Help Wanted: Simple to Run Evil Campaign Ideas

[TheBarbecueChip]

Okay so here's the deal, I am the resident DM for my group of 3.5ers because I've both played the most and I own most of the books that hit the table. Recently one of my friends expressed an interest in running a campaign, or at least an adventure. I also have this other friend who has been asking to play an evil/monstrous campaign for a while now. So, playgrounders, I beseech thee, help me come up with a campaign/adventure that won't make my aspiring DM run screaming for the hills and one which will satisfy my mustache twirling villain of a PC.

[Umbranar]

Currently I am running the Way of the Wicked PF evil campaign and they have a summary of problems that only evil canpaigns run into. The most problematic is interparty combat. Their solution: the characters are in the same situation and have no one they can turn to except for eachother. So basicly a common cause.

The second major problem is that the murderhobos now not only slat evil monsters but just about anything because they can. In Way of the Wicked its paramount (atleast at the start) that they go about their business in secret lest they have the good guy cavalry on their ass in no-time. This means that they can kill but too much killing will get them into trouble. The campaign gives them several situations to be evil without setting them on a mindless killing spree.

So basicly the things i learned for an evil campaign: the partymembers need eachother and limit the mindless murdersprees without limiting opportunities to do evil.

[Platymus Pus]

Send the party on a groundhog day trip to hell defeat lucifer until they do.
I'm sure that's evil and monstrous enough.

[Sam K]

Well, do they want effectively evil, murderhobo evil, diabolical evil or just "want do do normal adventuring except with monster races and no 'save orphans or pesants' quests"?

Effectively evil is the most interesting: you have mostly neutral goals (wealth, power, whatnot) and you go about them in the most efficient way, which just sometimes happens to be evil. Evil is not a goal in itself, but a tool. Game of thrones is a great inspiration for effectively evil groups. These parties shouldn't have TOO much infighting, unless infighting becomes an efficient way to reach their own goals.

Murderhobo evil just gets silly. In this case, people will do stuff "for da evulz" and are likely to kill eachother, or be killed by something more powerful that got tired of watching them stab babies. Just relax, throw challenges at them and let them burn it off - depending on how demented your players are, this can make your new DM run away in fear, though. Not everyone is comfortable with graphical descriptions of baby-stabbing.

Diabolical evil can be the easiest or the hardest: you're trying to break the world, free satan from hell, extinguish the sun or make everything into Orcus. You have a goal. The world is against you. Thats a strong reason for motivating the party to work together, but you still sometimes get someone who thinks the best way to bring about the end of the world is flinging fireballs at their own party members. I dunno, maybe it makes sense to them?

Evil adventuring is essentially just dungeon crawling with evil characters and fewer constraints. Imagine Bronn from Game of Thrones (sorry, but GoT is just such a great source of evil fantasy characters) deciding to become an adventurer. You get paid to kill the orcs and save the pesants? You kill the orcs and try to save the pesants. You get paid to kill the orcs? You kill the orcs, the pesants can live or die, you don't care. You get paid to kill the orcs AND the pesants? That's extra for wear and tear on your weapons. You get paid to kill the paladin patrol? Well, you should be figuring out how this works now!

[whisperwind1]

Currently I am running the Way of the Wicked PF evil campaign and they have a summary of problems that only evil canpaigns run into. The most problematic is interparty combat. Their solution: the characters are in the same situation and have no one they can turn to except for eachother. So basicly a common cause.

The second major problem is that the murderhobos now not only slat evil monsters but just about anything because they can. In Way of the Wicked its paramount (atleast at the start) that they go about their business in secret lest they have the good guy cavalry on their ass in no-time. This means that they can kill but too much killing will get them into trouble. The campaign gives them several situations to be evil without setting them on a mindless killing spree.

So basicly the things i learned for an evil campaign: the partymembers need eachother and limit the mindless murdersprees without limiting opportunities to do evil.

Holy crap, Way of the Wicked sounds amazing from what i've skimmed over. I think every player has this visceral fantasy of playing an Evil campaign, where everyone is as much of a **** as you are, and you don't have to hide it for fear getting shanked. I suddenly really want to play and/or run this Adventure Path, but I hope its not too cartoonishly evil (while still making evil fun).

