Possibly fun evil campaign.

[druid91]

So I have heard many stories of "Well I tried to run an evil campaign and the players went and [Insert description gruesome and depraved act here] so this is kinda freaking me out what do I do now?" Well an idea I thought of is to kill them off.
No really, Have the paladins come and smite the evildoers to death, continue the game into their afterlife, namely the nine hells. They arrive and are dropped into a pit filled with horrid devilish monstrosities and other things that are lethal, a nine hells themed dungeon crawl.
Whoever makes it through without dying gets the fiendish template for a reward and the ones who do die, well I can't think of anything to do to them right now, maybe ghost? anyway power-ups for all involved and then they get to go off and be summoned to the prime material by a wizard who then gives you missions to do out on the prime material, missions that require subtlety, not horrible electrocution of kittens.


Because I like kittens


So anyone have any Ideas on how to make this plan better?

[sambo.]

So anyone have any Ideas on how to make this plan better?

Ban the Chaotic Evil alignment unless the player requesting it is a very good RP'er with at least an ounce of grey matter withing their craniums.

a lot of people seem to think that chaotic evil means "i was jostled in the market, die you commoner scum" or "you're sitting in my chair, DIE you commoner scum".

there's no reason a party of Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil PCs can't do quite well.

some of the best fun i've had in dnd is playing evil characters (i tend to default to Neutral Evil alignments in most dnd games i play these days).

[Mystic Muse]

fire and lots of it?

fire makes everything better.

[druid91]

fire and lots of it?

fire makes everything better.

What about snow? does fire make snow better?

[Swordgleam]

Really depends on the maturity level of the players. We have a CE paladin who gets along fine with the rest of the mostly good party because he's not stupid enough to kill them or any random person they meet. He just subtly tries to screw things up.

An evil party could very well do all the same things as a heroic party - just for different reasons, and in different ways. (Oddly, my evil Dragon Age character has accomplished far more good than my good Dragon Age character, mostly due to Persuade and/or lots of fire being the solution to nearly every problem.)

An evil campaign where the players' first instinct is to wreak random havoc isn't going to last long no matter what direction you take it, and that has everything to do with the players and nothing to do with the alignment.

[Drogorn]

What about snow? does fire make snow better?

The best kind of snow is nonexistent.

[Mystic Muse]

What about snow? does fire make snow better?

yes. Fire makes Everything better.

For example, I think your hair looks a lot better when it's on fire. I would know as I have just set it ON fire.

oh, your house is on fire too.to the first, No not really, to the second, I hope not.

[druid91]

The best kind of snow is nonexistent.

No the best kind of snow is underwater, because that is where the pressure causes methane to freeze. Flaming snowballs.

Also yeah I realize that players being Chaotic/evil stupid will ruin the campaign no matter what you try to do. I was just thinking that one of the reasons evil campaigns end up as "take over the world while backstabbing each other", or "commit random acts of violence", is because there isn't a built in goal "like save the world" that requires you to get along.

yes. Fire makes Everything better.

For example, I think your hair looks a lot better when it's on fire. I would know as I have just set it ON fire.

oh, your house is on fire too.to the first, No not really, to the second, I hope not.

First: No I did that to myself in 9th grade.
Second: I Also hope not. I don't think it is.

[SmartAlec]

I recall a successful evil campaign. The party had two chaotic evil characters, but although they were erratic, they were kept in line by the other three characters, two of whom were lawful evil and one of whom was neutral. By force, if necessary. The plans of the three usually amounted to gold and killing, though, so the two CE characters were usually kind-of ok with being used as attack dogs. That, and they were just too different and erratic to be able to work together and fight the three. Rule of the strong prevailed.

[Roland St. Jude]

Two of my favorite PbP games ever were evil campaigns. Despite a certain level of mistrust between characters, the party held together well and much evil fun was had by all. Thinking back, here are some of the traits in common to both games.

• The players understood that chaotic need not equal crazy or even impulsive. It just indicates a willingness and perhaps even preference to break the law. Chaotic can also be a minor tendency or preference not the guiding principle for the character's behavior.
• The characters were created with built-in reasons to like/love/mostly trust at least some other party members (who then had ties to other party members and so forth creating a web of alliances).
• The overall reward (or harm avoided) always outweighed anything that could be gained by shanking your comrade while he slept.
• The evil party was confronted with foes (and even organizations of foes) that encourage them to keep each other around for the strength that comes with numbers.

I love your idea though, because throwing them into a place where everything is likely tougher and more evil should really push them together and provide a challenge. One of the campaigns I mentioned was similar in that we were a party of evildoers trying to thrive in the Underdark. It was a very similar feel to what you suggest.

[druid91]

Hey Roland St Jude posted!

Anyway I thought of a way to give any dead-dead characters something, Have them come back as some sort of intelligent undead animated by the Evil wizard.

[JGoldenberg]

Wow, that's the first time I've seen Roland post something other than reasons to lock a board. And a great post at that.

My current campaign I allow all alignments with some exceptions, being that the motivation is fame and money I don't need save the world to bring them together, but some of my players are banned from certain alignments.

