Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

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Rukellian
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Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#1 Post by Rukellian »

After reviewing the alignment descriptions from a few game types, I've noticed a common theme with the evil alignments. They all seem to self-destruct in the end, his/her evil causing his/her own demise; and maybe it isn't evil that is in place, but a corruptive way of looking at things, a needless greed or some other form of... not-goodness. From player experience, can any of you point towards an example of a successful campaign with evil alignment characters? Successful is subjective, I know, but you all know what I'm trying to get at. I also understand that there are many factors that would need to be considered, like the players and how they go about playing their characters, or the dm, even what kind of story is taking place in the game.

Your guys' thoughts on this? I would be very much interested in hearing what you guys have to say on this.
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Alethan
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#2 Post by Alethan »

Mixing diametrically opposed alignments (Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil) in the same party is probably never going to work out for very long.

Not saying that you can't have opposing viewpoints and clashing personalities in a party; you certainly can. But the party has to have at least some overall commonalities or goals to keep them together.

Obviously, having a party where everyone has similar alignments doesn't guarantee success, by the way.

But an evil campaign? That should be pretty easy to run, given the right mindset. Just have to give the players an atypical setting. Make them all goblins (warrior, shaman, or sneak for class choices) and give them goals (via orders from the chieftain) to invade a town or set up a thieving ring with the nearest town's local thieves guild or... They get loaned out to some hobgoblins a few miles away who heard a band of goodie two shoes adventurers is planning on raiding their home (I.e. to go dungeon delving).

Or make them all members of the local thieves guild (can still have warrior and caster classes; the guild takes in anyone with the right disposition for doing bad things) and have them go on assignments. Read some of the stories about Fafhd and the Gray Mouser for inspiration.

Player make-up is going to be important, obviously. Some people just aren't suited to play evil characters. I'm probably one of them, though it might be fun to try it some day...

In summary, I think it is a viable option.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#3 Post by rredmond »

Lawful evil seems like the best cooperative alignment type. But sorta like the mirror-universe in Star Trek TOS, it ain't gonna last forever, but methinks you could build a campaign around it. I think that's what all the up-in-arms was about when Geoffrey released his Carcosa supplement, that was an evil-ish (because OD&D only has Chaotic in the 3 Alignment system) that had PCs doing all sorts of terrible things to get power. He and his friends definitely made a campaign out of it.

Heck there are those of the murder-hobo philosophy that feel that's what PCs are. Entering into the homes of orcs, goblins, dragons to slaughter the inhabitants and their family for profit. When you look at it that way... it still sounds like fun to this guy. :D

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#4 Post by tooleychris »

What Alethan said about goals is pretty important . I ran a MERP game awhile back where the players played orcs and it was pretty chaotic UNTIL they found a common goal to unite against.
While playing Neverwinter Nights 2, our persistent world had a guild of evil characters and we caused a lot of trouble from the shadows. Political troubles can be fun as well. Remember, almost all real world governments are Lawful Evil if measured against D&D standards.

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#5 Post by Rukellian »

Hmmm, you all bring up very valid points when it comes to unified goals and alignment mixtures. Personally, I have a hard time imagining myself playing as any kind of evil alignment character, maybe lawful evil at my best, and to DM something like that, I don't know.... Never really thought about playing or leading a group of goblins and orcs though. I always considered the role of the player to be a demi-human or human. I guess at the end of the day, it would require quite the twisted mindset for me to come up with something evil, and to then work with it while making it look legitamate. Easier said then done for most goody two shoe characters like me. I would probably get morally caught up in what I'm having my character do, become guilt-stricken then silently bow out of the game with a swift message to the DM; but I cannot honestly say for sure if that's what would go down, I have not tried an evil character before. Who knows, maybe a twisted, completely split personality will rise up and temporarily take over when I go evil. :lol: I shudder to think at what my character would do in such a mindset.

Gah, here I am rambling again, sorry about that!

But seriously, the idea of playing as a typical monster in the DnD world, like a goblin or orc.... it does sound interesting. I can't say I've ever given much thought into that before this topic.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#6 Post by tooleychris »

The CORE of D&D is about heroes. Not villains. So that is very understandable.
I personally never thought of running an evil campaign until I played an old PC game called reverse dungeon.
Also, starting players as members of a thieves guild is a great starting point because they will have someone feeding them goals /missions while they have their own PERSONAL goals as well. I guess any evil aligned guild would work the same. Think morrowind or skyrim (if you've played those)

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#7 Post by Rukellian »

tooleychris wrote:The CORE of D&D is about heroes. Not villains. So that is very understandable.
I personally never thought of running an evil campaign until I played an old PC game called reverse dungeon.
Also, starting players as members of a thieves guild is a great starting point because they will have someone feeding them goals /missions while they have their own PERSONAL goals as well. I guess any evil aligned guild would work the same. Think morrowind or skyrim (if you've played those)
*nods in understanding as he reads this* yes, those scenarios do make lots of sense. As an avid player of the elder scrolls series, I can relate to the systems mentioned above.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#8 Post by hedgeknight »

When I was in grad school (late '80's), our DM started an "evil" campaign. And it was a fairly high-level game too. I believe we started around 10th level and ended around 16th - we played this campaign for nearly 3 years - had a freaking blast! Of course, all of us were college friends and had been playing D&D for several years at this point, and I believe we were still playing 1st edition. Our DM ran us through part of the GDQ series and part of his own campaign which took us through the Pomarj, Veluna, Keoland, and maybe eventually to Greyhawk City. The great thing about playing evil aligned characters is that you can battle anybody - good or evil - they're all fair game. So, we took on drow, giants, castles of good knights, etc. And got our asses handed to us more than once! :lol:
I still think about those days from time to time - it was such great fun.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#9 Post by tooleychris »

Nothing more fun than a group of Paladins catching wind of this evil group and making it their holy duty to destroy it.
Or a high level Druid making life quite miserable for intruders into his woods.

