lesser evil character teaming up with good players to fight a greater evil?

[CyberThread]

How much do you see a lawful evil player teaming up with good players to fight a much more powerful evil power threatening its being or territory

[FadeAssassin]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

That's enough said.

You do need to be aware of why exactly the Lesser Evil is working with them, for example maybe the BBEG is a rival or killed one of their loved ones, etc., and that at some point, perhaps after the BBEG is destroyed, the LE could be a new BBEG, and turn on the party.

[Knaight]

It can work just fine. There's a limit to how bad the character can be, and it definitely helps to get the rest of the group on board with the idea beforehand so as to make it work, but it's solid. There's a bunch of literary precedent behind the idea, there's plenty of real world examples of alliances made between enemies against greater enemies, so on and so forth.

[ad_hoc]

I assume you mean character when you say player right?

Most evil characters are going to think of themselves as being good anyway.

I would think most evil characters would want to team up with whoever will most be able to help them accomplish their goals.

[Daishain]

Sure, there's no problem there.

The baron nefariously plotting to take the kingdom over from within is going to want to oppose the forces trying to obliterate said kingdom just as much as your resident heroes.

Now, said baron is likely to see his temporary allies as potential threats, and is likely to take steps to deal with them after the main problem is dealt with, but that's somewhat par for the course.

If the heroes in question do not threaten the evil character's interests, it is even possible that they will part on amicable, if not exactly comfortable terms

[Nagalipton]

I had a DM once who insisted we not share our alignments with other players. We had a magic user who I swore up and down must be chaotic neutral just because of her quarky gypsy personality. Turns out she was lawful evil, and just used her bubbly personality to distract people from her real goals.

Just remember; not all who are evil want to be the BBEG. Some have far more down to earth goals, and some are simply selfish. A lot of sellswords for instance are lawful evil.

[Particle_Man]

As long as you can bear the line: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" :smallwink:

[Nagalipton]

As long as you can bear the line: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

Ha ha. I wish we could press the like button on posts sir.

[Raxxius]

Just like good isn't one big happy family, evil isn't on the same side.

It's perfectly acceptable to run with evil characters, L/E is the easiest because they have a strict code of honor, N/E tend to come across as selfish thunks, and C/E is the most difficult because players tend to use this as a licence to be a ****.

L/E make good antiheros, driven by purely selfish goals but playing by the rules. They don't go save the village because 'wont somebody think of the children' but rather because they're thinking of the reward.

A fame obsessed self publicist who manipulates laws and situations to make themselves seem better than they are (that sounds like my boss :( ), a self interested mercenary who will fight anything for coin but wont go on random killing sprees/kill noncombatants (happy to sell them off though), a ruthless politician who will mix charm and grace with blackmail and ruthless law enforcement. Many interesting character concepts which can give conflict in groups without it resorting to drawn swords.

[Narren]

Just like good isn't one big happy family, evil isn't on the same side.

It's perfectly acceptable to run with evil characters, L/E is the easiest because they have a strict code of honor, N/E tend to come across as selfish thunks, and C/E is the most difficult because players tend to use this as a licence to be a ****.

L/E make good antiheros, driven by purely selfish goals but playing by the rules. They don't go save the village because 'wont somebody think of the children' but rather because they're thinking of the reward.

A fame obsessed self publicist who manipulates laws and situations to make themselves seem better than they are (that sounds like my boss :( ), a self interested mercenary who will fight anything for coin but wont go on random killing sprees/kill noncombatants (happy to sell them off though), a ruthless politician who will mix charm and grace with blackmail and ruthless law enforcement. Many interesting character concepts which can give conflict in groups without it resorting to drawn swords.

I've played CE in a good/neutral party. It's no harder than playing LE, you just have to have a reason that he isn't betraying or killing his party members.

For inspiration, look at Belkar or (maybe) Jayne.

[Knaight]

One more note - if character generation is set up so that everyone develops their characters independently without discussion amongst eachother*, this is a trope that is worth extra caution. I was in a game somewhat recently in which everyone decided to be an antihero of some sorts. The dynamic actually ended up working surprisingly well, but it was odd. For instance, I was playing an extremely callous zealot of a nature god, who was established as the sort to kill surrendering people, pick fights too easily with those who he thought opposed nature, and other such things. The character was neutral at best, in D&D terms. He ended up being the moral center of the party, as the other two characters were both substantially worse people.