One of the bards is banned from Chaotic Evil for the exact reason already stated, he'd try to kill everything that moved.
The Rogue is banned from all evil alignments period. Because he always uses them to justify being a ****.
And My sister who's playing a Fighter, is set to NE because she's never been able to actually play a character that wasn't downright evil and even when playing an LG character she ends up kicking the dog more often than not.
Other than that, the other 9 players are free to choose their alignments. Hopefully I can lessen the bans when my players get it in their heads that kick in the door hack n' slash is going to get them killed fast.

[Set]

Chaotic Evil and Chaotic Neutral are, IMO, bigger threats to party cohesion than Lawful Evil.

But a jerk player is gonna be a jerk player, no matter what letters go under 'alignment' on his character sheet. The absolute worst, bar none, in my experience, have been poorly-played Paladins (with the caveat that earlier editions Cavalier-Paladins were even worse!), and despite playing with multiple groups over the last 20 years, I've heard 'no Paladins!' as a rule far more frequently than 'no evil characters.'

But the key there is 'poorly played.'

LG, CN and CE don't necessitate jerkish play, but those alignments seem to attract people who enjoy finding excuses to attack their fellow PCs like flies to poop.

Ways to evil (or neutral, or good) PCs functioning relatively smoothly;

1) Ask the players to design their characters with synergy in mind. (Or just with in-story reasons to work together, like being family members, or identical 'evil twins' "No, he's the evil twin!" "Kill us both, Spock!")

If the LE and NE party members are built to be interdependent (the NE Assassin needs the LE Blackguard to set up flanking conditions and quintuple his damage output, for instance, while providing the Blackguard with poison using his Craft - Poisonmaking / Alchemy skill, the characters need for each other will keep them from too much conflict).

If the party wants to hold a keep or whatever, the LE Cleric, Dread Necromancer or Specialist Necromancer may be needed to 'staff' the keep and 'man the walls,' while the NE Bard could be useful for dealing diplomatically with locals, while the party consolidates it's hold on the surrounding lands (and the Assassin sent to 'negotiate' with a neighbor who is rattling sabers about avenging the keep's former lord). As long as everybody has a role, which combines both player and GM effort, they become like a machine, effective when all the parts are in place, but seizing up if a gear is slipped or a cable is broken.

2) Give the PCs a target for their ire other than each other.

Everyone is a member of the same Drow noble family, outcast and seeking revenge against the family (or families) that cost them their cushy lives of decadent luxury and made them exiles. They have very clear agendas of retribution (or of seizing some other territory and succeeding wildly away from their homeland, if they believe that 'the best revenge is living well'). But their world is a dangerous one, and none of them can survive it alone, especially not with the occasional hunting group still searching for survivors, to claim the bounty on the noble children of the fallen matron.

Everyone in the party is a member of a non-standard race;
the Bugbear Rogue/Assassin (she loves to terrorize, stalk and kill people, and is unwelcome among her own kind because she considers her fellow Bugbears 'the most dangerous game'),
the Fire Goblin 'pyromancer' Wizard (incinerated his last tribe, intentionally, for power, and, even if he could join another, he's finding more arcane lore adventuring than he could ever acquire as Goblin #23, and has the quirky, and, in the world of D&D, strangely accurate, notion that the more creatures he burns to death, the more powerful he becomes, learning new arcane secrets whispered to him in the crackling of searing flesh. In his own way, he's broken the fourth wall, and figured out that killing people gives XP!),
the Hobgoblin ex-slave Fighter specializing in beating people to death with the chain that used to hold him (refuses to use standard weapons and join the 'rank and file' of the strict Hobgoblin heirarchy, and is too chaotic to join his people's army),
the Gnoll Druid with Hyena companion cast from his pack for contradicting the dominant female (and barely surviving her rebuttal, left with scars that mark him as a permanant exile),
the Orcish grappling Monk (who regards his barbaric kin with contempt, finding power in discipline),
the insane dragon-worshipping supremacist dragon-blooded Kobold Cleric (who even the most dragon-worshipping of his kind consider a bit over-the-top, since he heretically serves Tiamat, instead of properly revering Kurtulmak!).

It's 'us against the world' when 'the world' is dominated by kingdoms ruled by humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings.

3) Give the PCs a goal that they can only acquire as a team, and that they can use as a team (something that no single character can put on his character sheet, such as a Place of Power, or a Keep on the Borderlands).

Only working together can they seize the keep / hold the power for themselves (and, eventually, their allies, or those who pay them to come make use of the fount of dark magic or whatever), and the resource is such that no one character has any reason to kill an ally to 'keep it all for themself.' Indeed, using the rules of Incantations, perhaps the place requires multiple people to activate, such as a pentacle that gives bonuses from an infernal source, but only when five people of power stand on the five points of the pentacle (and seems stubbornly resistant to being activated by enslaved undead, summoned creatures, charmed/compelled beings, animal companions/familars/special mounts or cohorts / followers, requiring alliances with fellow PCs, or at least prominent NPCs who have bartered for 'the buff' or whatever). Maybe the item / location can only be held by five individuals who have dripped blood on the circle, and once it is attuned, it can only be used by those same five individuals (although they can seat a sixth person inside the pentacle, to 'bless' others who pay for the priviledge). If all five are not available, it doesn't work, and no individual can attune to the Altar of Dark Blessing more than once in their lifetime, so that if a PC is killed, the other four can not use the item again by just replacing Bob. They have a built in reason to ressurect Bob, as his presence is required to tap into their dark power battery.

