Evil Party Problems


Advice


So I just recently started my modified CotCT campaign with an evil party. First session in, one of our players already got himself killed by trying to poison and seduce some city guards, and dealing two damage to them with a coup de grace with a bladed fan on one of the guards she brought back to her room. I had some really good roles for the poisoned, half-drunk guard and both ended up dead by the end of the battle.

To avoid slowing down the campaign, the majority of our players opted to have our problem player just use the same character sheet and have them play the twin sister. Unfortunately, scumbag player is playing this character the exact same way and almost got himself killed twice more in the same session.

So obviously he has fun playing his character in a certain fashion, though his play style can be disruptive. Should I punish him for playing his characters in a reckless fashion, or adjust the campaign so that he can do so?


You should talk to him and tell him that shenanigans will get him killed. Then, you need to make a stance on if shenanigans persist, if the player should remain in the game.


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Tell him flat out "Stupid shit will get you killed" and kill him when he does stupid shit.

Attacking guards attracts more guards. This especially works if your players don't want to derail the game and throw him under the bus when the guards come looking for the cop killer.


Why on earth are you running Curse of the Crimson Throne with an evil party?

Skull & Shackles is the one for that


Some players like to wreck people's games.


Tell the player that the world will react to his actions. And that if he plays stupid evil, he will get what is coming to him.

If this is disruptive for the table as a whole, ask him not to play an evil character. If he continues to act in a disruptive way at the table tell him not to come back.


I hadn't intended to run the CotCT with an evil party, but my party ended up deciding to be evil after I had gotten everything ready. Unfortunately, most of them are doing really stupid s&*& so I figure they will either learn fast or die off quickly.

I ended the last session with one of our players getting his wisdom score dropped to a flat 4 as he decided to min-max and ended up with a dimwitted anti-paladin who really likes pickles and has done a good job of pissing off one of the clerics at the Temple of Asmodeus and another character who has his heart set on literally re-creating Batman who is lawful evil, never takes off his bat suit and quotes Batman movies constantly.

The only character that I expect to live through the whole campaign is our Infernal bloodline sorcerer who really didn't want to be part of an evil party in the first place. I'm hoping that the party learns soon that they need to get their act together if they want to survive this AP quickly, or else I think I'm going to end up with a lot of frustrated players.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Evil does not equal stupid.

Thing is, someone saw the guard go into the inn and not come out. That means that more Guards will show up and start asking questions and then arrest and hang said character.

Even stupid evil mooks know to ally themselves with a smart Evil BBEG so that they can stay alive.

Explain that he will keep dying and that you will not let him continue to play if he keeps acting like a turd. This is the same for a Good PC, not running into the Great Wyrm's layer at level 1.


This might be a party you need to say "no, you can't play evil characters" to. And this is coming from someone who is currently GM'ing Way of the Wicked and having a grand old time with it. It takes a certain measure of maturity and intelligence OOC to play an Evil Hero that a guy who's first thought upon entering the city is to seduce and murder a guard probably doesn't have.


Batman isn't Lawful Stupid A$+%@**, tell him if he's gonna play Batman get it right:)


Sorta sounds like the players are having fun? I would just continue letting the dice and bodies drop where they may, but limit the twin sister shenanigans to once per character sheet. That'll create a natural time out for the worst stupid evil offenders, players generally want to play so they'll likely stop dying by stupid soon enough.


Trimalchio wrote:
Sorta sounds like the players are having fun? I would just continue letting the dice and bodies drop where they may, but limit the twin sister shenanigans to once per character sheet. That'll create a natural time out for the worst stupid evil offenders, players generally want to play so they'll likely stop dying by stupid soon enough.

Did you read his second post, it doesn't sound like he and one of his players are having fun at all, sounds like a couple of selfish wads have decided to take advantage of his (i assume) good nature and are ruining the campaign he's put a lot of work into (i assume he's converting to Pathfinder, no easy feat if done right!)

