Players playing evil characters

[Ramshack]

I've been part of a regular DND group the better part of 15 years now. There are about 5-6 regular players and normally 2 of us take turns DMing. While 1 one of us runs a campaign the other one of us is preparing the next adventure and we switch on and off regularly. Most of the time everything is fine we have a lot of fun and the games roll on. However the last couple of campaigns or adventures I've started the other DM seems to be trying to sabotage my campaign by playing overly obnoxious evil characters. Even when the campaign is you're champions of light sent to stop the lords of hell from invading the mortal realm, he still rolls an evil character.

Now normally I have a pretty straight forward campaign planned, and yes sometimes I rail road people into certain conditions to get the campaign rolling but then it grinds to a halt as he tries stealing every ones loot, murdering team mates, or at worse skipping the entire prepared dungeon to sell the location to NPCs for money (recapturing a lost gold mine) It's very frustrating because as most of you know being a DM often requires hours of preparation and work and to have a player, who even DMs, act in a way to spoil the adventure is very frustrating. Especially when no one acts that way in his campaign, I'm normally the party leader in his campaign that keeps other players on track for his adventures even.

I know I'm just complaining at this point but I'm just frustrated as to why a fellow DM would derail my campaigns. Especially after I help keep his on track is beyond me and I really feel disrespected as a result.

The last adventure I ran was just a single session adventure, roll some level 3 characters and lets just have a dungeon crawl. He got one player killed, deliberately killed 2 more and stole the loot for himself before they could complete the adventure. It was kind of the last straw and told him I was done DMing because of the way he acts in my campaigns.

And although I know it's childish I cant say I haven't fantasized about assassinating (i play an assassin) all of the other players in our Rise of Tiamat campaign the next time we play.

[PrinceOfMadness]

The best advice I can give you is to talk to the guy. Don't start throwing out accusations, but tell him you had a certain idea in mind for your campaign, that his current character doesn't fit in with the others, and ask if he wouldn't mind (at least) toning it down. If he doesn't want to change, ask him why he wants to play that type of character. He might not even be aware that he's disrupting your campaign, it could just be stress from life spilling over into the game, and he needs some kind of outlet.

Pretty much two possible outcomes at that point. If he's willing to work with you, great. Problem solved. If he's not willing to work with you....well, it depends on his reasoning, but I almost never find it to be worthwhile to continue playing with deliberately antagonistic players.

[Forrestfire]

It sounds like the issue is less that he's playing an evil character, and more that he's being a disruptive ass. I second talking to him, preferably privately, if you can. Outline your concerns and see why he's doing it, and in the end, it might just be better to not invite him back to this game.

[rhouck]

You're the DM. Make a rule that no one is allowed to roll evil characters. That is hardly uncommon. There can be plenty of RP tension between good characters with different personalities/motivations -- there is no need to allow evil characters.

[Typewriter]

How do the other players feel about the way this guy plays? When he got someone killed did they just laugh and say, "Haha, good job man", or are they upset/bothered by his antics? If they're not bothered I'd say maybe you should try to work around him playing the way he's going to play - if there's a chance he's going to skip or sell dungeons plan them in a much looser fashion. Or have a few dungeons planned with the ability to make them specific dungeons as you need them (instead of having an abandoned gold mine, you have a generic dungeon and if it needs to be your gold mine you add some fluff to it to make it so).

If, and this is much more likely I'd think, the other players are annoyed, then it needs to be discussed. I personally tell my players that I want them to be on the same side of the alignment chart. Good and Neutral - fine. Neutral and Evil - fine. Good and evil... if they think they can make the party work together I'll allow it, but it causes problems it's going to be the outlier who is most likely to get his character retired.

One other comment I'd like to throw out there is that I've seen a lot of DMs who let people get away with evil when it doesn't always make sense to do so. Are there no legal forces in the land who will pursue him or are his actions mainly relegated to minor offenses and getting party members killed in dungeons. Do those party members have any NPCs in their background that might seek vengeance if they heard about what happened?