Like could i get more info if you don't mind? Please don't spoil anything, but I want to know how the game is presented. Also its Pathfinder compatible, does that mean that all the monsters and mechanics of the module run on Pathfinder?

[Karl Aegis]

Kill everyone in the ninja village. Don't make eye contact with anyone. Don't get caught.


Your captain's seneschal reports there is a mutiny. The captain remains skeptical as to what this "crew" thing is, but the mutiny needs to be suppressed.


You figure the easiest way to get rid of the local elf population is to rally the more savage races in the area into a working fighting force.


Your boss needs live ogre magi so he can harvest an organ from them. He won't tell you which organ needs to be harvested, but he needs them for new magical equipment and grafts.


Loot everything in the name of your empire and profit. Sell to highest bidder.

[endur]

I highly recommend choosing an evil adventure or AP that is prewrittern and reading it. Get an idea for how the evil party works together from the module even if you don't want to run a pre-written module and want to design your own campaign. The key is to avoid inter-party combat. Inter-party combat will end the campaign.

Way of the Wicked was mentioned in the thread above. WOTC had a Drow evil adventure recently. The various Menzoberanzan support materials have advice on all drow parties. etc.

[Mcdt2]

Holy crap, Way of the Wicked sounds amazing from what i've skimmed over. I think every player has this visceral fantasy of playing an Evil campaign, where everyone is as much of a **** as you are, and you don't have to hide it for fear getting shanked. I suddenly really want to play and/or run this Adventure Path, but I hope its not too cartoonishly evil (while still making evil fun).

Like could i get more info if you don't mind? Please don't spoil anything, but I want to know how the game is presented. Also its Pathfinder compatible, does that mean that all the monsters and mechanics of the module run on Pathfinder?

I'm also DM'ing Way of the Wciked right now, and I absolutely adore it. Basic plot (early on, anyhow) is that the PC's, after escaping the most notorious prison on the island of Talingarde, are recruited by the High Priest of Asmodeus, a religion that was thought to have been thoroughly purged from the land. At the priest's command, the PC's slowly break down the nation's Sun-worshiping government. In the first book they train and deliver weapons to allies. In the second they make an evil base where they perform an evil ritual over the course of 222 days while fighting of groups of heroes using their minions as well as their own powers. And so forth. It really is great, I'd definitely suggest it

Now, it is in fact a PF module, not 3.5, but it's not too hard to convert. You (or whoever is the DM) will have to recalculate grapple modifiers, since PF uses CMB and CMD instead. Several feats, classes, and spells are from Pf, but you can look them up on the PF SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/) or simply rebuild those encounters. Otherwise conversion will be pretty simple, though certain values will be off slightly (for example, in PF it assumes slightly higher HD, base scores, and numbers of feats) which may skew things in favor of the NPCs if the party is under-optimized.

[Umbranar]

Someone did the summary for me. I run Way if the Wicked as a 3.5 while using the pf stats. My group has 6 players so the little pf induced buff is welcome. It also makes some encounters different compared to 3.5, meaning my players cannot use out-of-game info in-game.

[whisperwind1]

I'm also DM'ing Way of the Wciked right now, and I absolutely adore it. Basic plot (early on, anyhow) is that the PC's, after escaping the most notorious prison on the island of Talingarde, are recruited by the High Priest of Asmodeus, a religion that was thought to have been thoroughly purged from the land. At the priest's command, the PC's slowly break down the nation's Sun-worshiping government. In the first book they train and deliver weapons to allies. In the second they make an evil base where they perform an evil ritual over the course of 222 days while fighting of groups of heroes using their minions as well as their own powers. And so forth. It really is great, I'd definitely suggest it

Now, it is in fact a PF module, not 3.5, but it's not too hard to convert. You (or whoever is the DM) will have to recalculate grapple modifiers, since PF uses CMB and CMD instead. Several feats, classes, and spells are from Pf, but you can look them up on the PF SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/) or simply rebuild those encounters. Otherwise conversion will be pretty simple, though certain values will be off slightly (for example, in PF it assumes slightly higher HD, base scores, and numbers of feats) which may skew things in favor of the NPCs if the party is under-optimized.

Ok I got the player's guide for Way of the Wicked, and it bans chaotic evil (and chaotic alignments) for players, which seems kind of absurd (the writer has opinions on alignment rigidity that I disagree with). Chaotic evil should work fine, as long as the player promises to not be disruptive, and heck i've seen it done well in many a game (although Black Crusade doesn't follow alignments, but still the archetype is there).

