tips for evil campaign?

[Deremir]

so im in the process of making a free roam sandbox campaign and ive talked to some of my players about what characters they want to play, so far (seperatly from eachother) they have decided to be a:

evil lich spell caster that blows up squirrels for fun
a brute fighter that wants to overthrow the government for the giggles
and a chaotic evil rouge/fighter multiclass little girl that can transform into a demon

suffice to say this campaign seems to be diving headfirst into the deep end of the alignment pool. the problem is that i have never dmed a evil campaign before, so could anyone please give me some tips on what to expect and what needs to be different from a good campaign? thank you.
edit:d&d3.5

[Fouredged Sword]

It sounds like they want to play a silly game. Don't be afraid of absurdity. Make good incompetent and stupid. Let them have their power trip.

[weckar]

Make the government composed of a race of hyper intelligent giant squirrels. BOOM common goal!

[Grim Portent]

First thing you'll need to do is make sure the players want to be evil rather than thinking themselves neutral or something, if they do want to be evil then don't make the NPCs they oppose evil as well. A lot of GMs run evil vs evil campaigns to get around moral qualms and it's annoying as hell. You don't play the Joker so you can kill Bane, you play the Joker so you can kill Batman.

Secondly ask them to avoid overt PvP. PCs can and should come into conflict, but it shouldn't happen every single session. A frequent problem in evil campaigns is that people who don't think about the consequences wind up doing a lot of 'because I can' petty backstabbing towards allied NPCs and the other PCs.

Thirdly just because the PCs are evil doesn't mean the whole world will be against them, (unless they screw up bigtime anyway) there will be a lot of people who would ally with them to achieve common goals. Based on what you've said they want to play a good plot would be them joining a rebellion against a LG/LN nation, that satisfies the desire to overthrow a government for giggles, the Lich could be after an artifact held by the royals that will grant ultimate cosmic power (or free popcorn for life, chaotic evil can be weird.) and the rogue could be in it for power, money, fame and the chance to kill people.

An organised rebellion plot also gives them access to things that would often get cut off in an evil campaign like shops and merchants, normally it would be hard to deal with traders that know who you are, but a rebellion plot makes room for a black market to fill that role.

[John Longarrow]

Evil has all of the problems of a good game with a few extra's...
1) Talk to the players about evil games. Make sure they don't view this as a Player VS Player situation.
2) Make the Players come up with in character reasons for their characters to not only adventure together, but to get along in the first place
3) Make sure they have some maturity when running their characters. If one decides that they will be sexually assaulting small buildings, make sure the other players would be OK with this.

Most important, talk to the players about how they want to deal with in-party conflict. Some people get rather bent out of shape having to deal with other evil players who want to steal or fight.

[weckar]

Keep in mind as well that an Evil campaign is not necessarily a Chaotic campaign, much less an Insane one.

[John Longarrow]

a chaotic evil rouge/fighter multiclass little girl that can transform into a demon

This can be REAL FUN if you let them run a quasit that has "Little Girl" as an alternate form instead of an animal form...

Little girl turns back into true form when she wants to do nasty things. Definitely gets creepy points. Also opens up some unique prestigue classes. I'd just use a LA of less that 5 for the quasit. 3 is much closer to what it really gets (especially when you compair it to a +6 succubi).

[Red Fel]

As others have said, it sounds like they plan to have fun with their characters. I would advise you to set up some before-game guidelines to ensure that one player's fun does not cause the others players' un-fun: Sit them down before they put their characters to paper, and briefly come up with a reason they would have to work together in-character, before they go in character. One of the biggest causes of disintegration of evil campaigns is that the PCs have no incentive to collaborate - there is no "greater good" to be pursued, and so forth. Be sure they have that collaborative mindset coming into the game. Be sure they understand the difference between "evil" and "jerkwad." This is still a collaborative game, and their characters can still kick an abundance of puppies without deliberately ruining one another's fun. Towards that end, and somewhat controversially perhaps, I would not outlaw PvP, at least not moreso than in regular games. If one PC is an utter turd to the others, I think they would be justified - as Evil beings - to murder him to death, or worse. However, if you've made the collaborative aspect of the campaign clear, they will ideally lack any motivation to be complete jerks to one another.
Be warned that many players use evil characters in general, and evil campaigns in particular, as an excuse to make utter twits of themselves. Evil campaigns can splinter gaming groups, and in some cases ruin friendships. Do not attempt an evil campaign unless you are confident that the players are mature enough such that they won't simply hose one another at every opportunity.

[Yawgmoth]

Make the government composed of a race of hyper intelligent giant squirrels. BOOM common goal!Hyper-intelligence gained via being half-celestial, obviously.

[jedipotter]

The player vs. player can be a big probmen in an evil game. You might want to get everyone on the same page so you don't have an all out player vs player game. It is often not fun. And even if the players like the idea of fighting each other, make sure that you will have fun as the DM too. And as DM you have the extra burden of making sure all the players are happy. You might have to step in if one player starts to get it real bad.

You want to make sure the players understand not to just do stupid evil.

