badly written and two-dimensional, or clones.

That doesn't stop the heroes from working together. And it doesn't stop villains, either.

You have your uber-lawful knight errant and your gleefully mischievous rogue with a heart of gold. If they weren't currently both tracking the sinister warlock who kidnapped the princess, they would probably be killing each other. The same mechanics apply to heroes as to villains.

I don't know many good DMs who play their villains as a team of bad-guys who shrug their shoulders, join hands, and sing kumbaya around a bonfire of their enemies' charred corpses. Plenty of good DMs pit their villains against each other, as well as the players, even while the villains are ostensibly working together. Especially when they're working together.

I don't think I understand your question anymore.

[johnbragg]

So, many years ago, I started ranting about how I never understood monolithic evil entities. Groups of baddies that put aside their differences to work together as one big evil happy family. Whenever the topic comes up, it immediately breaks my foundation of immersion. It works in Saturday morning cartoons because we weren't supposed to look to deeply into it and it advances the plot.

I think I understand what you're saying. But even on Saturday mornings, Starscream was always trying to topple Megatron.

An Alliance of Evil works if there's a good enough reason for it. If you have Superman and Batman running around, then it makes sense for Scarecrow and Lex Luthor to take each others' crap and work together.

You could base your Alliance of Evil on a scheme to get control of a MacGuffin artifact of ultimate power, and have all the BBEG PCs (I assume) plan to screw over everyone else and grab the artifact themselves, after they defeat those pesky paladins/druids/whatever.

Or your Monolithic Team Evil could be answering to a BBEG that terrifies your PC BBEGs. So the PCs are scheming to move up in the heirarchy, and/or bring each other down.

You said that your evil 3.5/PF PCs didn't really feel like Evil OVerlords. I'm not 100% sure that D&D/PF is the system you want to run for a lot of this. If you really want Evil Overlords competing with each other, they're going to do most of their fighting through their minions. Maybe you could run adventure contests between teams of minions? (The Ice Witch's team of adventurers and the DArk Lord of Dismal Swamp's team and an NPC team of goody-goods are searching the same dungeon for the same Whoosis?)

Or you might need a more mass-combat oriented system to run pitched battles between the factions.

[Toy Killer]

It sounds like you're moving the goalposts.

An evil organization is almost the definition of monolithic evil. It is, basically, a faceless evil group, or a group sharing in the image and vision of its evil leader. That's the Evil Empire. That's every evil corporation, evil army, evil cartel, evil syndicate. They're all monolithic evil.

Now you're saying, "But wait, I'm talking about villain team-ups."

http://www.jabootu.com/images/csfmetitle.JPG

The term "Monolithic Evil" was coined from the old Superfriends term. at least, that's what I know it from.

Typically, when a "monolithic evil is unrealistic" discussion comes up, it's from the blatant "Evil guys work together because Evil". Hell, if I'm not mistaken, I believe there is a blurb in some core rule book adressing the fact that Evil has a hard time working together on the basis that they are much more self driven rather then community driven. (I.E., they want to rule to be in power rather then want to rule to improve the lives of their kinsmen).

Regardless, this is still off topic.


You said that your evil 3.5/PF PCs didn't really feel like Evil OVerlords. I'm not 100% sure that D&D/PF is the system you want to run for a lot of this. If you really want Evil Overlords competing with each other, they're going to do most of their fighting through their minions. Maybe you could run adventure contests between teams of minions? (The Ice Witch's team of adventurers and the DArk Lord of Dismal Swamp's team and an NPC team of goody-goods are searching the same dungeon for the same Whoosis?)

Or you might need a more mass-combat oriented system to run pitched battles between the factions.

Maybe. I feel like I'm throwing the baby out with the bath water if I make it about WFB instead of D&D. Maybe I could convert something over and make it similar to Chainmail, where each group has their roster of minions and have to choose how to allocate it.

I suppose I could just use Iron Kingdoms, but that game is so entrenched with it's own fluff I don't think I could husk out the setting with the rules without serious issues... (I like the game, WarmaHordes and IK, but in role playing terms, I perfer to make my own setting.)