Don't let that happen to you. Make sure that everyone else is actually playing a good character before deciding to go forward with the lesser evil.

*I generally consider this a bad idea.

[Particle_Man]

Don't let that happen to you. Make sure that everyone else is actually playing a good character before deciding to go forward with the lesser evil.


Well I guess technically you were the lesser evil . . . compared to your party . . . :smallsmile:

[Deathtongue]

So how do you guys handle the fallout from such a team-up after the reason for team-up is over?

Evil Wizard: "Now that the world is saved, time for me to go work off some stress in my torture dungeon. And then work on a new strain of undead. Be seeing you."
Good Cleric: "I don't appreciate you killing and torturing innocent people, but it's a fair trade for your help. I suppose that we could just betray you, but, then word would get out and similar team-ups would be discouraged. Unless we took great steps to contain the fallout and report that you died during the final battle or something. But then the law of dramatic irony would just ensure that people would find out no matter what we did. So... go and torture those children in peace for your experiments, evil wizard. What's one orphanage compared to good-evil team-ups that save the world now and in the future?"

[Grayson01]

So how do you guys handle the fallout from such a team-up after the reason for team-up is over?

Evil Wizard: "Now that the world is saved, time for me to go work off some stress in my torture dungeon. And then work on a new strain of undead. Be seeing you."
Good Cleric: "I don't appreciate you killing and torturing innocent people, but it's a fair trade for your help. I suppose that we could just betray you, but, then word would get out and similar team-ups would be discouraged. Unless we took great steps to contain the fallout and report that you died during the final battle or something. But then the law of dramatic irony would just ensure that people would find out no matter what we did. So... go and torture those children in peace for your experiments, evil wizard. What's one orphanage compared to good-evil team-ups that save the world now and in the future?"

Have the Evil Wizard use his high Int Score and not say to the Good Cleric all of that.

The split is not that hard to manage honestly. Same way we do it in our real live jobs, you come to work every day and might not know what a person you work withs personal life is outside of work. You "Punch out" at the end of the day and go your own ways.

the Party does not have to be best friends or share everything of their own interests.

[Deathtongue]

Have the Evil Wizard use his high Int Score and not say to the Good Cleric all of that.

That conservation was not supposed to be literal. The Evil Wizard could just as easily not have said anything but then the Bard or Rogue reveals to the rest of the party that the wizard is infamous for his lethal experiments on peasants and ruling his keep with a bloody fist. The point is: good teams up with an evil person to fight a greater evil, the greater evil is vanquished, and unless team good stops them afterwards the lesser evil is going to get busy with their lesser evil of merely killing hundreds of people instead of tens of thousands. I guess the 'good' people can feign willful ignorance or take steps not to inform themselves (Elan, don't you dare run a Lore check on Lord Angrus, I don't want to hear about how he initiated a pogrom on halflings or sacrificed his family to demons or other such awful hypotheticals that might get confirmed), but then I'd question how they were keeping their 'good' status.

[Knaight]

That conservation was not supposed to be literal. The Evil Wizard could just as easily not have said anything but then the Bard or Rogue reveals to the rest of the party that the wizard is infamous for his lethal experiments on peasants and ruling his keep with a bloody fist. The point is: good teams up with an evil person to fight a greater evil, the greater evil is vanquished, and unless team good stops them afterwards the lesser evil is going to get busy with their lesser evil of merely killing hundreds of people instead of tens of thousands. I guess the 'good' people can feign willful ignorance or take steps not to inform themselves (Elan, don't you dare run a Lore check on Lord Angrus, I don't want to hear about how he initiated a pogrom on halflings or sacrificed his family to demons or other such awful hypotheticals that might get confirmed), but then I'd question how they were keeping their 'good' status.

This assumes a lesser evil with a pretty hefty reputation, where that information is out there. If the evil is more subtle and more likely to actually be lesser, the problem is reduced.