[Ramshack]

You're the DM. Make a rule that no one is allowed to roll evil characters. That is hardly uncommon. There can be plenty of RP tension between good characters with different personalities/motivations -- there is no need to allow evil characters.

I tried this and he rolled true neutral and argued he was simply acting in his characters best interests.

I know I do need to talk to him though, I know he's not only ruining the adventure I planned but he cut the adventure short for the other players too. Which isn't fair to them, most of us are in our 30s now and sometimes we only get 1 night away from our families or jobs etc.

It didn't seem like anyone was in a good mood when we wrapped up that last game.

[Spacehamster]

With evil pc's my opinion has always been that as long as they don't mess up the campaign and fight/betray their companions it's ok, bit of trouble sure np. Mess everything up is a big no no tho.

[Naanomi]

Restricting alignments rarely does more than make people write Chaotic Neutral on their sheets and act the same way

[rhouck]

I tried this and he rolled true neutral and argued he was simply acting in his characters best interests.

I know I do need to talk to him though, I know he's not only ruining the adventure I planned but he cut the adventure short for the other players too. Which isn't fair to them, most of us are in our 30s now and sometimes we only get 1 night away from our families or jobs etc.

It didn't seem like anyone was in a good mood when we wrapped up that last game.

Then go more hardball and require "good only" :smallsmile:

I play in a monthly 2e group with similar age/time issues and the DM has a "good only" rule, largely for that reason. We've all played evil character campaigns before and, while they can be fun, none of us found it to be fun when EVERYONE was not on onboard. It's rude of him to place his own "fun" above everyone else, and that is the antithesis (imo) of what a D&D group is supposed to be about -- joint, collaborative fun. That doesn't mean that everyone needs to be Lawful Good, but he is obviously way over the line.

Personally, I'd offer the other characters the choice to not to adventure with him if he brings non-good characters. Why would you engage in a risky endeavor when you can't trust the person next to you to have your back? He can sit in the tavern while the rest of them seek out fame and fortune.

[caden_varn]

It was kind of the last straw and told him I was done DMing because of the way he acts in my campaigns.


How did he react to you saying this? His reaction would be useful to gauge his reasoning for acting this way, and may help inform the advice.

Lacking this, I would advise talking to rest of the group and getting their opinion, and talking to him thereafter. Best to wait until you have calmed down and can be controlled in you emotions (bringing it back up is likely to bring the emotions back to the surface, be aware) before talking to him. Depending on the groups response and his you can decide on next steps. Asking them to bring up concerns with him can work if they share your concerns, it can help to reinforce your point.

[Tengu_temp]

This guy sounds like a douchebag. You told him to stop being disruptive and it didn't help.

Kick him out of the group.

[RedMage125]

I tried this and he rolled true neutral and argued he was simply acting in his characters best interests.

I know I do need to talk to him though, I know he's not only ruining the adventure I planned but he cut the adventure short for the other players too. Which isn't fair to them, most of us are in our 30s now and sometimes we only get 1 night away from our families or jobs etc.

It didn't seem like anyone was in a good mood when we wrapped up that last game.

Acting in your own self-interest = Neutral

Acting to in your own self-interest in ways that actively harm others = Evil.

But yes, you need to talk with him OUTSIDE of the game. Because as has been said, the problem is not that his characters are Evil. He is the problem because he's breaking Wheaton's Law (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wheatons-law), which is something everyone should always try to adhere to.

I suggest saying something to the effect of "Dude, I'm not trying to tell you that you can only play one certain way, but this trend of characters lately has become a problem. It's not just the derailing of my story when I DM (although that does irk me a bit), but you're making the game less fun for the other people at the table when you do things like steal from them, murder them, and so on. D&D isn't about 'winning' against the other players at the table, it's just supposed to be fun. And the other guys, they're not having fun when you do that. I've sat at tables where you DM, I know you can come up with other character types. Can we make a deal? From now on, no more characters that antagonize their fellow party members. I'm not saying you have to be a freaking Care Bear, just...stop with the Player Vs Player stuff. Next time it happens, your character immediately becomes an NPC, deal?"