Can I know what your party is like for the game? Did you follow the rule in the player's guide, or do you also allow chaotic evil into the game?

[Mcdt2]

Ok I got the player's guide for Way of the Wicked, and it bans chaotic evil (and chaotic alignments) for players, which seems kind of absurd (the writer has opinions on alignment rigidity that I disagree with). Chaotic evil should work fine, as long as the player promises to not be disruptive, and heck i've seen it done well in many a game (although Black Crusade doesn't follow alignments, but still the archetype is there).

Can I know what your party is like for the game? Did you follow the rule in the player's guide, or do you also allow chaotic evil into the game?

Yeah, I disagreed with his ideas on that as well. I allowed Chaotic Evil in my game, but ultimately my players decided not to go with it. I only have two players, so I ran it as gestalt to make them a bit stronger. One is a Dhampir Dread Necromancer//Rogue, focusing more on touch spells than undead minions. The other is a Dhampir-turned-Vampire Blackguard (not the prestige class, a homebrew base class; basically evil paladin focused on fear effects)//Occultist (a PF 3rd party class, based on 3.5's Binder). After we found outabout the Spheres of Power system (3rd party PF book) the second player switched his occultist levels for incanter, with my permission, so now he's focused around mental magic and summoning, alongside his melee/fear focus from Blackguard.

They're both Lawful Evil, but it ultimately made little difference in whether or not they betrayed each other - they wrote in their backstories as them being half-brothers (same vampiric father, different mothers), so they have ample motivation to stick together. Even so, the players are forced early on to sign a magical contract that forbids them from betraying each other or their Master, so it shouldn't be a problem anyway. I think the only real reason to disallow (or at least discourage) Chaotic Evil players is because it might be hard to convince them to ally with Asmodeus and the rest of Hell, as opposed to trying to go off the rails in order to summon a Demon Prince or something. Of course, now that I mention it, I really wanna run a Chaotic Evil campaign with the players fighting for the service of a Demon... (I have thousands of campaign ideas I never get to run, I'll add it to the heap).

[RedMage125]

I have run evil campaigns in the past and I have some very simple rules I adhere to. I am assuming you want a "villain" style of evil and not the "antihero" style

First, I let the players know one simple fact about fantasy adventuring: Heroes Are Reactionary. This means that heroes always respond to machinations of villains. If the PCs are the villains, then the onus of advancing the plot and moving the story forward is on them, and not on the DM.

Second, interparty conflict and backstabbing "because it's what my character would do" are just not fun for people involved. If an evil campaign is going to be run and people are going to have fun doing it, then certain guidelines need to be adhered to.

To that end, what I have happen is this: Get your players together and have them agree on an Evil Scheme BEFORE anyone makes a character. Once they decide on what kind of evil machinations they want to achieve, I decide (based on the scope of their plan) what level they should make their characters at, and then they make characters who ALREADY have a motivation to make that plot happen.

For example: One evil game I ran had them messing with an order of paladins. They wanted to take over a Paladin Order Motherhouse and wreck the paladins therein. They made pretty high-level characters (all devotees of the god of death and undeath), they amassed an army, assaulted a city with it, and when the paladins rushed to defend the city, they infiltrated it, killed all remaining paladins in the motherhouse, and the party necromancer completed the lich transformation ritual ON the paladins' altar, desecrating it.

Another time, my group wanted to take over a Thieve's Guild. So they made level 15 characters, all of whom were already members of the Guild, and they plotted a coup from within.

Player Versus Player conflict can occasionally be fun, however. The Thieve's Guild game ended with the NPC who was the TRUE mastermind behind the guild making offers to the various members of the party to buy them off. When only three were left, he told them that he needed someone new to take the place as the apparent head of the Thieve's Guild, but that he only needed one. The three of them battled it out, and what was awesome was the character who was a Disciple of Baalzebul (Lord of Lies) backstabbed the other party member who was his family. It ended up being good fun for all.

[Red Fel]

Okay so here's the deal, I am the resident DM for my group of 3.5ers because I've both played the most and I own most of the books that hit the table. Recently one of my friends expressed an interest in running a campaign, or at least an adventure. I also have this other friend who has been asking to play an evil/monstrous campaign for a while now. So, playgrounders, I beseech thee, help me come up with a campaign/adventure that won't make my aspiring DM run screaming for the hills and one which will satisfy my mustache twirling villain of a PC.