Don't take their crap, you're the boss, just don't be the power hungry type:-)

Telling them No Evil is your best option, or switch to S&S so the can murder with impunity:-)

edit: the title of the thread backs up my thoughts, also he doesn't sound very happy about it

Shadow Lodge

Well, they've already murdered a guard and have a turnip for their anti-paladin. Start having npc guards showing up in the area that the PCs disrupt that ask questions. The PCs might be evil, but they are not the only evil that rules in Korvosa and simply don't have the resources of the Queen. Plus the Queen's agents are not morons. Build a couple NPC protagonists to investigate the disruptions the PCs are clumsily creating and to smack them down after a while for playing idiotic morons for characters. Agents of the Queen aren't going to capture them for interrogation. In a world of magic they can be interrogated after they're dead .

If the sorcerer that is trying to play a decent and thoughtful character keeps his nose clean reward that player by not taking down his character.


Right now I'm also having issues on trying to keep some of the more... conservative characters from also avoiding punishment. The "turnip" anti-paladin just murdered a guy that they brought to the sewers in the presence of the whole party. I plan on there being consequences for this but I'm struggling finding ways to only punish the problem players instead of the whole party.

But how do I send one or two of these characters to jail without sending the whole party. I mean if the whole party witnesses the crime and says nothing about it, they can be viewed as accomplices. Likewise, if one character tries to report it to the authorities, then it just creates unneeded animosity towards that player from the other players.

On the other hand, punishing the whole party for things that stupid players do might encourage the party to quickly discipline or dispose of misbehaving characters. I already plan on having some of the Korvosan guards recognize that one of the characters in the party looks exactly like a women who died and was a suspect in the death of two other guards. Which will probably also draw unwanted attention towards the players. I'm kind of stuck on what the right approach to this problem is without sitting down with my party and telling them how to act. I would much prefer that they learn this stuff for themselves.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Malusiocus wrote:

So I just recently started my modified CotCT campaign with an evil party. First session in, one of our players already got himself killed by trying to poison and seduce some city guards, and dealing two damage to them with a coup de grace with a bladed fan on one of the guards she brought back to her room. I had some really good roles for the poisoned, half-drunk guard and both ended up dead by the end of the battle.

To avoid slowing down the campaign, the majority of our players opted to have our problem player just use the same character sheet and have them play the twin sister. Unfortunately, scumbag player is playing this character the exact same way and almost got himself killed twice more in the same session.

So obviously he has fun playing his character in a certain fashion, though his play style can be disruptive. Should I punish him for playing his characters in a reckless fashion, or adjust the campaign so that he can do so?

Well his actions are bring attention to the Party. use PEER pressure to Reign him in after a Vicious fight with a Wandering Paladin and his Cohorts.

Also Not every person is a good fit for every Campaign. Are other players complaining yet??

Scarab Sages

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Evil Party Problem #32: Masochist PC wants another PC to hurt them; sadist PC responds with "no."


Gurby wrote:
Malusiocus wrote:

So I just recently started my modified CotCT campaign with an evil party. First session in, one of our players already got himself killed by trying to poison and seduce some city guards, and dealing two damage to them with a coup de grace with a bladed fan on one of the guards she brought back to her room. I had some really good roles for the poisoned, half-drunk guard and both ended up dead by the end of the battle.

To avoid slowing down the campaign, the majority of our players opted to have our problem player just use the same character sheet and have them play the twin sister. Unfortunately, scumbag player is playing this character the exact same way and almost got himself killed twice more in the same session.

So obviously he has fun playing his character in a certain fashion, though his play style can be disruptive. Should I punish him for playing his characters in a reckless fashion, or adjust the campaign so that he can do so?

Well his actions are bring attention to the Party. use PEER pressure to Reign him in after a Vicious fight with a Wandering Paladin and his Cohorts.

