Why Evil?

[Toofey]

I've had a lot of interest from my players recently in playing "evil campaigns", None of them have expressed strong motivations for their characters, (with one exception who's motivation is IMO not really evil ie: she wants forbidden knowledge) and they seem to think it's just like a good campaign but evil.

I also see a lot of people down with playing evil here.

Illuminate me, what is the point of this, and what sort of things do you guys think belong in evil campaigns?

[kyoryu]

I've had a lot of interest from my players recently in playing "evil campaigns", None of them have expressed strong motivations for their characters, (with one exception who's motivation is IMO not really evil ie: she wants forbidden knowledge) and they seem to think it's just like a good campaign but evil.

I also see a lot of people down with playing evil here.

Illuminate me, what is the point of this, and what sort of things do you guys think belong in evil campaigns?

I think "evil campaign" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and it'd be a good idea to figure out what, exactly, your players have in mind.

[Yora]

Well, I think the players really need to come up with a concept of how they want an evil campaign to be. Otherwise there's a very strong tendency of just having everyone commiting random acts of violence out of boredom
It's important that they do the planning, because everything you prepare won't have any effect if they don't feel like playing the campaign that way.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I think the fascination with playing evil campaigns comes from being able to not be the good guys/heroes anymore. You don't need to save the world or stop the bad guys (you might actually be the bad guys) and you can play classes and characters you normally can't. That last one is a key element for me. I can play a blackguard or an assassin and not get on the bad side of the Paladin or Cleric of Pelor in the group. I can play someone who wants to overthrow the king or become immortal and command undead armies if I want to, and it fits in.

But make sure you know what kind of evil everyone wants to play, some want the summon demons, kick puppies and burn down the orphanage evil, others wants the morally grey evil that's somewhere between evil and neutral, but certainly not good and driven by more logical urges or simple circumstances. So make sure you know which one you're dealing with and plan accordingly.

And still be wary of Chaotic/Evil, it's still just code for Stupid/Evil.

[Yora]

And Lawful Good is not Lawful Stupid?

I think one really, really good idea to play an evil campaign is to not have any form of alignment.
Make it a campaign of villains, without any clear definitions who is evil and what things are evil. Just go along with what seems fitting at the moment.

[NikitaDarkstar]

And Lawful Good is not Lawful Stupid?

Never said that Yora, but in an evil themed game you're not likely to have to deal with Lawful Good party members are you? :p

[Jay R]

The problem is that nobody in the real world "wants" to be evil. They want to be rich, or successful, or to rule, or to achieve any other goal that people want.

What makes them evil is what means they are willing to take to achieve their goal.

But nobody's goal is to be evil.

[navar100]

Most of the time it's because players want to play out their psycho-sadist fantasies. For whatever reason they just want to be bad and through the game is the only way they can get away with it.

It is the rare player who plays an evil character for serious roleplay considerations. Such a player works with the party just as normal in good-heroic play but is striving for an anti-hero experience. He'll usually play Lawful Evil but Neutral Evil is possible. He does not steal from the party, kill them in their sleep, or betray them to the BBEG he finds competent.

[jseah]

If I played in an evil campaign or ran one, it usually is an excuse to play in a sandbox like setting where the players are the drivers of plot. Good-aligned games tend to be more reactive even when they don't need to be.

The whole evil thing is just there to remove uh... unnecessary concerns in the pursuit of a goal.

[VanBuren]

The problem is that nobody in the real world "wants" to be evil. They want to be rich, or successful, or to rule, or to achieve any other goal that people want.

What makes them evil is what means they are willing to take to achieve their goal.

But nobody's goal is to be evil.

Unless they're a sadist. Or a card-carrying villain.

[nyarlathotep]

Essentially most people I know who don't just want to have random acts of violence are people who want to be evil overlord types. They want to be the ones with power who are movers and shakers rather than being reactionary. While this isn't always necessarily evil most of how people would kick off a plot is, i.e. trying to conquer new territory stealing the power of a god etc.

[Network]

Book of Vile Darkness and Savage Species both talked about the subject.

BoVD says than evil characters have different motivations, but they can do the same things (the good characters will protect/kill the king for the good, the bad characters will do the same for the money). So the characters can basically be evil just to ask for more gp/power and torture some enemies from time to time.

As ever, the less you are good, the more you are centred about personal interests. Also true for neutral characters. And some Chaotic Evil characters are still Pragmatic Villains. There are five ways to be CE, after all.

[Tvtyrant]

There are a couple ways I have seen it run.

1. Take over the kingdom!
Your parties goal is to take over the local kingdom from its ruler. Unless the ruler is a bad guy, this tends to be frowned on. So they go around bribing officials, killing military officers, etc. to pave their way to the top. They aren't necessarily going to go on a brutal warpath/ethnic cleansing/brutal authoritarian regime, but they want to be in control and they don't really care about people who get in the way.

2. Your from evil backgrounds, and you carry your evil stereotypes with you.
Lizardfolk who eat people, goblins who want to destroy the elven homeland, etc. You treat people on your side of the line with a modicum of respect, but the "good" folk are all up for grabs. It is basically normal D&D, but your races are different.