You rang?

Okay, here's the quick-and-dirty: An Evil campaign, moreso than most campaigns, requires more personal investment by the PCs, for several reasons, two in particular. Motivation. Good guys can go out and do anything - slay the dragon, rescue the princess, save the world, whatever - and you can come up with any cockamamie reason you like. Bad guys have to have a personal reason; Evil is notoriously self-interested. That means each of your PCs needs to have an individual goal, and your campaign will have to have elements in it which will help each PC get closer to their goal. Otherwise, why are they even on this trip? Cohesion. Look, groups fall apart for any number of reasons, but as a general rule, it's much easier for an Evil party to fragment than for a Good party, in part because of motivation, as above. Good guys may not get along, but as long as they're all on the same page with respect to what needs to be done, they can put aside their differences and do it. When bad guys don't get along, or when their goals conflict, you face a real issue of "Why are these people even traveling together?" It is absolutely vital that the players discuss their concepts in advance, to prevent both overlap and conflict, and that they agree out-of-game to a certain degree of get-along-ness. They don't have to be bosom buddies and lifelong chums, but they need to agree to set aside a certain potential for animosity, or the game could explode, fast.
Once you have those two points down - motivation and cohesion - building the campaign becomes a matter of custom tailoring. Why should an Evil campaign be custom-tailored? Well, look at motivation. Why are the villains traveling from place to place? It's not in search of random adventure. They have goals. If one wants to seek the legendary Regalia of Hell to become an Archdevil, he's not going to travel from one town to the next, killing kobolds and protecting orphans. If one wants to amass an army to conquer the Kingdoms of the West, he won't waste his time shuffling around in crypts and fighting zombies. The campaign needs to be arranged in such a manner that it gives the PCs the potential means to reach their goals. You don't have to hand them success on a silver platter, but you need to make it at least possible, if they play well.

And that's the thing. Any advice I could give you would depend on what the PCs' goals are. If you have a PC who wants to discover the Lost Library of Vecna, and find the scroll that contains the spell that ends all the things, my advice to include a castle siege chapter only works if one of the castle librarians was once a cultist of Vecna and might know a clue to the location of the Lost Library. Otherwise, that castle siege, while possibly fun, really does nothing for the overall story.

Figure out what they want, first. Then we can discuss ways for them to get what they deserve.

[Sam K]

You rang?

Okay, here's the quick-and-dirty: An Evil campaign, moreso than most campaigns, requires more personal investment by the PCs, for several reasons, two in particular. Motivation. Good guys can go out and do anything - slay the dragon, rescue the princess, save the world, whatever - and you can come up with any cockamamie reason you like. Bad guys have to have a personal reason; Evil is notoriously self-interested. That means each of your PCs needs to have an individual goal, and your campaign will have to have elements in it which will help each PC get closer to their goal. Otherwise, why are they even on this trip? Cohesion. Look, groups fall apart for any number of reasons, but as a general rule, it's much easier for an Evil party to fragment than for a Good party, in part because of motivation, as above. Good guys may not get along, but as long as they're all on the same page with respect to what needs to be done, they can put aside their differences and do it. When bad guys don't get along, or when their goals conflict, you face a real issue of "Why are these people even traveling together?" It is absolutely vital that the players discuss their concepts in advance, to prevent both overlap and conflict, and that they agree out-of-game to a certain degree of get-along-ness. They don't have to be bosom buddies and lifelong chums, but they need to agree to set aside a certain potential for animosity, or the game could explode, fast.
Once you have those two points down - motivation and cohesion - building the campaign becomes a matter of custom tailoring. Why should an Evil campaign be custom-tailored? Well, look at motivation. Why are the villains traveling from place to place? It's not in search of random adventure. They have goals. If one wants to seek the legendary Regalia of Hell to become an Archdevil, he's not going to travel from one town to the next, killing kobolds and protecting orphans. If one wants to amass an army to conquer the Kingdoms of the West, he won't waste his time shuffling around in crypts and fighting zombies. The campaign needs to be arranged in such a manner that it gives the PCs the potential means to reach their goals. You don't have to hand them success on a silver platter, but you need to make it at least possible, if they play well.