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#10 Post by onlyme »

We had a great run with a game about the 5 half-orc thieves caught in a drain pipe. All were evil. That setup makes lot of sense, as they each had reason to help each other survive or else they would die themselves. Open ended games may be a bit more iffy, as selfish play may evenutally tick off the other players, even in character.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#11 Post by tooleychris »

That being said, if you run one Ruke, I'd like in.

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#12 Post by Rukellian »

I was actually giving it a lot of thought today. The campaign would be an expansion off of my current one, a behind the scenes campaign if you will. Without giving too much away, it would deal with a shadowy organization that hunts down magic users and artifacts, effectively eliminating them. The group is also, would be responsible for the changes in power balance within kingdoms, political and social revolts/turnovers, and even eliminating entire territories all together. It would be based off of the history of the world I created for Fabricator of Planes, but would take place shortly before the campaign Flynn and his gang is in. In the whole grand scheme of things, the evil campaign would further shape out the world that I previously established, introducing more interactions with neighboring kingdoms and all that good stuff, all through the eyes and reach of this said organization.

Those who show interest in playing such a game would have to be some level of evil alignment and will be working in this shadowy organization. Of course, this is all still in the planning phase and I will need to flesh out the story a bit more before presenting it to the recruitment thread, but yeah, I'm excited about the idea, and it will probably happen eventually!
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#13 Post by onlyme »

Rukellian wrote:I was actually giving it a lot of thought today. The campaign would be an expansion off of my current one, a behind the scenes campaign if you will. Without giving too much away, it would deal with a shadowy organization that hunts down magic users and artifacts, effectively eliminating them. The group is also, would be responsible for the changes in power balance within kingdoms, political and social revolts/turnovers, and even eliminating entire territories all together. It would be based off of the history of the world I created for Fabricator of Planes, but would take place shortly before the campaign Flynn and his gang is in. In the whole grand scheme of things, the evil campaign would further shape out the world that I previously established, introducing more interactions with neighboring kingdoms and all that good stuff, all through the eyes and reach of this said organization.

Those who show interest in playing such a game would have to be some level of evil alignment and will be working in this shadowy organization. Of course, this is all still in the planning phase and I will need to flesh out the story a bit more before presenting it to the recruitment thread, but yeah, I'm excited about the idea, and it will probably happen eventually!

That sounds cool. Where would this shadowy group hide the rest of their gold?
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#14 Post by tooleychris »

*Sniff sniff*
I smell an anti-paladin in my future.... :twisted:

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#15 Post by Zhym »

Sounds fun. Finally a chance to play an assassin...

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#16 Post by Rukellian »

onlyme wrote:
Rukellian wrote:I was actually giving it a lot of thought today. The campaign would be an expansion off of my current one, a behind the scenes campaign if you will. Without giving too much away, it would deal with a shadowy organization that hunts down magic users and artifacts, effectively eliminating them. The group is also, would be responsible for the changes in power balance within kingdoms, political and social revolts/turnovers, and even eliminating entire territories all together. It would be based off of the history of the world I created for Fabricator of Planes, but would take place shortly before the campaign Flynn and his gang is in. In the whole grand scheme of things, the evil campaign would further shape out the world that I previously established, introducing more interactions with neighboring kingdoms and all that good stuff, all through the eyes and reach of this said organization.

Those who show interest in playing such a game would have to be some level of evil alignment and will be working in this shadowy organization. Of course, this is all still in the planning phase and I will need to flesh out the story a bit more before presenting it to the recruitment thread, but yeah, I'm excited about the idea, and it will probably happen eventually!

That sounds cool. Where would this shadowy group hide the rest of their gold?
Considering that this group will have multiple branches in different areas of the world, they would have a system of safehouses for such gold, drop points for individual or group missions and stuff like that.
Even a child that receives one bit of praise has the ability to excel in a single talent, and those who receive regular encouragement can feel confidence, achieve success, and become leading members of society. Because they don’t believe they are worthless, they don’t need to raise a fist and have vengeance against fate or the world at large… ~Inspector Lunge

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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#17 Post by Alethan »

Rukellian wrote:
onlyme wrote: That sounds cool. Where would this shadowy group hide the rest of their gold?
Considering that this group will have multiple branches in different areas of the world, they would have a system of safehouses for such gold, drop points for individual or group missions and stuff like that.
I believe the devious implication by justyou is that he will find out where people have hidden vast amounts of gold in the past, then his character in your current game would locate said vast amounts of gold and instantly become rich.
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#18 Post by onlyme »

It was worth a shot...
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#19 Post by Rukellian »

onlyme wrote:It was worth a shot...
:)
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Re: Is it feasible to run an evil alignment campaign?

#20 Post by Grognardsw »

Greed will motivate evil characters to save a kingdom as much as heroism motivates good. I find evil campaigns intriguing, though I haven't played in many. As mentioned in the recruitment thread for War is Hell: Palace of the Silver Princess (viewforum.php?f=88  )  that ongoing campaign is going to have a party of evil PCs (human and humanoid/monster capable of cooperation)  in competition with the current good PCs. Probably get to it next month should any folks want to give the dark side a try.

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