Troll Lord Games

Does anyone actually run an evil campaign, meaning the PCs are Neutral to Evil? I always toy with the idea, a short jaunt into darkness, but we've never been able to pull it off. Sure its cool to fight the "good monsters", but well most PCs just don't have the black heart it seems to take to be evil.

Experience? Thoughts?

Captain_K wrote:Does anyone actually run an evil campaign, meaning the PCs are Neutral to Evil? I always toy with the idea, a short jaunt into darkness, but we've never been able to pull it off. Sure its cool to fight the "good monsters", but well most PCs just don't have the black heart it seems to take to be evil.

Experience? Thoughts?

Emphasis mine.

I ran a "villains game" for Marvel Supers a few years back. Not all of the players were intent on cooperating to achieve a larger goal other than random destruction and showing off their power sets. I'd say the right mix of players would be paramount to an all evil campaign in order to maintain the level of cohesion you might need.

As for a fantasy campaign, many years ago I played the evil PC wizard in a group composed of many neutrals and 1-2 good characters. My wizard could be described as a combination of Empire Strikes Back Darth Vader and DragonLance Legends Raistlin Majere with an affinity for necromantic magicks. There were many disagreements between party members considering varying alignments and A-type players at the table, but we almost always worked together to accomplish the group's goals.

I ran this:



And it was a complete blast. The party consisted of drow, and one duergar I believe. Between the cleric demanding ridiculous levels of payment for every cure spell, and the machinations o' the other characters in general, the game was a continuous giggle fest o' fun.

It worked quite well overall, and will for others I believe, provided they have players which are good natured and mature enough.

I've tried running evil campaigns a couple of times over the years, both ended up being failures. Short term games can probably work, but I will never try such a campaign again.

Always "day dreams" like its fun, but in the few times we've tried it we've flopped... hard to be mean and evil to your friends at the table, especially when cooperation is key.. I supposed a bunch of Lawful evils to Neutrals could pull it off...

I have, many times, but not with the current group of players primarily because it would not be fun.

Treebore wrote:I've tried running evil campaigns a couple of times over the years, both ended up being failures. Short term games can probably work, but I will never try such a campaign again.

+1

They weren’t necessarily outright evil in the one campaign, but they were pretty amoral and at times might as well have been evil. The one player described the group as “A group of bad people that do good things for the wrong reasons. They are the adventurers that no one else wanted in their party, so they all got stuck together.”

The campaign worked because the group still understood that they had to work together, and weren’t constantly backstabbing and betraying each other. Nor were they just trying to be vile for vileness’ sake.

I’ll be honest, the campaign had a rocky start when I was still trying to make it fit a heroic mold, but once I started treating them more like The Black Company than the Fellowship of the Ring, it worked pretty well.

Jyrdan Fairblade wrote:They weren’t necessarily outright evil in the one campaign, but they were pretty amoral and at times might as well have been evil. The one player described the group as “A group of bad people that do good things for the wrong reasons. They are the adventurers that no one else wanted in their party, so they all got stuck together.”

The campaign worked because the group still understood that they had to work together, and weren’t constantly backstabbing and betraying each other. Nor were they just trying to be vile for vileness’ sake.

I’ll be honest, the campaign had a rocky start when I was still trying to make it fit a heroic mold, but once I started treating them more like The Black Company than the Fellowship of the Ring, it worked pretty well.

I've been holding off on commenting on this one so Jyrdan could have his say, as the DM of this campaign. Now that he's said something, as one of the players of this campaign, I never thought of my character as particularly evil (though most assuredly he had a moral view that would voted as such: a half-elf who despised all demihumans and worked to ensure their marginalization and may have stabbed a social worker to death for touching him). But, I will echo the idea of an evil campaign working when the PCs do good things for the wrong reasons. The campaign included plenty of heroic moments, though the overall arc was toward evil.

I've ran an evil campaign a couple of times, once in the mid-00's and one before that in the early 90s. Neither turned out well. The first one I ran devolved into too much paranoia and backstabbing. The later one I ran had players who just weren't that "evil" at heart and though the thought of an evil campaign intrigued them, they just couldn't be evil. So neither one went particularly well.

Great input and I think I agree with most, but I love the Black Company Idea and I love Cook's books and I think that is how I can do it... neutral based "mercenaries" with some who want to be evil being that and some who still want to be good can.. but basically out to survive and if the DM gives jobs to evil employers and sometimes OK to good ones so be it.. a job's a job....

Great input and warnings!

I may have to try it one more time...

Captain_K wrote:Great input and I think I agree with most, but I love the Black Company Idea and I love Cook's books and I think that is how I can do it... neutral based "mercenaries" with some who want to be evil being that and some who still want to be good can.. but basically out to survive and if the DM gives jobs to evil employers and sometimes OK to good ones so be it.. a job's a job....

Great input and warnings!

I may have to try it one more time...

Rgr that. As a 'good guy' that is the only way I could picture playing in or running an "evil" campaign.