[Particle_Man]

There is that potential wedge, and I would assume that people that team up in one context could be enemies in another. Think of how the USA and Russia were technically allies in WWII and then afterwards enemies during the Cold War.

So after the "team up" adventure/path/campaign is over, possibly one side of the other would retire their characters and create new ones more congenial with the other side. The most obvious is that the player of the LE dude rolls up something new (say a NG dude), and the DM makes the LE dude an NPC, potentially the target of the good party if the NPC's feats of evil become known and high enough priority that they have to be stopped and the good party is the one to stop them.

Or else you might have that "redemption moment" where the LE dude becomes LN or even LG.

Or else the good guys retire and you have the all evil party?

[TheOOB]

There are no shortage of threads in this forum about this topic, but yes, there is nothing stopping evil characters and good characters from being the the same party so long as there is a bond of trust between them.

[Dalebert]

This is in fact happening in my game. I agree with those who've said it's a classic story element. This started out with an evil character bargaining for his life and those under his command when he assessed that the heroes would wipe the floor with them in their weakened state. He's a hobgoblin with class levels and his tribe was among the first victims of the beginnings of an apocalyptic event so it was the ideal time to convey a sense of the horror. Evil people are not being spared from it and the "bad guy" is well aware of this. I'm enjoying putting the paladin in a nice dilemma. The hobgoblin has a piece of the artifact they need to stop the apocalypse and it can't be wielded by a non-evil character. :smallbiggrin:

[Deathtongue]

This assumes a lesser evil with a pretty hefty reputation, where that information is out there. If the evil is more subtle and more likely to actually be lesser, the problem is reduced.

That still doesn't actually solve the dilemma, though. All it does is just shuffle it to the background and warn the players that they're in for some inflicted insight if they dig any deeper than what they see on the surface -- and again, I doubt that characters who intentionally do this are worthy of the 'good' label. The absolute best case scenario is that they claim that their ignorance and/or weakness prevented them from seeing the monster behind the mask. Personally, if I was playing a character representing the forces of good I'd rather the DM and the adventure just saying that yes, in a world as broken and lost as D&D, teaming up with a mass murdering tyrant who will go back to mass murdering is a better outcome than, say, a demonic invasion or permanent eclipse.

It's grimdark and it sucks, but not as grimdark as heroes having to be in-universe and metafictionally kept in the dark otherwise they might get dismotivated and pouty if they face the ugly realities of saving the world.

[Beleriphon]

Eh, sounds like Magneto and the X-Men teaming. The inevitable betrayal is just par for the course.

[Palorin]

As long as you can bear the line: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" :smallwink:

I can't even read that silently without hearing Wash's voice in my head and seeing toy dinosaurs smashing into each other.

[Knaight]

That still doesn't actually solve the dilemma, though. All it does is just shuffle it to the background and warn the players that they're in for some inflicted insight if they dig any deeper than what they see on the surface -- and again, I doubt that characters who intentionally do this are worthy of the 'good' label. The absolute best case scenario is that they claim that their ignorance and/or weakness prevented them from seeing the monster behind the mask. Personally, if I was playing a character representing the forces of good I'd rather the DM and the adventure just saying that yes, in a world as broken and lost as D&D, teaming up with a mass murdering tyrant who will go back to mass murdering is a better outcome than, say, a demonic invasion or permanent eclipse.

I'm just saying that "evil" doesn't necessarily mean mass murdering tyrant. It could very much be teaming up with someone who still has some innocent blood on their hands, but who isn't a mass murderer, tyrant, or anything of the sort. Maybe the character is a former bandit who robbed a bunch of people and has killed a handful. Maybe they're a minor noble with pronounced tyrannical leanings who taxed at high rates even when harvests were bad, and squandered the money on personal luxuries. There are a lot of things more at that level which are still very much bad, but which have a lot of room to be better than what is being opposed.

[Bubzors]

I'm just saying that "evil" doesn't necessarily mean mass murdering tyrant. It could very much be teaming up with someone who still has some innocent blood on their hands, but who isn't a mass murderer, tyrant, or anything of the sort. Maybe the character is a former bandit who robbed a bunch of people and has killed a handful. Maybe they're a minor noble with pronounced tyrannical leanings who taxed at high rates even when harvests were bad, and squandered the money on personal luxuries. There are a lot of things more at that level which are still very much bad, but which have a lot of room to be better than what is being opposed.