[The Tygre]

1.) Go out and research Hell. It's full of nasties and beasties. Maybe the PCs who die can only go forward if they make a pact with a devil?
2.) Remember the golden rule of alignmnet; Alignment doesn't define a character; a character defines a character.

[druid91]

Of course alignment doesn't define a character, the character defines alignment.

[Project_Mayhem]

Yeah, evil generally works if there are consequences. For example, last year I joined a long running, complex sandbox game of of Vampire the Masquerade. While there was no actual 'plot', there were countless 'plot arcs', sparked of by players, npcs or both.

Now we were playing characters ranging from around 200-400 years old, by which point most Vampires have started to ethically decline. Using DnD terms, our group was probably LE, LE, CE, and NG (long story). In gameplay however, due to the very strict social structure (You break the rules you die), and the consequences for pissing powerful people off (they kill you/ have you killed), the opportunity for stupid evil was massively limited. The players were all around the same power level, either through physical power, or political/social clout, so killing a team-mate or surviving the consequences would normally be an unacceptable risk.

What did happen, was large amounts of subtle scheming behind backs to weaken each others positions, and put people in disadvantageous situations. The campaign went 3 years with no serious pvp (various frenzies and cases of mistaken identity notwithstanding), and more importantly (IMO) no compromising on character motivations to avoid said pvp.

[Mastikator]

Oh oh. Have them in a fiendish court where they're judged for all the evil acts they did, and they're condemned into eternal slavery. And the quest can be to escape.

[KillianHawkeye]

Whoever makes it through without dying gets the fiendish template

I just wanna say that's a pretty lame reward.

[druid91]

I just wanna say that's a pretty lame reward.

Well what do you think would be appropriate?

[Mastikator]

How about they get the half-fiend template without any LA? That's pretty awesome.

[druid91]

That could work. Though I am more worried about what to make the ones who die into.

[Amiel]

[...]and the ones who do die, well I can't think of anything to do to them right now, maybe ghost? anyway power-ups for all involved and then they get to go off and be summoned to the prime material by a wizard who then gives you missions to do out on the prime material, missions that require subtlety, not horrible electrocution of kittens.

These players could play as soul shells. Imagine this scene in Dis; a road is being paved along a main thoroughfare. As one batch of soulshells lay the foundation of cobble and brimstone, another tears up the same materials and crushes it into waste. This repeats in an endless cycle. This is their damnation; that of stagnation and endless repetitive motion.


Of course, if your players fell to lawful evil (were originally lawful evil or intend to be lawful evil), have them reincarnate as lemures and worm work their way up the Infernal machine hierarchy.

[valadil]

That idea sounds like a good way to handle players who play evil poorly.

What would happen if they tried to shank each other while in the nine hells? I'd guess that they'd somehow respawn where they are. Does that mean they always respawn if they die in hell?

[Amiel]

If you respawn as a native outsider within Hell and you get shanked, get culled, expire from your own stupidity, become a victim of a diabolical plot et al, you die permanently.

[druid91]

If you respawn as a native outsider within Hell and you get shanked, get culled, expire from your own stupidity, become a victim of a diabolical plot et al, you die permanently.

Isn't your essence destroyed if you are killed on your home plane as an outsider?

[hamishspence]

Not destroyed- but it dissipates rapidly into the substance of the
plane. Which is why True Resurrection does work on Outsiders, but Raise Dead doesn't. And there is also the spell Revive Outsider, in the Spell Compendium.

This is Extraplanar Outsiders though.

Demons may break the rules though. in FC1, it states "A demon slain in the abyss is permanently destroyed, both its form and its essense.

In FC2 it simply states "a devil slain in Baator stays dead"

They also break the normal rules when it comes to coming back after being slain outside their home plane.

Normally, an Extraplanar Outsider brought to another plane with a Calling spell, stays dead if killed (unless you have spells like Revive Outsider)

But demons and devils, both come back (though sometimes, they get demoted first).

[goken04]

That could work. Though I am more worried about what to make the ones who die into.

You could easily use the Ghost template from Ghostwalk (p.163), which is a nice way to imbue an afterlife to a character without the MM Ghost's nasty LA.

[druid91]

So anyone want to help me turn this into a... Is module the right word? The short pre-written adventures?

[Noedig]

Regarding evil campaigns, they can be highly lucrative and successful if the players have a good maturity level and common sense. My favourite character is a CN cleric in a NE LE NE LN party. We're extraplanar businessmen/slavers (on occasion)

Every once in a while I'll do something impulsive, but i tend to limit myself to causing problems that are easily resolved. The other layers also help police each other. Shanking each other is really bad for business.