The game is a bit tricky when it comes to showing evil. You can't really show the role-playing side of evil. The players can enslave a whole town, but don't get much other then ''ok, everyone is your slave''. But it is easy to show evil like killing.

You might need to keep a lit on the slaughter. Too often evil character just kill, kill, kill. And it can be fun if done right, but if done wrong it is bad. Too often players be evil by killing townsfolk and other zero level people. This gets very old, very fast. As DM this can be horrable. ''Sigh, ok, you kill everyone in the tavern....again.''

You have to be careful the evil characters don't ruin the world. They can kill, steal, destroy, and do all sorts of evil effortlessly. But it has a huge impact on the world. For example if the characters take over the whole city, enslave them all, and then take all the gold in the city......they they have just destroied the city. The same is true if they slay like half the people of the city.

You need to keep tabs on magic. All to often an evil character will just kill for every magic item they want.

[weckar]

The game is a bit tricky when it comes to showing evil. You can't really show the role-playing side of evil. The players can enslave a whole town, but don't get much other then ''ok, everyone is your slave''. How is that? You can easily build a whole campaign around what they do with the slaves, how they enforce their power and how they deal with minor or major revolts.

[jedipotter]

How is that? You can easily build a whole campaign around what they do with the slaves, how they enforce their power and how they deal with minor or major revolts.

Well...depends. But chances are it will not be as much fun as you think...

So everyone is a slave. The characters have them make a mansion. That will take like a year....a year where nothing happens. The slaves wake up, work, and sleep. Running the salves is boring. What could happen that would effect a character. You'd have a evil fighter with a dark weapon.....who like signs work scrolls and says ''work faster''. Not too much fun.

You can't really do much of a 'revolt' in D&D. Most of the slaves will be 1st level blanks....they can't take on even a 2nd level character. And it is even worse if the character's have magic.

The ''evil'' a salvery, just does not translate well into the game.

[Blackhawk748]

Everybody has raised some good points, another thing to remember is that some people have different limits as to how much evil they want. Find out what your players upper limit is and thats where everyone needs to stop. Ive played an evil game and some of them got into territory i didnt wanna be in, after they stopped we went back to having a good time.

[Deremir]

thank you all so much for your advice i found it extreamly helpfull!:smallbiggrin: i think i now have a nice grasp how to run the game, im going to make sure that if there identitese as the evil monsters they are is exposed they will be persued by verrious groups of heros, both adventuring partys and groups of kights and avengers. i think if they do enslave a town they should be kept fairly occupied by the goverments retaliation and the monsters attacking the town since they emslaved the people defending it, on a side note each of them seems to have the thaught that they will be the only evil person in the group and will have to hide it(to further instegate this ive told them there not allowed to discuss anything about their characters irl that hasent neen discovered in game:smallamused:) do you think this will cause a problem?


Well...depends. But chances are it will not be as much fun as you think...

So everyone is a slave. The characters have them make a mansion. That will take like a year....a year where nothing happens. The slaves wake up, work, and sleep. Running the salves is boring. What could happen that would effect a character. You'd have a evil fighter with a dark weapon.....who like signs work scrolls and says ''work faster''. Not too much fun.

You can't really do much of a 'revolt' in D&D. Most of the slaves will be 1st level blanks....they can't take on even a 2nd level character. And it is even worse if the character's have magic.

The ''evil'' a salvery, just does not translate well into the game.
the romans built a defensive wall/fort some 12 miles long in a week or two, im sure a alave force could do the same in double the time, albeit the structure very well might be sabotaged...

[JohnnyCancer]

Make the government composed of a race of hyper intelligent giant squirrels. BOOM common goal!

Reminded me of the rumor about the Lady of Pain being a bunch of squirrels with illusion spells.

[Talar]

Make the government composed of a race of hyper intelligent giant squirrels. BOOM common goal!

I fully endorse this idea. Also judging on their character concepts they want a silly game, which in order for you to enjoy you'll have to fully embrace it yourself.

[Hubert]

[...] on a side note each of them seems to have the thaught that they will be the only evil person in the group and will have to hide it(to further instegate this ive told them there not allowed to discuss anything about their characters irl that hasent neen discovered in game:smallamused:) do you think this will cause a problem?

I don't know if it can cause a problem, but I very much like the idea of each character trying to hide his "dark side" from his supposedly good partners. Hilarity could ensue.

[Arc_knight25]

Evil campaign you say. Need the PC's to stick together you say. Fear is the key to keep them together. I would assume that they are being sent out by a higher evil power. So that Higher evil power will need to keep tabs on the party as well as ensure they don't lose sight of their goals.

Find something that each of the characters holds dear(Loved one, item, promise of promotion, anything your characters will show love or liking for during their adventures, because you know there is an agent of evil slinking in the shadows following them, or maybe just scrying on them, not like they would know.), then use the Higher evil to threaten them with it if they can't seem to work together.

Also during their adventures you can find ways for them to over through the Higher Evil come later in the game as a story arc so that they can install themselves as the Higher Evil.

Evil campaigns can be fun with the right group of people. If things are looking like they are going south I would switch up the campaign so there would be no hard feelings. It can be hard to find a dedicated group of DnD goers sometimes.