This and what Raxxius said above. Yea, if you are playing a sociopathic murderer who animates every corpse he can find, he will probably have some trouble with that lawful good paladin in the party. But there are a lot more options for evil that doesn't have the prerequisite of murdering innocents all the time.

Also, even if at the end of the campaign there is a lot of tension between the evil and good party members, what stops the evil one from just disappearing?

Pally: "congrats guys we just saved the world from (demon invasion/apocalyptic event/rampaging dragons/zombie uprising). Get some rest tonight for the celebrations tomorrow! Also, evil wizard in our party, we must talk about your methods in adventuring."

Evil wizard: "Yea yea, I'm tired. Going to bed in the local inn. See ya tomorrow losers."

Then guess who never shows up tomorrow?

[Celcey]

Another thing: Evil doesn't mean they can't have friends. Even evil has loved ones (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasLovedOnes), and that could easily come to include his/her fellow party members.

[Shining Wrath]

What sort of arrangements, if any, are made by the party beforehand might be interesting. Do they promise to leave each other alone? Otherwise, once the Extra-BBEG is dealt with, the erstwhile allies may now each view the other as the new BBEG, and proceed accordingly. Or not.

Evil people can be evil in different ways. Maybe the evil wizard is just one greedy SOB and has mobs of bandits under his sway. That's clearly bad, but maybe not the most pressing problem for the good side of the team.

The temptation for the evil wizard to have the good part of the party die tragically during the final conflict is going to be strong. And the good guys might not view it as a bad thing if their teammate dies taking down the Extra-BBEG.

[Celcey]

Also, even a Chaotic Evil character doesn't have to be Crazy Raging Bloodlust Man. They can just very much enjoy killing, and do so when they feel like it/when it's convenient. They don't have to want to kill everyone.

[Particle_Man]

Another thing: Evil doesn't mean they can't have friends. Even evil has loved ones (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasLovedOnes), and that could easily come to include his/her fellow party members.

Just like Tarquin loved both his sons . . . one of whom he murdered and the other of whom he stabbed through the belly.

[Knaight]

Just like Tarquin loved both his sons . . . one of whom he murdered and the other of whom he stabbed through the belly.

It's not hard to find better examples where it actually fits, though a lot of them involve recent enough history to be political.

[Raxxius]

I think if you want the best example I've ever seen of good and evil (and neutral) go watch Farscape.

Farscape has the most colourful combination of companions who all work together (more or less)

John Crichton - C/G
Aeryn Sun - L/N
Ka D'Argo - L/G
Dominar Rygel XVI - N/E
Chiana - C/N
Scopus - L/E

All work together, all for their own reasons. Probably Farscape is my fav show so I might be slightly biased :)

[Hyena]

The problem with the evil guy in the party, everyone wants to be one. I've NEVER in my life played in a good party.

[Knaight]

The problem with the evil guy in the party, everyone wants to be one. I've NEVER in my life played in a good party.

The vast majority of characters I've played have been good people in generally good parties, with a scant handful of evil characters, almost all of which were people aiming for good ends, but willing to use pretty bad means to do it. This sort of thing varies by group.

[Shining Wrath]

The vast majority of characters I've played have been good people in generally good parties, with a scant handful of evil characters, almost all of which were people aiming for good ends, but willing to use pretty bad means to do it. This sort of thing varies by group.

My gaming friends like CN. A bunch of rebels without a pause.

[Louro]

I love the Dark Sun explanation for alignment.

A group with one injured member is on the middle of the desert running low on water.
L/G: same amount of water for everyone or double ration for the injured.
L/N: same for everyone.
N/G: double ration for the injured.
C/G: double or nothing for the injured if he is near dead.
L/E: nothing for the injured.
C/E: double for the injured: "I'll take care of him"
N/E: same as C/E or nothing for the injured.

BUT, none of them is gonna backstab anyone (but the injured who is slowing them) on the group, because they need all their power to face the dangers of the desert.