And that's the thing. Any advice I could give you would depend on what the PCs' goals are. If you have a PC who wants to discover the Lost Library of Vecna, and find the scroll that contains the spell that ends all the things, my advice to include a castle siege chapter only works if one of the castle librarians was once a cultist of Vecna and might know a clue to the location of the Lost Library. Otherwise, that castle siege, while possibly fun, really does nothing for the overall story.

Figure out what they want, first. Then we can discuss ways for them to get what they deserve.

While it goes against all sense to argue with Red Fel about evilness, I have to say that I do believe that traditional adventuring can work quite well for evil parties. Traditional adventuring is 90% governmentally sanctioned genocide anyway: some creature is the wrong shape or size or color and the humans/elves/dwarves do not want to share the area with it and pay some wandering axemurderers to kill the offending creatures and thus raise their property values. How can a bad guy NOT love that? You get paid to murder some creatures and take their stuff, and after you're done, you will have established that you are more badass than the incompetent city watch who couldn't even handle some kobolds!

Ofcourse, once the evil party has killed the kobolds, things may not be so enjoyable for the village. A LG cleric may fight the kobolds to inspire the orphans to take up a life of faith, but a CE cleric could well decide that the best way to show ones faith is to put the orphans in the murderbucket ("Nobody puts baby in the corner, because you put them all in the murderbucket instead!") A good bard may tell a tale of their victory to charm a barwench, but the evil bard may just tell the wench that unless she decides to be charmed pretty darn quick, she's about the strength of a kobold, and we all know what happens to them around here!

This is what we call a win-win, in that the evil party wins twice! In fact, why not more evil people take up the life of an adventurer is beyond me! All the sentinent creatures you can torture (usually with societys blessing!), the pay is great, you gain power EXTREMELY quickly and you are so much more efficient than those wussy "good" adventurers. Goblins trying hit and run tactics? Fine, capture their nursery, and start spit-roasting their kids until they come out and fight! If that gets dull, have the necromancer animate a few of them as zombies to fight for your amusement. You can't work all the time, sometimes you need the simply joy of a monkey burning undead baby goblin knife fight!

[Red Fel]

While it goes against all sense to argue with Red Fel about evilness,

You're right. It does.


A LG cleric may fight the kobolds to inspire the orphans to take up a life of faith, but a CE cleric could well decide that the best way to show ones faith is to put the orphans in the murderbucket ("Nobody puts baby in the corner, because you put them all in the murderbucket instead!")

Murderbucket: It's a Thing!TM

All joking aside, Sam K makes a good point. Some parties see an Evil Campaign as the chance to go around engaging in acts of sanctioned brutality. It becomes a sandbox campaign, except where the sand is red because it's been liberally coated with the blood of just about everything. Also it's less "sand" and more "finely ground entrails and bone." Which is sort of like sand, except when it's not.

For parties like that, freeform Evil is a fun romp through Murderville. If that's what your players want, then by all means, give it to them. They'll have a blast. (If you give them Alchemist's Fire, literally! Zing!)

Personally, I like Evil to have Standards, but tailor it to your players, not to me.

[Geddy2112]

Some parties see an Evil Campaign as the chance to go around engaging in acts of sanctioned brutality.

For parties like that, freeform Evil is a fun romp through Murderville. If that's what your players want, then by all means, give it to them. They'll have a blast. (If you give them Alchemist's Fire, literally! Zing!)

Personally, I like Evil to have Standards, but tailor it to your players, not to me.

http://cdn.meme.am/instances/55082047.jpg

I am playing in an evil campaign right now, and as far as "types of evil" goes, we are all over the map.
We have a fallen paladin who loves making people suffer. He wants the world to suffer so only the strong will survive.
The assassin is a classy chap who enjoys a good port and shooting arrows through the heads of his marks. For him, it's all about the gold- he will kill anybody, but never for free.
Our alchemist is trying to design and engineer the next great plague, strictly for academic curiosity.
I am the gravewalker witch who is a classic psychopath(no empathy or remorse) set on bringing back my dead mother. To this end, I kill anybody in the way and then use their corpse as a toy.
The magus in the group is set on ripping anybody apart if they so much as look at him funny, cackling manically as he does.

