Evil party in second darkness

[Kevin Mack]

Hi In a short time I'll be dming second darkness. After talking it over with my group They want to try and do an all evil party. Now the group have done evil party's before so I know they can do it with no trouble. What I am wondering is if I would have any really big problems running the adventure as written for an evil group?

The evil group as it stands now (subject to change)

Half elf dread necromancer
Tiefling barbarian (Necromancers half sister)
Changeling monk who will eventually go into assassin
Human Hexblade

[Lord Snow]

well, being evil is always a great push toward the realm of "no motivation to help the good guys", and that might pose a problam when facing something as utterly evil as the Drow.

[Iziak]

I think that it would really depend on how your players roleplay their alignment, but based just on what you've I think that Shadow in the Sky would be usable as-is, and Children of the Void would just need a handful of modifications. I haven't got past that in reading (too many Pathfinder books, too little time), but it looks in a flip-through like The Armageddon Echo would take quite a bit of conversion.

[Stewart Perkins]

Iziak wrote:

I think that it would really depend on how your players roleplay their alignment, but based just on what you've I think that Shadow in the Sky would be usable as-is, and Children of the Void would just need a handful of modifications. I haven't got past that in reading (too many Pathfinder books, too little time), but it looks in a flip-through like The Armageddon Echo would take quite a bit of conversion.

I agree #13 would be fine as is because

Spoiler:

Gambling and being thugs are generally what evil lowbies do, and as for the opening who wouldnt either A) rob the robbers or B)gank them for getting in your face. Just make sure the group as a whole have a reason to work together so that it isnt like 1 on 6 or whatever. As for the rest, well after what Saul tries to pull what self respecting evil guys are gonna let that slide? and in the end the Drow will come to them if they don't find her first...

#14 is still doable, but in a different light

Spoiler:

The party will want to make lots of cash or weapons or whatever and put themselves in the "armsrace" and things go kind of how they were anyway, no huge change there...

#15 does indeed get a little tricky but

Spoiler:

Money and revenge is where I'd go. After all the crap they would have screwed up for the Drow by now have them targetted for assassination or some such and after a while they'll get tired of it and the have the elves promise them whatever to get them to help. Plus who can pass up a chance to go into a forbidden elven city and sack the place?

Anyway thats how I'd handle an evil party so far if I were to run them and try to run the AP with the least amount of change...

[xdahnx]

I'm currently Pbp'n an evil game of SD. You can check the thread, the background, and the intros for some ideas. I think the evil party works so well in these circumstances, because

Spoiler:

the main focus of the first adventure is that the PCs are hired by an evil chap to run a gambling hall. They're pitted against other crimebosses (and become some themselves) in the process. There's lots of backstabbery afoot, regardless of the alignment of the PCs. Not to mention, there's the threat of the blot, and the power of the drow to contend with as well. Regardless of the alignment, the game will work. Either way, the group is going to want to learn more about the drow's armageddon weapon...either to shut it down or use it for themselves....

[James Jacobs]

As Second Darkness develops, I'd say that it gets more and more difficult to motivate an evil party. We try to avoid the "NPC tells the PCS what to do" as PC levels rise, since having your 14th level character get handed missions is kind of humiliating. Instead, as the levels increase, we try to set things up so that the PCs realize what they need to do on their own, which assumes in most cases that the PCs are good guys. Which is what the vast majority of PCs are, after all...

[psionichamster]

Don't know about the later adventures, but #'s 1-3 seem like they could handle an evil-bent quite readily.

Once it comes time to encounter the drow directly, how bad can fighting capital E Evil with lowercase E Evil pc's be?

And, if you play to their strengths (ruthlessness, vengeance, tendency towards collateral damage) and downplay the weaknesses (petty bickering, greed, inability to hang out with nice guys) I think you can run this pretty well.

Just make sure the party hates the Drow and you're all set. I've found that with Neutral and Evil characters, it can be easier to get them motivated towards the actual adventure goal than with Good chars (what with their tendency to look for the big good goal above all)

-t

[Kevin Mack]

Well chapter 4 seems to be one of those ones which favours evil or at least neutral groups mostly in the ethical choice area not that its a bad thing.

[xdahnx]

I have to confess that I am running a 'good' version of the game for my table-top group. We have a NG half-elf pistol/rapier wielding bard, a NG Dwarf barbarian, and a CG Paladin of Freedom.

They downed the thugs, splattered Thuvalia across the exit, and when Angvar escaped with the shrunken chest, and Arcane Locked the door, they threw themselves through the ground-floor windows and chased after them. The Paladin even followed on horseback. A chase scene ensued, and stepping through, and leaping over, trash and other obstacles in the Rotgut district they eventually cornered Angvar and struck him down. So what do they do? The dwarf stuffs the chest down their trousers, and when the bouncers show up, the bard bluffs them inside and out, saying that "the wizard must've stashed the chest somewhere in the district, it wasn't on him when we confronted him, just a moment ago".

So now these good PCs are going to hold onto the cash for themselves, and they don't really want anything to do with Saul and the Gold Goblin. Saul won't be so easily convinced, however. I think I can still salvage the game as written with a few modifications.

It's just interesting to see the different approaches through alignment. My 'evil' PCs spared Angvar's life, and he's even been picked up by another player as a permanent addition to the group, albeit as a nominal slave to one of the other characters....

[Kevin Mack]

xdahnx wrote:

I have to confess that I am running a 'good' version of the game for my table-top group. We have a NG half-elf pistol/rapier wielding bard, a NG Dwarf barbarian, and a CG Paladin of Freedom.

They downed the thugs, splattered Thuvalia across the exit, and when Angvar escaped with the shrunken chest, and Arcane Locked the door, they threw themselves through the ground-floor windows and chased after them. The Paladin even followed on horseback. A chase scene ensued, and stepping through, and leaping over, trash and other obstacles in the Rotgut district they eventually cornered Angvar and struck him down. So what do they do? The dwarf stuffs the chest down their trousers, and when the bouncers show up, the bard bluffs them inside and out, saying that "the wizard must've stashed the chest somewhere in the district, it wasn't on him when we confronted him, just a moment ago".

So now these good PCs are going to hold onto the cash for themselves, and they don't really want anything to do with Saul and the Gold Goblin. Saul won't be so easily convinced, however. I think I can still salvage the game as written with a few modifications.

It's just interesting to see the different approaches through alignment. My 'evil' PCs spared Angvar's life, and he's even been picked up by another player as a permanent addition to the group, albeit as a nominal slave to one of the other characters....

Worrying thing is I just finished playing in a rise of the runelords campaign with what would be considered a totally good aligned party and we caused more devastation than the bad guys (all accidentally of course) During the campaign we burned down a manor, Blew up a dam and dropped a dead frozen dragon on the new sandpoint cathdral. So frankly I think my players would cause more devastation as good guys than bad.