[Ramshack]

How did he react to you saying this? His reaction would be useful to gauge his reasoning for acting this way, and may help inform the advice.

Lacking this, I would advise talking to rest of the group and getting their opinion, and talking to him thereafter. Best to wait until you have calmed down and can be controlled in you emotions (bringing it back up is likely to bring the emotions back to the surface, be aware) before talking to him. Depending on the groups response and his you can decide on next steps. Asking them to bring up concerns with him can work if they share your concerns, it can help to reinforce your point.

Pretty much just acted surprised and then tried justifying his actions. I was upset and didn't want to make a big thing out of it so I just told him it's just a game I don't want to get into an arguement over it. And we've kind of left it at that since.

But I do appreciate all the advice and input guys. I know I the best thing is just to talk to him, this is pretty new behavior and we've been playing dnd since 3.0 together in high school so I'm hopeful he'll listen.

[MadBear]

First, let me echo what others have said, and point out that the best way to solve this problem is to talk to him out of the game.




...... but with that said, if you feel like being super passive aggressive, just roll with what he's doing and let it play out.

He kills another PC-

Sorry man, your out for the session. I really wish so&so hadn't killed you, but if that's how he plays his characters, there's nothing we can do about it.


He sells dungeon locations instead of being an adventurer-

Ok, well that was today's adventure. Next time if you want to play Capitalists & Tycoons instead of Dungeons & Dragons, let me know and I'll prep the campaign instead. I guess we can play board games now.

He steals from another PC and gets caught-

ooo, sorry man, they have the death penalty here. Do the others in your party report you, because if they did, you're now dead.

He lets other players die

ah, I'm sorry man. so&so could have totally saved you if he wasn't playing such a terrible person.

Once the party has reached critical annoyance at his shenanigans

Ok, so&so, you've managed to kill everyone in the party and steal all the loot. What you didn't know was that the people you killed were just puppets being controlled by far more powerful characters (hand out high level character sheets to everyone else who died), and now their pissed and are coming after you.


...... with that said, I don't recommend it, but it would force the problem to come to the light quickly.

[Typewriter]

When I DM there is only one thing that ever truly bugs me and that is the whole premise of the party sticking together. It's the one thing where I always have to take a step back from immersive roleplaying, and just let something that doesn't make sense happen. Even if a party's background story is that they've known each other for years it can wind up making no sense - party paladin who hates magic constantly fighting with chaotic neutral thief and/or the party wizard. Or maybe 4/5 party members want to help someone out of the goodness of their heart, but the fifth is a selfish character. There's just so many ways characters don't mesh. Sure, maybe they're united against evil (or something), but why wouldn't they split up and form their own groups at the first chance (especially if the characters have differing views on how to do something). No, they argue and come to a group decision despite the fact that splitting up makes more sense.

But someone playing a character who is actively out to hurt other players really messes with this. What are the others supposed to do? Continue adventuring with him for the sake of the game? Only to get screwed over again? Or do they kill or banish the character? What does he do then - probably roll up a similar character. Hopefully you're able to talk to your friend and find out what he's trying to accomplish with these characters - hell maybe you could run an evil campaign and everyone can get in on it - but if he keeps being difficult you're going to have to start restricting his actions at times. Make a rule that says no attacking/stealing from party members and if you violate the rule you become an NPC.

Good luck.

[Safety Sword]

I handled something similar in one of my groups recently by having an avid bunch of crime fighters and murder hobos (an adventuring party) stalk the evil PC from place to place.

Eventually the evil PC was caught and placed on trial. None of his fellow party members spoke up for him in his defence.

That's what happens to evil people in D&D. People with LG in their alignment box track them down and deal with them.

Never had an evil party member since, well except for the all evil party campaign. That was also fun.

[Demonslayer666]

As DM, I think you should set the precedent for your campaigns. Tell them they all need to work together and are loyal friends. No need to go into alignments, you are good to each other.

