How does Good tempt Evil?

[Parra]

As well all know, its a fairly classic set-up having the Evil Wizard/Fiend/BBEG try to tempt the heroes away from the good side to try and join Team Evil, usually through bribes, trickery, the promise of power and other standard fare.

But how does the Saint/Angle/BBGG tempt an evil player to joining Team Good?

Specifically, in my own campaign, the party is an out and out evil group. Paladins of Tyranny, Clerics of Hextor, Tiamat worshiping druids, Assassins and other unsavoury types abound.
There main adversary is going to be a (slightly modified) Solar who, for various reasons, isn't going to kill them on sight (at least not right away) and is going try to redeem at least some of the party.

But Im absolutely stumped as to how I would go about it.
Any suggestions?

Edit:
Additional info:

The Campagin: Planescape 3.5 Plenty of plane hopping going on.

The Party:

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1. Paladin of Tyrranny Ordained Champion of Hextor, Lex.
One of the most forceful personalites in the group and the most organised. He seeks essentially to carve the biggest Empire possible in Hextors name (perferablly over as many dead Heironous followers as possible), with the hope of securing his 'rightful place' at Hextors side.
He is probably the toughest one in the group try to redeem, so he probably wont be who I go after. However if he gets an inkling that someone else in the group is turning against him, I have no doubt he will stike hard against them.

2. Monk of Hextor, Sun Tzu.
Essentially Lex's lap dog, anything Lex does is all good in Sun Tzu's book. Is of the firm belief that every situation can be resolved with the liberal application of fire, though thats most reigned in by Lex. He doesnt seem to have any personal goals beyond 'get more powerful'.
Hard to redeem because of his close partnership with Lex.

3. Cleric of Hextor, Marcus.
If its possible to avoid exerting himself he will, similar to Lex & Sun Tzu he seeks to gain power and become the living embodiment of Hextor. However his extreme lazyness and apathy to doing any actual work (all in character) will probably prevent him from achieving greatness.
I believe that if I caused him to become disillusioned enough with Hextor then he might be swayed, but it would be hard to do consider Lex's zeal.

4. Ping Ping the kobold druid.
In a break from the Hextor theme, Ping Ping worships Tiamat and believes that dragons are the perfect physical embodiments of elemental forces. His goal is simple, sacrifice as many Metallic Dragons to Tiamat as possible. He is using the rest of the group to help get them, which there happy to do becuase of the promise of the dragon horde.
He ultimatly wants to become a true (green) dragon himself.
Oddly this guy is... not quite anti-Hextor, but certainly mistrustful of Lex/ While they agree on many points, Lex's goal of empire building doesnt mesh well with Ping Ping's.
He might be redeemed, but it would be a hard sell and would have to involve dragons somehow.

5. The Assassin, Mist.
Easily the most cloak n dagger party member. Definatly resents Lex's dominance in the group and while he is the groups other most forceful personality he is also one of the least vocal. He is all aboard with Lex's empire building goal, but I know he is looking of leveage to steer the group to his own agenda (not sure what that is yet tbh).
Definatly the voice of reason in the group and tends to curb most of there more excessive plans.
Probably the most open in the group to a old fasion redemption/temptation plot.

6. The Highspeed Meatshield, Amy.
Of the group she is definatly the least evil. Stangely how a typical meatshield she seeks knowledge and wants to learn about everything. Not entirely sure why yet as she is also one of the quieter players but also one of the most easily led.

7. It Go Boom Now? Sorcerer Nezuraty
Unfortuantly a pretty 2D charcter, just goes with the flow of the group. Doesnt cae what they are doing so long as he isn't getting screwed over.
No long term goals that Im aware of. Probably the player i need to work on most to get more involved and in-depth with the game.

The groups in generals goal's:

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Long Term: Carve the Biggest Empire possible
Mid Term: Gather a vast army, hire themselves out as mercs until they can move to the long term goal.
Short term: Slave trade. Find as many weakly/undefended towns as they can, capture who they can (slaughtering the rest) and sell the slaves as fodder to Devils (very specfically Devils, given the groups mostly Lawful disposition) thereby ammassing a big enough fortune to support a large army.

Their Enemy:

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A solar who is the physical embodiment of The Greater Good (as opposed to a specific God). He led the orginal combined forces of the Heavens against the fiends way back when the multiverse was still young. After they got there rears firmly handed to them he became know as 'The Shame of the Heavens'
His ultimate goal is to bring the combined forces, of the Heavens (kicking and screaming if neccessary) back into the Blood War and defeat the Fiends once and for all and thereby redeem himself in the eyes of his peers.
Part of that involves using a slightly modified Emerald Legion (as found elsewhere on this site) as the main weapon in his crusade. The problem is that they are hidden and locked away on one of Pandamoniums Layers.