Also Not every person is a good fit for every Campaign. Are other players complaining yet??

There are other players who I can tell are starting to get irritated with it, but really don't like speaking up about these issues. If she ever decides to actually confront me with her annoyances, then I will have a little more power to do something about it.


You're the GM. Unless they're actually paying you to run the game, you ARE allowed to tell them "stop being such an idiot, it's really annoying me".

Maybe you should try a different adventure. I've heard We Be Goblins is good for comically suicidal dumbasses.

Or give up on Pathfinder and just play Toon or Paranoia like they obviously want to.


Malusiocus wrote:

Right now I'm also having issues on trying to keep some of the more... conservative characters from also avoiding punishment. The "turnip" anti-paladin just murdered a guy that they brought to the sewers in the presence of the whole party. I plan on there being consequences for this but I'm struggling finding ways to only punish the problem players instead of the whole party.

But how do I send one or two of these characters to jail without sending the whole party. I mean if the whole party witnesses the crime and says nothing about it, they can be viewed as accomplices. Likewise, if one character tries to report it to the authorities, then it just creates unneeded animosity towards that player from the other players.

On the other hand, punishing the whole party for things that stupid players do might encourage the party to quickly discipline or dispose of misbehaving characters. I already plan on having some of the Korvosan guards recognize that one of the characters in the party looks exactly like a women who died and was a suspect in the death of two other guards. Which will probably also draw unwanted attention towards the players. I'm kind of stuck on what the right approach to this problem is without sitting down with my party and telling them how to act. I would much prefer that they learn this stuff for themselves.

Sic the guards on the whole party. They're running with the killer who murdered one of their own.

They'll soon be on the radar of the more higher-level, special squads who get plenty of support to deal with problems like this. Optimized mages, alchemists, hexcrafter maguses with a potent slumber hex, etc. All well-armed and organized like a proper, high-fantasy SWAT team. They'll probably hit the characters individually while they're unprepared to maximize officer safety. The Asmodean clerics will probably help in any way they can, since they're law and order types and want to see the Turnip punished. Don't pull any punches.

If you're not prepared to go down that road, just have a sit down with the players and tell them that you're not happy with where things are going, and looking for input. You're not down with this style of campaign. I don't blame you - chaotic stupid gets old mighty quick. Approaching them individually first might get you more honest feedback, especially from the less confrontational.


Personally, they are just being jerks looking for a good time with what they think is evil. Going around killing inocent people and talking back ... Yeah no.

I would have a NPC come in a put them in their place. A low level evil PC pretty much are slaves to a higher evil person. Evil is ruled by the strong if u are weak or incompetent then you a are dead. If you prove ur self useful then you earn the right to stick around. If someone comes along and kills you well then u just too weak to survive.


point out that 'evil' and stupid asshat are not the same thing.


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Follow Up;

Just had our second session last night and thanks to the advice I've gotten on this forum I think I'm getting a handle on our characters. Player who got himself killed by seducing guards got his second character killed by walking through the shady districts of Korvosa alone on a dark night and unnecessarily interacted with a character who had a wheelbarrow covering a tarp. It's hard to say more without giving details away, but this wheelbarrow character shouldn't have even appeared in the AP yet and the party doesn't actually face him until the second book, so little need to say it, but this player lost his second character and is finally starting to get the picture that the way he is playing is going to result in a lot of dead characters.

I have also started using hero points as a sort of reward system in the party for doing things I think are admirable, whether that means being altruistic toward your party or just altruistic in general. By doing this, I've gotten the dumb as bricks anti-paladin to start being a party player.

Like the forum suggested, I also talked with our group about behavior and what kind of character behavior is frowned upon in game, why we don't like that behavior, and what would be a good alternative.

I think one of our problem players learned his lesson as he sent a text out last night to everyone in our group apologizing for his last two character's behavior and how he's going to try to be more party oriented with his new character.

Thanks forum for your advice!

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