If he kills or lets another member be killed, have him get caught and punished. If not by the party, then by a powerful NPC. If he kills the whole party outright, then he faces the next encounter alone, which is of course designed for the whole party. Have an NPC resurrect the dead party members. Or for next session, have the other players roll up avenging family members and hunt him down. Surely the word gets around town fast that Soandso returned to town with every else's gear, pawned it all, and is now very wealthy. Hmm, the rest of the party could roll up members of the thieves guild...

[Safety Sword]

As DM, I think you should set the precedent for your campaigns. Tell them they all need to work together and are loyal friends. No need to go into alignments, you are good to each other.

If he kills or lets another member be killed, have him get caught and punished. If not by the party, then by a powerful NPC. If he kills the whole party outright, then he faces the next encounter alone, which is of course designed for the whole party. Have an NPC resurrect the dead party members. Or for next session, have the other players roll up avenging family members and hunt him down. Surely the word gets around town fast that Soandso returned to town with every else's gear, pawned it all, and is now very wealthy. Hmm, the rest of the party could roll up members of the thieves guild...

Of course after dealing with it in-game you then have to deal with it with the player out of game.

If it's influencing ht efun at your table (and that included you as the DM!) you need to deal with it. Maybe he's bringing some real life issue to the table?

[kaoskonfety]

This occurs from time to time at most tables. I'm not saying its a good thing, but its something that happens. You get the itch to rebel and play a badguy/ anti hero/ arse and everyone arguing against it sounds unreasonable.

I'm in line with the people who are advising talk to them about it - if it can be reconciled cool, otherwise I'd agree its too D*** much work to build even basic adventure series with the very real possibility that it was a complete waste of everyones time. Switch out the DM'ing, use the time you get to get writing for the next game and before you run it straight up ask if the prior behaviour will continue, because if it and the rest of the party is not on board with EVIL! everyone has other things they could be doing.

For a while my regular group was so "we all want to be different" that in an expressly good game - Good alignment required (I had a nifty plot for overcoming some seriously entrenched evil NPC politikers at some personal risk to the party and limited 'rewards' including possible banishment) - every last player save one approached me in private with a "secretly an evil dude" character concept. The Good PC? Took a level of Expert (I had to argue her UP from commoner) cause she wanted to play a grass roots fisherman turned cleric on the righteous path.

Needless to say I had to scrap my initial plan and the party... well everyone had a blast, the good character would get the good 'wholesome' dungeon work, the party would go on its adventure and the party full of secret evil ninjas would mysteriously vanquish their foes with ease (and evil), quietly rip off the cleric (who didn't care OOC as most of what she did get she gave away to the needy...), make a pile more coin in down time with awful actions and it was all great. Till the cleric got enough omph to start still silent detect eviling the party, a few divinations, in character pieced it together (the murders, the poison, the stealing, the political assassinations) and DEMOLISHED everyone else in about 2 rounds when confronting them on it when everyone gathered for the next job (mostly sneaky reflex savers with a few fort focused - her spells were will - I MAY have juiced up her spell DC a couple points on her good aligned spells for poetic justice reasons).

Healed them up a bit and dragged them to the authorities for trial.

Campaign over? It was fun, but weird... really really weird. And if I had to do it again? I don't have the time to rebuild a game over a weekend. I'd agree to run such a game - but later, after someone else has a turn behind the screen.

hope this rambling helps....

[Ramshack]

As DM, I think you should set the precedent for your campaigns. Tell them they all need to work together and are loyal friends. No need to go into alignments, you are good to each other.

If he kills or lets another member be killed, have him get caught and punished. If not by the party, then by a powerful NPC. If he kills the whole party outright, then he faces the next encounter alone, which is of course designed for the whole party. Have an NPC resurrect the dead party members. Or for next session, have the other players roll up avenging family members and hunt him down. Surely the word gets around town fast that Soandso returned to town with every else's gear, pawned it all, and is now very wealthy. Hmm, the rest of the party could roll up members of the thieves guild...


Just to clarify I did set the precident before we began. It was only supposed to be a night dungeon crawl with new characters (because he didn't prep the next session for his ongoing campaign) i stepped up to just give us something to do that night. I told him for continuity sake you all are an established adventuring party and you'll be hired to find and recapture a lost mine.

I think that was the worst part of it for me. It was a one time night, selling the location, killing the guy who hired the party, taking a larger share of the treasure etc was all irrelevant because it was just a 1 time dungeon crawl because HE didn't prep his session. I know how he acted in my last on going campaign, but Even under those circumstances he couldn't just enjoy the dungeon crawl for what it was.

[huttj509]

Just to clarify I did set the precident before we began. It was only supposed to be a night dungeon crawl with new characters (because he didn't prep the next session for his ongoing campaign) i stepped up to just give us something to do that night. I told him for continuity sake you all are an established adventuring party and you'll be hired to find and recapture a lost mine.

I think that was the worst part of it for me. It was a one time night, selling the location, killing the guy who hired the party, taking a larger share of the treasure etc was all irrelevant because it was just a 1 time dungeon crawl because HE didn't prep his session. I know how he acted in my last on going campaign, but Even under those circumstances he couldn't just enjoy the dungeon crawl for what it was.

This behavior sounds like you think it's out of character for him.

How well do you know the guy?

I could see myself in a similar situation with folks I play with, and afterwards "Ok dude, what's going on? This isn't like you." Possibly over a beer, depending on who it was. (And not in front of the rest of the group)

[Malifice]

I've been part of a regular DND group the better part of 15 years now. There are about 5-6 regular players and normally 2 of us take turns DMing. While 1 one of us runs a campaign the other one of us is preparing the next adventure and we switch on and off regularly. Most of the time everything is fine we have a lot of fun and the games roll on. However the last couple of campaigns or adventures I've started the other DM seems to be trying to sabotage my campaign by playing overly obnoxious evil characters. Even when the campaign is you're champions of light sent to stop the lords of hell from invading the mortal realm, he still rolls an evil character.

Now normally I have a pretty straight forward campaign planned, and yes sometimes I rail road people into certain conditions to get the campaign rolling but then it grinds to a halt as he tries stealing every ones loot, murdering team mates, or at worse skipping the entire prepared dungeon to sell the location to NPCs for money (recapturing a lost gold mine) It's very frustrating because as most of you know being a DM often requires hours of preparation and work and to have a player, who even DMs, act in a way to spoil the adventure is very frustrating. Especially when no one acts that way in his campaign, I'm normally the party leader in his campaign that keeps other players on track for his adventures even.

I know I'm just complaining at this point but I'm just frustrated as to why a fellow DM would derail my campaigns. Especially after I help keep his on track is beyond me and I really feel disrespected as a result.

The last adventure I ran was just a single session adventure, roll some level 3 characters and lets just have a dungeon crawl. He got one player killed, deliberately killed 2 more and stole the loot for himself before they could complete the adventure. It was kind of the last straw and told him I was done DMing because of the way he acts in my campaigns.

And although I know it's childish I cant say I haven't fantasized about assassinating (i play an assassin) all of the other players in our Rise of Tiamat campaign the next time we play.

I have nothing wrong with Evil characters (in the right campaigns and with mature players they can be extremely fun). With the right group, playing a Tony Soprano/ Walter White/Magneto/ Artemis type character would be pretty amazing.

Have played in a few evil campaigns, and one of my all time fave characters is a LE Cleric of Bane (formerly Torm).

Sounds like this bloke is playing 'stupid evil'. I always hate hearing stories about people getting the OK to play evil characters and then having those evil characters becoming one dimensional absolute psychopaths. Murdering NPC's who annoy them, sneaking into houses to kill people for no reason, and so forth. That's not just 'evil' - that's a sign of a individual with serious mental health problems (like a serial murderer or psychopath). Evil people don't go around just murdering friends and associates on a whim.