Where does the group fit into this?
Well.... they (and there ancestors before them) were selectivly bred by the Solar to act as the final component in creating an Artifact that will allow him to access and control the Emerald Legion. However he only needs 3 of them and they need to be willing (he wont be telling them that ofc). If he needs to use mind control abilities he will, but he would prefer them to be willing.
He has interacted with the group on a number of occasions (though they dont realise he is a solar) and he has sent them off on various missions collecting parts to make said Artifact, with the added bonus that it is 'enriching there souls in preperation for the sacrifice'

If this sounds a little evil for a solar, well your not wrong. But I figure that sometimes in order to achieve a Greater Good its neccessary to do a little evil.
Besides its my game and I say its ok

As an aside, there are 2 other forces seeking to influnce the group. Both Devils and Demons are trying to bring them under thier control, but I have there plans down to a T. Its all interconnected.

[Prodan]

Offer peace, stability, and serenity.

[2xMachina]

Promise of the Good afterlife?

[Parra]

Offer peace, stability, and serenity.

Why would a power hungry Paladin of Tyranny find that appealing?

or an Assassin out to make a name for himself and get rich at the same time?

or any of ther other evil sterotypes?

[balistafreak]

Usually it's something along the lines of:

Your goal is better acheived through good. (Unless their goal is hedonism and evil unto itself, which describes a great deal of Evil parties. )

Good feels good. (Again, you probably have an evil party because they take pleasure in villainy, so yeah.)

Something compels you so that you must be good. (Be good or you don't go to heaven. Usually not very much a deterrent.)

Your described party is evil; with all due respect, you're probably screwed from the get-go. Unlike in real life, where people (usually) at least superficially consider what they're doing, in the game they'll just say "Screw it, I'm evil for the ev-lulz" and steamroll your pathetic attempts at converting them without a thought, because they are playing this game not for the sake of playing it, but to be evil. So yeah.

[Saph]

Personal loyalties, for a start. Everybody who isn't a cartoonishy evil villain has SOMETHING they care about and treat well - family, loves, etc. Try to generalise from that.

Your described party is evil; with all due respect, you're probably screwed from the get-go. Unlike in real life, where people (usually) at least superficially consider what they're doing, in the game they'll just say "Screw it, I'm evil for the ev-lulz" and steamroll your pathetic attempts at converting them without a thought, because they are playing this game not for the sake of playing it, but to be evil. So yeah.

. . . but yeah, it's quite likely that if you're playing an evil campaign they ARE all going to be cartoonishly evil villains.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

we have cake? also

Our women are WAY HOTTER

Good=Angels: long blonde hair, large fantastic. . . . eyes. . . and skin that makes babys look like sandpaper. . .


Evil=Marilith: scales, dirty, claws, and . . . well the snake tail for a backend kinda poses a problem. . .

[LongVin]

You offer them cookies and candy. And tell them the forces of good have unlimited supplies of the two.

[Revlid]

If the Heterodynes managed to tempt Lucrezia (admittedly, something appears to have gone horribly wrong at some point afterwards), I'm sure you can.

[Prodan]

Why would a power hungry Paladin of Tyranny find that appealing?

or an Assassin out to make a name for himself and get rich at the same time?

or any of ther other evil sterotypes?

Let me answer your question with a question: Why would a hero find the temptations of evil appealing?

[Shademan]

angelic tits?
*slap'd*
I'm sooorryyyyy!

srsly tho' more info on the characters please. RP info. no mechanics needed

[2xMachina]

Look hot?

That managed to convert a always CE with subtype to LG...

[kamikasei]

If all they want is power or evulz or whatever, then it won't work. If they're more three-dimensional characters who have values and goals and things they love and hate, then you have the opportunity to appeal to their better natures, which is harder than playing on their dark sides but certainly possible.

The thing is, you're not saying "come to the Light Side and you'll get something awesome!". You're saying "you can stop doing evil, and be forgiven if you work to make amends - you're not so far gone that you have to keep going. You can have people at your back and not constantly fear they're sharpening knives. The things you accomplish will take on a life beyond yours, and you'll be happier and more fulfilled. Do the right thing."

If the character has no qualms about the evil they do, never gets tired of being in a dog-eat-dog situation, and doesn't care about their own image of themselves and believing that they're in the right... then such a pitch won't find much purchase.

