One man Evil Campaign - Be the BBEG (advice?)

[Kerilstrasz]

I'm thinking on running a 1 man campaign for a friend in which he d be the BBEG of the city/kingdom/realm.
I have no idea if he wants to do this through RP/deceit/coup or the likes or through old good(evil) bloodbath.
He s informed from minute one that from a point on he will be Wanted and the community would spend
resources to track him and capture/kill him (unless he manages to hide his actions exceptionally well).

Gimmie your 2 cents...
What i need to watch out for?
What should i expect?
What i need to keep ahead of?

[Damon_Tor]

I ran a "BBEG" campaign at one point, but it wasn't for just one player. One player was the BBEG and was 5 levels higher than the others, who were his henchmen (they were levels 8 and 3 IIRC) But the henchmen also had the benefit of a feature I called "from the woodworks" which meant that if they died they could spawn in as a new character 1d6 rounds later. It could be a whole new character or someone indistinguishable from his old one. This encouraged our BBEG to solve problems with wave after wave of minions whenever possible.

Anyway, as to your question, I think one thing you need to decide for yourselves is whether or not this is a world where evil wins or one where evil looses. D&D is designed in a way that favors the players because the expectation is that the players will eventually win. If that's NOT true in your evil campaign and the story is pushing toward the defeat of your BBEG, your player needs to be on board with that.

[J-H]

Expect sneakiness, thievery, and mind control.

[Kane0]

Ever read the evil overlord checklist?

[Skrum]

I think there's a lot more to worry about running a 1-person campaign, personally. I don't think evil campaigns are all that different, fundamentally - the motives change, but everything else is approximately the same. With one player though....be ready to talk to yourself a lot lol. Not really sure how to avoid that either.

[Kerilstrasz]

Ever read the evil overlord checklist?

Didn't know that existed.
Awesome read!
I'm gonna use it for most of my games now, making sure to purposefully ignore a couple of these
for my players to have a chance.
As far for my 1man evil campaign, im gonna let him read this for inspiration!