And we all get along great. Sometimes we walk into a room and everybody dies, but most days we don't go on a killing spree. Most of us have plans, but we are not above painting a room red. Diabolical schemes are great, but sometimes you just have to paint the town red...literally.

[Sam K]

All joking aside, Sam K makes a good point. Some parties see an Evil Campaign as the chance to go around engaging in acts of sanctioned brutality. It becomes a sandbox campaign, except where the sand is red because it's been liberally coated with the blood of just about everything. Also it's less "sand" and more "finely ground entrails and bone." Which is sort of like sand, except when it's not.

For parties like that, freeform Evil is a fun romp through Murderville. If that's what your players want, then by all means, give it to them. They'll have a blast. (If you give them Alchemist's Fire, literally! Zing!)

Personally, I like Evil to have Standards, but tailor it to your players, not to me.

Well, even if you have standards, sometimes you just need to make a buck or get a level. Your goal may be to raise the greatest army ever seen and crush the self-righteous kingdoms of the north in an avalance of blood, steel and devotion to your dark gods, but assuming that greatest army ever doesn't show up when you're level one, you may need to do some dirty work to earn your reputation.

This is what alot of good adventurers have to do: your end goal may be to restore your family name, but getting there you may need to burn some goblin fortresses and kill a couple of dragons. Works for the bad guys too (and there are more dragons available as targets!)

[atemu1234]

For evil, having several evil nations (led by PCs) threatened by an elder evil?

[TrollCapAmerica]

I think an important thing to remember is that evil characters don't necessarily see themselves as evil. Sure you Cleric of evil cults of evil might but most others will see themselves as practical intelligent and pragmatic folks that aren't doing anything the next guy wouldn't do to them given the chance

"So some Paladin says your evil so what? He's probably just trying to bump you off and use his position to confiscate all your stuff. That whole Paladin things probably made up anyways as their moral code and I bet he's got dead halfling hookers in his basement. I'd be doing the world a favor when I knock him off first"

[Janthkin]

For evil, having several evil nations (led by PCs) threatened by an elder evil?Rather than "led by PCs," go with "with PCs as the nth-in-line for the throne." That way, they get to murder their siblings on their way to power. :)

[Red Fel]

I think an important thing to remember is that evil characters don't necessarily see themselves as evil. Sure you Cleric of evil cults of evil might but most others will see themselves as practical intelligent and pragmatic folks that aren't doing anything the next guy wouldn't do to them given the chance

This. It's important, when playing an Evil campaign, to think not of the words "Good" and "Evil," but of the concepts that they represent.

Think about it. The Good character, stereotypically1, believes in selflessness, compassion, and mercy; he is strongly in favor of helping others, even at his own expense. The Evil character, stereotypically2, is the opposite; he believes in power at any cost, especially that cost, and promotes himself, particularly at the expense of others.

Evil characters won't refer to themselves as Evil, but they will use buzz words and phrases, like "Power at any cost," "For the greater good," and "Whatever it takes." They will prioritize their goals over any morality; to distinguish them from the Neutral, they may even prioritize goals that favor immorality.

Again, don't think of it in terms of Good or Evil. Think of it in terms like "power," "ambition," "determination," "zeal," or "greed." Many of those terms lack a moral charge until placed in context, and an Evil character - even if he won't call himself Evil - will recognize those traits in himself. As will others.


Rather than "led by PCs," go with "with PCs as the nth-in-line for the throne." That way, they get to murder their siblings on their way to power. :)

Ooh, this is good. You should consider it. There are so many things you can do with an "nth in line" position. Murder your way to the top. Play your siblings off of one another. Charm them into following you. Genuinely befriend one or more. Remain content to be nth in line, and manipulate from below. Use your family's wealth and estate. Get yourself deliberately exiled as part of a scheme. Let people believe they can manipulate your connections as part of a scheme. Scheme as part of a larger scheme. The possibilities are deliciously endless.

1 This is oversimplification. It's designed to illustrate.
2 So is this.

[The Grue]

.Ooh, this is good. You should consider it. There are so many things you can do with an "nth in line" position. Murder your way to the top. Play your siblings off of one another. Charm them into following you. Genuinely befriend one or more. Remain content to be nth in line, and manipulate from below. Use your family's wealth and estate. Get yourself deliberately exiled as part of a scheme. Let people believe they can manipulate your connections as part of a scheme. Scheme as part of a larger scheme. The possibilities are deliciously endless.