[chiasaur11]

It doesn't.

[hamishspence]

Remind them that the afterlife (generally) tends to suck for Evil characters- their deities tend to do horrible things to their souls, or trade them away to night hags or devils (which may end up with the soul being tormented to the point of destruction and transformed into a lemure.

Plus- good has its own rewards to offer. Less infighting, generous divine blessings, and so on.

[Lord Loss]

If all they want is power or evulz or whatever, then it won't work. If they're more three-dimensional characters who have values and goals and things they love and hate, then you have the opportunity to appeal to their better natures, which is harder than playing on their dark sides but certainly possible.

The thing is, you're not saying "come to the Light Side and you'll get something awesome!". You're saying "you can stop doing evil, and be forgiven if you work to make amends - you're not so far gone that you have to keep going. You can have people at your back and not constantly fear they're sharpening knives. The things you accomplish will take on a life beyond yours, and you'll be happier and more fulfilled. Do the right thing."

If the character has no qualms about the evil they do, never gets tired of being in a dog-eat-dog situation, and doesn't care about their own image of themselves and believing that they're in the right... then such a pitch won't find much purchase.

This. Although, I'd have to say that instead of tempting evil, Good redeems it.

[Chrono22]

Love. Unfortunately this isn't a tool that's readily available to an adventuring party, as they seem to use almost solely destructive powers to achieve their goals.

[Totally Guy]

Use some Game Theory! That ought to set them on the right path.

[gallagher]

we have cake? also

Our women are WAY HOTTER

Good=Angels: long blonde hair, large fantastic. . . . eyes. . . and skin that makes babys look like sandpaper. . .


Evil=Marilith: scales, dirty, claws, and . . . well the snake tail for a backend kinda poses a problem. . .

that was my first idea. the second idea involves the chaotic neautral bard/rogue slipping a highly addictive drug into their brownies, and tell the evil person that there are plenty more on the good side.

also, the good side has job security. there is a significantly lower statistic of betrayal amongst the good and pure of heart

[Ormagoden]

1. Get good guys to trust you
2. Send them dreams of loved ones being murdered
3. Allow them to confide their emotions in you
4. Empower their emotions so they are less rational
5. Use loss of loved ones to fuel anger
6. Make sure you're there to pick up the pieces and provide council
7. Temp the good guy with promises you cannot fulfill
8. Send Anakin to kill Jedi babies
9. ???
10. Intergalactic profit!


Strike that! Reverse it!

[kamikasei]

This. Although, I'd have to say that instead of tempting evil, Good redeems it.

Yes. I would say that, for characters who aren't just card-carrying Evil Just Because villains, they would probably like to be good. They'd like to think they're good people, and not have to go through too many mental gymnastics to justify that to themselves. The trick is to first get them to admit that what they're doing isn't good, if they're denying that to themselves - and then get it across to them that just because they've been doing evil doesn't mean they themselves are irredeemably evil people who have to keep doing evil because they're too tainted to do or deserve good.

This is hard to do. Love and forgiveness are the keys. Both are difficult to portray if a player isn't interested.

[hamishspence]

Good Feels Good might be a part- it feels nice when people are looking at you in admiration instead of fear, and gratitude can be enjoyable to experience.

[balistafreak]

Good Feels Good might be a part- it feels nice when people are looking at you in admiration instead of fear, and gratitude can be enjoyable to experience.

This is not true for a cartoonishly-evil character. He'll view any suggestion of this as a threat to his sanity, not as something postive.

... is it clear enough that I hate evil parties?

[hamishspence]

Cartoonishly evil isn't going to like the suggestion, true.

However, an "I'll try anything once" villain might be willing to do something "good" just to see what it feels like.

And if the player's willing to play along, it could be the beginning of a path to improvement.

[Coidzor]

Beefcake and cheesecake, mostly.

[Bagelz]

Temp them with something they do not have.
You temp goody goodies with sex wealth anything pleasurable that they have been depriving themselves of.

What feels good that your bad guys have been depriving themselves of?
Emotional ties with other people?
Are they so evil that children run a way screaming? (while extremely entertaining, it is also lonely).
Do people point at them and tell they are good for nothing scoundrels? do they need a little positive reenforcement? ("great job slaughtering that nobleman, it was almost artistic").
Do they get jealous when the "good guy" foils their plans and everyone cheers for him? Just once wouldn't they like someone to do something for them without threating their wellbeing?
Are they tired of always being on the run and not being able to take a vacation?