3. Evil City!
You live in an evil, gang ridden town/city/country/universe where everyone is out for their own good and no one can be trusted. Relatively high risk of PC fights, but it could be set up that the group can only really trust its own members.

Edit: As for why, because the whole point of RPGs is to be able to do things you normally can't. I can't be a giant robot in RL or cast magic just the same as I can't become the dictator of a massive space empire.

[Eldan]

There's three for me I like, corresponding more or less to the three alignments.

The schemer. I love a good scheme. A tripple-insured, airtight plan that is absolutely reckless, brilliant, unexpected, overwhelming, glorious and evil. Evil just as more opportunity for magnificient bastardry. Neutral Evil, mostly.

The Inquisitor. He will save you, even if he has to kill you. He does what needs to be done, and he pays the price. His logic may be flawed, but perhaps, perhaps, he just has a point. Lawful Evil, mostly.

The mercenary. "Would you ask any questions if I asked you to kill an infant?" "Sure. I'd ask "How much?"". He is the one who will survive, in the end, because he is that tiny bit more willing to do whatever he needs to to get through everything. He will get what he wants in the end. Note that he does not have to be uncaring, or that he can not have friends. He may love people. He may be devoted and caring. He is just also a psychopath. Chaotic Evil, mostly.

[HunterOfJello]

If you're playing an evil campaign, then you can get away with being an ******* all the time. That seems to be the primary motivation that I've seen.

[QuidEst]

I have some evil characters. (They tend to be Alchemists, oddly enough.) If I'm going to get a chance to use them, they will either be in an evil campaign or behave rather neutral.

Personally, in an evil campaign I would love the opportunity to claw up towards being top villain. Getting to be the grand vizier? That'd be awesome! Especially if it's a result of clawing your way to that position. Being a chromatic dragon transformed into a human? Tons of fun options. Not that I don't have awesome good and neutral characters, but those can be used in many different campaigns.

[Kaun]

If they want to do it try to encourage them to stay away from chaotic stupid.

If they aren't sure what the difference between chaotic evil and chaotic stupid is.

This is chaotic evil

Spoiler

Show

This is chaotic stupid

Spoiler

Show

While chaotic stupid can be fun to play sometimes it is generally annoying for all others involved and more often then not ends up in a quick and bloody death.

[Grimsage Matt]

I'm in a Epic Evil Campain right now, and I decided to do the Fun/Slightly sterotypical way for world Dommination.

Welcome to Mattcorp regional general store. How may we help you?

Evil Megacorperation baby It's the way to true evil that DON'T git ya (That little jerk under Chaotic Stupid)ed. I forgot the name, I just rembered that he was royal ass

Sure, you can be a greedy skumbag, but pick your fights. Be pateint. It'll all be yours if you brainwash the locals, introduce democracy and rig the elections

[jaybird]

{{scrubbed}}

[crazyhedgewizrd]

@Kaun, i have always thought that Jamie lannister was more Lawful Neutral/Evil but that my view anyway.

The number one rule of playing evil is don't cause trouble in your own backyard, and make the people like you. Evil people really do need that buffer around them, so that when the "good" guys do rock up it makes them the bad guys.

[Kaun]

@Kaun, i have always thought that Jamie lannister was more Lawful Neutral/Evil but that my view anyway.

Ehh they don't call him the king slayer for nothing...

I think after the whole murdering his cousin to escape capture i dropped him into the C/E bin.

He is a man who likes what he likes... and wont give a second thought to doing what ever has to be done to make sure he get is.

Finding an example of a playable C/E character is a hard thing to do but.

[VanBuren]

Ehh they don't call him the king slayer for nothing...

Yeah, but considering what the king was about to do, I'm not sure I'd ding his alignment for it.

[Kaun]

Yeah, but considering what the king was about to do, I'm not sure I'd ding his alignment for it.

Hehe funnily enough killing the king was one of his few redeeming acts.

[Da Beast]

{{scrubbed}}

[crazyhedgewizrd]

I think after the whole murdering his cousin to escape capture i dropped him into the C/E bin.

It depend if you take your view from the books or the show, But in the books jamie dont kill his cousin, but travels with him to kings landing with Lady Starks orders.

[Callos_DeTerran]

For me, playing an evil character can hold different appeals. Some are roleplay ones, where you play a character with a skewed moral compass yet travels with heroes. How do they interact? Do they? What sort of relationship do they have?

Others are pure egotistical...for once I want to be the evil overlord. I want to be the grand villain who's moving pawns across a gigantic board to bring me closer to some stereotypical goal like destroying the world or conquering it. I do love the cliches of villains, and the chance to be that cliche is a life-long dream of mine. There's also interesting thought patterns in these characters as well. Why do they want to destroy/conquer the world or kill all dwarves/elves/etc.? Are they just crazy? Do they just hate something that much? Why? Etc. More importantly, I'd just get a warm and fuzzy feeling if I became such a threat to the town/kingdom/country/world/plane/reality that a band of adventurers teamed up to stop me for once.

