Evil Campaign for Dummies

[KnotKnormal]

Alright, I'm running my first ever evil campaign, I'm a fairly experienced DM but once again this is my first evil campaign. I have a setting, a plot, and a plethora of shinys to dangle in front of my players. however how do I combat the players that don't want to hop on the plot train, or fall into the "Chaotic Stupid" category? I imagine it will be kind of like herding kittens, where i need to find what works in order to lore each player toward the end goal. Any advice?

Thanks in Advance.

[Alex12]

Ask the players, OOC, what motivates their characters. You want to make a fun campaign, they want to play a fun campaign. If you can get them to help you work out why their character is hanging out with those idiots (the rest of the party) and the sorts of things they want in-character, then you can tailor plot hooks toward that.

[Blackjackg]

With a creative DM and skilled roleplayers for players, an evil campaign is pretty similar to a good campaign--you just replace the "to save the world" motivation to do things with a "because it's to your benefit" motivation. Alex12 is right: getting to know each character's individual goals is a must. Without the necessity to do the right thing, the characters will tend to do the thing that brings them closer to their own goal. It's your responsibility as the shepherd of plot to make sure that your plot always synchs up with each character's individual goals.

In most fantasy worlds, it's understood that the PCs are not the biggest, baddest things around. That's usually motivation enough for them not to wander too far down the Chaotic Stupid path. They know that if they start doing things like burning down towns for no reason, sooner or later some powerful force of Good or Law will come to stomp them and take their loot. If that's not the case in your campaign, you might well have trouble keeping the PCs on track-- there's just not much you can do besides making them face the natural consequences of their actions.

If you do have one or two players stepping off the narrow path of pretending-to-be-decent, give them a little scare early on... after their second or third infraction, have the town guard knock them out with nonlethal damage and throw them in jail, until the rest of the team can break them out. If they still don't get the message, allow an encounter to kill a character and get the player to roll up a new one (again, stick to the sensible, natural consequences of their actions-- if your players get the idea that you're killing characters out of spite, you won't have a game very long). Of course, if your players are having fun burning your campaign world to the ground, it may be better to just let them do it. Better to keep the plot in your back pocket for a future game than try to shoehorn players into it if they just want to have fun being Chaotic Evil.

[Red Fel]

Seconding what the others have already said (know your players' motivations) and take it a step further - have a sit-down with the players in advance. Tell them to suspend their disbelief for a moment, suspend their immersion, and very simply create a team that has a reason to stay together without killing each other.

Not all players are Chaotic Stupid or Backstabbing Evil, but if they all come into the game expecting to work together as a team, it avoids a lot of future unsightly developments.

Let them ruminate on why they'll be working together, and then ask them for that reason. Work around that. Implement it in the game. For example, if they all have a rival or a common employer, that's something. Or perhaps each has a unique goal, and requires the assistance of others to achieve it; sort of a "you scratch my back, I slaughter your enemies" deal. For example, if one of them is a wizard working with the party because he needs their help to perfect his phylactery and become a lich, put resources in the party's path that will enable that, but require the entire party (rather than the wizard alone) to acquire them. If another is a barbarian who believes that he will achieve great power by eating the heart of one of each metallic dragon, be sure to steer the party in that direction, while giving the party incentive to help him. And if one intends to help the party gain power so that he can slaughter them all and exchange their souls for a lifetime supply of pudding, throw a book at him and tell him to do it over again.

Really, motivating an evil party is exactly like motivating a non-evil party, but it requires a bit of an understanding in advance of the game.

[MonochromeTiger]

Seconding what the others have already said (know your players' motivations) and take it a step further - have a sit-down with the players in advance. Tell them to suspend their disbelief for a moment, suspend their immersion, and very simply create a team that has a reason to stay together without killing each other.

Not all players are Chaotic Stupid or Backstabbing Evil, but if they all come into the game expecting to work together as a team, it avoids a lot of future unsightly developments.


that's always been a fairly vital part of an evil campaign, making sure the players don't foolishly think evil means kill everyone around you just to prove you're evil. there are ways to make it so you can go on a psychotic stabbing spree but that will usually end in a complete lack of story progression as no one lives long enough or is positively motivated enough to tell them something that will help them in their goals, barring the goal being to kill everything that moves, might move, could potentially have moved at some point in time, or will move if you push it hard enough.

establishing a level of respect and even trust between evil characters can lead into a way of unifying their goals, giving character growth and plot development based around their varying strengths and weaknesses and how they deal with threats to their allies, and by extent their own, plans. one extremely simple form of this, but not one I'm sure I fully recommend as it can occasionally lead to a trigger pulling moment, is presenting them with a case of mutually assured destruction. if one player tries to backstab another they are known to be untrustworthy and it is a matter of self preservation for the others to wipe them out.

another thing that sometimes gets overlooked in keeping an evil campaign interesting is not going too far with the good aligned response to the players' actions. if they sack a town and people are clearly getting away and they do nothing, sure send a response, but don't have a successful subtle takeover of land get countered by the "kind and noble prince and his forces" showing up to stop the evil-doers they had no logical reason to assume were there. nor should the forces of good get some deus ex machina reasoning for why you can't stamp out the weakened remnants of an enemy in hiding until they spontaneously get a gigantic army and triple their power, something that a few adventure paths don't seem to get is that sometimes players like playing evil characters with a bit of logic rather than to be the obstacle for an aspiring heir to the throne's happy ending.

and to end my response, keeping your players on task will not be like herding kittens, kittens are adorable and playful and it's difficult to tire of their antics, players are semi-reasonable and potentially mature human beings capable of expressing their thoughts and actions verbally in a manner you'll understand... the players will be much worse than kittens if they have to be herded.

[Zanos]

Remember that Evil characters are not necessarily emotionless husks. An Evil character can have people that they legitimately care about. They can have friends, lovers, or children that they will strive to protect. For a king or lord, this may even extend to their subjects or their kingdom. They will not necessarily toss these people under the bus even if it benefits them, either. Caring about people you know is Neutral, not Good. On the other hand, they will be much more likely to not care at all about people they don't know or "innocents."

An Evil characters goals could be Good, but their methodology could be morally reprehensible. Where Good has lines that shall not be crossed, Evil steps across those lines. It might not do these things happily, or even want to, but it does it because there are things that are more important to it than that line. I think two really important questions for creating a character are "What does this character want?" and "What is this character willing to do to achieve that?"

I feel like when a lot of people first make or DM Evil characters they think of the wrong characters. Yeah The Emperor of Star Wars fame is Evil, but he's practically a living embodiment of the universes manifestation of Evil. Think of characters like Magneto, Lelouch, Frank Castle, or Kratos. All of these are characters that would be considered of Evil alignment by D&D standards, but have motivations that are sympathetic or at least interesting, rather than being shallow jerks because they feel like it.

I guess at the core you want to make your players realize than an Evil character is still a person, and alignment should not dictate your ever action. I'm pretty sure every Evil character I've ever played would tell a Paladin of Slaughter to take a hike.