[CockroachTeaParty]

Interestingly, you could try having the party suffer at the hands of an even greater evil. If they are truly hurt, wronged, betrayed, etc., perhaps even by people they thought were allies, that might seed the questioning of the benefits of evil. Also, if the Good guys repeatedly offer them the chance for salvation and forgiveness, perhaps they will begin to wonder how many chances they have before the Heavens unleash the big guns. Eventually, the Greater Good will be to stop the party from doing their thing in order to save innocents, and that's when that Solar's composite longbow of Doom comes into play.

The Book of Exalted Deeds gives Good some interesting big guns. Maybe toss an Apostle of Peace at them. Maybe after a casting of End to Strife, the party will be forced for a few moments to not fight. Perhaps in the absence of violence as a viable option, they'll be forced to talk... and realize things they might have been using violence to ignore or mask.

Of course, if they repeatedly refuse and stick to their guns, I'd gladly unleash glowing, golden, exalted, righteous pain on their asses, accompanied by a triumphant boys' choir.

Edit: Oh, and take a look at Sanctify the Wicked. It's a good last resort.

[Person_Man]

Read some Plato. Worldly things which Evil seeks - power, money, sex, status - are (by themselves) empty. When you spend too much of your life seeking them and/or when you finally attain them, they isolate you from any real love or friendship, because people fear you and/or are sycophants and/or you are isolated from others because of it. And all of the fruits of Evil will eventually turn to dust. From the highest pontiff and leader to the lowest pauper and mook, we are all united in death (and potentially judgement and the afterlife). Whatever Evil can offer you, it will eventually lead to your unhappiness and ruin. Thus, a reasonable person will seek Good.

[Aroka]

You need to get personal. If the characters are deep and realistic, they're not just Evil-aligned because they love murder and mayhem and have no consciences; there needs to be some kind of conscience to appeal to. They need personal hooks to pull at, people in their lives, and the like. Maybe the terror in the eyes of a child witnessing them at their evil deeds will get to one; maybe another will come to realize what he really wants isn't money and power, but somewhere to belong; and so on and so on. It can be corny, but it doesn't have to be.

Good Evil-aligned characters are way more complicated to play than your typical D&D characters - they need more involved personalities, backstories, and environments that enable some kind of internal conflicts. Evil characters who just out-and-out enjoy being monsters are dull and hard to craft interesting plots for.

Edit:

Read some Plato. Worldly things which Evil seeks - power, money, sex, status - are (by themselves) empty. When you spend too much of your life seeking them and/or when you finally attain them, they isolate you from any real love or friendship, because people fear you and/or are sycophants and/or you are isolated from others because of it. And all of the fruits of Evil will eventually turn to dust. From the highest pontiff and leader to the lowest pauper and mook, we are all united in death (and potentially judgement and the afterlife). Whatever Evil can offer you, it will eventually lead to your unhappiness and ruin. Thus, a reasonable person will seek Good.

This. So much this.

The most important thing for Evil-aligned PCs is motivation; they need something to aim for, some reason they're willing to go so far and do such horrible things. Let them achieve it, then show how empty and pointless it is. Let them enjoy their victories, then turn them to ash in their mouth.

They achieve what they seek, but it wasn't worth the price.

The ambitious and greedy become powerful and wealthy, but everyone fears or hates them, they are obeyed only grudgingly, and the more they exert their power, the more everyone detests them. Money can't get them emotional satisfaction, acceptance, respect, or love.

The mightiest warrior destroys his enemies, but the defeated aren't alone, while the shameless, gloating winner is. Death upon death wears on the soul and achieves nothing.

And at the end of it all, what do they have to look forward to? Endless eternities suffering in some kind of hell, the plaything of powers infinitely more powerful, with no hope of ever rising above it (in all the eternities that have passed, only a miniscule, statistically insignificant fraction of all fiends have risen to real power in their hierarchies).

If your players aren't at least open to this sort of introspection and character-examination, though, it's not likely to work.

[Maerok]

Read some Plato. Worldly things which Evil seeks - power, money, sex, status - are (by themselves) empty. When you spend too much of your life seeking them and/or when you finally attain them, they isolate you from any real love or friendship, because people fear you and/or are sycophants and/or you are isolated from others because of it. And all of the fruits of Evil will eventually turn to dust. From the highest pontiff and leader to the lowest pauper and mook, we are all united in death (and potentially judgement and the afterlife). Whatever Evil can offer you, it will eventually lead to your unhappiness and ruin. Thus, a reasonable person will seek Good.

I never really liked Plato's arguments about all that. It sounds a lot like ugly people saying 'beauty is on the inside'.