First time DM looking for help with a story

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Hi guys,

It's my first time DMing for my group of friends, as everybody has had a go except for me. I am happy to be doing it, however my story writing abilities are lacking to say the least, so you can see my problem. We have already done a fair few sessions so i want to bring something a little different. I have asked my friends and we would like to try running a story as evil characters for some variation in role playing, as well as trying out new styles of combat such as necromancy.

So moving on to the ideas i have so far:
- I want to do something involving the gods as i am a fan of clerics (as my group knows) so i was thinking i could have 3 evil gods and 3 good gods go to war. Perhaps for each faction, one god from each alignment (lawful, neutral, chaotic) as sort of a background for the story.
- I would like to base the campaign on a standard plane, but perhaps move towards invading one of the good god's domains to mix it up with a change of scenery, an i think it could be fairly interesting.
- Maybe the group was imprisoned by good forces and freed by their evil allies once the town was captured, any ideas on a starting place would be good, i don't want the standard ' you meet in an inn, now go' start.

If we assume that is what the basis if the campaign is, what could the groups task be. Are they converts from a conquered town fighting for evil so that their family is freed? Have they been tasked with escorting a valuable device to the gates of the opposing gods to aid with the siege? Is their mission to escort a prophet as he tries to defeat and convert valuable enemy targets? Is it a combination of a few missions? I really have no idea what works so i am looking for some input from you guys to help me to develop a flexible story that is fun to play. Things like why is there a war, what side quests could be encountered on the way, which monsters to put them up against, things i have little experience in.

If anybody would like to get a group together maybe on Skype for some brainstorming, i think that would work.

Please let me know what you think of what i have currently, and which direction you think i should go in. If you have made it this far thanks for reading the short essay i have just produced.

[Daishain]

Evil campaigns typically end (or begin) with party members betraying one another. They each tend to have their own agenda, and said agendas tend to be incompatible. Make sure the characters retain a compelling external reason to work together throughout. Even if it is in name only.

Also be prepared to spend a fair bit of time passing secret notes back and forth, or even running brief sections of the game with a portion of the party banned from the room.

[StoneCipher]

I've tried to run evil campaigns in the past and at least with my party, they always end up in the members just doing random acts of evil with no agenda and causing havoc.

If its your first time I strongly recommend staying away from letting loose on the evil theme. You can allow necromancy or something but if you center it around evil most of the time it fails.

Also, you're starting with a semi-difficult premise to sell, so be prepared for that. God vs God wars are very touchy as gods are not supposed to directly influence the material plane otherwise everyone else gets pissy. ESPECIALLY if you're using FR, Ao would flip some ****s.

Anyways, I recommend starting simple to get your storyline writing in order. Nothing is worse for a campaign than a story that isn't engaging. They say that idle hands are the devil's plaything and if your PCs are bored, they can rip your campaign apart by just doing whatever they want.

But if you want to continue in spite of all that, here are my suggestions:

-Start simple. Create some higher level faction leader NPCs that will reign the party in when they need to. You'll need to create a base to hideout in. Why not have it premade? Because the PCs will appreciate something they made more than something you did.

-Lay down the law. Use the aforementioned NPCs to lay ground rules. Get the party to realize that they need to work together and intelligently to create a greater evil. Use some initial team-building exercises to say rob some graves, kill some people (discreetly) for fresh corpses, etc. Use the NPCs as a guide to hint to the PCs on how to go about doing the tasks.

-Expand and reward. Hopefully by the time your PCs outlevel the NPC faction leaders, they will have some sense of teamwork and caution in doing their nefarious deeds. You can hand them the reins, or give them a greater sense of input into their organization. Ideally you want the initial phase of the secret hideout to be complete as well. Put in some crafting NPCs and or merchants. Now that they are officially an organization with some sense and purpose, they can proceed into doing bigger and badder things.

Past that you should be able to handle your progression nicely and if your party makes it that far they will likely be wiser and take the proper measures to execute their evil plans.

As for godly wars and such...

Hextor (LE) - Decides its time for Tyranny to reign supreme and tells his goody two shoes brother Heironeous (LG) to sod off.

Pelor sees all of this evil and is like wtf mate and jumps in (likely against Heironeous' will) (NG)

Hextor realizes he might need a little extra help and convinces Incabulos (NE) to do what he does best. Plagues, Disasters, and the like. If Hextor wants a NWO, he's going to need to break the current world.

Corellon Larethian (CG) just thinks that humans can't do anything right and will need them to stand aside as he and his elves clean up this mess.

Lolth (CE) sees Corellon jump in and decides in all of this chaos that it's time to exact some revenge.

Boccob (N) is all like go my minions and save all of the precious magical items and artifacts that you can. Because that's just what his cleric/wizards do. He could be used for some interesting sidequests.

[Lightlawbliss]

Before trying to make an evil campain, talk to each player away from the other players and find out what they think of when they say "evil campaign" and find out if they are leaning CE or LE. IMO, mostly CE parties is to be avoided at all cost (and every time somebody said they are NE in my groups, they quickly had their alignment shift to CE or they had no goal worth mentioning)

Whatever you do, make sure the evil people have an agenda, even if it is something as stupid as "destroy everything good". It will save you so much work.

[Shining Wrath]

Your players need freedom to decide for themselves why they are evil. A group discussion is OK, but DM fiat might not go over well.

Since your players are evil, the only reason for them to fight in the god wars is if it directly benefits them.

Perhaps they have caught the personal attention of some higher up in the evil pantheon, such as a demigod or arch-devil, and they are going to receive VERY personal attention in the hereafter if they die doing anything other than fighting in this war. That is, they either defeat Good or die trying; because dying peacefully in their beds means an eternity of whatever the worst a creative evil deity can contrive.

Or maybe one of the good gods has started a crusade, and they and their entire family / tribe / civilization are facing a "convert or die" situation, and frankly, Lawful Good religious ceremonies are SO boring, they never have any good sacrifices of screaming innocents.

Talking to your players about what would motivate them to fight in your war is probably necessary.

Their motivation may help dictate their starting point. Maybe they are called together by an evil priest and, as they all assemble in the dark temple, a demon appears and delivers an ultimatum.

[Sir Garanok]

What levels are involved?

If you are starting low you can let the players have their fun(but not too much fun) before introduced to the main story.

You can make the first meeting on the execution platform and some greater evil saves them somehow to use them in his plans.