I cant begin to tell you the number of times that I'v heard horror stories of evil PC's murdering other PC's in their sleep. And then the other PC's waking up seemingly accepting this. Or killing innocent NPC's for no real reason. Let me put it to you this way, if you went out camping with friends and woke up the next morning to find one of your friends had killed another one while they slept, at a bare minimum would you want to have anything to do with the killer from that point on? What if someone you knew killed someone in cold blood for annoying him? Would you want such a psycho anywhere near you?

As a DM, you need to gauge your players maturity. And from what I'm hearing this player is incredibly immature. Next time advise him youre running an all heroic campaign (only G alignments). If he doesnt like it, he doesnt have to play in your campaign.

[RedMage125]

I just feel the need to re-emphasize here...

Alignment is not the issue. This other guy is.

You have made it clear that he will engage in the exact same behavior whether his character sheet says "True Neutal" or "Evil". This is yet again proof of my ongoing point that alignments do not cause interparty strife as game mechanics, people who are problems (be they Problem Players or Jerkbag DMs) are the cause of said strife.

I hope you can talk to this guy and work out something reasonable.

I fervently advise against acting against him in-game, especially because it could lead to in-game retaliation against your character in his game. During your talk, you could mention that any future in-game issues will be met with in-game consequences, but it would be much more preferable to head thins kind of thing off before it becomes a problem.

[Phion]

You feel disrespected because you are being disrespected, there is no way he doesn't know what he is doing so screw him. I know that hasn't brought much to this conversation but the matter is that simple. Basically if he continues to play up don't allow him to be in your sessions, his actions have no justification except lame excuses and even those excuses feel disrespectful and disingenuous.

[Narren]

There's no need to quite DMing. Ask the player if he realizes that he's disrupting the game and making it far less fun for everyone else. Then tell him that it needs to stop. If he refuses, then he's kind of a crappy friend and you need to kick him from the group. There's no other alternative.

[Thrudd]

From the outside, it looks like he is resentful or threatened by having to share the DM "spotlight", and is passive/aggressively sabotaging your games. That way everyone has more fun when he is the DM. My guess is that he is happy about your quitting, that is just what he wanted, though he would probably never say it.

If talking to him doesn't change anything, try to get the other players on board to peer-pressure him into better behavior. If that doesn't work, you may have to consider finding a different group or excluding him if you want to GM your own games.

[Yagyujubei]

seriously talk to the guy OOC, tell him that kind of play ruins the game for the other players, and won't be tolerated in the future, and if he keeps doing it then kick him from, the group.

I find it odd that you've been playing with roughly the same people for 15 years as you say and this problem just popped up now though.

[bokodasu]

I used to play with a guy like that. Everyone who didn't like his "but I'm ROLEplaying! That's what my CHARACTER would do!" left and started a different group without him. Which is exactly what their characters would have done! (When they weren't getting killed due to his being a jerk.)

[TrollCapAmerica]

I remember when I was a teenager and just getting into 1st/2nd edition and I occasionally played with an uncle and his college drinking buddy

They always seemed convinced they needed to show us "New kids how'd&D was played" and it had to be how they did it in the early 80s. They were stereotypical murderhobos that were so proud of "Role playing mah Thief right" by treating their character sheet like an Atari games high score board and the Inatant a party was low on health it was backstabbing time.

The last time it happened was when a player wasent there and my best friend who played with me the longest subbed in then they went full murderhobo again. It was grating because the absent player was younger than us and just started playing and I would have to tell him "Sorry the old jagoffs decided to derail the game while you were out".

Me and my buddy were so pissed by this camel killing straw that we put together a new campaign of evil character s with my buddy making a Minotaur so OP and CE that he could use the BS "Nah character" justification for killing any of their PCs the instant they interacted. Funny thing we never ended up playing and half that evil party became staples in my campaign world because we ended up using them intelligently. I realized that we never needed such douchbags in our game since even our evil gag characters were better than anything they could contribute.

Im moving out of state this month basically bring a 3 edition 22 year run with the same folks to an end. Trust me you will do better without the douchbags