Third is the chance for realistic PvP. I've always wanted to try an evil game where everyone was going into it with the understanding that they'd most likely be turning upon one another eventually. I think there's a ton of potential for scheming and plannign between players and DMs here and, should one player fall to another, you don't feel gipped or cheated because a monster did it. Especially if you make them work to kill you. All this under the understanding that the PCs still have a quest to complete and they do need to complete it.


As for an example of Chaotic Evil, have you considered the Boss from Saints Row series? If s/he isn't chaotic evil, then no one is.

[PersonMan]

Unless they're a sadist. Or a card-carrying villain.

Well, I don't know any, but sadists who hurt others to feel good don't want to be evil, they just want to feel good. Like how people who use drugs don't want to be addicts, they just want the high.

(Normally, of course. Then again, I'd lump 'sadist because I'm evil' in with 'card carrying villain'.)

[kyoryu]

The more I read this thread, the more I think two things need to be nailed down:

1) How do you define Evil? What's an Evil act, and what is an Evil character? I ask this because it's entirely possible for an Evil character to work within a Good game. Jayne in Firefly is a great example of this.

2) What will the Evil campaign be? What are the expectations? Clearly there's something they want to be different, but what is it?

Without answers to those two questions, it's really impossible to say anything whatsoever about how such a campaign might work out, any more than it's possible to say what a "Good" campaign is about.

[kyoryu]

A lot depends on how you define Evil. If you define Evil as "sadistic, likes killing puppies," you get once set of answers.

If you define Evil as "To achieve his goals, is willing to step on others", you get a different set of answers. There's also an area where the goals that an Evil person is striving for may be "Good," which (IMHO, but maybe not others) doesn't change the fact that the person pursuing them is Evil - in fact, it's probably the case that the world's worst monsters fall under that category, as once you've rationalized that harming people for "the greater good" is acceptable, there's pretty much no limit on what you can do - especially since you're probably the one defining "the greater good".

EDIT: That was a weird bug. The forum didn't display my first response for about two hours, until I posted the second response.

[Giegue]

I personally not only love evil campaigns, but prefer them to good campaigns. For years when I had an actual RL group we ran and played almost exclusively evil campaigns. However, evil campaigns get a bad reputation because MANY people use them as an excuse to simply do whatever they want, usually to very violent, gory, and depending on the group sexual levels. However, the evil campaigns I like to play in and run are the kind in which there is actual plot and an end goal beyond "how many people can we slaughter/torture/rape." Simply put, I prefer evil campaigns in which evil characters actually work togther towards a goal and do evil for something other then entertainment or "for the evlulz." Just because your character sheet reads chaotic evil does not mean your character has no motives, goals and things that make him a fleshed out character instead of a cartoon supervillain.

Simply put, when I run or want to be in an evil campaign, I want it to be more then a sanbox of evil for evil's sake; I want it to run like a normal good campaign, but with evil PCs. This usually means that the evil PCs have to unite to fight against some other, larger force of evil. Or a massive force of goodness, in some cases. However, no matter what flavor the "BBEG/BBGG" comes in, there is one, and in my evil games the PCs must WORK TOGTHER despite their evilness to overcome the enemy and achieve their goals.

An evil campaign CAN be crafted and made to be very much like a good campaign if done right. Heck, the BBEG of an evil campaign can STILL be evil in alignment. The difference between a good and evil campaign does not have to be mainly about structure, but rather end results and PC motivations. You can still have an evil villain that threatens the world and the PCs can still adventure in a very traditional way to stop him/her. The difference becomes the reason the PCs fight the BBEG, and the ultimate end game/goal of the party and PCs. In a good game, the PCs fight the BBEG to save the setting and it's people from his plot thus the "endgame" is salvation for the setting. In an evil game, the PCs fight the BBEG because he is an obstacle to their own selfish goals and thus the "endgame" is the PCs achieving whatever those selfish goals are, usually resulting in the subjugation and/or destruction of the setting rather then it's salvation.

However, in such evil campaigns, the adventure structure, while still being able to be somewhat "traditional" has to accommodate the fact that evil PCs will do things differently from good ones. Evil PCs will not hesitate to torture a prisoner for information. Evil PCs, if not lawful, will be willing to commit criminal acts to forward their own goals. There is also a highly likelyhood of inter-party conflict, though if you enforce no PVP this actually makes for a wealth of role-playing situations.

The key to evil campaigns that run like good campaigns is being able to adjust to and accommodate these differing methods. Most importantly, you usually have to make a good reason for the evil PCs to work together. Being the minions of a bigger evil(at first, anyway) is always an easy way to do this. Likewise, throwing them into a setting which is so hostile towards them that they are forced to work together if they want any chance of surviving to see their first level up is another surefire way to assure cooperation between party members. Those are only examples, though, there are plenty of other ways to do this.

So, if you can do all that and have mature players who actually care about playing characters instead of caricatures you can have an evil game that is still very structured and narrative in which the PCs work together to achieve something meaningful(though not good) and defeat a villain. Not every evil campaign is a sandbox sadist gore and sex fest. Just the ones played by immature players and DMs who don't know how to say no.