Interest check - evil fantasy campaign

"Bad guys, Bad guys! What you going to do when they come for you!"

If the game is half as interesting as the conversation held above, it could be very entertaining indeed.

Count me in :)

I can see how an ‘Evil’ party can collapse quick if a narrow view is taken. Evil is not about the destruction of the world, in fact the great evil characters in novels, movies and adventure books are totally against the destruction of the - world, as how can one have power if there is no one to have that power over.

To quote one such power hungry character, "l’d like to thank all the little people I stepped on to get where I am today." - The Brain.

I also agree that CE characters if played well can work within a group, as they are inherently selfish yes but well aware of their weaknesses and hence will use others to counter those perceived weaknesses.

I only just joined up today for another potential game and while tempting I've always found myself on the fence about playing in an evil campaign, eventually falling on the side of "no".

However... Reading up on a certain demon prince I was struck with the notion of playing a demonic devotee so, I'd be maybe interested?

I'd add that any well played character can work xD because, you know, you also have the lawful goody problem running around...

What you need is good role-players to pull it off. In fact, you need good players to pull off any good campaign. Most D&D players I know personally are in for the fun, bashing some goblin heads, get some loot and make the occasional inappropriate joke. They are not really there for the the deep, dramatic RP stuff.

RPing is, incidentally, a bigger thing in PbP than life table (as far as my experience goes), so this might be the place to pull off and evil campaign.
You can even say a psychotic sociopath is beyond the alignment axes. For me, alignment should only applies for characters who are of sound of mind. You know, like they do for laws. Pathological cases are disruptive to any alignment. A murder hobo doesn't follow any alignment. It's not killing for personal gain, because you know, in any respectable society (particularly an evil one), he is going to be get rid of pretty quickly. And worse, sociopaths might follow their own little set of rules, so they could very well be considered lawful.

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Hell, I would even argue just for the sake of it that samurai were chaotic evil.. I mean, he did sneak into the enemy camp (chaotic by not following the "rules of war") and then proceeds to massacre the drunken enemies (not good for sure, since as they were "defenseless") which, by the way, were basically on their way to end a civil war (totally evil to continue the war for self gain). Want to play CE, play a samurai. Even ninja were a way more lawful bunch really.

Would be interested to an extent. I have some character ideas floating around i want to play

I'd be very interested in playing a wizard, possibly a necromancer. I'm thinking Lawful Evil 'Evil that gets stuff done!'

Lawful Effective just using the local resources.

Lawful Effective just using the local resources.

Neutral evil for me. Paladin sorcerer most like.

Bloody goody problem! Damn you Goodies!

That could make for an interesting character in an evil campaign. The Lawful Stupid (Goody?) paladin who apologetically beheads a guy in public, saying to horrified gawkers, "Sorry folks, but jaywalking is punishable by death. Imagine a world where everyone jaywalked all the time! Why, there’d be more heads rolling than wagon wheels!"

Why would lawful goody apologize for doing the right thing?

Wouldn’t the Paladin have to behead himself for Jaywalking to catch a Jaywalker?

Because he always does the right thing, and knows in his Lawful Goody heart, that when you see horrified expressions turn your way, the right thing to do is apologize, and to know what it is you’re apologizing for. Did I fart audibly? Is my zipper down? Oh, they’re watching the head roll away. Sheesh. Every effin’ time. (Note: a Goody thinks the letter F, not the word.)
I mean… if he can kill in his duty, which is presumably illegal, he can justify anything as part of his duty.

Huh that still reads as neutral evil to me. He is doing it for his own sake. While maintaining the letter of the law, without the spirit of the law. Like John Smith from The Man in the High Castle.

Which is one of the reasons I think self-glorifying evil is the best. "Rules for thee are not for me."

Just chipping in with my "evil characters needing a reason to work together" experience. It's not always as terrible as people might expect, or make it sound.

I've played a PbP 3.5 D&d game built around evil characters collecting the Regalia of Evil (see: Book of Vile Darkness) in the employ of Rallaster, the Razor God. Whether out of fear due to having a god's attention, or because they had their own agenda and kept their heads down, the cast of characters was quite varied but still stuck together. One PC was a fanatic of Rallaster, so they were doing it out of faith and servitude. One PC was a succubus, who had their own agenda but stuck with the group due to their own physical weakness; they were in turn tolerated because they took charge of most social situations, especially when they had to pass as human-esque. One PC was an assassin "seduced" by the succubus, though through mundane or supernatural means we couldn't tell. My PC was a disciple of the demon prince Graz'zt, rescued by the party and press-ganged into servitude to pay them off (or to get spared from murder) while hoping to snatch the Regalia for his patron. We all stuck together, until the very end where everyone revealed their cards and we had a free-for-all. It was sort of inevitable and we all had our fun, because we knew it couldn't end any other way, whoever set up their final play best and got a bit lucky on the dice would end up with the prize.

I've ran another D&d game in Greyhawk, where the evil group was held together by their joint faith in Hextor, the lawful evil god of tyranny. The fighter was the highest ranking officer and natural strategist, but he had an interesting respectful rivalry with the cleric (who, funnily enough, refused to cast any Cure spells, as she was a big supporter of natural selection and social darwinism). Then there was the wizard, who was just playing the game trying to use Hextor's military machine to climb the ranks and gain power for himself while having people around him to protect him. In their collective eyes, they weren't out to subjugate the world, they were out to eliminate weakness and impose order.

Both those experiences were very "lawful evil" in the sense of having a certain structure keeping PCs together. If we wanna go more chaotic, I've also ran a Warhammer Fantasy campaign where the players were not just cultists hiding in the Empire, not even raiding Norsemen, but full on Kurgan warriors and each of them was the chosen of a Chaos God. We agreed to have them be half-brothers in order to have a reason to work together and it was a distinctively different experience to your standard WFRP.

At the end of the day, it's a lot about how one defines evil and an evil campaign. If its about embracing the murderhobo aspect and consequences be damned, it probably won't last for long. If it's about one's perspective and being the hero of their own story, it can be viable and interesting. If it's about being culturally raised in an evil structure and deciding whether to roll with it or question it, that can also be interesting.

Oh wow that came out much longer than intended. Apologies for the wall of text.

This sounds interesting.

Evil campaigns can be fun. Working together as evils is really not that different as a good party.
If you want evil as stupid evil, double crossing everyone; that won't work.
But evil groups can work together for common objectives. If you want to overthrow the kingdom you can be stupid and backstab each other and all lose. Smart evils know when to form alliances to achieve common goals.

See, this is why in my PF1e game, I did away with alignment and switched to the allegiance system. Your character can declare up to three allegiances, listed in order of importance. An allegiance can be to a country, a specific person, a group, or even an ethos. And yes, you can be loyal to yourself. "Good" and "evil" are subjective.

The alignment system isn't the strongest, but it's workable. Another alternative is monsters facing parties of characters determined to wipe them out like the old Dungeon Keeper games. I'd play if it's a game I am comfortable with; don't have the time or energy this summer to learn a new rules system. So, 5e (preferably 2024), Amber, Cthulhu, some of the rules light systems, I'd be interested.

Alignment system or not, an evil party is an evil party. Whether the rules assign everyone an alignment from nine choices or not, it is always possible to RP evil, if everyone is up to it. And evil can scale in many forms. From someone cheating the system with paperwork for some extra gold, all the way to devil summoning to terrorize a village.

It sure is fun to play for a change.

What if we summon devils to protect our beloved ones?

Use undead as we would robots?

Solve all the problems of the world better than good ever could simply by adding a bit of evil?

Evil Inc.