Evil Campaign Help

[Storyl]

Hello,

In my Homebrew Campaign I have the players playing
as evil character who are on a quest to kill the king. The only problem is that I'm having is that I don't know how to add variety to it in order to make situations feel new or etc.

Any Ideas to keep the campaign from not getting repetitive or boring?

Thanks

[Unoriginal]

Sure, just need to know a few things:

-who are the PCs?
-who is the king?
-why do they want to kill him?
-how powerful and prosperous is the country?

[Man_Over_Game]

A few ideas that come to mind:

They're under investigation by the King. They have to pose as good guys or be at risk of being hunted down.
However, at the same time, the sources of their power reward them for performing acts of cruelty, so they're still incentivized for being evil and getting away with it.

Spies in the King's corner, on the players' side, have heralded the party for being heroes. The King hears of this and brings the "heroes" in and sends them on quests to enchant princesses, to save villages, and to act as symbols of his great benevolence.

[Son of A Lich!]

Ah, the Evil Campaign... So much fun until the backstabbing starts. Then it get's awesome!

First things first; Don't just do a pallet swap.

9 times out of 10, when I see people ask for a Evil Campaign, they really just want a normal D&D game, but instead of Red Dragons, they fight GOLD dragons. This is a good sign that your players just don't want to deal with heavy lore implications and enjoy the combat more then social elements of D&D.

That's fine, but the luster of the "Evil" campaign loses it's flavor quickly, because everything is just a bag of hit points with no real rhyme or reason behind it. It's like eating the creamy filling in the oreos and just leaving the rest behind. It becomes more work for less reward and, eventually, no one wants to come back for more.

So, you need to decide Why you are doing an Evil Campaign.

Some suggestions on general plot lines for the players to pursue;

Fallen Heroes

The kingdom can't keep track of their princess. You went through sewers and fought lizard folk and Flying Tortles all for the promise of "Cake", only to find that the Cake was a lie and the princess is in another castle. Who needs the monarchy anyway? Why, the Party should be in control of the kingdom and rule with an Iron Fist of tyranny!

-The biggest benefit to this style plot is that it's really versatile in the system. Even if all the other players have different motivations, you can justify one player's character as being a fallen hero. If not the players themselves, you can always have NPCs to help the party with this as a motivation to move forward.
-This general plot line starts with the "Kingdom" (IE, the Good Guys) as a tragic character, and the players as it's tormentors. The Kingdom screwed up and failed in a bad way, because of a some instrumental flaw within their character. The Dwarven Emperor refuses service to the Kingdoms of Man, allowing for a host of necromancers to lay waste to the country side. The players are either helping the Humans seek revenge on the Emperor, or Helping the Necromancers in exchange for power and plan to take the Dwarven Empire next. Set up a tragic flaw for the traditional good guys and the party IS justified in laying waste to them. The most important element for this bit is that the Good Guys can't admit, ever, that they were in the wrong for what happened. While the players have the dwarven emperor by the beard, he has to calmly accept his fate and die on his principles. If they show remorse and responsibility for what happened, the good guys are cheapening the victory of the players.
Because Good is Dumb!
Y'know when your cleric casts revivify on the Barbarian for the thirtieth time this campaign, and you can't stop but think "Man, if I were an Evil Cleric, I would totally just turn him into a flesh golem and let him lay waste on our enemies. Why does that have to be so darn Taboo anyway!?"...

-The glaring advantage here is that it's exactly what people think they want when they sign up for an evil campaign; The rules are for Lawful Dumb Paladins, I want to bend the rules over my knee and show them what I think of them. This can get off the rails quickly if you don't have a solid grasp on how to wrangle renegade characters back onto the railroads when they try to suplex the party train in the name of fun.
-This is evil for pragmatists, first and foremost. You will have to homebrew all sorts of stuff, because the biggest draw here is that you are playing with the big kid's toys that you aren't supposed to be playing with. However, when someone tries to do something ridiculous, the response should be Ridicule. Yes, you can practice grafting a mace on the hand of the villager, but don't be surprised when the villagers suddenly don't trust you when you invite them into your castle. You will have to hear requests from all walks of power fantasies and come up with stuff that works... for a while.
-The fun is temporary. The evil bard who is using their charms to try to stage a coup of the elven kingdoms needs to be challenged and that challenge needs to have an easy solution that requires them to go far and out of their way from what they were doing. When you cast an enchantment spell, the target knows they have been enchanted. But that's for Lawful Dumbs, You are a villain, you can research an item that will let you get away with those rules. When you do, suddenly adventuring parties are on your tail, and you have to shake them or defeat them. This is what makes it different from a pallet swap; The player is the one causing the conflict, and the good guys are stopping them from having their fun. When you give them the boon, it's up to the good guys to take that boon away from them and they are relentless.
-There is always a bigger fish. Sure, the wizard can try to enchant the skies and turn all the rain into acid rain, but when the local lich catches wind of what is going on, they will also try to stop the party And they also get to ignore the rules. This is a good way to break "Sorcerer King" combos. When a player thinks they are unbeatable, remind them that they don't have to face an even playing field. While a wizard and a lich could likely strike a deal, The Lich always gets to set the terms. The wizard is just a minnow in this pond, and the minnow can't walk away from whatever proposal the Lich offers.
-Good practice for this is playing Diplomacy, curiously enough. The game can take radical and unbalanced swings at times, and that's half the fun, but learning how to curb the players against one another for sake of balance will get end up with a train wreck plot, and you want to catch as many bullet trains into the pileup as you can.

The Omen
Wait... this is an Evil Campaign?

-This is my preferred Evil Campaign, but it requires good role players to pull off well. If you have a whiff of murder hobos in your mists, you might want to look elsewhere. I call this "The Omen" because I usually use this for social, urban-focused 'Cult' games. If I had a group of players all approach me, saying they each wanted to play evil Yaun-ti, this is a good plot structure to establish.
-So, your players start off the game as expected. However, each of them have an evil inkling behind them. So, low level, no names made for themselves, nothing too far out of the ordinary. You tell the players to start off with an evil party. It usually helps to have a theme (We're all Warlocks with the Undying Patron), but this isn't necessary. However, this game is treated like they are constantly behind enemy lines; They need secret identities, they have warrants out for their arrest, they don't get quests from the townsfolk, they ARE the quests for the townsfolk.
-Typically, you want a religious organization as the bad guys. Big government can work too, but religious organizations can usually justify the relentless pursuit across all corners of the continent, not just the local city.
-From there, the party gets their orders from a higher power. A patron, a High Priest, Directly from a god, Omens in broken glass or dreams, or simply from the senior of the party. They have to subvert the town they are in without getting caught. The missions can range from killing a king, having their own take over the local churches, sacrificing X people to their god, what have you.
-Magic Items need to be rare, circumstantial and discourage combat. Give a level 2 player a +2 shield, and getting into combat becomes a viable option. This is bad, because the more combats you are in, the harder it is to hide the presence and it can bring a TPK very quickly. The strongest element that Players have over NPCs is that their actions are more valuable. 8 Guards, against a party of 4 PCs, can make up for that difference even if the players are all higher level then them. Subterfuge needs to be sought above all else. They can't take that kind of heat.
-I've always wanted to run this kind of game for a group of Rogues, and do a thieves guild game, but just because it is really good for Cults doesn't mean it can't be adapted to almost anything else.

And there are numerous other ways of running evil campaigns, but this should cover the biggest three style draws.

With more specific info, I can help you iron out exactly what you are looking for. :smallsmile: