Interest check - evil fantasy campaign

It has been a while since I have seen something along these lines, but would anyone be interested in playing/running an evil campaign?

Or at least, playing a non-good party.

Absolutely! I'd be excited to play a villain, it's been a while since my IRL group did anything like tha.

Although... probably need to make that game private. 🤣

The trouble has always been to have evil working together, unless there is an outside pressure. Like the prince of the city in a vampire campaign. I would say that Vampire is the closest to an "evil" campaign I would play.

Consider me tentatively curious, but not committed so far. I never really played in a campaign like that. I tried the CRPG called Tyranny, but bounced off it pretty soon, but considered it an interesting experiment in the 'practical issues of an evil overlord' depertment.

I personally do not run evil campaigns. I've tried it three times, and all three were disasters. First, the group has to have an incentive (as Rune noted) to work together. Second, it gives players free license to be disruptive. In a normal campaign, where everyone is good or neutral, players tend to be more reserved and less likely to "do their own thing". Of the three evil campaigns I have run, the first ended with the destruction of the party from within (they ended up fighting each other), the second fell apart after they destroyed the town that the campaign was based in, and the third ended when they tried to assasinate a nobleman and ended up executed by the guard (who were trying to capture them, but ended up fighting for their own lives).

One piece of advice I can give is that in a system that utilizes alignments, do not permit chaotic evil under any circumstances! Chaotic evil characters, played properly (which admittedly, almost no one does), will not work with an organized party, regardless of the incentives. They simply cannot do it. There is a reason that the Joker usually works alone; no one else will trust him (except Harley, and she's as batty (pun intended) as he is).

Evil is highly subjective but almost all civilizations have potions that are evil and many of these form groups. Cults, Mafia, mercenary squads, etc. It may be best to have a common background or organization to bind the team, day a good or company.

I disagree that chaotic evil has to be solo. There are many reasons a psychotic sociopath might want to be in a group and actually agree to work with others, survival and personal gain being high on the list. Admittedly this would require some external pressure, it an awareness by the test of the team with an understanding of limits and consequences, on the CE character to maintain a minimum level of cooperation and civility. All the dumb CE die quick due to a lack of impulse control. Perhaps the CE had a personal tie to a NE or even LE character and they just tag along. But should their anchor be threatened or die then the test of the team might want to reevaluate the group dynamics. CE with income control just directs their worst negative actions external to the group. Mostly as a form of self preservation.

Also now that there are levels of evil from full on depraved evil to what others might consider borderline evil that just ignores social and political restrictions.

Yes, I think a Cobra styled group or a tightly knitted mercenary group would be the best.

What system/setting are you thinking of?

I'm debating. I've played a bit with Path 2e and I really liked it, but I think the ol' reliable 5e (and 2024) would probably be better.

I've been toying with skirmishes and wargame systems, but they might be somewhat hard to play here.

That's just Vampire, both Sabbat and Camarilla. An "evil chronicle" in terms of VTM would be Setite/Baali doing their thing - and i don't mean mustache twirling, children eating, human sacrifice doing nonsense, i mean corrupting, enticing and degrading. Suffice it to say majority of folks would be extremely uncomfortable with such a game and it is best left to some other spaces, that cater to this X-rated type stuff.
Pretty good game, but extremely short. I was very confused when it ended on me. Don't remember it being evil much, though.
That's the trouble with the dnd alignments mindset - when some piece of rules is used as justification for crap you're pulling, instead of a guide or a recommendation. There is nothing that precludes the chaotic evil character to work with a party or be a part of an organization. How many CE companions are there in the dnd/pf video games that pull that off and show that being done? Even the Joker constantly runs around with gang of hooligans and team's-up with other villains. The problem lies more in people's definition of "evil", i think. I do agree that running an evil campaign/chronicle with strangers is a risky proposition prone to failure and self-destruction/sabotage.

Yes. Evil characters should supposedly be antiheroes in a normal party. The proper term I would have needed to use would have probably been "evil villainous story".

And yes. Evil vampire can get really, really bad.

Posting interest (to play).

I'll admit I'm not the primary target audience for the D20 family of systems and the stuff they tend to focus on / be geared towards.
That reminds me, it's curious that in 'dungeonesque' circles, evil parties are deemed borderline unplayable, while in World of Darkness games, evil coteries and especially Sabbat packs are a rather successful in producing interesting campaigns. It's been decades, but I even heard that in local LARPs, Sabbat stories tended to be more intricate and thoughtful than Camarilla ones, contrary to the stereotype of shovelheads being all raging chaotics.
Err, well, you do mostly act as a mid-tier warlord engaging in an invasion to expand the empire.

I have recently run an evil campaing where the players were the litenaunts of a Mega-Evil-Overlord in a dungeon, so they were kind of forced to work together, and, at the same time, try to look for their own interests when possible (trying not to risk the wrath of the overlord if they don't fulfil their obligations). Worked quite well. :-)

The "dungeon" was an abandoned city, and the overlord was an ancient black dragon. My players were a lich commanding the undead in the city's graveyard, a vampire lord, a lizardfolk cultist leading a cult that worshipped the dragon, and a crazy dwarf artificer who abandoned civilization to live with his robots.

Playing in an examination of evil is tempting. What is evil, really? Even the standards for what a lot of good characters do by accident can be considered evil...going on those negotiating sprees for a good market price for their loot, and so on that ends up with half a destroyed village...Evil incarnate for the irresponsible good. When the innocent ate dispossessed in the microcosm of what the players don't normally notice, there's villainy.

I like to see this sort of thing. I think the right kind of GM could run in regardless of system, or setting really. It's all about players not being compulsive jerks to the campaign environment; even the most chaotic and hellbent evil of characters typical are evil with reason, so to speak, and so there is something driving their ambition to do nasty things in order to gain something or someone to profit off of others. So, they accumulate other things that need to be preserved too. These things should be examined more closely to see how evil curates what they value in an evil campaign to see that outside of wanton player destruction, the PCs might truly be the evil ones from another POV.

I might've an idea I've been wanting to run for a while. The setting would be Warhammer, basically Chaos vs Drukhari. It's from an old tidbit I read

Could also go 5e mercenary group

If the system is inside 5e or 3.5/PF, I’m in. :)

Absolutely would love to play a bad guy…or at the very least morally ambiguous!

I think the best kind of evil, is the kind that is convinced it is the good guy, convinces others of this, and stands as a champion of virtue - while being completely unscrupulous and self serving.

Hamartia with a messiah complex. Scary stuff.

Griffith from Berserk! Or Jules Pierre Mao from the expanse are great examples of this.