By Asmodeus, someone please run that campaign!

[TrollCapAmerica]

By Asmodeus, someone please run that campaign!

I'm doing something like this in 5th with a Tiefling Warlock with the Noble background. Dr.Doom won't have anything on me

[Lord of Shadows]

A recent campaign I ran had a sub-plot that involved an evil character. The character was the illegitimate child of a local evil Baron, although he didn't know it right away, he just had this strong hatred toward the Baron. He eventually found out that the Baron had seduced his mother, arranged for an "accident" to happen to his father (a slight change to a potion that was part of becoming a Lich), and had been duped into thinking that the child was dead (incl. a grave and everything; imagine seeing your own grave). The most intense encounter was with the ghost of his mother, who was able to shed some light on what had happened. The primary campaign story arc ended before the character could confront his father, but it is a loose end that could still be a one-nighter.
.

[Brova]

Let's be honest, a standard game of D&D is pretty evil. The whole "adventuring" thing PCs do involves breaking into people's homes, violently murdering them, and stealing their property. There isn't really an ethical system where that counts as "not evil", let alone one where it counts as "good". And you can't really get more evil than that without getting into things that are varying levels of uncomfortable. I genuinely think that having a game talk about things like rape or chattel slavery at all is problematic on some level, let alone having that as the centerpiece of your campaign.

So the obvious place to go with an evil campaign is to play as team monster. Instead of being a bunch of Pelor worshipers who desecrate temples of Nerull, you're a bunch of Nerull worshipers who desecrate temples of Pelor. And that's all well and good, but it doesn't really add anything to the game. I mean, you get to know what it's like to be on the receiving end of holy word rather than blasphemy, but that's not a lot to hang a campaign on. Similarly, building up power to usurp Orcus because you think you'd do a better job as demon prince of the undead doesn't play all that differently than building up power to kill Orcus because he's the demon prince of the undead and that's like three kinds of Evil.

So what could you actually do for an evil campaign that isn't either uninteresting (what if we were the Orcs) or offensive (Plantation: the Enslaving)? There are two broad places to look for ideas - general tropes about evil, and specific evil critters in D&D with interesting habits. That said, some ideas for evil campaigns:

1. Evil people sell their souls. While a soul is traditionally sold for massive power, that can't really be done very well in a cooperative storytelling game. One character being stronger than all the rest is something we design systems to avoid, not something we actively encourage. So it can't really be "Dave has sold his soul for power, now he gets to summon Balors at level 2". With that in mind, I see two basic lines for this campaign.

First, PCs might sell their souls to protect something they care about. Perhaps the evil empire is invading, and making a deal with Demogorgon was the only way to stand up to them. Players have to deal with whatever threat, but also run random missions for Demogorgon and potentially fight off debt collectors from hell. Fun times are had when they discover that Demogorgon set them up somehow. Maybe he lead the empire, maybe the random stuff they've been doing has allowed him to enter the Prime and make a mess. This sort of a story lends itself to a less black and white view of evil, as the PCs are (they hope) doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

Second, PCs might have some kind of "soul debt" to pay off. Maybe they made a deal with the devil for eternal life, and didn't realize they owe several thousand souls at 20% interest, due Thursday. It's as good an explanation as any for why they're killing everything under the sun.

2. A lot of stories involve an invasion of people who are evil. LOTR, all the stories that are LOTR knockoffs, and sort of Star Wars. While RPGs usually tackle these stories from the perspective of the noble heroes defeating the orcish horde or the mighty warriors battling the necromancer's minions, there's no reason the PCs couldn't gather an orcish horde and attempt to conquer somewhere.

3. There are grades of evil. The vizier's tyranny is certainly unjust, but mind flayers would like to eat your brains. You can have an entire campaign where people go out and kill aberrations or elder evils because them killing the peasants destroys an income stream rather than because the PCs actually care about the peasants.

4. Conversely, players might want to wake up an elder evil. Plenty of adventure can be had trying to find out when the stars will be right, locating the pieces needed for the ritual to release the great old ones, and then releasing them.

5. It runs a little towards the side of blase, but you could totally have a party that was a Mind Flayer, a Vampire, and a Slaad. That party can just go on fairly normal adventures, but all of its members are fairly obviously "evil".